of Cliff Palace, there are in addition countless wild products that they
must gather and store away. Throughout the autumn, when they are not
busy with their harvest, they search the mesas and canyons for these
natural foodstuffs. Corn, beans, and squash would be a tiresome diet so
meat, nuts, roots, fruit, seeds and berries are needed.
This year there is a splendid crop of pinon nuts and the women and
children are busy gathering them. The early frosts have opened the cones
and the ground under each pinon tree is covered with brown nuts that are
scarcely larger than beans. Squirrels, chipmunks and Indians engage in a
lively contest for them but there are more than enough for all. They are
stored away in baskets to be eaten later in the winter. Usually they are
cracked one at a time with the teeth and eaten raw but sometimes they
are ground, shell and all, into an oily butter and eaten with corn
bread. Pinon nuts are highly prized but they cannot be depended upon
regularly. Sometimes several years elapse between crops.
In addition to pinon nuts many other plant products are gathered, dried
and stored for the winter. Yucca pods, cactus fruits, berries, roots and
seeds all have their uses. Medicinal herbs are also gathered as well as
plants that will be needed for dying cotton cloth and buckskin. Bundles
of drying plants hang on the walls of every house.
During the summer there was little hunting, for the deer and mountain
sheep drifted north into the higher country. Now they are returning and
as soon as the harvest is over, the men begin to lay in the winter's
supply of meat. Hunting parties vary in size from one man to all of the
men in the town and there are always important ceremonial preparations.
Prayer sticks are made, prayers are said and each man carries a tiny
stone image of some animal, such as the mountain lion, which is a good
hunter. When the organized town hunts are planned, the hunt society
holds ceremonies in its kiva the night before the hunt begins. Unless
these ceremonial preparations are made, a hunt cannot be successful. If
a man were to neglect the ceremonies it would be worse than if he were
to forget to take his weapons.
[Illustration: Corn is husked and spread on the roofs to dry]
[Illustration: The man who cut the log too short]
If one man or a small party of men goes out after deer or mountain
sheep, they usually stalk the animals and shoot them with their bows and
arrows. The men know the game trails and waterholes and by careful,
patient stalking, they are able to get within shooting distance. If deer
skins are needed for ceremonial purposes, the men run the animals down
and choke them to death for ceremonial skins must not be pierced by
arrows. When a deer finds that it is being pursued, it becomes too
nervous to eat or drink. As the man follows it hour after hour he
imitates the cries of coyotes or wolves and after a time the animal is
frightened to the point of exhaustion and the man is able to catch it,
throw it down and choke it to death.
Dates for the organized hunts, in which all of the men of the town take
part, are set by the Hunt Chief and announced by the Crier Chief. When
the large groups of men go hunting they either drive the game out on a
high point between two canyons or form a large circle and drive the game
to the center. The mesa south of Cliff Palace is an excellent place for
a game drive for it is narrow and the cliffs are very high. When the
Hunt Chief learns that deer or mountain sheep are on this mesa, a hunt
is announced and early the next morning the men leave the town. Forming
a long line across the mesa they drive the game toward the point. The
cliffs are so high the animals cannot leave the mesa top and soon they
are cornered on the point of the mesa with a solid line of men blocking
their escape. The animals are killed with arrows and clubs and any that
dash over the cliff are picked up below.
When a surround hunt has been announced the men go north on the mesa to
areas where game is especially plentiful. The easiest way is for them to
split into two parties and move up two canyons which are parallel. When
a signal is given the men swarm up out of the canyons and form a circle
which at first may be a mile in diameter. With much shouting they move
toward the center and soon all the deer, mountain sheep, foxes, coyotes,
and rabbits which were in the area are surrounded by a tight circle of
men. As the frightened animals try to dash out of the circle they are
killed with arrows and clubs.
When hunting parties return the game is turned over to the women and
girls. The animals are skinned and the meat is cut into long strips.
Strings are tied to pegs in the house walls and to the ends of roof
beams and soon the houses are festooned with drying meat. Almost every
part of an animal is used. The meat and most of the internal organs are
eaten, the hide is tanned for clothing, sinews are used for bow strings
and for sewing and the bones are made into tools. All through the late
fall, hunting continues and for weeks the cave reeks with the strong
odor of drying meat.
Throughout the fall the harvesting and hunting activities occupy the
people of Cliff Palace. When evening comes they are tired from their
labors but they are happy as they sit around the fires which have been
lighted to drive off the chill. They face the winter with light hearts
for the walls are bulging with the supplies of food that have been
stored away.
It is the same all over the Mesa Verde. In every cliff dwelling there is
contentment. This has been a good year for the entire tribe and the
people are enjoying the reward that has come from their labors.
Even though the strenuous harvest days are over the people are still
busy. A cold winter is coming and preparations must be made for it. When
December and January come there will be snow and ice. Bitter winds will
sweep across the mesa and the shadowy depths of the cave will be cold.
An abundance of warm clothing will be required if the people are to
enjoy any comfort during the winter.
The most important articles of clothing are the feather blankets.
Weaving them is a slow, tedious task but they are splendid protection
against the cold. In making a feather blanket only two things are used;
small, fluffy turkey feathers and heavy, yucca cord. The feathers are
split down the middle and wrapped in a very tight spiral around the
cord. A soft, fluffy feather rope results; hundreds of feet are needed
for a single blanket. When enough of the feather rope has been made, it
is woven into a blanket that is as soft and warm as a fur robe. The men
who make these blankets are busy making new ones and repairing old ones.
Each person will need one when cold weather comes.
Other men weave new cotton blankets and some of the boys are sent off to
the south for more cotton. Cotton robes are not as warm as those made of
feathers but they give added warmth when they are worn next to the skin
under the feather blankets. When a feather blanket is old and worn some
of the feather ends loosen and a cotton under-blanket is needed to
prevent scratching.
Deer and mountain sheep skins are tanned into soft white leather. By
using bone awls and needles the women sew the skins together with yucca
fiber or cotton string and make large robes. A few sleeveless slip-over
buckskin jackets are made but most of the people prefer the loose robes.
Yucca fiber sandals are worn throughout the year but in the winter grass
and juniper bark are sometimes bound to the foot by the sandal lacings
and extra warmth is provided. Short leggings, made from buckskin or
woven of human hair, are often worn by the men when they leave the cave.
As winter draws near and the threat of cold weather comes close the
people check their clothing needs carefully. Each man, woman and child
will need certain things so the weaving and sewing continue until
everyone is well supplied. With the bountiful supplies of food, an
abundance of fuel, and a good stock of clothing the people are able to
face the dreary months of winter with less dread. They hate to see
winter come for there will be suffering and sadness. But only winter can
lead to spring so they must accept it.
In the late fall, when the rush of harvest is over and the preparations
for winter are well under way, the men begin to think of ceremonies.
This is the season for the greatest ceremonial activity and the men are
often busy carrying out the rituals that are prescribed by their
elaborate ceremonial calendar.
At almost any time of the year a ceremony of some kind is going on in
Cliff Palace. It may be only a simple bit of ritual occupying a single
medicine man or it may be an elaborate ceremony that occupies an entire
religious society for many days. The priests of each society have a
ceremonial calendar and as the seasons roll around they perform their
ancient rituals. When, why and how those ceremonies originated they do
not know. They learned them from their elders and they will pass them on
to the younger men who will succeed them.
Throughout the year many ceremonies are held but the important
ceremonial season comes in the late fall and winter. The work of spring,
summer and fall is over and the men now have ample time for the involved
rituals that keep them in tune with the powers that control the
universe. These powers, or gods, are many and varied and strangely, they
are both good and bad. The effort of the priests, then, is to call upon
the good gods to help the people and to influence the bad gods to leave
them alone.
Most important of all the powers is the Sun, who is the Father, and
closely allied is the Earth Mother. In addition there are gods who
control rain, growth of plants, fertility, the flow of springs and
countless other things. Added to these are innumerable lesser
supernatural beings who can help or harm the people. All nature is full
of powers and it is the business of the medicine men to keep the whole
complicated system in tune. It is not so much a worship of the forces of
nature as a recognition of these forces. If they work smoothly together,
life flows evenly and properly. If there is discord among the natural
forces the people suffer. To them it means that some god is not pleased.
The result is drouth, pestilence, famine, or any of the other curses
that occasionally fall upon them.
In order to explain all of the acts of nature which influence the
people, there is a tremendous mass of legends and myths. The origin of
the universe and the origin of all life, including the people
themselves, is contained in these myths. For every condition or act of
nature there is an involved mythological explanation. The medicine men
must keep this legendary background in order and they must faithfully
carry out the yearly program of ceremonies. One of their most important
duties is the training of the younger men. Just as they themselves
received the myths and rituals from their elders so must they in turn
pass them on to the men who will follow them.
In each generation a certain number of the men are concerned almost
entirely with religious matters. They are the medicine men, or priests,
to whom is entrusted the responsibility of the delicate adjustments
between man and the forces of nature. Each religious society has one or
more full-fledged medicine men and a number of younger men who are
learning the profession. In addition, all of the other men of the
society know a great deal about the mythological background and the
ceremonies. Consequently, the men spend a great deal of time in
religious work.
Cliff Palace has twenty-three kivas and a large number of secret
religious societies. All of the societies have the same general beliefs
and background but each society splits off from the main mythological
stem and has certain phases of the religious work to carry out. The
function of the various societies is to control the weather, bring rain,
promote fertility and crops, assure successful hunts, control the sun
and the seasons, cure sickness, combat witches and promote the general
welfare of the people.
When a boy is twelve or fourteen years of age, he is initiated into one
of the societies, usually into the one to which his "ceremonial father"
belongs. This "ceremonial father" is the uncle who was chosen to be the
boy's adviser and sponsor and it is natural for the boy to follow him.
The uncles on the mother's side are in many ways closer to a boy than is
his own father. The father belongs to a different clan and while he
lives with his family, in his wife's house, he spends a great deal of
time with his own clan group where he may be the "ceremonial father" of
one of his small nephews. Since marriage cannot take place between two
members of the same clan the father is, to a certain extent, an outsider
who has little to do with the religious training of his sons. Maternal
uncles take the father's place in this matter.
During the fall, the initiation ceremonies take place and the training
of the boys begins. They must learn the legends, the rituals and the
endless chants so they can bear their share of the ceremonial work. The
few boys who are selected to be medicine men will do little else but sit
at the feet of the older medicine men for a score of years. When their
teachers die, they will be able to step into their places.
The initiation and the training take place in the kivas. Night after
night, through the fall and winter, the great cave resounds with the
chants of the priests as they perform the ceremonies or teach them to
the newly initiated members. Much of the legendary material is in the
form of endless songs and the men never tire of them. Hour after hour
they sit around the kiva fires, eyes closed, chanting softly the musical
prayers and legends. Often the chanting continues through the night: now
that the season's strenuous work is over the men are able to spend the
nights with their ceremonies and rest in the daytime.
Most of the activities of a society take place in its kiva, which is a
ceremonial room, work shop, club room and often, a sleeping chamber.
During most of the year it serves as a club room for the men. When the
time for a ceremony arrives it becomes a sacred, religious chamber.
After the conclusion of the ceremony it is again a loafing place and
work room. Women usually enter the kivas only on occasions when they
take part in the ceremonies, or are invited in to witness them.
An unmarried boy, after being initiated, often sleeps in the kiva of his
society. His mother's house may be crowded with younger children so the
warm, underground room is much more pleasant. Married men very often
sleep in the kiva, too, but for different reasons. When a man marries,
he goes to live with his wife in the midst of her clan relatives. Often
he remains, in a sense, an outsider. While he prizes his family and his
home, he prizes, also, his kiva sanctuary. When his house becomes too
full of words, he can retire to the peace and quiet and good fellowship
of this club room which protects him from family troubles.
A typical kiva is a circular, subterranean room, twelve to fourteen feet
in diameter and seven or eight feet deep. Its walls are faced with stone
to hold back the surrounding earth. At a height of about three feet from
the floor the walls are stepped back so there is a ledge or shelf, at
least a foot wide running entirely around the room. Resting on this
ledge are six small masonry pillars, evenly spaced around the room, that
support the roof. These pillars divide the space above the ledge into
six recesses, the one to the south usually being deeper than the rest.
The tops of the pillars are a couple of feet below the ground level and
this space is built up with a cribbing of logs on which rests the roof
of logs and adobe. The only door is a small hatchway in the center of
the roof.
The kiva is entered by means of a ladder which rests on the floor and
extends up through the small door. This door is also the smokehole for
directly below it in the center of the kiva floor is a firepit. Fresh
air is brought into the room through a small, vertical shaft back of the
deep recess on the south side of the kiva. The top of the shaft is a
small opening in the courtyard while the bottom opens into the kiva just
above the floor. As the smoke and hot air rise through the doorway fresh
air is drawn down the ventilator shaft. Between the ventilator opening
and the firepit is a small masonry screen, or deflector, that keeps the
fresh air from blowing across the fire.
On the other side of the firepit, opposite the deflector, is a small
hole in the kiva floor, three or four inches in diameter and only
slightly deeper. This small opening is of extreme importance to the
priests. It is the sipapu, the symbolic entrance to the underworld. Many
of the gods live in the Mother Earth and the prayers of the medicine men
reach them through the small opening. The hole is merely a symbol. It
represents the opening through which the Indians feel they themselves
and all other living things emerged from the Earth Mother.
The people believe the Sun is their father and the Earth their mother.
After the union of the two, the people and all other creatures first
came into being in a dark cave in the center of the earth, the world of
darkness. After a time they climbed up to another cave where there was a
little light. This was the world of twilight. For a short time they
lived in this twilight world, then they climbed to another cave with
still more light, the world of dawn. Finally, they emerged through a
small hole in the earth, Sipapu, and were in the present world. All
other creatures emerged just as they did; all life came from the Mother
Earth.
The little hole in the kiva floor is merely a symbolic sipapu,
representing that original Sipapu through which the people emerged from
the Mother Earth. It is a symbolic entrance to the spirit world below.
During the ceremonies, offerings are placed in the hole or around it and
the priests send their prayers through it to the gods who live in the
underworld. And when a person dies, his spirit goes back through Sipapu
to a pleasant afterworld within the Earth Mother.
When a ceremony is in progress, the kiva is sacred to the members of the
society. Food is brought to them by the women and they eat and sleep in
the kiva, leaving it only to perform ceremonial errands. Day and night
they follow the sacred ritual, preparing their paraphernalia, recounting
legends, chanting endless prayers, making offerings to the gods and
performing the various ceremonial acts that are prescribed.
In some of the ceremonies the costumed priests emerge from the kiva and
perform public dances or rituals. The villagers gather on the roofs
surrounding the dance court and watch with serious reverence. They know
these ceremonies are necessary if the delicate adjustment is to be
maintained between the people and the mysterious powers which affect
them.
At the end of the ceremony the kiva becomes a club room and workshop
again. Paraphernalia is stored away on the ledges or in small niches in
the kiva walls and normal life resumes. A kiva presents a varied scene,
for any activity carried on by the men may be performed there.
Undisturbed by outsiders they work, loaf, gamble, gossip, trade and
sleep in this room which is their most prized possession. Since the
women own the homes the kiva is the only bit of real property the men
can call their own.
Because of the strange social and religious customs a man's life is
divided into three parts. His family life centers about his wife's house
for there live the wife and children whom he cherishes and for whom he
provides. His social life centers about his mother's home for there lies
his clan affiliation. His religious life centers in the kiva which
belongs to his religious society or fraternity. These three interests do
not conflict. They dovetail perfectly, each taking its proper share of
the man's time and attention.
The life of a woman is much less complicated. Most of her activities
concern the home and family and her full time is occupied with them.
[Illustration: Interior details of the kiva]
[Illustration: The kiva roof formed an open court where many
activities took place]
Some of the most important religious duties of the men are concerned
with a great ceremonial building which stands on the mesa top just
across the canyon from Cliff Palace. It is a massive, D-shaped building
which dominates a high, narrow point between two canyons. Near it are a
number of cliff dwellings and the men from all these joined in
constructing the building. On days when it is used, priests and men from
all the villages come trotting up the trails to join in the performance
of the elaborate ceremonies. It is a superceremonial structure where
only the most important rites are performed.
When the building was constructed, the priests planned it very
carefully. The main building is D-shaped, with the straight wall to the
south. The outside wall is double and in the space between are a number
of long narrow rooms, some without doorways. In the court enclosed by
the walls are two kivas. This part of the building is symmetrical, the
result of the very careful planning of the priests. On the west end of
the building is an addition consisting of a kiva and ten rooms, all
added in such a way that the entire building is still D-shaped. The
building has no roof and all of the walls are over a dozen feet high.
Half of the rooms have no doors; they are deep, small rooms entered by
ladders.
This building is open to the sun and the elements, in this respect being
entirely different from the underground kivas. The thick, high, double
walls and the location on the isolated point give the priests the
secrecy they desire and in this unique building are held the greatest of
all the ceremonies. Long ago the priests of the various villages decided
there was a need for this community place of worship. By concerted
effort they built it and through the cooperation of the many societies
they have carried on the ceremonies. It is their supreme effort toward a
perfect adjustment with the powers that control their destiny.
During the late fall and early winter the ceremonial season is in full
swing and there is much festivity in Cliff Palace. It is a time for
visiting and feasting and there is a trace of the carnival spirit in the
air. The ceremonies are not entirely solemn, long-faced affairs; some
have light, entertaining parts and there may even be clowns who convulse
the onlookers with their antics. The underlying motive of a ceremony is
serious and earnest but this does not prevent its being thoroughly
enjoyable to the participants as well as the audience.
Visitors are drawn to the ceremonies from far and wide. Their strongest
desire may be to see an important ceremony but even more often the
strongest motive is the desire to join in the festivities that accompany
it. There is always a gay crowd, much talking and visiting and an
abundance of good food. When the Crier Chief announces the date for a
ceremony, the news spreads rapidly and the men of other villages come
flocking in. It is a grand excuse for a visit to the big city to feast,
gossip, trade, and incidentally, to witness a ceremony.
Although the women play only a small part in the religious work, they
are always busy during the ceremonies for they must feed the
participants and the visitors. The ceremony may last for as many as nine
days and large quantities of food must be prepared. The women and girls
are busy over the cooking fires day after day.
The basic food article is corn in some form; it is the backbone of every
meal. Corn is by far the most abundant foodstuff and through the
generations the women have devised many ways of cooking it to prevent
its becoming monotonous. The corn is ground by the younger women on the
metates, smooth flat stones that are slanted into small bins. Under the
lower end of each metate is a clean adobe basin that gathers the meal.
The woman kneels at the upper end of the metate, places the corn on it,
and grinds it with a smaller, flat stone, the mano, which she holds in
her hands. Sliding the mano back and forth across the metate she grinds
the corn until a fine meal results. This is slow back-breaking work but
the women are forced to do it day after day. When a great deal of meal
must be produced for a ceremonial feast, several of the women grind
together. Often the young men sing for the grinders and a fast snappy
tune not only cheers the women but causes the grinding stones to move
much faster.