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IV. HOUSEHOLD TOOLS AND UTENSILS

The Bonitians were a stone-age people. Occasionally they may have
seen a copper knife in the hands of an itinerant peddler from the
highlands of Mexico, but they had none of their own manufacture.
Indeed, it was not until the second quarter of the seventeenth century,
when Spanish colonists seemed permanently settled in the upper Rio
Grande Valley and the Franciscans had established missions from
Pecos on the east to Awatobi in the west, that the several Pueblo
tribes became at all familiar with metal. And it was years thereafter
before iron and steel were available to them in such quantity as
partially to supersede the simple stone tools of their forefathers—
hammers, axes, knives, and projectile points.

Stone tools were still common among the Pueblos, especially those
of the west, as late as 1881 and were only then being displaced by
American steel (Bourke, 1884, p. 251). A large portion of the stone
implements Stevenson obtained in New Mexico and Arizona in 1879
had previously been gathered from abandoned villages. "The old
ruins are searched," he wrote (1883, p. 329), "and from them, and
the debris about them, stone pestles, mortars, hammers, hatchets,
rubbing stones, scrapers, picks, spear and arrow heads, and polishing
stones are collected by the inhabitants of nearly all the pueblos, and
are kept and used by them."

At Bonito as in later, even post-Spanish, Pueblo towns there were
implements peculiar to the household and others designed for use
primarily in the fields. Some were used chiefly by men; others, by
women. Some closely resemble, in form and function, twentiethcentury
tools. But there are other implements the purpose of which
we may only guess. All were fashioned from the only suitable materials
available—bone, wood, and stone.

IMPLEMENTS OF STONE

Hammers, simplest of all aboriginal tools, came into use with the
very dawn of the human race. Any tough stone that might be grasped
in the hand sufficed for a hammer, but its surface was invariably
fractured with another stone to produce jagged faces and thus increase
its effectiveness. When these rough edges were worn away,
the hammer was discarded. On one of our numerous trips to Zuñi
I saw an old gentleman, totally blind, driving a wedge into an ax
handle with a rock from his doorstep (pl. 23, right). To him there
was nothing novel in this, for he had been pounding things with similar

stones since early boyhood. And the ancestors of this ancient, having
no knowledge of metals, were doubtless more expert than he in improvising
tools from the materials at hand.

As their fathers did before them, the artisans of Pueblo Bonito
employed hammerstones for breaking or abrading rocks. With stone
hammers they struck off chunks of flint that might be carried home
and made into arrowheads and knives. By patient pounding, by the
slow attrition that comes with repeated blows of stone on stone, they
shaped axheads from water-worn cobbles, transformed sandstone
blocks into mills for grinding maize, and dressed the slabs used in
house construction. In primitive hands the stone hammer and the
abrader answered all those diverse needs for which the modern craftsman
requires an assortment of chisels, mauls, and other steel
implements.

Bonitian hammers (pl. 24, a) are mostly of quartzite, silicified
wood, and flint because these are the toughest rocks to be found in
northwestern New Mexico. They vary in weight from a few ounces
to a pound and a half. No other artifact was so frequently encountered
during our explorations. Pepper tabulates 688 hammerstones
unearthed by the Hyde Expedition; my own field notes mention the
finding of 653, and we may have seen and ignored half as many more
while trenching rubbish heaps and tracing deeply buried, partly razed
walls.

That the time required in making stone implements by aboriginal
methods is really much less than the uninitiated might suppose has
been amply demonstrated in the laboratories of the Smithsonian Institution
by Gill, Holmes, McGuire, and others. DeLancy Gill, for
example, with a jasper hammer and a sandstone abrader as his only
tools, in 21 hours fashioned from a quartzite cobble a most excellent
ax measuring 4⅝ by 3⅝ by 1⅝ inches. Like the aborigines whose work
he so successfully imitated, Gill found that the effectiveness of a stone
hammer was materially reduced when its faceted surface became
smooth through use; that it was easier to make a new hammer than to
refracture an old one. This observation undoubtedly explains the
abundance of discarded hammerstones at every Pueblo ruin.

Abraders were to the Bonitians what planes, rasps, and carborundum
wheels are to twentieth-century farmers. They were the tools
with which other tools were made, the chief reliance of the woodworker.
Abrasive stones were never standardized; we find them in
all manner of shapes and sizes. Some are merely casual fragments,
used once and tossed aside. Others are so carefully made, so trim
and neatly squared, as obviously to have been designed for special
purposes.

Throughout the sandy Chaco district sandstone is present in unlimited
quantities and in various degrees of fineness. The coarser
varieties were utilized for shaping and smoothing artifacts of stone,
for dressing wooden tablets, and for rubbing knots off ceiling beams.
Sandstone of much finer texture was employed for fragile materials
and more delicate tasks, as when shells and turquoise were fashioned
into objects of personal adornment. That the abrasive properties of
Chaco Canyon sandstone are still appreciated was clearly demonstrated
one day when I chanced to see one of our Navaho workmen pick up
a spall and use it to take the rough edge off a broken incisor.

When a Bonitian had an ax to grind he rubbed it up and down on
the cliff back of the village (pl. 23, left) or on any other handy surface.
Perhaps half of the remaining doorsills in Pueblo Bonito are
scored by the sharpening of stone axes, whatever the housewives may
have had to say about it. On detached blocks here and there and occasionally
on house walls one notes where bone awls were pointed,
where digging sticks were re-edged, and where various other implements
were whetted for the task in hand.

The abrasive stones we recovered from rooms and rubbish heaps
may be divided into two fairly equal classes: "active" and "passive."
Active abraders—the designation is literal—are those held in the hand
and used after the manner of a file, while a passive abrader is one
which remained stationary as the object being altered was moved back
and forth upon it. Naturally the type employed was more or less
determined by the size and shape of the object to be made and the
ease with which it could be managed. Whether the abrader was
rubbed on the artifact or the artifact on the abrader, it was the cutting
properties of sand that produced the desired result.

The three illustrated in figure 29 are typical examples of active
abraders. Although commonly described as "arrowshaft smoothers,"
their best-known function, they were also employed at Pueblo Bonito
for smoothing willow shoots for ceilings in houses of second-type
construction, for rounding spindle shafts and similar slender objects
of wood. Among several somewhat related specimens is one with 10
concave faces (fig. 30), the result of friction through which a bow,
a digging stick, a paho, or artifact of comparable diameter was brought
to its final form. We may list also with the active abraders spalls with
worn edges, sandstone saws, delicate filelike tools, and pointed implements,
both flat and rounded. From Room 318 came a series of five
conical abraders, varying from half an inch to an inch in diameter
at the butt and from 1¾ to 4½ inches in length. Together, they suggest
a definite set of tools (pl. 25, a-e).

In figure 31 is shown a section severed from a thin sandstone tablet.

Fig. 29.—Active abraders.

This specimen illustrates clearly the manner in which stone was used
to cut stone. An edged abrader was moved patiently back and forth
upon the tablet until the resultant groove was deep enough to permit
breaking off of the unwanted portion. But the latter, in this particular
instance, was itself utilized since its cut edge has been worn to a degree
not adequately represented in the drawing.

Fig. 30.—A multiple-grooved abrader.

Fig. 31.—Portion of stone tablet severed by sawing.

In contrast to the more or less chance fragments comprising this
first group, "passive" abraders—those remaining in fixed position as
objects were rubbed upon them—may be anything from the cliff back
of the village to a half-pound lap stone. While an irregular block
might suffice for pointing a bone awl (fig. 32), most passive abraders
are rectangular, and it is noted that the care exercised in shaping
them, and their thinness, vary directly with the texture of the stone.
Some are polished to velvet smoothness (fig. 33, b), some are worn

Fig. 32.—Fragment of sandstone on which awls were sharpened.

Fig. 33.—Tablets serving as passive abraders.

unevenly like a novice's whetstone, and some show median, longitudinal
attrition (fig. 33, a). I believe these latter, always of finegrained
sandstone, were used in the manufacture of ornaments, a
surmise strengthened by the fact that, in several instances, the grinding
surface retains traces of some unidentifiable white substance, perhaps
the calcareous matter of which shells are formed or the sericitized
granitic rock in which New Mexico turquoise usually occurs.

Fig. 34.—Sandstone "files."

The filelike tools mentioned among our "active" abraders merit an
additional word. Six were found in Room 26, Pueblo del Arroyo. All
are broken, but this is not surprising considering the fact that they
average only a tenth of an inch thick at the broader end (fig. 34). Four are planoconvex in cross section, while the other two are flat,
with edges beveled on one side. A single comparable specimen was
recovered at Pueblo Bonito, in Room 328, and this also is flat on both
sides (U.S.N.M. No. 335628).

It is certain that these little instruments served as abraders, yet
for what particular purpose I cannot say. One of our Zuñi, an expert

worker of turquoise, described them as files for making beads and
proceeded to demonstrate while I held my breath lest he break the
fragile thing. But this same man, like other Zuñi lapidaries I have
watched, ground his own turquoise beads and pendants in the old
proven way—individually on a sandstone tablet. So his explanation
of our filelike implements, however plausible, is doubtless to be taken
with a grain of salt.

Fig. 35.—Sandstone "saws."

Sandstone saws (fig. 35).—This term will serve to describe an even
dozen knifelike implements made of clayey sandstone. The two illustrated,
the only complete ones in the lot, are double-edged, while nine
of those remaining are sharpened on one edge only. All indicate an
original length of at least twice the width, with thickness varying
from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch. Six were found in
rooms of third- and fourth-type masonry, while only one came from
the older part of Pueblo Bonito.

As saws, these fragile blades were used to sever stone, bone, and
other materials. Their edges are beveled equally from both sides, and
some are noticeably dulled. One fragment retains traces of a calcareous

substance as if it had been employed not only for cutting
pieces of shell but also as a block on which to polish them. Grooves
in cut bone correspond with the V-edges of these sandstone saws.

Two other fragments originally included in this series are found,
on reexamination, to be parts of small tablets. They were made of
the same clayey sandstone; they are equally thin, but their edges are
less knifelike and their faces are slightly concave owing to longitudinal
attrition.

Rubbing and smoothing stones, so-called (pl. 25, lower), are commonly
thought to have been utilized for smoothing earthen floors and
newly plastered walls. They would have answered these purposes admirably,
but none of our examples shows the transverse striations that
must have resulted had it been so employed. The Pueblo woman's
hand is her trowel in all plastering operations today.

Often made from water-worn cobbles, smoothing stones are oval,
discoidal, or rectangular in shape and of a size easily held by one's
outstretched fingers. Most of our series show wear on both sides, the
faces being flat or slightly convex. All are of sandstone, usually finegrained,
except three foreign to the Chaco area—one of grayishbrown
vesicular lava and two of a dark, igneous rock mineralogists
call gabbro. One in the series has served as an improvised palette
and another is stained red all over, thus evidencing a final use in
powdering ocher.

Being of convenient size, rubbing stones were frequently substituted
for other household implements, especially hammers and mullers.
This is proved by their battered edges and by the shallow, circular
depressions not uncommonly noted on doorslabs and old metates.
Two of those illustrated (pl. 25, figs. j and k) are from storeroom
300B; 51 rubbing stones, manos, and re-used mano fragments
partly enclosed a pile of potter's clay at the south end of Room 212.

Pottery polishers, the water-worn pebbles with which Pueblo
women traditionally gloss the surfaces of earthenware vessels prior
to ornamentation and firing, were little used at Pueblo Bonito. Although
numbers of unworked pebbles and small cobbles were unearthed,
our collection includes only 11 showing perceptible wear and
four of these served also as hammerstones. Only one came from the
old section of the village; none was found in Pueblo del Arroyo. And
yet some of the oldest as well as some of the latest poettery we exhumed
was clearly stone-polished.

Sandstone tablets were found in all parts of the ruin. Some, shaped
and roughly dressed with stone hammers from slabs an inch or so
thick, were designed as storeroom doors (pl. 26, B), others, of smaller

size, covered ventilators and like wall openings. Sandstone slabs
were found in position over the ventilator ducts in Kivas J, K, and
N; reworked door fragments sealed subfloor repositories in Kivas
D and R. Tablets 2 to 10 inches long and of varying texture, used
primarily as passive abraders, may be identified by the marks of
abrasion. But there are others, rough or smoothly finished, for which
we find no satisfactory explanation.

Five very unusual sandstone tablets were found in Room 23, Pueblo
del Arroyo. Nothing equal to them either in size or workmanship was
disclosed at Pueblo Bonito. Indeed, the only ones at all comparable
are the four illustrated in plate 27, a-d, and these are only about half
as large as the five from Pueblo del Arroyo. The first of the four,
of cream-colored marlaceous shale foreign to Chaco Canyon,[1] was
recovered from Kiva Q; the others, from Room 326. The fourth, d,
was among the burial furniture of two middle-aged females, Nos. 8
and 9 (pl. 95, upper), but this fact provides no hint as to its purpose.

Work slabs (?).—Three examples will suffice to represent a relatively
small group, neither metates nor tablets, whose real function
we do not know but which I am designating "work slabs" under the
belief that each was utilized in some domestic task. The specimens
are all of fine-grained sandstone; some have taken on a near-polish.
Had they been used in the preparation of clay for pottery manufacture
—an old metate, a flat rock, or a board answers this purpose among
living Pueblos—the marks of crushing implements and scratches from
tempering materials would be evident.

One of our three examples has, indeed, been slightly worn the full
width on each side by friction of a muller (U.S.N.M. No. 335897).
It is a slab of chocolate-colored sandstone, 16 by 7¼ by 1¼ inches,
whose natural cleavage planes required little alteration; both faces
bear traces of a black pigment. A second specimen (No. 335898),
11⅝ by 9¾ by 1[fraction 11 by 16] inches, with neatly worked edges and rounded
corners, was so embedded that its one smoothed face lay flush with
the floor in the middle east half of Room 291; it had no apparent
connection with a nearby series of dismantled mealing bins. In Room
268 a like slab was similarly embedded in the floor, against the north
wall and adjoining an oval fireplace.

The third example (No. 335899), of limy sandstone as smooth as
velvet, is equally puzzling. It measures 16½ by 10⅝ by 1⅛ inches, has

rounded edges, and is polished on both sides. Longitudinally it is
slightly concavoconvex; neither face is scored by abrading implements.
When found the slab was leaning against the wall as an improvised
step to the hatchway that formed the only exit from subterranean,
rubbish-filled Room 255. Like the other two it shows no
evidence of use over a fire and thus cannot be a baking stone such
as one may see in modern Zuñi and Hopi homes.

Jar covers.—Not long after fired pottery came into general use
throughout the San Juan area, the jar cover followed as a natural
accompaniment. A sandstone slab, reduced with stone hammers to
the size desired, answered as lid for a storage pot buried under the
floor or set next to the wall of a granary, but a jar used daily at mealtime
required a cover more pleasing to the eye. Among the undescribed
objects from a Pueblo I pit house in Chaco Canyon is the
larger portion of a sandstone disk, a quarter of an inch thick by 4⅞
inches in diameter, whose two faces and chipped edge have been
partly smoothed by abrasion (Judd, 1924a, p. 411. U.S.N.M. No.
324830). Small-mouthed vessels at Pueblo Bonito were customarily
covered by equally thin but completely smoothed disks (pl. 24, b).
We found none actually in position but noted several instances where
pitchers placed as burial offerings had toppled to one side, dislodging
their covers.

Disks were most numerous in rooms whose contents included
cylindrical-necked pitchers and cylindrical vases. We retained 123
for the national collections. These are entirely representative and
show every possible variation from those rudely shaped by percussion
to those abraded to almost machine-made exactness both in diameter
and thickness. All but three are sandstone: two are of slate (the
reworked fragments of larger disks), and one is of lignite—the
periphery is rubbed but both faces show the natural plane of cleavage.
Only 13 are more than 5 inches in diameter. Five have been used as
chance palettes on which to prepare red, yellow, or white pigment;
three served as passive abraders whereon materials were ground by a
broadly circular motion. A few covers are rather squarish; nine are
plainly reworked fragments of tablets such as those shown in plate
27, a-d. Eleven were recovered from kivas. Twelve specimens, all of
fine-grained sandstone but varying in size and circularity, measure
1½ inches or less in diameter and thus should have been listed under
another category.

As to provenience, whereas 62.6 percent of our series came from
Late Bonitian buildings (57 percent from third-period structures
alone), Hyde's tabulation of those Pepper unearthed, taking "disks"

and "jar covers" together, shows 69.8 percent from Old Bonitian
houses and only 30.2 percent from later dwellings and kivas (Pepper,
1920, pp. 363-365). Seventy-five covers (ibid., p. 125, gives the
number as 121) were in Room 28 and closely associated with an unusual
assemblage of pottery that included both early and late types.

In addition to the foregoing, we encountered a few improvisations.
Among these was the bottom of a corrugated pot that, with a minimum
of chipping on the periphery, was converted into a satisfactory
jar cover 3⅛ inches in diameter (U.S.N.M. No. 336106). And in
Room 326 we found a stopper of unfired clay, 3¼ inches in diameter
by 1⅛ inches thick (No. 336082). Its upper surface is slightly convex
and somewhat irregular as if pressed by the heel of the hand; the
under side bears angular imprints of some hard, fragmentary substance
such as turquoise matrix.

In a region where the casual tourist sees only sand and sandstone,
the men of Pueblo Bonito found nodules of chalcedony, chert, jasper,
and obsidian. Flakes struck from these were carried back to the
village and fashioned into knives and arrowheads with stone hammers
and bone chipping tools.

Cherty concretions infrequently occur in the massive sandstones
bordering Chaco Canyon; occasional outcroppings of flint may be
noted on the mesas above; petrified logs are exposed now and then
in the blue clays of the Ojo Alamo section, to the northward. My
Navaho workmen said that weathered pieces of obsidian could be
gathered along the Continental Divide, some 40 miles east of Pueblo
Bonito; they professed not to know the source of chalcedony which
geologists assure me should appear, in concretionary form, almost
anywhere in the Chaco district. The light-gray, fine-grained quartzite
from which a few of our chipped specimens were made doubtless
came from the Animas River valley. It is abundant there and was
commonly utilized by the inhabitants of Aztec (Morris, 1919a, p. 34).

Knives.—The most effective cutting tools known to the Bonitians
were chipped from obsidian, flint, and similar glassy rocks. While any
feather-edge flake might serve a passing need, the real Pueblo knife
was a leaf-shaped blade or one resembling an oversized arrowhead.
With the possible exception of the two largest, specimens a-h shown on
plate 28 were doubtless hafted for use. Flint knives in their original
wooden handles are uncommon but by no means rare in the Pueblo
area. Morris (1919a, fig. 17, p. 31) figures three from Aztec Ruin;
Pepper (1920, p. 326) found one in Room 107B at Pueblo Bonito.

Describing the Indian method of skinning buffalo as practiced on
the Great Plains in 1541, Castañeda says they used "a flint as large

as a finger, tied in a little stick, with as much ease as if working with
a good iron tool" (Winship, 1896, p. 528). Stone knives and arrowpoints
were in daily use as late as 1871 by the Apache, Paiute, and
other nomadic tribes of the Southwest (Hoffman, 1896, pp. 281-283).

Because it is easily chipped into a keen-edged cutting tool, obsidian
was a favorite material of all Indians having access to it. The obsidian
blade shown in figure h of plate 28, the finest in our collection, comes
from Pueblo del Arroyo. The large fragment, c, of brown silicified
limestone, had been used as a saw until its edges were measurably
dulled. Although containing fewer fossils than the two blades described
below, it probably came from the same place.

The other three knives, plate 28, figures i-k, are remarkable for
several reasons. Part of an offering concealed in the north wall of
Kiva Q, they far excel in skill of execution all other blades known
to me from the main Pueblo area. Indeed, if worth were measured
by thinness and mastery of the art of chipping, rather than by length
alone, I doubt that their better has been found elsewhere in the United
States. The three were flaked in the same technique, and they are
undoubtedly the product of a single individual. They are vastly superior
to the other chipped implements from Pueblo Bonito, and the
materials used are foreign to Chaco Canyon.

As illustrated, the first two are of silicified, earthy limestone, dark
brown in color and containing minute fossil shells of Ostracoda. I
was hopeful these latter might suffice to identify the source of the
rock but they do not. The ostracod is a microscopic creature that
lives mostly in fresh water. Limestones frequently contain fossil
Ostracoda but not all limestones are silicified. My geological and
paleontological colleagues[2] tell me the best-known deposit of silicified
limestone bearing fossils of the type represented in our two specimens
is the Maravillas chert of the Marathon Basin, near Abilene, Tex.
However, in color at least, our two blades agree more closely with
another formation, the Montoya limestone of the El Paso area. But
these formations are both Ordovician, and it is generally conceded
that the tiny shells in our specimens look much later, perhaps as late
as the Tertiary period. Even so, southwestern Texas seemed the
most likely place of origin for our two cherty knives until I chanced
to recall one from Utah.

In 1876 Dr. Edward Palmer investigated several "mounds"—presumably

the remains of P. II adobe houses—in Santa Clara Valley,
near St. George, in the extreme southwestern corner of Utah. Among
the artifacts he recovered, still carefully preserved in the U. S. National
Museum, is an unusually fine blade 10⅜ inches long. It was
figured by Wilson (1899, fig. 88, p. 896) but inadequately described.
Strangely enough, that knife is chipped in the same superior technique
as the two from Kiva Q; it is of the same mottled brown, cherty
limestone and of exactly the same thickness, three-sixteenths of an
inch. Ostracods are present, but they are small and occasional. Such
a rock might occur, I am told, in more than one Tertiary formation
on the mountaintops of southwestern Utah. The air-line distance to
Pueblo Bonito is almost the same as that from El Paso, but, as an
additional obstacle, there would be the Rio Colorado to cross.

There are other, problematical sources nearer Chaco Canyon: west
from Mount Taylor, in New Mexico, and, again, extending southward
from the Chuska Mountains, in eastern Arizona, exposures of unsilicified
limestone (Todilto formation) containing Ostracoda like ours
overlie the red Wingate sandstone. Now it is possible an intrusive
dike of igneous rock—and such dikes are present in the Chuska area—
would silicify the limestone for a short distance roundabout and thus
produce just such material as that from which our two blades were
fashioned. Since both districts lie within a couple of days' foot journey
from Pueblo Bonito, there remains the possibility that some
wandering Bonitian, or a visitor, happened upon a limited quantity of
the material and selected the blocks from which our two specimens
were chipped. However, even while grasping at this straw, we are
reminded that the quality of the chipping excels that of all other knives
in the collection if not, indeed, that of all others from the Pueblo
area in general.

Our third blade from the Kiva Q deposit is of grayish, semitranslucent
quartzite, flinty in appearance but with no distinctive characteristic.
Thus there is no likelihood of tracing it to its place of origin.
The rock is lighter in color than the Animas River quartzites, but it
permitted the same flaking technique as the two limestone blades.

In every abandoned room where floor sweepings and other debris
of occupation had been thrown we uncovered spalls of flint, jasper,
and obsidian—rejectage from the manufacturing of blades and projectile
points. Of these numerous fragments less than two dozen had
been turned to account. Four were notched like saws (fig. 36), while
the others were chipped on one or more edges to serve as scrapers or
knives. In archeological circles, flakes chipped from both sides are

identified as knives; those chipped from one side only, as scrapers.[3]

Scrapers are flakes of hard, flinty rock, chipped along one or more
edges and designed for fleshing hides, shaping wooden objects, etc.
There are two principal types, named from the area of specialization:
End scrapers and side scrapers. Both are almost worldwide in distribution;
both have been in use since the lower Paleolithic period. Thus,
by themselves, scrapers can tell very little of time or culture.

From its blunted end, the first type is often designated "snub-nosed"
or "duck-billed." It was an indispensable tool of tribes that followed

the buffalo up and down the Great Plains. End scrapers chipped from
bottle glass, collected in Nebraska about 1870, duplicate in shape and
size those of chalcedony and jasper found in Colorado deposits geologically
dated as at least 15,000 years old.

Stone scrapers of both types are surprisingly rare in the western
Pueblo country. We recovered only five during our seven seasons'
excavation. Three of these are side scrapers and, although chipped to
an edge from one side only, are thin enough to have served as knives.
The other two are end scrapers recovered, respectively, from Kiva J,
Pueblo del Arroyo (U.S.N.M. No. 334796), and the west refuse
mound at Pueblo Bonito. The second example (fig. 37) was a surface

find in 1929 by Mrs. Hilding F. Palmer, wife of the then custodian
of Chaco National Monument.

In contrast with our meager findings, Kidder (1932, p. 15) lists 185
end scrapers and 291 side scrapers from Pecos, situated on the western
margin of the buffalo country. I am not prepared to argue that the
number of chipped scrapers from a given Pueblo III ruin is any index
to contact between that settlement and Plains tribes in pre-Spanish
times, but the possibility merits archeological scrutiny.

Drills are tools for boring holes. Holes for suspension cords were
bored in beads and pendants; broken earthenware vessels were repaired
with yucca fiber threaded through drilled holes. Lacking metal,
the Bonitians made drill points of stone, chiefly flint and chalcedony.
We may have overlooked several, but even so it is strange that our

Fig. 37.—An end scraper.
(Drawn by Irvin E. Alleman.)

Pueblo Bonito collection contains only five
examples. One of these is an altered arrowhead;
another looks like an arrowpoint in
profile but is really too thick along the spine.

Broad-stemmed drills were doubtless held
between thumb and index finger and turned
gimlet-fashion, but the others were mounted
in the end of a stick to be twirled between
the palms. Examples so mounted have been
found repeatedly in Arizona and Colorado cliff dwellings.

Although steel has since replaced the stone drill points they commonly
used 60 years ago, Zuñi lapidaries still employ the pump drill
for boring holes in shell and turquoise beads (pl. 20, left). The pump
drill, like the bow drill, is a compound instrument usually associated
with northern Indians and the Eskimo. However, Martin (1934,
pp. 94-97) figures and describes a bow-drill set found in 1890 in a
cliff dwelling in Grand Gulch, southeastern Utah. After 60 years the
set remains unique for the Pueblo country.

Milling stones.—Maize cultivation was the foundation upon which
Pueblo society was erected, and milling stones were essential to the
full utilization of maize. Although wheat has come more recently to
form an important item in Pueblo diet, maize remains the favorite.
It has provided the principal food supply of all sedentary tribes dwelling
in the Southwest since Basket Maker times, and almost without
exception these diverse peoples have ground their maize meal between
two specialized milling stones. One of these, the metate (from the
Aztec metlatl), remains stationary; upon it, maize kernels are crushed
with a movable handstone, the muller or mano.

There seems but little doubt that the original concept of these primitive

Plate 24.—a, Hammerstones; b, sandstone jar covers; c, club heads.

Plate 25.—Upper: A set of sandstone abraders from Room 318. Lower: Rubbing
and smoothing tools of sandstone.

stone mills germinated in Central America or Mexico and spread
north and south with the distribution of maize. Mexican and Central
American metates, carved usually from basalt, ordinarily possess three
legs that elevate the grinding surface to a height and angle convenient
for a kneeling woman. They can be moved about the house at will and
often are transported appreciable distances. Pueblo metates, on the
other hand, are commonly of sandstone and always legless. In their
earliest known form they lay flat upon the floor while in use; later the
end at which the miller knelt was often propped up a few inches for
comfort while grinding. Still later, perhaps during the first half of
the eleventh century, a housewife here and there fixed her mill permanently
in position, at an angle of 20° to 30°, and walled it about
with sandstone slabs on edge. Out of this occasional practice grew the
Pueblo custom of arranging binned metates of varying texture side
by side in series of two, three, or more. Three provide a satisfactory
sequence and is the number most frequently employed today. The
first, or coarsest, may be of vesicular lava; the others, of medium- and
fine-grained sandstone. Maize crushed upon the first is passed to the
next for grinding and then to the third, where it is reduced to the
desired degree of fineness (pl. 29, lower).

The efficiency of these multiple milling stones, and the young women
who operated them, greatly impressed Coronado during his first few
days among the Zuñi. From Hawikuh he wrote the viceroy on August
3, 1540: "They have the very best arrangement and machinery for
grinding that was ever seen. One of these Indian women here will
grind as much as four of the Mexicans" (Winship, 1896, p. 559).

In Tigua villages, according to Castañeda (ibid., p. 522), maize was
ground on three stones in a room that was set aside for the purpose
and which the women were at pains to keep clean. They even removed
their moccasins and covered their hair before entering. At one of the
towns our chronicler looked in upon a grinding party preparing cornmeal
for some ceremony—a gay party where the girls sang in rhythm
with their grinding while a man sat at the door and played a flute
accompaniment.

We do not know precisely where or when the compound milling bin
originated, but we have evidence of at least two in Pueblo Bonito.
Both were in houses of third-period construction; both had been dismantled.
The first series, which included 10 metate bins and occupied
almost the entire middle length of Room 90, has been described by
Pepper (1920, pp. 295-296). Slabs on edge had framed each mill and
its accompanying basin into which the ground meal fell. In each case
the meal basin had been paved with sandstone slabs; in each case this

flooring lay 2 to 3 inches below the forward edge of the metate slope.
Three metates, two of which clearly had fallen from the room above,
were found upon or near the bins; one of the three is described as
"flat."

Our second example appeared in Room 291, a dwelling with central
fireplace. Here two adjoining meal basins, flag-paved 4 inches below
the room floor, indicated the former presence of as many stone mills.
The first basin, 16 inches wide by 21 inches long, abutted the northeast
wall less than 4 feet from the north corner; the second basin, in the
same axis as the first, measured 12 by 16 inches. Their respective
lengths, 21 inches and 16 inches, approximate the widths of the two
metates that once sloped upward from the basins toward the northwest
end of the house. Both mills had left concave imprints, and since the
first is perceptibly higher than the second we infer the metate that
made it was thinner and broader than its companion. A slab fragment
on edge had supported the forward end of the second mill and marked
the near side of its associated basin. Both bins had been dismantled
when their metates were removed; we detected no evidence of former
enclosing slabs at their upper or raised ends (pl. 29, upper).

In line with the two described above and against the southwest wall,
a slab on end marks the back of a third meal basin, 11 by 19 inches.
Between it and the room's west corner are the remains of two more,
likewise slab-paved, upon the original room floor 4 inches below the
second and final one. Because this latter was much broken, metate
seatings here are not so clearly indicated as in the two cases first cited.
Nevertheless it seems certain that when Room 291 was inhabited it
boasted five binned metates, in banks of two and three, respectively.
These and their enclosing slabs were removed for use elsewhere when
the dwelling was abandoned; subsequently, and characteristically,
nearby residents utilized the empty room as a convenient receptacle
for household rubbish. Of 1,023 potsherds tabulated from this debris,
5.4 percent represent the four principal varieties of Old Bonitian
pottery; 71 percent, as many Late Bonitian wares.

Adjoining 291 on the northeast is Room 72, a narrow closet built
to utilize otherwise waste space when Kiva 75 replaced 76. In Room
72 the Hyde Expedition found 20 metates, including several unfinished
ones, leaning against the walls or fallen flat upon the floor.[4] Next
beyond 72 is Room 20, which adjoins 90, the milling room to which we
have already referred. The doorways connecting these four had all

been blocked, presumably because first-story Rooms 20 and 90 were
no longer suitable as living quarters after Kiva 75 was constructed in
front of them. If the time of that construction was A.D. 1061, the
cutting date of a beam that carried the south wall of Rooms 290-291
across the arc of Kiva L, then Room 90 probably was built 15 or 20
years earlier. Its 10 slab-walled milling bins may have been installed
at the same time or a decade later.

In Old Bonitian dwellings we found no binned metate; no special
milling room. Here, as throughout the village generally, the daily
grinding appears to have been done on single, casually placed mills.
These were all of the troughed variety; that is, the upper surface bore
a longitudinal groove or trough in which the mano moved to grind the
meal. That groove was closed at the elevated end, where the operator
knelt, and open at the lower end.

All Bonitian metates are troughed, but minor differences separate
them into two principal groups. One group is thin, tabular, and symmetrical
as a rule, with wide margins to the shallow grinding area
(pl. 30, left); the second, at least 3 inches thick, is more or less massive
in appearance (pl. 30, right). Both groups include mills finished
with little or no change in the original block of sandstone except the
mano groove and others reduced to the desired size and shape by much
spalling and rubbing. We brought to Washington for the national
collections only one example of each kind, but my choice for the
second type is not quite a proper one since its closed end had been
battered away and the trough extended full length—the lone example
of its kind at Pueblo Bonito. Pittings left by the stone hammer suggest
this change probably took place when the mill was last resurfaced.

It is well known that Pueblo milling stones must be "sharpened"
from time to time in order to maintain their cutting properties. Just
how frequently is the one factor in question. Bartlett (1933, p. 4)
says Hopi matrons of a generation ago roughened their grinding
stones every 5 days. At such a rate, and with corn to be crushed and
powdered daily, deep troughs would soon develop even in the thickest,
toughest mill. By the same token, those of the tabular variety would
last a matter of months only, rather than years.

Because all Bonitian metates are troughed, I did not recognize soon
enough the possibility of a cultural lag. And I have not yet found a
satisfactory adjective to differentiate between the two groups. In the
field we referred to the first as "tabular" but were never able to improve
upon "thick-troughed" for the second. "Massive" would have
fitted a majority but not all. Tabularity is perhaps the most tangible
point of distinction. We regard as "tabular" those metates made from

laminate sandstone split along its cleavage lines into slabs averaging
about 2 inches thick and retaining a border of 3 to 6 or more inches
on three sides of the mano trough. All others are "massive" even
though they bulk less than tabular mills.

Of 87 unbroken metates exposed during our investigations at Pueblo
Bonito, 53 were found in rooms of third- and fourth-type masonry,
and approximately 80 percent of these were of the thicker variety.
Many had been discarded, but others clearly had fallen from secondstory
dwellings. Twenty-five came from Old Bonitian Rooms 296,
306, 307, 307-I, 323, and 326, of which the last four had degenerated
into dump grounds. Fifteen of this number belong to our "massive"
group, three are "tabular," and seven remain unclassified. Where
mills are reported in my excavation notes, the type, unfortunately, is
not always indicated. None of those we uncovered was propped up
on stones or otherwise fixed in position.

We have no record of a local mill with over-all grinding surface
requiring a muller as long as, or longer than, the metate's width. But
such a one was found in Room 5, Pueblo del Arroyo—a foreign, flatfaced
metate 8 inches wide by 19 inches long, neatly set in adobe in a
slab-walled bin 17 inches wide.

Pepper (1920, p. 90) describes from Room 20 fragments of a
tabular metate with a scroll design pecked on its broad margin. We
found nothing comparable, but we did observe several interesting
examples of re-use. For instance, pieces of thin metates were frequently
incorporated in the slab lining of fireplaces; like fragments
helped line some of the seven storage bins on the original floor of
Room 307. A perfectly good tabular mill 25 inches long, 21 inches
wide, and about 2 inches thick was inverted to provide a new sill for
the reconstructed south door of Room 227. Another, trough up and
8 inches from the north wall, was embedded in the floor of Room
300B to seal the hatchway connecting with the closet below. Part of
a thick-troughed metate was utilized as a step for the east door in Old
Bonitian Room 320 (pl. 92, lower). Others were found in the fill of
Kivas F and L; another, more ponderous example blocked the stepped
passage leading down into Room 273. A large tabular mill lay face
down on the floor of Kiva V; a smaller one of the same kind was
recovered from the sandy accumulation in Kiva W.

Since mills of each type were found in both early and late dwellings,
how may we know which belonged primarily to the older inhabitants;
which to the later? We have the evidence presented by lesser ruins
throughout the Chaco region and the testimony of coworkers elsewhere.
Only "massive" metates were uncovered during our study of

nearby small-house sites wherein architecture and ceramics closely
agree with those in the later portions of Pueblo Bonito; only "tabular"
mills were present in Pueblo I pit dwellings shortly antedating the
oldest section of our famous ruin (Judd, 1924a, pp. 402, 411; unpublished
N.G.S. data). At a Late Basket Maker site 9 miles east of
Pueblo Bonito the typical milling stone was tabular, but, unlike ours,
it generally remained untrimmed around the edges (Roberts, 1929,
pp. 132-133). Where no possibility of intrusion exists, therefore, we
find only the one type of metate associated with the earlier Chaco
Canyon habitations; the other, with the latest known structures. Both
Morris and Roberts report comparatively thin, troughed metates the
characteristic form at Early Pueblo villages in southwestern Colorado
(Morris, 1919b, p. 200; Roberts, 1930, p. 148). These extramural
observations thus strengthen our conviction that the thin, tabular,
open-troughed mill of Pueblo Bonito was a cultural trait of the older,
more conservative element in the community. More recently, Bartlett
(1933, p. 26) and Dutton (1938, p. 67), without distinguishing between
"thick" and "thin" examples, trace troughed metates from B.M.
III to P. III times and place the troughless, full-width-grindingsurface
variety (their "flat slab" type) from P. III to modern villages.
Five troughless mills were found in Leyit Kin, a small-house Chaco
ruin described as predominantly P. II. Brew (1946, p. 147) reports
three metates of the same type, each in its slab-walled bin, from a
P. II ruin on Alkali Ridge, southeastern Utah.

Thick or thin, Bonitian metates are made of sandstone, the one
readily available rock in Chaco Canyon. For the most part, and irrespective
of type, they are of a size one person could carry, but in the
rubbish of Room 251 we found five troughed mills each of which
weighed at least 150 pounds. They were massive and difficult to move.
Two other, even more ponderous examples, one with three and the
other with four mano channels, appear among those from Room 17,
as figured and described by Pepper.[5] Such unwieldy blocks necessarily
rested flat upon the floor when in use.

The manos, or handstones, employed in conjunction with Bonitian
metates were commonly used on one side only (pl. 27, e-g). Of the 12
specimens brought to Washington only one, an East Court surface
find, is triangular in cross section as a result of wear on three sides.
My field notes include no reference to others of like form among the
424 mullers we unearthed but left at the ruin.

Through friction, the grinding surfaces of each pair of milling
stones soon came to coincide, and as the metate trough deepened the
mano naturally continued in negative agreement. Thus, manos used
on our "massive" metates are generally shorter and with a more pronounced
longitudinal convexity than those intended for the shallow,
tabular mills of the Old Bonitians. Also, Late mullers are often thinner
along one edge while those employed on tabular metates are flat-faced
and with but little curvature at the ends.

When new the rectangular mano blocks were often 2 or 3 inches
thick, with cupped finger grips on the front and rear edges as a convenience
in handling. They were discarded only when worn too thin
for grasping with the fingers. In an emergency a muller, like almost
every other object, could meet a need for which it was not primarily
designed. So we find occasional mullers stained all over from the
grinding of red ocher; others that had been pressed into service as
palettes for red, green, or yellow paint.

Like fragments of tabular metates, manos now and then found their
way into house construction as building stones and as lining for fireplaces
and storage pits. We could detect no reasonable purpose, however,
for the 10-inch mano embedded on edge in the floor of Room
316 with 1½ inches exposed, paralleling the northeast wall at a distance
of 3½ feet and standing 2 feet 5 inches from the northwest wall.

The metate illustrated on plate 26, A, probably was not designed for
household use. It retains the hammerstone bruises that first delimited
its mano channel; its sides and edges have been carefully smoothed.
Unearthed in the court west of Room 165, it closely resembles one
figured by Pepper (1920, p. 60, fig. 18, b) as of possible ceremonial
use. Its intended function may, indeed, have been preparation of the

cornmeal (in which bits of shell and turquoise are ground) offered in
prayer on the occasion of every Pueblo ritual, although today such
meal is prepared by the women of the household on ordinary milling
stones.

That this specimen represents a local type is indicated by the fact
that we found fragments of several others during the course of our
investigations. The rectangular depression at its upper end is reminiscent
of the larger, cruder "Utah type" metate (Judd, 1926, p. 145)
with its shallow basin from which meal presumably was advanced for
further grinding. The feature is unusual on milling stones from
Arizona and New Mexico.

Mortars and pestles, indispensable utensils among the acorn-eating
tribes of California, were rarely used in Pueblo kitchens. At Pueblo
Bonito we recovered only one specimen that even resembles a mortar,
and it is merely half a sandstone concretion hollowed out and smoothed
around the rim (U.S.N.M. No. 335923). Ours was a surface find,
but Pepper (1920) describes two comparable examples from Rooms
10 and 38; a third, "made of an irregularly shaped piece of sandstone,"
from Room 27, and a barrel-shaped, elaborately painted sandstone
mortar from Room 80.

IMPLEMENTS OF BONE

From the bones of animals killed for food Bonitian women made
tools to facilitate their household tasks. Awls, for example, were
employed for patching clothing and in the manufacture of coiled
baskets. There were punches for sharpening flint knives, chisel-like
implements of unknown use, and scrapers for fleshing hides.

Bone tools are easily made: a flint flake, sandstone, sometimes a
stone hammer—nothing else is needed. By sawing part way through
with the flake and then applying pressure, it is possible to section a
bone or to shorten it as desired.[6]

A common practice at Pueblo Bonito was to saw deer metapodials
lengthwise so they could be split into halves or even quarters (pl. 32,
d, e). However, in the case of an elk tibia, figure d, splitting was
attempted by means of a wedge—and unsuccessfully, as may be seen
from the result. The wedge mark shows on the lower edge, below the
heavy shadow. In other instances a hammerstone was employed to
spall away the unwanted part. Irrespective of method, with the desired
portion in hand, edges were smoothed, protuberances were removed,

and the implement otherwise was brought to its final form by the
abrasive action of sandstone. The cliff back of Bonito is furrowed by
the sharpening of bone awls (pl. 23, left); similar grooves are often
seen on doorsills, on convenient stones in house walls. Rubbing on or
with sandstone was chiefly the means by which bone implements were
shaped and sharpened.

Awls are the most common of bone tools. Those in our collection
exhibit no attempt at standardization but, on the contrary, differ
greatly in size, shape, and the amount of labor expended upon them.
Properly pointed, almost any bone answered for an awl, even fortuitous
splinters (pl. 33).

With fragments eliminated, 417 bone awls were available for the
present study. Only 42 are listed as avian, and some of these may
actually be from the hollow leg bones of rabbits or other small animals.
It is difficult to identify bones that have been altered; doubly so when
both articular surfaces are wanting. Of the 42 bird bones converted
to awls, only 16 have been identified, and 14 of these are wild turkey
(Meleagris gallopavo). The tibiotarsus was utilized in seven instances,
two of which retain the unmodified proximal end as a grip. The ulna
was employed in three cases; the radius and tarsometatarsus, in two
each. Awls made from the ulna of a golden eagle (Aquila chryaëtos)
and the tibiotarsus of a ferruginous rough-legged hawk (Buteo regalis),
figures h and i, respectively, suggest these birds of prey were
not held so sacred (on account of their feathers) that their bones could
not, upon occasion, be applied to mundane needs.

Among 375 awls made from mammal bones perhaps 70 percent are
too changed for positive identification. The remainder includes the
following eight species, listed in descending order of their occurrence:

• Mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus

• Jack rabbit, Lepus californicus

• Cottontail, Sylvilagus auduboni

• Dog or coyote, Canis familiaris or C. lestes

• Elk, Cervus canadensis

• Bobcat, Lynx

• Mountain sheep, Ovis canadensis

• Badger, Taxidea taxus

The last two are represented by single specimens. Bones of the mule
deer predominate. Although pronghorn-antelope bones occur in local
rubbish piles, none has been recognized among the implements before
us.

The strength and straightness of deer leg bones quite understandably
won for them first choice among awlmakers. Our collection

Plate 26

A, Specialized metate, with newly pitted grinding surface
and grist basin above.

B, Sandstone door showing slight use as a passive abrader.

Plate 27.—a-d, Tablets of fine-grained sandstone; e-g, hand stones used for grinding corn
on metates. The back, or unworn, side only is shown.

Plate 28.—a-h, Knives chipped from various rocks; i-k, three blades from a sealed
repository in Kiva Q.

Plate 29

Upper: Dismantled mealing bins in Room 291. (Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1923.)

Lower: Zuñi girls grinding the family's daily ration of corn meal. (Photograph by Charles
Martin, 1920.)

Plate 30

A

Types of milling stones used by the Old Bonitians (A) and by the Late Bonitians. In the latter (B), the normally closed upper end
has been removed by pecking.

B

Plate 31

Upper: Outworn metates found on the east side of Kiva Q and presumably fallen from work
rooms partly overhanging the kiva. (Photograph by Neil M. Judd, 1924.)

Lower: Before and after its ceiling collapsed, Room 323 had served as a neighborhood dump.
(Photograph by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Plate 32.—Bone end scrapers and drawknife (a-c). With flint and sandstone saws,
wanted portions of deer bones are separated and the rest discarded (d-e).

Plate 33.—Bone awls and awl-like tools made from bird and mammal bones.

includes 83 awls made from metapodials that retain at least part of
one articulation and 134 others probably from the same bones. Of
the former, 51 preserve part of the distal joint as a handle—the entire
end in 6 instances, half of it in 44 cases, and less than half in 1 only.
Where metapodials were quartered it is the proximal end, if any, that
survives in recognizable degree. Bones of young animals were utilized
impartially; in several instances the epiphysis has become detached
since the implement was last used. Deer radii were employed for two
awls and, if I judge correctly from shape, curve, and weight, for nine
others that lack articulations.

Second, numerically, are awls made from rabbit bones. The tibia
is identifiable in 18 cases, the radius in 7, the humerus in 5, and the
ulna in 3. Bones of the jack rabbit prevail slightly over those of the
cottontail. Since rabbits are easier to kill than deer, rabbit leg bones
probably were utilized in larger proportion than our figures indicate,
but, being hollow, they were easily broken and as quickly discarded.

From our awl collection we may derive a number of facts and
figures. There are long awls and short awls; thick and thin awls;
awls made in a moment from the first bone within reach and awls
that required days of patient rubbing and polishing. Many even today
are needle-sharp; many are dulled through use and neglect.

The series is predominantly Late Bonitian for, of the 417 specimens
on which these observations are based, only 40 are regarded as most
likely of Old Bonitian origin. Thirty of these were recovered from
dumps in which Old Bonitian rubbish prevailed; three from Old
Bonitian dwellings, and seven under circumstances that mark them
as probably Old Bonitian. In contrast, 200 came from dominantly
Late Bonitian trash, 82 from Late Bonitian houses and kivas, while
13 are considered probably Late Bonitian. Forty-five were found in
dumps where Old and Late Bonitian rubbish was approximately equal;
37, exposed during trenching and clearing operations, remain doubtful.
Thus over 70 percent of our awls are presumably Late Bonitian; only
9.5 percent Old Bonitian.

Of our 40 Old Bonitian awls only one is of bird bone, the distal end
of a turkey ulna broken in such a way that a couple of strokes against
sandstone sufficed to smooth the tip's edges (pl. 33, fig. c). It was
found beneath the floor of Room 151 in what was probably part of
the original Old Bonitian village dump. The other six doubtful specimens,
all mammal bone, came from the West Court exploratory trench.

This paucity of bird-bone awls was not restricted to one part of the
pueblo. It is a phenomenon we noted repeatedly in the course of our
investigations. For instance, of 13 awls in the partial fill of Room 226,

only 1 was of bird bone. Of 14 specimens from Room 290, another
trash pile dominantly Late Bonitian, 3 were of bird bones. Of 32
awls from our stratigraphic trench through the east refuse mound,
chiefly Late Bonitian in origin, only 1 was of bird bone and that a
mere splinter, perhaps from a turkey's tibiotarsus.

Fifteen awls were recovered from Old Bonitian debris of occupation
in Room 323. One has been identified as the baculum of a badger,
sharpened at the proximal end. Two deer metapodials preserve part
of the head as a handle, while seven, varying in length from 2¾ to 5[fraction 7 by 16]
inches, retain half the distal joint. One is made from a deer's radius
(pl. 33, i2); four lack any trace of an articular surface. Two of these
latter are drilled, one being the notched example illustrated as figure
r; one is a spatulate awl (fig. p); and the fourth, a mere splinter.

Strangely enough, our burial rooms were practically devoid of awls
either as grave offerings or discards. Only two were found in Room
320; three only, in 330. Ten came from Room 326 and all appear to be
deer bones: one, the proximal end of a radius; one, the head of an
ulna; two, a half and a quarter, respectively, from the proximal end
of split canon bones; three, metapodials retaining half the distal joint,
and three from which both articulations were severed. Two of these
latter (U.S.N.M. No. 335051) are drilled three-eighths and fiveeights
of an inch, respectively, from the butt. One of the three distalend
awls is notched or shouldered about a quarter inch from the tip
(pl. 34, fig. q). The notch ends slope in opposite directions—one, up
and forward; the other, down and to the rear.

A similar specimen was uncovered in our stratigraphic trench
through the east refuse mound. In this case, however, the shoulders
are symmetrical and the tip rounded, presumably in consequence of a
habitual wrist twist of the owner while punching splint holes in basketry.
A majority of our deer-bone awls have been ground to a more
or less conical point but no others exhibit the balanced shoulders and
the cylindrical tip of this one.

Kiva B was half filled with floor sweepings and debris of occupation.
From this 23 bone awls were recovered, 18 of them mammalian.
Five were found in the subfloor chamber west of the fireplace, but
there is nothing distinctive about them. Two are splinters; one preserves
the distal joint of a deer's canon bone; one is the short, rounded
pin shown as figure f, plate 34; and the fifth, the flat-sided, conicalbased
fragment described on page 145.

Two awls came from Kiva C, a relatively late structure in the
southeastern quarter of the village. One is made from the tibia of a
cottontail; the other probably from a deer radius (U.S.N.M. No.

335064). This latter, slightly curving, thin, and neatly finished, had
been stuck for safekeeping between the paired ceiling poles resting
upon pilaster 5 and was burned and broken when fire consumed the
timbers.

A single awl found in the west bench recess, Kiva L, is 4⅛ inches
long, sharply pointed, and probably from the quartered proximal end
of a canon bone (U.S.N.M. No. 335075).

We have four awls made from lateral metapodials or splint bones
(pl. 33, fig. b2). This peculiar and seemingly useless bone is naturally
awl-shaped; the average one can be pointed with a half dozen strokes
against sandstone and thus readied for immediate service. It seems
strange, therefore, that splint bones were not deliberately saved despite
their small size and fragility.[7] Ulnae likewise can be converted into
awls with very little effort. We have 16 such: 3 of jack rabbit; 4, dog
or coyote; 9, mule deer.

Out of this study two observations seem paramount: the relative
paucity of bird-bone awls and the fact that, despite preference for the
straighter ones, almost any bone or fragment sufficed for awl making.
Despite variations in weight, length, and quality of workmanship I
detect among our bone awls no distinctive qualities on which to justify
either cultural or time groupings. They are just awls and they were
made out of whatever suitable material was available. Fifty specimens
are nothing but splinters, more or less accidental splinters, from bones
broken by pressure or percussion. Three are pieces of deer mandibles;
five, rib fragments. There is at least one made from the distal end of
a bobcat's humerus (U.S.N.M. No. 335019); at least one from the
distal end of a bobcat's femur (No. 335079); another from the head
of a dog or coyote femur (No. 335068).

Awls may differ in length as in the proportion of bone removed.
Among those made from deer metapodials, for example, and retaining
at least part of the articulation, the longest measures 8[fraction 15 by 16] inches
(No. 335086); the shortest, 1[fraction 13 by 16] (No. 335056). This latter, the
reductio ad absurdum of awls, shows wear on the butt although not
to an extent suggesting that use and periodic resharpening alone could
have worn it down from a length, say, of 9 inches. It is one of three
awls recovered from Late Bonitian rubbish in Room 333, while the
longest, a possible dagger, came from the great West Court trench.

Three awls have random lines finely incised upon the convex surface

but without an attempt at design (pl. 33, h2). Two others are notched
on the edge or face. One of these bears 10 conspicuous notches along
one edge, 11 along the other (fig. r). On a second example (No.
335053), edge notches at the left of the tip change to short, incised
lines that continue up the crest of the convex side to end at upper
right.

Twelve specimens are drilled at the butt end. Their length varies
from 2¼ to 7½ inches, averaging 4⅝. Some are rounded, some are flat;
some are thick and some are thin. The diameter of the drilling varies
but not necessarily in proportion to the breadth of the shaft. One is
drilled laterally through half the distal joint of a deer metacarpus.
Only one in the lot might properly be described as a needle (pl. 34,
fig. a). It is of split mammal bone, 2¾ inches long by [fraction 5 by 16] inch wide,
and was found in the east mound where most of the trash is Late
Bonitian.

One specimen is notched on the rear corners, 1 inch from the tip,
and grooved part way across the front as if by friction of a cord.
Above this groove and along the right margin are half a dozen lesser
furrows (pl. 33, fig. e2). Cord-worn grooves are noted on four other
awls or fragments. The point of a second example, grooved an inch
and a half from the tip, was broken off at a parallel groove an eighth
of an inch above. A third is furrowed on the convex face only, threefourths
of an inch from the tip. Whatever their primary function,
one might guess these five were also employed for firming cords or
tightening warps on the loom.

Two other groups remain for consideration, and it is quite possible
they should have been separated completely from the awls. First is
a series of eight with spatulate butts. Four, one being a reworked
fragment, were made from heavy bone, undoubtedly deer. Longest of
the four, 4⅜ inches (pl. 33, fig. p), is round-ended, and this is also
true of that illustrated by figure s, plate 34. The fragment mentioned,
itself made into an awl, has an obliquely ground end but it lies to the
right, or opposite that of figure k, plate 33. In each case the beveling
is on the concave surface; all except the fragment possess a gloss that
comes only with long use. Whatever their purpose it certainly differed
from that of the four delicate little spatulate implements shown on
plate 34, figures b-e. A fifth possible member of this latter series is
made of bird bone, its concave side rubbed flat at one end (U.S.N.M.
No. 335026).

For the group next to be described a separate classification seems
even more justified. There are 32 in the series, and they might be
likened to pins (pl. 34, figs. f-p). They vary in length from 1[fraction 9 by 16] to

7[fraction 13 by 16] inches; in diameter, from [fraction 3 by 32] to [fraction 7 by 32] of an inch. Average length is
a trifle under 4 inches. All are solid and made from mammal bones.
A few, split from metapodials, are naturally flattened on one side near
the butt; a few possess the slight longitudinal curve of a mule deer's
radius or tibia. Some are purposely tapered at the butt end, although
most are direct and square cut. All have tips more finely and sharply
drawn than the ordinary bone awl. It is this latter feature, together
with the uniformly rounded shaft, that evidences exceptional care in
manufacture and suggests that the group might have been articles of
adornment—hair ornaments or pins to fasten shoulder blankets—
rather than bodkins for sewing cloth, leather, and basketry. It should
be noted, however, that only one of the 32, and that the bluntest
(fig. o), is scored at the butt end, as if for attachment of feathers or
other appendages.

Shortest of the series (fig. g) differs from all the others in having a
shouldered or doweled butt an eighth of an inch long, clearly designed
to fit into a socket. Another of comparable length, but flat-sided and
with both extremities now missing, has a conical butt that likewise
could have fitted into the end of a reed shaft (U.S.N.M. No. 335062).

Five of our "pins" bear discoidal heads that seem purely ornamental.
Three of these are represented by figures i-k, plate 34, the third being
notched six or seven times around the periphery. Longest of the five,
4[fraction 7 by 16] inches, has a flat-sided shaft with rounded edges and to this extent
differs from the others. And if these were really ornaments, why not
also that with the triangular head (fig. u); the slightly modified jackrabbit
ulna (v); the bobcat fibula (h), needle sharp?

None of the 32 pins, plain or ornamented, was found in Old Bonitian
houses or rubbish.

We recovered only one antler prong with tip rubbed to awl sharpness,
and that came from Late Bonitian debris in Room 290 (335090).

Punches (?).—Three of the specimens (m-o) figured on plate 33
are doubtless one-time awls applied to some other purpose. Their tips
are rounded and polished as if repeatedly rubbed with pressure against
dressed skins, basketry, or similar resilient substances. The second
and longest has been worn obliquely and in line with an old break,
largely because the tool balances best in the right hand when held
concave edge down and thumb in the marrow cavity. Of our six socalled
punches none is scarred and gnawed about the point to identify
it as a flaking tool.

Another specimen (U.S.N.M. No. 335189), 2½ inches long by ⅜
diameter, likewise remains unmarred by use as a flaker. Down its

length striations of the sandstone abrader are plain; a number of
slanting notches appear on one edge.

Chisels.—Five chisel-like tools are next to be considered (pl. 34,
figs. w-a2). They vary, as awls do, from splinters to sawed and carefully
smoothed sections of metapodials. Their one feature in common
is a chisel-like blade, but this varies in width from one-eighth to fiveeighths
of an inch. With one exception (fig. w) each blade is beveled
from both sides. Specimen z is blunted at the tip as though from
retouching chipped knives and arrowpoints. A sixth possible member
of this group (fig. b2) lacks the thin cutting edge of the others. Except
the fragment, a surface find, all six came from Late Bonitian rooms.

"Bark strippers" is undoubtedly an incorrect designation for the
five round-ended specimens shown on the same plate as figures c2-g2,
but it is in the right direction. Each evidences greatest wear on the
inner or concave side where wear facets show the tools were held at
an angle of from 10° to 35° when in use. In figure d2, as illustrated,
the left side clearly received most pressure in operation; reciprocal
wear appears on the opposite side of the convex surface. This suggests
that the instrument was forced between two resistant surfaces (as, for
example, in stripping bark from prospective ceiling beams), but similar
wear facets do not occur on either of the other specimens. The shortest,
g2, appears to be comparatively new but the other four display the
polish that comes through use.

Worked ribs.—Two sections of deer rib, 4¾ and 6⅞ inches long and
both from the rubbish fill of Room 255, have their distal ends worn
obliquely, and round off with the lower edge. In both the direction of
wear is rearward from the concave side as if the ribs had been used
by a right-handed person in smoothing, say, the abrupt inner curves
of earthenware vessels. However, these two (pl. 32, figs. a, b) are the
only ones of their kind; we found nothing comparable elsewhere in
the village.

The rib fragment shown on plate 33 as figure q is also the only one
of its kind. Both edges are slightly worn by scraping, but whether
before or after the specimen was converted into a rude awl it is impossible
to say.

Drawknife.—Another lone example is a drawknife made from the
radius of a mule deer (pl. 32, fig. c). It comes from the fill of an
abandoned kiva underlying the East Court arbor identified as Room
286. Its lower edge is still keen; the upper, despite considerable
wear, preserves the conchoidal notches that prove that a hammerstone
roughed out the knife. Both ends have been burned.

End scrapers, or fleshers, made from deer humeri are familiar to all

students of Pueblo prehistory. They belong to the Pueblo III horizon
but apparently are restricted in distribution chiefly to the Mesa Verde
region (Nordenskiöld, 1893, pl. 41; Fewkes, 1909, p. 49; Morris,
1919a, p. 36; 1919b, pl. 45, b) and thence southward across the Chaco
to the Zuñi country (Roberts, 1931, p. 152; 1932, p. 137). One would
expect them in late cliff dwellings of the Canyon de Chelly, but I find
no published record of their occurrence there. In the Kayenta district,
two have been reported from Betatakin (Judd, 1930, p. 62). They
are unknown throughout the old Hopi territory. Except for the Pecos
fragment described by Kidder (1932, p. 235), the type is not recorded
from the Rio Grande drainage.

When Pepper (1905b, pp. 186-190) first directed attention to the
humeri scrapers of Pueblo Bonito he carefully stated that they were
rarely decorated; that their decoration, if any, was most likely to be
incised meanders, crosshatching, and animal figures. However, his
description of one inlaid with turquoise and jet, together with fragments
of two similarly embellished specimens, tended to overshadow
the more numerous, plainer variety. The latter were found throughout
the village, in rubbish heaps and elsewhere. Almost all evidenced use;
many were broken.

Hyde's table showing the distribution of worked bone (Pepper,
1920, pp. 366-368) lists 37 scrapers. Presumably they are all of the
type under consideration. Twenty-five rooms are represented, and ten
of them are elsewhere identified, either positively or probably, as
depositories for debris of occupation. From that rubbish Pepper
recovered 18 of his 37 scrapers. Since we do not know the makeup
of the debris we cannot guess its source, but 8 of the 10 dumps were
in Late Bonitian structures, 6 of which closely bordered the old,
original portion of the village. If separation were to be made on a
basis of the type of masonry of the room in which found, a meaningless
criterion in this instance, we should find that 9 scrapers came from
Old Bonitian structures, 28 from Late Bonitian. In either case it is
clear that end scrapers, or fleshers, made from deer humeri were fairly
common tools at Pueblo Bonito and that they were lightly tossed aside
when broken.

Describing his two inlaid specimens from Room 38 and the fragment
from Room 170, Pepper (1905b, pp. 185-196) quite properly
emphasized their artistic quality. He assumed they were made for
ceremonial purposes; regarded them as "part of the altar paraphernalia
of some religious society" solely, so far as I can judge, because
they are exceptional and he was loath to believe such exquisite tools
were employed in fleshing ordinary deer and coyote hides. The thought

is equally distasteful to me, and yet I see no cause for putting the two
in a special class. Certainly there is no justification for stamping the
inlaid scrapers "ceremonial" just because they were found on a broken
shelf in the same 6-inch layer of blown sand with five turquoise ducks
and a turquoise-collared jet frog. If so, then all the beads and pendants
intermixed with them, both jet and turquoise, likewise are ceremonial.

During the course of the National Geographic Society's explorations
20 humeri fleshers were unearthed. Four are inlaid. Three of the
latter, figures a-c, plate 36, lay side by side on the floor in the middle
of Room 244. Why they were left in that particular spot is not evident,
for the room had been vacated and stripped of its furnishings before
blown sand sifted in to spread a 1-inch blanket over scrapers and floor.
Under the sand and against the south wall were a few fragments of a
corrugated pot and a hatful of miscellaneous sherds, nothing more.
The ceiling, partially consumed by fire, had settled to within 1 to 4
feet of the floor before masonry from the upper walls crashed through.
In and upon this broken stonework were a number of artifacts—fragments
of 4 jar covers, 5 hammerstones, 8 manos and fragments of 3
others, part of a metate, etc.

Our fourth inlaid specimen, figure d, was found beneath an oval
basket tray buried with Skeleton 9, Room 326. This association, oval
basket tray and bone flesher, invites inquiry. In all our digging we
encountered only four such trays or recognizable portions thereof.
All four were in Room 326. Each had been interred with the body
of a woman; each was accompanied by an end scraper made from the
humerus of a mule deer. The left humerus was utilized in three cases;
the right, in one only. In each instance the basket lay flat and upright.
Three of the fleshers had been placed inside their respective trays;
the fourth, as noted above, lay underneath.

What is the significance of this association, if any? Only four
baskets, but each with its end scraper and each accompanying the
burial of a woman! Although only one of the scrapers is inlaid with
turquoise and jet, perhaps Pepper was correct after all in surmising
that it, and its kind, held some religious connotation.

Our four fleshers from Room 326 are illustrated in plate 37. They
are thoroughly representative except that their distal ends have been
altered more than usual. The first (fig. a), found in the tray with
Skeleton 6, was so pressed down by the overburden as permanently to
fix its imprint in the coils of the basket (pl. 44, c). Decayed basket
fibers still adhere to its convex surface. Scraper b is the one found
underneath the oval tray with Skeleton 9. The fourth flesher, d, lay in
the tray at the right shoulder of Skeleton 12 (see pl. 92, upper), while

c had been placed in another tray (field No. 1681), with a burial my
notes do not specifically identify. It is possible that this fourth basket is
the more fragmentary of the two with Skeletons 8 and 9, no portion
of which could be salvaged.

Of our 20 humeri scrapers, two came from as many kivas, while
three are miscellaneous finds. The remainder were recovered in nine
separate rooms of which two only, Rooms 320 and 326, are Old Bonitian.
Six of the nine rooms and one of the kivas had been utilized as
neighborhood dumps. The lone specimen from Room 320, seen in situ
beneath the outermost of the two cylindrical baskets on plate 91,
lower, is one of two in the series from which the distal articulation
was entirely cut away. It is the only one with a suggestion of painted
decoration—three faint black lines encircling the shaft an inch below
the butt. None of our fleshers bears incised ornamentation.

Twelve specimens in the series are complete. They vary in length
from 3½ to 7¾ inches; average, 5⅓ inches. The longest, unfinished, is
made from the right humerus of a mountain sheep, while the other 19
have been identified as deer, most likely mule deer. Although all four
of our inlaid examples were made of left humeri there is an almost
equal division in the series as a whole—9 right, 11 left.[8] All but five
are beveled on the inner or concave face of the blade, showing that it
received most wear from friction while in use.

The drawing, figure 38, illustrates the simplicity of scraper manufacture.
It was necessary only to batter off the head and then grind
away an adjoining section of the shaft until a suitable edge was
achieved. But we detect a certain procedure in the grinding: When
the marrow cavity was first exposed, and at intervals thereafter, the
inner edges were chipped away with a flaking tool just to speed the
work. Transverse striations show use of an active abrader while the
artisan supported the humerus by its distal joint and let the opposite
end rest on his knee or the ground. Preservation of the high-curving
trochlea naturally prevented utilization of a sandstone block fixed in
position. The section removed is always the same, with a little latitude
one way or the other, and extends from the middle inside wall of the
shaft to and including all or most of the deltoid crest. The portion
preserved thus retains for its cutting edge the widest possible part of
the humerus. Commonly the more prominent articular ridges were
rubbed down and smoothed over but not always to the degree evident
on the four scrapers from Room 326. These four also surpass the

average in the extent to which the whole distal end was modified. But
however much the coronoid fossa was altered, its opposite, the olecranon,
remained entirely unchanged.

Fig. 38.—A bone flesher,
unfinished.

The three inlaid scrapers from
Room 244 deserve a special word.
First of all, they look newer, cleaner,
than the others; they are polished
but in a different sort of way. It
may be the gloss that results from
repeated handling rather than of use
but, even so, over a period of years
the oil and dirt on priestly hands
should have turned them darker
than they are now. Their trochlear
prominences have been neatly leveled;
the borders of their coronoid
fossae have been smoothed and
squared inconspicuously and their
epicondylar portions cupped for embellishment.
On the first and third
specimens these cups are occupied
by half-inch disks of pink shell
(Spondylus princeps Broderip)
from the Gulf of California, but
the disks on the latter are set within
jet rings less than one-sixteenth inch
wide. A segment is missing from
the ring seen in our illustration (pl.
36, fig. c), but its opposite is not
even cracked. Considering the brittleness
of jet, I regard this particular
scraper, with its two perfectly
ringed shell disks, as one of the
foremost examples of lapidarian
skill, of precision in craftsmanship,
ever reported from the pre-Spanish
Southwest.

On each of the three, from one edge of the cut-away section to the
other, the middle shaft is decorated with an inlaid band of jet-black
lignite and sky-blue turquoise, an incomparable combination. That
with the jet-ringed disks at the handle has three rows of purple
S. princeps shell tesserae alternating with four of turquoise, the outermost

of which are bordered by jet. On each specimen the longer
tesserae have been ground in place to match the convexity of the bone
and presumably their opposite sides are correspondingly concave.
Similar pieces, from Kiva Q and elsewhere, of claystone, jet, and
turquoise were concavoconvex. A reading glass over our illustration
will show how perfectly the individual rectangles were fitted; that
instead of eliminating an irregularity at the end of one bit, the next
was ground to conform. A resinous substance, presumably pinyon
pitch, holds the pieces in place. A channel of measured width and as
deep as the combined thickness of pitch and tesserae was in each
instance cut out for reception of the mosaic.

A flesher that imitates our type specimens was
fashioned from the right mandible of a half-grown
deer by cutting off the ramus and grinding the inner
wall to a bladelike edge back of the third molar
(U.S.N.M. No. 335172). The exposed teeth had
been knocked off. The piece does not evidence extended
use. It was broken at the second bicuspid and
the anterior portion lost.

A closely related variety of end scraper was made
from deer toe bones (fig. 39). Of 13 in our collection,
4 are from right proximal phalanges, 8 are from
left, and 1, not at hand when this study was under
way, remains unidentified.[9] Their average length is
just a shade under 2 inches. With the possible exception
of the misplaced one, found beneath the floor
of Room 151, all are from Late Bonitian rooms or
rubbish. Four came from kivas, two of which held
trash piles.

Fig. 39.—End
scraper made
from the toe
bone of a deer.

Striations on the abraded surfaces vary all the way from transverse
to longitudinal; therefore, and especially since the distal end did not
interfere, we may be confident the grinding was done on a passive
abrader. As with the humeri scrapers, length of the section removed
varied somewhat, depending upon the angle at which the phalanx was
held for grinding. The polish that comes with use lies on the flatter
or concave face. Since none of our specimens is grooved or otherwise
marked for attachment, we may assume each was held directly in the
fingers of the operator.

Half the distal end of a canon bone recovered from Old Bonitian

rubbish in Room 323, 2[fraction 9 by 16] inches long and beveled through wear on
both faces, could be considered an ancestral type (U.S.N.M. No.
335154). It is the only one of its kind we found and echoes Guernsey's
B.M. III specimen from Segi Canyon (Guernsey, 1931, pl. 56, i).

Antler.—With so many tools of deer bone one could expect to find
a proportionate number made from antler. On the contrary, and
despite a suitable representation of beam fragments and tines, we
recovered few antler artifacts. One tine is finely pointed and doubtless
answered for an awl; another, perhaps an awl in the making, is
ground on opposing sides of the tip.

At Aztec Ruin, Morris (1919a, p. 43) observed a similar want of
antler implements, while Hodge (1920) reports a relative abundance
of them from historic Hawikuh. Historic Pecos pueblo likewise produced
numerous antler artifacts (Kidder, 1932, p. 272).

Like bone, antler was commonly cut by sawing with a flint knife or
sandstone blade until it was possible to complete the separation by
physical force. But green horns were often cut from the skull and
the larger prongs removed by hacking or gnawing with an edged tool.
The marks left suggest flint; they are too fine and their results too
minute for a stone ax.

Although we found no examples, wedges of some sort, probably
antler, were employed in splitting out juniper boards and the ceiling
slabs for certain third- and fourth-period rooms. Neither antler
wedges nor wooden mallets for pounding them were unearthed during
the course of our investigations.

IMPLEMENTS OF WOOD

Bodkins and billets of wood, combs and scrapers, wedges, and weaving
implements were used almost daily in Pueblo homes a thousand
years ago. They and their fragments, the chips and scrapings left
from their manufacture, and numerous puzzling little gadgets wrapped
with sinew or yucca string comprise an appreciable part of every
collection from caves and cliff dwellings. But all these are lacking at
Pueblo Bonito, and that the ruin stands exposed to the elements does
not seem the full explanation. The objects next to be presented are,
therefore, neither so numerous nor so diversified as I believe they
should be. The Late Bonitians were skilled woodworkers, and a much
more representative series of their wooden tools and utensils should,
it seems, have survived.

Fire-making apparatus.—Three hearth fragments prove the Bonitians,
true to the American tradition, made fire by friction of two
pieces of wood. The hearth remained stationary while the drill, standing

in one of the hearth's sockets, was rapidly twirled between the
operator's palms. Wood dust, produced by the rotating drill, fell hot
from the notched socket to ignite shredded cedar bark or grass tinder.

Two of our hearth fragments, figure 40, are of cottonwood. They
had been placed for safekeeping between the paired roofing poles
resting, respectively, on pilasters 1 and 6 in Kiva L. Split vertically,
the smaller fragment had seen further brief service when its middle
half-socket was used as a drill seating. Our third specimen (U.S.N.M.
No. 335264) is a piece of willow, half an inch in diameter by 3¼ inches
long, in which four sockets remain.

We recovered no fire drill or identifiable portion thereof. Drills
presumably were straight willow stalks, peeled, smoothed by abrasion,
and rounded at the bottom as a result of being rotated in the hearth
sockets.

Fig. 40.—Fragments of fire-drill hearths.

Spatula.—The specimen represented by figure 41 may be the reworked
blade of a digging stick. Its wood, unidentified, is much
lighter than usual for such tools but this condition could be a consequence
of decay. The irregularities at the neck are entirely owing to
rot. For the upper half, both edges have been reduced slightly to
emphasize the end knob.

Pottery scrapers (?).—Two wedge-shaped bits, one cottonwood
and the other juniper, more or less resemble pottery scrapers (pl. 38,
figs. g, h). Had they actually been used as such, however, their cut
ends would have been abraded less abruptly. On the other hand, both
are smoothed toward the tip as if from repeated use. Both are from
the rubbish fill of Room 323.

Spindle whorls.—Figure 42, a, shows half a wooden disk, presumably
a spindle whorl. Its edge is direct, except for a small segment
thinned from both sides. The fragment is one-eighth inch thick; the
drilled hole at center, three-sixteenths inch in diameter. Another
fragment, three-sixteenths inch thick by 2[fraction 15 by 16] inches in diameter, is

from Room 327 (pl. 38, fig. k). Like the first example, it is of juniper;
its periphery is thinned from both sides.

That illustrated by b, b′, figure 42, is the half of a third juniper
spindle whorl, painted on both sides. Its interior has partially disintegrated
leaving the exterior somewhat warped and shrunken. Three

Fig. 41.—The
reworked blade
of a digging
stick.

insect borings are indicated on the upper edge. I
judge the shaft hole to have been one-fourth inch
in diameter. The yellow-bordered toothed rings at
center and periphery are, respectively, light green
and blue; the field between is red. On the opposite
side two light-green circles alternate with three yellow-bordered
blue rings. Except for the red of the
background, which was spread evenly, all the pigments
were so thick as to pile up at time of application.

Our only complete spindle whorl is of gourd rind
(fig. 43). Its shaft boring is just a trifle under onefourth
inch; its diameter, in contrast to the three
of wood, is 1[fraction 7 by 16] inches.

Loom bars.—Lying side by side on the bench in
the southwest quarter of Kiva D were seven
knobbed oak bars we tentatively identified as the
supporting elements of a waist loom. The number
is still puzzling, for such a loom normally has but
two, at most three, bars. Perhaps we have here the
interchangeable parts of several looms, returned to
a commonly accepted niche after they were last
used. In any case, our identification has since won
the support of Charles Amsden (1934, p. 23). Unfortunately,
decay had progressed so far we were
able to restore only two of the seven (pl. 72, figs.
h, i). The worked stick that reminded Pepper (1920,
pp. 155f., 157) of a ladder rung, from Room 32, is
unquestionably another knob-ended loom bar.

From Room 320 we recovered two other sets,
each consisting of four bars (pl. 38, figs. n, o). The
rods vary in length from 13¼ to 19 inches; in diameter,
from 1 to 1⅛ inches at the butt. The one at the
left is fairly dense and heavy and may be mountain
mahogany. The others are light in weight, probably
cottonwood. A 2-inch section on the left side of the
next to last specimen is slightly concave in consequence

both of attrition and compression. This scar I take to be
evidence that the piece rested upon a ceiling pole or similar timber

Fig. 42.—Spindle-whorl fragments of wood.

when in use. But neither this nor any of the others shows wear caused
by ropes or cords.

Loom anchors (?).—The two pine boards illustrated on plate 39,
figures b, c, may have been pierced for rope loops anchoring the end

bars of a loom. Formerly dressed on both sides, they are now more
or less weathered and rotted. We found them among fallen masonry
above the 12-inch layer of woodpile chips with which storeroom 296
was floored. Transversely across the face of specimen c are water
stains spaced as if the board once rested upon the cut ends of ceiling
poles. If this surmise be correct, then the superincumbent position of
the board was secondary, perhaps part of a hatchway frame, since a
pole covered the two borings at right.

Fig. 43.—Spindle whorl of
gourd rind.

All the holes on specimen c are paired.
They were cut to meet below the surface
and take a quarter-inch cord. In the cluster
at the left a comparable connection is
noted between the middle hole and that
immediately to its right, while a lesser
drilling connects with the hole at the left.
Lesser drillings likewise join each of the
three upper holes with the one next below.
An accident at the time boring was in
progress punched the middle hole clear
through the board and thus necessitated a
plug from the opposite side. Specimen b is pierced by one half-inch
hole, while a second was gouged out at an angle to emerge on the
lower edge. Neither within nor without do any of these holes exhibit
wear such as a taut cord would have produced.

We observed at Pueblo Bonito nothing comparable to the built-in
floor anchors for looms in Hopi kivas (Mindeleff, 1891, p. 126, fig. 27)
or those in northern Arizona cliff dwellings (Kidder and Guernsey,
1919, pp. 50, 60, 70; Judd, 1930, pp. 29, 61-62, figs. 3, 18). Like the
paired holes in the sandstone cliff above the rooftops of Betatakin, our
board c could have held yucca loops from which a waist loom might
have been suspended.

Board ends.—The third plank, plate 39, a, with its middle growth
rings marking the heart of a pine over 8 inches in diameter, belongs
to a different category. Whether it was once longer we do not know.
Neither can we guess the purpose for which it was originally made.
As last used it formed part of the ceiling in the southeast quarter
of subterranean Room 255. One end has succumbed to worms and
weather; from the opposite, squared and smoothed by abrasion, a
quarter-inch wedge had been gnawed with a stone ax, the better to fit
it in place. Two sizable knots were leveled as if by machine. Even
if some of the log had been split away with hammer and wedge it was

Plate 34.—Bone needle, pins, and specialized tools. (Photographs by Robert F. Sisson.)

Plate 35

Upper: Ring basket as found, on the floor of Room 290. (Photograph by O. C. Havens,
1923.)

Lower: Two decayed ring baskets among the burial offerings in Room 320. (Photograph
by O. C. Havens, 1924.)

Plate 36.—Scrapers made from deer humeri, inlaid with shell, jet, and turquoise. (Photograph by Willard R. Culver.)

Plate 37.—Four humeri scrapers from Room 326.

Miscellaneous objects of wood.

Plate 38

Two sets of loom bars from Room 320.

Plate 39.—Part of a plank (a), two problematical loom anchors (b, c), and miscellaneous
board fragments (d-i) showing cut ends.

Plate 40.—Fragments of ring baskets woven of split yucca (a, b) and rush leaves (c, d).

A, Part of a ring basket woven of rush-leaf strips.

Plate 41

B, Vegetable matter in a finely woven basket formed a pillow for Burial 5, Room 326.

a prodigious labor to plane the remainder to a thickness of 1½ inches
with no tools other than sandstone abraders. Planks were occasionally
utilized as sills or lintels; less frequently, as flooring.

The smaller pieces (pl. 39, figs. d-i) not only illustrate Bonitian
skill in dressing out a board, but also show how ends were severed
with flint knife or stone ax. Figure h, although found in an Old
Bonitian storeroom, is unquestionably part of a cedar shake from a
Late Bonitian ceiling. It was sawed halfway through with a flint blade
and the end then broken off. Others have both ends cut and from both
sides. Pieces such as figures e, f, and i may have been detached for
use alone. The exhibited face of e, covered by shrinkage cracks, is
slightly concave through use as a work board. Its darker color is due
to the application of paraffin.

Miscellaneous.—Besides the usual odds and ends, including splints
with which the kitchen fire was roused, our collection contains several
unusual artifacts of wood. The comblike contrivance represented by
figure 44 remains nameless. Its two longest "teeth" are rounded at
the tip while the others are broken; all four were broken off an inch
above the crosspieces. These latter are split willow, bound with sinew;
sinew also binds a fiber thread to one of the vertical members.

The angular object, figure 45, likewise remains unexplained. Knots
have been removed and the crotch widened somewhat; one end is
sinew-wrapped to check splitting. This specimen is reminiscent of the
curved and angular knob-ended sticks that Pepper found in Rooms
32 and 33 and that he suggested might have been tossed in play
(Pepper, 1920, figs. 61, 62).

Figure i, plate 38, carved from a cottonwood root, is as likely to
have been a doll as anything else; the next piece, j, apparently is part
of a juniper tablet accidentally split while being reduced in size. The
lower end was sawed from both sides, but insufficiently, for only a
corner came free when breaking pressure was applied. Where intact,
the edges are smooth from abrasion, rounded, and somewhat thinned.
Both faces of the tablet had been carefully dressed but longitudinal
scorings appear on that presented in our illustration.

The next figure, l, is a section of peeled willow, both ends of which
were severed in the customary way, by cutting and breaking. Neither
end was abraded; the shaft bears no trace of former wrappings, no
indication of use except a small, restricted area where marks of a flint
flake evidence utilization of the stick as a cutting block. Perhaps no
more than a discard, the section in any case is not to be confused with
the peeled and abraded willows employed by the hundred in ceilings
of second-type construction.

Fig. 44.—A comblike object.

Fig. 45.—A sinew-wrapped stick.

Gourd bottles or canteens are evidenced by two fragments, one
of which (U.S.N.M. No. 335367) preserves the crooked neck. Its
peduncle attachment was cut out to form an orifice, and a small hole,
presumably for a cord, was drilled through one wall three-fourths of
an inch from the lip. Earthenware canteens in the form of gourds
were fairly common in Basket Maker and Early Pueblo times.

BASKETRY

As kitchen utensils—food trays, water jars, even pots for boiling
mush—baskets long antedated pottery throughout most of North
America. Archeologists generally agree that wherever they occur
together pottery followed basketry. This sequence is especially clear
in the Southwest, where the first fired pottery produced by the Basket
Makers imitated their baskets both in form and decoration. Some
American tribes, including most of those resident in California, never
quite abandoned basket utensils; others quickly substituted earthenware,
once they had mastered the technique of its manufacture; still
others calmly hung the new complex on the old and gradually relegated
to each those household functions for which it seemed best
suited.

Among the Hopi "basketry has at least as many uses as pottery."
The harvests are brought home from the fields in baskets on the backs
of men and burros. Around the hearth, coiled and wicker trays are
piled with corn meal and other foodstuffs; there are baskets for
parched corn, trays for piki bread, small globular baskets for various
purposes, and sifter baskets for winnowing grains and seeds in preparation
for grinding (Hough, 1915, pp. 93-94).

Some of the baskets represented in our Pueblo Bonito collections
unquestionably had been utilized in the preparation and serving of
foods; others just as surely were employed in ritualistic practices.
And there is yet another group, one we cannot place with confidence
in either of the foregoing categories. If the whole lot be classified by
technique of manufacture, the usual practice, we find that 4 fragments
are plaited and nearly 40 coiled. Whether this same ratio existed
throughout the village, and from beginning to end, is a question we
cannot answer. It is quite likely, however, that coiling and plaiting
were not the only basketry techniques known and used by Bonitian
women.

PLAITED BASKETS

Since Basket Maker days, approximately 15 centuries ago, plaited
baskets have been common household utensils throughout the Pueblo

country. They are made and used today in most Pueblo villages.
The modern Hopi employ the same technique in plaiting baskets and
floor mats; their baskets, in fact, are no more than small mats bent
over an osier ring and made fast. This long-established use of osiers
to give plaited baskets their bowl-like shape has provided a handy term
for the entire group: "ring basket."

Ring baskets in our collection are represented by the fragments
shown on plate 40. The first, our only ornamented example, was
square and may have been no more than a shallow tray. Its weaving
interval is over-3-under-3, and the yucca strips were so manipulated
as to create interlocking meanders. If the rolled edges were shaped
over a rod, no trace remains of such a member; neither is it clear how
the strip ends were secured.

Figure b, part of the nearer specimen shown in situ on plate 35,
lower, is more in keeping with the typical ring basket. It was approximately
12 inches in diameter. The weaving elements, again narrow
strips of yucca leaves, were brought across the osier ring, bent back
underneath, and fastened in pairs by other strips twined close under
the willow. That the weaver sought to fit her fabric to a waiting ring
seems clear from the fact that the normal over-3-under-3 interval
changes repeatedly around the periphery to under-2 and even under-1.

In figures c and d we have two fragments of another basket bowl.
In this case, however, strips of rush leaves (Scirpus paludosus Nelson)
rather than yucca provided the material, and the strip ends were retained
to form an external, ornamental braid. Warping of the willow
rod, not intent, gives the smaller piece a suggestion of squareness.

Finally we come to our best-preserved specimen, found on the floor
of Room 290 (pl. 35, upper). Within it was a scrap of another basket
or mat, twilled over-2-under-2, that may have been a patch. Our laboratory
photograph (pl. 41, A) is of the exterior in order to show the
manner in which the weaving elements, having been secured to the
osier ring as usual by twinning, were plaited to form an attractive
selvage. This latter was woven snugly against the vessel wall and
without any attachment other than that at the rim.

Thus, of four specimens identifiable as fragments of ring baskets,
two were woven of yucca-leaf strips and two of rush. All four were
plaited over-3-under-3. Two fragments of burned clay flooring from
Room 260 bear the imprint of basketry twilled in the same interval
(U.S.N.M. No. 335361).

We have five additional scraps, but I am uncertain whether they
represent baskets or matting. All are twill-plaited over-2-under-2; all
appear to be split rush leaf. Coarsest of the lot, with seven strips per

inch, is a fragment from Room 320 (U.S.N.M. No. 335312, orig.
No. 1406). I should have classed it as matting except that the strip
ends were bent back over a string, bound there by twined cords or
shreds of rush, and trimmed to leave a rough, 1-inch fringe. I have
never seen matting with that kind of selvage, and I never saw a Pueblo
plaited basket with flexible rim.

Bits of a dirt-encrusted fabric (U.S.N.M. No. 335315, orig. No.
1873) were found among the scattered human bones in Room 330.
My chief reason for thinking it might be from a small mat is that the
piece had been folded. On the other hand, it seems too fine and
closely woven, with 14 strips to the inch, for anything but a choice
basket.

Two comparable pieces, both folded, were recovered in Room 326
(No. 335313). One is twilled 10 to the inch; the other, 16. The
second has a bootlike appearance which I now believe to be purely
fortuitous. Within its folds lie vegetal remains of some sort, too
decayed for positive identification.

Similar fibrous material gives another fragmentary specimen a thickness
approximating 1 inch; its irregular edge, however, without padding,
is only the doubled fabric (pl. 41, B). Except for this doubled
portion, the perimeter has rotted through. The concavity on the upper
surface is due to the fact that this specimen last served as a headrest,
or pillow, for Burial 5, Room 326. On the opposite side the woven
elements are drawn together as though forming the constricted orifice
of a bag. Made of rush strips twilled over-2-under-2 and 10 to the
inch, the pillow lay beneath a mat of rushes on which the body rested.

Our attempts to preserve these and other basketry remains were
less successful than we had hoped. In every instance the specimens
were deeply buried when found, under at least 8 feet of blown sand,
debris of occupation, and fallen masonry. In almost every instance
the fabrics were damp and the heat of a midsummer sun caused contraction
and fragmentation in one or two minutes. We tried to control
evaporation by piling on damp sand and then brushing it away gradually
but without avail. Our last alternative was to go over the exposed
surface of the specimen as quickly as possible with a dustbrush and
then apply diluted ambroid or melted paraffin, as the individual case
warranted. With some of the cylindrical baskets we did not delay
long enough even to remove the earthy contents.

Several years later, when opportunity came to study these particular
remains, I first realized the difficulties in store. Without soaking in
acetone and vigorous scrubbing, which they could not withstand, it
was impossible to free the specimens from sand grains firmly cemented

to them by ambroid. Material coated with paraffin likewise was not
in condition to be soaked. We learned that the most satisfactory means
of removing surplus paraffin is heat, but for its application and control
no equipment was available except a one-plate, open gas stove, a square
of wire mesh, and a blotter. As the blotter absorbed the melting wax
the basketry tended to flatten out and lose whatever had been retained
of the original shape. In several cases, much to my surprise, specimens
that had looked reasonably substantial in the field proved to be nothing
more than shells of decayed vegetal matter when the supporting paraffin
was removed. It was the ingenuity and skill of W. H. Egberts,
then chief preparator in the department of anthropology, U. S. National
Museum, that preserved for study purposes many of the remains
herein considered.

COILED BASKETS

Coiled baskets are sewed, not woven. The sewing element is generally
a tough but flexible splint, thinned and carefully trimmed to
uniform width, that encircles the more or less rigid foundation as it
progresses, stitch by stitch, to form the vessel wall. In our specimens
the foundation usually consists of two rods, side by side, with a bundle
of fibers above and between them. The rods appear to be slender
young willow shoots, smoothed to the diameter of a pencil lead, while
the bundle fibers look like shredded grass. Bundle and rods were
encircled by each successive stitch, the sewing splint piercing the
bundle next below to bind the two coils securely together. That coiled
basketry fragments are more numerous than plaited in our collection
may be due to their greater stability.

By shape, our coiled basketry divides itself into four groups: bowls,
elliptical trays, cylindrical containers, and carrying baskets. Consideration
of a fifth group, the bifurcated or ceremonial carrying basket,
will be deferred until a later chapter.[10]

Bowls.—In Tewa, Zuñi, and Hopi homes I have seen basket bowls
filled with edibles of one sort or another—peaches, in season; broiled
mutton, bread, corn on the cob, shelled corn ready for grinding, and
meal fresh from the milling stones. At Pueblo Bonito, we may assume
that basket bowls were likewise employed chiefly in and about the
kitchen.

Four, possibly five, coiled bowls are represented by fragments in
our collection. One bowl, inverted, had covered the old, banded-neck

cook pot shown as figure e, plate 50, while buried for storage purposes
with its mouth at the floor level in Room 323. The basket itself had
been crushed by the overburden of rubbish and fallen masonry, but
several of the fragments could be preserved. One of these is illustrated
on plate 42, figure c. It has 5 coils, 12 stitches, per inch. On
fragments of other similar vessels coils per inch remain the same, but
stitches run from 13 to 19. With one exception, all our fragments are
close-coiled with noninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle
triangular, or bunched, foundation. This is the technique Weltfish
describes as "Basket Maker." It was used not only by the Basket
Makers but also by the later Pueblos whose baskets, in comparison,
are generally more closely and more tightly sewed; and it was employed
in baskets collected in 1881 by Stevenson at Zuñi and the Hopi
villages (Weltfish, 1932, pp. 4-6, 34-36).

Figure b, plate 42, illustrates a bit from near the center of a bowl
sewed in a second technique, one-rod foundation with interlocking
stitches. The widely separated stitches number only seven per inch;
the coils, half again as many. We found the fragment while clearing
Room 6 of its post-Hyde Expedition accumulation of blown sand.
Perhaps it is the same small fragment Pepper noted 25 years earlier
(1920, p. 47).

In addition, we have two cup-sized baskets (pl. 43, a, b) and fragments
of possibly two others. Both cups were sewed with an uninterlocking
stitch on a two-rod-and-bundle, triangular foundation. The
larger has 5 coils and 13 stitches per inch, a normal center, and a false
braid termination for the rim coil. The direction of work is counterclockwise,
and the sewing was apparently done from the inside since
split stitches are more frequent on the convex surface.

The second cup (b), is a child's effort, if I judge correctly from the
inexpertness of its whole makeup. The rods vary in diameter and
finish; the splints are unequal in width, and while stitches circle the
new coil as a rule, every now and then one passes beneath its bundle
to engage the two rods only. Exhausted splint ends are brought to the
outside and there clumsily bound by the next few stitches. Coils are
5½; stitches, 11 per inch. Unlike the other, coiling in this instance is
clockwise. The rim is lacking, but I guess the original height to have
been 2½ or 2¾ inches.

Probabilities are that two other specimens at hand also represent
cups. One (U.S.N.M. No. 335326) consists of small sections of what
appears to be yucca fiber wrapped about by split yucca or rush leaves.
Together the fragments form a circle 1¾ inches in diameter and half

an inch wide with a three-quarter-inch opening at the center, a ring
that could be the second coil of a small basket.

With our other problematical specimen it is the original height that
is in question. Besides the flat bottom, now broken and ovoid through
external pressure (pl. 42, fig. h), we have four rim segments only one
of which carries as many as five coils. The fragments probably represent
a cup, but they could be from a cylindrical basket about 3½ inches
in diameter. Their stitches are uninterlocked on a three-rod, bunched
foundation—our sole example of this popular Pueblo III technique.
I measure 4 coils and 13 stitches per inch. Coiling is counterclockwise;
work progressed from the concave side.

The rim is bound by regular stitches except for the final 1¼ inches.
Here the three foundation rods are cut away gradually to merge with
the coil below and are enclosed by false braid. At commencement of
this ornamental finish the end of an exhausted splint was cut off close
against the outside wall and a fresh splint introduced from the opposite
side. This substitute pierced the apex rod of the lower coil and was
brought up from the outside, over and again through the apex rod in
the coil below. Then it was brought up once more and carried back
across the previous stitch to be thrust through the wall between coils.
In this maneuver the splint retreated its own width, engaged the
standing elements of the last previous stitch, and then came over
again, forward two widths, and again through the apex rod to begin
another backward loop. Our best example of false braid thus combines
features of both Basket Maker and Pueblo types, as described
by Morris and Burgh (1941, p. 23).

To those who know the Southwest it is impossible to visualize a
Pueblo home without one or more coiled baskets lying about. Baskets
are as much a part of the domestic scene as the ubiquitous, barebottomed
toddlers. Thus when a few basketry fragments survived at
a prehistoric ruin it seems that numerous other pieces, and even whole
vessels, should have been preserved. Such, unfortunately, was not the
case at Pueblo Bonito.

In his published field notes Pepper mentions but does not describe
several baskets and fragments. From Room 2 he removed a tray of
the "two-rod coil type" about 18 inches in diameter and another only
2 inches in diameter by a trifle over one-half inch deep (Pepper, 1920,
p. 36); from Room 25, a twilled yucca ring basket and two fragments
"of the three-rod coil variety" (ibid., p. 107). Two coiled bowls,
apparently about 8 inches in diameter, had been inverted over broken
pottery filling one of the subfloor pits in Room 62 and were in turn

covered by "a large basket" the surviving fragments of which, as
photographed, look like one side of a burden hamper (ibid., fig. 100,
pp. 227, 234). Another coiled bowl may be seen in Pepper's illustration
of pottery in the northeast corner of Room 28—a partially disintegrated
specimen lying in the smaller of two stacked earthenware
bowls, directly in front of the left-hand door jamb (ibid., fig. 44, p.
116). Weltfish (1932, p. 22) interprets Pepper's coiled types as,
respectively, two-rod-and-bundle-triangular and three-rod-triangular
foundation. According to Morris and Burgh (1941, p. 13), the first
of these two foundation types appears at all stages of Anasazi history
and was actually dominant in Basket Maker times; in the Pueblo III
period, the three-rod bunched foundation occurs about twice as often
as that with two-rods-and-bundle.

Elliptical trays.—A shallow, elliptical, coiled basketry tray accompanied
each of four women interred in Room 326. With each tray was
a bone scraper, or flesher, made from the humerus of a deer (see
pp. 148-149). The fleshers are of a type well known throughout the
San Juan Basin (especially from ruins north of the river) but the
baskets are unique in the Southwest, so far as I can learn.

Unfortunately, the condition of the trays was such that we were
able to save only one reasonably intact (pl. 44, b, c). It was sewed
with uninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched foundation.
Coiling began when the bundle and paired rods, closely
wrapped with sewing splints, were extended 7¼ inches before being
doubled back in a counterclockwise direction and stitched to the initial
wrapping. The rim termination has not been preserved. That the tray
was originally a thing of beauty may be judged from the fact that, in
its present condition, I count 6 coils and 22 stitches per inch. It
measures 13¼ by 6½ by 1½ inches deep but its original depth may have
been nearer 2 inches and the other dimensions correspondingly less.

In the lower illustration (c) the imprint of the accompanying
scraper is clearly seen at the lower right and above and to the left the
black thread of our repairs. The second view (b) was taken from a
lower angle after most of the paraffin had been melted off. Our field
photograph, plate 94, right, shows this basket in situ at the head of
Skeleton 6 and, inside, its associated scraper (fig. a, pl. 37) and the
small black-on-white bowl seen to better advantage as figure d, plate 54.

Fragments of two other elliptical trays exhibit the same uninterlocked
stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched foundation. One of
the two (U.S.N.M. No. 335307), of which only a middle section of
side wall and bottom remains, has 7 coils and 22 stitches per inch. As
preserved the wall stands 2¼ inches, and I believe this was the original

height. With other funeral offerings the basket lay at the right side
of Skeleton 12 and contained the bone scraper illustrated on plate 37
as figure d. The second fragment (No. 335313), a section of side wall
with false braid over the rim termination, boasts 8 coils and 24 stitches
per inch—the finest example of basketry in our collection. Decay has
shrunk its sewing splints and exposed the foundation, but I doubt if
this affects the original number of stitches and coils.

Our fourth elliptical tray was in a sad state of disrepair when first
exposed, and a generous coating of paraffin was applied in an effort to
save it. But the completeness of its disintegration was not realized
until the wax was removed, for then the walls crumbled and only the
skeletonized bottom remained (pl. 44, a). Even this remainder owes
much to the fact that it rests upon a folded textile, perhaps a finely
woven sandal, and on a number of what seem to be yucca leaves
shredded at one end. It was the better preserved of two elliptical trays
included among the offerings buried with Skeletons 8 and 9, Room 326
(pl. 94, left). Beneath the tray, as found, was the inlaid bone scraper
shown as figure b, plate 37.

In contrast to the others, this fourth elliptical basket was built up
with noninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, stacked foundation.
I count 3½ coils and about 20 stitches to the inch, a little finer
work than that of a Mesa Verde basket in the same technique cited by
Weltfish (1932, p. 19). The technique is repeated in fragments of two
cylindrical baskets from Rooms 320 and 326, respectively.

Interest in these elliptical trays is naturally augmented by knowledge
that all four were found in the same room; that each was buried with
the body of a woman; that a bone flesher was placed in three of the
trays at time of interment. In the case of the fourth tray, the flesher
was placed underneath. Our excavations provided no clue to their
intended purpose. Pepper does not describe a comparable basket
among the Hyde Expedition collections and, so far as I know, their
like has not previously been reported from the Southwest.

Cylindrical baskets are closely related to cylindrical vases, but we
do not know which came first. We have no reason to believe either
group was in any way connected with religious practices, yet they
both seem useless for all practical purposes. Of the two, the baskets
have greater diameter but less height. The average diameter and
height of 14 pottery vases in our collection are, respectively, 4.65 and
9.87 inches. Of five cylindrical baskets whose diameter and height are
measurable, the averages are 5.35 and 8.53 inches. Most of the vases
have painted geometric designs and lugs perforated for suspension
cords. Of all our cylindrical baskets, on the other hand, whole and

fragmentary alike, only one had handles, as far as we can see, and this
same vessel carries the only visible, stained-splint decoration. One
other boasts a painted design.

We have no idea what particular purpose cylindrical baskets were
made to serve. That they were fairly common at Pueblo Bonito seems
certain from our data on type frequencies and distribution. For
example, we have fragments of only four or five coiled basket bowls—
everyday utensils in every Pueblo household for 50 generations past.
In contrast, our collection contains 5 cylindrical baskets in which
both height and diameter have been preserved and fragments of 14
others, 19 in all. Three fragments were recovered from rubbish piles
in as many Late Bonitian dwellings; the remainder, from six Old
Bonitian houses of which three had been utilized as burial chambers
and, thereafter, as dumps for kitchen debris.

Our best specimens, shown on plate 45, all came from Room 320,
wherein the bodies of 10 women and girls had been interred. Presumably
the baskets were present as mortuary offerings, but of this
we cannot be positive since prehistoric treasure hunters had rifled the
place with obvious contempt for the dead and all their possessions
except jewelry. Specimens a and b, partially emptied of their sandy
contents and paraffined in preparation for removal, are shown in situ
on plates 91, lower, and 96, right. Specimen e will be recognized in our
field photograph (pl. 92, lower) lying on the floor south of the east
doorstep and a couple of inches in front of the ceremonial carrying
basket to be described in a subsequent chapter. Beyond these two,
near, but not positively with, the only undisturbed burials in Room
320, were baskets d and f.

Basket d is in good condition despite disintegration of its lower rear
wall and some crushing in front. With 5 coils and 13 stitches per inch
its structure is a bit coarser than average. Split stitches are numerous
both inside and out; splint ends are cut off flush with the vessel wall.
Part of the rim is missing but the remainder includes over 3 inches of
false braid looped forward three, back two. In our effort toward
preservation, a supporting rattan has been sewed inside the rim and
the entire vessel coated with dilute ambroid.

A number of sandstone spalls had somehow gotten into basket e
causing the irregularities visible in the illustration. Nevertheless, the
specimen is of more than usual interest. It is the only one in our series
bearing a design produced with dyed splints, and it is also the only
one with a handle. The latter (only a vestige remains of its opposite)
is a horizontal loop consisting of two stacked rods with bundle between,
attached five-eighths of an inch below the rim. Some weeks

after our photograph was made the handle was inadvertently pulled
off, and although it has since been replaced, several small pieces were
lost. Study of the broken parts shows that the loop was bound to the
outside after the underlying body coils had been completed, but while
they were still pliable enough to bend sharply with tightening of the
sewing splint. Because of the weights carried in the basket, the lower
of its two handle coils has been bent out and up; stitches on coils
immediately beneath the handle have been worn by friction of a carrying
thong.

No other cylindrical basket in our collection equals this one in
excellence of construction. Stitches average 20 per inch, while coils
run 5½. Unlike the others, the foundation does not show between
stitches. The latter are uninterlocked; coiling is counterclockwise with
a remnant of Pueblo-style false braid (forward 4, back 3 ?) at the
termination. A design in black, red, and natural splint color, now
faded and indistinct, covers the entire surface.

In our illustration two coils near the bottom are quite conspicuous
on basket f, plate 45. They owe their prominence, however, to the accident
of slightly larger foundation rods and are less noticeable on the
opposite side of the vessel. This is one of two specimens whose coils
run 7 per inch; stitches, 18. In numerous places the stitches have disintegrated
and separated, revealing the foundation rods. A fragment
of false braid remains on the otherwise normally wrapped rim.

The foregoing were all coiled counterclockwise with uninterlocking
stitches on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched foundation. This technique,
a local favorite, is present in 16 of our 19 cylindrical baskets
and fragments. The other three include one example of three-rod,
bunched (U.S.N.M. No. 335330) and two examples of two-rod-andbundle,
stacked foundation.

This latter technique is clearly seen in figure c, plate 45. But here
the last two and a half coils were sewed on a one-rod-and-bundle foundation.
Coincident with this change the worker apparently shifted
from the concave to the convex surface, for the number of outside
stitches split by the sewing awl suddenly diminishes shortly before a
single, larger rod replaced the two smaller ones. The broken rim lacks
its terminal tie. Another example of two-rod-and-bundle, stacked, is
the scrap shown as figure a, plate 42.

Reviewing these 19 cylindrical baskets and fragments, we note that
the popular two-rod-and-bundle bunched foundation is the dominant
type. In each instance stitches are uninterlocked. The concave side
was the preferred work surface, although sometimes, to judge from
the proportion of split stitches, sewing apparently progressed from the
opposite side or from both sides, with irregular alternation. Coils vary

Plate 42.—Fragments of coiled basketry vessels.

Plate 43.—a, b, Coiled basket cups; c, fragments of birch bark vessels.

Plate 44.—Remains of elliptical basketry trays found with burials of women in Room 326.

Plate 45.—Cylindrical baskets among mortuary offerings in Room 320.

from 5 to 7 per inch; stitches, from 12 to 20. At the center, where the
coiling begins, double and wrapping stitches invariably occur; where
the coil first rises from the flat bottom to start the vertical wall the
inner foundation rod often lies a trifle higher than its companion in
consequence of tightening the sewing splints. In every specimen where
direction can be determined, coiling is counterclockwise, and in at least
four it terminates in false braid of the variety described as "Pueblo"
by Morris and Burgh (1941, fig. 7, h). However, as the splints loop
forward and back to weave their terminal tie, they do not always
gather in a fixed number of standing elements; the number may vary
from two to five even in the same specimen. One fragment boasts
added fancywork, a bit of beading. One and one-half inches of false
braid remain, and for 2 inches immediately preceding this the customary
fiber bundle of the coil is replaced by a strip of splint running
alternately over and under the otherwise normal rim stitches.

Perhaps because their flatness gave them greater durability, bottoms
are conspicuous among our cylindrical basket fragments. There are
eight in the series. That shown on plate 42, figure i, never passed the
stage represented, for the splint wrapping of the outermost coil has
not been punctured by the sewing awl. Figure g is one of three compressed
by weight of the accumulation above it.

In describing the six cylindrical baskets from Room 320 the possibility
of their being burial offerings was mentioned. It is equally
possible, of course, that they were among the paraphernalia of some
secret society and were merely stored in the room at the time it was
pressed into service as a tomb.

Of all our cylindrical baskets only two were undeniably associated
with interments, the double burial in Room 326 (pl. 95, upper). Another
(U.S.N.M. No. 335305) accompanied the sizable fragment of a
bifurcated basket (No. 335313, orig. No. 1680) as it lay above an infant's
skeleton (No. 10) in the southeast corner of the same room.
Since it was not customary at Pueblo Bonito to place grave furniture
on top of a body it is quite likely that both these baskets really belonged
to one or more of three disturbed adult burials near the child's.

Coiled baskets of the type we have just considered are, so far as I
can learn, peculiar to Pueblo Bonito. Weltfish (1932) refers several
times to "cylindrical" baskets, but in each instance where I made
further inquiry the specimen cited proved in shape to be a deep, inverted,
truncated cone.[11] From Aztec Ruin, however, Morris (1919a,

p. 56) recovered a single fragment that may represent a basket of our
Pueblo Bonito type. Pepper mentions only one cylindrical basket, his
justly famous turquoise-covered specimen from Room 33 (Pepper,
1909, pp. 227-228; 1920, pp. 164-173).

We know neither when nor why the Bonitians first made a cylindrical
basket. The Basket Makers produced nothing comparable; one
searches the literature in vain for its precursor among Early Pueblo
remains. The flat-bottomed basket bowls of the Marsh Pass region
(Guernsey and Kidder, 1921, p. 61) may be direct ancestors of Mesa
Verde's deep, inverted, truncated-cone type, but the latter is a far cry
from the one under discussion and, at the earliest, no more than
contemporary with it. The earthenware bowl molded in a conical
basket, which we recovered from Kiva 2 E, bore a pseudo-Mesa Verde
design (pl. 52, C). Late Mesa Verde pottery occurred on the most
recent Bonitian trash heaps. Thus all the data on which I can put a
finger indicate that the truly cylindrical basket herein described was
a product solely of Pueblo Bonito. Since only 3 of our 19 specimens
were found in the newer sections of the village, and then only in
household rubbish, it is barely possible all were made by the Old
Bonitians. If this point could be established we should know that the
cylindrical basket foreshadowed the vase, examples of which, although
dominantly Late Bonitian in ornamentation, were most numerous in
Old Bonitian houses.

Besides that above mentioned, we have fragments of eight other
earthenware bowls molded in deep, conical baskets (U.S.N.M. No.
336071). Two only are unslipped, unpolished inside. Of two rim
sherds, one is flat and tapered from the inside; the other, rounded and
slightly outflaring. This latter is part of a deep bowl whose inner wall
to within 1 inch of the bottom is covered with inclined bands of negative
rectangles alternating with parallel lines—a typical Mesa Verde
design. The basket imprint on this specimen shows 5 coils and 16
stitches per inch. Finest sewing is represented on two sherds where I
count 8 coils and 22 stitches to the inch. Two other sherds bear blackpaint
decoration over the basket imprint.

These fragments of cylindrical baskets, bowls, and elliptical trays
may be entirely characteristic of local basketry, but it is extremely
doubtful whether they illustrate all the coiling techniques known at
Pueblo Bonito. Certainly they provide no index to the number of
baskets actually produced there. Of the 30-odd Anasazi coiling processes

recognized by Morris and Burgh (1941, p. 8), only four are
represented in our collection.

Carrying baskets.—Subfloor pocket 2, Room 62, was filled with
broken pottery over which two basket bowls had been inverted and
the whole covered by "a large basket," the major portion of which had
decayed (Pepper, 1920, p. 234). The remainder, as seen in Pepper's
figure 100 (p. 227), appears to be about 2 feet long by 14 or 15 inches
wide. A fragment of such size, with over 80 coils visible, can only
represent a burden basket. Pocket 5 likewise contained the remains
of "a large basket"; fragments of at least one "very large basket"
were found in Room 32 (ibid., pp. 162, 235). Repetition of the
adjective in connection with these three separate cases seems convincing,
if only circumstantial, evidence the Bonitians used carrying
baskets. And here, as elsewhere throughout the Western Hemisphere,

burdens borne on human backs were supported by means of a tumpline
across chest or forehead.

Tumplines at Pueblo Bonito are represented by three fragmentary
examples in our collection. Found among the wreckage in Room 320,
two of these (pl. 46, figs. a and b) are of yucca-fiber cord. The third,
and best preserved, consists of 13 or 14 flat three-strand braids, oneeighth
inch wide, bunched and wrapped with 2-ply string at each end
to form loops for attachment of ropes. The drawing above, figure 46,
provides a clearer conception of how this particular specimen looked
when in use.

Our two smaller fragments differed from the third in one detail
only: instead of being braided, the component cords are of a coarse,
2-strand twist; at least 11 are present, looped and wrapped as in the
first case.

Part of a twined-woven headband (U.S.N.M. No. 335344) was recovered
in Room 325. It is 1⅛ inches wide and has 13 warps. Tightly
coiled upon itself when found, the strap has since broken into half a
dozen pieces of which one is the outer curve of an eyelet. This latter
embraces four warps only and thus suggests that the middle five were
cut short as weaving progressed down one side, around the end, and

back to complete the loop. Pepper (1920, p. 108) mentions a like
specimen, woven of cotton and yucca, from Room 25.

From Aztec Ruin, Morris (1919a, p. 52) reports a woven headband
in which the two middle warps were shortened at each end to provide
for eyes. In a kiva at Ruin 12, Mesa Verde National Park, Nordenskiöld
found a fourth example, woven of cotton on yucca warps. As
I read his illustration (Nordenskiöld, 1893, pl. 49, fig. 2), there are 23
warps in the fabric and of these the middle 7 were cut short at each
end in order to create a triangular opening 1 inch or more in length as
the 8 warps on either side were divided into two bunches of 4 each
and woven into the double-ribbed loop that closed the opening and
terminated each end of the band.

Fewkes (1909, p. 45, fig. 22; 1911b, p. 76, fig. 4) shows two more
Mesa Verde woven headbands with the middle warps shortened to
leave triangular eyelets, and the remaining warps bunched to serve as
foundations for the thicker, compressed weaving at the two extremities.
Apparently this variety of headband loop is a Mesa Verde trait;
if so, our lone Pueblo Bonito fragment and that unearthed by Pepper
provide two more ties to the homeland.

Miscellaneous containers.—This seems as good a place as any to
record the following items:

First, a section of heavy fabric that looks like part of a headband or
belt (U.S.N.M. No. 335328). It is 3½ inches wide and [fraction 3 by 16] inch thick;
the warps run lengthwise, and both edges are selvaged. The material
appears to be loosely twisted cotton cord twined on warps that were
smaller and of stiffer fiber, undoubtedly yucca. Folded upon itself
without visible sign of stitching, the fabric forms an oval cup or bag
2¼ inches deep and bulging to a width of 2 inches with its granular
contents. The latter have not been analyzed but may be no more than
pulverized sandstone overlaid with bits of vegetal remains and charcoal.
The specimen was found in the passageway connecting Rooms
251 and 256, both of which contained quantities of household rubbish.
We saturated the piece with paraffin and thus preserved it as found.

Something of an enigma is presented by six pieces of birch bark
perforated along one or two edges as though parts of a box or handbag.[12]
Indeed, one fragment is still selvaged with half a willow rod

bearing traces of the close-lying splint stitches that formerly bound
it in place. The longest fragment, the grain running longitudinally,
measures 11½ inches; both ends are perforated one-quarter inch from
the straight-cut edge. All six were exposed in an exploratory trench
just outside the south wall of Room 154 but my field notes failed to
give the depth. They are not decayed, and they look very un-Puebloan
—but there they are (pl. 43, c).

A half dozen scraps of another bark, each having one or more cut
edges, were recovered from the rubbish in Room 255 (U.S.N.M.
No. 335384). The bark is three-sixteenths inch thick and remains
unidentified.

Jar rests, or pot rings, were simple contrivances devised especially
for large, round-bottomed vessels. They afforded comfort to the
carrier and they provided necessary support for standing bowls and
jars while used for storage.

Pot rings are of almost worldwide distribution. They are employed
today wherever it is woman's task to fetch water from well or pool.
Those seen during his first few days in Hawikuh reminded Coronado
of home and Spain so he sent a couple to the Viceroy along with his
letter of August 3, 1540, and boasted "One of these Indian women,
with one of these rolls on her head, will carry a jar of water up a
ladder without touching it with her hands" (Winship, 1896, p. 563).

The four examples we found at Pueblo Bonito differ from one
another (pl. 46, figs. d-g). Figures d and f were made of cedar bark,
but the latter was wrapped with both shredded bark and yucca cord;
the former, with bark alone. Both are charred. Figure g is merely a
handful of cedar bark, hastily rolled and bound to meet the need of
the moment, while e, made up entirely of cornhusks, required more
time for preparation. In Room 24 (N.G.S. Room 229B) Pepper
unearthed a jar rest of braided yucca and another made from the
feather-wrapped cords of a discarded blanket (Pepper, 1920, p. 96).
These are all comparatively crude, but we may be certain that the
Bonitians were capable of weaving pot rings quite as attractive and
as durable as any produced by their contemporaries of the cliff villages.

On plate 53, figures a and b, we have illustrated the neck portions of
two cooking pots as probable floor rests for water jars or other vessels.

Earthenware vessels are rightfully described as household utensils,
but owing both to their diversity and to their peculiar interest as culture
indices in the Southwest we shall consider them alone in the next
chapter.