Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v3.djvu/177

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Pueblo and Plains Indians
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River as far as Diamond Creek. Seven volumes were produced by the Wheeler Survey, eleven by the Hayden, and a considerable number by the Powell Survey. At the same time they turned out topographic maps of excellent character, all things considered in most cases better than any then existing of the Eastern part of the country.

In connection with the Powell Survey Captain C. E. Button studied the geology of certain districts and wrote several books that are almost unique in their combination of literary charm with scientific accuracy: Physical Geology of the Grand Canyon District (1880-81), Tertiary History of the Grand Canyon (1882), and The High Plateaus of Utah (1880).

Powell established the Bureau of Ethnology and from this issued the large number of volumes before referred to, a mine of information on the North American Indian. Many workers were in the field. One of the most picturesque of these labours was Frank H. Cushing's initiation in to the Zuñi tribe described in his Adventures in Zuñi (1883) . He wrote, too, Zuñi Folk Tales (1901); and, in the Bureau reports, other articles on the Zuñi.[1] A remarkable ceremonial of another Puebloan group was written down by Captain John G. Bourke in The Snake Dance of the Moquis [Hopi] of Arizona (1884). The Puebloans for many centuries have built villages of adobe and stone in the Southwest in canyons, in valleys, and on mesas. One of these cliff-bound plateaus, the Mesa Encantada, was the source of some controversy as to whether or not its summit was once occupied. Its walls were scaled and some evidences of the former presence of natives were found. Professor William Libbey and F. W. Hodge both have written on the subject.

While the pioneers were pouring into the West, exterminating the buffalo for hide-and-tallow profits, described by W. T. Hornaday in The Extermination of the American Bison (1889), and dispossessing the Plains Indians generally, the latter became restless and unruly. Under the spell of their crafty medicine priest, Sitting Bull, the Sioux were greatly disturbed. The army was ordered to compel their obedience and in 1876 made a determined move expected to crush the Indians. General Crook was defeated in one of the first encounters; and a few days later General Custer was annihilated with his immediate

  1. See also Book III, Chap, XXXIII.