570 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



THE APPROACH 

 This shows the roughly walled entrance lane to the circle in which lie the "Stone Lions.' 



quantities of which are found all over the region. Shrieks 

 of terror from them brought us to the edge to see both 

 perched upon the very highest boulder around, skirts 

 gathered about them and squalling "snakes, snakes," at 

 the top of their voices. Incidentally the rock they 

 climbed had neither "toe holds" nor rope, but they 

 reached the tip top with little delay, just how, they were 

 unable to say. We descended from the cave in much 

 less time than 

 it took to get 

 up, finding a 

 rather large 

 sized diamond 

 backed rattler 

 com f o rtably 

 coiled a few 

 feet from the 

 rock, rattling 

 his caudal ap- 

 pendage just 

 often and loud 

 enough to make 

 certain the wo- 

 men would stay 

 there to the end 

 of time rather 

 than try to es- 

 cape. A piece 

 of cord formed 

 into a lasso 

 soon caught the 

 noisy gentle- 

 man and we 

 went back to 

 camp that night 

 with several of 

 his pictures in 

 our camera and 

 his rattles or- 

 namenting the 

 hatband of one 

 of the ladies. 



Lest this be 

 con sidered a 

 sign that such 

 incidents are of 

 frequent occur- 

 rence let me 

 hasten to say 

 that this snake 

 was the only 

 one we saw in this region during a fifteen days' trip. 



Naturally the first question that comes to one's li^s 

 is: Who were the builders of these ancient dwelling 

 places, where did they come from, where did they go, 

 and of equal importance, how old are they? 



As to the first question, ethnologists and students of 

 the subject agree that they were the forefathers of the 

 present pueblo Indians such as the Hopi, the Acpmas, 



THE STONE "LIONS OF COCHITI" 



They lie side by side, carved from a huge boulder lying deep in the ground. 



parts of them. 



Zuni and other native peoples now living in the region 

 occupied by the ruins which is roughly all of northern 

 Arizona and New Mexico and southwestern Colorado. 

 All the legends and folk lore of the present day pueblos 

 tell of the ancients who formerly lived here and peopled 

 these deserted homes. Further than this the excavating 

 that has been done all through this region clear down into 

 southern Arizona, near Phoenix, has discovered plenty 



of evidence 

 to substantiate 

 this claim in 

 the shape of 

 totems, sym- 

 bols, pottery 

 and other 

 "relics" that 

 connect the 

 present with 

 the past in 

 such a con- 

 vincing manner 

 as to fully jus- 

 tify the state- 

 ment that the 

 present pueblo 

 Indians are of 

 practically the 

 same stock as 

 the people who 

 built these 

 wonderful 

 ruined dwell- 

 ing places, al- 

 though through 

 infusion of oth- 

 er blood there 

 have been 

 c h a racteristic 

 changes in 

 type. 



Where did 

 they come 

 from ? Doubt- 

 less from the 

 northwest. 

 Many attempts 

 have been made 

 t'^ connect them 

 with the Az- 

 tects and Tal- 

 tecs of Central 

 and South America but there is little upon which to base 

 such belief. Most difificult of all is to reach some con- 

 clusion as to where they went when they left ; and why. 

 Was it war, pestilence or some wholesale migration that 

 caused them to leave these homes built with so much 

 labor? Pestilence it could not have been, else there 

 would have been more evidences of their burial places. 

 So dense a population as existed must have had many 



Vandal hands have destroyed 



