Cliff dwelling

“ So limited was the foothold afforded by the scant ledges or in the sheltered but shallow hollows of the cliffs where the ancient cliff dwellers were at first forced as a measure of safety to take refuge and finally to build, that they had to economize space to the utmost. Hence in part only the women and children, being smaller and more in need of protection than the men, were accommodated with dwelling places as such, the rooms of which were so diminutive that, to account for them, theories of the dwarfish size of the cliff dwellers as a race have been common. ”

“ That the ruins suffered greatly from the work done during the early years is everywhere evident. Below is Long House, probably the saddest example of what careless excavation did to the ruins. Long House was, without doubt, the second largest cliff dwelling in the Mesa Verde, rivaling Cliff Palace in size. Now little remains standing. But careful study of foundations, broken bits of masonry and the outlines of rooms on the cave walls indicates that the cave was once full of high structures. ”

“ Near the south end of the ruin a kiva was in perfect condition except that the roof was missing. Stretching a piece of canvas over it the men moved in and for three weeks the ancient ceremonial room served as living quarters as they excavated the great cliff dwelling. This was the beginning of serious excavation by the cowboys. The discovery of the large ruins made them feel that the recovery of articles left behind by the Indians might be a profitable business. As Charles Mason stated later in referring to one of their expeditions, “This time we went at it in a more business-like manner. ”

“ As more and more of the ruins are entered and studied, one fact becomes increasingly evident. Of the entire population of the Mesa Verde, relatively few people lived in the larger cliff dwellings. For every cliff dwelling of more than fifty rooms there were scores of smaller villages. ”

“ It arrests attention at once, for half-way up it is furrowed horizontally as though worked by a giant's tool. If the visitor approaches the cliff, he will find that the masses of rock that have fallen from above, as well as others that have formed spurs, have been extensively worked to form town walls, gateways, a church, a monastery, and dwelling-houses. ”

“ This is typical of the innumerable single room structures that are to be found in the nooks and crannies in the cliffs. The ruin pictured is less than three feet high and the longest dimension is about four feet.
Containing five small but well-built rooms this structure was without doubt a dwelling. There was little space for the activities of the people but the location provided excellent security. With small amounts of food and water in the village the residents probably had little fear of raiders. ”

“ To construct a cave-dwelling, the entrance to the cave or the front of the open gallery was walled up with adobes, leaving only a small opening serving for both door and window. The cliff houses take the form and dimensions of the platform or ledge from which they rise. The masonry is well laid, and it is wonderful with what skill the walls are joined to the cliff, and with what care the aspect of the neighbouring rocks has been imitated in the external architecture." [Footnote: Nadaillac, "Prehistoric America," Lond. 1885, p. 205.]
In Asia also these rock-dwellings abound. ”

“ Such loess cliffs as no words can describe became commonplace, almost unnoticed sights along the way, cliffs falling gradually from sky to abyss so far below as almost to seem bottomless. All the population for long distances burrowed in human rabbit-warrens dug in these cliffs, row above row of caves, like cities of ten- or twelve-story cliff-dwellings. ”

“ Thus the courts may be supposed to have replaced the canyons, as the outer walls replaced the cliffs or the back walls built nearest them in the rear of at least the deeper village caves or shelters.
Other structural and kindred features of the cliff towns are found to be equally characteristic of the round ruins, features which, originating in the conditions of building and dwelling in the cliffs, came to be perpetuated in the round towns afterward built on the plains. ”

“ As we drop down to the smaller ruins the actual number of ruins increases. In the many canyons of the area almost every cave was utilized by the Indians. There were far more small caves than large ones and as a result there are far more of the smaller cliff dwellings.
It is not even wise to try to estimate the number of cliff dwellings that contain from six to twenty rooms. Certainly it doesn’t take much of a ruin to contain six rooms. No one has the slightest idea how many there may be so we will say hundreds, which means anything from 200 up. ”

“ Cave dwellings are houses hollowed out of the solid rock, a feat not so difficult as it sounds when you consider the rock is only soft pumice or tufa, that yields to scraping more readily than bath brick or soft lime. The cliff dwellings are usually only one story. The cave dwellings may run five stories up inside the rock, natural stone steps leading from tier to tier of the rooms, and tiny porthole windows looking down precipices 500 to 1,000 feet. The cliff dwellings are mostly entered by narrow trails leading along the ledge of a precipice sheer as a wall. ”

“ And the existence of the cliff-dwellings is ascribed to the exigencies of that dark period when the inhabitants of the plateau, unable to cope with the superior energy, intelligence, and numbers of the descending hordes, devised these unassailable retreats. All their quaintness and antiquity cannot conceal the deep pathos of their being, for tragedy is written all over these poor hovels hung between earth and sky. Their builders hold no smallest niche in recorded history. ”

“ At last, after six hundred empty years, the cliff dwellings were again in the care of men who were interested in their well-being. These men were of a different race and their feelings toward the cliff dwellings were far different from those of the people who had built them. To the ancient people the cave structures had meant home and security. ”

“ On the theory that this building was erected by people from several neighboring cliff dwellings for ceremonies held in common, we may suppose that the builders came daily from their dwellings in Cliff Palace and other houses and returned at night, after they had finished work, to their homes. The trails down the sides of the cliffs which the workmen used are still to be seen. The place was frequented by many people, but there is no evidence that any one clan dwelt near this mysterious building during its construction. ”

“ A great deal of attention has been given to the North American cliff-dwellings, particularly among the canyons of the south-west, in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, some of which are still used by Indians. ”

“ Because of the fact that Cliff Palace is the largest of all cliff dwellings, its population is of special interest. A close inspection of the rooms in the ruin shows that they are smaller, on the average, than the rooms in any of the other large cliff dwellings. When judged from our modern standards, it is difficult to imagine more than a couple of people living in each one. Our modern ideas, however, will not help us in understanding the people who once lived in Cliff Palace. ”

“ The people, also, as is so often the case in such regions, have a superstitious dread of the deeper caverns and the seeming ruins, and do not lend themselves readily to exploration. The cliffs are full of caves, some of which—the more accessible and simple—are used as sheepfolds, and even in some cases inhabited, but the wilder ones are held in dread. It seems that cliff dwellings are actually still in use to some extent in this region. ”

“ From a modern viewpoint a cave might not appear to be a safe place for a home. All thought of modern warfare must be forgotten, however, and ancient methods must be kept in mind. When it is considered that the cliff dwellers lived in bow and arrow times it is not difficult to see the cliff dwellings as defensive structures. ”

“ It is impossible to picture life in one of the large cliff dwellings unless the architectural unit shown below is taken into consideration. This small section of Spruce Tree House consists of a kiva partially surrounded by a group of rooms. ”

“ A smaller edifice hard by, with tumble-down mud walls and in a state of more or less rooflessness, does duty as a stable, and in front of the two an open space slopes down a distance of one hundred and fifty yards to the river, whose limpid waters dash and sparkle over their stony bed, between cactus-lined banks—the stubbornly encroaching and well-nigh ineradicable prickly pear. Opposite rises a great cliff, whose base and sides are set in the greenest and most luxuriant of forest trees, but whose brow, like its stern face, is bare of foliage and stands out in hard relief against the sky. ”

“ But not a roof remains, not a living soul is to be seen in the street, not a huxter's stall in the market-place, only tiles strewn about and white rocks blackened with smoke show that man lived there.
By a flight of stairs cut in the rock, the visitor can ascend to the furrow in the face of the cliff, and there he finds that the whole has been elaborately utilised. There are chambers excavated in the chalk that were formerly closed by wood partitions, with recesses for beds, cupboards, seats—clearly the bedrooms of ladies. ”

“ The buttresses of chalk shut out the town if you go to them, and rest near the large pebbles heaped at the foot. There is nothing but the white cliff, the green sea, the sky, and the slow ships that scarcely stir.
In the spring, a starling comes to his nest in a cleft of the cliff above; he shoots over from the dizzy edge, spreads his wings, borne up by the ascending air, and in an instant is landed in his cave. On the sward above, in the autumn, the yellow lip of the toad-flax, spotted with orange, peers from the grass as you rest and gaze—how far?—out upon the glorious plain. ”

“ So we climbed up the cliff and a few minutes' walk brought us to one of the most wretched habitations I have ever seen: a little low stone hut, built so close to the edge of the cliff one would think a violent storm must blow it over—no windows—a primitive chimney, hardly more than a hole in the roof—a little low door that one had to stoop to pass through, one room, dark and cold—the floor of beaten earth, damp and uneven, almost in ruts. ”

“ Towering fern-clad cliffs close in upon a ravine a few yards only in width, through which the water dashes at racing speed with a noise that prevents one from hearing oneself speak. An ancient pack-bridge spans the stream, and a path cut in the side of the water-worn cliff leads through the gorge into a broad open valley—a valley of desolation, ringed round with walls of bare grey rock, and strewn with innumerable stones, amongst which sheep and goats pick up a scanty living. ”

“ This is well exemplified in the Spring House, where buildings on an upper level occupy much the same relation to those below as the ledge houses to the main ruin, and in ruins in the Canyon de Chelly, like those in Mummy Cave, where this relation of the buildings on the ledge to those on top of the talus is even more pronounced. Architectural features in cliff-houses are due to the geological structure of the cave in which they are situated rather than to cultural differences. ”

“ By the roadside runs a stream of alum liquor along the wooden trough, and on rounding the bluff, we discover more alum-works on a broad undercliff, with troughs, diggings, and refuse heaps, extending farther than you can see. You may continue along the broken ground below, or mount to the summit by a rude stair chopped in the face of the cliff. ”

“ A mile of climbing up cliff paths and scrambling down, and then across another scrubby bottom where the white campions grow, brings the adventurous stranger to Hall Sands, built into the tall dark cliffs, just as the house-martens plaster their nests against the eaves. The hardihood—the foolhardihood, if you like it better—that ever induced mortal man to build houses in this perilous position under the threatening eaves of the cliffs and on the margin of the waves can only be appreciated by those who look upon the place itself. ”

“ The old man forgot me and relapsed into mutterings, quivering under each shrill onslaught of the wind, pausing to listen for the moan of the surf below.
"You're deucedly close to this cliff," I ventured once, when a shower of sand swished against the window-pane.
"Eh—the cliff? Some winter nights she'll rise up to the very house and drench the glass of my windows—the sea will," he shuddered. "She's eating back—eating back; forty years ago, when I first came here, there was a front yard." ”

“ An uninterrupted path runs, for some three or four miles, along the top of the cliff—the scene constantly changing in its beauty. Below hangs a broken under-cliff, shelving down to the sea, strewed here and there with blocks of gravel, the grass and furze growing on them just as they fell. On the shore stretch long reaches of yellow sand, separated by narrow strips of pebbles, and patches of dark green Barton clay, embossed with shells, and studded with sharks’ teeth. ”