Title: The Hohokam Dig
Author: Pratt, Theodore, 1901-1969
Language: English
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    _From_ where _had these attacking Indians come? Out of a long
    forgotten and dim past? Had their medicine man seen the one supreme
    vision?_


     the
 hohokam
     dig

 _by ... Theodore Pratt_


 At first they thought the attack was a
 joke. And then they realized the truth!


At first the two scientists thought the Indian attack on them was a joke
perpetrated by some of their friends. After all, modern Indians did not
attack white men any more.

Except that these did.

George Arthbut and Sidney Hunt were both out of New York, on the staff
of the Natural History Museum. George was an ethnologist who specialized
in what could be reconstructed about the prehistoric Indians of North
America, with emphasis on those of the Southwest. He was a tall, lean,
gracious bald man in his early sixties.

Sidney was an archeologist who was fascinated by the ruins of the same
kind of ancient Indians. Medium-sized, with black hair that belied his
sixty-five years, he and George made an excellent team, being the
leaders in their field.

They had come west on a particular bit of business this spring, trying
to solve the largest question that remained about the old cliff dwellers
and the prehistoric desert Indians, both of whom had deserted their
villages and gone elsewhere for reasons that remained a mystery.

One theory was that drought had driven them both away. Another theory
ran to the effect that enemies wiped them out or made off with them as
captives. Still another supposition, at least for the Hohokam desert
people, the builders of Casa Grande whose impressive ruins still stood
near Coolidge, had to do with their land giving out so they could no
longer grow crops, forcing them to go elsewhere to find better soil.

No one really knew. It was all pure guesswork.

       *       *       *       *       *

The two scientists meant to spend the entire summer trying to solve this
riddle for all time, concentrating on it to the exclusion of everything
else. They drove west in a station wagon stuffed with equipment and
tracking a U-Haul-It packed with more.

George drove, on a road that was only two sand tracks across the wild
empty desert between Casa Grande Monument and Tonto National Monument
where cliff dwellers had lived. It was here, not far ahead, in new ruins
that were being excavated, that they hoped to solve the secret of the
exodus of the prehistoric Indians. The place was known as the Hohokam
Dig.

They topped a rise of ground and came to the site of the dig. Here the
sand tracks ended right in the middle of long trenches dug out to reveal
thick adobe walls. In the partially bared ruins the outline of a small
village could be seen; the detailed excavation would be done this summer
by workmen who would arrive from Phoenix and Tucson.

George stopped their caravan and the two men got out, stretching their
legs. They looked about, both more interested in the dig, now they were
back at it, than setting up camp. They walked around, examining various
parts of it, and the excitement of the promise of things to be
discovered in the earth came to them. "This summer we'll learn the
answer," Sidney predicted.

With skeptical hope George replied, "Maybe."

It was early afternoon when they set up camp, getting out their tent
from the U-Haul-It. They took out most of their gear, even setting up a
portable TV set run on batteries brought along. They worked efficiently
and rapidly, having done this many times before and having their
equipment well organized from long experience. By the middle of the
afternoon all was ready and they rested, sitting on folding chairs at a
small table just outside the opening of their tent.

Looking around at the dig Sidney remarked, "Wouldn't it be easy if we
could talk to some of the people who once lived here?"

"There's a few questions I'd like to ask them," said George. "I
certainly wish we had some to talk with."

He had no more than uttered this casual wish than there sounded, from
all sides of where they sat, screeching whoops. The naked brown men who
suddenly appeared seemed to materialize from right out of the
excavations. As they yelled they raised their weapons. The air was
filled, for an instant, with what looked like long arrows. Most of them
whistled harmlessly past the two scientists, but one hit the side of the
station wagon, making a resounding thump and leaving a deep dent, while
two buried themselves in the wood of the U-Haul-It and remained there,
quivering.

George and Sidney, after the shock of their first surprise at this
attack, leaped to their feet.

"The car!" cried Sidney. "Let's get out of here!"

They both started to move. Then George stopped and grabbed Sidney's arm.
"Wait!"

"Wait?" Sidney demanded. "They'll kill us!"

"Look," advised George, indicating the red men who surrounded them; they
now made no further move of attack.

George gazed about. "Oh," he said, "you think somebody's playing a joke
on us?"

"Could be," said George. He ran one hand over his bald head.

"Some dear friends," Sidney went on, resenting the scare that had been
thrown into them, "hired some Indians to pretend to attack us?"

"Maybe Pimas," said George. He peered at the Indians, who now were
jabbering among themselves and making lamenting sounds as they glanced
about at the ruins of the ancient village. There were eighteen of them.
They were clad in nothing more than a curious cloth of some kind run
between their legs and up and over a cord about their waists, to form a
short apron, front and back.

"Or Zunis," said Sidney.

"Maybe Maricopas," said George.

"Except," Sidney observed, "none of them look like those kind of
Indians. And those arrows they shot." He stared at the two sticking in
the U-Haul-It. "Those aren't arrows, George--they're atlatl lances!"

"Yes," said George.

Sidney breathed, "They aren't holding bows--they've got atlatls!"

"No modern Indian of any kind," said George, "uses an atlatl."

"Most of them wouldn't even know what it was," Sidney agreed. "They
haven't been used for hundreds of years; the only place you see them is
in museums."

An atlatl was the weapon which had replaced the stone axe in the stone
age. It was a throwing stick consisting of two parts. One was the lance,
a feathered shaft up to four feet long, tipped with a stone point. The
two-foot flat stick that went with this had a slot in one end and two
rawhide finger loops. The lance end was fitted in the slot to be thrown.
The stick was an extension of the human arm to give the lance greater
force. Some atlatls had small charm stones attached to them to give
them extra weight and magic.

Charm stones could be seen fastened to a few of the atlatls being held
by the Indians now standing like bronze statues regarding them.

George whispered, "What do you make of it?"

"It isn't any joke," replied Sidney. He gazed tensely at the Indians.
"That's all I'm sure of."

"Have you noticed their breechclouts?"

Sidney stared again. "They aren't modern clouts. George, they're right
out of Hohokam culture!"

"They aren't made of cloth, either. That's plaited yucca fibre."

"Just like we've dug up many times. Only here ..." George faltered.
"It's being worn by--by I don't know what."

"Look at their ornaments."

Necklaces, made of pierced colored stones, hung about many of the brown
necks. Shell bracelets were to be seen, and here and there a carved
piece of turquoise appeared.

"Look at the Indian over there," George urged.

Sidney looked to the side where George indicated, and croaked, "It's a
girl!"

It was a girl indeed. She stood straight and magnificent in body
completely bare except for the brief apron at her loins. Between her
beautiful full copper breasts there hung a gleaming piece of turquoise
carved in the shape of a coyote.

At her side stood a tall young Indian with a handsome face set with
great pride. On her other side was a wizened little old fellow with a
wrinkled face and ribs corrugated like a saguaro.

Sidney turned back and demanded, "What do you make of this? Are we
seeing things?" Hopefully, he suggested, "A mirage or sort of a mutual
hallucination?"

In a considered, gauging tone George replied, "They're real."

"Real?" cried Sidney. "What do you mean, real?"

"Real in a way. I mean, Sidney, these--I sound crazy to myself saying
it--but I think these are--well, Sid, maybe they're actual prehistoric
Indians."

"Huh?"

"Well, let's put it this way: We asked for them and we got them."

Sidney stared, shocked at George's statement. "You're crazy, all right,"
he said. "Hohokams in the middle of the Twentieth Century?"

"I didn't say they're Hohokams, though they probably are, of the village
here."

"You said they're prehistoric," Sidney accused. He quavered, "Just how
could they be?"

"Sid, you remember in our Indian studies, again and again, we meet the
medicine man who has visions. Even modern ones have done things that are
pretty impossible to explain. I believe they have spiritual powers
beyond the capability of the white man. The prehistoric medicine men may
have developed this power even more. I think the old man there is their
medicine man."

"So?" Sidney invited.

"I'm just supposing now, mind you," George went on. He rubbed his bald
pate again as though afraid of what thoughts were taking place under it.
"Maybe way back--a good many hundreds of years ago--this medicine man
decided to have a vision of the future. And it worked. And here he is
now with some of his people."

"Wait a minute," Sidney objected. "So he had this vision and transported
these people to this moment in time. But if it was hundreds of years ago
they're already dead, been dead for a long time, so how could they--"

"Don't you see, Sid? They can be dead, but their appearance in the
future--for them--couldn't occur until now because it's happened with us
and we weren't living and didn't come along here at the right time until
this minute."

Sidney swallowed. "Maybe," he muttered, "maybe."

"Another thing," George said. "If we can talk with them we can learn
everything we've tried to know in all our work and solve in a minute
what we're ready to spend the whole summer, even years, digging for."

Sidney brightened. "That's what we wanted to do."

George studied the Indians again. "I think they're just as surprised as
we are. When they discovered themselves here and saw us--and you must
remember we're the first white men they've ever seen--their immediate
instinct was to attack. Now that we don't fight back they're waiting for
us to make a move."

"What do we do?"

"Take it easy," advised George. "Don't look scared and don't look
belligerent. Look friendly and hope some of the modern Indian dialects
we know can make connection with them."

       *       *       *       *       *

The two scientists began, at a gradual pace, to make their way toward
the old man, the young man, and the girl. As they approached, the girl
drew back slightly. The young man reached over his shoulder and from the
furred quiver slung on his back drew an atlatl lance and fitted it to
his throwing stick, holding it ready. The other warriors, all about,
followed suit.

The medicine man alone stepped forward. He held up a short colored stick
to which bright feathers were attached and shook it at the two white
men. They stopped.

"That's his aspergill," observed Sidney. "I'd like to have that one."

The medicine man spoke. At first the scientists were puzzled, then
George told Sidney, "That's Pima, or pretty close to it, just pronounced
differently. It probably shows we were right in thinking the Pimas
descended from these people. He wants to know who we are."

George gave their names. The medicine man replied, "The man who has
white skin instead of red speaks our language in a strange way. I am
Huk." He turned to the young man at his side and said, "This is Good
Fox, our young chief." He indicated the girl. "That is Moon Water, his
wife."

George explained what he and the other white man with him were doing
here. Huk, along with all the other Indians, including Good Fox and Moon
Water, listened intently; they seemed greatly excited and disturbed.

When George was finished Good Fox turned to Huk and said, "You have
succeeded, wise one, in bringing us forward, far in the future to the
time of these men with white skins."

"This is the truth," said the wrinkled Huk; he did not boast but rather
seemed awed.

Moon Water spoke in a frightened tone. She looked about at the partially
excavated ruins and asked, "But what has happened to our village?" She
faltered, "Is this the way it will look in the future?"

"It is the way," Good Fox informed her sorrowfully.

"I weep for our people," she said. "I do not want to see it." She hung
her pretty face over her bare body, then, in a moment, raised it
resolutely.

Good Fox shook the long scraggly black hair away from his eyes and told
the white men, "We did not mean to harm you. We did not know what else
to do upon finding you here and our village buried."

Ignoring that in his excited interest, Sidney asked, "What year are
you?"

"Year?" asked Good Fox. "What is this word?"

Both Sidney and George tried to get over to him what year meant in
regard to a date in history, but Good Fox, Huk, and Moon Water, and none
of the others could understand.

"We do not know what you mean," Huk said. "We know only that we live
here in this village--not as you see it now--but one well built and
alive with our people. As the medicine man I am known to have extra
power and magic in visions. Often I have wondered what life would be
like in the far future. With this group I conjured up a vision of it,
carrying them and myself to what is now here before us."

George and Sidney glanced at each other. George's lips twitched and
those of Sidney trembled. George said softly to the Indians, "Let us be
friends." He explained to them what they were doing here. "We are trying
to find out what you were--are--like. Especially what made you desert
people leave your villages."

They looked blank. Huk said, "But we have not left--except in this
vision."

In an aside to George, Sidney said, "That means we've caught them before
they went south or wherever they went." He turned back to Huk. "Have
the cliff people yet deserted their dwellings?"

Huk nodded solemnly. "They have gone. Some of them have joined us here,
and more have gone to other villages."

"We have read that into the remains of your people, especially at Casa
Grande," Sidney told him. With rising excitement in his voice he asked,
"Can you tell us why they left?"

Huk nodded. "This I can do."

Now the glance of Sidney and George at each other was quick, their eyes
lighting.

"I'll take it down on the typewriter," Sidney said. "Think of it! Now
we'll know."

He led Huk to the table set in front of the tent, where he brought out a
portable typewriter and opened and set it up. He sat on one chair, and
Huk, gingerly holding his aspergill before him as though to protect
himself, sat on the other.

Good Fox, Moon Water and the other Indians crowded about, curious to see
the machine that came alive under Sidney's fingers as Huk began to
relate his story. Soon their interest wandered in favor of other things
about the two men with white skin. They wanted to know about the machine
with four legs.

George opened up the hood of the station wagon and showed them the
engine. He sat in the car and started the motor. At the noise the
Indians jumped back, alarmed, and reaching for their atlatls. Moon Water
approached the rear end of the car. Her pretty nose wrinkled at the
fumes coming from it and she choked, drawing back in disgust. "It is
trying to kill me," she said.

Clearly, she did not approve of an automobile.

George cut off its engine.

Over Good Fox's shoulder hung a small clay water jug hung in a plaited
yucca net. George asked for a drink from it and when he tasted it and
found it fresh it was wondrous to him that its water was hundreds of
years old. He brought out a thermos, showing the Indians the modern
version of carrying water. They tasted of its contents and exclaimed at
its coolness. Good Fox held the thermos, admiring it.

"Would you like to have it?" asked George.

"You would give it to me?" the handsome young Indian asked.

"It's yours."

"Then I give you mine." He gave George his clay water jug and could not
know how much more valuable it was than the thermos.

George then took them to the portable television set and turned it on.
When faces, music, and words appeared the Indians jerked back, then
jabbered and gathered closer to watch. A girl singer, clad in a gown
that came up to her neck, caused Moon Water to inquire, "Why does she
hide herself? Is she ashamed?"

The standards of modesty, George reflected as he glanced at the lovely
nude form of the prehistoric Indian girl, change with the ages.

Of the people and noises on the TV screen Good Fox wanted to know quite
solemnly, "Are these crazy people? Is it the way you treat your people
who go crazy?"

George laughed. "You might say it's something like that."

A shout came from Sidney at the card table near the tent where he was
taking down Huk's story. "George! He's just told me why the cliff people
left! And why the desert people will have to leave in time. It's a
reason we never thought of! It's because--"

Just then a big multi-engined plane came over, drowning out his words.
The Indians stared skyward, now in great alarm. They looked about for a
place to run and hide, but there was none. They held their hands over
their ears and glanced fearfully at the TV which now spluttered, its
picture and sound thrown off by the plane. Awesomely, they waited until
the plane went over.

"We fly now in machines with wings," George explained.

"To make such a noise in the air," Moon Water said, "is wicked,
destroying all peace."

"I'll agree with you there," said George.

"You have this," Good Fox observed, indicating the TV, which was now
back to normal, "and you send the other through the sky to make it
crazier than before." He shook his head, not comprehending.

George shut off the TV. He took up a camera of the kind that
automatically finishes a picture in a minute's time. Grouping Good Fox,
Moon Water and the other warriors, he took their picture, waited, then
pulled it out and showed it to them.

They cried out, one man shouting in fear, "It is great magic!"

George took a number of photographs, including several of Huk as he sat
talking with Sidney. No matter what happened he would have this record
as Sidney would have that he was taking down on the typewriter.

Next he showed them a pair of binoculars, teaching them how to look
through them. They exclaimed and Good Fox said, "With this we could see
our enemies before they see us."

"You have enemies?" George asked.

"The Apache," Good Fox said fiercely.

George handed him the binoculars. "It is yours to use against the
Apache."

Solemnly the young chief answered, "The man with white skin is thanked.
The red man gives in return his atlatl and lances." He held out his
throwing stick and unslung his quiver of lances. George accepted them
with thanks; they would be museum pieces.

Finally George showed them a rifle. He looked about for game and after
some searching saw a rabbit sitting on a mound in the excavations. As
he took aim Good Fox asked, "You would hunt it with your stick?"

George nodded.

"This cannot be done from here," stated one warrior.

George squeezed the trigger. Instantaneously with the explosion of the
shell the rabbit jumped high and then came down, limp and dead. The
Indians yelled with fright and ran off in all directions. Huk jumped up
from the table. Then all stopped and cautiously returned. One went to
the rabbit and picked it up, bringing it back. All, including Huk who
left the table, stared with fright at it and at the rifle.

Moon Water expressed their opinion of it. "The thunder of the killing
stick is evil."

"Moon Water speaks the truth," said Huk.

"It would make hunting easy," said Good Fox, "but we do not want it even
if given to us."

He drew back from the rifle, and the others edged away from it.

George put it down.

Sidney held up a sheaf of papers. "I've got it all, George," he said
exultantly in English, "right here! I asked Huk if they can stay with us
in our time, at least for a while. We can study them more, maybe even
take them back to show the world."

"What did he say?"

"He didn't have a chance to reply when you shot the rifle."

George put it formally to the Indians, addressing Huk, Good Fox, Moon
Water and the rest. "You have seen something of the modern world. We
would like you to stay in it if it is your wish. I don't know how long
you could stay in Huk's vision, but if you can remain here permanently
and not go back to your time and--well, not being alive there any
more--we hope you will consider this."

Huk replied, "It is possible that we could stay in your time, at least
as long as my vision lasts, which might be for as long as I lived." He
glanced at Good Fox.

The young chief in turn looked at Moon Water. Her gaze went to the
station wagon, to the TV, then up at the sky where the plane had
appeared, at the rifle, the camera, the thermos, and all else of the
white man. She seemed to weigh their values and disadvantages, looking
dubious and doubtful.

Good Fox announced, "We will hold a council about it. As is our custom,
all have words to say about such a thing."

Abruptly he led his people away, into the excavations and over a slight
rise of ground, behind which they disappeared.

Sidney murmured, "I don't like that so much."

"They must do as they want." George led the way to the card table and
they sat there. On it rested Huk's aspergill.

"He gave it to me," Sidney explained.

George placed Good Fox's netted clay water jug and his atlatl and furred
quiver of lances on the table, together with the pictures he had taken
of the ancient Indians. They waited.

Sidney, glancing at the low hill behind which the Indians had gone,
said, "What they're doing is choosing between living in modern
civilization and remaining dead. What do you think they'll do?"

"I don't know," said George. "They didn't think so much of us."

"But they couldn't choose death and complete oblivion!"

"We'll see."

They waited some more.

"At least," said Sidney, indicating the articles on the table, "we'll
have these for evidence." He held up the sheaf of papers containing
Huk's story. "And this, giving the real reason the cliff dwellers left.
I haven't told you what it was, George. It's so simple that--"

He didn't complete his sentence, for just then Huk, Good Fox, Moon
Water, and the other warriors made their choice. It was announced
dramatically.

The water jug, the aspergill, and the atlatl and quiver of lances
disappeared from the table. In their places, suddenly, there were the
thermos and the binoculars.

Sidney stared stupidly at them.

George said quietly, "They've gone back."

"But they can't do this!" George protested.

"They have."

Sidney's hand shook as he picked up the sheaf of papers holding Huk's
story. Indicating it and the photographs, he said, "Well, they haven't
taken these away."

"Haven't they?" asked George. He picked up some of the pictures. "Look."

Sidney looked and saw that the pictures were now blank. His glance went
quickly to the typewritten sheets of paper in his hands. He cried out
and then shuffled them frantically.

They, too, were blank.

Sidney jumped up. "I don't care!" he exclaimed. "He told me and I've got
it here!" He pointed to his head. "I can remember it, anyway."

"Can you?" asked George.

"Why, certainly I can," Sidney asserted confidently. "The reason the
cliff dwellers left, George, was that they ..." Sidney stopped.

"What's the matter, Sid?"

"Well, I--it--I guess it just slipped my mind for a second." His brow
puckered. He looked acutely upset and mystified. "Huk told me," he
faltered. "Just a minute ago I was thinking of it when I started to tell
you. Now ... I can't remember."

"That's gone, too."

"I'll get it!" Sidney declared. "I've just forgotten it for a minute.
I'll remember!"

"No," said George, "you won't."

Sidney looked around. "There must be something left." He thought. "The
atlatl lances they shot at us!" He looked at the U-Haul-It. The lances
no longer stuck in its side. Nor were those that had fallen to the
ground to be seen.

Sidney sat down again, heavily. "We had it all," he moaned. "Everything
we'd been working for. And now ..."

"Now we'll have to dig for it again," said George. "Do it the hard way.
We'll start tomorrow when the workmen come."

Sidney looked up. "There's one thing!" he cried. "The dent in the car
made by the lance! It's still there, George! However everything else
worked, that was forgotten. It's still there!"

George glanced at the dent in the side panel of the station wagon. "It's
still there," he agreed. "But only to tell us this wasn't a dream. No
one else would believe it wasn't caused by a rock."

George groaned. He stared at the rise of ground behind which the Indians
had disappeared. "Huk," he pleaded. "Good Fox. Moon Water. The others.
Come back, come back ..."

No one appeared over the rise of ground as the cool desert night began
to close in.



Transcriber's Note:

    This etext was produced from _Fantastic Universe_ November 1956.
    Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
    copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
    typographical errors have been corrected without note.





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