Chapter II: Part 2

The structure of the ruins of the mushroom rock type is not radically different from that of the towers above described, they being exceptional only in their unusual sites. They occur on top of eroded pillars of rock, often enlarged on top, reminding one of mushrooms, like the so-called Snake rock at Walpi. They were once extensions or spurs of the mesa but are now rock pillars cut off by erosion so that they stand out isolated from the rim of the canyon. On account of the difficulty in reaching their tops, the ground plan of many could not be observed, but with a glass it was seen that as a rule they conform to the shape of the rim of the rock on which they stand. Considering the unusual sites of these inaccessible buildings, the question naturally arises, How could the ancient dwellers enter these rooms? Had they ladders or ropes, or were footholes cut in the side of the cliff to aid them? If the theory of footholes be correct we may suppose that these have been worn away, for no trace of them could be found.

A geological question might likewise suggest itself to anyone seeing the evidences of erosion between the cliffs and pinnacles. Has the gap between the latter and the edge of the plateaux been ploughed out by the water since the building on the former were constructed? Although the cliffs show that the amount of the erosion has been enormous, it must be borne in mind that the prevailing rock is soft sandstone, the wearing away of which would not necessarily require a great period of time. It is not probable that these pinnacles have been separated by erosion from the cliff since man constructed the walls upon them, but this question involves the knowledge of a geological expert.

To the same group of ruins as the mushroom type belongs one from a wholly different locality, shown in plate 12, _a_, a photograph of which was given the author by Mr. Chubbock. In this case the ruin is not built on top of a rock pinnacle, in the shape of an inverted cone, but in the horizontal fissure or constriction worn out under the harder stratum above it. The building in this cleft is in fact a kind of cliff house in which the front wall extends from top to bottom of the crevice, the rooms occupying a recess back of this wall. A somewhat similar form of habitation found in the side of a cliff has been described by the author.[19] It was discovered in the Verde Valley, Arizona, near Jordan’s ranch, about 6 miles from Jerome, Arizona. In his description it is classified as a “ledge house,” a type where the opening into the cave is completely walled up. Unlike a true cliff dwelling the rooms occupy the whole of a natural cave the top of which is its roof. It is not possible to determine from the illustration here shown whether or not the recess has been enlarged by artificial means, and as the author has not visited the ruin he has no idea of the arrangement of rooms.

INVERTED CONE RUIN

The best example of the mushroom type of ruin, shown in the accompanying figure (fig. 15) is about 6 miles up the canyon from Taylor’s ranch on the right hand side of Hill Canyon. It is clearly visible from the road which follows the stream and has a wide outlook up and down the valley. Although the top of the rock on which this ruin stands would at first sight appear to be inaccessible, Mr. Owen, by means of a log, surmounted it and reported that its surface is flat and that the walls thereon are about 20 feet long and five feet wide, enclosing a roughly oval chamber, as their outline follows the rim of the top of the rock. These walls, when seen from the road with a good glass, appear as low ridges constructed of indifferent masonry.

TWIN TOWERS

Twin pinnacles, shown in figure 16, were observed from the road about 3 miles up the canyon from Taylor’s ranch. Fragments of walls existed on top of both of these pinnacles, but as it was impossible to reach them on account of the erosion at their bases the form and condition of the walls were impossible to determine. Like the tower last mentioned, the view from their tops stretches several miles in both directions up and down the canyon.

RUIN ON LEANING PINNACLE

The author’s limited visit to this region made it impossible to record all the various shapes of eroded pinnacles bearing buildings found in Hill Canyon, but one of the most remarkable of these foundations was observed to lean very perceptibly to one side (pl. 13) so that one side of the ruin barely falls within the line of stable equilibrium. The top of this leaning pinnacle was inaccessible, the height being about 50 feet from the base, which rose from a narrow ridge over 200 feet above the plain. The author’s idea of the ground plan and character of the masonry in this ruin is limited to what could be seen from the road, but its general appearance from that distance is the same as the preceding ruin.

In this account the author has mentioned a few of the more prominent mushroom rock ruins, confining himself to those which can be observed in a hurried visit to the canyon. It is undoubtedly true, as reported by several cowboys, that the side canyons, difficult of access, concealed many others which a longer visit would bring to light. The characteristics of the ruin crowned pinnacles, or leaning buttresses of rock in Hill Canyon are shown in plate 13.

CONCLUSIONS

As artifacts were not found in or near the buildings on the Hill Canyon cliffs, and as the ruins show no evidence of former habitation, it is evident that they were not dwellings. Their use and the kinship of the people who built them can be judged only by what is left of their walls and the character of their masonry. As has been pointed out, the most prominent of these ruins are circular rooms or towers, arranged in clusters, for an interpretation of which we may look to similar architectural forms found elsewhere in the Southwest.

Their commanding position suggests that these towers were constructed for lookouts and for defense, but the questions might very pertinently be asked, Why should either of these uses necessitate three or four almost identical buildings grouped together, when one would be sufficient? Why are some of them in places where there is no broad outlook?

The massive character of the walls suggests a fortification, but why if defense were the only explanation of their use would not one large building be preferable to many, especially as it would be more easily constructed. It might be urged that they were granaries; but if so, why were they placed in such a conspicuous situation?

In searching for an explanation for the construction of these buildings, an examination was made of aboriginal towers in the valley of the San Juan and its tributaries, especially the Yellow Jacket Canyon and those tributaries entering it on the northern side. In the Mesa Verde National Park the author has also discovered several towers which are in a comparatively good state of preservation. Some of these are situated on high cliffs, others stand in valleys hidden by dense forests of cedar.

Towers are, roughly speaking, scattered sporadically in numbers over a wide extent of country, bounded on the east by Dolores River and on the south by the Mancos River and the San Juan. They extend as far west as Montezuma Creek, following it up north as far as exploration has gone and occurring as far south as Zuñi. Rarely, if ever, however, do we find towers in the dry, sandy, wastes south of the San Juan, and they are unrepresented in the great ruins of the Chaco Canyon. Although there seemed to be certain minor differences in the construction of towers found at different places in this area of distribution, all are identical in essential features.

The towers of Hill Canyon bear a close likeness to those in the region mentioned, except that their masonry is poorer and their walls are more dilapidated. This can be ascribed in part to the material out of which they are built, for whereas the stone in the southern part of the area is soft and easily worked, that in the Hill Canyon region is hard but can readily be split into slabs which did not require much manipulation to bring them into desired shapes for use. The tall and better built towers of the San Juan (pl. 14, _a_) and its tributaries are sometimes single rooms without connections with other buildings, but are more often surrounded at their bases by rooms not unlike those of pueblo ruins. Thus at Cannon Ball ruin the towers rise from the midst of secular rooms and the same is true of the tower in Cliff Palace and elsewhere. This leads to the supposition that these buildings were constructed for some purpose other than as lookouts: they bear all the outward appearance of sacred rooms called kivas of pueblos and cliff dwellers. If we accept this explanation[20] that the McElmo towers are round kivas, as suggested by Holmes, Morgan, and others we can explain why several are united in a cluster, for it would seem that each room in such a cluster belonged to a family or clan. The use of these towers as here suggested can not, however, be proven until excavations of them are made and the signification of the banquette constantly found annexed to their inner wall is determined.

Several structural remains in Ruin Canyon (pl. 14, _b_), a tributary of the Yellow Jacket, especially those at the head of the South Fork, give a good idea of the relation of the tower to surrounding rooms. Here we find towers constructed of fine, well preserved, masonry rising to almost their original height, but crowded into the midst of rectangular rooms imparting to the whole ruin a compact rectangular form. Several towers in this canyon are without surrounding rooms, others have rectangular, square or D-shaped ground plans, but the author studied none with two or three concentric surrounding walls.

The form of one of the largest ruins in Ruin Canyon situated near the fork of the canyon, closely resembles Far View House, in the Mesa Verde National Park. It has a central tower around which are rooms with straight walls, the intervals between which and the circular wall of the tower having a roughly triangular shape. While there is but one tower in this ruin, its similarity in form and position to the large central kiva of Far View House indicates that towers in the McElmo are practically ceremonial rooms, as has been long suspected.

This identity in form of tower and round kiva and the relative abundance of both in the San Juan drainage, leads the author to believe that one was derived from the other, in that district, and spread from it southward and westward until, very much modified, it reached the periphery of the pueblo area. It is believed that, in the earliest time, the isolated tower was constructed for ceremonial purposes and that rooms for habitations were dugouts or other structures architecturally different from it. Later, domiciles were constructed around the base of these towers until they encircled them in a compact mass of rooms. The tower then lost its apparent height, but morphologically retained its form. As this circular type of kiva spread into the pueblo area in course of time it was again constructed independently of the domiciles and the relative numbers diminished until, as in some of the pueblos of the Rio Grande, there survive only one or two kivas for each village, but these are no longer embedded in habitations as in the more advanced archaic conditions.

The tower kiva may be regarded as the nucleus of the clan, or the building erected for ceremonies of that clan, the earliest and best constructed stone structures in the region where the pueblo originated. Where there were several clans there were several towers; when one clan, a single tower. In course of time rooms for habitation or possibly for other purposes, clustered about these towers; these units consolidated with rooms and kivas of another type forming a composite pueblo. In this form we find the towers rising above a mass of secular rooms. The archaic form of ceremonial room or tower survived in Cliff Palace and other Mesa Verde ruins.[21]

Several circular kivas and towers seen by the author have one or more incised stones, bearing a coiled figure resembling a serpent. One of the best of these has also peripheral lines like conventional symbols of feathers. An obscure legend of the Hopi recounts that the ancestral kivas of the Snake clan, when it lived at Tokonabi, or along the San Juan were circular in form. While at present only a suggestion, it is not improbable that towers and round kivas may have been associated with Snake ceremonials, especially as this cult is known to have survived among Keresan pueblos like Sia and Acoma. The Snake clan of the Hopi according to traditions came from the north or the region of circular kivas.

From their similarity in external shape and distribution, circular ruins and round towers have been regarded as in some way connected. It by no means follows that rooms inside their external walls were identical in use. For instance, the so-called Great Tower on the cliffs overlooking the San Juan, described and figured by Prof. Holmes, is said by him to measure 140 feet in diameter, and to have double walls connected by partitions, forming a series of encircling rooms. This ruin may be classified not as a tower but a circular ruin, and the same may be said of the so-called Triple-wall Tower, rising on the border of rectangular rooms, situated at the mouth of the McElmo. The dimensions of this so-called tower are reported to be “almost” the same as the Great Tower. The author regards these as examples of an architectural type related to towers, from which it is distinguished not only by size, but also, especially, by the arrangement of rooms on their peripheries. The internal structure of the tower type is little known, but in none of these buildings has the author detected peripheral rooms separated by radial partitions, although one of these radial partitions is found in kiva A of Sun Temple. The original building of the last mentioned ruin, although D-shaped, has a morphological similarity in the arrangement of peripheral rooms to the “Great Tower” of the San Juan, or that on the alluvial flat in the Mancos, and the “Triple-wall Tower” room of the McElmo, save that the so-called innermost of the triple walls is replaced in Sun Temple by two circular walls, side by side, forming kivas B and C.

The tower, with annexed rectangular rooms, like its homologue, the circular kiva with similar adjacent chambers surrounding it, is practically the “unit type,” a stage of pueblo development pointed out by Doctor Prudden,[22] who does not make as much as would the author of the intra-mural condition of the kiva, or its compact union with domiciliary rooms. Far View House on the Mesa Verde is a good example of this union of form, characteristic of the “unit type” or compact pueblo with embedded circular kivas, one of which is central, probably the first constructed, and of large size. Such compact pueblos are numerous on the Mesa Verde, judging from central depressions in mounds, and characteristic of the San Juan, at least of its northern tributaries. The previous stage in pueblo development is that in which the sanctuary or tower (kiva) and habitation are distinct. The extra-mural circular kiva,[23] or circular room separated from the house masses either in courts, as in Rectangular and Round villages, or situated outside the same as in “Line villages,” like Walpi, or pyramidal forms, is like Zuñi or Taos and more modern pueblos. This modification is widely distributed in ruins south of the San Juan, still persisting in several modern pueblos.

The above observations have an important bearing on the author’s differentiation of the village Indians of the Southwest, into two groups, which are culturally distinct and widely distributed geographically. The western group originated in the Gila Valley, and extending across Arizona spread northward making its influence felt as far as the Hopi villages; the eastern culture was born in Colorado and Utah and extended to the south along a parallel zone. The former sprang into being in low, level, cactus plains; while the latter was born in lofty mountains and deep canyons filled with caves. Each reflects in its architecture the characteristic environment of the locality of its origin. As they spread from their homes and at last came together each modified the other by acculturation. The expansion of these two nuclei of culture, and the products of their contact is the prehistoric, unwritten, evolution of primitive people in the Southwest upon which documentary accounts throw no light, and the function of archeology is to read this history through the remains left by this prehistoric people, as interpreted by surviving folklore, ceremonials, legends, and artifacts. Both types of culture reached their highest development before the arrival of the white man; and the advent of the European found both on the decline. The localities where both types originated and reached their highest development were either no longer inhabited or occupied by descendants with modified architectural ideas. Some of the survivors lived in houses of much ruder construction than the cliff dwellings or pueblos of their ancestors. The habitations of others were scattered rude, mud huts. In short the cliff dwellers of the Mesa Verde and the prehistoric inhabitants of the Gila compounds left survivors possessed of inferior skill. Both architecture and ceramic art had declined before the advent of white men.

TEBUNGKI FIRE HOUSE, ARIZONA.]

CLIFF DWELLINGS IN CHIN LEE CANYON, ARIZONA.

a, b, Ruin A.
c, Ruin B.

(Photographs by G. H. Hoater.)]

SITES OF RUINS NEAR GALLUP, NEW MEXICO.

a, Zuñi Hill Ruin.

b, Black Diamond Ranch Ruin.

c, Kiva of Zuñi Hill Ruin.]

KIN-A-A, CROWN POINT, NEW MEXICO.

a, b, From west.

c, Showing mounds near Kiva.]

KIN-A-A.

a, Inner wall of second story of Kiva.

b, Outer wall of Kiva.]

CROWN POINT, RUIN B.

a, From east.

b, From north.]

HILL CANYON UTAH.

a, Ruins A and B.

b, View up the canyon.

(Photographs by T. G. Lemmon.)]

RUINS NEAR TAYLOR’S LOWER RANCH, HILL CANYON, UTAH.

a, Ruin A.

b, Ruin B.

(Photographs by T. G. Lemmon.)]

LONG MESA, HILL CANYON, UTAH.

a, From north.

b, From south.

(Photographs by T. G. Lemmon.)]

EIGHT MILE RUIN, HILL CANYON, UTAH.

a, From south.

b, From west.

(Photographs by T. G. Lemmon.)]

a, Storage room, Hemlock Canyon, New Mexico.

b, Mushroom Rock without ruin on top, McElmo Canyon, Utah.]

a, Ledge House in cleft of mushroom rock.

(Photograph by Chubbock.)

b, Tower in cedars near Sprucetree House, Mesa Verde National Park.

(Photograph by T. G. Lemmon.)]

RUIN ON ROCK PINNACLE, HILL CANYON.]

RUINS IN SOUTHFORK, RUIN CANYON, UTAH.

a, Twin Towers.

b, Towers and buildings.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, Part 2.

[2] Called by the Navaho, Beshbito, Piped Water; from a metallic pipe at the spring.

[3] 8th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnology, 1886–’87 (1901).

[4] An able discussion of the pueblo problems is found in the excellent compilation of Fritz Krause, Die Pueblo-Indianer, Eine historish-ethnographische Studie. Nova Acta Kaiserl. Leop. Carol. Deutschen Akademie der Naturforschern. Vol. 87, No. 1, 1907.

[5] The specialized symbolism so elaborately shown on Sikyatki pottery is regarded as a local development and for that reason can not be expected elsewhere even in the ancestral homes of the clans whose later members lived at Hopi.

[6] The Prehistoric Ruins of the San Juan Watershed in Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Amer. Anthropologist, N. S. Vol. 5, p. 280.

[7] This ruin has been added to the National Monument known as the Chaco group.

The name Kin-a-a seems to have been applied by the Navaho to at least two ruins. This particular Kin-a-a is possibly the ruin described by Chas. F. Lummis to which Bandelier refers.

[8] A Prehistoric Mesa Verde Pueblo and its People, Smithsonian Report for 1916.

[9] At certain times in Hopi ceremonies a thin layer of sand is sprinkled over the kiva roof, and on this sand are drawn in meal four rain-cloud figures, around which are performed certain secret rites.

[10] A two or three storied kiva like that of the Crown Point ruin is mentioned by Jackson in his description of Chettro Kettle ruin of the Chaco group, and is one of those features possibly existing in the tower kivas which are now extinct.

[11] Although the author has observed several towers with fallen rock about their bases, he has not been able to trace three concentric walls with connecting partitions.

[12] The circular kivas of the two ruins near Crown Point are enclosed by four standing walls forming sides of a rectangle, a feature they share with some of these chambers in the Chaco and San Juan region. The intention of the builders was to secure the prescribed subterranean feature by construction of a rectangular building about the circular room rather than by depression below the level of the site. This type is now extinct, but belongs to the most advanced stage of pueblo architecture before its decline.

[13] The Navaho are not a pottery making people, but often use bowls and vases they find in prehistoric ruins.

[14] Although prehistoric, the author regards all the Chaco Canyon group of ruins as later in construction than those of the Mesa Verde and San Juan, with which they are morphologically connected.

[15] 4th Ann. Rep. of the Director of the Bur. Amer. Ethnol.; also 22d Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 124, 125.

[16] This account is taken from a report of an Exploring Expedition from Santa Fé, New Mexico, in 1859, under command of Capt. Macomb; published in 1876 by the Engineers Department, U. S. A.

[17] Prehistoric Man in Utah. The Archæologist, Nov., 1894, pp. 335–342.

[18] We have in Hill Canyon ruins a good illustration of an all but universal custom, among prehistoric people, of dual types of rooms, one ceremonial, the other domiciliary, each constructed on different architectural lines.

[19] 28th Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 198, 199.

[20] A complete discussion of these prehistoric towers would lead to a morphological comparison with the Chulpas of Peru, the Nauregs of Sardinia, Irish and other similar religious structures.

[21] A more extended discussion of towers is reserved for a monograph, now in preparation, on “Prehistoric Towers of the Southwest.” The author has made several new observations on these structures some of which differ considerably from those of his predecessors.

Morgan, “Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines” (Contr. to Amer. Ethnol., Vol. IV), has pointed out, page 191, that the round tower at the base of Ute Mountain must have been entered through the roof, as no lateral doorways were visible, and Montgomery’s observations on towers in Nine Mile Canyon point the same way. These facts tell in favor of the theory that towers and kivas are morphologically identical, as Morgan indicates. An absence of pilasters on the inner walls of towers indicates that the roof was not vaulted, as in most Mesa Verde cliff dwellings and in the pueblo, Far View House, of the Mummy Lake group. Towers belong to what I have designated the second type of kivas, or those with flat roofs, and are less abundant in the San Juan area.

[22] _Op. cit._, also, The Circular Kiva of Small Ruins in the San Juan Watershed. Amer. Anthr. Jan.–March, 1914.

[23] The intra-rectangular kivas of such pueblos as Zuñi are comparatively modern, but their position is explained in a very different way from that of the intra-mural circular kivas characteristic of the ruins of the San Juan.

Transcriber’s Notes:

- Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
- Blank pages have been removed.
- Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.