Natani Yazi - Little Captain

"Natani Yazi" LITTLE CAΡΤΑΙΝ

A portrait of Dr. Byron Cummings, one of the great scholars of the Southwest, who has made archaeology real and vital, and whose studies have lifted aside curtains of darkness that have hung over the prehistoric past.

The Navajos call him "Natani Yazi," the little captain. His students affectionately call him "the Dean."

To the world of science, he is Dr. Byron Cummings, director emeritus of the Arizona State Museum, and dean of all southwestern archaeologists.

And those who know him, call him friend, know exactly why the Navajos call him "little captain," know why his students love and revere him.

He is one of the state's outstanding personalities, and has probably contributed more to the science of archaeology in the Southwest than any other one man in the field.

Yet he is anything but a stodgy, pedantic school master and scientist.

He is filled with a zest for life, a never-dying curiosity and an unquenchable interest in everything in life. And because he so thoroughly knows and understands the past, he has a great understanding of the present, and a deep faith in the future.

His accomplishments in the field of archaeology, however, are the least of what he has done with the nearly seventy-eight years of intense activity which have been his.

He has built the Arizona State Museum, on the campus of the University of Arizona in Tucson, of which he was director for more than two decades, from a pitifully small beginning to a live, growing institution with collections from all parts of the world valued at nearly $3,000,000.

But even that is not comparatively important among his accomplishments.

He headed the expedition which uncovered Cuicuilco, lava covered temple ruin near Mexico City, conceded to be the oldest man-made structure yet discovered on the North American continent.

He discovered Pleistocene man in Southern Arizona. He was the first white man to see the now famous Rainbow Natural Bridge in Southern Utah.

He led the expedition which discovered some of the major prehistoric ruins in northern Arizona. Betatakin, Batwoman House, cave and pithouse ruins in the Segi and the Segi-ot-Sosi Canyons on the San Juan river in the Marsh Pass area near the "four corners."

His has been the directing hand in the excavation and restoration of Martinez Hill ruin and University ruin, near Tucson, which have served for laboratories for his budding archaeology students at the University of Arizona.

And for eight years, he has shaped the destiny of Kinishba, largest pueblo ruin in the state to be excavated and restored, near Fort Apache on the Fort Apache Indian reservation.

He has acted as councilor and guide to both the Navajo and Hopi who trust him implicitly.

But these are only the things which the world knows about him.

His real contribution to the welfare of the nation, and it is a real contribution, has been the understanding and guidance which he has given the youth in the two institutions of higher learning with which for the greater part of his seventy-eight years he has been connected.

There is no student who ever attended one of his classes who is not a better man -or woman for having done so. And a roster of his students who have made their mark in the world of archaeology reads like a page from "Who's Who in Science."

His code is a strict one. There is only right and wrong, and no halfway measures, yet his understanding gives it an elasticity which helps him always to find the reason behind the wrong doing. He can always overlook human foibles, and forgive and forget. He is always ready to help with words of encouragement or admonition.

He has never been too busy being a college professor to listen to even the trivial personal problem which one of his "children" might bring to him.

But his assistance to "his children" has gone far beyond mere words. Many there are who write M. A. or Ph. D. after their names who do so because "the Dean" was ready to dip down into his own pocket when student funds ran low.

Some of those loans have been paid back, some have not, but whether they have or haven't makes no difference when the next student in financial difficulties lays his troubles before the Dean.

Dr. Cummings began his teaching career early. He taught a country school first, interrupting his formal education because family funds were not available, to earn enough to complete his education.

He was graduated from Oswego Normal school in his native state, New York, in 1885. That same year he taught in the public schools of that state and later in Syracuse High school. He then went to Rutgers college from which he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1889. During his junior year, he filled a vacancy on the college teaching staff, yet finished with his class. His master's degree from the same institution was won in 1892. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Phi Kappa Phi for his scholastic achievements.

He continued to teach, but now he taught Greek and mathematics in the Rutgers Prep school where he remained until 1893 when his life changed its course and he came to the part of the world which was to claim his interest and his time from then on.

That year he came to the University of Utah as an instructor in Greek and Latin, and was made a full professor in 1895. In 1906 he was made dean of the school of Arts and Science, and that title has remained his through all the years since.

He came to the University of Arizona in 1915.

Both his alma mater and the University of Arizona have conferred honorary doctor's degrees upon him.

Like so many others who have become archaeologists, his interest in the subject "just grew" He had been teaching a little Old World archaeology along with his classes in Greek and Latin making those ancient days and those ancient people "live" for his students.

Word had filtered in, now and again, of old ruins in Southeastern Utah, a few scientific investigations had been made by others about which he had read, and soon he found himself devoting his sum-mers to investigating these ruins.

readings, he began to see a pattern to this old culture, and in the not too distant future, he organized a class in south-western archaeology, the first of its kind in the institution.

He came to the University of Arizona at the behest of Dr. Rufus Von Klein-Smid, far-seeing president of the institution who thought the university ought to have a real museum, and picked Dr. Cummings for the task of creating it.

The new arrival was given the title of professor of archaeology and director of the museum.

Shortly after his advent on the campus at Tucson, Dr. Van KleinSmid took him to the agricultural building where lying on the floor of one of the corridors was a fair sized group of bird skins, and a nondescript and very small collection of odds and ends a stone hammer or two, a basket or so, and little else.

"There is your museum, Mr. Cummings," the college president said.

And so it was. Presently some order came out of the chaos with the museum established in a larger room on the top floor of the "Aggie" building where it began its remarkable growth.

After a few years, the collections had completely outgrown the space allotted to him, and many were stored away. A large room was provided for the museum in the handsome new stadium on the southeast corner of the campushand-some stadium which leaked water on precious collections and all but ruined them. But the water hazard was over-come, collections saved and the museum continued to grow.

In 1936, it took its rightful place on the campus and was given a building of its own, just inside the main gate, across from the library building. One whole floor and a balcony were devoted to exhibits, with class rooms and laboraStories for the students on the lower floor. Magnificent as the new building is, the floor space is even now almost too small for the thousands of separate arFrom his investigations, and from his (Turn to Page 27)