Aboriginal Remains In Verde Valley, Arizona Part 4

As a rule the cavate lodges are set back slightly from the face of the bluff and connected with it by a narrow pa.s.sageway. Another type, however, and one not uncommon, has no connecting pa.s.sageway, but instead opens out to the air by a cove or nook in the bluff. This cove was used as the main room and the back rooms opened into it in the usual way by pa.s.sageways. A number of lodges of this type can be seen in the eastern side of the northern promontory or bluff. Possibly lodges of this type were walled in front, although walled fronts are here exceptional, and some of them at least have been produced by the falling off of the rock above the doorway. The expedient of walling up the front of a shallow cavity, commonly practiced in the San Juan region, while comparatively rare in this vicinity, was known to the dwellers in these cavate lodges.

At several points remains of front walls can be seen, and in two instances front walls remain in place. The masonry, however, is in all cases very rough, of the same type as that shown in plate XXVIII.

In this connection a comparison with the cavate ledges found in other regions will be of interest. In 1875 Mr. W. H. Holmes, then connected with the Hayden survey, visited a number of cavate lodges on the Rio San Juan and some of its tributaries. Several groups are ill.u.s.trated in his report.[5] Two of his ill.u.s.trations, showing, respectively, the open front and walled front lodges, are reproduced in plates XXIX and x.x.x.

The open front lodges are thus described:

I observed, in approaching from above, that a ruined tower stood near the brink of the cliff, at a point where it curves outward toward the river, and in studying it with my gla.s.s detected a number of cave-like openings in the cliff face about halfway up. On examination, I found them to have been shaped by the hand of man, but so weathered out and changed by the slow process of atmospheric erosion that the evidences of art were almost obliterated.

The openings are arched irregularly above, and generally quite shallow, being governed very much in contour and depth by the quality of the rock. The work of excavation has not been an extremely great one, even with the imperfect implements that must have been used, as the shale is for the most part soft and friable.

A hard stratum served as a floor, and projecting in many places made a narrow platform by which the inhabitants were enabled to pa.s.s along from one house to another.

Small fragments of mortar still adhered to the firmer parts of the walls, from which it is inferred that they were at one time plastered. It is also extremely probable that they were walled up in front and furnished with doors and windows, yet no fragment of wall has been preserved. Indeed, so great has been the erosion that many of the caves have been almost obliterated, and are now not deep enough to give shelter to a bird or bat.

[Footnote 5: Tenth Ann Rep. U.S. Geol. Survey, 1876, pp. 288-391.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XXIX.

OPEN FRONT CAVATE LODGES ON THE RIO SAN JUAN.]

Walled fronts, the author states, were observed frequently on the Rio Mancos, where there are many well-preserved specimens. He described a large group situated on that stream, about 10 miles above its mouth, as follows:

The walls were in many places quite well preserved and new looking, while all about, high and low, were others in all stages of decay.

In one place in particular, a picturesque outstanding promontory has been full of dwellings, literally honeycombed by this earth-burrowing race, and as one from below views the ragged, window-pierced crags [see plate x.x.x] he is unconsciously led to wonder if they are not the ruins of some ancient castle, behind whose moldering walls are hidden the dread secrets of a long-forgotten people; but a nearer approach quickly dispels such fancies, for the windows prove to be only the doorways to shallow and irregular apartments, hardly sufficiently commodious for a race of pigmies. Neither the outer openings nor the apertures that communicate between the caves are large enough to allow a person of large stature to pa.s.s, and one is led to suspect that these nests were not the dwellings proper of these people, but occasional resorts for women and children, and that the somewhat extensive ruins in the valley below were their ordinary dwelling places.

It will be noticed that in both these cases there are a.s.sociated ruins on the mesa top above, and in both instances these a.s.sociated ruins are subordinate to the cavate lodges, in this respect resembling the lodges on the Verde already described. This condition, however, is not the usual one; in the great majority of cases the cavate lodges are subordinate to the a.s.sociated ruins, standing to them in the relation of outlying agricultural shelters. Unless this fact is constantly borne in mind it is easy to exaggerate the importance of the cavate lodges as compared with the village ruins with which they are connected.

The cavate lodges near San Francisco mountain in Arizona were visited in 1883 by Col. James Stevenson, of the Bureau of Ethnology, and in 1885 by Maj. J. W. Powell. Major Powell[6] describes a number of groups in the vicinity of Flagstaff. Of one group, situated on a cinder cone about 12 miles east of San Francisco peak, he says:

Here the cinders are soft and friable, and the cone is a prettily shaped dome. On the southern slope there are excavations into the indurated and coherent cinder ma.s.s, const.i.tuting chambers, often 10 or 12 feet in diameter and 6 to 10 feet in height. The chambers are of irregular shape, and occasionally a larger central chamber forms a kind of vestibule to several smaller ones gathered about it. The smaller chambers are sometimes at the same alt.i.tude as the central or princ.i.p.al one, and sometimes at a lower alt.i.tude. About one hundred and fifty of these chambers have been excavated. Most of them are now partly filled by the caving in of the walls and ceilings, but some of them are yet in a good state of preservation.

In these chambers, and about them on the summit and sides of the cinder cone, many stone implements were found, especially metates.

Some bone implements also were discovered. At the very summit of the little cone there is a plaza, inclosed by a rude wall made of volcanic cinders, the floor of which was carefully leveled. The plaza is about 45 by 75 feet in area. Here the people lived in underground houses--chambers hewn from the friable volcanic cinders.

Before them, to the south, west, and north, stretched beautiful valleys, beyond which volcanic cones are seen rising amid pine forests. The people probably cultivated patches of ground in the low valleys.

About 18 miles still farther to the east of San Francisco mountain, another ruined village was discovered, built about the crater of a volcanic cone. This volcanic peak is of much greater magnitude. The crater opens to the eastward. On the south many stone dwellings have been built of the basaltic and cinder-like rooks. Between the ridge on the south and another on the northwest there is a low saddle in which other buildings have been erected, and in which a great plaza was found, much like the one previously described. But the most interesting part of this village was on the cliff which rose on the northwest side of the crater. In this cliff are many natural caves, and the caves themselves were utilized as dwellings by inclosing them in front with walls made of volcanic rocks and cinders. These cliff dwellings are placed tier above tier, in a very irregular way.

In many cases natural caves were thus utilized; in other cases cavate chambers were made; that is, chambers have been excavated in the friable cinders. On the very summit of the ridge stone buildings were erected, so that this village was in part a cliff village, in part cavate, and in part the ordinary stone pueblo. The valley below, especially to the southward, was probably occupied by their gardens. In the chambers among the overhanging cliffs a great many interesting relics were found, of stone, bone, and wood, and many potsherds.

[Footnote 6: Seventh Ann. Rep. Bur. Eth., 1891, p. xix.]

It will be seen that the first group described bears a remarkably close resemblance to the cavate lodges on the Rio Verde. The lodges themselves are smaller, but the arrangement of main apartment and attached back rooms is quite similar. It will be noticed also that in the second group described village ruins are again a.s.sociated on the summit of the cliff or ridge. Major Powell ascertained that these cavate lodges were occupied by the Havasupai Indians now living in Cataract canyon, who are closely related to the Walapai, and who, it is said, were driven from this region by the Spaniards.

The cavate lodges on the Rio Grande, in New Mexico, in the vicinity of the modern pueblo of Santa Clara, were also visited in 1885 by Major Powell and are thus described by him:[7]

The cliffs themselves are built of volcanic sands and ashes, and many of the strata are exceedingly light and friable. The specific gravity of some of these rocks is so low that they will float on water. Into the faces of these cliffs, in the friable and easily worked rock, many chambers have been excavated; for mile after mile the cliffs are studded with them, so that altogether there are many thousands. Sometimes a chamber or series of chambers is entered from a terrace, but usually they were excavated many feet above any landing or terrace below, so that they could be reached only by ladders. In other places artificial terraces were built by constructing retaining walls and filling the interior next to the cliffs with loose rock and sand. Very often steps were cut into the face of a cliff and a rude stairway formed by which chambers could be reached. The chambers were very irregularly arranged and very irregular in size and structure. In many cases there is a central chamber, which seems to have been a general living room for the people, back of which two, three, or more chambers somewhat smaller are found. The chambers occupied by one family are sometimes connected with those occupied by another family, so that two or three or four sets of chambers have interior communication. Usually, however, the communication from one system of chambers to another was by the outside. Many of the chambers had evidently been occupied as dwellings. They still contained fireplaces and evidences of fire; there were little caverns or shelves in which various vessels were placed, and many evidences of the handicraft of the people were left in stone, bone, horn, and wood, and in the chambers and about the sides of the cliffs potsherds are abundant. On more careful survey it was found that many chambers had been used as stables for a.s.ses, goats, and sheep. Sometimes they had been filled a few inches, or even 2 or 3 feet, with the excrement of these animals. Ears of corn and corncobs were also found in many places. Some of the chambers were evidently constructed to be used as storehouses or caches for grain. Altogether it is very evident that the cliff houses have been used in comparatively modern times; at any rate, since the people owned a.s.ses, goats, and sheep. The rock is of such a friable nature that it will not stand atmospheric degradation very long, and there is abundant evidence of this character testifying to the recent occupancy of these cavate dwellings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.x.

WALLED FRONT CAVATE LODGES ON THE RIO SAN JUAN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.xI.

CAVATE LODGES ON THE RIO GRANDE.]

Above the cliffs, on the mesas, which have already been described, evidences of more ancient ruins were found. These were pueblos built of cut stone rudely dressed. Every mesa had at least one ancient pueblo up off it, evidently far more ancient than the cavate dwellings found in the face of the cliffs. It is, then, very plain that the cavate dwellings are not of great age; that they have been occupied since the advent of the white man, and that on the summit of the cliffs there are ruins of more ancient pueblos.

[Footnote 7: Seventh Ann. Rep. Bur. Eth., op. cit., p. XXII.]

Major Powell obtained a tradition of the Santa Clara Indians, reciting three successive periods of occupancy of the cavate lodges by them, the last occurring after the Spanish conquest of New Mexico in the seventeenth century.

It will be noticed that here again the cavate lodges and village ruins are a.s.sociated, although in this case the village ruins on the mesas above are said to be more ancient than the cavate lodges. A general view of a small section of cliff containing lodges is given in plate x.x.xI for comparison with those on the Verde. The lodges on the Rio Grande seem to have been more elaborate than those on the Verde, perhaps owing to longer occupancy; but the same arrangement of a main front room and attached back rooms, as in the cavate lodges on the Verde, was found.

As the cavate lodges of the San Francisco mountain region have been a.s.signed to the Havasupai Indians of the Yuman stock, and those of the Rio Grande to the Santa Clara pueblo Indians of the Tanoan stock, it may be of interest to state that there is a vague tradition extant among the modern settlers of the Verde region that the cavate lodges of that region were occupied within the last three generations. This tradition was derived from an old Walapai Indian whose grandfather was alive when the cavate lodges were occupied. It was impossible to follow this tradition to its source, and it is introduced only as a suggestion.

Attention is called, however, to the tradition given in the introduction to this paper with which it may be connected.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 291.

Plan of cavate lodges, group _D_.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.xII.

INTERIOR VIEW OF CAVATE LODGE, GROUP D.]

Aside from the actual labor of excavation, there was but little work expended on the Verde cavate lodges. The interiors were never plastered, so far as the writer could determine. Figure 291 shows the plan of one of the princ.i.p.al sets of rooms, which occurs at the point marked _D_ on the map, plate XXV; and plate x.x.xII is an interior view of the princ.i.p.al room, drawn from a flashlight photograph. This set of rooms was excavated in a point of the cliff and extends completely through it as shown on the general plan, plate XXV. The entrance was from the west by a short pa.s.sageway opening into a cove extending back some 10 feet from the face of the cliff. The first room entered measures 16 feet in length by 10 feet in width. On the floor of this room a structure resembling the piki or paper bread oven of the Tusayan Indians, was found constructed partly of fragments of old and broken metates. At the southern end of the room there is a cubby-hole about a foot in diameter, excavated at the floor level. At the eastern end of the room there is a pa.s.sageway about 2 feet long leading into a smaller roughly circular room, measuring 7 feet in its longest diameter, and this in turn is connected with another almost circular room of the same size. The floors of all three of these rooms are on the same level, but the roofs of the two smaller rooms are a foot lower than that of the entrance room. At the northern end of the entrance room there is a pa.s.sageway 3 feet long and 2 feet wide leading into the princ.i.p.al room of the set. This pa.s.sageway at its southern end has a framed doorway of the type ill.u.s.trated later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 292.

Sections of cavate lodges, group _D_.]

The main room is roughly circular in form, measuring 16 feet in its north and south diameter and 15 feet from east to west. The roof is about 7 feet above the floor. Figure 292 shows a section from northwest to southwest (_a_, _b_, figure 291) through the small connected room adjoining on the south, and also an east arid west section (_c_, _d_, figure 291). The floor is plastered with clay wherever it was necessary in order to bring it to a level, and the coating is consequently not of uniform thickness. It is divided into sections by low ridges of clay as shown in the plan and sections; the northern section is a few inches higher than the other. Extending through the clay finish of the floor and into the rock beneath there are four pits, indicated on the plan by round spots. The largest of these, situated opposite the northern door, was a fire hole or pit about 18 inches in diameter at the floor level, of an inverted conical shape, about 10 inches in depth, and plastered inside with clay inlaid with fragments of pottery placed as closely together as their shape would permit. The other pits are smaller; one located near the southeastern corner of the room is about 6 inches in diameter and the same in depth, while the others are mere depressions in the floor, in shape like the small paint mortars used by the Pueblos.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 293.

Section of water pocket.]

The room, when opened, contained a deposit of bat dung and sand about 3 feet thick in the center and averaging about 2 feet thick throughout the room. This deposit exhibited a series of well-defined strata, varying from three-fourths to an inch and a half thick, caused by the respective predominance of dung or sand. No evidence of disturbance of these strata was found although careful examination was made. This deposit was cleared out and a number of small articles were found, all resting, however, directly on the floor. The articles consisted of fragments of basketry, bundles of fibers and pieces of fabrics, pieces of arrowshafts, fragments of grinding stones, three sandals of woven yucca fiber, two of them new and nearly perfect, and a number of pieces of cotton cloth, the latter scattered over the room and in several instances gummed to the floor. Only a few fragments of pottery were found in the main room, but outside in the northern pa.s.sageway were the fragments of two large pieces, one an olla, the other a bowl, both buried in 3 or 4 inches of debris under a large slab fallen from the roof.

Owing to its situation this room was one of the most desirable in the whole group. The prevailing south wind blows through it at all times, and this is doubtless the reason that it was so much filled up with sand. In the center of the room the roof has fallen at a comparatively recent date from an area about 10 by 7 feet, in slabs about an inch thick, for the fragments were within 6 inches of the top of the debris.

The walls are smoke-blackened to a very slight extent compared with the large room south of it.

At the northeastern and southwestern corners there are two small pockets, opening on the floor level but sunk below it, which seem to have been designed to contain water. That in the southwest corner is the larger; it is ill.u.s.trated in the section, figure 293. As shown in the section and on the plan (figure 291), a low wall composed of adobe mortar and broken rock was built across the opening on the edge of the floor, perhaps to increase its capacity. This cavity would hold 15 to 20 gallons of water, a sufficient amount to supply the needs of an ordinary Indian family for three weeks or a mouth. The pocket in the northeastern corner of the room is not quite so large as the one described, and its front is not walled.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate x.x.xIII.

BOWLDER-MARKED SITE.]

West of the main room there is a storage room, nearly circular in shape, with a diameter of about 6 feet and with a floor raised about 2 feet above that of the main room. Its roof is but 3 feet above the floor, and across its western end is a low bench a couple of inches above the floor. In the northeastern corner there is a shallow cove, also raised slightly above the main floor and connecting by a narrow opening with the outer vestibule-like rooms on the north. These northern rooms of the lodge seem to be simply enlargements of the pa.s.sageway. The northern opening is a window rather than a door as it is about 10 feet above the ground and therefore could be entered only by a ladder. The opening is cut in the back of a cove in the cliff, and is 6 feet from the northern end of the main room. At half its length it has been enlarged on both sides by the excavation of niches or coves about 4 feet deep but only 2 feet high. These coves could be used only for storage on a small scale.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 294.

Plan of cavate lodges, group _A_.]

In the southeastern corner of the main room there is another opening leading into a low-roofed storage cist, approximating 4 feet in diameter, and this cist was in turn connected with the middle one of the three rooms first described. This opening, at the time the room was examined, was so carefully sealed and plastered that it was scarcely perceptible.

A different arrangement of rooms is shown in plan in figure 294 and in section in figure 295. This group occurs at the point marked A on the map. The entrance to the main room was through a narrow pa.s.sage, 3 feet long, leading into the chamber from the face of the bluff, which at this point is vertical. The main room is oblong, measuring 17 feet one way and 10 the other. At the southern end there is a small cist and on the western side near the entrance there is another hardly a foot in diameter. North of the main room there is a small, roughly circular room with a diameter of about 6 feet. It is connected with the main room by a pa.s.sage about 2 feet long. On the floor of the main room there are two low ridges of clay, similar to those already described, which divide it into three sections of nearly equal size.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 295.

Sections of cavate lodges, group _A_.]