ON THE RELIGIOUS USE OP VARIOUS STONES 309
and
that Los Cerrillos and other mines in Arizona and New Mexico were
extensively worked prior to the discovery of America is proved by
fragments of Aztec pottery-vases; by drinking, eating, and cooking
utensils ; by stone hammers, wedges, mauls, and idols which have been
discovered in the débris found in many different localities.
While
Major Hyde was exploring this neighborhood in 1880, he was visited by
several Pueblo Indians from San Domingo, who stated that the turquoise
he was taking from the old mine was sacred, and must not go into the
hands of those whose Saviour was not a Montezuma, and these Indians
offered, at the same time, to purchase all that might come from the
mine in the future.
About
ten miles from Tempe, Arizona, in ruins designated as Los Muertos,
there was found enclosed in asbestos, in a decorated Zuni jar, a
sea-shell coated with black pitch, in which were incrusted turquoise
and garnets, in the form of a toad, the sacred emblem of the Zuni.
Incrusted clam shells, representing toads, may be seen in the Brunswick
Collection, the Christie Collection in the British Museum, and in the
Pitorini Museum, Rome.
At
the annual Fiesta which is attended by the San Felipe, the Navajo, the
Isleta, the Acoma, the Jicorrilla, Apache and other Indians at the
Pueblo of Santo Domingo, a place situated about three miles west by
south of Wallace Station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad,
a carved wooden image of the saint, about four feet in height, and said
to date from the time of the conquest in 1692, is carried in procession
through the principal streets to a small tent made of the finest Navajo
blankets, where it is placed on an improvised altar. Here various
offerings are made. Among them strings of turquoise beads, both round
and flat, of the choicest color, are suspended from the ears of the
figure, and from a string which encircles its neck. On the centre of
