Living in the Great Period
It would have been an utter impossibility for thousands of Indians to
have lived off the corn, beans, squash and pumpkins raised in the Valley
of the Frijoles. But the several hundred who did live here had to eat
and in order to eat they had to work. The Indians of Tyuonyi were
farmers and were largely dependent upon the products of the soil. Only a
small part of their sustenance was from animals and birds. Of course,
there was game of all kinds. There were deer, perhaps elk and mountain
sheep, bears, turkeys, rabbits, and fish in the creek. But even though
this was wild country, several hundred Indians living in the locality
would soon have depleted the stock with their communal hunts. In the
fall of the year there were grouse in the high mountains and ducks along
the Rio Grande. But imagine how difficult it would have been to kill a
grouse or a duck with a crude bow and arrow. The deer might have been
the prize of the Indians at Frijoles. They ate the meat and used the
hides for buckskin. They knew the rabbit and the mouse and knew that the
woodrat gathered the edible piñon nuts to store away in its hiding
place. The robber, since there was a large crop of the nuts only once
every few years! They ate the squirrel. Skunk skins were probably used
for ceremonial purposes. The raccoon, however scarce, likely formed part
of the diet of the cliff dweller. And although Indians knew the birds of
the forest, they probably did not digest the meat of hawks very well. As
a matter of fact, most birds were too fast for the ever-seeking valley
dweller with his crude weapons.
Few Indian ruins are excavated in which the remains of corn are not
found. The ancient inhabitants raised corn—much corn. It was the most
important item in their diet. The fields in the lower end of the Canyon
were fertile. The valley was a paradise for primitive people. During
corn planting time tiny kernels were sown in the rich fertile ground
which had been broken with digging sticks and crude hoes. There were
likely no large continuous fields in this valley but only small patches
where individuals might have had separate fields. Adolph Bandelier
suggested that the ancient people irrigated in the Valley of the
Frijoles. How lucky they were if this were true. It is more likely that
they depended on the waters from the heavens. When it was extremely dry
the Indian women transported water from the little river in urns on the
tops of their heads. And so heavy were the jars filled with water that
they were obliged to use soft pot-rests of grass. Corn was planted in
April and was likely sown under a waxing moon so that it would grow with
the moon. The Tewas believed that when corn was sown under a waning
moon, the seeds quit growing. With careful nursing and watering from
April until September, the pigmy ears grew. In the early fall the corn
was gathered by the men.
[Illustration: Cultivating corn]
[Illustration: Carrying water]
A day at Tyuonyi during “corn gathering month” about 1537 A.D. was an
interesting one. The large plaza inside Puwige was swept clean, if
customs of yesteryear parallel those of today, and the corn was brought
therein. Corn, they believed, had life like people and would be glad to
be brought in and housed and protected. It was placed in piles and
everybody from the pueblo helped with the husking—men, women and
children. And when they finished they might have gone to the cliffs to
help their relatives with their husking. As fast as the ears were husked
they were thrown on the flat mud roofs of the houses to dry. These
Indians did not use all the corn at once. The old women thought of crop
failures the next year and so they saved a double amount of the
life-giving grains to plant the year after. After all the husking was
done, the pueblo was swept clean with brooms made of grass bound with
yucca fiber or corn husks. This was in preparation for a festival—a
dance perhaps, to observe the gathering-in of the crop. Strange customs
these Indians had! While corn was standing in the fields it was the
property of the men. As soon as it was gathered, husked and stored, it
belonged to the women who were the caretakers, even though they took
little part in pueblo life at Frijoles which was predominantly a
masculine society.
Not all the four hundred rooms at Puwige were used for dwellings.
Perhaps no more than a hundred Indians lived here. The smaller rooms
around the inside of the circle, more than likely, were used for storage
purposes. If this were so, it was here that great stores of corn were
kept—inside the circle, safe from plunderers and robbers. How important
this corn was! It might have been offered to the Gods as a request for
various favors and Indian women might have taken corn along when they
went to look for pottery clay, for clay was a scarce item here. And some
of the people might have worn little bags of corn around their necks.
Even in prehistoric times a corn cake would have tasted good. Green corn
was pounded into a pulp, patted into a cake and then baked on a hearth
of black stone over a little fireplace. And Indian women could have
greased the little cakes with the fat of a deer to make them tasty. When
the corn was all dry old women knelt before their angled metates set in
bins and with a hand-piece or mano of black basalt they ground. Their
fingernails were worn oblique on the ends from constant rubbing in
rhythmic time with a corn-grinding chant sung by the men as they beat a
drum or two. And they ground on three or four metates. First, they broke
the corn, then by the time it was passed on and ground on each of the
metates, it was transformed into fine corn flour. And lastly, it was
stored away or perhaps packed over the mountains to other villages. Some
of it might have been traded for buffalo hides by traders who penetrated
the buffalo region to the east, far out of the realm of the pueblos of
the Rio Grande and adjacent mountains.
[Illustration: Grinding corn meal]
There were many uses for corn. Bundles of grass were bound together at
the tops with twisted corn shucks and used as brooms. And even
cigarettes could have been made by wrapping corn husks around the dry
leaves of some tobacco plant. Only the old men smoked. Smoking could
have taken place in one of the kivas at a time when a delegation arrived
from another pueblo. Keres and Tewas might have held council at Tyuonyi,
about Tyuonyi itself, and passed around from each to other a fire-stick
with a glowing end from the fireplace as a lighter. Mats and door-flaps
were made of plaited corn husks and it would not have been an uncommon
sight to find these coverings over the openings of some of the houses at
the base of the cliff. Corn was certainly an important item.
Archæologists have recovered beans also—pinto beans. It was a type known
to the Indians before the Spaniards ever thought about the New World.
During some of our excavation work I found that the people who had lived
in the Ceremonial Cave, far above the concentration of the Canyon’s
population, knew about beans as well as the rest of the dwellers. Beans
were one of the staple foods. The people at San Ildefonso today know
them as “tewatu.” It is possible that the same name was given beans at
prehistoric Frijoles.
There were many uses for gourds also. Half-sections were scraped clean
of their pulp and used as dippers and ladles. Whole gourds were used as
rattles in ceremonial dances. Broken pieces could have been used to
scrape and smooth wet pottery before it was fired.
Almost everywhere were products of the earth. And they were used to
their fullest extent. These people even knew about cotton. Whether it
was ever raised in Hidden Valley is questionable. Pieces of the simple
over-and-under weave cloth have been found in the ruins. The growing
season in the mountains might have been too short. It might be that
these Indians traded with their neighbors to the south for their
necessary supply of cotton. Cotton was woven into ceremonial
paraphernalia and also into garments. Men wore cotton breech clouts
while women wore large mantas of cotton cloth. This cloth was suspended
from one shoulder downward covering one side of the breast, wrapped once
around the waist and then taken up the back of the shoulder and tied in
a knot. A very important item was cotton.
All of the wild plants were utilized and especially when cultivated
crops gave out. There were many in the valley growing wild along the
fertile banks of the Rio de Los Frijoles. There were gooseberries,
currants, the berries of sumac, onions, milkweed, strawberries, blazing
star, horsemint, dandelions and prickly pears from the round leaf
cactus. Even the ball cactus might have been eaten. And surely many of
these were stored for later use. Little did these primitive dwellers
know what might befall them. Raids by hostile bands often destroyed
their fields. Fire might have been set to the roofs of their homes. A
period of drought could have been one of their worries even here in the
Valley of the Tyuonyi.
Mother Earth gave the Indian everything. She lavishly produced juniper
and piñon wood for fires, choke-cherry, juniper and oak for stout bows.
And there was hard wood for the foreshafts of arrows and cane for the
hind shafts to which turkey feathers were fastened as guides. She
produced sticks for clubbing rabbits to death. There was rabbit brush
for yellow paint. The leaves of yucca, when pounded up and dried, could
be twisted into stout rope and cord. Extremely tiny cords were used in
making fishnets. Strips of yucca were used in making baskets and also
for making brushes used in painting and decorating pottery. Stout strips
of the tough leaf were used for tying. And the Indian even knew how to
extract the medicinal properties from plants. The Valley of the Frijoles
produced for the primitive dweller most of the things he had to have for
successful living.
[Illustration: Making pottery]
While Indian men, it seems, laid the walls of the houses and repaired
them, and cut the heavy roof timbers—while they planted corn and hunted,
the women were not idle. The art of pottery making has long been the
pride of pueblo women. They did the whole job from beginning to end.
They searched the river and arroyo banks for clay and they carried it to
their homes where it was kneaded and rolled out into long rod-like
strands. All pottery was coiled. They began at the very bottom and
brought the long strands of tempered clay round and round in the general
shape they desired. And then they patted and smoothed the vessel out
with wood or gourd scrapers. When it was dry, they applied a slipping or
wash coat over the outside. When this was done the vessel was decorated
with various crude designs. It was then put into an open fire smothered
with wood, corncobs, pine needles and grasses so that the heat would be
retained. This was their method of firing. When a vessel was removed
from the fire and the ashes wiped off, a dirty white background with
black designs appeared. There were several different types of this ware
made at Frijoles. Today we call this pottery a black-on-white ware.
[Illustration: COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO A SECTION OF LONG
HOUSE]
[Illustration: COURTESY NAT’L. PARK SERVICE RECONSTRUCTED CLIFF
HOUSE]
[Illustration: COURTESY NAT’L. PARK SERVICE RUINS OF PUWIGE]
[Illustration: COURTESY NAT’L. PARK SERVICE RUINS OF THE LARGE KIVA]
The most common type known to the archæologist today is Biscuit ware. It
is so-called because it is exceptionally thick and porous. These Indians
made flat squatty bowls, and ollas—the common wide-necked jars. These
were inferior types and not nearly as good pottery as was made by other
Indian women at other villages. It was tempered with soft volcanic ash.
Tiny particles were worked into the soft clay to keep it from cracking
and resulted in a soft powdery ware which was easily broken. It is
possible that these women were not very well satisfied with their
pottery made from local materials. The same thing was true at all the
villages on the Pajarito. When water was put in the jars and bowls they
became soft. It certainly was not a satisfactory type of ware. And the
Indian women might have been very much ashamed. Pottery making was their
work, their art and their pride. But the materials in this country
simply did not make good hard pottery despite the ability of any
individual potter.
However, the Keres women made good hard pottery. They had the clays and
the tempers with which to work. They were still making the ware with the
slick red finish and glaze designs on the outside which was developed in
the Little Colorado district of western New Mexico and eastern Arizona.
They were even making the polychromes or multi-colored wares by this
time. Trading this pottery might have been the solution to the problem
of the Tewas even after the Keres-speaking people had been driven from
the Tyuonyi. New generations of Keres might have had a different way of
looking at things. Although the red glaze ware had become coarse and
heavy by this time, it surpassed the soft Biscuit wares made by these
valley women. They were probably glad to accept it in trade. From about
1400 A.D. all through to the abandonment of Frijoles Canyon, the glaze
wares were present. The glazes did not stop here but are found at Tewa
villages far to the north. These people, too, had been making the same
soft ware as did the dwellers in the Frijoles. So it does appear that
some sort of a relationship could have existed between Keres and
Tewa-speaking groups of people even during these late times.
[Illustration: Pueblo beside a cliff]
The main occupation, it seems, lasted well up toward the close of the
sixteenth century. Several generations of Indians had lived here either
in cliff homes or pueblos on the floor of the Canyon. Any night might
have witnessed hundreds of tiny smokes emerging from smoke holes in
roofs. The glow from tiny fires inside the cliff rooms lighted the
doorways in the front walls. A sentry, perhaps, with bow and
sharp-pointed arrow was posted at the entrance to Puwige, the big
community house, or on some nearby high point where he could comb the
landscape with sharp eyes and would warn the pueblo dwellers that
warriors were approaching. A summer day would suggest men basking in the
sun or attempting to net out fish from the little river below. Women had
jars on their heads. Others were gathering berries and greens. A hunter
was greeted as he strolled forth triumphantly with wild game for a meal
or two. A sudden summer cloudburst of rain or hail—delightful and
refreshing and good for the corn too, interrupted the sameness of
things. The tiny drops sent an Indian mother with baby on her back
scampering for shelter. Children were running and laughing but ever
alert. These are only a few of the incidents of six hundred years of
living, primitive and insecure living, which went on in the Valley of
the Tyuonyi.
[Illustration: Welcome rain]
Toward the close of the century the waters from the heavens stopped.
Corn fields dried up and the waters of the little river were no more.
The curse of the Southwest had hit again. The lands became drier and
drier as the days passed. Cliff homes were like ovens as the hot sun
beat down upon them. The same thing happened here as happened to their
ancestors in the west centuries before. The Tewas, living in the big
villages to the north, were experiencing the same thing. There was no
water in the canyons. Water holes had gone dry. And there was no water
from the heavens to be caught in great rock cisterns. Small groups began
to move. Others hung on. Could it be that Hidden Valley was to go the
way of all the rest? It was true. Moving was a necessity now.
[Illustration: Abandoning the pueblo]
It is not known how many Indians lived at this place during those last
days of drought and it is possible that those who might have remained
did not wish to be left in Hidden Valley close to Keres land to the
south. So, slowly but surely, group after group trickled out of the
Valley of the Frijoles, leaving their homes to the mercy of the
elements. Within the course of a very short time the entire population
had evacuated. They crossed deep canyons and high potrero tops—dry
now—and helped to cut just a little deeper the very same old trails in
the soft rock, which had been worn down by thousands of moccasined feet
for countless generations. Before they left it seems that they must have
destroyed almost everything they possessed. Fire was set to the roof of
their large kiva. This was the end of the Tyuonyi. Hidden Valley had
witnessed its last great occupation. It had been occupied by Indians for
six centuries—Indians who had lived, raised corn and beans and squash
and pumpkins, and who had fought and died. The occupation of Frijoles
possibly was tottering at the time the Espejo expedition came up the Rio
Grande Valley in February of the year 1583. A few stragglers could have
still been here—who knows? But certainly by the close of the century
Tyuonyi was a thing of the past. The roofs to the houses were falling
in—timbers were rotting and cracking under the tremendous weight of
poles and brush and mud. Walls fell. It was a deserted town with a
background as colorful as any other pueblo in the Southwest. Hidden
Valley was still here but its actors were no more.