--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Beckwith, Frank collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 30 number: 11 published: 1927-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: "Frank Beckwith, “The High Priest’s Vestments,” *Improvement Era* 30, no. 11 (September 1927): 1029–1037." source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera30011unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera30011unse start_page: 1029 end_page: 1037 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1927-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera30011unse publication_year: 1927 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1927, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # The High Priest’s Vestments THE HIGH PRIEST'S VESTMENTS Used by the Ancient Cliff Dwellers of Wayne County Centuries Ago. — Breathings of the Distant Past. By Frank Beckwith a state of receptivity One Sunday evening Bishop and Mrs. E. P. Pectol, of Torrey, Wayne county, Utah, held a meeting, in which the Spirit was richly manifest. On Monday evening they drove their car out of town, completely swayed by the reverential feeling of the night before. They drove somewhat north of the town in quest of "finds" of the ancient in- habitants of that region, but somehow they felt ill at ease. Some- thing was lacking. The feeling so overcame Mrs. Pectol that she insisted they leave that locality and go elsewhere. They drifted, more or less aimlessly, back toward home, their minds open to the least influence. They were not concentrated on anything in particular, but in the frame of mind best adapted to receiving and obeying impulses from the unknown, — intuitive im- pressions. Mr. Pectol said to his wife, "We will drive to the canyon where the cedar-bark bag was found." On stopping the car, they slowly walked toward the cliffs over- looking the canyon. About fifty steps from where they alighted from the car, Mrs. Pectol picked up some broken pottery and con- tinued searching among the crags and cliffs in that immediate vicinity. She took to the higher cliffs while Mr. Pectol busied himself with the lower ones. After a lapse of about thirty minutes, they, together, finally came to a huge, over-hanging ledge that bore unmistakable signs of an ancient cliff dwelling. Immersed in meditation, they wondered what might be the religious worship of the people who had left signs of their former occupancy so plainly evidenced. On the way back he called her attention to points of interest as they passed, — to the "cache" where the ancient inhabitants had stored corn in a tiny cupboard as an auxiliary to the winter food supply, and then, to keep the rodents out, had neatly plastered it with red mud, which even to this day carries the imprints of the fingers of the very person who constructed it. FOOTFALLS OF THE PAST Their experience breathes reverentially the nearness of the people who once had trodden the very self -same spot; and their presence was felt in the lingering half-light of the eventide. As they drifted along, he pointed out to her "the council cham- 103 0 IMPROVEMENT ERA ber," where sat the experienced elders of the village, chosen to guide the destiny of their tribe, — men not impassioned with the turbulence of youth, but marked with the maturity and wisdom of age. Farther they went. Past a large, flat, projecting rock they walked, — a rock about a foot thick, lying horizontally, so that a large recess lay beneath it, open at one end, but like a "V" pinching back to nothing in the recess. Bishop Pectol was about to go past the place when a something moved Mrs. Pectol to say: "You must dig into this and you will find something." Heeding her command, Bishop Pectol fell to work. As soon as he began, he felt the peculiar influence, though in a lesser degree than she did. As he worked, his enthusiasm mounted. Mind you, there was not a single clue beneath that rock; not the tiniest portion of anything protruding to give a hint or to incite curiosity; in fact, just the opposite, for both knew that others had been there before. Both knew that the spot had been scrutinized, that a stick had been probed into the loose soil, and that it had failed to yield any result. Everything was the very opposite to what was about to befall. As he touched the ground with his hands, a sudden eagerness overcame him, and he fell to work with a vim. The loose top soil was removed. Nothing showed. Far from being discouraged, he delved deeper. A tiny fragment of loose cedar bark was felt in his fingers, and then, almost furiously, he dug into the light soil. Soon a layer of different material was brought to view, and he knew he was in "made dirt." Then in an instant his hand touched a great mass of light cedar bark. There, beneath a top layer of soil of nearly eighteen inches, he ran into a layer of cedar bark about three or four inches thick, and beneath that an important discovery; his hand touched — THE HIGH PRIEST'S VESTMENTS! A feeling of greatest reverence now actuated both. It was sup- posed that the cedar bark covered some important object beneath. Desiring their children to see this, as originally placed, without moving or raising the protective covering, they returned home, and with three of their children, their son-in-law, Claude Holt, Arthur Forbush, Joseph Anderson of Monroe, and Alfred Ostberg of Cainesville, they returned to the spot and carefully removed the remainder of the bark and earth, raised the covering, and, by the aid of the glow from a camp fire, the two uppermost circular objects came to view. The eyes of these people then feasted on the most wonderful "find" unearthed for many a year. For before them were three great circular pieces, symbolic vestments of the High Priest of that land in a time of the long ago. These symbols of office had been laid by, after use on the last THE HIGH PRIEST'S VESTMENTS 1031 occasion, and adroitly hidden under the rock, covered by three or four inches of light cedar bark to absorb any moisture, and the whole spread with eighteen inches of soil. On removing the third shield, a similar layer of bark was found covering the cone of earth over which the shields were placed, to keep them retained to shape as in a mold. The facts leading up to the discovery made both Mr. and Mrs. Pectol imagine that they were in the spirit presence of a by-gone servant of God, who, in the long, long ago, had carefully buried the sacred vestments of his office. DETAILS GIVEN Let me now, with care, give the detail of these articles: Popularly they will be called "shields." And the popular mind will always associate them with warfare, — and eager souls will see on the surfaces "the actual dents and blood-stains of fierce battles fought in the long ago." But the thoughtful, the prudent, the student of the lore of an ancient and deeply religious people, will see in them the symbolic insignia of office of the High Priest, and will in fancy picture him in deer-skin cap, fur headdress, and kilts or robes about his loins, buckskin garments clothing his person underneath, and with one of these wonderful objects on his arm! The eldest High Priest, of topmost authority, will carry the four-colored, highly emblematic one; his attendants a lesser one, in accordance with their lesser rank. And each, in ensemble, will personify symbolically the natural forces he represents in his person in the forthcoming religious rites. First, let me disprove the word "shield" as applied in terms of warfare to these objects. No warrior, injured in battle, would take the very implement on which his life depended, the very thing he needed with which to repulse the onslaught of an enemy, and go and deliberately bury that very protective armour on which hisi life de- pended. No! He would want it close, to be snatched on the first moment of alarm; and die with it in use, defending his wife, his babes, his home, his god. No person of today or of the long ago, trained to the military, would take his defensive armour (associated with the word and mean- ing of "shield") and go to all that trouble carefully to hide it. On the other hand, the High Priest, having performed the sa- cred duties required by the occasion of the great festival, the thanks- giving procession, the solemn and sacred march before God, having completed his religious duty, would take off his sacred vestments, care- fully lay them upon the earth cone intended to receive them, and then, in the dead of night when all the air seemed to breathe a secret purpose, he would cover them with cedar bark, and lastly, to secure them from the profane gaze of the unworthy, place over the whole as near a 1032 IMPROVEMENT ERA similarity to natural soil conditions as Indian skill could bring into command. "THE HIGH PRIEST'S SYMBOLIC SHIELD'' The most important vestment of the Ancient Medicine Man. Symbolically colored, the left quadrant is in red, signifying the sun's heat; the upper quadrant, in black, as of the black rain cloud; the right quadrant, in green, divided into seven bands, symbolic of the green shoots of the tender, growing corn; and the lower quadrant, in yellow, those green shoots matured into the ripened ear. And so placed away, these sacred, symbolic paraphernalia of office have lain these many years, until one was directed to uncover them. For me, forever is abandoned the thought that they were in- tended as "war shields'." I cannot think so, and I do not wish others to think so. Relatively, the degree of importance between these as "war shields" and as "the sacred vestments of the High Priest," are directly comparable to finding an old army musket and finding the Pope's mitre. From the troglodyte down to the doughboy in the trenches, every man of war has had some kind of shield to ward off a stone, receive the impact of a blow, or take the death out of an obsidian- tipped arrow; even our boys in France used a "tin lid" to ward off injury from bursting shrapnel. But to find what a people had used as a religious symbolism, THE HIGH PRIEST'S VESTMENTS 1033 painted in the" colors which they understood, to find these relics, opens a huge vista into the life, habits, ceremonials, and religious thoughts of a people who are present in spirit when I see these sacred objects. The man who wore them walks before me; I see why he was actuated; I follow his mind in his symbolism; I delve into his being as evidenced by those sacred things he wore. STRICTLY TECHNICAL These large, circular objects are made of what is presumed to be buffalo hide. They are about one-eighth inch thick, of considerable stiffness, just about of that degree of strength which "binder's board," used in book binding of the same thickness, has. They are cone-shaped, the better to retain their form, pressed into that shape, not cut and sewed; and were laid on a cone of earth and under padding of the same shape to preserve them. They are light. They cover a person from the neck to just barely above the knee. A long noose of buckskin extends from the center of each up over the wearer's neck. His left arm passes through a convenient loop at one side of the center, and the left hand grasps a smaller loop at the other side of the conical point. Thus, neck and hand support this great, cymbal-like portion of the Hight Priest's regalia. And, let me add, a man so covered is a man of average height, again proving, in the words of the Smithsonian In- stitute, "the former inhabitants were not a race of pygmies." This relic from the distant past shows the ravages of time on an otherwise wonderfully preserved symbolic "shield," used by the Cliff-Dwellers many centuries ago. 1034 IMPROVEMENT ERA The one with the row of white circles in the lower half on a background of black has four bars slanting along the upper half, at a slight angle. Three of these bars, or stripes, have a green center; the upper one has a center of red. The background is a rich black, hold- ing the color wonderfully well. It has all the appearance (at first glance) of having been made the day before yesterday, and just var- nished. But upon closer inspection it is seen to bear the ravishing marks of time; for the edge has rotted away. The color near that portion is dimmed. Some of the circles have dots upon them, placed and spaced differently; no doubt, one might well think, with a secret, esoteric meaning, lost to us. These dots vary in their location, as if done with a purpose. Some of the marks enclosing the bands are in dashes, and others are in dots. It is most carefully done, nicely shaped, harmoniously spaced, and of workmanship the highest. But not a mark, or dent; not a cut or scrape, as if it had ever seen service in battle. On the contrary, a piece of the highest workmanship handled like a treasure, and not marred in one slight respect. A SYMBOL OF KNOWN IMPORT But the second disc lends itself to better interpretation. To me, it is the most important one. It has four symbolic colors, dear to the ancient Indian heart — red, black, green, and yellow. Red for the emblem of our Sun Father, the heat of the great orb of day; black for the dark rain clouds from which drip the life-giving rain, which moisture brings into being the tender green shoots of the corn; and that continued through the season, both in abundance, causes the corn to assume the yellow color of the matured ear. And, strange to say, and to me most wonderful — it has SEVEN rays of green, running from a tip of red near the edge to the center. The sacred number seven so outcrops among our ancient inhabitants as to cause one to pause with wonder. Lord Kingsborough's monumental task about 1830 was not without foundation to prove by evidences of similarity of symbolism that the ancient Indian was descended from Judah, for so much of Judean lore, mysticism, Hebrew custom, outcrops as to haunt one, demanding a reason. I state the symbols of these colors boldly, for every student of the Pueblo Indian is familiar with that symbology; — red for the heat of the Sun Father; green for the growing shoots of corn; yellow for the fully matured ear. The famous corn dance, the Dance of the Ayash Tyocotz, the Thanksgiving Procession, or whatever other name may have been given by writers to the deeply religious, highly important, sacredly significant dance of the Indians, embodying these symbolic colors, is too well known to students of the subject to de- mand extended proof. There is a certain deep significance attaching to the use of the number seven, of which I will only briefly hint. There were seven planets known to ancient man; seven branches to the candelebra be- fore the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple; seven years of famine; THE HIGH PRIEST'S VESTMENTS 1035 seven fat kine, seven lean; seven vials of wrath; a prophet strode around the walls of Jericho once a day for seven days and seven times on the seventh, whereupon the walls fell. This sacred number seven is met with on this continent, which leads one to suspect that the cause for it is a contact with immigrants from the Old World where sacred use of it was known. A search for the cause (which holds a rank and frequency to be more than mere "coincidence") is best con- cluded by saying that a contact with Old World mysticism found its way to these shores. What is more fitting than that the aborigines should employ this highest, most sacred symbol (that of the sacred number seven) for the mystery of the growth of corn, the tender green shoots, absolutely dependent upon the warmth of the sun and the moisture of the rains? A writer whom I fondly admire aptly says: "Before the mystery of life the ancient Indian stood in awe. It was the great mystery to him. He saw reverentially that the warm rays of our sun father were re- ceived in the fertile bosom of mother earth, and by her brought forth into the tender shoots; continued genial warmth, coupled with in- vigorating rains, brought the growing food to maturity, exemplified in the yellow corn of his staple diet. And he gave interpretive thanks- givings to those powers of nature, in which his sacred priests enacted the part of the force they personified." OUR OWN EMOTIONS Poor, degenerate, forgetful, wandering man, far from his center of culture and farther from his heritage of old! The memory of the greatness of his forefathers slipping from his grasp — a greatness im- parted to his kind from a contact in the long ago, but which he for- feited under the lure of the great open wilds! While congregated in cultural centers, crowded with vast numbers, civilization progressed; he developed; he wrought in stone; he erected vast temples which modern research uncovers in Mexico and Yucatan; be built on a huge scale; he wrought in the metals; he left ruins which even to this day stand as a challenge to our wonderment. But, when he lost himself farther and farther north from that home or those homes, in the great open wilds, he was thinly present in any section, scant in numbers here in Utah, and forced to make his home in cliffs for defense, and slowly his heritage of culture drifted away from him. This man in Wayne county was formerly semi-sedentary. His more nomadic brother of the great wilds of Nebraska and Kansas, denizen of the great open plains, roamed more; built less; depended on his arrow for his living day by day. And what little heritage he had, drifted from him. But this man of the cliffs tried to build; tried to cultivate corn; fashioned tools (even though they were of stone merely) , and held his deeply significant, interpretive religious rites, as outpourings of his frank and simple soul. The indescribable sadness of it all; I stood before a glass display- case in Salt Lake City and gazed on the picture of a poor, withered. 1036 IMPROVEMENT ERA wretched dead woman; unutterable sadness written in her face. Harrassed by foes, in utmost dread of sudden attack by implacable enemies, at whose sorties husband, father or son fell, and she herself forced into captivity with ignominy and drudging tasks, tucked away in a tiny shelter in an almost impregnable cliff, she eked out a miserable existence, barely gaining sustenance from a few scant acres cultivated with a sharp stick. Scarred to the marrow by a belief in witchcraft; a believer in sor- cery; harassed by human foes; and all but obliterated in the struggle for existence — one time, between the occurrence of a great religious festival and its next celebration, either there was a sudden inroad of enemy, or a tribal decision to leave, and deserted was the little home in the cliffs — the little home into which I walked studious of her manner of life, inquisitive as to her culture, and peering into her own housework. My eager hands sift through the dirt and bring up treasures — things I wouldn't sell for a great price! — an empty corn cob, a fragment of squash rind; shards of pottery "killed" on the quitting of the spirit from the tabernacle of clay — and I value my finds as beyond estimate. Why? Because by them I live her life, see her at work, know her thoughts, and re-enact the scenes of the long, long ago. Best of all, I visit a spot where a man trained in religious ob- servances was used as one chosen to bring to light "vestments of the High Priest," and robes and raiment, deer-skin garments of wear, so that I see envisioned before me a tribal procession, headed by this man of sacerdotal office, clad in full paraphernalia, and wearing on his arm, a sacred disc, symbolically painted, which symbolism is read by all his tribe, and as he and his assistants enact the drama of nature, which he is clothed to portray, all the beholders silently thank God for the blessings of the year. Good Mother Earth — how prodigally has she brought forth, vivifying the rays of our Sun Father! And the mystery of Life — who has fathomed it, though they give it quite a scientific name? Such was the use to which these sacred relics of the past were put. Such is the interpretive meaning I read out of and into them, of which the foregoing is only a part; for locked to us is by far the greatest part, lost, unrecoverable, and even to the Indian himself half- forgotten in centuries of conquest. THE PROPER MENTAL ATTITUDE You who go to see these sacred relics, go not to look upon them with thoughts of war, bloodshed, battles, strife, and death! But go to look at them in the highest thought to which primitive man was able to aspire — the enactment of the Great Drama of LIFE. Thanks for a simple mind, living simply and expressed outwardly in just as simple a manner, — thanks returned to the GREAT MYSTERY of all, — life from the seed to the ripened ear, life from the mother's THE HIGH PRIESTS' VESTMENTS 03 7 womb to the sacred Medicine Man, the embodiment to him of all his highest aspirations in human form. Look not at them as implements of Death, but as symbols of Life. Then will they rise in importance to you, and have brought into being that scene of the long ago in which they played their part. Thanks to Bishop Pectol, I stood where these were found. The quiet of evening's descending shades; the psychology of the environ- ment; the spirit of the place; the thoughts which he as my guide in- stilled into my deepest being, all brought up from the abysmal past a scrap snatched from oblivion, from which I have feebly recon- structed around my feelings the scene of the long ago — the scene brought in visualization by sight of "the High Priest's vestments." NOTE: I wish the readers of the Era would study three most excellent books to catch that spirit of the Indian which is but inadequately expressed in the foregoing: — The Soul of the Indian, by Charles Alexander Eastman, a full-blooded Sioux who graduated with the rank of a doctor from Cornell University; The Delight Makers, by Adolph F. Bandelier, who spent years among his faithful Indian friends; and Mesa Canon and Pueblo, by Charles F. Lummis, former editor of the Los Angeles Times. After reading those volumes you will understand the symbology I refer to and why it was used, and you will find a deeper significance in the subject, "The High Priest's Vestments." Delta, Utah. Healing Power of the Priesthood Manifested At the request of President H. H. Rolapp of the Eastern States mission, Elder Glen W. Watkins, mission secretary, forwards to the Era an account of a remarkable manifestation wrought among them by the Lord, to whom they express thanks for this blessing. The letter of district President D. V. Groberg to President Rolapp reads: "Brother John Von Mayer. New Mexico, who was stricken deaf and mute during the Mississippi flood, came to Charleston and was kindly received by the Saints to whom he came. He attended our services for a week, hearing no sound and speaking no words save in writing on paper. He asked, in writing, to be administered to, and believed with all his heart that the Lord would give him a blessing. The Saints assembled in prayer; then the elders administered to him. The power of God and his healing influence was felt, and as an unmistakable manifestation of it, Brother Von Mayer received his hearing and speech. He can not express the fulness of his joy, nor can we. He reports that doctors of repute an- nounced his case as very likely fatal to his sense of hearing, though they gave him encouragement about a future restoration of his voice, by saying, 'The voice may be regained by another shock.' It was by shock and injury that he lost his voice and hearing. We are seeking to get authoritative reports from these doctors as well as word from the hospital at Natchez, Mississippi. j | *~l ■£]? "During the Mississippi flood, in April of this year, Brother John Von Mayer, in company with his wife, his father and mother, who were motoring from the West to the East, fell into the clutches of the raging waters and, so far as is known, the latter three lost their lives. Brother Von Mayer came to consciousness in a Red Cross hospital at Natchez, Mississippi. He was then deaf and mute. His wanderings from place to place, and from doctor to doctor, brought him at length to Charleston. July 25. 1927."