Kittridge A. Wing

“ When fall arrived, the countryside, in good years, abounded with wild produce: pinyon-nuts and juniper berries, the staples, with trimmings of prickly pears, acorns, and many other seed and nut crops. The ingenuity of the modern Pueblo Indian in coaxing sustenance out of his familiar native plants is extraordinary; very few things that grow are not of 25 some use to him as food or medicine. It may surely be assumed that the Pueblo ancestor of 600 years ago was equally resourceful. ”

“ It has been said that “Man cannot live by bread alone.” Nowhere is the truth of this better illustrated than in the history of the Pueblo Indian who, in spite of appalling difficulties to achieve the physical sustenance of life, found much time to develop a spiritual life. The principal evidences of a widespread ancient religion are, of course, the remains of kivas, found in all the old communities. Although details of the use of prehistoric kivas cannot be established, some ideas of their use can be inferred from the part that kivas play in the modern Pueblo religion. ”

“ The habitations of the early people were of two types, basically: the cliff or cave dwelling, and the masonry or open pueblo structure. But these two types were frequently blended into composite dwellings, part cave and part masonry, wherein a cliff formed the back wall of the building. It is this third type, called a talus house, which is conspicuous along the canyon sides within and near the national monument.
The rock which forms the walls of all the Pajarito canyons is a cemented volcanic ash called tuff, with many erosion cavities which can be readily enlarged with tools of hard stone. ”

“ The rock of which the Bandelier masonry walls were made is not an easy material to build with. Unlike sandstone or even limestone, it refuses to fracture into clean straight lines or right angles. To employ it as building stone, the Indians had to find small miscellaneous blocks and chip these odd pieces into some semblance of usable shape. This chipping or pecking was done with hammerstones and axes of harder lava. The work required to fashion the walls of Tyuonyi, crude though they are, must have been prodigious. ”

“ About one-fourth of a mile up the canyon from Tyuonyi, also against the northern and sun-warmed cliff, is the ruin of one of the largest combination cave-and-masonry dwellings to be found anywhere on the plateau. This great ruin is known as Long House for an obvious reason—it stretches almost 800 feet in a continuous block of rooms. For all of this distance, the masonry walls are backed by a sheer and largely smooth wall of tuff some 150 feet high. ”

“ Indian dances, as the 20th-century Southwest knows them, are usually short-term public displays of long-term private rituals entailing days of prayer and chanting in the privacy of the kiva. The best known of these Pueblo ceremonies is chiefly a prayer for rain—The Hopi Snake Dance. Others may be prayers for success in the hunt, for productivity of crops, or for healing the sick. ”

“ From all evidence it seems that modern Pueblo Indians living along the Rio Grande today are descended in part from the ancient inhabitants of the Pajarito area. Thus Bandelier National Monument preserves ruins which link historic times to prehistoric, and which further link the modern Pueblo Indian with his ancestors from regions to the west, whence came the first migrants to the Bandelier environs. ”

“ As soon as agriculture became their primary sustenance, the people began to live more or less permanently in one place. From certain early cave-shelters are derived the clues which begin to formulate the story of the days before history. ”

“ Many small animals which moderns would disdain were important food items to the early Pueblos: the once-common prairie dog and the still-common pack rat were eaten in great numbers, if the evidence of bones in ancient trash heaps can be believed. Perhaps only the skunk escaped the designs of the early food-seeker, for a reason which was as valid then as it is today. Of larger animals, the deer was most taken, although elk and antelope were not immune. The remains of game pits, dug into the soft bedrock to entrap larger beasts, have been found in several places in the monument. ”

“ Human burials have been found in the earth floors of shallow caves scattered through the San Juan river drainage; and in these same caves are found storage chambers prepared to protect the foodstuffs, principally corn. Their outstanding handicraft was basketry, as far as remaining evidence shows. Because of the great numbers of skilfully worked baskets found in their homesites, archeologists have named these people Basketmakers. It is now quite certain that the Indians who came much later to live in the Bandelier vicinity can claim as ancestors the Basketmaker people of the area to the west. ”

“ The complexity of the Pueblo religion is increased by the fact that it is indivisibly allied to social and family organization. In the Pueblo scheme of worship, there is not, and seemingly never was, any elite group of “medicine men” or chief practitioners of religion; each person has a part in religious observances, his respective role growing more important as he advances in seniority within a ceremonial organization. ”

“ The most impressive ruins of the Pajarito country are the remains of communal masonry dwellings of pueblo architecture. (Pueblo is Spanish for village or town. The first Spanish explorers applied the word to the permanent dwellings or settlements of farming Indians; by association, the word pueblo has come to designate also the builders of these dwellings and their modern Indian successors.) At least one of these great buildings contained over 600 rooms; there are several which had over 500 rooms, to a height of 3 stories. ”

“ A network of some 50 miles of foot and horseback trails reaches out from monument headquarters into the roadless southern areas of the monument. Hikers and horseback parties frequently make a loop trip of 2 days, visiting the Stone Lions and Yapashi Ruins, and spending the night at Base Camp in Capulin Canyon, where a National Park Service fire guard is on duty during the summer. The return trip may be made past Painted Cave to the Rio Grande, then up White Rock Canyon to Frijoles Canyon and point of beginning. ”

“ Flycatchers are everywhere over the river in the summer, taking water-dwelling gnats and insects from the air. Swallows and swifts further the inroads on the insect population. On shore, water snakes and an occasional rattler take the sun and keep watch for the unwary lizard or rodent which will make a next meal. ”

“ The dominating feature of the landscape is the uplift of the Jemez Mountains, forming the western skyline as one approaches the monument from the east. These mountains are the remains of a great volcano which erupted during the past million years. As seen from a distance, there is very little to suggest a volcano in the profile of the present mountains ”

“ In general it may be said that the skills of farming and production of foodstuffs became highly efficient, allowing the people more leisure in 23 which to experiment with and improve their arts and crafts and their ceremonial rituals. Much elaboration and refinement of the potter’s craft, for example, is traceable to these years; some of the world’s finest ceramic art, ancient or modern, comes from Chaco Canyon and the Mesa Verde. ”

“ Other noteworthy remains of the monument area lie outside Frijoles Canyon, accessible only by foot or horse trail across the mesas to the south. Perhaps the most frequently visited of these antiquities is the shrine of the Stone Lions, 10 miles from monument headquarters. Here on the mesa-top near an extensive ruin are two life-size crouching mountain lion effigies carved side by side out of the soft bedrock. This work of sculpture must have been accomplished many centuries ago, for long weathering and erosion have left small semblance of a true likeness. ”

“ The production of decorated pottery late in Basketmaker times began a development which has had the greatest archeological significance. The long-enduring fragments of painted pottery found in subsequent housesites have been a principal tool by which students have pieced together the relative chronology of ruins and the migrations of the pottery-makers. ”

“ Climatologists believe that there was a little more precipitation over most of the Southwest 500 years ago than there is today, and possibly the ancient corn was more drought-resistant. In any case, in good years the local farmer managed to harvest enough of his three crops in September to tide his family over the privations of winter—if no human marauders descended to loot the granary. ”

“ The museum occupies a part of the headquarters building. Three rooms of exhibits present Indian artifacts and information on the life and origins of the prehistoric people, and on the modern Pueblo Indians of the vicinity. A visit to the museum is advisable before making a trip to any of the ruins, since the exhibits provide a background against which the ruins are better understood and appreciated.
2. Tyuonyi Ruin lies about 500 yards by trail up the canyon from headquarters. This ruin is one of the principal way-stations on the loop trail over which the trips are routed. ”

“ The continuity of Pueblo life traces from origins in northwest New Mexico and the Mesa Verde country of southwest Colorado, through the Bandelier region, to the living towns of Cochiti to the south, San Ildefonso to the northeast, and other local Indian communities.
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The Ruins: Their Types and Extent
The evidences of ancient human occupation in the Bandelier neighborhood are apparent even to the most casual observer. When driving over the approach road to the monument headquarters one cannot fail to observe cave rooms in the cliffs on every hand ”

“ Each of these zones has its characteristic mammals and birds, so that the population of wildlife is likewise varied and extensive.
Group of cave rooms between Long House and Ceremonial Cave.
WILDLIFE.
Of the larger animals, the mule deer are most commonly seen, becoming quite bold in Frijoles Canyon, where humans are familiar to them. Black bears are encountered occasionally on the trails in the back country, but are too wary to invade much-traveled areas. The shyest of them all, the mountain lion, leaves his footprints here and there, but is rarely seen. ”

“ It is probable that many generations of artists used the cave, since space finally ran out and later drawings are superimposed on their faded predecessors. Moreover, evidence of historic, or post-Spanish, artistry is here—a sketch of a conquistador on horseback, another of a mission church complete with cross. ”

“ This process of earth-building went on intermittently for many centuries until the volcano had exhausted its violence and had distributed its many cubic miles of outpourings in encircling deposits around its flanks. With the subsidence of volcanism, the great earth-removing force of erosion became the predominant factor in forming the landscape. ”

“ If it is conceivable to envy any of the people of prehistoric times, surely we should envy the dwellers of Long House.
KIVAS.
Associated with the numerous ruins in Frijoles Canyon are various kivas, both in the canyon floor and in the cliffs. The large kiva previously mentioned is a short distance east of Tyuonyi, very nearly in the center of the widest part of the canyon floor. The rock-walled circular pit is 42 feet across and 8 feet deep, with a ventilation shaft at the east side and a narrow entranceway opposite. ”

“ In the warm season, a diet of sorts could have been pieced together by gathering various plants and fruit and nut crops. Spring brought out of the ground several annuals such as the mustard and bee plants which can be boiled for vegetable-greens while young. ”

“ The north wall, hot and dry in the sun and subject to extremes of temperature, has never had a heavy vegetative cover and has eroded into a cliff; the south wall, relatively cool and moist, has been able to support a growth of plants which have held and produced soil sufficient to mask the underlying rocks. ”

“ The whole story of the Jemez volcano has not yet been worked out in detail, for the eruptive activity was on a scale so vast and involved such complex forces that geologists are continuing to evolve new concepts as new facts come to light. ”

“ There are a number of tall ladders to climb to reach the cave; consequently, rubber-soled shoes and a degree of caution are recommended.
4. The Upper Falls are downstream from headquarters about a mile and a half. The trail follows the Rito down through some of the handsomest forest glades on the monument, crossing the stream several times. The falls, in a deep lava cleft, are about 80 feet high. The Lower Falls, a quarter-mile farther down, are only half as high. Along the trail between the two falls, a geologically interesting exposure of the canyon wall is conspicuous. ”

“ The rooms of the community houses were scarcely larger than the cave rooms already described; almost none of the surviving ground-floor rooms are more than 10 by 12 feet, and the typical room measures perhaps 7 by 10 feet. These chambers were quite dark and unventilated, since there were almost no windows or even connecting doorways between rooms; almost every room of the ground floor was entered by a ladder through an opening in its ceiling. ”

“ Yucca is to be found in one species or another throughout the one-time land of the Pueblos. Such intensive use was made of it by the early people that it is almost surprising that it could have survived. As mentioned previously, yucca was the favorite fiber for cordage, and essentially it was cordage which made up the best types of sandals. ”