We’ve got another guest post by John Bullard for you today:

Robert E. Howard’s final Conan story, “Red Nails”, relates how Conan and his fellow adventurer Valeria come upon a giant, totally enclosed city, Xuchotl, where the inhabitants have divided up into two factions and are in a deadly war to wipe each other out. As is well known, Howard used a lot of real life historical incidents and places as inspiration to write many of his stories. Howard’s two trips to New Mexico in 1934 and 1935 with his good friend Truett Vinson provided ideas for his stories. Patrice Louinet, in his essay¹ on Howard’s writing of the Conan tales argued that the feud of the inhabitants of Xuchotl was inspired by Howard’s June 1935 trip to New Mexico, when he and Truett Vinson stopped at the town of Lincoln, home of the famous Lincoln County War, to see the sites of the notorious conflict. Howard had a great interest in the Lincoln County War and its most famous fighter, Billy the Kid, and wrote of the events in many letters to H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. Howard also wrote a travelogue of the 1935 New Mexico trip in two letters to Lovecraft and Derleth. His letter to H.P. Lovecraft in July 1935 contains a long, extensive narrative of the trip, and that letter’s sections dealing with Howard’s experiences and impressions of Lincoln definitely show its influence on his conception of the deadly feud in Xuchotl as well as the atmosphere of the city itself.

But, did Howard draw upon a place or places in the real world which inspired his creation of the physical description of Xuchotl itself? It is my belief that Howard did indeed draw upon real life places for creating Xuchotl, and that it was on this 1935 trip that he found that inspiration. These two letters reveal the clues as to what those places in New Mexico were, with two in particular probably being the real-life inspirations for the layout of the incredible city of Xuchotl.

The Letters

Howard traveled with Vinson to New Mexico in June, 1935, as Vinson wanted to visit people in Santa Fe. Along the way, the pair stopped to visit Lincoln to see the buildings where much of the action in the Lincoln County War took place. They then continued on to Santa Fe. Howard hoped to continue traveling on into Colorado and Arizona, but Vinson wanted to end the trip and return home to Texas quickly after they had reached Santa Fe. It was while they were in Santa Fe, that Howard writes in the two letters the clues of what led to his creating the physical layout of the doomed city of Xuchotl:

To August Derleth, July 4, 1935:

“… Not long ago I took a short trip to Santa Fe — short is right, in regard to time; we drove 1800 miles in five days and saw much of the country. We went west to the Pecos river, up the western side of the river to Roswell, where we turned west through Lincoln — scene of the Bloody Lincoln County War and the exploits of Billy the Kid, and a grisly, haunted place it is, a lost, dead village sleeping between the great bare mountains with the Rio Bonito mumbling below like an old hag gnawing the bones of the past. West from Lincoln through Carrizozo, a sprawling chaotic town spread over a dusty flat between the Sierra Blanco and the lava beds, to San Antonio, then north through Albuquerque to Santa Fe — and later still further north, to the pueblo of San Ildefonso, in sleepy White Rock Canyon. Then back again, south through Albuquerque, Socorro and Las Cruces to El Paso, where I looked for a bit of rest and some intensive guzzling.”⁵

In the letter to H.P. Lovecraft written during the same month, Howard wrote a long, detailed description of their trip. When the pair arrived in Santa Fe, Howard narrates what they did:

“… I found the governor’s palace [in Santa Fe-JB] more interesting. It has been made a museum, and contains many relics of early Indian life, of Spanish conquest times, and of Mexican and American pioneer days. It is an old building, dating back to about 1608. It was occupied for a while by Indians, who drove the Spaniards out, but were in turn driven out by them. It contains many relics of the Pueblo Indians, but I’ll be frank to admit that I’ve never been able to work up much interest regarding those people. Neither their peculiar civilization and culture, nor their tragic fate stimulates my imagination very much. I am much more interested in their barbaric conquerors — the Navajos, Apaches and Comanches. Nor am I particularly interested in the Spanish era of the country; my intense interest begins only with the American invasion.

We stayed only one night in Santa Fe. It had been my intention to stay longer, and then to go on to Taos, thence to Trinidad, Colorado, and then back to El Paso, touching some point in Arizona, perhaps. But Vinson got in a swivet to get home, for some reason which he never made entirely clear, but which seemed so important to him that I didn’t press the matter. I did insist on visiting a cliff-dwelling north of Santa Fe, but we didn’t even see that, as it turned out. The road got more and more hellish as we progressed among the mountains, the Indians we met were unable, or unwilling to give us any definite information, and at last in disgust I turned around, in the pueblo of San Ildefonso, and we returned to Santa Fe — and then lit out on the home trail; …”⁶

I believe the clues for Howard’s real-life inspirations for Xuchotl are in this letter to Lovecraft.

Now, let’s take a look at Howard’s conception of Xuchotl.

Description of Xuchotl

Howard wrote “Red Nails” in June-July 1935, after returning from the trip to New Mexico⁷. The huge city of Xuchotl is described by Howard as being surrounded by a great wall and entirely enclosed by a roof. Here are some of his descriptions of the city from the story (all quotes are taken from the story “Red Nails”).

Valeria’s first sight of the city:

“A mile away in that direction the forest thinned out and ceased abruptly, giving way to a cactus-dotted plain. And in the midst of that plain rose the walls and towers of a city. … [I]t was a startling experience to come upon a walled city here so many long weeks’ march from the nearest outposts of any sort of civilization.”

Once Conan and Valeria gain entrance into the city, Howard describes the interior:

“They were not looking into an open street or court as one would have expected. The opened gate, or door, gave directly into a long, broad hall which ran away and away until its vista grew indistinct in the distance. It was of heroic proportions, and the floor of a curious red stone, cut in square tiles, that seemed to smolder as if with the reflection of flames. The walls were of a shiny green material.”

Further descriptions of the city’s interior:

“She wondered how many centuries had passed since the light of outer day had filtered into that great hall through the open door. Sunlight was finding its way somehow into the hall, and they quickly saw the source. High up in the vaulted ceiling skylights were set in slot-like openings–translucent sheets of some crystalline substance.”

…….

“They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of empty chambers, floored like the hall, and with walls of the same green jade, or of marble or ivory or chalcedony, adorned with friezes of bronze, gold or silver.”

…..

“Some of the chambers lacked this illumination, and their doorways showed black as the mouth of the Pit. These Conan and Valeria avoided, keeping always to the lighted chambers.”

…..

“Nowhere did they find any windows, or doors opening into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall.”

Conan and Valeria meet an inhabitant of the city, who explains further the city’s layout:

“There are no streets in Xuchotl,” he answered. “No squares nor open courts. The whole city is built like one giant palace under one great roof. The nearest approach to a street is the Great Hall which traverses the city from the north gate to the south gate. The only doors opening into the outer world are the city gates, through which no living man has passed for fifty years.”

Real-Life Inspirations For Xuchotl

From the two letters Howard wrote to Derleth and Lovecraft, we note three things:

First, that while in the Santa Fe Spanish Governor’s Palace museum, Howard remarks on seeing items related to the Pueblo peoples (Ancestral Puebloans), and secondly, that he specifically wanted to find ancient cliff dwellings north of Santa Fe, but turned back at Pueblo de San Ildefonso. Finally, his full remark to Lovecraft on the contents of the Santa Fe museum that “It contains many relics of the Pueblo Indians, but I’ll be frank to admit that I’ve never been able to work up much interest regarding those people. Neither their peculiar civilization and culture, nor their tragic fate stimulates my imagination very much” pinpoints that Howard based his conception of Xuchotl’s layout on the ancient pueblos of the Ancestral Puebloans of the Southwest.

What Was The Cliff Dwelling Pueblo?

Based on Howard’s statements that they went looking for a cliff dwelling north of Santa Fe, he can only be talking about the ancient Puye Cliff Dwellings. Here is a map showing the Puye Dwellings in relation to Santa Fe with the nearby area of the Pueblo of San Ildefonso underlined in red:

While in the more modern city of Pueblo de San Ildefonso, Howard would probably have seen the modern versions of the ancient pueblos as lived in by the current residents:

While the buildings of the more modern pueblos of San Ildefonso are connected to each other, they don’t resemble Howard’s descriptions of Xuchotl very much. However, the ancient cliff dwellings of Puye that Howard wanted to see slightly do, presenting a walled front with few doors and windows on some of them. In addition, there is that sentence in the story when Valeria first sees the city of Xuchotl, she is reminded of “the cliff dwellings of the brown race”⁸:

Near the Puye cliff dwellings is a set of ruins of an ancient pueblo called the Council House that has lost its upper areas, but the remains of the building’s interiors bear a remarkable resemblance to the labyrinthine interior of Xuchotl as written by Howard:

“They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of empty chambers,” and “Nowhere did they find any windows, or doors opening into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall.”

While Howard never made it to the Puye Cliff Dwellings, they clearly had an influence on the story with the “cliff dwellings” mention and parts of them matching some of the descriptions of Xuchotl’s interior. However, there is another ancient Ancestral Puebloans complex that bears a close resemblance to Xuchotl, the famous Pueblo Bonito at Chaco Canyon.

Chaco Canyon’s Pueblo Bonito and the City of  Xuchotl

The Chaco Canyon ruins of northwestern New Mexico were first discovered by European Americans in the 1840’s. They were excavated beginning in the late 19^th Century. It is theorized to have been a major center for the Ancestral Puebloans, and was deserted by them by about the 13^th Century. The most famous of the ruins, the Pueblo Bonito, is a huge building complex with many rooms. It is semi-circular in shape, and has many sections with multi-story levels. It is famously below a canyon rim from where magnificent views of its ruins can be had. Excavations of Pueblo Bonito began at the end of the 19^th Century, and continued on into the 20^th Century with the National Geographic Society mounting a huge excavation of it in the 1920’s⁹ before Howard’s visit to New Mexico in 1935. Howard does not mention Chaco Canyon or Pueblo Bonito in any of his existing letters, but he surely must have heard about it or seen photos of it especially while in Santa Fe at the museum in the Spanish Governor’s Palace. His remark that he wasn’t very interested in the Pueblo peoples, but then states “[n]either their peculiar civilization and culture, nor their tragic fate stimulates my imagination very much”, shows that he had definitely learned about them, and despite his claim of not being “very interested in [them]”, that he had definitely absorbed that information and used it in the story as the physical layout of Pueblo Bonito matches Xuchotl’s to a marked degree, much more than mere chance would explain.

First, as stated, one of the famous views of the Pueblo Bonito of Chaco Canyon is from the canyon rim above it:

Valeria, and later again with Conan, first looks down on Xuchotl from the top of a crag. Valeria from her spot on the crag, sees:

“A mile away in that direction the forest thinned out and ceased abruptly, giving way to a cactus-dotted plain. And in the midst of that plain rose the walls and towers of a city.”

This tallies with seeing Pueblo Bonito from the canyon rim above it. Furthermore, the land around Pueblo Bonito is a forestless plain. Clearly from his description of the surrounding area, Howard was placing Xuchotl in a standard southwest landscape which matches the description of the area where Pueblo Bonito lies.

Most of the buildings of Pueblo Bonito were all enclosed by a roof, and connected by interior doorways to retain interior heating and cooling as protection from the outside temperatures. Lighting would have been provided by interior fires/torches, and openings in the roofs to allow entering and exiting to the roof and upper stories, much like the skylights in Xuchotl. An illustration of what Pueblo Bonito looked like at its height shows the all-enclosing roofs of the building:

The parabolic, semi-circular shape of Pueblo Bonito is also reflected in Xuchotl’s shape. In the story, Prince Olmec tells Conan and Valeria: “Xuchotl is built in the shape of an oval.”¹⁰ As  one can see from the photographs and artist’s illustration, if Pueblo Bonito were mirrored by its twin attached to its long, straight, transecting wall, it would indeed form an oval. The only major differences between Pueblo Bonito and Xuchotl are the open courtyards and circular kivas in Pueblo Bonito.

The exterior of Xuchotl as described by Howard tallies with the exteriors of the pueblos of the Ancestral Puebloans as seen in these photos of Pueblo Bonito:

The interior of Xuchotl matches the interiors of the ancient pueblos by being made up of masses of interior rooms connected by doors. Here are pictures of the interiors of Pueblo Bonito.

Exterior windows were few and small to help control the interior temperature. There were doors for going from one chamber to another in the pueblos. Howard writes of the interior of Xuchotl: “Nowhere did they find any windows, or doors opening into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall.”¹¹

Of course, the interiors of the ancient pueblos weren’t covered by jade firestones, gold, lapis lazuli, and metal friezes, but Howard dressed the interior of Xuchotl up to make the city more exotic, and by using the jade and the Meso-American names in the story, he tied it to the Mayan and Aztec peoples.

The final bit of evidence that the ancient pueblos of the Ancestral Puebloans were the inspiration for Xuchotl is again in Howard’s letter to Lovecraft where he writes “Neither their [Pueblo Peoples] peculiar civilization and culture, nor their tragic fate stimulates my imagination very much. I am much more interested in their barbaric conquerors — the Navajos, Apaches and Comanches.”¹² Howard was writing at a time when the mystery of what happened to cause the Ancestral Puebloans to desert their pueblos and vanish was conjecture. It is still not fully known today, although most scientists believe climate change caused the Ancestral Puebloans to disappear more than they were defeated by “barbaric conquerors”. In “Red Nails”, Howard writes that the original builders and inhabitants of the city were conquered and killed by the wandering tribe of Tlazitlans when one of the Xuchotlans’ foreign slaves, Tolkemec, betrayed his masters by opening the gates to the city allowing the Tlazitlans to enter and kill most of the inhabitants except for a hundred given to Tolkemec to torture and kill. The Tlazitlans then settled into the city. This plot point exactly mirrors Howard’s statement on his belief that the Ancestral Puebloans were conquered by later Native American tribes moving in to their lands. Howard could have easily kept the original Xuchotlans as the inhabitants engaged in the deadly feud with only minor changes to the plot, but his adding in the later wandering tribe of Tlazitlans to conquer the Xuchotlans also gave the story a richer depth by tracking his knowledge of what he believed happened to the Ancestral Puebloans.¹³

Did Howard Know About Pueblo Bonito?

At this point, you may be thinking, “Sure, it’s possible Howard may have based Xuchotl off of the ancient pueblos of the Ancestral Puebloans, and maybe to a large part off of Pueblo Bonito, but did Howard know enough, or see enough at the museum,  about the ancient pueblos and especially Pueblo Bonito to do this?” This is indeed the $64,000 question in my theory. As previously stated, in all of Howard’s existing letters and writings, he never mentions Chaco Canyon or Pueblo Bonito. The closest we have are his mentions in the letters of seeing Ancestral Puebloans exhibits at the museum, and going looking for the Puye cliff dwellings, making it as far as Pueblo de San Ildefonso. I had been basing my theory of Howard’s knowledge of the Ancestral Puebloans from his sentence to Lovecraft that he never had much interest in their civilization and culture, and was more interested in their conquerors. I thought this showed he had done some reading on the Puebloans, and due to the many similarities in his descriptions of Xuchotl with Pueblo Bonito, that he had either read about Pueblo Bonito or possibly had seen photographs/drawings/exhibits of it at the Santa Fe museum. He was definitely interested in trying to find the ancient cliff dwellings which suggests that he did indeed have knowledge and interest in the Ancestral Puebloans enough to go looking for them, despite his statement in the letter.

After I developed my theory of Howard possibly using the ancient pueblos as his conceptual basis for Xuchotl, I ran it by Howard Scholars Patrice Louinet and Rusty Burke to see if they knew if anyone had ever come up with this idea before.  Patrice had never heard of it. Rusty also replied that he had never heard of it before and was skeptical. Rusty thought that Howard had most likely used the Conan story “Xuthal of the Dusk” as the template for Xuchotl. I agreed with this thought, but in his reply to my email asking about my theory, Rusty wrote that Howard had a copy of the book “The Prehistoric World: or, Vanished Races”, by E.A. Allen in his collection and that it had a chapter on the Ancestral Puebloans. Rusty kindly included the Project Gutenberg address for the book, and I went and looked at its chapter on the Pueblo builders to see what it said, and whether this may have had an effect on Howard’s writing.¹⁴ Bingo! Not only did the book describe all the various types of pueblos built, but it also talked about cliff dwellings, and most importantly for my theory, it had a large section on Pueblo Bonito. It even gave diagrams of the interiors of the pueblos and artist’s renderings of the interiors and exteriors which would easily have influenced Howard’s conception of Xuchotl.

Here are some of the passages from the book’s chapter that are echoed in Howard’s descriptions of Xuchotl and its civilization:¹⁵

On the Zuni Pueblos:

“The buildings, or communal houses, for one house contained sometimes five hundred rooms, are generally from three to four hundred feet long and about one hundred and fifty feet in width at the base. The lower story is divided by cross-walls into a mass of cell-like rooms, as shown in the illustrations which represents the ground plan of a pueblo having four ranges of rooms.”

On Pueblo Bonito:

“We give a restoration of, one—the Pueblo Bonito—one of the largest and most important of the ruins. We can not doubt but what the restoration is substantially correct. It shows the open court, the terraced structure, and the system of defense. The circle itself is not as near a half-circle as we would imagine. The ground plan shows that it was really a many-sided building. This pueblo must have presented a striking appearance when it was in a complete state.

By comparing this structure with the views of some of the present pueblo towns, we will understand the remarks made earlier, as to the different styles of pueblo structures. This building must have had not far from six hundred and fifty rooms. ‘No single edifice of equal accommodations has ever been found in any part of North America. It would shelter three thousand Indians.’”

In reading the chapter in the book, I noticed that while it talks about cliff dwellings, it doesn’t mention the Puye Cliff Dwellings. This shows that Howard must have either seen something at the museum or elsewhere in Santa Fe that mentioned the Puye ruins which excited him enough to go searching for them. The exhibits at the museum on the Ancestral Puebloans, the search for the Puye Cliff Dwellings, and seeing the modern pueblos of San Ildefonso must have stimulated Howard enough to go back and revisit The Prehistoric World to develop the design of Xuchotl when he started writing “Red Nails” upon his return home.

What Were The Spanish Governor’s Palace Exhibits

After I had read the chapter in The Prehistoric World on the Pueblo Builders, I had emailed Rusty back my thanks for his giving me the key to proving my theory. I then wrote up this essay, and emailed Rusty to see if he wanted to read it. He told me to hold off, that he had been intrigued enough by my theory to check with the New Mexico History Museum to see if they had any information on what was on display in June 1935. He told me that they did have information and photographs of the exhibits on display in the 1930’s, when Howard visited, and shared with me the links to the photographs he had been sent by the archivist. One of the rooms that displayed the artifacts was called the “Puye” room after the cliff dwellings, and it had exhibits of the cliff dwellings and the ruined vast complex of rooms called the Council House at that site. This explains Howard writing to Lovecraft that he had insisted on going to see the Cliff Dwellings and definitely identifies them as the Puye site. There was also a link to a photograph of a room with what looked to be dioramas of pueblos on a long table on display. Rusty got too busy to continue checking with the Museum folks, and I gladly took over the search. I looked through the collection of photographs online¹⁶ of the various New Mexico ancient pueblo sites and excavations that may have been on display in the museum, and saw many that would easily have inspired Howard’s descriptions of Xuchotl. In addition, the archivist that Rusty was talking to mentioned the name of a pueblo that had exhibits of its site on display at the museum in 1935 that may have been the other major inspiration for Xuchotl, Tyuonyi. I had seen photographs of it when I was looking through the photo collections, and immediately thought it could have also influenced Howard, as this pueblo is oval in shape, just as Xuchotl is described, with the same multi-celled room layout. The pueblo is at the Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico:

Hearing that photos of Tyuonyi were definitely on display further confirmed my belief that Howard developed his conception of the layout of Xuchotl from the ancient pueblos. I contacted the museum archivists to get a better copy of the photo of the West Wing room that had what looked to be pueblo dioramas on a table but was too grainy to determine for certain from the online photo. I bought a copy of the photo, and when I looked at the enhanced photograph, I saw that the items were indeed a series of pueblos created in a giant complex encircled by a wall that could very easily have fired Howard’s imagination to create Xuchotl. See for yourself:

As you can see, aside from there being three pueblos and no towers, Howard very easily could have formed his idea of Xuchotl from this exhibit. This exhibit¹⁷ along with some of the other photographs of Puye, Tyuonyi, and Pueblo Bonito that may have been on display in the museum easily provide the basis for the physical description of Xuchotl.¹⁸ A list of the photographs that could have been on display is included in the photographs’ cites section below. You can look at them to see what Howard may have additionally seen at the museum that inspired him. The museum’s exhibits provided the final piece for Howard as he quickly wrote “Red Nails” upon his return from the trip to New Mexico and sent it off for acceptance on July 22, 1935.

Conclusion

It is without question that Howard’s 1935 trip to New Mexico provided him with much inspiration for his final Conan story, “Red Nails”. It is clear from the remarks in his letters to Lovecraft and Derleth that Howard used his visit to Lincoln, the site of the Lincoln County War, as the basis for the blood feud going on between the inhabitants of the fantastic city of Xuchotl. Additionally, I believe that I have shown that despite his statement to Lovecraft that he had “never been able to work up much interest” in the Ancestral Puebloans’ civilization and culture, Howard had his imagination excited enough from the trip to New Mexico seeing the exhibits at the museum in Santa Fe to go in search of Ancient Puebloan sites and then to use his knowledge of their culture and civilization to create the layout of the ancient city of Xuchotl from the ancient pueblos of the Ancestral Puebloans culture to complete his story, “Red Nails”.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to Patrice Louinet and Rusty Burke for their replies on my theory, and especially a big thanks to Rusty for giving me the link between my theory and Howard’s letters with The Prehistoric World,  and also his initiating the contact with the New Mexico History Museum Archives to get the evidence to prove my theory. Rusty also helped me sharpen my theory by pointing out that Howard didn’t see any ancient pueblos in person, so the triggering event if any, was whatever was on display in the exhibits at the Spanish Governor’s Palace museum that caused Howard to get excited to create the city of Xuchotl. A final thanks to New Mexico History Museum Archivist Catie Clark for her help in answering my questions and getting me the photo of the diorama.

John Bullard is a retired attorney who lives in Texas, and has updated The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard for The Robert E Howard Foundation Press, which will soon be available for purchase. He became a life-long Howard fan upon reading his first Howard story in an anthology of horror stories in 1974. While working on the Letters, he started seeing the subject matter of this post and has written it up for the education and edification of other Howard-ophiles.

 

Notes

1. Louinet, Patrice. (2005), “Hyborian Genesis Part III”, pp. 381-385, The Conquering Sword of Conan, Del Rey
2. Letter to August Derleth, July 4, 1935
3. Letter to H.P. Lovecraft, July 1935
5. Letter to Derleth, July 4, 1935.
6. Letter to Lovecraft, July 1935.
7. Letter to Clark Ashton Smith, July 23, 1935: “Sent a three-part serial to Wright yesterday: “Red Nails”, which I devoutly hope he’ll like. A Conan yarn, and the grimmest, bloodiest and most merciless story of the series so far.”
8. “Red Nails”, The Conquering Sword of Conan, (2005), Del Rey.
9. Wikipedia site on Chaco Canyon.
10. “Red Nails”, The Conquering Sword of Conan, (2005), Del Rey.
11. Ibid.
12. Letter to Lovecraft, July 1935.
13. As to Tolkemec’s betrayal of the original Xuchotlans, Howard may have also drawn upon the biblical story of the fall of Jericho, where the prostitute Rahab helped the Israelites into and out of the city on intelligence gathering. Howard uses the story in a poem he wrote to Clyde Smith in March, 1928.
14. Private email of Nov. 14, 2020 from Rusty Burke to the author.
15. All of the following quotes and illustrations are from “Chapter XI: The Pueblo Country”, in The Prehistoric World: or, Vanished Races, by E.A. Allen, originally published in 1885.
16. The website for the photographs is:

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

17. Photo of the West Wing of the Spanish Governor’s Palace is owned and copyrighted by NMHM/DCA
18. The photographs that are on display in the exhibits rooms pictures are too indistinct to be determined in the online photographs. From the enhanced photograph of the West Wing room, I could identify a few of the photographs on the walls as being from Puye in the photographs listed below, but most are too “noisy” to determine. I’m still trying to see if there is a listing of which photos were on display in 1935, but have not received an answer at the time of writing this article. Interested parties are encouraged to go and look at the online photographs listed below to see what may have been on display when Howard was there, both of the museum rooms’ arrangements, and the pueblo sites themselves.

 

Sources

Letters

To Tevis Clyde Smith, March 1928.

To August Derleth, July 4, 1935

To H.P. Lovecraft, July 1935

To Clark Ashton Smith, July 23, 1935

Emails

Nov. 14, 2020, From Rusty Burke to the author.

Nov. 17, 2020 From New Mexico State Museum Photo Archives to Rusty Burke(1).

Nov. 17, 2020 From New Mexico State Museum Photo Archives to Rusty Burke(2).

Books

Allen, E.A.. (2008). (originally published in 1885). The Prehistoric World: or, Vanished Races.  Project Gutenberg. Retrieved Nov. 15, 2020, from www.gutenberg.org/files/2873/2873-h/2873-h.htm.

Howard, Robert E. “Red Nails”. (2005). The Conquering Sword of Conan. Del Rey

Louinet, Patrice. (2005). “Hyborian Genesis Part III”. The Conquering Sword of Conan. Del Rey

Roehm, R. (Ed.) (2007). The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume One: 1923-1929, REHFP

Roehm, R. (Ed.) (2008). The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume Three: 1933-1936, REHFP

 

Photos from Chaco Canyon and Bandelier NPS website and the Puye website

 

NMHM/DCA Photographs Collections

Governor’s Palace Rooms

Frijoles Room looking East, Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Rito de los Frijoles room at the Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, T. Harmon Parkhurst Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Puyé Room (Room 8), Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Puyé Room (Room 8), Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Puye Sites

Excavated room, south side of plaza looking west, Puyé, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Excavated room, south side of plaza looking west, Puyé, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Excavated rooms to northwest across old plaza, Puyé, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Excavation of South House from east, Puyé, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Panorama section, south side Puyé mesa, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

South House, view to west before cleaning, Puyé, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

View of Puyé rim from the East, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Tyuonyi Pueblo, Bandelier

Birds-eye view of Tyuonyi ruins, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Excavations of South House from stonepile at West end, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Tyuonyi ruins from above, Rito de los Frijoles, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Birds-eye view of Tyuonyi ruin, Rito de los Frijoles, Nw Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Birds-eye view of Tyuonyi ruins, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Rito de los Frijoles, Tyuonyi ruin, Snake and Sun Houses, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Tyuonyi ruins from north cliff, Rito de los Frijoles, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, Jesse Nusbaum Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Diorama

West wing exhibit room, Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Pueblo Bonito

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, New Mexico – Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Collection – CONTENTdm Title (unm.edu)

 

Websites

https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/collection/acpa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Culture_National_Historical_Park

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2873/2873-h/2873-h.htm

https://www.nps.gov/band/index.htm

https://www.nps.gov/chcu/index.htm

https://www.puyecliffdwellings.com/