REDROAD

NATIVE TRIBE-PRIMITIVES AMERICAN INDIAN JEWELRY

577 S. COAST HWY, LAGUNA BEACH, CA (949) 376-7632 or go to: NATIVE TRIBE-PRIMITIVES LTD We now have Color Diamonds

This book is a work of fiction and deals with the power of myth, its impact and meaning by a mythmaker storyteller and is often the product of the author’s imagination. Dates, times places, names, characters, should not be relied on. Much of this book is made up of unverifiable stories handed down from earlier times and constitutes the nature of myths without modern man’s proof test. These are stories of legends, myths, dreams and visions. Yet other passages that may have any resemblance to reality is entirely coincidental. Some is a collection of myths about the origin and history of a people and their ancestors, heroes and their way of life. Still others are dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serve as primordial types in a primitive view of the world. Some are traditional stories originating in a preliterate society giving expression to deep, commonly felt emotions. But not limited thereto. The information is no substitute for any treatment that may have been prescribed by your doctor. If you suspect that you have a medical problem, you are urged to seek competent medical help. The information shared here is designed to help you learn how to walk the legendary Red Road and make informed decisions about that walk.

Cover Design: WHITE BUFFALO AND PEACE PIPE: Original Painting by Michael J. Lavery. Original Peace Pipe by Akkeeia.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, now or yet to be invented, without the written permission of the authors and publishers.

Venture Capital, the RedRoad, Christian Covenant and the LemonFast are trademark owned by the author. All rights are reserved. The above trademarks my not be used in any form without the express written consent of the author.

For copies of the following books or CD ROMs “Venture Capital”, “The Red Road”, “The LemonFast”, and “The Christian Covenant” Call, write

Preparing Food 57

THE VISION QUEST 64

Aztec Empire 203

CHAPTER TWENTY-Six

Mesoamerica 210

Appendix

Early Peoples Recipes and Healing Herbs 216

“Great Spirit, all over the earth living humans are all alike. . .
Look upon these humans without number and that these things come to pass. Listen and hear the winds and see the dreams and visions by walking the Red Road to the day of quiet” Akkeeia Comanche 1944-

As you read this you are invited to come and share with me a journey back in time a world unlike any other. We will walk the sacred RedRoad together for the love of life, and shall learn the blending of the old and the new, and the learning of the ancient wonders of life. You will see how you can best benefit by taking the best from both worlds. We will learn how to live in harmony and balance with our own bodies and at the same time have the same harmony and balance with Mother Nature. How it is all connected to the great circle of life through our tribal connection of the spirit of the early Americans and Early Man.

The very earliest Americans are a prehistoric people and the early Americans who followed are the more familiar historic Indians of this land. We’ll call them “Early Peoples.”

I’m inviting you to enter into the sacred circle of that world. Join us for a spiritual, magical, archetypal celebration as you feel the healing of the ancient ways and share ancient and Early Peoples ceremonial rites. Let their soul walk inside you and visit unknown places in your mind. We will learn about the old ways... from the Clovis people to the Arapaho to the Zuni... Discover healthy foods that sustained people for hundreds of years, for longer than we have been a nation, and find out about many natural plants that healed them and some that we ourselves are using today as modern miracle drugs.

We hope to see the past return and the future foretold, learn to live in that harmony and in balance with our Father and Mother Earth.

White mans God was known to many of the Early Peoples as the “Great Spirit Father Sky”. We will learn how to softly walk on Mother’s back again as a people.

On this walk we will attempt to see the world through the eyes of those who went before us. We will travel to many Sacred Sites, places of mysterious beauty, where the land is alive with Creation stories exposed in the sinuous canyons which are rugged mountains upside down and witness Ancient Cultures and peak at spectacular landscapes, Absorb the unearthly luminous qualities of light on rock and vast plateau lands and of brilliant stars at night. This is a dreamscape sculpted by elemental forces. Radiant with sun, quickened by lightning, resonant with many millennia of human prayer honoring this sacred earth. The wind that shapes the wondrous formations gives voice to the indwelling spirit that Navajos call Nilchi'i, the inner spirit of humans, the mountains, the stars and all of creation. This walk is an exhibition of color and form, the mythological landscape of living cultures with roots in another time. We will take time to star and moon gaze and to breathe in the stunning wisdom of sunset and sunrise! The RedRoad will stimulate your imagination. Ask questions. Like who are we? Why are we here now? Pondering, sensing the mysteries of those who came before, who walked among the remote and exquisitely beautiful stone cliff dwellings, pueblo villages and gazed upon other-worldly images left carved and painted on canyon walls. And, in fact, some of these ancient peoples are still here. Hopi, Navajo, Zuni and other Early Peoples warmly welcome us as they share their stories, lives, ways, reverence, earth-spirit ways, around the campfire, and in special places. We come together in a warm circle of friends from many nations telling our stories

Legends and earth wisdom woven with historic color, nature, geology, archaeology and a real peoples! All this in our dreams as while as our waking time. The RedRoad reveals civilizations whose antiquity predates that of the Egyptians. It will witness wisdom acquired through millenniums of observing nature and see tribal knowledge that may never be duplicated.

Through the walk on the RedRoad and for the love of life, we will follow the people of a new continent. Through the Hohokam and the Mogollon, whose irrigation systems brought the deserts to bloom with many foods, you will be told of the mysterious cliff dwellers, the Anasazi of the Southwest. You’ll be shown beautiful hand made pottery, made by coiling and braiding the soil from Mother. You may even hear ancient voices tell the stories that reveal the sources of power and visions... Explore the belief that link living people with their ancestors though vision quest and sweat lodge ceremonies. Witness rituals that have been performed for centuries.

You may even hold regular meetings yourself, attend pow wows, have councils and sweat lodge. Ask those who walk the RedRoad to talk with us and share with us and to help us to better understand things like the role of song and dance. In these words and because of these words you will discover and maybe hold in your hands things holy and most sacred such as Sage Wands, Sweetgrass Braids, Feather Fans, Blessing Sticks, Medicine Bundles, Sacred Rites Peace Pipes, and many other objects of absolute wonder. We will have stories of eyewitness accounts of the Early Peoples of the Americas and hear the shared stories and may even be able to feel the rush of the buffalo hunt. You’ll be able to follow the trail of tears and of broken treaties that lead to battles like, the “Battle of Powder River, Wounded Knee, Rosebud Strong Hold, Big Hole, and Battle Butte.” And we will sense how it felt to stand with Crazy Horse at “Little Big Horn.” We will get acquainted with their great leaders like Red Cloud Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Chief Joseph, Quantum Parker, and many others. All of who were people of great loyalty, bravery and wisdom, committed to protecting their people, their health, their land, and their culture...

The RedRoad is a journey through life learning to live in balance and harmony with Mother and if you walk soft and long you may teach others the walk of the RedRoad. The words you will see and may be hear spoken are sacred. They come from our thoughts, our thoughts come from the wind, and our thoughts are visions during our waking time and from dreams as we sleep.

“Dreams are visions as we sleep and visions are dreams while awake, this is where all wisdom and true talent comes .” Akkeeia Comanche 1944-

The Great Spirit has blessed us with the wind, visions, and dreams. The RedRoad starts by learning to listen to the wind and remembering dreams and visions. This can help you in your walk and prepare you for your Vision Quest, your Sweat Lodge, Council meetings and all important matters of your life. This knowledge will help you and help you to help others in saving Mother’s life!

The RedRoad doctrines are holy and sacred, its precepts binding and committed, its histories are true, and the decisions made because of it are important. Walk it to be wise, believe it to be safe and practice it to help save Earth Mother’s life! The journey contains light to direct you; food to nourish your body and wisdom to nourish your spirit, and it will comfort and cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the walker’s staff, the Eagle’s compass, the warrior’s spear. In the walk paradise is restored.

The RedRoad will take you to mysterious places, unexplained sacred sites, ancient cities, and lost lands.

The Great Mystery is its grand subject, our good its design and the glory of the Great Spirit its end. It shall fill your memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. It should be walked slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of health. It is offered and given you in life. It involves the highest responsibility. It will reward your labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacredness... All who walk it will forever remember it.

... I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself. Lone Man [Isna la-wica] (late 19th century)

THE HISTORY AND VISION OF THE REDROAD

As a young boy I became aware of my grandfather's strong work ethic. I remember him going to work Monday through Friday and often on Saturdays. He would rise well before dawn with my grandmother. They would have their morning glass of Raw apple cider vinegar with some maple syrup or molasses, black coffee, eggs sunny-side up, thick well-done bacon with toast, a wedge of sweet white onion and a hot Chile pepper. The bacon cooked first in the big black iron skillet, and then the eggs cooked slowly with the bacon grease splashed over them. One of my fondest memories was the wonderful aroma that would awaken me whenever I stayed overnight with my grandparents. That early morning coffee percolating on the kitchen stove, bacon & eggs frying in the frying pan, and fresh bread in the oven toasting I thought was a great way to start a day. But even to this day, when I am on one of my early morning walks with my wife, and we pass a home with a similar aroma drifting from the kitchen, it reminds me of those wonderful days with my grandparents. I have never felt that I belonged more, was welcomed more, or was more at home than when I visited with my grandparents. Every workday after breakfast Granddad, as I called him, would journey off to the bus stop two blocks away. In 27 dedicated years on the railroad he never missed a day and was late only twice. He worked long hard hours in the hot southwest summer sun and the bone chilling cold, and sometimes snowy, and often windy winters.

He was an honored member of the railroad’s work gang. The work gangs of those days repaired and built the railroad. Whatever needed to be done, they did it, be it laying the iron track or creosote wooden ties, or driving spikes using a 12 pound sledgehammer, or building wood, steel, or concrete bridges, he did all of this excruciating work with vigor and pride. My Granddad would tell me, “it’s a good job and I’m glad to have it.”

I first heard of the amazing Lemon/Lime and their wondrous properties when I was very young.

My granddad while working on the Railroad as a member of those work gangs some of the gang members that he help get hired were some local Apache and Yaqui early peoples, who shared with us the legends of the Lemon and Limes.

The Yaqui's were well known for there amazing ability to go for long periods of time with very little to eat or drink. In fact, they could travel for days and even weeks with out food or water. This was one of the great advantages they seemed to have over their enemies and most likely contributed to the fact they never signed any treaties or concessions with anyone, then or to this day. Which included their adversaries the so-called superior U.S. Calvary and The Mexican armies. Who in the 18 and 1900’s pursued them relentlessly. They shared with us some of their secrets that were handed down from their ancestors. They told of how they would take Lemons or Limes with them and they would eat the whole fruit and nothing else and that would sustain them completely and they would not get hungry. They claimed they could just add some water from time to time from remotely scattered desert springs along with wild honey combs and an occasional herb tea (sage) and that would in able them to go even longer without any other food of any kind. Yet stay strong, healthy and mentally alert.

My Granddad said, “the Yaqui always have been and always will be.” They were in the area long before the apaches, Spanish or anyone else. Their origins date beyond written record, and for millenniums they lived in the valleys around the Rio Yaqui River in Sonora, Mexico. The Spanish, invading Mexico in search of treasure in 1517, conquered the Aztecs in 1521 and in 1533 finally reached Rio Yaqui. Following their first incursion into Yaqui territory, battle-hardened Spanish soldiers retreated. They claimed the Yaquis were the fiercest warriors and best battle tacticians they had faced in New Spain. The Yaqui were the only peoples the Apaches feared and it was most likely more respect then just fear as the Yaqui helped to hide the Apache and would welcome them to their land of the fibulas Sonora as brothers.

A special relationship with the Spanish eventually developed. However, even into the 20^th Century, the Yaquis, who did not consider themselves a conquered people, fought unwanted intrusions into their lives and territory, first against the Spanish and then the Mexican and U.S. governments. Because of the fierceness of the Yaqui, government military forces only periodically overwhelmed Yaqui communities, separating families and sending Yaqui men to distant parts of Mexico to live in forced labor conditions. Mexican military occupation of Yaqui territory continued into the 1970s.

In the early 1880s, as railroads dominated shipping between the United States and Mexico, railroad companies came to appreciate the Yaqui’s work ethic. Yaqui workers began moving to job sites in Arizona, and New Mexico creating settlements in and around Tucson and Gila Bend in Southern Arizona, and in a few areas between Tucson and Phoenix and in a small settlement called Guadalupe, now a southeast suburb of Phoenix. They could also be found as Far East as the Pecos River in west Texas and west to the Pacific Ocean and throughout what is called today the great Sonora Desert. Which spread south from deep into what is now called Mexico, and north far into what is now called the United States.

Today, there are more than 12,500 members of the Yaqui Tribe of Arizona, with another 5,000 individuals seeking membership. More than 3,000 members live on the Yaqui reservation southwest of Tucson.

My Granddad was also very fond of the Apaches and many of his friends were numbered among them.

The word "Apache" {uh-pach'-ee} comes from the Yuma word for "fighting-men". It also comes from a Zuni word meaning "enemy". The Zuni name for Navajo was called "Apachis de Nabaju" by the earliest Spaniards exploring New Mexico. Their name for themselves is N'de, Inde or Tinde ("the people"). The Apaches are well-known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and inexhaustible endurance. Continuous wars among other tribes and invaders from Mexico followed the Apaches' growing reputation of warlike character. When they confronted Coronado in 1540, they lived in eastern New Mexico and west Texas, and reached Arizona in the 1600s. The Apache are described as a gentle people faithful in their friendship.

They belong to the Southern Athapascan linguistic family. The Apache are composed of six regional groups: the Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan, and Kiowa Apache. On marriage, men customarily take up residence with their wives' kin. Maternal clans exist among the Western Apache, who depend more on cultivation than did other groups. All Apache rely primarily on hunting of wild game and gathering of cactus fruits and other wild plant foods. The Western Apache (Coyotero) traditionally occupy most of eastern Arizona and include the White Mountain, Cibuecue, San Carlos, and Northern and Southern Tonto bands. The Chiricahua occupy southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and adjacent Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. The Mescalero (Faraon) live east of the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, with the Pecos River as their eastern border. The Jicarilla (Tinde) range over southeastern Colorado, northern New Mexico, and northwest Texas, with the Lipan occupying territory directly to the east of the Jicarilla. The Kiowa Apache (Gataka), long associated with the KIOWA, a Plains people, range over the southern plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas.

The Apache attained their greatest fame as guerrilla fighters defending their mountainous homelands under the Chiricahua leaders Cochise, Geronimo, Mangas Coloradus, Victorio, Nana and Juh. Today the Apache occupy reservations in New Mexico and Arizona, with some Chiricahua, Lipan, and Kiowa Apache in Oklahoma. In 1680 the Apache population was estimated at 5,000; in 1989 it was estimated at about 30,000, of whom most live on reservations. While accommodating to changed economic conditions, the Apache on reservations have maintained much of their traditional social and ritual activities. Their invincible spirit is still shown today by an energy and fire that makes them a strong and hardy people in modern day society.

The Jicarilla are part of the Apache people. The name Jicarilla means "little basket," deriving from the expertise of their women in making baskets of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Within recent times, they make their homes in southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico, though a few groups went to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Originally they came from northwestern Canada among the migration of Athapascan language tribes, then along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. When first met by explorers in the 1540s, they were called the Vaqueros by the Spanish. Though the Spanish established a mission for Jicarillas in 1733 near Taos, New Mexico, it did not succeed. Later, in 1880, the government set aside a reservation for the Jicarillas in the Tierra Amarilla region of New Mexico. Today they live on their reservations in Arizona and in Rio Arriba and Sandoval Counties, New Mexico.

Apaches have always been inherently aware of earth and sky spirits. From their early morning prayers to the Sun-God, through their hours, days, and their entire lives--for them every act has sacred significance.

My Granddad was the epitome of a real rail-road-man. He wore his cream colored long johns, his Railroad bibbed Blue overalls with his red bandanna, and his hard leather boots, all as if they were his second skin. And, of course, he was never without his gold railroad “Santa Fe Special” pocket-watch with the copper chain and leather tabs. He wore that watch like a badge of honor.

My granddad was a big man, nearly six-feet tall. He had a dark leathery complexion with strong features revealing his Early peoples heritage. He was a man of conviction. He was a man not afraid of hard work. He had worked hard all of his life. Even before he worked on the railroad, he worked his own Farm/ranch, raised cattle and was a blacksmith near Clayton, New Mexico. Folks would bring him blacksmith work from a hundred miles around. The famous Santa Fe Trail and its cut-off the Cimarron Trail run right along side his farm/ranch for over a 1/4-mile. Today, as I stand their, a chilling fall wind whistles through the rusty barb-wired cedar posts and waving tall grama grass,... just tall grama grass covers the still remaining deep indentations carved into the hard weathered earth from bygone years of settlers passing in their great mode of travel, the Prairie Schooners, and early trade wagons. The prairie schooner loaded with all of there earthly belongings must have looked like a sail boat with its canvas cover blowing in the wind and appearing to be sailing across the golden prairie on wheels. Like "sails on a sea of grass." This description of covered wagons inspired the name Prairie Schooner.

The most common wagons used for hauling freight back East were the Conestogas, developed in Pennsylvania by descendants of Dutch colonists. Conestoga wagons were large, heavy, and had beds shaped somewhat like boats, with angled ends and a floor that sloped to the middle so barrels wouldn't roll out when the wagon was climbing or descending a hill. Like the covered wagons of the western pioneers, it had a watertight canvas bonnet to shelter the cargo. Conestogas were pulled by teams of six or eight horses and could haul up to five tons.

Traders on the Santa Fe Trail adopted the Conestoga design for its durability and size, but they found that bullwhackers or muleskinners were preferable to teamsters -- the immense distances and scarcity of good water along the Santa Fe Trail precluded the use of horses as draft animals. Teams of up to two dozen oxen or mules were used to haul the heaviest loads. Sometimes a second wagon, or "backaction," was hitched behind the lead wagon.

Overlanders on the Oregon Trail, in contrast, quickly learned that Conestoga wagons were too big for their needs: the huge, heavy wagons killed even the sturdiest oxen before the journey was two-thirds complete. Their answer to the problem was dubbed the "Prairie Schooner," a half-sized version of the Conestoga that typically measured 4' wide and 10' to 12' in length. With its tongue and neck yoke attached, its length doubled to about 23 feet. With the bonnet, a Prairie Schooner stood about 10' tall, and its wheelbase was over 5' wide. It weighed around 1300 pounds empty and could be easily dismantled for repairs en route. Teams of 4 to 6 oxen or 6 to 10 mules were sufficient to get the sturdy little wagons to Oregon. Manufactured by the Studebaker brothers or any of a dozen other wainwrights specializing in building wagons for the overland emigrants, a Prairie Schooner in good repair offered shelter almost as good as a house.

The wagon box, or bed, was made of hardwoods to resist shrinking in the dry air of the plains and deserts the emigrants had to cross. It was 2' to 3' deep, and with a bit of tar it could easily be rendered watertight and floated across slow-moving rivers. The sideboards were beveled outwards to keep rain from coming in under the edges of the bonnet and to help keep out river water. The box sat upon two sets of wheels of different sizes: the rear wheels were typically about 50" in diameter, while the front wheels were about 44" in diameter. The smaller front wheels allowed for a little extra play, letting the wagon take slightly sharper turns than it would otherwise have been able to negotiate without necessitating a great deal of extra carpentry work to keep the bed level. All four wheels had iron "tires" to protect the wooden rims, and they were likewise constructed of hardwoods to resist shrinkage. Nonetheless, many emigrants took to soaking their wagon wheels in rivers and springs overnight, as it was not unheard of for the dry air to shrink the wood so much that the iron tires would roll right off the wheels during the day.

Hardwood bows held up the heavy, brown bonnets. The bows were soaked until the wood became pliable, bent into U-shapes, and allowed to dry. They would hold their shape if this was done properly, which was important to the emigrants: if the wagon bows were under too much tension, they could spring loose and tear the bonnet while the wagon was jostled and jounced over rough terrain. The bonnets themselves were usually homespun cotton doubled over to make them watertight. They were rarely painted (except for the occasional slogan such as "Pike's Peak or Bust" in later years) as this stiffened the fabric and caused it to split. The bonnet was always well-secured against the wind, and its edges overlapped in back to keep out rain and dust. On some wagons, it also angled outward at the front and back, as shown in the illustration above, to lend some additional protection to the wagon's interior.

While wagons were minor marvels of Nineteenth Century engineering, they inevitably broke down or wore out from the difficulty and length of the journey. Equipment for making repairs en route was carried in a jockey box attached to one end or side of the wagon. It carried extra iron bolts, linch pins, skeins, nails, hoop iron, a variety of tools, and a jack. Also commonly found slung on the sides of emigrant wagons were water barrels, a butter churn, a shovel and axe, a tar bucket, a feed trough for the livestock, and a chicken coop. A fully outfitted wagon on the Oregon Trail must have been quite a sight, particularly with a coop full of clucking chickens raising a ruckus every time the wagon hit a rock.

There was only one set of springs on a Prairie Schooner, and they were underneath the rarely-used driver's seat. Without sprung axles, riding inside a wagon was uncomfortable at the best of times. Some stretches of the Trail were so rough that an overlander could fill his butter churn with fresh milk in the morning, and the wagon would bounce around enough to churn a small lump of butter for the evening meal. The simple leaf springs under the driver's seat made that perch tenable, but not particularly comfortable. The illustration above does not show the driver's seat, and its placement of the brake lever is questionable. The brake lever was usually located so it could be pressed by the driver's foot or thrown by someone walking alongside the wagon, and it was ratcheted so the brake block would remain set against the wheel even after pressure was taken off the lever.

While Prairie Schooners were specifically built for overland travel, many emigrants instead braved the Oregon Trail in simple farm wagons retrofitted with bonnets. Farm wagons were typically slightly smaller than Prairie Schooners and not as well sheltered, as their bonnets usually were not cantilevered out at the front and back, but they were quite similar in most other respects.

The trade wagons on the other hand were massive, as tall as a man’s head, with wooden heavy iron-rimmed wheels, wheels that could be heard crackling under a load of 2 tons or more of needed supplies. The load would often consist of badly needed items by the travelers and soon to be settlers. Those trade wagons were something like a traveling trading post with such typical things to sale as guns, knives, tools, pots, iron skillets, calico, tobacco, food stables like bags of flour and sugar with other various sundry supplies. Oxen, horse, or mule drew these great wagons across the now eerie silence of the vast prairie.

You have to be careful not to pack too much!

In the desert between present-day Lovelock and the Sierras, exhausted pioneers had to jettison much of their cargo just to be able to keep going:

"A scene of destruction began. Trunks, bags, boxes were brought out, opened and ransacked. Cut down to 75 lbs. a man. The scene can be easily imagined. In the evening the plain was scattered with waifs [stray articles] and fragments, looking as though a whirlwind had scattered about the contents of several dry goods, hardware and variety shops."

This much food was suggested for each adult in the group:

200 pounds of flour
30 pounds of pilot bread (hardtack)
75 pounds of bacon
10 pounds of rice
5 pounds of coffee
2 pounds of tea
25 pounds of sugar
½ bushel of dried beans
1 bushel of dried fruit
2 pounds of saleratus (baking soda)
10 pounds of salt
½ bushel of corn meal
½ bushel of corn, parched and ground
1 small keg of vinegar

These ruts that remain stretch to the east and the west horizons and are all that remain offering any evidence of my Granddad’s stories of his old place and of the first major trade route that connected New Mexico to the eastern United States.

The Cimarron Cut-off was the main trade route to the southwest and cut off more than ten days of the trip. But it meant crossing a 60-mile chunk of the feared Llano Estacada. Some of the hazards they had to contend with were not only the weather, hunger and the hard going of the trail but also the roving bands of Kiowa, Apache, Comanche, Pawnee and Ute Indians who roamed across the vast grassland, hunting buffalo but leaving no evidence of any permanent settlements. The Athabascans probably passed through the area during their fourteenth century migrations from Canada whom later was to become known as the Navajo people.

From the turn off the Santa Fe Trail continued on into Colorado where their were fewer hostel Indians, but more water, and where firewood was more plentiful and where their were many trading posts to buy, sale and trade their goods.

The story of the Santa Fe Trail is a story of business - international, national and local. In 1821, William Becknell, bankrupt and facing jail for debts, packed goods to Santa Fe and made a profit. Entrepreneurs and experienced business people followed - James Webb, Antonio José Chavez, Charles Beaubien, David Waldo, and others.
   The Santa Fe trade developed into a complex web of international business, socail ties, tariffs, and laws. Merchants in Missouri and New Mexico extended connections to New York, London and Paris. Traders exploited legal and social systems to facilitate business. Partnerships such as Goldstein, Bean, Peacock & Armijo formed and dissolved. David Waldo "converted" to Catholicism - and also became a Mexican citizen. Dr. Eugene Leitensdorfer, of Missouri, married Soledad Abreu, daughter of a former New Mexico governor. Trader Manuel Alvarez claimed citizenship in Spain, the United States and Mexico.
   After the Mexican-American War, Trail trade and military freighting boomed. Both firms and individuals obtained and subcontracted lucrative government contracts. Others operated mail and stagecoach services.
   Trade created other opportunities. From New York, Manuel Harmony shipped English goods to Independence for freighting over the Santa Fe Trail. New Mexican saloon owner Doña Gertrudis "La Tules" Barcelo invested in trade, and trader Charles Ilfeld ran mercantile stores. Wyandotte Chief William Walker leased a warehouse in Independence and his tribe invested in the trade. Hiram Young bought his freedom from slavery and became a wealthy maker of trade wagons - and one of the largest emloyers in Independence. Blacksmiths, hotel owners, muleteers, lawyers, and many others found their places along the Trail. In 1822, trade totaled $15,000; by 1860, $3.5 million, or more than $53 million in today's dollars.

As I looked around in a whipping wind I could see brown specks of cattle in the distance in a broader landscape which I envisioned the Cimarron, Canadian and Pecos rivers, which are the longest of the waterways. They snake through the sprawling plains of northeastern New Mexico, a land known as the Llano Estacada, stretching north to southeastern New Mexico and west Texas. Also known as Wild Indian Territory.

You can see that time, weather and erosion have not erased the deep wagon ruts stretching across this vast country. I was sensing the stark isolation of prairie travel and was able to glimpse the subtle prairie tapestry that was savored by countless Trail travelers. I was Stepping back in time and enjoying virtually the same prairie vistas and unspoiled beauty that travelers encountered more than 120 years ago.

The Santa Fe Trail on the Kiowa National Grassland affords an almost three-mile stretch of exceptionally well-preserved wagon ruts. This area is reserved for hiking, backpacking, horseback riding and camping. Several windmills along the route provide ample water. The trail is well marked with limestone "Kansas fence posts." One homestead ruin is located at the end of the hiking path.

The Trail across the Kiowa lies between McNees Crossing and Turkey Creek, both resting and watering areas for weary trail caravans. Rabbit Ears Mountain and Round Mound can be seen looming to the west.

Famous Early Travelers
Some famous Spanish travelers in this area include Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who passed through in 1541 on his return to the Rio Grande Valley from his search for Quivira in present-day Kansas. Don Juan de Onate passed this way in 1601 during his tour of "the kingdom and provinces of New Mexico," during which he visited most of the pueblos, the Llano Estacado, Quivira and the Colorado River of the West. Juan de Ulibarri traveled from Taos Pueblo in 1706, passing east of present-day Capulin Volcano National Monument down the Dry Cimarron Valley on his way to El Cuartelejo. Don Carlos Fernandez and 600 Spanish troops met and killed a great number of Comanche Indians on Don Carlos Creek in western Union County in 1774. Sergeant Juan de Dios Pena led an expedition from Taos to the plains, passing through Union County. He was possibly the first to use the name Orejas de Conejo (Rabbit Ears) as the landmark is called today.

Major Steven Long and his 1820 expedition traveling south entered Union County a little north of Emery Peak and continued south to Ute Creek, following the creek out of the county. And finally, an old map shows a trail marked "Buffalo Road" coming from the Taos area to the Clayton area, indicating that the early Spanish settlers in the Rio Grande Valley came out to the prairies of eastern New Mexico to hunt buffalo every year.

There are no known permanent non-prehistoric sites or settlements discovered in this area yet, but we know that many tribes passed through and hunted in the area, including Comanche’s, Apaches, Kiowa, Cheyenne and others. Many arrowheads, pottery shards and other artifacts have been collected and continue to be found in the area, and in the caves north of here along the Dry Cimarron prehistoric mummies and pottery have been found.

They Could Have Used That Lake
Clayton Lake, 12 miles north of Clayton on Hwy 370, was created by the New Mexico Game and Fish Department in 1955 as a fishing lake and winter waterfowl resting area. A dam was constructed across Seneca Creek. Travelers on the Santa Fe Trail couldn't take advantage of the lake, but modern visitors can! Along its spillway are more than 500 tracks left by at least eight different kinds of dinosaurs 100 million years ago.

Trail Sites Northwest of Clayton
Other well-known Santa Fe Trail campgrounds in the area are Turkey Creek Camp (now known as Seneca Creek), just east of Clayton Lake State Park, and Rabbit Ears Creek Camp, located five miles north of Mt. Dora, on A-65. Both are on privately-owned cattle ranches and are not generally open to the public. At a point on Hwy 64-87 between Mt. Dora and Grenville, a one-picnic-table roadside park contains a small monument established by the Colorado and Southern Railroad at the site where the railroad crossed the Santa Fe Trail. The ruts here have been obliterated. Mt. Dora and Round Mound are both Trail landmarks in this area.

Drive a winding, two-mile road to the top of Capulin Volcano National Monument, climbing 1,000 feet from the valley floor. From 8,182 feet, on a clear day, visitors can see the five states of New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. On the west side winds a portion of the Goodnight-Loving Cattle Trail (1867-76). On the southeast side of the crater looms the vast portion of land through which the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail passed.

Union County was crossed by the old roads, specifically the Tascosa to Springer Road in the southern part of the county and the Ft. Union to Granada Military Road which crossed the mesas north of Capulin Volcano in Toll-Gate Canyon, Hwy 551.

The Aubrey Cutoff was a short-lived portion of the Santa Fe Trail. It began at Fort Dodge, ran to the southwest corner of Kansas, into the Oklahoma Panhandle, up the Dry Cimarron River in New Mexico to the Folsom Falls. From there it went east of Capulin Mountain, south to Wagon Mound, ending at Santa Fe. Some of the early settlers of Madison and later of Folsom, had come up this trail and left the wagon train to make this their home. In places, the ruts of this trail can still be seen.

100 million years ago there was an inland sea in what today is the northeast corner of New Mexico, where scores of duck-billed dinosaurs roamed about near the shoreline. These 10 to 15 feet long 3 plus ton prehistoric creatures left behind 800 footprints that escaped the path of lava spewed from a series of fiery volcanic explosions. Today, the footprints are embedded in sandstone 12 miles north of Clayton.

In the distance you can also see wood and rock ranch houses, brown rusty whirring windmills and the darker brown lava flows of the now silent volcanoes of what came to be known as the valleys of fire.

Abruptly raising from the yellow blanket of grama grass covered prairie floor, stands the remains of a once-violent volcano, which is mainly responsible for the lava rock that you see in northeastern New Mexico. The last time Capulin Volcano erupted was 10,000 years ago. Folsom and Clovis man was there to witness that earth shaking eruption and would have seen the red, hot lava, cinders, ash, and rock debris rocket skyward. What an impressive show, it must have been. No doubt taking many man and beast with its fire and fiery. Untold numbers must have seen the smoke and felt the trembling ground shake for hundreds of miles around. Much of the debris fell back to earth forming a crater over 1,000 feet high, known as a conical mound. The rich soil now shows off wildflowers, which include golden pea, lupine, penstemon, verbena along with paintbrush. Other vegetation, grasses, juniper trees, mountain mahogany, pinon pine, squawbush, chokecherry and gambel oaks cover the cone and slopes. Bird lovers will easily be able to spot gold finches, grosbeaks, warblers, golden eagles, and many kinds of hawks and vultures. Deer and bear can still be seen.

This million year plus shield volcano is more than forty miles around the base, which make it the highest, widest and longest mountain in all of North America, that is not a part of a range.

Capulin is located thirty miles east of Raton, New Mexico via US Hwy.,64/87 and east 28 miles to Capulin, turn left two miles north on NM Hwy.,325. For information call Capulin Volcano National Monument at (505) 278-2201.

Chapter Five

Clayton New Mexico is north of Clovis where US highways 87, 56 and 64 intersect. Clayton is today a town of about 5000 soles and is the county seat of Union County. It remains today much as it was a hundred years ago maintaining the flavor of the old west and is still a cattle town. It holds the world’s largest carbon dioxide deposits at Bravo Dome. The carbon dioxide is used by the oil industry to inject it into oil wells to improve old oil well production. A few miles north of town at Rabbit Ear Mountain were the bloodiest battle ever between the Spanish and the Comanche Indians. A force of Santa Fe Volunteers 500 strong in 1717 attacked the Comanche’s and killed hundreds and captured over seven hundred of them. That didn’t stop the Comanche’s that continued to raid settlers and wagon trains well into the 1800’s.

Clayton hung the infamous train robber Black Jack Ketchum shortly after the turn of the century in 1901. It was one of the most talked about and remembered public executions in the old west. Mr. Ketchum was a big man of close to two hundred pounds and the drop from the gallows yanked so hard that Black Jack was decapitated and his severed head flew into the large crowd of shocked spectators.

Thousands of dinosaur footprints can be found near Clayton. Where at least 13,500 years ago, before Christ, The early inhabitants, known as Clovis people, hunted or defended against the now extinct giant bison, woolly mammoth, mastodon, sloth, camel, dire wolf, short-faced bear, saber-tooth tiger, mask-oxen, horse and who knows what else.

The soil you see is not ordinary soil--it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and bones of our ancestors....You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature’s earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated.... Shes-his (late 19th century Rno Crow

My Granddad would roam all around the area and find remains consisting of bone and teeth of many of those animals and also found fluted spearpoints and smaller fluted arrowpoints, and tools like chipped scrapers. Many made from stone flint, obsidian, jasper, and chert and of translucent chalcedony. My granddad even sent to the Smithsonian a handful of samples but never heard back. After long study of those fluted points and seeing the long flakes were struck longitudinally from the base to there tips they took on the look of a serrated steel Kitchen knife of today. He would practice striking the candidate stone with a harder stone or bone and learned the flaking process that they are believed to have used. His interest persisted and he became an accomplished flint knapper, using only leather, bone and tools. He would try and teach me this ancient technology but all I seemed able to do was get all cut up and bleed a lot. Those points had to be sharp.

Hunting or ambushing mammoths that were bigger than today’s African elephant, standing 14 feet at the shoulder and weighing 10 tons or more. That is likely why the Clovis people were the finest knappers the world has ever known. The Clovis people lived, traded and traveled all across the United States sweeping the continent. In fact we discovered a really nice medium size fluted Clovis point off the Ortega Hwy in Orange Country California. Earliest undisputed peoples of the Americas believed descended from late Pleistocene hunters. Skilled at taking Ice Age animals, they fashioned fluted spearpoints some nine inches or more in length and have been recovered at many sites throughout the Americas. Clovis points have been found hundreds of miles from where the stone to make them originated. Clovis people lived all over the high plains on the eastern slope of the Rockies. Many think that the Folsom people dissented from the Clovis people, and are close cousins to the Anasazi, Hohokam, Mogollon, Mimbres, and many other pre-historic peoples who had certainly lived near by believe it. Some near the Colorado River from the headwaters to Yuma and beyond. Quantities of their other unique artifacts have also been found. Clovis people indeed seemed to have lift their mark far and wide including all the way through Canada and into Alaska. They were hunters. They did not live in caves and therefore didn’t stay in any one place for very long.

It is very unlikely that they buried their dead and is probably why no remains have been found. They are believed to be Homo sapiens who begin appearing in great numbers at about the time erectus man faded, at approximately 300,000 years ago. Neanderthals were apparently rugged and survived the last Ice Age. But by 30,000 years ago they died out and modern Homo sapiens prevailed. That is all that we know about the Clovis people’s ancestry and most likely that is all we ever will know. The skulls of Folsom man are much like Sioux and all other early turtle island people; they are beetle-browed and long-headed rather than round. The first people of turtle Island may be more like Australoids the Australian Bushmen. They are all long-headed and their brow ridges are more marked than ours. They may be closer descendants of Neanderthal man than we are. There are also similar characteristics of the Maya of Central America and the Yucatan, and the Aztecs of Mexico, and the Incas of Peru. Which could explain the boat people and the land bridge going both directions and how the America’s became populated with today’s man. It particularly would explain the coastal early peoples and the raising Ice Age melt water that now floods much of the early evidence which now lays under the Atlantic and pacific oceans. That may some day prove we are all a mixture of that conjugation.

Clovis and Folsom people may have been the first Americans to hunt using the atlatls a slingshot throwing board type apparatus, a spear thrower for propelling a dart or small spear. It is a wooden rod into which you fit the spear shaft. You hold the atlatl in your throwing hand and you cast it. The spear flies off, but the spear thrower (atlatl) stays in your hand. The spear flies truer, faster and is much more powerful because of the thrust and leverage of the atlatl. The whiplash force adds lethal efficiency to spears thrown using the atlatl. To throw it you would swing it back and then forward over your head, snapping your wrist at the very moment of the timed release. The atlatl was the paradigm shaft of its time and was used as a weapon and hunting tool and enabled its user to be much more effective in hunting the bigger more powerful great animals of the time. Used in America until about A. D. 500, when bow-and-arrow technology spread. The bow was introduced from Asia and did not arrive in the Great Basin and the Southwest until about A.D. 200.

Its appearance in the Four Corners region coincided with the introduction of unfired hand coiled pottery made by the Anasazi. The bow far superior as a general hunting weapon, slowly replaced the atlatl that had been in use by the earliest of Early Man.

Blackwater Draw Museum and Site documents earliest Paleoindian culture in North America

James Ridgely Whiteman in a place called Blackwater Draw, in eastern New Mexico near Portales, like my Granddad found spearpoints and the bones of extinct animals exposed by the wind. Later about 1929, Whiteman found a fluted spearpoint and like my Granddad sent the point to the Smithsonian with a letter explaining he had found it with mammoth bones. This time the Smithsonian actually sent an archaeologist to investigate. Whiteman showed his finds and the area to him. Whiteman said ‘the man looked the area over and decided it was too unimportant too work on.” Whiteman like my Granddad was never given adequate credit for his discoveries. In the fall of 1932, Dr. Edgar B. Howard of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences visited the Blackwater Draw site. By 1933 excavations of the site were started and they found large, fluted spearpoints...just like the ones my Granddad and Whiteman had sent to the Smithsonian years before.

Their was now proof that early Americans had indeed hunted these great animals in North America. An even larger excavation was mounted in 1936 and 1937 and was supervised by John Cotter of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. Still later excavations at the site (at what has come to be known as Blackwater Draw Locality Number One), also revealed remains of short-faced bear, dire wolf, camel, prehistoric horse, bison, giant sloth and saber-toothed tiger.

They also unearthed a 13,000-year old well, the oldest in the New World. These people may have been the first water well diggers of this continent.

After the mammoth became extinct, the Clovis people were force to hunt other animals, such as the bison, and in so doing, I believe they became the Folsom people and still later they then became the more familiar historical tribes of the Americas, all from the seed of Early Man.

For more information about Blackwater Draw visit The Blackwater Draw Museum. Located between Clovis and Portales on US Hwy.,70, commemorating the discovery of Clovis Man on this site. The history and development of Blackwater Draw, complete with fossils, early mans way of life, and replicas of the Blackwater Draw artifacts. The Blackwater Draw Museum is one of the few in the country devoted to a single site; the department of anthropology at Eastern New Mexico State University manages it. It is open Tues.-Sun from 12 p m. - 5 p. m. Call (505) 562-2254.

These early people hunted bison, camels, musk oxen, and among others, giant sloths throughout northeastern New Mexico. Their presence remained mostly unknown until around 1908 when George McJunkin, a New Mexico cowboy and former black slave, discovered some old stone spearpoints like my Grandfather found among large white bleached bones. They where scattered throughout an arroyo close to the small town of Folsom, which by then was a shipping point on the Colorado and Southern Railroads. A friend of McJunkin’s took the bones to Jessie Figgins of the Colorado Museum of national History in Denver. By 1926, and after years of trying to convince people McJunkins was able to convince a important group of skeptical archaeologists to at least come to the site and take a look for themselves. Their findings determined that those big white bleached bones belonged to an ancient and now extinct giant bison and more importantly the spearpoints were those chipped by Folsom people.

Some of the bones and spearpoints can be seen at the Folsom Man Museum, located in the former Doherty’s mercantile building in Folsom New Mexico. (505) 278-2155

Clayton Lake State Park is located just fifteen miles north of Clayton on Hwy.,370, near my Grandfathers place, amidst the yellow grama grasslands that not long ago supported buffalo herds numbering in the millions. The lake is stocked full of bass, trout and some big channel catfish, and has a boat ramp, campgrounds, rest rooms with showers, and a kids playground.

Other large animals roamed the area as well. Dinosaur footprints were discovered in 1982. The tracks or traces are estimated to be over 100 million years old. Other tracks include those of hadrosaurs and therapods.

Park headquarters number is (505) 374-8808 and for even more detailed information on the Clayton area, you can call Clayton-Union County Chamber of Commerce at (505) 374-9253.For more interesting sites go to http://www.clovisandbeyond.org/clovisexhib.html

I was born upon the prairie, where the wind blew free, and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures, and where everything drew a free breath.... I know every steam and every wood between the Rio Grande and the Arkansas. I have hunted and lived over that country. I lived like my father before me, and like them, I lived happily.

My Granddad would tell me stories about his family, his beautiful wife and three loving daughters and their life together on the ranch/farm. He told me of one hell of a winter, when the temperature dropped so fiercely and quickly the cattle died frozen while standing. It was that same winter he lost his first wife and family. “It was some sort of plague,” he said. Later, he told me it was, “a calamity of divine retribution”.

Not long after that tragedy, he walked away from the ranch/farm he grew to love so much, and later told me it was one of the most interesting places he had ever lived. Soon after leaving he joined the United States Army by volunteering in the 8^th cavalry Division stationed at Fort Bliss, a U S Army post in El Paso, Texas. The 8th chased Indians, raided Mexico, looked for Poncho Villa with General Sherman and faced off with the Mexican General Escobar along the US Mexico border and the 8th Cav as they called themselves bivouacked (a camping spot while on maneuvers) all over the southwest, and when possible near water. Southwest historian Leon Mets once told me that in the early days in the Southwest where you found water you could find Indian sign.

The 8th relied on my Granddad more than once to lead the troops to water. My Granddad had a nose for that and he told me that, “where you find where water was or where water is now, you also can find Early Man artifacts both prehistoric and historic” and he spent most of his off time doing just that. He and my Dad would travel looking for signs of water, preferably unexplored springs, Hueco (wa-cos) or natural rock water holding tanks, as that was where they were most likely to find Early Man arrowpoints, pottery sheds, mono’s, mutates and other artifacts, and many times pictographs, strange drawings on the rock and in some of the caves, some were even in color. Later I was to learn that they were pictographs drawings from pre-historic man. After what seemed a lifetime to me I was privileged to tag along on these adventures. Which was a journey back in time.

Chapter Eight

Rock Art

Rock Art is found all over the earth, but most are in the US and are most common in the great basin area. But the Coso mountain range of California has the largest number representing more than all other know sites in the world put together. Pictographs. Rock drawings, now more recently being referred to as “Rock Paintings”, which is of two known methods. The first was by applying pigment with an oil binder to the rock. This type is mostly confined to rocks that are chiefly light in color, like sandstone and some other light granites. Some of these can be painted in color using red, black, white and other colors. Some of this paint is taken from cactus called ocher others by mixing mineral earth’s sometimes hematite for red, charcoal for black and kaolin clay for white. They ground them in mortars and were applied with brushes made from cactus and other plant fibers and animal hair.

Petroglyphs or rock engravings are the second way and most often the oldest way. That is to engrave into the surface of rock with a sharp stone tool. Most of which was pecked into volcanic basaltic lava or malpais, which is prevalent throughout the Great Basin. Much of the engraving technique was done by cutting into the rock with a very sharp stone and struck with a hammer stone. This form of early art was mostly found in the desert southwest on many boulders and cliff faces and in some caves.

Who made this rock art? When was it made? Why? To learn more about what these images mean, recent claims are that the purpose and meaning was an intimate part of the ritual of bringing a young person into adulthood and vision quests orchestrated by shaman or medicine men and women. It’s believed by many that they were also used for religious, symbolic and metaphysical purposes and depictions of what they saw on earth and in the havens. It was also thought to be hunting magic. Early man may have believed by painting or pecking the image of an animal on rocks it would cause that animal to appear or perhaps reproduce itself more successfully. There have been hunting magic sites found unknown ancient game trails used as blinds. These blinds were located on or near game trails and almost without exception they were always above the game trails looking down and near narrow gorges or near springs, so the animals could be ambushed. And in some ritualistic magic way the sheep rock art were an invisible aid to early man hunters. It is believed that hunting magic has been widely used from the earliest of times.

Charles Sheldon Hunter, Naturalist and Conservationist in his book “The Wilderness of The Southwest” you’ll find references to hunting blinds on trails he found high in the mountains while Sheldon was hunting sheep from Alaska to Mexico. Sheldon was one of the first known white men to hunt desert bighorn sheep in the Pinacate Country, Sonora Mexico about 1915. Earlier hunted sheep with Havasupais in the Grand Canyon in 1912. And on the Arizona-Sonora Border in 1913 and then later organized an expedition to the Sierra Del Rosario, Sonora in 1916. And still a journey to Seriland , Sonora in 1921- 1922.

Hueco Tanks a place that we have spent a lot of time at is one of the most interesting places I have ever been and luckily for me it happened to be in my back yard and this wonderful place my Granddad and Dad took me there when I was very young. It’s a place where pre-historic peoples and historic peoples who both lived, farmed, made pottery and developed some of the most exquisite rock art in the world. The History is a unique legacy of lively and fantastic rock paintings. From Archaic hunters and foragers of thousands of years ago to relatively recent Mescalero Apaches, Native Americans have drawn strange mythological designs and human and animal figures on the rocks of the area. The site's notable pictographs also include more than 200 face designs or "masks" left by the prehistoric Jornada Mogollon culture. Hueco Tanks was the site of the last Indian battle in the county. Apaches, Kiowas, and earlier Indian groups camped here and left behind pictographs telling of their adventures. These tanks served as watering places for the Butterfield Overland Mail Route.

Just east of El Paso, it features three massive granite hills that rise to about 450 feet above the desert floor and are noted for their prehistoric Indian rock art. Hueco, Spanish for "hollow," refers to the hollows in the rocks that collect rainwater, which has long been one of the chief attractions in this arid land; around 1860 the tanks were capable of holding a year's supply of water. Until about 1910 they furnished virtually the only water between the Pecos River and El Paso. The hills may have been formed thirty-four million years ago by a molten mass of rock ejected from the earth's interior into a layer of sedimentary rock. As the softer stone weathered away, the irregular masses of syenite porphyry (a low-grade granite) were eroded into the present shape and dented with countless huecos. The moisture and soil conditions at Hueco Tanks have supported an remnant oak-juniper woodland that has disappeared from most of the surrounding area. In addition to the Arizona oak and one-seed juniper, many Chihuahuan Desert and grassland plants are found. Animal life in the area ranges from many types of rodents to kit and gray fox, with golden eagles, mule deer, antelope and mountain lions occasionally seen. Several species of desert shrimp can also be found in the huecos following a rain.

Folsom projectile points found at Hueco Tanks show that human beings have been in the area for at least 10,000 years, following the bison and Prong Horn antelope herds. After the big-game thinned out and other animals disappeared, other people came to Hueco Tanks, hunting and gathering whatever food they could find and living in partially underground pit houses. This was the Desert Archaic Culture. About A.D. 1000, agriculture was introduced into the area, and the Jornada Branch of the Mogollon Culture developed; they supplemented their hunting and gathering with farming, made and used pottery vessels, and began building aboveground adobe houses. Excavations by archeologist George Kegley in 1972-73 revealed that

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