The Marsh and Gary Show

The Marsh and Gary Show

PROLOGUE TO A GREAT ADVENTURE

Marsh Trimble and I have been friends for more than a half-century!  First, we were fraternity brothers at Arizona State University as members of Alpha Tau Omega (ΑΤΩ).  Secondly, we became friends.  I would become his first “groupie” when he played with the Gin Mill Three near campus.  Later, we would share an apartment together with Marsh’s brother Danny.

Marsh and I have stayed pals since.  We still share moments together and often have long phone visits.   Marsh is an amazing entertainer.  So, our phone visits are entertaining as well.  I would not expect less from Arizona’s Official State Historian.

This auspicious title is not “honorary!”  Marshall earned this title proclaimed by every governor since Fife Symington.  

Relatives?  I reckon we might be related given the note from Marsh:  His note was in response to my e-mail suggesting that Sam Houston was the first to have made a comment “Texas, Oh Texas.”

Detailed Biography of Marshall Trimble

Marshall Trimble’s roots are rich in American, military, Native American, and lawman history. His ancestors were officers in the Revolutionary army, fought under Andy Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and the Battle of New Orleans.

One of his great-uncles six generations back was Confederate General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble of Virginia. Trimble graduated from West Point in 1822. During the Civil War he fought in Stonewall Jackson’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley and distinguished himself in the Battle Cross Keys by ordering a close-in musket volley that routed Union troops under General John C. Fremont. He was with Jackson at the Seven Days Battles, the Second Battle of Bull Run where he was wounded and is best known for his leadership role in the assault known as Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. At Gettysburg he was on his horse Jinny where he was wounded in the same leg. His leg was amputated and he was left behind to be taken prisoner. Because of his vast knowledge of the railroads in the area, he’d been a construction engineer for several railroads in the area before the war, he was refused parole until after Lee surrendered in April, 1865.

During the 1830’s, his great-great-grandfather, Moffett Trimble, was a sergeant in the U.S. Mounted Rangers under Colonel Henry Dodge. He rode with Captain Jesse Bean’s company of rangers out of Ft. Gibson Oklahoma in the 1830’s. He moved to Texas around 1840 and during the Mexican War, was a Texas Ranger under the legendary Sam Walker. Since that time each generation of Trimble’s has carried on the Walker name. His great-grandfather, Sam Walker Trimble served in a Texas cavalry regiment during the Civil War and later fought with John Ford’s Texas Rangers in the Indian wars, taking part in the Battle on the Frio, in 1866.  He was later a peace officer, professional gambler and stockman in Texas.

Trimble’s ethnic roots are mostly Scots-Irish on his father’s side and Irish Catholic from his mother’s side.  Five brothers named Trimble immigrated to America in the 1720’s from Northern Ireland. They settled in Virginia. His branch of the family then wested to Arkansas, finally arriving in Texas in the 1830’s.

His mother’s family, the O’Murphy’s and the Mulvihill’s immigrated from Ireland during the great Potato Famine of the 1840’s.

A maternal great-grandmother, Rebecca Nolan was a full-blooded Creek Indian. As a young child, she was among the Creek Indians removed from Alabama around 1840 and marched in shackles and chains to Oklahoma on the infamous Trail of Tears. While passing through Arkansas her parents, unable to care for her, gave her to a sympathetic family named Nolan. The Nolan’s adopted several Creek children from the refugees and raised them as their own. The number of Nolan children listed on a census was 28. His paternal grandfather, Wesley Walker Trimble, was an engineer on the Del Rio-Eagle Pass Railroad during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. His father, Ira Walker Trimble was raised in Del Rio and Langtry, Texas on the Rio Grande during the revolution. As a child he witnessed several battles between Carranzistas and Villistas.

Charlie Small, the notorious Texas border gunman was his great-grandfather’s cousin. Small, was a notorious gun for hire along both sides of the Rio Grande around the turn of the century before he was shot and killed by a Texas Ranger at Langtry. During those lawless times along the Rio Grande, the Charlie Small had a reputation as a fearless borderland Robin Hood who operated on both sides of the law.

Marshall’s maternal grandparents packed up the family and left Arkansas around 1918 and moved to Tempe. About that same time his paternal grandparents arrived in Tempe from Del Rio, Texas. A few years later his father, Ira(Happy), returned to Langtry, where he met and married Leta Gobbell, daughter of the town marshal, Bart Gobbell. Gobbell worked with the legendary Judge Roy Bean, the so-called “Law West of the Pecos.”  Trimble and Gobbell had a son, but the marriage failed and he returned to Arizona. Settling in Tempe, he began courting Margaret Juanita Rogers. They married in 1935 and eventually had four sons. One died in infancy and the other three, Charlie, Marshall and Dan survived.  The family was living on a small livestock ranch south of Tempe when Marshall was born in 1939. Later they lived on a small ranch at Lehi, where Marshall attended the first grade.

After World War II, his father sold the cows and hired out with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado. They lived in Clifton, Colorado for several months before returning to Arizona where he went to work for the Santa Fe Railroad. From 1947 to 1955, the Trimble family lived in the northern Arizona town of Ash Fork, on the Santa Fe mainline. Times were hard as his father didn’t have enough seniority to work steady. To make ends meet his mother went to work as a waitress in a road house café. The first three years were spent living in a small, two room trailer house with a lean-to porch and an army surplus tent with no running water or plumbing. Marshall considers those hardscrabble years in Ash Fork as “character-building.” He still considers Ash Fork his hometown and returns there often to assist in community projects.

In 1955, during his senior year in high school, the Trimbles moved back to the Valley where Marshall attended West Phoenix High School. Following his senior year he played baseball for the Glendale Greys semi-pro baseball team. In 1956 the team was runner-up for the Arizona semi-pro championship. In 1957, he dropped out of college and joined the U. S. Marine Corps for a tour of duty and considers that experience among the most meaningful and significant of his life. He was one of three in a 75-man platoon to win a meritorious promotion upon graduating from boot camp. The Marines gave Trimble a strong sense of duty, ethics and patriotism that continues to this day. The Marines instilled in him that through hard work and persistence he could become anything he wanted to be.

After the Marines, Trimble returned to Phoenix College where he played on the 1958 baseball team that was ranked fifth in the nation. In 1999, the Phoenix College Alumni Association selected him as a charter member of the Phoenix College Alumni Hall of Fame.

Marshall bought a used Gibson guitar for $5 in 1958 and learned to play while listening to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash records. A year later he traded the Gibson and $25. for a well-worn Martin guitar. In 1959, he attended a Kingston Trio concert and was hooked for life on folk music. That same year he met Travis Edmonson of the popular folk duo, Bud and Travis. The chance meeting was a determining factor in his becoming a folksinger. A long friendship with Travis, a fellow-native Arizonan, greatly influenced Trimble’s music. Trimble often performs some of Travis’ patented style of Mexican songs in his shows. Other performers whose music has been a great influence in his career were Ian Tyson, Bob Shane, John Stewart and Gordon Lightfoot. Today he performs frequently with Arizona State Balladeer, Dolan Ellis, an original member of the New Christy Minstrels.

In 1963, he helped form a folk group called the Gin Mill Three. The group cut four records and played Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe and San Francisco. Performing in the scenic tourist towns in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada exposed Trimble to the colorful history of the Old West for the first time. He developed a deep interest and love in the subject that has never waned. After the group cut four records, a promoter temporarily changed their name to the Prairie Boys in hopes it would present a cleaner image. About that time acoustal folk music was being replaced by the loud electrical sounds of Rock and Roll. The group broke up after two years when one member got drafted, another got married and the promoter absconded with all the royalties from the records.

Trimble dropped out of the folk music scene in the mid-60’s got married and settled down for a few years. That didn’t work out and after spending what he calls the “Lost Years,” Trimble found himself in Montana in 1968 working on a cattle drive near Miles City. He visited the site of Custer’s Last Stand and was so moved by the experience he decided to dedicate his life to teaching, singing, and writing stories about the American West. A year later he was teaching at Coronado High School in Scottsdale and in January, 1972, he began teaching Arizona History at Scottsdale Community College.

In 1970, he returned to music, forming a folk duo called Donnery and Rudd. “I don’t know whether I was Donnery or Rudd.” he says, “We borrowed the name from the label on a bottle of scotch.”

At the urging of his college students, he began to write his first book. In 1977, “Arizona: A Panoramic History of a Frontier State,” was published by Doubleday and Company of New York. The book was a huge success and was the first of several books that ranged from coffee table books,  tall tales and folklore to gunfighters to history of Arizona and the West.

As a result of his successful books, Trimble became a popular speaker on the banquet circuit. His experience as a folksinger enabled him to include music with his yarn spinning and stories of the colorful Old West. Soon he was back on stage performing. During the late 1970’s he began including  old time cowboy songs and reciting cowboy poetry in his shows. In 1988, he wrote “Legends in Levis,” as a tribute to the working cowboys in the Old West. Trimble’s cowboy poetry has been published in national magazines such as The American Cowboy. Today, he performs both in concert and before national and local convention groups.

During the academic year he visits dozens of schools around the state playing his guitar, yarn spinning and teaching Arizona history. Growing up in a small town left a deep impression on this native son and is reflected in the homespun humor and stories he writes and tells. An avid outdoorsman, he’s seen most of the state’s scenery from the back of a horse. Today, along with being a performer and writer, Arizona’s favorite native son enjoys the reputation of being the state’s most colorful and prominent historian.

In 1996 a group of Arizona history teachers prevailed upon Governor Fife Symington to appoint Marshall Official State Historian.  The following year the appointment was made.  When asked by a reporter what he would do as state historian, Trimble replied, “Same thing as I’ve been doing for the past thirty years.

Marsh lives with his vivacious wife, Vanessa, in Scottsdale.  Marsh’s son, Roger graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served in combat during the war in Iraq.  Roger lives in New York with his wife and Marsh’s grandkids. 

My ol’ pal has become as much of an Arizona landmark as The Grand Canyon.  The biggest difference is that Ol’ Marsh moves all over the state whilst the Grand Canyon sits there as a humongous example of soil erosion and, as Marsh would say, “That is a hell of a place to lose a cow!”

Marsh has authored around a couple dozen books about Arizona.  His marvelous writing ability has been inspiring.   Not just to me but to many. His influence extends beyond the classroom the extent of which we will likely never learn.

Cheryl, Preston, and I jumped at the chance at enrolling at Scottsdale Community College in Marsh’s Southwest Studies Program.  One class involved a ten day trip with the Marsh and Gary Show!

Dr. Gary Shafer melded well with Marsh.  Gary’s Southwest Studies program focused on the archaeology, palentology, pre-historic through modern history of the cultures and transformations of our part of an amazing universe.

In 1988 Cheryl, Preston and I were motivated to write about this memorable trip through Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.  The joke was that we were lookin’ for “daid injuns!”

Our incredible odyssey began with Messrs. Trimble and Shaffer preparing us for our 2000 mile trek through time.  Not only would we travel over many miles of asphalt and dirt roadways, we would travel through millions of years of history dating back to before man entered the scene.

June 7, 1988 our field-trip leaders began drawing a picture of the coming journey showing us the geological, archaeological, and historical (sometimes hysterical)correlations we soon would be seeing with our own eyes.

Just looking at the various mountain ranges, and the canyon areas more than hint of the tremendous forces, the powerful releases of the earth’s internal pressures, the winds, the ice, and later water forces that further formed our present landscape.

We learned that Paleo Indians arrived between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.  These were nomadic hunters and gatherers.  The were followed by Cochise man, our first farmers, who began growing the primitive corn 2000 years before Jesus Christ was born!

The Great Southwest’s next inhabitants were the Hohokam Indians.  Hohokam is a Pima word meaning “all used up.”  The Hohokam people left their mark.  Many of their massive canal systems are in use today.   

Phoenix was founded by former Confederate lieutenant, Jack Stilwell.  He was the first to revive the ancient Hohokam canals.  His efforts caused Phoenix (appropriately names) to rise out of the centuries. 

Stilwell arrived in Arizona in 1863 as part of the Walker Party.  More on Joseph Rutherford Walker in a separate title herein.

The Hohokam culture existed between 300 B.C. and 1400 A.D. and were geographically situated in what is now south-central Arizona and northern Mexico.  Casa Grande ruins along with many lesser ruins in the Valley of the Sun help us understand these early people.  We can speculate and theorize with more accuracy through archaeological techniques being developed.   However we are unable to determine their ultimate demise with any degree of specificity.  At least for now…

Other Pre-Historic Indian cultures of the Southwest were the Sinagua people, residents of the Verde Valley; Mogollon (mountain people); the Salado (salt people because of their place of settlement); Hakataya or Patayan People of the lower Colorado River; and the most notable of all pre-historic indians, the Anasazi.  The Anasazi People occupied the Four Corners Area between 500 B.C. and 1400 A.D.  Because of their impressive cliff dwellings the Anasazi (a Navajo word pronounced Un-Suz-A meaning “those who came before” like “great-great, etc.) are more notable, in general, to the public.

However, as Professor Gary Shaffer instructs, each prehistoric culture and to the present day tribes and clans the individual characteristics give specific importance to each for those individual traits.  Certainly, there as been much mixing of genetics, culture and language from prehistoric time to the present.

There were many sub-cultures involved in this metamorphose, such as the Chonina mentioned at the museum in Flagstaff. Others would be the Prescott, Fremont, and Cerbat Indian cultures.  Each with some influence on the other, but to what degree remains unknown.

Tha Paleo Indians hunted the Mastodons, mammoth, and megafauna (animals similar, yet much larger than today’s elk, bear, bison, etc.).  This culture did well, except they flunked animal husbandry and were affected by environmental changed with the lessening of the ice age.  Therefore these great hunters are forced to become gatherers.  So, Paleo to Cochise where more experience with seeds developed stable sedentary farming communities.  And on to The Five aforementioned pre-historic cultures (Anasazi, Mogollion, Sinagua, Patayan, and Hohokam) were, as with any period there are bursts into culture and technology changes.

This continuum of culture has been separated by scientists into Pioneer, Colonial, Sedentary, and Classic periods.  With room for brief, general, statements here, the appetite is whetted for future study.

With the arrival, into the southwest, of the Athabascan’s around 1100 A.D. we see the build up of defensive capability of the farming peoples.

Athabascan people came from Canada and Alaska (a place called Lake Athapaska).  Athabaskans were NOT Eskimos (who were a Mongoloid people).  However, both probably emigrated across the Bering Strait durning the Ice Age.  These Athabascan tribes were nomadic raiders traveling in groups of thirty to thirty five people. 

Modern technology comparing blood groups, enzymes, and ear wax help accurate differentiating of early cultures.  While all Indians have similarities, as do all people, in general, there are separate distinct differences.  Customs, language, physiological, and ideological differences existed then and still do today.

Around 1400 these Athabascans split into two groups known today as Navajo and Apache.  Probably thought of as trouble-makers by the sedentary farming societies, the Apache settled mostly in present day Arizona.  Navajo people initially settled in the area of Canyon de Chelly becoming less nomadic and learning gardening techniques fro the Hopi and Pueblo people.

The word Navajo comes from the Zuni word “Navaque” meaning “those who grow crops in arroyos.”  The Navajo people referred to themselves as “We the People!”  In fact, as an extremely interesting anecdote in our post revolutionary history, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin “borrowed” from the five nation Iroquiis confederacy the use of their concept to establish the United States government and the Constitution.

They created a government that put together a variety of people who spoke different languages all to organize for a common good that would be indivisible and yet have freedom of religion and their own ceremonies.

Five tribes eventually became seven in the Iroquois confederacy all calling themselves “We the People!”  It is well documented that the Jefferson party visited the chief and used this aforementioned premise as a guide.  This fact is only recently known, discovered in the 1960s.

Interestingly, the split of the Athabascans into the two groups producing a single Navajo group, but several variations of the Apaches who were band distributions that became Mescallaro, San Carlos, Tonto, Payson, Kiowa, White Mountain, and Cibeque.

Kiowa Indians and Kiowa Apache Indians are not the same.  The name ‘Apache’ is a Zuni word meaning ‘enemy.’ Actually, the Zuni’s hatred for the Apache was so great that the actual meaning is so bad it amazed Dr. Gary Shaffer.   Dr. Shaffer views this meaning as the only approximation to swearing in a language devoid of such!

An aside is the fact that social ceremonies are geared negatively to other tribes.  This fact alone helps understand the ease with which the US Calvary, in the mid 1800s, could find plenty of willing Indians to track down and kill other Indians. Learning about the different clans and sub-tribes further aids understanding this enigma.

The Kiowa are identifiable by name beginning around 1800; earlier evidence is complicated by the uncertainty of some identifications (for example, the “Manrhoat” of 1682). Kiowa cultural identity was forged in the Great Plains after the adoption of the horse into the regional culture and possibly after the entry of European traders. The time, place, and circumstances of ethnogenesis present problems to scholars. Tradition points to a northern homeland, located in the yellowstone region of the Rocky Mountains; legendary accounts of emergence from an underworld and a long southward Migration continue to have strong emotional appeal to the Kiowa people. But serious efforts to trace Kiowa origins must also take into account their linguistic kinship to the Tanoan peoples of New Mexico, a connection that is echoed in cultural traits, including folklore motifs and details of Ceremonial life. On the other hand, sociopolitical organization shows convergence to a Plains type, with strongest points of similarity to north Plains and Plateau tribes such as the Teton Dakota, Kutenai, and Sarsi. A preliminary model of Kiowa ethnogenesis must locate the ancestral population in the south plains, adjacent to related Tanoans of the Rio Grande valley, at a time prior to the entry of Apacheans into the Region, about a.d. 1100 to 1300.

Subsequent expansion of the Apache in the plains had the effect of separating the ancestral Kiowa from their cogeners, forcing their retreat eastward and northward. A part of this population remained as far south as the Arkansas-Canadian drainage, within or marginal to their aboriginal hunting range, while others, either as refugees or in pursuit of trade, traveled as far as the Yellowstone valley. Historical records, including the journal of Lewis and Clark, confirm Kiowa claims of contacts with the Crow, Sarsi, and Cheyenne, and an association with the Black Hills region early in the nineteenth century. During the same years, Kiowa further south formed an alliance with the Comanche, who had displaced the Apache in the New Mexican borderlands region and were able to reestablish contacts with New Mexico. Throughout historic times, the Kiowa had a close relationship with the Kwahadi band of Comanche; they also maintained friendly ties with Taos and other New Mexican Pueblos in the west, and with the Wichita and other Caddoans in the east. They traded with most Plains tribes, claiming a special tie with the Crow. Although closely associated with the Kiowa Apache, relations were usually hostile with western Apachean groups, including the Navajo. In the east, the Osage were long-time enemies with whom the Kiowa finally made peace in 1837 under U.S. government pressure. Their geographical position enabled the Kiowa to deal with White traders in New Mexico and in the Mississippi valley; however, both hunting and trade declined before the treaty period.

In 1867, the Treaty of Medicine Lodge was made between the United States and the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache, who received combined reservation lands in Oklahoma. Despite outbreaks of violence during the following decade, and the arrest and imprisonment of their leaders, the Kiowa remained settled on lands within their traditional heartland. In 1892, under the Jerome Agreement, they accepted individual allotments of 160 acres plus a tribal bloc of grazing land; the agreement is unique in making provisions for non-Kiowa attached to the tribe to receive a share in tribal lands.

Prehistoric Indian became modern with the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores in the 1500s.  Of course, anytime someone new enters the scene history changes its course for ever.  The Spanish certainly made an impact, much of which is evident today. 

They created problems as well in the sense that their chroniclers wrote their impressions well and in detail, but failed miserably in translating accurately the Indian word.  Example: the Spanish called the Ackimoel O’odam (River People) “Pima” because when asked, “who are you?” The answer was, “pim” and the Spanish assumed it meant the name they called themselves when the Indian was simply saying he did not understand the question.  One example of a long line of, what today’s historians view as, a careless approach.  Another example is “Yuma” which in reality means “Son of the Chief.”  Still another is “Papago” which are really “people of the desert” or T’ono O’Ohodam. 

Understandable however, as the Spaniard thought the Spanish language omni-important.  Later, this would be their undoing in the revolt of 1680 and the following minor revolts as well.  Since the Indians had many different languages learning the Spanish language gave the different tribes commonality.

Historical chronology is important in assessment of the impact on culture has with (or over) another.  The various periods begin with the “Basketmakers,” followed by the Pueblo period.  These are periods where the particular things or events occurred that are discernible and diagnostic to archaeologists.

In 1927, Alfred Kidder and a group of notable archaeologists met in Pecos, New Mexico.  This was called the Pecos Conference and was important as many variables were reorganized to establish standardization in archaeological work.  the importance becomes obvious when you learn that on third of the priceless artifacts discovered at Mesa Verde in the 1880s ended up in Europe!  Terminology was another area the Pecos Conference standardized this type of work.

The Pecos Conference gave us the aforementioned archaeological classification of Basketmaker I, II, III, and Pueblo I through IV, for example.

So, now when people visit these wondrous places they can readily see for themselves the changes over the various Basketmaker and Pueblo periods.

One becomes awed studying the fine engineering of the subterranean Kivas and the cliff dwellings.  Structural integrity is self evident with buildings largely intact and centuries old.  The Kivas with superb ventilation and so on.

Again, the criticism would be in their poor futures planning.  They decimated the wild life and building products near their domicile.  The thought of husbandry apparently never occurred to them.

Archaeologists through testing of perspiration, body sweat and oil that strutted the various entrances established whether it was, in fact, a door or window.

Our Marsh and Gary Show travels allowed us to witness evidence of the “Great Pueblo Period” of 1100 to 1400 A.D.  this development was most probably influenced by the greater need of better defenses with the raiding Athabascans attacking their villages.  Worse yet, these Athabascan Indians were here to stay.  With the increase in living density innovations to the Kivas resulted with several Kivas used along with, perhaps, a Great Kiva by all for specific ceremonies.

Referring to early Indians as savages is utterly absurd.  For they, more than early white American, lived their religion and did so twenty four house per day.  In fact, the Pagan acronym would be more applicable to our own forefathers than the Pueblo cultures as their teachings very closely parallel that of the Christian religion and the Old Testament.

Some Navajo ‘shamans’ (medicine man) memorize over twenty five thousand words in their ‘sings!’  This is possible because of the music and rhythms.

Bac to the Great Pueblo period (Pueblo V) which was doing well until 1276 when the tremendous drought along with the problem they created for themselves (timber and game) caused a major decline in their culture.  The began to abandon these great places we treasure today as our national monuments.  Evidence indicates man places the ‘ancient ones’ migrated to.  However, NONE are for certain.   Along the Rio Grande, up on the Hopi Mesas, many places of refuge are possible.  Many Farms…

The longest continuously inhabited community in the United States is Old Oraibi.  Active since 1100 A. D., Orabi has been challenged by Acoma, New Mexico as the oldest.  The evidence points to Orabi.

The Spanish put the sword to folks living at Acoma and there was a period of four to five years it was uninhabited.   Survivors from Acoma retreated to Laguna finally returning in the 1600s.  We can be certain about that because of the historical records from the Spanish Mission period of their building churches and proselyting the Indians.

Acoma’s mission standing today was but initially in 1610 and survived the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680 due to the Indians using the church as a fortress.  …an interesting dichotomy!

The priests required the Indians to carry the massive pine logs from Mt. Taylor (New Mexico’s tallest peak) some thirty five miles away.  Four of these logs have great religious significance and were and were not allowed to touch the ground at any time including the carving and installation in the church altar.  Most of these historical logs are in use today and this scenario is repeated in many of the missions in the southwest.

For more than two centuries, the Spaniards, who concentrated their settlements, farms, and ranches in the upper Rio Grande Valley, dominated New Mexico, except for a period from 1680 to about 1693, when the Pueblo Indians temporarily regained control of the region. 

BACK TO THE MARSH AND GARY SHOW

Departing June 15th, 1988 for Montezuma Castle, Yavapai Cultural Center, Walnut Canyon, Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monument, we were in a caravan of four community college vans driven by Marsh Trimble, Gary Shaffer, Marge Black, and Bob Burke.

Our first stop was at Montezuma’s Castle, a prehistoric Sinagua Indian ruin a few miles north of Camp Verde, Arizona.  Our first test of what would be a fantastic ten day odyssey.   The ‘castle’ was mis-named by early settlers believing these early Indians to have been part of the old Mexico Aztec culture. 

The sight is impressive and well maintained with excellent access for close viewing.  Access into the ruins is wisely not permitted.

The park service provides good supporting data and a small museum along with rest facilities. I was impressed with the size of the ruins of some four stories tall.  Planners even located grain storage units and other amenities.  The residents, the Sinagua, mysteriously left around 1300 A. D.

Scheduling prevented a trip to Tuzigoot ruins nearby.  At Marsh and Gary’s urging, Cheryl and I did visit Tuzigoot sometime later.  Both ruins are close enough to Phoenix as is the Casa Grande Hohokam site to the south.

After a quick stop at the Yavapai Cultural Center and a short slide presentation about the Yavapai and Tonto Apache people we were off to Walnutt Canyon located just southeast of Flagstaff.

We enjoyed a delightful picnic near the visitors center then toured the museum.  Preston spotted a large doe Mule Deer grazing near by as we walked to “Whiskey Rock” aptly named by Dr. Shaffer for a large outcropping with a hang over our path.

The Walnut ruins brought back memories when I was a pilot for the historic Frontier Airlines.  Departing FLG (Flagstaff’s airport) we would fly by the ruins on a low-shallow climb out.  This was always impressive to everyone on board.

With Dr. Shaffer lecturing ,as we proceeded around the ruins (a small example of many ruins in the canyon) we would see the finger prints of the ancients were these prehistoric masons chinked the adobe and stone work forming the walls of their homes.

Leaving Walnut Canyon we stopped for another lecture in front of Northern Arizona Museum in Flagstaff.  The museum was impressive and complete with a fine chronology of the various Indian cultures from the Paleo people to present day.  Also, there were excellent example of Indian craft both past and present.

With an excellent display as a visual aid, Dr. Shaffer went into detail of how dendrochronology works in measuring the dates of archaeological items.  Other methods, including  prospective advances, were discussed as well.  The museum had some fossil displays, but the reconstructed Kiva and the examples of Indian artifacts along with a marvelous Kachina collection seemed to impress our group of thirty three the most.

Finding time for an additional excursion, not originally planned, we were off to view Sunset Crater and Wupatki.

Sunset Crater is a volcano that erupted in 1064-1065 A. D. It’s importance to the area was that, following the disaster resultant from the massive explosion and molten lava flows, the fine ash residue became a great water retention device and fertilizer for Signauan crops after their return.

Wupatki rose out of the desert floor, in the shadow of Sunset Crater, with grandeur.  The deep red sandstone used in its construction combined with rising and setting sun presents the visitor with breathtaking sights. 

Community activity at Wupatki was quite evident with a ball court and amphitheater.  These were so well constructed they could be used today!

The main buildings were no longer useable.  However, all of us were impressed with how much was preserved after such a long exposure to the elements.  Roof beams and door and window headers were still in place in some openings.

Of considerable interest was the wind – hole, a small some one foot square opening, near the ground level near the ball court, where the warm air is sucked into a chamber.

In the late afternoon, with the cooling of the ambient air, the chamber expels this collected air with an eerie whistle.   We all readily speculated how the Sinagua people would place a significant religious importance on something such as this.  We would, later, see evidence of a similar effect near and old mission in New Mexico.

The much heralded Hopi Mesas were the agenda for our second day of travel.  However, we would not be able to visit old Oraibi.  So, we stopped for another Gary Shaffer lecture and viewed the old pueblo from across the valley.  Dr. Shaffer pointed out the cliffs where the priests were “walked off” the cliffs during the 1680 Revolt.  I could place myself at the scene imagining the runners racing off with the chords of thirteen knots to the other pueblo communities.

1680 REVOLT 

After previously touching on the Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé’s Rebellion—was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, present day New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spanish and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. Twelve years later the Spanish returned and were able to reoccupy New Mexico with little opposition.

Walpi was out next stop and is located on the third mesa.  Walpi has changed little since the turn of the century photographs. 

Walpi was inhabited by few families with many Hopis desiring modern conveniences and now live in the communities located on the valley floor just east of the mesa.

Life at Walpi has to be very close to how it was centuries ago.  Not electricity, water, or sanitation.  Trash is thrown over the side and “out houses” sit precariously on the edge of the cliffs.

Our guide pointed out the squirrels scavenging in the trash below.  We did observe some construction crews at work.  Obviously, constant repair is required for continued inhabitation. 

Several Kivas were seen of which none were open to the public. Several residences were open for the sale of Indian crafts.  Many of our group would take advantage of these stops to add to their “plunder.”

We were well coached by our excursion’s leadership on the art of collecting.  Yet, one should be cautioned on the potential surprise awaiting after returning home.  Not only would there be a fine collection of Kachina Dolls and such, but the Master Card and Visa bill would soon haunt those urges to re-create the Goldwater collection.

I was particularly interested in the differences and similarities as to cultures, traditions and, especially, languages.  Tewa, Tawa, and Towa language, for example,, would be discovered in different places along out route.  Again, suggesting how these different Indian groups evolved.  Seemingly, and not to oversimplify, they were once part of one people perhaps twenty thousand years ago.

Later separating they formed different languages.  Still later forces (such as mesoamerican and other Indian groups) caused re-intermingling and that of the various languages as well.   However, knowing the Indian way of striving for harmony in that all things flow in the breath of life (Po-Wa-Ha), it becomes less confusing considering all these major and minor transformations that took place over the past ten to twenty thousand years.  It should be noted that most have occurred since 900 A. D. where the transformations have been exponential.

Consider my grandmother’s lifetime, where she lived in a Soddy in what is now Nebraska, traveling by horse or ox-drawn wagon to seeing her first automobile then airplane.  Before her passing in 1979 she watched the Lunar landing.  That, my friends, is exponentially graphic! 

My own father rode a stage coach at a young age and saw a similar change in our country’s demographics.  His story is mentioned in The Walker Bunch – Parts One and Two.  My grandmother’s story is in the Prologue.

The technological advancements in a short hundred years have been nothing short of phenomenal.  This should help us lessen the confusion and disagreement over the controversy on Indian evolution.

Next, we were to lunch on Navajo tacos at a fine little restaurant near Canyon de Chelly, a place Cheryl and I would travel to again and again.

With a “new air” about us we then traveled a short way to view the White House ruins, a cliff dwelling across and below our point of observation.  With not enough time to hike down and across the valley floor to the runis, we put this on our list for a return trip along with the Hubbell Trading Post, another historical spot missed for lack of time.

Fromt the White House ruins and a brief stop at the visitors center, we traveled on towards Monument Valley and our over night stop at Gouldings Lodge.

Beginning our third day, June 17th, we traced John Wayne’s footsteps along with those of director, John Ford as we viewed a magnificent sight and another case of monumental soil erosion second only to the Grand Canyon.   Amateur photography was an un-commanded reaction to nature’s beauty.

Cheryl and I along with Preston and our pal, Marsh Trimble, we would return in the coming October with our group of hot air balloons.  Just the thought of it was a rush!

Just like Willy Nelson, we were ‘on the road again’ with Mssrs Trimble and Shaffer.  We traveled on to Cortez, Colorado for our next lay-over before heading to the Mesa Verde National Park to see the Anasazi cliff dwellings. 

Thes magnificent pre-historic dwellings were located on a high mesa with Mule Deer abounding.  Between two and three thousand tourists visit Mesa Verde National Park each year along with two or three student archaeologists.

While Castle House is the largest ruin (two-hundred twenty rooms along with twenty three Kivas), Spruce House was the most impressive as we were able to take the ‘hands-on’ approach to studying this ruin.  We were even able to enter one of the eight Kivas located in front of the one-hundred room dwellings.

The Kiva we entered was cool with excellent engineering including the “Supapu” (a small ceremonial hole depicting the place this culture entered this, the fourth world, from the third world), the ventilation shaft, banquets (seating or storage), sting side supporting construction in a circular design and excellence in their roof-truss system.  As with most Kivas entrance was through the top via ladder.

The dwellings had key0hole entrances on the upper floors to facilitate the loads carried on the heads of the inhabitants.  Everything had quite obviously been well thought out and planned as to need.

Following our stay in Cortez, we headed for Durango beginning our fourth day totally losing all sense of economic judgement which resulted in some seven million dollars spent on T-shirts and Indian art. 

Cheryl and the wife of one of our group got along well, but proved extremely dangerous if allowed to shop together unsupervised.    

The narrow-gauge train and the old Stratler Hotel are a must for Durango visitors. 

On to Aztec ruins just north of Farmington, New Mexico.  A short film provided good information, but the highlight was the fine lecture by Dr. Shaffer in the ruin’s Great Kiva.

Marsh Trimble and I have been friends for more than a half-century!  First, we were fraternity brothers at Arizona State University as members of Alpha Tau Omega (ΑΤΩ).  Secondly, we became friends.  I would become his first “groupie” when he played with the Gin Mill Three near campus.  Later, we would share an apartment together with Marsh’s brother Danny.

Marsh and I have stayed pals since.  We still share moments together and often have long phone visits.   Marsh is an amazing entertainer.  So, our phone visits are entertaining as well.  I would not expect less from Arizona’s Official State Historian.

This auspicious title is not “honorary!”  Marshall earned this title proclaimed by every governor since Fife Symington.

Detailed Biography of Marshall Trimble

Marshall Trimble’s roots are rich in American, military, Native American, and lawman history. His ancestors were officers in the Revolutionary army, fought under Andy Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend and the Battle of New Orleans.

One of his great-uncles six generations back was Confederate General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble of Virginia. Trimble graduated from West Point in 1822. During the Civil War he fought in Stonewall Jackson’s campaign in the Shenandoah Valley and distinguished himself in the Battle Cross Keys by ordering a close-in musket volley that routed Union troops under General John C. Fremont. He was with Jackson at the Seven Days Battles, the Second Battle of Bull Run where he was wounded and is best known for his leadership role in the assault known as Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. At Gettysburg he was on his horse Jinny where he was wounded in the same leg. His leg was amputated and he was left behind to be taken prisoner. Because of his vast knowledge of the railroads in the area, he’d been a construction engineer for several railroads in the area before the war, he was refused parole until after Lee surrendered in April, 1865.

During the 1830’s, his great-great-grandfather, Moffett Trimble, was a sergeant in the U.S. Mounted Rangers under Colonel Henry Dodge. He rode with Captain Jesse Bean’s company of rangers out of Ft. Gibson Oklahoma in the 1830’s. He moved to Texas around 1840 and during the Mexican War, was a Texas Ranger under the legendary Sam Walker. Since that time each generation of Trimble’s has carried on the Walker name. His great-grandfather, Sam Walker Trimble served in a Texas cavalry regiment during the Civil War and later fought with John Ford’s Texas Rangers in the Indian wars, taking part in the Battle on the Frio, in 1866.  He was later a peace officer, professional gambler and stockman in Texas.

Trimble’s ethnic roots are mostly Scots-Irish on his father’s side and Irish Catholic from his mother’s side.  Five brothers named Trimble immigrated to America in the 1720’s from Northern Ireland. They settled in Virginia. His branch of the family then wested to Arkansas, finally arriving in Texas in the 1830’s.

His mother’s family, the O’Murphy’s and the Mulvihill’s immigrated from Ireland during the great Potato Famine of the 1840’s.

A maternal great-grandmother, Rebecca Nolan was a full-blooded Creek Indian. As a young child, she was among the Creek Indians removed from Alabama around 1840 and marched in shackles and chains to Oklahoma on the infamous Trail of Tears. While passing through Arkansas her parents, unable to care for her, gave her to a sympathetic family named Nolan. The Nolan’s adopted several Creek children from the refugees and raised them as their own. The number of Nolan children listed on a census was 28. His paternal grandfather, Wesley Walker Trimble, was an engineer on the Del Rio-Eagle Pass Railroad during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. His father, Ira Walker Trimble was raised in Del Rio and Langtry, Texas on the Rio Grande during the revolution. As a child he witnessed several battles between Carranzistas and Villistas.

Charlie Small, the notorious Texas border gunman was his great-grandfather’s cousin. Small, was a notorious gun for hire along both sides of the Rio Grande around the turn of the century before he was shot and killed by a Texas Ranger at Langtry. During those lawless times along the Rio Grande, the Charlie Small had a reputation as a fearless borderland Robin Hood who operated on both sides of the law.

Marshall’s maternal grandparents packed up the family and left Arkansas around 1918 and moved to Tempe. About that same time his paternal grandparents arrived in Tempe from Del Rio, Texas. A few years later his father, Ira(Happy), returned to Langtry, where he met and married Leta Gobbell, daughter of the town marshal, Bart Gobbell. Gobbell worked with the legendary Judge Roy Bean, the so-called “Law West of the Pecos.”  Trimble and Gobbell had a son, but the marriage failed and he returned to Arizona. Settling in Tempe, he began courting Margaret Juanita Rogers. They married in 1935 and eventually had four sons. One died in infancy and the other three, Charlie, Marshall and Dan survived.  The family was living on a small livestock ranch south of Tempe when Marshall was born in 1939. Later they lived on a small ranch at Lehi, where Marshall attended the first grade.

After World War II, his father sold the cows and hired out with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado. They lived in Clifton, Colorado for several months before returning to Arizona where he went to work for the Santa Fe Railroad. From 1947 to 1955, the Trimble family lived in the northern Arizona town of Ash Fork, on the Santa Fe mainline. Times were hard as his father didn’t have enough seniority to work steady. To make ends meet his mother went to work as a waitress in a road house café. The first three years were spent living in a small, two room trailer house with a lean-to porch and an army surplus tent with no running water or plumbing. Marshall considers those hardscrabble years in Ash Fork as “character-building.” He still considers Ash Fork his hometown and returns there often to assist in community projects.

In 1955, during his senior year in high school, the Trimbles moved back to the Valley where Marshall attended West Phoenix High School. Following his senior year he played baseball for the Glendale Greys semi-pro baseball team. In 1956 the team was runner-up for the Arizona semi-pro championship. In 1957, he dropped out of college and joined the U. S. Marine Corps for a tour of duty and considers that experience among the most meaningful and significant of his life. He was one of three in a 75-man platoon to win a meritorious promotion upon graduating from boot camp. The Marines gave Trimble a strong sense of duty, ethics and patriotism that continues to this day. The Marines instilled in him that through hard work and persistence he could become anything he wanted to be.

After the Marines, Trimble returned to Phoenix College where he played on the 1958 baseball team that was ranked fifth in the nation. In 1999, the Phoenix College Alumni Association selected him as a charter member of the Phoenix College Alumni Hall of Fame.

Marshall bought a used Gibson guitar for $5 in 1958 and learned to play while listening to Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Johnny Cash records. A year later he traded the Gibson and $25. for a well-worn Martin guitar. In 1959, he attended a Kingston Trio concert and was hooked for life on folk music. That same year he met Travis Edmonson of the popular folk duo, Bud and Travis. The chance meeting was a determining factor in his becoming a folksinger. A long friendship with Travis, a fellow-native Arizonan, greatly influenced Trimble’s music. Trimble often performs some of Travis’ patented style of Mexican songs in his shows. Other performers whose music has been a great influence in his career were Ian Tyson, Bob Shane, John Stewart and Gordon Lightfoot. Today he performs frequently with Arizona State Balladeer, Dolan Ellis, an original member of the New Christy Minstrels.

In 1963, he helped form a folk group called the Gin Mill Three. The group cut four records and played Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe and San Francisco. Performing in the scenic tourist towns in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada exposed Trimble to the colorful history of the Old West for the first time. He developed a deep interest and love in the subject that has never waned. After the group cut four records, a promoter temporarily changed their name to the Prairie Boys in hopes it would present a cleaner image. About that time acoustal folk music was being replaced by the loud electrical sounds of Rock and Roll. The group broke up after two years when one member got drafted, another got married and the promoter absconded with all the royalties from the records.

Trimble dropped out of the folk music scene in the mid-60’s got married and settled down for a few years. That didn’t work out and after spending what he calls the “Lost Years,” Trimble found himself in Montana in 1968 working on a cattle drive near Miles City. He visited the site of Custer’s Last Stand and was so moved by the experience he decided to dedicate his life to teaching, singing, and writing stories about the American West. A year later he was teaching at Coronado High School in Scottsdale and in January, 1972, he began teaching Arizona History at Scottsdale Community College.

In 1970, he returned to music, forming a folk duo called Donnery and Rudd. “I don’t know whether I was Donnery or Rudd.” he says, “We borrowed the name from the label on a bottle of scotch.”

At the urging of his college students, he began to write his first book. In 1977, “Arizona: A Panoramic History of a Frontier State,” was published by Doubleday and Company of New York. The book was a huge success and was the first of several books that ranged from coffee table books,  tall tales and folklore to gunfighters to history of Arizona and the West.

As a result of his successful books, Trimble became a popular speaker on the banquet circuit. His experience as a folksinger enabled him to include music with his yarn spinning and stories of the colorful Old West. Soon he was back on stage performing. During the late 1970’s he began including  old time cowboy songs and reciting cowboy poetry in his shows. In 1988, he wrote “Legends in Levis,” as a tribute to the working cowboys in the Old West. Trimble’s cowboy poetry has been published in national magazines such as The American Cowboy. Today, he performs both in concert and before national and local convention groups.

During the academic year he visits dozens of schools around the state playing his guitar, yarn spinning and teaching Arizona history. Growing up in a small town left a deep impression on this native son and is reflected in the homespun humor and stories he writes and tells. An avid outdoorsman, he’s seen most of the state’s scenery from the back of a horse. Today, along with being a performer and writer, Arizona’s favorite native son enjoys the reputation of being the state’s most colorful and prominent historian.

  

In 1996 a group of Arizona history teachers prevailed upon Governor Fife Symington to appoint Marshall Official State Historian.  The following year the appointment was made.  When asked by a reporter what he would do as state historian, Trimble replied, “Same thing as I’ve been doing for the past thirty years.

Marsh lives with his vivacious wife, Vanessa, in Scottsdale.  Marsh’s son, Roger graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and served in combat during the war in Iraq.  Roger lives in New York with his wife and Marsh’s grandkids. 

My ol’ pal has become as much of an Arizona landmark as The Grand Canyon.  The biggest difference is that Ol’ Marsh moves all over the state whilst the Grand Canyon sits there as a humongous example of soil erosion and, as Marsh would say, “That is a hell of a place to lose a cow!”

Marsh has authored around a couple dozen books about Arizona.  His marvelous writing ability has been inspiring.   Not just to me but to many.  Is influence extends beyond the classroom the extent of which we will likely never learn.

Cheryl, Preston, and I jumped at the chance at enrolling at Scottsdale Community College in Marsh’s Southwest Studies Program.  One class involved a ten day trip with the Marsh and Gary Show!

Gary Shafer melded well with Marsh.  Gary’s Southwest Studies program focused on the

In 1988 Cheryl, Preston and I were motivated to write about this memorable trip through Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico.  The joke was that we were lookin’ for “daid injuns!”

Our incredible odyssey began with Messrs. Trimble and Shaffer preparing us for our 2000 mile trek through time.  Not only would we travel over many miles of asphalt and dirt roadways, we would travel through millions of years of history dating back to before man entered the scene.

June 7, 1988 our field-trip leaders began drawing a picture of the coming journey showing us the geological, archaeological, and historical (sometimes hysterical)correlations we soon would be seeing with our own eyes.

Just looking at the various mountain ranges, and the canyon areas more than hint of the tremendous forces, the powerful releases of the earth’s internal pressures, the winds, the ice, and later water forces that further formed our present landscape.

We learned that Paleo Indians arrived between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.  These were nomadic hunters and gatherers.  The were followed by Cochise man, our first farmers, who began growing the primitive corn 2000 years before Jesus Christ was born!

The Great Southwest’s next inhabitants were the Hohokam Indians.  Hohokam is a Pima word meaning “all used up.”  The Hohokam people left their mark.  Many of their massive canal systems are in use today.   

Phoenix was founded by former Confederate lieutenant, Jack Stilwell.  He was the first to revive the ancient Hohokam canals.  His efforts caused Phoenix (appropriately names) to rise out of the centuries. 

Stilwell arrived in Arizona in 1863 as part of the Walker Party.  More on Joseph Rutherford Walker in a separate title herein.

The Hohokam culture existed between 300 B.C. and 1400 A.D. and were geographically situated in what is now south-central Arizona and northern Mexico.  Casa Grande ruins along with many lesser ruins in the Valley of the Sun help us understand these early people.  We can speculate and theorize with more accuracy through archaeological techniques being developed.   However we are unable to determine their ultimate demise with any degree of specificity.  At least for now…

Other Pre-Historic Indian cultures of the Southwest were the Sinagua people, residents of the Verde Valley; Mogollon (mountain people); the Salado (salt people because of their place of settlement); Hakataya or Patayan People of the lower Colorado River; and the most notable of all pre-historic indians, the Anasazi.  The Anasazi People occupied the Four Corners Area between 500 B.C. and 1400 A.D.  Because of their impressive cliff dwellings the Anasazi (a Navajo word pronounced Un-Suz-A meaning “those who came before” like “great-great, etc.) are more notable, in general, to the public.

However, as Professor Gary Shaffer instructs, each prehistoric culture and to the present day tribes and clans the individual characteristics give specific importance to each for those individual traits.  Certainly, there as been much mixing of genetics, culture and language from prehistoric time to the present.

There were many sub-cultures involved in this metamorphose, such as the Chonina mentioned at the museum in Flagstaff. Others would be the Prescott, Fremont, and Cerbat Indian cultures.  Each with some influence on the other, but to what degree remains unknown.

Tha Paleo Indians hunted the Mastodons, mammoth, and megafauna (animals similar, yet much larger than today’s elk, bear, bison, etc.).  This culture did well, except they flunked animal husbandry and were affected by environmental changed with the lessening of the ice age.  Therefore these great hunters are forced to become gatherers.  So, Paleo to Cochise where more experience with seeds developed stable sedentary farming communities.  And on to The Five aforementioned pre-historic cultures (Anasazi, Mogollion, Sinagua, Patayan, and Hohokam) were, as with any period there are bursts into culture and technology changes.

This continuum of culture has been separated by scientists into Pioneer, Colonial, Sedentary, and Classic periods.  With room for brief, general, statements here, the appetite is whetted for future study.

With the arrival, into the southwest, of the Athabascan’s around 1100 A.D. we see the build up of defensive capability of the farming peoples.

Athabascan people came from Canada and Alaska (a place called Lake Athapaska).  Athabaskans were NOT Eskimos (who were a Mongoloid people).  However, both probably emigrated across the Bering Strait durning the Ice Age.  These Athabascan tribes were nomadic raiders traveling in groups of thirty to thirty five people. 

Modern technology comparing blood groups, enzymes, and ear wax help accurate differentiating of early cultures.  While all Indians have similarities, as do all people, in general, there are separate distinct differences.  Customs, language, physiological, and ideological differences existed then and still do today.

Around 1400 these Athabascans split into two groups known today as Navajo and Apache.  Probably thought of as trouble-makers by the sedentary farming societies, the Apache settled mostly in present day Arizona.  Navajo people initially settled in the area of Canyon de Chelly becoming less nomadic and learning gardening techniques fro the Hopi and Pueblo people.

The word Navajo comes from the Zuni word “Navaque” meaning “those who grow crops in arroyos.”  The Navajo people referred to themselves as “We the People!”  In fact, as an extremely interesting anecdote in our post revolutionary history, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin “borrowed” from the five nation Iroquiis confederacy the use of their concept to establish the United States government and the Constitution.

They created a government that put together a variety of people who spoke different languages all to organize for a common good that would be indivisible and yet have freedom of religion and their own ceremonies.

Five tribes eventually became seven in the Iroquois confederacy all calling themselves “We the People!”  It is well documented that the Jefferson party visited the chief and used this aforementioned premise as a guide.  This fact is only recently known, discovered in the 1960s.

Interestingly, the split of the Athabascans into the two groups producing a single Navajo group, but several variations of the Apaches who were band distributions that became Mescallaro, San Carlos, Tonto, Payson, Kiowa, White Mountain, and Cibeque.

Kiowa Indians and Kiowa Apache Indians are not the same.  The name ‘Apache’ is a Zuni word meaning ‘enemy.’ Actually, the Zuni’s hatred for the Apache was so great that the actual meaning is so bad it amazed Dr. Gary Shaffer.   Dr. Shaffer views this meaning as the only approximation to swearing in a language devoid of such!

An aside is the fact that social ceremonies are geared negatively to other tribes.  This fact alone helps understand the ease with which the US Calvary, in the mid 1800s, could find plenty of willing Indians to track down and kill other Indians. Learning about the different clans and sub-tribes further aids understanding this enigma.

The Kiowa are identifiable by name beginning around 1800; earlier evidence is complicated by the uncertainty of some identifications (for example, the “Manrhoat” of 1682). Kiowa cultural identity was forged in the Great Plains after the adoption of the horse into the regional culture and possibly after the entry of European traders. The time, place, and circumstances of ethnogenesis present problems to scholars. Tradition points to a northern homeland, located in the yellowstone region of the Rocky Mountains; legendary accounts of emergence from an underworld and a long southward Migration continue to have strong emotional appeal to the Kiowa people. But serious efforts to trace Kiowa origins must also take into account their linguistic kinship to the Tanoan peoples of New Mexico, a connection that is echoed in cultural traits, including folklore motifs and details of Ceremonial life. On the other hand, sociopolitical organization shows convergence to a Plains type, with strongest points of similarity to north Plains and Plateau tribes such as the Teton Dakota, Kutenai, and Sarsi. A preliminary model of Kiowa ethnogenesis must locate the ancestral population in the south plains, adjacent to related Tanoans of the Rio Grande valley, at a time prior to the entry of Apacheans into the Region, about a.d. 1100 to 1300.

Subsequent expansion of the Apache in the plains had the effect of separating the ancestral Kiowa from their cogeners, forcing their retreat eastward and northward. A part of this population remained as far south as the Arkansas-Canadian drainage, within or marginal to their aboriginal hunting range, while others, either as refugees or in pursuit of trade, traveled as far as the Yellowstone valley. Historical records, including the journal of Lewis and Clark, confirm Kiowa claims of contacts with the Crow, Sarsi, and Cheyenne, and an association with the Black Hills region early in the nineteenth century. During the same years, Kiowa further south formed an alliance with the Comanche, who had displaced the Apache in the New Mexican borderlands region and were able to reestablish contacts with New Mexico. Throughout historic times, the Kiowa had a close relationship with the Kwahadi band of Comanche; they also maintained friendly ties with Taos and other New Mexican Pueblos in the west, and with the Wichita and other Caddoans in the east. They traded with most Plains tribes, claiming a special tie with the Crow. Although closely associated with the Kiowa Apache, relations were usually hostile with western Apachean groups, including the Navajo. In the east, the Osage were long-time enemies with whom the Kiowa finally made peace in 1837 under U.S. government pressure. Their geographical position enabled the Kiowa to deal with White traders in New Mexico and in the Mississippi valley; however, both hunting and trade declined before the treaty period.

In 1867, the Treaty of Medicine Lodge was made between the United States and the Comanche, Kiowa, and Kiowa Apache, who received combined reservation lands in Oklahoma. Despite outbreaks of violence during the following decade, and the arrest and imprisonment of their leaders, the Kiowa remained settled on lands within their traditional heartland. In 1892, under the Jerome Agreement, they accepted individual allotments of 160 acres plus a tribal bloc of grazing land; the agreement is unique in making provisions for non-Kiowa attached to the tribe to receive a share in tribal lands.

Prehistoric Indian became modern with the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores in the 1500s.  Of course, anytime someone new enters the scene history changes its course for ever.  The Spanish certainly made an impact, much of which is evident today. 

They created problems as well in the sense that their chroniclers wrote their impressions well and in detail, but failed miserably in translating accurately the Indian word.  Example: the Spanish called the Ackimoel O’odam (River People) “Pima” because when asked, “who are you?” The answer was, “pim” and the Spanish assumed it meant the name they called themselves when the Indian was simply saying he did not understand the question.  One example of a long line of, what today’s historians view as, a careless approach.  Another example is “Yuma” which in reality means “Son of the Chief.”  Still another is “Papago” which are really “people of the desert” or T’ono O’Ohodam. 

Understandable however, as the Spaniard thought the Spanish language omni-important.  Later, this would be their undoing in the revolt of 1680 and the following minor revolts as well.  Since the Indians had many different languages learning the Spanish language gave the different tribes commonality.

Historical chronology is important in assessment of the impact on culture has with (or over) another.  The various periods begin with the “Basketmakers,” followed by the Pueblo period.  These are periods where the particular things or events occurred that are discernible and diagnostic to archaeologists.

In 1927, Alfred Kidder and a group of notable archaeologists met in Pecos, New Mexico.  This was called the Pecos Conference and was important as many variables were reorganized to establish standardization in archaeological work.  the importance becomes obvious when you learn that on third of the priceless artifacts discovered at Mesa Verde in the 1880s ended up in Europe!  Terminology was another area the Pecos Conference standardized this type of work.

The Pecos Conference gave us the aforementioned archaeological classification of Basketmaker I, II, III, and Pueblo I through IV, for example.

So, now when people visit these wondrous places they can readily see for themselves the changes over the various Basketmaker and Pueblo periods.

One becomes awed studying the fine engineering of the subterranean Kivas and the cliff dwellings.  Structural integrity is self evident with buildings largely intact and centuries old.  The Kivas with superb ventilation and so on.

Again, the criticism would be in their poor futures planning.  They decimated the wild life and building products near their domicile.  The thought of husbandry apparently never occurred to them.

Archaeologists through testing of perspiration, body sweat and oil that strutted the various entrances established whether it was, in fact, a door or window.

Our Marsh and Gary Show travels allowed us to witness evidence of the “Great Pueblo Period” of 1100 to 1400 A.D.  this development was most probably influenced by the greater need of better defenses with the raiding Athabascans attacking their villages.  Worse yet, these Athabascan Indians were here to stay.  With the increase in living density innovations to the Kivas resulted with several Kivas used along with, perhaps, a Great Kiva by all for specific ceremonies.

Referring to early Indians as savages is utterly absurd.  For they, more than early white American, lived their religion and did so twenty four house per day.  In fact, the Pagan acronym would be more applicable to our own forefathers than the Pueblo cultures as their teachings very closely parallel that of the Christian religion and the Old Testament.

Some Navajo ‘shamans’ (medicine man) memorize over twenty five thousand words in their ‘sings!’  This is possible because of the music and rhythms.

Bac to the Great Pueblo period (Pueblo V) which was doing well until 1276 when the tremendous drought along with the problem they created for themselves (timber and game) caused a major decline in their culture.  The began to abandon these great places we treasure today as our national monuments.  Evidence indicates man places the ‘ancient ones’ migrated to.  However, NONE are for certain.   Along the Rio Grande, up on the Hopi Mesas, many places of refuge are possible.  Many Farms…

The longest continuously inhabited community in the United States is Old Oraibi.  Active since 1100 A. D., Orabi has been challenged by Acoma, New Mexico as the oldest.  The evidence points to Orabi.

The Spanish put the sword to folks living at Acoma and there was a period of four to five years it was uninhabited.   Survivors from Acoma retreated to Laguna finally returning in the 1600s.  We can be certain about that because of the historical records from the Spanish Mission period of their building churches and proselyting the Indians.

Acoma’s mission standing today was but initially in 1610 and survived the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680 due to the Indians using the church as a fortress.  …an interesting dichotomy!

The priests required the Indians to carry the massive pine logs from Mt. Taylor (New Mexico’s tallest peak) some thirty five miles away.  Four of these logs have great religious significance and were and were not allowed to touch the ground at any time including the carving and installation in the church altar.  Most of these historical logs are in use today and this scenario is repeated in many of the missions in the southwest.

For more than two centuries, the Spaniards, who concentrated their settlements, farms, and ranches in the upper Rio Grande Valley, dominated New Mexico, except for a period from 1680 to about 1693, when the Pueblo Indians temporarily regained control of the region. 

BACK TO THE MARSH AND GARY SHOW

Departing June 15th, 1988 for Montezuma Castle, Yavapai Cultural Center, Walnut Canyon, Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monument, we were in a caravan of four community college vans driven by Marsh Trimble, Gary Shaffer, Marge Black, and Bob Burke.

Our first stop was at Montezuma’s Castle, a prehistoric Sinagua Indian ruin a few miles north of Camp Verde, Arizona.  Our first test of what would be a fantastic ten day odyssey.   The ‘castle’ was mis-named by early settlers believing these early Indians to have been part of the old Mexico Aztec culture. 

The sight is impressive and well maintained with excellent access for close viewing.  Access into the ruins is wisely not permitted.

The park service provides good supporting data and a small museum along with rest facilities. I was impressed with the size of the ruins of some four stories tall.  Planners even located grain storage units and other amenities.  The residents, the Sinagua, mysteriously left around 1300 A. D.

Scheduling prevented a trip to Tuzigoot ruins nearby.  At Marsh and Gary’s urging, Cheryl and I did visit Tuzigoot sometime later.  Both ruins are close enough to Phoenix as is the Casa Grande Hohokam site to the south.

After a quick stop at the Yavapai Cultural Center and a short slide presentation about the Yavapai and Tonto Apache people we were off to Walnutt Canyon located just southeast of Flagstaff.

We enjoyed a delightful picnic near the visitors center then toured the museum.  Preston spotted a large doe Mule Deer grazing near by as we walked to “Whiskey Rock” aptly named by Dr. Shaffer for a large outcropping with a hang over our path.

The Walnut ruins brought back memories when I was a pilot for the historic Frontier Airlines.  Departing FLG (Flagstaff’s airport) we would fly by the ruins on a low-shallow climb out.  This was always impressive to everyone on board.

With Dr. Shaffer lecturing ,as we proceeded around the ruins (a small example of many ruins in the canyon) we would see the finger prints of the ancients were these prehistoric masons chinked the adobe and stone work forming the walls of their homes.

Leaving Walnut Canyon we stopped for another lecture in front of Northern Arizona Museum in Flagstaff.  The museum was impressive and complete with a fine chronology of the various Indian cultures from the Paleo people to present day.  Also, there were excellent example of Indian craft both past and present.

With an excellent display as a visual aid, Dr. Shaffer went into detail of how dendrochronology works in measuring the dates of archaeological items.  Other methods, including  prospective advances, were discussed as well.  The museum had some fossil displays, but the reconstructed Kiva and the examples of Indian artifacts along with a marvelous Kachina collection seemed to impress our group of thirty three the most.

Finding time for an additional excursion, not originally planned, we were off to view Sunset Crater and Wupatki.

Sunset Crater is a volcano that erupted in 1064-1065 A. D. It’s importance to the area was that, following the disaster resultant from the massive explosion and molten lava flows, the fine ash residue became a great water retention device and fertilizer for Signauan crops after their return.

Wupatki rose out of the desert floor, in the shadow of Sunset Crater, with grandeur.  The deep red sandstone used in its construction combined with rising and setting sun presents the visitor with breathtaking sights. 

Community activity at Wupatki was quite evident with a ball court and amphitheater.  These were so well constructed they could be used today!

The main buildings were no longer useable.  However, all of us were impressed with how much was preserved after such a long exposure to the elements.  Roof beams and door and window headers were still in place in some openings.

Of considerable interest was the wind – hole, a small some one foot square opening, near the ground level near the ball court, where the warm air is sucked into a chamber.

In the late afternoon, with the cooling of the ambient air, the chamber expels this collected air with an eerie whistle.   We all readily speculated how the Sinagua people would place a significant religious importance on something such as this.  We would, later, see evidence of a similar effect near and old mission in New Mexico.

The much heralded Hopi Mesas were the agenda for our second day of travel.  However, we would not be able to visit old Oraibi.  So, we stopped for another Gary Shaffer lecture and viewed the old pueblo from across the valley.  Dr. Shaffer pointed out the cliffs where the priests were “walked off” the cliffs during the 1680 Revolt.  I could place myself at the scene imagining the runners racing off with the chords of thirteen knots to the other pueblo communities.

1680 REVOLT 

After previously touching on the Revolt of 1680, also known as Popé’s Rebellion—was an uprising of most of the indigenous Pueblo people against the Spanish colonizers in the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, present day New Mexico. The Pueblo Revolt killed 400 Spanish and drove the remaining 2,000 settlers out of the province. Twelve years later the Spanish returned and were able to reoccupy New Mexico with little opposition.

Walpi was out next stop and is located on the third mesa.  Walpi has changed little since the turn of the century photographs. 

Walpi was inhabited by few families with many Hopis desiring modern conveniences and now live in the communities located on the valley floor just east of the mesa.

Life at Walpi has to be very close to how it was centuries ago.  Not electricity, water, or sanitation.  Trash is thrown over the side and “out houses” sit precariously on the edge of the cliffs.

Our guide pointed out the squirrels scavenging in the trash below.  We did observe some construction crews at work.  Obviously, constant repair is required for continued inhabitation. 

Several Kivas were seen of which none were open to the public. Several residences were open for the sale of Indian crafts.  Many of our group would take advantage of these stops to add to their “plunder.”

We were well coached by our excursion’s leadership on the art of collecting.  Yet, one should be cautioned on the potential surprise awaiting after returning home.  Not only would there be a fine collection of Kachina Dolls and such, but the Master Card and Visa bill would soon haunt those urges to re-create the Goldwater collection.

I was particularly interested in the differences and similarities as to cultures, traditions and, especially, languages.  Tewa, Tawa, and Towa language, for example,, would be discovered in different places along out route.  Again, suggesting how these different Indian groups evolved.  Seemingly, and not to oversimplify, they were once part of one people perhaps twenty thousand years ago.

Later separating they formed different languages.  Still later forces (such as mesoamerican and other Indian groups) caused re-intermingling and that of the various languages as well.   However, knowing the Indian way of striving for harmony in that all things flow in the breath of life (Po-Wa-Ha), it becomes less confusing considering all these major and minor transformations that took place over the past ten to twenty thousand years.  It should be noted that most have occurred since 900 A. D. where the transformations have been exponential.

Consider my grandmother’s lifetime, where she lived in a Soddy in what is now Nebraska, traveling by horse or ox-drawn wagon to seeing her first automobile then airplane.  Before her passing in 1979 she watched the Lunar landing.  That, my friends, is exponentially graphic! 

My own father rode a stage coach at a young age and saw a similar change in our country’s demographics.  His story is mentioned in The Walker Bunch – Parts One and Two.  My grandmother’s story is in the Prologue.

The technological advancements in a short hundred years have been nothing short of phenomenal.  This should help us lessen the confusion and disagreement over the controversy on Indian evolution.

Next, we were to lunch on Navajo tacos at a fine little restaurant near Canyon de Chelly, a place Cheryl and I would travel to again and again.

With a “new air” about us we then traveled a short way to view the White House ruins, a cliff dwelling across and below our point of observation.  With not enough time to hike down and across the valley floor to the runis, we put this on our list for a return trip along with the Hubbell Trading Post, another historical spot missed for lack of time.

Fromt the White House ruins and a brief stop at the visitors center, we traveled on towards Monument Valley and our over night stop at Gouldings Lodge.

Beginning our third day, June 17th, we traced John Wayne’s footsteps along with those of director, John Ford as we viewed a magnificent sight and another case of monumental soil erosion second only to the Grand Canyon.   Amateur photography was an un-commanded reaction to nature’s beauty.

Cheryl and I along with Preston and our pal, Marsh Trimble, we would return in the coming October with our group of hot air balloons.  Just the thought of it was a rush!

Just like Willy Nelson, we were ‘on the road again’ with Mssrs Trimble and Shaffer.  We traveled on to Cortez, Colorado for our next lay-over before heading to the Mesa Verde National Park to see the Anasazi cliff dwellings. 

Thes magnificent pre-historic dwellings were located on a high mesa with Mule Deer abounding.  Between two and three thousand tourists visit Mesa Verde National Park each year along with two or three student archaeologists.

While Castle House is the largest ruin (two-hundred twenty rooms along with twenty three Kivas), Spruce House was the most impressive as we were able to take the ‘hands-on’ approach to studying this ruin.  We were even able to enter one of the eight Kivas located in front of the one-hundred room dwellings.

The Kiva we entered was cool with excellent engineering including the “Supapu” (a small ceremonial hole depicting the place this culture entered this, the fourth world, from the third world), the ventilation shaft, banquets (seating or storage), sting side supporting construction in a circular design and excellence in their roof-truss system.  As with most Kivas entrance was through the top via ladder.

The dwellings had key0hole entrances on the upper floors to facilitate the loads carried on the heads of the inhabitants.  Everything had quite obviously been well thought out and planned as to need.

Following our stay in Cortez, we headed for Durango beginning our fourth day totally losing all sense of economic judgement which resulted in some seven million dollars spent on T-shirts and Indian art. 

Cheryl and the wife of one of our group got along well, but proved extremely dangerous if allowed to shop together unsupervised.    

The narrow-gauge train and the old Stratler Hotel are a must for Durango visitors. 

On to Aztec ruins just north of Farmington, New Mexico.  A short film provided good information, but the highlight was the fine lecture by Dr. Shaffer in the ruin’s Great Kiva.

One significant. Difference here was the Kivas two water cisterns.  While there was much speculations as to their use, it was most certainly ceremonial.

Aztec’s cultural center was fascinating with wonderful information through the archaeological efforts of Earl Morris early in the 1900s.  Like reaching back and grabbing the hands of time.

Following a nice picnic and curio shop browsing we were off to Chama, New Mexico some two hundred miles farther .  Our Narrow-gauge train ride from Chama to Cumbres Pass was deleted from our itinerary.  Apparently, during the filming of a Willie Nelson movie, someone blew up the wrong bridge!  Regardless, our Chama stay was delightful with our self-guided tour of the train depot, imbibing at the old bar, good Mexican food at Veras, and a cozy stay at the Elkhorn Lodge.  I lamented on not having brought my fly-rod.  Chama is a fly-fisherman’s paradise.

Chama became our interruption in Indian culture study with our progressing to the Spanish of the southwest and their impact.  As we started out fifth travel day smack in the heart of the controversial Tierra Amarilla land squabble which is more a war than a squabble!

The novel, and subsequent movie, Milagro Beanfield War was based on the facts from the strife created when these people, descendants of the early Spanish settlers and heirs to old Spanish Land Grants were cheated out of their heritage.

We saw where the Flores family is trying to hold land they have lived on these past twenty one years that has been judged rightfully owned by Vista del Brazos, a land developer from Arizona.  Not to many years ago a similar “Don Quijote” with the name of Tijerina made national prominence in 1967 by attacking the Rio Arriba County Court House.  Again, brought about from frustration over the loss of land via unscrupulous land schemers.

The Flores family location was an armed camp with Flores son manning the main gate with pistols, knife and automatic rifle.   Our fearless leader, Marshall Trimble, braved (what Marsh described as) the barrels of a thousand machine-guns and three Russian tanks to confer with the younger Mr. Flores.

Our attack force consisted of four very lightly armored vans heavily armed with Minoltas, Pentax, and Kodak cameras.  The Flores folks must have been greatly relieved after Marsh explained our mission.  In fact, so impressed was the armed camp that the machine guns and tanks withdrew so quick none of the rest of our party were able to witness the heavy armor.  However, we were able to view several men armed with automatic weapons.

On we traveled through Rancho de Chimayo, Santuario, Trampas and Taos on our trip to Santa Fe, our domicile for the next four days.  Our trip made further interesting with stops along the way viewing severally Spanish missions and the location where Milagro Beanfield War was filmed.

Taos and it’s old pueblo was interesting along with the old mission laying in ruins having been converted into a cemetery.  We went our own ways for lunch and some shopping with most of us seeing the home of Dr. Shaffers “idol,” Kit Carson.  Actually, the word “Idol” should be replaced with “nemesis.”

The Kit Carson history is absolutely fascinating albeit controversial. We were further delighted with Marshall and Gary’s friendly adversarial debate.  Marsh took Carson’s side while Gary placed the guilt of the Navajo’s tribulations, and “Long Walk” on Carson’s shoulders.

Marshall appropriately place the blame of the plight of the Navajo on the shoulders of Carson’s commander, General Carleton.  At the same time, Gary was blaming Carson regarding the terrible way the Navajo people were dealt with in the battles of Canyon de Chelly in the 1860s. 

The famous “Long Walk” the Navajos were forced to march to Basque Redondo and, finally, their return became a black mark on the Carson legend.  My view is that General Carleton is to blame.  Any of us now looking back thru the sands of time have to see our “Manifest Destiny” as unfair to the Indian people dating all the way back to John Smith.  Add this to the Tierra Amirilla controversy and you find the Great Southwest a very colorful place.

My ancestor, trailblazer Joseph Rutherford Walker (1798 – 1876) was involved in marking the old Santa Fe Trail.  That event was in 1825.  Walker  became embroiled with some controversy in Taos and, in fact, was jailed in Santa Fe for a brief period.

Prior to General Kearny’s Army of the West arrival, Walker had been guiding John C. Freemont in 1846 and became disgruntled with “The Pathfinder’s” puzzling ways.  It troubled Walker that Freemont would nervously march and countermarch in obvious weak leadership.  Walker rarely said things in judgement.   Yet, with Fremont, Walker said “he is the most complete coward I have ever known!”

Walker left for California where he acquired a herd of horses and drove them back to sell them to General Kearny’s army.  Kearny bluffed his way into New Mexico and took Santa Fe without firing a shot!

With slow restaurant service in Taos we scramble for the vans and “picnicked” enroute. Again, after several stops at old missions our nefarious drivers brought us into Santa Fe.

We were now Day Six enjoying the excellent museums, shopping and the many fine restaurants Santa Fe had to offer.  The Palace of the Governors was a high point during our stay.  The palace represents and excellent job of restoration and accumulation of artifacts and printed information. 

We found the museum store provided some good “plunder” at a reasonable cost.  Further down Palace Street Very Goodnight had her new studio.  A renowned artist with sculptures displayed globally, Veryl is now located near Mancos, Colorado.

Good friends with Veryl and her husband Roger Brooks, we were invited to dinner on their patio that evening.  Joining us was Marsh’s family and we spent a delightful respite enjoying Veryl and Roger’s hospitality. 

Veryl’s history was not lost on friend Marshall Trimble.  Veryl’s great-great uncle was Charlie Goodnight, a pioneer trail driver bringing herds of Texas long-horned cattle along the famous Goodnight-Loving Trail.  Marshall, ever the entertainer, knows a song about Goodnight!

Now, a week into our amazingly interesting and pleasurable trip, out group of thirty three visited several pueblos in San Juan, Santa Clara, and San Ildefonso where the Walkers spent another seven million dollars on pottery.  The Santa Clara museum was interesting seeing the history of the black pottery re-discovered in the 1920s by the late Maria Martinez.  Near by Santa Cara is Black Mesa, a defense position during Spanish attacks.

Basing out of Santa Fe, we left on Day 8 for Glorietta Pass, Pecos, and a little nondescript place with a very unusual ‘scenic view’ named Cerillos.  We enjoyed a fine dinner with the Trimble’s and Curtis Jennings.  Especially enjoyable was Marsh’s picking up the tab after introducing us to his favorite style of music…

The highlight of the trip would prove to be, for me at least, the stop at Jeff Hingesbaugh’s “Ilegitimi non Carborundum” trade shop near Glorietta Pass.  Jeff is a long-time friend of Marsh’s dating back to 1960 when Marsh was a student-teacher at Mesa High School and Jeff was on the football team there.  Theirs is an obvious friendship born out of common interests which our whole group seemed to readily connect with.

Jeff presented us with an open-air lecture on the history of the Glorietta Pass area that rivaled the lectures of Trimble and Shaffer.  Hingesbaugh proved to be well informed, interesting, and even challenging.  He was to be entrepreneurial as well.  Nearly each of our thirty-three member party spent another seven million dollars on “plunder.”  I left happilyy in possession of an early light percussion carbine of 44 calibre that had been used by a union officer at the Battle of Glorietta Pass, the most western Civil War battle of that terrible war.  I acquired other “mountain man” artifacts as Hingesbaugh is truly a modern day mountain man.  We met some of his friends. Kelly, and Cougar Red are two who come to mind.

Then we were “on the road again” to the Pecos ruins.   We enjoyed a film narrated by the ruins benefactor, actress Greer Garson.  The film was well done and thoroughly enjoyed by all.  We were able to discern the first class archaeology and museum there.  Especially of note was the coverage of the 1927 Pecos Conference which drew many famous archaeologists such as Kidder and Morris.

Something significant was learned while viewing the Pecos ruins.  We were looking at the ruins of the old church which was, apparently, the fourth build on the same original footings, or position of those original footings.

The “heyday” of Pecos has been determined to have occurred between 1500 A.D. and 1600 A.D.  Over 1000 rooms (although not all in use simultaneously) were part of this massive complex located as a central point on the trade routes.

Next we trekked back to the Glorietta Pass battle area where Union and Confederate troops fought.  It was eerie-like and the feeling was universal that we were standing on hallowed ground as we looked up and the exact spot where  Union sharpshooters picked off numerous Confederate soldiers during this two-day battle.

Interestingly, while the Confederates were actually winning the battle near the old Pigeon Ranch (an old stage stop), a small group of Union troops skirted the battle and found the Confederate mounts and supplies.  After learning of the Union destruction of their seventy three supply wagons, the Confederate troops retreated.  Thus Col. John Chivington gained fame as a preacher-turned military leader.  A year or two later he would put a stain on his biography that could never be erased when he attacked a small encampment of peaceful Cheyenne Indians led by Chief Black Kettle.  It will be long remembered as “The Sand Creek Massacre.”  Chief Black Kettle even flew an American flag and wore a medal presented to him by the President of the United States.  Sadly, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” philosophy at the time was held by many. 

After our jaunt to the mining community of Cerillos we adjourned to the many attractions Santa Fe offers.  Another seven million dollars spent on Frank Howell lithographs before resting up for Day 9.

The first stop of the day was Coronado State Park where Dr. Shaffer presented interesting historical information on the ceremonial use of pictographs reproduced on the walls of an underground Kiva.  With each picture and it relative position around the circular walls telling us so much about the early dwellers of this old pueblo community.  Coronado himself is reported to have wintered here in 1540 and 1541 after conquering humble farming communities.  Coronado was searching for the fabled “Seven Cities of Cibola” and had to have been devastated learning it was just that, a fable. 

Coronado retreated to Mexico in the spring of 1542 and later died believing he was a failure.  If only he knew the impact the Conquistadores had on America!  It would be until 1581, nearly forty years, until Mexico would send another force into “Nuevo Mexico.”

From Coronado State Park we traveled a short distance to Otowi Crossing where a lady gained fame running a little tea house.  Fascinating information from the secret times of Atom Bomb development was delivered by Marsh Trimble.  Marsh reminded me of a relative, Dr. Robley Evans, retired head of MIT’s physics department, who figured prominently in the early “Atomic Age.’  Robley was awarded The Enrico Fermi Award, an award honoring scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use, or production of energy. It is administered by the U.S. government’s Department of Energy.

From Otowi Crossing, we arrived at the mesa pueblo of Acoma after passing by Laguna pueblo.  I mentioned earlier that Acoma claims to be the oldest continually inhabited community in America.  However, there is no question that the title is “owned” by Oraibi. 

Acoma was inhabited earlier than Oraibi.  However, due to strife when the Acoma people escaped to Laguna, Acoma was left with no inhabitants for a period of time.

Enchanted Mesa is situated near Acoma and enjoys a colorful series of legends.  We lunched at the Acoma visitors Center/museum/restaurant and then were bussed up to the old Puebla along with our delightful guide.

Acoma has an old 1610 mission that survived the 1680 revolt and was renovated with most of the original building intact.  The old mission is typical of many we saw, the the cemetery in the front courtyard.

Leaving Acoma we passed ancient lava flows many feet thick and wide enroute to Gallup, New Mexico for our final night on tour.  We enjoyed a group dinner/roast and camaraderie perhaps unusual considering this group (down to thirty-two with one person leaving for Denver) had been shoulder-to-shoulder for nine days!  Certainly, we all shared a common interest in learning about the history of the Southwest.

Our final day, June 24th, 1988, we were off to Zuni.  While the pueblo ws unimpressive as were the tourist traps, the rectory and especially the old mission was worth the trip. 

Zuni artist, Alex Seowtewa, has created Kachina murals on the old church walls that are so magnificent they gel adequate description.  Each figure, it’s meaning and representation aside, is beautiful beyond belief.

The Franciscan Friar who gave us such a fine lecture inside the old church took us back to the Rectory where many of us found excellent buys on Kachinas and silver work.  The Walker family coffers are nearly depleted at this point.

This old mission is name St. Anthony’s and ws originally built in 1629.  It was restored in 1973.  In fact, during the 17th century there were and even dozen missions operated by the Franciscan missionaries.  Each mission we saw had it’s own uniqueness.  None more so than St. Anthony’s.

EPILOGUE

We then loaded up the four vans for our final stretch arriving back at Scottsdale Community College on schedule.  We were tired but content and full of new found knowledge that, for the moment, satisfied our hunger and thirst for knowledge of the mysterious past.