Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744Fewkes, Jesse Walter
History
Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895: Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1895-1896, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1898, pages 519-744
The front of _C_ is curved like that of inclosure _B_, and is much
broken near the foundations, where there is a passageway. There is a
small hole on each side of a middle line, as in _B_, situated at about
the same level as the floor, indicating the former position of a beam.
Within the ruin there is a well-made partition separating inclosures
_B_ and _C_.
The size of room _D_ is much less than that of _B_ or _C_, but, with
the exception of a section at the left, the front wall has fallen. The
part which remains upright, however, stands like a pinnacle,
unconnected with the face of the cliff or with the second-story wall
of inclosure _C_. It is about 20 feet in height, and possibly its
altitude appears greater than it really is from the fact that its
foundations rest upon a bowlder nearly six feet high (plate CX).
The foundations of rooms _E_ and _F_ (plate C) are built on a lower
level than those of _B_ and _C_ or _D_, and their front walls, which
are really low, are helped out by similar bowlders, which serve as
foundations. The indications are that both these inclosures were
originally one story in height, forming a wing to the central section
of the ruin, which had an additional tier of rooms. There is an
entrance to _F_ at the extreme left, and the whole room was lower than
the floor of the lower stories of _B_, _C_, and _D_.
The most conspicuous pictograph on the cliff above Ruin I of Palatki,
is a circular white figure, seen in the accompanying illustration.
This pictograph is situated directly above the first room on the
right, _A_, and was apparently made with chalk, so elevated that at
present it is far above the reach of a person standing on any of the
walls. From its general character I am led to believe that it was made
by the Apache and not by the builders of the pueblo.
There were no names of white visitors anywhere on the walls of
Palatki, which, so far as it goes, affords substantial support of my
belief that we were the first white men to visit this ruin. While it
can not be positively asserted that we were the original discoverers
of this interesting building, there is no doubt that I was the first
to describe it and to call attention to its highly characteristic
architectural plan.
The walls of Palatki are not so massive as those of the neighboring
Honanki, and the number of rooms in both ruins which form Palatki is
much smaller. Each of these components probably housed not more than a
few families, while several phratries could readily be accommodated in
Honanki.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCIX
PALATKI (RUIN I)]
The second Palatki ruin is well preserved, and as a rule the rooms,
especially those in front, have suffered more from vandalism and from
the elements than have those of Ruin I. The arrangement of the rooms
is somewhat different from that of the more exposed eastern ruin, to
which it undoubtedly formerly belonged.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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