Preliminary report on a visit to the Navaho National Monument, Arizona — John Shaqi
Preliminary report on a visit to the Navaho National Monument, ArizonaFewkes, Jesse Walter
History
Preliminary report on a visit to the Navaho National Monument, Arizona
Fewkes, Jesse Walter
Arizona -- Antiquities; Cliff-dwellings -- Arizona; Navajo National Monument (Ariz.)
[24] No other rooms that could be called ceremonial were recognized in
cliff-house B, but the writer’s examination of the ruin was not very
thorough and their existence may have escaped him.
[25] Mr. Black informs me that it was in this ruin that he found the
beautiful woven belt now at El Tovar Hotel, Grand Canyon.
[26] Rooms are concealed by this talus, the walls of which project in
places out of the ground.
[27] Laguna creek is entered at this point on the right by a stream
bifurcating into the Cataract and East tributaries, which flow through
canyons of the same names. In or near East canyon are four large ruins:
Ladder House, Cradle House, Forest-glen House, and Pine-tree House. The
largest ruin in Cataract canyon is Kitsiel. The Navaho sometimes speak
of the East canyon as the Salt, or Alkaline, _bokho_.
[28] Another geological feature of the sites of the large
cliff-dwellings of the Navaho Monument is the almost constant presence
of a vertical cliff-wall below the cave floor, the talus rarely
extending to the base of the lowest rooms.
[29] According to Hopi legends, the Horn clans (animals with horns) are
kin to the Snake, and formerly lived with the Snake clans at Tokónabi.
Later they united with the Flute clans at Lengyanobi, and still later
joined the Snake clans at Walpi. Lengyanobi (“Pueblo of the Flute”) is
a large ruin north of the Hopi mesas.
[30] “Adobe bricks” with straw, according to Mr. W. B. Douglass, are
found at Inscription House near the end of the White mesa. The writer
has found adobe cubes in some of the walls of Cliff Palace, but these
contain no straw.
[31] Although circular kivas are found in several ruins in the Navaho
National Monument, as Kitsiel, Inscription House, Scaffold House, and
others, they were not seen in Betatakin, which has the rectangular
ceremonial room with side entrance above mentioned. Although such
rooms possess some of the features of kivas, it is perhaps better to
restrict that term to the circular chambers and adopt the word kihu to
designate the rectangular rooms above ground. The ceremonial chambers
of Betatakin suggest the Flute room at Walpi. This fact and the
discovery of a flute in one of the rooms make it appear that Betatakin
was inhabited by Flute clans, which, according to Hopi legends, lived
in this region.
[32] For the accompanying view of the ruin (pl. 1), from photographs
taken by Mr. William B. Douglass, the writer is indebted to the General
Land Office.
[33] The kivas appear to be circular; one of them has the large
banquette, like kiva M in Cliff Palace. No pilasters for supporting
roofs have yet been reported.
[34] The two ruins Kitsiel and Betatakin are those about which
extravagant statements as to size and character were made about two
years ago by newspapers and otherwise reliable magazines.
[35] Like all ruins in East canyon, Cradle House is situated in a small
side canyon on the left bank.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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