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Show LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN 34. HISTORY crest of the Sierra Madre and in the barrancas of the Pacific slope Also among the California in southern Chihuahua and Sinaloa. closely in physical type rather conform who those found are tribes to the ancient cliff-dwellers of the Pajarito plateau. Most remarkable for its antiquities is that section known as the From the Pajarito mesa one looks down into Rito de los Frijoles. the Rito as into a narrow valley. The lower five miles of the Rito are replete CAVATE DWELLINGS OF THE with archeological interest. A neverRITO DE LOS FRIJOLES failing streamlet coming from the The former Jemez mountains carries its waters to the Rio Grande. populous condition of this region is attested by the myriad remains of cliff-houses and ancient pueblos that occupy every valley and mesa-top from the Chama river to the Cochiti and between the The northern wall of the Jemez mountains and the Rio Grande. Rito is a vertical escarpment of from 200 to 300 feet in height, rising above a sloping talus. The slope of the southern wall is more gentle, and presents none of the vertical escarpments seen on the northern wall. The ancient remains in the Rito consist of four community houses in the valley and one on the mesa rim near the southern brink of the canyon, and a series of cliff-houses extending for a distance of These a mile and a quarter along the base of the northern wall. Some of these excavated cliff-houses are of the excavated type. natural cavities, therefore ancient cave houses and whole cave pueblos are of common occurrence. ‘In regard to the creed and beliefs of the Tarahumares, little is reliably ascertained. We might judge from what is known of the Tepehuanes, who, in addi- tion to being their near neighbors, spoke a kindred language. It is certain that aoe was played an important part with them. Drunkenness among them 00. _.*On the whole the Tarahumares were a numerous, scattered, and quite docile tribe. At the instigation of the Tepehuanes, Tobosos, and of some of their own sorcerers or medicine-men, they rose upon the missionaries several times during the seventeenth century and behaved with as much cruelty as any other Indians. ote they were quiet, and tilled their plots of land, raising the usual kind of rops. ce The oldest census of the Tarahumares, for instance, which is at my command dates back in 167 8. only such Indians as Misiones, by P. Juan administered by the sively Tarahumares, There are certainly older ones, and even this one embraces had become Christians. It is found in the Relacion de las Ortiz Zapata, 8. J. According to it the number of persons Jesuits in the districts of western Chihuahua, almost excluwith but a few Tepehuanes and Conchos, was ‘about 8,300.’ , Frederick Mr. Dr. W. Hodge, Ethnologist Adolph F. Bandelier, Ethnologist, Edgar L. Hewett, Archeologist Major John W. Powell, Naturalist Archeologist, Historian |