IV. Cliff outlooks and farming shelters occupy sites 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 33, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 50, 53, 54, 56, 57, 64, 63, 65, 68, 69, and 70; in all, thirty-seven, or more than half. Some of these sites are now marked only by Navaho remains, and possibly a small percentage of them are of Navaho making, but the sites which are clearly and unmistakably Navaho are not mentioned here. Of all the sites only one (No. 7) is actually inaccessible without artificial aid.
The absence of any attempt to improve the natural advantages of the sites is remarkable. No expedients were employed to make access either easier or more difficult, except that here and there series of hand and foot holes have been pecked in the rock. Steps, either constructed of masonry or cut in the rock, such as those found in the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde region, are never seen here. The cavities in which the ruins occur are always natural; they are never enlarged or curtailed or altered in the slightest degree, and very rarely is the cavity itself treated as a room, although there are some excellent sites for such treatment. The back wall of a cove is often the back wall of a village, but aside from this the natural advantages of the sites were seldom realized.
The settlements were always located with reference to the canyon bottom, and access was never had from above, notwithstanding that in some cases access from above was easier than from below. Yet the inhabitants must necessarily have obtained their supply of firewood from above, as the quantity in the canyons, especially in that part where most of the ruins occur, is very limited. The Navaho throw the wood over the cliffs, afterward gathering up the fragments below and carrying them on their backs to their hogans at various points on the canyon bottom. The crash of falling logs, dropped or pushed over the edge of a cliff, sometimes 400 or 500 feet high, is not an infrequent sound in the canyon, and is at first very puzzling to the visitor.
The canyon walls are so nearly vertical, or rather so large a proportion is vertical, that egress or ingress, except at the mouth of the canyon, is a matter of great difficulty. Near the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above the mouth of De Chelly, there is a practicable horse trail ascending a narrow gorge to the southeast. The Navaho call it the Bat trail, on account of its difficulties. Another horse trail crosses Del Muerto some 8 or 10 miles above its mouth. With these exceptions there is no point where a horse can get into the canyons or out of them, but there are dozens of places where an active man, accustomed to it, can scale the walls by the aid of foot-holes which have been pecked in the rock at the most difficult places. These foot trails are in constant use by the Navaho, who ascend and descend by them with apparent ease, but it is doubtful whether a white man could be induced to climb them, except perhaps under the stress of necessity. There are even some trails over which sheep and goats are driven in and out of the canyon, but anyone who had not seen the flocks actually passing over the rocks would declare such a feat impossible. Some of these trails at least are of Navaho origin. Whether any of them wereused by the former dwellers in the canyon can not now be determined; it seems probable that some of them were.
view of site
Plate LVI. Site Difficult of Approach
Plate LVI shows a characteristic site in the lower part of the canyon. It occurs at the point marked8on the map, and is now quite difficult of approach, owing to the wearing away or weathering of a long line of foot-holes in the sloping rock, but formerly access was easy enough. It is now marked by a cluster of Navaho burial cists. Figure 66 shows an example that occurs in De Chelly, about 8 milesabove the junction, of Monument canyon. At first glance, and at a distance, this site appears to be really inaccessible, but a close inspection of the figure will show that it could be reached with comparative little difficulty over the rounded mass of rock shown to the left. By cutting off that side of the figure it could be made to serve as an illustration of a wholly inaccessible ruin.
view of site
Fig. 66—Site apparently very difficult of access.
The ancient pueblo builder, like his modern successor, was so closely in touch with nature, so dependent on his immediate physical surroundings, that variations in some at least of his arts are more natural and to be expected than uniformity. Especially is this true of the art of construction, and variations in masonry are more often than not the result of variations in the material employed, which is nearly always that most convenient to hand. Yet there were other conditions that necessarily influenced it, such, for example, as the character of the structure to be erected, whether permanent or temporary. The summer village of Ojo Caliente presents a type of masonry much ruder than any found in the home village of Zuñi, although both were built and occupied by the same people at the same time.
Within the limits of Canyon de Chelly, where the physical conditions and the character of material are essentially uniform, a considerable variation in the masonry is found, implying that some conditions other than the usual ones have influenced it. Were the masonry of one class of ruins inferior or superior throughout to that of another it might be easily explained, but variations within each class are greater than those between classes. Conditions analogous to those which prevailed in the case of Ojo Caliente and Zuñi may have governed here, or there may have been other conditions of which we now know nothing. It may be that sites originally occupied as farming shelters subsequently became regular villages, as has happened in other regions. The position of the kivas in many of the ruins suggests this. As a whole the masonry is inferior to that found in the Mancos canyon and the Chaco, and superior to that of Tusayan, but, as in Tusayan, where the masonry is sometimes very roughly constructed, the builders were well acquainted with the methods which produced the finer and better work.
The highest type of masonry in the pueblo system of architecture consists of small blocks of stone of nearly uniform size, dressed, and laid in courses, and rubbed down in situ. No attempt was made to break joints. This system requires the careful preparation of the material beforehand, and examples of it are not very common in Canyon de Chelly. As a variant we have walls composed of stones of fairly uniform size, laid with the best face out and with the interstices chinked with small spalls. The chinking is carried to such an extent in some places, as in the Chaco ruins, that the walls present the effect of a mosaic composed of small spalls. Chinking is almost a universal practice, and in some localities had passed, or was passing, from a mereconstructive to a real decorative feature. Here we have the beginning of that architecture which has been defined by Ferguson as "ornamental and ornamented construction"—in other words, of architecture as an art rather than as a craft.
The use of an exterior finish of plaster was conducive to poor masonry. Such plastering is found throughout the region, but it is much more abundant in the modern than in the ancient work. Perhaps we may find in this a suggestion of relative age; not in the use of plastering, but in its prevalence.
Pueblo masonry is composed of very small units, and the results obtained testify to the patience and industry of the builders rather than to their knowledge and skill. In fact, their knowledge of construction was far more limited than would at first sight be supposed. The marked tabular character of the stone used rendered but a small amount of preparation necessary for even the best masonry. For over 90 per cent of it there was no preparation other than the selection of material. The walls and buildings were always modified to suit the ground, never the reverse, and instances in which the site was prepared are very rare, if not indeed unknown. There are no such instances in De Chelly, where sites were often irregular, and a small amount of work would have rendered them much more desirable.
masonry
Plate LVII. Masonry in Canyon De Chelly
Plate LVII shows a type of masonry which is quite common in De Chelly. It is the west room of ruin16, near the mouth of Del Muerto. An attempt at regularity, and possibly at decorative effect, is apparent in the use of courses of fairly uniform thickness, alternating with other courses or belts composed of small thin fragments. Beautiful examples of masonry constructed on this method occur in the Chaco ruins, but here, while the method was known, the execution was careless or faulty. Chinking with small spalls has been extensively practiced and gives the wall an appearance of smoothness and finish. A similar wall, rather better constructed, occurs at the point marked3on the map, and in this case the stones composing the wall were rubbed down in situ. Another wall, which occurs in the same ruin, is shown in plate LVIII. In places very large stones have been used, larger than one man could handle conveniently, but the general effect of the wall face is very good. This effect was obtained by placing the best face of the stone outward and by careful chinking.
walls
Plate LVIII. Chinked Walls in Canyon De Chelly
Chinking was sometimes done, not with slips of stone driven in with a hammer, after the usual style, but with bits of mud pressed in with the fingers. The mud was used when about the consistency of modeling clay, and bears the imprints of the fingers that applied it; even the skin markings show clearly and distinctly. From this use of mud to its use as an exterior plaster there is but a short step; in fact, examples which are intermediate can be seen throughout the canyon. In places mud has been applied to small cracks and cavities in larger quantities than was necessary, and the excess has been smoothed over theadjacent stones forming a wall partly plastered, or plastered in patches. Plate LIX, which shows the interior of a room in ruin10, will illustrate this. Here the process has been carried so far that the wall is almost plastered, but not quite. In plastered walls the process was carried a step farther, and the surface was finished by the application of a final coat of mud made quite liquid. The interior plastering of kivas was always much more carefully done than that of any other walls. Owing to blackening by smoke and recoating, the thickness of the plastering in kivas can be easily made out. Often it is as thin as ordinary paper.
wall
Plate LIX. A Partly Plastered Wall
Plate LX shows walls in which an abundance of mud mortar was used, and the effect is that of a plastered wall. The difference between these walls and those shown inplate LVIIis only one of degree, the wall shown inplate LIXbeing of an intermediate type. No instance occurs in the canyon where a coating of mud was evenly applied to the whole surface of a wall, in the way, for example, that stucco is used by us. It seems probable, therefore, that the application of plaster as a finish grew out of the use of stone spalls for chinking, and its prevalence in modern as compared with old structures is suggestive. It is not claimed, however, that because we have examples of the intermediate stages in De Chelly that the process was developed there. The step is such a slight one that it might have been made in a hundred different localities at a hundred different times or at one time; but it is well to note that in any given group of ruins or locality it is likely to be later than masonry chinked with stones. Surface finishing in mud plaster is the prevailing method at the present day, and well-executed masonry of stone carefully chinked is almost invariably ancient. The use of surface plaster is largely responsible for the deterioration of stonework that has taken place since the beginning of the historic period. The modern village of Zuñi, which dates from the beginning of the eighteenth century, although built on the site of an older village, is essentially a stone-built village, though that fact would never appear from a cursory examination, so completely is the stonework covered by surface plaster.
wall
Plate LX. Plastered Wall in Canyon De Chelly
In Tusayan (Moki) walls have been observed in progress of erection. The stones were laid up dry, and some time after, when the rains came and pools of water stood here and there in pockets on the mesa top, mud mortar was mixed and the interstices were filled. This method saved the transportation of water from the wells below up to the top of the mesa, a task entailing much labor. Doubtless a similar method was followed in De Chelly, where the stream bed carries water only during a part of the year. But stone was also actually laid in mud mortar, as shown inplate LII, which illustrates a rough type of masonry.
It is probable that the practice of chinking grew up out of the scarcity of water, when walls were erected during the dry season and finished when the rains made the manufacture of mud mortar less of a task. The rough wall shown in the illustration is the outside of an interior wall of a kiva, and it was probably covered by the rectangularinclosing wall that came outside of it. It will be noticed that chinking, both with mud and with spalls, was extensively practiced and seems here to have been an essential part of the construction. In this example it could have no relation to the finish of the wall, for the wall was not finished.
Much of the masonry in the canyon is of the type described, but examples differ widely in degree of finish and in material selected. Some of the walls appear very rough and even crude, so much so that they almost appear to be the first efforts of a people at an unknown art, but a closer inspection shows that even the rudest walls were erected with a knowledge of the principles which were followed in the best ones, and that the difference resulted only from the care or lack of care employed. The rudest walls are much superior to the masonry of the Navaho cists which are found in conjunction with them and which are constructed on a different method.
Although walls were often built on sloping rock, and the builders had experience and at times disastrous experience to guide them, the necessity for a fiat and solid foundation was never appreciated. Walls were sometimes built on loose debris; even refuse which had been covered and formed an artificial soil was considered sufficient. There are many instances in the canyon where lack of foresight or lack of knowledge in this respect has brought about the destruction of walls. Walls resting on foreign material occur throughout the region; they are not confined to anyone class of ruins or to any part of the canyon, but are found as much or more in the most recent as in the most ancient examples. Mummy Cave ruin and Casa Blanca are good examples. In the latter the small room on the left of the upper group (plate XLVII) is especially interesting. The side walls appear to rest on a deposit of refuse nearly 2 feet thick, which in turn rests on the sloping rock. The front wall is supported by a buttress as shown; without this support it would certainly have been pushed out. The buttress appears to have been built at the same time as the front wall, although its use in this way is not aboriginal. The whole arrangement is such as would result if this room, originally represented by a low front wall perhaps, were constructed when the site became inadequate and consequently at a late period in its occupancy.
The character of the refuse and debris upon which some of the walls rest is worth notice. It is well known that sheep were introduced into this country by the Spaniards, and the presence in the ruins of sheep dung, or of a material which closely resembles it, is important. Much of this is due to subsequent Navaho occupancy, and many ruins are used today by these Indians as sheepfolds. It is said, moreover, that at the time of the Navaho war, when the soldiers bayoneted all the sheep they could find, large flocks were driven up into some cliff ruins that are almost inaccessible, and kept there for a time in security. But many instances are found where the walls rest directly upon layersof compacted dung. An example is shown inplate LII, and others are mentioned in the text under the descriptions of various ruins.
It has been suggested that the compacted dung found in the ruins was the product not of sheep, but of some other domesticated animal which existed in this country at the time of the first Spanish invasion, but the evidence to support this hypothesis is so very slight that so far the suggestion is only a suggestion. Not the slightest trace of this animal has been found, although it is alleged that it was domesticated among the pueblos three hundred and fifty years ago.
Although the idea of a strengthening or supporting buttress is thought to be a foreign introduction, a hypothesis that is strengthened by the occurrence of other features, the masonry itself is aboriginal in its principles and probably also in execution. The conservatism of the Indian mind in such matters is well known. The Zuñi today use stone more than adobe, although for a hundred years or more there has been an adobe church in the midst of the village.
Adobe construction in this region is only partially successful. North of the Gila river, in the plateau country, the climate is not suited to it; the rains are too heavy and the frosts are destructive. Constant vigilance and prompt repairs are necessary, and even then the adobe work is not satisfactory. Certainly in the northern part of the country the aborigines would not have developed this method of construction in the face of the difficulties with which it is surrounded; yet there are examples of adobe work in some of the most important ruins in De Chelly, as has already been stated. The fact that the only previously known examples of adobe work occur in ruins which are known to have been inhabited subsequent to the Spanish conquest, such as the ruin of Awatobi, in Tusayan, is suggestive. Moreover, adobe construction in this region belongs to a late period; for the walls are almost always very thin, usually 6 or 7 inches. The old type of massive walls, 2 or even 3 feet thick, are seldom or never found constructed of adobe, although such thickness is more necessary in this material than in stone.
There is another method of construction which, although not masonry, should be noticed here. This is the equivalent of the Mexican "jacal" construction, and consists of series of poles or logs planted vertically in the ground close to each other and plastered with mud either outside or on both sides. The only example of this found in the canyon occurs in the western part of the lower Casa Blanca ruin, and has already been mentioned. Did it not occur elsewhere it could be dismissed here as simply another item of evidence of the modern occupancy of the ruin, but Dr W. R. Birdsall mentions walls in the Mesa Verde ruins which are "continued upward upon a few tiers of stone by wickerwork heavily plastered inside and outside"14and Nordenskiöld mentions a similar construction in the interior of a kiva. Whether a similar foundation or lower part of stone existed in the Casa Blanca ruin could not be determined without excavation.
The ruins in De Chelly are so much broken down that few examples of openings now remain; still fewer are yet intact; but there is no doubt that they are of the regular pueblo types. Most of the openings in the De Chelly ruins are rectangular, of medium size, neither very large nor very small, with unfinished jambs and sills, and with a lintel such as that shown inplate LVIII, composed of one or two series of light sticks, sometimes surmounted by a flat stone slab. This example occurs at the point marked3on the map, in what was formerly an extensive village. The wall on the left, now covered by loosely piled rocks, was pierced by a narrow notched doorway. The opening shown in the illustration, which is in the northern wall, is 2 feet high and 14 inches wide; its sill is about 18 inches from the ground. The lintel is composed of six small sticks, about an inch in diameter, surmounted by a flat slab of stone, very roughly shaped, and separated from the sticks by 2 inches of mud mortar.
Plate LVIIshows an opening which occurs in ruin No.16. The building consisted of two rooms, between which there was no communication. The eastern room was entered by the doorway shown in the illustration, which is 2 feet above the ground and 2 feet high. To facilitate ingress a notch was dug in the wall about 8 inches from the ground. The western room was entered through a large doorway, shown inplate LI. The sill is about 8 inches above the ground; the opening is 3 feet high and 14 inches wide. The lintel is composed of small sticks, with a slab of stone above them, and the top of the opening and perhaps the sides were plastered.
The notched or T-shape doorway, which is quite common in the Mesa Verde ruins and in Tusayan, is not abundant in De Chelly, but some examples can be seen there. One is shown in figure 67, which illustrates the type. There is no doubt that doorways of this kind developed at a time when no means existed for closing the opening, except blankets or skins, and when loads were carried on the backs of men. It often happened that doorways originally constructed of this style were afterward changed by partial filling to square or rectangular openings. The principal doorway in the front wall of the White House proper was originally of T-shape; at some later period, but beforethe white coating was applied, the left-hand wing and the standard below it were filled in, leaving an almost square opening. This later filling is not uncommon in De Chelly, and is often found in Tusayan, where openings are sometimes reduced for the winter season and enlarged again in the summer. Many openings are completely closed, either by filling in with masonry or by a stone slab, and examples of both of these methods are found in De Chelly. In the third wall from the east, in the upper part of Casa Blanca ruin, there is a well-finished doorway sealed by a thin slab of stone set in mud. On the right side of the opening, about the middle, a loop or staple of wood has been built into the wall, and in the corresponding place on the left side a stick about half an inch in diameter projects. An opening into the small room west of the White House proper has a similar contrivance, and another example occurs in the front wall of the small single room in the eastern end of the ruin. Oddly enough the three examples that occur in this ruin are all found in adobe walls.
This feature appears to have been a contrivance for temporarily closing openings which were provided with stone slabs, and the latter were sealed in place with mud mortar when it was desired to close the room permanently. Examples, identical even in details, have been found in the Mancos canyon, and one is described and illustrated by Chapin,15who states that the slab was 14½ inches wide at one end, 15½ at the other, and 25 inches high, with an average thickness of an inch. He mentions staples on both sides. Nordenskiöld16illustrates another or possibly the same example. He notes, however, an inner frame composed of small sticks and mud against which the slab rested. He thinks the notched doorways belonged to rooms most frequented in daily life, while the others belonged in general to storerooms or other chambers requiring a door to close them.
Taken as a whole, the settlements in De Chelly appear to have been well provided with doorways and other openings, and there is no perceptible difference in this respect between the various classes of ruins. Openings were freely left in the walls, wherever convenience dictated, and without regard to the defensive motive, which, in the large valley pueblos, brought about the requirement that all the first-story rooms should be entered from the roof, a requirement which has only recently given way to the greater convenience of an entrance on the ground level.
In the pueblo system of construction roofs and floors are the same; in other words, the roof of one room is the floor of the room above, and where a room or house is but one story high no change in the method of construction is made. The erection of walls was only a question of time, as the unit of the masonry is small; but the construction of a roof was a much harder task, as the beams were necessarilybrought from a distance, sometimes a very long distance. The Tusayan claim that some of the timbers used in the construction of the mission buildings, which were established prior to the insurrection of 1680, were brought on the backs of men from San Francisco mountains, a distance of over 100 miles, and references to the transportation of timber over long distances are not uncommon in Pueblo traditions. In De Chelly great difficulty must have been experienced in procuring an adequate supply, as in that portion of the canyon where most of the ruins occur no suitable trees grow. Doubtless in many cases, where the location, under overhanging cliffs permitted, roofs were dispensed with, but this alone would not account for the dearth of timber found in the ruins. If we suppose the canyon to have been the scene of a number of occupancies instead of one, the absence of timber work, as well as the much obliterated appearance of some of the ruins, would be explained, for the material would be used more than once, perhaps several times. The Navaho would not use the timber in cliff ruins under any circumstances, and they would rather starve than eat food cooked with it. Many of the cliff outlooks, being occupied only during the farming season and being also fairly well sheltered, were probably roofless.
Timber was used as an aid to masonry construction in two ways—as a foundation and as a tie. Many instances can be seen where the walls rest on beams, running, not with them, but across them. These beams were placed directly on the rock, and the front walls rested partly on their ends and partly on the rock itself.Plate LIIshows the end of one of these beams. In nine cases out of ten the beams do not appear to have served any useful end, but perhaps if the walls were removed down to the foundations the purpose would be clear. Sometimes a beam was placed on the rock in the line of the wall above it. The single or separate room occupying the western end of the upper cave in the Casa Blanca ruin is an example of this use. The front wall rests on beams, as shown inplate XLVI. Some of the back adobe walls in the eastern part of the upper ruin rest on timbers, and instances of this feature are not uncommon in other parts of the canyon. The southeastern corner of the tower in Mummy Cave ruin in Del Muerto rested on timbers apparently laid over a small cavity or hole in the rock. The timber was not strong enough to support the weight placed upon it, and consequently gave way, letting the corner of the tower fall out.
Cross walls were sometimes tied to front or back walls by timbers built into them, but this method, of which fine examples can be seen in the Chaco ruins, was but slightly practiced here. Timber was used also to prevent the slipping of walls on sloping sites, being placed vertically and built into the masonry; but as this use is a constructive expedient it is discussed under that head.
Facilities for the storage of grain and other produce are essential in the pueblo system of horticulture, as in any other. As a result, storage cists are found everywhere. In the modern pueblos the innerdark rooms, which would otherwise be useless, provide the necessary space, but in the settlements in De Chelly, which were very small as a rule, there were few such rooms, and special structures had to be erected. These differed from the dwelling rooms only in size, although as a rule, perhaps, the openings by which they were entered were not so large as those of the dwellings and were sometimes, possibly always, provided with some means by which they could be closed.
Immense numbers of these storage cists are found in the canyon, some of them with masonry so roughly executed that it is difficult to discriminate between the old pueblo and the modern Navaho work. Sometimes these cists or small rooms form part of a village, more often they are attached to the cliff outlooks, and not infrequently they stand alone on sites overlooking the lands whose product they contained. It is probable that many of the cliff outlooks themselves were used quite as much for temporary storage as for habitations during the farming season. These two uses, although quite distinct, do not conflict with each other. Doubtless many excellent sites, now marked only by the remains of storage cists, were occupied also during the summer as outlooks without the erection of any house structures. Some of the modern pueblos now use temporary shelters of brush for outlooks.
It is not meant that the crops when gathered were placed in these cists and kept there until used. The harvest was, as a rule, permanently stored in the home villages, and the cists were used only for temporary storage. Doubtless the old practice resembled somewhat that followed by the Navaho today. The harvest is gathered at the proper time and what is not eaten at once is hidden away in cists of old or modern construction. If it is well hidden, the grain may remain in the cists for a long time if not withdrawn for consumption; but as a rule it is taken away a few months later. The annual emigration of the Navaho commences soon after the harvest, and at intervals during the winter and spring, and in summer, if the supply is not then exhausted, visits are paid to the cists and portions of the grain are carried away.
A large proportion of the cists are of modern Navaho work, but that some of them were used by the pueblo people who preceded them seems probable from the similarity in horticultural methods, and from the small size of many of the villages. A village inhabited by half a dozen people was not uncommon; one which could accommodate more than fifty was rare. Moreover, some of the storage cists that occur in conjunction with dwellings differ from the latter only in size and in their separation from the other rooms. The masonry is quite as good as that of the houses, and much superior to the Navaho work.
Plate LXI shows an example which occurs in the lower part of the canyon, at the point marked1on the map. It is placed on a little ledge or block of rock, 12 feet above the stream and about 8 feet above the bottom land below it. This is the first considerable area of bottom land in the canyon. The cist is 2 feet square inside and occupies thewhole width of the rock. An exceptionally large amount of mud plaster was used on the walls, which are better finished outside than inside. Access was had by hand-holes in the rock, now almost obliterated. Originally the structure consisted of two or more rooms.
storage cist
Plate LXI. Storage Cist in Canyon De Chelly
A little below this site there are some well-executed pictographs, and on some rocks immediately to the right some crude work of the Navaho of the same sort. To the left of the cist a round hole 6 or 8 inches in diameter has been pecked into the almost vertical face of the rock. The purpose of this is not clear.
The storage of water was so seldom attempted, or perhaps so seldom necessary, that only one example of a reservoir was found. This has already been described (page 126). If the cliff ruins were defensive structures, a supply of water must have been kept in them, and where this requirement was common, as it would be under the hypothesis, certainly some receptacle other than jars of pottery would be provided. Few, if any, of the cliff outlooks are so situated that a supply of water could be procured without descending to the stream bed, and without a supply of water the most impregnable site in the canyon would have little value.
The number of burial cists in the canyon is remarkable; there are hundreds of them. Practically every ruin whose walls are still standing contains one or more, some have eight or ten. They are all of Navaho origin and in many of them the remains of Navaho dead may still be seen. Possibly the Navaho taboo of their own dead has brought about the partial taboo of the cliff dwellers' remains which prevails, and which is an element that must be taken into account in any discussion of the antiquity of the ruins.
The burial cists are built usually in a corner or against a wall of a cliff dweller's house, but sometimes they are built against a cliff wall, and occasionally stand out alone. The masonry is always rough, much inferior to the old walls against which it generally rests, and usually very flimsy. The structures are dome-shape when standing alone, or in the shape of a section of a dome when placed against other walls. The natural bedding of the stone is sometimes wholly ignored, and in some cases the walls consist merely of thin slabs of stone on edge, held together with masses of mud, the whole presenting an average thickness of less than 3 inches. Such structures on ordinary sites would not last six months; protected as they are they might last for many years.
Not all the Navaho dead in the canyon find their last resting place in the ruins. Graves can be seen under bowlders and rocks high up on the talus; and in one place in De Chelly a number of little piles of stones are pointed out as the burial places of "many Americans," who, it is said, were killed by the Navaho in their last war. It is also said that in the olden days, when the Navaho considered De Chelly their stronghold and the heart of their country, the remains of prominentmen of the tribe were often brought to the canyon for interment in the ruins. Such burials are still made, both in the ruins themselves and in cists on similar sites.
As a whole the Navaho burial cists are much more difficult of access than the ruins, and some of them appear to be now really inaccessible, a statement which can be made of but few ruins. Some of them appear to have been reached from above. The agility and dexterity of the Navaho in climbing the cliffs is remarkable, and possibly some of the sites now apparently inaccessible are not so considered by them. As before stated, there are a number of Navaho foot trails out of the canyon, where shallow pits or holes have been pecked in the rock as an aid in the more difficult places, and similar aids were often employed to afford access to storage and burial cists.Plate LVIshows a site in the lower part of the canyon where such means have been employed. The pits in the rock are so much worn by atmospheric erosion that the ascent now is very dangerous. The cove or ledge to which they lead is about halfway up the cliff, and on it are a number of cists, one of them still intact, with a doorway. The masonry consists of large slabs of sandstone set on edge, sometimes irregularly one above another, the whole being roughly plastered inside and out. About 200 yards farther up the cove, on the same side, there is a series of foot holes leading to a small cave about halfway up, and thence upward and probably out of the canyon. They are probably of Navaho origin.
cist
Fig. 68—Cist composed of upright slabs.
The use of stone on edge is apparently confined to these cists. Figure 68 shows a structure which occurs a little above the ruin marked 37 on the map. The walls consist of thin slabs of stone set upright androughly plastered where they meet. Instances of the use of stone in this way are not uncommon in the pueblo country, and there are a number of examples in De Chelly.
As before stated, the typical Navaho burial cist is of dome shape. The roof or upper portion is supported on sticks so arranged as to leave a small square opening in the top. Apparently at some stage in its existence this hole is closed and sealed, but examples were examined which were very old and one which was but twenty-four hours old, but in neither case was the opening closed. Doubtless the opening has some ceremonial significance; it is not of any actual use, as it is too small to permit the passage of a human body. Plate LXII shows a typical cist in good order and another such broken down. These examples occur at the point marked6on the map, in the ruin shown inplate LIII. This site is of comparatively easy access, and there are many others equally easy or even more so, but, on the other hand, there are many Sites which now seem to be wholly inaccessible.
burial cist
Plate LXII. Navaho Burial Cists
The cliff ruins have always been regarded as defensive structures, sometimes even as fortresses, but in De Chelly whatever value they have in this respect is due solely to the sites they occupy. There are many places here where slight defensive works on the approaches to sites would increase their value a hundredfold, but such works were apparently never constructed. Furthermore, the ruins themselves never show even a suggestion of the influence of the defensive motive, except in the two possible instances already mentioned. The ordinary or dwelling-house plan has not been at all modified, not even to the extent that it has in the modern pueblos. If the cliff ruins were defensive structures it would certainly seem that an influence strong enough to bring about the occupancy of such inconvenient and unsuitable sites would also be strong enough to bring about some modifications in the architecture, modifications which would render more suitable sites available. The influence of the physical environment on pueblo architecture, and the sensitiveness of the latter to such influence, has already been commented on. Moreover, it also has been stated that, so far as known, but one instance occurs in the canyon where provision was made for the storage of water; yet without water the strongest "fortress" in the canyon could not withstand a siege of forty-eight hours. Further, assuming that the structures were defensive, and well prepared to resist attack, if necessary, for several days, only a few such attacks would be required to cause their abandonment, for the crops on the canyon bottom, practically the sole possessions of the dwellers in the canyon, would necessarily be lost.
These are some of the difficulties that stand in the way of the assumption that the cliff ruins were defensive structures or permanent homes. If, however, we adopt the hypothesis that they were farming outlooksoccupied only during the farming season, and then only for a few days or weeks at a time, after the manner that such outlooks are used by the Pueblo Indians at the present time, most of the difficulties vanish.
The apparent inaccessibility of many of the sites disappears on close examination, and we must not forget that places really difficult of access to us would not necessarily be so regarded by a people accustomed to that manner of life. Many locations which could not be surpassed as defensive sites were not occupied, while others much inferior in this respect were built upon. It was very seldom that the natural conditions were modified, even to the extent of selecting a route of access other than that which, would naturally be followed, and, of course, the easiest route for the cliff dwellers would be also the easiest route for their enemies. In many cases the easiest way of access, which was the one used by the cliff dwellers, was not direct. It was not commanded by the immediate site of the dwellings, except in its upper part, and in some cases not at all. Enemies could climb to the very doors of the houses before they could be seen or attacked. The absence of military knowledge and skill, and of any attempt to fortify or strengthen a site, or even to fully utilize its natural defensive advantages, is characteristic of the cliff ruins of De Chelly. If the cliff dwellers were driven to the use of such places by a necessity for defense, this absence is remarkable, especially as there is evidence that the settlements were occupied for a number of, perhaps a great many, years.
Under the head of constructive expedients we have a different result. The difficulties which came from the occupancy of exceptional sites were promptly reflected in the construction, and unusual ways and methods were adopted to overcome them. These methods are the more interesting in that they were not always successful. It sometimes happened that walls had to be placed on a foundation of smooth, sloping rock. In such cases the rock was never cut away, but timbers were employed to hold the wall in place. In some instances the timbers were laid at right angles to the line of front wall, at points where cross walls joined it inside. The front wall thus rested partly on the ends of timbers and partly on rock, while the other ends of the timbers were held in place by the cross walls built upon them. An example of this construction is shown inplate LII. In other instances, where the surface was irregular but did not slope much, timbers were laid on the wall lines and the masonry rested partly upon them. An example of this occurs in the Casa Blanca ruin, shown inplate XLVII. Still another method of using timber in masonry occurs in a number of ruins. It was seldom effective and apparently was confined to this region. This consists of the incorporation into the masonry of upright logs. Figure 69 shows an example that occurs at the point marked32on the map. The site here is an especially difficult one, as the builders were compelled to place walls not only on sloping rock foundations, but also on loose débris, and the vertical timber support is quite common.The three kivas which are shown on the plan occupied the front of the village, and their front walls have fallen out. Apparently the same accident has happened at least once, if not several times, before, and a fragment of a previous front wall has slipped down 3 or 4 feet, and was left there when the kiva was repaired. The round dots shown on the plan, two in the wall of the central kiva and one on the east, represent vertical timbers incorporated in the masonry. The tops of these logs reach the level of the top of the bench in the kiva, and their lower ends rest in cavities in the rocks. The eastern one was removed and was found to be about 2 feet long. The upper half was charred, although formerly inclosed completely in the masonry, as though it had been burned off to the required length. The lower end was hacked off with some blunt implement, and as nearly squared as it could be done with such means. It was set into a socket or hole pecked in the solid rock and plastered in with clay. In the outer portion of the eastern wall of the central kiva there are many marks of sticks, 3 to 4 inches in diameter and placed vertically.
ground plan showing retaining walls
Fig. 69—Retaining walls in Canyon de Chelly.
Although timbers as an aid to masonry occur in many ruins, they predominate in those which have been suggested as the sites most recently occupied; but in the Chaco ruins timber has been used extensively and much more skillfully than here. Instances occur where a cross wall has been tied into a front wall with timber, and so effective was the device that in one instance a considerable section of cross wall can be seen suspended in the air, being completely broken out below and now supported wholly by the ties. Instances can also be seen where partition walls are supported on crossbeams at some distance from the ground, forming large and convenient openings between rooms; but nothing of that kind was seen in De Chelly. In the latter regionwherever horizontal timbers are used for the support of masonry they rest on the bed rock.
The same ruin (No.32) contains an elaborate system of retaining avails, which are shown partly in figure 69. At first a retaining wall was built immediately in front of the main kiva, which is now 5 feet high outside. Apparently this did not serve the purpose intended, for another and much heavier wall was built immediately next to it. This wall is 4 feet thick, flush on top and inside, but 10 feet high outside. At half its height it has a step back of 6 inches. It would seem that even this heavy construction did not suffice, and still another wall was built outside of and next to it. This wall is nearly or quite as heavy as the one described, and its top is on the level of the foot of that wall, but it is 12 feet high outside. Something of the character of the site may be inferred from the arrangement of these walls, which have a combined vertical fall of 27 feet in a horizontal distance of less than 15 feet. The outer or lower wall has a series of very heavy timbers projecting from its face; these are placed irregularly. It should be noted that access to this village was from the bench on either side, and that it could not be reached from the front, where these walls occur. There are other walls on the lower slope, similarly reinforced.
A little to the right of the point where these retaining walls occur there is a room in which horizontal beams have been incorporated in the masonry. A similar use of timber occurs in ruin No.16and is shown inplate LX. Why timber should be used in this way is not clear. It may be that when the supply was placed on the ground the builders found that they had more timber than was needed for a roof and used the excess in the wall rather than bring up more stone. The posts which were placed vertically and built into the wall were always short; perhaps they were fragments or ends cut from roofing timbers that were found to be too long. In many instances they failed to hold the walls, and possibly the pit holes in sloping rock, which are numerous on some sites, indicate places where this expedient was formerly employed.
It is singular that the necessity for such expedients did not develop the idea of a buttress. On this site such an expedient would have saved an immense amount of work. In only one place in the canyon was a buttress found. This was in the Casa Blanca ruin, shown inplate XLVII. There is no doubt that in this place the buttress was used with a full knowledge of its principles, and but little doubt that the idea was imported at a late, perhaps the latest, period in the occupancy of that site. Had it been known before, it would have been used in other places where there was great need for it, not so much to prevent the slipping of walls as to supersede the construction of walls 4 feet thick or more, and to strengthen outside walls which were likely to give way at any time from the outward thrust upon them.
Altogether the constructive expedients employed in De Chelly suggest the introduction of plans and methods adapted to other regionsand other conditions into a new region with different requirements, and that occupancy of the latter region did not continue long enough to conform the methods to the new conditions.
The kivas, or estufas as they formerly were called, are sacred chambers in which the civil and religious affairs of the tribe are transacted, and they also form a place of resort, or club, as it were, for the men. Their functions are many and varied, but as this subject has already been discussed at length17it need not be enlarged upon here. In Tusayan the kivas are rectangular and separated from the houses; in Zuñi and in some other pueblos they are also rectangular, but are incorporated in the house clusters—a feature doubtless brought about by the repressive policy of the Spanish monks. In some of the pueblos, as in Taos, they are circular, and in many of the older ruins the same form is found. In the large ruins of Chaco canyon the kivas occur in groups arranged along the inner side of the rooms; always, where the ground plan is such as to permit it, arranged on the border of an inner court. In Canyon de Chelly the kivas are always circular and are placed generally on the outer edge of the settlement, which is usually the front.
As the function of the kivas is principally a religious one, they are found only in permanent villages where religious ceremonies were performed. They are never found in subordinate settlements, or farming villages, or outlooks, unless such settlements came to be inhabited all the year—in other words, until they became permanent villages. The habits and requirements of the Pueblo people make it essential that a permanent village should have one or more kivas, and we have in the presence of these structures a criterion by which the character of a village or ruin may be determined. As the kivas in De Chelly are always circular, they can generally be easily distinguished.
The circular kiva is unquestionably a survival in architecture—a relic of the time when the Pueblo people dwelt in circular lodges or huts—and its use in conjunction with a rectangular system entailed many difficulties and some awkward expedients to overcome them. The main problem, how to use the two systems together, was solved by inclosing the circular chamber in a rectangular cell, and this expedient aided in the solution of the hardly less important problem of roofing. The roof of the kiva was the roof of the chamber that inclosed it.
It seems to have been a common requirement throughout the pueblo country that the kiva should be wholly or partly underground. So strong was this requirement in Tusayan that the occurrence of natural clefts and fissures in the rock of the mesa top has dictated the location of the kivas often at some distance from the houses. But in De Chelly there were some sites where the requirement could not be filled without extensive rock excavation wholly beyond the power of the builders.Here then it seems that other requirements were strong enough to overcome the ceremonial necessity for partly subterranean structures, for examples of that kind are comparatively rare. In all of the ruins on the canyon bottom the requirement could be filled, and as many of the villages on defensive sites were constructed after the site itself had been partly filled up with loose débris, it could also be filled in those cases. There are also instances where the bottom of the kiva rests directly on the rock, while outside the walls the site was covered deep with artificial débris. But it would be difficult to determine what was the surface of the ground when the kiva was in use.
The size and character of the kivas in De Chelly, and their relations to the other rooms about them, are shown in the ground plans preceding. Some have walls still standing to a height of 6 feet above the ground, but this could not have been the total height. Dr H. C. Yarrow, U.S.A., in 1874 examined one of the five large circular kivas in Taos. He states18that it was 25 or 30 feet in diameter, arched above, and 20 feet high. Around the wall, 2 feet from the ground, there was a hard earthen bench, and in the center a fireplace about 2 by 3 feet.
Entrance to the kivas is invariably from the roof by a ladder. This appears to be a ceremonial requirement. Doorways at the ground level are not only unknown, but also impracticable; but in De Chelly there are some puzzling features which might easily be mistaken for such doorways. The principal kiva in the ruin, which occurs at the point marked10on the map, and described above (page 123,figure 24), is on the edge of the ledge, and its outer wall is so close as to make a passage difficult, although not impossible. At the point where the curved wall comes nearest the cliff there is a narrow gap or opening, not more than 15 inches wide. In front of this there appears to be a little platform on the sloping rock, 2 feet long, 10 inches wide, and now about a foot high. At first sight this would be taken for a doorway so arranged that access to the kiva could be obtained only from below; but a closer examination shows that this was probably only what remains of a chimney-like structure, such as those described later.
In ruin31there is another example. The kiva here was about 20 feet in diameter, with rather thin walls smoothly plastered inside. On the inner side the walls are from 3 to 5 feet high; outside they are generally flush with the ground. The kiva is not a true circle, but is slightly elongated north and south. On the south side, nearest the edge of the ledge, there is an opening, shown in figure 70. The opening is 6 feet 3 incheswide, and the ends of the curved walls terminate in smoothly finished surfaces. In front of it there are remains of two walls, about a foot apart, and so arranged as to form an apparent passageway into the interior of the kiva. These seem to be a kind of platform, like that just described, but close inspection shows the walls, which can be traced to within 6 inches of the inner wall of the kiva. This also may be the remains of a chimney-like structure. There are other points in the canyon where the same feature occurs, but in none of them is the evidence of an opening or doorway more definite than in the examples described.
The masonry of the kivas is always as good as that of any other structure on the site, and generally much better. The walls are usually massive; sometimes they are 3 feet thick in the upper part and 4 feet in the lower portion, where the bench occurs. In a few cases the kiva has an upper or second story, but when this occurs no attempt is made to preserve the circular form, and the upper rooms are really rectangular with much rounded corners.Plate XLIXshows a second-story kiva wall in Mummy Cave ruin, and plate LXIII one in ruin No.10in De Chelly. The latter occurs over the principal kiva, and the walls which are still standing on the north and west sides are approximately straight, but the corners are much rounded. Figure 71 is a detailed plan of part of the kiva, showing the arrangement of the upper walls. The kiva walls are about 18 inches thick. On the north side the upper wall is supported by a heavy beam, part of which is still in place. Under the north-east corner of the upper room there is a little triangular space formed by a short connecting wall, shown on the plan. This is really a flying wall, covering only the upper portion of the space, and its purpose is not clear, as the opening left is not large enough to permit the passage of a person, and was available only from the second story.
view of kiva
Plate LXIII. Kiva in Ruin No. 10, Showing Second-Story Walls
Apparently the greatest care was bestowed on the construction and finish of the kivas. The exterior of the circular wall is often rough and unfinished, but this is probably because the whole structure was generally inclosed within rectangular walls. The interior was plastered, often with a number of coats. The southern kiva in ruin No.10shows a number of these on its interior surface, applied one after another, and now forming a plastering nearly three-quarters of an inch thick. In its section 18 distinct coats can be counted, separated one from the other by a thin film of smoke-blackened surface. The kiva in ruin No.16has 4 or 5 coats, that in ruin No.31shows at least 8. In the last example the last coat was not decorated, but some of the underlying ones were.
Kivas are used, principally in the autumn and winter, when the farming season is over and the ceremonies and dances take place. It is probable, therefore, that each coat of plaster means at least a year in the history of the kiva, which would indicate that some of the sites were occupied about twenty years. But Mr Frank H. Cushing has observed in Zuñi a ceremony, part of which is the refinishing of the kiva interior, and this occurs only once in four years. This would give a maximum occupancy of about eighty years to some of the kivas; the ruins as a whole would hardly justify an hypothesis of a longer occupancy than this. In Tusayan the interior of the kiva is plastered by the women once every year at the feast of Powamu (the fructifying moon).
The kivas are seldom true circles, being usually elongated one way or another. Some instances occur which are rectangular, such as the room shown infigure 19, which was apparently a kiva. Nordenskiöld19illustrates an example which appears to have been oval by design, differing in this respect from anything found in De Chelly. Most of the kivas have an interior bench, about a foot wide and 2 feet above the floor. This bench is sometimes continuous around the whole interior, sometimes extends only partly around. Wherever the chimney-like structure is attached to a kiva the bench is omitted or broken at that point. The kiva wall on the floor level is always continuous except before the chimney-like feature. The most elaborate system of benches and buttresses seen in the canyon occurs in the principal kiva of the Mummy Cave ruin. This is shown in the ground plan,figure 16, and also infigures 82and83. In the ruins of the Mancos, Nordenskiöld found kivas in which this feature is carried much further. He illustrates20an example with a complete bench regularly divided into six equal parts by an equal number of buttresses or pillars (properly pilasters) extending out flush with the front of the bench. This is saidto be a typical example, to which practically all the kivas conform. It has also the chimney-like structure, to be described later. Like the rectangular kivas of Tusayan the circular structures of De Chelly have little niches in the walls. Probably these were places of deposit for certain paraphernalia used in the ceremonies.
wall decoration
Fig. 72—Kiva decoration in white.
Some of the kivas have an interior decoration consisting of a band with points. Figure 72 shows an example that occurs in ruin No.10in De Chelly, in the north kiva. The band, done in white, is about 18 inches below the bench, and its top is broken at intervals into groups of points rising from it, four points in each group. In the north kiva the interior wall is decorated by a series of vertical bands in white. One series occurs on the vertical face of the bench; the bands are 2 inches wide and 8 inches apart. Another series occurs on the wall, and consists of bands 2½ to 3 inches wide, about 2 feet high and 12 to 14 inches apart. The bands were observed only on the southern and western sides of the kiva, but originally there may have been others on the north and east.