Magic Beans

It was ten years ago that we found the beans. Fat red and white Indian beans sitting silently inside a perfect little black-on-white bowl deep within the cave in the prehistoric lava flows of Arizona. They had been sitting there for over a thousand years, waiting in the dark. A Pueblo Indian on a hunting trip had stored the beans in his bowl back in the cave where they would be safe from rodents. He put them where he knew they would be. A place protected, but he never returned to cook and eat the little bowl of beans. He never used his bowl again. Perhaps he died during his hunt or was taken captive. But he never returned. And the beans sat and waited. Mutely with infinite patience in the dark quiet cave.

It was a very hot day in August when we found them. My friend, Markus and I were on survey. Survey, when you are an archaeologist, means that you go out and stomp around. Take a look, see what you can see. A smart survey will include interviews with the local people, be they modern Indian, cattle rancher, sheepherder or sheriff. During the interviews a rancher had told us of a cave up in the basalt. A cave where the Indians had made a fire. Markus was excited about the cave. He wanted to spend most of our survey seeking its existence. Markus and I have been on many surveys. I tend to remember those where we walked and climbed and wore out several pairs of boots looking for some rock or site or cave that some aged rancher remembered seeing when he was a kid. Most of the time you'll never find it, even if the rancher drives you to the spot. Memories are a funny thing. They tend to go through a selective editing process. You arrive and find some beer bottles and modern graffiti. Nothing prehistoric. You wind up wasting the day chasing some childish mirage.

Markus kept badgering. He wanted to interrupt our systematic criss-cross of the section and hike up into the basalt and look at the entrance to the cave. The cave the cave the cave, that's all I heard all morning. I used every logical argument I knew to dissuade him. There will be a thousand entrances that go nowhere, back a few yards and then end. We have work to do. Yes a cave that was utilized prehistorically should certainly be included in our survey if one really exists in the area. Finally we struck a deal. We would perform our systematic methods until noon, at which time we would take one full hour to seek the cave, climbing rock to rock across the caustic lava.

At the stroke of twelve Markus sprinted to the lava field. I trudged along behind, keeping up, keeping him in sight like a dutiful father minding an adventuresome son. Over the next hour I watched him crawl into fifty holes between the great abrasive boulders, soon to reappear a little dirtier with a few more bruises and head bumps but not the least bit daunted by disappointment. His hour was up. It was 1:00 PM, time to return to the work at hand. Time to walk in metered march in methodical search of flint flakes and pottery sherds in the sand.

I was just about to call him back into reality when he found the entrance. He had been down inside a small opening for longer than usual. After sitting outside in the hot sun for ten full minutes I finally crawled in after him half expecting to have to pry him loose from some crevasse. I've had to do this before. He can squash himself into the tiniest places. Markus and I both are experienced spelunkers. We have explored caverns in the remote jungles of the Yucatan and under the pastures of West Virginia. We have even floated through a few that were submerged. Our record distance underground is over eleven miles and during that trip we were in for three days. Markus is a good partner in a cave. He will try an opening, discover that it births you into a new unexplored room, and then come back and report a route in. This is good. Except when the opening is only seven inches high and half filled with running water. I have watched this devoted caver squish himself flat with his chest deflated of air and press himself under a ledge that could squash a bark beetle. The problem always arises when I then have to follow. I'm getting too old for this.

But on this day and in this narrow basalt tube, he wasn't stuck. The entrance opened into a nice cozy room with fire marks on the ceiling and petroglyphs and pictographs painted and etched on the walls. A wonderful find for the archaeologist. A Kodak moment. You sit transfixed and appreciate what you are witnessing.

This first room of the cave was bewitching. The walls displayed the artwork of the shaman's hand with ritualistic hunting scenes and handprints and symbols of rain. Sandal prints still survived in the dust. We move about very carefully, fearful of disturbing even the slightest object. Markus found another tunnel and disappeared again into the darkness. I was in no hurry. These are times when you do not hurry. I systematically searched the room inch by inch recording in my notebook every detail. I drew the pictographs and collected a tiny sample of green pigment for the lab. I collected samples of the carbon stains on the ceiling and those from the central fire on the floor. Every crook and cranny was carefully investigated. In a small natural niche in the wall there I discovered offerings of turquoise and jet. Balanced on a shallow rock ledge above eye level, a hunter had hidden a core stone of high quality obsidian for future use to make a knife or an arrow point.

I again became concerned about Markus. It had been over half an hour with no verbal contact. There he was, fifty yards deeper into the lava flow, down a crawl tube and through a forest of dusty boulders with surfaces as abrasive as 90-grit sandpaper. I crawled up beside him and looked him over. He hadn't moved. He was sitting on a small rock ledge. His eyes were fixed upon the basalt rock wall. Look! Markus said without moving. I craned my neck around in order to mimic his line of sight. And then I saw it. Sitting on a narrow rock shelf it waited. A black-on-white bowl no more than perhaps ten inches in diameter. It was eggshell thin and brand new. Well, not really brand new. By the patterns that were painted on the surface I knew that the bowl had been made nearly one thousand years ago. I raised up to look inside the vessel. It was full of red and white beans, beans that were a thousand years old, sitting, waiting for sunlight and moisture, waiting to grow.

James Cunkle, White Mountain Archaeological Center 2001