Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 179-262
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities; Verde River Valley (Ariz.) -- Antiquities
[Footnote 5: Tenth Ann Rep. U.S. Geol. Survey, 1876, pp. 288-391.]
[Illustration: 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 XXX] 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 pass, 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 associated ruins
on the mesa top above, and in both instances these associated 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 associated 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:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account