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 52 shows a cluster of rooms in the little canyon called
Tseonitsosi. This is another Casa Blanca, or White House, and, oddly
enough, it resembles its namesake in De Chelly, not only in the coat of
whitewash applied to the front of the main room, but in having a
subordinate room to the left, over which the wash extends, and in the
character of the site it occupies. The principal part of the structure
was built in a cave, 18 or 20 feet from the ground, across the front of
which walls extended as in the other Casa Blanca, and, like that ruin,
there are also some ruins at the foot of the cliff, on the flat. Figure
53 is a ground plan. The resemblance to the other Casa Blanca, however,
goes no further. The ruin here illustrated represents a very small
settlement, hardly more than half a dozen rooms in all, and there is no
trace of a circular kiva, or other evidence of permanent habitation. It
is possible that the space between the edge of the floor of the cave
above and the whitened house back of it was occupied by some sort of
structure, but no evidence now remains which would warrant such a
hypothesis, except that the door of the white house is now about 4 feet
above the ground. The cave is only 40 feet long and a little over 10
feet deep, and there is not room on the floor for more than three or
four rooms, in addition to those shown on the plan. The room on the
right still preserves its roof intact, showing the typical pueblo roof
construction. It has a well-preserved doorway, and three other openings
may be seen in the main room.
[Illustration: Fig. 51--Plan of a cluster of rooms In Canyon del
Muerto.]
[Illustration: Fig. 52--White House ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon.]
Apparently some effort at ornamentation was made here. The whitewash was
not applied to the fronts of the two back rooms so as to cover all of
them, but in a broad belt, leaving the natural yellowish-gray color of
the plastering in a narrow band above and a broad band below it.
Moreover, the principal opening of the larger room was specially
treated; in the application of the whitewash a narrow border or frame of
the natural color was left surrounding it. The attempt to apply
decoration not utilitarian in character is rare among the ruins here. It
implies either a late period in the occupancy of this region, or an
occupancy of the site by a people who had practiced this method of
house-building longer or under more favorable conditions than the
others.
[Illustration: Fig. 53--Ground plan of a ruin in Tseonitsosi canyon.]
[Illustration: Fig. 54--Plan of rooms against a convex cliff.]
[Illustration: Fig. 55--Small ruin with curved wall.]
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