History of Colorado; Volume I, Part 9

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 954

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Stone ruins of pueblos were found in general on the top of isolated plateaus, Vol. I-5

HISTORY OF COLORADO

called in the Southwest from their Spanish names-mesas or tables. The de- pressions between these mesas have been worn down by the rains of centuries, which have eroded deep gorges called canyons, often extending many miles, showing on their sides alternating layers of rock of different colors and degrees of hardness. When softer layers of rock occur below the harder in the sides of these mesas, there is worn a cavern often fifty feet high and several hundred feet long.

The Mesa Verde, or Green Mesa, is so called from the cedar and pine trees which, growing upon it, impart to it a green color. The mesa is large, fifteen miles long and eight miles wide. Rising abruptly from the valley on the north side, its top slopes gradually southward to the high cliff bordering the valley of the Mancos on the south. Into this valley there opens a number of small high- walled canyons, through which occasionally, in times of rains, raging torrents of water flow into the Mancos. In the shelter of the sides of these small canyons occur some of the best preserved cliff dwellings in America.

In prehistoric times a large population of Indians, whom we call Cliff Dwell- ers, lived in these cavern dwellings. They raised small and scanty crops of corn and other grains on the mesa tops, hunted and fished in the streams below, and in other ways eked out their existence. The Cliff Dwellers left no written language other than various symbols, which were drawn upon the walls of their homes or carved into the surface of the rocks. However, scientists who have studied the Mesa Verde ruins have been enabled to assign to them a definite place in history and to learn much of the customs, habits, character and religion of the Cliff Dwellers, among whom there were twenty-three clans. Each clan, or social unit, as it were, had its "kiva," or men's room, which was exclusive property.

DISCOVERY OF RUINS

Baron Nordenskiöld thus describes in his book "The Cliff Dwellers of the Mesa Verde" (Stockholm, 1893), the discovery of the wonderful dwellings in this side canyon of the Mancos:

"The honor of discovery of these remarkable ruins belongs to Richard and Alfred Wetherill, of Mancos. The family own large herds of cattle which wander about on the Mesa Verde. The care of these herds often calls for long rides on the mesa and in its labyrinth of canyons. During these long excursions ruins, the one more magnificent than the other, have been discovered. The two largest were found by Richard Wetherill and Charley Mason one December day in 1888, as they were riding together through the pinyon wood on the mesa in search of a stray herd. They had penetrated through the dense scrub to the edge of a deep canyon. In the opposite cliff, sheltered by a huge, massive vault of rock, there lay before their astonished eyes a whole town, with towers and walls, rising out of a heap of ruins. This grand monument of bygone ages seemed to them well deserving of the name of Cliff Palace. Not far from this place, but in a different canyon, they discovered, on the same day, another very large cliff dwelling. To this they gave the name of Spruce Tree House, from a great spruce that jutted forth from the ruins.

"During the course of years Richard and Alfred Wetherill have explored

A VIEW NEAR THE "FORTIFIED ROCK" IN THE MeELMO DISTRICT, WHICH LIES IN THE FAR SOUTHWESTERN SECTION OF COLORADO

In each of the two caves in the central part of the view there is a ruined building, which had been constructed by Cliff Dwellers.

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the mesa and its canyons in all directions. They have thus gained a more thor- ough knowledge of its ruins than anyone. Together with their brothers, John, Clayton and Wynn, they have also carried out excavations, during which a num- ber of extremely interesting finds have been made."

THE DWELLING

In many cases the word dwelling is misleading, for most of the dwellings, or buildings, were in reality whole villages. Spruce Tree House, for instance, was undoubtedly a town of importance, harboring at least three hundred and fifty inhabitants.

The arrangement of houses in a cliff dwelling of the size of Cliff Palace, for example, is characteristic and intimately associated with the distribution of the social divisions of the inhabitants. As mentioned before, the population was com- posed of a number of units, possibly clans, each of which had its own social or- ganization more or less distinct from others, a condition that appears in the arrangement of rooms. The rooms occupied by a clan were not necessarily con- nected, although generally neighboring rooms were distinguished from one an- other by their uses. Thus, each clan had its men's room, which was ceremonially called the "kiva." Here the men of the clan practically lived, engaged in their oc- cupations. Each clan had also one or more rooms, which may be styled the living rooms, and other inclosures, for granaries or storage of corn. The corn was ground into meal in another room containing the metate set in a bin or stone box, and in some instances in fireplaces, although these were generally placed in the plazas or on the housetops. All these different rooms, taken together, constitute the houses that belonged to one clan.

The conviction that each kiva denotes a distinct social unit, as a clan or family, is supported by the general similarity in the masonry of the kiva walls and that of adjacent houses ascribed to the same clan. From the number of these rooms it would appear that there were at least twenty-three social units or clans in Cliff Palace. The kivas were the rooms where the men spent most of the time devoted to ceremonial meetings, councils and other gatherings. In the social conditions prevalent at Cliff Palace the religious fraternity was limited to the men of the clan.

Apparently there was no uniformity in the distribution of the kivas. As it was prescribed that these rooms should be subterranean, the greatest number were placed in front of the rectangular buildings, where it was easiest to exca- vate them. But when necessary these structures were built far back in the cave and inclosed by a double wall, the intervals between whose sections were filled with earth or rubble to raise it to the level of the kiva roof. In that way they were artificially made subterranean, as the ritual required.

The highest part of the Mesa Verde National Park is Park Point, 8,574 feet above sea level, while Point Lookout, the most prominent point on the Mesa Verde, has an elevation of 8,428 feet above sea level. The northern edge' of the mesa terminates in a precipitous bluff, averaging two thousand feet above the floor of the Montezuma Valley. The general slope of the mesa is to the south, so that a person on the northern rim has a view in all directions.

The park is placed under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the In-

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terior and he is represented in the actual administration of the park by a super- intendent, assisted by a limited number of park rangers who patrol the reser- vation.

The principal and most accessible ruins are the Spruce Tree House, Cliff Palace, Balcony House, Tunnel House and Sun Temple. Spruce Tree House is located in the head of Spruce Tree Cañon, a branch of the Navajo Cañon. It originally contained about 130 rooms, built of dressed stone laid in adobe mortar, with the outside tiers chinked with chips of rock and broken pottery. Cliff Palace is located about two miles east of Spruce Tree House, in a left branch of Cliff Cañon, and consists of a group of houses with ruins of 146 rooms, including twenty round kivas, or ceremonial rooms, and a taper- ing loopholed tower, forming a crescent of about one hundred yards from horn to horn, which is reputed to be one of the most famous works of prehistoric man in existence. Balcony House, a mile east of Cliff Palace, in Ruin Cañon, contains about twenty-five rooms, some of which are in almost perfect condition. Tunnel House, about two miles south of Spruce Tree House, contains about twenty rooms and two kivas connected by an elaborate system of underground passages and a burial ground of 5,000 square feet. In each of these villages is an elaborate system of fortification, with, in some cases, walls 2.3 feet thick and twenty feet high, watch towers thirty feet high, and blockhouses pierced with loopholes. The Sun Temple was discovered in the summer of 1915 and is located on the mesa opposite Cliff Palace.

SPRUCE TREE HOUSE

The total length of Spruce Tree House is 216 feet, its width at the widest part 89 feet. There were counted in the Spruce Tree House 114 rooms, the majority of which are secular and eight ceremonial chambers or kivas. Spruce Tree House in places was three stories high; the third-story rooms had no arti- ficial roof, but the wall of the cave served that purpose. Several rooms, the walls of which are now two stories high, formerly had a third story above the second, but their walls have now fallen, leaving as the only indication of their former union with the cave lines destitute of smoke on the top of the cavern. Of the 114 rooms, at least fourteen were uninhabited, being used as storage and mortuary chambers. If we eliminate these from the total number of rooms we have 100 inclosures which might have been dwellings. Allowing four inhabi- tants for each of these 100 rooms would give about four hundred persons as an aboriginal population of Spruce Tree House. But it is probable that this esti- mate should be reduced, as not all the 100 rooms were inhabited at the same time, there being evidence that several of them had occupants long after others were deserted. Approximately, Spruce Tree House had a population not far from three hundred and fifty people, or about one hundred more than that of Walpi, one of the best known Hopi pueblos.

CLIFF PALACE

Cliff Palace lies in an eastern spur of Cliff Cañon, under the roof of an enormous cave which arches fifty to one hundred feet above it. The floor of this

HISTORY OF COLORADO

cavern is elevated several hundred feet above the bottom of the canyon. The entrance faces the west, looking across the canyon to the opposite side, in full view of the promontory upon which stands the Sun Temple. The floor of the recess in which Cliff Palace is built is practically covered with buildings, some of which, especially those at each end, extend beyond the shelter of the cave roof. The total length of the Cliff Palace is approximately three hundred feet. The floor of the cave in which Cliff Palace was built had practically one level, determined no doubt by a layer of comparatively hard rock, which re- sisted erosion more successfully than the softer strata above it. The floor was strewn with great angular boulders that in the process of formation of the cave had fallen from the roof. These were too 'large to be moved by primitive man and must have presented to the ancient builders uninviting foundations upon which to erect their structures. The spaces between the rocks were better suited for their purposes. These were filled with smaller stones that could be re- moved, leaving cavities which could be utilized for the construction of subter- ranean rooms. The upper surfaces of the large rocks, even those which are angular, served as foundations for houses above ground and determined the levels of the plazas. From the bases of these rocks, which formed the outer edge of the level cave floor, a talus extended down the canyon side to the bottom. The rooms forming the front of the ancient village were constructed in this talus, and as their site was sloping they were necessarily situated at lower levels on terraces bounded by retaining walls which are marked features in this part of Cliff Palace. At least three different terraces, indicating as many levels, are recognized. These levels are indicated by the rows of kivas, or ceremonial rooms, which skirt the southern and middle sections of this ancient village.

An examination of the correct ground plan of Cliff Palace shows that the houses were arranged in a crescent, the northern extension of rooms corre- sponding roughly to one point. The curve of the village follows, generally speaking, that of the rear of the cave in which it was constructed. There is little regularity in the arrangement of the rooms, which, as a rule, are not crowded together; most of the subterranean chambers are situated on terraces in front of the secular rooms. There is one passageway that may be desig- nated as a street ; this is bordered by high walls. No open space of considerable size is destitute of a ceremonial chamber, and the largest contains five of these rooms. It is not possible to count the exact number of rooms that Cliff Palace formerly had, as many upper stories have fallen and a considerable number of terraced rooms along the front are indicated only by fragments of walls. Roughly speaking, two hundred is a fair estimate.

The Cliff Palace kivas, provided with pedestals or roof supports, furnish examples of some of the finest masonry in prehistoric buildings of our South- west. Every kiva of the first type has a ventilator, firehole and deflector. There were two types of ceremonial rooms, which might indicate a division of the ritual into two distinct parts performed by the summer and the winter people, re- spectively, a specialization still perpetuated among some modern Pueblos. Secu- lar rooms in Cliff Palace may be classified as living rooms, storage rooms, mill rooms, granaries, dark rooms, probably for sleeping, towers both round and square, and round rooms not towers.

A VIEW OF THE LEFT HAND PART OF THE RUINS OF THE CLIFF DWELLERS

"Spruce-tree House," situated in a recess in a wall of Cliff Canon, in the Mesa Verde District, in the far southwestern section of Colorado.

HISTORY OF COLORADO

THE SUN TEMPLE

The Sun Temple is the latest of the Mesa Verde ruins to be explored and re- claimed. This was discovered in the summer of 1915 and since then the work of excavating and repairing the Temple has been continued, under the direction of J. Walter Fewkes. Professor Fewkes describes the work as follows:

"At the close of a report on field work at Cliff Palace in 1909 I called atten- tion to a mound of stones on the point of the mesa directly across Cliff Cañon and suggested that it might conceal an ancient pueblo ruin. The majority of stones strewn over this mound showed pecking on their surfaces and other well- marked signs of having been worked artificially, indicating the character of the masonry in the walls of the ancient building buried beneath it. Enough soil had accumulated on the mound formed by these stones to allow the growth of red cedar and pinyon trees, the size of which indicated great age. A more important consideration was that it presented evidences that the buried building belonged to an unique type of ruin in the Mesa Verde, and gave promise of adding an important chapter to our knowledge of the prehistoric people who formerly made their home in the Mesa Verde National Park. These hopes were realized and the results of three months' work on this mound were more striking than had been expected. There was brought to light a type of ruin hitherto unknown in the park, and, as well expressed by a visitor, the building excavated shows the best masonry and is the most mysterious structure yet discovered in a region rich in so many prehistoric ruins. Although at first there was some doubt as to. the use of the building, it was early recognized that it was not constructed for habitation, and it is now believed that it was intended for the performance of rites and ceremonies; the first of its type yet recognized in the Southwest.

"The ruin was purposely constructed in a commanding situation in the neigh- borhood of large inhabited cliff houses. It sets somewhat back from the edge of the canyon, but near enough to present a marked object from all sides, especially in the neighboring mesas. It must have presented an imposing appearance rising on top of a point high above inaccessible, perpendicular cliffs. The mound is situated on a spur of the picturesque Chapin Mesa separating two deep canyons. From it one can look southward down Soda Cañon to the Mancos River, on the banks of which a group of cottonwood trees can be seen on a clear day. This superb view is rivaled by one of almost equal beauty, looking east across Cliff Cañon into the cave in which is situated Cliff Palace. In a cave of the precipice below Sun Temple there is a solitary, almost inaccessible cliff house, and in a cavern not far up the canyon is Oak Tree (Willow) House, and the mysterious dance plaza, called Painted House. Other cliff dwellings are visible from the ruin, which is practically situated near the central point of a considerable pre- historic population. No better place could have been chosen for a religious building in which the inhabitants of many cliff dwellings could gather and to- gether perform their great ceremonial dramas.

"The ground plan has been well compared to the letter D. The building is formed of two sections, the larger of which, taken separately is also D-shaped and may be called the original building, while the smaller, forming the west end, is of later (?) construction. The foundation walls of the building, throughout most of their length, rest on the solid rock of the cliff. There are about one

HISTORY OF COLORADO

thousand feet of walls in the whole building and its inclosed kivas; it has 28,000 cubic feet, or 1,292 perches, of stone masonry in its present condition, and had not far from 1,900 perches before the walls began to crumble. The width of the ruin at its widest portion is sixty-four feet. The walls average four feet in thickness and are composed of a central core made of rubble and adobe, with two facings made of well-dressed rock, which, however, were not tied to the core and present a serious architectural defect.

"The rooms in this building vary in form and type, one kind being circular, the other rectangular. The circular rooms are identified as kivas or sacred rooms; the purpose of the rectangular room is unknown. * * * We find in this ruin numerous examples of an early attempt to embellish the walls of a building by geometrical figures cut in their surfaces. Many cliff houses are known to have their walls painted, but designs sculptured on component stones are rare. Several stones with incised figures were set in the walls, but the ma- jority were found on rocks that had fallen from the top of the walls. No uni- formity in their position in the rooms was noticeable, and the figures were not continuous enough to form a band about the room. *

* * There are two circular rooms or kivas of about equal size in the original building and a third occupied the center of the Annex. There are twenty-three other rooms, four- teen of which are in the original building.

"One of the most remarkable structures built on the outside walls of the building is near the southwest corner of the Annex. This corner stands on a solid rock that projects one and a half or two feet above the otherwise level foun- dation of the wall. The cornerstone or foundation of the corner wall protrudes two feet beyond the building, and on its upper surface is a fossil with central depressed zone with sharp radiating ridges. The figure is not artificial, but is possibly helped out by artificial means. A natural object with these characters would greatly affect a primitive mind, and no doubt was regarded with more or less reverence by the builders. At all events they have partially inclosed this emblem with walls in such a way as to inclose the figure on three sides, leaving the inclosure open on the fourth or west side. There can be no doubt that the walled inclosure was a shrine, and the figure in it may be a key to the purpose of the building. The shape of the figure on the rock suggests a symbol of the sun, and if this suggestion be correct there can hardly be a doubt that solar rites were performed about it long before the Sun Temple was built."

Professor Fewkes estimates the antiquity of the Sun Temple to be about 1300 A.D. "From absence of data the relative age of Sun Temple and Cliff Pal- ace is equally obscure, but it is my firm conviction that Sun Temple is the younger, mainly because it showed unmistakable evidences of a higher socio- logical condition of the builders ; but here we again enter a realm of speculation which merely adds to the mystery of the building."

The Mesa Verde ruins are now readily accessible to tourists. The Govern- ment has just completed a thirty-two mile automobile road from the Town of Mancos. Much of the increased interest shown in the cliff dwellings by students and visitors alike is due to the reclamation efforts of Prof. J. Walter Fewkes, of the Bureau of Ethnology. Under his direction the ruins have been cleared of debris, reconstructed so far as practicable and described in more comprehensive language than has ever been used before. The greater part of the above de-

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scriptions are taken bodily from his reports to the Department of the Interior and published by the latter for the benefit of those interested. Future years will bring to light many other cliff dwellings and Sun temples which are known to exist under the mounds in the vicinity; governmental support and investigation will eventually add much to the knowledge we have of the primitive peoples of southwestern Colorado.

ORIGIN OF THE CLIFF DWELLERS

The exact origin of the Cliff Dwellers is in doubt, although it is generally supposed that they were descendants of a race which had disappeared as such, just as the Cliff Dwellers themselves were fated to do. Toltecs these ancient peoples were called; then again, the Cliff Dwellers were supposed to have de- scended from the Aztecs. They might have descended from the Mound Build- ers or, in fact, from one of the many other tribes which occupied the south- western country ages ago. There is no doubt today, if the racial and ethnological similarities may be considered, that there is a distinct relationship between the Cliff Dwellers and the modern Pueblo Indian. Their ceremonies seem to be similar and their houses are greatly alike. The Pueblo Indian may be the remnant of the Cliff Dweller race, which was either driven out of the country now in southwestern Colorado or migrated when food became unobtainable. As stated in a preceding paragraph, future investigations may disclose the great riddle of these dwellers of the cliffs, of whose life no written record or tradition exists.

THE AMERICAN INDIAN

The phrase "American Indian" has been criticized by a number of writers. Columbus gave the red men the name of "Indios," a Spanish word, believing the country he discovered a part of India. This led to the adoption of the word Indian, or its equivalent, in practically all the principal languages. Then came the classification of the Indian as we know him as the American Indian, a name that has remained despite the efforts to abolish the use of the title. The name "Amerind" enjoyed a short prestige as a compromise expression. However, for our purposes, the name "Indian," simple and self-explanatory, is sufficient.

The history of Colorado is chiefly concerned with the Indians who came under the classification of Shoshonean and Siouan stocks. These tribes cov- ered all of what is now the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Texas, Oregon, Ne- vada, Montana, California, Idaho and New Mexico when the first white settle- ments were made in this state. In what is now Colorado the tribal divisions comprised the Utes, Arapahoes, Cheyennes and Kiowas. The Sioux warred continually upon the Cheyennes and forced them into other parts of the country, while, on the other hand, the Utes were bitter enemies of both the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. The Potawatomi, Pawnee, Arkansas, Choctaw, Creek, Chero- kee, Padouca, Sac, Kickapoo, Osage, Delaware, Otoe, Missouri and Omaha, with other tribes, also occupied land now in Colorado at different times, but not to the extent of the Utes and Arapahoes.

The Shoshonean Indians were in greater numbers west of the Missouri

VIEW OF THE "CLIFF PALACE, " WHICH IS SITUATED IN A BRANCH OF CLIFF CANON, AS IT APPEARED IN 1899

The building is about 425 feet in length and in the central part is about 80 feet in depth.

VIEW OF CLIFF DWELLERS' TOWER-LIKE STRUCTURES THAT STAND AT THE VERGE OF A CANON PRECIPICE AND OVERLOOK A MESA BACKGROUND, IN THAT PART OF MESA VERDE DISTRICT WHICH LIES IN THE FAR SOUTH- WESTERN SECTION OF COLORADO

HISTORY OF COLORADO

River when explorations were first made to the Rockies and foothills. The seven tribes of the Utes camped in the valleys and on the mountains of Colo- rado, and along the Platte and Arkansas rivers. East of the Front Range and north of the Arkansas were the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, while south of the Arkansas were the Kiowas and Comanches. The Navajoes and Apaches, of the Athabascan group, later came to the Rockies. It is said that the Spaniards found Navajoes along the Rio San Juan in the Sixteenth Century, at which time they were hostile to the Utes.

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History of Colorado; Volume I, Part 9

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke Number of Pages: 954

Author: Stone, Wilbur Fiske, 1833-1920, ed
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Chicago, S. J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 954