Whether the rock had recesses in it before the caves were enlarged
would seem to be answered in the affirmative, for similar caves
without evidences of habitations were observed. These, however, are as
a rule small, and wherever available the larger caverns have been
appropriated and enlarged by stone implements, as shown by the pecking
on the walls. The enlargement of these caverns, however, would not be
a difficult task, for the rock is very soft and easily worked.
Entering one of these cavate rooms the visitor finds himself in a dark
chamber, as a rule with side openings or passageways into adjoining
rooms. Broad lateral banquettes are prominent features in the most
complicated caves, and there are many recesses and small closets or
cists.
The ramifications formed by lateral rooms are often extensive, and the
chambers communicate with others so dark that we can hardly regard
them as once inhabited. In these dimly lighted rooms the walls were
blackened with smoke, as if from former fires, and in many of the
largest the position of fireplaces could plainly be discovered. As a
type of one of the more complicated I have chosen that figured to
illustrate the arrangement of these cavate dwellings (figure 245).
Many are smaller, others have more lateral chambers, but one type is
characteristic of all.
A main room (_A_, figure 245), or that first entered from outside, is
roughly rectangular in shape, 12 feet long by 6 feet wide, and about 6
feet high. The floor, however, was covered with very dry débris which
had blown in from the exterior or, in some instances, fallen from the
roof. That part of the floor which was exposed shows that it was
roughly plastered, sometimes paved or formed of solid rock.
On three sides of this room there is a step 2 feet high, to platforms,
three in number, one in the rear and one on each side. These platforms
are 5, 6, and 6 feet 6 inches wide, respectively, and of the same
length as the corresponding sides of the central room. It would appear
that these platforms are characteristic architectural features of
these habitations, and we find them reproduced in some of the rooms of
the cliff houses of the Red-rocks, while Nordenskiöld has described a
kindred feature in the kivas of the Mesa Verde ruins. A somewhat
similar elevation of the floor in modern Tusayan kivas forms what may
be called the spectator's part, in front of the ladder as one
descends, and the same feature is common to many older Hopi
dwellings.[15]
Beginning with the lateral platforms (_B_, figure 245) we first note,
as we step upon it at _c_, about midway of its length, a small
circular depression in the floor of the central room extending
slightly beneath the platform, as indicated by the dotted line. It is
possible that this niche was a receptacle for important household
objects, although it may have been a fireplace.
In a corner of the right platform a round cist, partially hewn out of
the rock, was found, but its walls (_a_, figure 245) were badly broken
down by some former explorer. The floor of this recess lies below that
of the platform, while the cist itself (_D_) reminds one of the closed
or walled structures, so commonly found in the Verde, attached to the
side of the cliff. On the lateral wall of this chamber, at about the
height of the head, a row of small holes had been drilled into the
solid wall. These holes (_d_, _d_, _d_) are almost too small for the
insertion of roof beams, and were probably made for pegs on which to
rest a beam for hanging blankets and other textile fabrics when not in
use. The roof of the cave was the natural rock, and showed over its
whole surface marks of a pecking implement.
The left chamber is 6 feet 6 inches broad, and from one corner,
opposite the doorway, a low passageway leads into a circular chamber,
6 feet in diameter, with its floor below the platform of the lateral
room. Between the chamber, on the left of the entrance, and the open
air, the wall of solid rock is broken by a slit-like crevice, which
allows the light to enter, and no doubt served as a window. A recess,
the floor of which is elevated, on a platform opposite the doorway, is
5 feet broad, and has a small circular depression in one corner. The
floor and upraise of this recess is plastered with adobe, which in
several places is smooth and well made.
In comparing the remaining cavate dwellings of this series with that
described, we find every degree of complication in the arrangement of
rooms, from a simple cave, or irregular hole in the side of the cliff,
to squared chambers with lateral rooms. The room _I_,[16] for
instance, is rectangular, 6 feet long by 3 feet wide, with an entrance
the same width as that of the room itself.
In room _III_, however, the external opening is very small, and there
is a low, narrow ledge, or platform, opposite the doorway. There is
likewise in this room a small shelf in the left-hand wall. In _IV_
there is a raised platform on two adjacent sides of the square room,
and the doorway is an irregular orifice broken through the wall to the
open air.
Room _IV_ is a subterranean chamber, most of the floor of which is
littered with large fragments of rock which have fallen from the roof.
It has numerous small recesses in the wall resembling cubby-holes
where household utensils of various kinds were undoubtedly formerly
kept. This room is instructive, in that the entrance is partially
closed by two walls of masonry, which do not join. The stones are
laid in adobe in which fragments of pottery were detected. These
unjoined walls leave a doorway which is thus flanked on each side by
stone masonry, recalling in every particular the well-known walls of
cliff houses. Here, in fact, we have so close a resemblance to the
masonry of true cliff houses that we can hardly doubt that the
excavators of the cavate dwellings were, in reality, people similar to
those who built the cliff houses of Verde valley.
Room _VIII_ is a simple cave hewn out of the rock, with a chamber
behind it, entered by a passageway made of masonry, which partially
fills a larger opening. The doorway through this masonry is small
below, but broadens above in much the same manner as some of the
doorways in Tusayan of today.
Continuing along the left bank of the river, from the row of cavate
rooms, just described, on the first mesa, we round a promontory and
enter a small canyon,[17] which is perforated on each side with
numerous other cavate dwellings, large and small, all of the same
general character as the type described. Here, likewise, are small
external openings which evidently communicated with subterranean
chambers, but many of them are so elevated that access to them from
the floor of the canyon or from the cliff above is not possible. A
marked feature of the whole series is the existence here and there of
small, often inaccessible, stone cists of masonry plastered to the
side of the rocky cliff like swallows' nests.
All of these cists which are accessible had been opened and plundered
before my visit, but there yet remain a few which are still intact and
would repay examination and study. Similar walled-up cists are
likewise found, as we shall see later, in the cliff-houses of the
Red-rock country, hence are not confined to the Verde system of ruins.
Cavate dwellings similar to those here described are reported to exist
in the canyons of upper Salado, Gala, and Zuñi rivers, and we may with
reason suspect that the distribution[18] of cavate dwellings is as
wide as that of the pueblos themselves, the sole requisite being a
soft tufaceous rock, capable of being easily worked by people with
stone implements. In none of the different regions in which they exist
is there any probability that these caves were made by people
different in culture from pueblo or cliff dwellers. They are much more
likely to have been permanent than temporary habitations of the same
culture stock of Indians who availed themselves of rock shelters
wherever the nature of the cliff permitted excavation in its walls.
That the cavate lodges are simple "horticultural outlooks" is an
important suggestion, but one might question whether they were
conveniently placed for that purpose. So far as overlooking the
opposite plain (which had undoubtedly been cultivated in ancient
times) is concerned, the position of some of them may be regarded good
for that purpose, but certainly not so commanding as that of the hill
or mesa above, where well-marked ruins still exist.
The position of the cavate dwellings is a disadvantageous one to reach
any cultivated fields if defenders were necessary. When the Tusayan
Indian today moves to his _kisi_ or summer brush house shelter he
practically camps in his corn or near it, in easy reach to drive away
crows, or build wind-breaks to shelter the tender sprouts; but to go
to their cornfields the inhabitants of the cavate dwellings I have
described were forced to cross a river before the farm was reached.
That these cavate dwellings were lookouts none can deny, but I incline
to a belief that this does not tell the whole story if we limit them
to such use. It is not wholly clear to me that they were not likewise
an asylum for refuge, possibly not inhabited continuously, but a very
welcome retreat when the agriculturist was sorely pressed by enemies.
Following the analogy of a Hopi custom of building temporary booths
near their fields, may we not suppose that the former inhabitants of
Verde valley may have erected similar shelters in their cornfields
during summer months, retiring to the cavate dwellings and the mesa
tops in winter? All available evidence would indicate that the cavate
dwellings were permanent habitations.[19]
There are several square ruins on top of the mesa above the cavate
dwellings. The walls of these were massive, but they are now very much
broken down, and the adobe plastering is so eroded from the masonry
that I regard them of considerable antiquity. They do not differ from
other similar ruins, so common elsewhere in New Mexico and Arizona,
and are identical with others in the Verde region. I visited several
of these ruins, but made no excavations in them, nor added any new
data to our knowledge of this type of aboriginal buildings. The
pottery picked up on the surface resembles that of the ruins of the
Little Colorado and Gila.
The dwellings which I have mentioned above are said[20] to be
duplicated at many other points in the watershed of the Verde, and
many undescribed ruins of this nature were reported to me by ranchmen.
I do not regard them as older than the adjacent ruins on the mesa
above or the plains below them, much less as productions of people of
different stages of culture, for everything about them suggests
contemporaneous occupancy.
From what little I saw of the village sites on the Verde I believe
that Mindeleff is correct in considering that these ruins represent
a comparatively late period of pueblo architecture. The character
of the cliff houses of the Red-rocks shows no very great antiquity of
occupancy. While it is not possible to give any approximate date when
they were inhabited, their general appearance indicates that they are
not more than two centuries old. There is, however, no reference to
them in the early Spanish history of the Southwest.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY