BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 11PLATE 11PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLERTOWER QUARTER
The walls of Cliff Palace present the finest masonry known to any cliff-dwelling and among the best stonework in prehistoric ruins north of Mexico. A majority of the stones used in the construction were well dressed before laying and smoothed after they were set in the wall. The joints are often broken, but it is rare to find intersecting walls or corners bonded. Stones of approximately the same size are employed, thereby making the courses, as a rule, level. Although commonly the foundations are composed of the largest stones, this is not an invariable rule, often larger stones being laid above smaller ones; the latter, even when used for foundations, are sometimes set on edge. As a rule, the walls are not plumb or straight. The custom of laying stone foundations on wooden beams is shown in several instances, especially in cases where it was necessary to bridge the intervals between projecting rocks. The arch was unknown to the masons of Cliff Palace; there are no pillars to support floors or roofs as in Spruce-tree House. It is not rare, especially in the kivas, to find instances of double or reenforced walls which may or may not be bonded by connecting stones.
The masonry of the kivas as a rule is superior to that of the secular rooms. The mortar employed in the construction is hard; the joints are chinked with spalls, fragments of pottery, or clay balls. The fact that much more mortar than was necessary was employed resulted in weakening the walls. Several walls were laid without mortar; in some of these the joints were pointed, in others not.[23]The ancient builders did not always seek solid bases for foundations, but built their walls in several instances on ashes or sand, evidently not knowing when the foundations were laid that other stories would later be constructed upon them.
In several sections of the ruin there are evidences that old walls, apparently of houses formerly used, served in part as walls for new buildings. There are also several instances of secondary construction in which old entrances are walled up or even buried and old passageways covered with new structures. Similar reconstruction is common in Hopi pueblos, where it has led to enlargement of rooms and other variations in form. Among the several examples of such secondary building in Cliff Palace may be mentioned a long wall, evidently the front of a large building, which serves as a rear wall of several rooms arranged side by side. The obvious explanation of such a condition is that the walls of the small rooms are of later construction.
As above mentioned the foundations of many walls are of larger stones, and the masonry here is coarser than higher up, which has led some authors to ascribe this fact as due to two epochs of construction. But this conclusion does not appear to be wholly justifiable, although there is evidence in many places that there has been rebuilding over old walls and consequent modification in new constructions, by which older walls have ceased to be necessary, a condition not unlike that existing in several of the Hopi pueblos. In this category may be included the several doors and windows that have been filled in with new masonry or even concealed by new walls. From the fragile character of certain foundations of high walls it would appear that it was not the intention, when they were laid, to erect on them walls more than one story high; the construction of higher stories upon them was an afterthought. Evidences occur of repair of breaks in the walls and corners by the aboriginal occupants, one of the most apparent of which appears at the end of the court in the southern wall of room 59.
The walls, as a rule, were made of stone; indeed it is unusual to find adobe walls in cliff-dwellings of the Mesa Verde. In prehistoric buildings in our Southwest, evidences that the ancients made adobe bricks, sun-dried before laying, are very rare. Bricks made of clay are set in the walls of the Speaker-chief's House and were found in the fallen débris at its base. These bricks were made cubical in form before laying, but there is nothing to prove that they were molded in forms or frames, nor do they have a core of straw as in the case of the adobes used in the construction of Inscription House in the Navaho National Monument, Arizona.[24]The use of adobes in the construction of cliff-house walls has not been previously mentioned, although we find references to "lumps of clay" in the earliest historic times among Pueblos. Thus the inhabitants of Tiguex, according to Castañeda, were acquainted with adobes. "They collect," says this author, "great heaps of thyme and rushes and set them on fire; when the mass is reduced to ashes and charcoal they cast a great quantity of earth and water upon it and mix the whole together. They knead this stuff into round lumps, which they learn to dry and use instead of stone."
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 12PLATE 12PLATE 12PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLERTHE SQUARE TOWER, BEFORE AND AFTER REPAIRING
Attention may be called to the fact that not only the adobes found at Cliff Palace but also the mortar used in the construction of the walls contain ashes and sometimes even small fragments of charcoal. Clay or adobe plastered on osiers woven between upright sticks, so common in the walls of cliff-dwellings in Canyon de Chelly and in the ruins in the Navaho Monument, while not unknown in the Mesa Verde, is an exceptional method of construction and was not observed at Cliff Palace. The survival[25]of this method of building a wall, if survival it be, may be seen in the deflector of kiva K.
The walls of a number of rooms were coated with a layer of plastering of sand or clay. This was found on the outside of some walls, where it is generally worn, but it is best preserved on the interior surfaces. Perhaps the most striking examples of plastering on exterior walls occurs on the Speaker-chief's House, where the smoothness of the finish is noteworthy.
From impressions of hands and fingers on this plastering it is evident that it was laid on not with trowels but with the hands, and as the impressions of hands are small the plasterers were probably women or children. In several instances where the plastering is broken several successive layers are seen, often in different colors, sometimes separated by a thin black layer deposited by smoke. The color of the plastering varies considerably, sometimes showing red, often yellow or white, depending on the different colored sand or mud employed.[26]The plastering not only varies in color but also in thickness and in finish. In the most protected rooms of the cave practically all the superficial plastering still remains on both the interior and the exterior of the walls, but for the greater part it has been washed from the surfaces and out of the joints in the outer buildings. The mortar was evidently rubbed smooth with the hands, aided, perhaps, with flat stones. The exterior of one or two rooms shows several coats of plaster, and different parts of the same walls are of different colors. Indistinct figures are scratched on several walls, but the majority of these are too obscure to be traced or deciphered. The plastering on the exterior and the interior of the same wall is often of different color.
Figures are painted on the white plastering of the third story of room 11 and on the lower border of the banquette of kiva I, the former being the most elaborate mural paintings known in cliff-dwellings, showing several symbols which are reproduced on pottery. A reversed symbolic rain-cloud figure, painted white, occurs on the exterior of the low ledge house.[27]Mural paintings of unusual form are found on the under side of the projecting rock forming part of the floor of room 3, and there are scratches on the plastering of the wall of kiva K. The latter figures were intended to represent animals, heads of grotesque beings, possibly birds, and terraced designs symbolic of rain clouds. As one or more of these symbols occur on pottery fragments, there appears no doubt that both were made by the same people. Among rock markings may also be mentioned shallow, concave grooves made by rubbing harder stones, which can be seen on the cliffs in front of rooms 92 and 93 and in the court west of room 51.
Among the figures painted on whitewashed walls of room 11 may be mentioned triangles, parallel red lines with dots, and a square figure, in red, crossed by zigzags, recalling the designs on old Navaho blankets.
The parallel lines are placed vertically and are not unlike, save in color, those which the Hopi make with prayer meal on the walls of their kivas, in certain ceremonies. But it is to be noted that the Hopi markings are made horizontally instead of vertically, as at Cliff Palace. The dots represented on the sides of some of these parallel lines (room 11) are similar to those appearing on straight lines or triangles in the decoration of Mesa Verde pottery. The triangular figures still used by the Hopi in decorating the margins of dados in their houses also occur on some of the Cliff-Palace walls, but are placed in a reversed position. They are said to represent a butterfly, a rain cloud, or a sex symbol. It is interesting to note in passing that two or more triangles placed one above another appear constantly in the same position in Moorish tile and stucco decorations, but this, of course, is only a coincidence, as there is no evidence of a cultural connection.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 13PLATE 13PLATE 13PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLERaThird story of square tower, showing dado and decorationbDeflector and flue of kivaDETAILS OF CLIFF PALACE
Almost every Mesa Verde cliff-dwelling has an unoccupied space back of the rooms,[28]as in the rear of rooms 28 to 40, which served as a depository for all kinds of rubbish. Here the inhabitants of Cliff Palace also deposited certain of their dead, which became mummified on account of the dryness of the air in the cave.
There is also a vacant space between the rear of the Speaker-chief's House and the cave wall, but this space was almost entirely free of refuse. The amount of débris in the refuse heaps back of the so-called plaza quarter lends weight to other evidence that this is one of the oldest sections of Cliff Palace.
The accumulation of débris was so deep in these places, and the difficulties of removal so great, that it was not attempted. It had all been dug over by relic seekers who are said to have found many specimens therein.[29]
The majority of the rooms in Cliff Palace were devoted to secular purposes. These are of several types, and differ in form, in position, and in function. Their form is either circular or rectangular, or some modification of these two. As a rule, the secular rooms lie deep under the cliffs, several extending as far back as the rear of the cave. The front of Cliff Palace shows at least two tiers or terraces of secular rooms, the roof of the lower one being level with that of the floor of the tier above. The front walls of secular rooms lower than the fourth terrace are as a rule destroyed, but the lateral walls are evident, especially in the tower quarter. The passage from one of these terraces to the room above was made by means of ladders or by stone steps along the corners.
The following classification of secular rooms, based on their function, may be noted: (1) Living rooms; (2) milling rooms; (3) storage rooms; (4) rooms of unknown function;[30](5) towers; (6) round rooms. It is difficult to distinguish in some instances to which of the above classes some of the rooms belong. The secular houses were probably owned by the oldest women of the clan, and the kivas were the property of the men of their respective clans, but courts, plazas, and passageways were common property.
The masonry[31]of all secular rooms is practically identical and as a rule is inferior to that of kivas, their walls varying in width and having a uniform thickness from foundation to top. There are instances where the lower part projects somewhat beyond the upper, from which it is separated by a ledge, but this feature is not common. Minor features of architecture, as floors and roofs, doors and windows, fireplaces, banks, and cubby-holes, some or all of which may be absent, vary in form and in distribution according to the purpose for which the room was intended. The few timbers that remain show that the beams of the houses were probably cut with stone hatchets aided by the use of fire. The labor of hauling these timbers and of stripping them of their branches must have been great, considering the rude appliances at hand. It would seem that the cliff-dwellers were not ignorant of the use of the wedge with which to split logs, since the surfaces of split sticks are always more or less fibrous, never smooth, as would be expected if metal implements had been used. All transportation was manual, without the assistance of beasts of burden or of any but the rudest mechanical contrivances.
There is difficulty in distinguishing doorways from windows in cliff-dwellings, on which account they are here treated together. Both are simple openings in the walls, the former as a rule being larger than the latter. As door openings are regularly situated high above the floor, there may have been ladders by which the doorways of the second and third stories were reached. The rooms may have been entered by means of balconies, evidences of which still remain. No instance of a hatchway in the roof is now recognizable, although the absence of side entrances in several rooms implies that there were roof entrances, several good examples of which occur at Spruce-tree House.
Doorways of Cliff Palace have two forms, rectangular andT-shaped, the latter generally opening on the second story or in such a position that they were approached by ladders or notched logs. The theory that these doorways were constructed larger at the top than at the bottom so that persons with packs on their backs might pass through them more readily is not wholly satisfactory, nor does the theory that the notch at the lower rim served to keep the ladder from slipping wholly commend itself. No satisfactory explanation of the form of theT-shaped doorway has been yet determined. Generally the tops of both doorways and windows are narrower than the bottoms, the sides being slightly inclined; but the lower part is rarely narrower than the top. Sills sometimes project slightly, and evidences occur that the sides as well as the upper part of the window and doorway were made of adobe, now no longer in place. The jambs also were probably of clay, and the doors, made of slabs of stone, neatly fitted the orifices.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 14PLATE 14SQUARE TOWER, AFTER REPAIRINGPLATE 14PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLEROLD QUARTER
The prevailing storms in winter at Cliff Palace sweep up the canyon from the southwest, but there does not seem to have been a systematic effort to avoid the cold by placing doors and windows on the opposite side of the building; the openings, for instance, of the Speaker-chief's House face this direction and are open to storms of snow and rain. Many of the openings never had doors and windows, but were probably closed with sticks tied together, or with matting[32]. Certain windows were half closed, probably to temper the winter blasts. The sills of doors were commonly placed a foot or more above the floor[33]; transoms above the door opening and peepholes at the side are not common in Cliff Palace. In some cases a stepping-stone projects from the wall below the door opening to facilitate entrance; in others a foot hole is found in the same relative place.
As the jambs, sills, and lintels were built hard and fast in the mortar, evidently both door openings and windows were constructed when the corresponding wall was built. The jambs in some instances and the lintels in others are of split sticks, the surfaces of which are fibrous and were evidently not split by means of iron implements. There is evidence that the size of the door openings was sometimes reduced by a ridge of mortar which was arched above, as at Spruce-tree House, the intention being to make in this way a jamb to hold in place the stone door. There are no round windows of large size, but both doors and windows are quadrilateral in shape; the small circular openings in some of the walls may have served for lookouts.
Not a single entire roof remained in Cliff Palace, and only one or two rooms retained remnants of rafters. It would seem, however, from the position of the holes in the walls into which the rafters once extended that they were constructed like those of Spruce-tree House, a good example of which is shown in plate 9 of the report on that ruin. The floors seem to have been formed of clay hardened by tramping, but there is no evidence of paving with flat stones. The hardened adobe is sometimes laid on sticks without bark and stamped down. Although no instance of extensive rock cutting of the floor was observed in secular rooms, this is a common feature of kiva floors. Floors were generally level, but in some instances, when rock was encountered, the surface was raised in part above the other level. The majority of the floors had been dug into for buried specimens before the repair work was begun, but here and there fragments of floors were still intact, showing their former level. Banquettes or ledges around the walls are rare. In a few instances the unplastered roof of the cave served as the roof of the highest rooms.
Many fireplaces still remain in rooms, but the majority are found in convenient corners of the plazas[34]. The most common situation is in an angle formed by two walls; in which case the fire-pit is generally rimmed with a slightly elevated rounded ridge of adobe. In room 84 there is a fireplace in the middle of the floor. At one side of this depression there extends a supplementary groove in the floor, rimmed with stone, the use of which is not known. Although fireplaces are ordinarily half round, a square one occurs in the northwestern corner of room 81. All the fireplaces contained wood ashes, sometimes packed hard; but no cinders, large fragments of charcoal, or coal ashes were evident. The sides of the walls above the fireplaces are generally blackened with smoke.
The fire-holes of the kivas, being specially constructed, are different in shape from those in secular houses. While the cooking fire-pits are generally shallow, kiva fire-holes a foot deep are not exceptional, and several are much deeper. The fire was kindled in the kiva not so much for heating the room, as for lighting it, there being no windows for that purpose. Certain kinds of fuel were probably prescribed, but logs were not burned in kivas on account of the heat. No evidences of smoke-hoods or chimneys have been found in any of the Cliff Palace rooms. The walls of many kivas showed blackening by soot or smoke.
It is difficult to distinguish rooms in which the inhabitants lived from others used by them for storage and other purposes, since most of their work, as cooking, pottery making, and like domestic operations, was conducted either on the house-tops or in the plazas. Under living rooms are included the women's rooms[35], or those in which centered the family life; and, in a general way, we may suppose the large rooms and those with banquettes were sleeping rooms. The popular misconception that the cliff-dwellers were of small stature has undoubtedly arisen from the diminutive size of all the secular rooms, but it must be remembered that the life of the cliff-dwellers was really an out-of-door one, the roof of the cave affording the necessary protection.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 15PLATE 15PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLERSPEAKER-CHIEF'S HOUSE, AFTER REPAIRING
There are several rooms in Cliff Palace which appear to have been given up solely to the operation of grinding corn. The mills are box-like structures, constructed of slabs of stone set on edge, each containing a slanting stone called a metate, from which the mill is called by the Hopi themetataki, or "metate house." The following description of a metataki in pueblos seen by Castañeda in 1540 applies, in a general way, to the small milling troughs in Cliff Palace:
One room is appointed for culinary purposes, another for the grinding of corn; the latter is isolated [not so in Cliff Palace] and contains an oven and three stones [one, two, three, or four in Cliff Palace], cemented finely together. Three women sit [kneel] before these stones; the first crushes the corn, the second grinds it, and the third reduces it quite to a powder.
One room is appointed for culinary purposes, another for the grinding of corn; the latter is isolated [not so in Cliff Palace] and contains an oven and three stones [one, two, three, or four in Cliff Palace], cemented finely together. Three women sit [kneel] before these stones; the first crushes the corn, the second grinds it, and the third reduces it quite to a powder.
In grinding corn, which was generally the work of the girls or young women, the grinder knelt before the metataki and used a flat stone, which was rubbed back and forth on the metate. The corn meal thus ground fell into a squarish depression, made of smooth stones, at the lower end of the metate. Commonly the corners of this receptacle for the meal that had been ground were filled in with clay, and on each side of the metate were inserted fragments of pottery, which rounded the corners and made it easier to brush the meal into a heap. In room 92, where there are four metates, occupying almost the whole milling room, there are upright stones on the side of the wall, back of the place where the women knelt, against which they braced their feet.
Most of the grinding boxes were destroyed, but those in the Speaker-chief's house and others west of kiva V, especially the latter, were still in good condition, the metates being in place. Evidences of former metatakis were apparent in the floor of several other rooms, as in a room back of kiva K. It is evident from the number of metates found in Cliff Palace that several milling rooms, not now recognizable, formerly existed, and it is probable that every large clan had its own milling room, with, one or more metatakis, according to necessity. Although, many metates without metatakis occur in Cliff Palace, that in itself is not evidence that they were moved from place to place by the inhabitants. These milling rooms were apparently roofed, low, and one-storied, possibly in some instances open on top, but generally had a small peephole or window for the entrance of light or for permitting the grinders to see passers-by.
Under the general name of granaries are included storage rooms, some of which are situated below living rooms.[36]Here corn for consumption was stacked, and if we may follow Hopi customs in our interpretation of cliff-dwellers' habits, the people of Cliff Palace no doubt had a supply sufficient to prevent famine by tiding over a failure of crops for two or more years. Many of these chambers were without doorways or windows; they were not limited to storage of corn, but served for the preservation of any food products or valuable cult paraphernalia. Each clan no doubt observed more or less secrecy in the amount of corn it kept for future use, and on that account the storage rooms were ordinarily, hidden from view.
The droppings of chipmunks and other rodents show that these commensals were numerous, and their presence made necessary the building of storage rooms in such manner that they would be proof against the ravages of such animals. The three cists constructed of stone slabs placed vertically, situated back of the Speaker-chief's House, sometimes called "eagle houses," were probably storage bins; in support of this hypothesis may be mentioned the fact that the cobs, tassels, and leaves of corn are said to have been abundant in them when Cliff Palace was first visited by white men.
Although eagle bones are found in the refuse in the unoccupied part of the cave back of the houses, their abundance does not necessarily prove that eagles were confined in them by the inhabitants of Cliff Palace. Perhaps the eagle nests in the canyon were owned by different clans and were visited yearly or whenever feathers were needed, and the dead eagles were probably buried ceremonially in these places, which therefore may be called eagle cemeteries, as among the Hopi.[37]
As is well known to students of the Southwest, the tribes of Indians dwelling along the lower Colorado river disposed of their dead by cremation, and evidences of burning the dead are found among all the ruins along the Gila and Salt rivers in southern Arizona. The custom was also practiced in the San Pedro and Salt River valleys, and along other tributaries of the Gila river. Castañeda (1540) says that the inhabitants of Cibola, identified with Zuñi, burned their dead, but no indication of this practice is now found among existing Pueblos. The ancient Pueblo inhabitants of the Little Colorado, so far as known, did not burn their dead, and no record has been made of the practice among their descendants, the Hopi and Zuñi.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 16PLATE 16NORTHERN PART, FROM THE SPEAKER-CHIEF'S HOUSE TO THE WESTERN END
In his excellent work on the ruins of the Mesa Verde, Baron Nordenskiöld speaks of calcined human bones being found in a stone cist at Step House, and Mr. Wetherill is referred to as having observed evidence of cremation elsewhere among the Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings. There can be no doubt from the observations made in the refuse heaps at Cliff Palace that the inhabitants of this village not only burned their dead but there was a special room in the depths of the cave which was set aside for that purpose.[38]One of these rooms, situated at the northern end of the refuse heap, was excavated in the progress of the work and found to contain bushels of very fine phosphate ashes, mixed with fragments of bones, some of which are well enough preserved to enable their identification as human. Accompanying these calcined bones were various mortuary objects not unlike those occurring in graves where the dead were not cremated. The existence of great quantities of ashes, largely containing phosphates, apparently derived from the burned bones, forming much of the refuse, and the densely smoke-blackened roof of the cave above them, are interpreted to indicate that the dead were cremated in the cave back of the houses.
In addition to these burning places, or crematories, in the rear of the buildings of Cliff Palace, there is good evidence of the same practice on the mesa top. Here and there, especially in the neighborhood of the clearings where the cliff-dwellers formerly had their farms, are round stone inclosures, oftentimes several feet deep, in which occur great quantities of bone ashes, fragments of pottery, and some stone objects. The surface of the stones composing these inclosures shows the marks of intense fire, which, taken in connection with the existence of fragments of human bones more or less burned, indicate that the dead were cremated in these inclosures. It is not clear, however, that the dead were not interred before cremation, and there is reason for believing that the bodies were dried before they were committed to the flames. The mortuary offerings, especially pottery, seem tohave been placed in the burning places after the heat had subsided, for beautiful jars showing no action of fire were found in some of these inclosures. The existence of cremation among the cliff-dwellers is offered as an explanation of the great scarcity of skeletons in their neighborhood. When it is remembered that Cliff Palace must have had a population of several hundred, judging from the number of the buildings, and was inhabited for several generations, it otherwise would be strange that so few skeletons were found. It would appear that the chiefs or the priestly class were buried either in the ground or in the floors of the rooms, which were afterward sealed, whereas the bodies of the poorer class, or the people generally, were cremated. The former existence of Pueblo peoples who buried their dead in the region between the Gila valley and Mesa Verde where the dead were cremated is a significant fact, but further observations are necessary before it can be interpreted. It may be that in ancient times all the sedentary tribes practiced cremation, and that the region in question was settled after this custom had been abandoned.
In a shallow crevice in the roof of the cave on a higher level than the roofs of the tallest houses there is a long wall, the front of inclosures that may be called "ledge rooms."[39]Some of these rooms have plastered walls, others are roughly laid; the latter form one side of a court and served to shield those passing from one room to another. On this outer wall, about midway, there is painted in white an inverted terrace figure, which may represent a rain cloud. Attention should be called to the resemblance in form and position of this figure to that on an outside wall overlooking plaza C of Spruce-tree House. This series of ledge rooms was probably entered from the roof of a building in front, and the opening or doorway above room 66 served as such an entrance, according to several stockmen who visited Cliff Palace in earlier days.
The rooms in Cliff Palace, now numbered from 1 to 94, include all those on the ground floor, but do not embrace the second, third, and fourth stories nor the elevated ledge rooms secluded in the crevices of the cave roof at a high level. Their classification by function already having been considered, a brief enumeration by form and other characters will be given.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 17PLATE 17PLATE 17PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLERaTunnel to Kiva BbPassageway with steps to room 3DETAILS OF KIVA A
Room 1, situated at the extreme southern end, presents no striking features except that one of its entrances is by stairs through the floor from kiva A. Its western and northern walls are of masonry; the remaining sides are formed by the vertical cliff.
The walls of room 2 are constructed of masonry on the northern, western, and southern sides; the eastern side is the cliff face. As the floor of this room is made of hardened clay laid on small sticks, it was at first supposed that a human burial was concealed beneath, but excavation showed no signs of an interment.
Room 3 (pl. 17) is a square inclosure between walls of other rooms. A portion of its floor is level with that of rooms 1 and 2, but a projecting rock forms an elevated bench on the eastern side. On the underside of this rock there are pictographs, apparently aboriginal, one of which has a well-known terrace form, recalling the outlines of aT-shaped doorway and the white figures on the outer wall of the ledge room above mentioned.
Room 4 is three stories high, without openings into adjoining rooms or exterior entrances. Its western corner is rounded below and angular above.
Room 5 was apparently two stories high, with a fireplace in its southeastern corner. The foundation rests on a large rock. The arrangement of post holes in the south and west walls of this dwelling is exceptional, and their purpose enigmatical. There is a passage from room 5 to the neighboring plaza, which is occupied by kiva D.
Room 6 is a small rectangular chamber, about 2 feet square and 7 feet high; it has an entrance on the western side into room 7, and, as it utilizes the walls of the adjacent rooms, it was doubtless built subsequent to them. Evidences of rebuilding or secondary construction of walls on old foundations are so numerous in this section of the ruin that this may be the oldest part of Cliff Palace.
Rooms 7, 8, and 9 are outside rooms, the western walls of which are more or less broken, while the front is entirely destroyed. It appears that their connected roofs once formed a terrace overlooking kiva D on the west. There are doorways in walls of one of these rooms, but entrance may have been gained by means of hatchways. It was approached from plaza B by the aid of ladders or stone steps.
Room 11, which may be called the square tower, is the only four-story building standing in Cliff Palace, its walls reaching from the floor to the roof of the cave. When work began on this building the whole northwestern angle had fallen, and the remaining walls were tottering. To prevent total destruction, the entire corner was built up from a foundation laid on the floor level of the neighboring kiva. A small entrance to the ground floor, or the lowest of the four rooms,is from a banquette (10) on the western side, where there is a passageway from this lower story of room 11 to room 12, situated in its rear. Room 12 has a good floor, and room 11 a fireplace in the southwestern corner of the lowest room of the square tower. Almost all the beams of the higher rooms of this tower had been taken out, leaving nothing but the holes in the walls to indicate the former existence of floors. The beams now connecting the walls were placed there by our workmen to serve as staging and for tying the sides together. The second and third stories of the square tower are also without floors. Their inner walls are plastered a reddish color, in places whitewashed, and the third wall is decorated with interesting paintings. In the western wall of the second story was a small window, and portions of a largeT-shaped doorway still show on the northern wall of the third story. Split sticks support the section of wall from the top of this doorway to the roof of the cave. From the arrangement of its rear walls it would appear that the whole of this tower was built subsequently to the rooms back of it, which extend on each side, north and south. The repair of a doorway of the northern wall was difficult, the foundation walls of the eastern and northern corners of the tower being slabs of stone set on edge, quite inadequate to support the lofty wall above. This insufficient foundation leads to the belief that when the base of the square tower was constructed there was no thought of erecting upon it the four stories that we now find. (Pl. 12,13a,14a.)
Some of the rooms of the square tower bear evidence of having been living rooms, and possibly the approaches to the upper chambers were by ladders from the outside; otherwise theT-shaped doorway on the northern side, above the painted room, remains unexplained.
Room 12, situated east of the square tower, has no characteristic features, being more a passageway than a room, opening at one end into room 13 and connecting with kiva D at the other end.
Room 13 likewise presents no distinctive features; its rear wall is considerably blackened by smoke, and it has a large square window opening into room 12.
A large part of the front walls of rooms 14, 16, and 24 has fallen, having been destroyed by falling water. To obviate future destruction, the southwestern corner of room 16 was repaired with cement, thus preventing further harm from dripping water. Rooms 16 and 24 evidently formed a front terrace, perhaps one story high, their rear wall being the front wall of rooms 17 and 18.
Rooms 17 and 18 are of two stories; both are square. The upper part of its walls shows that a portion of room 18 was formerly one story high and that the walls were erected before those of room 17. A coping of masonry around three walls is a feature of room 18, the construction of which is superior to that of room 17. This room has a large front window and two smaller openings higher up in the second story of the western wall. The combined front walls of rooms 17 and 18 may be ranked among the finest examples of masonry in Cliff Palace. The large embrasures made in this wall by vandals were repaired.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYBULLETIN 51PLATE 18PLATE 18PLATE 18PHOTOGRAPHED BY R. G. FULLERKIVA H, BEFORE REPAIRING
Rooms 19 and 20 also present fine examples of masonry and were evidently constructed before rooms 21, 22, and 23. The inner walls of room 19 were plastered; the outer wall was left rough. Room 20 shows crude masonry; its rear wall is the vertical cliff, and the inner surfaces of the three remaining walls of the upper story were plastered, and painted with yellow sand or pigment. Apparently the lower room was used as a granary, having no entrance, except possibly through a hatchway in its roof, which forms the floor of the room above. The presence of sticks projecting from the walls of this room adds weight to the conclusion that it was used for storage. There is no indication of a fireplace.
Room 22 has a stepping-stone, which may have facilitated entrance, projecting from the wall under an opening that probably served as a doorway.
Room 23 has a fireplace in one corner, and rooms 25, 26, and 27, which are situated in a row, have for their rear wall the vertical face of the cliff. Although these rooms are only one story high, the roof of the cave slopes down low enough in the rear to form their roofs. The outer walls were plastered, and each room was entered by a separate doorway. Although their side walls were somewhat destroyed, they appear not to have been intercommunicating. It is, in fact, rare to find a doorway from one room into another on the same level, or suites of rooms communicating with one another, but chambers one above another are generally provided with hatchways.
Room 28 is a two-story structure of excellent masonry, with an entrance on its southern side and a window frame of stone. Its second story formerly opened on the western side into room 29. Not much now remains of the plastering that once covered the inner walls of room 28, but the interior walls of room 29 still show well-preserved plaster. Although the latter room has excellent masonry, its southern wall, or that facing kiva J, is entirely destroyed. The floor was so well preserved that but little work was required to put it in good condition.
Rooms 30 to 33 are represented almost entirely by the side walls, the front walls being more or less destroyed. Their floors lie on the same level as those of the second terrace, and their roofs may have been continuous with the third terrace. There is indication of a room (unnumbered) in the southwestern corner of plaza J, and another, too mutilated to be described, on the second terrace below it.
Room 34 is irregularly rectangular in shape; its floor is on the level of the roof of kiva H. It has good masonry and a smoothed stone sill with a groove cut in the upper surface for the slab that formed the door. Its interior walls show evidences of plastering.
Room 35, situated on the same level as the kiva roof, has no window, but there is an opening directly into kiva H. Its roof is a continuation of that of the kiva, and has the old rafters, some still in place, supporting a few of the flat stones which formed the upper walls. As this chamber opens directly into the kiva, we may regard it as a repository for kiva paraphernalia;[40]the Hopi designate a similar chamberKatcinakihu, "Katcina house." On the roof of this room the writer set in place a smooth, ovoid stone with flat base, artificially worked. Possibly this stone was formerly used as an idol.
In Hano, a pueblo on the East mesa of the Hopi, masks are kept in a special room back of a living room, a custom common to all the Hopi. There is no evidence that the Cliff Palace people performed masked dances.
The most picturesque building of Cliff Palace is the round tower, room 36, perched on a high rock overlooking kivas G and H. From it the observer may have a fine view of the entire ruin and the canyon, especially the view down the latter, which is unsurpassed. This tower is not unlike other towers in the San Juan and Mesa Verde regions, one of the most perfect of which is that in Navaho canyon, repeatedly figured. This prominent tower is built of worked stones laid in reddish mortar, and apparently was plastered both inside and outside. It is two stories high, but is without a floor in the upper story, or a roof. The theory in certain quarters that this round tower formerly extended to the roof of the cave is not accepted by the author, who believes that it was formerly only a few feet higher than at present. The break in the upper wall adds much to its picturesque character, which is likewise increased by its association with neighboring buildings. The round tower has a doorway in its lower story, and above is another smaller opening, possibly a window. Several small peepholes are present on the western side. The sides of this structure are symmetrical, its walls slanting gradually inward from the base upward, and its vertical lines curving slightly on the western side. (Pl. 4a,11.)
Room 37 is a well-preserved room with a metataki, or grinding bin, in the middle.
While rooms 38 and 39 appear to be living rooms, they present no special peculiarities. The northern wall of room 39 was wholly undermined and tottering when the work of repair was commenced, so that its foundations had to be built up from the floor of kiva M. To make this difficult repair work effective it was necessary to enlarge the base of the wall, making the side of kiva M curve slightly inward and thereby insuring a good foundation.