By Adolph Bandelier
Here are some excerpts from the first and last chapters of The Delight
Makers:
The Keres of Cochiti declare that the tribe to which they belong,
occupied, many centuries before the first coming of the Europeans to New
Mexico, the cluster of cave-dwellings, visible at this day although abandoned
and in ruins, in that romantic and picturesquely secluded gorge called in the
Keres dialect Tyuonyi, and in Spanish “El Rito de los Frijoles” [“bean creek”].
These ruins, inside as well as outside the northern walls of the cañon
of the Rito, bear testimony to the tradition still current among the Keres
Indians of New Mexico that the Rito, or Tyuonyi, was once inhabited by people
of their kind, nay, even of their own stock. But the time when those people
wooed and wed, lived and died, in that secluded vale is past long, long ago.
Centuries previous to the advent of the Spaniards, the Rito was already
deserted. Nothing remains but the ruins of former abodes and the memory of
their inhabitants among their descendants. These ancient people of the Rito are
the actors in the story which is now to be told; the stage in the main is the
Rito itself. . . .
“Umo,—‘grandfather!’”
“To ima satyumishe,—‘come hither,my brother,’” another voice replied in
the same dialect, adding, “see what a big fish I have caught.”
It sounded as though this second voice had issued from the very waters
of the streamlet.
Pine boughs rustled, branches bent, and leaves shook. A step scarcely
audible was followed by a noiseless leap. On a boulder around which flowed
streams of limpid water there alighted a young Indian. . . .
After twenty-one long and it may be tedious chapters, no apology is
required for a short one in conclusion. I cannot take leave of the reader,
however, without having made in his company a brief excursion through a portion
of New Mexico in the direction of the Rito de los Frijoles.
It is a bare, bleak spot, in the centre of the opening we see the
fairly preserved ruins of an abandoned Indian pueblo. . . .
Over and through the ruins are scattered the usual vestiges of
primitive arts and industry,—pottery fragments and arrow-heads. Seldom do we
meet with a stone hammer, whereas grinding slabs and grinders are frequent,
though for the most part scattered and broken. We are on sacred ground in this
crumbling enclosure. But who knows that we are not on magic ground also?
We might make an experiment. Let us suffer ourselves to be blindfolded,
and then turn around three times from left to right. One, two, three! The
bandage is removed. What can we see?
Nothing strange at first [but] a change has taken place in our
immediate vicinity, a transformation on the spot where stood the ruin. The
crumbling walls and heaps of rubbish are gone, and in their place newly built
foundations are emerging from the ground; heaps of stone, partly broken, are
scattered about; and where a moment ago we were the only living souls, now
Indians move to and fro, busily engaging.
Some of them are breaking the stones into convenient size. The women
are laying these in mortar made of the soil from the mesa, common adobe. We are
witnessing the beginning of the construction of a small village. Farther down,
on the edge of the timber, smoke arises; there the builders of this new pueblo
dwell in huts while their house of stone is growing to completion. It is the
month of May, and only the nights are cool.
These builders we easily recognize. They are the fugitives from the
Rito.
And now we have, though in a trance, seen the further fate of those
whose sad career has filled the pages of this story. We may be blindfolded
again, turned about right to left; and when the bandage is taken from our eyes
the landscape is as before, silent and grand. The ruins are in position again;
an eagle soars on high.
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