Part 4

As one stands in front of this diorama it is no longer necessary to try to imagine the life of ancient times. Here in miniature is a cliff dwelling and its people. Houses and kivas are being built—some of the men work diligently while others sit on the walls and criticize. Some of the men are making tools and weapons—one is telling stories to a group of boys—another has just returned from the hunt with a fat rabbit. Several old men bask in the sun and talk of bygone times when things were better. Some of the women are cooking over flickering fires—others care for tiny babies. Some of the young women are grinding corn while others are returning from the spring with great jars of water on their heads. Children are playing in the courts and one youngster is helping a baby brother take his first toddling steps. Since it is harvest time the products of the farms are being brought to the village. Brightly colored ears of corn are being spread out on the roofs to dry and piles of yellow squashes may be seen in the courts.

Dioramas like this one provide for visitors the most important part of the Mesa Verde Story, the part that is so often missed. The excavated cliff dwellings that visitors enter are empty. Seven centuries ago the Indians themselves walked away, driven to the south by enemies and a great drouth. Most of their belongings were left behind but the early explorers and later archeologists removed them.

Because of this a cliff dwelling may seem, at first glance, to be an empty house. Too often visitors see only the stone walls and fail to see the people who built them. One must always remember that a cliff dwelling is the architectural expression of a settled, industrious agricultural people. For a thousand years they lived in the Mesa Verde region. From a simple beginning their culture developed steadily and the cultural peak was reached during the thirteenth century. This was the century of the cliff dwellings. Because of strong enemy pressure the people moved to the caves and built the cliff dwellings for which the Mesa Verde is famous.

THE END OF THE STORY

Just before the close of the thirteenth century the story ended. Menaced by their enemies and with their existence threatened by the great drouth of 1276-1299 A.D., they moved to the south and east. Gradually they mingled with other Pueblo Indians and soon were no longer recognizable as a Mesa Verde group. Their descendants are to be found in some of the present-day Indian Pueblos along the Rio Grande, in New Mexico.

REFERENCES CITED

Chapin, F. H. 1892. The Land of the Cliff-Dwellers. W. B. Clarke and Co., Boston.

Fewkes, J. W. 1909. Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park: Spruce-tree House. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 41. 1911. Antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park: Cliff Palace. Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 51. 1916. Excavation and Repair of Sun Temple, Mesa Verde National Park. Reports of the Department of the Interior for 1916. 1916. The cliff-ruins in Fewkes Canyon, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. “Holmes Anniversary Volume,” pp. 96-117. Washington.

Holmes, W. H. 1878. Report on the ancient ruins of Southwestern Colorado, examined during the summers of 1875 and 1876. United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories for 1876, 10th Annual Report, pp. 383-408.

Jackson, W. H. 1876. Ancient ruins in Southwestern Colorado. U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories for 1874, 8th Annual Report, pp. 367-81. 1929. The Pioneer Photographer. World Book Co., Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York.

Mason, C. C. 1917. Article on discovery and exploration of the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde National Park. The Denver Post, July 1, 1917.

Nordenskiold, G. 1893. The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde. Translated by D. Lloyd Morgan. Stockholm.

LITHOPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY CUSHING-MALLOY, INC., ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN, 1954

Transcriber’s Notes

—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

—Corrected a few palpable typographical errors.

—Placed illustration captions below the corresponding illustration.

—Modified references to illustration locations to correspond to the reality of a flowing eText, e.g. “shown on the opposite page” might be converted to “shown below” or “shown here”.

—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.

End of Project Gutenberg's Cliff Dwellings of the Mesa Verde, by Don Watson