Some Childress Stuff

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The significance of the following to our purpose is obvious.

 

Dharmapada

 

 

 

 

 

"Archaeological Coverups"

by David Hatcher Childress

 

NEXUS magazine.

 

 

Most of us are familiar with the last scene in the popular Indiana

 

Jones archaeological adventure film RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in which

 

an important historical artefact, the Ark of the Covenant from the

 

Temple in Jerusalem, is locked in a crate and put in a giant

 

warehouse, never to be seen again, thus ensuring that no history

 

books will have to be rewritten and no history professor will have

 

to revise the lecture that he has been giving for the last forty

 

years.

 

 

While the film was fiction, the scene in which an important ancient

 

relic is buried in a warehouse is uncomfortably close to reality for

 

many researchers. To those who investigate allegations of

 

archaeological cover-ups, there are disturbing indications that the

 

most important archaeological institute in the United States, the

 

Smithsonian Institute, an independent federal agency, has been

 

actively suppressing some of the most interesting and important

 

archaeological discoveries made in the Americas.

 

 

The Vatican has been long accused of keeping artefacts and

 

ancient books in their vast cellars, without allowing the outside world

 

access to them. These secret treasures, often of a controversial

 

historical or religious nature, are allegedly suppressed by the

 

Catholic Church because they might damage the church's credibility,

 

or perhaps cast their official texts in doubt. Sadly, there is

 

overwhelming evidence that something very similar is happening with

 

the Smithsonian Institution.

 

 

The cover-up and alleged suppression of archaeological evidence

 

began in late 1881 when John Wesley Powell, the geologist famous for

 

exploring the Grand Canyon, appointed Cyrus Thomas as the director

 

of the Eastern Mound Division of the Smithsonian Institution's

 

Bureau of Ethnology.

 

 

When Thomas came to the Bureau of Ethnology he was a

 

 

"pronounced believer in the existence of a race of Mound Builders,

 

distinct from the American Indians."

 

 

However, John Wesley Powell, the director of the Bureau of

 

Ethnology, a very sympathetic man toward the American Indians, had

 

lived with the peaceful Winnebago Indians of Wisconsin for many

 

years as a youth and felt that American Indians were unfairly

 

thought of as primitive and savage.

 

 

The Smithsonian began to promote the idea that Native Americans, at

 

that time being exterminated in the Indian Wars, were descended from

 

advanced civilizations and were worthy of respect and protection.

 

 

They also began a program of suppressing any archaeological evidence

 

that lent credence to the school of thought known as Diffusionism, a

 

school which believes that throughout history there has been

 

widespread dispersion of culture and civilization via contact by

 

ship and major trade routes.

 

 

The Smithsonian opted for the opposite school, known as

 

Isolationism. Isolationism holds that most civilizations are

 

isolated from each other and that there has been very little contact

 

between them, especially those that are separated by bodies of

 

water. In this intellectual war that started in the 1880s, it was

 

held that even contact between the civilizations of the Ohio and

 

Mississippi Valleys were rare, and certainly these civilizations did

 

not have any contact with such advanced cultures as the Mayas,

 

Toltecs, or Aztecs in Mexico and Central America. By Old World

 

standards this is an extreme, and even ridiculous idea, considering

 

that the river system reached to the Gulf of Mexico and these

 

civilizations were as close as the opposite shore of the gulf. It

 

was like saying that cultures in the Black Sea area could not have

 

had contact with the Mediterranean.

 

 

When the contents of many ancient mounds and pyramids of the Midwest

 

were examined, it was shown that the history of the Mississippi

 

River Valleys was that of an ancient and sophisticated culture that

 

had been in contact with Europe and other areas. Not only that, the

 

contents of many mounds revealed burials of huge men, sometimes

 

seven or eight feet tall, in full armour with swords and sometimes

 

huge treasures.

 

 

(Vangard note..>Eastern Indian texts say that at one time men lived

 

thousands of years and grew very tall in direct proportion to their

 

age, as does the Bible with the comment "and there were GIANTS in

 

the earth in those days...")

 

 

For instance, when Spiro Mound in Oklahoma was excavated in the

 

1930's, a tall man in full armour was discovered along with a pot of

 

thousands of pearls and other artefacts, the largest such treasure

 

so far documented. The whereabouts of the man in armour is unknown

 

and it is quite likely that it eventually was taken to the

 

Smithsonian Institution.

 

 

In a private conversation with a well-known historical researcher

 

(who shall remain nameless), I was told that a former employee of

 

the Smithsonian, who was dismissed for defending the view of

 

diffusionism in the Americas (i.e. the heresy that other ancient

 

civilizations may have visited the shores of North and South America

 

during the many millennia before Columbus), alleged that the

 

Smithsonian at one time had actually taken a barge full of unusual

 

artefacts out into the Atlantic and dumped them in the ocean.

 

 

Though the idea of the Smithsonian' covering up a valuable

 

archaeological find is difficult to accept for some, there is,

 

sadly, a great deal of evidence to suggest that the Smithsonian

 

Institution has knowingly covered up and 'lost' important

 

archaeological relics. The STONEWATCH NEWSLETTER of the Gungywamp

 

Society in Connecticut, which researches megalithic sites in New

 

England, had a curious story in their Winter 1992 issue about stone

 

coffins discovered in 1892 in Alabama which were sent to the

 

Smithsonian Institution and then 'lost'. According to the

 

newsletter, researcher Frederick J. Pohl wrote an intriguing letter

 

in 1950 to the late Dr. T.C. Lethbridge, a British archaeologist.

 

 

The letter from Pohl stated, "A professor of geology sent me a

 

reprint (of the) Smithsonian Institution, THE CRUMF BURIAL CAVE by

 

Frank Burns, US Geological Survey, from the report of the US

 

National Museum for 1892, pp 451-454, 1984. In the Crumf Cave,

 

southern branch of the Warrior River, in Murphy's Valley, Blount

 

County, Alabama, accessible from Mobile Bay by river, were coffins

 

of wood hollowed out by fire, aided by stone or copper chisels.

 

Either of these coffins were taken to the Smithsonian. They were

 

about 7.5 feet long, 14" to 18" wide, 6" to 7" deep. Lids open.

 

 

"I wrote recently to the Smithsonian, and received a reply March

 

11th from F.M. Setzler, Head Curator of Department of Anthropology

 

(He said) 'We have not been able to find the specimens in our

 

collections, though records show that they were received."

 

 

David Barron, President of the Gungywamp Society was eventually told

 

by the Smithsonian in 1992 that the coffins were actually wooden

 

troughs and that they could not be viewed anyway because they were

 

housed in an asbestos-contaminated warehouse. This warehouse was to

 

be closed for the next ten years and no one was allowed in except

 

the Smithsonian personnel!

 

 

Ivan T. Sanderson, a well-known zoologist and frequent guest on

 

Johnny Carson's TONIGHT SHOW in the 1960s (usually with an exotic

 

animal with a pangolin or a lemur), once related a curious story

 

about a letter he received regarding an engineer who was stationed

 

on the Aleutian island of Shemya during World War II. While

 

building an airstrip, his crew bulldozed a group of hills and

 

discovered under several sedimentary layers what appeared to be

 

human remains. The Alaskan mound was in fact a graveyard of

 

gigantic human remains, consisting of crania and long leg bones.

 

 

The crania measured from 22 to 24 inches from base to crown. Since

 

an adult skull normally measures about eight inches from back to

 

front, such a large crania would imply an immense size for a

 

normally proportioned human. Furthermore, every skull was said to

 

have been neatly trepanned (a process of cutting a hole in the upper

 

portion of the skull).

 

 

In fact, the habit of flattening the skull of an infant and forcing

 

it to grow in an elongated shape was a practice used by ancient

 

Peruvians, the Mayas, and the Flathead Indians of Montana. Sanderson

 

tried to gather further proof, eventually receiving a letter from

 

another member of the unit who confirmed the report. The letters

 

both indicated that the Smithsonian Institution had collected the

 

remains, yet nothing else was heard. Sanderson seemed convinced

 

that the Smithsonian Institution had received the bizarre relics,

 

but wondered why they would not release the data. He asks, "...is

 

it that these people cannot face rewriting all the textbooks?"

 

 

In 1944 an accidental discovery of an even more controversial nature

 

was made by Waldemar Julsrud at Acambaro, Mexico. Acambaro is in

 

the state of Guanajuato, 175 miles northwest of Mexico City. The

 

strange archaeological site there yielded over 33,500 objects of

 

ceramic;stone, including jade; and knives of obsidian (sharper than

 

steel and still used today in heart surgery). Jalsrud, a prominent

 

local German merchant, also found statues ranging from less than an

 

inch to six feet in length depicting great reptiles, some of them in

 

ACTIVE ASSOCIATION with humans - generally eating them, but in some

 

bizarre statuettes an erotic association was indicated. To

 

observers many of these creatures resembled dinosaurs.

 

 

Jalsrud crammed this collection into twelve rooms of his expanded

 

house. There startling representations of Negroes, Orientals, and

 

bearded Caucasians were included as were motifs of Egyptians,

 

Sumerian and other ancient non-hemispheric civilizations, as well as

 

portrayals of Bigfoot and aquatic monsterlike creatures, weird

 

human-animal mixtures, and a host of other inexplicable creations.

 

Teeth from an extinct Ice Age horse, the skeleton of a mammoth, and

 

a number of human skulls were found at the same site as the ceramic

 

artefacts.

 

 

Radio-carbon dating in the laboratories of the University of

 

Pennsylvania and additional tests using the thermoluminescence

 

method of dating pottery were performed to determine the age of the

 

objects. Results indicated the objects were made about 6,500 years

 

ago, around 4,500 BC. A team of experts at another university,

 

shown Jalrud's half-dozen samples but unaware of their origin, ruled

 

out the possibility that they could have been modern reproductions.

 

However, they fell silent when told of their controversial source.

 

 

In 1952, in an effort to debunk this weird collection which was

 

gaining a certain amount of fame, American archaeologist Charles C.

 

DiPeso claimed to have minutely examined the then 32,000 pieces

 

within not more than four hours spent at the home of Julsrud. In a

 

forthcoming book, long delayed by continuing developments in his

 

investigation, archaeological investigator John H. Tierney, who has

 

lectured on the case for decades, points out that to have done that

 

DiPeso would have had to have inspected 133 pieces per minute

 

steadily for four hours, whereas in actuality, it would have

 

required weeks merely to have separated the massive jumble of

 

exhibits and arranged them properly for a valid evaluation.

 

 

Tierney, who collaborated with the later Professor Hapgood, the late

 

William N. Russell, and others in the investigation, charges that

 

the Smithsonian Institution and other archaeological authorities

 

conducted a campaign of disinformation against the discoveries. The

 

Smithsonian had, early in the controversy, dismissed the entire

 

Acambaro collection as an elaborate hoax. Also, utilizing the

 

Freedom of Information Act, Tierney discovered that practically the

 

entirety of the Smithsonian's Julsrud case files are missing.

 

 

After two expeditions to the site in 1955 and 1968, Professor

 

Charles Hapgood, a professor of history and anthropology at the

 

University of New Hampshire, recorded the results of his 18-year

 

investigation of Acambaro in a privately printed book entitled

 

MYSTERY IN ACAMBARO. Hapgood was initially an open-minded skeptic

 

concerning the collection but became a believer after his first

 

visit in 1955, at which time he witnessed some of the figures being

 

excavated and even dictated to the diggers where he wanted them to

 

dig.

 

 

Adding to the mind-boggling aspects of this controversy is the fact

 

that the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, through the

 

late Director of PreHispanic Monuments, Dr. Eduardo Noguera, (who,

 

as head of an official investigating team at the site, issued a

 

report which Tierney will be publishing), admitted "the apparent

 

scientific legality with which these objects were found." Despite

 

evidence of their own eyes, however, officials declared that because

 

of the objects 'fantastic' nature, they had to have been a hoax

 

played on Julsrud!

 

 

A disappointed but ever-hopeful Julsrud died. His house was sold

 

and the collection put in storage. The collection is not currently

 

open to the public.

 

 

Perhaps the most amazing suppression of all is the excavation of an

 

Egyptian tomb by the Smithsonian itself in Arizona. A lengthy front

 

page story of the PHOENIX GAZETTE on 5 April 1909 (follows this

 

article), gave a highly detailed report of the discovery and

 

excavation of a rock-cut vault by an expedition led by a Professor

 

S.A. Jordan of the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian, however, claims to

 

have absolutely no knowledge of the discovery or its discoverers.

 

 

The World Explorers Club decided to check on this story by calling

 

the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., though we felt there was little

 

chance of getting any real information. After speaking briefly to

 

an operator, we were transferred to a Smithsonian staff

 

archaeologist, and a woman's voice came on the phone and identified

 

herself.

 

 

I told her that I was investigating a story from a 1909 Phoenix

 

newspaper article about the Smithsonian Institution's having

 

excavated rock-cut vaults in the Grand Canyon where Egyptian

 

artefacts had been discovered, and whether the Smithsonian

 

Institution could give me any more information on the subject.

 

 

"Well, the first thing I can tell you, before we go any further,"

 

she said, "is that no Egyptian artefacts of any kind have ever been

 

found in North or South America. Therefore, I can tell you that the

 

Smithsonian Institute has never been involved in any such

 

excavations." She was quite helpful and polite but, in the end,

 

knew nothing. Neither she nor anyone else with whom I spoke could

 

find any record of the discovery or either G.E. Kinkaid and

 

Professor S.A. Jordan.

 

 

While it cannot be discounted that the entire story is an elaborate

 

newspaper hoax, the fact that it was on the front page, named the

 

prestigious Smithsonian Institution, and gave a highly detailed

 

story that went on for several pages, lends a great deal to its

 

credibility. It is hard to believe such a story could have come out

 

of thin air.

 

 

Is the Smithsonian Institution covering up an archaeological

 

discovery of immense importance? If this story is true it would

 

radically change the current view that there was no transoceanic

 

contact in pre-Columbian times, and that all American Indians, on

 

both continents, are descended from Ice Age explorers who came

 

across the Bering Strait. (Any information on G.E. Kinkaid and

 

Professor S.A. Jordan, or their alleged discoveries, that readers

 

may have would be greatly appreciated.....write to Childress at the

 

World Explorers Club at the above address.)

 

 

Is the idea that ancient Egyptians came to the Arizona area in the

 

ancient past so objectionable and preposterous that it must be

 

covered up? Perhaps the Smithsonian Institution is more interested

 

in maintaining the status quo than rocking the boat with astonishing

 

new discoveries that overturn previously accepted academic

 

teachings.

 

 

Historian and linguist Carl Hart, editor of WORLD EXPLORER, then

 

obtained a hiker's map of the Grand Canyon from a bookstore in

 

Chicago. Poring over the map, we were amazed to see that much of

 

the area on the north side of the canyon has Egyptian names. The

 

area around Ninety-four Mile Creek and Trinity Creek had areas (rock

 

formations, apparently) with names like Tower of Set, Tower of Ra,

 

Horus Temple, Osiris Temple, and Isis Temple. In the Haunted Canyon

 

area were such names as the Cheops Pyramid, the Buddha Cloister,

 

Buddha Temple, Manu Temple and Shiva Temple. Was there any

 

relationship between these places and the alleged Egyptian

 

discoveries in the Grand Canyon?

 

 

We called a state archaeologist at the Grand Canyon, and were told

 

that the early explorers had just liked Egyptian and Hindu names,

 

but that it was true that this area was off limits to hikers or

 

other visitors, "because of dangerous caves."

 

 

Indeed, this entire area with the Egyptian and Hindu place names in

 

the Grand Canyon is a forbidden zone - no one is allowed into this

 

large area.

 

 

We could only conclude that this was the area where the vaults were

 

located. Yet today, this area is curiously off-limits to all hikers

 

and even, in large part, park personnel.

 

 

I believe that the discerning reader will see that if only a small

 

part of the "Smithsoniangate" evidence is true, then our most

 

hallowed archaeological institution has been actively involved in

 

suppressing evidence for advanced American cultures, evidence for

 

ancient voyages of various cultures to North America, evidence for

 

anomalistic giants and other oddball artefacts, and evidence that

 

tends to disprove the official dogma that is now the history of

 

North America.

 

 

The Smithsonian's Board of Regents still refuses to open its

 

meetings to the news media or the public. If Americans were ever

 

allowed inside the 'nation's attic', as the Smithsonian has been

 

called, what skeletons might they find?

 

--

 

 

from the front page of THE PHOENIX GAZETTE of April 5th, 1909

 

 

EXPLORATIONS IN GRAND CANYON

 

Mysteries of Immense Rich Cavern being brought to light

 

Jordan is enthused

 

Remarkable finds indicate ancient people migrated from Orient

 

 

The latest news of the progress of the explorations of what is now

 

regarded by scientists as not only the oldest archaeological

 

discovery in the United States, but one of the most valuable in the

 

world, which was mentioned some time ago in the Gazette, was brought

 

to the city yesterday by G.E. Kinkaid, the explorer who found the

 

great underground citadel of the Grand Canyon during a trip from

 

Green River, Wyoming, down the Colorado, in a wooden boat, to Yuma,

 

several months ago.

 

 

According to the story related to the Gazette by Mr. Kinkaid, the

 

archaeologists of the Smithsonian Institute, which is financing the

 

expeditions, have made discoveries which almost conclusively prove

 

that the race which inhabited this mysterious cavern, hewn in solid

 

rock by human hands, was of oriental origin, possibly from Egypt,

 

tracing back to Ramses. If their theories are borne out by the

 

translation of the tablets engraved with hieroglyphics, the mystery

 

of the prehistoric peoples of North America, their ancient arts, who

 

they were and whence they came, will be solved. Egypt and the Nile,

 

and Arizona and the Colorado will be linked by a historical chain

 

running back to ages which staggers the wildest fancy of the

 

fictionist.

 

 

A Thorough Examination

 

 

Under the direction of Prof. S. A. Jordan, the Smithsonian Institute

 

is now prosecuting the most thorough explorations, which will be

 

continued until the last link in the chain is forged. Nearly a mile

 

long tunnel underground, about 1480 feet below the surface, the

 

long main passage has been delved into, to find another mammoth

 

chamber from which radiates scores of passageways, like the spokes

 

of a wheel.

 

 

Several hundred rooms have been discovered, reached by passageways

 

running from the main passage, one of them having been explored for

 

854 feet and another 634 feet. The recent finds include articles

 

which have never been known as native to this country, and doubtless

 

they had their origin in the orient. War weapons, copper

 

instruments, sharp-edged and hard as steel, indicate the high state

 

of civilization reached by these strange people. So interested have

 

the scientists become that preparations are being made to equip the

 

camp for extensive studies, and the force will be increased to

 

thirty or forty persons.

 

 

Mr. Kinkaid's Report

 

 

Mr. Kinkaid was the first white child born in Idaho and has been an

 

explorer and hunter all his life, thirty years having been in the

 

service of the Smithsonian Institute. Even briefly recounted, his

 

history sounds fabulous, almost grotesque.

 

 

"First, I would impress that the cavern is nearly inaccessible. The

 

entrance is 1,486 feet down the sheer canyon wall. It is located on

 

government land and no visitor will be allowed there under penalty

 

of trespass. The scientists wish to work unmolested, without fear

 

of archaeological discoveries being disturbed by curio or relic

 

hunters.

 

 

A trip there would be fruitless, and the visitor would be sent on

 

his way. The story of how I found the cavern has been related, but

 

in a paragraph: I was journeying down the Colorado river in a boat,

 

alone, looking for mineral. Some forty-two miles up the river from

 

the El Tovar Crystal canyon, I saw on the east wall, stains in the

 

sedimentary formation about 2,000 feet above the river bed. There

 

was no trail to this point, but I finally reached it with great

 

difficulty.

 

 

Above a shelf which hid it from view from the river, was the mouth

 

of the cave. There are steps leading from this entrance some thirty

 

yards to what was, at the time the cavern was inhabited, the level

 

of the river. When I saw the chisel marks on the wall inside the

 

entrance, I became interested, securing my gun and went in. During

 

that trip I went back several hundred feet along the main passage

 

till I came to the crypt in which I discovered the mummies. One of

 

these I stood up and photographed by flashlight. I gathered a

 

number of relics, which I carried down the Colorado to Yuma, from

 

whence I shipped them to Washington with details of the discovery.

 

Following this, the explorations were undertaken.

 

 

The Passages

 

 

"The main passageway is about 12 feet wide, narrowing to nine feet

 

toward the farther end. About 57 feet from the entrance, the first

 

side-passages branch off to the right and left, along which, on both

 

sides, are a number of rooms about the size of ordinary living rooms

 

of today, though some are 30 by 40 feet square. These are entered

 

by oval-shaped doors and are ventilated by round air spaces through

 

the walls into the passages. The walls are about three feet six

 

inches in thickness.

 

 

The passages are chiseled or hewn as straight as could be laid out

 

by an engineer. The ceilings of many of the rooms converge to a

 

center. The side-passages near the entrance run at a sharp angle

 

from the main hall, but toward the rear they gradually reach a right

 

angle in direction.

 

 

The Shrine

 

 

"Over a hundred feet from the entrance is the cross-hall, several

 

hundred feet long, in which are found the idol, or image, of the

 

people's god, sitting cross-legged, with a lotus flower or lily in

 

each hand. The cast of the face is oriental, and the carving this

 

cavern. The idol almost resembles Buddha, though the scientists are

 

not certain as to what religious worship it represents. Taking into

 

consideration everything found thus far, it is possible that this

 

worship most resembles the ancient people of Tibet.

 

 

Surrounding this idol are smaller images, some very beautiful in

 

form; others crooked-necked and distorted shapes, symbolical,

 

probably, of good and evil. There are two large cactus with

 

protruding arms, one on each side of the dais on which the god

 

squats. All this is carved out of hard rock resembling marble. In

 

the opposite corner of this cross-hall were found tools of all

 

descriptions, made of copper. These people undoubtedly knew the

 

lost art of hardening this metal, which has been sought by chemicals

 

for centuries without result. On a bench running around the

 

workroom was some charcoal and other material probably used in the

 

process. There is also slag and stuff similar to matte, showing

 

that these ancients smelted ores, but so far no trace of where or

 

how this was done has been discovered, nor the origin of the ore.

 

 

"Among the other finds are vases or urns and cups of copper and

 

gold, made very artistic in design. The pottery work includes

 

enameled ware and glazed vessels. Another passageway leads to

 

granaries such as are found in the oriental temples. They contain

 

seeds of various kinds. One very large storehouse has not yet been

 

entered, as it is twelve feet high and can be reached only from

 

above. Two copper hooks extend on the edge, which indicates that

 

some sort of ladder was attached. These granaries are rounded, as

 

the materials of which they are constructed, I think, is a very hard

 

cement. A gray metal is also found in this cavern, which puzzles

 

the scientists, for its identity has not been established. It

 

resembles platinum. Strewn promiscuously over the floor everywhere

 

are what people call "cats eyes', a yellow stone of no great value.

 

Each one is engraved with the head of the Malay type.

 

 

The Hieroglyphics

 

 

"On all the urns, or walls over doorways , and tablets of stone

 

which were found by the image are the mysterious hieroglyphics, the

 

key to which the Smithsonian Institute hopes yet to discover. The

 

engraving on the tables probably has something to do with the

 

religion of the people. Similar hieroglyphics have been found in

 

southern Arizona. Among the pictorial writings, only two animals

 

are found. One is of prehistoric type.

 

 

The Crypt

 

 

"The tomb or crypt in which the mummies were found is one of the

 

largest of the chambers, the walls slanting back at an angle of

 

about 35 degrees. On these are tiers of mummies, each one occupying

 

a separate hewn shelf. At the head of each is a small bench, on

 

which is found copper cups and pieces of broken swords. Some of the

 

mummies are covered with clay, and all are wrapped in a bark fabric.

 

 

The urns or cups on the lower tiers are crude, while as the higher

 

shelves are reached, the urns are finer in design, showing a later

 

stage of civilization. It is worthy of note that all the mummies

 

examined so far have proved to be male, no children or females being

 

buried here. This leads to the belief that this exterior section

 

was the warriors' barracks.

 

 

"Among the discoveries no bones of animals have been found, no

 

skins, no clothing, no bedding. Many of the rooms are bare but for

 

water vessels. One room, about 40 by 700 feet, was probably the

 

main dining hall, for cooking utensils are found here. What these

 

people lived on is a problem, though it is presumed that they came

 

south in the winter and farmed in the valleys, going back north in

 

the summer.

 

 

Upwards of 50,000 people could have lived in the caverns

 

comfortably. One theory is that the present Indian tribes found in

 

Arizona are descendants of the serfs or slaves of the people which

 

inhabited the cave. Undoubtedly a good many thousands of years

 

before the Christian era, a people lived here which reached a high

 

stage of civilization. The chronology of human history is full of

 

gaps. Professor Jordan is much enthused over the discoveries and

 

believes that the find will prove of incalculable value in

 

archaeological work.

 

 

"One thing I have not spoken of, may be of interest. There is one

 

chamber of the passageway to which is not ventilated, and when we

 

approached it a deadly, snaky smell struck us. Our light would not

 

penetrate the gloom, and until stronger ones are available we will

 

not know what the chamber contains. Some say snakes, but other

 

boo-hoo this idea and think it may contain a deadly gas or chemicals

 

used by the ancients. No sounds are heard, but it smells snaky just

 

the same. The whole underground installation gives one of shaky

 

nerves the creeps. The gloom is like a weight on one's shoulders,

 

and our flashlights and candles only make the darkness blacker.

 

Imagination can revel in conjectures and ungodly daydreams back

 

through the ages that have elapsed till the mind reels dizzily in

 

space."

 

 

An Indian Legend

 

 

In connection with this story, it is notable that among the Hopi

 

Indians the tradition is told that their ancestors once lived in an

 

underworld in the Grand Canyon till dissension arose between the

 

good and the bad, the people of one heart and the people of two

 

hearts. Machetto, who was their chief, counseled them to leave the

 

underworld, but there was no way out. The chief then caused a tree

 

to grow up and pierce the roof of the underworld, and then the

 

people of one heart climbed out. They tarried by Paisisvai (Red

 

River), which is the Colorado, and grew grain and corn.

 

 

They sent out a message to the Temple of the Sun, asking the

 

blessing of peace, good will and rain for people of one heart. That

 

messenger never returned, but today at the Hopi villages at sundown

 

can be seen the old men of the tribe out on the housetops gazing

 

toward the sun, looking for the messenger. When he returns, their

 

lands and ancient dwelling place will be restored to them. That is

 

the tradition.

 

 

Among the engravings of animals in the cave is seen the image of a

 

heart over the spot where it is located. The legend was learned by

 

W.E. Rollins, the artist, during a year spent with the Hopi Indians.

 

 

There are two theories of the origin of the Egyptians. One is that

 

they came from Asia; another that the racial cradle was in the upper

 

Nile region. Heeren, an Egyptologist, believed in the Indian origin

 

of the Egyptians. The discoveries in the Grand Canyon may throw

 

further light on human evolution and prehistoric ages.

 

 

source: NEXUS New Times - Volume 2, Number 13

 

 

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