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
Figure 43 is the plan of a ruin located on a more open site. Only a few
walls now remain, but there is no doubt that at one time more of the
site was covered than now appears. There are remains of two, and perhaps
of three, circular kivas.
[Illustration: Fig. 44--Plan of a ruin with curved inclosing wall.]
Figure 44 shows a ruin in which the plan is somewhat more elaborated.
There are remains of several well-defined rooms, and two kivas are still
fairly well preserved. The ledge is narrow and the rooms are stretched
along it, with kivas at either end. That on the east was benched nearly
all around its interior, and the outside inclosing wall, on the east,
apparently follows the curve. An example in which this feature occurs
has been mentioned above (page 138). It is very rare, but in this case
the evidence is clearer than in the one previously described. The
western kiva, somewhat smaller than the other, was also benched, and had
an exterior shaft, like those mentioned above and later described at
length.
[Illustration: Fig. 45--Ground plan of ruin No. 34.]
Figure 45 is a plan of a small ruin of the same type, which occurs in
the middle region of De Chelly. It occupies the site marked 34 on the
map, and is situated in a niche in a deep cove, where the outlook is
almost completely obscured by a large sand dune in front of it. It
comprised one circular kiva and four rectangular rooms, but, contrary to
the usual result, the latter are fairly well preserved, while the former
is almost completely obliterated. This may be due to the use of the
rectangular rooms as sites for Navaho burial cists, of which there are
no fewer than six here, and possibly the kiva walls furnished the
necessary building material for the construction of the cists. The old
masonry is of good quality, the outside wall being formed of selected
stones of medium size, well laid and carefully chinked. Most of the
walls were plastered inside. In a cleft in the rock to the right of this
ruin there is a kind of cave, with foot-holes leading up the rock to it,
and quite difficult of access. It formerly may have been used for
storage, but at present contains only some remains of Navaho burials.
IV--CLIFF OUTLOOKS OR FARMING SHELTERS
Ruins comprised in the class of cliff outlooks, or farming shelters, are
by far the most numerous in the canyon. They were located on various
kinds of sites, but always with reference to some area of cultivable
land which they overlooked, and seldom, if ever, was the site selected
under the influence of the defensive motive. It is not to be understood
that such motive was wholly absent; it may have been present in some
cases, but the dominating motive was always convenience to some adjacent
area of cultivable land.
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