A short distance beyond the westernmost rooms of Honanki, almost
covered with bushes and adjoining the base of the cliff, there is a
large ash heap in which are many fragments of pottery and the bones of
various animals. It is probable that excavation in this quarter would
reveal many interesting objects. In the cliffs above this ash heap,
far beyond reach, there is a walled niche which has never been
disturbed. This structure is similar to those near the cavate
dwellings, and when opened will probably be found to contain buried
mortuary objects of interesting character. I did not disturb this
inclosure, inasmuch as I had no ladders or ropes with which to
approach it.
It is very difficult to properly estimate, from the number of rooms in
a cliff house, the former population, and as a general thing the
tendency is rather to overstate than to fall short of the true total.
In a pueblo like Hano, on the first or east mesa of Tusayan, for
instance, there are many uninhabited rooms, and others serve as
storage chambers, while in places the pueblo has so far fallen into
ruin as to be uninhabitable. If a pueblo is very much concentrated the
population varies at different seasons of the year. In summer it is
sparsely inhabited; in winter it is rather densely populated. While
Palatki and Honanki together had rooms sufficient to house 500 people,
I doubt whether their aggregate population, ever exceeded 200. This
estimate, of course, is based on the supposition that these villages
were contemporaneously inhabited.
The evidences all point to a belief, however, that they were both
permanent dwelling places and not temporary resorts at certain seasons
of the year.
The pictographs on the face of the cliff above Honanki are for the
greater part due to the former Apache occupants of the rooms, and are
situated high above the tops of the walls of the ruin. They are, as a
rule, drawn with white chalk, which shows very clearly on the red
rock, and are particularly numerous above room _g_. The figure of a
circle, with lines crossing one another diametrically and continued as
rays beyond the periphery, possibly represent the sun. Many spiral
figures, almost constant pictographs in cliff ruins, are found in
several places. Another strange design, resembling some kind of
insect, is very conspicuous.
A circle painted green and inclosed in a border of yellow is
undoubtedly of Apache origin. There is at one point a row of small
pits, arranged in line, suggesting a score or enumeration of some
kind, and a series of short parallel lines of similar import was found
not far away. This latter method of recording accounts is commonly
used at the present time in Tusayan, both in houses and on cliffs; and
one of the best of these, said to enumerate the number of Apache
killed by the Hopi in a raid many years ago, may be seen above the
trail by which the visitor enters the pueblo of Hano on the East Mesa.
The names of several persons scratched on the face of the cliff
indicate that Americans had visited Honanki before me.
The majority of the paleoglyphs at both Palatki and Honanki are of
Apache origin, and are of comparatively modern date, as would
naturally be expected. In some instances their colors are as fresh as
if made a few years ago, and there is no doubt that they were drawn
after the building was deserted by its original occupants. The
positions of the pictographs on the cliffs imply that they were drawn
before the roofs and flooring had been destroyed, thus showing how
lately the ruin preserved its ancient form. In their sheltered
position there seems to be no reason why the ancient pictographs
should not have been preserved, and the fact that so few of the
figures pecked in the cliff now remain is therefore instructive.
One of the first tendencies of man in visiting a ruin is to inscribe
his name on its walls or on neighboring cliffs. This is shared by both
Indians and whites, and the former generally makes his totem on the
rock surface, or adds that of his gods, the sun, rain-cloud, or
katcinas. Inscriptions recording events are less common, as they are
more difficult to indicate with exactitude in this system of
pictography. The majority of ancient pictographs in the Red-rock
country, like those I have considered in other parts of Verde valley,
are identical with picture writings now made in Tusayan, and are
recognized and interpreted without hesitation by the Hopi Indians. In
their legends, in which the migrations of their ancestors are
recounted, the traditionists often mention the fact that their
ancestors left their totem signatures at certain points in their
wanderings. The Patki people say that you will find on the rocks of
Palatkwabi, the "Red Land of the South" from which they came, totems
of the rain-cloud, sun, crane, parrot, etc. If we find these markings
in the direction which they are thus definitely declared to exist, and
the Hopi say similar pictures were made by their ancestors, there
seems no reason to question such circumstantial evidence that some of
the Hopi clans once came from this region.[28]
One of the most interesting of the pictographs pecked in the rock is a
figure which, variously modified, is a common decoration on
cliff-dweller pottery from the Verde valley region to the ruins of the
San Juan and its tributaries. This figure has the form of two
concentric spirals, the ends of which do not join. As this design
assumes many modifications, it may be well to consider a few forms
which it assumes on the pottery of the cliff people and on that of
their descendants, the Pueblos.
The so-called black-and-white ware, or white pottery decorated with
black lines, which is so characteristic of the ceramics of the
cliff-dwellers, is sometimes, as we shall see, found in ruins like
Awatobi and Sikyatki; but it is so rare, as compared with other
varieties, that it may be regarded as intrusive.
One of the simplest forms of the broken-line motive is a Greek fret,
in which there is a break in the component square figures or where the
line is noncontinuous. In the simplest form, which appears prominently
on modern pottery, but which is rare or wanting on true
black-and-white ware, we have two crescentic figures, the concavities
of which face in different directions, but the horns overlap. This is
a symbol which the participants in the dance called the Húmiskatcina
still paint with pigments on their breasts, and which is used on
shields and various religious paraphernalia.
A study of any large collection of decorated Pueblo ware, ancient or
modern, will show many modifications of this broken line, a number of
which I shall discuss more in detail when pottery ornamentation is
considered. A design so distinctive and so widespread as this must
certainly have a symbolic interpretation. The concentric spirals with
a broken line, the Hopi say, are symbols of the whirlpool, and it is
interesting to find in the beautiful plates of Chavero's _Antigüedades
Mexicanas_ that the water in the lagoon surrounding the ancient Aztec
capital was indicated by the Nahuatl Indians with similar symbols.