A-ra

!

A-ra

BY ALFRED LAMBOURNE

From whom had she inherited her eyes? They were a won- — der in the land. And her shining hair what a miracle was that Her lithe, slender form was easily accounted for, it was an at- traction of the native Indian girls; her mother had once been possessed of such. But those other beauties. What ancestor could have given her those abnormal eyes, that hair of ruddy gold? Students of the laws of heredity are aware of most singular facts. Slight yet subtle traits of character are transmitted from generation to generation. A glance of the eye, a motion of the hand, a placing of the foot, a sudden gesture; or a slow, delib- erate action, these may be noted passing from father to son, from mother to daughter. Or it may be some peculiar effect upon the features, expressive of pleasure or sorrow, or accompanying ab- stracted thought. The mental qualities which are handed down in individuals through the ages are no more singular in per- sistence than are the physical. The most ordinary hereditist soon gains a knowledge of the downward or omitting process. He readily discovers nature's power of repose, or rather, for that statement does not express the thought, nature abiding its time,

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its ever readiness to bring a result, — but its indifference, its carelessness, if the opportunity presents itself or no —the law which often makes a human being" resemble a more distant than a nearer relative. He also learns the unpleasant truth, that ordi- narily, in fact with few exceptions, nature is the more prone to re- produce the lower traits, mental and physical, than it is the hig-her ones. Or should we say, that relapse is more a line of least resistance than is redemption? And yet we stumble. The ordi- nary hereditist, we said, is aware of those facts, but the master becomes cognizant of others. An accumulative and reverse is sometimes, though rarely, seen. And to such a case the facts which follow direct our thoughts. A-ra A-ra of the violet eyes A-ra of the golden hair A-ra, ! ; — the wonder It would seem that there could be no possible con- !

nection traced between that name given to the girl by the de- scendants of the ancient cliff-dwellers and the appellation Ra of — the great sun-god of the Nile. No link, surely, and yet the ser- pent as an emblem of eternity and the winged circle has been found carved upon the rude places of worship, the ruined kivas and that name, A-ra, is the Navajo word for the feminine :

of light. A wondrous gift, indeed, that child. She had been pre- sented by his Indian wife to the white settler. A-ra, the Navajos had named her, and that name superseded the one which she was given after her birth. And the Indians repeated over her a legend of the tribe. There had been an A-ra long ago. Her eyes, the legend ran, were unlike all others, and upon her head was hair woven from the beams of the sun. She had come from an un- known land, and a great chief of their tribe, had made her his mate. But that was an event of the past, dim and far away. In the new A-ra one would never tire of seeing the violet blue that shone in her dusky eyes, nor the gleams of gold in the dusk of her wondrous hair.

II

"Hot as Tophet!" The scriptural phrase will do, although the men used as a terminal to their ejaculations a much stronger word. It was hot, and the labor of the archaeologist and those who aided him was arduous, and to the young enthusiast it was an exciting one, too. The sun flared down from a cloudless sky. Upon the sandstone plateaus of the Cliff-dwellers' Land, there was a fiery light. The oose and the yucca threw perpendicular shadows on the water-curved walls of "The Wash," and at the noon-day hour the rays of the light penetrated to the bottom of the deep and narrow fissure, and the air in the cave, when the men were at their labor, was hot and so were the layers of fine dirt-like sands which covered its floor and which half choked and smothered

770 IMPROVEMENT ERA the men as they worked. The decorated pottery which they un- covered, the stores of ancient grain, were filled with the heat of the sun, and so, too, were the weapons of flint which had lain through ages buried there. All was hot. There was a warmth even in the withered flesh of the gaunt and ancient mummies. And the men dug, and the eager archaeologist directed and ;

outside at the mouth of the cave, Loki, the one time Indian run-

RUINS OF THE CLIFF-DWELLER S PALACE

ner, now the guide, kept watch, and in his heart, perhaps, were an Indian's dislike and fear at thus wantonly disturbing the rest of the dead. And down in "The Wash," in the shade of the moun- tain cedars, were the camp and the waiting horses. Riding and pack horses both, for only they could follow the difficult trail which led across the plateaus into that hidden cleft. And the horses would bear away whatever the young archaeologist might secure from the caves.

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A wonderful scene ! Those parti-colored sandstones of the great plateaus had once been the bottom of an ancient sea. The mineral fronts of the high walls of the fissure were stained with perpendicular bars and fantastic markings of mineral black. And strangely like to the colors of the walls and the patterns which nature had placed upon them, are the decorated art works of the departed peoples, the potteries which are taken from the caves and the ruined dwellings. In the northern wall of the fissure was the dark opening of the largest cave, and upon the platform of a projecting ledge before it, were the ruins of a rude palace or a temple; which ever the building might have been, it was the work of the cliff-dwellers who once ruled the land. Small as is the ruined structure, it recalls, in the simplicity and impressiveness of its lines, the buildings of the kings of Ra. And at the front of the walls of the wash, and over its edge, were blocks and streams of long-cooled lava, for the primal fires as well as the primal waters had share in the forming of those wild features in the desolate scene. And in it all there was a singular har- mony of strangeness, those walls of nature's building, the yawning mouth of the cave, and the ruined palace or temple. And not only in these, but also in the thoughts suggested, the dead peoples, the extinct fires, and the vanished seas. It all seemed to speak that

one word — death. Up the slope which led to the palace or temple and the .

mouth of the great cave, what singular processions must once have passed! Up to those broken towers, that opening in the rock, must have marched the warriors, the white-haired priests and the dark-skinned and black-haired maidens. Those rocks have echoed back the shrill songs of ceremonials, the weird chants of lamentation. Perhaps the first A-ra once dwelt in that palace at the end of her bridal procession. Now all was still, but the stillness was a stimulant to the imagination. One thought of the man-hole, of the dungeon, cut in solid rock, and of the prisoners who might have rotted there, of the harvest feasts, when the granaries were filled with corn, and of the rituals, when A-ra and the great chief died. One could almost see the struggle of the warriors and hear the yells of the attack and defiance, and the cries of exultation or despair, when might have been enacted a scene of carnage, some massacre, when the lives of the builders of those now tottering walls, the last of the beauty, the power, the wisdom of the tribe, were brought to an end. The A-ra, could that have been she? Who else could that mummy have been ? What had the young archaeologist found ? Already he had made discoveries which had repaid for all his toil, but this one was beyond his wildest hope. Strong and powerful in life, must have been the man whose mummy now lay there exhumed upon the sands of the cave; many and big and finely

772 IMPROVEMENT ERA wrought were the weapons of flint which had shared his long re- pose, and let lay by the side of the dead. Rut more wondrous, surpassing belief, was that other mummy which had been found by the great chief's side. Her body had been clothed with the greatest of care. Her robe of feathers was of the finest work- manship and the richest colors. Upon her fingers were rings and upon her wrists were circlets of beaten gold. But these latter were none of the cliff-dwellers' work, for never on any other mummy had their like been found. And a netting made from the leaf thread of the oose and the yucca, was over the delicate form, and it could yet be seen that the netting also enclosed within its mesh a flood of thick, of long and golden hair. Ill

What was the secret? Are there immutable laws of love? An answer to this question might tell the cause in the coming of a second A-ra. There is a law which makes the lesser covet the higher being. The law may be set aside, broken, yet it returns in greater force. The passion which made that ancient cliff-dweller take the golden-haired one to be his mate is common unto the race. There is an unconquerable desire, even in the lowest human beings, to become as those on the highest plane. Beauty is for- ever worshiped. From the physical, it passes to mental, to spirit- ual beauty. The living A-ra, the descendant of that A-ra of the past, was but a strange manifestation of a deathless force. Darker had become, through a lesser law, in each succeeding generation, the children of that strange chief and the one who had come from an unknown land. At last, the identity of A-ra was lost within the tribe. But a higher law was suddenly restored. A second A-ra brought back the first and made its law triumphant. Yet this is a love thought we do not tell of the modern A-ra ;

to hint at the truth of reincarnation, nor an exceptional wonder in the law of heredity. We repeat a heart tale. What were the emotions of that first A-ra when she became the bride of a savage chief? As the mate of that ancient cliff- dweller, did she pass her days hopelessly sighing for her native land ? That we may not know. But she had surely dwelt in that crude palace at the mouth of the great cave and had afterwards been placed in the cave itself as the cliff-dwellers leave their dead. Was her blood of the Norse, or was she a Greek? That golden hair might have come from either race. Again we may not know. We cannot guess from whence she came, or how. But this we — know there lay that golden-haired mummyby the side of that of the savage chief, and for many ages she had been there. The mystery of her coming, and from what land, must forever remain unsolved. Wewill tell of the later A-ra. To a girl born and reared in the semi-desert, the daughter of

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a cattleman and his Indian wife, that handsome young archaeolo- gist was almost as a god. When he appeared at the door of her father's cabin, the heart of A-ra was lost. But the heart of the stranger was not won. Romance should have made him who uncovered the remains of the first A-ra, in love with the second. But this is a bit of truth. Be the girl the greatest of wonders among the settlers and the Indian tribe, yet the heart of the stu- dent of ethnology, the young enthusiast in archaeology, remained his own. The wonder of A-ra's birth he would repeat, yet he would never know that through love of him her love would be a waste. His splendid "find" absorbed the attention and thought of the fortunate man. Fortunate in his quest of the dead, but in- different to an unknown love of the living. After the passing of the thousands of years, one can yet imagine the surprise and adoration with which the old cliff- dweller might have looked upon the beauty of his wondrous prize. Perhaps the swift runners of the chief had climbed up the steep slope to the door of the palace that stood on the ledge by the burial cave. It might have been that they received a rich reward when they announced to the cliff-dwellers the capture of the one with the eyes of the sky and the sun-beam hair. But no swift runner had brought tidings to the second A-ra of the coming of one who should steal away her peace and her love. The golden-haired mummy was carefully packed and soon on its way to the East. It would not be long before it would be an object of interest in a great museum. Ticketed, numbered, it would be enclosed in a glass case for thousands to look upon. But the second A-ra? She watched with passionate sobbing, with tear-stained face, the young archaeologist as he rode away, vanishing in the summer haze across the sun-burnt mesas.