Sorensen Artifact Collection - BYU-Idaho

I F

= SORENSEN C O L L E C T I O N

RESEARCH REPORT OF THE SORENSEN ARTIFACT COLLECTION

by

Dr. Charles E. Cartmill Ricks College faculty

Funded by a Grant from the Ricks College Research Committee 1992-93 school year

Rexburg, Idaho 1993

OUTLINE

I. Introduction p.1

II. Pottery Collection p.6

A. Pueblo Pottery p.6

1. Zia Pueblo Pottery p.16

2. Acoma Pueblo Pottery p.17

B. Casas Grandes Pottery p.21

III. Paleo Projectile point Collection p.30

IV. Bibliography p.39

IV. Appendix p.41

A. Interviews p.41

1. Mr. Keith Lucero p.41

2. Arthur & Carol Cruz p.43

3. Saebie Shaje p.44

4. Mr. Joe Carr p.47

5. Mrs. Dorothy Sorensen p.48

B. Reflections on the Life of Earl Sorensen p.59

C. Excerpts from the Life and Writings of

Earl F. Sorensen p.64

Introduction

The accumulation of a truly significant and valuable Indian

artifact collection takes us a lifetime of constant and diligent

seeking and searching of the places of by-gone years. Places

where the aboriginal Indian and his ancestors worked and played

in living out an existence that was somewhat plentiful at times,

and life threatening at other times. The Indian, in those days,

lived in total harmony with nature and her ways. Many of the

places where they lived were so remote or so hidden that it seems

communication with the "great spirit" is almost necessary in

order to discover and uncover the treasures of those people as

they speak to us through their tools, instruments, and places of

abode in "teaching us" of their philosophies and their way of

life. Such a life long endeavor has a pay-off that is far more

valuable and encompassing than merely the presence and value of

those artifacts obtained. We eventually become an extension of

them into these modern times, and an advocate of their

uncomplicated way of life. The ancients, as individuals and as a

people, become acquainted to the collector through their tools

and craftsmanship to the point that a kinship is developed

between the collector and the individuals that manufactured the

original artifacts. The forgoing is especially true when the

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collector is the first person to "pick-up" the artifact laid down

or dropped by its creator hundreds or even thousands of years

ago.

Such a collector was Earl Sorensen of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

For the better part of his life Earl Sorensen and his family

actively searched for Indian artifacts throughout the northwest,

with specific emphasis in Idaho and New Mexico. He was an

engineer by profession, but an archeaologist at heart, as he

spent countless hours and hours either alone or with his family,

seeking the knowledge of the past out where the Indians had

lived. He did not search on a reservation, but in the open,

remote arid desert places of the southwest, where it appears that

no one could survive, let alone sustain a reasonable life. He

was very successful in his endeavors.

Having put so much time and effort into such an adventure

acquiring a magnificent collection, his desire was to share it

with others, both the artifacts and the knowledge. His feeling

was that the collection should be used for educational purposes,

to be appreciated by all, while serving as a teaching tool - as a

way of getting modern people acquainted with the inhabitants of

yester-year. This would serve as a means of having us learn to

love and appreciate both the tools and the people that made them.

Rather than pass the collection down to relatives and family

members or have it divided-up among progenitors, he preferred

that it remain intact and be placed in an environment that

ensured that its use would accomplish his goals and desires.

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After much consideration and with the support of his family, he

decided to donate the collection to Ricks College. There are

many universities, colleges, and museums throughout the nation

that would heartily welcome his collection of artifacts. There

are several locations in the northwest that display artifacts of

the quality of Earl Sorensen's collection. Why Ricks College, a

college that doesn't even have an anthropology department, nor an

archaeology department within its curriculum? The Sorensens'

felt that giving the collection to a major university or museum,

one which already had a sizable collection and one which might

store it away for years before utilizing its potential could

result in the collection being either taken for granted, sort of

a ho-hum attitude, or basically ignored all together. They did

not want such a possibility to befall such a collection that took

a lifetime to gather. They chose Ricks College specifically

because of the strong emphasis placed here on teaching at the

ground roots level. They felt that the collection had a better

possibility of being used right in the classroom and

educationally displayed for the public in a college that

emphasizes the basics.

Ricks College has accepted the gift, along with a commitment

to utilize the collection for the purposes given. A portion of

the total collection has already been delivered to Ricks College.

In order to commence the immediate utilization of the collection,

the museum in which it was to be placed had to be remodeled, and

rearranged. That process has been accomplished to date, with the

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remainder of the remodeling scheduled as the complete collection

is received. To date, Ricks College has received 43 magnificent

pre-columbian pottery bowls and jars dating back as far as 700

A.D., and 106 Paleo projectile points dating back to ancient

man's first entrance into this country, some 12000-15000 years

ago. In addition, other related artifacts have been received.

For the most part, the knowledge and story behind the collection,

and information concerning each artifact was to be obtained from

Mr. Sorensen himself through interviews and his personal

writings. His death, a few months following the decision to give

the collection to Ricks College, was unfortunate, for he had a

wealth of knowledge and innumerable stories to relate concerning

his years of experiencing "life with the Indians". With no first

hand resource available, knowledge of the artifacts would depend

upon family members, and research that had previously been

conducted on similar artifacts.

A research proposal was therefore submitted to the Ricks

College research committee for the purpose of gaining fundamental

knowledge and background information concerning the specific

artifacts already received by the college. The research was to

provide information to be used in the classroom in teaching about

the history and lives of the people producing the artifacts. In

addition, the information would be used as part of the collection

display to be housed in a "public" museum, in educating the

public, as well as the students, concerning the artifacts shown.

Selected information from the research would be provided as part

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of the display so that students and non-students alike may more

fully benefit from the display.

The following report represents the results of the research

conducted thus far. It provides information pertaining to the

origin and general utilization of the artifacts represented in

the donated collection, and gives background information

concerning the people and their location when the artifacts were

made. Information concerning the manufacturing of the artifact

has been included, where applicable, along with general

distribution and use. The report includes the results of

interviews with present day Indian "potters", and experts

knowledgeable with regard to the artifacts represented in the

collection.

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Pueblo Pottery

Pueblo pottery, of which Ricks college has eight magnificent

pots is known throughout the United States as some of the finest

pottery ever made by Indians in the United States. These pots

demonstrate the heritage of Indian art that has been given to us

by the Native Americans. Of even more significance, these

primitive works of art were constructed without a potter's wheel

and fired without a kiln. Their pottery can be compared directly

to the best pottery made in the world. Pottery was to the Pueblo

Indians what wood carving was to the Northwest Indians, and bead

and quillwork to Indians of the Plains.

The Pueblo Indians consist of about twenty or so small

villages in New Mexico and Arizona. Their general geographic

location is shown in Figure 1. The average population is

somewhere around a thousand, with the largest tribe being the

Hopi (speaking a Shoshonean dialect) with about 9000 inhabitants

, and the smallest tribe the Pojoaque with less than 100

inhabitants (speaking a Tanoan dialect). The Pueblo Indians are

descendants of the ancient cliff dwellers, whose spectacular

ruins exist throughout the Southwest. They were neolithic

people - cultivating simple crops, using stone tools, and making

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pottery by the traditional method. The pottery art had evolved

to an advanced art - far beyond the stage of simple utilitarian

wares. The Pueblo Indians were one of the few neolithic cultures

to have created glazed pottery, which will be discussed later.

The Pueblo pottery styles, including those represented in

the Sorensen collection, began around A.D. 700, and have lasted

basically unchanged for centuries. Even the first Spanish

settlers, arriving in 1598 and having a permanent influence on

the Pueblo Indians in their language and their religion exerted

almost no influence upon the styles and techniques of Pueblo

pottery making. However, the Spanish settlers did strongly

affect the eventual outcome of that pottery being available to us

today. The collision of the Spaniards and the American Pueblo

Indians resulted not only in significant restrictions in the

usage of pottery, but also in the disappearance of most of that

pottery in the first 200 years of historic period (Frank &

Harlow). Owing to the orthodoxy of Church authorities, Pueblo

Indians were refused the right to bury pottery with their dead in

accordance with ancient custom. Instead they were forced to have

Christian burials in cemeteries. Therefore, almost no historic

(traditional) vessels have been preserved, causing the early

Pueblo Indian pottery to be the least abundantly preserved of all

southwest pottery. In fact, it was mainly these relatively few

excavated ancient vessels, shrouded in mystery, that first drew

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the attention of the public, museums and scholars to the artistic

talents of the Pueblo Indians.

The pottery that the Pueblo Indians are most proud of today

is referred to as pottery made by the traditional method, meaning

they were made by hand, without any wheel or mechanical

apparatus, and made in the exact same manner as that of their

ancestors. All were made by the coil technique, fired outside in

a ground pit using dung (cow, sheep or goat) as the firing

source. The early Pueblo Indians made many types of vessels, but

the most common were either bowls or jars. Bowls are vessels

with an opening at approximately the greatest width, whereas jars

have a proportionately much narrower opening and are usually

taller. Of the traditional vessels in collections today, bowls

are scarcer than jars. The Sorensen collection does contain a

significant number of bowls, although their appearance and

preservation is not as fine as that of the jars. Obviously, the

extensive use of the bowls as compared to the jars in the

collection, prior to their discovery, accounts for some of the

difference in preservation. The bowls, in most cases also appear

to be older than the jars. The fact that the majority of the

bowls in the collection are plainware vessels, as compared to the

jars being Polychrome, is a further indication of the more

extended use, and possible early manufacture. Water jars,

smaller and lighter than jars for storage, were used to scoop up

water from a stream or river - they usually have a concave base

so as to carry the vessel comfortably on top of the head.

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The method of making pottery is and has been quite similar

for all the Pueblo Indian types. The basic ingredient is clay,

dug from a nearby deposit. The raw material is finely cleaned

and pulverized, and then tempered with finely powdered material,

such as volcanic ash, sand, or crushed pot sherds. The tempering

is what distinguishes one pueblo's pottery from another. The

purpose of the tempering is to keep the wet clay from being too

sticky and from cracking while the vessel dries, and to improve

the strength of the vessel. Each village is so conservative about

its use of tempering, that it is possible to attribute a

particular pot to a specific village on the basis of its temper

appearance alone.

The aforementioned clay is rolled into short sections,

referred to as "ropes", and then coiled in circular fashion to

form the walls of the vessel. Thinning and shaping are then

accomplished with a piece of gourd as a scraper, or by the

fingers of the potter. No potter's wheel is used. Tradition

dictates that the shape of the vessel, including its symmetry and

form be accomplished through the talent and experience of the

potter herself.

The decoration (painting of the outside surface) of the

pottery follows the forming and shaping of the vessel. However,

since the surface of the body clay is quite rough and not

conducive to being polished, the vessel is first covered with a

slip. Slip is an especially fine red or white clay that is

mopped onto the vessel in a water suspension and then, while

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still damp, polished with a rag. The decorations applied to the

outer surface of the slip are accomplished by applying pigments

of various colors made from either plants or minerals finely

ground to achieve a particular coloring. Polychrome pots are

those that have more than two color pigments associated with the

decoration of the vessel. Plainware, on the other hand, does not

include any decoration as such.

Firing is the final step in the vessel making. The vessels

are laid in a pit with rocks or sheets of metal as a framework.

The vessels are then carefully covered with slabs of cow dung or

other slow burning fuel, until the pit is fully covered. The

potter has to be careful not to allow the dung to touch the

vessel, otherwise scorched spots appear on the finished vessel.

The resulting fire (after lighting the dung) is completely

smothered if the final color is to be jet black. Various shades

of tan, cream, red, orange or yellow can be achieved by adjusting

the pit's smothering (refer to #19 and #38 for comparison). The

firing lasts for an hour or two, with the vessels being finished

as soon as they are cooled. The firing usually takes place in

the early morning hours or towards evening when the winds are

less likely to blow. Blowing winds cause an uneven firing of the

pots. The tradition mentioned here has been carried on for

centuries in exactly the same manner. However, in some pueblos

1. An album giving a picture and applicable information for each pot in the collection is an appendage to this report. The numbers, i.e. #19, etc. refers to the pot number in the album.

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today that tradition is quickly dying out. During an interview

conducted in the summer of 1992 on the Zia Pueblo, one of the

three remaining traditional potters Saebie Shaje indicated she

was having an extremely difficult time obtaining cow dung for her

pit, as were the other two, due to the fact that very few cows

were now being raised on the reservation. Apparently, it never

occurred to her to commercially obtain the dung from outside the

reservation. Perhaps that in itself would "break" the tradition.

Other potters around her were now using kilns rather than the

pit-dung method, and seemly doing well. She feared that soon,

she would be using a kiln also.

Tradition has it, that pottery making has always been the

women's responsibility. All of today's famous pueblo pottery

makers are women. The tradition has been carried down through

the centuries by the women teaching their children or grand-

children the craft as they learned it. Certain individuals in the

family were taught the skills, and learned to reproduce the pots

just as their ancestors had done. For this reason within each

pueblo, certain family names have always been recognized as the

potters of significance within the pueblo, and to the outside

world. Once again, in modern times that tradition is also being

challenged. An example is the Shaje family of the Zia Pueblo.

Saebie is the last of her family to make pottery by the

traditional technique. In fact, in talking with Mrs. Shaje in

her home she told me that none of her six children have learned

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the trade, nor have any of her nieces or nephews. As I sat

interviewing her, she did not seem to be overly concerned that

she was the "last of the breed" in her family to pass that talent

on. As I looked at the family portrait prominently displayed,

hanging on her living room wall - the separate picture of each

child with a feeling of pride and self worth showing in their

faces - and gazed around the room seeing anywhere from ten to

fifteen beautifully displayed pots, one couldn't help but feel

the urgency and impending tragedy taking place in having that

gift die right "before their eyes". Similar happenings are

apparently taking place in other pueblos also.

Today there are accurate methods for dating historic vessels

and identifying the actual pueblo of origin for these ancient

pots. There are many features, specifically clay color and

texture, slip treatment, the paint type, and some design aspects

of the pottery that enable most pueblo pots to be identified as

to the area of manufacture. For the most part, the majority of

writers and knowledgeable people concerning the Pueblo Indians

classify them into five principal areas of historic pottery -

making traditions each with certain distinctive characteristics

concerning their pottery (Harlow). The five areas are as follows:

1. Northern Rio Grande areas from which the famous "Maria"

pottery was made.

2. Puname Area from which the Zia pottery originates.

3. Southern Rio Grande area

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4. Acoma-Laguna-Zuni area from which the famous "Lucy Lewis"

pottery was made.

5. Hopi area from which Arizona pottery originates.

The Sorensen collection contains pottery pots from the Puname and

Acoma-Laguna-Zuni areas. These pots were all made by the

traditional technique, and represent the fine workmanship of

their respective pueblos. The time frame of manufacture is not

specifically known, although two pots, #33 and #44 were made by

potters that have died recently. The beautifully done Zia vessel

(#33) was made by Juanita Pino, who died about five years ago.

Mrs. Shaje a Zia potter said she recognized it as being made by

Mrs. Pino. She said that many of the potters did not sign the

bottom of the pot, as "everyone" knew who made the pot anyway --

each potter having a "unique" characteristic in their design and

results. The other pot, #44 was made by Lucy Lewis of the Acoma

pueblo, who died within the last year. She was possibly the most

famous living pueblo Indian potter up to the time of her death.

The other "modern" pots, #26,#32,#34, and #35 representing the

Zia and Acoma pueblos were undoubtedly made within the last 50

years, according to style and workmanship.

The two areas represented in the Sorensen collection (items

2 and 4 above) have many characteristics in common when comparing

pots made by each. The style of the vessel made by both areas is

either purely representative (bird) or purely geometric

(pattern). The vessels representing the "bird" style of

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decoration have a different decorative content than the "pattern"

type with the designs represented in the vessel being based on

separate principles. This is shown dynamically when comparing #26

with #32. Birds do not stray into the geometric patterns, and

geometric motives and types of arrangements are not found in jars

that favor the bird style. The forms presented in the bird

pottery are always presented in profile, #33, with curved beak,

two or three separate tail feathers with rounded ends, a single

or double pointed wing, rising from the back. This creature has

been variously identified as parrot, turkey, chicken, - or just

"bird". Generally, two such birds appear on a jar, each framed

in an arch of red or yellowish paint.

Commencing about 1600 A.D. the underbodies of vessels from

these two areas were decorated with red slip. From 1700 until

about 1920 red banding was common, eventually being replaced by

the all-over red treatment. In addition, shortly after 1700 the

glaze ware technique was lost, seemly forever. Instead of using

glaze (glossy) paint, matte paint (usually dull and flat) was

utilized. Matte paint is made from either organic or mineral

based substances. The Puname area pueblos used organic paint,

using leaves and shoots of various plants, while the Acoma-

Laguna-Zuni area pueblos used mineral paint, made by adding

finely pulverized rock to a binder liquid, thereby achieving

various colors.

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Zia Pottery

The Puname area pottery, specifically from the Zia pueblo

(#26 and #33) is made from clay and crushed black basaltic lava

found on the reservation near Santa Fe, New Mexico. In fact, each

pueblo area usually uses ceramic materials available only on its

own group of villages. These attributes, with those of form and

decoration - define pottery "types". Each type is known by a two

part name (i.e. Zia Polychrome), and each is also characterized

by a definite geographical distribution and period of

manufacture. The clay, brick-red in color, is also found on the

reservation. The potters must crush and grind the lava in mixing

with the clay - a very difficult task. The use of feather symbols

and arcs are characteristic of Zia pottery. However, in style the

decoration became more geometrical, with volutes predominating in

the early 19th century, giving way to floral patterns as the

century progressed. By 1870 another change in the form of jars

took place. The appearance of a rather high shoulder (position of

maximum diameter). The shape of Zia jars is particularly unique

as shown in #26; the greatest width is low, the underbody is

undercut, with the rim slightly flared. The Zia pueblo has always

been a leader in the production of excellent pottery, with very

minimal curio-market degeneracy. For centuries Zia tradition has

required that ceramic clay be mixed with finely crushed black

basaltic lava, in distinguishing this pottery from that of any

other pueblo. The feather symbol, as mentioned, was painted on

almost every surviving 18th century vessel in various

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modifications. The contrasting methods of representing the

feathers is evident in comparing #26 with #33. Up until about

1765 all the Zia vessels were finished with the rim top painted

red. After that date, the rim tops have always been painted black

(compare #26 and #33). Another feature distinguishing early

traditional pottery from later pottery is the pigment. Zia

polychrome (having more than two colors in the vessel - usually

red-black-orange) jars of the middle to late 1800's were painted

with black mineral pigment that was thick enough to impart a

slightly raised texture to the decoration. After 1900 the black

paint became flatter and grainier and more brownish in color.

Such distinguishing features help date the pottery in addition to

distinguishing it as specifically Zia in style and form. Great

care has always been exercised on Zia pottery to achieve thin and

light vessels well formed, decorated and finished. This is

especially impressive, since Zia clay is known to be coarse and

heavy. In the 1920's use of orange was introduced for the

background slip of Zia vessels. In the early 18th century every

Puname vessel had some form of feather symbol.

Acoma Pottery

The Acoma pueblo potters have traditionally tempered their

clay with finely crushed sherds of pottery. This distinguishing

feature separates the Acoma pottery from that of other pueblos.

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Prior to 1700 the Acoma pueblo was noted for its magnificent

glazed pottery with convex bases. After the Pueblo Indian revolt

of 1680, Acoma turned from glaze wares to matte-paint wares, and

the present concave base became a standard feature for Acoma

jars. The first matte painted vessels were referred to as Ako

Polychrome vessels. The artistry and precision of the work are

excellent. The motifs used in the decoration show great

preoccupation with the feather symbol. About 1730 Ako Polychrome

rim tops changed in color from red to black. After 1770 necks

were added to the jars resulting in a new classification of

Acomita Polychrome. Through a gradual transition accomplished by

about 1850 the Acoma vessels became a type that is now known as

McCartys Polychrome (Acomita & McCarty are names of Acoma farming

villages).

There are principally two styles of Acoma pottery; that

which utilizes the "bird" and flower style, and that which is

purely geometric in pattern. The two styles never mix. Birds do

not stray into geometric patterns, and geometric motifs and types

of arrangements are not found on jars that favor birds. The

naturalistic (bird) type of pottery is much simpler in

appearance, showing less variability. The forms presented are

always bird and plant forms. Like Zia vessels, the bird on Acoma

pots is always represented in profile, with curved beak, three or

four separate tail feathers with rounded ends, a single pointed

wing rising from the back. Generally two such birds appear on a

jar. The favorite floral ornament is a round four-petalled

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flower, resembling a wild rose. The leaves are long and slender.

Black is used for stems, leaves, berries and for the outline of

all designs; but the birds, flowers and decorative arches are all

painted in red or yellow. The Sorensen collection contains four

purely geometrically designed pots. The two black-on-white pots,

#34 and #35, are well made with designs dipicting rain, storms,

clouds, etc. Mr. Keith Lucero, manager of the pottery collection

at the Indian Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico

indicates that these two pots are pre-historic, possibly of Mesa

Verde design. The other two pots, #32 and #44, are magnificantly

done in polychrome with the orange paint representing the sun,

the white of the pot representing the sky, the dark parts being

clouds, and the fine lines representing rain, according to Mr.

Lucero.

With respect to principles of design, Acoma jars do not show

any break in outline between the neck and body of the jar. It is

fundamentally important to the Acoma potter that the structural

lines of the design do not follow the structural lines of the

vessel. The horizontal lines of the vessel, which have their

roots in the coiling technique of manufacture, are overlaid with

designs whose prevailing lines are diagonal (see #34 and #35).

Another design feature on Acoma pottery is the tendency to fill

without break the whole of the decorative field, completely

eliminating the background (#32). Thus Acoma designs and patterns

are primarily a treatment of surfaces. Acoma's geometric style

shows an exuberance of design unsurpassed anywhere in the

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southwest- filling without break the whole surface of the jar

from rim to base. Whenever white occurs (#32,#34,#35) it is part

of the design.

The use of shapes is obviously part of the overall design

concept in Acoma pottery. Triangles are the most important single

element and are treated in a great variety of ways. The diagonal

arrangement always produces triangles which when subdivided,

produce more triangles. Triangular figures with slightly curved

sides give rise to a graceful leaf pattern which is a frequent

occurrence on vessels. Squares and diamonds of solid colors are

also frequently used (#35). The central diamond shaped patterns

have a feather-like symbol often in each corner. The squares and

diamonds are often subdivided diagonally into triangles,

generally painted in contrasting colors. The Acoma designs have a

noted complete absence of spiral or circular forms. I could not

find information that "explained" why these forms are not used.

The six pueblo pottery pots within the collection are

excellent examples of the finest work done by the pueblo people.

Their contribution to the overall Sorensen display is a delicate

contrast between "modern" made exquisite pottery (still made

however in the traditional manner) and the pre-historic ulitarian

pottery of the Casas Grandes, comprising the remainder of the

collection. The two types, ancient and "modern" compliment each

other in providing the public with a continuum of excellent

pottery making tradition carried from the first century on into

present time.

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Casas Grandes Pottery

Thirty-two pottery pots represented in the Sorensen

collection are from the Casas Grandes archaeological zone located

in northern Mexico and present-day southern Arizona and New

Mexico (refer to Figure 2). The time frame represented includes

dates as early as A.D. 700 and as late as A.D. 1340. The Casas

Grandes River drainage which flows along the eastern flank of the

Sierra Madre Occidental in northern Mexico was the blood line

from which the early inhabitants made their livelihood. The

archaeological zone was bordered by Sonora on the west, the

desert lands of Medanos de Samalayuca on the east, the

international border on the north, and the Papagochic river on

the south (DiPeso,Vl).

No one knows when man first entered the valley of Casas

Grandes, or the type of culture with which he was surrounded. Man

must have at least hunted in the area by 10000 B.C. as several

Clovis fluted projectile points and other Paleo-indian tools have

been reported from the Casas Grandes basin - and although the

Casas Grandes pottery pots in the collection represented a well

established farming culture, there is no specific existent

evidence which would allow one to say that the first men who

hunted this region evolved with time into seed gatherers and

finally becomming farmers. Present data from the Archaic period

21

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Archeological Zone of the Casa Grandes Culture

PAGE 22

indicates that the Casas Grandes people were, in large, a non-

receptive people who, once adapted to their environment, were

reluctant to change for any reason. This may have been the

result of a long and trying struggle of these soil members to

retain their foothold in the variety of rugged environments

existing within this archaeological zone.

The actual date of when people in the Casas Grandes area

started using pottery is not known either. It is assumed the

ceramic techniques used for the pottery within the collection

were first developed in Mesoamerica and then introduced into the

Casas Grandes region sometime around the birth of Christ. The

culture and the subsequent pottery making has been traced into

what is now southern Arizona, northward into the Mountain

Mogollon area, and into northern New Mexico.

The first significant studies and excavations of the area

were carried out by the Joint Casas Grandes Expedition commencing

in September of 1958 (DiPeso, Vi). For three solid years the

excavation crew worked with the local people to discover the

history of the indigenes of the Casas Grandes zone. The results

of the study and research are published in an extensive eleven

volume treatise titled "Casas Grandes A Fallen Trading Center of

the Gran Chichimeca", with Charles C. DiPeso being the principle

author. The results of their study indicated three major time

frames for the development of the culture known as the

Chichimecans (those people living in the Casas Grandes zone in

its early history). A Viejo Period, covering from A.D. 700 to

23

A.D. 1060, a Medio Period covering A.D. 1060 to A.D. 1340, and a

Tardio Period covering A.D. 1340 to A.D. 1684. Most of the Casas

Grandes vessels in the Sorensen collection were made during the

Medio Period, meaning from A.D. 1060 to A.D. 1340. The Casas

Grandes zone during the Medio Period served as a major trading

center for all of North America. Mr. Joe Carr, the appraiser of

the pottery collection from Santa Fe, New Mexico, indicated that

this region was possibly the largest trading center in North

America at the time these pots were made (A.D. 700 to A.D. 1600).

These pots within the collection were designed and used as

functional objects, being traded or sold throughout the whole

region on =a daily basis. The particular group of pots within the

collection was probably obtained in Deming, New Mexico, according

to Mr. Carr. The excavation crew discovered that within the

Casas Grandes archaeological zone hundreds of small satellite

villages were clustered along the banks of the main river

drainages and wherever arable land was available throughout the

zone. The people were apparently fairly advanced since after

about A.D. 1060 the major cities had an extensive conservation

system which controlled and used the yearly rainfall for various

purposes (DiPeso, V1).

If detailed information is desired concerning the lifestyle

and history of the Chichimecan people prior to the Medio Period

(i.e. before A.D. 1060) the reader is referred to the extensive

reports of the 1958 excavation team (DiPeso, V1-V9). Since the

pottery pots represented in the Sorensen collection are from the

24

Medio Period, the remainder of this portion of the report will

treat that time frame. Although pottery was manufactured during

the Viejo Period, most of it was of a Plainware nature (see #36-

#43), and it wasn't until the Medio Period that Polychrome

vessels really took hold. The whole recognized continuum of

pottery making from plainware to the finest polychrome was

classified as a particular School by W. Smith (1962). Ceramic

craft among the Casas Grandes people of the Medio Period was a

highly developed art form. They produced a great variety of

symmetrical and effective shapes and decorated them with a

multiplicity of complex designs. They made a fine, strong paste

and ornamented the surface with a wide range of ingenious

contrasting techniques- not only painting and a variety of

texturing, but also smudging, polishing, slipping, modeling, and

applique.- The well-defined cylindrical necks so characteristic of

potters of the Anasazi and Mogollon were rare in the Casas

Grandes vessels, except for the bottles. The paste of the Medio

Period vessels was finer than that of the Viejo Period pottery,

the walls stronger, the shapes more symmetrical, and the drawing

of the decoration more precise and better controlled. An abrupt

increase in polychrome types was also characteristic of the Medio

Period ceramics.

Variation in ceramic manufacture from the Viejo to the Medio

Period was also quite evident. In the Viejo Period the native

ceramics were built up primarily by means of fillets and rings,

laid on top of the other, while in later times the native

25

ceramics were built up by means of spirally laid coils or ropes

of clay, similar to Pueblo made pottery. Also, during the Medio

Period there was a great increase in the vessel capacity in both

jars and bowls (i.e. going from a maximum capacity of 1975 ml to

over 28000 ml).

The Casas Grandes School of painted pottery types was

primarily a polychrome school during the Medio Period. Usually,

red and black paint was balanced in alternating lines of motifs.

Glazed black paint found on many of the vessels was typically a

copper paint, with a minor amount of lead added. The red paint of

the Medio Period vessels was an iron pigment. Bands were by far

the most common type of layout found in Casas Grandes pottery

types. Triangles were the most common figure and had a number of

fillers, although a solid color was most typical.

The ceramic studies conducted by the excavation team

revealed that a series of firing methods, as well as a number of

differing clays, were utilized in such a manner as to create a

range of light to dark colors which could be produced under

controlled conditions as the situation demanded. The majority of

the pottery constructed was made in a darker brown paste and

fired in an oxidizing atmosphere as indicated by the light

reddish-brown colors that are characteristic on several of the

pots in the collection (refer to #10, #11, and #12). The

excavation concluded that it would appear that the paste of most

pottery types was essentially similar during the Medio Period -

potters added to their moist clay base opaque white angular

26

particles (tuff), along with some clear crystalline grains

(phenocrysts). The basic techniques of manufacture, such as the

preparation of the paste, the building up of the vessel by the

coil method, and the thinning of the vessel walls were

essentially the same for all the pots made during the Medio

Period.

Of the 32 pottery pots from the Casas Grandes area within

the Sorensen collection 19 were effigy pots, i.e. vessels shaped

as representations of such figures as humans, frogs, owls, fish,

coyotes, lizards, and birds. Pottery making was such an intergal

part of the lives of the Casas Grandes people, they often

manifested their art in the reproduction or representation of

those living creatures surrounding them. The ceramic concept of

using man and animal effigies as part of the design was widely

distributed throughout the Americas during the Casas Grandes time

frame, so it probably was not developed independently by this

culture. Of particular interest are the human effigies included

in the collection. These vessels (#1,2,3,4,5,8,13) were made

with black-on-white pottery or polychrome using red and black on

white and were manufactured throughout the zone principally

affected by what is referred to as the Chaco culture, reaching as

far north as southerwestern Colorado (Martin 1936, p.62). Most

of the human effigies of this culture had their knees drawn up

and the hands or elbows resting on them, the vessel orifice being

in the top of the head. The orifice on the Casas Grandes seated

figures was the mouth of the jar that formed the body of the

27

individual as shown in #1 & #2. In addition the humpback feature

some human effigies had decorations about the eyes as indicated

on #1. The human effigy vessel appears to have come from an

early Mesoamerica culture, as it has been found throughout all of

Mexico and central America.

The animal effigy jars in the Sorensen collection (#10-#21)

are similar to effigy jars found throughout the archeaological

zone during all periods of the Casas Grandes culture. Similar

pots have been uncovered in the lower United States region known

as the Middle Mississippi vessel complex dating to the same time

as these Casas Grandes effigies. However, there is a Casas

Grandes effigy, #22 in which two bird heads are attached to

opposite sides of a jar that doesn't seem to have any counterpart

in other cultures.

The representation of birds (#22) were meant to portray

Macaws, which were very prevalent during the Casas Grandes

period. The people at that time placed sacred meaning to the

Macaw, and it served as a symbol to them, much as the roadrunner

"bird" serves as a symbol to the Acoma and Zia pueblo potters of

today.

The animal and human effigies of the Sorensen collection are

excellent examples of the vessel construction that took place

during the Casas Grandes period. The darker brown paste used for

construction of the pots is particularily noted in the effigies

represented, and their firing in an oxidizing atmosphere, as

indicated by the light reddish-brown colors that seem to be

28

characterisitc of those within the collection. Of particular

note is the non-flat (rounded) bottoms of the pots represented.

Since all of these jar bottoms are circular in shape, the actual

jar sits at an angle, few being perfectly symmetrical, which

causes some to appear rather unbalanced. This characteristic is

existent on all the Casas Grandes pots. Such a practice

apparently was the norm in pre-historic times.

The Casas Grandes pots within the collection represent the

pottery making of the ancient Chichimecans. These pots within

the collection are rare and valuable in the sense that relatively

few exist throughout the United States today to teach us of the

lives of these ancient people.

29

Projectile Points

Any significant Indian artifact collection will contain a

good number of projectile points made by the Indian himself for

hunting, fishing, warring (against one another, as well as the

white man), ceremonial, or any number of other purposes.

Projectile points in some form are the most common of all

artifacts found when searching for Indian treasures of the past.

A good campsite (one in which the Indians used for hundreds of

years) could produce as many as 2000 arrowheads in a space no

larger than a typical front yard of today's home. In such a

campsite, many types of tools and instruments could be uncovered

which were used for daily living around the camp. Most of the

everyday tools are not known, or even recognized, by the layman

were he to visit an old Indian campsite. But never-the-less,

they are there, and considered by the knowledgeable individual,

as being just as much an artifact as the arrowhead. Such tools

as hide scrapers, drills, knives, perforators, hammerstones,

choppers, pestles, stone grinding bowls, awls, hoes, bone

needles, among others, are often discarded or ignored by the

typical Indian enthusiast "looking for arrowheads".

The distinctive shape of the projectile point and the material

from which it is made is what draws the attention of the public

to that particular artifact. The interesting aspect to this

phenomena is the fact that some of the discarded artifacts

30

(tools) are much more rare and valuable than the arrowheads so

animately sought after.

As is the case with most artifacts, 99.9% of all indian

artifacts are found beneath the surface, requiring careful

excavation of the area in order to properly record and salvage

the information existent with the artifact. In fact, the

knowledge of how they lived, the time frame of occupation from

beginning to ending represented by the site, the cultural

practices, and much, much more information is determined from

careful excavation of the site itself. An excavation may be a

simple--testing of the site by performing a series of "test pits"

to gather specific information, or it may be a full-blown

excavation of the entire site, "peeling off, layer by layer" the

history of what took place during those hundreds of years of

occupation. Some excavations may require removal of several feet

of over-burden before any artifact is first found. Then,

anywhere from 3 to 20 feet (or more) of additional measured

excavated surface to uncover the secrets hidden for hundreds or

thousands of years. It should be understood that the artifacts

there (specifically the arrowheads) were not purposely placed

there for future generations to discover. In the everyday living

around the campsite, people dropped or lost items in the dirt and

never retrieved them, for whatever reason. In a campsite that is

1000 years old, with many people having lived there over the

years, if 10 to 20 of such arrowheads were lost per year of

occupation, there could be eventually 10,000-20,000 arrowheads to

31

be discovered. It is not difficult to imagine an excellent

campsite as containing literally thousands of artifacts. Those

artifacts, properly documented and analyzed, tell the stories and

secrets of the past. Such stories must "come from the ground",

through analysis and interpretation, since almost nothing

involved in early Indian life was ever written down by the

Indian. We must piece-together the life style and history of the

early Indian people by what they left behind. The modern Indians

have tradition and legends to draw from, but their existence has,

for generations, been reservation life which is a far cry from

the actual= early Indian lifestyle. In far too many cases the

modern_day Indian's interpretation of their early ancestors

practices and traditions have been just that, interpretations. A

case in point is the very item being discussed, arrowheads. An

Indian flintknapper (maker of arrowheads) is almost non-existent

today within the tribes of the United States. The experts

(flintknappers) are those white men that have intense -interest in

the craft, and have learned to reproduce the early Indian's art.

In addition, even modern Indians can't decipher the exact

messages left by their early ancestors in the form of pictographs

and petrographs.

Old Indian campsites are easy to discover, once the basics

of what to look for are mastered. Earl Sorensen learned early in

his life how to recognize such sites, and thus specifically

searched them again and again for arrowheads. He started this

process here in Idaho, developing his collection with arrowheads

32

from this region. Although he initially was not well versed in

the history of the Indians in this area, he did become acquainted

with them through their artifacts.

Most of the detailed information concerning the Indians of

this region, those representing the majority of the projectile

points within the Sorensen collection, has been learned through

excavations of specific caves by experts. The undisturbed nature

of caves make them prime targets for detailed studies of their

"temporary" inhabitants over the long history of man's existence

within the region. Virtually every cave in the region

represented by the Sorensen collection has had the occupancy-of

early man at some time or another. Artifacts of all sorts are

found in such "basins". In fact, in today's world it is rare to

find any significant artifacts lying on the surface, waiting to

be discovered, unless it be in some undisturbed, undiscovered

cave hidden way out in some remote area of the arid desert west.

What makes the Sorensen arrowhead collection so extremely

unique is that the majority of the projectile points in the

collection were found by himself, on the surface, without any

excavations taking place, nor without resorting to cave hunting.

Mr. Sorensen covered literally thousands of miles walking and

searching for such artifacts over the past 60 years. Sixty years

ago, such artifacts could be found on the surface if one went far

enough away from "civilization" to chance upon them. Today, it

is extremely rare to gain a collection of arrowheads by simply

searching the surface, even in remote areas. His collection was,

33

therefore, gathered "a piece at a time", as he searched and re-

searched his favorite spots. He would hear of some area that had

possibilities, or learn of a spot that yielded a few items last

year, or search maps that indicated possibilities. Then he would

follow-up on such possibilities, gaining new spots to search all

the while.

From these experiences grew his love and appreciation of the

Indian and his way of life. He, figuratively, walked miles in

the Indian's moccasins, over the same terrain, in order to

understand and feel the thoughts and feelings of the Indian as he

lived them. Upon finding the arrowheads, he would stop and

ponder what the Indian was doing when he lost it, what the

environment must have been like when the Indian lived there

experiencing it. Such experiences by Mr. Sorensen', especially

when gained in the solitude of the actual place of discovery,

served as the pattern in weaving an inter-relationship between

the collector and the maker of the arrowhead.

It should be mentioned here that his collection of

projectile points represent only those that are full and perfect.

For every full arrowhead found, as many as 100 or more broken-

ones were discovered. Broken arrowheads, although just as valid

an artifact as whole ones, do not carry any significance in the

public's eye.

It is a risky and dangerous task to go miles and miles into

the hot desert alone in search of items whose actual location is

not known. The unforeseen is ever present in such locations,

34

either in the form of a rattlesnake just under that rock you

stepped on, or a scorpion crawling into your sleeping bag as you

sleep in the sand. Any number of things could go wrong when

you're that far away from "anything", in a hot hostile

environment. Yet, it's in such remote locations where your best

chances are of finding a small campsite with artifacts lying

there "just for the picking", having not been touched since the

day the Indian passed through. It's like him passing by hand, to

you, his experience. Since most of the arrowheads in the

collection were discovered in the above manner, one can well

imagine the hundreds of "stories" -(experiences) that Mr. Sorensen

must have collected over the years being in such remote locations

time and again.

Each projectile point in the collection has a story to tell.

If we could but know the background and history of its making and

purpose, then these artifacts would be more than mere shapes and

items- of beauty and wonderment to us, they would be the extension

of an individual, whose life had meaning and purpose. That's the

real beauty of such a collection - the items represented are

really the accumulation of experiences and a way of life that if

fully understood, would make modern man stand in astonishment of

such grand-people living under such adverse conditions.

Of the over 2000 arrowheads in the collection, a hundred or

so projectile points are exquisite Paleo points dating from 6000

to 12000 years before the present (B.P.). Archaeologists have

verified that man was hunting and living in this region during

35

that time frame. These "ancient ones" (predecessors to the early

Indians) made what are referred to today as Clovis and Folsom

points for hunting. These points are rare and extremely

difficult to find. The Sorensen collection has eight Clovis and

eight Folsom points (refer to #1-#15). Such points have been

associated with Mammoth and Antique Bison kills, and represent

man's earliest entrance into this region. A particular type of

projectile point is usually given its name through and in

association with its place of discovery, i.e. the Clovis and

Folsom points were named such due to being first discovered near

- Clovis and Folsom, New Mexico, respectively, in association with

extinct animal remains. Both types of points, however, have now

been found sparingly throughout the northwest , and into Mexico,

as mentioned in the Casas Grandes section of this report. To

find such a point in a lifetime is the arrowhead hunter's dream.

To have found eight of each is a testimony to the tenacity and

extensive effort that must have been put-forth over many years.

Although the Clovis and Folsom points are the most famous of

ancient points, there are over thirty different types of Paleo

points (more than 6000 years old) represented in the Sorensen

collection. Basic information on each is included as a

supplement to this report in album form. Perhaps the one that

standsout so significantly due to its exquisite craftsmanship is

the Eden point shown in #21. Eden points were named after the

1. Refer to Album giving a picture and applicable information for each Paleo projectile point in the collection.

36

town of Eden, Wyoming and date from 9500 to 7000 years before the

present. They are long narrow lanceolate points that are

beautifully parallel flaked. The craftsmanship is unmatched,

even up through modern times. Another point of interest is the

point shown in #17. This type of point has been found in

association with Mammoth kills. This particular one came from

Oklahoma. The earlier (Paleo) projectile points were used quite

often as -lanceolates (for thrusting or throwing) rather than as

"arrowheads" for shooting, and were, therefore, usually larger

and bulkier than the modern arrowheads comprising the majority of

the collection.

The collection contains hundreds of arrowheads found "here

and there" by the Sorensens' as different campsites would be

visited during a weekend trip, with some points coming from this

one, other points coming from another. The Obsidian points (i.e.

#5-#8) were principally from the southwest desert region, while

the varied "colored" ones were principally from the Midwest. The

different colored points were made from a variety of substances

including but not limited to such materials as jasper, quartz,

flint, agate, petrified wood, chalcedney, obsidian, chert,

basalt, limestone, and bone. As that which occurred in the

Indian pottery making, the raw materials for projectile point

making were gathered from local sources known as quarry sites.

The science associated with analysis of projectile points,

specifically the materials from which they are made, is so

37

advanced today that in most cases the origin of the material

(i.e. the quarry site where the raw material was first gathered)

can be determined down to a specific county and state. The fact

that many projectile points are found far from where they were

quarried is an indication of the trading and nomadic nature of

the western Indian when compared to those in the east.

The arrowheads and artifacts in the Sorensen collection are

more than mere examples of early Indian tools and instruments.

They are reminders of a people that lived in our region, in our

environment, who knew the secret of living as part of nature, and

contributing to it, rather than being a destroyer of it.

The artifacts in the Sorensen collection seem to be saying:

to my maker you often associate the word "savage" -

yet my maker has always known, and always lived (prior

to white man's intervention) in harmony with Nature and

with one another. My maker has always realized that he

was a part of the overall balance of life, and that his

environment was not his, but owned by someone much

greater than he, who had loaned this beautiful place to

him for its care and protection. My maker, although not

educated, can teach much unto you, from the heart and

from the soul. Things not learned in books, but things

of life, of an eternal nature. Study me, touch me, know

me --- But more importantly, KNOW MY MAKER!!!

Earl Sorensen has generously given us the opportunity to

know the artifacts' makers!!!!

38

Bibliography

1. Baldwin, Gordon C., "The Material Culture of

Kinishba", American Antiquity, Vol.4, 1939, pp. 314-

327.

2. Bunzel, Ruth, "The Pueblo Potter, A study of

Creative Imagination in Primitive Art", Dover

Publications, Inc., New York.

3. Cosgrove, H.S. and C.B., "The Swarts Ruin, a typical

Mimbres site in Southwestern New Mexico", Report of

the Mimbres Valley Expedition, Seasons of 1924-1927,

Cambridge Massachusetts, U.S.A., published by the

Museum, 1932.

4. DiPeso, Charles, "Casas Grandes a Fallen Trading

Center of the Gran Chichimeca", The Amerind

Foundation, Inc./Dragoon, Northland Press/

Flagstaff, Volumes 1 - 11.

5. Frank, Larry and Harlow, Francis, "Historic Pottery

of the Pueblo Indians 1600-1880", New York Graphic

Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

6. Harlow, Francis H., "Historic Pueblo Indian

Pottery", Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe, New

Mexico, 1970.

7. Martin,Paul Sidney (1936), "Lowry Ruin in

39

Southwestern Colorado. Field Museum of National

History, Anthropological Series, Vol. 23, No. 1.

8. Nesbett, Paul H., "The Ancient Mimbrenos", based on

Investigations at the Mattocks Ruin, Mimbres Valley,

New Mexico, The Logan Museum, Beloit College, Beloit,

Wisconsin, Millwood, New York, 1980.

9. Smith, Watson (1962), "Schools, Pots, and Potters",

American Anthropologist, N.S., Vol. 64, No. 6,

pp. 1165-1178.

40

Interview with Keith Lucero July 12, 1992

- Indian Cultural Center - Albuquerque, N.M.

All the pottery bowls and jars shown were made by the

Traditional Methods (#1 through #43), meaning they were made by

hand, without any wheel or mechanical apparatus. All were made by

the coil technique, fired outside by the pit technique using cow

dung as the source.

The Acoma pottery (#32,34,35,44) was made using about 1/3 of

recycled clay, meaning old broken pots were crushed to powder form

and added to the 2/3 original clay - this is a characteristic of

Acoma Pueblo pottery.

The Zia pottery (#26,33) was made about twice as thick as the

Acoma pottery - since most of their pots were used for storage.

Generally, the thinner the pot, the more skilled the potter,

and the more experienced the potter.

The main difference between the Prehistoric and the

Traditional Patterns (Ricks has both represented) is that the black

on white patterns for Prehistoric tend to have a lot of swirls,

whereas, the traditional patterns are of basic diamond shapes.

Contemporary patterns are used for sale to tourists.

With respect to specific pottery jars and bowls, the following

comments were made by Keith Lucero, upon viewing the photographs in

the album:

41

#34, 35 - Acoma jar - White of pot represents sky

Dark parts represent clouds

Fine lines represent rain

#34 - This is a Mesa Verde Design - Prehistoric

#35 - Traditional Acoma

#32 - Orange paint represents sun

Black comes from plant or rock crushed to a fine

powder

#33 - Bird - is a roadrunner - it is a symbol represented

on all Zia pottery (see note on Zia Pueblo

interview)

#42 -

#44 - Rain-Bird-Feather pattern Traditional Acoma design

#26 - Corn Plant - considered sacred - one characteristic

of Zia pots is that the widest diameter of the pot

is above the horizontal centerline of the pot.

42

Interview with Acoma Pueblo - Arthur Cruz July 12, 1992

Acoma Pueblo, N.M.

#32 - The four directions N-E-S-W represented in the

design fine lines - mean rain

cloud geometric

design

#34 - Rain and Lightning design

#44 - The bird is an off-shoot of the parrot, a design

used in Prehistoric pottery (traditional)

#35 - Diamond design represents wind

The pots (traditional) were used as Utilities - some even had

dents purposely put in towards the bottom of the pots as

stabilizers for carrying on the head.

Another characteristic of Acoma pottery is the fact that all

pots are made with a red rim inside of the pots. Supposedly, this

is to give the inside of pot some depth perception.

43

Interview with Zia Pueblo - Saebie Shaje - Potter July 13, 1992

Zia Pueblo, N. M.

#33 - This pot was made by Juanita Pino - she died about

5 years ago - many of the potters did not sign the

bottom of the pot, as "everyone knew who made the

pot, as "everyone knew who made the pot, anyway" -

each potter having a "unique" characteristic in

their design and results.

#26 - Shaje did not know who made this pot.

According to Mrs. Shaje it is extremely difficult to make her

pottery by the traditional method because dung is so hard to come-

by now days. She uses sheep and goat dung - but finds it difficult

to get cow dung; since there are very few cows on her reservation.

She must go further and further away from the pueblo itself to

gather it. The clay itself is still plentiful on the reservation -

but the dung is extremely important in the firing process.

The firing is done usually in the early morning or late

evening when the winds are less likely to be blowing. The blowing

winds cause an uneven firing, which could result in a worthless

pot.

The black color of the Zia pots is obtained by grinding basalt

to a powder and mixing it with the clay.

She also indicates that on the Zia Pueblo there are only 3

potters that make pottery the traditional way.

44

Two points of interest with respect to my interview with Mrs.

Shaje -

1) These people are simple, plain Pueblo Indians that very

seldom get off the reservation. It never occurred to her to

"commercially" obtain the cow dung from outside the reservation -

I guess in a way that would be destroying the "traditional way".

However, it does seem to be a possible solution to her problem.

Another thing, why don't they get some cows - possibly because the

desolate land they own won't support them - or it costs too much

under the present circumstances to raise them. They don't look at

a particular problem (such as lack of dung destroying their

traditional technique) and figure a way to adjust -- rather they

let the tradition die out.

2) Another thing - when she told me that there were only 3

traditional potters in the whole Pueblo, I asked if any of her

children were learning the art from her (her six children's

pictures were proudly displayed on the living room wall in

horseshoe fashion with the mother and father at the top of the

horseshoe). She said that none of her children are learning the

art - nor is she teaching other pueblo inhabitants the art. It

reminds me of my flintknapping class from ISU (learning to make

arrowheads by the techniques and tools the Indians used in the "old

days". The instructor went onto the Fort Hall Indian Reservation

trying to recruit participants - no one was interested in attending

the classes (even free without charge). Was it because the

instructor wasn't Indian or because the tradition had died -

therefore, it could not be picked up again - at least from Indian

to Indian.

45

Today much of the pottery made and sold is done by the

Contemporary method using a stove of some sort for the firing. In

a lot of cases the new generation of potters are "commercial"

potters making designs to please the customer, rather than designs

of symbolistic meaning of old traditions. Although the art itself

may not be dying out - the reason for it and the old traditional

ways seem to be changing even in a world (the Pueblo) that has

resisted change successfully for generations and generations.

When I asked her the meaning of the Bird being placed on each

and every pot she has ever made, she said she didn't know the

meaning. She said her grandmother used it and taught her how to do

pottery and she has made her pots basically the same as her

grandmother, having never asked her the meanings of the shapes and

designs on the pots, including the Bird. She has just made them by

using the art taught her by her grandmother.

46

Interview With the Appraiser - Joe Carr July 13, 1992 Santa Fe, N. M.

The Casas Grandes location in northern Mexico, below the

present day New Mexico and Arizona, was possibly the largest

trading center in North America at the time these pots were made

(A.D. 700 to A.D. 1600). They were designed and used as functional

objects, being traded or sold throughout the whole region on a

daily basis.

The Casas Grandes pots were probably obtained in Deming, New

Mexico, and were all purchased at the same time, according to the

appraiser.

The #24 and #25 pots were earlier forms of Casas Grandes.

The Tonto Polychrome pots #27 and #28 are from the Mogollon

Rim of Arizona between Flagstaff, Winslow, and Holbrook.

A Mr. Juan Quezada lived in the Casas Grandes ruins for years

and a book covering him has been written by Masa Ortiz.

Another book, Mexican Design Motifs, treats the designs of the

Casas Grandes pots.

Others with big collections of Casas Grandes pots include:

Fort Wayne Museum of Science and History

Maxwell Museum of -- University of New Mexico

International Museum of Folk Art - Santa Fe, New Mexico

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Interview with Mrs Dorothy Sorensen at Her Home July 13, 1992 Santa Fe, N. M.

When did Earl start this collection of his?

I think probably when he was a very small child, like three or four years old, he used to find arrowheads out on the farm in Idaho, in Arbon Valley. The Indians used to go past in their travels with all their horses when he was a little boy. One of the early things he can remember is the Indians. He's always been fascinated by the Indians, and he used to find arrowheads. The first one he found was very beautiful, and the hired man took it away from him.

So it wasn't his, huh?

Earl was a little kid, so the man just took it. Then his little brothers found some that he'd found and mashed them up with rocks. He had a kind of hard time getting started. When he was a very little boy, he was visiting his Grandmother Copen in Mendon.

Now where's Mendon? That's in Idaho, too?

That's on the West side of Cache Valley. That's where he was born. Both his grandparents live there. They settled there. They didn't come over in the covered wagons, but they were early settlers. He found an arrowhead up by the spring in back of his grandmother's house, and she told him to keep it, and then she told him that he had a great-great-grandmother who was Indian, but not to tell his mother because his mother was very prejudiced.

I see.

So when he met you he had a collection already that he had started.

Yes.

Where did you two meet?

We met at a church mutual dance in Logan.

In Logan?

He graduated from high school like a month after he was sixteen. He was just barely sixteen, and his parents thought he was too young to go to college. They kept him out a year and then the next year they moved down to Logan so that he could go to college in Logan. He lived up in the Eighth Ward. They had a great big house and they rented out rooms to students. This was back in the Depression.

Right.

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I lived in the First Ward, which is the other end of town. Boys didn't go to their own ward dances because it was the same girls they'd known all their lives, so they always went to another ward. This whole bunch of boys were renting from him (and some of them were in my classes at college). Well, I knew them, and they all came down to the dance. He saw me and danced with me and took me home, and about a week later he asked me if I'd marry him.

A week later! Wow!

It was about nine months before we got married.

I see.

It was kind of love at first sight I guess.

Well, very good. Did you hunt arrowheads with him right after you were married, collecting with him and hunting with him and going out looking for them?

Yes. Well, of course, the main place he liked to look was out in Arbon Valley. It was the north end of the valley--Pierce's Canyon, or somebody's canyon--that's where he found a lot of the things.

I see.

So in the summer we'd go out on the farm. See, he went to school and he worked in the summer, then went to school in the winter for five years. He had to stay out a quarter because he couldn't afford the eighteen dollars tuition.

So then he started collecting the arrowheads. When did he get interested in pots? After you moved here to New Mexico?

Yes. When his father was plowing, he plowed up a little deerskin bag full of arrowheads. Maybe some of these. Most of these here on the wall are the things that he started collecting as a child. The Palio points he traded or bought. I don't know if he ever actually found any of those. That came later. He was not in any position to look for the Palio points at that young age.

She said he started about the age of three.

He was born in 1918. See, he went to college for five years, and then he went into the army for three, and then he came back and went back to get his Master's degree and got a job with the Bureau of Reclamation in Colorado, and we were up in Latora, Colorado on the dam in the summer, and then in the winter we were down in Monta Vista. Well, Monta the first winter and Alamosa the second winter. The second winter we got involved with an arrowhead hunting club. A whole bunch of us would go out. It was a lot of fun.

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Now, did you find more arrowheads in Colorado than you did in Idaho, do you think?

A lot of them up in the San Luis Valley. They have sand dunes there and the sand dunes shift when it blows.

And they open them up.

By then the children were, well Earl Jr. was a baby, and Tonya was 7, and Sheila was 11. That's when we used to go out a lot camping and looking for them. I have a slide of all of us. It's a really pretty slide at the sand dunes. At that point he ordered the plaques. They're covered with plastic with the foam inside, and he got started on those, so then he got those mounted when we were in Raton, which was about 1953. In 1953-54 he started on the plaques for his, and then he changed to these containers I have on the wall now, just a few years ago. The plaques just got saggy, heavier. At that point he had, he figures, 2,000 here on the wall. I think the only one he bought is this one right here. The black one. He bought the eagle up at the top, too, because that isn't anything -you'd ever find, but this one he bought the summer before Sheila was born and he paid $15 for it and that was an enormous amount of money. Fifty dollars is what it cost to have a baby.

I see.

I was pretty mad at him. It comes from New York State. He'd kind of like to think it was from the Hill Cumorah, but you know, you don't know that, but it was from New York State. Then the big long one on the top row way to the side.

That's the one you told me he dug out of somewhere.

He traveled around the state a lot and whenever he had a rest stop he would just walk around, and he found arrowheads that way too. He was in this field and cows walking around near this arrowhead with about three inches sticking out of the ground. Oh, my word! How he took it out and how it didn't get broken I don't know. But he figured it was a ceremonial point, anything that long.

Now when was Sheila born?

Sheila was born in '38. Her birthday is tomorrow as a matter of fact.

Ok, so most of the arrowheads, then, he basically found over the years as you went out together or individually. Did he go out a lot alone?

Yea. Alone and with me and the kids.

What were your feelings in respect to that?

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Well, some people play golf and some tennis and some....Earl fished and hunted and I went hunting with him once and we went fishing a few times, but this was his love. It was our family thing. All the kids are interested in it.

My wife, when I go out alone, she gets, not real nervous, but I go out in the middle of the desert and I'm sure that he ended up 15 miles or 10 miles out in the middle of nowhere. That didn't internally bother you as far as thinking he's going to be

You see, we didn't have a car until he got a job. We were married twelve years....

Before you had a car?

His brother went on a mission and gave us his old junk which he drove out to Colorado on his first job. Earl Jr. was born in August and he went out the first of September. He went to summer school. He went out to Monta Vista to this Bureau of Reclamation job, and then the kids and I came out on the bus. Of course we all couldn't even get in it, it was a two-seater you know. See, he had no way of going out hunting arrowheads, or he would have, probably. And he also didn't have much time because he had to work and go to school and everything.

Right. Now your daughter-in-law or your granddaughter they're more than welcome to sit and listen to this good history if they'd like to or whatever.

Where was that found?

It was down in, probably around the Heel River or down in the Southwest corner of the state.

Of Colorado?

Down around Deming, or no, in New Mexico. That was one of the later things he found. Some of these he's had for fifty years.

How long ago did he find that?

You know, time goes so fast. I think probably, oh, twelve or fifteen years ago. They got harder and harder to find, and harder to find land you could go on.

Exactly.

And he never did put them in a fair or anything because he didn't want somebody, you know, the government coming and saying it was on their land or something. But most of it is on private land where he had permission.

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I know just what you're talking about. I have the same problem in Idaho. Luckily up there the farmers are extremely generous and the place that right now I'm getting my arrowheads from I'm screening them on private land, which you can do in Idaho. I went to the farmer's house and took a big tray of arrowheads and offered him any of them that he wanted because they were off his land. He says, "No, you worked too hard for them." So he didn't even take any. The farmers are very generous. It's very good that way.

Well, they didn't value them. When he was in school, and it was probably, I think, probably we just had one child, he found a cave near Preston, Idaho, like south of Preston and he went up there and dug. He wanted the college to lease it or make some kind of an arrangement to legally get the things out, but they weren't interested. That was Utah State. So somebody else did, and they missed it. He had permission to go occasionally, but they wanted a lease or something, and he couldn't afford to do it himself.

Most of the stuff he's found has been on the surface, though, hasn't it?

Those were dug out, and what those things were, I don't think as much arrowheads as bone needles, which I used in my sewing kit, and they're lost.

Oh, is that right?

Yea. There may be some.

There's a few bone ones here, but not many.

I know one for sure, because I used it making crocheted baby nightgowns. I used it to poke holes for the crocheting.

He thought that was kind of neat, you know.

Did he? He found most of his arrowheads on the surface, though, didn't he? He didn't do a lot of screening.

No. That's the only time I remember screening, the only time I was with him that he screened.

Did he get quite a bit from screening?

Well, It was just a matter of a few weekends because that was a time when he just didn't have much time.

When Sheila or Earl Jr. or one of those...

Tonya.

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If they found arrowheads, were the arrowheads theirs or did they sort of go to the family collection?

They went to the family. They were yours and mine.

Did you often go as a family and go out looking and so on?

A couple of times a month. You remember and there may not be as many events as you remember because they are important to you.

That was up in Colorado? What year did you folks move down here?

We moved to Albuquerque in about 1952, when we were up in Raton until....that's where we did a lot--Albuquerque. In the city we didn't even have time to look, didn't know where to look.

Where's Raton?

Raton is, you know, Raton Pass goes into Colorado. It's right on the border of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

There's a lot of reservation land up in that area. Is this up in that general area?

I don't remember if there was a reservation. There were just places where the wind would blow them out because that would be...see that's on the plains. Once you go to Las Vegas and north, you're on the eastern side of the Rockies. You're over to the Plains Indians, so you're not on a reservation but you're not in the Pueblos or that kind. We were up there from about 1951 or something and then we were there until Sheila was a junior in high school, and she graduated in 1956. That was a good time of our lives. The small town, very caring town, very civic-minded. You moved to town, they put your picture in the paper and they have a big write-up, and everybody is just so nice. Very, very friendly place. We had a little more time there. Earl was the Branch President of a Spanish-American Branch and we were the only Anglos. Everything was in two languages because half spoke English and half spoke only Spanish so we had one prayer in Spanish, and one in English; one hymn in Spanish, and one in English; and then the talks were translated.

Did either you or he speak Spanish?

Well, that's a good question. I can read it a little. Living here in Santa Fe you have to know some Spanish words because all the streets, and you know. A lot of the words are Anglicized. We call it Spanglish. Even Santa Fe is different than the rest of the world.

When did you move into Santa Fe?

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Well, we went back to Albuquerque for about a year-and-a-half, and then Earl quit the Bureau of Reclamation and we moved up here the summer of 1956. Sheila graduated from high school. She stayed down there for a month or so working and then she went to BYU the next fall.

When did you folks actually start the pot collection? You were working on the arrowheads. You don't very often find pots with the arrowheads, do you?

No.

I didn't think so. I haven't found a pot yet. I was out last week and I had a chard that was oh, about that size. It's the largest one I've found. And that one day I came out with thirty chards out of one little place I was screening, but I've never come out with anything anywhere near a bowl.

Out in the thing out there, there's hundreds of pieces of chards, but I couldn't tell you where they're found because they're on the ground, but then they may be old, they may be modern, but you're not to pick them up. Tonya's always been the one that's most interested in the pots. And she does pottery.

You don't have sort of a year type of thing of when you started the pot collection?

Not really. I can't remember which came first because I could have a little cheap pot as a souvenir someplace. I don't really remember. After the good ones were gone I put the little ordinary ones out to take their place. The first one I really remember is the one we bought as the burning of the mortgage one, which is this one. That was down at Golden at that little, it's a trading post/grocery store.

Tell us if you will the story of this polychrome pot here, number 27.

That and that black and white one were together.

Okay, 27 and 28 that we're talking about.

He worked for the State Engineer's office and they worked with water, so he traveled all over the state about one week out of every month.

Now this is here in New Mexico?

Mm hm. So this is down probably around Deming or down in there. The Highway Department was putting in a new road and they'd gone through a cemetery and these pots were in the river, in the creek down below. He was just walking around. He always walked with his

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head down looking so he never missed anything.

I know exactly what you're saying. If my head went up like this I'm afraid it would break. In fact, I can't even go out anywhere without, now, always having to look. Even in a city sometimes and stuff. This is ridiculous. It gets to where it's terrible. But he found those two. Do you have any idea what year that was?

We've been here 33 years. I think it was less than 20 years ago. And we burned this mortgage thing after we build this room, and the room was just finished for their wedding reception. So, within the last 20 years. When Earl had an interest in something he went whole-heartedly at it, and he went until he was completed. The arrowheads were an ongoing thing, but it was winding down, you see, and then he didn't look for arrowheads he looked for pots. He did that with many things. He was kind of a man of all seasons because he really was very knowledgeable about many things. And the pots were probably 21--about 20 years. The pots were just on the side of the river.

They'd been washed out apparently.

How they didn't break I don't know. Maybe others had broken. He always said, "They come to me," and that's why he felt it would be sacrilegious, he would never think of selling them. That's why he wanted them where other people could enjoy them because he felt that they came to him so that he could share them.

The appraiser said that one that he found there, number 27, is really a valuable pot. He says it's probably the best of the collection. Did Earl buy most of his pots or did he find a lot of them?

We bought this one. He found this one and this one, and that big Zia, the black and white. Number 33 is the one that we bought.

The Casas Grandes and the Effigies and those, did he go down to Deming and get those out of Deming basically?

Yes. Now let me tell you what I remember. They all came together. Now these are a little different and they may have come later. Now we bought this one down at Golden. When we go to Albuquerque sometimes we just go back by way of Golden. Things were very reasonable. We bought all our Navajo rugs and everything down there. Everything was half what it was in town or less and the lady down there is really mad that I'm giving these away. She says, "You're crazy! That could be a fortune for your children." And I said, "They don't belong to my children, they belong to my husband, and this is what he wanted." She really was quite indignant about it. Well I guess she wanted them back herself, kicking herself for not holding on to them longer. There's a Zia pot that he bought there too. A big black and white one. I hope

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I tell all this right. If Earl were here, he'd probably be correcting me on some of these things, because, you know, two people remember things differently. He had a better memory than I do, but I'm trying to tell the truth.

Which is the pot you had the picture with? Was it 38?

I called her up. It was 37. We got there and went through all of them and marked them off and there was no 37. I just panicked.

Well, I guess I ought to let you take I bought that myself, or Earl bought and it was not a Casas Grandes. Joe comes from the Dakotas. You look at It does look like Effigies, but it's

the 37, but the thing is that it for me, but it was my pot was wrong on that because it it, it's entirely different. not a Casas Grandes.

That just about panicked me, and I told her, "I don't know how it ever happened, but number 37 is gone. She said, "Oh, I have 37."

I'd taken pictures of them on the shelves and he numbered them just like this. It- wasn't hard for me to find out where it went. Someday you'll get it.

So you don't know the year that you actually started collecting these pots. How about the Casas Grandes pots? Do you have any idea about when you purchased most of those?

That's probably 15 years ago.

Were they down in Deming or where did you get them from?

It's a good story, but I have to get this cleared in my mind.

Well, there's some black and white ones there but they were Acoma.

See that was a little one. This is one of the big ones, and it sat next to this. See, this was on the end and then it was the next one. Now I could go get my photographs.

Number 32 you bought at Golden.

Shortly after we bought 33. I think Earl started buying the Navajo rugs a little sooner, and that's why he went into the place at Golden to look at rugs and saw the pots and got interested in the pots.

You bought these two pots, 32 and 33, before you got the Casas Grandes.

The Casas Grandes were probably five years later than that. Probably 15 years ago. Earl knew every second hand store and antique shop in the state. Also, all the good places for

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enchiladas. There's this little place in Las Cruces. He went in this little place and some new people had bought the store, and he found this cardboard box with all these little pots wrapped in newspaper. He started looking through them and he said, "What do you want for these?" and they said, "Oh, you can have them for $15 a piece." So he bought them all.

How many were there? All the Casas Grandes, basically?

Not really. All the little Effigies. The little Effigies ones.

On these Casas Grandes that are just bowls that look really old like they've been used, like numbers 38, 39, 40.

I think he probably bought those from this man over at Ocate, north of Las Vegas. A man there who collects everything. He's an Indian trader. He buys half-million dollar estates and skims off the top for himself and then sells the rest. His is in a safe bigger than this room in a cave. He built a house in front of a cave. It will all go to the Smithsonian. He's the one that found, it was a woman, but it was the old skeleton that was so many years old. Not Lucy, but another one. He was the one that found the Folsom man and woman. The skeleton already has gone to the Smithsonian. He bought most of those little things. A lot of it he traded.

Did Earl collect right up to the time of his death, or was there a period of time he didn't?

Did he ever consider his collection complete at any time?

Oh, I don't think anybody ever does. Probably as far as these, as far as the arrowheads, as far as when you say modern, as far as that. He had completed that, but he had gone into the Palio. He was pretty satisfied with what he had because he figured everything he had was top quality. We were in a museum in London, the Natural Museum. They don't have what he has. They had some very fine things that he didn't have, but their collection as a whole, I don't think, could compare to his. He wouldn't say that, but I think so.

Do you know which of these points was his very first find?

No, I don't think so. He redid them. He took a picture of them and wrote each plaque, but then he redid them and consolidated them a little better and made them look a little better and more safe. He didn't ever go over and redo them, so it's a little hard. Somebody will have a little fun with that.

Do you folks have any of his writings?

I've got four you could take.

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My first one I found, I've never found one quite as nice as that one ever since that time. It was just a perfect white one, just gorgeously done.

You were old enough to hold on to it.

Yea, you'd better believe it. What happened was, I was hometeaching an inactive family and we were trying to get some things to do with them to try to be friends and do things and he had collected a few arrowheads out by his house and so we got together and said, "Let's take both families and we'll go out looking for arrowheads," and he'd been doing that for about 7 years. So we took both families out and we started scurrying around this one desert place and right on the surface was this beautiful white one. He says he's been looking at that place for seven years and he hasn't found anything anywhere near as nice as that one. So I just happened to luck out. That just really got me started.

I've only found two. "I can't find them," I said. He said, "Just look." I looked right where he pointed and there was one. I don't think he planned it. I don't know where it is. I guess it got lost in the dusting. We were out there by the, it was where the first capital of New Mexico was. You go to Santa Clara Pueblo and cross the river and then there's a monument up there. We were up there having a picnic and I found an arrowhead. A little broken piece, it almost looked like glass.

Out of obsidian?

Yea.

Sister Sorensen, what do you envision us doing with the collection as far as educating students and so on? What are your wishes that way and Earl's wishes that way?

I really don't know what to say about that. I think some people would just see the beauty and with what information we have, anyone who is really interested could read it.

What we plan on doing eventually is taking all of Earl's writings that he has, anything concerned with the collection and what-not, and basically try to organize and work with that so that we can have it in an organized manner and then obviously we'll give the family a copy of all that and then have that available to students that are interested in the collection and what's going on with it.

You would know far better what to do than I would. He must have trusted you because his mind was at ease after he knew what he was doing. It took ten years. It really worried him. He always felt like it should be buried, which they do. The dig up these digs and find what was there and they bury it, because that will protect it.

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He was about ready to do that because he did not want it to go in a museum in a box in the basement, which in the Smithsonian probably many things are. Utah State, he gave them so many things and they disappeared, somebody took them or whatever and he was very disgusted with most the schools and museums.

I myself have had trouble in Idaho with respect to that kind of thing. Idaho has excavated some very, very nice places and has millions of artifacts, and there's none on display anywhere in the state. I get after them. I go down and talk to them about that and they realize it's a real problem, but they don't have the funds. It takes a big amount of funds to do a good job of doing that, but it really bothers me. On my meager collection, for example, I go to grammar schools or junior high schools or scouting people and I try to educate and share and do that. I'm going to have a small little place in my home where eventually I'll build a room and people can come and look and share in that. There's something you can't get from just a university environment and teacher environment and that's being out in the field. When you can say to yourself, "Hey, I was out one day and I was screening in this place and this is what came out of the screen." That has a lot more meaning. I know it had a little more meaning to Earl, like it does to me. That puts me on a high that you can't believe to screen out these arrowheads and see how nice they are. To know, for example, that you're the next person to touch that after the person that actually made it, and that might have been 1,000, 2,000, or any number of years ago. Sometimes when I do that, I get so excited that although they're really dirty, I'll just put them in my mouth and clean them off. Then I'll look at it, and I'll think about the Indian that was there and what was going on and so on. It's incredible and very enjoyable! Some of them are so nicely done; others are pretty crude but real nice, one's you can really appreciate the art work that went on.

The other things we saw in the other rooms like the axes and the shaft straighteners and these others like that, did you find those in the same time frame you found all the arrowheads?

Yes.

And how about the Meso-American things that we're going to take back?

He bought those in mostly Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico. You can't bring them out of Mexico. He bought them in Guatemala and had to show them when he went through Mexico that he had them when he went in, so he could take them out.

Those were all artifacts from that area?

Yes, they're hand made things.

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Do you have any time frame on how old those were?

No, I do have more things that are old. I have a necklace made from beads that were found in the field and Earl knows they were old. He was in the store when farmers would come in and sell them and Earl bought them.

Now, those were stone beads?

Well, they're carved jade. I just haven't done anything about the Meso-American things. Now when Joe came, some of the things that Earl thought were ancient, aren't. That little tiger (panther) with the eyes, he said it's beautiful but it's not ancient. The little faces of the green, I have two necklaces of a man's face and a woman's face and they're not old. But you can kind of tell, they look older than they are.

Where did Earl get most of the Palio points? You have 110 that are there.

I think he got most of them from a man he called Pat.

Which is here in New Mexico?

Yea, he's from Ocate.

Up above Las Vegas?

Yea.

He buys all Indian things and trades them back and forth.

Earl felt that the things came to him so that they could be shared and kept as a collection. He didn't want the collection broken up. Sheila has his personal writings and at his funeral that's what she talked about. She just read his letters that he had written and most of them are very personal, but some of them might be applicable to this. At least to his philosophy people.

I talked to Sheila earlier and asked her if I could sit down with her and that's what we'll do. We'll sit down with her and talk and do the same thing that we've done with you and see what we can come up with.

Anything else you can think of?

All three of the children are not terribly interested in worldly things and, they all agree that this is where the collection should go and how it should be handled.

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Review and Reflections on the Collections of Earl F. Sorensen

1918-1991

As written by him, November 3, 1979

[The following note to his children prefaced the reflections of Earl F. Sorensen as he described his Indian artifact collection and his feelings about their origin: Last night I accompanied your mother to an art show and reception by her class. I enjoyed it, there were a number of nice things, and your mother's paintings were among the best. In the rooms where the show was held, there are some exhibits of Casas Grande pots, contemporary pots, arrowheads, etc., and it reminded me I should send you slides of things in our collection at home. Duane and Tina Olsen were there, and as we looked at the old pots, etc., it was rather apparent that our collections, in most cases, surpassed what we were seeing.]

It is an amazing house that Sally and I live in. There is no room where objects of great beauty are not present and will stop you for a moment or two to reflect. If you get mad, you can go ponder a few minutes on the faces of some of the Casas Grande effigies and you understand the people who made the pots knew anger, pathos, joy, and they knew about some other things not so well understood -- at least not by me. Anyhow, the grin on the fish effigy's face tells you that you are a little silly and you better cool off.

Old Peter [a three foot ancient wooden statue] greets me when I come home at night, and he will always call to my attention this great land (New Mexico) and its people (the Spanish) who live in it. There will go fleeting through my mind some thoughts about the Conquistadors, the Pueblo rebellion of 1698, Pentatenties parading to the Seven Stations of the Cross and the beautiful Sangua de Christo's east of Questa where Peter stayed for who knows how many years.

Sally and I will eat our supper near the fireplace at a little table we got in Mexico.

Near us is a small stone effigy of the "Great Feathered Serpent" who will remind us of the symbol of Christ in America. On the bench is a small chacmool who recalls the much larger ones we have seen at Chichen Itza and Uxmal. There are other small objects such as the small idol we acquired at Copan and the old bottles dug up at Kelly by our friend, Bill, that will recall times past and places visited; and there in the window is the old salt container that set on our table on the ranch in Idaho when I was very small. It is so old that it has turned purple in the sun.

Then, there are the arrowheads. I look at the small white point I found under a rock when I was about four years old. It is the first one I ever found. There are hundreds of the others found in all the states I have lived in, including the large purple point found by Grandmother Copen down near their barn in Mendon. I remember the New Mexico points in one small plaque that I found one day in a blowing area in the sand dunes along the Canadian River. The wind was blowing like the dickens that day and literally blowing small arrowheads out of the ground. I could see them dancing along in the sand like small minnows shimmering on their tails on the water and I picked up some of them as they danced along in this way.

Earl, Jr., and I used to go on the Crow Creek Ranch to hunt arrowheads. He was first a little boy and was a lot more interested in velvet ants and other bugs than he was in looking for arrowheads. I remember one cold December day when we were out at the ranch and there was a large red velvet ant scooting around. We watched the ant for a little while and then we saw

that little black point in this plaque lying on the ground just a few feet away.

The first large point I ever found is the one you see in the first plaque on the left side of row 2 (slide 6). I found this one in Matthew Bird's field which is 2-1/2 miles south of our ranch in Idaho. Mat used to plow arrowheads out of the ground as he farmed, and every time he plowed I went out in his field to see what I could find. I was a boy then (10-12 years), and I would get on old Ginger and ride down to Mat's place. The best time to look for arrowheads was late afternoon/early evening when rays from the sun would reflect from arrowheads or flint chips. I found a number of good points out in that field, but this one was the biggest and the best.

The little matate' near the big matate' was the first good matate' I ever found (slide 3). I'd found broken ones and several manos scattered around, but not a real good matate'. Back in those days, I thought New Mexico was part of Mexico, and the Spanish language was what they spoke in Spain. So we called these things corn grinders and rubbing stones. There was an old camp site down near the river near Holbrook and I had gone there a few times with some of my friends. This time I talked Dad into letting me take the old truck for the weekend and I camped near that old campsite. (I started driving a truck when I was eight and by then I was 12 years old.) It was in the fall of the year in the full harvest moon of September. The nights were cool, but the days were wonderful. School had started and the harvest (wheat) was over that Saturday morning when I put some quilts in the truck, a little food, and got Old Jack (our dog) in the cab with me. It took about 30 minutes to drive the 16 miles or so and by 9 a.m. I was out looking for arrowheads. I found a number that day and when evening came, I was a happy little boy. I made a small camp fire and cooked some bacon and eggs and sat watching the setting sun. Across the

arroya, as the sun disappeared, the moon rose in the east. Now you've got to see the fall full-moon rise in Idaho to really believe it. The moon looks as big as a wash tub and is a beautiful yellowish-orange. Just as the moon rose over the horizon, a coyote moved into it's dead center. He raised his head, and for a few minutes I could hear (maybe his mate) an answering call; and as I went to bed that night I lived with some of the old people who had been there and I hunted the buffalo with them. The next day, I found the matate'.

Not on display, but carefully put away is one of the finest points ever found in New Mexico. It is a large ceremonial point that resembles a spearhead and is over 11 inches long. Several years ago, I was checking irrigated land near Wagonmound. There are some fields south of the village that I was walking through and one of them was a large cow pasture. I have the habit of looking at the ground every few seconds, and as I walked along I saw this three inch point slanting upwards in a hummock of grass. I went over to pick it up, and, by golly, I couldn't. So I began to dig the grass and the dirt away, and when I finally retrieved it, I had this long, lovely point in my hand.

Among the loveliest points in our collection are those made by the Paleo Indians. These people are associated with extinct animals such as the camel, sloth. etc., and lived some 6,000 years before present to over 14,000 years ago. A black cowboy, one George McJunky, who worked on a ranch near Folsum, New Mexico, found the first authenticated paleo-points. Associated with bones later identified as Bison Antiques and dated some 2000 years B.P. were these very unusual points now known as "Folsum." One of the was lodged in a bone so there could be no question as to its age. This was in 1927.

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I read about the Folsum discovery when I was in high school. I never found any in Idaho, but I did find some others which I now know are Paleo. They somewhat resemble Pinto Basin points. In New Mexico, I found a few broken Paleo points, but it was many years before I obtained a perfect Folsum point. We now have about one-half dozen good ones and others that are classified as Eden, Clovis, Anzostura, and Milnisand. Most are from the eastern part of the State.

I traded one of the Folsums for a large Plains Indian lance point. This point was found on Paul Baca's grandfather's ranch at iendre. LaLiendre is located about 10 miles downstream from Las Vegas, New Mexico, in a deep, narrow canyon along the Gallinas River. Paul's great-grandfather settled there in the 1860's, and the people of the village built large stone walls around it to protect themselves from the marauding Indians. Paul's great-grandfather and others in-the village used to observe the Comanches up on the rimrock riding their horses, war whooping, and raising their spears. The point we have was found by Paul's uncle, upon the rimrock, is about 20 inches long, and was made from the rim of a wagon wheel. Paul has another found by a sheepherder, and these two are among many 6 tO 12 of these type of points found to date.

I guess I read every book in the town library and i the high school library that had anything to do with archeology and anthropology. One of my favorites was the account of Thompson's excavation of the Sacred Well at Chichen Itza. The book was illustrated with pictures showing artifacts, buildings, and an artist's conception of throwing young maidens into the well. It also talked about jaguars, parrots, and monkeys swinging through the trees. I was fascinated by the monkeys who threw nuts at the people as they worked. My interest in these Indians was a result partly because of my life-long interest in the Book of

Mormon. And though I knew the Nephites had gone, I knew the Lamanites lived on, and their descendants were the Indian people. Since I found my first arrowhead, I had become acutely aware of the Indians, and simply because the arrowheads were old, I figured some of them had to have been made by the Nephites. If these Nephites had ever wandered through Utah and Idaho and had hunted and eaten wild animals, I knew darn well somewhere they had lost some arrowheads.

Anyhow, I became interested in the Mayan people and as time went by I read every thing I could about them. The time came when Sally and I went to Chichen Itza. She stood on the platform where the maidens were sacrificed and we gazed into those waters some 60 feet below us. We climbed the steps of the great El Castello and went inside to look at the sacred chocmool and El Jaguar. Outside we saw renditions of the sacred serpent and the jaws of one of them held Sally (with a bellyache) as I took her picture. We later saw Chichen in the moonlight, but unfortunately, the people had frightened the monkeys away.

It was not until we visited Titcal that we saw the monkeys. There were several troops of them in the trees as we walked along th trail to the ruins and they threw nuts at us; and finally we could understand the feelings Thompson had described.

Our visits to Mexico and Central America brought alive the great cities and peoples described in the Book of Mormon. Most of the ruins we have visited were built after 400 A.D., but there is conclusive evidence these places were built on top of cities were are much older.

In our collection is a rather unusual bone needle. Sally, myself, and Mike and Shirley Cox visited some ruins on Dimatrio Creek one time (near Quemado) and spent an enjoyable week-end. These ruins are quite

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extensive and there is one large pueblo complex near which we camped. We spent considerable time looking for arrowheads, etc., but they are difficult to find because many people have visited this site.

The ruins are located on the western edge of the Manges Mountains, in a pretty little canyon. There is a very small creek running by them and nearby, there are a couple of springs. The hills are covered with Pinons and west of the Pueblo, near a spring, there are remnants on an old irrigation field. In the evening, we built a campfire and after supper, we talked about the people who lived there so many years ago. The evening was very lovely, and Sally and I walked down the road a ways. We passed by a number of the old ruins and we felt that some of the people -- long since gone --watched us as we walked down the trail.

The next morning, on a ledge above the Pueblo I found this bone needle. It is about 4 inches long and one end of it is shaped into the form of a cross. Mike thinks these Indians may have been influenced by the Spanish Friars who, in the late 1500's passed by this way. However, no one really knows who made the needle or by whom she may have been influenced.

There were in the hills, when I was a kid, several bands of wild horses. Horse traders rounded them up and occasionally they would use Dad's and Uncle Am's corrals to keep them over night. When I was about eight years old, my Dad bought a two-year-old buckskin for me and I promptly named him Ginger.

Ginger and I became very good friends -- in a way I guess, because we both loved the same things. We loved the mountains and we loved to explore. As time went on, we visited all the tops of the mountains and the canyons in between, on both sides of the Valley. We would go to the Wood's Canyon (twenty miles away) where there

were some springs and the next time we would go in the opposite direction (to the north) and climb the top of Old Uncle Tom on the west side of the Valley.

Ginger knew where the wild horses were. Sometimes I knew he wanted to see them so I would just let him go. There was one band, off to the southeast, and another band behind Old Uncle Tom. We would locate one of these bands and from the top of a hill we would watch them gaze in the Valley.

One day in June we located the dens of some coyotes. These dens were in a little Service Berry patch in the mountains south of the ranch. At first the Coyotes were troubled when we came to watch them, but they became sort of used to us and we would stop on the hillside to watch the pups play. The pups rolled and tumbled and tried to pick fights with their mothers, that is until one of them brought home a rabbit or laid down when they nursed. We went back several years, and I never told anyone where these dens were because I knew somebody would trap and shoot the Coyotes.

Ginger was more sensitive than I to the things all around us. He also was sure-footed like a goat. Sometimes he just wanted to run, so I would let him go, and up and down the mountains we would run with his mane flying in the wind. Ginger could jump out of our corral which was over six feet high; and five foot fences and gates were no problem to cross. This was of some advantage because we could always go in a straight line as we rode through the hills.

There was a small white forelock between Ginger's ears and when this raised up I knew he smelled or saw something I had not. Sometimes it was a rabbit or a small rodent in the brush or a badger hole in the middle of the trail. Sometimes it was something else, and I recall the times when I saw this forelock rise, especially the first

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time when we heard the screams of a mountain lion. High on a hill behind Guy Larsen's place there was a cave. One afternoon we rode up to this cave and I poked around in it for a while. There were all sorts of debris, packed in by the rats, and in one of the corners there was a nest of leaves apparently used by some wild animal (no arrowheads). It was getting towards sundown and time to go home. As I mounted old Ginger, I saw his forelock was raised and as we rode down the mountain that's when we heard it. High above the cave -- on a ledge -- there were cries like those of a hysterical woman. Once you have heard these cried, you never forget them.

The little canyon branching off Bull Canyon went up to a beautiful little spring located behind Old Uncle Tom and near some old abandoned log cabins. This was one of our favorite places because here I could find arrowheads, and not too far away was one of those wild horse bands lived. We often went there and it was usually about sundown or late afternoon when we started for home. I'd seen wild sheep in this canyon, wild cats and deer. This evening, a couple of miles down the canyon, the forelock began to rise. Ginger left the trail and went to the other side of the creek. Long ago I had learned not to argue with Ginger when he chose another route. I looked closely along the cliffs which were on the west, and one a ledge some 30 feet up there was a mountain lion. It looked like a statue and nothing moved but its tail as we passed by some 50 feet away.

There was another time when we'd gone to the top of Old Uncle Tom just to look down on the Valley and to visit a couple of little springs near the top of the hill. This time, we chose to go down the east side of the mountain instead of the west side and down the canyon where we saw the mountain lion. That was a beautiful summer evening and the mourning doves were cooing in the

trees. Near the foot of the hill in a small glade there was a patch of quakies and some choke-cherry bushes. The trail lead through this brush and as we entered I saw the patch of hair rise. Ginger really didn't like that place and I wondered why until I saw some old crosses and mounds of earth. Later on I found out that some murderers and outlaws had been buried in this place.

There are mounted with the large scalping knife, four beautiful obsidian arrowheads were found near the little spring behind Old Uncle Tom.

Most people thought I was a little odd because I spent so much time in the hills and looking for arrowheads. Grandmother Copen did not. When I was a little boy, she told me 'you are just like your Great-Great-Grandmother who was a Iroquois Indian.' It -• seems that one of my Great-Great-Grandfathers married this Indian girl, and was subsequently disowned by his family. It was sort of a family scandal and not many people knew about this story. However, the story was close to my heart, and as I have roamed about looking for arrowheads and other things, I have known that the things I find were made by some of my ancestors. I -think about these things as I pick up arrowheads, and as I look at the small objects in our collection. Though they are made of stone and clay, I know they were made by people who lived and died and who had families, aspirations, and who loved beauty, for so many of them express this thought to me.

And now you know about arrowheads.

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Excerpts from the Life and Writings of Earl Franklin Sorensen

As shared at his funeral, January 22, 1991 by his daughter, Sheila Ann Sorensen Olsen

Speaking at my father's funeral is the most difficult speaking assignment I have ever had. However, I would do anything for my mother, and this is something my mother asked me to do. Rather than use my own words to describe my father's life and thoughts, I am going to draw from his own writings.

Immediately following his death, my brother found among my father's personal papers a letter addressed to me, dated December 3, 1989. He had never finished or mailed the letter, written just after he returned from the funeral of his brother, Clifford. In it he said:

"Like Scrooge, I have been thinking of Christmas's past, Christmas present, and Christmas future. The recent death of Clifford, the death of one of my best friends after I returned home from the funeral, and a recent attack of malaria have all reminded me of the passage of time. . . I think it unfortunate that most of us delay writing what we know and what we have experienced. . . Have you written your personal history?"

Along with the letter to me was a handwritten history on the subject "Mothers and Fathers."

"The recent death of my mother has suggested to me that I ought to tell you a little bit about my father and mother and my youth in Idaho. . . .

"In the hills surrounding the ranch, many bands of wild horses roamed. People would come and round up these horses and take them to Malad where they sold them for meat or for some other purposes. They would stop at our ranch to water and rest for a little while. One day, when I was between

about six and eight years old, they stopped and I saw this pretty Palomino. He came to me and muzzled up, and I caused so much fuss that me dad bought him (he paid $4). As I shall tell you, Ginger and I became fast friends, and it was not too long before we knew every spring where we could find arrowheads, where the wild horses were, and the tops of every mountain range with a radius of 50 miles. . . .

"In those days we did not have a car and we were quite poor. (I didn't really know this), but we always had plenty to eat. On major occasions, like my birthday or on Christmas I would receive a nickle or a dime, and I rejoiced when this happened. We could not afford skies, so I made a pair out of barrel staves. I learned how to ski by climbing up to the roof of our barn and sliding down to the snow drifts below. Many nights, when the moon was shining, I would use these skies to go into the fields and hills south of the house. There I would hear the coyotes, and I would try to talk with them."

Eleven years ago, in mid-January, 1980, I received a letter from my dad:

"There is a funny thing -- while I was traveling in the desert country near Las Cruses and Dening last week, I saw a large flock of geese flying south into Mexico. I hadn't seen this for years. I stopped the car and watched them for as long as I could see them. I had forgotten what a beautiful sight this is."

Along with the letter was a memo:

"This story is a little different. It was fun to write. However, there is a moral to it. That was the year I decided I would rather live with my family than without them; and it was a terrible winter for me in Malad."

Attached to the memo was a longer story, written in the form of a letter to my brother, Earl:

"I had the misfortune to graduate from high school just after I turned 16. When we went back to the ranch for the summer, my dad said to me, 'you're too young to send away to college, so you can move back to Malad this fall and spend another year in high school while you get a little older.' This hurt my feelings. I thought about this for about a week, and one afternoon I located my Dad and I said to him, 'If you think I am going to spend the rest of my life on this ranch and especially if you think I am going back to Malad this winter, you are entirely mistaken. I'm going to leave home and find something else to do.'

"He said, 'Is that so -- and where are you going?' And for some reason I still haven't figured out, I replied, 'I'm going to Los Angeles.' The next day I got on a bus. . ."

Then follows several pages accounting the adventures of a 16-year-old Idaho farm boy in Los Angeles. However, he was destined not to stay in the big city.

"In late July, I dreamed one night I saw the wild geese flying south and heard them talking to each other. In a week or so it would be harvest time, and I knew that I ought to go home."

Because, as he writes, he didn't have a great deal of money, he hitch-hiked and then caught a freight train back into Salt Lake. There is a note of poignancy in his conclusion:

"I got back to the ranch in time to take my place on the combine; and when the harvest was over, I watched the wild geese flying south. Shortly after that we went back to Malad."

Among my Father's unfinished writings were some reflections on war. Although, with three dependents, he could have easily sought deferment, my father enlisted in World War II, serving for two years in the Pacific theater. It was there he contacted the malaria that would flair up from time to time throughout his life. Nevertheless, he was deeply patriotic, and after his discharge from the war, he served in the National Guard and then the Army Reserve for the remainder of his life. I found insight into his reasons for volunteering to serve in the military in a letter written, but never finished, dated January 21, 1980:

"I had taken, in college, a number of history courses about. Hitler's overall objectives in Europe, and I knew full-well what freedom was all about in this country. I appreciated the fact that we were a blessed nation, protected by our Bill of Rights and our Constitution. I then believed, and I still do, that this country was established by principles revealed to our Founding Forefathers who devised the Bill of Rights and Constitution, and who fought in the Revolutionary War to gain freedom. The war with Hitler (Europe) and in the Pacific (Japan) in my opinion represented a distinct threat to the things that I believed in."

On January 18, 1945, the Herald Journal printed a story under the headline, "Soldier Describes Burial of Buddy in War Zone:"

"The following account of the burying of a fellow soldier was written by Cpl. Earl F. Sorensen, former Logan man, who is serving with the armed forces on New Guinea. It was sent to his wife, who resides at 3088 East Center, Logan.

New Guinea November 13, 1944

My Dear:

We buried our fellow soldier this morning in a U.S.A.F. (United States Armed Forces) cemetery in New Guinea....

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a.m., and gets home between 4 and 5 p.m. She is as old as I am, but has the mind of a girl much younger, and I love her."

Every man saluted the flag and the boy who died for it as he was carried gently to the front and center of the company.

The chaplain stood bare-headed and bowed as he read the service, then he glanced up at us. In very simple words he spoke of the mystery of death, the beauty of life and the truth of religion. He gave just honor to the dead, one more boy who shall lie in foreign soil as a tribute to freedom.

The command to fire was given in a soft yet clear voice, and six rifles pointed to the west. Three times they sounded, and echoes faded away into the unknown land that no man has fathomed for sure.

Last of all, the bugles played, a melody that sends men asleep and says goodbye to all good soldiers.

I'm certain no man will forget for the rest of his life how simple, how beautiful a tribute that was made to one who had to leave us. All of us stood equal in the presence of it, and felt probably more than ever before what an honor it is to be an America soldier

I am again reminded of the words spoken by the chaplain on the boat: It is by the grace of God that you are alive and well today, and by that same grace you look forward to the Future.'

As I stood there these words went through my mind, and I felt very humble that I have been so fortunate in life thus far. Dorothy, may that same grace unite you and I again some day.

Yours, Earl

My father generally called my mother by the nickname 'Sally.' The love and devotion to his Sally permeated his life and his writings. In a letter he wrote to me in November, 1980, he said:

"It's a beautiful day here in Santa Fe. The sun is shining and your mother is by now in class. She will get her degree in the spring of 1982, and she is a remarkable woman. She studies until midnight, gets up at 6:45

With this letter he enclosed a history addressed to Tanya, Earl Jr., and myself, entitled "Your Mother. " It traced their life together, beginning with their courtship at the ages of 17 and 18, their marriage at the ages of 18 and 19, and continuing through the experiences of our family life. On the last page he writes:

"I am sure all of you remember our family life from that time on and you will remember the important part that your mother played in it. She was always our focal point, the first to urge us to do what was right. The most important thing in her life was her family. . . .

"After Raton, it was back to Albuquerque, then to Santa Fe. Shortly after that, Sheila moved away. By that time, she had grown up, and then she married. Tanya was next, and then, finally, Earl, Jr. At that point in time, Sally and I found ourselves back where we started, alone and together again; and we wondered where all the time had gone. When that time in your life comes, you become very aware how very little time there is to have one of life's great privileges, that of living with and raising a family. I would at this time, like to tell each of you that I treasure that experience. I enjoyed very much the privilege of being your father.

"Well, I guess there is not too much more to add at this time except to say my Sally still amazes me. She has been and is a joy to live with, and I am constantly amazed at her various and sundry abilities. She is continuing where she left off in 1936, back in school, and I love her."

My father wrote 15 pages describing his arrowhead and Indian artifact collection, beginning with the small white point he

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found under a rock when he was four years Jacob Sorensen which he wrote in 1990, he said: old. Here is the concluding paragraph:

"Most people thought I was a little odd because I spent so much time in the hills and looking for arrowheads. Grandmother Copen did not. When I was a little boy, she told me 'you are just like your Great-Great-Grandmother who was a Iroquois Indian.' It seems that one of my Great-Great-Grandfathers married this Indian girl, and was subsequently disowned by his family. It was sort of a family scandal and not many people knew about this story. However, the story was close to my heart, and as I have roamed about looking for arrowheads and other things, I have known that the things I find were made by some of my ancestors. I think about these things as I pick up arrowheads, and as I look at the small objects in our collection. Though they are made of stone and clay, I know they were made by people who lived and died and who had families, aspirations, and who loved beauty, for so many of them express this thought to me."

As with all of us, my father's life was not without challenge. In one letter he wrote:

"I think we all know now that we all face problems and temptations, each in his or her own way. One thing I have found out is that these things do not become simplified with increasing years. So I suggest you anticipate these things for the rest of your life. However, the beautiful world that we live in, the people we know, and the family that we have do much to offset them."

My father's life was filled with projects, hobbies, and interests. In the last year of his life, perhaps occasioned by the death of his mother and brothers, his thoughts and interests seemed to turn increasingly to his family and to his ancestors. He wrote of his desire to collect the histories and family group sheets of all of the descendants of his parents. In the history of his Grandfather

"My Grandfather Jacob was one of my very best friends. I look forward to the day when I shall again hear his stories and meet [Jacob's father] Nicholia, along with Melina who is one of my beloved Grandmothers."

I will conclude with the first and last paragraphs of the letter written by my father January 25, 1980, addressed to "All of my Grandchildren. Subject: The Last Days."

"There runs through my mind a number of things as I ponder the times in which we live. I recall my childhood, youth, early maturity, and finally, right now. Perhaps some of the things I have seen, done, and thought about will be of value as we all continue in these somewhat perilous times.

"I know that there are those who have gone before us who watch us, are concerned about us, and if we will allow them, they can protect and influence us. My father did a great deal for me by giving me money to go to school, and assisting me and my family in other ways. When I made a little money, I tried to return some of this. He refused to take it, and said to me, 'You can repay me best by helping your children when and as they need it. He also told me that I should pass on to those who would come after he had gone, the knowledge that he would continue to love each of his family, and would look forward to renewing acquaintances as we joined him in the place he now lives.

"I would join my Father in expressing my love and my concern for each of you. Throughout the remainder of my life, and in the world to come, there will never be a time when I shall cease to be interested in what you do.

"And last of all, to each of you I bear this solemn testimony: I know that God, our

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Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, lives. I know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and he restored to this earth the Church of Jesus Christ. I further know that a Prophet of God still heads this Church and if we desire happiness, peace at heart, and the protection of our Father in Heaven, we should listen to and try to pattern our ways to conform to those things he is telling us about in these, the latter days."

I add my own testimony, in the name of Him

• whose resurrection makes certain that the body we have seen today will rise and live again,

• whose atonement makes possible repentance and forgiveness of sin,

• and whose example of love and service has been manifest in your own lives through your acts of service in recent days,

Even Jesus Christ, Amen.

DEAT4SIE

EARL F. SORENSEN

Earl Franklin Sorensen, 72, of Santa Fe died January 15, 1991, at St. Vincent Hospital of a heart attack, following kidney failure.

He was born April 7, 1918, at Mendon, Utah, to Franklin Earl and Dollie Copen Sorensen. He married Dorothy Miles Sorensen, August 9, 1937, at Malad, Idaho. They were sealed in the Logan Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, January 4, 1939.

He was a engineer for the State of New Mexico from 1955 until his retirement in 1982, at which time he had attained the highest classification available in State government. He was the state coordinator of the federal-state cooperative water-use program; and developed a comprehensive water resources plan for the State of New Mexico. He was a recognized expert in water use planning, serving as an expert witness for the state in legal cases concerning water disputes. He published 30 technical publications on the historical and present uses of water, including planning and management. He worked as an Engineer for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation from 1949-54. He received a master of science degree in civil engineering in 1949 and a bachelor of science degree in geology in 1942, both from Utah State University. He is listed in Who's Who in Technology Today (1980) and Who's Who in the West (1980-81). He was a registered professional engineer and land surveyor; a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers; and a member of Sigma Tau Engineer Fraternity, an honorary scholastic organization.

He enlisted during WW II and served with engineer troops in the Pacific Theater (1943-1945). Following his discharge, he was a member of the active reserve forces. His assignments included battery commander in Raton (1952-1954); engineer officer in Santa Fe (1956-59); commanding officer in Las Vegas (1961-1962). He retired at age 62 with the rank of lieutenant colonel.

He was a high priest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His church leadership callings included branch president in Raton for two years and Las Vegas for four years. He was on the Albuquerque Stake High Council for three years, and a member of a bishopric. He was director of the Santa Fe Family History Library for the past four years.

For the better part of his life, he actively search for Indian artifacts acquiring an impressive collection which included Indian arrowheads, pre-columbian pottery, and paleo projectile points. He belonged to the New Mexico Facetors' Guild and became an expert in jewelry making. He has traveled extensively in Mexico, Central America, and Europe.

He was preceded in death by his two brothers. He is survived by his wife of Santa Fe; children, Sheila Ann Olsen of Idaho Falls, Idaho, Tanya Le White of Pendleton, South Carolina, Earl Franklin Sorensen Jr. and wife, Mary Jane, of Hartland, Maine; sister, Mrs. Sterling (Beth) Miller of Salt Lake City, Utah; brother, Grant Lyman Sorensen of Torrence, California; 17 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 7-9 p.m. Monday in McGee Memorial Funeral Home and again one hour before services at the church Tuesday. Funeral services will be at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Santa Fe Stake House, 410 Rodeo Road, with Bishop Ron G. Ulbrich conducting. Burial follow in the Santa Fe National Cemetery.