that it was laid on not with trowels but with the hands, and as the
impressions of hands are small the plasterers were probably women or
children. In several instances where the plastering is broken several
successive layers are seen, often in different colors, sometimes
separated by a thin black layer deposited by smoke. The color of the
plastering varies considerably, sometimes showing red, often yellow or
white, depending on the different colored sand or mud employed.[26] The
plastering not only varies in color but also in thickness and in finish.
In the most protected rooms of the cave practically all the superficial
plastering still remains on both the interior and the exterior of the
walls, but for the greater part it has been washed from the surfaces and
out of the joints in the outer buildings. The mortar was evidently
rubbed smooth with the hands, aided, perhaps, with flat stones. The
exterior of one or two rooms shows several coats of plaster, and
different parts of the same walls are of different colors. Indistinct
figures are scratched on several walls, but the majority of these are
too obscure to be traced or deciphered. The plastering on the exterior
and the interior of the same wall is often of different color.
[Footnote 26: The red color is derived from the red soil common
everywhere on the mesa. Yellow was obtained from disintegrated rock, and
white is a marl which is found at various places. The mortar used by the
ancient masons became harder, almost cement, when made of marl mixed
with adobe.]
PAINTINGS AND ROCK MARKINGS
Figures are painted on the white plastering of the third story of room
11 and on the lower border of the banquette of kiva I, the former being
the most elaborate mural paintings known in cliff-dwellings, showing
several symbols which are reproduced on pottery. A reversed symbolic
rain-cloud figure, painted white, occurs on the exterior of the low
ledge house.[27] Mural paintings of unusual form are found on the under
side of the projecting rock forming part of the floor of room 3, and
there are scratches on the plastering of the wall of kiva K. The latter
figures were intended to represent animals, heads of grotesque beings,
possibly birds, and terraced designs symbolic of rain clouds. As one or
more of these symbols occur on pottery fragments, there appears no doubt
that both were made by the same people. Among rock markings may also be
mentioned shallow, concave grooves made by rubbing harder stones, which
can be seen on the cliffs in front of rooms 92 and 93 and in the court
west of room 51.
[Footnote 27: This figure resembles closely that on the outside walls of
the third story of room 11 of Spruce-tree House. (See pls. 4, 5, 6,
_Bulletin 41, Bureau of American Ethnology_.)]
Among the figures painted on whitewashed walls of room 11 may be
mentioned triangles, parallel red lines with dots, and a square figure,
in red, crossed by zigzags, recalling the designs on old Navaho
blankets.
The parallel lines are placed vertically and are not unlike, save in
color, those which the Hopi make with prayer meal on the walls of their
kivas, in certain ceremonies. But it is to be noted that the Hopi
markings are made horizontally instead of vertically, as at Cliff
Palace. The dots represented on the sides of some of these parallel
lines (room 11) are similar to those appearing on straight lines or
triangles in the decoration of Mesa Verde pottery. The triangular
figures still used by the Hopi in decorating the margins of dados in
their houses also occur on some of the Cliff-Palace walls, but are
placed in a reversed position. They are said to represent a butterfly, a
rain cloud, or a sex symbol. It is interesting to note in passing that
two or more triangles placed one above another appear constantly in the
same position in Moorish tile and stucco decorations, but this, of
course, is only a coincidence, as there is no evidence of a cultural
connection.
[Illustration: PLATE 13
PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLER
_a_ Third story of square tower, showing dado and decoration
_b_ Deflector and flue of kiva
DETAILS OF CLIFF PALACE]
REFUSE HEAPS
Almost every Mesa Verde cliff-dwelling has an unoccupied space back of
the rooms,[28] as in the rear of rooms 28 to 40, which served as a
depository for all kinds of rubbish. Here the inhabitants of Cliff
Palace also deposited certain of their dead, which became mummified on
account of the dryness of the air in the cave.
[Footnote 28: Isolated cliff-dwellings are scattered throughout the
Southwest, but there are several areas, as the Mesa Verde, in which they
are concentrated. Among these clusters may be mentioned the Canyon de
Chelly, the Navaho National Monument, the Red Rocks area, and that of
the upper Gila. One characteristic feature in which the cliff-dwellings
of the Mesa Verde differ from some others is the independence of all of
the upright walls from support of the sides of the cliffs. In the
cliff-houses of the Navaho Monument a large majority of the houses have
the rear wall of the cave as a wall of the building; a few of the houses
in Cliff Palace have the same, but the largest number are entirely free
from the cliff. This separation on all sides is due largely to the
geological structure of the rear of the cavern in which the cliff-house
stands.]
There is also a vacant space between the rear of the Speaker-chief's
House and the cave wall, but this space was almost entirely free of
refuse. The amount of débris in the refuse heaps back of the so-called
plaza quarter lends weight to other evidence that this is one of the
oldest sections of Cliff Palace.
The accumulation of débris was so deep in these places, and the
difficulties of removal so great, that it was not attempted. It had all
been dug over by relic seekers who are said to have found many specimens
therein.[29]
[Footnote 29: Workmen could operate in these parts only by tying sponges
over their nostrils, so difficult was it to breathe on account of the
fine dust.]
SECULAR ROOMS
The majority of the rooms in Cliff Palace were devoted to secular
purposes. These are of several types, and differ in form, in position,
and in function. Their form is either circular or rectangular, or some
modification of these two. As a rule, the secular rooms lie deep under
the cliffs, several extending as far back as the rear of the cave. The
front of Cliff Palace shows at least two tiers or terraces of secular
rooms, the roof of the lower one being level with that of the floor of
the tier above. The front walls of secular rooms lower than the fourth
terrace are as a rule destroyed, but the lateral walls are evident,
especially in the tower quarter. The passage from one of these terraces
to the room above was made by means of ladders or by stone steps along
the corners.
The following classification of secular rooms, based on their function,
may be noted: (1) Living rooms; (2) milling rooms; (3) storage rooms;
(4) rooms of unknown function;[30] (5) towers; (6) round rooms. It is
difficult to distinguish in some instances to which of the above classes
some of the rooms belong. The secular houses were probably owned by the
oldest women of the clan, and the kivas were the property of the men of
their respective clans, but courts, plazas, and passageways were common
property.
[Footnote 30: Possibly some of these may have been used sometimes for
ceremonial purposes, or rather for the less important rites.]
The masonry[31] of all secular rooms is practically identical and as a
rule is inferior to that of kivas, their walls varying in width and
having a uniform thickness from foundation to top. There are instances
where the lower part projects somewhat beyond the upper, from which it
is separated by a ledge, but this feature is not common. Minor features
of architecture, as floors and roofs, doors and windows, fireplaces,
banks, and cubby-holes, some or all of which may be absent, vary in form
and in distribution according to the purpose for which the room was
intended. The few timbers that remain show that the beams of the houses
were probably cut with stone hatchets aided by the use of fire. The
labor of hauling these timbers and of stripping them of their branches
must have been great, considering the rude appliances at hand. It would
seem that the cliff-dwellers were not ignorant of the use of the wedge
with which to split logs, since the surfaces of split sticks are always
more or less fibrous, never smooth, as would be expected if metal
implements had been used. All transportation was manual, without the
assistance of beasts of burden or of any but the rudest mechanical
contrivances.
[Footnote 31: Probably both men and women of one clan worked together in
the construction of houses, the men being the masons, the women the
plasterers. Each clan built its own rooms, and there were no
differentiated groups of mechanics in the community.]
DOORS AND WINDOWS
There is difficulty in distinguishing doorways from windows in
cliff-dwellings, on which account they are here treated together. Both
are simple openings in the walls, the former as a rule being larger than
the latter. As door openings are regularly situated high above the
floor, there may have been ladders by which the doorways of the second
and third stories were reached. The rooms may have been entered by means
of balconies, evidences of which still remain. No instance of a hatchway
in the roof is now recognizable, although the absence of side entrances
in several rooms implies that there were roof entrances, several good
examples of which occur at Spruce-tree House.
Doorways of Cliff Palace have two forms, rectangular and T-shaped, the
latter generally opening on the second story or in such a position that
they were approached by ladders or notched logs. The theory that these
doorways were constructed larger at the top than at the bottom so that
persons with packs on their backs might pass through them more readily
is not wholly satisfactory, nor does the theory that the notch at the
lower rim served to keep the ladder from slipping wholly commend itself.
No satisfactory explanation of the form of the T-shaped doorway has been
yet determined. Generally the tops of both doorways and windows are
narrower than the bottoms, the sides being slightly inclined; but the
lower part is rarely narrower than the top. Sills sometimes project
slightly, and evidences occur that the sides as well as the upper part
of the window and doorway were made of adobe, now no longer in place.
The jambs also were probably of clay, and the doors, made of slabs of
stone, neatly fitted the orifices.
[Illustration: PLATE 14
PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLER
SQUARE TOWER, AFTER REPAIRING
OLD QUARTER]
The prevailing storms in winter at Cliff Palace sweep up the canyon from
the southwest, but there does not seem to have been a systematic effort
to avoid the cold by placing doors and windows on the opposite side of
the building; the openings, for instance, of the Speaker-chief's House
face this direction and are open to storms of snow and rain. Many of the
openings never had doors and windows, but were probably closed with
sticks tied together, or with matting[32]. Certain windows were half
closed, probably to temper the winter blasts. The sills of doors were
commonly placed a foot or more above the floor[33]; transoms above the
door opening and peepholes at the side are not common in Cliff Palace.
In some cases a stepping-stone projects from the wall below the door
opening to facilitate entrance; in others a foot hole is found in the
same relative place.
[Footnote 32: Some of the doorways were filled with rude masonry;
evidently the rooms were thus closed in some instances before the
buildings were deserted.]
[Footnote 33: The placing of the sill at a level with the floor is a
modern innovation at Walpi. The oldest houses still have it elevated, as
in Cliff Palace. In some of the cliff-houses of the Navaho Monument
sills and floor levels are continuous.]
As the jambs, sills, and lintels were built hard and fast in the mortar,
evidently both door openings and windows were constructed when the
corresponding wall was built. The jambs in some instances and the
lintels in others are of split sticks, the surfaces of which are fibrous
and were evidently not split by means of iron implements. There is
evidence that the size of the door openings was sometimes reduced by a
ridge of mortar which was arched above, as at Spruce-tree House, the
intention being to make in this way a jamb to hold in place the stone
door. There are no round windows of large size, but both doors and
windows are quadrilateral in shape; the small circular openings in some
of the walls may have served for lookouts.
FLOORS AND ROOFS
Not a single entire roof remained in Cliff Palace, and only one or two
rooms retained remnants of rafters. It would seem, however, from the
position of the holes in the walls into which the rafters once extended
that they were constructed like those of Spruce-tree House, a good
example of which is shown in plate 9 of the report on that ruin. The
floors seem to have been formed of clay hardened by tramping, but there
is no evidence of paving with flat stones. The hardened adobe is
sometimes laid on sticks without bark and stamped down. Although no
instance of extensive rock cutting of the floor was observed in secular
rooms, this is a common feature of kiva floors. Floors were generally
level, but in some instances, when rock was encountered, the surface was
raised in part above the other level. The majority of the floors had
been dug into for buried specimens before the repair work was begun, but
here and there fragments of floors were still intact, showing their
former level. Banquettes or ledges around the walls are rare. In a few
instances the unplastered roof of the cave served as the roof of the
highest rooms.
FIREPLACES
Many fireplaces still remain in rooms, but the majority are found in
convenient corners of the plazas[34]. The most common situation is in an
angle formed by two walls; in which case the fire-pit is generally
rimmed with a slightly elevated rounded ridge of adobe. In room 84 there
is a fireplace in the middle of the floor. At one side of this
depression there extends a supplementary groove in the floor, rimmed
with stone, the use of which is not known. Although fireplaces are
ordinarily half round, a square one occurs in the northwestern corner of
room 81. All the fireplaces contained wood ashes, sometimes packed hard;
but no cinders, large fragments of charcoal, or coal ashes were evident.
The sides of the walls above the fireplaces are generally blackened with
smoke.
[Footnote 34: Smoke on the walls of certain second and third stories
shows that fireplaces were not restricted to the ground floor.]
The fire-holes of the kivas, being specially constructed, are different
in shape from those in secular houses. While the cooking fire-pits are
generally shallow, kiva fire-holes a foot deep are not exceptional, and
several are much deeper. The fire was kindled in the kiva not so much
for heating the room, as for lighting it, there being no windows for
that purpose. Certain kinds of fuel were probably prescribed, but logs
were not burned in kivas on account of the heat. No evidences of
smoke-hoods or chimneys have been found in any of the Cliff Palace
rooms. The walls of many kivas showed blackening by soot or smoke.
LIVING ROOMS
It is difficult to distinguish rooms in which the inhabitants lived from
others used by them for storage and other purposes, since most of their
work, as cooking, pottery making, and like domestic operations, was
conducted either on the house-tops or in the plazas. Under living rooms
are included the women's rooms[35], or those in which centered the
family life; and, in a general way, we may suppose the large rooms and
those with banquettes were sleeping rooms. The popular misconception
that the cliff-dwellers were of small stature has undoubtedly arisen
from the diminutive size of all the secular rooms, but it must be
remembered that the life of the cliff-dwellers was really an out-of-door
one, the roof of the cave affording the necessary protection.
[Footnote 35: Among the Hopi the oldest woman, as a clan representative,
owns the living rooms, but kivas are the property of the men, the kiva
chief of certain fraternities being the direct descendant of the clan
chief of the ceremony when limited to his clan.]
[Illustration: PLATE 15
PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLER
SPEAKER-CHIEF'S HOUSE, AFTER REPAIRING]
MILLING ROOMS
There are several rooms in Cliff Palace which appear to have been given
up solely to the operation of grinding corn. The mills are box-like
structures, constructed of slabs of stone set on edge, each containing a
slanting stone called a metate, from which the mill is called by the
Hopi the _metataki_, or "metate house." The following description of a
metataki in pueblos seen by Castañeda in 1540 applies, in a general way,
to the small milling troughs in Cliff Palace:
One room is appointed for culinary purposes, another for the
grinding of corn; the latter is isolated [not so in Cliff
Palace] and contains an oven and three stones [one, two, three,
or four in Cliff Palace], cemented finely together. Three women
sit [kneel] before these stones; the first crushes the corn,
the second grinds it, and the third reduces it quite to a
powder.
In grinding corn, which was generally the work of the girls or young
women, the grinder knelt before the metataki and used a flat stone,
which was rubbed back and forth on the metate. The corn meal thus ground
fell into a squarish depression, made of smooth stones, at the lower end
of the metate. Commonly the corners of this receptacle for the meal that
had been ground were filled in with clay, and on each side of the metate
were inserted fragments of pottery, which rounded the corners and made
it easier to brush the meal into a heap. In room 92, where there are
four metates, occupying almost the whole milling room, there are upright
stones on the side of the wall, back of the place where the women knelt,
against which they braced their feet.
Most of the grinding boxes were destroyed, but those in the
Speaker-chief's house and others west of kiva V, especially the latter,
were still in good condition, the metates being in place. Evidences of
former metatakis were apparent in the floor of several other rooms, as
in a room back of kiva K. It is evident from the number of metates found
in Cliff Palace that several milling rooms, not now recognizable,
formerly existed, and it is probable that every large clan had its own
milling room, with, one or more metatakis, according to necessity.
Although, many metates without metatakis occur in Cliff Palace, that in
itself is not evidence that they were moved from place to place by the
inhabitants. These milling rooms were apparently roofed, low, and
one-storied, possibly in some instances open on top, but generally had a
small peephole or window for the entrance of light or for permitting the
grinders to see passers-by.
GRANARIES
Under the general name of granaries are included storage rooms, some of
which are situated below living rooms.[36] Here corn for consumption was
stacked, and if we may follow Hopi customs in our interpretation of
cliff-dwellers' habits, the people of Cliff Palace no doubt had a supply
sufficient to prevent famine by tiding over a failure of crops for two
or more years. Many of these chambers were without doorways or windows;
they were not limited to storage of corn, but served for the
preservation of any food products or valuable cult paraphernalia. Each
clan no doubt observed more or less secrecy in the amount of corn it
kept for future use, and on that account the storage rooms were
ordinarily, hidden from view.
[Footnote 36: Genetically the room for storage of property was of
earliest construction. This custom, which was necessary among
agriculturists whose food supply was bulky, may have led to the choice
of caves, natural or artificial, for habitation.]
The droppings of chipmunks and other rodents show that these commensals
were numerous, and their presence made necessary the building of storage
rooms in such manner that they would be proof against the ravages of
such animals. The three cists constructed of stone slabs placed
vertically, situated back of the Speaker-chief's House, sometimes called
"eagle houses," were probably storage bins; in support of this
hypothesis may be mentioned the fact that the cobs, tassels, and leaves
of corn are said to have been abundant in them when Cliff Palace was
first visited by white men.
Although eagle bones are found in the refuse in the unoccupied part of
the cave back of the houses, their abundance does not necessarily prove
that eagles were confined in them by the inhabitants of Cliff Palace.
Perhaps the eagle nests in the canyon were owned by different clans and
were visited yearly or whenever feathers were needed, and the dead
eagles were probably buried ceremonially in these places, which
therefore may be called eagle cemeteries, as among the Hopi.[37]
[Footnote 37: See Property Rights in Eagles, _American Anthropologist_,
vol. II, pp. 690-707, 1907.]
CREMATORIES
As is well known to students of the Southwest, the tribes of Indians
dwelling along the lower Colorado river disposed of their dead by
cremation, and evidences of burning the dead are found among all the
ruins along the Gila and Salt rivers in southern Arizona. The custom was
also practiced in the San Pedro and Salt River valleys, and along other
tributaries of the Gila river. Castañeda (1540) says that the
inhabitants of Cibola, identified with Zuñi, burned their dead, but no
indication of this practice is now found among existing Pueblos. The
ancient Pueblo inhabitants of the Little Colorado, so far as known, did
not burn their dead, and no record has been made of the practice among
their descendants, the Hopi and Zuñi.
[Illustration: PLATE 16
NORTHERN PART, FROM THE SPEAKER-CHIEF'S HOUSE TO THE WESTERN END]
In his excellent work on the ruins of the Mesa Verde, Baron Nordenskiöld
speaks of calcined human bones being found in a stone cist at Step
House, and Mr. Wetherill is referred to as having observed evidence of
cremation elsewhere among the Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings. There can be
no doubt from the observations made in the refuse heaps at Cliff Palace
that the inhabitants of this village not only burned their dead but
there was a special room in the depths of the cave which was set aside
for that purpose.[38] One of these rooms, situated at the northern end
of the refuse heap, was excavated in the progress of the work and found
to contain bushels of very fine phosphate ashes, mixed with fragments of
bones, some of which are well enough preserved to enable their
identification as human. Accompanying these calcined bones were various
mortuary objects not unlike those occurring in graves where the dead
were not cremated. The existence of great quantities of ashes, largely
containing phosphates, apparently derived from the burned bones, forming
much of the refuse, and the densely smoke-blackened roof of the cave
above them, are interpreted to indicate that the dead were cremated in
the cave back of the houses.
[Footnote 38: While only one place where bodies were burned was found in
Cliff Palace, several such places were found on top of the mesa.
Evidences of similar inclosures occur at Spruce-tree House and at Step
House.]