MANUAL
FOR DRIVERS AND GUIDES
DESCRIPTIVE OF
THE INDIAN WATCHTOWER
AT DESERT VIEW
AND ITS
RELATION, ARCHITECTURALLY, TO
THE PREHISTORIC RUINS OF THE SOUTHWEST
FRED HARVEY
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK
ARIZONA
1933
1
Grand Canyon Transportation Department
Dear boys: With many on the prehistoric ruins of the Southwest you are all familiar. You have
picked up arrowheads and pottery shards washed out from apparently meaningless piles
of weathered rocks not only from the close vicinity of Desert View but as far away as you
can see from the top of our Tower – south and west; and some of you even as far east as
Cedar Mountain and north to Comanche Point. You have traveled to the cliff dwellings
at Betatakin and Keet Seel and brought back the story of their wonders; you have nosed
around the ruins of Wupatki and Walnut Canyon, and climbed the sheer ladders to
Montezuma Castle; - Mesa Verde is not unknown to you, and one at least of you has
broken a trail to Hovenweep.
So you see, you know first hand to begin with, a lot about Indian ruins in general, and
there isn’t any reason to go into that phase of the subject in detail. What you want is
something to give you the relationship (if there is any!) between your Indian Watchtower
at Desert View and the real ruins you know about already, and the ones you have never
seen.
This “MANUAL” you have brought upon yourselves by asking questions about this and
that and the other thing; different ones of you at different times have scolded me: “When are you going to tell us the meaning of the decorations in the Tower?” – “Where
did that come from?” – “How old is that supposed to be?” – “People want to know how
close a copy this building is of a ruin and where is the original - - what can we tell them?”
– “What about Towers anyhow?” – “We know less about them than anything!!” –
“Where are they?” – So it’s your own fault if you are scared by the bulkiness of this
“MANUAL” – I’m only answering your own numerous insistent questions. But
questions that are short to ask often require rather lengthy answers!
But this is no reason for a general stampede! You aren’t expected to learn it by heart.
That’s the last thing we want! Read it, - you owe me that for pestering me with
questions, - familiarize yourself with the facts to the point where you will know what you
want to say to “your people” about the building. (Probably no two of you will select the
same matter – I hope not!) Then prepare yourself to answer intelligently the questions
2
you are asked by them. You can’t answer all of them – no one can – but reasonable
number of the reasonable ones!
Considerable study will be necessary to tell about the decorations in the Tower, but you’ll
get lots of practice! – and it won’t be long before you begin to rattle it off “parrot
fashion” – and when it comes to that point, I won’t love you any more!
In the meantime, as for a long time past, I am
Your very sincere friend and happy passenger,
Kansas City, Missouri
March, 1933
3
PART ONE
PREHISTORIC RUINS IN THE SOUTHWEST
PROTOTYPES of THE INDIAN WATCHTOWER at DESERT VIEW
Chapter I
PREHISTORIC BACKGROUND OF TOWERS
The structures popularly known as PREHISTORIC INDIAN WATCHTOWERS are not
found in all districts of the Southwest. In deed, so far as we now know, they are
restricted to a comparatively small area.
This area is the territory called the “FOUR CORNERS” where the boundaries of Arizona,
Utah, New Mexico and Colorado meet.
MESA VERDE (Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado) lying well on the outskirts of this
once populous territory, is the best known of these many ruins? Its spectacular Cliffdwellings 1- “which in size, complexity and structural excellence are the most wonderful
and imposing of the whole Southwest” early drew the attention of the curious traveler, as
well as the studious archaeologist, and in consequence it has had unparalleled publicity
both of a popular and scientific character. It is quite natural, therefore, that the towers at
Mesa Verde should be better known to the traveling public than any others. The Round
Tower of Cliff Palace is oftenest pictured, though the Square Tower of Square Tower
House is a close second. These are only two of Mesa Verde’s many towers. Nearly
every one of its Cliff-dwelling pueblos has a tower of its own.
But the towers are not restricted to the villages built in the natural caves under the rim,
but are in even greater number in the many pueblos on the flat mesa above. It is said that
the ruins on the mesa run into the hundreds. When they are all finally excavated, how
many more tower foundations will be revealed?
Towers associated with communal villages are not the only ones at Mesa Verde. Here as
elsewhere - where towers are found - some of them stand quite by themselves. These
lone towers are built at the heads of canyons. The most dramatic of them - Navajo
Watchtower - crowns a natural rock monument guarding Navajo Canyon.
While there are many towers at Mesa Verde, they are yet more numerous and with more
individual character architecturally, at Hovenweep. HOVENWEEP while a National
Monument (Hovenweep National Monument, Utah and Colorado) is unknown to the
traveling public though there is no area in the United States with greater archaeological
1
See note at end of Manual – “Cliff-dwellers and Cliff-dwellings”
4
interest. The Monument straddles the boundary of Utah and Colorado. While the actual
southern boundary of the Monument does not extend into Arizona and New Mexico, the
outlying ruins are found in both states. Of this district A. V. Kidder has said: ... “there
are probably more archaeological sites to the square mile in this district than in any other
of equal area in the Southwest.”
Hovenweep is above everywhere else – “the playground of the Towers”. So literally are
they the “whole show” that one cannot but believe that here the TOWER form of
building originated and was only adopted by the builders of other localities. There are
towers of every description here. As at Mesa Verde, there are towers at Hovenweep built
in connection with pueblos, but the most important stand isolated or in conjunction with
other towers. There are small towers and large towers; square towers and round towers;
oval towers and D-shaped towers. They play “hide and seek” among boulders in the
arroyos; chase each other up the rugged sides of cliffs; hang to the very brink of the
canyon walls; and scramble to the slanting crowns of monolithic rock pinnacles. We
cannot but question what it is all about!
It is strange enough that one locality should give birth to so many towers, but stranger
still that this localityshould have such definite boundaries. While the numerous detached
round towers known as WATCHTOWERS, so common in this district, are found as far
south as the Mancos River near where it joins the San Juan, there they seem to vanish.
The square towers associated with dwellings have not shared the same fate. These are
dotted over the entire Southwest, some within easy distance of the Grand Canyon. They
are outstanding landmarks everywhere. The main reason for so many ruins receiving
from the early white settler such warlike names as “Castle”, “Citadel”, and “Fortress” is
this TOWER feature. WUPATKI CASTLE, our nearest important neighbor in this line,
magnificently placed on the biggest boulder in all of Arizona, rears a very impressive
corner tower against the skyline. The CITADEL, also at Wupatki, rises above a terraced
foundation of giant lava boulders and suggests the same tower design; MONTEZUMA
CASTLE, impregnable in its stone nest in the cliffs of Verde Valley, is really a series of
beautifully proportioned tower-like walls; BETATAKIN has its corner tower building
perhaps the “Speaker Chief’s” headquarters; and there is no mistaking for anything else
the corner tower of MUMMY CAVE CLIFF-DWELLING in nearby CANYON DE
CHELLY.
But the WATCHTOWER as we know it in the region of the “Four Corners” has so far
been found nowhere else.
The sudden disappearance of this striking form of structure challenges the imagination.
Were there no more watchtowers built south of Mancos Canyon or were conditions such
that they fell into quick ruin in other regions? Are some of the round heaps of rock the
foundations of Towers? Until lately any circular pile of stone was counted a kiva. On
excavation some of them have turned out to be “pit houses” of the pre-pueblo periods. It
may be that others will prove to be the foundations of towers. .... Perhaps the circular
mound of stone on the rocky promontory near Locket Lake, within a few miles of Grand
5
View, was once a Watchtower; or from the vanished top of those curved and loopholed
walls crowning the detached pinnacle of rock which the telescope brings to view on the
east rim of the Grand Canyon signals were once flashed to Indians living where our
Tower now stands!
The DATE of the building of towers with curved walls is still under debate. Because
they are in a better state of preservation than most very old ruins, some authorities are
inclined to regard them as belonging to the later prehistoric or even historic times. To
strengthen this theory, it is argued that the curved wall tower is a more difficult form of
structure to build than rectangular walls, so that the round tower would naturally come in
a period of higher development.
As a matter of fact, once the technique of building a circular wall is mastered, it is easier
to construct than the straight wall with right angles where the intersecting walls should be
bonded -- a job the prehistoric mason usually avoided. The circular masonry wall was
known to the Indian from the earliest times. It evolved quite naturally from the “pit
houses” (believed to be the earliest form of stone building) of the pre-pueblo periods into
the Kiva of the pueblo periods. Having learned through practice to build the curved walls
of the kiva underground, - which was a very simple matter backed as it was by the earth
form, - it was not far to go to carry this foundation up into the freestanding walls of the
tower above ground.
As far as the survival and good preservation of the towers is concerned, the curved tower
walls withstand the elements much better than any other form. They do not offer the
resistance to the elements that flat straight walls do. To realize this, one has only to look
at the examples of D-shaped towers. It is in-variably the flat wall that has fallen, -- the
curved walls are left standing.
The exact age of the individual towers may be settled shortly by the application to them
of the Douglas Tree Ring test. 2
The PURPOSE for which these towers were originally built is still a subject for
speculation. Unlike the Kiva which has continued in use up to the present day, the
TOWER no longer has a place in a living people's daily life. So no light can be thrown
on the purpose of the tower by the study of its use by modern Indians.
Students of the subject hold various opinions. Some regard them as primarily
WATCHTOWARS and PLACES OF DEFENSE. This belief is upheld by the fact that
many of them are located in strategic positions, - at the heads of canyons or so placed in
regard to the approach to villages as to act as outposts and guards. To this argument is
added the fact that many of them are loopholed, the loopholes usually commanding
definite approaches. There seems no reason to doubt that some of the towers were built
with defense purposes in mind. It is so self evident in many cases that the name
“WATCHTOWER” has been applied to them by general consent.
2
see note at end of Manual – “Dating of Ruins by Tree Ring Method”
6
However, this does not account for all towers. Some are so located in the bottoms of
canyons that they evidently were not intended for observation or defense; some, by
structural features or remains of utensils found, indicate other purposes. It is possible,
even probable, that they were HABITATIONS though the fact that they frequently are
not divided into rooms is urged against this use. It is also claimed that they were built for
the STORAGE OF GRAIN. In a few instances rows of vases or earthen pots containing
corn have been found in certain chambers of the towers. If they were used for either
purposes of defense or habitation or both, these jars of grain most naturally would have
been found in them. The claim that they were built for the exclusive storage of grain, in
the modern sense of the grain elevator or the silo, can hardly be justified in view of the
physical possibilities of the surrounding country where crops were decidedly limited in
volume. Indian bumper crops for a hundred square miles could be stored in only a few
of the towers at Hovenweep, - so why the multiplication of towers in one locality if only
used for corn storage.
It is very probable that the tower served MANY PURPOSES, -- sometimes singly,
sometimes combined. The first towers may have been primarily designed for defense and
later adapted to other uses. In time, by a natural evolution they would be so built as to
serve them all, like the towers on the Rhine of the Barons of the Middle Ages.
Another very interesting theory of the function of the towers is that they were designed
for ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS, as were the towers of the Aztecs, Mayas and
Toltecs in Mexico, Yucatan and Peru. In support of this theory, J. Walter Fewkes, one of
the few archaeologists who writes upon the Towers of the Southwest, says...”There are
indications that they (towers) were built by an agricultural people, one of the primal
necessities of whom is to determine the time for planting. This can be obtained by observations of the suns rising and setting, and a tower affords the elevation necessary for
that purpose; hence the theory that southwestern towers were in part used for SUN
HOUSES or OBSERVATORIES. A building from which the aboriginal priests
determined calendric events by solar observations very naturally became a room for Sun
Worship or for the worship of the Power of the Sky. The presence of circular
subterranean rooms, or kivas,8 which almost always occur with towers, also indicate
religious rites. As the tower may have been devoted to the worship of Father Sun or the
Sky God, in the underground kiva may have been celebrated the rites of Mother Earth.” 3
Perhaps when the numerous towers of the Hovenweep country are given careful study
and some of them excavated, the question of the purpose of the tower will be answered.
So far the survey made of them by Fewkes in 1919, which consisted of mapping and
See Legend of “The Little Bird and Muyingwa” in Legend Book.
Fewkes' suggestion in regard to the meaning of the Kiva seems justified by the Hopi Legend in regard to
MUYINGWA, the God of Germination, whose habitation is a buried Kiva. In the Hopi myths, Muyingwa,
God of Germination is represented as having his dwelling place in a kiva. According to this legend, there
are three kivas buried in the earth, one below the other. During famine, Muyingwa is said to be offended
and therefore has retired to the third or lowest kiva. According to the kiva in which he lives is the degree of
plenty enjoyed by the upper world.
8
3
7
listing and Photographing a few of them, is the most that has been done for this
interesting subject. While it has been made a National Monument, Hovenweep, the
virtual focus of towers, is untended and neglected alike by the Government and
archaeologists. Built, as these towers are, either on the brink of canyons or in the arroyos
themselves, the cutting away of the arroyos by torrential floods (grown greater since
grazing has destroyed to a great extent the natural ground protection) has brought about,
even during the last ten years, unprecedented disintegration.
Chapter II
TOWERS AND KIVAS BUILT IN JUXTAPOSITION
While towers frequently stood alone and less frequently were a part of communal
villages, there are a number of instances where towers, otherwise isolated, were built in
conjunction with kivas. These have been referred to by Dr. Fewkes in reference to the
purpose of towers. In these instances there is a PASSAGEWAY -- sometimes a tunnel of
considerable length – constructed from the subterranean kiva to a flight of STONE
STAIRS leading to the first floor of the tower. The best known examples of this
construction are at Mesa Verde where several have been excavated.
Chapter III
KIVAS -- PREHISTORIC AND MODERN
It is supposed that the purpose of the PREHISTORIC KIVA is the same as that of the
Kiva of today. Primarily kivas are ceremonial chambers. The modern kiva corresponds
rather closely to a Masonic Temple. It is not alone a place where religious rites are
celebrated, but are also the lodge room and general meeting place for the men. In
addition to this, it serves as sleeping quarters for the unmarried men and boys. After a
youth is initiated into the clan, he no longer lives at home, but sleeps in the kiva, - though
he may return to his mother's house for food.
It has been stated that women are never allowed to enter kivas. There are certain
ceremonies where they are excluded during the ceremony itself, but as a matter of fact,
these are comparatively few. The women do much of the work in the kivas. Most kivas
are stuccoed or whitewashed on the interior at intervals. This work is done, usually, by
the women. Also, even during the ceremonies, water and food are brought into the kivas
by the women. It is thought from indications of handprints in some of the ancient kivas
that women helped with the stone work. There are ceremonial dances in which it is
essential for a woman to take part; for ex- ample, in the Antelope Dance the Antelope
Maiden plays the star role. In many ceremonial dances there are women as well as men
spectators.4
4
In many Hopi ceremonials, such as the Blessing of a New Kiva, guests of both sexes are present. At these
ceremonials Indian visitors of all clans, including Navajos and Apaches, are welcomed -- only whites and
Mexicans are excluded.
8
In Hopiland there are some kivas that belong to the women and the men are more
carefully excluded from them than are the women from those belonging to the men.
Certain priests only are excepted from the general rule and these only during religious
ceremonies. However, the women also have occasional ceremonial dances to which men
are invited.
The majority of PREHISTORIC KIVAS are built below the surface of the earth, - some
entirely submerged; others only a third underground. Prehistoric kivas are usually round,
though the rectangular kiva was developed in some localities, as was also the kiva above
ground.
The kiva, as has been said, survives in modern Indian life where the same traditional
designs of structure still prevail. In many pueblos, the kiva is round and often built well
above ground. 5 In the Hopi villages it is rectangular and usually partially submerged, at least one side is underground.
Both prehistoric and modern kivas have their main entrance from the roof, though a door
in the sidewall - when the kiva is not entirely buried - is sometimes found in modern
kivas.
In ancient and modern kivas alike there is a FIRE POT in the center of the room
immediately below the ROOF ENTRANCE. A LADDER leading to this entrance passes
over the fireplace so that the wreaths of smoke from the eternal fire are supposed to
purify the ascending and descending inmates. Even when there is a side entrance; it is
essential in all religious ceremonies that the officiating priests use this ladder entrance
over the sacred fire. The smoke, passing out through the smoke-hole above, corresponds
to the incense used in the Catholic Church and in many Oriental religions.
In the ancient kivas a VENTILATOR extended to the exterior wall of the kiva where a
DUCT was built on the outside of the wall. This served to bring in fresh air from
without. Some- times this ventilator was under the floor and sometimes on top. A short
distance from the opening of this duct was placed a STONE BAFFLE to deflect the
draft.6
Both ancient and modern kivas frequently had FLAGSTONE FLOORS. In many
modern kivas the flat stones are laid with hollow cavities under them so that during the
dance the priests, by stamping on the stones over these cavities, produce a booming noise
very like a powerful distant drum.7
In old and modern kivas alike there is a small round hole in the floor called the SIPAPU.
It is located some little distance from the central fireplace, usually to the northeast of it
and in line with the ventilator duct. Underneath this opening is a small rectangular cavity
5
Notably the Pueblos of the Rio Grande region.
In our Kiva this baffle has been adapted to the stone serving table.
7
Kabotie is responsible for this information.
6
9
in which is carefully placed various sacred objects. Surrounded by bahos or prayer
sticks, there is buried in Hopi Sipapus an ear of sacred corn, - for they say “Corn is the
Hopi's heart”. This little SHRINE with the stone slab over it represents the opening from
the underworld through which the pueblo Indians came when they made their entrance
into this world. The sipapu is usually closed with a plug of cottonwood or covered with
a flat stone or plank. Once the shrine is made and the sacred objects placed in it (which is
done during a ceremonial dance and chant) and the stone set in place, it is never opened
again -- unless some terrible pestilence or other disaster befalls the clan that owns the
kiva. In this case it is opened by their priests. If any disorder is found in the arrangement
of its sacred contents, it is corrected with very solemn rites. In some extreme cases, the
whole kiva has been abandoned, a new one built and a new sipapu consecrated.8
The Hopi tradition holds that the real SIPAPU is located in the very deepest part of the
Grand Canyon. Through this small opening their ancestors emerged when coming up
from the underworld to the outer world and through it their spirits now return when at
death they go to join their ancestors. They say that the sipapu in each Kiva is only a
symbol of the original sipapu of this legend. 9
PART TWO
THE INDIAN WATCHTOWER at DESERT VIEW
Chapter I
THE BUILDING
When it was planned to build a permanent Rest and View House on Navajo Point (now
for many years called “Desert View”) two problems had to be solved in deciding on the
architecture. First and most important was to design a building that would become a part
of its surroundings; - one that would create no discordant note against the time eroded
walls of this promontory. Next in importance was to design a building that would make
it possible to enhance the VIEW from this famous VIEWPOINT. As its popular name
implies, it overlooks the far reaches of the Painted Desert, but it has also the most
extensive and spectacular view of the “main” Canyon and of the “River” as it comes
down through the Marble Gorge. To all this it was desired to add the sweep of the Great
Tusayan Forest and the mountains to the south and southwest. In other words, we wanted
a VIEW that would include the entire circle of the distant horizon.
The problem was to build a building, not hidden under the rim as at Hermit's Rest, but
just as high above it as possible, and yet make it so much a part of its immediate
surroundings that it would not stick up “like a sore thumb”. No conventionalized style of
8
We owe this account of the making of the sipapu in a Hopi Kiva to Porter Timeche; a Hopi Indian of the
Bear Clan who has himself officiated at the rite of making a sipapu in the Kiva of his clan.
9
See “Emergence Legend” in Legend Book.
10
modern architecture built of modern materials would do this. The problem, with its two
horns to the dilemma, seemed unsolvable.
Then -- the idea of the Indian Watchtower was hit upon. The Tower would give the
height we needed for the view rooms and telescopes; the character of the prehistoric
buildings would make possible the harmonizing of its lines and color with the terrain; its
time-worn masonry walls would blend with the eroded stone cliffs of the Canyon walls
themselves.
In itself a prehistoric Indian building was not inappropriate. One might well have been
built on this very finger of rock hundreds of years ago by the ancestors of the Hopi.
Looking across Navajo Canyon towards Hopiland, the east wall of the Canyon arrested
the eye. Here strong glasses picked out small cave dwellings clinging, to the sheer
Canyon wall a hundred feet below the rim; and on a detached pinnacle of rock, not unlike
Desert View point itself, rose a portholed wall of masonry. The rim of the Canyon from
The Great Thumb on the west to Comanche Point on the east we knew was dotted with
Indian ruins. Three hundred sites have been counted. The ancient Indians had migrated
from the Grand Canyon region before they reached their highest building culture and
these local ruins do not compare with the great structures they built elsewhere during
later periods. Yet there would be nothing inconsistent in building here as they might have
built had they not migrated before the Golden Age when the Tower and the Great Kiva
were the order of the day.
The next step after the decision to use ancient Indian architecture was reached, was to
find PROTOTYPES among the many ruins of this same Golden Age that could be best
adapted to our own needs.
Most of the important ruins we had visited more than once. Before tackling our new
problem, it was decided to “check and double check” them again. So the known ruins
were revisited and the ruins we did not know were hunted down. Photographs were made
and even kodacolor movies taken for further study. These pictures were later used as
models for the workmen to follow and proved invaluable. Many of them, enlarged, have
been mounted in albums that are kept in the Kiva. A few of the most important are in a
wall display case for the more convenient use of visitors who may be interested in the
prehistoric prototypes of our Tower.
After the careful survey was completed and the material thus secured digested, THE
INDIAN WATCHTOWER at Desert View was designed.
DESIGN OF THE INDIAN WATCHTOWER
Usually the first question asked by the visitor to the Watchtower is -- “Of what
prehistoric building is this a copy? And is it exact in every detail?”
It is NOT an exact reproduction of any known ruin; but, rather, is based on fine examples
of the prehistoric workman, and is built in the Indian spirit.
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WHAT IT IS NOT AND WHAT IT IS
It follows quite closely in general architectural features its great prototypes among prehistoric towers and kivas. But this building should NOT be called a “copy”; a “replica”;
a “reproduction” or a “restoration”. It is absolutely none of these, especially net the last,
as before its erection there was no building on this site to restore. The actual remains of a
previous building are necessary to make a restoration.
A RE-CREATION
Someone has called it a “RE-CREATION”.
design.
That describes best the INTENTION of the
DEBTS TO VARIOUS RUINS
Various ruins have contributed characteristic features, either of the main architectural
design or of minor details. Even these have not al-ways been copied slavishly, but have
been carried out in the way that Indians living on Desert View Point and using accessible
materials would have worked.
THE PRIMITIVE ARCHITECT
The PRIMITIVE ARCHITECT never intentionally copied anything but made every
building suit its own conditions and each one differed from every other according to the
character of the site, the materials that could be procured and the purpose for which the
building was intended.
So, though he was guided by tradition when he builder, he did not “copy”, but in every
case “CREATED” a new thing. T. Mitchell Prudden says of all prehistoric structures:
“The attempt to establish typical architectural forms in the building of these ancient
people is beset with practical difficulties owing to the frequent special adaptation in
material and in form to particular situations as well as to the skillful incorporation of
natural objects, such as caves, benches, cliffs, and fallen rocks, into the structure of the
building.”
So it would have been foolish for us to reproduce exactly at Desert View, a ruin found in
any other place.
Existing examples of prehistoric design that matched our own requirements and
conditions were borrowed freely and embodied in our structure. But before using these
borrowings, we sought to adapt them to the conditions exacted by our own site, - to
incorporate into them any natural peculiarities of the site itself. We studied carefully all
our available natural building materials in relation to known examples of Indian masonry;
we tried to understand how a building suited to our purpose would have been built by
Indians of the best Pueblo period. We adapted and combined.
LINES AND PROPORTIONS OF TOWER
For instance, the beauty of line of the famous ROUND TOWER of CLIFF PALACE in
Mesa Verde suggested the PROPORTIONS and LINES of our of the Tower.
12
MASONRY AT MESA VERDE
However, the stone available at the Canyon was so unlike that used in this Mesa Verde
tower that it was undesirable even to try to copy its MASONRY. The stone of Mesa
Verde masonry, to quote A. V. Kidder is “hewn to shape - carefully coursed and brought
to an even surface on the face of the wall by a picking process that results in the
characteristic dimpled texture.” In addition to this, an adobe mortar fills all joints and
stucco smoothes the surfaces still further. So we chose the form and proportions of the
famous Round Tower but not its masonry. The rock we had to build with could not be
hewn to shape nor the surface “tooled” without losing the weathered surfaces so essential
to blend it with the Canyon walls. The stuccoed surface too was out of the question at
Desert View. At Mesa Verde, the adobe mortar in this tower was protected through the
centuries by the overhanging cave-roof, but it would have been destroyed by the elements
on the exposed rim of the Grand Canyon. So we had to look elsewhere for the style of
masonry that “belonged” to us.
NAVAJO WATCHTOWER AT MESA VERDE
Navajo Watchtower at Mesa Verde, standing exposed on a detached mass of rock at the
head of Navajo Canyon, came closer to our needs but still did not quite suggest our stone.
TOWERS AT HOVENWEEP
The numerous towers and other buildings at HOVENWEEP offered themselves and were
at once accepted. The stone at Hovenweep was generally similar in character to the stone
available at the Canyon. The exposed position of the Hovenweep Ruins approximating
our physical conditions at Desert View, afforded the closest parallel for the erosion of
rock surfaces and mortar. So the enlarged photographs and kodacolor pictures of details
of the Hovenweep ruins were used by our workmen as models for the masonry.
VARIETY OF TEXTURE AND COLOR
As most Indian buildings were built over an extended period of time and by different
masons and often with a different kind of stone (when the stone close at hand was
exhausted they went farther afield) -- it was sought to get the same effect here. Note the
difference in color and texture between the Kiva and the Tower, and even the difference
between various parts of the same wall.
NATIVE ROCK USED
THE INDIAN WATCHTOWER and KIVA are built of native surface stone just as it was
picked up from the small surrounding canyon. Probably much of this stone was once a
part of some prehistoric habitation. So numerous are the ruins scattered along the Grand
Canyon rim and over the sloping walls of the many side-canyons of the Tusayan Forest
that it is hardly possible to gather surface rock without encroaching on the sites of some
once populous village.
13
The color and texture of this weathered surface rock naturally matched our terrain as
none other could, but we were at the necessity of using it in just the shape it was found as
any tool mark became a conspicuous scar on the face of our walls.
So we were obliged
to select carefully for size and shape every unit of stone built into our masonry.
FOUNDATION
Perhaps the most difficult matter met with in designing this building was that of TYING
it to the terrain. The Indian builder would have joyed in making it hang by its toenails to
the very brink of the canyon rim. No height is too dizzy -- no pinnacle of rook too crazy,
on which to perch one of his towers Mammoth boulders and the “living rock” are
foundations enough for him. And certainly his confidence in himself as an engineer is
justified by the hundreds of years through which his structures have defied wind and
weather and earthquake shock. The modern engineer lacks his courage.
A FOUNDATION OF STEEL AND CONCRETE
A built foundation our building would have to have, and steel and concrete must enter
into it. (For that matter the whole building has a steel framework hidden away in it that
would do credit to a modern office building.) But over this foundation of steel and
concrete is built a wall of huge boulders of rim rook to simulate, as nearly as a man-made
thing can do, the formation of the canyon wall itself. It is designed to look as though the
whole foundation were another natural strata such as appears on the little promontory to
the west of the Tower. The rock is the same stained and lichen colored conglomerate as
the rim of Desert View Point, and the boulders are so huge that they seem to preclude the
possibility of being placed by man. This foundation extends below the natural canyon rim
and forms the wall of the furnace room. From the trail below the building it is almost
impossible to distinguish between the built wall of the foundation and the natural wall of
the canyon.
PURPOSE SERVED BY DESIGN OF FOUNDATION
This massive foundation was made to serve two purposes. Besides weaving the
foundation itself into the terrain of the canyon rim, reducing the apparent height of the
kiva and making this low round building, as well as the high tower, seem part of the
natural formation of the point, it raises the view windows of the Kiva above the heads of
people walking on the point and insures an unobstructed view for the guests within.
The same green boulders, which form the foundation, are built into the lower walls of
Tower and Kiva.
PRECEDENT FOR THE DESIGN OF FOUNDATION
The use of these boulders as a part of the wall structure, as well as its foundation, has a
precedent at WUPATKI - only thirty miles in a straight line from Desert View. Here
“THE CITADEL” is built on a huge natural terraced foundation of lava boulders and its
masonry walls are carried up to a surprising height with the same unwieldy lava units
interspersed haphazardly with flat sandstone slabs. (See photographs of Wupatki
Citadel in wall rack.)
14
DETAILS OF STONEWORK
DECORATIVE DETAILS of the STONEWORK required less adaptation to make them
serve our purpose and for the most part they are carefully copied.
HAPHAZARD USE OF DECORATION
As such ornamental details are introduced quite haphazardly into his walls by the ancient
house builder, lending to them the added charm of the unexpected; the same course was
followed here. For instance, the BORDER of triangular stones built into the PARAPET
WALL of the TOWER might be expected to extend all around the top of the Tower
instead of dying out as it does, - as if the supply of triangular rock had given out! The
suggestion for this treatment came from a wall at WUPATKI where it played the same
erratic trick.10
DIAMOND DESIGN NEAR ENTRANCE
The design itself resembles somewhat the delightful detail of the THREE JOINING
DIAMONDS in our wall NEAR the MAIN ENTRANCE. The latter however is a very
close copy of a detail used at PUEBLO BONITO, CHACO CANYON. 11
HORIZONTAL BANDS OF CONTRASTING STONE
The horizontal bands of CONTRASTING STONE “COURSES” which form a feature of
our Tower are to be found in many ruins. We would have liked to carry this feature
further and copy exactly the beautiful regular horizontal bands used in the best period of
Pueblo Bonito architecture. The smooth fine sandstone of Chaco Canyon, with its perfect
cleavage breaking into small thin units (some only a quarter of an inch in thickness) made
the development of this refined style of “courses” masonry perfectly natural at Pueblo
Bonito. With us to copy blindly this extreme refinement would have been unnatural and
forced.
GENUINE PETROGLYPHS
At various places, - the main entrance door; in the outside stairway wall; the fireplace on
the Kiva roof; and the Tower itself, - are built rocks bearing pecked designs. These are
GENUINE PETROGLYPHS dating back no one knows how many hundreds of years.
These particular ones came from the vicinity of ASH FORK. The stones built into the
interior stairway leading from the Kiva to the Tower came from the vicinity of JOSEPHS
CITY near Winslow.
INCISED SLABS
The TWO FLAT STONES bearing designs of INCISED LINES built into the wall above
the outside stairway leading to the Kiva roof are copied from stones similarly decorated.
They are of unusual interest as showing a tendency to add decoration to masonry walls.
Mr. Neil M. Judd, who kindly furnished the photograph from which one of these designs
was copied, speaks of finding many such decorated building stones used in Betatakin and
10
A photograph of this detail is shown in wall rack.
We owe this delightful detail from Pueblo Bonito to Mr. Horace M. Albright, Director of National Parks.
A photograph of the original sent us by Mr. Albright is in the wall rack.
11
15
neighboring ruins. The prevalence of them in this region is also noted by Kidder and
Guernsey in Bulletin 65, Bureau of American Ethnology. Mesa Verde has quite a few of
the decorated slabs.
(A photograph of the slab illustrated by Kidder and Guernsey is shown in the wall rack.)
GROTESQUE ROCKS
The Indian's genius for discerning in a curiously shaped stone or chunk of wood a
resemblance to some animal is well known. With a few deft touches he makes it conform
to his mental concept and at once he has a “fetish”, dearest of all things to his heart.
BALOLOOKONG
Following in his footsteps we built into the outer wall near the stone stairway a grotesque
stone that certainly suggests the head of BALOLOOKONG, or Great Plumed Serpent, 12
- a mythical snake that belongs to the Pueblo Indian but also to the folklore of every other
race of people. There is no mistaking the identity of this mythical animal as he is represented from one end of the two Americas to the other and from the Atlantic to Pacific
Oceans. So universal is the legend of this animal that in only slightly different forms he
appears in the legends and art of Europe, Asia and Africa as well.
PARAPET-KIVA ROOF
Other weird stone figures are built into the parapet of the Kiva roof and still others are
found in the interior of the building.
Chapter II
THE WATCHTOWER
DEMENSIONS OF TOWER
THE TOWER AT DESERT VIEW is, larger than any known Indian Tower. It rises from
the extreme rim of the Canyon to a height of seventy feet. It is thirty feet in diameter at
the base, tapering to twenty-four feet at the roofline.
SIZE OF PREHISTORIC TOWERS
Most of the prehistoric towers no longer stand their full height and it is difficult to
estimate their original dimensions. The Round Tower of Cliff Palace is about twenty feet
high and is sup-posed to have extended to the overhanging roof of the cave, which would
have added near fifteen feet to its height. The Square Tower of Square Tower Ruin now
stands about thirty feet high. The towers of Hovenweep - “the place of towers” - vary
greatly in height. The Square Tower at Hovenweep is now four stories high and the stone
scattered at its base would seem to indicate two or three stories more. This tower is only
about fourteen feet square at the base, and it was certainly an accomplishment for
12 The original of our Plumed Serpent may well have been the extinct Phytosaurus, more lizard than snake,
who roamed this country in the Triassic Age, - an age when the trees in the Petrified Forest were still in
leaf. It is fitting that a specimen of this worthy is displayed in a glass case at the Petrified Forest National
Monument. (A photograph of this specimen is shown in our wall rack.)
16
primitive man to build so high and slender a shaft. 13 Other towers at Hovenweep are
from twenty to twenty- five feet in diameter at the base and while no longer skyscrapers,
the indications are that they were as tall in proportion as the slender Square Tower.
So perhaps if these towers were standing as originally built, they would approach the
height of our Tower.
HEIGHT-DESERT VIEW TOWER
The reason for the greater height of the Tower at Desert View is because the purpose of
this Tower was to extend the view from its top to include the southern distant horizon.
The height necessary to accomplish this was calculated to a nicety and the Tower was
designed accordingly. As you recall, an experimental tower of timbers was built on the
site before the building was designed. We naturally wished to keep the Tower as low as
possible and yet obtain the views from its top.
SIZE INFLUENCES TEXTURE OF MASONRY
It was noted in studying the subject of tower masonry that the walls of the smaller towers
were usually smoother and more refined in texture. The Desert View Tower is larger,
especially taller, than any known prehistoric towers. Reasoning along the lines that the
texture of the masonry should vary with the extent of the plain wall area, the surface of
our Tower is more broken than the known Indian examples, -- this in order to create
shadows and give more vigor to the walls.
“T” SHAPED DOORS
For the same reason, some large “T” shaped doors adapted from prehistoric examples, the best of which are at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon - were let into the walls of the
Tower and later filled with a cruder form of stonework as if done in haste in the fear of
the attack of an enemy. This, also, frequently is found not only at Pueblo Bonito but also
in many other ruins. 14
WINDOWS
There are more and larger windows in our Tower than in its ancient prototypes. The
reason is obvious. It is a view Tower and windows are necessary.
The windows of the Tower taper slightly tower the top. Most ruins afford examples of
this form of window. It was a welcome solution of one of our most difficult architectural
problems. Happily these lines conformed to the lines of the Tower itself. It made
possible the row of absolutely necessary windows in the “Eagles Nest” or Telescope
Room.
Chapter III
13 It must be borne in mind that no scaffolding such as we use was available to the primitive builder. The
modern Indian mason sits astride the top of the wall as he builds it up - so probably did his ancestors. The
walls of prehistoric towers are often surprisingly thin, - the walls of Round Tower, Mesa Verde, varies
from eighteen inches in thickness near the bottom, to about twelve at the top. The walls of other towers are
much thicker, though apparently never as thick as straight rectangular walls.
14
Several photographs of these doors are shown in wall rack.
17
THE KIVA
DESIGN-KIVAS IN GENERAL
While following closely the traditional design of the Prehistoric Kiva, the VIEW ROOM
at DESERT VIEW, because of its purpose, deviates from its prototypes in certain details.
DESERT VIEW KIVA ABOVE GROUND
As has been said, the majority of prehistoric kivas are built at least partly below the surface of the ground. For obvious reasons the Kiva at Desert View is all above ground. This
is primarily a VIEW ROOM. The circular form makes views in all directions possible.
However, here we had precedent for this deviation from tradition. To quote from T.
Mitchell Prudden: “When the building is upon a level rock surface the Estufas (the
Spanish name for Kiva) are built up like the rest of the building”. So we built above
ground on an artificial rock strata high enough to give good views from the Kiva level.
WINDOWS
The second deviation from established kiva design was allowed for the same reason. This
is the introduction of the large view windows, which take the place of stone panels
between the pilasters of the prehistoric kivas.
FIREPLACES AND ENTRANCES
The third deviation is in the matter of fireplaces and entrances. The fireplace on the north
wall is not a kiva feature. It is customary for the kiva firepot to be in the center of the
room where our small circular fireplace is located and to have the entrance over this by
way of a ladder and an opening to the roof which opening also serves as a smoke-hole.
We have adapted this entrance to serve as a ventilator rather than a door to the Kiva.
Some modern kivas have a side entrance as well as the entrance from the roof. We have
adopted this idea and used this entrance as our front door.
SIZE OF KIVA
You frequently have to answer the question that is asked by a guest entering the kiva -“But isn't this much larger than any Indian Kiva, either modern or prehistoric“ While it
is larger than the modern Kiva and also the ordinary ancient “clan” kiva, there are many
“Great Kivas” as large or much larger.
GREAT PREISTORIC KIVAS
Our Kiva is forty feet in diameter. The great Kivas on the Zuni Reservation, recently
excavated by Frank H. H. Roberts, Jr., and described in Bulletin No. lll of the
Smithsonian Institute, measure forty-five feet. Until recently the greatest of them all has
been thought to be the kiva excavated by Dr. Edgar L. Hewett (an account of which is
given in “Art and Archaeology” for May-June, 1932) -- “Chetro Ketl” which is sixtyfour feet across, but now Roberts comes forward with Kiva #2 in ruins near Zuni which is
seventy-eight feet in diameter. While this huge kiva has not been excavated it has been
accurately measured by Mr. Roberts.
18
CEILING DESIGN
About the most important feature of our Kiva is its log ceiling. This ceiling follows an
engineering feat of prehistoric man.
As far as we now know, ceilings of kivas were constructed in two ways. In many large
kivas four huge log posts or masonry piers were used to support a log ceiling. In some
large kivas and most all small ones the ceiling was “cribbed” or built of self-supporting
logs, - the first course of logs was supported on the side walls or pilasters and the succeeding course supported in turn by the course below until a certain height was reached
when long timbers were laid horizontally - the whole structure forming a flattened
dome.15
The ceiling in the large kiva at Aztec has been reconstructed in the latter manner. It is
said that the charred timbers of the original ceiling were found in their relative position
on the floor of this kiva where they had fallen when the ceiling was burned and that in the
restoration their positions were accurately followed. The Kiva at Desert View is roofed
in a similar manner. 16
One of the most pleasing features of this whole building is that the logs forming this
ceiling were salvaged from the old Grand View Hotel, -- the first hotel ever built at
Grand Canyon. These logs were cut by Pete Barry and his associates -- old timers all. It
is through the generosity of Mr. Hearst, the owner of Grand View, and the good offices of
the Gillilands, that the Desert View Kiva is able to preserve these historic logs hewn
forty-three years ago.
PART THREE
DECORATIONS OF TOWER
Chapter 1
The walls and ceilings of the Tower afforded interesting areas for decoration. For this
purpose it seemed appropriate therefore to make use of a little of the worlds of Indian
drawings that decorate the cliffs and sometimes the walls and ceilings of caves and
buildings, - variously called Petroglyphs, Paintings or Pictographs.
Some confusion results from the use of these three terms. (1) “PETROGLYPHS” refers
in all cases to drawings made on rock. They may be pecked with a sharp instrument (like
flint) or painted, - sometimes both. (2) “PAINTINGS” may be painted on rock or plaster
but are not pecked or scratched. (3) “PICTOGRAPHS” may be either painted or
scratched or pecked on rock or plastered walls. It is evident that the term
“PICTOGRAPHS” may be applied to all three types of drawings.
15
Photographs of original ceilings at Mesa Verde are shown in wall rack.
A photograph of the Aztec Kiva, showing all the main features of a prehistoric Kiva including this
restored ceiling, is in the wall rack.
16
19
Speculation is rife as to the AGE of pictographs. The earliest certainly antedate every
form of house structure and belong to the dawn of man's occupation of this country. As
the forms depicted remain rather constant through the ages (except at the coming of the
Spaniards, when new animal forms, such as the horse, are introduced) the relative age of
the pictographs has to be determined by the amount of weathering shown. Frequently one
set of etchings is super-imposed upon another and show to even the inexperienced, the
fact that men of one generation after another had left their records on the same rock
surface. In such instances it is of course possible to determine the relative age of the
designs.
From these super-imposed drawings some idea can be obtained of the change in form and
manner, as well as the survival of different design from one period to another.
The question is sometimes asked - “which is the older, the incised designs or the
painted”. There is no definite answer to this question. Probably the very oldest
pictographs now in existence are of the incised type. That does not mean that designs
were not painted on the cliffs at the same time or even before the petroglyphs were
carved, but only that the incised lines resisted the elements better than those drawn with
pigment.
The painted figures survive in protected or practically protected situations, for instance,
on the walls and ceilings of a house or cave or even on cliffs where a ledge overhangs the
lower wall.
Certain styles of execution as well as the designs themselves, rather than whether they are
pecked or painted, serve to give relative dates to these drawings and sometimes to assign
them to particular groups of people or so-called “cultures”. This all falls into the realm of
speculation, however.
The meaning of the designs is determined definitely in only a relatively few instances. No
“Rosetta Stone”, (the discovery of which made it possible to read clearly the ancient
hieroglyphics of the Egyptians) has yet been discovered among Indian Pictographs, nor is
likely to be. The key, if any, to their meaning is held by the modern Indians. Some of
the designs -even the most ancient - are in use in the symbolic paintings of today. Both
Navajo and Pueblo Indians adhere still to the ceremonial rites of their ancestors, and
make use of many of these same symbols.
Where the symbols of the prehistoric pictographs survive in the ceremonial paintings of
modern Indians their meaning can be definitely explained, - always supposing you can
get the modern Indian to the explaining point! This is not so easy. The whole subject of
ceremonial ritual, including the painted mural figures and the sand paintings of the altars,
is peculiarly sacred, - especially to the elders of the people. Even the young men educated
in American schools are true - almost fanatical – believers in the ancient religions of their
people; and if they are not, they are cut off from the confidence of the elders and know
almost as little about the meaning of the rites as any outsider. A few of the young men
while retaining the belief in their mystic religion, are impressed with the desirability of
20
demonstrating to the outside world the beauty of their symbolism, but even these, we are
sure, stop short of complete revelation. Any move in this direction is of great importance
when it comes to “the building of a bridge” by which we can reach the meaning of the
prehistoric pictographs.
For this reason, if no other, the paintings of the Hopi Artist, Kabotie, and the explanation
of their meaning by the artist himself take on unusual significance. Especially is this so
when they are associated in the same building with copies of ancient historic and
prehistoric decorations. The designs depicted by Kabotie were of his own choosing,
except for the suggestion that the central feature, the legend of the “Chief's young son”,
would be very appropriate here, as it illustrated an important one of their legends
connected with the Grand Canyon.
There was no intentional connection on his part between the symbols he used and many
found among the very old pictographs reproduced elsewhere on the Tower walls and
ceilings. He himself often commented with surprise on the identity of these symbols ancient and modern.
The Hopi paintings, chosen because they are among the very oldest known to them, going
back before the memory of any living Hopi and yet in constant use, serve to bring the
prehistoric pictographs up to date. Working from the known - or at least the partially
known - to the unknown, it is possible to arrive at the meaning of many of the mysterious
designs that are found incised or painted on age-old walls.
The pueblo Indians are the acknowledged descendants of the so-called Cliff-dwellers
who are responsible for many of the pictographs of the southwest. The reason a Hopi
Artist was chosen to decorate this room rather than one from another tribe, who might
have accomplished the same purpose in regard to the ancient pictographs, was that the
Hopi people are the most closely associated with the Grand Canyon of any Pueblo
Indians. They are our closest neighbors among the inhabited pueblos - their mesas lying
on our eastern horizon. They claim that they originated in the Canyon itself, their
ancestors emerging through the Sipapu, a mythical small opening somewhere in the
deepest depths of the Canyon, through which they came from the world below to this
world plane, and that at death their spirits return to the underworld by way of the Grand
Canyon. The living Hopi through past ages did return to the Canyon for many reasons, -one of the most important being to obtain SALT - that great necessity of mankind.3 The
ceremonial paints used in their sacred paintings were also gotten at the Canyon. Only last
summer Kabotie climbed down the old Tanner Trail after the soft copper deposit still
found in an abandoned mine, carried it back to Hopiland, where an old man, clever in the
ceremonial arts, ground it with pinon gum into the Turquoise green pigment used in the
ceremonial paintings.
Kabotie, in his story of the paintings in the Hopi Room, tells us that Desert View point
itself is a landmark for the people of the Hopi Mesas, at once marking for them what they
3
See SALT LEGEND at end of Manual.
21
consider a boundary to their ancestral domain and standing as their symbol for the Grand
Canyon. They have a name for this point -Kawinpi.
For these reasons it seemed fit to give the prominent first floor - the introduction to the
Tower -- to the Hopi Paintings.
This young man, Kabotie, who painted the decorations on the walls and ceilings of this
Hopi Room, is counted one of the three greatest modern Indian artists.4 As well as being
a great draftsman, Kabotie is saturated with the ancient lore of his people. These legends,
which we count as folklore, are to him a living religion. He approaches them with great
reverence.
To understand these symbols he feels that you must know the Hopi people and the
conditions that have made them what they are - the conditions physical and spiritual - out
of which their art and their religion (to them synonymous) have grown. We use his own
words: - “They are agricultural people as well as handicraftsmen. But the land from
whence they derive their existence for livelihood is semi-desert. They are up against it if
the rain fails to come forth to help their crops. But they have deep faith and respect in
unseen forces of nature, which constitute 1ife. These forces and powers, the Hopi,
according to their own conception of life, depict in colors and in figures in various secret
religious ceremonies. Hopi have colors for four directions, namely the four primary
colors; north is represented by yellow; turquoise blue - the west; red - the south; and
white - the east, -- these form the UNIVERSE. Sun has all these colors and is considered
and looked up to as a sacred father of all living beings, the “medicine man” or the giver of
life. Because of the fact that the Hopi are wholly dependent on rain for their livelihood,
most of their religious expressions are PRAYERS FOR RAIN. Their ceremonies connect
directly with their mythology and legends.”
Chapter II
FIRST FLOOR – HOPI ROOM
Painting by Kabotie, Indian Artist
LARGE CIRCULAR PAINTING
Of paramount interest is the large CIRCULAR PAINTING directly opposite the entrance
door of the Tower? This depicts the “Snake Legend” or the story of the first man to
navigate the Colorado River.
FOUR COLORS USED
The four colors (symbolic of the Universe) are used for the background of this legend
because it begins with the home of the young son of the Hopi Chief, in the north,
represented by yellow; carries west in his journey, represented by the turquoise blue; then south which is red, ending in the east which is white.
4
See note at end of Manual – “Kabotie – Indian Artist”.
22
CENTER OF UNIVERSE DESIGN
In the heart of the circle is the design that represents the center of the universe - the
Pueblo Indian's “four worlds”. (This design is shown many times in the Abo Caves and
probably bore the same meaning in prehistoric times as now. It is frequently found in
other localities associated with prehistoric pictographs.17)
SYMBOL OF LIFE
The four colors around the circle represent LIGHT and LIFE. These two terms mean
exactly the same thing to the Hopi.
PATH OF LIFE
The white band surrounding the rainbow border is the PATH OF LIFE and in it are
drawn the signs of the clanship of the Hopi Tribe.
HOPI CLAN SYMBOLS
The Hopi are divided into numerous clans or gens. Each clan has a sign or symbol,
usually taken from the animal kingdom or the elements, which is used as a signature.
These signs or symbols are drawn in the PATH OF LIFE - some being shown definitely
as representing the clans that have always been and still are powerful. Some are only
shadows, representing the clans that are extinct; some are drawn faintly and then redrawn
plainly -- these are the clans that almost “died” but are reviving.
LEGEND
The legend is given at the end of this Chapter.
EXPLANATION OF DESIGN
The story begins in the upper left-hand corner where the father gives the prayer sticks to
the son. Their kiva is shown at their feet. The upper right-hand section shows the boat
floating down the Colorado River. (Note the walls of the Canyon on either side!) In the
lower right-hand corner is depicted the Snake Priest giving the bow symbol (Aoat natsi)
of the Snake Clan to the Chief's Son. The “beautiful maiden” stands beside her father.
The lower left-hand corner shows their honeymoon trip back. Because of the blessing of
the Snake People upon them, the bow is shown in action, dripping rain, and above them
are all the different rain clouds, six in number.
THE AGES OF MAN’S LIFE
On each side of the circle of LIFE are processions of CANES (Natungpi) representing the
ages of man. The procession from the east represents the growth of man from childhood
to where manhood is “inlet” (the word is Kabotie's own) into the Universe. The “outlet”
on the west represents manhood down to old age, gradually dwindling in stature to the
grave.
THE SUN
The SUN is depicted above this circle. “The SUN is looked up to as a sacred father of all
living beings, - the “Medicine man” or the giver of life. For this reason the Sun is
17
This design is frequently erroneously called “The Squash Blossom.”
23
represented as having all the colors of the Universe, and here is shown with the “Breath
of eternal life” spraying medicine on the people as he circles them.”10
The symbol of the MOON is shown at the bottom of the design.10
THE MOON
HAY-A-PA-O, the large winged figure on the left of the main circle represents the
POWERS or FORCES OF THE AIR. A RAINBOW ending in clouds is above him, and a
rain cloud is over his head - and the birds fly around him.
Directly below him is a “UNIVERSAL CLOUD” symbol dropping rain. Note the six
cloud forms used instead of the usual four. These Cloud Symbols represent the Hopi's
six directions, - NORTH, WEST, SOUTH, and EAST - to which are added “ABOVE”
and “BELOW”. To the four colors previously given -- yellow for north; turquoise blue
or green for west; red for south; white for east, are added -- BLACK for “above” and
BROWN for “below”.18 (The six clouds are also shown in the quarter of the shield of
the legend, recording the return of the Snake Priest.)
At both ends of the cloud symbols are shown forked lightning symbols. The forked
lightning is the messengers of the gods.
COURSE OF THE SUN
To the right of the main circle are the RAINBOWS with sacred kivas at both ends. This
represents the COURSE of the SUN during the day. He rises from his “Kiva-in-the-East”
and the Rainbow shows his path above the world. The world is represented by the
symbol for the “FOUR WORLDS” and the RAYS going out in the four directions are the
“FOUR PATHS” or ways.
At the top of the Rainbow is shown the “SEAT of the SUN” where he rests a moment at
noon before he begins to descend to his “Kiva-in-the-West”. On reaching the “Kiva-inthe-West” he refreshes himself with a little sleep and then begins the night journey under
the world and at dawn reaches the “Kiva-in-the-East” once more. Every day and night is
a repetition of the same journey of the Sun around the world! 19
The black snakes outside the kivas are the guards of the sacred kivas at all times.
MUYINGWA
Continuing to the right, the next picture represents the GOD OF GERMINATICN MUYINGWA. The cornstalk is in his right hand; in his left are the planting stick and the
bag containing seeds, also a gourd containing the water with which to water the seeds. 20
See Legend “The Making of the Sun and Moon” in Legend Book.
See Legend “The Making of the Sun and Moon” in Legend Book.
18
Any color except yellow, blue, red or black may be used for “Below”. For instance, purple is sometimes
used instead of brown.
19
This painting shows only the daylight journey.
20
See Legend – “The Little Bird and Muyingwa” in Legend Book.
10
10
24
Both the Sun and Moon attend him and over his head is shown the rain cloud. Like the
Sun, the God of Germination is represented as having many “colors” with which to
develop the various plants, but he requires assistance from the outside powers shown in
his attendants -- for he needs the sun for its heat; the clouds for their rain, and the moon
for its influence over the time of germination.
WOMEN’S DANCE
The next picture is the symbol of the Lalakontu Dance. Lalakontu is a Women's Secret
Society. The constellation that is the basis of this society is shown in the ceiling panel
above. The explanation is given under “Ceiling Decorations” - Hopi Room.
FLOWER SYMBOLS
The two upright designs made of tri- angles with the points down, one placed above another, always represent. FLOWERS. Kabotie says that flower lovers, paint these designs
in their homes and that they stand for “every kind of flower”.
HOPI WEDDING
Above these flower symbols is shown a HOPI WEDDING. Note the bride with her hair
done in the squash-blossom whorls, the style the Hopi maiden wears. She is attended by
two matrons with hair in braids. The matrons carry basket plaques heaped with meal,
while the bride's is heaped with piki of her own baking. The shooting stars in the ceiling
panel above are scattering around her the “sacred meal” from their tails, which are
composed of this magic making material.
THE LITTLE WAR GODS
“The little black fellow” standing next is POOKONGAHOYA - THE LITTLE WAR
GOD. He is also the God of Defense. He is shown with bow and arrow in his hands. At
his feet are the ball and stick of the game he favors, - a kind of hockey played with a puck
made of pitch and sand. The two snakes are his attendants. (He acts as the main Katcina
in the Snake Dance and a snake is one of his symbols.) Above him is his war shield
bearing the sign of the star, - two short parallel lines. The ends of lightning rods project
on four sides of the shield. The shield itself means “DEFENSE” and the lightning rods
are the “Powers of Destruction”.
THE STAR PRIEST
The star-headed figure seen to the right of this Pookongahoya is the STAR PRIEST who
is usually classed with the “Warrior group”.
TWIN WAR GODS
The Pookongahoyas are twins and the other twin is shown on the wall of the stairway.
Sometimes these twins are spoken of as if they were but one god. They and
BALOONGAHOYA, the Little God of Echo, are the grandchildren of the Spider Woman
- a very important person, indeed! They are always spoken of as “little” and always as ill
favored. When not engaged in war they plays boisterous games and are full of pranks and
tricks. Always making trouble for others and always getting into it themselves. They
25
provide the slap- stick comedy of every story, -- at once fools, knaves and heroes, falling
into dire calamity but inevitably coming out on top, - even to the winning of “the
beautiful maiden”!
LITTLE GOD OF ECHO
Over the door is the LITTLE GOD OF ECHO - BALOONGAHOYA. He is the little
brother to the Pookongahoyas, and just another of the same kind. He carries the
BULLROARER21 in one hand and BOW and ARROW in the other. (There is a very
strong echo in the Tower; - hence BALOONGAHOYA over the door!)
RAINBOW CLOUDS AND FLOWERS
Over this figure is the RAINBOW ending in FALLING RAIN CLOUDS. The rain falls
on the FLOWER SYMBOLS. This is a “very great blessing” over a door to a room.
HOPI ROOM -- CEILING DECORATIONS
THE STARS
In the sky realm above, the Hopi have names for the prominent STARS. Each star, or
group of stars, means something. The stories of the stars as depicted on the ceiling panels
of the HOPI ROOM were taught to Kabotie by his grandmother when he was a very little
boy sleeping on the housetop where the bright desert stars were always reminders of the
old stories. He says that his “grandmother died long ago and few now know these old
legends”.
THE SUN
The CAPTAIN OF THE STARS is the SUN. This symbol already described is directly
over the main decoration.
EVENING STAR
To the left of the Sun is depicted the EVENING STAR. MI-HEK-SHU-HO is his name
taken from the word for “Night”.
MORNING STAR
To his right is the MORNING STAR. TAL-A-SHU is his name taken from the word for
“Light”.
GUARDIANS OF THE SUN
“The MORNING STAR is said to still guard the entrance to the SUN in the front; the
EVENING STAR the entrance to the SUN in the rear.”
21
Bullroarer is a small flat stick to which a cord is attached. When the stick is rapidly whirled at the end of
the string a sound is produced not unlike a cyclonic wind or distant thunder. It is used in many dances to
give that effect.
26
MILKY WAY
To the right of the Morning Star comes the MILKY WAY, the PATHS OF GOOD and
BAD PEOPLE. The long and continuous line is the path of the good; - its branch, which
is short, is the path of the evil.
WOMEN’S DANCE
Next to the right is a circle of stars with only two stars in the enclosure. These stars
represent the dance, Lalakontu (one of the women's societies) - a ceremony and dance
performed in the late summer. This group of stars is our Corona borealis22 -- a
conspicuous constellation which is overhead about nine in the evenings of July.
SHOOTING STARS
When a shooting star is seen, it is taken for granted that the star is off to officiate at a
wedding, spilling some of the sacred cornmeal from his brilliant tail over the bride.
Shooting stars are lucky - a sign of plenty and prosperity.
NORTH STAR
There is the NORTH STAR known as QUE-NINK-SHU.
THE PLEIADES
Kabotie writes - “There is a group of stars that always cling together like mud and they
are called by that name - “CHOCHOOKAM”. (We call them the Pleiades.)
THE DIPPER
In the next panel (over the stairway) “are the three shining stars in their same position
eternally -- called HOTUMCOMU. They are directly overhead by midnight during
winter.” Kabotie probably means the North Star and two pointers of the Dipper.
THE GREAT SNAKE
Completing the ceiling decoration is painted on the soffit of the balcony parapet, the
GREAT SNAKE who carries on his body, repeated many times, the symbol the Priests
use on their ceremonial kilts in the Snake Dance. He is the father of all serpents, the
GREAT PLUMED SNAKE that goes back to the farthest prehistoric times and is shown
with the KOSHARE in the caves at ABO.
LEGEND OF THE CHIEF'S YOUNG SON WHO WAS THE FIRST MAN TO
NAVIGATE THE COLORADO RIVER AND WHO LATER BECAME THE FIRST
SNANE PRIEST
This is the story of the Chief's young son. He lived at Navajo Mountain, 23 some say, and
came to the Grand Canyon with the elders to get salt and also paints for their sacred
This constellation was identified from Kabotie’s description by Dr. Colton.
In some versions of this legend the home is given as in the Marble Canyon and in others as in the main
Canyon.
22
23
27
ceremonies. But he knew the Great River even before that, for it passes very near to the
Sacred Mountain where he lived. The ceaseless flowing of the water fascinated him. He
sat on the bank all day long and wondered where all the water went. “It must be very full
there, where all the water goes!” His abstraction was noted by his father who reasoned
with the youth to no purpose. “I want to see for myself,” said the boy. So the father
consented and helped him find a suitable log - one big enough so that it could be
hollowed into a boat. Then they made a lid for it so it could be entirely closed except for
a hole through which a pole might be thrust to keep it off the rocks. The Priest - the
young man's father - made Bahos, or prayer sticks, for him to take along and his aunts
prepared food for him.
When all was ready, a bed of turkey's downy breast feathers was made for him in the
bottom of the boat and the voyage began.
Not much is told of the adventures by the way but when he arrives at his destination life
begins in earnest for him. He goes first to the Spider Woman and wins her favor with his
father’s prayer sticks. So she promises to help him in his adventure. He wishes really to
find the “Kiva-in-the-West” - the place where the Sun rests in the evening. In one form
of the legend - that told by Kabotie - he seems to have been sidetracked before finding it.
In this legend he immediately is met by the beautiful maiden who takes him to the Snake
Kiva where he meets her father, the Snake Priest. Here, advised by the Spider Woman
who sits behind his ear, he wins out in various tests of courage; - one in particular, where
during a Snake Ceremony he seizes and hangs onto the most hideous of the snakes and
tames it by courage and magic, at which it resumes the shape of the beautiful maiden who
had met him on his arrival. The Snake People approve of him and the Snake Priest
teaches him all the ritual of the Snake Ceremony and gives him the sacred bow (Aoat
natsi) used in the Snake Ceremony to this day. He is also given the Mana (girl) in
marriage, as well as a bag of turquoise wampum, and is told to return to his own people.
If ever he needs the help of the Snake People they promise him he has only to perform
the ceremonial dance he has been taught by them and they will come to his assistance.
The way home is blessed with rain and shine, and he and his bride are warmly welcomed
on their arriving at his father's kiva.
However, the offspring of this couple turn out to be little snakes and bite the Hopi
children, to the great indignation of the whole village. The wife, whose feelings are
much injured by the Hopi attitude toward her children, finally advises returning her
babies to her own people where they will be better understood. The young chief takes
them back to the Ocean Kiva.24 While their next children have not the characteristics of
the first, the Hopi are always fearful they will bite. Civil discord arises from this state of
mind and the Hopi who have in the past lived together at Navajo Mountain, start out on
their wanderings - some clans or families in one direction and some in another. Our
Snake Chief and his family wander about until they reach the vicinity of Walpi. The Hopi
24
The return of the baby snakes to the home of the mother is said to be a symbolized at the Snake Dance
when the Priests gather the snakes into a blanket, together with bahos, at the end of the dance and carry
them away to the desert where they are liberated.
28
on the mesa have suffered greatly from the lack of rain for a very long time. Ever since
the little Hopi snake children had been sent back to the Snake people, their maternal
relatives had been feeling bitterly toward the Hopi people, and as they had the rain in
their keeping it had been withheld on the mesas. Our young Snake Priest told the people
of Walpi that he could act as mediator between the Hopi and the Snake People if they
would take him and his family into their village. He and the Snake Princess and their
family were warmly welcomed and settled down at once. He made his claim good by
establishing in Walpi, the Snake Fraternity and immediately performed the very first
SNAKE DANCE. It was blessed by much rain and at once became an established rite.
The Snake Dance, best known of all Ceremonial Dances of the Hopi Indians, is held
every fall and immediately the rain descends and the floods are opened - as many can
affirm who have stalled in the arroyos on the way back to civilization after one of the
weirdest experiences of a lifetime.
Chapter III
SNAKE ALTAR and SAND MOSAIC
This Altar is erected in the Snake Kiva of Oraibi every other year, in January for the
winter, in August for the summer ceremony.
The sand mosaic, however, and the crooks are put up only when new candidates are
initiated. Furthermore, the pot and the buckskin snake bags are absent during the winter
celebration, as no snakes are used on that occasion. The Altar here shown, therefore,
represents the Oraibi Snake Altar as it is constructed when an initiation takes place in the
summer ceremony.
The sand mosaic and the arrangement of the crooks are made according to information
and drawings furnished by several members of the Oraibi Snake Fraternity, as, according
to H. R. Voth (who was instrumental in getting this very altar in the first place thirty
years ago) - this altar had never been seen by a white man.
SAND PAINTING
The sand painting, or sand mosaic25, as it is sometimes called, is the central feature of this
altar. The four border lines represent the four world quarters; yellow, the north; green,
the west; red, the south; white, the east; black, the “above”; and the brown field itself
probably the “below”. In the center is the figure of a Puma. The heart is shown and the
line of sacred breathe leading from the heart to the mouth. The four snakes guard the
four directions. After the initiation is over, the sand painting, which has been partly
destroyed during the ceremony, is swept up and carried out.
25
Visitors frequently refuse to believe that this picture was not painted with a brush. Some of you saw it in
the making. Colored sands of great fineness were used in its construction. Held between the thumb and
two fingers, it was slowly dribbled into place. Infinite patience and infinite precision, not to speak of a
steady hand and marvelous draftsmanship, went to the making of it by Kabotie, the Hopi artist who painted
the decorations on the walls.
29
CROOKS AND WANDS
To either side of the altar are arranged rows of slender wands, some curved and some
straight. These wands belong to the Antelope Fraternity and not to the Snake Fraternity.
They are brought to the Snake Kiva by the Antelope Priests, who join in this ritual, and
are carefully arranged in the mud ball supports to either side of the sand painting. These
wands are used by generation after generation in many of the Antelope fraternity
ceremonies. The crocks, feather tipped, are said to represent the living members of the
clan. The meaning of the straight wands is disputed. Some say they represent the
ancestors of the clan; others that they are the guardians and represent members of the
warrior class. Several Hopis have said that these wands, both crooks and straight, are
bahos or prayer sticks. They certainly bear the breath feathers associated with bahos.26
After the ceremony the priests of the Antelope clan carefully remove these wands and
carry them to their own Kiva.
CARVED WOOD FIGURES OF KATCINAS
At the top of the sand painting stand two Katcinas. The large one is POOKONGAHOYA
- the Little War God. He is loaded with bahos or prayer sticks and strings of wampum
and is otherwise dressed exactly like the officiating Chief Priest of the SNAKE DANCE.
The small figure is very mysterious. So far as we know, it has never been identified. One
and all of the Indians questioned lately still refuse to give it a name, either because they
really do not know what it represents, - or, more likely, because there is some taboo about
naming it; -- it may be too sacred to talk about to outsiders. Of this figure Voth says:
“There is perhaps no piece of Hopi religious paraphernalia3 no matter how sacred,
concerning which I have had greater difficulty to find out what it is and what it stands for
than this figurine. From al- most everyone whom I asked, even my best friends, who were
members of the Snake Fraternity, and - so it would seem - ought to know, I received the
stereo-typed answer: “We do not know”. Some say it represents the wife, some the sister
of the Pookongahoya -BALOONGAHOYA”. 27 Other Hopi authorities venture the
opinion that it may be NAYONGAPTUMSI, the sister of MUYINGWA, the God of
Germination and Growth.
BLACK SLATE ANIMAL FIGURES
The small-carved black slate figures of animals between and to either side of the Katcinas
are TOHOPKOS or fetishes, representing the leopard or puma.
LIGHTNING FRAMES
Behind the two carved figures are the lightning frames or whizzers. These unique
devices are supposed to typify LIGHTNING and are shot on various occasions in the
26
Bahos are the most important part of any dance ceremony. As the dances are really only prayers to the
gods, these symbols of PRAYER are the heart of whole matter. They are made by the Priests before the
beginning of the ceremony. The feather, probably because of its lightness and its association with the
wings of birds, is thought to carry the BREATH of the Prayer to the powers who can grant them. These
downy feathers taken from under the wings of the captive eagle are called BREATH FEATHERS.
27
Voth makes the error of calling Baloongahoya the sister of the Pookongahoya. He is the brother and is
“The Little God of Echo” previously described.
30
Kiva and outside, especially in the last two days of the ceremony, by the so-called
Kalehkta (warriors) of the Snake Fraternity.
BULLROARERS
Small flat sticks with cords attached are also used by the Kalehkta. These are twirled
rapidly giving off a sound like rushing wind but which is said to represent THUNDER.
Both lightning frames and bullroarers are decoys to draw the real Lightning and Thunder.
JAR
The water bottle to the right of the sand painting represents the jar in which the snakes
are ceremonially washed.
SNAKE WHIPS
The clusters of long eagle feathers bound into small scourges are the SNAKE WHIPS
used in the snake hunts and also in the dance. The whip is moved over a snake that coils
up and offers resistance, to cause it to uncoil so as to enable the priest to capture it. It is
also used in the dance. Each Priest who carries a snake is attended by a companion who
is armed with one of these snake whips. With this he strokes the back of the Priest
carrying the snake and also distracts the attention of the snake, when it attempts to strike,
by gently tickling the head and neck of the snake.
TRAY OF CORN MEAL
The tray at the foot of the sand painting is loaded with the sacred corn meal. This meal is
used in every ritual. In the Snake Dance it is used to sprinkle both snakes and dancers.
The feathers scattered over the corn meal are NAKWAKWOSIS, or feather offerings.
Every priest makes a few before starting on a snake hunt. On finding a snake, one of the
NAKWAKWOSIS, with a pinch of corn meal, is thrown on the snake, which is then
captured and put in the snake bag.
SNAKE BAGS
The deer skin bags to the left of the altar are small bags used simply to typify the snake
bags carried by the priests on the snake hunts. The snakes are brought back to the Kiva
in these and frequently remain in them over night when they are usually put under jars
until they are needed on the ninth day of the dance.
In the niche of the staircase wal1 are shown samples of the SANDS used in the
construction of the altar sand painting. The large stone slab was used by Kabotie on
which to grind his pigments.
There are also specimens of the HOPI PIGMENTS before grinding.
The SMALL SLAB is also a GRINDING STONE but the artist who used it may have
lived a thousand years ago. It was found this fall in one of the small cave-dwellings that
can be seen through the telescope on the east wall of the Canyon. The blue pigment
31
visible on its surface is the copper deposit the Indians still use to produce their delightful
turquoise green-blue.
Chapter IV
FIRST GALLERY
The wall and ceiling decorations of the first gallery, as well as of the second gallery, are
painted by Mr. Fred Geary who has copied with precision and appreciation the drawings
found in ancient kivas and habitations and on the walls of natural cliffs.
Where marked in the text with a single asterisk (*) a photograph of the original
pictograph is shown in the wall rack.
STAIR WALL TO FIRST GALLERY
FLUTE CEREMONY - JEMEZ
The decoration on the wall of the stairway represents the FLUTE CEREMONY as
depicted on an old flute, twenty-four inches long, found at the ancient Pueblo of Jemez.
In the original these drawings have all the precision of an exquisite miniature, but lend
themselves because of their remarkable decorative quality to wall treatment on a large
scale.
The Pueblo of Jemez is located in the Jemez Valley west of the city of Santa Fe.
(A photograph of the original flute decoration is shown in the wall rack.)
WALLS OF FIRST GALLERY
ETCHINGS ON SMOKED WALLS - FRIJOLES
The HUNTING SCENE at the head of the stairway, as well as the “RABBIT in the
BABY BASKET”, and the figure of a conventional KATCINA and a naturalistic
DANCER, drawn on the soffit of the stairway, are reproduced from unique etchings
found at Rito de los Frijoles by Kenneth M. Chapman of the Laboratory of Anthropology,
Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The originals are scratched with a sharp instrument on the smoke blackened plaster walls.
The draftsmanship of these figures is facile to the point of sketchiness -- the freedom of
line and knowledge of perspective removing them from the stylized decorations we call,
for lack of a better name, - “pictographs”.
32
(A photograph of Mr. Chapman's sketch, as well as of the original wall decoration of the
“Rabbit” and the “dancing figure” are shown in the wall rack.)
MOUNTAIN LION AND MAN - SIKYATKI
To the right of the smoked etching is an animated drawing of a MOUNTAIN LION and
MAN. It is taken from a pottery design found at Sikyatki, a prehistoric pueblo already a
ruin when the Spaniard came to Tusayan. Sikyatki located about three miles from the
modern Hopi Village of Walpi in northeastern Arizona is said by the Indians to have been
first settled by colonists from Jemez.
RAINBOW IN THE WEST - JEMEZ
Next is a wall painting from the “Secret Dark Room” at JEMEZ. This decoration
represents the RAINBOW IN THE WEST, - the rainbow which brings the flowers. Each
“foot” of the rainbow rests on cloud symbols called the “STEPS TO HEAVEN”.
Raindrops fall from the bottom of the cloud symbols. The two jars resting on the “Steps
to Heaven” are the WATER RESERVOIRS of the Universe. The GOD OF FLOWERS is
shown emerging from them. Below the design are two snakes: - the RED SNAKE is the
power of evil. There is constant conflict between him and the BLUE SNAKE who is the
symbol of beneficent rain. The Blue Snake is here shown on guard. 5
MAN-EAGLE OR HOPI HARPY
Next in order is painted a winged monster who once lived in the sky and sorely troubled
the ancients. J. Walter Fewkes describes this painting, which was found near Walpi, as
being so realistic and so true to modern legends of a harpy that he does not hesitate to
affix to it the name current in modern Tusayan folklore, - KWATANA - or MANEAGLE.
(Photograph in wall rack is taken from drawing in 17th Annual Report, Bureau of
American Ethnology.)
STAIR WALL
PETROGLYPHS FROM UTAH
The petroglyph decoration on the stair wall, according to Dr. Albert B. Reagan,
represents the BRINGING of the ANIMALS UP to this world shelf from the underworld.
The Ouray Utes say that this scene is an animal drive for the purpose of herding animals
into enclosures or over cliffs so they may be slaughtered. This design is from eastern
Utah. The HUNCHBACK FLUTE PLAYER appears in this pictograph three times.
(Photograph of the original decoration is shown in wall rack.)
UNDER STAIRS
PICTOGRAPHS FROM CLIFF DEWLLING IN GRAND CANYON
5
See important note at end of Manual – “Jemez Wall Painting”.
33
The drawings under the stairs - in two shades of red - are pictographs found in Cliff
dwellings near Locket Lake, Grand Canyon. (Note DOUBLE LIGHTNING design, later
mentioned in connection with pictographs from Petrified Forest). These drawings are
very old as is evidenced by the fact that the walls of the dwelling were erected after the
drawings were made.
(Photograph of the Locket Lake Cliff dwelling is shown in wall rack.)
DADO - FIRST GALIERY
FRET DESIGN BORDER – CANYON DE CHELLY
The MEANDER6 or FRET or MAZE design shown over dado (near Hunting Scene) is
described by Cosmos Mindeleff in the 16th Annual Report, Bureau of American
Ethnology. The original forms a border to the dado running entirely around the principal
kiva in MUMMY CAVE ruin at CANYON DE CHELLY.
DADO DESIGN FROM ANCIENT HOPI KIVE
The DADO decoration to the right of the fret design is copied from the walls of an
ancient Hopi Kiva about three-fourths of a mile from the village of Polacca, Arizona.
The original was copied by William E. Small who excavated the ruin and recorded the
design in April 1930. This design is shown full size and in natural color.
Unfortunately the newly excavated Kiva was not adequately protected from rain and this
remarkable painting was destroyed only a few days after its discovery. This is the more
to be regretted as ancient Kiva decorations are rare and this one with its wonderful vigor
and splendid designing, so suggestive of the Egyptian sun symbol, is one of the most
elaborate so far found.
We are indebted to Dr. and Mrs. Colton for information regarding this superb bit of
decoration. Following up their suggestion, we obtained the drawings and permission to
use them from Mr. Small.
PARAPET - FIRST GALLERY
PETROGLYPHS
The decorations on the PARAPET of this gallery are copies of PETROGLYPHS, (incised
on stone.) These designs were pecked by a young Hopi, Chester Dennis, on the cement
walls of the parapet, - just as were the originals by his ancestors, on the stone cliffs. The
parapet of the second gallery was executed by the same young man.
“MUDHEADS” FROM WILLOW SPRINGS
We will begin with the two rows of round heads on the north side of the parapet: This
design represents “KOYEMSI” or “MUDHEADS”, masks used in ceremonial dances of
Rio Grande Pueblos. These petroglyphs, found at Willow-Springs, are apparently very
ancient.
6
See note at end of Manual – “Meander-Fret-Maze”.
34
(Photographs and information furnished by Dr. and Mrs. Harold S. Colton of Flagstaff.
Photograph of the originals is shown in-wall rack.)
PICTOGRAPHS FROM ADAMANA – PAINTED DESERT
To the right of the mudheads is a group of pictographs carved on a large stone near
Adamana, the gateway to the Painted Desert. The two figures are characteristic
“CHUNDEES”28. Both paintings and petroglyphs of the same Chundees are found on the
rocks near the ancient city of Abo in New Mexico and in the Petrified Forest.
PICTOGRAPHS FROM PETRIFIED FOREST
The remainder of the pictographs reproduced on this parapet are from the superlative
array found in the Petrified Forest. Photographs of the subjects marked with a single (*)
are shown in wall rack. In their order on the parapet (to the right) they are –
Mythical ANIMAL and BIRD – underneath a FRET DESIGN.
SNAKE DESIGN
FOUR BIRDS over TURKEY TRACKS.
Grotesque figure of SEATED MAN. Above him is a design some believe to represent A
JOURENY, -- see line with possible footprints to either side. This symbol is very often
found in all parts of the Southwest. *
SPIRAL -- in general use since prehistoric times. The Zuni Indians, as quoted by
Roberts, say that it represents the wanderings of their people after they reached this world
plane in search of the “CENTER OF THE EARTH” where they wished to settle. Other
tribes claim that it represents their ancestor’s wanderings in the lower world in search of
a way out into this world. *
There is no more widespread single glyph than the HUNCHED BACK FLUTE
PLAYER, which comes next. From one end of the country to the other, he is found often
associated with animal figures, -- sometimes standing or walking; more often reclining;
sometimes singly and sometimes in groups. He appears to have many of the attributes of
the Greek God, Pan, (the flute player of the forest) who charms the dumb animals with
his music and governs the reproduction of the wild creatures. This person is shown in the
Tower in several other groups.
Underneath this figure is a ZIGZAG SNAKE.
Next comes a BIRD - holding in his bill (no -- not a baby! but --) according to the Indians
– a frog. The bird has been identified by Dr. A. Wetmore as a Heron. *
28
Mythical figures of men supposed to represent gods.
35
The next group of figures is composed of, first - a MAN holding aloft what appears to be
the blossom-stalk of a yucca plant; then a number of MYTHICAL ANIMALS which
look remarkably like Christmas tree ornaments! The Indians fail to recognize them. *
The next group of designs consists of a spirited and graceful WOMAN, apparently
standing upon the backs of turtles and holding in one hand a CORN STALK on which
rests a huge BIRD and in the other a FLOWER SYMBOL: -- these and the MASK and
an unusual SNAKE are from a cave shrine near NEWSPAPER ROCK.
The glyph following this is a very beautifully drawn design that appears to be a combination of a MAZE or MEANDER with the MOUNTAIN and BIRD design that
reminds one of the decoration painted on the grave stone which is built into the wall of
the gallery above.*
The next figure of the dignified BIRD is very beautifully drawn.
Note next the DOUBLE LIGHTNING SYMBOL. * This design seems to be a drawing
of the objects in the Snake Altar, which the Hopi call “lightnings”. The same symbol is
seen in all localities, - a number in and around the Grand Canyon. It is shown again in
the Tower under the stairway of the second gallery in the decoration taken from cave
dwelling at Locket Lake near Desert View.
Thanks are due for the cooperation of Mrs. White Mountain Smith of the Petrified Forest
National Monument and for many photographs from this place used on this parapet.
STAIRWAY WALL TO SECOND GALLERY
MIMBRES POTTERY DESIGNS
On the wall at the foot of the stairs and on the stairway wall itself, are shown paintings
from pottery. The MIMBRES RUINS in southern New Mexico have yielded the most
unique pottery ever unearthed. In “Art and Archaeology” Editha L. Watson happily
writes of “the Laughing Artists of Mimbres,” The designs speak for themselves -- from
the FISHING PELICAN with his “biggest fish that got away” – to the wild MARCH
HARE riding the moon! The spirit of CARICATURE is rivaled only by the perfection of
draftsmanship. As the whole Southwest yields nothing else in their class and as the
designs themselves are superbly decorative; it was deemed desirable to use them for wall
decorations even though they originally adorned pottery.
Chapter V
SECOND GALLERY
Where marked in the text with a single asterisk (*) a photograph of the original
pictograph is shown in the wall rack.
SOFFIT OF STAIRWAY
36
SUNSHIELDS AND ANIMALS
On the soffit of the stairway are two designs from SAN CRISTOBAL near Santa Fe,
New Mexico-the SUN SHIELD and two MYTHICAL ANIMALS.
WALLS OF SECOND GALLERY
PICTOGRAPHS FROM PAINTED DESERT
At the head of the stairway is a forceful group of ancient pictographs drawn on a rock
wall in the PAINTED DESERT near Adamana, Arizona. * The Painted Desert,
stretching to the skyline from the Indian Watchtower, is the home of some of the best
pictographs in America.
BETATAKIN AND KEET SEEL CLIFF DWELLINGS
Eighty miles as the bird flies to the northeast across the Painted Desert lies Betatakin “High-ledges House” - the name applied by the Navajo to this Cliff dwelling. Almost the
same distance away but in a more northerly direction lies its sister ruin, Keet Seel
(meaning broken pottery). KEET SEEL is about twenty-five miles this side of NAVAJO
MOUNTAIN, the mystic blue dome seen on the far horizon from the Watchtower. While
Navajo Mountain is in Utah, Betatakin and Keet Seel are in northeastern Arizona.
(Photographs of these two Cliff dwellings are shown in the wall rack.)
These two beautiful cave-dwellings, both in NAVAJO NATIONAL MONUMENT, are
among the most important in the state of Arizona. This region contains remarkable
prehistoric pictographs, some painted and some pecked on the walls and rocks; others
found within the walls of tile caves and houses.
PICTOGRAPHS FROM BETATAKIN
From the pictographs of Betatakin have been chosen - painted on the west wall:
THREE MYTHICAL ANIMALS.
A BLANKET-LIKE DESIGN which probably represents a maze.
A curiously involved treatment of the THUNDERBIRD, also suggestive of MAZE
design.
The next group is another mythical animal, possibly a MOUNTAIN SHEEP, and a
strikingly decorative medallion, which has been interpreted as a WAR GOD.
PICTOGRAPHS FROM KEET SEEL
From Keet Seel comes another blanket like design, probably also a MAZE and the
FRIEZE of NINE TURKEYS which in the original follows the line of a white plastered
wall along which are shown numerous handprints. (The turkey was domesticated by
many of the prehistoric pueblo people.)
37
COPY OF GRAVESTONE FROM CHEVLON
The stone slab inset in the wall between pictographs from Betatakin and Keet Seel is a
copy of a GRAVESTONE unearthed at CHEVLON near Winslow many years ago. The
original was removed to Washington.
The design is of unusual interest as it is similar to that shown in the dado below. The
stone upon which the design is painted is an original gravestone from the same locality.
The painting itself was copied by Kabotie from the design reproduced in the 22nd Annual
Report, Bureau of American Ethnology.
(A photograph of this reproduction is shown in wall rack.)
DADO
The DADO is taken from a design apparently in general use in prehistoric kivas and
living rooms, as it appears with slight variations several times at MESA VERDE and
again at CANYON DE CHELLY: also in Eagle Nest House, JOHNSON CANYON.
It has been interpreted as depicting rain clouds but a Hopi artist claims that it represents
mountains and trees. Sometimes the dado is done in dark red or brown against a white
wall; again it appears in white plaster against darker plaster as shown in the present
reproduction.
(Photographs from Mesa Verde showing the use of this design are in Wall rack.)
STAIR WALL
PICTOGRAPHS FROM CANYON DE CHELLY
The group of pictographs shown on the stair wall are from CANYON DE CHELLY.
This Canyon and its sister, CANYON DEL MUERTO, have some of the most
spectacular wall decorations in the country, but as the most important of them are of
known Navajo origin, it was thought best not to use them in the Tower decorations.
PARAPET - SECOND GALLERY
SQUARE SHOULDERED PICTOGRAPHS FROM UTAH
On the parapet are “pecked” figures taken from the cliff walls of Utah. * These square
shouldered godlike figures, so Egyptian in their style, appear to represent a folk foreign to
all others who inscribed the rocks of the Southwest with symbols. Apparently this race
came and went leaving nothing behind them except, on tile faces of the cliffs, their
superlatively arrogant self-portraits. While they appear as conquer-ors in their own
enduring picture records, -- leading women captives and carrying the bloody heads of
their foes, -- nothing more is known of them.
In the Fremont and Green River Valleys of Utah these rock drawings are numerous and
done in a most spectacular manner - some of them of heroic proportions, many eight feet
high. The same characteristic square shouldered hourglass figures are found in Colorado,
New Mexico and in Arizona as far south as the Grand Canyon itself. Many of these designs are not only pecked but the depressions have been filled apparently with paint.
Sometimes the designs are painted and not pecked.
38
The designs used in this room are from photographs and information kindly furnished by
Jesse L. Nusbaum, Laboratory of Anthrpology, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Chapter VI
CEILING DECORATION
The CEILING DECORATION is an adaptation of the very ancient rock paintings found
at the ABO CAVES in central New Mexico, just west of the ruined city of Abo. While
the decoration as used on the ceiling here is circular in form, the original paintings
actually occur on the ceilings and walls of overhanging cliffs that are incorrectly called
“caves”. These cliffs extend several hundred feet in length but at no place are more than
ten feet deep. Every available surface has been covered with pictures, once limed in
brilliant color, - evidently the same pigments that are still used by the Pueblo Indians.
Not once have these surfaces been decorated but many times, - probably by succeeding
generations; painting is super- imposed upon painting; 'drawing upon drawing, so that the
designs are unusually hard to trace, but the general effect is rich and ornate. Many of the
figures are almost life-size and drawn with amazing vigor and much detail.
Unfortunately modern progress and man’s vandalism have combined to destroy this
superlative ancient decoration. A new highway runs within a stone’s throw of these
caves. The construction of the road caused the falling of rock and in some cases the floor
of the so-called caves has fallen and the' ceiling and sidewalls have scaled off, erasing
much of interest. More destructive, however, is the modern motorist who has already
destroyed the value of this unique monument of another age and people.
Twenty-five years ago when the caves were inaccessible except to the earnest seeker,
Herman Schweizer of Albuquerque, visited them and succeeded in getting accurate
drawings of a number of the main figures.29 Without his drawings it would have been
impossible to reproduce these decorations. While enough remains of their former
splendor to verify the accuracy of Mr. Schweizer’s drawings and to show the original
coloring and style of drawing, as well as to inspire the artist with the spirit of the
decoration as a whole, - without these colored drawings made a quarter of a century ago,
little detail would have been possible.
The Abo paintings are attributed by the archaeologists to the pre-Spanish and early
Spanish periods. They probably cover several centuries of time. While possibly not so
old as other decorations reproduced in this building3 their great antiquity is not doubted
and their superb decorative quality gives them a place by themselves.
29
Photographs of some of Mr. Schweizer’s original drawings are shown in wall rack.
39
Many of the individual figures used in the ceiling decoration connect these paintings with
symbols and ceremonies still in use by living Indians. Many more of these pictographs
are of symbols, the meanings of which are lost in antiquity.
A few of the most prominent figures are here listed:
BLACK AND WHITE KOSHARE AND SNAKE
The striking black and white figure of a MAN and SNAKE is probably that of a
KOSHARE. Only the lower part of this figure survives on the wall at Abo. The vase,
legs of the man and lower part of a serpent are still distinctly visible. The head and
shoulders of the man and the upper part of the serpent have been scaled off. The entire
design is reproduced from Mr. Schweizer's colored drawing. This figure is of unusual
interest. The man closely resembles the Koshare of the Rio Grande Pueblos or Koyemsi
(mudheads) of the Zuni (still represented in the modern dances). He is seen stepping
from a jar. This jar with the mouth-like opening on the side seems identical with the Zuni
ceremonial kiva jars and strongly suggests a connection between these Abo paintings and
the Zuni people.7
The BLACK and RED FEATHERED SNAKE that seems to be sucking the breath of the
Koshare is the PLUMED SERPENT whose trail is found from South America to Alaska,
and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and is even traced by scholars to the ancient Orient, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt!
STAR FROG
Nearby is a so-called “STAR FROG”. This appears many times on the Abo Cliffs and
has been reproduced several times on the ceiling. Its meaning has not been traced.
THUNDERBIRD
Numerous types of THUNDERBIRDS occur on the walls at the Abo Caves. The most
interesting is the square-shouldered black and white decoration copied by Mr. Schweizer
and shown on this ceiling. This design, copied at the time by Mr. Schweizer from the
cave of Abo, has been used as a trademark by Fred Harvey for twenty-five years. It is
still easily discernible on the walls of the Abo Caves. It has seemed appropriate to adopt
this design as a seal for the Watchtower.
Many other forms of BIRDS are used in the Abo decorations and are copied on this
ceiling.
YELLOW KATCINA
The large YELLOW FIGURE to the north of center, is that of a DANCER or KATCINA.
The original, completely hidden under a low over-hanging ledge, is the best preserved of
the entire group. The figure is shown wearing a red crown, a headdress which appears
many times in the Abo Caves. The turquoise ear-rings, triple necklace with pendant shell
ornament, bracelets and arm bands are readily recognizable, and the yellow painted figure
appears to be clothed in the dance kilt of the katcinas, even the ceremonial sash is faintly
discernible
7
See note at end of Manual – “KOSHARE AND ZUNI CEREMONIAL JARS”.
40
(Photograph taken directly from the rock painting at Abo is shown in the wall rack.)
CENTER OF UNIVERSE
The MEDALLION with radiating sections in the four sacred colors corresponds very
closely to the modern pueblo symbol for the “CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE” and
doubtless has that meaning. It occurs a number of times at Abo and is found frequently
among prehistoric pictographs elsewhere. It is used by Kabotie a number of times in the
Hopi decorations of the first floor.
SNAKE IN CIRCLE
The SNAKE IN CIRCLE is also found not only a number of times at Abo but in widely
scattered localities. Many other snakes appear in this ceiling decoration.
OTHER SYMBOLS TOO NUMEROUS TO MENTION
The figures of ANIMALS, INSECTS, MASKS of many kinds, as well as GEOMETRIC
FIGURES, are too numerous to give in detail. They are all reproductions of Abo Cave
drawings.
HAND SYMBOLS
The HAND design shown many times in this decoration is in universal use wherever
pictographs are found. Sometimes it is the imprint of a hand dipped in pigment; at others,
the color is “stenciled” around the hand. It well may represent a signature, - the “sign
manual” of the artist.
PART FOUR
RUINS WEST OF WATCHTOWER
The RUINS built to the west of the Watchtower are supposed to be the remains of an
abandoned older structure built by earlier dwellers on Desert View Point. It is frequently
found that one generation appropriates not only the site of former builders but their
carefully gathered and prepared materials as well; so it is in keeping with established
usage that the rock from the fallen walls, as well as the laboriously worked timbers, of
this earlier structure should have been utilized by the builders of the Watchtower. This
would account for the little loose stone found in the vicinity of what seems to have been a
considerable village.
The Purpose in building this ruin is to show the condition in which many ruins are found
today. These fallen or partly standing walls, out of which large pinon and cedar trees are
growing or standing dead, give a fair idea of what is to be found scattered over the
Southwest. Of course many ruins are in much better condition than these are and yet
others are mere piles of stone.
It was impractical to design the Watchtower in as ruinous a condition as usually prevails
and the adjacent broken down walls to the west adds to the desired atmosphere.
41
WOMENS REST ROOM
The wall decoration in this room is one often-found in ancient living rooms and kivas.
The dark reddish color used on the tower walls is that of the natural adobe mud with
which the stone walls are usually plastered. This work is done by spreading the mud with
the palm of the hand and the red or brown shade varies with the color of the adobe in the
neighborhood. This earth color is used as a Dado. The upper walls and the square
chequer pattern are painted on with a kind of gypsum used as a whitewash by modern as
well as prehistoric Indians.
The border of square chequers is one of the most universal designs known to man. It is
found pressed into Assyrian glazed brick made thousands of years before Christ and is
still in use by the most modern of Modernistic Designers. All people in all times have
found it good.
The whitewashing was done with the palm of the hand or a piece of buffalo or sheep hide
dipped in the whitewash. The design, in olden times, was painted with a brush probably
made of chewed yucca or willow-twig.
The ceiling is coated with the same whitewash as is still done in the best Pueblo homes.
The pink cast is due to the mixing of the red clay with the whitewash during application.
The ceiling itself is constructed of cedar saplings laid in the still popular herringbone
pattern.
The painted wood ornaments used as a frieze around the room are tablitas or headdresses
worn by the Pueblo Indians in certain ceremonial dances. They are handed down as
heirlooms and highly treasured as such. Many of them are loaded with coats of paint as
they are usually repainted before each dance. These particular headdresses were worn for
the last time by Hopi maidens in the Butterfly Dance at Chimopovy in 1932. It will be
noticed that the colors have run a little which is indicative that the Butterfly Dance, which
is an invocation for rain, was in this case successful.
CEILING OF CURIO SHOP
The ceiling in the Curio Shop is a close reproduction of one type of prehistoric ceiling.
The cedar posts form the vegas (rafters) and the filling between them is of very small
straight willow saplings laid close together. Over such a structure the ancient ceiling
would have had many layers of brush and adobe mud closely packed forming quite a hard
slab.
Such a ceiling in a remarkable state of preservation was found at Pueblo Bonito.
42
Ceilings of the Prehistoric Periods are much more perfect in design and workmanship
than any found among the Historic Pueblos. This is true of the masonry and every other
craft as well. Just preceding the coming of the Spanish, a period of decadence set in
which has continued till our own times.
(Photographs of the Pueblo Bonito ceiling and other ancient ceilings are in the wall rack.)
REFLECTORS OVER LIGHTS IN KIVA
The SIX SHIELDS used as reflectors on the lights in the Kiva are decorated with designs
taken from the Powamu ceremony. They are called the Disks of the Pota. The Powamu
Ceremony is a very important initiation ritual.
The four HEADDRSSSES also used as reflectors over lights are worn by participants in
two of the important Dances. They are made by Kabotie.
GENUINE PETROGLYPHS
The ROCK SLABS used at the side of the main entrance and for the face of the stone
table are genuine PETROGLYPH ROCKS from the region of Ash Fork.
PICTOGRAPH ROCKS on STAIRWAY. These are very good specimens. The one on
the stair wall is particularly interesting. Note the perfect baby footprint. This petroglyph
also shows a cornfield, rain clouds and a well-drawn bird.
CEILING LIGHT FIXTURES
The CEILING ELECTRIC LIGHT fixtures in the Curio Shop and the Stair Hall are
adapted from decorations that hang over the sand paintings of altars in Zuni Kivas.
OYL STOOL
The OWL STOOL is made from a grotesque tree root found by Ed Cummings. The eyes
are copper deposits such as used by the Indians for their Turquoise green pigment. This
stool shows the ingenuity of the Indian in seeing accidental resemblance’s, and putting
them to his own use; as does also the grotesque rock formation on the mantel.
CHAIRS AND STOOLS
The Prehistoric Indians had little or no furniture. Stone benches are built into kivas and
occasional ones are even found in living rooms, but one is not always certain that some
pothunter has not made a bench out of a long lintel stone set on flat rocks for legs. Such
a one is in a room at Wupatki.
Small benches cut out of sections of tree trunks, such as the one in front of the fireplace,
are occasionally found. Stools, both three and four legged, made out of tree burls with
saplings for legs have been unearthed. This style is pictured in Victor Mindeleff's
43
interesting paper in the Ethnological Report of 1886. Of course a chair with back and
arms was quite unknown, and in the development of the Kiva, furniture from the burls of
trees considerable license was required and taken with this idea of the primitive man.
REFLECTOSCOPES
The REFLECTOSCOPES used on the Kiva Roof and also in the Kiva itself are an
adaptation of the “Claude Lorrain Glasses” used by artists for the past three hundred
years. The original Claude Lorrain glass was invented by a great French Landscape
painter by that name who lived from 1600 to 1682. His invention consisted of a thin slab
of black onyx - slightly convex - and highly polished. Later black glass was substituted
for onyx. He used this device, as has many landscape painters since, to condense and
simplify the view he was sketching.
As some of the natural light is absorbed by the black mirror, the nerves of the eye are not
strained by the intense light. The sunlight at the Canyon being unusually bright, this
slight modification is an advantage. Very strong light tends to wipe out color while mild
light shows it up better - so with this image reflected from this black glass the color
seems stronger.
Another reason why the pictures shown in these reflectoscopes have so much
individuality and charm is due to the framing of individual views. The general view of
the Grand Canyon is so overpowering that separating a section of it for a moment making
it a “framed picture” -- brings it better within one’s comprehension.
NOTES
Note 1 - PART ONE, Chapter I, Page 1 –
CLIFF-DWELLINGS and CLIFF-DWELLERS
The wide spread publicity given in the nineties to the Cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde and
Canyon de Chelly has lead to a popular misnomer that sometimes is very misleading.
These spectacular cities built in huge caves in Cliffs hanging over canyons of unplumbed
depths so appealed to the imagination that ever since these startling discoveries were
pictured in books and magazines, to as much as mention to the average person a
prehistoric ruin in the Southwest, calls up to him visions of the “Cliff Palace” at Mesa
Verde or of the “White House” at Canyon de Chelly. The dramatic setting of these Cliffdwellings”, as they were at once called, excluded from popular consideration, any other
type of primitive habitation.
So all ruins of the Southwest became to most people “Cliff-dwellings” and all prehistoric
Indians were henceforth know as “Cliff-dwellers”.
Even among those who now know that there are numerous ruins in this region not built in
caves of cliffs, another misconception is general, and this is that two entirely different
44
races of house-building Indians lived side by side or followed each other in different
periods, and that one of these peoples built the Cliff-dwellings and the other people built
the remaining habitations, the ruins of which are so widespread. This also is incorrect.
To get the point settled according to the latest pronouncements of archaeologists this
summary of the subject may help:
To call a village or even a single living room built into a natural cave in a cliff a “Cliffdwelling” is correct. To call the Indians who built and lived in such habitations “Cliffdwellers” is also correct up to a point.
But the vast majority of ruins from prehistoric times are built in valleys, on the sloping
sides of Canyons, or the rolling deserts, or on the flat mesas above the canyons and so
should not be classed as Cliff-dwellings. However, the people who built their habitations
on such sites as these are the same people who built the cities in the cliffs. Nor is there
any essential difference between the cities built in cliffs and the ones built on sloping or
flat terrain except such as were occasioned by the circumscribed character of the site of
the Cliff dwellings.
It is believed by students of Archaeology that the house-building Indians of the
Southwest originally lived in wildly scattered homes, sometimes only a solitary house of
a few rooms, sometimes a group of such houses. These were the farming days.
The
little farms, manned by a few hands, but storing good crops of corn, were very tempting
to the bands of nomadic Indians who sometimes found their way into this region. One
successful raid encouraged another and the raiders came back with greater regularity, - so
fear grew upon the farmers. For protection against these recurring raids they drew
together and built larger and larger community dwellings. So the PUEBLO was born.
These were often built on floors of valleys or of canyons. But the raids continued and
increased in the number of attacking bands; for just as the farmers had banded together
for safety's sake, the enemies banded together to overcome the greater resistance offered
by the pueblo people. So yet greater fear came upon the house- dwellers and they decided
to abandon their valley homes and “flee to the rocks” for havens that would be
impregnable. These they often found in the caves of the cliffs of their immediate
vicinity. As the sites were chosen in times of great danger, great inconvenience meant
nothing to men driven by fear. It was difficult for themselves to reach these cliff sites
and that insured the much-coveted security from surprise attack of others. They were
protected from every possible side except the front, and the approaches to this were so
beset with difficulties that they could be defended by a handful of men. Granaries built in
the rear of the caves were large enough to store their corn crops. Some of the Cliff
dwellings even now have their springs, and a water supply of sorts may have been a
feature of every Cliff dwelling.
But the Cliff dwellings were far from convenient and as soon as the Period of Fear
passed, the inhabitants, whose ancestors had lived in valleys before they were hunted into
the cliffs, climbed up to the flat mesas above their cliff homes and proceeded to build
great and numerous villages.
45
Whether they entirely abandoned their Cliff dwellings and outpost Towers when they
began the mesa building or whether they inhabited them concurrently, is a matter for
speculation. Perhaps the ones fearful by nature kept the old fires burning while the
daring kindled new fires on the far-flung mesas above.
To summarize: This is the most generally accepted theory of the Evolution which
produced the Cliff dwelling: First, a period of widely scattered dwellings; second, - the
Pueblos or community dwellings in valley or on mesa; third, - the Cliff dwellings. After
them came the Pueblos on the mesas above the cliffs. In this theory the Cliff dwellings
occupy a period to themselves with perhaps an overlapping with the succeeding period.
A theory built on parallel conditions in historic times seems much more plausible.
Perhaps these Cliff dwellings were never designed for continuous occupation. There may
have been seasons of the year when the raids from nomadic Indians were more to be
feared than at others and these Cliff-dwellings may have been prepared and victualed to
use as strongholds on such occasions, and the open villages in the valleys or on the mesa
above, with their greater elbow room, have been lived in at all other times. This might
explain the numerous watchtowers that overlook both canyons and the distant mesas.
These may have been for the purpose of sighting the enemy and signaling the widespread
pueblos in valleys and on the mesa tops that it was time to seek safety in the Clifffastness where their grain was stored for safekeeping, and sufficient supplies of water on
hand for the short siege they would have to stand from their restless nomadic foes. When
these foes had despaired of getting food plunder, prisoners and scalps, and gone back to
their hunting fields, the “Cliff-dwellers” may have come out from their “hideholes” and
lived again in the open pueblos, which on account of their simple structures and lack of
movable furnishings, had presented no temptation for pillage to the enemy.
When the farmer Indian first sought safety in these caves, he probably fled to them empty
handed and at best saved only the lives of himself and family. When he returned to his
valley or mesa village it was to find it pillaged, his stores of corn stolen and his flocks of
domesticated wild turkeys30 driven away. That year he fought famine. The next season,
being a good learner in a hard school, he cached his corn in the cracks and crevices far
back in the cave walls where the crude masonry of the retaining wall he built made a fine
camouflage against the seamed cliff. He also made turkey runs in the rear of the caves.
These would require daily attention and also women and children and the old people
would be well out of the way here, so they were parked here between raids. Gradually
habitations were built. It was found they made comfortable homes, sheltered from storm
as well as invasion. The Indian’s imperative desire for religious rites made necessary the
Kiva, - especially as danger makes popular with all mankind the temple and the church.
So kivas were built. The numerous kivas found in every cliff pueblo, more numerous
30 It is not known whether the ancient Indians used the turkey for food or only held them captive, as-they
now do eagles, in order to have the feathers for ceremonial costumes. At all events the bird was
domesticated in large numbers. Kabotie, in his account of the young man who navigated the Colorado,
speaks of their making a bed of “turkey's downy breast feathers” in the boat used on that occasion.
46
apparently than in other villages of an equal number of dwelling rooms probably (if this
theory is tenable) resulted from many villages being forced to join in the ownership of
cave pueblos because of the limited number of caves in proportion to the number of other
villages. Each gens (or family} requires a clan kiva.
The presence of kivas indicate that the cliff pueblos had become places of extended
occupation probably covering the period from harvest till seed time when the exodus to
the valley and mesa pueblos would repeat itself. The nomadic enemy invasions proving
time after time unproductive, eventually ceased, but the fastness built in the rocks, while
no longer needed for their original purpose by this time had became a habit and the
biennial move probably continued year after year, long after its original meaning was
forgotten. Probably the overcrowding caused by many villages being forced into such
confined quarters in the end caused the more progressive men to abandon the C1iffdwellings and then they would gradually die out.
The history of Acoma, the City “builded on rock” of Spanish invasion times, provides a
parallel case. While Acoma is not a Cliff dwelling in the sense that it is built in a cave, it
is one in every other meaning of the word. Crowning the top of an impregnable rock it
held the Spanish at bay, despite their miraculous gunpowder, for many years. For
centuries, the hale and the hearty - men, women and children - moved at planting time to
Acomita, their farm community in the valley some distance away, leaving only the old
and infirm to tend the Winter City. For certain ceremonies held during the summer and
fall, the whole tribe returned, and still continue to return, to Acoma.
In past times the tribe came back to this city after harvest and lived here together until
planting time. Now, however, many - almost all - have built houses in the valley and
Acoma is nearly deserted except for special occasions, - some connected with Saints
Days of the Roman Catholic. Church of which the Acoma Indians are nominal members,
- and some connected with their own dances of a purely pagan character.
Thus in historic times has been enacted the probable history of the prehistoric Cliff
dwellers.
Note 2 - PART ONE, Chapter I, Page 4 DATING OF RUINS BY THE TREE RING METHOD
As visitors sometimes ask for the dates of the various ruins, the following data is given.
Many of the ruins have not as yet been examined with the Tree Ring System in mind. A
list is given here of those that have been definitely determined. The dates given do not
represent the length of time during which these ruins may have been occupied but only
the date of such timbers as have been examined. The span of time between given dates at
least represents the minimum during which active building went on.
Dates of Ruins ascertained by TREE RING METHOD
47
These dates are taken from various timbers found in the Ruins.
Betatakin
Keet Seel
Mesa Verde
Aztec
Canyon de Chelly
Mummy Cave
White House
Wupatki Citadel
Wupatki Proper
Kawaiokuh
Kintiel (Wide Ruin)
1260
1274
1073
1110
1277
1284
1262
1121
1253
1060
1192
1087
1284
1275
1284
1275
1260
1197
1495
1370
1800
1390
1427
1800
1605
HOPI VILLAGES
Oraibi
Shipaulovi
Shongpovi
Walpi
The oldest inhabited villages are given as connecting the Prehistoric Ruins with the
present day.
Frank H. H. Roberts gives the following outline of the way the TREE RING SYSTEM of
dating came about and how it is applied:
“Doctor Douglass in making a study of climatic conditions in the Southwest turned to the
growth of trees in an effort to obtain evidence on the occurrence of wet and dry years,
and the extent of drought periods and intervals of moisture. In doing this he developed a
method whereby he could tell whether the trees from which logs had been cut were
growing at the same time or to what degree their life periods overlapped. Beginning with
trees whose actual cutting date was known, he was able to devise a definite historical
chart for ring growth going back to 700 AD By comparing the rings in any given tree
with the chart he is able to tell when the tree was cut. Since the beams used in the
construction of houses were once trees it has been possible to check their rings with the
historical chart and obtain a series of dates for a large number of the structures in the
Southwest. Hence, archaeologists can now give rather accurate statements concerning the
calendrical period of certain centers.”
Note 3 - PART THREE, Chapter I, Page 28 -
48
SALT LEGEND
A long time ago there were large deposits of SALT near to the Hopi Mesas and
the Hopi found it very easy to obtain this valuable mineral compound which since time
immemorial man has found necessary to health and happiness.
But all the Salt in the world was owned at this time by the Little War Gods - the
Pookongahoyas. (Isn’t it strange that the War Lords of every clime and people manage to
corner the minerals most necessary to mankind!) Now, the Hopis had the terrible
misfortune to give the Pookongahoyas great offense, so to avenge themselves on the
mesa people the small gods just picked up nearly all of the Salt deposit which had been
so conveniently placed close at hand and carried it away between them. They carried it to
the deepest and most inaccessible part of the Grand Canyon and left it there! So when the
poor Hopi had to have salt thereafter they just had to come here after it. This they
continued to do until the trading store introduced commercial salt. Even now old Indians
tell you of coming here for salt a long time ago and they point out the tortuous trail down
which they had to go to reach it. It is visible from the Watchtower.
Note 4 - PART THREE, Chapter I, Page 28 –
KABOTIE - INDIAN ARTIST
Kabotie, the Hopi Artist who decorated the walls and ceilings of-the Hopi Room of the
Tower and made the unusually beautiful sand painting in the altar3 was born thirty years
ago in the Village of Shungopovi on the Second Mesa. The name given him at birth
means “Next Sunrise” (Ka-botie, accent on the first syllable.) This name was a
compliment to his father who belongs to the Sun Clan. Kabotie himself, of course,
according to Hopi custom, belongs to his mother's clan, the “Blue Jay”.
The boy attended the Indian School at Santa Fe where, also according to custom, he was
given an American name for the convenience of the teachers. This name is Fred and he is
sometimes spoken of as Fred Kabotie. We much prefer to call him simply by his Indian
name.
Kabotie, while in Santa Fe, frequently visited the artist’s studios where he picked up
considerable knowledge of the white man’s art. In it he is remarkably clever for he is a
real painter in any medium or in any style.
It is, however, in the traditional art of his people that he really excels. In it every line he
draws is as sure as truth itself, whether it is drawn with brush and pigment on the wall or
with colored sand in the mosaic of the altar. Kabotie has a reverence for the ceremonial
painting of his people that inspires all he does. He also has a broad knowledge of the
meaning of the age-old symbols employed, which makes his work a record of enduring
value.
49
As well as being a genius in the art of Hopi painting, he has no mean talent as a musician
and is an inspired dancer in the ritualistic dances of his people.
Note 5 - PART THREE, Chapter IV, Page 47 JEMEZ WALL PAINTING
This painting of the RAINBOW from the Kiva at Jemez is of unusual interest. It is
copied from a drawing reproduced in an article by Alfred B. Reagan in El Palacio, April
1917. Some details of the same painting are given by Dr. Elsie Clews Parsons in her
book “The Pueblo of Jemez” published in l925.
What makes it of peculiar interest is that practically the same design is reproduced in a
Government Publication, Report of the Secretary of War, published in 1850.31 The
report is written by Lieut. J. H. Simpson and is the first official record made of important
prehistoric ruins in the Southwest. His journey (1849) took him through the Pueblo of
Jemez and he gives a surprisingly accurate account of its people and buildings) even
describing a Corn Dance. He reproduces in color a number of wall paintings found in the
Estufa (Kiva), -- the first official records of such drawings found in the Southwest.
Among them is an almost identical Rainbow design, which we copied on the walls of the
Tower from the drawing published by Dr. Reagan in 1917. Thus is made good the claim
of modern Indians that their sacred paintings go back beyond the memory of living men.
Of the originals of this group of paintings, Lieut. Simpson says: “On the walls (of the
Estufa) were representations of plants, birds and animals; the turkey, the deer, the fox and
the dog being plainly depicted; none of them, however, apprcaching to exactness except
the deer, the outline of which showed certainly a good eye for proportions.”
The contention of some scientists that the paintings used on Kiva and house walls are
NOT done for DECORATION receives a hard knock from Lieut. Simpson away back in
1849 before the present archaeology in the Southwest was dreamed of. He writes: “To
the question of the object of the paintings upon the walls of the Estufa, he (Hosta, the
Governor of Jemez) said they were “por bonito” (for beauty)!
Note 6 - PART THREE, Chapter IV, Page 49 –
MEANDER-FRET-MAZE
The colored drawing of this decoration made in 1849 by R. H. Kirn, Lieut. Simpson’s assistant, has been
carefully copied in color by Mr. Geary and is placed among the photographs in the wall rack, along with
the spirited painting of deer referred to by Lieut. Simpson.
31
50
The MEANDER, FRET or MAZE design is one of the oldest in the history of mankind.
It is frequently called the Greek Fret, which gives the impression that it is of Greek
origin. It antedates Greek civilization, however, by many centuries. The Assyrians and
Egyptians both used it and in the most ancient Chinese art it was as popular as it is today
in all modern design.
The reason it is more closely associated in our minds with Greek art is due to the Greeks
superlative adaptation of it to their famous vase painting and architecture. The name
“Maeander” (also spelled Meander) is another Greek name for the same pattern. It is
said to be derived from a river in Asia Minor, the Maeandros, and now the Menderes,
which flows in sinuous curves.
The third name, Maze, is better adapted to the development of this particular design in the
prehistoric art of the Western Hemisphere. Here this pattern takes greater importance and
symbolic meaning. It is not a limited border representing the meandering course of a river
but becomes an intricate network of tortuous paths representing the wanderings of a
people or of the soul after death. In this meaning it is a part of the mythology of every
Indian tribe.
Countless variations of the pattern were used in prehistoric times on the pottery of the
Southwest. This pottery was the natural successor of the woven bag and basket of the
Basket- Makers Period arid logically inherited the decorative designs originally evolved
for the earlier utensils. So we trace this design back to a textile origin. Without doubt it
was an outgrowth of the interlacing pattern produced by the inter-weaving of flat strands.
In course of time this design, originally developed from the art of weaving, swung back
to the same craft in the designs of blankets. However, it did not stop at basketry, pottery
and blankets, but invaded the field of architecture itself. Wherever in the Western
Hemisphere the art of building was highly developed, as among the Mayas and Toltec
people, the Maze design used as plastic decoration was developed in a more elaborate
fashion than any know in the so-called Old World. Nowhere, - not in Assyria, Egypt,
China or Greece itself, have as many and intricate variations of this design been used as
on the walls, both exterior and interior, of the superb Palace of Mitla in Zapatica on the
southwest coast of Mexico. This marvelous and mysterious building is only one of many
where the Maze in its many phases surpasses anything of Greek origin.
There are no buildings so decorated in our own Southwest for in the cultures developed
here, applied ornament in connection with architecture was only in its infancy. But there
are examples of the Maze in its simpler forms incised on flat building slabs and it is often
found both incised and painted on the faces of cliffs and on the walls of caves and on the
plastered walls of ancient kivas. Examples of these are reproduced in the watchtower
decorations.
Most curious of all uses of the Maze is found in the ruins of structures built over areas
sometimes as extensive as a city block. In these the entire ground plan of the building is
that of a most intricate maze or labyrinth. Outlined by low crumbling walls the narrow
51
tortuous paths wind and rewind around themselves, confounding the unfortunate human
who seeks a way out. It is believed that these mysterious labyrinths were used in certain
initiations when the candidate, typifying the human soul, was led blindfold to its center
and there left to perish or, if favored by the gods, to win his way to freedom and exalted
priesthood.
Greek mythology tells of similar structures.
Note 7 - PART THREE, Chapter VI, Page 58 KOSHARE AND ZUNI CEREMONIAL JARS
Jesse L. Nusbaum has kindly given us the following version about the possible meaning
of this jar and figure:
“Regarding the point brought up by Miss Colter about the painting in the Cave near Abo
where a man stands with one foot in a jar: This may be a representation of the Koshare,
or the Koshare spirit stepping from a jar. Evidently these drawings, as I recall, bear many
characteristics which are very strongly Zuni, and you may have here a mingling of
Koyemsi, or mudheads, with the Koshare of the Rio Grande pueblos, and the influence of
Zuni ceremonial jars with their mask-like openings. - Perhaps behind it all there is the
spirit of the individual emerging from the jar into the Zuni spirit world in off-ceremony
season. Please realize that this is just a conclusion of my own, based on the knowledge I
have but without any-specific information to satisfactorily justify it.”
“The holes in the side of the Zuni ceremonial jars are normally where the mouth would
be on the mask, and are for the purpose of feeding the spirit of the jar. Normally there is
but a single opening on the side of the jar. The mouths of the other representations of the
gods in the decorations of the jar are shown only in black paint. It is customary with the
Shalako jars which have these openings, to place food in front of the jars on the ledge in
the kivas where it is kept for a period near one phase of the moon, prior to the removal of
the costume and contents of the jar for the ceremony. Each day food is placed before the
jars, which, by the end of the 28th day period, is a reeking mass that smells to high
heaven. At the conclusion of the twenty-eight days all the food is removed and thrown
on the surface of the Zuni River so it may go downstream and feed the people below.
“Prehistoric jars found in graves have, universally in the Mimbres area and to less extent
in other areas, a so-called “kill-hole”32 in the bottom, fairly close to the center; and according to tradition in mythology the older Pueblo people inverted a jar over the burial
and this hole is provided for the escape of the spirit of the individual. In some places jars
This “kill-hole” in the bottom of a jar should not be confused with the “mouth” cut into the side of the
ceremonial jar, as in the picture at Abo Caves.
32
52
were placed as accompaniments to burial and were shattered by rocks just before the
grave was covered.”
Note 8 – Part One – Chapter 1 – Page 6
THE LITTLE BIRD AND MUYINGWA
AN ORAIBI LEGEND
(Taken from story given by Rev. H. R. Voth in field Columbian Museum, Publication
No. 83)
A long time ago the Oraibi had nothing to eat as it did not rain for about four or five
years. The first year the corn became large enough so that some corn-ears just began to
ripen, then the frost came and killed it. The next year the ears were just forming when
the frost again killed the corn. The third year the ears did not even begin to form when
the stalks were killed by frost. The fourth year it remained very small. The people by
this time had eaten all the corn they had saved from previous years and some began to
move away. Some of them, however, still planted some the fifth year, but the drought
was so great that the corn withered soon after it had come out of the ground.
They all left then, trying to find something to eat with other people. Only a little boy and
his sister were left in the village. One time the little brother made a little bird for his
sister from the pith of the sunflower stalk and gave it to her to play with. While he went
away to hunt something else for her she played with the little bird, throwing it upwards
several times, and all at once it became a living Humming-bird and flew away. When the
boy returned he asked her what she had done with her little bird. She told him that it had
flown away, at which he was very much surprised. The children had hardly anything to
eat. The next morning the little bird came back with an ear of corn. He fed the children
for several days. Finally the little boy said to him: “You go and hunt our parents. They
have left us here and you will perhaps find them and bring us something more to eat.”
The little bird flew far away until it was very tired; then sitting upon a rock south of the
village the little bird looked southward and all at once detected at Tuwanashabe, a cactus
plant with a single red blossom. The bird at once flew towards this plant and removing it
found an opening under it. Entering this opening it found itself in a kiva where some
grass and herbs were growing. At the north end of this kiva was another opening.
Passing through this one, the little bird found itself in a second kiva. Here it found some
corn with some pollen on it, and ate some of it. At the north end of this kiva there was
also an opening leading into a third kiva. Entering this kiva the bird found grass, herbs,
and corn of all kinds, and here also lived Muyingwa, the God of Growth and
Germination.
There were also all kinds of birds in this last kiva, but it was the Humming-bird that first
noticed the little intruder and told Muyingwa about it. “Somebody has come in”, they
53
said. “Who is it?” he asked, “and where is he? Let him come here.” So the little bird
flew on Muyingwa’s arm and waited. “Why are you going about here?” Muyingwa
asked. “Yes,” the bird said, “what are you doing here? Why have you listened to the
wishes of the bad people who want you to retire here to this place and not concern
yourself about the people up there? Why have you complied with their wishes? Your
fields up there look very bad. It has not rained there and nothing is growing. The people
have all left except two poor little children who are the only ones left in Oraibi. You
come out here and look after things up there.” “All right,” Muyingwa answered, “I am
thinking about the matter.”
Hereupon the bird asked for something to eat and something to bring to those poor
children, for they were very hungry. Muyingwa told the bird to take just what he wanted
and bring it to the children. On the bird’s return he fed the children and then flew away
to the place called Toho where he found the parents of the children in a starving
condition. Having fed them, he took back word to the children.
Muyingwa had in the meanwhile concluded to go up into the world and look after things
there. He first ascended to the first kiva above him, where he stayed four days. During
this time it rained a little about Oraibi, and when he after four more days emerged from
the last kiva he found that the grasses and herbs were growing nicely.
The parents of the children had seen from the distance the clouds and rain about Oraibi,
and concluded to return to the village, not knowing that their children were still living.
Others of the inhabitants of Oraibi who had yet perished, also heard that it was now
raining at their village and so they also returned. When these children grew up they, and
after their descendants, became the village chiefs and owners of the village of Oraibi.
Note 9 – Part 1 – Chapter 3 – Page 10
EMERGENCE LEGEND
THE COMING OF THE HOPI FROM THE UNDER-WORLD
(Taken from story given by Rev. H. R. Voth in Field Columbian Museum, Publication
No. 83)
A long time ago the people were living below. There were a great many of them, but
they were often quarreling with one another. Some of them were very much depraved.
So the chiefs, who were worried and angry over this, had a council and concluded that
they would try to find another place to live. So they first sent out a bird named Motsni, to
find a place of exit from this world. He flew up high but was too weak and returned
without having been successful. They then sent the mocking-bird (Yahpa). He was
strong and flew up very high and found a place of exit. It was a small hole in the ceiling
of the under-world and led up to this world plane. The Hopis call it “sipapu” and say that
54
it is somewhere in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Returning, he reported this to the
chiefs.
…When the Mocking-bird had made his report to the chiefs the latter said: “all right, that
is good. We are gong away from here.” They then announced through the crier that in
four days they would leave, and that the women should prepare some food, and after they
had eaten on the fourth day they would all assemble at the place right under the opening
which the Mocking-bird had found. This was done.
The chiefs then planted a pine-tree (calavi), sang around it, and by their singing made it
to grow very fast. It grew up to the opening which the Yahpa had found, and when the
chiefs tried and shook it, they found that it was fairly strong, but not strong enough for
many people to climb up on, especially its branches, which were very thin. So they
planted another kind of pine (looqo), sang around it, and made it also to grow up fast.
This tree and its branches was much stronger than the other, but while the first one had
grown through the opening, this one did not reach it entirely, its uppermost branches and
twigs spreading out sideways before they reached the opening. Hereupon they planted in
the same manner a reed (bakavi), which proved to be strong, and also grew through the
opening like the calavi. Finally they planted a sunflower (ahkawu), and as it was moist
where they planted it, it also grew up very fast and to a great size, its leaves also being
very large; but the sunflower did not reach the opening. Its very large disk protruded
downward before it reached the opening. The sunflower was covered with little thorns
all over. Now they were done with this.
Hereupon Spider Woman, Pookonghoya, his brother Baloongawhoya, and the mockingbird that had found the opening, climbed up on the calavi in the order mentioned. After
they had emerged through the opening, Pookonghoya embraced the calavi, his brother the
reed, both holding them firmly that they should not shake when the people were climbing
up. The mocking-bird sat close by and sang a great many songs, the songs that are still
chanted at the Wuwuchim ceremony. Spider Woman was also sitting close by watching
the proceedings. Now the people begin to climb up, some on the calavi, others on the
looqo, still others on the ahkavu and on the bakavi. As soon as they emerged, the
Mocking-bird assigned them their places and gave them their languages. To one he
would say: “You shall be a Hopi, and that language you shall speak.” To another: “You
shall be a Navajo, and you shall speak that language.” And to a third: “You shall be an
Apache,” “a Mohave,” “a Mexican’” etc., including the White Man. The language
spoken in the under world had been that of the following Pueblo Indians: Kawahykaka,
Akokavi, Katihcha, Kotivti; these four branches of the Pueblo Indians speaking
essentially the same language.
In the under-world the people had been very bad, there being many sorcerers and
dangerous people, just like there are in the village to-day who are putting diseases into
the people. Of the Popwaktu, (wizards), one also found his way out with the others. The
people kept coming out, and before they were all out the songs of the Mocking-bird were
exhausted. “Hopi! Pai shulahti! Now! (my songs) are gone,” and at once the people who
were still on the ladders commenced returning to the under-world, but a very great many
55
had already come out, an equally large number having remained in the under-world, but
the Kik-mongwi from below was with the others that came out of the kiva. The people
who had emerged remained around the sipapu, as the opening was, and has ever since
been called.
At this time no sun existed and it was dark everywhere. The half-grown son of the Kikmongwi took sick and died, so they buried him. His father was very angry. “Why has
some Powaka come out with us?” he said. “We thought we were living alone and wanted
to get away from those dangerous men. That is the reason why we have come out, and
now one has come with us.” Hereupon he called all the people together and said: “on
whose account have I lost my child? I am going to make a ball of this fine corn-meal and
throw it upward, and on whose head that ball alights, him I shall throw down again
through the sipapu.” Hereupon he threw the ball upward to a great height, the people all
standing and watching. When it came down it fell upon the head of some one and
shattered. “Ishohi! So you are the one,” the chief said to him. But as it happened this
was the chief’s nephew (his younger sister’s son).33 “My nephew, so you are nukpana
(dangerous); why have you come out with us? We did not want any bad ones here, and
now you have come with us? I am going to throw you back again.” So he grabbed him
in order to throw him back. “Wait,” he said, “wait! I am going to tell you something.”
“I am going to throw you back,” the chief replied. “Wait,” his nephew said again, “until I
tell you something. You go there to the sipahpuni and look down. There he is walking.”
“No, he is not,” the chief replied, “I am not going to look down there, he is dead.” But he
went and looked down and there he saw his boy running around with other children, still
showing the signs of the head washing which the Hopi practice upon the dead
immediately after death. “Yes, it is true, it is true,” the chief said, “truly there he is going
about.” “So do not throw me down there,” his nephew said, “that is the way it will be. If
any one dies he will go down there, let’s me remain with you, I am going to tell you some
more.” Then the chief consented and let his nephew remain.
Note 10 – Part Three, Chapter II, Page 31
MAKING OF THE MOON AND SUN
(Taken from story given by Rev. H. R. Voth in Field Columbian Museum, Publication
No. 83)
After the people emerged from the lower world into this world, there was no sun, and it
was cold. So they talked about this, saying: “Now, it ought not remain this way.” So the
chiefs all met in council with “Skeleton-man” and talked this matter over in order to see
33
One legend says that the Popwaktu was a beautiful but wicked girl. When she climbed to the top of the
ladder the Baloongawha, who were guarding the sipapu as the people came from below, sought to turn her
back as they knew her to be a witch, but she pointed to a bundle she held under her arm. “Do you see what
I have here” she said, “These are the Stars; you had forgotten them – only I remembered. You will need
them for thee is no light in this new world of yours”. So they let her pass. For a while the stars were their
only light.
56
whether they could not make a sun as they had had it in the under-world, but they did not
just know how to do it. So they finally took a piece of dressed buffalo hide (hakwavu),
which they cut in a round shape, stretched it over a wooden ring, and then painted it with
white duma (kaoline). They then pulverized some black paint (toho) with which they
drew a picture of the moon around the edge of this disk, sprinkling the center of the disk
with the same black color. They then attached a stick to this disk. Hereupon they
stretched a large piece of white native cloth (mochapu) on the floor and placed this disk
on it. All these objects they had brought with them from the under-world.
They then selected some one (the story does not say whom) and directed him to stand on
this moon symbol. Hereupon the chiefs took the cloth by its corners, swung it back and
fourth and then threw it upward, where it continued swiftly flying eastward into the sky.
So the people sat and watched. All at once they noticed that it became light in the east.
Something was burning there as they through. The light became brighter and brighter,
and something came up in the east. It rose higher and higher, and where the people were
it became lighter and lighter. So now they could go about and they were happy. That
turned out to be the moon, and though it was light, the light was only dim and the people
when working in the fields, would still occasionally cut off their plants because they
could not see very distinctly, and it was still cold and the people were freezing, and they
still had to keep the ground warm with fires. So the people where thinking about it. The
chiefs again met in council, and said: “Ishohi! It is better already, it is light, but it is not
quite good yet, it is still cold. Can we not make something better?” They concluded that
perhaps the buffalo skin was not good, and that it was too clod, so they decided that this
time they would take a piece of mochapu. They again cut out a round piece, stretched it
over a ring, but this time painted it with oxide of copper (cakwa). They painted eyes and
a mouth on the disk, and decorated the forehead of what this was to resemble in yellow,
red, and other colors. They put a ring of corn-husk around it, which were worked in a
zigzag fashion. Around this they tied a tawahona, that is, a string of red horse-hair,
finally thrusting a number of eagle-tail feathers into a corn-husk ring, fastened to the back
of the disk. In fact, they prepared a sun symbol as it is still worn on the back of the flute
players in the Flute ceremony. To the forehead of the face painted on the disk they tied
an abalone shell. Finally the chief made nakwakwosis of the feathers of a small
yellowish bird, called irahoya, which resembles a fly-catcher, but has some red hair on
top of the head.
Of these nakwakwosis the chief tied one to the point of each eagle-tail feather on the sun
symbol. They then placed this symbol on the white cloth again, again asked some one to
stand on it, and, as in the case of the moon, they swung the cloth with its contents into the
air, where it kept twirling upward and upward towards the east. Soon they again saw a
light rise in the east. It became brighter and brighter and warmer. That proved to be the
sun, and it had not come up very high when the Hopi already felt its warmth. After the
sun had been created and was rising day after day, the people were very happy, because it
was now warm and very light, so that they could attend to their work very well.
57
ALL RACES TRAVEL IN SEARCH OF A HOME
(Taken from story given by Rev. H. R. Voth in Field Columbian Museum, Publication
No. 83)
After the Moon and the Sun were created and the people had both light and fire, they
became very prosperous. In time they wearied of their prosperity and decided to start out
in search of adventure. So the chiefs again met in council to talk the matter over. “Let us
move away from here,” the chiefs said; “lets us go eastward and see where the sun rises,
but let us not go all together. Let some take one route, others another, and others still
further south, and then we shall see who arrives at the place where the sun rises first.” So
the people started. The elder brother and his party started first, and they became the
White Men as they traveled eastward. The White People took a southeastern route, the
Hopi a more northern, and between them traveled what are now the Pueblo Indians of
New Mexico. Often certain parties would remain at certain places, sometimes for several
years. They would build houses and plant fields. The houses thus abandoned became the
numerous ruins all over the country.
Soon they became estranged from each other, and would begin to attack and kill one
another. The Castilians were especially bad, and made wars on other people. When
starting, the chiefs had agreed that as soon as one of the parties should reach the place
where the sun rises, many stars would fall from the sky, and when that would happen all
the traveling parties should remain and settle down where they would be at that time.
The White People were more gifted that the other people. When they had become very
tired carrying their children and their burdens, one of the women bathed herself and took
the scales that she had rubbed off from her body and made horses of these scales. These
horses they used after that for traveling, so that they could proceed very much faster. In
consequence of this, the white people arrived at the place where the sun rises before any
of the other parties arrived there. And immediately many stars fell from the sky. “Aha!”
the people said who were still traveling; “Some one has already arrived”. Hereupon all
the tribes settled down where they were.
It had been agreed upon before the different parties started, that whenever those who did
not reach the place where the sun rises should be molested by enemies, they should notify
those who had arrived at the sunrise, and the latter would then come and help them……
The Hopi consider that this tradition holds the white man by an ancient promise to be his
friend and defender against all enemies. They looked forward to the coming of this
White Brother “since time began” and this legend probably accounts for the friendship
offered by the Hopi to the whites at the coming of the Spanish.
THE SNAKE CLAN MYTH
or
58
THE LEGEND OF THE CHIEF’S YOUNG SON WHO WAS THE FIRST MAN TO
NAVIGATE THE COLORADO RIVER FROM NAVAJO MOUNTAIN TO THE
GULF OF CALIFORNIA
(Taken from story given by Rev. H. R. Voth in Field Columbian Museum, Publication
No. 83)34
At Tokoonavi, north of the Grand Canyon, lived people who were then not yet Snake
people. They lived close to the bank of the river. The chief’s son often pondered over
the Grand Canyon and wondered where all that water went to. “That must certainly make
it very full somewhere,” he thought to himself. So he spoke to his father about it. “So
that is what you have been thinking about,” the latter said, “Yes,” his son answered. “I
want to go and examine it.” The father gave his consent and told his son that he should
make a box for himself that would be large enough for him to get into, and he should
arrange it so that all openings in the box could be closed. This the boy did, making also a
long pole (according to others a lone baho), with which he could push the box in case it
became fast or tangled up anywhere.
When he was ready he took a lot of bahos and some food went into the box, and allowed
himself to be pushed into the water, on which he then floated along. Finally he came to
the ocean, when he drifted against an island. He found the house of Spider Woman
(Kehlmng Wuhti) here, who called him to come to her house. He went over and found
that he could not get through the opening leading to her house. “How shall I get in?” he
said; “the opening is too small.” She told him to enlarge it. This he did and then entered.
He told her a story and gave her a baho, and said that he had come after beads, etc. She
pointed to another kiva away out in the water and said that there were some beads and
corals there, but that there were some wild animals guarding the path to it. “If you had
not informed me, how could you have succeeded in getting there, and how would you
have gotten back? But I shall go with you,” she said, “because you have given me a
baho, for which I am very glad.” She then gave the young man some medicine and
seated herself behind his right ear. He spurted the medicine over the water and
immediately a road like a rainbow was formed from the dwelling of Spider Woman to the
other kiva. On this they went across the water. As they approached the kiva to which
they were going, they first encountered a panther, who growled fiercely. The young man
gave him a green baho and spurted some medicine upon him, which quieted him. A little
farther on they met a bear, whom they quieted in the same manner. Still farther on they
came upon a wildcat, to which they also handed a baho, which quieted the animal.
Hereupon they met a gray wolf, and finally a very large rattle-snake (Kahtoya), both of
which they appeased in the same manner as the others. They then arrived at the kiva,
where they found at the entrance a bow standard (Aoat natsi). They then descended the
ladder and found in the kiva many people who were dressed in blue kilts, had their faces
painted with specular iron (yalahaii), and their necks they were many beads. The young
man sat down near the fireplace, Spider Woman still being seated on his ear, but no one
spoke. The men looked at him, but remained silent. Presently the chief got a large bag of
tobacco and a large pipe. He filled the latter and smoked four times. He then handed the
34
The snake Priest Legend as accounted by Kabotie is given on page ** of the Manual.
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pipe to the young man and said: “Smoke and swallow the smoke.” The swallowing of
the smoke was a test; any one not being able to do that was driven off. Spider Woman
had informed the young man about this test, so he was posted. When he commenced to
smoke she whispered to him: “Put me behind you.” This he did in an unobserved
manner, so when he swallowed the smoke she immediately drew the smoke from him and
blew it away, and hence he did not get dizzy. The men who did not observe the trick
were pleased and said to him: “All right, you are strong; you are certainly some one.
Thank you. Your heart is good; you are one of us; you are our child.” “Yes,” he said,
and handed them some red nakwakwosis and a single green baho with red points, such as
are still made in Shupaulavi in the Antelope society.
They then became very friendly, saying that they were very happy over the bahos. On
the walls of the kiva were hanging many costumes made of snake skins. Soon the chief
said to the people: “Lets us dress up now,” and turning to the young man, he bid him to
turn away so that he would not see what was going on. He did so, and when he looked
back again the men had all dressed up in the snake costumes and had turned into snakes,
large and small, bull snakes, racers, and rattle-snakes, that were moving about on the
floor hissing, rattling, etc. While he had turned away and the snake people had been
dressing themselves, Spider Woman had whispered to him that they were now going to
try him very hard, but that he should not be afraid to touch the snakes; and she gave him
many instructions.
Among those present in the kiva had also been some pretty maidens who also put on
snake costumes and had turned into serpents. One of them had been particularly
handsome. The chief had not turned into a snake, and was sitting near the fireplace. He
now turned to the young man and said to him: “You go now and select the take one of the
snakes.” The snakes seemed to be very angry and the young man got frightened when
they stared at him, but Spider Woman whispered to him not to be a coward, nor to be
afraid.
The prettiest maiden had turned into a large yellow rattle-snake (Sika-tcua), and was
especially angry. Spider Woman whispered to the young man, that the one acted so very
angrily was the pretty maiden and that he should try to take that one. He tried, but the
snake was very wild and fierce. “Be not afraid,” Spider Woman whispered, and handed
him some medicine. This he secretly chewed and spurted a small quantity of it on the
fierce snake, whereupon it immediately became docile. He at once grabbed it, held and
stroked it four times upward, each time spurting a little medicine on it, and thus freeing it
from its anger. The chief was astonished and said: “You are very something, thanks.
Now, look away again.” He did so and when he turned back he saw that all the snakes
had assumed the forms of men and women again, including the maiden that he had
captured. They now were all very good to him, and talked to him in the kindest manner,
because they now considered him as initiated and as one of them. He was now welcome,
and the chief invited him to eat. The mana whom the young man had taken got from
another room in the kiva some bread made of fresh corn-meal, some peaches, melons,
etc., and set this food before the young man. Spider Woman whispered to the young man
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to give her something to eat too, which he did secretly. She enjoyed the food very much
and was happy.
Now the chief asked the man why he came, etc. “I ****************************
was thinking about the water running this way, and so this way it runs. I have come also
to get Hopi food from here. I also heard that thee lives a woman here somewhere, the
Huruing Wuhti, from whom I want beads.” “What have you for her?” they asked.
“These bahos”, he said. “All right, you will get thee. But now you sleep here.”
……….When he was ready to go home the chief said: “Take this mana with you. You
have won us. Take is all with you, take of our food. Practice the ceremonies there that I
told you about. This woman will bear you children and then you will be many and they
will hold this ceremony for you.” Huruing Wuhti (the deity of the hard substances) gave
him a few of all kinds of beads, charging him not to open the sack, because if he did they
would be gone, and if he did not they would increase.
So they started. The beads were as yet not heavy. During the night they slept separately.
In the morning they found that the beads had increased, and they kept increasing as they
went along the next day. The next night they spent in the same way. They were anxious
to see whether the beads and shells had increased, but did not dare to do so. The third
night was again spent, and the contents of the bag increased the same as the previous two
nights. The bag with the beads and shells now became very heavy and the young was
very anxious to see them, but his wife forbade him to open the sack. The fourth night
was spent in the same manner, and when they arose in the morning the sack was nearly
full and was very heavy. Spider Woman had also put some strings into the bag with the
beads, and the beads were strung onto these strings as they kept increasing.
They now approached the home of the young man, and the latter was very anxious to get
home in order to see the contents of the sack, so they traveled on. When they had nearly
one more day’s travel to make the sack had become full. During the last night the man
opened the sack, although his wife remonstrated most energetically. He took out many of
the finest beads and shells and spread them on the floor before them, put them around his
neck, and was very happy. So they retired for the night. In the morning they found that
all the beads except those which Huruing Wuhti had given to the man had disappeared.
Hence the Hopi have so few beads at the present day. If that man had at that time
brought home with him all the beads which he had, they would have many. So when
they arrived at home they were very despondent.
At that time only the Divided or Separated Spring (Batki) clan and the Pona (a certain
cactus) clan lived at that place, but with the arrival of this young couple a new clan, the
Snake clan, had come to the village. Soon this woman bore many children. They were
snakes, who lived in the fields and in the sand. They grew very rapidly and went about
the played with the Hopi children, whom they sometimes bit. This made the Hopi very
angry, and they said: “This is not good,” and drove them off, so they were very unhappy.
The woman said to her husband: “You take our children back to my home and then we
shall go away from here alone.” Then the man’s father made bahos, gave them to his
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son, who put all the snakes with the bahos into his blanket and took them back to his
wife’s home, and there told the Snake people why he brought their children and the
bahos. They said it was all right. Hence the Snake priests, when carrying away the
snakes from the plaza after the snake dance, take with them and deposit with the snakes
some bahos, so that they should not themselves return to the village.
When the Snake man returned to his village he and his wife traveled south-eastward,
stopping at various places. All at once they saw smoke in the distance, and when they
went there they found a village perched on the mesa. This was the village of Walpi.
They at once went to the foot of the mesa on which Walpi was situated and announced
their presence. So the village chief went down to them from the mesa, and asked what
they wanted. They asked to be admitted to the village, promising that they would assist
the people in the ceremonies. The chief at first showed himself unwilling to admit them,
but finally gave his consent and took them up to the village. From that time the woman
bore human children instead on little snakes. These children and their descendants
became the Snake clan, of whom only very few are now living.
Soon also the Batki and Pona clan came to Walpi and found admittance to the village. At
Walpi the Snake people made the first Snake tiponi, Snake altar, etc., and had the first
Snake ceremony. From here the Snake cult spread to the other villages, first to
Shongopavi, then to Mishhongnovi, and then to Oraibi. At the first Snake ceremony the
Snake chief sent his nephew to the north, to the west, to the south, and to the east to hunt
snakes. He brought some from each direction. The chief then hollowed out a piece of
baho, made of cottonwood root. Into this he put the rattles of three of the snakes and the
fourth snake entirely. He then inserted into it a corn-ear, and tied to it different feathers of
the eagle, the oriole, blue-bird, parrot, magpie, asya, and topockaw, winding a buckskin
string around these feathers. When he had made this tiponi, the first ceremony was
celebrated, and afterwards it took place regularly.
THE SNAKE CHIEF
ANOTHER ADVENTURE OF THE FIRST PRIEST OF THE SNAKE CLAN
(Taken from story given by Rev. H. R. Voth in Field Columbian Museum, Publication
No. 83)
At Wuhkokiego lived the Pihkash and Kokop clans. The old men often wondered where
the Colorado River was flowing. So they built a box, put provision in, and a pole to push
and guide the box with when it got fast. They made also four bahos, put them and a
young man into the box, and sent the box off floating down the Colorado River through
the Grand Canyon.
After a while the box would go no farther, and so the young man got out. He saw water
everywhere. In the midst of it was a house. But how should he get there? Presently
Huruing Wuhti came out there and called him four times. Then he consented to go to
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her. She rolled a corn-meal ball across the water, which made a road. On this he went to
her house. In the evening Huruing Wuhti sent him into a side room saying that
something was coming. It was the sun. He was sitting on a disk attached to a pole like a
spindle and made a great noise. He was dressed like some Katcinas (Powamu and others)
and nicely painted up with fine sikahpiki. Her house is open below. He came in and
assorted the bahos that had been offered to him on his course around the earth. Those
offered by the bad people were thrown away; those from the good people were put in a
row. He then came into Huruing Wuhti’s house and bathed his body. After his bath he
ate some hurushiki, oogawi, etc. When he was through eating he put on his paint and
clothes again, went down into his house and under the earth to the east and west on his
course again. During this course eastward the people below the earth see him there. In
the east he goes down in his house. Hence, the bahos offered to the Sun are carried
eastward to the Sun Shrines of the Sun clan (tawa kihus). There east lived also “Flutes”
(Lalentu), who are always playing and then the sun rises. For that reason at the flute
ceremony the gray fox skin (latayo natsi) is put up at the white dawn (qoyangwunuptu),
then the yellow fox skin (sikahtayo natsi) at the yellow dawn (sikangwunuptu).
Then the Sun there lays off his clothes again, bathes his body, is fed by the Sun clan
(Tawa-namu), arrays himself again, mounts a bluff (chochokpi), and again proceeds on
his course gathering the bahos, etc., that are offered to him as he sweeps westward.
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