Page 25 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

unique talents combining an Indian upbringing, an
intimate knowledge of Indian sign language, and
military exposure to cryptography. He cautions that
even the natural surface of the palette, the cracks,
holes, and bumps could be embodied in the fabrication
31 of a symbol.
One of Martineau’s most powerful arguments is that sign language is an abstract form of expression, and that Indians familiar with signs could easily use abstract written symbols.32 He further supported his argument by documenting two works that supposedly had been transcribed from drawings in 1781 and 1836 with the aid of the Indians involved or their descen- dants. Whichever argument one selects to follow, the fact remains that the carvings are there and will probably outlast any other man-made object near Cooke’s Spring.
But, the Mimbres culture did not survive in the full- ness of its bloom. Even as the small, dark figures crouched, chipping away at the rock surface, the in- strument of their obliteration was slowly approaching. At about A.D. 1150, or a little later, Mimbres society disappeared as an organized and identifiable entity. Some authors argue that this was because of continued environmental exploitation within a small area that taxed the resources to the limit and resulted in widespread famine during successive years of low rain-
34
fall and poor harvests.
Furthermore, according to some sources, the
Mimbres were supposedly absorbed by their rapidly developing southern neighbors at Casas Grandes in present-day northern Mexico. However, even if the crops were poor, there was still game to be had in the mountains, and there was not sufficient external agricultural encroachment to preclude their tem- porary dispersement to reduce the adverse environ- mental impact. Even more telling, there had not reappeared, within any reasonable time, a pottery easi-
3
ly recognized as traceable to the Mimbres. This
tends to support the theory that something more sud- den, final, and disastrous happened to these ancient people who had called the area around Cooke’s Peak home.
The lack of artifacts from the Mimbres culture, outside of the burials, has led many researchers to conclude that their departure from the area was gradual and orderly. Very few items, other than the heavy stone manos and metates, have been recovered. What has failed to be taken into account is that the other cultures, using the same region over a
period of several centuries, probably made use of (or collected) any available tools or utensils left behind.
Considering the fact that groups of ancient people had been able to develop peaceably in the country west and north of the Mimbres and Gila areas, clear evidence of intercultural trading, and lack of defensive fortifications before A.D. 1000 support the conclusion that the relationships of these various cultures had
38
This narrows the field of reasons for concentration and then abandonment, and we are left with the reasonable probability that the depopulation was due to pressures from outside enemies. Further- more, because these invaders apparently brought no additions to any of the existing cultures, they were
almost assuredly nomadic.
The remarkable people of the Mimbres valley, with
no defensive fortifications as a result of centuries
without warfare during which Europe was torn by
strife and dominated by severe religious persecution,
finally faced the onslaught of a fierce and vital
39
Current reconsideration of the circumstan- ces has led modern researchers to believe that these nomadic enemies were Athapascans, forerunners of
40
An enigma similar to the origins of the Anasazi, the Hohokam, and the Mogollon people surrounded the migration and
entry into the Southwest of the Athapascan people. Several thousand years after the initial migration, these people also migrated from Asia via the Bering Strait, probably sometime between 1000 B.C. and the
41
Chapter 1
11
been friendly.
enemy.
the Navajo and Apache tribes of our day.
Ethnologists are indefinite and at odds regarding the time, reasons, and routes of the Athapascan migration to the Southwest, and not much has been discovered about the Apaches archaeologi- cally because they were evidently more nomadic than sedentary. What is known about them has come most- ly from documentary accounts written by non-Indians
42
Their migration routes (Figure 7) can only be conjectured.
Once across the Bering strip, the Athapascans fil- tered down through western Canada and the northwestern United States and on to the staked plains east of present-day Albuquerque. They came by way of western Nebraska and eastern Colorado and New Mexico. At this point the migration appears to have divided. Many followed the Pecos River southward down to the Big Bend of Texas and northeastern Chihuahua, Mexico, where they became known as the Lipan Apaches.
The other division turned toward the west around the
time of Christ.
and from ethnological studies.