Part 36

The Mesa Verde National Park was created by act of Congress in June, 1906, and enlarged seven years later. The Mancos River, on its way to the San Juan and thence to the Colorado and the passage of the Grand Canyon, forms its southern boundary. Scores of canyons, large and small, nearly all dry except at the spring floods, are tributary. All of these trend south; in a general way they are parallel. Each of the greater stems has its lesser tributaries and each of these its lesser forks. Between the canyons lie the mesas. Their tops, if continued without break, would form a more or less level surface; that is, all had been a plain before floods cut the separating canyons.

The region has a wonderful scenic charm. It is markedly different in quality from other national parks, but in its own way is quite as startling and beautiful. Comparison is impossible because of the lack of elements in common, but it may be said that the Mesa Verde represents our great southwest in one of its most fascinating phases, combining the fundamentals of the desert with the flavor of the near-by mountains. The canyons, which are seven or eight hundred feet deep and two or three times as wide where the cliff-dwellings gather, are prevailingly tawny yellow. Masses of sloping talus reach more than half-way up; above them the cliffs are perpendicular; it is in cavities in these perpendiculars that the cliff-dwellings hide. Above the cliffs are low growths of yellowish-green cedar with pinyons and other conifers of darker foliage. Beneath the trees and covering the many opens grows the familiar sage of the desert, a gray which hints at green and yellow both but realizes neither. But the sage-brush shelters desert grasses, and, around the occasional springs and their slender outlets, grass grows rank and plenteous; a little water counts for a great deal in the desert.

Showing the manner in which water erosion is reducing the plains to canyons and mesas. The Mesa Verde cliff-dwellers built their homes in caves in the perpendicular cliffs above the sloping talus]

Summer, then, is delightful on the Mesa Verde. The plateau is high and the air invigorating, warm by day in midsummer, always cool at night. The atmosphere is marvellously clear, and the sunsets are famous. The winter snows, which reach three or four feet in depth, disappear in April. From May to Thanksgiving the region is in its prime. It is important to realize that this land has much for the visitor besides its ruins. It has vigor, distinction, personality, and remarkable charm. It is the highest example of one of America's most distinctive and important scenic phases, and this without reference to its prehistoric dwellings. No American traveller knows his America, even the great southwest, who does not know the border-land where desert and forest mingle.

The Southern Ute Indian Reservation bites a large rectangle from the southeast corner of the park, but its inhabitants are very different in quality of mind and spirit from the ancient and reverent builders of Sun Temple. Reservation Indians frequently enter the park, but they cannot be persuaded to approach the cliff-dwellings. The "little people," they tell you, live there, and neither teaching nor example will convince them that these invisible inhabitants will not injure intruders. Some of these Indians allege that it was their own ancestors who built the cliff-dwellings, but there is neither record nor tradition to support such a claim. The fact appears to be that the Utes were the ancient enemies of this people. There is a Ute tradition of a victory over the ancient pueblo-dwellers at Battle Rock in McElmo Canyon.

There are, on the other hand, many reasons for the opinion that the Hopi Indians of the present day, so far at least as culture goes, are descendants of this remarkable prehistoric people. Besides the many similarities between the architectural types of the Mesa Verde and the pueblos of the modern Hopi, careful investigators have found suggestive points of similarity in their utensils, their art forms, and their customs. Doctor Fewkes cites a Hopi tradition to that effect by mentioning the visit of a Hopi courier a few years ago to prehistoric ruins in the Navajo National Monument to obtain water from an ancestral spring for use in a Hopi religious ceremonial. If these traditions are founded in fact, the promising civilization of the Mesa Verde has sadly retrograded in its transplanting. Hopi architecture and masonry shows marked retrogression from the splendid types of the Mesa Verde.

When the telephone-line was under construction to connect the park with the outside world, the Indians from the adjoining Ute reservation became suspicious and restless. Upon hearing its purpose, they begged the superintendent not to go on with the work, which was certain to bring evil to the neighborhood.

"The little people," they solemnly declared, "will not like it."

They assured the superintendent that the wires would not talk.

"The little people will not let them talk," they told him.

But the line was completed and the wires talked.

The park is reached by motor and rail. From Denver, Salt Lake City, and Santa Fé railroad routes offer choice of some of the biggest country of the Rockies. From either direction a night is spent en route in a mountain mining-town, an experience which has its usefulness in preparation for the contrasted and unusual experience to come. Entrance is through Mancos, from which motor-stages thread the maze of canyons and mesas from the highlands of the northern border to the deep canyons of the south where cluster the ruins of distinction.

This entry is delightful. The road crosses the northern boundary at the base of a lofty butte known as Point Lookout, the park's highest elevation. Encircling its eastern side and crossing the Morefield Canyon the road perches for several miles upon the sinuous crest of a ridge more than eight thousand feet in altitude, whose north side plunges eighteen hundred feet into the broad Montezuma Valley, and whose gentle southern slope holds the small beginnings of the great canyons of the cliff-dwellers. Both north and south the panorama unfolds in impressive grandeur, eloquent of the beautiful scanty land and of the difficult conditions of living which confronted the sturdy builders whose ancient masterpieces we are on our way to see. At the northern end of Chapin Mesa we swing sharply south and follow its slope, presently entering the warm, glowing, scented forests, through which we speed to the hotel-camp perched upon a bluff overlooking the depths of Spruce Canyon.

Upon the top and under the eaves of this mesa are found very fine types of prehistoric civilization. At Mummy Lake, half-way down the mesa, we passed on the way a good example of pueblo architecture, and within an easy walk of our terminal camp we find some of the noblest examples of cliff-dwellings in existence. Here it was, near the head of this remote, nearly inaccessible, canyon, guarded by nature's ramparts, that aboriginal American genius before the coming of the Anglo-Saxon found its culminating expression.

In this spirit the thoughtful American of to-day enters the Mesa Verde National Park and examines its precious memorials.

III

Although the accident of the road brings the traveller first to the mesa-top pueblos of the Mummy Lake district, historical sequence suggests that examination begin with the cliff-dwellings.

Of the many examples of these remains in the park, Cliff Palace, Spruce Tree House, and Balcony House are the most important because they concisely and completely cover the range of life and the fulness of development. This is not the place for detailed descriptions of these ruins. The special publications of the National Park Service and particularly the writings of Doctor J. Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Institution, who has devoted many years of brilliant investigation to American prehistoric remains, are obtainable from government sources. Here we shall briefly consider several types.

It is impossible, without reference to photographs, to convey a concise adequate idea of Cliff Palace. Seen from across its canyon the splendid crescent-shaped ruin offers to the unaccustomed eye little that is common to modern architecture. Prominently in the foreground, large circular wells at once challenge interest. These were the kivas, or ceremonial rooms of the community, centres of the religious activities which counted so importantly in pueblo life. Here it was that men gathered monthly to worship their gods. In the floors of some kivas are small holes representing symbolically the entrance to the underworld, and around these from time to time priests doubtless performed archaic ceremonies and communicated with the dead. Each family or clan in the community is supposed to have had its own kiva.

The kiva walls of Cliff Palace show some of the finest prehistoric masonry in America. All are subterranean, which in a few instances necessitated excavation in floors of solid rock. The roofs were supported by pedestals rising from mural banquettes, usually six pedestals to a kiva; the kiva supposed to have belonged to the chiefs clan had eight pedestals, and one, perhaps belonging to a clan of lesser prominence, had only two. Several kivas which lack roof-supports may have been of different type or used for lesser ceremonials. All except these have fireplaces and ventilators. Entrance was by ladder from the roof.

Other rooms identified are living-rooms, storage-rooms, milling-rooms, and round and square towers, besides which there are dark rooms of unknown use and several round rooms which are neither kivas nor towers. Several of the living-rooms have raised benches evidently used for beds, and in one of them pegs for holding clothing still remain in the walls. The rooms are smoothly plastered or painted.

Mills for grinding corn were found in one room in rows; in others, singly. The work was done by women, who rubbed the upper stone against the lower by hand. The rests for their feet while at work still remain in place; also the brushes for sweeping up the meal. The small storage-rooms had stone doors, carefully sealed with clay to keep out mice and prevent moisture from spoiling the corn and meal.

One of the most striking buildings in Cliff Palace is the Round Tower, two stories high, which not only was an observatory, as is indicated by its peep-holes, but also served purposes in religious festivals. Its masonry belongs to the finest north of Mexico. The stones are beautifully fitted and dressed. The Square Tower which stands at the southern end of the village is four stories high, reaching the roof of the cave. The inner walls of its third story are elaborately painted with red and white symbols, triangles, zigzags, and parallels, the significance of which is not known.

The ledge under which Cliff Palace is built forms a roof that overhangs the structure. An entrance, probably the principal one, came from below to a court at a lower level than the floor, from which access was by ladder.

Spruce Tree House, which may have been built after Cliff Palace, has a circular room with windows which were originally supposed to have been port-holes for defense. Doctor Fewkes, however, suggests a more probable purpose, as the position of the room does not specially suggest a fortress. Through the openings in this room the sun-priest may have watched the setting sun to determine the time for ceremonies. The room was entered from above, like a kiva. Another room, differing from any in other cliff-dwellings, has been named the Warriors' Room because, unlike sleeping-rooms, its bench surrounds three sides, and because, unlike any other room, it is built above a kiva. Only the exigencies of defense, it is supposed, would warrant so marked a departure from the prescribed religious form of room.

Balcony House has special interest, apart from its commanding location, perfection of workmanship and unusual beauty, and because of the ingenuity of the defenses of its only possible entrance. At the top of a steep trail a cave-like passage between rocks is walled so as to leave a door capable of admitting only one at a time, behind which two or three men could strike down, one by one, an attacking army.

Out of these simple architectural elements, together with the utensils and weapons found in the ruins, the imagination readily constructs a picture of the austere, laborious, highly religious, and doubtless happy lives led by the earnest people who built these ancient dwellings in the caves.

When all the neighborhood caves were filled to overflowing with increasing population, and generations of peace had wrought a confidence which had not existed when the pioneers had sought safety in caves, these people ventured to move out of cliffs and to build upon the tops of the mesa. Whether all the cave-dwellers were descended from the original pilgrims or whether others had joined them afterward is not known, but it seems evident that the separate communities had found some common bond, probably tribal, and perhaps evolved some common government. No doubt they intermarried. No doubt the blood of many cliff-dwelling communities mingled in the new communities which built pueblos upon the mesa. In time there were many of these pueblos, and they were widely scattered; there are mounds at intervals all over the Mesa Verde. The largest group of pueblos, one infers from the number of visible mounds, was built upon the Chapin Mesa several miles north of the above-mentioned cliff-dwelling near a reservoir known to-day as Mummy Lake. It is there, then, that we shall now go in continuation of our story.