the negative, he said,
"Oh, then they speak Chinese."
The only foreign tongues he had ever
heard were English and Chinese, hence
all foreigners must speak one or the
other.
These childhke concepts do not
always take a harmless outward mani-
festation, and on two different occa-
sions Mr. Tate has been the target for
shots fired by normally well-behaved,
but temporarily illusioned, Indians.
Some of the Quichuas have a belief
that leprosy may be cured by bathing
in human blood. When Mr. Tate was
collecting near Cuenca, the Indians
became alarmed at the strange behavior
of a man who did so many things un-
accountable to them. They concluded
that he was an escaped leper, from the
leper colony situated between Cuenca
and Cinincay, and that he was lurking
about to capture a cure for his malady.
Fortunately their apprehensions dis-
turbed their aim and no serious results
took place.
On anothei- occasion, we camped on
the basal slopes of Cotopaxi on an
ancient lava flow. One night when Mr.
618
NATURAL HISTORY
From the uppermost slopes of Pichmcha one views distant Cotopaxi hidden in the clouds,
and scores of cultivated fields scattered over a broad valley
Tate went hunting with a headhght,
several rifle shots were fired at him.
The native who did the shooting evi-
dently thought that the spot of light,
moving about where no normal-minded
native would be at night, was an evil
spirit and he acted accordingly. We
showed no more lights about camp that
night, and thereafter took particular
pains to advertise in advance any night
hunting we attempted.
Although I received very little tradi-
tion or legend directly from the
Quichuas, I have little doubt that the
material is there for the observer who
seeks it. Several stories that had
gained current belief dealt respectively
with an enchanted lake, a man who
appeared in the guise of a mountain
lion, and a vast treasure buried by the
Incas when Atahualpa w^as killed by
the Spaniards and all hope of ransom-
ing the monarch had fled.
I had pointed out to me the site of
the enchanted lake, at the top of a
nearly inaccessible peak. The lake
was surely enchanted because it alwaj^s
disappeared when any one climbed up
to the spot. An unusually destructive
lion could not be killed because he was
not an ordinary puma, but in reality a
clever man disguised as a lion. Belief
in the existence of the treasure has led
to the formation of an imsuccessful
syndicate and to the devotion of years
of search on the part of indi\iduals.
There is nothing supernatural in the
legend of the treasure, and while all
such tales are apt to arouse skepticism,
it must be confessed that the account
A COLLECTOR'S IMPRESSIOXS OF Tlll<: Q( K'llUA INDIAN 619
Wliile most of these fields today are owned by Ecuadoreans of Spanish descent, this region
was formerly a stronghold of the Inca empire and farmed by Quichuas
of the lost ransom of Atahualpa as it
was told to me was a fascinating and
plausible story.
The Quichuas are a musical people
and have their own instruments for the
production of their native airs. One
of the commonest instruments is a
series of graduated tubes of bamboo,
like the pipes of Pan, played by blow-
ing across the open ends and producing
a fluteUke tone. This piping requires a
great amount of air, and I wondered
how the boy who visited us in camp on
Pichincha, 13,000 feet above sea level,
could find the breath to lilt his tune
as he trudged along the trail. We had
no breath to spare at this elevation
and when we walked we kept our
mouths shut.
There is a peculiar minor quality to
the Quichua music. Just what Quichua
airs may be indigenous or to what
extent they may have been modified by
European influences, I am not com-
petent to judge, but the strains sounded
original and, furthermore, seemed to
have latent possibilities for adoption
into modern scores. I was told by
Senor Jijon of Quito, who has made an
exhaustive study of his country's
prehistorj^, that the Quichuas have had
an extensive musical experience.
At a festival in Loja I saw a Qui-
chua orchestra of one musician who
played a flute with his right hand and
beat a drum with his left, providing
dance music for. four young Indians
who danced and gestured to the
rhythm. During the same fiesta I
saw another Indian flute player, who
620
NATURAL HISTORY
was also a devotee of Bacchus, sto]) a
passer-by and carry on what might be
described as a musical monologue. He
addressed his flute to his audience of
one and with great earnestness and
gravity" proceeded to search the depths
The clear, flutelike notes of the Quichua
pipes carry far on the mountain air, a melod-
ious interlude in the hush of early morn
of his repertoire. The incident served
to demonstrate to me that love of music
was a fundamental instinct with this
Quichua who had reached the stage in
his celebrations where his very
equilibrium was threatened.
The Quichua still does many things
in the way of his forefathers. His
farming methods are crude in the
extreme, from the plowing with a
wooden plow to the threshing and win-
nowing b}' slow hand processes. While
one sees many cultivated fields, it is
seldom that a large and bountiful
harvest is seen and the yield is inade-
quate to the long hours of labor that the
Indians spend over the crop.
These farmers are adept at side-hill
cultivation, and in a fertile section the
fields of grain, peas, alfalfa, etc., are
perched on the sides of the mountain
slopes with a fine disregard of gravity.
In many places one can still see toda}^
the traces of the old ditches, built by
the Incas to irrigate these high Andean
fields, at elevations of 12,000 and 13,000
feet.
The landscape in one of the agri-
cultural sections is most interesting
and unusual, presenting as it does the
aspect of a gigantic patchwork quilt
made up of broad, geometrical out-
lines of brown, green, and yellow,
depending upon whether the field is
plowed, is growing grain, or is ready for
harvest. Add to this the ever-present
fence of green cabuya, related to the
century plant, and the simile is com-
pleted by stitching around the margins
of each patch.
When soil is to be prepared for sow-
ing, the Quichua yokes his oxen, mules,
burros, or horses, or any combination
of these animals, and they drag a
rough wooden plow, sometimes scarcely
more than a sharpened stick, over the
field, scratching up shallow fm'rows.
In some of the best agricultural sec-
tions where great, level expanses exist,
modern plows may be seen, but most
of the cultivation done by the Quichua
is by the old-time method and, per-
haps, on certain of the steep slopes, it is
about the only practical method.
When the crop appears above ground,
apparently it is left much to itself, as
we saw little to show that nature was
being assisted. Some pulling of weeds
It is little wonder that the Quichuas love their mountains and remain an upland people.
The sight of Cotopaxi, rearing white across the green of mountain meadows, is alone worth
a trip to Ecuador
About Punin one sees a network of the cabuya hedges marking off the cultivated fields
While the hills beyond look desolate, they are the home of many Quichuas
621
OT3
rt 13
5 is
":.< 1
a. «>
â– 5 =s
So^
sa
r>
©•OS
4^
•^.2
T
S-^
3""
^
.'^
S
a a
•» ".
"<-S
'm 3
aa
w
r
jL tj - j^
1^ •'
•' . ^» . .
J J
b
1
13 »♦ J
d ID
a^
o >-â–
T3 !>i
s-ja
624
NATURAL HISTORY
may take place. After the grain is cut
down, the threshing is done by driving
hoi-ses, mules, or cattle over the stalks
which are scattered over a hard, earth
threshing-floor. Finally, the resulting
mixture of chaff and grain is winnowed
by pouring it from bowls on a day
when the wind is strong enough to
divert the light chaff, — the plump.
Everything the typical Quichua wears is
homemade. This boy has on a heavj^ wool
hat and his poncho is made of wool, spun,
dyed, and woven by his family
heavy grain falling at the feet of the
harvester.
The Quichua women are inveterate
spinners and one seldom sees a woman
mthout her spindle, which is simply a
slender reed or splinter weighted bj^ a
small potato or other handy object.
The yarn is spun from wool grown on
their own sheep. The ponchos and all
of the woolen fabrics used bj^ the
Quichua are hand woven. Cheap
cotton fabrics, woven by power mills,
are marketed in the towns, but the
Quichua of the high Andes places more
reliance upon the warm cloth of
domestic manufacture.
Other native industries are the
making of pottery and the twisting of
rope and cordage. Clay suitable for
the structure of jars, pots, tiles, etc., is
of fairly common occurrence, foi" all
through Ecuador one sees the ever-
present, red-tiled roof and the dark-red
water jars, cooking pots, and pottery
vessels. The Incas were noted for their
achievements in this field, and seem-
ingly the Indian of today utilizes the
same processes, although by no means
with the same degree of artistic skill.
In the native markets one sees quanti-
ties of the hand-made pottery for sale.
The native rope is made from the
cabuya, one of the Agaves, which has a
long, strong fiVjer w^ell suited for cord-
age. This plant grows everywhere
throughout the Andean plateaus, and
because of the thick, spiny leaves makes
an effective hedge. Most of the fences
are simply rows of cabuya plants.
One seldom sees llamas in any
nmnber in Ecuador. These "sheep"
of the Incas, so-called in the early
Spanish chronicles, may have been
common as far north as Quito in
Pizarro's time, as Prescott would lead
us to believe, but today they are to be
found in comparatively small numbers
and more or less restricted to the region
about Chimborazo and Riobamba. In
their place the Quichuas raise the true,
domestic sheep, and rather an unusual
feature of these flocks is the high per-
centage of black animals. The Andean
meadows furnish almost exhaustless
pastures for live stock, for they are
always green and well watered.
Like so many native peoples, the
Quichuas love to bargain, and a trans-
action is spoiled for them unless it
passes through a lengthy preliminary.
Market day is a big event in theii- lives
and if any one ofifers to buy the entire
load of produce that an Indian is
carrying along a trail, at a figure above
the market price, it will not be sur-
prising if the Indian refuses to sell,
A COLLECTOR'S IMPRESSIONS OF THE QIK 11 1 '. 1 IXDIAN 625
l)Oc;uis(' tluui he is (Icprivcd of the joy oi'
l)artj;aining at the inai'ket.
The market at Riobamba is espe-
cially interesting because it draws a
large attendance of Quichua Indians.
While the Indians are rather given to
wearing l)lack, when one finds them
about thoir own terrain, many of them
wear brighter colored ponchos when
they come to market, and in the
crowded plaza bright reds, yellows, and
browns relieve the somber black home-
spun. The women have babies slung
in cloths over the back, between the
shoulders, and if the hands are free
they spin as they walk. Women and
men alike have huge bundles on their
backs if they have produce to bring to
the market. One quarter of the plaza
may be given over to the display of
native-made rope which lies about in
great piles; anothci' s(H'tioii displays
various sizes and shapes of pottery
vessels; a native at a sewing machine
gathers a crowd ai:)Out him as he stitches
the brims of hats to make them stiff er ;
here and there, clotted on the ground
where space allows, are the open-air
cafes, a pot of charcoal and foui' or five
earthen vessels with stews and un-
known concoctions for the hungry
passer-by.
The Quichua has a legacy of un-
surpassed landscapes and grand moun-
tain scenery. After one has watched
the dawn from Pichincha, Antisana. or
from any vantage point on the vast
Andean upland, or felt the beneficent
effects of the sun's rays after passing
through an Andean rain or fog, one
finds it not difficult to understand why
the Incas were sun worshippers.
One of the rewards of an early start on an Andean trail is the splendor of the sunrise
over lofty mountain ramparts and the rout of darkness from the Stygian caiions
o
<
c
H
Niznaz Boko — The Great Hole in the Ground
By DOUCiJ.AS BURDKN
Trustee of tlie American iMu.soum
KouKwoin). -'I'hc lollowiiij!; article is the rcsullol' :i recent pack Irip lluougli southern
Utah and iiortluM-n Arizona during which the author studied the geology of the High Plateaus.
The work is based on C. E. Button's great monograph, "The Tertiary History of the
C^.raml Canon," and on W. M. Davis' An Excursion to the Grand Canon of the Colorado.
To the helpful advice and criticism of Prof. Douglas Johnson of Coliunliia University,
especial acknowledgements are due. — Euitok.
LONG before the arrival of the
white man in western America
the Navajo Indians had supplied
themselves with a satisfactory ex-
planation as to the origin of Niznaz
Boko — the Great Hole in the Ground.
When the Colorado River on its
initial journey to the sea, so they
asserted, found itself confronted by
great mountainous plateaus thousands
of feet high, the River gods burst these
high plateaus asunder, thereby forming
the Grand Canon and allowing the
river access to the sea.
To the Navajos the explanation was
simple 5^et sufficient. Not long ago
white men were asking themselves the
same question and it is their answer
and the reasons for that answer that
will be presented in the following
paragraphs.
We are dealing with one of the most
amazing stretches of country in the
world, namely the High Plateaus of
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
This country is the last stronghold of
the wilderness in the United States — a
wilderness renowned as much for its
great forests as for its waterless wastes.
There are deserts that stretch away in
an ever shifting sea of moving sand
dunes till land meets sky, their graceful
crest lines seeming to undulate as our
pack train winds through them. Wind
ripples scour their surface in a vain
attempt to destroy a pattern of most
elaborate and delicate design — a woven
network of tiny tracks — the imprints
of the fauna of this wild land. There
are painted deserts of rock whose deli-
cate coloring, lavender, vermilion,
magenta, and mauve, lure the traveler
on to new discoveries. There are
deserts of Palaeozoic age formed of
solidified sand dunes which have been
covered up and obliterated for millions
of years only to be reborn again — thus
bridging the gap of time. There are
nameless gorges on whose seemingly
inaccessible cliffs innumerable dwellings
have been cunningly built by a race of
Indians which has long since passed on
to its happy hunting grounds. There
are countless canons in this land of the
purple sage; amphitheaters, recesses,
caves, and stupendous natural bridges
hewn from the living rock whose
masterful masonry and noble carving
defy description. The attention of the
traveler is forever absorbed in the great
works of nature, be it in the weird con-
tours and exquisite coloring of the slick
rocks, in the great outpourings of igne-
ous material which once devastated the
land with a deluge of molten lava, or in
the formidable red and white cliffs that
present a well-nigh impassable barrier
to the wanderer beyond the clay hills.
It is a land of chasms within chasms and
plateaus superimposed upon plateaus
— a veritable rainbow land in which
earth and sky reflect each other's glory.
627
628
XATTRAL HISTORY
It is hcic, in this wiMcM'ness of ni )un-
tain and plain, that nature has sui-
passcd hci'self. Evolution is one of her
illiniital)le laws by which she avoids
monotony and manifests herself in
never endino; chano;e. This great law is
applicable as well to the physical evolu-
tion of the earth's crust as to its flora
and fauna. In the region of the High
Plateaus the history of its physical
evolution may be traced with a re-
markal)le degree of accuracy. The
method by which this evolution has
taken place is that of erosion following
uplift of the land. The scale of the
Tertiary Erosion of these great plateaus
is almost beyond the power of the finite
mind to grasp.
The vertical range of this erosion in
the Grand Canon district is 16,000 feet
and its horizontal range extends for a
distance of more than 140 miles. An
average of no less than 10,000 feet of
strata has been stripped from an area
ranging between 13,000 and 15,000
Caiup ill \\ liite Ciiioii
square miles. ^ This means that approxi-
mately 28,000 cubic miles of rock have
been removed by the Colorado River
from the region of the Grand Canon.
In cleahng with so great a subject
which, when studied in detail becomes
infinitely complicated, it will be neces-
sary here for the sake of brevity to Hmit
the discussion to the major and most
striking features of the great denuda-
tion.
In the first place it should be under-
stood that the vast measures of sedi-
mentary strata in the High Plateaus
represent the accmnulation of material
derived by the erosion of pre-existing
land surfaces in Palaeozoic, ]\Iesozoic,
and even in Cenozoic times. In the
Palaeozoic era the region of the High
Plateaus was a great geosj-nclinal
trough below the level of the sea. The
Palseo-Cordilleran ]\Iountains to the
west and the Palseo-Rocky Mountains
In the slick rock country of Southern Utah
'Dutton, C. E. Tertiary History of the Grand Can-
on District, page 61.
NIZNAZ BOKO—TUE GREAT HOLE IN THE GROUND
629
Many of the undercut cliffs shelter ruins of masonry houses occupied by Indians in
pre-Spanish times
to the east were the origin or source
â– of the great thicknesses of strata that
were piled up on the floor of this
Palaeozoic sea. These formation? are
now exposed in the great gorge of the
Grand Canon and the unconformities
that exist there are evidence that the
deposition was not continuous. More
than once the sea retreated and long
periods of erosion set in.
During the Mesozoic era another epi-
continental sea spread northwestward
from the Gulf of Mexico covering New
Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, and lapping
up against the Meso-Cordilleran Moun-
tains which occupied the region of the
present great basin. This must be
regarded as a shallow sea, the floor of
which was subsiding sunultaneously
with the accimiulation of sediment
upon it. In this era no less than 10,000
feet of strata were deposited. During
the Eocene a gradual change was taking
place from marine to lacustrine condi-
tions and, finally, with the close of the
Eocene uplift it brought about the
emergence of a new land. From now
on our story deals with the Tertiary
erosion of this land.
It will be well, before entering upon
our discussion, to examine the meaning
of the two words erosion and denuda-
tion. T\Tien more accurately defined,
erosion signifies the sum total of all
processes by means of which rock
particles are cut away from the mass to
which they are attached, whereas the
word denudation is applied to the
lowering of a land mass bj^ the com-
bined action of weathering, erosion,
and transportation.
In any country such as the High
Plateaus where the formations are
approximately horizontal, the drain-
age channels will at first dissect the
land, thus creating canons. The in-
630
NATURAL HISTORY
* %^M-»
Cliff of the Upper Colorado. Denudation takes place here primarily through the recession of cliffs
ward-facing cliffs formed by these
canons are then exposed to all the
forces of destruction so that they will
gradually retreat.
Erosion is not very effective when
attacking the surface of plateaus for,
when the strata are horizontal or nearly
so, the plateaus or uplands are covered
by a protecting mantle of waste.
Under such conditions, denudation
resulting from erosion plus transporta-
tion takes place primarily through the
recession of cliffs, and the speed of
retreat of any given cliff is dependent
on its height and on its resistance to the
agencies of weathering. If, however,
the talus at the base of a cliff accumu-
lates until the whole face of the cliff
has been covered, erosion will progress
but slowly until the protecting waste
has been removed. Softer formations
will break down to form a more gently
rolling topography. The eroeion of the
cliffs forming the boundaries of the
High Plateaus must, therefore, have
been differential. Due to differences in
height and durability they have re-
ceded at different rates.
Now let us turn back to the new land
that by the end of the Eocene had
emerged from the sea. First of all, a
drainage system was established. The
course of the rivers forming this system
was consequent upon the initial slope
of the land surface. Their work con-
sisted at first of the cutting of deep
channels by the process of downward
corrasion and then, when a profile of
equilibrium had been reached, — the
carrying power of the water being just
equal to its load, — of the opening up of
these narrow gorges into great open
valleys. The picture now is of a new
land raised above the sea, dissected by
rivers and then denuded by a stripping
off of the strata until a large part of the
area had been worn down nearly to sea
level. Thus was formed the great
Tertiary Peneplain. Subsequent to
this period of extensive base leveling
came the period of general uplift which
resulted in the incision of the canons
that still exist today. Thus in the
history of the Grand Canon district
we have two distinct cycles of erosion.'
^Davis-
Colorado .
-An ExcurMon to the Grand Canon of the
NIZNAZ liOKO Till': ah' I- AT IIOLh' I .\ Till: (IROL'XI)
03 1
Part of a cut-off entrenched meander of the Colorado River
4I»'
The Colorado River in a second cycle of erosion. Note the receding cHffs on either side
Both cycles were consequent upon
orogenic disturbances. The first dis-
turbance may have been intermittent,
in which case there would be alternate
periods of uplift and quiescence, each
successive period of activity resulting
in the rejuvenation of rivers. The evi-
dence in support of intermittent uplift
is, however, insufficient. The move-
ments of land, although not accom-
panied by much folding, were differen-
tial in that different sections under-
went different degrees of uphft. Due
to these differential movements in the
initial uplift, a series of north-south
fatilts and monoclinal folds were estab-
lished which greath' comphcate the
structural geolog}^ of the country. A
432
NATURAL HISTORY
Bryce Canon. — Erosional features of the Pink Cliffs
long period of erosion, however, beveled
the area, reducing it to one of faint
relief across which the Colorado River
lazily meandered. Following this came
the general upheaval which inaugurated
a new cycle of erosion and which re-
sulted in the entrenched meanders of
the upper Colorado and the incised
canons that we see today.
Needless to say, the uppermost
formations have been subjected to
erosion for the longest period of time
and are therefore the ones which have
been more completely denuded. Be-
tween New Mexico and Bryce Canon, a
distance of 140 miles, the Eocene has
been entirely stripped off. Northwest
of the Grand Canon the remains of the
Eocene may be seen in the Pink CUffs.
The detail and delicacy of their ero-
sional features have no equal. South
and east of the Colorado, no Eocene is
found until we cross the border into
New Mexico . Over the entire interven-
ing region it has been complete^
removed.
From the base of the Eocene escarp-
ment of Pink Cliffs the traveler
NIZNAZ BOKO -THE GEAT HOLE /A' THE GROUND
633
journeyino- southward to tho (<raii(l
Canon must first cross Ihc 1y])ical
rolling hill topography of the Cicta-
ceous. Duo to the fact that the Cre-
taceous hills ar(> usually covered with
(ions, '{'here are islands of M(;sozoic
scMhnients superini|)ose(l one ui)on the
other, with an island of I'loccnc beds
(•ai)ping them all. From the summit of
tlu> Moeene to the base of the Permian
pine and s]iruee, this formation is not the ti'aveler has descended, due 1o the
difficult to recognize even from a
distance. Below these hills he will ride
for some distance over a level platform