The Mystery of Everett Ruess
Page 20
We have been in the cave for four days now. There is a very precarious way down the face of the cliff with footholds in the stone hundreds of years old. The only other way is the horse ladder, six miles up the canyon. We came that way with pack burros, passing the carcass of a horse that slipped. After two days wandering on the mesa top, in the trackless forests, we crossed the bare rock ledges in a heavy cloudburst and came here.
We have found twelve burials here, with two fairly well preserved mummies. One mystery lies in the fact that all of the skeletons are headless, though there are two lower jaws. Evidently the graves were robbed perhaps by the Pueblo I people, but it is a difficult problem to ascertain the facts. There are traces of Basket Makers III, and Pueblo I and II on the surface.
The Basketmakers are the oldest people who have been definitely traced back in the Southwest. They used the atlatl or throwing stick and had corn. Pottery was first invented by the Pueblo I, and the bow came into use. Later beans and squash were used, and the turkey was domesticated. In Pueblo II, pottery was of a finer grade with different design types, and color was used.
Twin Caves, below, is Pueblo III, with a further advance. In the whole Tsegi drainage there is no Pueblo IV. All the cliff dwellers were driven off by the eighteen-year drought that began in 1290.
I have been doing the packing and the cooking here. Clayborn Lockett, the archaeologist in charge here, is a grizzled young chap of twenty-eight, widely experienced, and a magnificent humorist. He is an ethnologist and something of an artist as well. His two helpers are boys of nineteen and twenty from the University at Berkeley. We have great fun up here by ourselves, discovering something new every day, and looking out over everything from our sheltered cave.
I’m going down the cliff now to get our mail and a few camp luxuries.
Love to all, Everett
Upon termination of the archaeological excavation, Everett headed cross-country for the Hopi villages, where he wished to witness the annual August rain dances. Not only did he watch them, but he was actually invited to participate, at Mishongnovi, in the Antelope Dance, a signal honor to a white man.
August 25
Hotevilla, Arizona
Dear Mother and Father,
Yesterday I saw the Snake dance here, and now it is beginning to rain. I have been having great fun with the Hopis here, and just finished a painting of the village. The children were clustered all around me, some helping and some hindering. I have just bought a Hopi plaque for you, which has really a fine design, I think. You can probably use it on the dinner table. I was going to get a kachina doll, but decided you would have more use for the plaque. This morning I mailed a package with some Hopi prayer sticks, a rim shard from a prehistoric bowl, and a clay cow and calf (to replace your Chinese horse that was broken. They are even more fragile, however, and you will have to be very careful where you place them). A little Navajo boy made them. I stopped with his family one night in Blue Canyon, and he ranged his whole menagerie in the firelight for me. He had a whole band of clay horses, one with even a clay saddle, and a forked stick for a rider. The cow and calf are decidedly original, and I think you will like them.
I left the expedition more than a week ago, as its work was terminated. My last work was cooking and excavating for and with seven, in a Pueblo II dwelling dating 1127 a.d. I left the group and crossed the Comb Ridge, stopping at White Dog Cave, where the sandstone block had fallen and crushed the cliff dwellers.
At Kayenta I had very little time to spare. I made one trip through Monument Valley and decided to cross Black Mesa and see the Snake Dance. I rode up from the desert floor to the rim of Black Mesa by moonlight, camping in the pines. Then I beat my way southward, steering by the sun, and following a canyon as far as was practical. The whole country slopes southward, there are no landmarks of any kind, and there was hardly any water. I did not see a human being until the third night. After that I passed a number of Navajo camps, beat my way through the timber and the high sage until I reached Dinnebito (Navajo water) wash, and rode into the pueblo at daybreak on the day of the dance. Here I met the expedition members and other friends. They left last night, but one of them is staying behind with me to visit another pueblo for the next dance, tomorrow. He, Vernon DeMars, is from Berkeley. [He] sketches, does architectural work, and performs Indian dances. This afternoon he has been trading turtle shells and parrot feathers, for gourd rattles, kilts, and other trappings of the Hopi dancers.
Probably this won’t reach you for a while, as the mail service is very irregular here. My next address is Cameron, Arizona.
Love from Everett
Old Chief Tewaquaptewa, holding his prayer stick and kachina as defense against the camera, was Hopi Chief of Oraibi when Everett visited the villages in 1934. Photo by Dr. David E. Miller, 1958.
August 29
Gallup, New Mexico
Dear Waldo,
I rode here from Mishongnovi with a Hopi silversmith who is selling turquoise to Indians and traders.
The Inter-Tribal Indian ceremony is being held here, starting today. I saw Oliver LaFarge and the Kaiser’s niece at the snake dance. She certainly knows how to take care of herself. I hope your plans are working out.
Affectionately,
Everett
August 29
Gallup, New Mexico
Dear Mother,
I rode here from Second Mesa with a Hopi silversmith, who was selling turquoise along the way. Vernon and I spent a night in a Hopi Kiva at Mishongnovi, watching Indians practice the Buffalo and Antelope dances. Now we are going to see some of the dances at the Inter-Tribal Indian ceremonial. Yesterday I sent you a Hopi bowl from Hotevilla.
Love from
Everett
September 1
Gallup, New Mexico
Dear Mother,
I’m starting back for Second Mesa with some Hopis today. My friend and I have been learning Indian songs. I got a fine blanket for my saddle.
How do you like these San Domingo women [on the opposite side of the postcard]?
Love from Everett
September 10
Grand Canyon, Arizona
Dear Father and Mother,
Arrived here at Desert View last night. Found your combined letter today, about your own trip north. Lost a burro (Leopard) down Little Colorado Canyon the other day, with some of the pack, but have already replaced him with a bigger burro. My camp is next to that of an artist from Tahiti. Since Gallup I have been at Mishongnovi, where my Hopi friends painted me up and had me in their Antelope Dance. I was the only white person there. Killed two rattlers the other day. One struck before I saw him. I caught the other alive. Sold a print yesterday.
Love from Everett
When the archaeological excavation was finished and the team was breaking up, Lockett had cheerfully invited Everett to drop by his home in Flagstaff, if the occasion should ever arise. “I wasn’t home but about three days,” Lockett says, “when here came Everett to accept my invitation.” (Actually, the time between the invitation and the acceptance was closer to three weeks.) Clay Lockett’s income, in 1934, was only about $30 a month, supplemented by his garden and a few chickens. Everett’s big appetite was not welcomed, especially by Lockett’s wife, Florence, who informed her husband, half in jest, after a week of having Everett as a guest, “Either he leaves or I do!” Lockett then tactfully suggested to Everett that he visit Oak Creek Canyon—immediately.
A few days later, after his trip to Oak Creek Canyon, Everett stopped briefly to give Lockett a gift—a book of Navajo stories, and to give Florence a copy of Anthony Adverse, which cost five dollars—a large sum at the time. Lockett concluded that Everett was not trying to take advantage of them but was simply a “free spirit,” who did not worry about the complexities of social behavior, and who simply “loved the Navajos and everybody, loved animals, burros, dogs, kids, and everything.” Everett himself, says Lockett, was a “strange kid.”
September 27
Grand Canyon
Dear Ned [Frisius],
I was surprised and pleased to find your letter at Grand Canyon the other day. I have spent the past week vacationing. I left my burros, Cockleburrs and Chocolate, under the care of an artist friend at Desert View, and took the highway down here to visit a friend with whom I did some archaeological work this summer. It was fascinating work—up almost sheer sandstone cliffs, clinging by worn footholds hundreds of years old, or on narrow crumbling edges, was more spectacular than anything in the Sierras.
From Flagstaff I went south to Oak Creek, and painted some brilliantly lighted vermilion cliffs against inky storm skies. Came back and saw the first snows on the San Francisco Peaks, and the slopes golden with yellowing aspens.
Evidently you overheard something of my adventures with my friends the Indians. I have a great time with them, especially the Navajos. I once spent three days far up in a desert canyon, assisting and watching a Navajo sing for a sick woman. I drove away countless hordes of evil spirits but after I went away the girl died. The sand paintings, seldom seen by white men, were gorgeous.
In my wanderings this year I have taken more chances and had more wild adventures than ever before. And what magnificent country I have seen—wild, tremendous wasteland stretches, lost mesas, blue mountains rearing upward from the vermilion sands of the desert, canyons five feet wide at the bottom and hundreds of feet deep, cloudbursts roaring down unnamed canyons, and hundreds of houses of the cliff dwellers, abandoned a thousand years ago.
Glad you are getting a good start at college.
Your friend,
Everett
September 1934
Flagstaff, Arizona
Dear Mother,
Yesterday I returned from a sketching jaunt in Oak Creek Canyon, and now I am visiting with a friend [Clayborn Lockett] in Flagstaff who is doing archaeological work for the museum here. I’m going back to Desert View, Grand Canyon in a day or two.
In Oak Creek Canyon I painted a couple of striking effects of brilliantly lighted buttes against inky storm skies. Also a massive tower, calmly beautiful under shadowing clouds.
Chocolate is tentatively the name of Cockleburr’s new companion. He is young, strong, and good natured, inexperienced, but bound to learn from his experienced comrade. I bought him from a Navajo woman for the vast sum of nine dollars, and a currycomb thrown in. I had to teach him to eat grain, bread crusts, and salt. He was a young barbarian!
I have been replacing some of the things lost from the pack. I built a new kyak, and decorated both boxes with cliff dwelling designs, painting them all over. Their like has never been known, I’m sure.
I’ve sold a number of pictures lately, and you won’t have to worry about me much longer. In fact you can discontinue money orders any time you want to. I received the one for fifteen early this month, but nothing since.
I could copy the Indian songs, but the rhythm is one of the main elements, with the melody, and almost no white man can sing in the high pitch which is natural to the Navajos. One of my favorites is:
Wey ah hah neyah heyah heya heyoh eh hijah
Yoh eh hyah, yoh eh hyah, heyah, heyoh oh o
Heyah heyoh heyanah hyah, heyah heyoh
Heyoh eh hayah, Yah eh hayah, yah eh hyoh yah
Naturally I did not try to take photographs of the Hopi dances, as that would be like taking a flashlight picture of communion in some church.
The San Francisco Peaks soar high in the afternoon sunlight. The slopes are golden with yellowing aspen.
Love from Everett
October 1
Desert View Grand Canyon
Dear Father and Mother,
I’m back at the canyon now, and received your letter of the twenty-eighth with the money order. Evidently you didn’t have my last letter. I don’t want you to send any more money, as I can get along all right, and you really need it. I have twelve dollars due me for a picture I made a while ago.
I sent you an oil of the outer houses at Hotevilla. It is pretty large, and I don’t suppose you can do anything with it unless you put it at the top of the hallway.
In a day or so I am going to send you a small Navajo blanket.
The burro bell is tinkling merrily. In a day or so I am going down in the canyon. Here is a curious fact. It is only ten miles across the canyon, but by car, it is 350 miles to the other side, and by mail, or rail, one thousand miles. The squirrels and other little animals on each side have developed into different species.
I haven’t had poison ivy this year. I used up my medicine in the Tsegi country, and neglected to get any since, so I was anxious to have some more. Oak Creek has poison ivy, but I stayed clear of it. I’m going into lower country where I would run a risk.
Love to all, Everett
October 15
P.O. Ruby’s Inn, Utah
Dear Mother,
Today I climbed up from Indian Gardens to get mail and supplies before starting for Utah. The date cookies reached me all right, and thanks, but the chocolate cake was not discovered under the crackers until there was a beautiful green and yellow mold inside. Thank Mrs. Ryall nevertheless.
One new accomplishment I have added to my list! I can shoe a burro! Last week I shod both donkeys, and neither had ever been shod before. It was some battle, and none of us came off without a few bruises.
A kiva is an underground ceremonial chamber of the Hopis and the cliff dwellers. Some are round, some square, some rectangular, with the one entrance through the roof. The bones are human sacrum, one male, the other female (more curved), about 1500 years old.
I’m glad you liked the pictures. Those I sent you were only sketches, though. I’ll send you some better ones soon.
Autumn is here, with a sharp tang in the air, but below in the canyon I have been enjoying a second summer. The cottonwoods are just beginning to be touched with yellow and orange.
Down into the canyon again!
Love from Everett
With autumn well underway, Everett left the Grand Canyon and headed north, toward the rugged lands of southeast Utah that he had never visited. Whether he had a specific objective or was simply following his wanderlust from place to place is not clear. Probably he wanted to see Bryce Canyon, as well as much of the nearby desert, plateau, and canyon country. His route must have taken him and his burros northward to the Colorado River, where they crossed Navajo Bridge. Everett may also have visited historic Lee’s Ferry, just five miles upstream from the bridge. After leaving the river he probably followed U.S. 89 across the Kaibab Plateau through Kanab, and on to Bryce Canyon National Park. Although obscure trails did lead from Lee’s Ferry northward along the Paria River to the village of Tropic, Utah, the fact that Everett does not mention traveling this adventurous route suggests that he must have reached the park on conventional roads.
By the middle of October, Everett was roaming about Bryce Canyon, stopping normally at tourist viewpoints and following narrow trails through the eroded formations. In the following letter written two weeks later, he reported that he was staying with a National Park Service ranger, Maurice Cope, and his family, who lived in Tropic, a few miles to the east. Since Cope had nine children, Everett was probably not too much of a disruption.
November 4
Tropic, Utah
Dear Father and Mother,
I have been having great fun here today with a Mormon family. There are about nine children, of all ages, and the father is a ranger in Bryce Canyon. This morning I rode out with one of the boys to look for a cow. We rode all over the hills, and stopped at an orchard to load up with apples. Then I went to church, my first time in a Mormon church. It was an interesting experience, and about my first time in church since I was in San Francisco. In our class we had quite a talk about crime, economics, juvenile court, etc. A frank discussion of the national crisis. One of them said that the war and turmoil prophecies of their Mormon saints would be fulfilled next year.<
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Awhile ago I sold a couple of pictures to Charlie Plumb, a cartoonist, who owns a ranch in a dramatic situation at Cave Lakes. He works about three months a year and gets $1500 twice a month the rest of the time. He is drunk or blotto at least half the time. One of the ranch hands tried a little gin and nearly died of a heart attack; he could hardly breathe.
I enjoyed riding down from Bryce Canyon, through the grotesque and colorful formations. Mother would surely enjoy the trees; they are fascinating, especially the twisted little pines and junipers. I had never seen the foxtail pine before. It is a ridiculous caricature of a tree, with gangling limbs and most amusing foxtails lopping about in all directions, with no symmetry at all. There is a natural bridge called Tower Bridge.
Hotevilla is a modern Hopi pueblo, founded in 1908 as the result of a bitter quarrel in Oraibi concerning the old and the new way. Oraibi is said to be the oldest continually inhabited town in America—seven hundred years, I think. It was left almost deserted after the quarrel. My painting is of some end houses on the rim of the mesa, near the snake kiva.
The Hopi woman in the upper right house makes pottery containers, and for some superstitious reason, always two at once. They hang mutton jerky out to dry. They did not like me to paint the old man, but I pacified them.
I sent back the kodak because it has not been working well and is an extra expense and weight.
The weather has mostly been delightful, although I was in one snow flurry on the Paunsaqunt Plateau. Now I am heading across the pink cliffs toward Escalante and the lower country toward the river.
Later in the day we had more fun—apple fights, church, and until about morning we amused ourselves with some Navajos who were camped nearby.
Love from Everett
Having been told about the spectacular canyon country along the Escalante River drainage, he first moved thirty-eight miles farther east, to the town of Escalante. He entered town in his usual manner, riding one burro, and leading another, his feet almost touching the ground. His appearance was a novelty that men and women remember to this day.