by J. W. Hendron Edited by DOROTHY THOMAS Drawings by JOCELYN TAYLOR THE RYDAL PRESS, INC., SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO 1946 Copyright, 1946, by J. W. Hendron All rights reserved. Manufactured by The Rydal Press, Inc., Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A. NORTHWESTERN NEW MEXICO High-resolution Map...

To a layman like me it helps a lot To know a potsherd is just a piece of broken pot; To know, behind the talk of color, shade, design, It helped a hungry aborigine to dine; To see in this broken bit of clay A brown-skinned baby, clumsy at his play Cuffed by a weary mother, and whimpering so Because he broke a dish a thousand years ago! Hugh M. Miller By special permission of New Mexico Magazine . Printed June, 1936....

My grateful acknowledgements are due to Dr. H. P. Mera and Mr. Stanley Stubbs of the Laboratory of Anthropology, Santa Fe, for their expert advice and criticism in their respective fields; Dr. Leslie Spier, Professor of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, for his helpful suggestions; the late Professor Lansing B. Bloom, Professor of History, University of New Mexico, for helpful information on history; Mrs. Evelyn C. Frey, Bandelier National Monument; Mrs. M. H. Sharp, for the many hours she

Because of my association with the beautiful Canyon of the Rito de Los Frijoles in Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, and because of my deep interest in this Monument, the loose ends of a story, about the primitive people who made it their home, have been shaping themselves into a history beginning in America long before either Spaniards or Englishmen came to this country. The material is based upon the work of many students who have done actual research in Frijoles Canyon and adjacent are

It has been some twenty odd years since I, as a child, first peered over the north rim of Frijoles Canyon . This was not so long ago when one thinks of the hundreds of others, still alive, who passed this way before me. I do not pretend to be an ancient but the number of individuals who saw the Frijoles in those days are microscopic when compared with the multitudes who have seen it since. There is not sufficient room here to discuss those who knew the place in the early days, long before my tim

Could there be, in the Southwest, a man or woman who has not heard something of the Spanish expeditions into the New World during the sixteenth century? And, narrowing it down, about Coronado ’s famed Seven Cities of Cibola and how they turned out to be six instead of seven poor little pueblos of stone and mud. They are now reduced to but one called Zuñi . Marcos de Nisa , a Franciscan friar , had led the little army of conquerors to nothing here except grief and disappointment in trade for fabu

Could one be so bold as to say that the Moslem Invasion of Spain in the eighth century A.D. took place after the first occupation of the Rio Grande Valley by prehistoric Indians? Archæologists, who tell us stories based on the remains of things they have found, broken pottery mostly, say that Indians might have known the Rio Grande before this time. We believe that they have occupied it continuously since about the eleventh century A.D. Drought seems to have always been one of the main controlli

Time has a peculiar way of curing all ills. The Keres had been driven from the Tyuonyi by the “little strong people” and possibly did not make further attempt to re-occupy this Valley of the Frijoles. They were contented to stay in the broad Valley of the Rio Grande where the water supply was constant and where their enemies did not care to go. The boundary line was set. And even the hostile Tewas had probably experienced enough of war and trouble. Tyuonyi , the Hidden Valley, might have been li

It would have been an utter impossibility for thousands of Indians to have lived off the corn, beans, squash and pumpkins raised in the Valley of the Frijoles. But the several hundred who did live here had to eat and in order to eat they had to work. The Indians of Tyuonyi were farmers and were largely dependent upon the products of the soil. Only a small part of their sustenance was from animals and birds. Of course, there was game of all kinds. There were deer, perhaps elk and mountain sheep,

By the close of the sixteenth century, it seems, all of the great towns—the terraced community apartment houses on the Pajarito —had been abandoned. Life in the hills and mountains had grown unbearable because of a shortage of water. These people, I have no doubt, disliked leaving their mountain homes. The mountains were more conducive to successful living than the hot sandy banks of the Rio Grande . But this made no difference now—moving was a necessity. Groups pushed off the mesa tops and down

The early part of the eighteenth century saw the Spanish interested in more than Pueblo Indians. There was the actual colonization of New Mexico and the war with France which drew their attention. New Mexican land was divided into tracts or land grants. The Spanish had combed it all. They knew about the canyon today known as the “Frijoles,” the Tyuonyi of the Cochiti Indians. The tract lay just south of the bounds of what is known as the “ Ramon Vigil Grant .” It was in litigation much of the ti

In 1880, Adolph F. Bandelier , famous Swiss ethnologist, archivist and historian, entered the Valley of the Frijoles. At the time, he was connected with the Archæological Institute of America and had been sent to New Mexico to work among the Indians who today live in mud-walled pueblos up and down the banks of the Rio Grande. Bandelier spent a great many days at Santo Domingo and Cochiti seeking out legends and myths regarding the people’s past and present and it was from the Cochitenos that Ban

Large Kiva . Ground Plan High-resolution Map Large Kiva . Section Drawings High-resolution Map Ceremonial Cave. Ground Plan High-resolution Map Ceremonial Cave. Section Drawings High-resolution Map Ground Plan of Frijoles Canyon . Ruins Area Ground Plan of Frijoles Canyon. Ruins Area ( left ) Ground Plan of Frijoles Canyon. Ruins Area ( center ) Ground Plan of Frijoles Canyon. Ruins Area ( right ) Northern Wall of Frijoles Canyon Northern Wall of Frijoles Canyon ( left ) Northern Wall of Frijole