ASK ME ANOTHER
by
Don Watson

The ranger-naturalists are all pretty well agreed that the question asked most often by the visitors is: "Don't you get tired of taking us through the ruins?" The answer is an emphatic "No!" It is really one of the few questions for which there is a definite answer.

If all of the questions were as easy as that, the naturalists would have a very nice time. But when you get thirty people together, who represent a very typical cross-section of the American public life it is not so easy, but it is decidedly interesting.

In one of these parties there may be a university professor or two, several school teachers, a minister, a lawyer, a doctor, a few business men, a dry land farmer from Kansas, a couple of foreign exchange students, and a number that the ranger can't classify at first. Add to those the various wives and the more than various children, and you have a very typical party, and just about as fine a group as if you had handpicked it.

When you take this group through the ruins you may be very sure there will be no secrets left in the lives of the cliff dweller. With someone in the party from every walk of life, the cliff dwellers' physical, mental, social, and religious anatomy is soon well dissected.

From beginning to end it is a battle of wits between the ranger-naturalist and his party. They want to know everything and everything is not to be known. So many parts of the story are obscure, that many of the questions must go unanswered. But the questions are the life of the party ! If the members of the party refuse to ask questions, the leader is lost for he has no way of knowing what their interests may be, but if the questions come, all goes well, or fairly so, as we shall see.

First of all we might as well get the foolish questions out of the way. These are questions that, even though asked with all seriousness, seem somehow to miss the mark. All of us are agreed that the prize question of all time was asked of Dr. Fewkes, the early archeologist, many years ago. Dr. Fewkes was talking to a group of people around the campfire, telling them of the people who had lived here many centuries ago. As he finished, a young woman, a school teacher, and from Boston, asked with perfect candor, "Why on earth did the cliff dwellers build their homes so far from the railroads?" Dr. Fewkes never completely recovered.

The best question asked in recent years was by a man in Square Tower house one morning. "Don't you think that the constant climbing over those cliffs might cause the cliff dwellers to develop suction cups on their hands and feet?" And strange as it seems he argued the point.

Other questions of this type are: What did the cliff dwellers use for water?

Did the cretaceous sea come up to the level of the cliff dwellings?

Did the woodpeckers make the small holes in the roof of the Cliff Palace cave?

Did the Cliff dwellers take their corn down town to market?

Was the water high enough in the canyons so the cliff dwellers could get in and out in boats?

How many cliff dwellings are there in the Mesa Verde that have not as yet been found?

Do Indians fall in love like we do?

This last question was from a sweet wide-eyed young honeymooner. Honeymooners are always easy to pick). This couple had lagged behind coming up the long Balcony House ladder, and when the ranger-naturalist looked down they were at the bottom of the ladder in the midst of a fervent kiss, for fear it might be the last, I presume. Later on she asked about Indians falling in love. The guide reminded her of Pocahantas!

A question of this sort is rare. Usually they are serious and hit their marks, which in this case is the ranger-naturalist.

The World traveler, who has been everywhere and seen everything asks such questions that only a globe trotting naturalist could answer:

Compare the walls in Peru with the Great Wall of China.

How did the cliff dwellers compare with the Cro-Magnons?

Is the Temple of Isis lined up with the sun?

How do you explain the white Indians of Central America?

Compare the cliff dwellings with the ruined stone cities of Rhodesia.

How did the cliff dwellers compare with the people in Europe at the same time?

Why are there such strange animals in Australia?

Sometimes a clever person who knows the weak points in the ranger-naturalists' armor will deliberately lead them up to slaughter—something like this:

"The mongols are not a hairy group, are they?"

"No."

"They are broad-headed, aren't they?"

"Oh yes."

"The Japanese are mongoloid aren't they?"

"Certainly," answers the unsuspecting ranger-naturalist.

"Then how do you account for the Ainus?"

The Ainus are a group of very hairy, long-headed Japanese!

Religion is one subject that requires a great deal of tact. As long as the discussion concerns the Indian religion, all is well, but if it is turned into present day channels, the ranger-naturalist shys away. An interesting point is that ministers are always inquisitive concerning the Indian religion, but never mention their own. Members of their flocks, however, sometimes do. How should this question be answered without hurting feelings: "How can you say there were Indians in America 15,000 years ago when the Bible says the world is only 6,000 years old?"

Many of the religious questions lead to interesting discussions:

Do Indians believe in heaven?

What was the cliff dweller religion?

How can you say corn originated in America when corn is mentioned in the Bible?

Did the cliff dwellers worship the Sun?

Were the cliff dwellers moral?

Can you reconcile evolution and the Bible?

If you don't believe in the Bible how do you account for flood legends among all people?

Why would the women in a matriarchy let the men do the religious work?

Mothers taking small children through the ruins ask such questions as these:

Did the cliff dwellers have milk?

How did the mothers wean the babies?

Were the families large?

What did they do for toilets?

How did they keep the children from falling off the cliffs?

Did the cliff dwellers ever bathe?

Wouldn't the stench in the caves have been awful?

Questions of this type lead to interesting discussions because people are more interested in the little every day things than in deep scientific information, and the ranger-naturalist often has trouble in avoiding long discussions of such questions as:

What was the cephalic index of the cliff dweller?

Were there ever counter migrations back to Asia?

How do you account for the red headed Indians found in Pecos ruin?

Compare the cliff dwellers and the Mound builders.

Is it true that the basket makers were more negroid than mongoloid?

How were clans formed?

What are the cephalic differences of the various races?

What is the manner in which indian ceremonies develop?

Even harder to answer than scientific questions are the pseudo-scientific questions asked by people who have been reading and believing too many Sunday supplements:

What about the lost continents of Mu and Atlantis?

How do you explain tho Egyptian symbols in the Mayan ruins?

Why couldn't man have originated in America?

If there was only one birth of man, why so many colors and races?

Couldn't the Indians be the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel?

The ranger-naturalist can leave it to the farmer in the party to develop this side of the cliff dwellers life:

How did they make a living?

Corn can't grow in this dry climate, can it?

Will the corn found in the cliff dwellings grow?

Why won't it, if wheat from the pyramids grew?

Did the Indians irrigate?

How many years of drouth would dry up the springs?

One interesting line is left to the doctors who want to know:

What evidences of disease do you find in mummies and skeletons?

Were the teeth as good as our usual idea of Indian teeth?

Wouldn't the unbalanced diet have caused trouble?

Did the cliff dwellers have tuberculosis?

To what blood groups do your mummies belong?

That last question can now be answered, thanks to recent developments.

And so the questions go. Those are only a few of the hundreds that are asked each day. The ones I have listed are typical of the questions that may be asked in an hour's time on a ruin's trip. Most of them have at least partial answers; some have none.

The ranger-naturalists are agreed that the questions asked the most often are:

How did the cliff dwellers get up the cliffs?

Why were the doors so small?

Where did the cliff dwellers got their water?

Why did they live in the caves?

While those are most common questions, at the top of the list is the most common of all inquiries and the meet difficult to answer: "Why?"

Every day new questions come, each week the ranger-naturalists discuss them to got the best answers. As long as travelers come to the Mesa Verde this "ask me another" life will cause gray hairs and bad dreams for the members of the force.

The ranger-naturalists have taken people of every known calling, of almost every race, every size, age and color through the ruins. The youngest was a three months old baby last summer that chewed the ranger's necktie, the oldest was a 94 year old man from Bluff, Utah. One ranger put a 230 pounder through Fat Man's Misery and a 317 pounder through Balcony House. As long as the diversity of people is as great as this you can imagine that life is not dull. That is the reason for the emphatic "No" when we are asked if we do not get tired of our work. We are always waiting for you to "ask us another" that will be better than any of these.

-oOo-