Notwithstanding the limited duration of the writer's
visit to the Navaho National Monument, a few specimens of stone, wood,
pottery, and other objects were collected. The whole pieces of pottery,
numbering 14 specimens (pls. 15-18), the majority of which came probably
from Inscription House and other ruins near Red Lake, were presented to
the Smithsonian Institution by Mr. Stephen Janus, Navaho agent at Tuba,
who accompanied the writer on the trip to the Marsh Pass ruins.
Fragments of pottery were picked up on the surface at Betatakin,
Kitsiel, and several other ruins, and the most characteristic of these
were brought back to Washington. No excavations were attempted, nor
could all objects that were seen be brought away. Although up to within
a few years these ruins were practically in the condition they were when
abandoned, unfortunately of late they have been despoiled and many
beautiful specimens have been taken from them. Many objects still remain
which should be removed lest they fall into improper hands.
POTTERY
The pottery collected consists of jars, vases, food
bowls, and circular disks with a row of perforations about the margin.
There are also dipper handles and broken ladles of the usual shape. Some
of these specimens are of corrugated ware, others have smooth surfaces
with painted decoration. The proportion of corrugated and indented ware
found in the Navaho Monument ruins is about the same as in the Mesa
Verde National Park. The finest coiled ware was obtained from the latter
locality. Several fragments of flat dishes, perforated on their margins
(pl. 15, b), or colanders having holes in the middle, form part of the
collection.a
aThese dishes resemble those sometimes used by the Hopi for
sprinkling water on their altars as a prayer for rain. They may have
been used also in sifting sand on the kiva floor, to form a layer upon
which the sand picture is later drawn with sands of different
colors.
The most instructive form of pottery in the
collection brought back from northern Arizona is a decorated globular
vase of black-and-white ware (pl. 16, b). The decoration on this
specimen is not confined to the exterior but is found also on the inner
surface of the lip; it consists mainly of triangles so united as to form
hour-glass figures. A unique design on this vessel consists of two
parallel lines, each with dots on one side, suggesting similar bands in
red on the inner wall of the third story of the square tower of Cliff
Palace.
Three small bowls of crude ware are fluted on the
outside, the ridge, or fluting, being raised somewhat above the surface
of the bowl and having a zigzag course. One of the best of these unique
ceramic forms has this fluting broken into S-shaped figures, as shown in
the accompanying illustration (pl. 17, a).
The writer collected also several perforated clay
disks which were possibly used as spindle whorls, although they may have
been gaming implements. A similar disk made of mountain-sheep horn was
found at Kitsiel.
The largest and one of the finest vases (pl. 18,
a) from the neighborhood of Red Lake is also of black-and-white
ware. The decoration is external and consists of black figures covering
the neck and upper body. The base is rounded and the lip slightly
flaring. This vase may have been used for containing water or possibly
as a receptacle for prayer (corn) meal. The food bowls from Red Lake are
chiefly of black-and-white ware, the red and yellow varieties being less
numerous. A common feature in food bowls of this region is a handle on
one side, as shown in plate 15, d. Some of these vessels,
although of smooth ware, are without decoration on either the exterior
or the interior.
The shallow, slightly concave clay diskb shown
in plate 15, b, is characteristic in possessing a row of holes
near the rim. This disk seems to represent a common type, as several
fragments with similar holes were found on the surface of the ruins. The
same or related forms appear to have been common in ruins near the Hopi
pueblos. These are found in the collection of votive offerings now in
the Peabody Museum at Cambridge, from Jedito spring, near Awatobi, and
the writer has discovered specimens elsewhere in Hopi ruins, a brief
mention of which occurs in a report on the archeological results of his
expedition to Arizona in 1895.c
b Small perforated clay disks are not rare here, as in other
ruins. They were used in the same way as the horn disk mentioned on page
30.
cIn Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American
Ethnology, pt. 2.
Several fragments of deep bowls, each having a handle
(pl. 18, b) on the surface, were obtained in the sands below
cliff-house B; these are commonly of red ware and have reddish-brown and
black decorations. A small dish of black-and-white ware (pl. 15,
a) has the rim slightly elevated and rounded on one side. The
cups or mugs from this region are shaped unlike those from the Mesa
Verde. Mugs from the latter region are cylindrical in form or the walls
incline slightly inward so that the diameter of the opening is somewhat
less than that of the base. The lip is thick and decorated. One of these
cups, here figured, has a constricted neck, and a slightly flaring rim
which is thin and undecorated. The decoration of another cup (pl. 15,
c) suggests the designs on several mugs from the Little Colorado
ruins. So far as form and decoration are concerned, this cup, or handled
vase, might have come from Homolobi, Chevlon, or Chaves
pass.a
a Compare figures from these ruins, in the Twenty-second
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.
The designs on fragments of pottery found in ruins in
northern Arizona are identical with or related to those from the Black
Falls ruins, but differ somewhat from those on pottery from ruins higher
up the Little Colorado river. If the history of the modification of
ceramic symbols in any of the large composite pueblos of the Southwest
be studied, it will be noticed that there are often radical changes, the
later symbols not being modifications of earlier ones. Thus modern
Zuñi pottery designs differ materially from those found in ruins
in the same valley. The modern pottery from East mesa is wholly
different from that of Sikyatki, a few miles away. Again, in so-called
modern Hopi pottery, Tewa symbols derived from the Rio Grande have
replaced old Hopi symbols dominant before the advent of Tewa clans. The
changes in pottery symbols in every large composite pueblo are not due
to evolution of the modern from the ancient, but reflect the history of
the advent of new clans, powerful enough to substitute their designs for
those formerly existing. One of the problems of the ethnologist is to
determine symbols associated with certain clans, and by means of legends
to identify clans with ruins. Having determined the symbols introduced
by certain clans and the places where these clans halted in their
migrations and built pueblos, the course of these prehistoric movements
may be followed. Comparison of symbols on pottery from northern Arizona
with those from Black Falls ruins support, so far as they go, the
legends that the Snake people, who once lived at Wuk´ki near the Black
Falls, lived also in cliff-houses now ruins near Marsh pass or the White
mesa. The symbolism indicates the presence of the same clans, and
tradition is thereby supported.
Plate 17. POTTERY AND STONE IMPLEMENTS FROM NAVAHO NATIONAL MONUMENT
(a bowls bearing relief ornaments [from left to right: Cat. Nos 257783,
257784, 257782, heights, 2-1/4 inches, 2 inches, 2-3/4 inches] (top);
b handles of food-bowls [Cat. No. 258326] (middle); c stone
implements [from left to right: Cat Nos. 258334, 258335, 258335, 258337, dimensions
6 x 4 x 1-3/4 inches; 5-1/4 x 3-3/4 x 2-1/2 inches, 4-1/2 x 3-3/4 x 2 inches,
4-3/4 x 2-3/4 x 2-1/2 inches] (bottom))
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CLIFF-DWELLERS CRADLE
One of the most instructive specimens collected in
the Navaho National Monument was found by Mr. W. B. Douglass in a ruin
designated as Cradle House. This object is a cradle made of basket ware,
open at one end and continued at the opposite end into a biped extension
to serve for the legs. It is decorated on the outside with an archaic
geometric ornamentation, the unit design of which is shown in the
accompanying illustration. This specimen (pls. 19-21) may be regarded as
one of the finest examples of prehistoric basketry from the Southwest;
moreover with one exception, it is the only known cradle of this form. A
pair of infant's sandals found with the cradle leaves no doubt as to its
use, while the character and symbolism of the decoration refer it to the
ancient cliff-house culture. The design (fig. 3) suggests that which
characterizes certain specimens of the well-known black-and-white
pottery found in the San Juan drainage. Evidences of long use and repair
appear, especially on one side. Unfortunately, the specimen, although
entire when found, later was broken across its middle.
FIG. 3. Design on cliff-dwellers cradle.
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The only other known cradle of this type was brought
to the attention of ethnologists by Dr. W J McGee when in charge of the
anthropological exhibit at the St. Louis Exposition. This was found in
San Juan county, Utah, not far from the Colorado river.a This
specimen is better preserved than that here figured, but the decoration
is practically identical; so near, in fact, that the two might have been
made by the same woman.
aThe finder was Mr. E. B. Wallace. This specimen was owned
at one time by Mr. J. T. Zeller, an architect of St. Louis. The writer
has been informed that Mr. Zeller sold the cradle and that it is now in
the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS
The stone implements (pl. 17, c) consist of
axes, pounding stones,b and hatchets. On one of the roofs at
Kitsiel there was picked up a curved stickc identical with those
placed by the Walpi Snake priests about the sand-painting of their
altar. A good specimen of a planting stick and a rod formerly used as a
spindle were found near by; the latter is a perforated disk made of
horn. A flute identical with those used at the present day by Flute
priests at Walpi was found at Betatakin, thus tending to support the
legend that the Flute clan once lived at the latter pueblo.
b A common feature of stone mauls is a raised ferrule above
and one below the groove to which the handle is attached.
cThese sticks, or "crooks" (gnela), found on the Antelope
altar in the Walpi snake ceremony are reported to have been brought to
Walpi from Tokonabi.
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