The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona Part 10

The kivas are seldom true circles, being usually elongated one way or another. Some instances occur which are rectangular, such as the room shown in figure 19, which was apparently a kiva. Nordenskiold[19]

ill.u.s.trates an example which appears to have been oval by design, differing in this respect from anything found in De Ch.e.l.ly. Most of the kivas have an interior bench, about a foot wide and 2 feet above the floor. This bench is sometimes continuous around the whole interior, sometimes extends only partly around. Wherever the chimney-like structure is attached to a kiva the bench is omitted or broken at that point. The kiva wall on the floor level is always continuous except before the chimney-like feature. The most elaborate system of benches and b.u.t.tresses seen in the canyon occurs in the princ.i.p.al kiva of the Mummy Cave ruin. This is shown in the ground plan, figure 16, and also in figures 82 and 83. In the ruins of the Mancos, Nordenskiold found kivas in which this feature is carried much further. He ill.u.s.trates[20]

an example with a complete bench regularly divided into six equal parts by an equal number of b.u.t.tresses or pillars (properly pilasters) extending out flush with the front of the bench. This is said to be a typical example, to which practically all the kivas conform. It has also the chimney-like structure, to be described later. Like the rectangular kivas of Tusayan the circular structures of De Ch.e.l.ly have little niches in the walls. Probably these were places of deposit for certain paraphernalia used in the ceremonies.

[Footnote 19: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, p. 63, fig. 36.]

[Footnote 20: Loc. cit., figs. 6 and 7, pp. 15-16.]

Some of the kivas have an interior decoration consisting of a band with points. Figure 72 shows an example that occurs in ruin No. 10 in De Ch.e.l.ly, in the north kiva. The band, done in white, is about 18 inches below the bench, and its top is broken at intervals into groups of points rising from it, four points in each group. In the north kiva the interior wall is decorated by a series of vertical bands in white. One series occurs on the vertical face of the bench; the bands are 2 inches wide and 8 inches apart. Another series occurs on the wall, and consists of bands 2 to 3 inches wide, about 2 feet high and 12 to 14 inches apart. The bands were observed only on the southern and western sides of the kiva, but originally there may have been others on the north and east.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 73--Pictograph in white.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 74--Markings on cliff wall, ruin No. 37.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 75--Decorative band in kiva in Mummy Cave ruin.]

In ruin No. 4 there is a similar series of bars, but in this instance they occur on the cliff wall back of the rooms. They are shown in figure 73. There are four bars or upright bands, done in white paint, and surmounted by four round dots or spots. To the left of the four bars, level with their tops, there is a small triangle, also in white. The bars are 30 inches long and 4 inches wide. The upper dots are nearly 2 feet above, the tops of the bars. It is evident that this figure was designed to be seen from a distance. Figure 74 shows some markings on the cliff wall back of ruin No. 37.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 76--Design employed in decorative band.]

Examples almost identical with those shown here are abundant in the Mancos ruins. It was probable they are of ceremonial rather than of decorative origin, and in this connection it may be stated that Mr Frank H. Cus.h.i.+ng has observed in Zuni the ceremony of marking the sides of a kiva hatchway with white bars closely resembling those shown in figure 73. This ceremony occurs once in four years, and the purpose of the marks is said to be to indicate the cardinal directions. In the ceremonials of the Pueblo Indians it is necessary to know where the cardinal points are; a prayer, for instance, is often addressed to the north, west, south, and east, and when such ceremonials were performed in a circular chamber some means by which the direction could be determined was essential.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 77--Pictographs in Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly.]

In the princ.i.p.al kiva in Mummy Cave ruin, however, there is a painted band on the front of the bench which appears to be really an attempt at decoration. Over the white there is a band 4 or 5 inches wide, consisting of a meander done in red. This is shown in figure 75, and in detail in figure 76. The design is similar to that used today. Its importance arises not so much from this as from the fact that it is difficult to regard this as other than ornamentation, and the Pueblo architect had not yet reached the stage of ornamented construction. The ruins in the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde country obviously represent a later stage in development than those in De Ch.e.l.ly, yet nowhere in that region do we find the counterpart of the decoration in Mummy Cave kiva. Bands with points occur, sometimes on walls of rectangular rooms. One such is ill.u.s.trated by Chapin,[21] who also shows a variety of the meander, treated, however, as a pictograph and without reference to its decorative value. Similar bands are shown also by Nordenskiold,[22] but always with three points, instead of four, which were done in red. Figure 77 shows some pictographs somewhat resembling the Mancos examples. These occur at the point marked 1 on the map, in connection with a small storage cist already described.

[Footnote 21: Land of the Cliff Dwellers, ill.u.s.tration, pp. 143, 152.]

[Footnote 22: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, figs. 6, 7, 76, 77, and 78.]

No kiva has been found in De Ch.e.l.ly with a roof in place. Nearly all of them are inclosed in rectangular chambers, and it seems more than probable that the roofing of the kiva was simply the roofing of the inclosing chamber. As a rule the inclosing rectangular walls were erected at the same time as the kiva proper, and the outside of the inner circular wall was not finished at all. In a few instances the s.p.a.ce between the outer rectangular and inner circular wall was filled in solid, or perhaps was so constructed, but usually the walls are separate and distinct.

CHIMNEY-LIKE STRUCTURES

There are peculiar structures found in some of the ruins, whose use and object are not clear. Reference has already been made to them in the descriptions of several ruins, and for want of a better name they have been designated chimney-like structures. At the time that they were examined they were supposed to be new, and the first hypothesis formed was that they were abortive chimneys, but further examination showed that this idea was not tenable. Subsequently Nordenskiold's book on the Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde was published, and it appears therefrom that this feature is very common in the region treated; so common as to const.i.tute the type.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 78--Plan of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 15.]

Figure 78 is a plan of one of these structures which occurs in ruin No.

15 in Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly. This ruin has already been described in detail (page 118). The chimney-like structure is attached to a rectangular room with rounded corners, which is supposed to have been a kiva, and which was two stories high. Excavation revealed the floor level about 7 feet below where the roof was placed. In the center of the south wall there is an opening 1.5 feet high and eighty-five one-hundredths of a foot (10.2 inches) wide. The south wall is built over a large bowlder, and a tunnel or opening pa.s.ses under this to a rounded vertical shaft, about a foot in diameter, which opens to the air. This perhaps is better shown in the section (figure 79). At first sight this would appear to be a chimney, but there are several objections to the idea. The interior of the shaft is not blackened by smoke, and while the tunnel is somewhat smoke-stained, the deposit is not so p.r.o.nounced as on the walls of the room. The front of the tunnel in the room has a lintel composed of a single stick about an inch in diameter, as shown in the section. The roof of the tunnel was the underside of the large bowlder mentioned, and the stick lintel was of no use except to show that no fire could have been built under it. The roof of the southern end of the tunnel, where it opens into the shaft, is considerably lower than at the other end.

The floor of the tunnel and the sides were smoothly plastered, but the plastering does not appear to have been subjected to the action of fire.

The interior of the room, like the circular kivas already described, appears to have been plastered with a number of successive coats, all except the last being heavily stained by smoke. If the structure were a chimney, it was a dismal failure. The tunnel was made at the time the wall was erected, and pa.s.ses under the bowlder over which the wall was built. A little east of the opening, inside the room, the bowlder shows through the wall, projecting slightly beyond its face.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 79--Section of chimney-like structure in ruin 15.]

Outside of the room the corner of the bowlder was chipped off, as shown on the plan, to permit the rounding of the shaft, the east, west, and south sides of which were built up with small pieces of stone, a kind of lining of masonry. There was also an outside structure of masonry, but how high above the ground it extended can not now be determined. A small fragment of this masonry is still left on the upper surface of the bowlder and is shown in the section.

Figure 80 is a plan of another example, which is attached to the circular kiva in ruin No. 16. This ruin is described on page 129. The kiva had an interior bench and the floor is 2 feet above its top. On the south side nearest the cliff edge the bench is interrupted to give place to a structure much like that described above. In this case, however, there was no convenient bowlder, and the roof of the tunnel has broken down so that the method of support can not be accurately determined.

Probably it consisted of slabs of rock, as the span is small, and a number of large flat stones were removed from the tunnel in excavating.

The top of the tunnel is on the level of the top of the bench, as shown in figure 81, which is a vertical section. An inspection of the plan will show that the circular wall of the kiva is complete and that the inclosing rectangular wall was added later. The shaft was built at a still later period, and the line or junction marking its inner surface shows plainly in the interior of the tunnel. The general view of the ruin (plate LI) shows the exterior of the shaft, and the horizontal timbers on which the masonry is supported are shown in plate LII.

In front of the tunnel a flat piece of stone was placed on the floor, and in front of this again, about 2 feet from the mouth of the tunnel, there was an upright ma.s.s of masonry composed of stone and mud, and forming a curtain or screen before the opening. The original height of this structure was the same as that of the interior bench.

The inner surface of the rectangular inclosing wall is marked by a line in the interior of the tunnel. Inside of this line, toward the center of the kiva, the stones composing the wall are large; outside of it they are small. The interior plastering of the kiva is not smoke-blackened, but the coat next the surface is stained, as is also the third coat underneath. The interior of the tunnel is not much smoke-blackened, but it appears probable that part of its roof fell while the structure was still in use, as there are a number of little cavities in the masonry above its roof level filled with soot. A similar effect might result from leaks or cavities between the flat roofing stones. In excavating the tunnel a number of large lumps of clay were found in it, and there is no doubt that they formed part of the roof. Some of these had considerable quant.i.ties of gra.s.s mixed into them or stuck to the clay on one side. Apparently dry gra.s.s was used in the construction. A large fire could not have been built within the tunnel.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 80--Plan of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 16.]

The princ.i.p.al kiva in Mummy Cave ruin has an elaborate structure of the kind under discussion. Figure 82 shows a plan of this kiva, of which a general view has already been given (figure 75). The bench extended only partly around the interior, which had a continuous surface at the floor level, except on the southwest. At this point it is interrupted to give place to an elaborate chimney-like structure. Figure 83 is a general view.

The wall surface on the southern side of the kiva has been extended inward, as shown on the plan by a lighter shaded area. This was done at some period subsequent to the completion of the kiva, but whether it had any connection with the chimney-like structure could not be determined.

The curtain or screen before the opening, which seems to be an invariable feature, is shown in both figures.

In this example the tunnel does not pa.s.s through the masonry as in those previously described, but occurs in the form of a covered trough, shown in the ill.u.s.tration with the covering removed. It occupies the middle third of a large recess in the main wall of the kiva, and is connected at its outer end with a vertical square shaft about a foot wide. This shaft is separated from the recess above the bench level by a wall only a few inches thick, composed of a single layer of stones. That portion of it which is above the tunnel is supported by a single round stick of wood, as shown in figure 83. The south or inner opening of the tunnel is reduced to two-thirds, of the width elsewhere by a framing composed of bundles of sticks bound together with withes and heavily coated with mud mortar. This was not placed flush with the inner face, but a few inches back, and the whole structure gives an effect of unusual neatness and good workmans.h.i.+p.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 81--Section of chimney-like structure in ruin No. 16]

At various other points in the canyons examples of chimney-like structures occur, none, however, constructed on the elaborate plan of that last described. Two examples were found in the large rooms west of the tower in the central portion of Mummy Cave ruin, and these are especially worthy of attention because they are attached to rectangular rooms, which there is no reason to suppose were kivas. The first room appears to have had a shaft only, without a niche or recess; the second room west of the tower had a recess and a rounded shaft, while the third-room had neither recess nor shaft.

The usual form of this feature is that shown in figures 80 and 81, and consists only of a tunnel and shaft. There are not many examples in the canyons: altogether there may be a dozen now visible, but excavations in the village ruins would doubtless reveal others. Except the two in Mummy Cave ruin last mentioned, and some doubtful examples to be described later, they occur always as attachments to kivas, never to houses. Some of them, like the Mummy Cave example, were certainly built at the same time as the kivas, of which they formed a part; others were added to kivas after those structures had been completed and used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 82--Plan of the princ.i.p.al kiva in Mummy Cave ruin.]

The kiva in Casa Blanca ruin (shown in figure 14) appears to have had an appendage of this sort, not constructed after the usual manner, but added outside the rectangular wall and composed of mud or adobe. At three other places in the lower ruin these structures are found, all constructed of mud or adobe and all attached to adobe walls. It is doubtful whether these three examples should be cla.s.sed with the preceding, but as they may have been used in the same manner they should be mentioned here. Another doubtful example occurs in the upper part of the same ruin and has already been described (page 110). It was constructed of stone at some time subsequent to the completion of the wall against which it rests.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 83--Chimney-like structure in Mummy Cave ruin.]

Over twenty ago Mr W. H. Holmes found a structure in Mancos canyon which it now appears may be of this type. He ill.u.s.trates it by a ground plan and thus describes it:

The most striking feature of this structure [ruin] is the round room, which occurs about the middle of the ruin and inside of a large rectangular apartment.... Its walls are not high and not entirely regular, and the inside is curiously fas.h.i.+oned with offsets and box-like projections. It is plastered smoothly and bears considerable evidence of having been used, although I observed no traces of tire.

The entrance to this chamber is rather extraordinary, and further attests the peculiar importance attached to it by the builders and their evident desire to secure it from all possibility of intrusion.

A walled and covered pa.s.sageway of solid masonry, 10 feet of which is still intact, leads from an outer chamber through the small intervening apartments into the circular one. It is possible that this originally extended to the outer wall and was entered from the outside. If so, the person desiring to visit the estufa [kiva] would have to enter an aperture about 22 inches high by 30 wide and crawl in the most abject manner possible through a tube-like pa.s.sageway nearly 20 feet in length. My first impression was that this peculiarly constructed doorway was a precaution against enemies and that it was probably the only means of entrance to the interior of the house, but I am now inclined to think this hardly probable, and conclude that it was rather designed to render a sacred chamber as free as possible from profane intrusion.[23]

[Footnote 23: 10th Ann. Rept. U.S. Geol. and Geog. Survey of the Territories, F. V. Hayden in charge (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1878); report on the "Ancient ruins of Southwestern Colorado," by W. H. Holmes; p. 395, pl. x.x.xvii.]

In this example the tunnel was much larger than usual and the vertical shaft, if there were one, has been so much broken down that it is no longer distinguishable. Nordenskiold mentions a considerable number of kivas with this attachment, and one which is described and figured is said to be a type of all the kivas in that region, but an inspection of his ground plans shows more kivas without this feature than with it. In his description of a small ruin in Cliff canyon he speaks of--

... a circular room still in a fair state of preservation. The wall that lies nearest the precipice is for the most part in ruins; the rest of the room is well preserved. After about half a meter of dust and rubbish had been removed, we were able to ascertain that the walls formed a cylinder 4.3 meters in diameter. The thickness of the wall is throughout considerable, and varies, the s.p.a.ces between the points where the cylinder touches the walls of adjoining rooms[24]

having been filled up with masonry. The height of the room is 2 meters. The roof has long since fallen in, and only one or two beams are left among the rubbish. To a height of 1.2 meters from the floor the wall is perfectly even and has the form of a cylinder, or rather of a truncate cone, as it leans slightly inward. The upper portion, on the other hand, is divided by six deep niches into the same number of pillars. The floor is of clay, hard, and perfectly even.

Near the center is a round depression or hole, five-tenths of a meter deep and eight-tenths of a meter in diameter. This hole was entirely full of white ashes. It was undoubtedly the hearth. Between the hearth and the outer wall stands a narrow, curved wall, eight-tenths of a meter high. Behind this wall, in the same plane as the floor, a rectangular opening, 1 meter high and six-tenths of a meter broad, has been constructed in the outer wall. This opening forms the mouth of a narrow pa.s.sage or tunnel of rectangular shape, which runs 1.8 meters in a horizontal direction and then goes straight upward, out into the open air. The tunnel lies under one of the six niches, which is somewhat deeper than the others. The walls are built of carefully hewn blocks of sandstone, the inner surface being perfectly smooth and lined with a thin, yellowish plaster. On closer examination of this plaster it is found to consist of several thin layers, each of them black with soot. The plaster has evidently been repeatedly restored as the walls became blackened with smoke.

A few smaller niches and holes in the walls, irregularly scattered here and there, have presumably served as places of deposit for different articles; a bundle of pieces of hide, tied with a string, was found in one of them. The lower part of the wall, to a height of four-tenths of a meter, is painted dark red around the whole room.

This red paint projects upward in triangular points, arranged in threes, and above them is a row of small round dots of red....

Circular rooms, built and arranged on exactly the same plan as that described above, reappear with exceedingly slight variations in size and structure in every cliff dwelling except the very smallest ones.... The number of estufas [kivas] varies in proportion to the size of the buildings and the number of rooms, ... [The ruin described contained two kivas.] ... The description of the first estufa applies in every respect to the second, with the single exception that the whole wall is coated with yellow plaster without any red painting. The wall between the hearth and the singular pa.s.sage or tunnel described above is replaced by a large slab of stone set on end. It is difficult to say for what purpose this tunnel has been constructed and the slab of stone or the wall erected in front of it. As I have mentioned above, this arrangement is found in all the estufas.[25]

[Footnote 24: In the ground plan given there is no point shown where the walls of the kiva touch adjoining rooms.]

[Footnote 25: Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde, pp. 15-17, figs. 6 and 7.]