Building in the Great Period
Time has a peculiar way of curing all ills. The Keres had been driven
from the Tyuonyi by the “little strong people” and possibly did not make
further attempt to re-occupy this Valley of the Frijoles. They were
contented to stay in the broad Valley of the Rio Grande where the water
supply was constant and where their enemies did not care to go. The
boundary line was set. And even the hostile Tewas had probably
experienced enough of war and trouble.
Tyuonyi, the Hidden Valley, might have been like an oasis in the desert.
Who can say that there was sufficient water in the canyons and on the
mesas to the north—that water holes did not go dry and that the Tewas
did not have to depend upon waters from the heavens to make their corn
grow? And who can say that the waters of El Rito de Los Frijoles dried
up? One can only suppose. But judging by climatic conditions as they are
today, Frijoles Canyon was one of the main sources of water on the
Pajarito. Since water was a controlling factor in the lives of these
people, what primitive group of Indians would not fight over the right
to live in a well-watered valley—a green and beautiful valley—where
adequate shelter was afforded by the vertical walls of a high north
cliff? Certain things hint that little time passed before Tewa-speaking
groups penetrated the Valley of the Frijoles again and in larger numbers
than before. Slowly and surely they trickled in a few at a time. Over a
period of years the infiltration was heavy. Deep trails were worn in the
soft rock ledges by the passing over of thousands of moccasined feet
going to and from the northern villages some ten miles distant. The
steam of hatred between the jealous groups could have cooled off but
probably never completely. Toward the close of the fifteenth century
primitive Tewa farmers, it seems, had again settled in Frijoles Canyon.
[Illustration: Building house]
They went to work in earnest this time, building houses; not with mud
walls which would wash down when it rained, but with walls of stone,
which type of construction their predecessors had begun. Some of the
caves occupied by the earlier people could have eroded away while others
could have been re-hewn by these later occupants. Who knows? Crumbling
remains of old talus houses might have been leveled off at the base of
the cliff and new homes built over them. Indian men carved the heavy
stones into square and rectangular blocks with stone axes. The stones
lay almost flat and the masons did not have to be too careful in their
fashioning because small pieces of rock hammered tight in the joints
would hold the blocks steady. These walls were laid on footings of
smooth-worn river pebbles. Block after block was carved and laid into
structures seven feet high. Indian women carried water from the little
river in ollas on the tops of their heads and trudged day after day up
the steep slopes to the cliff. They gathered clay, perhaps not from
Frijoles Canyon, because it was hard to find. They might have traveled
miles for enough to apply a thin coating of wash over the stone walls of
their homes.
Indian men labored with stone axes to fell the trunks of pines which
they used in building roofs to their houses. They gouged holes out of
the soft cliff to insert the ends of roof beams and sealed them in
tightly with mud mortar. Across these vigas they laid small poles. Many
miles were covered to obtain long slender canes and cat-tail stems from
the muddy low banks of the Rio Grande for the next roof layer. Then pine
needles and brush supplied the next coat. Something leafy had to hold
the thick mud coats which were smoothed flat over the top. Sometimes
Indian houses had doors in the front walls and sometimes they did not.
It all depended upon the wish of the individual builder. Most of the
houses had two-pole ladders of pine. Rungs were lashed down tight with
willows, pliable reeds or even strings of rawhide or rope made from the
yucca fiber. By means of ladders the Indian could climb to his roof-top
and go down through a small hatchway or opening. This gave added
protection against hostile groups. In any one of many cavate or house
rooms was a fireplace. In the ceiling above was an opening for the
escape of the smoke. Cliff dwellings were smoky places regardless of the
type or style.
Time developed the terraced community apartment house for the
prehistoric Pueblo Indian in the cliff as well as in the open flats on
the floor of the Canyon. Second stories, it seems, came quite late in
the evolution of house types at Frijoles. Narrow mud walls of such poor
quality as were built in earlier times at Tyuonyi would never have held
two stories but the new walls of fashioned rock would hold them because
they were more stable. It stands to reason that when stone and mortar
were laid into a wall, the process of drying out transformed the wall
into a unit. This process reminds me of an expression I remember from my
freshman days in college, that: “Pre-Cambrian rocks are homogeneous in
their heterogeneity,” and it is certainly true that stone walls built by
our prehistoric friends of the sixteenth century could enjoy the same
comment. Floors to these houses were plastered with fine adobe mortar.
The rough surfaces of walls were plastered over too, from floor to roof
timbers. And the cliff dweller was lucky if no water got inside his
house. The secret was to keep them dry. It might not have been an
uncommon sight to have witnessed the mudding of roofs by Indian women of
sixteenth century Tyuonyi. After a good rain they could have taken
advantage of water caught in pottery vessels which had been set outside
the houses. This would have saved the women many a weary step to water
and return.
[Illustration: Roofing a house]
One story was not sufficient so up, up, up went the houses to two and
three stories. The cliff formed the back walls of the rooms—then Mr.
Prehistoric Indian had only three walls to lay instead of four. Walls of
stone, ten and twelve inches thick, would hold the weight of one or two
additional stories and especially when they leaned against the steady
cliff. But additional rooms meant more poles, more cane, brush and mud.
When second and third story rooms were added the smoke from fires in
rooms below escaped through a front opening. There was no way for the
smoke to escape through the upper rooms and the cliff dweller was smart
enough not to cut a hole in the floor and let the smoke into his house
above. And, too, second and third story rooms likely were much safer
than first story rooms. Ladders could be pulled up to the roofs. Who
knows that these Tewas were not thinking of revengeful Keres people to
the south?
In some cases caves were hewn and used independently of the talus houses
to the front but certainly it was impossible to stay inside while large
fires were burning. The poor cliff dweller would have suffocated. Many
attempts were made to ventilate caves by boring smoke holes above the
doorways. But it was impossible to ventilate a cave successfully. Not
much of a draft was created. Indians attempted to ventilate their cave
homes by cutting as many as three holes through the soft cliff and then
plastering the holes on the inside to facilitate the passage of the
smoke. They met with little success.
Fires were kindled inside and when smoke filled the room the Indian
either had to go outside or into his talus house. I once had an
experience with fires in caves. Undoubtedly, the Indian of long ago
experienced the same as I. When a fire was kindled the smoke circled
around and filled the chamber. The vents did not work. Smoke hovered
down to the height of the door and went out at that point leaving a
definite line of demarkation around the cave wall. The Indian plastered
the wall underneath this smoke line so that his house would not be so
filthy and so that he could crouch down and lean his shoulders against
it without getting soot all over his back. I have seen cave walls
exhibiting as many as thirteen thin plaster coats. Never let it be said
that caves were popular places in which to live while large fires were
burning inside. Perhaps our prehistoric friend knew that if he built a
fire inside his cave the walls would warm up. Then hours later, after
most of the smoke had gone out, he could return and be quite comfortable
without suffocating. And he, no doubt, would have rolled down a deer
skin or matting of corn shucks over the opening to keep out the cold
during the winter months.
The majority of the caves at Tyuonyi were connected with the talus
houses to the front. Caves entered from second-story rooms were very
popular and likely were used, for the most part, as ante-chambers and
not as independent dwellings. They were excellent for storage purposes
and if the Indian wanted to live he had to hold food over from one
season to the next. Covering a period of a little more than a hundred
years, let us say, the Indians of Frijoles Canyon cut over three hundred
cave rooms in the north cliff. Some were, used independently of the
houses to the front but most of them were not. Caves were hewn before
houses were built, and likely, a great number of them were cut after the
talus houses were erected against the cliff. They built just as many
houses as caves, if not more. Houses extended as far as four rows of
rooms out from the cliff and they were terraced up as high as three
stories. On top of them were open porches which we call “ramadas” today.
They were mere shelters with four corner poles and a few cross pieces of
juniper or pine with brush and leaves over the top. What delight some
old cronies might have had basking in the sun during some hot summer
afternoon!
This was the valley of the cliff dweller, the Ancient Tewa more than
likely, who built houses and cut caves for almost two miles up and down
the north cliff of Frijoles Canyon. Here he could see for great
distances—he could look up and he could look down. He could hear the
water rippling in the Rito below and he could live in true Indian
fashion. But these villages were not built in a day or a year. It took
many years. Although there are the ruins of enough houses and caves
along the north wall to have housed two thousand primitive Indians, no
more than a few hundred ever lived here at one time. There simply wasn’t
land enough to farm, or game enough to supply food for a greater number.
It would seem that Tyuonyi never had a static occupation but an ever
moving one.
The cliff dwellers at Frijoles, like their kin to the north, knew that
the only safe method of living was in communities. So they erected what
is known today as the “Long House.” One section of the north cliff was
almost vertical and its base sloped gently down to the waters of the
little river. This must have been the concentration of the cliff homes.
Rooms were built side by side for over seven hundred feet. There were
few cave rooms here to crawl back into and out of the weather. These
people must have learned by experience how uncomfortable caves were,
because they stuck to houses with stone walls and roofs of poles and
brush and grass and mud. And they built these homes solid against the
cliff and even carved recesses in the cliff so that the ends of the
building stones would fit perfectly. Then the walls would not slip. The
Long House was not very far from water—fifty yards. This was just a step
for the women.
Some of the dwellers carved and painted pictures on the back walls of
their houses or even in the caves which had barely enough room for three
or four people to occupy. Call it writing if you like. It likely was
“doodling.” They had no written language. They were forced to record
what they thought and what they believed or had seen on the walls of
their houses or in the designs of their pottery. Birds were the most
common design. A mountain sheep was occasionally drawn, or a squirrel,
or a rabbit; perhaps a bear or a katsina—a supernatural being. They
might have tried to depict their ancestors emerging from the darkness
and climbing up a high pole from the underworld of Sipapu. The awanyu or
“plumed serpent” was quite common. It was the guardian spirit of
springs. In one cave there was a drawing of a horse and certainly this
was not an ancient drawing for the Spanish brought the horse to New
Mexico. Some wandering Tewa could have seen the Spanish on horseback—on
creatures which Indians thought devoured people. It might have been that
other Tewa-speaking people from around the pueblo of San Juan, far to
the north, described a horse by pictograph, when they hurried into the
mountain homes of their kin after seeing the Spanish in 1540. Or it
might have been drawn by some visitor after the evacuation of the
Indians. It could even have been someone’s joke.
About a quarter-mile from the cliff dwellings, and where the Canyon
becomes narrow, is a deep natural cave. It is eighty feet across and its
opening faces the valley one hundred fifty feet above the waters of the
Rito. One prehistoric group lived here for a time. They were certainly
secluded. Hand holds were gouged from the soft cliffs with sharp pointed
rocks and here in this, now called “Ceremonial Cave,” Indians built
seventeen first-story rooms and several second-story rooms around the
back. They excavated a kiva or ceremonial chamber to the front of the
cave. Think of the task these Indians had when they carted water and
poles and sticks and perhaps stones up the side of the cliff. Tons of
rock were required to build these houses and the ceremonial chamber.
This little group built their kiva twelve feet in diameter. It was a
circular affair dug to a depth of nine feet and lined with a wall of
stone which was plastered on the inside. The floor was of a special
kind. It was hard, black and shiny. It had been polished with a smooth
stone like the ones the Indian women use today to polish their black
pottery. Only this floor was made of blood—animal blood. The Indians
carefully saved the blood from animals which they killed and then mixed
it with fine silt and soot from the fire and smeared it over their kiva
floor in thin layers. When the blood coagulated the plaster hardened and
then it was polished by rubbing a smooth stone over it in backward and
forward motion. This must have been an important room to have had such
an elaborately made floor. But kivas in prehistoric times may have been
more important than they are today.
In the floor were six small holes in a straight line. While the plaster
was still wet small pieces of oak or some other tough pliable wood was
bent in loops and the ends of each piece were pushed down into the soft
mud plaster. Then these holes, or round depressions were made around the
loops leaving them exposed. These were directly below a horizontal pole
suspended from the ceiling. This was a loom. By an arrangement of long
straight sticks these ingenious Indians devised a method of weaving.
Since it is thought that in years gone by women and children were not
allowed in the kivas to break up the complacency of a man’s ceremony, we
might suppose that some old man sat here and ran a shuttle through warp
cords of cotton strung vertically from roof poles to floor loops. Here
he carried on weaving of a ceremonial nature with cotton or animal hair
while the smoke from a ceremonial fire in the fireplace circled around
making the kiva a very unpleasant place to be despite an elaborate
system of ventilation.
These “high-up” cave dwellers had their houses built like the ones at
Mesa Verde, completely sheltered by the overhanging cave roof. To the
side of the dwellings, situated near the back wall of the cave, was a
turkey pen of little cleanliness. When I discovered this pen hundreds of
years later, the floor was covered with human feces, turkey and rodent
droppings. They had all lived here in times anterior to the coming of
the Spaniards—Indians, turkeys and rodents. The Indian hauled his water
and food from the valley below. He secluded himself from the bulk of the
Indian population at Tyuonyi. The question will always be, why? Of
course, there was a small pueblo on the other side of the Canyon on a
little knoll across the river but this might have been built, occupied
and abandoned before Indians ever occupied the big cave as a place of
residence.
And then, there were Indians who preferred to live on the floor of the
Canyon in pueblos—terraced community apartment houses. Several hundred
yards below the concentration of the cliff dwellings and in the lower
end of the Tyuonyi they built such an apartment house. Little is known
about it because it has never been excavated. Broken pieces of pottery,
the most important tool of the archæologist, are found strewn over its
ruins today. Its walls are down now and its rooms are almost completely
filled in with debris. This particular group of Indians preferred to
have their dwelling close to water and they erected it with stone and
mud mortar. This is all that is known of this isolated settlement.
It is quite possible that the most popular dwelling places in Frijoles
Canyon were the dwellings at the Long House, so well protected by the
sheer vertical cliff wall. These could have been over-crowded. Indians
might have cared little about living in other sections of the cliff. It
might have been that some of the cliff dwellers had experienced terrible
slides when hundreds of tons of loose rock and boulders came tumbling
down on their little houses, crushing them like pasteboard boxes and
burying the occupants alive. All the man-power in the northern part of
the Pajarito Plateau could never have rescued their kin who might have
been caught in these cave homes. Those rocks had rolled from the top to
stay and there they remain today. One wonders what stories those buried
caves hold—if, by chance, the skeletons of the occupants are still
there. Indians perhaps have died scratching at the boulders which
covered the entrances to their caves or tearing their hair and clutching
their throats as they suffocated and fell extended on the hard plaster
floors in their rooms. Those caves have never been opened.
It is easy to see that the valley floor could have been more popular as
a dwelling place than sections of the cliff more susceptible to slides
than the Long House. A part of the main population built and lived in a
large terraced community apartment house known as “Puwige” or “pueblo
where the women scraped the bottoms of the pottery vessels clean.” This
is now the famous ruin known the world over. It has been featured in the
_National Geographic Magazine_ and many other publications.
Puwige never existed during the very early occupation of the Canyon. Its
initial wall stones were not laid until the beginning of the Great
Period. Any Indian family might have erected a few rooms near the little
river—close to water. Then another family came along and built a few
more rooms. A son took on a wife and the entire family helped to build
his house, since house-building was a community proposition. Indian men
went to the slopes where boulders had rolled down and broke them with
heavy stones and fashioned the pieces into uneven building blocks. This
was no small job. Walls were laid in mud mixed by the small brown hands
of Indian women. Poles were cut and laid across the walls, then
splittings and cane and brush were laid over the tops and sealed with
thick coats of mud. Thick coats of crude plaster were spread over the
inside of walls and over floors. These Indians had little clay, none for
walls anyway, without hauling it in on their backs, so, they poured hot
ashes into the mud to make it stick. Hot ashes formed a sort of lime.
Coronado, in 1540, found the Indians at Tiguex making a mortar and
plaster in this manner. Slabs of basalt were brought in and set edgewise
in the rooms as fireplaces. This was the home of the newlyweds—built
right next to the groom’s father’s house. The young bride could have
come from the Long House to live at Puwige, the community house, with
her husband’s family.
[Illustration: FEDERAL ART PROJECT, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE. CUT
COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO ARTIST’S RESTORATION OF PUWIGE]
[Illustration: COURTESY NAT’L. PARK SERVICE AERIAL VIEW OF PUWIGE
RESTORED]
The place on which Puwige was erected was so situated that the Indians
had to make walls with sharp turns to follow the contour of the land.
This must have been a popular place to live for as time went on more and
more rooms were added. Indians evidently preferred this to the
vulnerable cliffs. It was not all planned and executed at one time. Some
second-story rooms were added and then porches of poles and brush were
built. Additions of rooms continued until Puwige was shaped in the form
of a crescent with the open part facing the little river which was only
a few feet away. Indians lived here for untold years. Something
happened. I know not what. It seems that they closed the gap by building
three rows of rooms. It was no more a crescent but a circle of rooms
built around a large plaza or inner court. Rooms were built in rows,
seven deep on the east side of the circle and three on the west side.
There were about three hundred rooms on the ground floor and many second
and third-story rooms—four hundred in all, more or less. The place was
turned into a veritable fort. These people were cunning. They cut seven
rooms out through the east side and formed a narrow passageway through
which everyone had to pass in order to enter his home. They went from
the outside of the pueblo through this narrow passage, dodging
obstructions, until they reached the huge inner court. And then they
ascended to their respective dwellings by means of small ladders,
pulling them to their roof-tops during times of danger. Leave it to the
Tewas, “the little strong people,” to find ways and means of protecting
themselves from lurking danger.
I was once told a story by some San Ildefonso Indians about this Puwige
hallway. Guarding the hallway was a half-circle barricade of stone and
mud. It was several feet thick and both ends joined the walls of the
main building. Through this circular wall was a small opening. The wall
must have stood six or eight feet high to have been effective. Now the
Tewas contend that at one time, long ago, a sentry was stationed day and
night inside the circle. When Puwige was attacked the alarm was given
and a huge boulder was rolled in front of the opening. This was to slow
down the attackers. If they were fortunate enough to get by the boulder
then it was intended that they stumble over a slab of basalt set
edgewise in the passageway. It must have stood a foot or more in the
air. If the attackers got by the stone without losing balance, then they
encountered numerous wooden posts bedded upright in the dirt floor of
the long narrow passage. How confusing and prohibitive! Entrance to
Puwige was almost impossible unless “the little strong people” desired
it. For the villager, an Indian woman with a water jar on her head,
moving along slowly, entrance was easy, but for the enemy—no. Warriors
stood on housetops, high in the air, and shot sharp-pointed arrows at
enemies. They threw rocks and pottery vessels. They fought with
clubs—anything they could get their hands on. Puwige was not easy to
penetrate.
Was this Puwige occupied by any particular group or were the people of
the cliff houses allowed to scramble down and hurry to the inside for
protection? Was it a fort for the entire community or just for the
people who lived here? The cliff homes were being lived in at the same
time as Puwige and might have been more effective as defense units.
There was only one side to protect in the cliff homes—the front. And who
were the attackers: Navaho, Keres or other groups? Legend has it that
the Navaho plundered the pueblos for years and years and history tells
us so. They stole the hard-earned stores of food from the pueblos and
ran off with the women and children whom they made slaves. But it isn’t
likely that the Navaho, on foot during the days of Puwige, cared much
about penetrating the mountain homes. It would have been a chore to
carry the loot back with them. The Navajo likely did not relish the idea
of coming over the high range of mountains from the west for a few pots
of beans and corn. Would it not be more likely that the so-called
“little strong people” might have feared attacks during the night by the
Keres to the south who had been driven from their Canyon homes? Tyuonyi
was “the oasis of the Pajarito” and the Tewas did not intend to be
driven from their fertile valley. Some lurking band could have crept
over the south cliff when all was quiet—while Tewas were resting
peacefully below. And the attackers were quiet too, with their
moccasined feet, like the mountain lion which creeps upon a fawn. A
falling rock or the crackling of a dead branch would be a dead
give-away. This was not to happen to “the little strong people.”
[Illustration: COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO CEREMONIAL CAVE]
[Illustration: COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO KIVA IN CEREMONIAL
CAVE]
[Illustration: Raising the ladders]
In 1540 the Spanish explorers passed the Keres province and moved
northward, it would appear, near the present site of San Juan Pueblo.
The entire Indian population fled to the mountains, as you will recall,
where they said they had four very strong villages. It is entirely
possible that some of these people from the north pushed deep into the
mountain country and on to the Valley of the Frijoles where the Spanish
could not go on horseback. It was a Hidden Valley. If this had been
true, if these northern people had moved into Tyuonyi with their kith
and kin and had told about how the Spanish stormed pueblos and shot
cannon at other Indians and readily conquered the inhabitants, “the
little strong people” might have had incentive to fortify their Puwige
against the undesirable attentions of the conquerors. Or it might have
been some visitor from the Valley of the Rio Grande who told about
depredations at Tiguex. But would a Keres warn a Tewa? We must not
overlook the fact that it would have been possible for friendly
relations to have existed between the rival groups of people at the time
of the Spanish Conquest. They could have lived close together and traded
pottery and other articles back and forth. One might go so far as to say
that they could have lived at Tyuonyi together a few years prior to its
abandonment. But taking all these things into consideration it was
likely the Keres whom the Tewas fortified themselves against, and from
whom they had probably experienced hostile visits. So they fortified
their Puwige and drew up their ladders to the roof-tops in defiance. And
the people in the cliffs also drew up their ladders.
Within the inner court of this big community house were three kivas.
These deep underground ceremonial chambers lined with rock walls were
built adjacent to the rooms on the north side. Puwige was large. It was
more than two hundred seventy-five feet across and the tiers of rooms
formed a wide band around the outside of the circular court. Why the
Indians erected three kivas so close together is uncertain unless it was
to have more room in the plaza. It is possible that the kivas were
erected first, outside of the village, and as the pueblo grew the three
little ceremonial chambers were entirely enclosed within it. But why
three kivas inside Puwige? Indians had their reasons. These three
ceremonial chambers were small. They were not more than twelve or
fifteen feet in diameter. The hard plaster floors were seven or eight
feet below the surface of the ground. Their roofs were of poles laid
across the stone walls with brush and grass and mud for a covering.
Small combination hatchways and smoke vents were cut in the roofs and
ladders were put down to the floors as a means of getting in and out.
These chambers were likely society kivas of which there were several in
every Indian village. Or we might compare them with club rooms in our
own society. They were places where the elders met in council, or where
they came to spend an hour or so, perhaps a week, visiting with their
spiritual fathers. Kivas were places where policy was discussed and
decided upon—or a kiva might have been a place where a group of hunters
gathered before going on a hunt to pray that their hunt would be
successful. We will never know what went on in the secret chambers at
Tyuonyi, or as a matter of fact, in any other prehistoric kiva.
And speaking of kivas or ceremonial chambers, some groups preferred to
have theirs in the cliffs, hewn out like the smoky cave rooms but
generally larger. And the kivas, like the cave rooms, were plastered
half-way up the walls whenever they became smoked. This happened quite
often if fires were kept burning.
The greatest period of occupation of Hidden Valley must have begun
sometime during the fifteenth century. It was to last about a hundred
years. With the beginning of this Great Period, the period in which
Puwige and all of the talus houses were most likely built and occupied,
there certainly must have been some social or ceremonial organization
similar to that in the modern pueblos. There were likely two moieties.
The dual system where every person in the village belonged to one of two
kivas—either Turquoise or Squash, or, Winter or Summer respectively.
Presumably a baby born in the winter belonged to the Turquoise kiva. If
it was a patrilineal society then the individual might have belonged to
the same kiva as his father. Who knows but that it was a matter of
personal choice? Each kiva, Turquoise or Squash, had a ruler or cacique
whose word was absolute. He was the father of the village to whom
villagers looked for guidance and his appointment was for life. The
moieties were under the spiritual guidance of the two town chiefs who
were responsible for the welfare of the people. An important office was
that of cacique. He had been chosen because of his thorough knowledge of
chants, sacred rituals, ceremonial procedure and prayers. No one doubted
the word of the cacique. And all Indians owed duties to their respective
kivas. Although the groups, Turquoise and Squash, were in opposition
they also depended upon one another for the common good of the pueblo.
If the dual system was in vogue at Tyuonyi, there must have been two
kivas to support it. A peculiar thing, it seems, took place here. At
least one tribal kiva was built and was in use before the Great Period
of occupation came along. It was a large structure forty-two feet in
diameter. Sixty Indians could have crouched down around the inside
against the wall. Indian men, years before, excavated a large concave
depression in the side of a hill a hundred yards or so down the Canyon
from Puwige. Days and days were required to bring in thousands of cobble
stones. They labored untiringly. They brought them from the river and
they brought chunks from the cliff. Around this deep concave depression
which they had laboriously scooped out of the earth with broken pieces
of pottery, sticks, flat stones and whatever else they had to work with,
Indian men laid stone after stone of this volcanic tuff in crude mortar.
They laid a wall ten feet thick. It required thousands of the unworked
stones to line this deep pit. It was a circular affair and was their way
of creating a semi-subterranean chamber when they did not know how to
lay single thickness masonry walls with fashioned blocks.
No prehistoric Rio Grande kiva, that I know of, has an entrance through
its wall such as this which was found at Frijoles. They all were entered
through the roof. Such things as wall entrances are customary in kivas
in the San Juan area but not in the Rio Grande Valley. And these early
people dug five pits in the floor of their kiva and lined them with
cobble stones. They must have had some use for them of which we know
nothing. Pits of this type are something else not seen in prehistoric
Rio Grande kivas. They are found in the kivas at Chaco Canyon though,
and it is possible that they could have been vestiges of that early
culture.
This particular ceremonial chamber had apparently fallen into disuse for
a time. But during the Great Period of occupation, when “the little
strong people” presumably occupied the Tyuonyi, it was rebuilt. There
was little use in going to work and building an entirely new kiva when
one was already here and could be rebuilt. The old roofing had fallen to
the inside and there were hundreds of pounds of debris in the kiva
chamber. All this was cleaned out. Building a kiva was a community
enterprise. Men again began cutting and fashioning rectangular blocks
from large chunks fallen from the cliff. As each block was fashioned it
was laid into a single thickness coursed masonry wall around the inside
of the thick wall of cobble stone which belonged to the earlier
occupation. The Indian was smart. He laid this circular wall sloping
outward toward the top so that the pressure from the heavy roof would be
diverted downward when it was laid over the walls. When the wall was
finished it was nine feet high from the floor of the kiva to the
ceiling. And then to keep it from falling down, the Indians dug
underneath the footing stones, and objects modeled of clay which looked
like doughnuts were laid in the holes. When we discovered these
doughnut-shaped affairs I was mystified until an old Indian from San
Ildefonso told me they were put there purposely to hold the wall up, in
a spiritual way of course.
[Illustration: Felling trees]
What a large structure this was! It was almost as large as the kivas at
Chaco Canyon where the ancestors of these Indians probably lived several
hundred years before. There was no kiva this large in the entire Rio
Grande Valley. Huge timbers forty-five feet long were required to span
its diameter and timbers that large were difficult to carry. But with
crude stone axes and obsidian knives these kiva builders penetrated the
forest to cut girders for their ceremonial chamber. In the year 1513
A.D. or thereabout, they cut three trees with trunks fifteen inches or
more in diameter. It took hours, days perhaps. They hacked and they
pounded with their Neolithic implements of toil until all three trees
had been felled. I would hate to estimate the time required to fell
these timbers but time meant nothing to the Indian. Then there was the
job of removing all the branches, needles and bark.
Preparing a girder in prehistoric times was a great task. Green timber
is much heavier than seasoned wood. And so these timbers weighing a ton
or more were dragged out of the forest to the kiva with stout ropes made
of yucca fiber. Sheer strength was all these people had. There were no
carts with wheels on them to bear the brunt of the load. Heavy objects
had to either be dragged or carried. After much sweat and toil the ends
of the huge poles were rolled over into position in shallow trenches
worked out for this purpose on both sides of the kiva. These three
timbers formed the under structure of the roof. When they were placed
exactly like the Indian wanted them, pointed rocks were driven into the
ground around the ends and the open spaces were packed with adobe so
that these huge round logs would not roll. They placed much smaller
timbers of pine across the huge vigas. These were not so difficult to
cut and they were laid about three feet apart. From down-timbers of
pine, piñon, cottonwood or any other type of fallen trees they hacked
and ripped long narrow sections for the next roof course. The splittings
were transported in bundles to the kiva and one by one they were laid
close together over the small pine poles. Great quantities of thin
willow branches, cane or cat-tail stems were used for the next course.
Pine needles, brush, yucca leaves and whatever leafy material they could
gather was placed on the top. They needed this brush and leafy material
because it was to hold the thick heavy mud coats which were spread over
the top. Indian women carried urn after urn of water on their heads from
the Rito and stamped and mixed this mud. The only chore left was to
throw dirt over the top.
When the ceremonial chamber was finished it looked like a huge, low
mound—almost level with the ground. The Indians did not forget the
square opening in the top for the exit of the smoke. Kivas were stuffy
places inside. And as in all kivas there was a ventilator. This had been
built during the earlier period of occupation and reused during the
Great Period. It was a mere tunnel which looked like a fireplace and it
suddenly turned upward like a fireplace chimney. The mouth of the
chimney was level with the ground so that the draft would be downward
and would go into the kiva and lift the smoke from the firebox to the
ceiling and eventually out the square opening. The Indian of Tyuonyi did
understand something about ventilating a kiva. He was smart enough to
know that if the top of the ventilator was built very far above ground
level it would work like a fireplace. Then all the smoke would be drawn
to the floor of the kiva and sucked out through the low tunnel. And in
this case he could not have remained inside. But he never found out how
to ventilate his cave room in the cliff. How unfortunate!
Directly across the kiva in the west side was the entrance which had
also been put here years before. It was merely a tunnel with a roof of
small juniper branches. The outside end was open and was just large
enough for the ends of a two-pole ladder to rest. Indians usually go
into their kivas through the roofs, but not here. They climbed down the
ladder, stooped, and with knees in a flexed position scurried through
the tunnel to the inside.
The five pits in the floor, which have been mentioned before, were
apparently no longer needed for they were filled in with dirt and stones
tightly packed. A thin layer of dirt was thrown over the entire floor
surface. Kiva floors are generally plastered over and during this period
of occupation the Tyuonyi women, more than likely, were the ones who
smeared four fine coats of adobe over the floor and smoothed it out with
their hands.
I have neglected to mention one of the most important things of all—the
Sipapu or ceremonial entrance from the underworld. It was the place of
ceremonial emergence into this earthly life. Archæologists generally
find a small hole in the floor of almost every kiva. But here at Tyuonyi
a special kind of Sipapu was made. A piece of soft volcanic ash was
formed into a rectangular block and buried edgewise in the floor. A
small hole shaped like an icecream cone was drilled in the top as the
spirit entrance. The Indians have a legend about this. It is symbolic of
the entrance to the land of “Earth Old Women” and of the place where the
human race originated. Long ago they climbed up a Douglas Spruce Tree
and came into this world through a lake called Sipapu. And when they die
the spirits go to Sipapu and on to the underworld. It is said that this
lake is located in the sand hills north of Alamosa, Colorado. How
important the kiva was to the Indians of Tyuonyi! Sipapu represented the
place of creation and to them it was important in no small way. The
cacique of each one of the big tribal kivas, both Squash and Turquoise,
was a direct representative of the Earth Mother or “Earth Old Woman.”
But the dweller at Tyuonyi had forgotten something. He did not realize
how tremendously heavy the roof of his big kiva was. He did not know
that the small pine timbers, the splittings, brush, grass, mud and dirt
would cause the big pine vigas to bend and sag and crack in the middle.
It is a question whether or not the roof fell in during some important
ceremony. The situation had to be remedied at any rate. Pine poles, nine
or ten inches in diameter were cut so they would support the weight of
the roof. Six holes were dug in the kiva floor, two under each of the
big vigas. Flat rocks were put in the bottoms of the holes and the ends
of the six timbers were inserted and swung into place under the big
girders, and driven with heavy rocks into an upright position. The big
vigas might have sagged a little but the roof never fell after this
time. Flat stones were driven tight around the bottoms of the support
posts and the holes in which they rested were packed solid with mud and
rocks to keep the timbers from slipping. And this was how the
prehistoric Indian at Tyuonyi built his ceremonial chambers in which
women were not allowed unless requested by the men. There might have
been more than one roof put on this kiva. The first one could have been
laid during the latter part of the fifteenth century. It could have
fallen and then been rebuilt. Archæologists do know that the last time
this large kiva was roofed over was during the early part of the
sixteenth century. We found one of the large charred ends of a big roof
timber and it had been cut in 1513 A.D. So it was about this time that
the last kiva roof was laid. Just how long it was in use is a question.
It was surely used until the end of the occupation of Frijoles Canyon
sometime near the close of the sixteenth century.
The Indians of Tyuonyi during the Great Period had developed the
dwellings in the north cliff extensively to the number of some three
hundred caves. There might have been twice as many talus houses to the
front, some one story and others two and three stories high. The cliff
population centered around the Long House while other groups built
houses in different locations at the base of the north cliff. And still
other groups built the big community apartment house of about four
hundred rooms to a height of possibly three stories and called it
“Puwige” or “pueblo where the Indian women scraped the bottoms of the
pottery vessels clean.” And they built it in the form of a fort with a
narrow hallway through the east side as the only means of entrance. And
here they fortified themselves during times of attack by other Indians
like themselves who might have been jealous of the watered Valley of the
Frijoles. Another group preferred to remove themselves down the Canyon a
quarter-mile and they erected a circular pueblo, a miniature of Puwige,
seemingly. Still another group preferred to be more isolated and so they
chose a deep cave one hundred fifty feet above the Canyon floor in which
to build their house and kiva.
One would think, looking at the ruined home sites, that thousands of
prehistoric Indians dwelt at Tyuonyi but that was never the case.
Although the dwellings were extensive they were not all occupied at any
one time. Small groups moved in. Others moved out. They could have taken
turns living in Hidden Valley and then returned to the northern villages
of Potsui’i, Sankawi, Navawi or Tshirege, where their kin and kind
lived. Tyuonyi might have been a place for summer occupation during the
growing season. When planting time came little groups trickled in from
the large northern community villages and remained for a while. One
cannot be sure of what went on in the Canyon. It was a suitable place
for continued occupation with the possibility of an influx of population
during the summer months. One can only speculate. Scientific
investigation reveals nothing in this regard. The legends are scant
now—the old men who remembered them are just about gone. So one is left
with little about how Indians lived on the Pajarito Plateau during
prehistoric times.