Part 2

Typical Mesa Verde masonry is made of rather large, well shaped stones, set in thick layers of adobe mortar. Small stones, or spalls, were forced into the mortar to compact it in the joint.]

ARCHITECTURE—THE LIVING ROOMS

The term “living room,” as we use it today, is really not a good term for the rooms in the cliff dwellings. Actually these were, for the most part, sleeping and storage rooms. Probably few of the activities of daily life took place in them. The real “living space” was the great open areas in the villages, the kiva courts and the terraced housetops. The cave itself served as a roof over the entire village and the people probably spent most of their active life outside the rooms.

Most of the rooms were small and dark. In the pictures below the small size of the doors is clearly evident and the few windows were little more than peepholes. Very few of the rooms had fires inside so the light was poor. Weaving, sewing, pottery making, and such activities could not have been carried on inside the rooms.

For the most part the rooms should be considered as sleeping and storage rooms. If an adult could stretch out at full length on the floor the room was large enough for sleeping purposes. If it were too small for normal sleeping it served as storage space for food supplies and family possessions.

In the winter there may have been more crowding into the rooms. However, it must be remembered that fires were seldom built in the houses so there was little warmth unless a person actually bundled up in skins and blankets and went to bed. The fires were built in the courts and on the open roofs and in cold weather the people probably huddled about them.

ARCHITECTURE—THE CEREMONIAL ROOMS

To the person who views a cliff dwelling for the first time the most interesting feature is the underground ceremonial room. Modern Hopi Indians call these rooms “kivas,” and this term is commonly used. The kivas in Mesa Verde cliff dwellings developed from earlier pithouses and exhibit a high degree of standardization. Although there are occasional variations almost all Mesa Verde kivas contain the same standard features. Kivas are thought to have been used chiefly by the men and served as combination ceremonial rooms, club rooms, council chambers and workshops.

ARCHITECTURE—THE LIVING SPACE

It is impossible to picture life in one of the large cliff dwellings unless the architectural unit shown below is taken into consideration. This small section of Spruce Tree House consists of a kiva partially surrounded by a group of rooms. This relationship of kiva and houses is so common in the larger caves that it must indicate deliberate planning on the part of the builders.

In Spruce Tree House there are six of these kiva courts, almost identical to the one shown here. In each case the kiva with its flat open roof is partially or completely surrounded by houses.

In considering the kiva court shown below it is quite possible that the houses were occupied by a group of closely related families, perhaps a small clan. In the high rear wall nine doorways can be seen. Each door opened into an individual room that had no side or rear doors. In these small, cell-like rooms the people slept and stored their possessions.

The active life of the people from these houses was in the open court and on surrounding roofs. There was ample room for all and it was here that they cooked, ate, worked, and played. The overhanging cave roof sheltered the entire village from the elements and there was little need for the people to use the small dark rooms except at night. There was little privacy for individual families; probably all of the residents of this court area lived together like one very large family.

About twenty rooms seem to have opened into this kiva court. Certainly it should not be considered that there were that many individual families. But it is evident that a large number of people occupied the rooms and shared the open court. In the left foreground can be seen the hatchway of a second kiva. The roof of this kiva formed another court which was surrounded by another group of rooms much like those shown at the right.

The kiva itself should not be tied too closely to the clan or group of families living around it. Customs in some of the present-day Indian Pueblos lead to the belief that a kiva was used by a religious society and men from other parts of the village and other clans could have been members of this ceremonial group. The kiva may have belonged to the clan which lived around it and may have been taken care of by the men of this clan. But its ceremonies would have been conducted by a religious society to which belonged men of various clans.

WHY DID THE INDIANS BUILD IN THE CAVES?

It is impossible to look at the cliff dwellings without wondering why the Pueblo Indians chose to build their homes in the cliffs. A few of the ruins are in large, open, airy, easily accessible caves, that to the casual observer might seem like rather decent places in which to live. But most of the caves are not of this type. The majority are high on the cliff faces—many are merely narrow high ledges on which a few rooms could be perched.

For many centuries the Pueblo Indians of the Mesa Verde area lived on the open mesa tops and in the broad fertile valleys. They were a settled agricultural group, highly skilled in all their arts and crafts. Then, rather suddenly, they left their pleasant pueblos and moved into the caves. Within a short time there were few Indians left out in the open. What caused this sudden change in their way of life? In order to answer this question it is necessary to consider the entire background of the Pueblo Indians of this area.

The earliest evidences of these people indicate that they were well established in the Mesa Verde region shortly after the birth of Christ. Originally a hunting people, they had received corn and squash from more southern neighbors and were turning to a settled agricultural life.

At first they seem to have had no houses so, at least for part of the year, they occupied the caves. After a time they began to experiment with simple pithouses. When substantial houses had developed they left the caves and built their villages in the open. For many centuries they lived in the open valleys and on the broad mesa tops. The population grew and the tribe spread over a wide area. The architecture developed steadily and by the twelfth century the people were living in hundreds of pueblos, constructed of stone and adobe masonry.

Late in the twelfth century the people began to move and the population began to diminish. Some of the people left the area, drifting off to the south. The rest began to search for defensive locations for their villages. In the Mesa Verde the villages were moved to the caves of which there were many hundreds in the numerous canyons. By the early part of the thirteenth century most of the Indians had moved to the caves and during the last few generations the people were in the Mesa Verde it appears that few lived in the open.

There can be little doubt that the movement to the caves was caused by the arrival of an enemy group. In many parts of the Southwest, the same thing happened. Evidently some nomadic group, perhaps the earliest of the Apaches, came into the area and began to harass the Pueblo Indians. In the interest of health the peaceful farmers began to build their homes where they could defend them against marauders.

After living in the open for many centuries the Pueblo Indians of the Mesa Verde moved to the caves and constructed the cliff dwellings. There can be little doubt that this move was prompted by a desire for defensive locations.

DEFENSIVE LOCATIONS

The majority of the cliff dwellings are in locations more or less like those shown below. Villages like these could easily have been defended against raiders armed with bows and arrows.

THE DEFENSIVE QUALITIES OF THE CLIFF DWELLINGS

From a modern viewpoint a cave might not appear to be a safe place for a home. All thought of modern warfare must be forgotten, however, and ancient methods must be kept in mind. When it is considered that the cliff dwellers lived in bow and arrow times it is not difficult to see the cliff dwellings as defensive structures. Because of the location and the type of construction, they served as excellent forts against bow and arrow attack.

Some of the villages were at the base of the cliff and were easily accessible. But the inhabitants of such towns had to defend only the front of the cave and their thick walls would have suffered no damage from arrows. The men of a large village, such as Spruce Tree House or Cliff Palace, could have repulsed a small raiding party without too much difficulty. The small high villages were comparatively safe because of the difficulty of access. Some caves were reached by ladders; others by toe-holds cut in the cliff. In many of the small high cliff dwellings no evidence of a trail can be found. They were too high for ladders, the cliffs were too steep for toe-holds, and no ledges led to them. One can only suppose they were entered by means of ropes.

Although the cliff dwellings were excellent defensive structures they were weak in one respect—the water supply was outside the caves. Of the hundreds of cliff dwellings probably not more than a score had springs within the cave. In almost every case the women carried water from nearby, or distant springs. In all probability the people did not have to worry about actual sieges. The enemy people were hunters who traveled in small bands. Word of a raiding party would have spread quickly for there were few isolated villages where the people could not call to the next village and so on along the canyon. It was possible to call across even the largest canyons and warnings would have traveled well in advance of the raiders.

In their large jars the villagers could have stored considerable water and with their supplies of food could have withstood short sieges. Actually the raiders would have starved out first for being hunters they could not have stayed long in one place. And to lay siege to one village might have invited concerted action by the residents of several nearby towns.

CLIFF DWELLINGS DO NOT COME IN SIZES!

It is difficult to discuss the cliff dwellings without dividing them into groups according to size. The hundreds of ruins vary from one room to over 200 rooms. Only by dividing them into groups is it possible to show the relative abundance of ruins of various sizes. The table given below is of no real importance. It is merely one person’s way of dividing the ruins by size for discussion purposes. One could just as well divide them into three groups or ten groups. And the number of rooms selected for each group is only of relative importance. The numbers merely provide a yardstick for discussion purposes. For convenience only, the hundreds of cliff dwellings will be divided into the following five size groups:

Very large more than 100 rooms. Large 51 to 100 rooms. Medium 21 to 50 rooms. Small 6 to 20 rooms. Very small 1 to 5 rooms.

Before considering the relative abundance of the ruins in the various groups it would be well to consider the total number of cliff dwellings in the Mesa Verde. The answer is, of course, that no one knows and probably no one will ever know. There are too many canyons and too many ruins!

In 1891, Richard Wetherill told Nordenskiold, the Swedish archeologist, that there were more than 500 cliff dwellings in the Mancos Canyon and its side canyons. Many more were discovered later. Certainly no one knew the ruins of the area better than the Wetherills. As Charles Mason stated, their search for ruins was a “business proposition.” If Richard Wetherill felt there were more than 500, it probably is a safe figure to use. How many “more,” is of little importance.

THE VERY LARGE CLIFF DWELLINGS

Probably not more than four of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings fall into this group. The difficulty is that of all the cliff dwellings only eight have been completely excavated. It is impossible to make even a fairly accurate count of the rooms in a large unexcavated ruin for the mass of debris often hides the lower walls.

Cliff Palace, with its 23 kivas and more than 200 rooms is, of course, the largest, but originally Long House may have been a close rival in size. Long House was so badly knocked about by the early explorers that it is impossible even to estimate how large it once was. Certainly it was second in size. The other two that fall into this group are Spruce Tree House and Spring House. Excavation and careful counting of rooms would perhaps add one or two more to this group but at present one can not be certain.

LARGE CLIFF DWELLINGS

It is difficult to suggest how many of the cliff dwellings fall into the 51-to-100-room group. There are several reasons for this.

First of all, as has been suggested, it is difficult to count the rooms in an unexcavated ruin. What was once a large ruin may be little more than a mass of fallen stones. Evidences of upper stories often have disappeared entirely. If one enters a cave and counts the rooms that are in evidence it is usually safe to assume that many more have disappeared completely.

Another difficulty is that little of the Mesa Verde has been explored in modern times. The remote parts of the mesa, over half of which is Ute Indian Reservation, have had little exploration since the days of the cowboys. Hundreds of the ruins have not been entered in modern times. It is doubtful if any living person has been in one hundred of the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings. Distant views have been had of a great many but only a small number in the more accessible areas have been entered.

Thus it is difficult to estimate the number of ruins that contained from 51 to 100 rooms. Probably there were a dozen—perhaps there were twice that many. A more definite answer must await further exploration.

In this discussion of the large ruins one thing becomes evident. Only a small portion of the people lived in the larger villages. The bulk of the population was in the smaller villages, of which there were several hundred.

MEDIUM-SIZED CLIFF DWELLINGS

It is impossible to make even a close estimate of the number of ruins in this 21-to-50-room group. They are to be found in all the canyons and only an exhaustive survey will reveal the actual number. Perhaps there are a hundred of them—probably many more.

As one explores the canyons and enters more and more of the ruins a surprising fact becomes evident. Ruins which at first glance seem small can turn up a surprising number of rooms. A distant view across a canyon may reveal only a few broken walls. Upon gaining access to the cave, perhaps by swinging down on a long rope, the first glance still reveals little. Then, as the ruin is studied carefully, it begins to grow.