Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 Part 5

APPROACH TO MAIN PART OF HONANKI]

A short distance beyond the westernmost rooms of Honanki, almost covered with bushes and adjoining the base of the cliff, there is a large ash heap in which are many fragments of pottery and the bones of various animals. It is probable that excavation in this quarter would reveal many interesting objects. In the cliffs above this ash heap, far beyond reach, there is a walled niche which has never been disturbed. This structure is similar to those near the cavate dwellings, and when opened will probably be found to contain buried mortuary objects of interesting character. I did not disturb this inclosure, inasmuch as I had no ladders or ropes with which to approach it.

It is very difficult to properly estimate, from the number of rooms in a cliff house, the former population, and as a general thing the tendency is rather to overstate than to fall short of the true total.

In a pueblo like Hano, on the first or east mesa of Tusayan, for instance, there are many uninhabited rooms, and others serve as storage chambers, while in places the pueblo has so far fallen into ruin as to be uninhabitable. If a pueblo is very much concentrated the population varies at different seasons of the year. In summer it is spa.r.s.ely inhabited; in winter it is rather densely populated. While Palatki and Honanki together had rooms sufficient to house 500 people, I doubt whether their aggregate population, ever exceeded 200. This estimate, of course, is based on the supposition that these villages were contemporaneously inhabited.

The evidences all point to a belief, however, that they were both permanent dwelling places and not temporary resorts at certain seasons of the year.

The pictographs on the face of the cliff above Honanki are for the greater part due to the former Apache occupants of the rooms, and are situated high above the tops of the walls of the ruin. They are, as a rule, drawn with white chalk, which shows very clearly on the red rock, and are particularly numerous above room _g_. The figure of a circle, with lines crossing one another diametrically and continued as rays beyond the periphery, possibly represent the sun. Many spiral figures, almost constant pictographs in cliff ruins, are found in several places. Another strange design, resembling some kind of insect, is very conspicuous.

A circle painted green and inclosed in a border of yellow is undoubtedly of Apache origin. There is at one point a row of small pits, arranged in line, suggesting a score or enumeration of some kind, and a series of short parallel lines of similar import was found not far away. This latter method of recording accounts is commonly used at the present time in Tusayan, both in houses and on cliffs; and one of the best of these, said to enumerate the number of Apache killed by the Hopi in a raid many years ago, may be seen above the trail by which the visitor enters the pueblo of Hano on the East Mesa.

The names of several persons scratched on the face of the cliff indicate that Americans had visited Honanki before me.

The majority of the paleoglyphs at both Palatki and Honanki are of Apache origin, and are of comparatively modern date, as would naturally be expected. In some instances their colors are as fresh as if made a few years ago, and there is no doubt that they were drawn after the building was deserted by its original occupants. The positions of the pictographs on the cliffs imply that they were drawn before the roofs and flooring had been destroyed, thus showing how lately the ruin preserved its ancient form. In their sheltered position there seems to be no reason why the ancient pictographs should not have been preserved, and the fact that so few of the figures pecked in the cliff now remain is therefore instructive.

One of the first tendencies of man in visiting a ruin is to inscribe his name on its walls or on neighboring cliffs. This is shared by both Indians and whites, and the former generally makes his totem on the rock surface, or adds that of his G.o.ds, the sun, rain-cloud, or katcinas. Inscriptions recording events are less common, as they are more difficult to indicate with exact.i.tude in this system of pictography. The majority of ancient pictographs in the Red-rock country, like those I have considered in other parts of Verde valley, are identical with picture writings now made in Tusayan, and are recognized and interpreted without hesitation by the Hopi Indians. In their legends, in which the migrations of their ancestors are recounted, the traditionists often mention the fact that their ancestors left their totem signatures at certain points in their wanderings. The Patki people say that you will find on the rocks of Palatkwabi, the "Red Land of the South" from which they came, totems of the rain-cloud, sun, crane, parrot, etc. If we find these markings in the direction which they are thus definitely declared to exist, and the Hopi say similar pictures were made by their ancestors, there seems no reason to question such circ.u.mstantial evidence that some of the Hopi clans once came from this region.[28]

One of the most interesting of the pictographs pecked in the rock is a figure which, variously modified, is a common decoration on cliff-dweller pottery from the Verde valley region to the ruins of the San Juan and its tributaries. This figure has the form of two concentric spirals, the ends of which do not join. As this design a.s.sumes many modifications, it may be well to consider a few forms which it a.s.sumes on the pottery of the cliff people and on that of their descendants, the Pueblos.

The so-called black-and-white ware, or white pottery decorated with black lines, which is so characteristic of the ceramics of the cliff-dwellers, is sometimes, as we shall see, found in ruins like Awatobi and Sikyatki; but it is so rare, as compared with other varieties, that it may be regarded as intrusive.

One of the simplest forms of the broken-line motive is a Greek fret, in which there is a break in the component square figures or where the line is noncontinuous. In the simplest form, which appears prominently on modern pottery, but which is rare or wanting on true black-and-white ware, we have two crescentic figures, the concavities of which face in different directions, but the horns overlap. This is a symbol which the partic.i.p.ants in the dance called the Humiskatcina still paint with pigments on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and which is used on shields and various religious paraphernalia.

A study of any large collection of decorated Pueblo ware, ancient or modern, will show many modifications of this broken line, a number of which I shall discuss more in detail when pottery ornamentation is considered. A design so distinctive and so widespread as this must certainly have a symbolic interpretation. The concentric spirals with a broken line, the Hopi say, are symbols of the whirlpool, and it is interesting to find in the beautiful plates of Chavero's _Antiguedades Mexicanas_ that the water in the lagoon surrounding the ancient Aztec capital was indicated by the Nahuatl Indians with similar symbols.

OBJECTS FOUND AT PALATKI AND HONANKI

The isolation of these ruins and the impossibility of obtaining workmen, combined with the brief visit which I was able to make to them, rendered it impossible to collect very many specimens of ancient handiwork. The few excavations which were made were limited almost wholly to Honanki, and from their success I can readily predict a rich harvest for anyone who may attempt systematic work in this virgin field. We naturally chose the interior of the rooms for excavation, and I will say limited our work to these places. Every chamber was more or less filled with debris--fragments of overturned walls, detached rock from the cliff above, dry alkaline soil, drifted sand, dust, and animal excreta. In those places where digging was possible we found the dust and guano so dry and alkaline that it was next to impossible to work for any length of time in the rooms, for the air became so impure that the workmen could hardly breathe, especially where the inclosing walls prevented ventilation. Notwithstanding this obstacle, however, we removed the acc.u.mulated debris down to the floor in one or two chambers, and examined with care the various objects of aboriginal origin which were revealed.

In studying the specimens found in cliff-houses due attention has not always been given to the fact that occupants have oftentimes camped in them subsequently to their abandonment by the original builders. As a consequence of this temporary habitation objects owned by unrelated Indians have frequently been confused with those of the cliff-dwellers proper. We found evidences that both Honanki and Palatki had been occupied by Apache Mohave people for longer or shorter periods of time, and some of the specimens were probably left there by these inhabitants.

The ancient pottery found in the rooms, although fragmentary, is sufficiently complete to render a comparison with known ceramics from the Verde ruins. Had we discovered the cemeteries, for which we zealously searched in vain, no doubt entire vessels, deposited as mortuary offerings, would have been found; but the kind of ware of which they were made would undoubtedly have been the same as that of the fragments.

No pottery distinctively different from that which has already been reported from the Verde valley ruins was found, and the majority resembled so closely in texture and symbolism that of the cliff houses of the San Juan, in northern New Mexico and southern Utah, that they may be regarded as practically identical.

The following varieties of pottery were found at Honanki:

I. Coiled ware.

II. Indented ware.

III. Smooth ware.

IV. Smooth ware painted white, with black geometric figures.

V. Smooth red ware, with black decoration.

By far the largest number of fragments belong to the first division, and these, as a rule, are blackened by soot, as if used in cooking.

The majority are parts of large open-mouth jars with flaring rims, corrugated or often indented with the thumb-nail or some hard substance, the coil becoming obscure on the lower surface. The inside of these jars is smooth, but never polished, and in one instance the potter used the corrugations of the coil as an ornamental motive. The paste of which this coiled ware was composed is coa.r.s.e, with argillaceous grains scattered through it; but it was well fired and is still hard and durable. When taken in connection with its tenuity, these features show a highly developed potter's technique. A single fragment is ornamented with an S-shape coil of clay fastened to the corrugations in much the same way as in similar ware from the ruins near the Colorado Chiquito.

The fragments of smooth ware show that they, too, had been made originally in the same way as coiled ware, and that their outer as well as their inner surface had been rubbed smooth before firing. As a rule, however, they are coa.r.s.e in texture and have little symmetry of form. Fragments identified as parts of bowls, vases, jars, and dippers are cla.s.sed under this variety. As a rule they are badly or unevenly fired, although evidently submitted to great heat. There was seldom an effort made to smooth the outer surface to a polish, and no attempt at pictorial ornamentation was made.

The fragments represented in cla.s.ses IV and V were made of a much finer clay, and the surface bears a gloss, almost a glaze. The ornamentation on the few fragments which were found is composed of geometric patterns, and is identical with the sherds from other ruins of Verde valley. A fragment each of a dipper and a ladle, portions of a red bowl, and a rim of a large vase of the same color were picked up near the ruin. Most of the fragments, however, belong to the first cla.s.ses--the coiled and indented wares.

There was no evidence that the former inhabitants of these buildings were acquainted with metals. The ends of the beams had been hacked off evidently with blunt stone axes, aided by fire, and the lintels of the houses were of split logs which showed no evidence that any metal implement was used in fashioning them. We found, however, several stone tools, which exhibit considerable skill in the art of stone working. These include a single ax, blunt at one end, sharpened at the other, and girt by a single groove. The variety of stone from which the ax was made does not occur in the immediate vicinity of the ruin.

There were one or two stone hammers, grooved for hafting, like the ax.

A third stone maul, being grooveless, was evidently a hand tool for breaking other stones or for grinding pigments.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 251--Stone implement from Honanki]

Perhaps the most interesting stone implement which was found was uncovered in the excavation of one of the middle rooms of the western part of the ruin, about three feet below the surface. It consists of a wooden handle rounded at each end and slightly curved, with a sharpened stone inserted midway of its length and cemented to the wood with pitch or asphaltum. The stone of this implement would hardly bear rough usage, or sustain, without fracture, a heavy blow. The edge is tolerably sharp, and it therefore may have been used in skinning animals. Judging from the form of the handle, the implement is better suited for use as a sc.r.a.per than for any other purpose which has occurred to me (figure 251).

The inhabitants of the two ruins of the Red-rocks used obsidian arrowpoints with shafts of reeds, and evidently highly regarded fragments of the former material for knives, spearheads, and one or two other purposes.

The stone metates from these ruins are in no respect characteristic, and several fine specimens were found in place on the floors of the rooms. One of these was a well-worn specimen of lava, which must have been brought from a considerable distance, since none of that material occurs in the neighborhood. The existence of these grinding stones implies the use of maize as food, and this evidence was much strengthened by the finding of corncobs, kernels of corn, and charred fragments at several points below the surface of the debris in the chambers of Honanki. One of these grinding stones was found set in the floor of one of the rooms in the same way that similar metates may be seen in Walpi today.

Of bone implements, our limited excavations revealed only a few fragments. Leg bones of the turkey were used for awls, bodkins, needles, and similar objects. In general character the implements of this kind which were found are almost identical in form with the bone implements from Awatobi and Sikyatki, which are later figured and described. Although the bone implements unearthed were not numerous, we were well repaid for our excavations by finding an ancient fireboard, identical with those now used at Tusayan in the ceremony of kindling "new fire," and probably universally used for that purpose in former times. The only sh.e.l.l was a fragment of a bracelet made from a _Pectunculus_, a Pacific coast mollusk highly esteemed in ancient times among prehistoric Pueblos. The majority of the wooden objects found showed marks of fire, which were especially evident on the ends of the roof and floor beams projecting from the walls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 252--Tinder tube from Honanki]

A considerable collection of objects made of wickerwork and woven vegetal fiber was found in the alkaline dust and ashes of the Red-rock cliff houses, and while there is some difficulty here as elsewhere, in deciding whether certain specimens belonged to the original builders or to later temporary occupants, there is little doubt that most of them were the property of the latter.

There were many specimens of basketry found on the surface of the rubbish of the floors which, from the position of their occurrence and from their resemblance to the wickerwork still used by the Apache, seem without doubt to have been left there by temporary occupants of the rooms. There were likewise many wisps of yucca fiber tied in knots which must probably be regarded as of identical origin. The _Yucca baccata_ affords the favorite fiber used by the natives at the present time, and it appears to have been popular for that purpose among the ancients.

Several specimens of sandals, some of which are very much worn on the soles, were found buried at the floor level. These are all of the same kind, and are made of yucca leaves plaited in narrow strips. The mode of attachment to the foot was evidently by a loop pa.s.sing over the toes. Hide and cloth sandals have as yet not been reported from the Red-rock ruins of Verde valley. These sandals belonged to the original occupants of the cliff houses.

Fabrics made of cotton are common in the ruins of the Red-rocks, and at times this fiber was combined with yucca. Some of the specimens of cotton cloth were finely woven and are still quite strong, although stained dark or almost black. Specimens of netting are also common, and an open-mesh legging, similar to the kind manufactured in ancient times by the Hopi and still worn by certain personators in their sacred dances, were taken from the western room of Honanki. There were also many fragments of rope, string, cord, and loosely twisted bands, resembling head bands for carrying burdens.

A reed (figure 252) in which was inserted a fragment of cotton fiber was unlike anything yet reported from cliff houses, and as the end of the cotton which projected beyond the cavity of the reed was charred, it possibly was used as a slow-match or tinder-box.

Several sh.e.l.l and turquois beads were found, but my limited studies of the cliff-houses revealed only a few other ornaments, among them being beads of turkey-bone and a single wristlet fashioned from a _Pectunculus_. One or two fragments of prayer-sticks were discovered in a rock inclosure in a cleft to the west of the ruin.

CONCLUSIONS REGARDING THE VERDE VALLEY RUINS

The ruins of the Verde region closely resemble those of Tusayan, and seem to support the claim of the Hopi that some of their ancestors formerly lived in that region. This is true more especially of the villages of the plains and mesa tops, for neither cave-houses nor cavate dwellings are found in the immediate vicinity of the inhabited Tusayan pueblos. The objects taken from the ruins are similar to those found universally over the pueblo area, and from them alone we can not say more than that they probably indicate the same substratum of culture as that from which modern pueblo life with its many modifications has sprung.

The symbolism of the decorations on the fragments of pottery found in the Verde ruins is the same as that of the ancient pueblos of the Colorado Chiquito, and it remains to be shown whether the ancestors of these were Hopi or Zuni. I believe it will be found that they were both, or that when the villages along the Colorado Chiquito[29] were abandoned part of the inhabitants went to the mesas of Tusayan and others migrated farther up the river to the Zuni villages.

Two centers of distribution of cliff houses occur in our Southwest: those of the upper tributaries of the Colorado in the north and the cliff houses of the affluents of the Salt and the Gila in the south.

The watershed of the Rio Grande is, so far as is known, dest.i.tute of this kind of aboriginal dwellings. Between the two centers of distribution lie the pueblos of the Little Colorado and its tributaries, the home of the ancestors of the Hopi and the Zuni. The many resemblances between the cliff houses of the north and those of the south indicate that the stage of culture of both was uniform, and probably the same conditions of environment led both peoples to build similar dwellings. All those likenesses which can be found between the modern Zuni and the Hopi to the former cliff peoples of the San Juan region in the north, apply equally to those of the upper Salado and the Gila and their tributaries to the south; and so far as arguments of a northern origin of either, built on architectural or technological resemblances, are concerned, they are not conclusive, since they are also applicable to the cliff peoples of the south. The one important difference between the northern and the southern tier of cliff houses is the occurrence of the circular kiva, which has never been reported south of the divide between the Little Colorado and the Gila-Salado drainage. If a kiva was a feature in southern cliff houses, which I doubt, it appears to have been a rectangular chamber similar to a dwelling room. The circular kiva exists in neither the modern Hopi nor the Zuni pueblos, and it has not been found in adjacent Tusayan ruins; therefore, if these habitations were profoundly influenced by settlers from the north, it is strange that such a radical change in the form of this room resulted. The arguments advanced that one of the two component stocks of the Zuni, and that the aboriginal, came from the cliff peoples of the San Juan, are not conclusive, although I have no doubt that the Zuni may have received increment from that direction.

Cushing has, I believe, furnished good evidence that some of the ancestors of the Zuni population came from the south and southwest; and that some of these came from pueblos now in ruins on the Little Colorado is indicated by the great similarity in the antiquities of ancient Zuni and the Colorado Chiquito ruins. Part of the Patki people of the Hopi went to Zuni and part to Tusayan, from the same abandoned pueblo, and the descendants of this family in Walpi still recognize this ancient kinship; but I do not know, and so far as can be seen there is no way of determining, the relative antiquity of the pueblos in Zuni valley and those on the lower Colorado.

The approximate date of the immigration of the Patki people to Tusayan is as yet a matter of conjecture. It may have been in prehistoric times, or more likely at a comparatively late period in the history of the people. It seems well substantiated, however, that when this Water-house people joined the other Hopi, the latter inhabited pueblos and were to all intents a pueblo people. If this hypothesis be a correct one, the Snake, Horn, and Bear peoples, whom the southern colonists found in Tusayan, had a culture of their own similar to that of the people from the south. Whence that culture came must be determined by studies of the component clans of the Hopi before the arrival of the Patki people.[30]

The origin of the round shape of the estufa, according to Nordenskiold (p. 168), is most easily explained on the hypothesis that it is a reminiscence of the cliff-dwellers' nomadic period. "There must be some very cogent reason for the employment of this shape," he says, "for the construction of a cylindrical chamber within a block of rectangular rooms involves no small amount of labor. We know how obstinately primitive nations cling to everything connected with their religious ideas. Then what is more natural than the retention, for the room where religious ceremonies were performed, of the round shape characteristic of the original dwelling place, the nomadic hut? This a.s.sumption is further corroborated by the situation of the hearth and the structure of the roof of the estufa, when we find points of a.n.a.logy to the method employed by certain nomadic Indians in the erection of their huts." This theory of the origin of the round form of dwelling and its retention in the architecture of the kiva, advanced by Nordenskiold in 1893, has much in its favor, but the rectangular form, which, so far as known, is the only shape of these sacred rooms in the Tusayan region, is still unexplained. From Castaneda's narrative of the Coronado expedition it appears that in the middle of the sixteenth century the eastern pueblos had both square and round estufas or kivas, and that these kivas belonged to the men while the rooms of the pueblo were in the possession of the women. The apparent reason why we find no round rooms or kivas in the southern cliff houses and in Tusayan may be due to several causes.

Local conditions, including the character of the building sites on the Hopi mesa, made square rooms more practical, or the nomadic stage was so far removed that the form of the inclosure in which the ancients held their rites had not been preserved. Moreover, some of the most ancient and secret observances at Walpi, as the Flute ceremony, are not performed in special kivas, but take place in ordinary living rooms.

As in all the other ruins of Verde valley, circular kivas are absent in the Red-rock country, and this fact, which has attracted the attention of several observers, is, I believe, very significant.

Although as yet our knowledge of the cliff houses of the upper Gila and Salado and their numerous tributaries is very fragmentary, and generalization on that account unsafe, it may be stated provisionally that no circular kivas have yet been found in any ruins of the Gila-Salado watershed. This form of kiva, however, is an essential feature of the cliff dwellings of Rio Colorado, especially of those along its affluents in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico.