Canyon de Chelly

“ Plate XLIV. Section of Old Walls, Canyon De Chelly
The filling of these ruins to a depth of 4 or 5 feet and the almost complete absence of surface remains or indications does not necessarily imply a remote antiquity, although it suggests it. During the fall and early winter months tremendous sand storms rage in the canyon; the wind sweeps through the gorge with an almost irresistible power, carrying with it such immense quantities of sand that objects a few hundred feet distant can not be distinguished. ”

“ Though the stunning sheer red cliffs of Canyon de Chelly are easily the national monument’s most spectacular feature, the area was set aside for its importance to the study of prehistoric peoples in the Southwest. The architecture, tools, clothing, ceramics, and other decorative or useful objects found here contain a comprehensive record of many hundreds of years of human activity. ”

“ Near the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above the mouth of De Chelly, there is a practicable horse trail ascending a narrow gorge to the southeast. The Navaho call it the Bat trail, on account of its difficulties. Another horse trail crosses Del Muerto some 8 or 10 miles above its mouth. With these exceptions there is no point where a horse can get into the canyons or out of them, but there are dozens of places where an active man, accustomed to it, can scale the walls by the aid of foot-holes which have been pecked in the rock at the most difficult places. ”

“ Immediately west of the Chusca Plateau the Canyon del Muerta and the Canyon de Chelly are especially noticeable. Many of these canyons are carved in a homogeneous red sandstone, and their walls are often vertical for hundreds of feet. Sometimes the canyons widen into narrow valleys, which are thus walled by impassable cliffs, except where lateral canyons cut their way through the battlements.
In these mountains, plateaus, mesas, and canyons the Navajo Indians have their home. The Navajos are intruders in this country. ”

“ The cliff ruins are a striking feature, and the ordinary traveler is apt to overlook the more important ruins which sometimes, if not generally, are associated with them. The study of the ruins in Canyon de Chelly has led to the conclusion that the cliff ruins there are generally subordinate structures, connected with and inhabited at the same time as a number of larger home villages located on the canyon bottom, and occupying much the same relation to the latter that Moen-kapi does to Oraibi, or that Nutria, Pescado, and Ojo Caliente do to Zuñi ”

“ Nothing was known about the ancient culture sheltered here until archeologists began piecing together the information gleaned from Canyon de Chelly’s many ruins and burials. Their story survived because these people lived in a physical environment that posed a minimal threat to normally fragile remains.
Wherever the remains of ancient man occur in the open, building ruins and some objects of stone, bone, and pottery survive, but those of wood and fiber disappear completely. Most of what we know about peoples from the dim past thus comes from materials that have been buried and protected. ”

“ The Hopi or Moki Indians, whose villages are some three days' journey to the west, have also very definite traditions bearing on the occupancy of De Chelly.28 This tribe, like others, is composed of a number of related clans who reached their present location from various directions and at various times; but, with a few exceptions, each of these clans claims to have lived at one time or another in Canyon de Chelly. ”

“ From right to left they’re Monument Canyon, the Canyon de Chelly proper, Black Rock, and the famous Canyon del Muerto, which means Death Canyon. That’s the one where the Navajos made their last stand against Kit Carson.”
“How did he ever drive them out of a place like this?” Sandy marveled as he stared up at towering cliffs that rose almost straight up from the grass-covered canyon floor. “One man on a cliff should have been able to stand off a regiment by rolling rocks down on their heads.” ”

“ Once upon a time, say the Navahos, an Indian people lived in a cliff dwelling in the south wall of the Canyon de Chelly. [A] The huge, arched-over hollow in which their town was built was more than halfway up the side of the reddish-pink canyon wall, and to get to it, the people had to climb ladders and follow narrow paths cut in the stone. Looking from the canyon up to the cliff, one could see the little square houses nestling under the huge arch, a watch tower, and a granary. ”

“ They did not know that it was the season when all the roving Navajo bands gather at the Canyon de Chelly for their religious ceremonies, and they rode on impetuously until they came out upon the rim of that mysterious and terrifying canyon itself, then swarming with Indians. They were immediately surrounded, and retreat was impossible. They fought on the naked sandstone ledges that overhang that gulf. Don José Chavez, Manuel's older brother, was captain of the party, and was one of the first to fall. The company of fifty were slaughtered to a man. ”

“ There are about 140 ruins in Canyon de Chelly and its branches, but few of them could accommodate more than a very small population. Settlements large enough to furnish homes for 50 or 60 people were rare. ”

“ Some idea of the number and distribution of these sites may be obtained from the following list, wherein the numbers represent the location shown on the detailed map: 2, 8, 9, 11, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 53, 54, 57, and 66—in all 21 sites which occur between the mouth 153 of De Chelly and the junction of Monument canyon, 13 miles above. Beyond this point they are rare, as the areas of cultivable land become scarce. A similar distribution prevails in Del Muerto. ”

“ Ordinarily it is difficult to procure enough water to drink less than 8 or 10 miles from the mouth 86 of De Chelly, but occasionally the whole stream bed, at places over a quarter of a mile wide, is occupied by a raging torrent impassable to man or beast. ”

“ The main kiva formed part of a compact little group of rooms, of which it occupied the front, and appears to have been inclosed by a curved wall of rough construction. A curved inclosing wall is an anomalous feature, and it is not at all certain that it occurs here, as the wall is so much broken down that its lines can not now be clearly made out. Excavation would doubtless determine this, as the whole site has been much filled up with sand and loose earth.
Fig. 39—Ground plan of a ruin in Canyon de Chelly. ”

“ The Tusayan claim that some of the timbers used in the construction of the mission buildings, which were established prior to the insurrection of 1680, were brought on the backs of men from San Francisco mountains, a distance of over 100 miles, and references to the transportation of timber over long distances are not uncommon in Pueblo traditions. In De Chelly great difficulty must have been experienced in procuring an adequate supply, as in that portion of the canyon where most of the ruins occur no suitable trees grow. ”

“ In return, the Government promised the tribe school facilities and a reservation that included Canyon de Chelly in its total area of 3,500,000 acres. The Navajos were to stay within this reservation.
Twenty-nine Navajo chiefs and council members signed the treaty, and the Navajos began leaving Fort Sumner almost immediately, slipping away family by family. Those without horses or who had old or sick persons in their family awaited Government transportation. On June 15, a wagon train with a military escort carried the last Navajos from Fort Sumner to Fort Wingate. ”

“ In the western end of the cave there is a single room placed on the cliff edge, and between this and the end of a wall to the right a small stick has been embedded in the masonry at a height of about 2 feet from the rock. The cliff here is vertical and affords no footing, but by throwing a rope over the stick a man can ascend hand over hand. During the period when the houses were occupied, access was had in another and much easier way, through a doorway or passageway nearly in the center of the ruin and directly over the point where the lower village was four stories high. ”

“ In the cliff ruins of De Chelly we have an interesting and most instructive example of the influence of a peculiar and sometimes adverse environment on a primitive people, who entered the region with preconceived and, as it were, fully developed ideas of house construction, and who left it before those ideas were brought fully in accord with the environment, but not before they were influenced by it. ”

“ It is in a cove under a mass of rock which juts out from the cliff, and is about 30 feet above the bottom, on the edge of a slope of loose rock which extends some distance above it. At the top of the talus, over 200 feet above, there is another ruin, which was probably only an outlook, as no trace of a kiva can be found, and it is possible that the lower site was connected with and formed part of the upper one. The lower site contained a circular kiva, only a small portion of which now remains, and the ground is covered with blocks of rock which must have fallen since the walls were built. ”

“ The Pacific railroad surveys, which added so much to our knowledge of the Southwest, did not touch this field. In 1860 the Abbé Domenech published his "Deserts of North America," which contains a reference to Casa Blanca ruin, but his knowledge was apparently derived wholly from Simpson. None of the assistants of the Hayden Survey actually penetrated the canyon, but one of them, W. H. Jackson, examined and described some ruins on the Rio de Chelly, in the lower Chin Lee valley. ”

“ In many cases the easiest way of access, which was the one used by the cliff dwellers, was not direct. It was not commanded by the immediate site of the dwellings, except in its upper part, and in some cases not at all. Enemies could climb to the very doors of the houses before they could be seen or attacked. The absence of military knowledge and skill, and of any attempt to fortify or strengthen a site, or even to fully utilize its natural defensive advantages, is characteristic of the cliff ruins of De Chelly. ”

“ Steps, either constructed of masonry or cut in the rock, such as those found in the Mancos canyon and the Mesa Verde region, are never seen here. The cavities in which the ruins occur are always natural; they are never enlarged or curtailed or altered in the slightest degree, and very rarely is the cavity itself treated as a room, although there are some excellent sites for such treatment. The back wall of a cove is often the back wall of a village, but aside from this the natural advantages of the sites were seldom realized. ”

“ It is rather soft in texture, and has been carved by atmospheric erosion into grotesque and sometimes beautiful forms. In places great blocks have fallen off, leaving smooth vertical surfaces, extending sometimes from the top nearly to the stream bed, 400 feet or more in height and as much in breadth. In the lower parts of the canyons the walls, sometimes of the character described, sometimes with the surfaces and angles smoothed by the flying sand, are generally vertical and often overhang, descending sheer to the canyon bottom without talus or intervening slopes of débris. ”

“ Graves can be seen under bowlders and rocks high up on the talus; and in one place in De Chelly a number of little piles of stones are pointed out as the burial places of "many Americans," who, it is said, were killed by the Navaho in their last war. It is also said that in the olden days, when the Navaho considered De Chelly their stronghold and the heart of their country, the remains of prominent 169 men of the tribe were often brought to the canyon for interment in the ruins. Such burials are still made, both in the ruins themselves and in cists on similar sites. ”

“ A little higher up there are small areas of alluvium, or bottom land, in recesses and coves in the walls and generally only a foot or two above the stream bed. Still higher up these areas become more abundant and of greater extent, forming regular benches or terraces, generally well raised above the stream bed. At the Casa Blanca ruin, 7 miles up the canyon, the bench is 8 or 10 feet above the stream. Each little branch canyon and deep cove in the cliffs is fronted by a more or less extended area of this cultivable bottom land. Ten miles up the talus has become a prominent feature. ”

“ These foot trails are in constant use by the Navaho, who ascend and descend by them with apparent ease, but it is doubtful whether a white man could be induced to climb them, except perhaps under the stress of necessity. There are even some trails over which sheep and goats are driven in and out of the canyon, but anyone who had not seen the flocks actually passing over the rocks would declare such a feat impossible. ”

“ The immense number of storage cists found in De Chelly are a natural outgrowth of the conditions there and support the hypothesis that the cliff outlooks were merely farming shelters. The small size of many of the settlements made the construction of storage cists a necessity. The storage of water was very seldom attempted. A large proportion of the cists found in De Chelly were burial places and of Navaho origin. As a rule they are far more difficult of access than the ruins. ”

“ Entrance to the kivas is invariably from the roof by a ladder. This appears to be a ceremonial requirement. Doorways at the ground level are not only unknown, but also impracticable; but in De Chelly there are some puzzling features which might easily be mistaken for such doorways. The principal kiva in the ruin, which occurs at the point marked 10 on the map, and described above (page 123, figure 24) , is on the edge of the ledge, and its outer wall is so close as to make a passage difficult, although not impossible. ”