(_a_) Composed of one or two, seldom three, extensive buildings,
generally so disposed as to surround an interior court.
(_b_) Polygonal pueblos.
(_c_) Scattered pueblos, composed of a number of large many-storied
houses, disposed in a more or less irregular manner; sometimes in
irregular squares or on a line.
(_d_) Artificial caves, resembling in number, size, and disposition
of the cells the many-storied communal dwelling.
(_e_) Many-storied dwellings, with artificial walls, erected inside
of natural caves of great size.
II. Detached family dwellings, either isolated or in groups forming
villages.
[Footnote 11: Arch. Inst. of America, 5th Ann. Rept., p. 55; and
Arch. Inst. of America, Papers, American series, IV, p. 27.]
Many hundreds of ruins have been examined by Mr Bandelier, and doubtless
the classification above afforded a convenient working basis for the
region with which he is most familiar, the basin of the Rio Grande and
its tributaries. It does not apply very well to the western part of the
pueblo region.
The distinguishing characteristics of the first group (of five
classes)--houses several stories high--are as follows: Each building
consisted of an agglomeration of a great number of small cells, without
any larger halls of particularly striking dimensions. All the buildings,
except outhouses or additions, were at least two stories high, and the
lower story was entered only from the roof. The various stories receded
from the bottom to the top. The prevalence of the estufa (kiva)
generally, or often, circular in form.
Ruins of class II--detached family dwellings--consist sometimes of a
single room; more often of several rooms. The rooms are generally built
of stone, although examples constructed of mud and adobe are also found
in certain regions. The average size of the room is larger than in the
communal building, and there is a gradual increase in size of rooms from
north to south. There are front doorways and light and air holes are
larger than in the communal houses. Mr Bandolier suggests that the
detached family dwelling was the early type, and that only when enemies
began to threaten were the communal houses resorted to for purposes of
defense.
This classification is apparently based on external form alone, without
taking into account the numerous influences which modify or produce
form; and while no doubt it was sufficient for field use, it is not
likely to be permanently adopted; for there does not appear to be any
essential or radical difference between the various classes. Moreover,
there does not appear to be any place in the scheme for the cliff ruins
of the variety especially abundant in De Chelly and found in many other
localities, unless indeed such ruins come under class II--detached
family dwellings; yet this would imply precedence in time, and the ruins
themselves will not permit such an inference.
The essential uniformity of types which prevails over the immense area
covered by the ancient pueblo ruins is a noteworthy feature, and any
system of classification which does not take it into account must be
considered as only tentative. What elements should be considered and
what weight assigned to each in preparing a scheme of classification is
yet to be determined, but probably one of the most important elements is
the character of the site occupied, with reference to its convenience
and defensibility. There are great differences in kind between the great
valley pueblos, located without reference to defense and depending for
security on their size and the number of their population, of which Zuni
and Taos are examples, and the villages which are located on high mesas
and projecting tongues of rock; in other words, on defensive sites where
reliance for security was placed on the character of the site occupied,
such as the Tusayan villages of today. Within each of these classes
there are varieties, and there are also secondary types which pertain
sometimes to one, sometimes to the other, and sometimes to both. Such
are the cliff ruins, the cavate lodges, and the single house remains.
The unit of pueblo architecture is the single cell, and in its
development the highest point reached is the aggregation of a great
number of such cells into one or more clusters, either connected with or
adjacent to each other. These cells were all the same, or essentially
so; for while differentiation in use or function had been or was being
developed at the time of the Spanish conquest, differentiation in form
had not been reached. The kiva, of circular or rectangular shape, is a
survival and not a development.
Large aggregations of many cells into one cluster are the latest
development of pueblo architecture. They were immediately preceded by a
type composed of a larger number of smaller villages, located on sites
selected with reference to their ease of defense, and apparently the
change from the latter to the former type was made at one step, without
developing any intermediate forms. The differences between the largest
examples of villages on defensive sites and the smallest appear to be
only differences of size. Doubtless in the early days of pueblo
architecture small settlements were the rule. Probably these settlements
were located in the valleys, on sites most convenient for horticulture,
each gens occupying its own village. Incursions by neighboring wild
tribes, or by hostile neighbors, and constant annoyance and loss at
their hands, gradually compelled the removal of these little villages to
sites more easily defended, and also forced the aggregation of various
related gentes into one group or village. At a still later period the
same motive, considerably emphasized perhaps, compelled a further
removal to even more difficult sites. The Tusayan villages at the time
of the Spanish discovery were located on the foothills of the mesas, and
many pueblo villages at that period occupied similar sites. Actuated by
fear of the Ute and Comanche, and perhaps of the Spaniards, the
inhabitants soon after moved to the top of the mesa, where they now are.
Many villages stopped at this stage. Some were in this stage at the time
of the discovery--Acoma, for example. Finally, whole villages whose
inhabitants spoke the same language combined to form one larger village,
which, depending now on size and numbers for defense, was again located
on a site convenient for horticulture.
The process sketched above was by no means continuous. The population
was in slow but practically constant movement, much the same as that now
taking place in the Zuni country; it was a slow migration. Outlying
settlements were established at points convenient to cultivable fields,
and probably were intended to be occupied only during the summer.
Sometimes these temporary sites might be found more convenient than that
of the parent village, and it would gradually come about that some of
the inhabitants would remain there all the year. Eventually the
temporary settlement might outgrow the parent, and would in turn put out
other temporary settlements. This process would be possible only during
prolonged periods of peace, but it is known to have taken place in
several regions. Necessarily hundreds of small settlements, ranging in
size from one room to a great many, would be established, and as the
population moved onward would be abandoned, without ever developing into
regular villages occupied all the year. It is believed that many of the
single house remains of Mr Bandelier's classification[12] belong to this
type, as do also many cavate lodges, and in the present paper it will be
shown that some at least of the cliff ruins belong to the same category.
[Footnote 12: See a paper by the author on "Aboriginal remains in
Verde valley, Arizona," in 13th Ann. Rept. Bureau of Ethnology, p.
179 et seq.]
The cliff ruins are a striking feature, and the ordinary traveler is apt
to overlook the more important ruins which sometimes, if not generally,
are associated with them. The study of the ruins in Canyon de Chelly has
led to the conclusion that the cliff ruins there are generally
subordinate structures, connected with and inhabited at the same time as
a number of larger home villages located on the canyon bottom, and
occupying much the same relation to the latter that Moen-kapi does to
Oraibi, or that Nutria, Pescado, and Ojo Caliente do to Zuni; and that
they are the functional analogues of the "watch towers" of the San Juan
and of Zuni, and the brush shelters or "kisis" of Tusayan: in other
words, they were horticultural outlooks occupied only during the farming
season.
Mr G. Nordenskioeld, who examined a number of cliff and other ruins in
the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde region, adopts[13] a very simple
classification, as follows:
I. Ruins in the valleys, on the plains, or on the plateaus.
II. Ruins in caves in the walls of the canyons, subdivided as follows:
(a) Cave dwellings, or caves inhabited without the erection
of any buildings within them.
(b) Cliff dwellings, or buildings erected in caves.
[Footnote 13: The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 9 and 114.]
From its topographic character it might be expected that the Canyon de
Chelly ruins would hardly come within a scheme of classification based
upon those found in the open country; and here, if anywhere, we should
find corroboration of the old idea that the cliff ruins were the homes
and last refuge of a race harassed by powerful enemies and finally
driven to the construction of dwellings in inaccessible cliffs, where a
last ineffectual stand was made against their foes; or the more recent
theory that they represent an early stage in the development of pueblo
architecture, when the pueblo builders were few in number and surrounded
by numerous enemies. Neither of these theories are in accord with the
facts of observation. The still later idea that the cliff dwellings were
used as places of refuge by various pueblo tribes who, when the occasion
for such use was passed, returned to their original homes, or to others
constructed like them, may explain some of the cliff ruins, but if
applicable at all to those of De Chelly, it applies only to a small
number of them.
[Illustration: Plate XLIII
Detailed Map of Part of Canyon De Chelly
Showing Areas of Cultivatable Land]
The ruins of De Chelly show unmistakably several periods of occupancy,
extending over considerable time and each fairly complete. They fall
easily into the classification previously suggested, and exhibit various
types, but the earliest and the latest forms are not found. In the
descriptions which follow the classification below has been employed:
I--Old villages on open sites.
II--Home villages on bottom lands.
III--Home villages located for defense.
IV--Cliff outlooks or farming shelters.