Part 4

The section of Cliff Palace that has been designated the old quarter (pls. 14, 15) lies between a line drawn from the main entrance of the ruin to the rear of the cave and the extreme northern end, culminating in a high castle-like cluster of rooms. It may well be called one of the most important sections of Cliff Palace, containing, as it does, the largest number of rooms, the most varied architecture, and the best masonry. Its protected situation under the roof of the cave is such that we may consider it and the adjoining plaza quarter the earliest settled sections of the village. It contains all varieties of inclosures known in cliff-dwellings: kivas of two types, round rooms, rectangular rooms, an alley or a street, and a court. The floor of the cave on which the rooms are built is broadest at this point, which is one of the best protected sites and the least accessible to enemies in the whole building. It may be theoretically supposed that originally the kiva quarter was an annex of this section and that some of the kivas in this quarter may also have been owned and used by the clans which founded Cliff Palace. The old quarter is divided into two parts, a northern and a southern, the former being arbitrarily designated the Speaker-chief's House. The "street" running approximately north and south bisects the old quarter, making a front and a rear section.

NORTHERN QUARTER

This quarter (pl. 16) of Cliff Palace extends from the high rocks on which the Speaker-chief's House is perched, in a westerly direction, ending with a milling room and adjacent inclosures 92 to 94, situated west of kiva V. It includes three kivas; two, U and V, being situated on the fourth terrace; and one, T, on the first terrace. Kivas U and V are built on top of large rocks, the floor of kiva V being excavated in solid rock. Much of this quarter, especially the western end, is under the sky, and consequently without the protection of the cave roof, on which account it was considerably destroyed by rain water flowing over the canyon rim. The walls of this quarter, especially where it joins the old quarter, exhibit fine masonry, suggesting that it was inhabited by important clans.

MASONRY

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.

[Footnote 23: Fragments of mortar from the walls and floors, ground to powder, were used in the repair work.]

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.

ADOBE BRICKS

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."

[Footnote 24: See _Bulletin 50, Bureau of American Ethnology_.]

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.

[Footnote 25: In at least one of the Oraibi kivas the plastering of the wall is laid on sticks that form a kind of lathing. Whether this is a survival of an older method of construction or is traceable to European influence has not been determined, but it is believed to be a survival of prehistoric wall construction.]

PLASTERING

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.

[Footnote 26: The red color is derived from the red soil common everywhere on the mesa. Yellow was obtained from disintegrated rock, and white is a marl which is found at various places. The mortar used by the ancient masons became harder, almost cement, when made of marl mixed with adobe.]

PAINTINGS AND ROCK MARKINGS

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.

[Footnote 27: This figure resembles closely that on the outside walls of the third story of room 11 of Spruce-tree House. (See pls. 4, 5, 6, _Bulletin 41, Bureau of American Ethnology_.)]

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.

REFUSE HEAPS

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.

[Footnote 28: Isolated cliff-dwellings are scattered throughout the Southwest, but there are several areas, as the Mesa Verde, in which they are concentrated. Among these clusters may be mentioned the Canyon de Chelly, the Navaho National Monument, the Red Rocks area, and that of the upper Gila. One characteristic feature in which the cliff-dwellings of the Mesa Verde differ from some others is the independence of all of the upright walls from support of the sides of the cliffs. In the cliff-houses of the Navaho Monument a large majority of the houses have the rear wall of the cave as a wall of the building; a few of the houses in Cliff Palace have the same, but the largest number are entirely free from the cliff. This separation on all sides is due largely to the geological structure of the rear of the cavern in which the cliff-house stands.]

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]

[Footnote 29: Workmen could operate in these parts only by tying sponges over their nostrils, so difficult was it to breathe on account of the fine dust.]

SECULAR ROOMS

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.

[Footnote 30: Possibly some of these may have been used sometimes for ceremonial purposes, or rather for the less important rites.]

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.

[Footnote 31: Probably both men and women of one clan worked together in the construction of houses, the men being the masons, the women the plasterers. Each clan built its own rooms, and there were no differentiated groups of mechanics in the community.]

DOORS AND WINDOWS

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 and T-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 the T-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.

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.

[Footnote 32: Some of the doorways were filled with rude masonry; evidently the rooms were thus closed in some instances before the buildings were deserted.]

[Footnote 33: The placing of the sill at a level with the floor is a modern innovation at Walpi. The oldest houses still have it elevated, as in Cliff Palace. In some of the cliff-houses of the Navaho Monument sills and floor levels are continuous.]

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.

FLOORS AND ROOFS

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.

FIREPLACES

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.

[Footnote 34: Smoke on the walls of certain second and third stories shows that fireplaces were not restricted to the ground floor.]