As you look at Cliff Palace today, it is difficult to see it as it was
when it was alive. Many of the walls have fallen and only small bits of
masonry remain as indications of houses that once were there. Rebuild
these walls in your imagination and then, most important of all, place
flat adobe roofs on the houses. Now see how it has changed! It is no
longer a ruin—it has become a terraced apartment house, fitted into the
sheltering cave. The more than 200 rooms rise in at least eight levels
from the front of the cave to the high structures in the rear.
As your imagination restores the village to its original condition the
people begin to appear. Since it is evening all of them have returned to
the security of their cave home. The men have come back from the fields
and from the hunt. The women have returned from their search for roots
and berries and the girls have made their last trip to the springs,
returning with jars of water balanced on their heads. The children,
urged by the calls of their mothers, have ended their play in the canyon
and on the cliffs and returned to their homes. Only the dogs and turkeys
are outside the village: they are searching for scraps of food on the
great trash pile below the cave.
As the shadows lengthen the 300 or 400 inhabitants are safe within the
shelter of their fortress-like village. Cooking fires have been kindled
and columns of smoke drift lazily up the cliff and into the sky. The
odors of corn bread and stewing or roasting meat rise on the evening air
and soon the people separate into many small family groups for the
evening meal. Now it is quiet: only the murmur of low voices rises from
the cave. The day’s activities are over and the happy, contented people
are ready for the night.
If you would like really to see the people, scroll down.
[Illustration: In order to feel the real glory of Cliff Palace, see
it toward evening when the slanting rays of the setting sun cast a
warm glow on its walls. Walk out to the point from which this
picture was taken—the high cliff at the north end of the cave. Sit
quietly for a time—then let the imagination drift back seven
centuries.]