In a remote valley in northern New Mexico an entire people were murdered and the usual explanations don't fit.
A people known today as the Gallina (because we don't know what they called themselves) lived in the Gallina River valley. They built homes of wood-and great squared towers of stone from 25 to 35 feet high. Over 500 of these towers have been found in the valley-most crumbling now to ruin. These towers look like medieval fortifications, they are squared and each tower had a parapet with a hatch-being the only way with which to enter the towers. While grain was stored in some of them the kicker is they are full of dead people who were brutally murdered as they sought shelter wherever they could.
IF a skeleton of one of the Gallina is found it is almost certainly embedded with arrowheads or barring that a viciously broken neck or crushed skull. Cut marks on the bones denote the blows of an ax. Some skeletons have been found in a crouching position of supplication or surrender...and with broken necks, the aggressor stood above and smote them hard enough that skulls were knocked backward between the shoulder blades cracking vertebrae-brutal indeed. (Alma: 24?)
In one of the collapsed towers the broken body of a woman warrior was discovered - 16 obsidian arrowheads in her mummified body. The attackers not only smashed a portion of the tower crushing those inside with her, they also set what timbers were there aflame, charring the arrow shafts protruding from her body.
A warrior to the end, this woman's bow was still clutched in her left hand. If this doesn't inspire further tales for my
Heroes of the Fallen series I don't know what will.
Another unusual aspect is a number of the skulls were flattened from birth-as in these were a people that performed skull deformation from birth-perhaps further signifying a distinction from the tribes of Native Americans associated with the region. From what I have read the Gallina are absolutely not claimed by local tribes.
And according to the
Odious and Peculiar Blog these tunnels
pictured (a good 25 feet straight back) are curiously blocked off by large stones. What mystery
waits silently walled behind them? What secrets brood with the ghosts of ages past?
So what is the reason for the genocide? Scientists today investigating the area always trot out the tired explanation of drought for the disappearance of nearly all the fantastic cultures of the southwest but the Gallina absolutely defy any attempt at a migrational answer.
Someone wanted them all dead.
The first archaeologist to investigate the valley a Frank C. Hibben called it "vengefullness without any quarter".
These were crimes of passion-hate against an entire race.
So who were the Gallina? According to Hibben their tools and pottery denote a people from the Mississippi region-not the southwest!!! This fits nicely with my writing. So now you know what grim events the future has in store.
9 comments:
If I had a time machine, these are the kinds of stories I'd investigate. Maybe it's not the biggest mystery in the world but it engages my imagination.
Exactly Charles, I want to know the story of these people and that final dark end.
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When are these dated?
Hibben said the tree rings on some of the timbers say in the neighborhood of 1200 A.D.
but I have to admit my doubts simply because I can't find where the arbitrary timeline comes from-its almost like it was pulled from the hat.
Not that I am saying they have to be 2,000 years old, but I have been to quite a number of these ruins and the claim of weathering making them only a few hundred years old doesn't stand up to me, the dry climate and lack of rainfall severly affects the weathering. For instance I do not believe the Casa Grande between Phoenix and Tucson is only from 1350-when it was in the same condition it is now when the Spaniards passed by in 1550-it looks the same now as it did then (judging from Coronado's drawings)so I believe the eggheads have their own agenda (like I do) and their time frame is severly skewed.
I love me some lost North American history. There is a site in Vermont that matches the Newgrange burial mound in Ireland. Complete with a solar box that lights up the chamber on the solstices.
Rather a bit complicated for a "colonial root cellar." ;)
Right on Paul-thats the kind of stuff that forged my series-trying to imagine the lost past through whatever means I could.
Hello there,
This is a question for the webmaster/admin here at david-j-west.blogspot.com.
May I use some of the information from this post above if I provide a backlink back to this site?
Thanks,
William
Go ahead William, though I have to stress this isn't more than conjecture on my part.
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