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Show A well-beaten trail, following the general direction of the stream, enabled us to avoid the inconvenience of travelling over ground rendered soft and miry by the recent rains. We encamped on the banks of the creek (the Zuni River), near some abrupt rocks, from beneath which gushes out a fine spring. This is almost certainly Kolotwisi Kyakwa (#10 on the accompanying map), where Zunis make offerings going and coming back from Kolhu/walatwa. Sitgreaves that said his group found here "fragments of pack-saddles and broken boxes (that) gave evidence of a former encampment of white men, probably of the party . . . who escorted Mr. Collier to California in 1849." From Kolotwisi Kyakwa Sitgreaves followed the Zuni trail to a point very near Kolhu/walatwa (Stinking Springs Mountains). He described the petroglyphs that are visible today in the Zuni River Valleyt The valley is here shut in by abrupt walls of gray sandstone, occasionally mixed with basalt, having frequent springs running out from under them; but farther down it expands to several miles in width, other valleys opening into it. The faces of the sandstone rocks, wherever they presented a smooth surface, were covered with Indian hieroglyphics, or pictures, carved or painted upon them It is interesting that Sitgreaves notes pictographs (painted rock art) as well as petroglyphs (incised rock art), as only a few faded examples of the former are still to be found on the rock walls today. Sitgreaves continued to follow the "well-marked trail" until he reached the Little Colorado, where Kern sketched two of the men on an island in the middle of the stream, and then moved on, - 75 - |
