Part 5

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.

LIVING ROOMS

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.

[Footnote 35: Among the Hopi the oldest woman, as a clan representative, owns the living rooms, but kivas are the property of the men, the kiva chief of certain fraternities being the direct descendant of the clan chief of the ceremony when limited to his clan.]

MILLING ROOMS

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 the _metataki_, 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.

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.

GRANARIES

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.

[Footnote 36: Genetically the room for storage of property was of earliest construction. This custom, which was necessary among agriculturists whose food supply was bulky, may have led to the choice of caves, natural or artificial, for habitation.]

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]

[Footnote 37: See Property Rights in Eagles, _American Anthropologist_, vol. II, pp. 690-707, 1907.]

CREMATORIES

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.

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.

[Footnote 38: While only one place where bodies were burned was found in Cliff Palace, several such places were found on top of the mesa. Evidences of similar inclosures occur at Spruce-tree House and at Step House.]

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 to have 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.

LEDGE ROOMS

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.

[Footnote 39: This type of building is believed to be the oldest in those sections of the Southwest where cliff habitations occur.]

ENUMERATION OF THE ROOMS IN CLIFF PALACE

SECULAR ROOMS

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.

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 a T-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 large T-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, 13_a_, 14_a_.)

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 the T-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.

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 chamber _Katcinakihu_, "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.

[Footnote 40: The Mongkiva at Walpi has such a chamber which is closed by a door and is opened only when paraphernalia for certain ceremonies are desired. In the Warrior House at Walpi there is a similar chamber, ordinarily closely sealed, in which the fetishes of the Warrior Society are kept. Masked dancers among the Pueblos are called Katcinas, and the masks they wear would naturally be kept in a house (_kihu_) called "Katcinakihu."]

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. 4_a_, 11.)

Room 37 is a well-preserved room with a metataki, or grinding bin, in the middle.