Part 8

Figure 46 is the plan of an outlook in the same cove as the last example of village ruin illustrated, and only 200 or 300 yards south of it. It may have been connected with that ruin, but could not in itself have been a village, as there are no traces of a kiva on the site, and hardly room enough for one on the bench proper. At the extreme northern end there are traces of walls on the rocks at a lower level.

The walls which were at right angles to the cliff were not carried back to it after the usual manner, but stopped about 3 feet from it, and the rooms were closed by a back wall running parallel to the cliff, and about 3 feet from it. This wall rises to a height of about 4 feet before it meets the overhanging cliff, and consequently there is a long narrow passageway, about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide on the bottom, between it and the cliff. A small man might wriggle through, but with difficulty.

The ruin commands a fine outlook over the cove. The masonry is good, being composed of selected stone well chinked with small spalls, and sometimes with bits of clay pressed in with the fingers.

Figure 47 shows a ruin located at the point marked 37 on the map. There is a high slope of talus here, the top of which is flat and of considerable area.

The ruin is invisible from below in its present condition, but the site commands a fine outlook over several considerable areas of bottom land. The walls are now much obliterated and worked over by the Navaho, but the remains are scattered over quite an extensive area and may have been at one time an extensive settlement; however, no traces of a kiva can now be seen. Marks on the cliff show that some of the houses had been three stories high. Some places on the cliff, which were apparently back-walls of rooms, were plastered and coated with white, and there are many pictographs on the rock. The masonry is of fair quality, but the stones were laid with more mortar than usual.

Figure 48 is a ground plan of a ruin which occurs at the point marked 46 on the map. It is situated in a cove in the rock at the top of the talus, 300 or 400 feet above the bottom, and immediately above the rectangular single room described and illustrated on page 151. It commands an extensive outlook over the bottom lands on both sides of the canyon and above. The cove is about 40 feet deep, and, though so high up, has been used as a sheep close, and doubtless some of the walls have been covered up. Four rooms are still standing in two little clusters of two rooms each. The walls of the rooms on the west are composed of large stones laid in plenty of mud mortar and plastered inside and out; those of the eastern portion were built of small stones, chinked but not plastered. One of the rooms is blackened by smoke in the corner only, as though there had been some chimney structure here, which subsequently had fallen away. The cliff walls back of the eastern part are heavily smoke-blackened; back of the western portion there are no stains. There is now no trace of a circular kiva, but there is a heavy deposit of sheep dung on the ground which might cover up such traces if they existed. This site commands one of the best outlooks in the canyon, but access, while not very difficult, is inconvenient on account of the great height above the bottom.

Figure 49 shows a common type of ruin in this class. The original structure appears to have contained one or two good rooms, which by subsequent additions have been divided into several. These later additions may have been made by the Navaho, who used the building material on the ground; at any rate the structure is now merely a cluster of storage cists.

One of the most extensive ruins of the cliff-outlook type situated in Canyon del Muerto is shown in figure 50. The plan shows at least eight rooms stretched along the cliff at the top of the talus. Figure 51 shows five rooms arranged in a cluster. One of these is still complete, the walls extending to the overhanging rock above which formed the roof. It will be noticed that the front room was set back far enough to allow access to the central room through a doorway in the corner. This was a convenience, rather than a necessity, for many of the rooms in ruins of this class were entered only through other rooms or through the roof, and a direct opening to the outer air was not considered a necessity; probably because these rooms in the cliff, which have been termed outlooks, were not in any sense watch towers, but rather places of abode during the harvest season, where the workers in the field lived when not actually employed in labor, and where the fields tinder cultivation could always be kept in view--an arrangement quite as necessary and quite as extensively practiced now as it was formerly.

Figure 52 shows a cluster of rooms in the little canyon called Tseonitsosi. This is another Casa Blanca, or White House, and, oddly enough, it resembles its namesake in De Chelly, not only in the coat of whitewash applied to the front of the main room, but in having a subordinate room to the left, over which the wash extends, and in the character of the site it occupies. The principal part of the structure was built in a cave, 18 or 20 feet from the ground, across the front of which walls extended as in the other Casa Blanca, and, like that ruin, there are also some ruins at the foot of the cliff, on the flat. Figure 53 is a ground plan. The resemblance to the other Casa Blanca, however, goes no further. The ruin here illustrated represents a very small settlement, hardly more than half a dozen rooms in all, and there is no trace of a circular kiva, or other evidence of permanent habitation. It is possible that the space between the edge of the floor of the cave above and the whitened house back of it was occupied by some sort of structure, but no evidence now remains which would warrant such a hypothesis, except that the door of the white house is now about 4 feet above the ground. The cave is only 40 feet long and a little over 10 feet deep, and there is not room on the floor for more than three or four rooms, in addition to those shown on the plan. The room on the right still preserves its roof intact, showing the typical pueblo roof construction. It has a well-preserved doorway, and three other openings may be seen in the main room.

Apparently some effort at ornamentation was made here. The whitewash was not applied to the fronts of the two back rooms so as to cover all of them, but in a broad belt, leaving the natural yellowish-gray color of the plastering in a narrow band above and a broad band below it. Moreover, the principal opening of the larger room was specially treated; in the application of the whitewash a narrow border or frame of the natural color was left surrounding it. The attempt to apply decoration not utilitarian in character is rare among the ruins here. It implies either a late period in the occupancy of this region, or an occupancy of the site by a people who had practiced this method of house-building longer or under more favorable conditions than the others.

Figure 54 shows an arrangement of rooms along a narrow ledge at the top of the talus, where the cliff wall is not coved or concave, but convex. Some of these little rooms may have been used only for storage, but others were undoubtedly habitations. Figure 55 shows an example in which the back wall is curved, as though it was either built over an old kiva or an attempt was made to convert a rectangular room into a kiva. There were originally three rooms in the cluster, only one of which remains, but that one is of unusual size, measuring about 15 by 10 feet. If the room was used solely as a habitation, there was no necessity for the back wall, as the side walls continue back to the cliff. Including the little cove on the left, there are seven Navaho burial places on this site.

Plate LIII shows an outlook in the lower part of De Chelly, at the point marked 6 on the map. The lower part of the cliff here flares out slightly, forming a sharp slope; where it meets the vertical rock there is a small bench, on which the ruin is situated. It is apparently inaccessible, but close examination shows a long series of hand and foot holes extending up a cleft in the rock, and forming an easy ascent. The site commands a good outlook over the bottom lands.

The ruin consists of three rectangular rooms arranged side by side against the cliff, and a kind of curved addition on the east. Figure 56 is a ground plan. The walls are still standing from a foot to 4 feet high, and produce the impression of being unfinished; although carefully chinked, they were neither plastered nor rubbed down. The two western rooms were built first, and the eastern wall extends through the front. East of these rooms there is a small rectangular chamber, and east of this again a low curved wall forming a little chamber or cist of irregular form (not shown in the plan). The front wall was extended beyond this and brought in again to the cliff on a curve, forming another small cist of irregular shape. This and the little chamber west of it were doubtless used for storage. They resemble in plan Navaho cists, but the masonry, which is exactly like the other walls here, will not permit the hypothesis of Navaho construction. Except for some slight traces in the northwest corner of the west room, there are no smoke stains about, nor are there any pictographs on the cliff walls. The western room was pierced by a window opening which was subsequently filled up, possibly by the Navaho, who have five burial cists here.

Figure 57 is the plan of a small outlook which occurs at the point marked 14 on the map. Opposite the mouth of Del Muerto there is an elevated rocky area of considerable extent, perhaps 50 feet above the bottom, but shelving off around the edges. Near the cliff this is covered by sand dunes and piles of broken rock; farther out there is a more level area covered thinly with sand and soil, and here there is a large ruin of the old obliterated type already described (page 93).

Near the edges the rock becomes bare again, and is 20 to 30 feet high, descending sheer or with an overhang to the bottoms or to the stream bed. On the western side, facing north, the ruin illustrated occurs. It is a mere cubby hole, and was evidently located for the area of cultivable land which lies before it, and which it almost completely commands. The cavity is about 12 feet above the ground and appears to have been divided by cross walls into three rooms, two of which were quite small. The back room was small, dark, and not large enough to contain a human body unless it was carefully packed in, and at various points along the back wall there are seeps of water. The interior of the little room was very wet and moldy at the time when it was examined, in winter, but in the summer time is probably dry enough.

The masonry is fair and the surface is finished with plaster. The open space in front of the small back room and the outer wall of the room itself are much blackened by smoke, as though the inhabitant lived here and used the small room only to store his utensils and implements. A small room on the east must have been used for a similar purpose. Both of these rooms were entered through narrow doorways opening on the principal space. The site is an ideal one for a lookout, but not well suited for a habitation. Plate LIV shows its character.

Cliff outlooks are often found on sites whose restricted areas preclude all possibility that they formed parts of larger settlements since obliterated. The ruin just described is an example. Another instance which occurs in Del Muerto is shown in figure 58. Here a deep cleft in the rock was partly occupied by two or three rooms. There was room for more, but apparently no more were built. There was not room, however, for even a small village. There are several other examples in the canyon almost identical with these, but this type is not nearly so abundant as the succeeding. Figure 59 is a plan of a ruin near the mouth of Del Muerto. It was a single room, situated on a ledge perhaps 30 or 40 feet above the bottom land which it overlooked and of easy access. This is the most common type of outlook or cliff ruin, and it might almost be said that they number hundreds, sometimes consisting of one room alone, sometimes of two or even three The general appearance of these outlooks is shown in figure 60, which shows an example containing three rooms.

Figure 61 is a ground plan of an example containing two rooms, which occurs below the large ruin described before (No. 31, page 119), and figure 62 shows an example with one room, obscured and built over with Navaho cists. This site is located in the upper part of the canyon, on top of the talus, about 100 feet above the stream, and commands an outlook over several areas of bottom land on both sides. The walls are built about 10 feet high, and are composed of medium-size stones laid in courses and carefully chinked with small spalls. The southwestern corner of the room is broken down, but the eastern wall is still standing, and shows a well-finished opening on that side. There are several Navaho burial cists on this site.

Figure 63 is the plan of a type of ruin which is rather anomalous in the canyon. It occurs at the point marked 45 on the map, and occupies a small flat area almost on top of the talus 300 feet or more above the stream bed. It is just below the ruin described and illustrated on page 144 (figure 48), and hardly 20 feet distant from it, and yet it does not appear to have been connected with it. It consists of a single large room, 20 feet long by 111/2 feet wide outside, and the site commands an extensive prospect over bottom lands on both sides of the canyon, and above, but the only opening in the wall on that side is a little peephole 6 inches square and 2 feet from the ground. This is sufficient, however, to command nearly the whole outlook. There is a doorway on the eastern side, one side of which, fairly well finished, remains. There was apparently no other opening, unless one existed on the western side, where, in the center, the wall is broken down to within 2 feet of the ground. Along the western side of the room, at the present ground surface, there are remains of a bench about a foot wide; the eastern side is covered above this level.

The masonry is very rough and chinked only with large stones. The interior is roughly plastered in places, and small pieces of stone are stuck on flat. The corners are rounded. Externally the masonry has the appearance of stones laid without mortar, like a Navaho stone corral, and were it not for the occurrence of other similar remains, it might be regarded as of Navaho or white man's construction, as the size, site, plan, and masonry are all anomalous. Figure 64 shows an example, however, closely resembling the one described in these features, and figure 65 shows another. Altogether there are four or five examples, distributed over a considerable area.

Somewhat similar wall remains are seen in places on the canyon bottom, where they are always of modern Navaho origin, and it is quite possible that the ruins above mentioned should be placed in the same category. It will be noticed that in the plan the doorway or entrance opening is on the eastern side--an invariable requirement of Navaho house constructions; but it is only within recent times that the Navaho have constructed permanent, rectangular abodes, and even now such houses are rarely built. It is difficult to understand, moreover, why recourse should be had to such inconvenient sites, if the structures are of Navaho origin, as these Indians always locate their hogans on the bottom lands, or on some slight rise overlooking them.

Distributed throughout the canyons, wherever a favorable situation could be found, there are a great number of sites resembling those of the cliff outlooks, but showing now no standing wall. There is always some evidence of human occupancy, often many pictographs on the back wall, as in an example in the lower part of the canyon shown in plate LV. This occurs at point 2 on the map, in a cove perhaps 100 feet across, with caves on the northern and southern sides.

In the southern cave there are no traces of masonry, but the back of the cave is covered with hand prints and pictographs of deer, as shown in the plate. In the northern cave there are traces of walls. Many of the sites do not show the faintest trace of house structures; some of them have remains of storage cists, and many have remains of Navaho burial cists, associated with pictographs not of Navaho origin. Some idea of the number and distribution of these sites may be obtained from the following list, wherein the numbers represent the location shown on the detailed map: 2, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 53, 54, 57, and 66--in all 21 sites which occur between the mouth of De Chelly and the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above. Beyond this point they are rare, as the areas of cultivable land become scarce. A similar distribution prevails in Del Muerto.

DETAILS

SITES

The character of the site occupied by a ruin is a very important feature where the response to the physical environment is as ready and complete as it is in the ancient pueblo region. This feature has not received the attention it deserves, for it is more than probable that in the ultimate classification of ruins that will some day be formulated the site occupied will be one of the principal elements considered, if not the most important. The site is not so important per se, but must be considered with reference to the specific character of the ruin upon it, its ground plan, the character of other ruins in the vicinity which may have been connected with it, and its topographic environment. The character and ground plan of a cliff ruin would be so much out of place on an open valley site that it would immediately attract attention. The reverse is equally remarkable.

Considering all that has been written about the cliff ruins as defensive structures, it is strange how little direct evidence there is to support the hypothesis; how few examples can be cited which show anything that can be construed as the result of the defensive motive except the general impression produced on the observer. Nor, on the other hand, do these ruins as a whole give any support to the theory that they represent an intermediate stage in the development of the pueblo people. Some few may, perhaps those examined by Mr F. H. Cushing south and east of Zuni do; but more than 99 per cent of them give more support to a theory that they are the ultimate development of pueblo architecture than to the other hypothesis, for they contain in themselves evidence of a knowledge of construction equal and even superior to that shown in many of the modern pueblo villages. The only thing anomalous or distinctive about the cliff ruins, considered as an element of pueblo architecture, is the character of site occupied. If this were dictated by the defensive motive, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the same motive would have some direct influence on the structures, yet examples where it has affected the arrangement of rooms or ground plan or the character of the masonry are exceedingly rare and generally doubtful.

It is well to specify that in the preceding remarks the term cliff ruin has been applied to small settlements, comprising generally less than four rooms, sometimes only one or two, and usually located on high and almost inaccessible sites. These are comprised in class IV of the classification here followed. Regular villages located in the cliffs or on top of the talus (class III) are a different matter. These have nothing in common with the small ruins, except that sometimes there is a similarity of site. Doubtless in some of these ruins the defensive motive operated to a certain extent. In classes I and II, however, the influence of the defensive motive, in so far as it affected the character of site chosen, is conspicuous by its absence. As there is no evidence that the cliff ruins of class IV were separate and distinct from the other ruins, but the contrary, the defensive motive may be assigned a very subordinate place among the causes which produced that phase of pueblo architecture found in Canyon de Chelly.

An hypothesis as to the order in which sites of the various classes were occupied can not be based on the present condition of the ruins. It is more than likely that the older ruins served as quarries of building material for succeeding structures erected near them, and probably some of the cliff ruins themselves served in this way for the erection of others, for there are many sites from which the building stone has been almost entirely removed; yet there is no doubt that these sites were formerly occupied. The Navaho also have contributed to the destruction. Notwithstanding their horror of contact with the remains of the dead, quite a number of buildings have been erected by these Indians with material derived from adjacent ruins. It is evident that the gathering of this material would be a much lighter task than to quarry and prepare it, no matter how roughly the latter might be done.

In a study of some ruins in the valley of the Rio Verde, made a few years ago, a suggestion was made of the order in which ruins of various kinds succeeded one another--a sort of chronologic sequence, of which the beginning in time could not be determined. Studies of the ruins and inhabited villages of the old province of Tusayan (Moki) and Cibola (Zuni), and a cursory examination of ruins on Gila river, show that they all fall easily into the same general order, which is somewhat as follows:

1. The earliest form of pueblo house is doubtful. As a rule, in most localities the earliest forms are already well advanced. As it is now known that the ancient pueblo region was not inhabited by a vast number of people, but by a comparatively small number of little bands, each in constant though slow movement, this condition is what we would expect to find. It is probable that the earliest settlements consisted of single houses or small clusters located in valleys convenient to areas of cultivable land and on streams or near water.