Hual-Cu-Cuish Village - Cuyamaca Mountains

About two months ago, I posted an article about Ah-Ha-Kwe-Ah-Mac Village in the Cuyamaca Mountains. I had stumbled upon some odd looking bedrock mortars that inspired me to look for more in the same area. It turned out, that what I had actually stumbled upon, was a "pre-historic" Yuman Indian village site, that was later occupied by the Kumeyaay Indians for centuries. After doing a lot of research, it appeared that I had merely scratched the surface. Now, I'm hiking around trying to find things that are being kept on the down-low, by two state parks and a national recreation area (for good reason). The subject of this post is the ancient village of Hual-Cu-Cuish.

I've found more sites (many more to discover) and will show them to you, but I won't tell you where they are. As always, the few landscape shots I include, may, or may not be in the exact same area as the village. Do not go searching based on them. We're talking about the desert and two mountain ranges. Both can be very unforgiving. Umkay?
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In addition to the research, I've got a pretty good sense of where Indians made their villages and seasonal camps. However, I don't want you to think that I just walk right up to them. I only do posts on the successful searches. Believe me, I've spent many hours hiking and climbing and have found nothing. I have to admit that I also enjoy searching.

 Great scenery (that is in the area, but may or may not be on the site)

 This was taken on the site, but you can't expect me to look down all the time, right?

This was the first big chunk of rock we saw, at the potential village site. I could not have been happier. It had several cupules ground into the top of it. For those that don't remember, "cupules" are thought to be one of the oldest forms of rock art. 

It wasn't but a few more steps to a chunk of bedrock that had three "morteros" (mortars) and one "not sure," it could be a failed mortar or even a cupule. The most exciting thing about this spot, was the presence of a broken "mano" (pestle) in one of the mortars. I'm not so delusional as to think that the mano has been there for centuries, but it was still exciting to see it in there. There was another sitting on the ground (I'm looking for the photo). To find things like this, is proof that very few people have been here. If they had been, they might have become somebodies souvenirs. If you enlarge the photos, you can see that there are pottery shards and some stone flakes (from making tools and/or points) on the ground.

A handful of pottery shards. There were many more sitting on the ground. The clay in this area seems to be light, so the lighter shards are probably from pottery made in this area. The darker pieces are probably from pottery made in the desert, while the tribe was there during the cold months. If I'm wrong, or if I'm correct, I'll update with the clay names, or by deleting this part altogether.  

 More shards on the ground. We also saw a few small pieces of obsidian.

This was the most puzzling find of the day. This is a piece of pottery that appears to have been glazed both inside and out. I was under the impression that none of the Indians in this part of the state had glazed pottery. Maybe it's a chunk of glazed brick. Something else to investigate. In case you were wondering, we may pick some items up to look at, but then they get placed right back on the ground. 

Another chunk of bedrock with mortars ground into it. It is pretty clear that this rock and almost all other rock in the area has been damaged by the many wildfires that occur here. Notice the mano (pestle) in one of the mortars. Another surprise for us!

 A close up of grinding surface and the grinding tool. 

I think the little blue flakes are soapstone. There is some in the area and it could have made it's way here. They used it make things like arrow straighteners, pipes, etc. Soapstone carvings have also been found in the area. They probably traded soapstone to other tribes. Maybe for obsidian. 

 A grinding surface called a "slick." There were a few of these here.

This mortar was one of several that were hidden in the bushes. I'm sure that many more are buried in the dirt and covered by a thick blanket of leaves and muck.

A combo rock with mortars, Cuyamaca oval mortars and cupules

 Our audience!

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Ah-Ha-Kwe-Ah-Mac Village - Cuyamaca Mountains

"Ah Ha Kwe-Ah-Mac" (what the rain left behind?), is a pre-historic Yuman village, later associated with the Kumeyaay Indians. 
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In my last post, I showed you an ancient Kumeyaay village site in Anza-Borrego. I also mentioned that the area is deadly hot during the summer months. Despite this fact, Indians thrived there for thousands of years. In part, they managed to do so by moving to their summer villages, up in the much cooler Cuyamaca Mountains. Although both of their seasonal homes were organized and semi-permanent, they still lived primarily as "hunter/gatherers."  

Also in my last post, I included a distant photo of where we were camped in the Cuyamaca mountains (about 12 miles away). Very close to where we were camped, I stumbled upon a pre-historic village ("Ah Ha Kwe-Ah-Mac") site, that may be the same summer village site, that was used by the same group of Kumeyaay Indians, that lived in the village in my last post, during the winter months. These two village sites are about 10 miles apart and there are ancient Indians trails leading from one area to the other. This village site has been abandoned since about 1869. That sad story, will be the subject of a future post.

We were camping in the Cuyamacas for the same reason the Kumeyaay did; it is very hot down below in the desert.

I didn't actually stumble across the summer village site. I spotted some bedrock mortars (morteros) while out on a hike a couple of months ago.  Some of you probably remember a post involving my search for the remains of an old gold mining camp. In the post I told you that while not actually lost, I stumbled upon a great surprise (to me anyway).  I spent a lot of time on the Internet and used every bit of my intuition relating to where and why Indians settled in particular places. 

While looking for the mining camp, I eventually ran across a trail heading in the direction I needed, to take me back to where I started. The little creek cutting across the meadow in this photo, was used in ancient times as well as today (mostly by game). Most of the hill that the trees are growing out of, is made of mine tailings. The tailings are lighter in color and some are visible, just left of center, in front of the trees. At one time the meadows in this area were surrounded by a forest of oak trees. A lot of acorns required a lot of mortars.

It may not catch your eye, but the little outcropping of granite bedrock in the center of the photo, sure caught mine.

This photo and the next are that same little chunk of bedrock. 

In addition to the four mortars on this rock, there is also a bit of "Lithic Scatter" around it. Lithic Scatter is pieces of rock (many times flakes), removed from another rock by percussion or force. This was done to make tools, projectile points, blades, etc.

This nearby rock had another mortar and small pottery sherds close to it

This mortar (and many more) were on top of the hill, where I took the first photo

Pot sherds (shards) were all over the area. The large piece in this photo was about 3 inches long. The black looking rock is obsidian. I'm pretty sure it is part of a broken tool, or point of some type. One edge had clearly been "worked" and was very sharp. There were also small pieces of soapstone around the area. The BEST thing about this entire area, was the total lack of human foot prints. We certainly didn't discover this village, but it was obvious that very few people know about it. I'd bet money that this site has never been totally excavated.

A couple hundred yards away from the last group of mortars, we found many more.

Walking down the hill, we found more.

More

In addition to mortars, this area was almost totally enclosed by a natural ring of boulders.

and more...

and more...

I'm not exactly sure what animal it belonged to, but this leg bone was big. If you embiggen the photo, you can also see quite a few small pieces of broken pottery.

From this point, we were heading to the outcrop of granite just above center in the photo.

This chunk of bedrock turned out to be the prize of the day. You can see one mortar on the right hand edge of the photo.

These were the only two mortars in this outcrop. More accurately, they were the only two TRADITIONAL mortars.

You can tell by my cell phone, that these two were very large. As this was a seasonal village, it must have taken centuries for it to get this big.

These irregular looking indentations in the granite are also grinding surfaces, but more like "metates" or "slicks" and are VERY rare. They are called Cuyamaca Ovals and are pretty much isolated to a very small area of the country. That small area, just happens to be right here. Cuyamaca Oval sites are found in meadow areas and were primarily used for the grinding of seeds and cracking acorns open.

All of this and we only searched what I believe to be about a fourth of the village area.




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