OTOWI. The smaller section of Bandelier National Monument, lying some 15 miles from the headquarters area, takes its name from the Otowi ruin, the largest pueblo on the monument. Although not so impressive as the Tyuonyi ruin at first glance, the great spread and complexity of the rubble mounds surely dwarf all other ruined dwellings of the vicinity. Probably 450 ground-floor rooms were here, with an indeterminate number of upper-floor rooms—perhaps 600 rooms altogether is a reasonable estimate. The Otowi rooms have not been excavated to any great extent, but two burial mounds south of the building group have been investigated with spectacular results—over 150 interments were found in a space about 80 by 100 feet. With these burials was found a great variety of offerings to the dead, ranging from food bowls to bone awls and ceremonial pipes. Specimens of these handicrafts may be seen at the National Park Service museum at monument headquarters and at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe. TSANKAWI. The Otowi house-group occupies a site atop a low ridge walled in by the cliffsides of steep Pueblo Canyon. Its nearest neighbor, Tsankawi, is sited on a very different terrain: Tsankawi is very near to being a “sky-city” in the style of the modern Acoma in western New Mexico. Not as large as Otowi, this ruin has equal majesty by reason of its commanding position on top of a cliff-ringed island mesa overlooking a vast north-south sweep of the Rio Grande and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains beyond. The location and the ground plan suggest defense as a first consideration. Of masonry construction in a rough hollow square, Tsankawi would have presented a serious problem to enemy besiegers. On the other hand, a siege would have cut off the defenders from their water supply, far in the canyon below. There is, however, some evidence of a rain-catchment basin close outside the eastern walls, and excavation may in future confirm the existence of an ingenious water-storage system. The most memorable sight at Tsankawi lies along the trail that climbs from the end of the access road to the mesa-top. Here for 100 yards the path, crossing a bald slope of soft gray tuff, is worn down for almost 18 inches by the climbing and descending feet of thousands of Indian passersby. Granted that the rock is extremely porous and soft, it is nonetheless almost beyond the scope of imagination to conceive the vast traffic required to so entrench the path. Today, when you climb this trail, you cannot but visualize a procession of Indian farmers over several generations traveling to and from their fields, their sandaled feet scuffing each year a fractional inch deeper into the calendar of the rock. _Origins of the People_