The walls of Montezuma Well are so nearly perpendicular that descent
to the edge of the water is difficult save by a single trail which
follows the detritus to a cave on one side. In this cave, the roof of
which is not much higher than the water level, there are fragments
of masonry, as if structures of some kind had formerly been erected in
it. I have regarded this cave rather as a place of religious rites
than of former habitation, possibly a place of retreat for ancient
priests when praying for rain or moisture, or a shrine for the deposit
of prayer offerings to rain or water gods.
Several isolated cliff dwellings are built at different levels in the
sides of the cliffs. One of the best of these is diametrically
opposite the cave mentioned above, a few feet below the rim of the
depression. While this house was entered with little difficulty, there
were others which I did not venture to visit.
The accompanying illustration (plate XCV) gives an idea of the general
appearance of one of these cliff houses of Montezuma Well. It is built
under an overhanging archway of rock in a deep recess, with masonry on
three sides. The openings are shown, one of which overlooks the
spring; the other is an entrance at one side. The face of masonry on
the front is not plastered, and if it was formerly rough cast the mud
has been worn away, leaving the stones exposed. The side wall, which
has been less exposed to the elements, still retains the plastering,
which is likewise found on the inner walls where it is quite smooth in
places.
The number of cliff rooms in the walls of the well is small and their
capacity, if used as dwellings, very limited. There are, however,
ruins of pueblos of some size on the edge of the well.
One of the largest of these, shown in the accompanying illustration
(plate XCVI), is situated on the neck of land separating the well from
the valley of Beaver creek. This pueblo was rectangular in form, of
considerable size, built of stones, and although at present almost
demolished, shows perfectly the walls of former rooms. Fragments of
ancient pottery would seem to indicate that the people who once
inhabited this pueblo were in no respect different from other
sedentary occupants of Verde valley. From their housetops they had a
wide view over the creek on one side and the spring on the other,
defending, by the site of their village, the one trail by which
descent to the well was possible.
The remarkable geological character of Montezuma Well, and the spring
within it, would have profoundly impressed itself on the folklore of
any people of agricultural bent who lived in its neighborhood after
emigrating to more arid lands. About a month after my visit to this
remarkable spring I described the place to some of the old priests at
Walpi and showed them sketches of the ruins. These priests seemed to
have legendary knowledge of a place somewhat like it where they said
the Great Plumed Snake had one of his numerous houses. They reminded
me of a legend they had formerly related to me of how the Snake arose
from a great cavity or depression in the ground, and how, they had
heard, water boiled out of that hole into a neighboring river. The
Hopi have personal knowledge of Montezuma Well, for many of their
number have visited Verde valley, and they claim the ruins there as
the homes of their ancestors. It would not be strange, therefore, if
this marvelous crater was regarded by them as a house of Palülükoñ,
their mythic Plumed Serpent.
Practically little is known of the pictography of this part of the
Verde valley people, although it has an important bearing on the
distribution of the cliff dwellers of the Southwest. There is evidence
of at least two kinds of petroglyphs, indicative of two distinct
peoples. One of these was of the Apache Mohave; the other, the
agriculturists who built the cliff homes and villages of the plain.
Those of the latter are almost identical with the work of the Pueblo
peoples in the cliff dweller stage, from southern Utah and Colorado to
the Mexican boundary. It is not a difficult task to distinguish the
pictography of these two peoples, wherever found. The pictographs of
the latter are generally pecked into the rock with a sharpened
implement, probably of stone, while those of the former are usually
scratched or painted on the surface of the rocks. Their main
differences, however, are found in the character of the designs and
the objects represented. This difference can be described only by
considering individual rock drawings, but the practiced eye may
readily distinguish the two kinds at a glance. The pictographs which
are pecked in the cliff are, as a rule, older than those which are
drawn or scratched, and resemble more closely those widely spread in
the Pueblo area, for if the cliff-house people ever made painted
pictographs, as there is every reason to believe they did, time has
long ago obliterated them.
The pictured rocks (plate XCVII) near Cliff's ranch, on Beaver creek,
four miles from Montezuma Well, have a great variety of objects
depicted upon them. These rocks, which rise from the left bank of the
creek opposite Cliff's ranch, bear over a hundred different rock
pictures, figures of which are seen in the accompanying illustration.
The rock surface is a layer of black malpais, through which the totem
signatures have been pecked, showing the light stone beneath, and thus
rendering them very conspicuous. Among these pictographs many familiar
forms are recognizable, among them being the crane or blue heron,
bears' and badgers' paws, turtles, snakes, antelopes, earth symbols,
spirals, and meanders.
Among these many totems there was an unusual pictograph in the form of
the figure 8, above which was a bear's paw accompanied by a human
figure so common in southwestern rock etchings. A square figure with
interior parallel squares extending to the center is also found, as
elsewhere, in cliff-dweller pictography.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY