193904 desert magazine 1939 april

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E L C E H T R O - - to -f)n)< z 3 u '' t Vallecito Stage Station, most picturesque of thedesert hostelries of 1858. Above5THGE STnTIOn IS t ne a r t ' s t s impression of thecolorful ruins before it wasrecently restored.

V I S I T f l n Z f l D E S E R T S T A T E P A R KD ESTINED to be thegreatest State Park ofits kind inthe United States, ultimately em-bracing a million acres of magnificent scenic,recreational, andhistoric features, the AnzaDesert State Park hasbecome a reality by ac-tion of theCalifornia State Park Commission.Extending from theSanta Rosa Mountains onthe north toHighway U. S. 80 on thesouthand from a point near Warner's HotSpringsand theLaguna Mountains onthe west toSalt-on Sea(250feet below theocean level) onthe east, this area encompasses awide range ofbotanical life zones andgeological features.Plan tospend a day, aweek, a month in the"precious wildness" of Anza Park. There areno hotels or motor courts within the parklimits, so it will bewise to make El Centro

your supply headquarters. Good water isavail-able at many places in thepark andto thosewho love theglorious vast outdoors there aremany beautiful camping places.

F R E E T O U R i n F O R f l l f l T I O nFor up-to-date information on wild flowers,facilities androad conditions

ADDRESS TH E T O U R D E P A R T M E N TEl Centro Chamber of CommerceEL CENTRO, CALIFORNIA

Maps, folders, and complete information areavailable free of charge. This is only one ofthe many services rendered by the El CentroChamber of Commerce in preserving andmaking accessible to desert lovers thenaturalcharm of thegreat Imperial Valley and sur-rounding area.

ROBERT HAYS, SECRETARY- MANAGER.


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D E S E R TGcdendaiMARCH 25-26Sierra club of Cali-fornia to camp in Red Rock canyon

on Mojave desert and explore Petro-glyph canyon. George Diack, leader.MARCH 27-28New Mexico Cat t leGrowers association at Clovis.APRIL 2E. D. Tussey of Phoenixunion high school to lecture on "TheCananea War" at Arizona Museum,Phoenix.APRIL 2-8Students from Fort Win-gate Indian school, New Mexico, tostudy Navajo blankets and silvercrafts at Laboratory of Anthropology,Santa Fe.APRIL 7Finals of the Arizona Ora-torical contest for high school stu-dents, at Phoenix.APRIL 7-9Annual Passion Play ofthe Yaq ui Indians at Pascua nearTucson. Preliminary ceremonials heldthrough entire period of Lent.APRIL 8Intercollegiate rodeo to beheld at Cal Godshall's C bar G ranchnear Victorville, California.APRIL 9Easter Sunrise services to beheld at Grand Canyon of the Colo-rado in Arizona.APRIL 9Easter Sunrise service in theGreat Kiva of Aztec Ruins Nationalmonument, New Mexico, and atmany of the Indian pueblos of theSouthwest.APRIL 11-12 Annual Pioneers ' re-union at Phoenix, sponsored by Ari-zona Republic.APRIL 14H. Scudder Mekeel of theLaboratory of Anthropology at SantaFe , New Mexico to lecture on "Nav-ajo Blankets" at Heard Museum,Phoenix .APRIL 15"Go Western Day" whenpeople of Douglas, Arizona, doncostumes in preparation for annualrodeo and fiesta.APRIL 15Imperial Valley Pioneersassociation holds its annual reunionat Midwinter fairgrounds, Imperial ,California.APRIL 16Fray Marcos de Niza mon-ument 20 miles east of Nogales atLochiel to be dedicated by the Donsof Phoenix.APRIL 21-22Music festival competi-tion sponsored by Southern NewMexico Music association, at StateCollege.APRIL 21-22Arizona State Elks con-vention at Douglas.APRIL 22First 1939 presentation ofRamona pageant at Hemet, Cali-fornia.APRIL 22District convention of PilotInternational in Tucson.APRIL 24-29Sixth annual Nevadastate music festival at Ely.APRIL 27-30Pageant honoring FrayMarcos de Niza at Universi ty ofArizona, Tucson.APRIL 29University of Arizona'sHispano-American celebration mark-ing Pan-American and Cervantes daysat Tucson.

APRIL 29-30Rodeo at Saugus, Cali-fornia.APRIL 29-30Sierra club of Californiato camp at Rainbow canyon north-west of Twentynine Palms, Califor-nia, and explore the geode field inBullion mountains.

Volume 2 APRIL 1939 Number 6COVERCALENDARPHOTOGRAPHYHISTORYFICTIONCAMERA ARTEASTERPRIZESGEMSARTINDIANSRECREATIONPLACE NAM ESVAGABONDLEGENDWEATHERBOTANYGEOGRAPHYLANDMARKNEWSBOOKSMININGCOMMENTPOETRY

YUCCAS, Photograph by Cla i re andRalph Proctor, Phoenix, ArizonaApri l eve nts on the deser t 1Prize win ning pictures 2Fray Marcos and t he Gol den Dream

B y ARTHUR WOO DW AR D 3Hard Rock Shorty of Death ValleyBy LON GARRISON 6"Feel" of the DesertP h o to g r ap h b y W m . M . P EN N IN G TO N . . . 7W hen Eas te r C omes t o Grand C any onBy VIRGINIA DUNCAN 8An nou ncem ent of pho tograph ic contest . . . .1 0New Trai l for Gem CollectorsBy JOHN W . HILTON 11He Painted the Y aqu is 14Mask ed Pass i on P l ay of the Y aqui sBy RUBY BOW EN 15Where Anza Blazed the Tra i lBy RANDALL HENDERSON 18Com pi led by TRACY M. SCOTT 24170-Mile Walk on the DesertBy EVERETT RUESS 25The Sil ly CoyoteA s told to HARRY C. JAMES 26Feb ruary temp era tures on the Deser t 26Wild Flowers on Pa rad e 28Ki t Carson Cave

By LEO R. LEADEN 30Prize con test for April 31Here an d There on the Desert 32Current review s 34Briefs from the de sert regio n 35Ju st B e tw e en Y o u a n d M e , b y th e e dito r . . . . 36Wild Y ucca , an d other poe m s 37

The Desert Magazine is published monthly by the Desert Publishing Company, 597State Street, El Centro, California. Entered as second class matter October 11, 1937 at thepost office at El Centro, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879.Title registered No. 358865 in U. S. Patent Office, and contents copyrighted 1939 bythe Desert Publishing Company. Permission to reproduce contents must be secured fromthe editor in writing. Subscription rate $2.50 per year in U. S. A. or possessions. Singh;copy 25 cents. RANDALL HENDERSON, EditorTAZEWELL H. LAMB, Associate EditorJ. WILSON McKENNEY, Business Manager

Manuscripts and photographs submitted must be accompanied by full return postage.The Desert Magazine assumes no responsib ility for damage or loss of man uscrip ts or photo - ]graphs although due care will be exercised for their safety. Subscribers should send noticeof change of address to the circulation departm ent by the fifth of the month preceding issue.A P R I L , 1 9 3 9


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r/m VIBy FRED HANKINSTaft, California

First prize winning photograph in the Desert Mag-azine's amateur contest for February. This is a mic-roscopic print of the trails left by the sand dunebeetle. Taken with a 5x7 Eastman View camera at8:00 a. m. Panatomic cut film, exposure 1/10 secondat f32. The picture was taken in the Death Valleydunes.

GaoUti .By HOWARD A. BELLTrona, California

Awarded second prize in the February photo-graphic contest of the Desert Magazine. This is theblossom of Cereus mohavensis, taken on the Mo-jave desert with a Voightlander Avus, super-sensi-tive Panchromatic film, 1/10 second at f20 in earlymorning sunlight.T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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"I agree d with him (Estevan) that i f he foun d . . .a coun try greater than Nueva Espaifa, he shouldsend me a great cross." Journal of Fray Marcos.

Fray Marcos and the Golden DreamA strange team. Fray Marcos and Estevanone a courageous mission-ary who came to the New World to brave untold hardships for the salvationof heathen soulsthe other an arrogant adventurer who brought about hisown destruction. But they both played maior roles in the initial exploration ofArizona and New Mexico 400 years ago. Here is the story of one of the mostdramatic episodes in the recorded history of the Southwest.

By ARTHUR WOODWARDArt by Glor ia Widmann

TOUR hundred long years havepassed in slow parade since FrayMarcos de Niza, the grey robedFranciscan priest set forth from Culiacanin Mexico accompanied by the arrogantnegro slave Estevanico Dorantes, insearch of the fabled glamorous SevenCities of Cibola.

The story of Fray Marcos and Estevan-ico is one of the most romantic and oneof the most contradictory in the entirehistory of our great Southwest. It is atale of foolhardy courage, of two menseeking legendary golden cities in thevast, unexplored area now embracedwithin the confines of Arizona and NewMexico, and of sudden death for oneof them.

Down the years historians have arguedpro and con over the veracity of FrayMarcos. The tale of his desert wander-ings is one of mingled fact and fancy.

In the main it rings true, but there arepassages which critical historians havepounced upon and denounced as sheerfiction. However, whether one agrees inthe belief that Fray Marcos did every-thing that he claims he did, or whetherone disagrees, the fact remains that thissolitary priest was a courageous man,traversing a harsh and unknown land,peopled with Indians of untried tempera-ment, his face turned to the north, blaz-ing a new trail for the chain-mailed con-quistadores of Spain.

They made an odd couple, those twomen. Fray Marcos de Niza was a nativeof Nice in the duchy of Savoy who hadcome to the New World in 1531, tenyears after the conquest of New Mexico,when the golden empires of Mexico andPeru were ethnological facts, not archae-ological dreams.

Fray Marcos had seen service in Peru

and Quito before he journeyed north onfoot into Mexico with Pedro de Alvarado,the right hand man of Cortes.His companion on the famous trek inthe year of Our Lord 1539 was from thetown of Azamor on the Atlantic coastof Morocco, a negro, whose romanticadventures through almost nine yearsof wilderness wanderings across the thenunexplored vistas of Texas and northernSonora, rivaled the tales of the ArabianNights.How did these two men, as differentin background and temperament as twomen could possibly be, find themselvestrail mates by common consent in thiswild outland of New Spain?The answer is not simple nor easilygiven, but here is the story:Since the year 714 A.D. when sevenbishops of Spain were alleged to havefled that country with the ir faithful fol-

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Old m ission at Zun i, Ne w Me xico, built 1629 and 163 2. Although the church isin ruins the Zuni tr ibesmen s t il l use the adjoining graveyard. Men are buried onthe so uth side, wom en on the no rth. The graves are unmarked but the bodies arealways laid wi th heads to the west and fe e t to the east , in accordance with ancien ttradi t ion. Photo by Frasher, Pomo na, California.

lowers to elude the conquering Moorishinfidels, credulous Spanish explorers hadbeen seeking the mythical Seven Cities ofCibola said to have been founded by thebishops and their retainers. It was be-lieved that somewhere in the westernocean these cities would be found onthe mythical Island of Antilla. In 1492when Columbus discovered the Antilles,it soon became known that the goldencities were somewhere beyond in the un-known. Then Mexico and Peru becamerealities, and although rich with gold andjewels, were not the Seven Cities ofCibola.

Explorer Is ShipwreckedIn 1527 Panfilo de Narvaez, seekingfame and fortune on the mainland ofNorth America saw his hopes wreckedon the southern shores of Texas.Four men of all the crew survived andwandered lost in the unknown land fornearly nine years. Of these men, twohave since left their stamp on the pagesof our history books. One was Alvar

Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the other wasEstevanico or Estevan, a Barbary negroslave of Andres Dorantes de Carranze,whence Estevan took his surname Dor-antes.In the course of their wanderings,passed from tribe to tribe, clad in ani-mal skins, and accepted as medicine menby the wondering tribesmen who sawfair-skinned strangers for the first time,the shipwrecked men heard vague talesof wondrous cities buried somewhere inthe harsh desert lands to the north andwest.Eventually these men stumbled intoa Spanish outpost in north central So-nora with their incredible yarns of hard-ships and the golden cities.The simple rock and mud houses of

the Rio Grande del Norte upon whichthe stories were actually based becamedwellings sheathed in silver and studdedwith turquoise. In that age of goldenromance no tale was too fabulous to be-lieve. Had not the Aztec treated golddust as common dirt? Were not the tem-ples of Peru sheathed with plates ofhammered gold? Did not the Inca dinefrom golden dishes and drink from tallsilver cups? Had not the conquistadoresunder Pizarro made horseshoes of solidsilver when iron was scarce? The menwho had gazed spellbound into the sealedtreasure room of Montezuma where layheaps of gold and jewels higher than aman's head, who had seen chest afterchest of shimmering feather cloaks,shields, elaborate mosaic masks and greatfortunes in gold, turquoise and jade gointo the holds of galleons bound forSpain, were willing to believe anything.Of the four men who brought thenews of the Cities only one was willingto plunge back into the unmapped wil-derness. This man was the negro Este-van. He was a slave, but during thecourse of his wanderings he had tastedpower. He had been accepted as a medi-cine man. Better to rule savage Indianswith a few shakes of a gourd rattle thanfetch and carry for some exacting Span-ish taskmaster. The tribes Estevan hadvisited had been free with food andwomen. There was the possibility thatthose tales of golden pueblos were true.Y e s , Estevanico would guide anyone whowished to seek the mythical cities.So it happend that on the 7th of March1 5 3 9 , Fray Marcos accompanied by Este-vanico the Moor, and Fray Onorato, afellow Franciscan who soon fell ill andwas sent back, set out from the puebloof San Miguel, in the province of Culia-can, to settle once and for all the validity

of the yarns concerning the Seven Citiesof Cibola hidden in the haze of thenorthern desert.Now Estevan was in his element. Inhis hand he carried a gourd rattle, fromthe handle of which dangled two redand white macaw feathers and some smallcopper bells. This was his passport, a

medicine rattle, which he sent ahead toannounce his coming.With Fray Marcos and Estevan trav-eled a large escort of Mexican Indians.The retinue included many Indianwomen. Estevan liked the women but heused them shamefully and was cruel. Thisfact traveled ahead of him with his rat-

t l e , which in the end, became his deathwarrant.As Fray Marcos journeyed n o r t hthrough Sonora, there came to him cer-tain Indians from the seacoast to the westwho told him of islands offshore where

many people lived. These coastal Indianswore necklaces fashioned of mother-of-pearl, and they informed Fray Marcosthat their countrymen had a great storeof pearls, although the priest remarkscandidly, "Howbeit I saw none of them."The Franciscan had orders from hisgovernment to explore the land as hewent, and to report particularly uponthe coastline. However, being some dis-tance inland, he decided to defer actualexploration of the coast until he returnedfrom the Seven Cities of Cibola. Insteadhe decided to send Indian messengers tothe seacoast to bring back more definitenews of that part of the country. Estevanwas to scout ahead and relay informationto Fray Marcos if anything of importancewas discovered.

Estevan Sent Out as ScoutSaid Fray Marcos in his report: "Iagreed with him (Estevan) that if hefound any knowledge of any peopledand rich country, that he should go nofurther but should return in person, orshould send me certain Indians with thattoken we were agreed upon, to wit, thatif it were but a mean thing, he shouldsend me a White Cross of one handfulllong; and if it were of any great matter,one of two handfulls long; and if it werea Country greater and better than NuevaEspana, he should send me a greatcross."

Estevan set out on Passion Sunday andwithin four days there came some run-ners from the M oor carrying, "a greatCross as high as a man, and they broughtme word from Estevan, that I shouldforthwith come away after him, for hehad found people which gave him in-formation of a very mighty Province, andthat he had certain Indians in his com-pany, which had been in the said Prov-ince, and that he had sent me one of thesaid Indians. This Indian told me thatT h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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was 30 days' journey from the Town

The messengers from the coast had not

le wake of Estevan.The negro had been ordered to await

But unfortunately Estevan the

He pressed forward and at last camevithin sight of Hawikuh, a Zuni town,the ruins of which were excavated by: > . Frederick Webb Hodge, in 1917-923 for the Museum of the Americanndian, Heye Foundation, New York.

Gourd Loses its MagicThe medicine rattle, as usual, had been,ent ahead. In this instance it was a fatalnistake. Th e Ashiwi (Z uni ) recognizedt as being from the south where dweltheir enemies. Anyone who wore this:ould be none other than a spy. Further-Tiore the Zuni had heard tales of this'black Mexican." He was a cruel manvho demanded turquoise and women.The Ashiwi were determined to have nodealings with such a person. They sentnack word by Indian messenger that Es-:evanico mus t come no further. Th eirrogant Moor paid no attention to theA'arning. At the head of his retinue ofsome 300 men and women he advancedsoldly toward Hawikuh and spent thelight in a large house on the outskirts of:he village. The next morning at sunriseEstevanico strode confidently toward thepueblo, shaking his gourd rattle. Arhrong of determined Ashiwi warriorsDarred his path. Arrows sang through theair. Members of Estevanico's escort drop-ped in their tracks. The negro, now abadly frightened slave, turned to flee, butDeath was swifter and Estevan fell mor-tally wounded. The descendants of thosesame Zuni braves quaintly remarked sev-eral centuries later . . . "Our ancients ofK'ia-ki'me, bad tempered fools, greasedtheir war clubs with the brains of thefirst black Mexican they saw."In the meantime Fray Marcos hadheard from the runners he had sent tothe Gulf. At this time the padre was inthe valley of the Rio Sonora, camped inthe village of Vacapa. Now he pressedon expecting to meet Estevan almost anyday. On through the country of theOpata, accompanied by Sobaipuri Indianswho had come down from the northwhere they dwelt along the valley of the

Zuni Indian wate r carriers. This view take n at the Sacred spring, which the In-dians say alivays supplies wate r eve n when the rains and the river fail. Thesesprings are located jour miles from Zuni pueblo. Photo by Frasher, Pom o na , Ca l.San Pedro river, in what is now Arizona.The actual trail followed by FrayMarcos is not definitely known. Thereare some who believe that he never leftthe confines of the present Mexican stateof Sonora. Others think he may havepenetrated Arizona for a certain distance,

but only the hardiest adherents of FrayMarcos will admit their belief in hisactual advance to a point from which hecould see Hawikuh.The road he followed was at best ahard one. Now the trace led throughragged mountains, grim and foreboding,A P R I L , 1 9 3 9


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now beside cool canyon streams wheregleaming rocky scarps towered over histonsured head. There were thorny thicketsof mesquite, acres of giant saguaro andspiteful cholla, while dense arrowweedthickets hedged him in along the windingstreams.The valley of the San Pedro rivei,

along which he presumably passed, istoday dotted with ruins of mud and rockhouses that were teeming villages in FrayMarcos' time. I have seen the foundationsof those pueblos, fingered the shellbracelets the inhabitants once wore ontheir arms and admired the worn blueturquoise they once suspended from theirears.From the mouth of the San Pedrowhere it joins the Gila, the Franciscan,accompanied by many Sobaipuri, swungnorth-northeast through a mountainousregion cut by the White and Black riv-

e r s . Today it is the land of the Apache,but among the tall pines and on the longridges among the trees are the remnantsof stonewalled pueblos, dozens of them,which were probably empty shells whenFray Marcos laboriously shuffled acrossthe land.Runner Brings News of TragedyTwelve days the priest and his partytoiled through that wild area. One day asweat-drenched Indian runner, badlyfrightened stumbled into the camp bear-ing the news of Estevan's sudden death.The Indian escort murmured muti-nously. Fray Marcos distributed gifts andpersuaded the recalcitrants to push on.A short time later, when within a day'sjourney of Hawikuh, two more woundedIndians brought additional news of thenegro's fatal error. Once again mutinyseemed imminent. One of the Pima In-dians who had accompanied Fray Marcosout of Mexico whimpered that the othertribesmen were going to slay the grey-robe and his Mexican Indian friends.Once more the padre resorted to gifts butthis time the Indians refused to scoutahead."When I saw this," said Fray Marcos,"I said unto them that I purposed to seethe city of Cibola w hatsoever came of it. "According to him, he did see it."I followed my way until I came with-in sight of Cibola, which is situate on aplain at the foot of a round hill, andmaketh shew to be a fair city, and is bet-ter seated than any I have seen in theseparts. The houses are builded in order,according as the Indians told me, allmade of stone, with divers stories andflat roofs, so far as I could discern from

a mountain, whither I ascended to viewthe city."However, Fray Marcos never venturednearer to Hawikuh. He was afraid thatif he perished at the hands of the irate

townsmen, news of his discoveries mightnever reach Mexico. He contented him-self with looking from afar. He built acairn of stones and erected a small cross"because I wanted means to make agreater," took possession of the newkingdom of Saint Francis in the name ofthe Viceroy Don Antonio de Mendoza,and "returned with much more fear thanvictuals" at top speed to Culiacan.As a result of this long and tiresomemarch through one of the harshest moun-tain and desert regions of our Southwest,an armored expedition was launched.Francisco Vasquez de Coronado stormedHawikuh in his gilded parade armor.The myth of the Seven Cities of Cibolabecame mud and stone reality. Thousandsof square miles of new territory wereadded to the possessions of Spain.Of all that followedthe countless ex-plorations to all parts of the land, the

curses hurled at Fray Marcos because thegolden bubble burst in the faces of sun-weary and leg-weary men-at-arms, thecalumnies heaped upon the head of thegrey Franciscanwe have no space inthis article. No one knows exactly howfar Fray Marcos did go. There seems tobe no doubt that the priest believed thathe had found the Seven Cities of Cibola.The fact that he was willing to pilotCoronado and his hard-bitten troopersback over that God-forsaken terrain seemsto be ground for believing the sincerity ofFray Marcos. The states of Arizona andNew Mexico are today monum entsenough to the memory of the grey-robewho dared to go alone in search of theSeven Cities of Cibola.

Broken in health by his hard journey,Fray Marcos settled quietly into the lifeof his calling and died in his bed inJalapa in the year 1558.

Sez Hard Rock Shortyo D eath V al ley

By LON GARRISON"Well," said Hard Rock Shorty,"it may be true that generallyspeakin' the best way to get a burroany place is to head 'im in the

opposite direction an' then try tokeep 'im from backin' up, but itain't always true. I've knowedburros that had to be headed side-ways to get 'em home."Hard Rock tipped his chair back,got his heels hooked over the toprail of the porch and went on withhis lecture on the psychology ofthe burro."Let me tell you about oldCholla Walters who lives a pieceon down below Inferno. He is theorneriest, cantankerous, most un-generate specimen I ever met. Hiswhiskers stick out like chollastickers, an' his disposition matches.Not only that, he has a burro,which is jest like him. Cholla an'Beautyas he named this hammerheaded jackasshas been almostevery place in Death Valley, an'at least twice in every one o' theseplaces Cholla's threatened to shootthat dod-blasted Beauty an' bedone with it. He ain't never doneit though probably's afraid thebullets'll bounce back at 'im.

"One day on Sky High Pass,Cholla was ridin' Beauty along thetrail when the wind blowed a littlegreasewood bush against the bur-

ro's heels. Now most times it'dtake a couple o' raps with a sledgehammer to wake old Beauty up.But he didn't like to be rode, an'he didn't want to go the way theywas headed anyway, so he whirledaround an' took out the other way.Cholla was a bouncin' up an' downan' hollerin . . ." Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Dangyuh, whoa!'"Old Beauty minded just like healways did, an' the first thingCholla knowed, they'd left thetrail an' was headin' out 'crosscountry. All of a sudden they cometo the top of a great high cliff." 'Wh oa!' yells Cholla 'Wh oaBeauty!'"Well Sir, that done it. IfCholla'd kept still, the burro'dprobably've stopped, but he was socontrary he just hopped off withCholla still astraddle of 'im. It wasanyway three thousand foot rightstraight down, an' all the wayCholla kept haulin' on the reins an'cussin' Beauty. But just as they wasabout to hit bottom, Cholla had aidea that saved his life. He kickedBeauty in the ribs" 'Git up! Dang yer orneryhide!' he yells."That done it again. Beauty wasso contrary that he stoppedjusteight inches off the ground!"

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FRUSTRATION Photo by Wm. M. PENNINGTON

Tee/ 'me UetettHy JOHN STEWART MacCLARY

The Zuni, like other Indian tribesmen, has found it necessary to readjusthimself to a civilization that was foreign to him. The problem, is especiallydifficult for the younger Indian, who often finds himself caught in an eddybetween the slow-moving tide of ancient tradition, and the more tempestuouscurrent of the white man's way of life.It is not easy to read the expression in this Zuni countenance. Neitherstolidity, resentment, defiance, rebellion, resignation, nor anger is the rightword. Perhaps the English "What's the use?" would be the most accurate in-terpretation.Perhaps also, if the white men could learn something of the Zuni areof living together in harmony, both races would find their problems greatlysimplified.A P R I L , 1 9 3 9


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W hen E aster C omesto Grand C anyonowa rd Pyl e s t a nd s on ap rom ont ory overl ooki ng t h eG ra nd Ca n yon o n Ea stermorning with a stop natch inhis hand awaiting the magichour of six

Only a comparatively small percentage of the human beingswho live on this earth have been privileged to see Grand Can-yonbut when the Easter sun peeps over the gorge every yearthe program broadcast by the NBC network is heard nearlyaround the world. Here is the story of a desert drama in whichNature plays the leading role and man looks on in humble rev-erence.

' "



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By VIRGINIA DUNCANf I S if we gazed at it from the veryI / edge of Creation , the Gr andCanyon had been a bewildering.oid since before midnight. Black hazelad shrouded it, elusive yet almost tangi-

a l e , wraithlike but real. Then a grayJawn had come to set the haze boilingn evolution, and more than ever weA'ere awed by the vastness th ere . W ewaited in expectant hush. The sun ap-peared precisely as if it had been await-ng its cuean Easter sun, shooting twoirrows of light across the sky exactly at3 a. m. Th ey w ere golden arrow s, form-ng a celestial V and destroying the lastingering vest ige of g loom. The GrandCanyon again was alive!On that light cue a tense a capella choiraf 60 young collegians burst into song,heir "Hosa nnas ' r is ing thro ugh thel inon trees and spreading tr iumphantlyjver the gorge so deep that it mightlave been a tomb for all the men who;ver lived. Their music was heraldic,lot only of a new sun and a new day,3Ut of a new h ope a nd sa lvation for"hristian folk everywhere. And Christianoik everywhere heard it.The Grand Canyon Easter sunrise ser-vice has captured hearts and imaginationsliterally aroun d the wo rld. For four/ears it has gone over every NBC station,ind by short wave to every foreign land."May G od bless you manyfold ," wrotei devout listener from a European coast.

This chorus from the Arizon a StateTeachers' College at Flagstaffgathers aro un d the shr in e o n the r imo \ Gran d C an yo n to gree t the Eas terSunrise with a fi t t ing "Hosan na."

"I sat alone in a lighthouse and picturedthe Canyon as you described it, and en-joyed your music. The inspiration theremust be something like the majesty ofour ocean waves."He was right . Nothing on God's earthis so majestic and inspirational in itswild way as an ocean, nor in its silentway as the Grand Canyon. The Canyonat dawn is to my mind the one spot onearth supreme as an Easter shrine.Radio Announcer Is Drafted

To Howard Pyle of the KTAR staffin Phoenix fell the privilege of "describ- 5ing" the Canyon sunrise. It is perhapsthe most difficult task a radio artist couldhave. Since time began men have sensedthe futility of attempting to describe asunrise, with pictures, words, music, orall three. And a sunrise over the GrandCanyon !Pyle first flatly declined the honor,admitted to his friend and boss, RichardO. Lewis, that he couldn't do the job.

Lewis just grinned at him."Can ' t hear you," he to ld Howard."Y ou 're the program director here.Have at it .""But great heavens, Dickthink whatit means!" Howard pleaded. "I have nostatus as a writer. I am just a voice, a

program organizer. I 'm not even expertat describing a football game. And anArizona sunrise, over the Grand Canyon,at Easter . . . why I . . . ""If you could hire Shakespeare he'dfail at this job," Dick Lewis declared,truthfully. "Y ou live in Arizona, andlove it. You're a devout Christian. Youknow radio. Go on inside your office andlock the door."

And so for four years the world hasheard superbly good verbal descriptions ofone of Nature's grandest spectacles. Pylemakes a few preliminary notes, a page ortwo of sketchy script, but they are main-ly for insurance in split-second timing,as chain radio requires. Most of his actualdescription is spontaneous, adapted tothe mood and weather of the moment,yet his flow of words is nothing short ofpoetic.For nearly an hour before the momentof the broadcast he sits alone on a pro-montory, a white rock cliff that pushespeninsula-like out into the purplish can-yon. He could step forward four feet andfall half a mile. Two wires tied to hisbelt stretch across a branch canyon tothe microphone at the choir, thence tothe instrument car. No one is allowed togo out near Howard. At 10 minutes tosix he stands, ear phones on his head,gazing downward and eastward. Patchesof snow may linger around him but he isimpervious to its cold and to the chillingwinds that eddy up from the Canyondepths. A mile below he can see the dark

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form of the Colorado river coming alivefor another day. Fifteen miles away, be-yond the precipitous chasm created byNature's erosive artistry, is the oppositerim of the canyon. Over all is a nightpall, a haze, a gloom, a shroud as inChrist's tomb.A faint glow appears on the easternhorizon. Howard lifts his right hand.Eyes on his wrist watch, he sees thesecond hand touch twelve. It is sixo'clock! Down drops his arm. Instantly,"Hosanna, HOSANNA!" the choir be-gins. The sun is rising from behind thedistant horizon, highlighting the ruggedlandscape and touching the face of theannouncer. For half an hour (some yearsit is an hour) the service continues.Music, prayer, a sermonette, and HowardPyle's beautiful description!

Master Painter at Work"The Master Painter is at work," weheard him saying. "Each new flood ofbrilliance seems to fall like an echo fromthe lofty reaches of the eastern sky. Thesong of a new day is begun. Its melodyseems to spring everywhere. The shroudof royal purple is being cut to bits, al-ready the Grand Canyon of Arizona islike another world."The Easter broadcast is non-sectarian.I recall that Episcopal ministers werethere last year, and I know that Dr.Charles S. Poling, a Presbyterian, deliv-ered the sermonette two years prior. It

doesn't matter; Jesus brought no "de-nominations" to earth, and at Easter as atno other time do Christians feel one fel-lowship.Th e choir from Flagstaff (Ari zona)Teachers College, the half dozen radiofolk and the minister, and perhaps 200spectators, constituted the group whowere at the rim Shrine of the Ages. Theactual shrine is but a wooden cross atop arock table, simple but significant. We ofthe audience stood shivering back a ways,so that stray coughs and rustlings wouldnot reach the microphone. We took no

part; there was no place for applause.But I think that in every heart was aprayer, a song of exaltation, for some ofus had traveled more than 2,000 milesto be at that shrine for that particularhalf hour, and mere curiosity was not themoving force.Afterward, of course, all of us had aninterest in the mechanics of the broad-cast. Some of us were woefully non-tech-nical. Old Red Rock, for instance. He isa patriarch among the "lowest down peo-ple on earth," the Havasupai Indians,who live 3,000 feet below the rim in the

the very Canyon itself. His people havebeen Canyon dwellers for too manycenturies to remember.Red Rock could not understand themicrophone, nor what palefaces were do-ing in front of it. He knew we were at10

worshipindeed, he could join us inhis pagan waybut what was all this talkof sending the words and music aroundthe world, into foreign lands, across thegreat waters? White man is either crazyor miraculous. Red Rock suspects it is theformer.For that matter I can feel almost as in-credulous as Red Rock. Consider this:The words and musical notes at that Can-yon shrine were heard in far away NewYork, New Zealand, China, BuenosAires, Johannesburg, Calcutta, and onships at sea, actually b ef ore they wereheard by us who stood there as a silentaudience. We were 200 feet or so fromthe performers. Sound traversed that 200feet of air slower than the electrical im-pulses could take it to radio speakersaround the world, thence into ears near-by.The Grand Canyon, so Messrs. Pyle,Anderson and Lewis of KTAR informedu s , is the best possible radio broadcasting"studio." The acoustics of this mile-deep,18-mile-wide, 200-mile-long room areperfect. The wind whispering in thepinons is likely to be the only extraneoussound, although one year the world didhear the snort of a Kaibab deer.

Deer Is Uninvited GuestVisitors to the Canyon resort villageknow about the friendliness of the deerthat roam there, begging food fromtourists. Well, one curious buck saw thedudes gathered on the rim at this dawn,and ambled over to be sociable, stickingout his nose persistently at El don Ardry,directing the choir. Somebody made asilent shooing motion.

"Phoof!" snorted the deer, jumpingback, indignant. Even the sedate preachersmiled.Most disturbing incident perhaps wasthat which involved Arthur Anderson,who was to announce the first GrandCanyon program several years ago. Hav-ing the biggest job of his career at hand,he had prepared a perfect script. At dawn

he arose by alarm clock, rushed joyfullyto his post on the Canyon rim, took hismicrophone in readiness, looked off tosee Howard Pyle's hand lifted in warningthat the moment was near. Then heturned to say a morning hello to LouisBarrett, chief technician in charge.Only a raspy croak came out! Duringthe chill night laryngitis had crept intoMr. Anderson's throat. With but half aminute to wait now, he could not speakabove a hoarse whisper.Barrett had never been on the air, infact he held a technician's mild contemptfor "mere announcers." But in desper-ation he took his friend Andy's script andread it to the world, giving each perform-er a perfect cue. The world never sus-pected but that he had done a perfect,long-rehearsed job.

MonthlyAmateun,

Each month the Desert Mag-azine offers cash prizes of $5.00and $3.00 for first and secondp l a c e w i n ne r s in a ph oto -graphic contest for amateurs .Pictures must be l imited todesert subjects, but include awide range of possibil i t ies landscapes, c lose-ups of p lant

and animal l i fe , characters tudies , Indians, canyons androck formations, in fact any pic-ture that belongs to the desertcountry .There is no restriction as tothe residence of the photogra-pher and dur ing the 15 monthsthe contest has been held morepr izes have been won by vis i t -ing amateurs than by deser t

residents . Fol lowing are therules :1Pictures submitted in the April

contest must be received at the DesertMagazine office by April 20.

2Not more than four prints may besubmitted by one person in one month.

3Winners will be required to fur-nish either good glossy enlargements orthe original negatives if requested.

4Prints must be in black and white,214x31/4 or larger.

5Pictures will be returned onlywhen postage is enclosed.

For non-prize -winning pictures ac-cepted for publication $1.00 will bepaid for each print.

Winners of the April contest willbe announced and the pictures pub-lished in the June number of the mag-azine. Address all entries to:

C O N T E S T E D I T O R ,D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E ,E L C E N T R O , C A L I F O R N I A .



13/38

When rumors reached John Hilton that a newdesert gem area had been found along the routeof a new highway being built through the Chucka-walla mountains of California between Niland andBlythe, he went out to investigate. The road wasrough and he failed to find any prize gems, butit proved to be an interesting excursion neverthe-less, and one that will interest all those who liketo explore the desert by w ays .

New Trail forGem Collectors

SPEEDOMETER LOGNiland to Chuckawalla Summit0.01.02.04.05.610.0

13.615.430.2

Niland.Glamis road takes off onright, keep to left.Mining road takes off toright.Road takes off on left to-ward Iris pass.Sideroad on left.Enter pass in Chocolatemountains.Beal's well.Junction where new roadleaves old route.Summit near end of newroad.

By JOHN W. HILTON/ P HUCKAWALLA range in Riv-

I erside county, Southern Califor-nia, has always held a great fas-nation for me. Sprawling like a giant

only the hardiest adventurersHidden among its lofty crags and nar-

the eyes of mineral and gem collectors.Ghost mining camps tell the story oftragic efforts in past years to wrest goldand silver from this range. With one ortwo exceptions, the mining prospects inthis region have never yielded wealthworth mentioning but of quartz fami-ly gems there are many to be found here.

Recently I was told that a new roadunder construction between Niland andBlythe would traverse the heart of the

Chuckawallas from south to north, andthat new areas with possible gem materialwould be made accessible.

This sector of road is to be a link inthe International Four States highway,and is being built through cooperationbetween Riverside and Imperial counties.When completed it will open a new in-land route from Mexico to the Canadianborder. The remaining sectors of thisroute through California, Nevada, Idahoand Montana already are open to travel.

It was for the purpose of getting apreview of the new road, and exploringthe gem possibilities of the area throughwhich it passes, that I invited a group of

I C V V ' * ^ < ^

I ^ J ^CHUCKAWALLA W E L L d j :

RIVERSIDE COUNTYIMPERIAL COL

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i

Marjorie Reed, ivho spends her win-ters painting at Palm Springs, be-co mes geo de co l lec to r fo r a day and is fascinated by what she findsin the Chuckawalla field.

desert enthusiasts to join me recently ona trip along the route.Leaving Mecca early in the morning,we soon were in sight of Salton sea andthe comfortable resort which Gus Eilerhas established at Date Palm Beach.Across the sea to the south we could seethe outlines of California's Superstitionmountains . As we watched the horizonthe shape of the hills seem to waver andchange. At times there would be theunbroken skyline of a table mountain.Then this would give way to a series ofsharp pinnacles which in turn would

seem to separate themselves from thefloor of the desert and float off intospace.W e were watch ing a typical wintermorning mirage of the Cahuilla basinregion. The distortion is due to thewarming of the denser layers of atmos-phere over the sea. The mirage is es-pecially noticeable when the early morn-ing sun brings a sharp change in thetemperature.As we approached Nil and an occasion-al plot of cultivated ground replaced the

barren clay flats of the north sea shore.Sheltered by the Chocolate mountainsthis is the frostless winter garden belt ofnorthern Imperial valley.At Niland we crossed the tracks goingnorth and followed signs which point the

way to Beal's well and Blythe. As weleft the little settlement and started acrossthe desert trail that led toward the north-east we noted the Auto Club's warningsigncautioning all who come this wayto carry an ample supply of water. Therehave been many desert tragedies alongthis route. It is a rough road with fewwatering places.Travelers on the desert by-ways shouldalways carry an extra five gallons ofwater. This not only is a protection forthemselves but may be a boon to someother wayfarer who is in trouble alongthe route. There have been occasions onthis trail when an extra gallon of waterwould have saved hours of suffering andeven life itself.Our road was climbing steadily towardthe Chocolate mountains. Ironwood, paloverde and ocotillo replaced the low-growing sage and salt bush of the Salton

sea area. Unexpectedly, a wide canyonopened in the brown range ahead andsoon we were winding along the floor ofa water-course between precipitous walls.Cholla cactus grows to giant size in thissheltered canyon and before long wefound ourselves in a veritable garden ofthese plants. Some specimens grow to aheight of 12 feet.Then we came to Beal's well, alwaysa reliable watering place for the traveler.This well is maintained by Imperialcounty and excellent water is obtained by

means of a bucket and a rope. Prospect-ors come here from all over this area and

generally two or three of them arecamped at this spot.Shortly after passing the well weemerged from our pass in the Chocolatesand climbed to the alluvial mesa knownas Paradise valley. It is a wide plateauthat lies between the Chocolate andChuckawalla ranges. The name was givenseveral years ago by real estate promoterswho sold large numbers of five and 10-acre tracts sight-unseen to buyers whowere under the impression their landswould be served with water from Im-perial valley's all-American canal. Th eCalifornia real estate commission orderedthe misrepresentation to be stopped, butthere is still some trading in these lands.A few miles north of Beal's well wereached the junction where the newlyconstructed sector of the Niland-Blythehighway takes off from the old road.Under the direction of Supervisor B. M.Graham of Brawley a well graded roadhas been built from this point to thesummit of the Chuckawalla mountains.Unfortunately, heavy rains came soonafter the road grade was completed andwe found the going slow and rough. Thedamage will be repaired, however.Paradise valley, sheltered on all sidesby mountain ranges, is a luxurious gar-den of desert vegetation at this season ofthe year. The giant chollas have been leftbehind and we are now in the region ofthe tree yucca Y. mohavensis.Ahead of us the Chuckawalla rangeloomed up in all its rugged beauty. Faroff across the Colorado river to the east

Gem collectors pause along the new road leading toward Graham pass in theChuckaivalla moun tains. Geo des and chalcedon y rose s ivere foun d in the passahead and to the right o f the landscape shown in this photo graph.

12 T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


15/38

Typical specimens o f chalcedon y roses and thunder eggs found in Chuckawalla moun tainsthe Castle Dome range could be seenagainst a backdrop of Arizona mountains.It was noon when we reached thepoint where the newly graded roadcrosses the old Bradshaw stage trail andwe stopped here for picnic lunch. Fivemiles to the west of us is Chuckawallawell where still may be seen the ruins ofthe old stage station and corral used dur-ing the 'sixties when this was the mainroute of travel from the coast to theplacer gold fields at La Paz, Arizona.One member of our party found freshdeer tracks in the sand near where weate our lunch. The heavy rains duringthe winter have brought a carpet of wild-flowe rs to this desert region. They werenot yet in blossom when we made ourtrip, but the green foliage evidently hadbrought the deer down from the rocky-crags of the Chuckawallas.

A small butte standing out on the des-ert to the east of our road appeared to beformed of the type of Andesite wheregeodes often occui, and after lunch wehiked over there to investigate. I wasdisappointed at first when I could findno fragments of agate in the float at thebase of the butte. just before we were toleave, however, one of the women in ourparty brought me a round rock she hadpicked up. It was the color of Andesiteand covered with v/art-like protuberances.Presently we found more of these, in-cluding some that had broken in weather-ing and showed fine agate centers withinteresting patterns. These are the typeof agate nodules or Andesite-coveredgeodes known generally among collect-ors as "thunder eggs."

Closer inspection of the hill disclosedthat these interesting specimens areweathering out of the east side, and thatthere is an abundance of them ranging

in size from that of a marble to six oreight inches in diameter.This unexpected find kept us here forsome time and it was midafternoon be-fore we continued our way along the roadtoward the summit of the pass throughthe Chuckawallas. The cross-cuts in theroad caused by recent storm water be-came more frequent and our progresswas slow. Then we began to climb thegrade that led over the range. The stormwater that flowed across the road on thelevel plain had followed the wheel trackson this grade and cut out ruts whichmade travel anything but monotonous.Parking Place at SummitWe crossed two rock bridges andcame to the summit from where we couldlook out across the Chuckawalla valleynorth of the range. The road starteddown the north slope, but on one of thesehunches which come sometimes I stoppedthe car at the top and walked down thegrade ahead. It was a good hunch for

the road ended abruptly just around thenext curve with no space at that pointto turn around.We had passed from Imperial intoRiverside county, and the Riverside road-builders are to continue the constructionwork from this point to a connection withHighway 60 between Desert Center andHopkins well.We were looking for "chalcedonyroses" which were reported to have beenfound along the route of this new road.A few poor specimens were seen nearthe right-of-way but on climbing the hillto the right I could see a low ridge ex-tending away to the east which seemedto be a proper formation to carry them.About a quarter of a mile from the baseof this ridge we came to an area in whichthe desert's roses of rock were plentiful.

We found them embedded in the motherrock. Here also were some small geodes.The difference in their occurrence is thata geode fills the entire cavity in whichit is formed while the "desert roses" oc-cupy only the bottom of the space in thelava bubble.The chalcedony in this region assumesevery conceivable form. The specimenscan be used for such ornamental pur-poses as pin trays and paper weights andsome of the smaller pieces would makebeautiful buttons and articles of jewelry.Some of the small hollow geodes are solight they will float while others havetiny detached crystals in their centerswhich will rattle when they are shaken.We found no specimens of exceptionalquality, but for the gem hunter who findspleasure in the exploring of new gemareas some of these stones are well worthcarrying home. The new road is still veryrough and it is not a trip I would re-commend for a motorist inexperienced indesert travel. However, a few monthslater when the construction work on thisnew road is completed, it will open agreat new region of interest to botanistand desert camper as well as to the gemhunter. CALIFORNIA DIVISION OFMINES ISSUES REPORT

California's Division of Mines, under thedirection of Wa lter W . Bradley, state mineral-ogist, has just released the July, 1938, issueof the California Journal of Mines and Geolo-gy, 160 pp.Contents include a report on the MineralResources of El Dorado county, a paper onStrategic Minerals of California, MineralHigh-Lights of California, and a GeologicStudy of Submarine Canyons off the Californiacoast. There are also special articles on TheMountain Copper Co., Ltd., Cyanide Treat-ment of Gossan, Use of Ultra-Violet Light inProspecting for Scheelite, and the New StateLands Act of 1938.

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Richard Sortomme, desert artist at Tucson, so farwon the confidence of the Yaqui Indians that theypermitted him to paint a series of water colors dur-ing their annual Easter Passion Play dances. Thehalftone reprint on this page is of "The Betrayal"in which one of the Soldiers of Satan is searchingin the Garden of Gethsemane for El Cristo. This isone of the prints in the sequence of 11 picturesmade by the artist.

HE PAINTED THE YAQUISBy RUBY BOWEN

/ / yHILE a Yaqui policeman shooed away the crowdI A / that milled around the Via Crucis, an unobtrusive' " little man sat sketching the dancing Indian figuresin a pocket notebook.The place was Pascua, the Easter village where the YaquiIndians present their annual Passion play. The man wasRichard Sortomme, Tucson desert artist who, as far as isknown, made the first painted record of the Yaqui Easterdances.

Cameras are banned at these religious ceremonials, and theregulation is strictly enforced by the Indians themselves. How-ever, the weirdly-masked policeman, who also was enactingthe part of head Pharisee (one of the soldiers of Satan) inthe play, not only permitted the sketches to be made but wasconcerned to the point of taking the artist under his specialcare. For these were Holy pictures and they must be justright.Thus it was under the protection of this stern Yaqui Sol-dier of Satan that Richard Sortomme drew the outlines of hisResurrection interpretive paintings attracting wide-spread in-terest among artists and critics.Sortomme remained at the Indian village six weeks toauthenticate his work by close study of Yaqui tribal cus-toms and ceremonials. The actual painting was done at hisdesert studio north of Tucson. The medium is guasch, abeautiful opaque water color.The Yaqui Passion Play paintings comprised an importantpart of the one-man show of desert pictures which Sortommeheld recently at the Temple of Art and Music at Tucson.Eleven paintings make up the complete Resurrection Se-quence. They are: (1) PURIFICATION OF FLOGGING(the initial ceremony of Holy W ee k) , (2) PHARISEESTRACKING EL CRISTO (soldiers of Satan seeking Christ),

(3 ) TH E RELAY (around the 14 Stations of the Cross),(4) SOLDIERS OF SATAN (the Chapieka figures), (5)THE BETRAYAL (Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane),(6) DEER DAN CE, (7) Y AQUI BACCHANAL (drink-ing scene where the Pharisees rejoice after the crucifixion),(8) JUDAS IN EFFIGY, (9) GLORIA (which shows thefirst tolling of the mission bells), (10) BEARERS OF THETIDINGS, and (11) THE MIMICS (Yaqui children wear-ing masks make a game of the dances).This unassuming little man who won the confidence ofthese primitive, half-pagan Indians is a native of Wisconsin.He studied at the Leighton School of Art at Milwaukee, Wis-consin and at the Minneapolis School of Art.Sortomme stresses the beneficial results which his associ-

ation with certain interesting personalities (not all of themartists) have had from time to time upon his work. Kopietzunder whom he studied at Minneapolis influenced him great-ly in choosing water colors as his medium.Working under the archaeologist, Edgar A. DeForest,

rather early in his career, he painted a series of Mayan archae-ological re-creations. This was significant in that it interestedhim in an authentic recording of Indian cultures. A largeMayan costume plate made under DeForest now hangs inthe Arizona state museum at Tucson.Coming to the southwest, he painted with Joseph A. Imhofat Taos. Several compositions were made by him of the puebloIndians in New Mexico. A significant work is "THE EM-BLEM," which is a recording of the Santo Domingo GreenCorn Dance. That the preliminary sketch made for the fin-ished painting now hangs in the Arizona state museum indi-cates the recognized authenticity of his work.Sortomme's paintings have been exhibited with the South-western artist shows at Santa Fe; at the Tudor galleries,Chicago; Speed memorial museum, Louisville; and the JohnHerron museum, Indianapolis. He painted the murals forthe Jennings county court house in Indiana. One-man showshave been hung at the W. K. Stuart gallery in Louisville;and at other galleries in Indianapolis, St. Petersburg, Florida,

and recently at Tucson. He is a member of the Arizonasociety of painters and sculptors, and secretary of the ArtRental association.Sortomme lives on the desert in a home which he says hehas "built around obstacles." The Yaquis, who are adobemakers par excellence when they are not dancing, have beenhelping him in the construction of his studio. He showed methe fireplace he and the Yaquis recently built and proudlytold me how well it drew.Recently he painted a mural of the Passion Play dancersand invited the Yaquis over to view it. The Indians' reactionswere interesting. Their beloved Maestro was the first figurethey identified in the mural. "And that," they gleefully indi-cated a dancing Indian in the lower part of panel, "is Juan."

"How do you know that?" the artist inquired."He holds his gourd rattle so!" the Yaquis pantomimedelaborately, "and he goes about the world so always withhis eyes looking wide. Oh, we know all right!", the Indiansnodded sagely, to the delight of their desert artist.14 T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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When the Spanish padres came to the Southwest in the 1500sthey found theY aqui Indians celebrating the coming of spring eachyear with a strange pagan ritual. Under the influence of the Catho-lic fathers, the natives replaced their wooden god with an image ofChrist and gradually wove the story of the last days of the Saviourinto their own ceremonial, until today they have evolved a half-Christian, half-pagan Passion play that parallels in some respectsthe pageant of Oberammergau. Here is the story of one of thestrangest ceremonials in America.

Masked Passion Playof the YaquisBy RUBY BOW EN

fO ten go camisal"The half naked Yaqui CoyoteDancer who quietly addressedme in the circle of desert firelight wasindeed without a shirt. The dancingflam es gleamed fitfully on his bronzeskin, giving him a supernatural appear-mce. One had the feeling of having beenspoken to by a satyr out of some myth.Besides the buckskin shorts which cov-;red his loins, he wore a collection of:ocoon and rattlesnake rattles whichrlattered about his ankles, and two weirdmasks pushed back from his face, one of:hem dangling a coyote tail over hisorehead.

"He says he has no shirt!" translated3ne of the "pale people" who had gath-ered in the desert moonlight to share thespiritual beauty of this 400-year oldPassion Play. The Yaqui Indians givehis play each year during Holy Week at:acti thatched PascuaEaster V illage i few miles north of Tucson, Arizona; atGuadalupe, near Phoenix; and in the^aqui valley of Old Mexico.A twinkle lurked in the dark, piercingeyes which looked into mine out of anotherwise solemn face. Patiently he heldlis deerhide tom-tom which served as a:ollection plate for my freewill offering>vhile I struggled to unclasp my vanityDurse."Well, I'll not have any shirt either,"jood-naturedly boomed an oversizedA'hite woman nearby. "Not if he passes:he collection plate many more times to-

light."At which the "pale people" laughedjproariously. In the general hilarity.vhich followed, purse strings were loos-ened as the Yaqui with coyote shrewd-less had probably guessed they would

O n e of the D e e r D a n c e r s.Ph ot o by Pereira Studio.silvere, and a generous shower ofpieces tinkled into the tom-tom.

For the Coyote Dancer and his tribes-men these coins soon would be convertedinto great roasted beefs, pots of steamingcoffee and cauldrons of bubbling beans.On the morrow, after the Soldiers ofSatan had been conquered by the Forces

of Good, after Judas had been taken onhis last ride on the back of a donkeyalong the Via CrucisWay of the Crossand the costumes worn by the Yaquishad gone up in the flames with the wick-edness of Judasthen would come atime for great rejoicing! They wouldfeast after the firecracker and strawstuffed effigy of Judas had popped andflared. This would be the annual Fiestade la Gloria of the Yaqui Indians.Tribesmen from the desert of Arizonaand Mexico, who had trekked into East-er Village before Holy Week, their greatwooden wagons filled nearly to burstingwith brown children, were camped nearthe plaza. Yes, it was good perhaps thatthe "pale people" who also grieved overEl Cristo and his sad journey along theVia Crucis had been made to laugh alittle. Now the feasting would be assured.Handing the silver-laden tom-tom to a

group of elderly Indians who squatted onblankets by one of the numerous bon-fires, the Coyote Dancer, no trace ofhumor in his eyes now, adjusted hismask. A graceful Yaqui, with a beautifulset of mounted deer horns on his head,awaited him in the circle of firelight.Play of Pagan AncestryThe Yaqui Passion Play is an enact-ment of the last days of the Christ asseen through the eyes of these half-Christian, half-pagan Indians. When thepadres came to the Southwest in the

1500s, they found the Yaquis celebratingthe Coming of Spring to the desert witha beautiful but barbarous pageant. Desertaltars were decked with the first springblossoms, even as they are today. Awooden god was placed upon the altarsand a vast spectacle enacted, the Forcesof Good after a mighty struggle alwaystriumphant over the Forces of Evil. Coy-otes' heads and heads of demons wereused to represent Evil, as in the present-day pageant.The padres' story of the gentle Christ

so impressed the Yaquis that they wove itinto their age-old drama. Bit by bitthrough the years they added and dis-carded, until the present Passion Playwas evolved. Down came the woodengod and the wondrous El Cristo came tobe worshipped as the Good. The Dancersof the Good were assigned to guard E/Cristo, while the wicked Soldiers of Sat-an, made up of Fariseos and Pilatos,joined the ranks of the Forces of Evilalong with the demons. The church flagand images of Santa M aria and ElCristowere added. Judas came to symbolizeEvil upon whom the Yaquis vent theirwrath.

As at Oberammergau, these devout In-dian people live from one year to an-other for their Passion Play. It is so mucha part of their lives they have namedA P R I L , 1 9 3 9 15


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their village near Tucson, "Pascua,"which translated from the Spanish meansEaster. The original ceremonial is almost100 years older than the one at Oberam-mergau. Artifacts found by archaeolo-gists indicate that it may even go back1,000 years or longer. From one Easteruntil the next, the Yaquis are alwaysin preparation for their play. Many of thematerials for it must be gathered fromthe desert itself. As at Oberammergau,the character of the Yaqui in his every-day life is an important factor in deter-mining the role that shall be assigned tohim at Easter. They give not only thewhole year to preparation for each an-nual presentation - - they devote theirlives to training for it. The Passion Playis their lives. Indian children, imitatingtheir elders, begin to learn the dances assoon as they can toddle. When five yearsold, they start dancing as "angels" in theplay.

Arizona Yaquis are not wards of theUnited States government. Fleeing theYaqui valley in Mexico during the Diazregime, they sought and found sanctuaryhere as political refugees. In recent years,an amnesty arranged with the Mexicangovernment made it possible for the Ari-zona tribesmen to return to their oldhome in northern Sonora. Some in Pascuareturned to Mexico. Among white Ari-zonians, to whom the Yaqui Easter playhad come to have a deep significance,there was some concern lest the rarepoetic beauty of this pageant be lost for-ever to the Arizona desert. But havinggrown to like their adopted home, manyof the Indians remained.

As we make our Easter pilgrimage to

Soldiers of Satan. These are the Un-believers who heckle and taunt theFaithful as t h ey seek to travel theW ay of the Cross. The picture is ahalf tone reproduction o\ water colorpaint ing by Richard Sortomme .Ph ot o by G eorg e G eyerPascua we see 14 crosses, whittled fromcactus wood, sticking in the ground. Thisis the Via Crucis. It leads northward outof Easter Village and back again, and itis here on the desert sands that the scenesof the beautiful play are enacted. This isthe Friday afternoon before Lent whenthe pageant always opens with the firstprocession around the Via Crucis. Theprocession ritual which continues throughLent is a symbolic prelude to the PassionPlay itself, which begins on Wednesdayof Holy Week.

Tom-tom Announces PrayerApproaching Pascua on this first Fri-day afternoon, we hear a Yaqui tom-tombeating the second Call to Prayer.Streaming from their huts in the adjacentvillage, the colorfully-clad Indians areassembling at a ramada which, decoratedwith the first desert flowers and greenbranches, is a sacred desert shrine. Agroup of the Faithful quickly form a pro-cession. Led by their beloved Maestroand carrying the emblems of their offices,the altar crucifixes and a statue of theVirgin Mary, the procession begins tomove along the Way of the Cross, keep-ing step to the music of a masked fluteplayer and drummer.

Heckling the Faithful as they move tothe Stations of the Cross come the vil-

lians of the play, the Fariseos and thePilatossoldiers of Pilate. Together theyare know as "Mummers." They are theunbelievers, the Soldiers of Satan. Weird-ly dressed, at times masked, and alwayscarrying rasping sticks and other noisemakers, they interrupt the worship of theFaithful who strive to ignore their anticsand attend to their prayers and theteachings of the Maestro. Brandishingwooden swords and paper shields andotherwise making themselves obnoxious,the Pilatos attempt to fight the Dancersof the Good who guard the women carry-ing the sacred statue of the Virgin. Thistaunting of the Faithful, symbolic of theconflict between Evil and Good, contin-ues throughout the play itself, reachingits dramatic climax at the end of HolyWeek. Beginning with one masked Fari-s e o , on each successive Friday duringLent another Fariseoappears. On the lastFriday before Holy Week they are allin full regalia.

The Passion Play itself is ushered insimply on Wednesday of Holy Week atthe sunset hour. As the last rays of theArizona sun are streaking the sky andthe shadows are lengthening on the Tuc-son peaks, the Yaquis, having previous-ly purified themselves by flogging eachother with ropes, gather at the shrine asthey so often do for evening prayers.We join them there. With their dogsabout them and with drowsy childrensleeping at brown mothers' breasts, thesesimple desert Indians begin their playwith a sacred, candle-lighting and psalm-chanting ceremony. This is in their na-tive tongue.The following day, Holy Thursday,

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:he drama begins in earnest along theVia Crucis. Again the Soldiers of Satanbeset the Faithful who seek to travel theWay of the Cross. Thursday night thereis enacted the tragedy of the Garden ofGethsemane. It is an unforgettable sceneplayed in full desert moonlight in a gar-den constructed of desert foliage. We gothere reverently, Indian and "pale peo-ple" alike, to watch the betrayal of theChrist enacted by the Soldiers of Pilate,with Evil enjoying its hour of triumph.

As the moon rises, the Pilatos accom-panied by drum and flute players, searchthe Stations of the Cross for El Cristo,indicating their intention with a fiercepantomime. Meanwhile the Maestro,holding a crucifix in his hand and wear-ing the mask of El Cristo, has quietlytaken his place in the garden. He isfound and interrogated thrice. From theGospel of St. John 18 4-7, the Spirit ofEl Cristo speaks:El Cristo: " Aqn ien buscas?" Whomseek ye?He is answered: ' 'A Jesus, el Nazar-e n o ! "Again El Cristo speaks: " Aquien bus-cas?"Once more, he is answered: "A Jesus,el hiazareno !"The Spirit of El Cristo then asks: "Por-cfiie le buscas?'' Why seek ye him?Forces of Evil TriumphHe is not answered, but is seized

roughly. As the Pilatos triumph, the de-mons among the Forces of Evil in greatglee destroy the Garden. In the barbaricdance which follows, they howl likeanimals and roll on the sand in fiendishabandon. This betrayal scene is completeeven to the cock crows, which part ismuch sought by small Yaqui boys. Asthe Garden is destroyed, the Faithfulsadly chant the Miserere and retire to theshrine where, led by their Maestro,psalms are chanted and the rosary issaid.The Indians sometimes play this scenewith the image of El Cristo instead ofwith the living Spirit. In this enactment,the image is previously hidden in theGarden. After a diligent search, it ispounced upon by the Soldiers of Satan.It is taken by them to the Yaqui churchwhere it is "crucified" on a cross andhung inside the church. Later, this imageis spirited out of the church and put intothe bier. The actual crucifixion of theChrist is not usually enacted.On Good Friday the Forces of Evil arestill in the ascendency. Madly they ride

their long, painted, scraping sticks as ifthey were bucking broncos. They dancein mad abandon and mock the Faithfulwho watch sadly at El Cristo's bier.Guarded by black-clad Yaqui women un-der the blackened crosses at the ramada,

the statue of the little Virgin no longerwears her blue silk dress, her lace veil,her strings of gaily-colored beads. Shenow mourns in deepest black for herSon. Yaqui men wear black shirts as theywatch the Coyote and Deer Dancers carryon the symbolic struggle of their deathdance. Prayers are said for the dead.The candles flicker and burn low. Anaged Indian throws more wood on thefire. The Spirit of El Cristo may be travel-ing the Via Crucis this sad night. But heis not making his journey alone. Forthrough these dark hours, the Yaquis aresorrowfully keeping the death watch.And as midnight approaches they kneelon the ground in prayer before puttingon the headdress of the Matachin orGroup Dancers whose lengthy ritualforetells the ascendency of the Good.Small Indian children appear as "angels"in this dance.

Judas Burned at StakeOn Holy Saturday, the dancing cul-minates in a triumph of Good over Evil.Yaqui virgins, dressed in white andwearing flowers in their hair, watch bythe bier. An effigy of Judas is mountedon a donkey and taken to the Stations ofthe Cross where he meets the scorn of theFaithful. Then he is unmounted and tiedto a stake. As the first note of the Gloriais intoned by the Yaqui choir, a matchis touched to Judas. He goes up in adramatic explosion of fireworks. Themasks, clothing, and all the costumes andparaphernalia used in the ritual exceptdeer horns and hoofs are tossed on thepyre and consumed in flames. Collectorsbeg the Indians to sell their beautifullycarved and painted masks, their raspingsticks and headdresses instead of burn-ing them. The Yaquis feel that greatharm would come to whoever possessedthese things, and although poor they re-fuse to exchange them for money.

After Evil has been vanquished in theflames the Fiesta de la Gloria begins.The feasting lasts from noon of HolySaturday until Easter night. Guitars,harps and violins are brought forth bymusicians. The little Virgin is clad oncemore in her blue silk dress, her lace veil,her many strands of beads. Colorfulclothing is worn again by all the Indiansand the dancing of the Forces of theGood continues through the day.

As the first light of Easter dawn breaksover Pascua, Yaqui women from theranks of the Faithful trek over the des-ert to El Cristo's tomb on a hillside. It isempty and the Crucifix placed there isgone. News of the Resurrection is her-alded. Bathed and purified, the Yaquisare now ready to listen to the Sermon onthe Mount. Delivered by the Maestro,this makes a beautiful ending for thePassion Play. Feasting will continue, how-

ever, until the sunset hour when visitingYaquis who have made their annual pil-grimage to Easter Village will climb intotheir great wooden wagons and start thelong journey homeward.The Yaquis are relatively poor people,eking out a patient existence on the des-ert. But in this troubled world today

where the Spirit of Evil is so often trium-phant and evidences of man's greed andinhumanity to man are all about us, itis inspiring to note that these devout,simple Indians have evolved a PassionPlay of great spiritual beauty and, resist-ing all temptation, have brought itthrough 400 consecutive years withoutcommercializing it. SOIL CONSERVATIONDISTRICTS ORGANIZED

Reorganization of three major water-shed districts in Arizona, New Mexicoand parts of Colorado and Utah into nineconservation areas is announced by theU. S. soil conservation service. Establish-ment of a new area in New Mexico forthe southern half of the Pecos drainage,and permanent status for three temporaryareas in Utah and the western Coloradoarea have also been approved at Wash-ington. Heretofore three major districtsincluded the Rio Grande, with 19 millionacres, all the area of the Rio Grande inNew Mexico; the Gila district with 14million acres of the Gila watershed fromSilver City west and the Navajo districtwith 28 million acres in the San Juanand Little Colorado areas of New Mexi-co, Arizona, and parts of Colorado andUtah.

New area headquarters will be set upat Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Las Cruces.Roswell, Gallup, Silver City, Farming-ton, New Mexico; in Arizona at Warren,Safford and Window Rock; in Utah atPrice, St. George, and Salt Lake City.The service takes on broader activity,in addition to soil erosion administering

the water facilities, land purchase andrehabilitation, and cooperative farm for-estry programs. Hugh G. Calkins is reg-ional director. Labor CCC enrollees from22 camps in the four states will be used. SEEKS REPAYMENT OF"FORGOTTEN TRIBES"California's Attorney general asks theUnited States court of claims to set atrial date for the state's suit against thefederal government in which $15,000,000is sought for 23,000 descendants of "ISforgotten tribes ." Congress gave Cali-fornia permission to sue for the Indiansunder 18 treaties made in 1852. The statesays Uncle Sam pigeonholed the treatiesand never carried out their promises,"after driving the Indians from valuableland by trickery and force."

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W here Anza Blazedthe First Trail

By RANDALL HENDERSONTo Juan Bautista de Anz a and the venturesome pion eers who cam eafter him along the arid trail into Southern California, the Coloradodesert was a perilous barrier that had to be overcome only because itcould not be avoided. Little did these original trail-finders dream thatthe day would come when another generation of Americans wouldturn back to this same desert to find peace and freedom and a placeof escape from the destructive forces of a man-made civilization. Andyet, that is really taking place today. The State of California is settingaside a mill ion acres of i ts desert domain as a sanctuary for those whowould seek health and relaxation in the great outdoorsand appropri-ately, is naming it Anza Desert State Park.

STATUS OF ANZA PARKIn the Borrego sector of the parkCalifornia now owns 181,675.57acres. Filing fees have been paidand patents are pending for an ad-ditional 27,766.92 acres of landto be taken over from the federal

government.In the Vallecito-Carrizo sectorsfiling fees have been paid and pat-ents are pending for 155,947.03acres.In the Salton Sea sector only 16sections of public land are avail-able for transfer to the state andthe remainder will have to be pur-chased from private owners.The total area ultimately to betaken over from public and privatesources for park purposes is be-tween 900,000 and 1,000,000acres.

>O T was snowing when Capt. Juan\J Bautista de Anza and his caravan~~ ^ of 240 colonists and soldiers andmuleteers arrived on the edge of theBorrego desert in Southern California inDecember, 1775. California was havingunusual weather, even in those early days.The water at San Sebastian springs(now Harper's well) was salty. The cat-tle in the expedition were dying fromcold and exhaustion, and to make mattersworse the wild Jecuiche Indians who oc-cupied this region stole some of thesaddle horses.

Capt. Anza found the Southern Cali-fornia desert in an unfriendly mood, andthe 2 6-day march from Yuma to the topof the sierra overlooking the coastal plainwas a painful experience for the strag-gling band of home-seekers from Sonora,Mexico.But if there was discouragement in theheart of the gallant commander of Cali-fornia's first colony of settlers he gave nohint of it in the diary which he wrote,and which has been preserved and trans-lated by Dr. Herbert Bolton of the Uni-versity of California.When the report came to Anza thatthieving Indians had made a raid on thelivestock he "ordered the sergeant andfour soldiers to go and follow them, withorders that if they should overtake thethieves in the open or in their villagesthey should three times require them todeliver the stolen animals, giving themto understand that if they did this againthey would feel the force of arms, butthat they were not to punish them withweapons except in case the Indians byforce of their own arms should attemptto retain the saddle animals and refuseto deliver them."Capt. Anza combined the qualities of Waterfalls in Borrego Palm canyon . This picture taken by Clinton G. Abbot t onhis first trip of reconnaisance in 1921.18 T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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m w m m m m mWARNERS-^2>-V /xy * R ? > ? ^ X { t


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Ab ove Mrs. C linto n G. Abbot t and A. A. Beaty in Coll ins valley, 1927Bel ow Beaty homestead at en trance to Co yote canyon in 1927. This is n ow theAnz a ranch. Photo s by Clinto n G. Abbot t .

courage and magnanimity to a rare de-gree. He was a worthy leader, and it isto the credit of this generation of Cali-rornians that when a name was soughttor a great desert park which ultimatelyis to include nearly a million acres of themost varied scenic resources within theborders of the state, it should be giventhe name of Anza.Capt. Anza himself blazed the firstwhite man's trail across the region occu-pied by the new desert park.He had little opportunity to observethe scenic attractions of the land throughwhich he passed. Waterholes were fewand far between, freezing temperatureswere killing his livestock, a blizzard ofsnow and sleet was sweeping down acrossthe desert plain from the high sierraand he had the responsibility for thecomfort and safety of his 2 39 compan-

ions. Under more favorable conditionsthe alert Mexican capitan would havemarveled at the natural phenomena en-countered along the trail.At Yuha well near where he enteredthe area which is now the State of Cali-fornia, he would have discovered andperhaps did that he was on the floorof an ancient sea bed, surrounded by fos-sil remains of a once-thriving marinelife. Visitors today find in this area fossi-lized oyster shells as big as dinner plat-ters.Northward the expedition passed nearthe present site of Plaster City andthrough the sandy gap between Super-stition and Fish Creek mountains. If thesnow that filled the air was not too thickthe colonists could have seen the well-defined waterline of ancient Lake Ca-huilla marked by light-colored travertine

on the chocolate boulders along the baseof the Fish creek sierra. If not too wearyfor a short detour they might have dis-covered circular pits formed by the smallboulders along the old beach linetheso-called fish traps which today are theobject of so much controversy.Leaving San Sebastian spring wherethe episode of the stolen horses occurred,the way led near the present location ofBenson's service station and the embryotownsite of Ocotillo. A meager supply ofwater was found in the sands of SanFelipe wash. The route was in the vicini-ty of the recently rediscovered forest ofElephant trees. But Elephant trees wouldhave been no novelty to a native ofSonora.

Misses the Sandstone ZooAnza carefully avoided the Badlandsat the right of his line of march. For hisparty a trek through the highly erodedmudhills would have been a terrible or-deal. And yet, to the desert explorer to-day this Badlands area is one of the mostfascinating spots in a park that has every-thing for the true lover of the outdoors.Here is the 17 Palms oasis, most colorfulperhaps of all the palm oases in the Colo-rado desert region. Here are found the"beehives," the "bowling alley," the"sandstone zoo" those mysteriousfields of sandstone concretions whichhave been a puzzle to scientists and a de-light to rock-garden collectors.Leaving San Felipe wash the Anza

party entered Coyote canyon and thatnight camped at one of the finest springsto be found in the entire area of Cali-fornia's Anza state park. These are thesprings of Santa Catharina. A home-steader's cabin and a lone Washingtoniapalm towering over a thicket of mesquitetrees mark this spot today. John Collins,for whom Collins valley was named, wasonce a homesteader here.There was still snow on the ground,and the unkempt and unclothed Indiansof the region spied on this strange cara-van from behind the boulders along Coy-

ote canyon. If there had been time andopportunity Anza's horsemen ridingsouth from this point into the San Ysidromountains would have found gorgeouscanyons of native palm trees and gnarledSycamores Indian canyon, Cougarcanyon, Sheep canyon, Thousand Palmcanyon, Alder canyon and others, whichremain today, save for the absence of In-dians, almost as wild and unknown as atthe time Anza passed this way.The next day's march took the expe-dition to another Coyote canyon spring

which Anza called Los Danzantes be-cause of the jittery antics of the Indianswho approached the camp. Here, onChristmas eve, 1775, the first white childwas born in California SalvadorYgnacio Linares, son of Ygnacio and20 T h e D E S E R T M A G A Z I N E


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.velfare of the mother and babe caused\nza to delay two days at this point.But the captain recorded that she wast plucky mother, and on December 28he march was resumed and before night-all the party had left the desert behindind reached the plateau at the top of theange of mountains beyond.Juan Bautista de Anza discovered the>ark that today bears his name. For himt was not a holiday experience. But therourage and superb skill with which hepiloted his ill-equipped army of colonistsicross those wind-swept sands entitleiim to all the honor this generation canbestow.After Anza came others. General Kear-ny, guided by the intrepid Kit Carson:rossed the Carrizo sector of Anza parkn 1846. With Kearny's "Army of theWest" came Lieut. W. H. Emory, first:o observe and record the flora of this-egion.

Discovers Native Palm Trees"A few miles from the spring called3jo Grande," wrote Lieut. Emory in his,og book, "at the head of the creek, sev-_-ral scattered objects were seen projectedigainst the cliffs, hailed by the Floridarampaigners, some of whom were along,is old friends. They were cabbage trees."Thus did Lieut. Emory become thefirst American to record the discovery of:he native Washingtonia palm of theSouthwest. The trees he saw probablywere those in the Mountain Palm springsoasis, visible today as in Emory's time,:o the traveler following a westward:ourse along Vallecito creek.Eleven years later James E. Birch camejver practically this same route to estab-lish the first overland stage road acrosswestern Un ited States. Several months'ater Birch was succeeded by John Butter-field. Two of Butterfkld's old relay sta-ions at Vallecito and Carrizo, are within:he limits of the new Anza park. TheVallecito station has been restored by.itizens of San Diego county and thesponsors of this project hope that someJay it will become a park museum. The>ite of the Carrizo station is marked to-day only by mounds of adobe wherewalls once stood.Anza was the first white explorer to:raverse the area which bears his name to-day. Kearny was the first to bring an in-vading army into this region. Birch andButterfield opened the first wagon roadicross it.But with all due credit and honor to:hese courageous trail-blazers, the real

discoverers of Anza park were the mem-bers of a little scientific group in the Cityo f San Diego the Fellows of the SanDiego Society of Natural History. Theywere not the first to view the landscapeof this remote desert wilderness butthey were the men who first looked be-A P R I L , 1 9 3 9

Ab ove Guy L. Fleming, district superintendent of parks inspects one of theElephant trees.Bel ow This is a close-up study of on e o f the largest Elephant trees in the park.21


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yond its superficial aspects and saw itsreal wealth in terms of beauty and op-portunity for recreation and scientific re-search. Figuratively, they were the first todrive the claim stakes that would foreverpreserve this region as a great naturallaboratory of science, and a recreationalretreat for Americans seeking health andhappiness in the exploration of sceniccanyons, rugged peaks and eroded mesas.The earlier explorers had seen this des-ert only as a place from which to escapeas quickly and painlessly as possible. Themen of science saw this desert region asa haven to which thoughtful men andwomen might go and establish a closercontact with the God of creation.

Dr. Swingle Suggests ParkAmong the names on the honor rolli.mong those pioneers who years ago sawthe vision of a great desert park in thisregion, the first, as far as the recordsshow, was Dr. Walter T. Swingle, of theUnited States department of agriculture.In 1927 Dr. Swingle was in charge ofthe U. S. Date Gardens at Indio, Cali-fornia. He was also a Fellow in the SanDiego society. On September 2 of thatyear he read in the morning papertheLos Angeles Timesthat a meeting hadbeen held in the coast city the previousday in which William Spry, then com-missioner of the General Land Office,had conferred with a group of men rela-tive to the withdrawal of certain lands inSouthern California from public entry.

Dr. Swingle was familiar with some ofthe scenic canyons in the area adjacent toBorrego valley and instantly he saw anopportunity to preserve these places fromcommercial exploitation. A few dayslater he journeyed to San Diego to pro-pose to Clinton G. Abbott and W. S.Wright of the Natural History societythat application be made to have theBorrego lands included in the withdrawalorder. He mentioned Borrego Palm can-yon and Thousand Palm canyon in par-ticular.Dr. F. B. Sumner, president of the Fel-lows of the society, shared the enthusiasmof his associates, and on October 6 theFellows agreed by unanimous vote tosponsor the project.This was not the first time that naturalbeauty of the Borrego region had beenbrought to public attention. Featurewriters and photographers had visited thearea and recorded their explorations on anumber of occasions. In May, 1926, theTimes carried an illustrated story of theregion written by George B. Bowers. SanDiego newspapers and other publications

had used similar material.But the men of the Natural HistorySociety were the first to do somethingabout it. They immediately began to seekaid for their project in two directions.They wrote letters to state and federal

authorities, and they asked for the coop-eration of the San Diego chamber ofcommerce.December 3 of that year Mr. and Mrs.Abbott drove to Borrego valley on a tripof reconnaisance. They camped at theA. A. (Doc) Beaty homestead, and withDoc as wrangler and guide they rodehorseback into Borrego and ThousandPalm canyons.A few days later, in a letter to W. B.Rider, acting chief of the California For-estry service, Abbott wrote: "Thevery easy accessibility of this canyon(Borrego Palm canyon) will mean thatit will be the first to be desecrated and,in the future development it will be thefirst to be despoiled . . . and it should beset aside now before it has to be pur-chased for a large sum."The same day Abbott was writingthis letter, December 13, 1927, the newly

appointed Park Commission of Califor-nia, authorized by popular referendumthat year, was holding its first meeting toundertake the establishment of a seriesof state parks in California.In the meantime the San Diego cham-ber of commerce had aligned itself ac-tively with the scientific group at the mu-seum, and an aggressive campaign wasunder way to make the desert park areality.Guy L. Fleming, now southern dis-trict superintendent of state parks in Cali-fornia, was one of the first to become in-terested in the project. As one of the Fel-lows of the San Diego society he was anoriginal sponsor of the park idea, and asa committeeman on state parks in the SanDiego chamber of commerce he becamean aggressive worker for the new desertplayground. At that time he was em-ployed by Miss Ellen B. Scripps as cus-todian of her Torrey Pines park estate.Miss Scripps, with characteristic interestin anything of a philanthropic nature,told him to devote as much of his time aswas needed to help promote the Borregopark.

Many Names on Honor RollOther names should be mentioned aspioneers in the desert park movement:Dr. Ray Lyman Wilbur, secretary of theinterior; Dr. George P. Clements of theLos Angeles chamber of commerce; L.M. Klauber and Arnold Klaus, chairmanand secretary of the conservation com-mittee of the San Diego chamber; TarnDeering, executive secretary of the State-County Parks and Beaches association ofSan Diego; Wm. E. Colby, chairman,and Henry O'Melveny of the Californiapark commission; Harry Woods andHenry and Chas. Fearney, who playedimportant roles in the acquisition of pri-vately owned lands needed for park pur-poses. Congressman Phil D. Swing andlater George Burnham sponsored the bills

making possible the acquisition of pub-lic lands in the park area.Some of the most desirable sections inthe proposed park already had been ac-quired by private owners before the parkprogram was launched. At one time,when there was a critical need for fundswhich the state could not provide,George W. Marston and Ellen B. Scrippseach donated $2500 for the purchase ofland to be annexed to the park.Anza park has grown tremendously insize since it first existed as the dream ofDr. Swingle and Abbott and their as-sociates. Dr. Swingle first suggested thatthe park reserve include a few sections ofland in Borrego and Thousand Palmscanyons. By the time the project wasready to submit to the California parkcommission it had been expanded to 116square miles. In April 1928 fol

193904 desert magazine 1939 april

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