As artifacts were not found in or near the buildings on the Hill Canyon
cliffs, and as the ruins show no evidence of former habitation, it is
evident that they were not dwellings. Their use and the kinship of
the people who built them can be judged only by what is left of their
walls and the character of their masonry. As has been pointed out, the
most prominent of these ruins are circular rooms or towers, arranged
in clusters, for an interpretation of which we may look to similar
architectural forms found elsewhere in the Southwest.
Their commanding position suggests that these towers were constructed
for lookouts and for defense, but the questions might very pertinently
be asked, Why should either of these uses necessitate three or four
almost identical buildings grouped together, when one would be
sufficient? Why are some of them in places where there is no broad
outlook?
The massive character of the walls suggests a fortification, but why
if defense were the only explanation of their use would not one large
building be preferable to many, especially as it would be more easily
constructed. It might be urged that they were granaries; but if so, why
were they placed in such a conspicuous situation?
In searching for an explanation for the construction of these
buildings, an examination was made of aboriginal towers in the valley
of the San Juan and its tributaries, especially the Yellow Jacket
Canyon and those tributaries entering it on the northern side. In the
Mesa Verde National Park the author has also discovered several towers
which are in a comparatively good state of preservation. Some of these
are situated on high cliffs, others stand in valleys hidden by dense
forests of cedar.
Towers are, roughly speaking, scattered sporadically in numbers over
a wide extent of country, bounded on the east by Dolores River and on
the south by the Mancos River and the San Juan. They extend as far west
as Montezuma Creek, following it up north as far as exploration has
gone and occurring as far south as Zuñi. Rarely, if ever, however, do
we find towers in the dry, sandy, wastes south of the San Juan, and
they are unrepresented in the great ruins of the Chaco Canyon. Although
there seemed to be certain minor differences in the construction of
towers found at different places in this area of distribution, all are
identical in essential features.
The towers of Hill Canyon bear a close likeness to those in the region
mentioned, except that their masonry is poorer and their walls are more
dilapidated. This can be ascribed in part to the material out of which
they are built, for whereas the stone in the southern part of the area
is soft and easily worked, that in the Hill Canyon region is hard but
can readily be split into slabs which did not require much manipulation
to bring them into desired shapes for use. The tall and better built
towers of the San Juan (pl. 14, _a_) and its tributaries are sometimes
single rooms without connections with other buildings, but are more
often surrounded at their bases by rooms not unlike those of pueblo
ruins. Thus at Cannon Ball ruin the towers rise from the midst of
secular rooms and the same is true of the tower in Cliff Palace and
elsewhere. This leads to the supposition that these buildings were
constructed for some purpose other than as lookouts: they bear all the
outward appearance of sacred rooms called kivas of pueblos and cliff
dwellers. If we accept this explanation[20] that the McElmo towers are
round kivas, as suggested by Holmes, Morgan, and others we can explain
why several are united in a cluster, for it would seem that each room
in such a cluster belonged to a family or clan. The use of these towers
as here suggested can not, however, be proven until excavations of
them are made and the signification of the banquette constantly found
annexed to their inner wall is determined.
Several structural remains in Ruin Canyon (pl. 14, _b_), a tributary of
the Yellow Jacket, especially those at the head of the South Fork, give
a good idea of the relation of the tower to surrounding rooms. Here
we find towers constructed of fine, well preserved, masonry rising to
almost their original height, but crowded into the midst of rectangular
rooms imparting to the whole ruin a compact rectangular form. Several
towers in this canyon are without surrounding rooms, others have
rectangular, square or D-shaped ground plans, but the author studied
none with two or three concentric surrounding walls.
The form of one of the largest ruins in Ruin Canyon situated near the
fork of the canyon, closely resembles Far View House, in the Mesa Verde
National Park. It has a central tower around which are rooms with
straight walls, the intervals between which and the circular wall of
the tower having a roughly triangular shape. While there is but one
tower in this ruin, its similarity in form and position to the large
central kiva of Far View House indicates that towers in the McElmo are
practically ceremonial rooms, as has been long suspected.
This identity in form of tower and round kiva and the relative
abundance of both in the San Juan drainage, leads the author to
believe that one was derived from the other, in that district, and
spread from it southward and westward until, very much modified, it
reached the periphery of the pueblo area. It is believed that, in
the earliest time, the isolated tower was constructed for ceremonial
purposes and that rooms for habitations were dugouts or other
structures architecturally different from it. Later, domiciles were
constructed around the base of these towers until they encircled them
in a compact mass of rooms. The tower then lost its apparent height,
but morphologically retained its form. As this circular type of kiva
spread into the pueblo area in course of time it was again constructed
independently of the domiciles and the relative numbers diminished
until, as in some of the pueblos of the Rio Grande, there survive only
one or two kivas for each village, but these are no longer embedded in
habitations as in the more advanced archaic conditions.
The tower kiva may be regarded as the nucleus of the clan, or the
building erected for ceremonies of that clan, the earliest and best
constructed stone structures in the region where the pueblo originated.
Where there were several clans there were several towers; when one
clan, a single tower. In course of time rooms for habitation or
possibly for other purposes, clustered about these towers; these units
consolidated with rooms and kivas of another type forming a composite
pueblo. In this form we find the towers rising above a mass of secular
rooms. The archaic form of ceremonial room or tower survived in Cliff
Palace and other Mesa Verde ruins.[21]
Several circular kivas and towers seen by the author have one or more
incised stones, bearing a coiled figure resembling a serpent. One of
the best of these has also peripheral lines like conventional symbols
of feathers. An obscure legend of the Hopi recounts that the ancestral
kivas of the Snake clan, when it lived at Tokonabi, or along the San
Juan were circular in form. While at present only a suggestion, it is
not improbable that towers and round kivas may have been associated
with Snake ceremonials, especially as this cult is known to have
survived among Keresan pueblos like Sia and Acoma. The Snake clan of
the Hopi according to traditions came from the north or the region of
circular kivas.
From their similarity in external shape and distribution, circular
ruins and round towers have been regarded as in some way connected.
It by no means follows that rooms inside their external walls were
identical in use. For instance, the so-called Great Tower on the cliffs
overlooking the San Juan, described and figured by Prof. Holmes, is
said by him to measure 140 feet in diameter, and to have double walls
connected by partitions, forming a series of encircling rooms. This
ruin may be classified not as a tower but a circular ruin, and the
same may be said of the so-called Triple-wall Tower, rising on the
border of rectangular rooms, situated at the mouth of the McElmo. The
dimensions of this so-called tower are reported to be “almost” the
same as the Great Tower. The author regards these as examples of an
architectural type related to towers, from which it is distinguished
not only by size, but also, especially, by the arrangement of rooms
on their peripheries. The internal structure of the tower type is
little known, but in none of these buildings has the author detected
peripheral rooms separated by radial partitions, although one of
these radial partitions is found in kiva A of Sun Temple. The
original building of the last mentioned ruin, although D-shaped, has
a morphological similarity in the arrangement of peripheral rooms to
the “Great Tower” of the San Juan, or that on the alluvial flat in the
Mancos, and the “Triple-wall Tower” room of the McElmo, save that the
so-called innermost of the triple walls is replaced in Sun Temple by
two circular walls, side by side, forming kivas B and C.
The tower, with annexed rectangular rooms, like its homologue, the
circular kiva with similar adjacent chambers surrounding it, is
practically the “unit type,” a stage of pueblo development pointed
out by Doctor Prudden,[22] who does not make as much as would the
author of the intra-mural condition of the kiva, or its compact union
with domiciliary rooms. Far View House on the Mesa Verde is a good
example of this union of form, characteristic of the “unit type” or
compact pueblo with embedded circular kivas, one of which is central,
probably the first constructed, and of large size. Such compact pueblos
are numerous on the Mesa Verde, judging from central depressions in
mounds, and characteristic of the San Juan, at least of its northern
tributaries. The previous stage in pueblo development is that in
which the sanctuary or tower (kiva) and habitation are distinct. The
extra-mural circular kiva,[23] or circular room separated from the
house masses either in courts, as in Rectangular and Round villages,
or situated outside the same as in “Line villages,” like Walpi, or
pyramidal forms, is like Zuñi or Taos and more modern pueblos. This
modification is widely distributed in ruins south of the San Juan,
still persisting in several modern pueblos.
The above observations have an important bearing on the author’s
differentiation of the village Indians of the Southwest, into two
groups, which are culturally distinct and widely distributed
geographically. The western group originated in the Gila Valley, and
extending across Arizona spread northward making its influence felt as
far as the Hopi villages; the eastern culture was born in Colorado and
Utah and extended to the south along a parallel zone. The former sprang
into being in low, level, cactus plains; while the latter was born in
lofty mountains and deep canyons filled with caves. Each reflects in
its architecture the characteristic environment of the locality of its
origin. As they spread from their homes and at last came together each
modified the other by acculturation. The expansion of these two nuclei
of culture, and the products of their contact is the prehistoric,
unwritten, evolution of primitive people in the Southwest upon which
documentary accounts throw no light, and the function of archeology
is to read this history through the remains left by this prehistoric
people, as interpreted by surviving folklore, ceremonials, legends,
and artifacts. Both types of culture reached their highest development
before the arrival of the white man; and the advent of the European
found both on the decline. The localities where both types originated
and reached their highest development were either no longer inhabited
or occupied by descendants with modified architectural ideas. Some of
the survivors lived in houses of much ruder construction than the cliff
dwellings or pueblos of their ancestors. The habitations of others were
scattered rude, mud huts. In short the cliff dwellers of the Mesa Verde
and the prehistoric inhabitants of the Gila compounds left survivors
possessed of inferior skill. Both architecture and ceramic art had
declined before the advent of white men.
[Illustration: PL. 1