2 • BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY Ibull. 41 



RECENT HISTORY 



Although there was once an old Spanish trail winding over the 

 mountains by way of Mancos and Dolores from what is now New 

 Mexico to Utah, the early visitors to this part of Colorado seem not 

 to have been impressed with the prehistoric cliff-houses in the Monte- 

 zuma valley and on the Mesa Verde; at least they left no accounts 

 of them in their writings. It appears that these early Spanish trav- 

 elers encountered the Ute, possibly the Navaho Indians, along this 

 trail, but the more peaceable people who built and occupied the vil- 

 lages now ruins in the neighborhood of Mancos and Cortez had ap- 

 parently disappeared even at that early date. Indian legends regard- 

 ing the inhabitants of the clifl'-dwellings of the Mesa Verde are very 

 limited and indistinct. The Ute designate them as the houses of the 

 dead, or moM, the name, commonly applied to the Hopi of Arizona. 

 One of the Ute legends mentions the last battle between the ancient 

 house-builders of Montezuma valley and their ancestors, near Battle 

 Rock, in which it is said that the former were defeated and turned 

 into fishes. 



The ruins in Mancos canyon were discovered and first explored in 

 1874 b}^ a Government party under Mr. W. H. Jackson." The walls of 

 ruins situated in the valley have been so long exposed to the weather 

 that they are very much broken down, being practically nothing more 

 than mounds. The few cliff-dwellings in Mancos canyon which were 

 examined by Jackson are for the most part small ; these are found on 

 the west side. One of the largest is now known as Jackson ruin. 



In the year 1875 Prof. W. H. Holmes, now Chief of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, made a trip through Mancos canyon and exam- 

 ined several ruins. He described and figured several cliff-houses over- 

 looked b}^ Jackson and drew attention to the remarkable stone tov/ers 

 which are so characteristic of this region.^ Professor Holmes secured 

 a small collection of earthenware vessels, generally fragmentary, and 

 also a few objects of shells, bone, and wood, figures and descriptions 

 of which accompany his report. Neither Jackson nor Holmes, how- 

 ever, saw the most magnificent ruins of the Mesa Verde. Had they 

 followed up the side canyon of the Mancos they would have discov- 

 ered, as stated by Nordenskiold, " ruins so magnificent that they sur- 

 pass anything of the kind known in the United States." 



The following story of the discovery of the largest two of these 

 ruins, one of which is the subject of this article, is quoted from Nor- 

 denskiold : '^ 



The honour of the discovery of these remarkable ruius belongs to Richard 

 and Alfred Wetherill of Mancos. The family own large herds of cattle, which 



« Ancient Ruins In Southwesteun Colorado, in Rep. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Survey of 

 the Ter., 1874, p. 369. 



"Report on tlio Ancient Ruins of Southwestern Colorado, examined during the summers 

 of 1875 and 1870, ibid., 1876, p. 383. 



<^The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 12, 13, Stockholm, 1893. 



