University of Virginia Library

VI. IMPLEMENTS OF THE FIELD AND CHASE

We are accustomed to think of stone tools as peculiar to Ancient
Man; as something that passed out of existence with the advent of the
Bronze Age nearly 4,000 years ago. But our American Indians were
still living in the Stone Age when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth
Rock, and they continued in the Stone Age until metal acquired from
Colonial homes or fur traders replaced stone for toolmaking.

In the southwestern United States stone implements were in common
use as late as 1881. Most of the timbers then visible in Hopi
houses had been cut with stone axes (Bourke, 1884, pp. 251, 307).
Forty-seven years later some of those same stone-cut logs contributed
indirectly to the dating of Pueblo Bonito (Douglass, 1929, p. 754).

Hundreds of stone tools gathered from old ruins were being utilized
at Zuñi, Walpi, and other Pueblo villages in 1879 when Stevenson
purchased them for the national collections (Stevenson, 1883, p. 320).
Not only were they materially useful but also they possessed an
acknowledged market value. A gift to Captain Bourke at a trading
post west of Fort Defiance reminded an elderly Navaho that before
white men came to Arizona a stone ax would buy a wife (Bourke,
1884, p. 70).

Axes.—It is a curious paradox that in Chaco Canyon, where literally
thousands of pines were felled for building purposes, few stone
axes have been recovered. Pepper lists but eight from his four seasons
at Pueblo Bonito. The National Geographic Society's explorations in
the same ruin disclosed only four (pl. 70, middle) with fragments of
three others, and one of these latter, a grooved sandstone pebble
(U.S.N.M. No. 335866) half again as large as a man's thumb, doubtless
met some youngster's plea for an ax like father's. All are from
Late Bonitian rooms or rubbish.

Pueblo Bonito axes are not only rare but comparatively rude. In
this they agree with stone axes from other sections of the San Juan
basin. They were made from water-worn cobbles of igneous rock—
diorite, hornblendite, rhyolite, felsite—brought from a distance and
reduced to the desired form by pecking with hammerstones. Notched
on the edges or grooved about for attachment of a withe handle,
sharpened by rubbing on sandstone (the cliff back of Pueblo Bonito
is deeply scored through whetting of axes), one of these rocks became
a fairly effective cutting implement.

Of the four specimens illustrated (pl. 70), d came, doubtless through
trade, from southwestern New Mexico or southeastern Arizona, for
it was originally made with the straight edge and interrupted groove
characteristic of axes from that region. But its Bonitian owner subsequently
continued the groove all around to permit the type of hafting
preferred in Chaco Canyon. When in due course its blade had been
dulled and blunted, this once-treasured implement was relegated to
lowly service as a maul, the ultimate end of many a good ax. In Room
282 we found the fragment of another reworked southern ax, a large
fragment used in dressing stone (U.S.N.M. No. 335858).

From neighboring Pueblo del Arroyo we retrieved eight additional
axes and ax fragments. One of these, figure g, remains unfinished
and thus provides a visual lesson in methods of ax manufacturing.
Shaped and grooved by hammerstones, it awaits only the smoothing
touch of an abrader.

A near relative of the ax is figure h. Shaped with a minimum of
pecking from a rhyolite cobblestone, triangular in cross section, its
corners are notched and one face slightly grooved as a seating for the
customary willow handle. Its narrow bit is unmarred while the poll
evidences passing use as a maul.

Axlike implements roughly flaked from tough rocks are not uncommon
in southwestern ruins, especially those of the upper Rio Grande.
Our Pueblo Bonito collections include only one of this type, a rude
specimen made from a thin slab of indurated, altered volcanic ash.
Its edges are notched; one corner of the blade shows incipient shaping
through attrition (U.S.N.M. No. 335864).

Mauls (pl. 24, c).—Although well known from earlier ruins
throughout the Southwest, mauls at Pueblo Bonito are even rarer
than axes. Of the half dozen we recovered, three are discarded ax
heads broken and bruised by use in stonework. With so few grooved
mauls in evidence, one is led to believe the Bonitians preferred hand
hammers in making metates and in dressing sandstone blocks for
building purposes.

The largest of the three illustrated was more likely a club head, for
it is made of friable yellow sandstone, a rock so soft that it would
readily shatter on anything harder than the average cranium.

Two implements made from water-worn cobbles may also be mentioned.
One, found in the refill of Room 168, is of quartzite and
weighs 5¾ pounds (U.S.N.M. No. 335861). On each edge is a broad
medial notch; two small flakes have been thrown from one end as
though by as many blows against another rock. The second specimen

Plate 70.—a, b, Pieces of volcanic pumice found in kivas; c-g, grooved stone axes; and
h, a picklike implement.

Plate 71.—Wooden bows, agricultural tools, and a ceremonial staff or
"crook."

Plate 72.—Undersized bows (a-d), perhaps used by small boys, ceremonial staves
(e-g), and a pair of loom bars (h, i).

Plate 73

A, Arrowheads and fragments from a quiver of arrows
under the hips of Skeleton 10, Room 330.

B, Miscellaneous arrowheads, including those of aberrant form.

(No. 335863), triangular in cross section and of dolerite-porphyry,
shows absolutely no sign of use, but its three corners have been notched
in readiness for a handle. It weighs 5¼ pounds and came from Room
318. Neither dolerite-porphyry nor quartzite is to be found in Chaco
Canyon.

AGRICULTURAL TOOLS

Two simple wooden implements, the dibble and the digging stick,
have met the needs of Pueblo men ever since they first became
farmers. The one was used in planting; the other, in clearing land,
in crop cultivation, and in loosening earth for diversion dams. Examples
of both are still used in Hopi, Zuñi, and Navaho fields. They
differ in no essential from those we unearthed at Pueblo Bonito or
those previously recovered from Basket Maker caves and burial places.
Although the heavy Spanish-type iron hoe has largely replaced the old
wooden cultivator, no satisfactory substitute has yet been found for
the dibble.

Planting sticks, or dibbles, have narrow, chisel-like blades. Our lone
Bonitian specimen (pl. 71, fig. j) measures 32⅛ inches with a few more
missing from the broken upper end. It is made from an oak sapling
and the lower 6 inches are beveled from opposite sides to form the
blade, five-eighths inch wide.

With such a simple tool as this the Pueblos have always planted
their maize, beans, and pumpkins. To be sure, the planting sticks we
saw in Hopi hands were a bit wider and sturdier, but the manner of
their use has been handed down from the long ago. Grasping his stick
at the middle, the planter chops out a narrow hole 10 to 15 inches
deep, drops in a dozen or more kernels of corn, refills the hole, and
proceeds to the next. He may work kneeling on one or both knees,
chopping and drawing toward him with a rotary motion of the arms
and body. He digs down to sand of a satisfactory moisture content
and is careful to pack damp sand in upon his seeds, leaving the drier
for the top fill. Holes are dug 6 or 8 feet apart, alternating with
plantings in the previous row. Unhurried workers calmly step the
distance, but one young man we saw, undoubtedly with an eye to his
audience, sprang from a one-knee crouch two long paces to light in
the same position and with his dibble upraised for the first stroke.

Digging sticks, so-called, are an inch or two wider and somewhat
longer than planting sticks. The blade is an important feature. Pueblo
digging sticks are generally straighter than those of Basket Maker
origin and vary in length from 2 feet to over 6.

Digging sticks are primitive cultivators, a combination hoe and

shovel. With them bushes were uprooted, soil loosened, fields weeded.
They were used in building dams and embankments; in guiding floodwater
onto garden plots. Some are square-ended with a chisel-like bit;
others have a more or less knifelike blade, long or short, thinned along
its curved edge and tip. In either case the position of the cutting edge
proves these implements were thrust forward and away from the
worker as he hacked at massed roots or intrusive vegetation.

Eight of our ten Bonitian digging sticks and fragments are shown
on plate 71. Only one, c, is really complete.[1] Specimens i and k, from
which the tips were broken while still in use, are those elsewhere
mentioned as found at the feet of Skeleton 8, a female, in Old Bonitian
Room 326 (see pl. 94, left). Specimens d and g came from the adjoining
structure, abandoned Room 325, the rubbish in which was dominantly
Late Bonitian. The knob on d naturally prompts the question:
Was this purely decorative feature a characteristic distinguishing Late
Bonitian from Old Bonitian digging sticks? If so, then here may be
another cultural difference between the two groups comprising the
local population, for available data from other areas suggest that the
digging-stick knob was a Pueblo III innovation. Two other end knobs,
one of which had been detached with a flint knife, were recovered
from Late Bonitian rubbish in Rooms 226 and 327 (U.S.N.M. Nos.
335221, 335226).

Fragment e may not belong in this series, since its knob is discoidal
rather than globular and its shaft is only half an inch in diameter at
the broken end. It is so heavy I suspect it is ironwood, an Upper
Sonoran shrub native to the mountains of northwestern New Mexico.
Its surface, once glossily polished, is now checked like an alligatorbark
juniper. Specimen h, partially consumed in the fire that destroyed
Room 298, has been tentatively identified as mountain mahogany
(Cercocarpus sp.), a companion of ironwood (Forestiera neomexicana).
Specimens d, f, g, i, and k are oak (Quercus sp.), and c
appears to be also.

It will be noted that c, i, and k are equipped with square-ended
blades that seem ill-advisedly long. For example, the exposed face of
c has been flattened throughout the lower 25 inches although on the
opposite side only the last 9 were altered, being beveled toward the
cutting end. Specimen i, with a total length of 36⅝ inches, has a blade
22 inches long reduced from both sides to a midway thickness of half
an inch and to half that at a point 2 inches from the end. The cutting

edge is 1¾ inches wide. With so thin and slender a blade, even an oak
implement would have had its limitations. It could have been used for
little more than weeding.

The three fragments with rounded ends (f, g, h) were likewise
thinned from front and back though not to the same extent as those
described above. They may, or may not, represent a separate form.
They are sharpened at the end only and not along one edge. That
illustrated as g saw other service after discard as a digging stick, for
its blade is somewhat splintered and bent backward at the tip as
though from levering rocks. This one came from Late Bonitian rubbish
in Room 325; the other two, from Old Bonitian storerooms.

Hough (1919, p. 236) illustrates a "wooden hand trowel" with
which the Hopi tend their plants. By implication it is a type implement
and not a reworked fragment. The example figured, however, is
clearly no more than a shortened model of the old, knife-edged variety
of digging stick—one shortened for convenient use by a man working
on his knees. We often overlook the fact that among the Hopi, as
among other peoples, there are individuals clever enough to improvise
tools or to copy those seen elsewhere. Take, for example, the footpowered
Zuñi cornplanter, a scythelike implement of hard wood, and
the hoe fashioned from the shoulder blade of an elk as illustrated by
Cushing (1920, pl. 3, c, f, g). All three are quite foreign to the preSpanish
Southwest.

The shoulder-blade hoe is a Plains Indian type, but Cushing's specimen
could have been made by a Zuñi using the most suitable local
substitute for a buffalo scapula. A comparable Anasazi tool, invented
by the Basket Makers, had a flattened section of mountain-sheep horn
bound to the end of a wooden shaft as an extension of it. The result
was a sort of scuffle hoe designed to be shoved, or thrust, by the
operator; it should have proved more serviceable than wooden cultivators
because horn takes a keener edge. The Early Pueblos adopted
this spadelike implement but soon substituted stone for the mountainsheep
horn.

Stone hoes are represented in our collection by two specimens only
(fig. 65). One, a fragment (a), is from a fine example that must
originally have been 9 or 10 inches long. The material is an indurated
fawn-colored and laminiferous shale—a rock much favored throughout
the middle San Juan drainage by the makers of this specialized
tool. Four nicks on the cutting edge were smoothed, and minute
striations, the result of attrition in working the soil, were partly erased
during the last resharpening operation.

Our second example (b), of calcareous shale, was exhumed from
the fill between floors in Room 347. It is triangular, 5 inches long by
1 inch wide at the apex and 2 inches at its retouched bit. The latter
has been irregularly spalled and chipped and reduced in width nearly
a third by unskilled use of a hammerstone. The cutting edge, like that

of its companion, lies at right angles to the longer dimension and thus
agrees with a majority of our wooden cultivators.

A Pueblo del Arroyo specimen (U.S.N.M. No. 334817), its blade
more to one side, was reworked at the upper end to provide a 2¼-inch
"handle." In this respect it is reminiscent of several examples among
the series of stone "skinning knives" that Powell and Stevenson
purchased at the Hopi villages and at Zuñi in the late '70s. All belong

to the type under consideration, but several have had the apical third
reshaped, narrowed, and even grooved to facilitate attachment.

According to the collectors, these ancient stone implements had
previously been gathered from old Pueblo ruins by the Indians. Most,
if not all, were being utilized at the time they were purchased; a few
still bear traces of a blue-black pigment that suggests some ceremonial
connection. Similar pieces are conspicuous on the altar of the Antelope
Society at the Walpi Snake Dance, as Fewkes (1909, p. 39) remarks
in noting those he unearthed at Spruce-tree House, Mesa Verde
National Park.

A discoloration left by the binding thong is still plain upon a specimen
Holmes found in 1875 in a bin of charred corn in a Mancos
Canyon cliff house (Holmes, 1878, p. 407, pl. 46, fig. 3). I have seen
others with like markings and one that preserved the outline of a
round-ended shaft, flattened to fit the slight convexity of the implement.
There is no doubt in my mind, therefore, that these stone
"skinning knives" or "tcamahias" are Pueblo II-Pueblo III substitutes
for the mountain-sheep-horn blades of Basket Maker shovel
hoes. They are peculiar to the San Juan culture area although occasional
examples are reported from outside it. Some clearly were
mounted; others, broader toward the apex, may have been used unhafted
as trowels or hand mattocks for grubbing about plants.

Since agriculture was the principal industry at Pueblo Bonito, the
insignificant number of stone hoes unearthed there is astonishing.
If, as explorations elsewhere suggest, such hoes were more numerous
during Pueblo II times, we are left wondering whether Pueblo III
farmers reverted, in part, to the ancestral-type wooden digging stick
or adopted new agricultural practices. One wonders, too, whether
some of the esoteric powers attributed to tcamahias by living Hopi
were beginning to take form as early as Pueblo III.

Hyde's table of important stone objects (Pepper, 1920, pp. 363-365)
lists five "celts" which I assume, lacking textual description, to be
implements of the type under discussion. Two sandstone blades,
shaped by percussion, are illustrated as hoes (ibid., p. 67).

Another Pueblo Bonito fragment (U.S.N.M. No. 335626) is mentioned
at this time, not because it is part of a proved agricultural tool
but because it is grooved longitudinally on both sides in the manner
of stone long used in working the soil. The material is yellowish
claystone with jasperlike qualities; the blade is unusually sharp and
only 1⅛ inches wide. Hoes of the type we have been considering are
broadest at the cutting edge, but the sides of our fragment slope outward
at angles that would give a butt-end width of 1⅞ inches if the

implement were 6 inches long. The fragment was found in Room 318,
adjoining Room 323 whose rubbish fill was dominantly Old Bonitian
in character.

The men of Pueblo Bonito were farmers. They drew their living
from the soil. They had a few simple wood and stone tools—all they
really needed. Their annual aim, as with present-day Pueblos, was
to harvest each fall a year's supply of maize and other plant products
and have a small surplus for storage against the uncertain future.
Farming was their livelihood but, like most farmers still, each welcomed
the diversion of a little hunting now and then.

IMPLEMENTS OF THE CHASE

No group activity affords a Pueblo man more pleasure, more genuine
fun, than a rabbit hunt. The mere announcement of it excites the
whole village with anticipation. At the appointed hour a couple of
dozen or a couple of hundred men and boys trot out across the valley
to surround an indicated area and then gradually draw together to
encircle a confusion of jack rabbits and cottontails and strike them
down with clubs or rocks as they seek to escape. It is an occasion
vibrant, electrifying, with action. It is a sportive occasion providing
that in which the Pueblo most delights: a communal enterprise with
its accompaniment of friendly banter, jesting, and exuberant good
humor. A surround also provides an audience for display of individual
agility and skill.

In 1597 or thereabouts members of Oñate's army were invited to
participate in a Zuñi rabbit hunt (Espinosa, 1933, p. 168). Another
was described by Fray Alonso de Benavides in 1630 (Ayer, 1916,
p. 38). Lummis (1908, pp. 54-67) pictures the excitement of a
surround at Isleta about 1890, while Parsons (1932) shows the close
connection between rabbit drives and certain Isleta ceremonies.

Both cottontail and jack-rabbit bones were plentiful in the rubbish
heaps at Pueblo Bonito. Thus, since hunting was rarely a personal
adventure, we may be confident rabbit hunts were periodically organized
at Pueblo Bonito as at other villages, before and since. We found
no trace of trap or net; no fragment of a throwing club such as the
Hopi employ (pl. 12, right).

From occupational debris we also recovered the bones of diverse
other animals and of birds. Some of these creatures were killed for
food while others were hunted only to fulfill ceremonial requirements.
Beaglehole (1936) ably differentiates between Hopi ritual hunting
and mere quest for meat. Current Hopi practices are patterned on
those of the past. Thus we shall not go far astray if we guess that the

Bonitians also hunted deer and antelope by the surround method and
by running the animals to exhaustion and then choking or smothering
them. Birds whose feathers were needed for prayer sticks were
trapped, not shot.

Old Wello (see pl. 3, left) told me the Navaho formerly had an
antelope corral on Escavada Wash east of the Farmington road.[2] We
can never know whether the Bonitians likewise drove antelope into a
pen for slaughter, but we do know they killed an occasional pronghorn.

Hosteen Beyal, nonagenarian (pl. 3, right), stopped off in Chaco
Canyon one late summer's day in 1927 on his way home from a squaw
dance. At expedition expense I furnished the mutton, crackers, and
canned peaches that induced him and a dozen relatives to spend the
night with us. But after supper, when cigarettes were passed, the
old man was too sleepy to talk. I learned only that he first crossed
Chaco Canyon when, as a boy of ten, he and a sister had followed his
father's pack horses on foot from the Orejas del Oso,[3] driving the
family's five sheep.

Yes, then and later he had seen lots of game in the Chaco country.
He had killed lots of antelope, and deer, and elk, and a kind of deer
with big feet that runs like a horse and draws a sled, and caribou, and
musk oxen—a complete recital, with details as to gait, manner of
carrying the horns, color, feeding habits, etc., of all his grandchildren
had told him of lessons learned from school geographies.

Deer, elk, pronghorn, and mountain-sheep bones were among those
unearthed in the trash piles of Pueblo Bonito. These animals were at
home within a few days' foot journey from Chaco Canyon. We may
be sure their range and habits were known and that hunting parties
periodically set forth at the proper season and after prescribed prayers.
We may be reasonably certain that Bonitian hunters, like Hopi and
Zuñi hunters a couple of generations ago, occasionally utilized game

pits and corrals but depended in larger measure upon their own ability
to outrun their intended victims. They practiced both provident hunting
and ritual hunting. In the latter case, no implement that might
injure the hide or cause external loss of blood was permitted.

When killing for food, hunters relied chiefly upon the bow and
arrow. An arrow capable of bringing down a deer could as easily kill
a man. We found in Pueblo Bonito arrowheads of diverse shapes and
sizes but no fact to support the popular belief that bows and arrows
used in warfare differed from those carried on the chase. As we know
them historically, the Pueblo tribes are essentially peaceful; their wars
were in large measure defensive.

Bows.—Our estimate of Bonitian bows must rest upon two specimens.
Both were found in Old Bonitian storerooms and are made
from Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga taxifolia) (pl. 71, a and b).[4]

The first, a, with several inches missing, measures 5 feet 3 inches
long; at the grip it is 1[fraction 3 by 16] inches wide and three-fourths inch thick.
Nearly half an inch has been cut and abraded from the back to leave
it transversely convex throughout. This curvature is very slight, and
the grain of the wood is so uniform a splinter three-fourths the entire
length came off with the missing tip. The remaining end is not nocked;
there is no trace of wrapping, incising, or painting of any kind. The
maker shaped his bow to place the heartwood at the belly; the stronger
sapwood, at the back.

Both belly and back were carefully abraded and smoothed, but the
hand polish that comes with use is lacking. One wonders whether
this bow might have been broken just as it neared completion; whether
it was thereafter thrust between the ceiling poles of Room 298 to
await the reshaping that never came. If its two limbs were reduced
equally from the middle, then 10 or 11 inches are missing from the
broken end. A 6-foot bow would be very unusual in the Pueblo
country. Twenty-two Zuñi specimens in the U. S. National Museum
average only 35¾ inches.

The second example, b, likewise was so shaped that the sapwood
lay at the flattened back. Its maximum width was also 1[fraction 3 by 16] inches;
maximum thickness, fifteen-sixteenths inch. If this area of maximum
width and thickness be taken as the handgrip, not otherwise delimited,
then the bow originally was about 58 inches long. On the other hand,
if both limbs were reduced uniformly from the middle, only 11 inches
are missing at the broken end. This would give an original length of
but 55 inches, or 18 inches less than the assumed length of a.

The remaining tip of this specimen was broken off at what is believed
to have been the bowstring notch. No trace of ornamentation
or reenforcement is visible. The fragment was found among the
wreckage in Room 320 but not positively associated with either of
the 10 females buried there.

Relatively few data are available on comparable Pueblo bows. Pope
(1923, pp. 352, 391, pl. 52, fig. 3) describes one of juniper 4 feet
9½ inches long from an unknown cave ruin in Arizona or Colorado.
It is slightly reflexed at the handle and bound with buckskin, from the
edges of which red woodpecker feathers protrude. The limbs are
wrapped at short intervals. Width at the grip, 1[fraction 5 by 16] inches; thickness,
three-fourths inch.

An article by Stanley Wood in the Great Divide, February 1891,
reprinted by C. H. Green in the "Catalogue of a Unique Collection of
Cliff Dweller Relics" for his exhibit later that same year at the Art
Institute Building, Chicago, describes a male skeleton found by the
Wetherill brothers in Mancos Canyon, Colorado, and with it a broken
bow "of great strength, 4 feet 8 inches long and wrapped with sinews."
The partly wrapped end fragment of a cedar specimen from Aztec
Ruin is noted by Morris (1919a, p. 60).

Guernsey (1931, pp. 99, 107) describes a 5-foot Pueblo I bow with
sinew- or hide-wrapped handgrip and a 4-foot-6½-inch Pueblo III
bow, also bound with sinew or hide at the handle. Both specimens are
from northeastern Arizona cave ruins but the second, unlike the first,
is flattened on the back and notched at the ends for a string. An
unbound bow from Heaton Cave, on the east slope of Mount Trumbull,
northwestern Arizona, measures 4 feet 5½ inches (Judd, 1926,
p. 148).

A most unusual sacrificial deposit of bows and arrows was found
in a small cliff house on the Middle Gila, New Mexico, and described
by Frank C. Hibben (1938a). In the lot are 94 bows, all broken but
two. They vary considerably in cross section and in length. The
longest is just under 5 feet; the shortest, just over 3. Average length
is "close to 4½ feet." Sixteen retain some of their original decoration,
chiefly encircling red and black painted bands. None preserves evidence
of leather handgrips. Oak appears most frequently in the series,
but pinyon, pine, willow, mountain mahogany, and sycamore are also
present.

From these comparative notes it is clear that our two Pueblo Bonito
specimens are quite in keeping with bows from other southwestern
ruins. The fact that they bear no evidence of sinew binding and no
trace of ornamentation or handgrip demarcation is not exceptional.

Only one point remains in doubt—my estimate of over 6 feet for the
length of a. That figure may be a few inches too long.

Part of a third bow (U.S.N.M. No. 335258) came to light while
we were freeing Room 6 of its 25-year accumulation of blown sand.
The fragment is 3¼ inches long by eleven-sixteenths inch in diameter.
It comes from one end of the handle and shows that the latter remained
round and unaltered while the belly of the limb was cut away
to its heartwood.

Our specimens from Rooms 298 and 320, it will be recalled, were
rounded to the heartwood on the belly and flattened on the back from
tip to tip. These two have been identified as Douglas fir while the
fragment in hand looks like willow. There is not much resilience in
willow, and for this reason I am inclined to regard the fragment as
the remnant of a boy's bow.

Boys' bows (?).—A perfectly preserved bow from Turkey Cave,
Segi Canyon, is described by Guernsey (1931, p. 107) as probably
that of a child. It is 3 feet 10 inches in length by five-eighths inch in
diameter at the grip. The latter is sinew-wrapped, and there is another
wrapping midway of one limb.

Indian boys are generally given bows and arrows almost as soon as
they learn to walk. As they grow older, better implements are provided.
At Zuñi I once saw three youngsters, the oldest not over six,
intently stalking a neighbor's chickens. Whether they imagined their
quarry deer or Navahos, they were plainly out for the kill. Adults
still place an occasional small wager on their marksmanship; hunting
rabbits with bow and arrow is still common among elders as well as
adolescents.

The four bows, fragments of which are shown as figures a-d,
plate 72, presumably were made for as many small boys. Measuring
17 to 22 inches, the fragments represent bows that probably were
between 35 and 40 inches long when complete. All are of oak, species
undetermined.

The first three (a-c) were fashioned from selected shoots that
required only a minimum of abrading and knot leveling, while d was
slightly flattened front and back. None is notched at the tip but a
short section of sinew bowstring was wrapped around a when found.
On the next, b, five longitudinal grooves were scratched on the surface
with interruptions at unequal intervals forming plain encircling bands.
The imprint of a fine, hard-twist thread 2½ inches from the tip evidences
reenforcement. The unbroken end of this specimen is stained
red, while a and d bear an over-all black dye.

On c, at what is probably one margin of the handgrip, a scrap of

tule leaf clings to the wood as the mark of a finely twisted string
circles the shaft four or five times. A like imprint is noted midway
between handle and tip. A tule grip wrapping, bound at the edges with
sinew, is the dominant feature of d, but the mark of an encircling cord
is also to be seen, 1 inch from the tip. These cord imprints suggest
that the bows were made of green wood.

The fragment illustrated by figure 66 had been abraded along its
belly until the hearting lay exposed. Its back was flattened just enough
to give an oval cross section. The fragment is three-eighths inch wide,
less than one-fourth inch thick, and 18 inches from end to end. Along
its length seven sinew wrappings are evident. That at the tip binds
half an inch of yucca thread, double-knotted at each end. Adjoining
this feature a section of 2-ply sinew bowstring circles the shaft four
times and leaves a frayed end projecting.

Fig. 66.—Fragment of a small boy's bow.

The sinew wrapping next below, 2½ inches from the tip, likewise
binds a knotted yucca string to the back of the bow. In this case,
however, the string is a double one, each part consisting of two 4-fiber
threads twisted together and the two parts then twined to form a
single cord 1¼ inches long and knotted at the bound end. At the
opposite or free end the two parts separate, each bearing a compound
knot. One of these knots still holds sections of three, possibly four,
tiny quills. Since its companion knot and the pair at the tip are all
open longitudinally, we may assume they also formerly held feathers.
If we reverse our analysis and begin with the four compound knots,
their significance becomes clear—each represents a prayer plume attached
to the bow by its maker to guide and protect the youthful
hunter he favored.

Now it so happens these five "boys' bows" are the only ones of their
kind we recovered at Pueblo Bonito. All five were found among the
collapsed and partly burned ceiling timbers of Room 209A. These
timbers lay upon stratified sand that had previously washed in and
accumulated to a depth of 18 inches across the east end of the room,
diminishing toward the west. Beneath the sand were two discarded
manos, a hammerstone, part of a doorslab, and a handful of potsherds.
With the bow fragments were the pieces of reed arrowshafts next to
be considered and several curved sticks such as those described on
page 271. All probably had been thrust between the ceiling poles,
forgotten and left there when the room was abandoned and sealed.

Arrows.—Six fragments of reed arrowshafts were found with the
broken bows in Room 209. Four preserve the forward part of the
shaftment including a sinew wrapping one-fourth to three-eighths inch
wide binding three quills. None retains the proximal end intact. The
longest, measuring 21¾ inches, has a crushed rear end, but half of it
is present and without evidence of a nock. Its forward feather binding
lies 4¾ inches from the butt, and there is no trace of other binding
between. So it is possible an inch or more has been detached here.
The distal end is square-cut one-fourth inch below a node; since the
latter is unperforated it could not have held a foreshaft. For all six
specimens, the lower end of the growing reed was deliberately chosen
as the distal end of the arrowshaft. Diameter ranges from a trifle
under to a trifle over three-sixteenths inch.

From Late Bonitian rubbish in Room 226 seven other fragments
were recovered (U.S.N.M. No. 335198). Two are butt ends onefourth
inch in diameter. Both are tightly fitted with a wooden plug,
five-eighths and seven-eighths inch long, respectively; both are nocked
through wood and reed; both had been reenforced by a sinew band
three-eighths and three-fourths inch, respectively, from the end. Two
of the remaining five fragments are rat-tail ends of wooden foreshafts;
three are distal ends of arrows still holding part of the foreshaft. Two
of these latter measure one-fourth inch in diameter; the third, fivesixteenths
inch. All five pieces of reed shaft retain a more or less
conspicuous coating of green paint, applied before the sinew binding.
The one complete foreshaft tail is exactly 2 inches long.

Another arrowshaft fragment came from the rubbish fill of Room
255 (U.S.N.M. No. 335199). It is fitted with a nocked wooden plug,
is one-fourth inch in diameter, and painted red forward of the rear
sinew wrapping. A warped wooden foreshaft fragment from Room
226 measures 9⅝ inches in length and one-fourth inch in diameter at
the shoulder (No. 335201). At least an inch is missing from the tip,
so we may guess from its length alone that it once carried a chipped
point. Its tail is 3½ inches long and, like the others, appears to have
been coated with a resinous substance.

In figure 67 we illustrate a fragment of reed arrow with hardwood
head. From the tip of the latter to its shoulder is 3[fraction 11 by 16] inches; from
shoulder to end of broken tail, 2[fraction 3 by 16] inches. The head fits tightly and
smoothly into a shaft five-sixteenths inch in diameter; between the end
of the shaft and its first node is a 1-inch band of green paint. To
prevent splitting, the shaft was probably reenforced midway of this
painted zone, although traces of sinew binding are uncertain.

Wooden arrowheads were widely used throughout the ancient

Pueblo territory and no doubt were present at Pueblo Bonito
in larger numbers than our data indicate. We recovered
but the single example described above. Pepper
(1920, p. 160) mentions four, all from Room 32 but quite
detached from a large lot of arrows standing in the northwest
corner, at least 81 of which were provided with foreshafts
and stone points. The average over-all length of
these is given as 77 cm. (30.3 inches).

Nordenskiöld (1893, pl. 42, fig. 1) illustrates an arrow,
complete with feathers and hardwood point, from Ruin 9,
Mesa Verde. Morris (1919a, p. 59) figures a similar specimen
32½ inches long from Aztec Ruin. Kidder and Guernsey
(1919, p. 122) report that a majority of the wooden
foreshafts they collected in northeastern Arizona ruins in
1914 and 1915 were plain, unnotched for stone points.
Hibben (1938a, p. 38) counted only 11 notched foreshafts
out of some 4,000 from a cave south of the Gila Cliff
Dwellings National Monument, southwestern New Mexico.

Thus the longest arrowshaft fragment from Room 209,
even with its proximal end restored, was too short and too
light in weight for other than one of the boys' bows it accompanied.
Diameters of one-fourth and five-sixteenth
inch were more representative of adult hunting arrows.
As to length, we have Morris's 32½ inches and Pepper's
average of 30.3. The arrows, perhaps a quiverful, interred
under the hips of Skeleton 10, Room 330 (pl. 98, lower),
were too far gone for detailed examination but at least 16
had wooden foreshafts and stone heads. If wooden points
in lieu of foreshafts were present, they were not noted.

Our data therefore indicate that Bonitian hunting arrows
were provided with basal plugs to prevent splitting; that
shafts probably were scratched lengthwise with "lightning"
lines; that feathering was attached by binding rather than
by gluing; that green or red paint was applied to the shaft
ends prior to their reenforcement by sinew wrappings, and
that the great majority were finished with hardwood foreshafts
tipped with stone heads.

Projectile points.—Although a more meticulous student
might recognize others, I see in the arrowheads from
Pueblo Bonito only two principal types: (A) Those
notched at right angles to the long axis of the blade, and
(B) those notched at an angle of about 45°. Since notches

Fig. 67.—
Wooden
arrowhead.

were provided to facilitate lashing the point to its shaft, it is reasonable
to suppose an individual archer would come to favor one type or the
other. But we happen to know that, in one instance at least, arrowheads
of both forms found place in the same quiver.

When the population of Pueblo Bonito had been reduced to a mere
remnant stubbornly clinging to its ancestral home, the attacks of
enemy raiding parties were less successfully met. Room 330, among
others, became a sepulcher for those denied the companionship of clan
burial places. One of those entombed here was the middle-aged
warrior last mentioned (pl. 98, lower). He had been slain somewhere
about the village, and his body, horribly grotesque in death, received
belated interment. His quiver was buried beneath him, and although
the reed shafts of his arrows had almost wholly decayed, the points
with which 16 were tipped are available for our present study (pl. 73,
A). Four of the 16 are notched at right angles to the median line; the
remainder, at divers angles from the basal corners. Here was a man
who obviously preferred points of our second type, although he had
no scruple about using the other in time of need.

Between the outspread knees of this same warrior, and perhaps as
a tribute to his prowess, was a burial offering of 28 arrowheads
arranged in triangular pattern. These may have been contributed by
relatives who participated in the burial rites, or, with equal probability,
they were unmounted points belonging to the deceased. In either case,
the broadest of the series (pl. 74, B), that with the serrated edges,
duplicates both in shape and in material two of those from the dead
man's quiver. Nearby, beneath the right knee of a headless skeleton
(No. 9), were eight other points, as like as peas in a pod (pl. 74, A).

These three lots accompanied late burials in the older section of
Pueblo Bonito. The builders of this section were ultraconservative,
as we have seen especially from study of their architecture and ceramics.
Their natural tendency would be to retain the ancestral form
of arrowhead. That they were eventually influenced by arrowmakers
among their neighbors is possible; that they occasionally used the
product of these latter is reasonably certain. And this naturally brings
up the question: Did each of the two unrelated peoples inhabiting
Pueblo Bonito have its own preferred type of projectile point?

In an attempt to answer this, I have examined all specimens in our
collection with special reference to the constructional period of the
rooms from which they were actually recovered. Of the 317 in hand,
31 are fragments that cannot positively be identified as to type, 7 are
reworked points without notches, and 91 were exposed during trenching

operations and the removal of debris. The remaining 188 arrowheads
were distributed as follows:

     

Masonry type	1		2		3		4
Classification	A	B	A	B	A	B	A	B
Number of points	31	59	2	4	66	12	14	0

From these figures it is plain that points notched at right angles to
their long axis (A type) occurred most frequently in rooms of thirdperiod
construction; that 79 percent of all class-B points were recovered
from dwellings of first-type masonry. If our separation be
based on the character of any debris present rather than the stonework
of the room containing that debris, we find that 75 percent of all
A-type points and 24 percent of the B's came from Late Bonitian
rooms and rubbish. There may or may not be significance in this
distribution, but it explains an impression which prevailed throughout
our explorations that barbed points were more closely associated with
the older, more primitive element in the local population.

This impression has since found support in the writings of other
observers. At Pecos, which welcomed Coronado in 1540, the typical
arrowhead was small, triangular in shape, with notches at right angles
to the long axis, and an expanding stem as wide as, or wider than, its
shoulders (Kidder, 1932, p. 20). At Aztec, which fell into ruin a
century or two before Pecos was founded, 275 out of 300 arrowheads
were of the "square-shouldered" type with side notches (Morris,
1919a, p. 34). In his investigation of a Basket Maker III site in
Chaco Canyon, Roberts (1929, p. 139) observed that "the characteristic
and predominant form of arrowhead was one with long, sharp
barbs." If further proof were needed as to the relative ages of these
two classes of projectile points, it is to be found at Kiatuthlanna,
eastern Arizona, where Roberts recovered arrowheads of our A type
from the principal ruin, of Pueblo III age, and B-type points only
from underlying Pueblo I pit houses (Roberts, 1931, p. 159).

How, then, can we account for the fact that both types were present
in the quiver of the middle-aged warrior from Room 330? Twelve of
the 16 are barbed, and 8 of the 12 are conspicuously broader, heavier,
and more deeply notched than the majority of their class throughout
the ruin. The four notched at right angles to their median line possess
convex or inverted triangular bases—a feature of all A-type points
found with burials in Room 330.

The sacrificial offering of 28 arrowheads accompanying this warrior's
body likewise includes both forms. Those of A type vary in

length from 1.19 to 1.75 inches; in width, from 0.47 to 0.57 inch; in
weight, from 1.31 to 1.53 grams. The B-type points have a variation
of from 1.13 to 2.03 inches in length, 0.44 to 0.87 inch in width, and
from 0.74 to 2.34 grams in weight. Considered together, the second
group averages slightly longer and heavier than the first; and, as noted
above, 76 percent of our B points came from Old Bonitian rooms and
debris of occupation. Thus it does seem as though the two peoples inhabiting
Pueblo Bonito really had preferences as to shapes of projectile
points and that the conservatives in the course of time came partially
to adopt, perhaps to imitate, the more slender, side-notched
variety favored by their coresidents. Both peoples used the available
suitable rocks—flint, chalcedony, jasper, and obsidian—without
partiality.

Our A points could be separated into two classes. The chief reason
they are not is because the two merge into each other; it is impossible
to say where one ends and the other begins. Half of the A points from
Late Bonitian rooms and rubbish have more conspicuous stems than
those, for example, from Room 330. They are smaller and more
delicate; their tangs are squared and jutting rather than retreating.
Twenty-seven of them average 1.04 inches in length, 0.5 inch in width,
and 0.26 gram in weight. Whether the base be straight, concave, or
convex, the broader stem results in an arrowhead very close to, if not
identical with, the dominant type at Aztec and one of the Pueblo III
varieties at Kiatuthlanna. Both these ruins possess Chaco Canyon
affinities and both are younger than Pueblo Bonito.

As is always the case, our collection includes a number of projectile
points that do not fit readily into our classification. Most of these are
no more than chance variations of the two principal forms—aberrancies
due to accidents in the chipping process. Misdirected pressure
of the flaking tool, for example, or a microscopic flaw in the stone
could force changes in the intended shape of an arrowhead without
causing its complete abandonment. If, for example, one tang of figure
c, plate 73, B, had been broken during the course of manufacture, the
natural reaction would have been to reduce the other proportionately
and finish the point with a smaller stem—the reaction natural to me,
that is; I can only guess at what the Indian maker of that point would
have done. But most of our odd forms could be the product of just
such minor alterations.

As further evidence that even Bonitian craftsmen sometimes let
their minds wander from the task in hand, we have two points with
forward-slanting notches (pl. 73, B, fig. d). Irrespective of direction,
a shift of only one-sixteenth inch in notch placement gives a point an

entirely different aspect. Six B-type points have serrated edges; 12 of
A type have one to five secondary notches on one edge, but only one
(fig. f) is notched on both sides. These variations do not, in my
opinion, warrant the setting up of separate types. And the series as
a whole offers no support for the popular belief that the ancient
Pueblos had one kind of arrowhead for hunting, another for war.

Despite the recurrent attacks of hostile raiding parties, only one
human bone with an arrowhead actually embedded in it was recovered
at Pueblo Bonito (fig. 68). This is a third lumbar vertebra belonging
to one of the disarticulated skeletons in Room 330. The arrow had
entered the body from above, slightly forward and to the left, as if

fired from an elevation while the victim was in the act of drawing his
bow for an upward shot. And the point with which that fatal arrow
was fitted is of fine-grained quartzite, a material common at Aztec
Ruin but infrequently represented in our series of A-type projectiles
and by only two examples in those of class B. Since the blade is
broken at the neck we may not be positive as to its notching, but I
believe this to have been at right angles to the long axis.

Finally, there is a single bone arrowhead, from Late Bonitian rubbish
in Room 334 (fig. 69). Its tip is splintered and one of its barbs
broken and reground. The piece has the curve of a dog ulna, and as
a projectile point it probably had little accuracy. Nevertheless, it
reminds one of a sentence in Coronado's letter of August 3, 1540, to
the Viceroy: "And . . . I send you samples of the weapons with
which the natives of this country fight, a shield, a hammer, and a bow
with some arrows, among which there are two with bone points, the

like of which have never been seen . . . [by Coronado]" (Winship,
1896, p. 563).

Wrist guards protect the wrist from the lash of the released bowstring.
They are used by bowmen the world around. Materials naturally
differ from country to country but in the Pueblo region of the
southwestern United States tubular sections of bone were preferred.

Fig. 69.—Bone
arrowhead.

At Hawikuh, Hodge (1920, p. 126) found six
guards on the wrists of as many skeletons. In each
case the guard consisted of bone tubes an inch to an
inch and a half long fastened side by side in numbers
varying from 6 to 18. Morris (1919a, p. 42) mentions
a desiccated body from southwestern New
Mexico, on the left wrist of which was a leather
bracelet with a pair of bone tubes fastened to it.

In the rubbish of Pueblo Bonito we unearthed
numbers of sections of hollow bird and mammal
bones. They are considered herein as bone beads, the
most likely function of the majority, but some may
at one time have been sewed to a band of cloth or
tanned skin as a wrist guard. Others, like them in
every outward respect, unquestionably were designed
as bird calls (see Hodge, 1920, p. 128).

WEAPONS

The sample of Zuñi weapons Coronado sent from
Hawikuh was not quite complete. He should have
added half a bushel of assorted rocks and cobblestones.
For rocks were one of the chief defensive
weapons of the Pueblos, as Coronado himself had ample reason to
know. Twice during the assault on Hawikuh he was floored by rocks
thrown from the housetops and was saved only by his steel helmet
and the prompt action of his army master (Winship, 1896, p. 557).

When a company of Spaniards under Vicente de Zaldívar stormed
the stairway to Acoma in January 1599, according to witness Pérez de
Villagrá (Espinosa, 1933, p. 236), the defenders "sent down a shower
of arrows and stones . . . a veritable deluge of stones, clubs, and
arrows." Some 250 years later the inhabitants of Mishongnovi turned
back a Navaho attack by identical means (Bourke, 1884, p. 310).

Wherever we find record of Pueblo hostilities during the Spanish
colonial period and later, only three weapons are mentioned: arrows,
rocks, and clubs. Arms could scarcely be simpler. Thus there is only

the remotest possibility that Bonitian weapons differed, either in complexity
or variety, from those Coronado seized at Hawikuh. We
have already examined the remains of bows and arrows from Pueblo
Bonito; we know the local supply of sandstone spalls was unlimited.
Let us now turn to evidence of other weapons.

Clubs.—With a willow wrapped once around and extended to form
a short handle, a grooved cobble was effective either in offense or
defense. The lower three illustrated on plate 24, c, are igneous rocks,
varying in weight from 8 to 16 ounces. The lesser end of one has been
slightly modified by pecking, but otherwise it and the other two are
quite unaltered except for the encircling groove. Castañeda and other
chroniclers of the Conquest period testify that the Pueblo warrior,
armed with a cudgel, was an antagonist to be respected in close combat.
Wooden clubs have been found in pre-Spanish ruins throughout
the Pueblo area and no doubt a hafted ax, maul, or grooved cobble
proved an effective substitute upon occasion.

As mentioned elsewhere, the fragment shown as figure e, plate 71,
could be part of a club as logically as the handle of a planting stick.
Indeed, its slender, flexible shaft, its flattish head, and the fact that
it is of a fine-grained, dark, heavy wood rather than oak, all weigh in
favor of the first possibility.

Pepper (1920, pp. 161, 199) reports from Room 32 and the second
story of 39b, respectively, an elk-antler club and one of elk bone. The
former is 19 inches long with a hole for a thong drilled through the
smaller end. Most of such specimens probably were used without
embellishment but in the American Museum of Natural History,
exhibited as from Cave 30, Allen Canyon, Grand Gulch, Utah, is a
superb elk-antler club (H-13397) having a rounded butt, a long yucca
wrist cord, and a buckskin-covered handgrip.

Daggers (?).—The longer, straighter bone awls like figure d2, plate
33, are sometimes described as "daggers." They could have been so
used, of course, but nowhere do I find convincing evidence that the
Pueblos ever employed such an instrument. Daggers do not appear
on Spanish lists of Indian weapons. The Pueblos were close fighters
but not close enough for stabbing.

Spears (?).—The Coronado expedition in 1540 had opportunity to
become acquainted with every instrument of warfare known to the
Pueblos. Therefore, what the narrators of that expedition failed to
mention probably did not exist at the time. Castañeda includes neither
daggers nor spears in his enumeration of Pueblo arms.

Blades of the size illustrated on plate 28, whether notched or unnotched,
are popularly called "spearheads." Actually, they were knives.

The buffalo hunting tribes of the Great Plains employed spears and it
is conceivable that the eastern Pueblos, trading and warring with those
tribes, gradually adopted the weapon. In Canyon de Chelly on September
9, 1849, Lieutenant Simpson (1850, p. 108) saw a hundred or
more Navaho warriors "armed with bows and lances." But a chipped
spearhead mounted on a shaft for thrusting has never, so far as I am
aware, been found in a Pueblo ruin. Thus it seems very likely that
the illustrations in Simpson and other midnineteenth-century publications
that represent Pueblo and Navaho men armed with lances reflect
a post-Conquest borrowing from the Spanish or from Plains tribes.

From these observations we once more infer that the Bonitians
differed very little, if at all, from historic Pueblo peoples. In their
fields and on the chase they used the same implements as the latter;
they shared the same environment; their physical and economic problems
were the same; their reactions to those problems and that environment
were unquestionably identical.

When the Bonitians took to the warpath, if they ever did, they
carried clubs, bows and arrows, and shields. In defense of their homes
they used arrows, thrown rocks, and clubs. We have no historical
record, no archeological evidence, of other Pueblo weapons. Late
Bonitian shields were probably 30-inch basketry disks like those from
Canyon del Muerto, Mesa Verde, and Aztec Ruin (Morris and Burgh,
1941, p. 51).

Bows and arrows and clubs were also employed on the chase. For
ceremonial purposes animals had to be taken without external loss of
blood, but the same beasts were run down and clubbed or shot with
arrows when fresh meat was the prime objective. The Bonitians, we
may be sure, also set various snares and traps for birds and small
mammals. Feathers from diverse birds, and from different parts of
the same bird, were always taken ritually; they had prescribed places
on prayer plumes, altars, or the bodies of participants in ceremonials.
Therefore, even though our excavations disclosed no recognizable
fragment, traps of various kinds were surely made and used by the
Bonitians just as such traps are known to have been made and used
by Pueblo peoples during the past 400 years. Pueblo implements of
the field and chase have always been simple of design and limited in
diversification.