The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894-95, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 73-198Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona: Sixteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1894-95, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1897, pages 73-198
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Arizona -- Antiquities; Chelly, Canyon de (Ariz.); Cliff-dwellings -- Arizona; Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities
The house remains in the eastern cove are partly shown in plate XLIX,
which is from a photograph. The point of view is from the ledge in front
of the tower. The ruins rest on a ledge in the back of the cove formed
of debris well compacted and apparently consisting partly of sheep dung.
The rooms are small, sometimes three deep against the back of the cove,
and many of them could only have been used for storage. The principal
structure is the western kiva, with its chimney-like attachments. This
is described at length on pages 177, 179, 186, and 187. Adjoining it on
the east is another kiva, part of whose wall is still two stories high,
and clearly shown in the illustration. Some 50 or 60 feet to the east or
southeast there is another circular structure, which apparently had no
interior bench. The small semicircular structure shown on the plan and
in the illustration, which rests against and is roofed by the rock, is a
Navaho burial cist, and another of these cists, of large size, occurs
west of the principal kiva; but the ruin as a whole contains much less
evidence of Navaho work than those farther down the canyon.
Many of the walls are built entirely of small pieces of stone, not more
than 3 or 4 inches long by 2 inches wide and half an inch to an inch and
a half thick. This construction is especially noticeable in inner walls.
The joints are carefully plastered, evidently with the hand, but the mud
is seldom allowed to cover the stone. It appears to have been applied
externally, in pellets about the size of a walnut. The general thickness
of walls is about 15 inches, although on the intermediate ledge they are
over 2 feet, but some of the less important walls consist of a single
layer, 6 to 8 inches thick. Walls are sometimes seen here supported by
vertical timbers incorporated in them after the manner later described
at some length. Ends of logs project here and there from the debris on
the slope, but probably many of them are the debris of roofs.
The peculiar and anomalous features presented by the remains on the
intermediate ledge seem to require some explanation. This portion of the
ruin is not only different from the other portions, but different also
from anything else in the canyon, and the difference is not one of
degree only. Doubtless systematic excavation in the various parts of the
ruin would afford an explanation. In the absence of such work we can
only speculate on the problem.
The occurrence of two chimney-like shafts in connection with the
rectangular rooms west of the tower is significant. Nowhere else in the
canyons, except in the Casa Blanca ruin, do these structures occur, so
far as known, except in connection with circular kivas. As regards the
ruin named, it is almost certain that it was occupied in the historic
period, probably in the seventeenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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