SETTING OUT
In 1934, my brother Bob and I signed up for the University of New Mexico archeology summer session at Jemez Springs, New Mexico. We went in a 1924 Studebaker Touring Car which had eisenglass windows. On our way out of San Francisco, at about 7:00 A.M., we met pickets stopping all trucks coming in to San Francisco. It was the day the general strike started.
We drove on, at about 48 miles per hour, getting about 15 miles per gallon and using no oil. The road, as I recall, was paved until we got to Barstow where we met Highway 66. From then on, the road was dirt.
Bob and I camped out along the road each night. Then in the morning, we would go in to town, clean up at a gas station, get breakfast and drive on. Lunch would be some bread, some cheese and some milk. Once in a while, we would run out of gas and be a sizable distance from town. In those cases, we would turn off the ignition and coast down hill, then start up again when we ran out of downhill.
One time, the engine gradually slowed down and then stopped. It was at the top of a hill, so we pushed the car so that it was going down, got in, let it go, put it in gear and let the clutch out slowly. As the wheels began to turn the engine there was a large fuss of some kind, but eventually the engine caught and all was well. Well, pretty well. Nothing felt right. When we got into town, we went to a garage. It turned out that we had a cracked head-gasket, and water was getting into the cylinders. What astounded me was that this 1924 Studebaker would run on water.
We had left a little sooner than we had to as we wished to go to Tesuque to see Martin Vigil and to Taos to see Tony Lujan and Tony Mirabal.
We drove into Taos in the evening, maybe 9:00 P.M. Somehow, we found Tony Lujan's house. It is a large Spanish-type place. A one story house, it is long and has doors to the outside every so often. We drove into the yard and found it filled with Cadillacs, Pierce Arrows and the like. Obviously, Mabel Dodge Lujan was having one of her parties and the landed gentry of Santa Fe were there. We were not really dressed for a party -- jeans and a blue work shirt for each of us and I had a cowboy hat. Well, we tried to find the front door, but all the doors were the same. Finally, I decided to just walk in. We found ourselves in a narrow hall running along the building with doors every so often leading into rooms. There was no one in sight. There was an end to the hall in the form of a door, so we headed for that. When we arrived, we heard sounds which indicated that there were still humans on earth. Nothing to do but go through the door. We opened the door and viola, the party. Evening dresses, tuxedos, and there was Tony, sitting in a chair, his back to the door, drumming on a hand-held drum and singing quietly.
No way to back out, they had seen us. There was surprise and wonder in their faces. We walked to Tony's chair, only a few steps, and waited for him to finish his song. Before he could finish, a man stopped him and drew his attention to us. Tony looked first at me, then Bob, then me and then, with a great big grin, he exclaimed "Ben! Bob!" Then he quickly got up and rushed us out of there.
He immediately asked us where we were going to spend the night. We told him we would put our sleeping bags down on the ground in the yard if he would permit us to. It developed quickly that he certainly would not. He showed us a room with two beds all made up and told us we would sleep there.
Next morning he showed us around his place. He had a prize boar, which must have weighed 45,000 tons. I have never seen a pig that large. Then he showed us his favorite horse, which the boar had attacked. There was a large gash on the horse's shoulder.
The next order of business was to go to the Pueblo to see Tony Mirabal. The two Tonys were not too friendly, due to the usual and continuing Taos politics, but the Elkuses had great respect for both men. So we were driven out to the Pueblo and then we visited with the other Tony. I do not remember anything of great moment from that meeting.
The Pueblo was quiet. There was not much to do, so we walked to a lean-to on the south side of the plaza and sat on a log, Tony, then Ben and then Bob. After a little silence (even in those days I knew that you did not have to talk all the time), Tony asked if there was anyone else we wanted to see. I thought a moment and then said, "Joe Gomez."
A boy was walking across the plaza nearby and Tony
called him over. In Taos, Tony told him to get Joe. The boy ran
across the little bridge, then ran up the ladders, I think two
stories, and pretty soon an Indian in a white sheet came out, walked
down the ladders and came across the plaza and stood in front of us,
maybe six or eight feet away.
I digress to tell you two things. The boy actually "ran" up the ladders, Joe actually "walked" down the ladders. They used the ladders since the day they could walk and they used them as we use stairs.
Well, then, Joe stood there absolutely still, not a thing on his face. After a short time Tony said to him, in a flat voice, also with no expression, "Friends from a long way". I had a twig in my hand and I was drawing patterns in the dust in front of me. Bob was watching the whole thing, also without any expression on his face. Joe stood for a few seconds in silence, and then said to me, "You come from the east?" I looked up at him, then I looked down and drew some more patterns, and then I looked up and said, "No".
Joe stood in silence a few moments, and then he said "You come from 2000 miles away?" Again, I looked up, then down, drew some more patterns, then looked up and said, "No." Joe stood in silence a few moments and -- well, this went on for a while. It was exactly the same, very slow routine for each question, no variation, no one else spoke, none of the four of us had any expression on our faces. It must have taken at least forty-five minutes.
All of a sudden, Joe's face broke into a great, huge smile and he practically shouted "Elkus!" Tony laughed and we all broke up. It was a wonderful joke.
Well, we visited with Joe, then went back to Tony's house, and then we took off for Bernalillo, just five miles north of Albuquerque. And from Bernalillo we headed for Jemez Springs. It was a marvelous beginning to an interesting summer.
It was a beautiful road -- plenty of dust, not too wide, a few rocks and a good many turns. At one point, the road made a rather sharp right turn. I was driving and the view as I rounded the turn was quite surprising. The road narrowed because the sand through which it had been cut had reclaimed part of it. Looking through the cut, I could see a relatively long one-way bridge over a wide wash. I could also see a string of three or four cars coming my way, the first one of which had just about arrived. There was no place to go. I jammed on the brakes, all two of them, and turned the wheels hard to the right. The rear end of the car swung around and then, just as it was about to hit the on-coming car's left front fender, I released the brakes and turned the wheels straight. The car immediately stopped skidding and jumped ahead into the sand bank. The three or four cars went by, I backed out, and all was well.
Thence to the school site. It was a long and primitive road, heading generally north-northwest, passing near Zia and then Jemez and then to a meadow. This meadow is Jemez Springs Park. I was never certain of the limits of Jemez Springs Park nor was I certain of whether our summer school camp was actually in the Park. But it was all close by and included what we were told was a geological wonder -- a rock with a relatively smooth face which went vertically up maybe a thousand feet on which the knowledgable ones could read the various geological ages. It is Battleship Rock. We signed in, were assigned to a tent, given an orientation lecture and settled in.
There were three members of the faculty I can recall -- Paul Ryder who was a member of a museum in Santa Fe, Hartley Burr Alexander, Jr. and Clyde Kluckholn, an anthropologist from Harvard. I thought Paul was wonderful. Hartley Burr Alexander, Jr., was the son of a philosophy professor at Scripps College in Claremont, California, from whom I had taken a course and of whom I was not overly fond. My father and my brother Bob corresponded with Clyde about various matters down through the years, which kind of astounded me. The details of life there escape me -- when did we wash up, what did we eat, that sort of mundane routine is gone. There are, however, interesting, disjointed episodes which come to mind.
When we arrived at our campground, our work-place had already been found, laid out and some work had been done. Therefore, this facet of the business of archeology remains unfamiliar to me. Teams were organized, and I do not remember if they were two, three or four people. The team was assigned an area measuring six feet by three feet. We brought with us a hand pick which either was a mountain climber's pick or closely resembled it. We brought nothings else, as I recall, because the only tool usual to the job was your hand. You loosen the dirt carefully with the pick, then sift it carefully with your hand. The sifted dirt is thrown out of the plot, and anything found in it, pot sherds, shaped stones, etc., is put in a paper bag. The bag is labelled -- the name of the dig, the particular 6' X 3' plot, the layer (1st 12 inches, 2nd 12 inches, etc.) and the date. The bag ends up at the school or museum, where the contents are studied.
One day Paul Ryder walked up to me and showed me a piece of string. It was almost pure white, very tightly woven and very flexible. It could possibly be top-spinning string. Paul asked me where it came from. I told him Chicago, two months ago. Well, down the road about half a mile, there was a small cave which went back into the hill maybe one hundred feet. In that cave, near the back, they had found a number of things, including a perfectly preserved blanket with feathers woven in and the string. The approximate date was around 900 A.D. These things were so well preserved because the humidity is so low in that country and, of course, there was no rain.
There was the morning we all arose, had breakfast, and went to work. One of the crews was down about five feet. They climbed in and began picking away. One of them hit soft dirt, which is usually a skeleton, but could be nothing. This person began using hands and eventually pulled out a New York Times dated around 1903. Much excitement.
In the course of one day's effort, I ran across a soft spot. This time it was a skeleton. I believe it was Charlie II. You see, each skeleton was named "Charlie", and then, in order of discovery, it was numbered. I announced my find to the proper authorities and was furnished a brush and some dental tools, and an advisor. The idea was to uncover the skeleton completely without moving it even slightly, so that a picture could be taken, its position noted and the direction it was facing recorded. Thus the need for the very soft brush and the dental tools.
There was a journey to Chaco Canyon. We were to see Pueblo Bonito and the Basket-Makers' dwellings. Our journey led us past a great crater formed by a meteor and a sandy wash maybe two hundred feet wide, which, as I recall, was actually called Sandy Wash.
Driving along, we came upon the wide wash. Exactly in the middle was the camp pick-up, which had two wheels on each rear axle. On the running board was Paul, waving to me to come. I stopped our trusty Studebaker and began walking out towards the pick-up. As soon as I did, Paul waved me back, got in the pick-up and drove off. I walked back to the car, got in, put it in low gear and drove slowly across the wash. We got to the campsite, unloaded the car and then wandered around. Soon we ran into Paul. I asked him why he had stopped in the middle of the wash. He was upset and said, "Don't talk to me." I pushed him and he said I had cost him five dollars. When I asked him how, he said he had bet I would get stuck in the sand.
You see, if you stop an ordinary car in the sand, it will not go any further. The wheels spin, but the car stays put. The Pick-up had dual rear wheels and it would not be stuck. However, if you enter the sand in low gear and just keep going and don't shift gears, you will have no trouble. Well, when I got out of the car and started walking, there went Paul's five dollars.
The pick-up was used, amongst other things, for hauling people on special excursions. Five or six would get into the back, and three including the driver, who was always Paul, in the cab, but that was sometimes not enough. So, Ben would get on one front fender and Bob would get on the other. Then, hanging on to the radiator cap, away we go. Sometimes on a road, sometimes across country. Every so often, whilst going across country, Paul would conduct a scientific experiment. How fast did he have to go, while at the same time turning suddenly and hitting a large rock with the front wheel, to throw the Elkuses off the fenders? Although there were some harrowing moments here and there, he never made it.
One day we discovered that our trusty steed had a flat left rear tire. We jacked up the car and took off the lugs with the lug-wrench. Next, take off the wheel and then, with the tire iron, remove a strip of metal the name of which eludes me. Then take the tire off the wheel. One must be careful in this process not to damage the valve stem which is stuck through a hole in the wheel. Next, take the tube out, pump it up with the tire pump and dunk it in a bucket of water, turning it til you find the leak. Now you have found the leak, you dry the tube. There were two kinds of patches, hot and cold. I do not recall either being better than the other. With the patch kit, either one, there is a scraper. The area of the tube where the leak is, is roughened by scraping so the patch will stick. Now you cut the patch to the correct size, put the glue on the tube, put the patch on the glue firmly and wait. All through. Carefully put the tube back into the tire, being sure there are no wrinkles, then the tire on the wheel (careful of the valve stem), then the rim, then pump a little air, then let the care down off the jack.
Now, we pumped in earnest. The tire holds 48 pounds, but we did not have a gauge, we could only judge by looking. We pumped and pumped. The tire still did not look full of air. Finally, I called a halt. There must be something wrong with the pump and anyhow there was enough air in the tire to get to Bernalillo.
Soon we had occassion to go to Bernalillo. The first order of business was to get to a garage and have the tire checked. This we did, and when the man checked it, he found that there was over seventy five pounds pressure in the tire. After much discussion and cogitation, we came to the conclusion that the tire had been sitting on a small rock and consequently, no matter how much we pumped, we could not get it to look round. I do not recall if we had enough sense to buy a gauge.
There was a voyage of some sort which included going to the pueblo of Jemez. Wandering around the Pueblo, I came across the dump-heap. On top were pieces of a pot. It looked as if all the pieces were there and also it looked as if it had been a very good pot. So, I picked up all the pieces I could find and carefully took them back to camp. There was a girl who was pretty good at putting things together. I enlisted her in the task of reconstructing the pot, and after a reasonable period, we had glued the pot together. The glue we used was "Ambroid", and it is my understanding that it [is] still available. This was done in 1934 -- it is now 1987, and the glue still holds. There were some small pieces missing, not many, and the girl used plaster of paris to fill the empty spaces. The pot is an olla.
The base is maybe three inches in diameter, the shoulder is about fourteen inches diameter, the opening about four inches in diameter. The pot is about forteen inches high. It has a hole just above the bottom which looks to me as if it were an accident. It has two holes about three inches apart just below the shoulder which were definitely drilled.
The story I got from somewhere, I know not where, was that if a pot got a hole in it and had to be discarded, holes had first to be drilled in it to let the spirits out, else they would be forever imprisoned in the pot. This was a very handy and neat explanation of the two drilled holes. It also made me look good when I would set forth this profound and fascinating fact.
One of the great Indian artists, Fred Kabotie, came to San Francisco, and visited my house. During the course of the visit, I told him the story and asked if it were true. He had never heard of such a thing. If anyone would know about such a story, Fred would. Later on, another Indian, who was every bit as knowledgable as Fred, came to the house and told me that my story was absolutely accurate. Thus is the fund of anthropological fact increased.
Permit me to interject a somewhat serious comment here. Many "scientists", mathematicians, physicists, biologists, etc., do not consider anthropology a science. They consider that it is inexact and therefore not in the same class as theirs and therefore of less importance. It is true that the astronomers and mathematicians in the days before Gallileo were as certain of their "facts" as they are today. They both knew that the sun circled the earth, which was the center of the universe. The physicists have always known that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. That is, until the last few years. I am trying to say that although there are differences, each is a science, including anthropology, and no one is more important than another.
There was probably romance of which I was not aware at our digs. There must have been. I was somewhat involved in what was probably a one-sided semi-romance.
At the end of our session, we had finals. We had, supposedly, learned something, and the amount had to be measured. The night before finals was, naturally, cram night. The tent where my brother Bob and I were domiciled drew a small group of students. We began studying shortly after dinner, and helping each other now and then, continued into the night.
At sometime around 1:00 A.M., I leaned back in my chair and began -- "Once upon a time, there was a tribe of Indians called the ----. They lived in the third world below." Everyone stopped studying and listened. Thus began a story full of outrageous happenings. The story went on until the Indians had made it to the present world and the white man arrived. Next day they asked me to write the story, but, remarkably, I could not remember it.
Well, when the story was finished, so was the studying. We sat around a little while, one girl lay down on my cot, and then gradually, everyone left. That is, everyone except the girl on my cot, who had fallen asleep. This was indeed a situation. A girl sleeping in a boys' tent. What to do?
The girl, of course, was "THE GIRL". She was wonderful, intelligent, nice, beautiful, understanding, gentle, strong, kind and perhaps a few other things I do not think of at the moment.
She was tired, she was asleep and I figured she should just stay there til morning. At the same time, my sense of responsibility, which even today sometimes disturbs my life, told me I should inform the authoritites, so there would be no untoward misunderstandings. I had not yet learned how stupid authority can be.
So I went to Clyde Kluckholn and Hartley Alexander, who were still awake, and told them of this highly immoral arrangement. In spite of my very vigorous protests, Authority insisted on coming to our tent and waking THE GIRL and taking her back to her tent. For me, the waking process was terrible. She was in the deep, deep sleep which is the first step in the sleeping process. It must have been five minutes before those two fools were able to get her on her feet.
Her name was Barbara Moon and she lived in a mansion in Redlands, California, and my brother Bob and I visited her on the way home and her mother did not like me, and after a while I lost track of her.
Pop and Mom were going down to the Southwest and they wanted a car when they got there. But they did not want to drive all that distance -- they had done it before. So, their eldest son Charlie was assigned the job of getting our car down there while Mom and Pop rode the Santa Fe Railroad.
Charlie enlisted the aid of his wonderful Stanford friend, Ed Soares, to drive with him, and they started out. As I recall, they were driving the Cadillac -- the model which had a pump on the dashboard. Before you started the engine, you pumped two pounds of air into the gas tank so the gas would flow to the engine.
Well, Charlie and Ed started out that day. Everything was fine, a good car, fine weather, compatible company, all was well. Down near Bakersfield, catastrophe struck. A flat tire. It was 170 degrees in the shade and there was no shade. What to do? Should we get out and fix the tire? Heaven forbid. Maybe we should just sit there and discuss the situation. That seemed the best solution, so that is what Charlie and Ed did, leisurely.
After a lengthy, if somewhat sparse, discussion, they suddenly realized that there was a van parked beside them. On its side, there was a legend: Good Samaritan of the Road. A man leaned out and asked if any help was needed. He was told there was a flat tire and immediately, he and his companion got out and fixed the tire. This story was used many times as a good, solid basis for inaction.
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