not go all the way to the ocean for them. The shells are traded from
tribe to tribe as they move inland. By the time the Mesa Verde men get
them from Pueblo Indians who live to the southwest, the price is very
high.
Cotton, which will not grow in the Mesa Verde because of the cool
nights, must be obtained from other Pueblo Indians who live to the south
and southwest. It grows well in the warmer lowlands and is one of the
most important trade items. The men trade for the raw cotton fibers,
usually, and weave them into blankets after they return home.
Trading expeditions are happy experiences for the men. They not only
love to travel and meet other people but they love to trade. All along
the route are villages of friendly Pueblo Indians and the travelers are
honored guests in these villages. Traders are always welcome for they
not only offer an opportunity for trading but they bring news from far
countries.
The departure of the trading party is a gala occasion and all the people
in Cliff Palace join to give it a noisy send-off. It is the first
expedition of the spring so a great many men are in the party. As they
start down the canyon, each man carries a large pack on his back. Most
of a man's burden consists of the things he will offer in trade when he
reaches his destination. Perhaps he has tanned buckskin: the soft white
leather has great value in the lands to the south where deer are scarce.
He may have the skin of a spotted fawn he choked to death last summer.
For ceremonial use the skins must not be pierced by arrows so the
animals are caught and choked and such skins are excellent for trading
purposes. Also, he may carry a number of large, highly-polished skinning
blades made from a banded stone found near the Mesa Verde. This stone is
well known over the pueblo region and the blades are highly prized.
In addition to his trading materials, a man carries his bow and arrows,
a blanket, a small bowl and a little food. He will be able to kill
rabbits, squirrels and rats along the way and almost every night he will
stop at a friendly village so little food need be carried. A small
amount of parched corn, some dried meat and perhaps a little corn meal
of a special type is all he will need. The corn meal was prepared last
fall for this very purpose. At harvest time the fresh corn was roasted,
then ground into meal. This meal was thoroughly toasted and again was
ground, this time very fine. The meal is so well cooked that a man need
only stir it into a bowl of cold water to have a nourishing drink. The
men know all of the streams and springs along the way so there will be
no hardships unless they meet enemy people.
In two weeks the men begin to return and at the end of the month all are
accounted for except a small party which went to the southeast for
turquoise and obsidian. They are long overdue and at last the people
give them up for lost. It merely means that they encountered a band of
nomadic, warlike Indians and perished. Groups of savage hunters
sometimes slip into the Pueblo country to prey upon the peaceful farmers
and the pressure from these nomadic Indians is being felt more and more.
There was a time, many generations ago, when the Mesa Verde people had
no outside enemies and their villages were scattered over a vast area.
At that time they lived in open pueblos out on the mesa tops and in all
the broad valleys. Then nomadic hunting Indians began to drift into the
Pueblo country. They raided the small villages, murdered the men,
enslaved the women and children and destroyed the crops. In the border
regions which were sparsely populated, village after village was
destroyed by the raiders. As the pressure increased, the farming people
deserted the valleys and the open mesa tops and for the last few
generations they have lived in the cliff dwellings which they built in
the caves of the Mesa Verde.
Cliff Palace has not yet been molested. It is in the midst of a large
group of cliff dwellings and the population is so great the enemy people
have not dared attack. But the men who have returned from their trading
journeys have brought news of increasing enemy trouble in the
surrounding regions and the people know the threat is coming closer.
This spring only the one party of traders was lost to the enemy. All the
others have returned to the safety of their cave home and they tell of
their journeys in great detail. They were received hospitably in Pueblo
villages along the way and have brought home a good supply of the things
the Mesa Verde does not provide; salt, turquoise, cotton and sea shells.
They have also brought news from all the country to the south. Fires
burn far into the night as the people listen to the tales from the outer
world. The young men who made their first trip have become heroes and
they make the most of the opportunity as they tell magnificent tales of
the things they have done and seen. Most of them did well with their
trading but a few gambled and lost, and have returned with nothing but
their loincloths. That is not serious, however, and the great cave rings
with laughter as the people torment the unfortunate gamblers.
The young man who needed cotton for his marriage blanket sets up a loom
in his kiva and begins to weave. Older men in the clan help him with the
spinning and the blanket grows steadily. The yarn is spun by hand until
it is fine and even and the young weaver listens attentively to the
advice of the older men as his weaving proceeds. This blanket is an
expression of his feelings for the young lady and he makes it as nearly
perfect as possible.
The bride-to-be is also busy for she and her relatives on her mother's
side must provide a house. The spot is chosen, either beside her
mother's house or on top of it and the walls begin to rise. The house
will be the property of the girl and her wishes are respected but the
real supervisor of operations is her mother. She is experienced in such
matters and her tongue is sharp as she directs the many workers. All of
the girl's clan relatives help. The men do the heavy work of cutting
roof poles and shaping the stones while the mortar work and plastering
is the work of the women.
Stones for the house are not quarried. The men simply go out along the
canyon slopes and pick up small rocks which are of the proper size,
though of irregular shapes. As soon as a large pile is accumulated they
begin to dress the stones. A few, well-directed blows from a heavy maul
or hammer give a stone the general shape desired, then a thorough
dressing with small pecking and rubbing stones gives it the final
finish. The sandstone is soft and the men are skillful, so in spite of
the simple tools the building stones are turned out surprisingly fast.
Mortar for the walls is prepared by the women. Gray clay is generally
used and it needs only the addition of water to make a heavy, sticky
mortar. The women do much of the work but they often call on the men for
help. As the walls rise, prayer sticks are buried in the corners. These
small, carved sticks are offerings to the Gods and assure the stability
of the house. When the walls are as high as the builders' heads, three
or four heavy poles are laid across as main roof supports. Over these is
spread a thatch of brush and withes and the roof is finished off with a
layer of adobe three or four inches thick.
It takes only a few days to build the house if the builders are in a
hurry but they seldom are. The house can be completed long before the
boy's weaving is finished, so the work is done leisurely. House building
is a pleasant task. All of the close relatives in the girl's clan work
together and the hours are filled with laughter and practical jokes.
There is much feasting and, of course, a happy celebration when the
house is finished.
As the little structure rises there is a deep satisfaction in the hearts
of the builders. They are helping a young couple reach their ultimate
goal. To the home-loving people this goal is marriage, a home and
children. Their lives point toward that end.
This tiny room will be home to the young couple for the rest of their
lives. It is small, not over six by eight feet in size and the roof is
so low that the husband will have to duck his head to miss the beams.
The one door is very small, measuring only sixteen inches in width and
twenty-four inches in height. The door sill is almost three feet above
the floor and it will be awkward for the short, chubby little bride who
is scarcely five feet tall. She will have difficulty straddling through
the high opening, and will not dare grow too fat in later years. Older
women often get so heavy that they can hardly squeeze through the tiny
doors. But it has always been the custom to make the doors small and
time-honored custom means more than the comfort of fat women.
There are no windows in the house and it has no firepit. Few of the
women have fires inside their houses and cooking is done in the courts.
Some of the older women who suffer from rheumatism and arthritis have
fires in their houses but the smoke is very bad.
The final step in the construction of the house is the plastering. This
is left to the young bride-to-be and she does it with loving care. A
smooth coat of plaster, a few red designs and the house is finished. Her
husband will come to live in it with her but it will always be her
property. She is terribly proud of it. Being uncivilized she feels that
her home and children will be the most important things in her life.
All of the houses in Cliff Palace are much like this one. They are
small, simple rooms that serve principally as sleeping quarters and for
the storage of possessions. Most of the activities take place in the
open courts and on the roofs of the terraced structures so there is no
need for large houses. They would be difficult to warm in winter and
would reduce the number of families that could live in the cave.
After weeks, sometimes months, of leisurely preparation it is time for
the boy to move to the girl's house. He has finished the presents he
will give to her, the house has been built and the two families have
exchanged the presents originally agreed upon. There is no actual
wedding ceremony. The boy moves his personal property; his clothing,
weapons and tools from his mother's house to the girl's house. They are
now husband and wife. Although he is only eighteen and she only fifteen
they have entered the serious phase of life and must bear their share of
the community responsibility.
The first few weeks of married life are difficult for the young husband.
He is living in the midst of his wife's relatives who are watching him
critically. If he fails to fit in, his life will not be pleasant and the
marriage may not last. Most marriages, however, are successful for the
young husbands, being still pliable, are able to adjust themselves to
their in-laws. In some cases the house is not built until the young
husband has lived for a time with the wife's relatives and is fully
approved by them.
If the marriage is not a success, divorce is simple. Perhaps the husband
decides it is hopeless, not because he does not love his wife, but
because he can not stand her relatives. He simply picks up his personal
belongings and goes back to his mother's house. If the wife decides to
call it off, it is equally direct. One day when he is out hunting or
working in the fields she throws all of his personal possessions out of
her house. When the husband returns, he cannot argue for all of her
relatives are there to defend her decision. So back to his mother he
goes.
If there are children in the family they remain with the mother for
children always belong to the mother's clan. They will be cared for by
her relatives until she marries again.
In April a period of frenzied activity begins for the men of Cliff
Palace. It will soon be planting time and the fields must be prepared
for that all-important time when the precious seeds will be placed in
the earth. The frost has left the soil and it is dry enough to be worked
so each morning the men and boys trot up the trails to the mesa tops to
spend the day preparing the soil for planting. The fields are scattered
far and wide over the mesas. Most of the men from Cliff Palace have
their farms nearby but some trot miles across the flat mesa tops to farm
certain favored plots. These men who have descended from a thousand
years of farmers have an uncanny ability to select the best areas for
farming.
The fields are seldom large and they are never regular in shape. An acre
here, a few acres there, they dot the mesa tops, the rich red soil
standing out sharply against the green cover of the vast "green table."
The heavy snows of winter have filled the earth with moisture which will
carry the crops through the dry, hot weather of early summer. Then the
late summer rains will come and the worries of the farmers will be over.
Many of the men like to farm in the low draws above the heads of the
canyons. There is deep, rich soil there and a concentration of moisture
that produces the finest crops. Such draws are not large but they make
excellent farming areas. The men even enlarge them by building terraces
where the draws are too narrow and steep for normal farming. Low dams of
stones are built across the drainage, seldom more than three or four
feet high and twenty or thirty feet long. The heavy rains of summer wash
rich soil from the mesas and deposit it behind the dams. Soon each one
becomes a terrace large enough for a few hills of corn, beans or squash.
Sometimes there are as many as a hundred of these terraces in a single
small draw. In a dry year, when the plants on the mesa tops die from
lack of moisture, these terraces usually produce a crop. Even a slight
rain causes water to drain down across them and they assure a small
harvest.
The early spring work consists of clearing the trash and weeds out of
the fields and stirring up the soil for planting. Dead weeds are pulled
out of the ground and burned and the first green weeds of spring are
prodded out of the soil with digging sticks. Some of the men even begin
to stir up the soil where they will later place the seeds. Corn is
sometimes planted almost a foot in the earth so each hill requires a
great deal of effort. The plants grow better if the soil is loosened up
so the men select the spots for the hills and begin to dig up the soil
and turn it over.
The only tool is a digging stick, a slender hardwood limb that has one
end sharpened into a chisel-like blade. Small digging sticks may be only
an inch screen in diameter and a foot in length but the large ones are
sometimes three inches in diameter and five feet long. The upper end of
the large ones is rounded into a knob that serves as a handhold and near
the base may be a prong so the foot can be used in forcing the blade
into the soil.
Sometimes a stone blade is attached to the digging stick. The stone for
these blades is found down across the big river, forty miles to the
southwest. That is a short easy journey: the young men make the round
trip in three or four days and return with long slabs of stone. For days
the men grind these on pieces of sandstone until a long thin blade, two
or three inches wide and from six to ten inches in length, is formed.
The stone is a light tan color, with thin bands of red and brown and it
takes a beautiful polish. When one of these blades is bound firmly to a
long handle it makes a very serviceable tool for turning up the soil and
chopping out weeds.
While the men are preparing the fields the medicine men are watching the
weather very carefully. It is their duty to set the planting date. There
are countless signs they must take into consideration. The return of
certain birds from the south is observed and the appearance and growth
of spring plants is watched carefully. The clouds and the sky are
observed constantly and the wind is tested many times a day. All of
these things have a meaning. Countless generations of medicine men have
developed a "weather sense" and barring occasional mistakes they are
quite accurate in their predictions.
[Illustration: Old men sit in the sun and talk of better times]
[Illustration: A busy afternoon in a cliff dwelling]
The planting date finally will be set by the Sun Watcher, a priest who
throughout the year observes the movements of the sun. Each evening, as
planting time approaches, he stands on the roof of his house and notes
where the setting sun sinks behind the western horizon. Each day it
comes closer to a large crack in the opposite canyon wall: when it
reaches the crack it will be planting time. The moon also is watched and
the priests note with satisfaction that a thin new moon is climbing
higher in the western sky each evening. Planting must be done while the
moon is growing larger. The corn will then grow as the moon grows. If it
is planted while the moon is waning the corn will wither and die.
In addition to setting the planting date, the priests must also perform
certain ceremonies over the seeds that are to be planted. Spring is not
an important ceremonial season for the men are too busy to spare time
for the long, elaborate ceremonies. Certain rites must be performed,
however, and offerings must be made to certain gods so they will smile
upon the people. It is a simple form of "crop insurance."
The fertility rites are especially important for unless the gods of
fertility and reproduction are pleased, the seeds will rot in the ground
without sprouting. Around the precious seeds the priests and their
helpers perform the ancient rites. Year after year the ritual is the
same; countless generations of priests have developed this elaborate
formula that is followed in the finest detail. There is endless
chanting, parts of the legends are dramatized, and there are offerings
of prayer sticks, corn pollen, cornmeal and perfect ears of corn. If the
ceremonies are properly performed the germ gods will be pleased and the
seeds will sprout and grow well.
As the end of spring draws near everything is in readiness. The
germination ceremonies are over and the fields are ready for the
planting. The eager farmers await the nod of the priests which will send
them scurrying to the fields to plunge the seeds into the earth.
In any normal year in the Mesa Verde there are several days of rain
about the middle of May. The farmers like to plant their crops just
before the rains come in order that they may get the greatest benefit
from the moisture. If the planting is done too early, however, there is
danger of late frosts so the medicine men are in a dangerous position.
If they sanction the planting too soon, frosts may nip the tender young
shoots, while if they hold off too long the rains may come. Not only
will the planting be delayed many days but much of the benefit of the
moisture will be lost.
Carefully, the priests watch the signs. The birds, the plants, the sun,
the moon; everything goes through the regular progression of spring. The
sun is moving farther and farther to the north and each evening the eyes
of the people are on the Sun Watcher as he makes his sunset
observations. At last the important day comes. As the sun sinks behind
the horizon the Sun Watcher climbs down from his house top and hurries
to the home of the Crier Chief. Immediately the Crier Chief steps out on
his roof to make the announcement. The sun, he tells the waiting people,
has reached the proper point; today it set directly behind the crack in
the opposite canyon wall. It is planting time.
The next morning each man is off to his field at sunrise, carrying the
various items of equipment he will need. The seed corn, only a small
amount of which will be needed this first day, is carried in a pouch
made from the entire skin of a fawn. The head and legs dangle
grotesquely as the farmer throws the pouch over his shoulder. At harvest
time last fall the finest ears of corn were selected for seed and
ceremonies were performed to assure germination and growth. During the
winter it was stored where it would be safe from dampness, mice and
weevils.
In addition to his pouch of corn the farmer carries his planting stick,
a plumed prayer stick and a small bag of corn meal. As he leaves his
house, bowls of water are poured over him by the women of his household.
This is symbolic of rain and will cause the summer rains to fall upon
the crops.
Upon reaching his field the farmer goes to a well-known spot at the very
center. With his digging stick he digs four holes, each one almost a
foot deep. The first hole is north of the center spot, the second is to
the west, the third is to the south and the fourth is to the east. On
the west side of the northern hole he digs another which represents the
sky regions and on the east side of the southern hole another which
represents the lower regions.
In the center of the space bounded by the six holes he kneels, facing
the east and with cornmeal paints a cross on the ground. Murmuring a
prayer, he plants the plumed prayer stick in the center of the cross and
sprinkles it with cornmeal.
Now he moves out of the central space and opens his bag of seed corn.
Carefully he selects four grains of each color--yellow, blue, red,
white, speckled and black. Returning to the central space, he kneels
facing the northern hole and begins to chant. At the proper point in the
chant he drops the four yellow grains into the hole. Shifting to the
westward, he continues his chant and drops the four blue grains into the
western hole. Chanting without a break, he goes from one hole to the
next. The red corn is dropped into the southern hole, the white corn
into the eastern hole, the speckled corn into the hole representing the
sky regions and the black corn into the hole representing the lower
regions.
Now the ceremony is over and he fills in the holes where the seeds have
been planted. Picking up his pouch of seed corn and his planting stick,
he plants four long rows of corn, each one starting at his little
central plot. One row extends to the north, another to the west, another
to the south and the final row to the east.
When his seed is exhausted, he is through for the day and returns to the
village. The rest of the field can not be planted until four days have
passed. During that time he will go through many rituals of prayer, will
place offerings at shrines and will not eat forbidden foods. Also, he
will avoid trading, gambling and certain other pleasures.
After four days have passed, the remaining portions of each field are
planted. This is done without ceremony and as hurriedly as possible for
everything indicates that the May rains are near. There is a light haze
in the sky and the air feels warm and damp. The moisture is in the air;
only an east wind is needed to bring it down. Planting must be
completed, if possible, before the east wind comes.
All of the men and boys, even some of the women, help with the planting.
Shortly after sunrise they leave the village and scatter out to the many
mesa-top fields. Food is brought to them by groups of young girls and
the planting continues almost without interruption until sunset.
Planting methods are simple. A hole is dug, the seeds are dropped in,
and the earth is pushed back into the hole. Light pressure with the foot
compacts the moist soil about the seeds. Corn is planted almost a foot
deep and a dozen or more kernels are placed in each hill. Beans and
squash are given a shallower planting with fewer seeds in the hills.
Sometimes the corn, beans and squash are planted in separate plots but
often they are all planted together in the same field.
There are no rows, simply individual hills planted from five to eight
feet apart with no effort toward orderliness. The only care exercised in
the location of the hills is that they must not be in the same spot as
those of last year. Enough stubs from the last year's crop have been
left in place to indicate where not to plant. By changing the location
of the hills each season and by wide planting the men save the soil, for
it may be years before two hills are planted in the same spot.
The planting proceeds rapidly with the men digging the holes and the
boys and girls dropping the seeds. Plot after plot is completed and the
tension begins to lessen. In a few days every field is planted and the
happy farmers sit back to wait for the rain. It is not long in coming.
One evening the wind swings to the east and during the night the people
are awakened by the pleasant sound of rain in the canyons. There are
contented smiles on their faces as they are lulled back to sleep by the
swishing waterfall that pours over the front of the cave.