University of Virginia Library

VII. OBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS IMPLICATION

Ritual is the mainspring of Pueblo society. It is the adhesive that
binds Pueblo peoples together and holds them to the old ways. Individually
and collectively the Pueblos live their religion—or did until
very recently. Personal prayers are said daily, and offerings are made
as need be to the Unseen Forces. That the group may survive, elaborate
ceremonials are performed at stated intervals. "Their religion,"
wrote Benavides in 1630, "though it was not formal idolatry, was
nearly so, since they made offerings for whatsoever action" (Ayer,
1916, p. 31).

After 300 years, Pueblo gifts to their gods remain the same as in
Benavides' time—a song or a dance, a prayer stick or prayer feather,
and cornmeal ground with bits of shell and turquoise. The orthodox
Pueblo tosses a pinch of meal with his prayer to the rising sun each
morning at daybreak. He sprinkles prayer meal on the Kachina
dancers, on his prayer sticks when they are planted, on his fields and
his irrigation ditch; with prayer meal he welcomes the newborn and
makes a "road" for the deceased. An offering of prayer meal accompanies
every act or action that recognizes the supernatural. For the
Pueblo Indian personifies the elements and all animate and inanimate
things and these he seeks to influence in his own behalf through gifts,
including ritual and prayer.

Pueblo ceremonies are varied and often complex, but the great
majority have a common purpose: control of the weather as a means
of ensuring the health and material well-being of the community.
There are rites designed to bring rain, to check the west winds, to cure
disease and overcome magic, to win divine guidance and protection at
gambling, or on the chase, or in pursuit of the enemy. For this multiplicity
of forms and procedures, diverse materials are required—
feathers, fossil shells, prayer sticks and crooks, cloud blowers, and
stones that look like parts of antediluvian animals.

Some of these objects are so ordinary in appearance that laymen
would never suspect the occult properties that lie within; some are so
sacred that even the initiated look upon or touch them with foreboding.
Some are discarded when they have served their purpose; some are
hidden away against future need, and still others doubtless are buried
with the persons responsible for their care.

Among our Pueblo Bonito collections are a number of items or

fragments of items that were, or might have been, utilized in local
ceremonies. An occasional one has its counterpart on historic Pueblo
altars; others are so utterly impractical for any conceivable utilitarian
purpose their connection with esoteric practices may be surmised. I
shall probably never completely escape from an early training that
identified as "ceremonial" every queer or inexplicable object.

OBJECTS OF WOOD OR FIBER

Prayer sticks.—"The most important and valuable gift to the gods
is the prayer stick" (Bunzel, 1932a, p. 499). To quote Parsons (1939,
p. 270):

Prayer sticks are usually of willow and made from living wood.
Dead wood is never utilized because prayer sticks are regarded as
animate beings, as messengers. They vary in length and complexity
of dress to meet the fixed requirements of the rite with which each
kind is associated. They are specially made and are expended within
a few hours or, at most, within a few days of manufacture. For these
reasons one does not expect to find prayer sticks about a Pueblo
village, historic or prehistoric.

The sections of peeled willow shown on plate 78, figs. w and x, and
on plate 38, fig. l, might be leftovers from prayer-stick making. One
end of the shorter specimen was rubbed smooth; the other three
were left as severed, ringed about with a flint knife and then broken.

Each ritual has its own special kind of prayer stick. No two are
precisely alike, but all or nearly all require feathers—feathers from
designated parts of certain birds. Turkey feathers, and preferably

wild turkey, are utilized most frequently, yet I venture to guess that
every other bird native to the Southwest except, possibly, three
carrion-feeders—the crow, raven, and turkey buzzard—is likewise
called upon.

So great was the demand for turkey feathers for prayer-stick making
at Zuñi in the autumn of 1939 that I was repeatedly implored
during a 2-hour visit the week before Thanksgiving to mail a quantity
from the butcher shops of Gallup—"any kind of turkey feather."

Parrot and macaw feathers likewise were urgently needed. The
truly handsome bird I gave the Macaw clan in 1924 was still alive,
but it had been pretty thoroughly plucked. Brought from an inner
room to be photographed, it protested bitterly and fluffed its ragged
coat in an effort to multiply its scant protection (pl. 75).

The bird had been presented because, without conscious selection
on our part, most of the Zuñi we took to Chaco Canyon were Macaw,
and they told me a live macaw had not been seen in Zuñi within
memory of their oldest men. The feathers they annually needed for
prayer sticks and other purposes had been purchased from Santo
Domingo where two macaws were privately owned. After plucking
feathers, my informants said, the owners professed to control the new
growth by rubbing over the empty follicles "paint" of the desired
color.[1]

The Macaw group has long been numerically important at Zuñi.
It was strong, too, at Pueblo Bonito. This is evidenced by the fact
that we recovered no less than 10 articulated skeletons and a number
of miscellaneous bones. Eight of the ten are Ara macao; the other
two, A. militaris. Three had been buried in Room 306, one lay on the
floor in the southwest alcove of Room 309, four were found under
the wreckage in Room 249, and two were exposed during the cutting
of our stratigraphic section through the east refuse mound. In addition,
three articulated skeletons were unearthed during our explorations
in Pueblo del Arroyo.

Room 249, originally one with 248, had been separated from the
latter by a rude partition and then divided by a flimsy floor introduced
at a height of 7 feet. The uppermost of the two chambers so formed,
4 feet high and entered solely from the dwelling above, had but a
single wall opening—a 11½-x-9-inch ventilator, close under the beams,
which sloped up and outward to vent at the level of the terrace surrounding
Kiva E. That ventilator, and the ceiling hatch when open,
supplied such light as reached the upper chamber. From the latter a
floor hatchway was the only means by which light and air filtered
down into the lower chamber. And yet the lower chamber was designed
and utilized as a cage for live macaws. Their excrement lay
upon the floor and upon the remains of an adobe-surfaced shelf, 40
inches wide, which had extended across the east end of the room at a
height of 3 feet 8 inches. Shelf, introduced floor, and the original
first-story ceiling had all crashed down into the lower chamber with
collapse of the second-story walls. Under this ruin, on or near the
floor, lay four articulated skeletons of Ara macao and the skull of a
fifth. One of the skeletons, in situ, is shown on plate 76, lower.

That these tropical birds had been confined some time in their dark,
ill-ventilated quarters, into which no ray of sunlight could possibly
penetrate, is evidenced by the fact that their breast bones were deformed,
the sternal keel being bent to one side, as in figure b, plate 76,
upper. From remains conspicuous among the room's debris, we know
these captives were fed pinyon nuts, squash seeds, and roasted cornon-the-cob.
This fare could scarcely cause the deformity mentioned,
but utter lack of sunlight might.

We recovered two other articulated bird skeletons—that of a redtailed
hawk, found on the floor at the south end of Room 264 (pl.
76, middle) and that of a thick-billed parrot, buried in Room 308. The
skull of a second parrot of this same species was exposed by our east
refuse-mound trench.

Since the known range of the thick-billed parrot—the pine belt in
the mountains of middle and northern Mexico[2] —is nearer than that

of the macaws, one would naturally suppose that parrots were held
captive at Pueblo Bonito more frequently than their larger cousins.
But our data indicate the contrary. Or perhaps the ceremonial importance
of macaw feathers outweighed the accessibility of parrot
feathers. At any rate, we have record of only six parrots from the
ruin—the two above mentioned and four skeletons, unidentified as to
species, found by Pepper in Rooms 71 and 78. In contrast, the Hyde
Expeditions and the National Geographic Expeditions together recovered
24 macaw skeletons, in addition to many detached bones. Of
these skeletons, 16 are Ara militaris, the green macaw which lives in
the highlands of Mexico from southern Sonora to northern Oaxaca,
while 8 are A. macao, the gorgeous red, blue, and yellow species which
ranges the hot tropical lowlands from southern Tamaulipas, on the
east coast of Mexico, southward through Central America to Bolivia
and Brazil.

Casual search of the archeological literature reveals no reference to
parrot or macaw remains from a southwestern ruin earlier than Pueblo
III. Tentatively, therefore, we may assume that Mexican buyers of
Pueblo turquoise and buffalo hides introduced parrot and macaw
feathers as a medium of exchange somewhere around the middle of
the eleventh century. To this dead plumage live birds were soon
added; we may picture them, protesting from cages on the backs of
merchants trotting the long trails across mountain and desert, just as
today we may hear other macaws complain from similar cages on
trails in southern Mexico and Guatemala.

There was nothing novel in trade between Mexican tribes and those
of the Southwest. It began in Basket Maker times or earlier; the
shortest, most feasible routes were well known. Over these footpaths,
native guides led various Spanish expeditions sent to the northwest
frontier of New Galicia in search, first, of the mythical island of the
Amazons and, later, of the fabulous "Seven Cities of Cíbola." It was
the tale of an Indian trader's son—one who had accompanied his
father into the back country to barter feathers for semiprecious stones
—that spurred the notorious Nuño de Guzman in 1530 to his conquests
northward along the Pacific coast. Six years later Cabeza de Vaca,
safe after incredible adventures, told of having seen in Indian villages
on the Río Sonora many turquoises which had been obtained, in
exchange for skins and feathers of parrots, from populous pueblos
farther north. As traders, the Opatas of Sonora were thoroughly
familiar with the Pueblo country; they probably supplied, directly or
indirectly, the thick-billed parrots and the macaws whose remains we
uncovered at Pueblo Bonito.

Including those mentioned above, the following species have been
identified among the bird bones gathered from Bonitian rubbish heaps:

• Redhead duck (Nyroca americana)

• Red-tailed hawk (Buteo borealis)

• Swainson's hawk (Buteo swainsoni)

• Ferruginous rough-legged hawk (Buteo regalis)

• Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos)

• Prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus)

• Wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)

• Sandhill crane (Grus mexicana)

• Macaw (Ara macao; A. militaris)

• Thick-billed parrot (Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha)

• Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus)

• Magpie (Pica pica hudsonia)

• Raven (Corvus corax)

Presumably these were killed or kept captive for their feathers alone,
since the Pueblos have always shunned winged creatures as a source
of food.

The only preservable feathers unearthed during our explorations
were four, from Old Bonitian Room 298 (fig. 70). They had been
tied together; the proximal half of the vane, and a sliver of quill, had
been cut away from both sides. The four are too altered and faded
for positive identification but appear to be wing feathers of the blue
macaw.

As might be expected, bones of the wild turkey were most numerous
among our avian remains—expected, because the Pueblos had tamed
this native American bird long previously. Turkey pens are frequently
associated with cliff dwellings of the ninth century and later. Spanish
writers of the Conquest period repeatedly mention flocks of turkeys
about the Pueblo villages. At that time turkey feathers were utilized
both for domestic and religious purposes. Today, when feather robes
are no longer made, turkey feathers are still indispensable as prayer
offerings.

Second numerically among the bird bones from Pueblo Bonito are
those of the golden eagle. The Hopi, according to Fewkes (1900a),
regard eagle feathers next in ceremonial importance to turkey feathers,
recognize eagle nests as clan property, take young eagles from the
nest, "purify" them by head washing, and kill them by pressure on
the sternum.

It is said that in former times the Hopi hunter tied a rabbit on top
of a brush-covered pit, concealed himself within, and seized the eagle
by a leg as it dropped upon the prey. Bonitian hunters practiced a
variation of this method by luring the bird within range and then

felling it with a club. We know this because a number of eagle and
hawk sterna in our collection have keels dented by a single sharp blow
struck more or less at right angles (figs. a and c, pl.
76, upper). Since these injuries had healed, it is manifest
the priests of Pueblo Bonito kept the birds captive
for a time, as Zuñi and Hopi priests do, and thus
assured themselves of a ready supply of feathers.

Perhaps the first recorded reference to Pueblo
prayer sticks is that of Castañeda, who observed at
a spring near Acoma a cross-shaped offering "and
many little sticks decorated with feathers around it,
and numerous withered flowers . . ." (Winship,
1896, p. 544). At Acoma today, as in 1540, "all important
occasions must be preceded by, or accompanied
with, the making and depositing of prayer
sticks. . . . They are made before all masked dances,
the solstice ceremonies, at birth, and at death, for all
important ceremonial occasions are intimately concerned
with the supernatural world, and prayer sticks
are the most formal and satisfactory means of establishing
the desired rapport with the spirits" (White,
1932, p. 69).

Prayer feathers are downy feathers, bunched or
tied individually to a string. They are offerings or
gifts to the spirits in return for an expected favorable
response to a prayer. Currently they are more widely
made and more frequently used even than prayer
sticks (Parsons, 1939, pp. 285-291). Being light and
fragile as down, prayer feathers naturally could not
survive long under ordinary conditions. We found
none in the ruins of Pueblo Bonito but, knowing at
least some of the birds captured there, we may be
sure prayer feathers were also made and deposited.

"Ceremonial sticks" is the term under which Pepper
described certain long wooden artifacts he recovered
in surprising numbers. About 375 were
standing in the northwest corner of Room 32, nearly
buried by accumulated sand. All were specially carved
at one end and gradually tapering at the opposite.

Fig. 70.—Feathers
from Room
298.

According to the nature of their specialization, Pepper (1920, p. 143)
divided them into four classes:

• 1. With two knobs, the upper one sometimes perforated.

• 2. End shaped like a bear claw.

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268





• 3. Broad, spatulate end.

• 4. Wedge-shaped, sometimes bound with buckskin and cord.

A cord was attached to the carved end of 14 specimens; pairs of small
curved sticks were tied to three. In Room 33, adjoining, about 30
more ceremonial sticks were exposed, five of them having been thrust
for safekeeping between ceiling poles (Pepper, 1909, p. 197).

Fig. 71.—Fragment
of a "ceremonial
stick."

Only the first two types are represented among
the 16 fragments unearthed during the Society's
investigations. The six illustrated by figures a-f,
plate 38, belong to type I, although a, less likely b,
apparently lacked the lower knob. Specimen e is of
special interest since it was not only hollow but
tightly fitted inside with a wooden tube whose
beveled end projects beyond the broken lower edge
of the shaft. The spool-like knob on this fragment
is the lowermost of the two that identify type I. It
is present on five of our specimens; grooved
around on four of them. The flattish end knob,
preserved in four instances, is pierced by a semilunar
hole in three cases. Only one fragment bears
visible traces of paint—green at the tip, black between
knobs (fig. 71).

Of our eight fragments in this group, five came
from a Late Bonitian storeroom. No. 202; one
each from Old Bonitian storerooms 298 and 299;
one, figure d, plate 38, from a floor repository in
Kiva N. Unfortunately, this latter fragment is all
we salvaged from a dozen or more specimens
standing in the hole. Several had knobs at or near
one end; the opposite end was rounded or somewhat tapered. Of
those measured, the longest was 15 inches but my notes fail to state
whether or not it was complete. The repository, 11 inches in diameter
by 23 inches deep, was plastered with adobe and floored with 2 inches
of shale. In the plaster of the north side, one of the sticks had left its
partial imprint.

A comparable storage place in Kiva R was lined with masonry. It
measured, inside, 8½ by 11½ inches by 29 inches deep and abutted the
face of an older bench immediately below the north bench recess.
Although empty, the vault had been closed by a fitted slab, countersunk
to floor level.

Three nearly complete examples of type-II ceremonial sticks are
shown on plate 71, figure l, and plate 72, figures e and f, and five

fragments are represented in figure 72, a-e. Each was made from a
forked shoot by cutting away one branch and flattening the other on
the inside so that it could be bent over. None of the eight has been
identified, but five look like greasewood and two may be cottonwood
or willow.

Sticks crooked at one end find repeated place on modern Pueblo
altars. They may lack the length and the "bear claw" hook of ours
from Pueblo Bonito, but they at least suggest the function of the
latter. Of 31 sticks surrounding the Antelope Fraternity's Snake
Dance altar, 15 are about one-fourth inch in diameter by 18 inches
long, bent at one end, and painted black. They represent deceased
members of the fraternity (Fewkes, 1894, p. 23). So, too, with crooks
on the altar of the Marau Society.

Voth (1901, p. 76) says: "The crook is in Hopi ceremoniology the
symbol of life in its various stages." Parsons (1939, p. 163) is more
explicit: "Crooks represent the wise old men bent with age; the long
prayer sticks, the younger unbent members." At Acoma a crook is
offered the traveler on the eve of his departure on a long journey, or
one that seems long in the experience of his relatives (ibid., p. 307).

As a sort of standard, a large crook with feathers and an ear of corn
attached is carried in certain Zuñi and Hopi ceremonies (Parsons,
1939, pp. 325, 328). Participants in races connected with a women's
ceremony at Walpi touch with the palm of their hand a crook held
upright by one of the priests (Fewkes and Owens, 1892, pp. 123, 126).
Pautiwa, chief of the Kachina gods, distributes at the Zuñi winter
solstice crooks of appointment to those who are to take a leading part
in the principal ceremonies (Bunzel, 1932b, p. 909). It is thus obvious
that crooks have a varied significance in the several pueblos but are
always symbolic.

Our eight examples of type-II sticks were recovered in three separate
rooms. Half came from two Late Bonitian storerooms, 203 and
304; half from Old Bonitian Room 320. On the floor in the southeast
corner of this burial chamber lay specimen l, plate 71; elsewhere in
the same room we found the three fragments, figures a, b, and e,
figure 72. The largest of the three is all we saved of a ceremonial
stick under the outstretched but displaced right hand of Skeleton 2
(pl. 91, upper). Fragments of like crooks were observed in the adjoining
burial room, 326.

At Zuñi, perhaps also in other Pueblo villages, new homes are
dedicated with an offering of prayer sticks and turquoise buried in the
walls. It is an old custom, inherited from the past. Quite by accident
we happened upon such an offering, including shell and turquoise,

Fig. 72.—Fragments of ceremonial staves (a-e) and three staff attachments.

where the partition separating Rooms 89 and 98 abuts the north wall
of Room 90.

Horizontal cavities a few inches square and long enough to hold
ceremonial sticks of the types under discussion were provided at time
of construction over at least three of the first-floor ventilators in the
rear wall of third-period Bonito—that wall which abuts the outer
northeast corner of Room 267 and extends thence northwest to Room
299 and southeast to 175.

Another such repository, perhaps, was indicated when the Bracedup-cliff
back of Pueblo Bonito collapsed January 22, 1941, and partially
destroyed several walls in the northeast section of the ruin.
Among the wreckage of Room 293 Custodian Lewis T. McKinney
found a type-I ceremonial stick 42½ inches long, and another inch,
more or less, missing from the tip. The carved portion of this staff,
shown in photographs kindly furnished by the National Park Service,
is like that on our painted fragment (fig. 71) except that the end knob
is more oval and its separation from the "handle" more sharply indicated.
Also, the handle is considerably longer and the disk's periphery
is shallowly concave rather than medially grooved. I do not know
whether this fine example was encased in a prepared repository or
embedded directly in the stonework.

At Mummy Cave Tower, Canyon del Muerto, Morris found our
two types paired in the corner masonry and overlapping slightly as
they extended from bottom to top of the three-story wall—"each unit
consisting of a crook and a relatively sturdy member with carved end,
to which were attached two tiny bow-shaped pieces." The two types
were also paired for placement beneath each protruding ceiling timber
of the second and third stories (Morris, 1941, p. 228).

We have no clue to the significance of the paired, bow-shaped pieces.
Pepper (1920, p. 144) reported like pairs bound with yucca cord to
three of his type-I sticks from Room 32. Those we unearthed were all
found singly. The three illustrated as figure 72, f, are from Room 202;
two others came from the adjoining storeroom, 203.

In the cases cited, it is quite evident that the "ceremonial sticks"
were ritually employed. The two types were paired in Mummy Cave
Tower and, like prayer sticks, placed under beams symbolically to
strengthen the ceiling. Other pairs were embedded in corner masonry
to bind the walls together. But the 400-odd from Rooms 32-33 obviously
were among the paraphernalia of some society, stored against
recurrent need.

Pepper's two types were widely distributed throughout the prehistoric
Southwest. Nordenskiöld (1893, pl. 42) shows seven fragments

of type I from Long House, on the Mesa Verde, and Morris
(1919b, pl. 44, f) figures one from nearby Johnson Canyon. Hough
(1914) reports both types among the amazing variety of prayer offerings
he unearthed in Bear Creek Cave, on Blue River. And Fewkes
(1898, pls. 174, 175) reproduces a number of quite comparable fragments
from Sikyatki, a Hopi village destroyed presumably in the
fifteenth century.

Only from Pueblo Bonito do we have Pepper's third and fourth
types of ceremonial stick. But neither here nor elsewhere do we find
the slightest hint as to the manner of their use. Culin's suggestion
(1907, p. 648) that all four types might have been employed for
throwing yoke-shaped billets in a game may be dismissed; so, too,
Cushing's implausible explanations as reported by Pepper (1905a,
pp. 116-117; 1920, p. 145).

Altar-stick tassels (?).—On the floor of Room 299B were a number
of what might have been tasseled attachments for altar sticks. With
them were a few dressed willows from the ceiling, corncobs, and
fragments of abraded boards, all covered by blown sand and masonry
fallen from the third story.

Of the dozen fragmentary examples saved, five are shown on plate
77. Each consists of a principal cord, coiled counterclockwise, apparently
in every instance, and crowded with short, pendent threads. The
main or belt cord may be either yucca or cotton but the fringe strands
are always yucca and from 1¾ to 2¾ inches long.

Each pendent element was made from a few yucca fibers 10 to 14
inches long, tied in the middle with a simple overhand knot, doubled
back from the knot and loosely twisted into a 2-ply string that, in turn,
was doubled over the belt cord and thrust through its own loop (fig.
73) or held in place by a running wrap stitch. The first method was
employed on three-fourths of the fragments. On all but one (fig. a,
pl. 77), the end loops lie on the outer, or visible, side of the coil.

In the second technique each 2-ply string was merely folded in the
middle and hung over the belt cord. The resultant paired strands in
one example are secured by a simple forward-two-back-one wrapped
stitch, while three others employ a more complex tie. We may also
note, in passing, that the latter three use a 2-ply main cord of yucca
fiber and an Apocynum (?) binder, while the former, now lacking its
belt cord, relies upon a cotton string for the wrapping element.

The drawing in figure 74 illustrates our most complete specimen.
Here the main cord is of loosely twisted cotton, single-ply, about 34
inches long, and diminishing in diameter for the last few inches. The
individual fringe strands, nine per inch, are attached by self-looping,

Fig. 73.—Technique of tassel tying.

Fig. 74.—An altar-stick tassel (?).

with the loops visible. Eight counterclockwise coils are bound together
by three or four cotton cords twined spokewise from the center and,
between, by irregularly spaced single stitches that tie two adjoining
coils only.

In this particular example the hole at the center is about threefourths
of an inch in diameter while for two others it is ⅞ and 1⅛,
respectively. Here the fringe strands vary from 1¾ to 2¼ inches in
length; on other specimens they may measure from 2 to 3 inches.

Whether the fringe strings be looped over the belt cord or hung
astraddle, their two ends are seldom of equal length. Always the
longer is that with the knot; the shorter invariably appears frayed.
Rarely is the knot tightly drawn. It lies at, or very near, the end of
the strand, and its sole purpose, apparently, was to hold the fibers
together for twisting. A few threads are double-knotted; many have
no knot at all.

The thought that these fringed coils might possibly have been attached
to standing altar sticks was suggested by the central hole. This
varies from three-fourths inch in diameter to 1⅛ inches on the three
specimens measurable. Among our type-I "ceremonial stick" fragments
are two with lower-knob grooves three-fourths and seveneighths
of an inch in diameter, respectively. The fringed cords, therefore,
could have been coiled about such a groove and stitched in place.
On the other hand, the hole in one specimen (c on pl. 77) is bisected
by a tightly twisted 2-ply yucca thread thrust through the several coils
and with both ends left free.

I know of but one specimen even remotely resembling these fringed,
coiled cords, and that is the "feather ornament" figured by Guernsey
from a Pueblo I cave dwelling on the lower Chinle. In this instance,
however, the looped ends of the doubled threads are tightly drawn
together in a sort of hub from which the free ends radiate. Some of
the knots still hold downy feathers (Guernsey, 1931, p. 94, pl. 49, e).

From Old Bonitian storeroom 298 we recovered fragments of other
fringed artifacts. The pendent elements on these, however, are enlarged
by at least two kinds of wrapped stitches (pl. 83, A). Furthermore,
the individual strands were doubled over the belt cord and
secured in place by twined threads.

In a related but still different specimen (U.S.N.M. No. 335340) the
bundle is composed of four or five dozen threads (apparently very fine
yucca fiber), each knotted in the middle and twisted into a 2-ply string
as in the case of the so-called tassels described above. Here, however,
there is a more complex arrangement.

Twenty-one knotted threads were gathered up and bound with

Apocynum (?) a little over half an inch from the end. Then a couple
of dozen more threads were separated into two approximately equal
lots and tied to either side of the initial bundle half an inch above the
first wrapping. A third and lesser addition was made in the same way
and followed by a fourth wrapping of Apocynum (?) fiber. The end
knots are the simple, overhand kind, sometimes doubled, and without
a trace of feather or other substance.

Altar (?) fragments.—The thin, painted pieces of wood shown on
plate 78, upper, may be from broken altar screens or tablets. Fragment
m, one-fourth inch thick and beveled toward its notched edge,

is slightly rounded at both ends as though split from a 4-inch tablet
or one shouldered 4 inches from the top. Of the remaining scraps, the
thickest measures just a shade over one-eighth inch. All are more or
less decayed, shrunken, and warped. All are painted green except b, k,
and l, which are crossed by diagonal blue lines. Paint still adheres to
both sides of all except e, h, and i. This latter, somewhat footlike,
probably is wrongly oriented on the plate since the grain of the wood
lies horizontally instead of vertically as in the others.

The green paint on both sides of a ends at the darker band near the
broken lower end. This is also true of j where that portion below the
middle of the small knothole likewise remains unpainted.

In figure 75 we illustrate two fragments bearing black designs on
the front while the rear is blackened all over. Both are three-sixteenths
inch thick with the curved edge rounded and the bottom square-cut.

The carved fragment, figure 76, is one-eighth inch thick longitudinally
through the body and half that at either edge. Our artist has
drawn the head and lower neck lighter to indicate faded orange paint.
The opposite side of the head likewise was painted orange. Pinholes

Fig. 76.—Painted
wood fragment.

for lashings are shown at the shoulders. Between
and below these, patches of green paint are represented.
It may formerly have covered the entire
body.

Some of these shaped and painted scraps could be
remnants of dance headdresses as readily as of altar
screens. All came from Late Bonitian rooms or
rubbish in the eastern half of the village.

Wooden cylinders.—When he first saw the roundended
object represented by figure 77, a, my old
Zuñi camp man pronounced it a "watermelon" such
as he plants each spring to insure a good melon crop.
Despite variation in length and diameter, the four
shown on plate 78, figures n-q, indubitably belong
in the same class. These five were all recovered
from Late Bonitian rubbish while that illustrated
by figure 77, b, which differs from the others both in
its proportions and in the character of its markings,
came from Old Bonitian debris.

The other pieces photographed may not be wholly
comparable, but they too were recovered from
household sweepings. Figure r, plate 78, is of juniper
and from near the outside of a very large tree.
The piece was dressed to cylindrical form with the
grain running lengthwise; its ends were cut at an
angle of about 30 degrees then smoothed with sandstone.
In figure t a single lightly incised line spirals
up clockwise as though the section had been rolled
once under the cutting edge of a flint knife. The
lower end of x has been cut around and then broken
off. None in the lot bears any trace of paint.

Cedar-bark torches (?).—Plate 79, A, illustrate
11 of the 13 cedar-bark bundles found side by side
on the middle floor of Room 226. At first sight they looked like a mat
or hatchway cover but with no trace of cords binding the units together.
On the other hand, our Zuñi workmen immediately identified
the bundles as "torches used in the Fire Ceremony to carry fire from
one room to another." Except the three longest, all are raveled at one

Plate 78.—a-m, Painted fragments of wooden tablets or altar screens; n-x, incised cylinders
and other objects of wood.

Plate 79

A, Cedar-bark rolls identified by Zuñi men as torches.

B, Cedar-bark bundles, probably used in ceiling construction.

A, Animal-like carving from Sinklezin, a ruin on the south cliff, opposite Pueblo Bonito.

(Photograph by O. C. Havens, 1925.)

Plate 80

B, Stone carving from Ruin No. 8. (Photograph by O. C. Havens, 1923.)

Plate 81.—Sandal-shaped tablets made of fine-grained sandstone.

Fig. 77.—Incised objects of wood.

end, but none is charred. Each was wrapped at intervals with fine
yucca-fiber string. If prepared as torches they were never used.

Pepper (1920, p. 36) reports a cedar-bark torch, burned at one end,
from Room 2.

For certain Pueblo ceremonies fires are lighted with cedar-bark
rolls not unlike ours (White, 1932, p. 95; Titiev, 1937, p. 251, ftnt.
11; Parsons, 1939, pp. 749, 766). In other ceremonies comparable
rolls are employed for lighting cigarettes or cloud blowers—rather
formidable matches, it would seem, for cornhusk cigarettes.

There can be no connection between the foregoing and bundles of
loosely wrapped, unshredded cedar bark such as those shown on plate
79, B. These two were recovered in the narrow passageway designated
as Room 250; 20 or more had been discarded in the abandoned room
next on the south, No. 247. All were somewhat flattened but varied in
length, width, and thickness. None was burned or even appreciably

smoke-stained. Hence, it is our guess these particular bundles served
as substitutes for split-cedar shakes in ceiling construction or repairs.

Rattlesnake effigy.—Among dry rubbish overlying blown sand in
the east half of Room 226 was a rattlesnake effigy fashioned from a
flattened cottonwood root (fig. 78). The root itself, irregularly constricted
as it grew, clearly suggested a snake to the finder, for the only
modification required was at the extremities: a little whittling to
point the tail, a rounded nose, and side notches to delimit the head.
Black paint covers the back and, over it, white to suggest markings
characteristic of the desert rattler. White paint is present also on the
underside of head and tail.

Hough (1914, p. 129) figures part of a snake effigy, likewise made
from a crooked root, from a cave near the head of Eagle Creek, Ariz.
Carvings or paintings of snakes appear on several Zuñi altars (Stevenson,
1904). In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, Fray
Estevan de Perea wrote of wooden pens in which the Zuñi kept rattlesnakes
for arrow poisoning—rattlesnakes that hissed and leaped
"menacing as the fierce Bull in the arena" (Bloom, 1933, p. 228). And
Hodge (1924) has described the snake pens he unearthed at Hawikuh.
Thus, among the Zuñi as among the Aztecs, rattlesnakes had a part
both in warfare and in religion.

Painted gourd rind.—The fragment illustrated as figure 79 is one
of two from the rubbish fill of Room 255. The painted design is light
green with a brown border on a red (light vertical hatching) base.
These fragments may be from a dance rattle.

OBJECTS OF BONE

Inlaid bone scrapers were regarded as ceremonial by Pepper (1905b,
pp. 185-196), and indeed it is difficult to believe such exquisite implements
were created for secular tasks. Yet, as has been explained in a
previous section, of our 20 humeri end scrapers only 4 were inlaid.
One of these was associated with a coiled basket tray, oval in shape,
accompanying the body of a woman buried in Room 326. Three other
female skeletons in the same room likewise were each accompanied
by an oval basket and a scraper made
from the humerus of a mule deer. It
is, therefore, the association of such
a scraper with an oval basket tray
rather than the fact one of the four
was inlaid, that suggests a possible
ceremonial connection.

Bone dice.—Games of chance are
played by all American Indians.

Fig. 79.—Painted gourd rind.

Most of them employ wooden or cane sticks but some tribes, as the
Arapaho of Wyoming and Oklahoma, prefer bone counters (Culin,
1907, pp. 53-55). Though such games may fill an otherwise idle hour,
they are more frequently played seasonally and with religious sanction.
For example, the 4-stick Zuñi game of sho'liwe is played ceremonially
in May to bring rain (ibid., p. 35). Similarly, ritual stick races in
spring and early summer are the means by which Hopi and Zuñi show
running water how to hurry on to waiting fields.

Bone dice, so-called, have been reported repeatedly from Pueblo IIII
ruins. Of the 16 we recovered at Pueblo Bonito, 12 are elliptical
in shape but the degree of pointedness at the ends varies considerably
(fig. 80). So, too, in cross section: eight are flattened on both sides,
while the others vary from planoconvex to concavoconvex. With one
exception (e), incised markings, if any, occur on the flatter side.

As to distribution, three were recovered from Old Bonitian debris;
five, from Late Bonitian debris and two from mixed rubbish; two
came from Late Bonitian rooms of which one had previously been
excavated; and four were miscellaneous finds. In their varied form
as in their markings these dice are indistinguishable from those unearthed
at older Pueblo ruins.

It is believed the small discoidal specimens, figures j-l, likewise were
gaming counters. The first is a little less than semiglobular; the second,
flat on both sides with rounded edge. The third example consists of a
cup-shaped section of bone having eight notches around the rim,
backed with a semiglobular, brown, resinous pellet molded to shape.

Fig. 80.—Bone dice, or gaming counters.

Fig. 81.—Bone die.

Figure 81 illustrates one of
three ellipsoidal bone counters
from as many Late Bonitian
rooms. The three are very nearly
equal in size but are marked
differently. On one of them
(U.S.N.M. No. 335138), traces
of a black substance remain in
the cuts. The encircling groove
appears on all three. Although
the bone is too modified for positive identification it has been suggested
that each is carved from the head of a bear's femur.

STONE OBJECTS AND MINERALS

In previous chapters reference has been made repeatedly to concretions,
mineral paints, and stone artifacts that for various reasons are
thought to have been connected with ceremonial rather than secular
activities. We come now to more detailed consideration of these several
groups.

Sandstone tablets.—Four thin, patiently prepared stone tablets are

illustrated in plate 27, upper. Their over-all appearance and absence of
worn areas suggest utilization in esoteric practices and this impression
is heightened by the fact that d was an accompaniment of Burial 8,
Room 326. So, too, with a; it comes from Kiva Q and is of a creamcolored
marlaceous shale quite foreign to Chaco Canyon.

From Room 23, Pueblo del Arroyo, came five remarkable stone
tablets—remarkable for their uniform thinness (average, three-eighths
inch) and superior workmanship. All are of very fine-grained calcareous
sandstone (or siltstone); all are rectangular (average 15[fraction 1 by 16] by
8[fraction 9 by 16] inches); all were broken when the ceiling and upper walls crashed
to the floor. Two are slightly discolored by smoke and one bears the
stain of decayed twilled matting.

These Pueblo del Arroyo tablets evidence skill and boundless patience
on the part of whoever made them. (They may very well be the
work of a single individual.) They were reduced to their present form
solely through abrasion. All are polished to a degree, but exhibit no
mark offering a clue to their original use. Since those of sandstone,
especially, were too fragile for any utilitarian purpose, it may be
inferred that all were in some manner employed in ritualistic observance
of the unknown clan whose maternal home stood in the southwestern
corner of that ruin.

This conjecture is strengthened by the other unusual stone and
earthenware artifacts recovered from these same rooms. Pueblo Indians
still store the ceremonial paraphernalia peculiar to each society
in dark interior rooms of the house recognized as the ancestral home
of that society. Fewkes and others have remarked the use of painted
slabs on Hopi altars, and have described the finding of similar slabs
in prehistoric ruins. (See, for example, Fewkes, 1904, pp. 104-106;
Haury and Hargrave, 1931, p. 56; Kidder, 1932, p. 96. Morris,
1919a, pp. 23-24, describes polished slabs from Aztec Ruin quite like
those from Pueblo del Arroyo.) Of our series, however, only one
(U.S.N.M. No. 334842) bears a trace of paint and that a wash of
yellow ocher on one side.

Sandal-shaped tablets are apparently restricted in distribution to
Pueblo III ruins of the San Juan drainage. The more finely woven
sandals of that period have a broad notch, or jog, at the little toe, a
feature frequently represented on the tablets. Hence the often-quoted
theory these latter were lasts on which sandals were woven. The idea
is pure fancy, of course, since the Pueblo technique of sandal weaving
required no last.[3]

The average length of the seven sandal-shaped tablets in our Pueblo
Bonito collection is 11¼ inches. All are of relatively fine-grained
sandstone, but they vary in both texture and outline. Of those represented
on plate 81, c appears unfinished since the scars of spalling were
only partly erased. The first, a, might be classed as readily with the
narrower type of rectangular tablet as with the present series. On
one of its smooth faces red paint is still discernible. Examples b and
d only remotely resemble each other in outline and workmanship yet
both came from Room 326.

The two specimens not illustrated deserve an additional word. One
(U.S.N.M. No. 335882), 9[fraction 7 by 16] by 5⅝ inches, was flaked from a thin
leaf of standstone with no effort toward elimination of surface irregularities.
The second (No. 335895) measures 13 by 6⅛ by 1½ inches and
weighs nearly 10 pounds; marks of the hammerstone still show on its
edges but both sides have been smoothed as though from long use.
We may only wonder whether these two meant just as much to local
ritualists as did those on which infinitely more labor had been expended.

Utilization of sandal-shaped stones in Pueblo III ceremonies unknown
to us, as tcamahias and painted slabs are still employed on
Hopi altars, seems quite within reason. Convincing evidence of such
use is presented by Morris (1939, pl. 145) in his description of a
painted wood sandal form from Aztec Ruin. Transversely across the
middle back is the mark of a flat stave to which the form had been
sewn and which, presumably, supported it in a horizontal position
above the altar.

Tcamahia, according to Fewkes (1900b, p. 589; 1900c, p. 982), is
a Keresan word signifying "the Ancients" and is used by the Hopi of
Walpi not only in the invocation immediately preceding the public
portion of the Snake Ceremony but also to designate a certain type of
celt, 18 of which are among the furnishings on the Antelope Society
altar. Dorsey and Voth (1902, p. 210) state that a 10-inch jasper celt
is concealed within the bundle of eagle tail feathers known as the
tiponi, perhaps the most sacred article on the altar of the Antelope
fraternity at Mishongnovi.

Tcamahias are of interest for several reasons: (1) Those used in
Hopi rituals are not made locally but are found about prehistoric
ruins; (2) as a culture trait they are apparently restricted to ruins of
the upper San Juan drainage and to small ruins rather than the great,
compound villages of the Pueblo III period; (3) they appear to have
been designed as agricultural tools; the esoteric properties with which
they are today endowed by Hopi priests have not yet been fathomed.
It means nothing, of course, that tcamahias are usually referred to
throughout the Southwest as "skinning knives."

A few examples recovered during our explorations are described on
pages 243-246 as agricultural tools. Just when they lost their original
function and became appurtenances of religion remains unanswered,
but the change probably occurred early in Pueblo III.

At the bottom of a pot-shaped storage cist dug in the compact sand
below the floor of Room 266, we found the hematite object shown in
figure 82. Its sides are smoothly polished and the corners rounded.
Although in outline it resembles one type of tcamahia, its broader end
is only slightly beveled rather than ground to a knifelike edge. It was
not a paint stone.

Except this last doubtful example,
our tcamahias are broken or battered
through reshaping rather than by
work in rocky soil. None was found
under circumstances to connect it
indelibly with ritual. And yet, as the
symbol of an ancient warrior, the
tcamahia is deeply rooted in presentday
Pueblo ceremonialism.

Sandstone cylinders.—Three cylinders
of friable gray sandstone, 4½
inches in diameter by 4¾ inches long,
grooved about the middle and
slightly convex at the ends, were
found on the bench in Kiva J (pl.
82, figs. h-j). Two comparable but
less carefully finished specimens, f, g,
lay close together on the floor and
just west of the fireplace in Kiva G.

Fig. 82.—Celtlike object of
hematite.

Neither has been burned; one (g), rather squarish, in addition to the
encircling groove is marked by crossed lines incised on each side.

Concretionary cups.—An almost spherical sandstone concretion,
unmodified except for incipient cupping, is shown on plate 82 as
figure d. Half of a similar nodule, a surface find, was hollowed out to
form a shallow mortar, figure c, and a like fragment from Room 256
had been cupped on its convex surface as though for a pot rest (fig. e).

Small sandstone concretions, naturally hollow, are occasionally recovered
from ruins of the San Juan drainage. When the cavity has
been smoothed or enlarged and external irregularities removed, such
specimens are often described as "paint cups." None of the five in
our collection bears any trace of pigment (fig. 83).

Paints of prescribed colors in traditional patterns are required for
masks and altar paraphernalia, and for the participants, in every

important Pueblo ceremony. At other times paint gives that essential
finishing touch to the toilet; frequently it forms a protection against
insects or the blistering midsummer sun.

Red was a favorite color of the ancient Pueblos as it is of their
descendants. Red oxide, reddle, limonite, hematite—any mineral that
produced a reddish mark—was paint to the Bonitians, and they probably
knew every odd corner in their arid domain where it was to be
found. They were undoubtedly acquainted, for example, with the
small deposit under the sandstone cliff about a mile and a half south
of their deserted village—a deposit that was claimed in 1923 by a
Navaho living nearby. This mercenary individual sought to profit

from the cupidity of my Zuñi workmen, but I suspect the latter proved
the better bargainers, for I saw them return beaming to camp one
Sunday afternoon with a fat kid for their frying pan in addition to a
bag of choice ocher.

Both in Chaco Canyon and out upon the northern Arizona deserts
I have often seen Navaho women, less frequently men, with faces
painted a brilliant crimson against the reflected heat of pale yellow
sand. Mention of this custom in the National Geographic Magazine
(Judd, 1925, p. 238) brought complaint from a Pacific-coast reader
as to the inadequacy of commercial rouges and an accompanying plea
for a sample of the natural cosmetics used by my Indian neighbors.
Now I am not the one to deny a lady's prayer and so I gave her what
information I could, but I never had the courage to inquire what
damage the iron-stained clays of New Mexico did to that tender
California skin.

Our Zuñi workmen coveted almost every bit of red oxide unearthed
during the excavations. Time and again I watched unseen as one of
them spat on a handy potsherd, moistened a newly found fragment of
the mineral, and with a finger daubed forehead, cheeks, or nose. The
older men usually carried somewhere about their persons a little buckskin

bag containing a thimbleful of the red powder, for use both as a
dry rouge and as coloring matter for impromptu offerings to the
Unseen Forces.

In preparing pigments for their periodic ceremonies, Zuñi priests
employ an assortment of stone mortars and pottery cups, while a large
sherd or a slab of sandstone appears to satisfy the Hopi. Like the
latter, our Bonitian ritualists were generally content to crush and mix
their paints on any handy flat-surfaced object—a rough doorslab, a
polished sandstone tablet, a jar cover, even a metate or mano. Rarely
did they go to the trouble of making special mortars. Indeed, we
found only four during the course of our explorations and two of
these came from Pueblo del Arroyo. One of the latter, with two
squared basins half an inch deep in which red and black pigments had
been mixed, was found in Room 27 along with a number of ceremonial
objects. From the adjoining chamber, Room 23, came half a
doorslab on which yellow and red ochers had, in turn, been liquidized.

Of our two Bonito paint mortars, squarish and both from kivas, one
(U.S.N.M. No. 335921) has a secondary circular depression in the
middle of its rectangular grinding surface that indicates use of a pestle.
But our excavations brought to light only five pebbles worn at one
end like pestles and neither bears the slightest trace of paint. It
appears, therefore, that the accepted practice in Chaco Canyon was to
crush or rub bits of iron-stained minerals and other ores directly upon
the stone palette where they were mixed with water, grease, or vegetable
extracts.

Any flat-surfaced stone might be utilized as a palette. We found
paint on polished and unpolished sandstone jar covers; on half a
sandal-shaped stone, and on undressed slabs chipped about the edge
to fit doorways or ventilators. Among paint stones from Pueblo del
Arroyo are two manos and part of a third stained, respectively, with
red, green, and blue. A rectangular muller of exceedingly fine-grained
sandstone (U.S.N.M. No. 334824) is coated, except the side last used
in grinding, with what appears to be organic matter.[4]

Malachite and azurite pellets, gleaned from distant copper-bearing
formations, furnished the green and blue colors we see on baskets,
fragments of gourd vessels, and bits of wood. Two-thirds of the
pieces of hematite and limonite recovered are faceted by rubbing; one
fragment of reddle (U.S.N.M. No. 335402) is drilled through as if
for a cord. Yellow occurs along with the red oxides in deposits easily
accessible from Pueblo Bonito. The old priests searched widely for

the paints required in their ceremonials, and we may guess that the
one who brought home the chunk of sulfur (No. 335645) found in
Room 320 was mystified at his inability to make a mark with it.

Kaolin, a chalklike clay, supplied white paint for symbolic designs
and a slip for pottery. Besides a number of used pieces, we recovered
at Pueblo del Arroyo three cakes of slaked kaolin molded in a bowl—
a find reminiscent of a practice among Zuñi potters noted by Mrs.
Stevenson (see page 184).

If any difference is to be noted between the mineral paints and
paint-making methods of the Bonitians and the Zuñi of 50 years ago,
it is in the latter's greater dependence upon tools and utensils. For the
most part, any flat-surfaced rock sufficed the Bonitian and he mixed
his pigment where he ground it. In contrast, the Zuñi priest preferred
a stone mortar, generally flat and quadrangular, and perhaps a small
vessel to hold the ground paint. Col. James Stevenson (1883) includes
a number of these "paint cups" in his 1879 Zuñi collection, but very
few of them retain any trace of powdered mineral today.

Two fragments of fine-grained sandstone tablets (U.S.N.M. No.
335624) were first classified as saws, and quite understandably, since
both are knifelike on one edge, thickest (one-eighth inch) at the middle.
One (field No. 1047), from Late Bonitian debris in Room 290,
bears longitudinal striations on one side and a trace of hematite; the
second (field No. 93) boasts a brown border on each side, but within
this border one face is coated with yellow oxide and the other with red.

From Rooms 2 and 32 Pepper recovered balls of red and yellow
ocher impressed with folds of buckskin bag containers; from Room
60, a large corrugated pot in which was stored a thick layer of red
oxide and, over it, a quantity of seeds (Pepper, 1920, pp. 37, 137, 221).
In Rooms 64 and 80, respectively, he unearthed a sandstone pestle
and a mortar on which geometric designs were painted. These latter
two he considered ceremonial (ibid., pp. 237, 264).

"Medicine stones" are presumably relics of ancient shamanistic
practices. They may be highly specialized and yet definitely nonutilitarian
either because of shape or material. Fossils, unusual pebbles,
concretions having some real or fancied resemblance to animal
gods or to parts of the human body, also come within this category.
Every Pueblo theurgist includes one or more such objects in his
"medicine" kit. As fetishes, concretions are still highly prized at
Zuñi for their obvious connection with the forces of creation and
hence for their power to assist the possessor in attaining a given
objective.

I was working in a deep room at Pueblo Bonito with one of my
Zuñi assistants one day when he found a cylinder of hematite that in

size and appearance was not unlike the ubiquitous lipstick of the past
few years. After holding the specimen in his palm for several minutes
my companion volunteered the belief that such objects were employed
by the Bonitians, as by his forebears until a generation or two previously,
in hunting deer. And he went on to explain that when a Zuñi
hunter discovered a fresh track he laid upon it a hematite cylinder and
at the same time offered a silent prayer to the gods of the chase. Then,
if he were of good heart, the weight of the cylinder on the deer's track
eventually so tired the animal that it could be overtaken and killed.

This account illustrates the subtle power of medicine stones, but it
does not explain the presence of four hematite cylinders (fig. 84)
side by side at the head of a middle-aged female (Burial 8) in Room

326 (pl. 95, A). No trace of pouch or other container was noted. One
of the four is worn at one end as though for paint. Two comparable
hematite cylinders were retrieved from Late Bonitian rubbish in
Rooms 246 and 251B (U.S.N.M. Nos. 335574, 335576).

Our collection includes a number of more or less specialized objects
which, if not medicine stones, may have been utilized in some of the
recurrent rituals at Pueblo Bonito. Among these is a small series of
pointed implements the aboriginal use of which is problematical. The
first three of those illustrated in figure 85 (a-c) are of travertine, a
calcite often called "Mexican onyx"; the fourth (d), of dark limestone.
The fact that this latter, more perfectly shaped and polished
than the others, was found in Kiva G means little since the chamber
had been abandoned and utilized as a dumping place for household
rubbish by those living nearby. The tapering, butt end of a similar
object (U.S.N.M. No. 335613) was recovered from an adjacent room,
266.

In November 1929, while the three travertine specimens were lying
upon my laboratory table, Mrs. John Wetherill, of Kayenta, Ariz., well
versed in the lore of the Navaho Indians, remarked that Navaho medicine
men obtain identical material through trade from near Albuquerque,
N. Mex., and scrape from it a dust which they carry in pouches

for use in certain ceremonies. Our three pieces, however, are finished
artifacts; they show no evidence of mutilation. Calcite of this character
occurs in limestone formations at numerous places throughout the
Southwest. But there is no limestone in the Chaco Canyon region.

In her monograph on the Zuñi Indians, Mrs. Stevenson (1904,
pp. 333-334) records that "a piece of banded gypsum, 2½ or 3 inches
in length, slender, round, and tapering" is employed by the leader of
the hidden-ball game, played to the rain-making Gods of War, in

Fig. 86.—Stone "knife" and worn quartz crystal.

tracing a line of powdered medicine across
the face of each player, from ear to ear,
"to insure seeing and hearing unusual or
mysterious things and sounds." This
may, or may not, be a clue to the function
of the pointed stones above mentioned.

While clearing blown sand from secondstory
Room 6 we found on the floor close
in the northwest corner an artifact of
porphyry or andesite, planoconvex in
cross section, and a quartz crystal with
worn corners (fig. 86). From Pepper's
enumeration of the objects he recovered
in this and neighboring dwellings it is
obvious that here one of the Old Bonitian
religious societies maintained its ancestral
home, the recognized storage place for its
altar paraphernalia.

Spearhead.—Among the floor sweepings
partially filling Room 325 was a
"spearhead" made from a slab of red
friable sandstone, darkened and somewhat
polished through repeated handling (fig.
87). If not an altar piece it might have
been carried in a dance, as was the 15inch,
rudely chipped spearhead of mica
schist described and figured by Stevenson
(1883, fig. 357, p. 342).

Similar to this latter in size and crudity, but probably without ceremonial
significance, is a large spearhead-shaped sandstone slab that
lay among fallen masonry in Room 202. The piece measured 21 inches
long by 8 wide and 1¾ thick. It had been shaped by coarse flaking

along the edges but, since the tip remained unmodified, the form of
the slab as received from the quarry probably gave some indifferent
mason the idea and at least momentary respite from the monotony of
wall building.

Miscellaneous stone artifacts.—Unusual pieces are the sore thumbs
of an archeological collection. There is no taxonomic pocket into

which they can be dropped conveniently. Their very uniqueness makes
them conspicuous and tempts the finder to speculation.

Like other excavated ruins, Pueblo Bonito provided a number of
strange artifacts—nameless objects whose original purpose, if any,
remains obscure. A few have already been described as "medicine
stones" because they are plainly nonutilitarian and yet evidence use.
Among those remaining is one of fine-grained sandstone, 35 inches
long, 1[fraction 15 by 16] by 2[fraction 5 by 16] inches at one end and 1¼ by 2[fraction 1 by 16] inches at the other
(U.S.N.M. No. 335932). Its sides were first dressed with stone
hammers then smoothed by abrasion. We found it, broken in two,
among a number of household utensils fallen from the upper stories

of Room 296. What possible purpose could be served by a piece of
carefully worked sandstone a yard long and two inches square?

Fossils, concretions, and oddly shaped stones have a place on certain
altars and in certain shrines of the present-day Pueblos. Except that
they are visible ties to that distant past when the world was young and
all mankind spoke a common language with the birds and beasts, we
may not fathom the significance which still attaches to such objects.
The number Pepper exhumed in the northwestern quarter of Pueblo
Bonito is abundant evidence that the Unseen Forces governing Chaco
Canyon were much in the thoughts of the Old Bonitians.

Our own explorations, on the other hand, disclosed very few fossils
and these are all shells from the Pennsylvanian and Cretaceous formations

(identified by Drs. G. A. Cooper, curator of stratigraphic
paleontology, U. S. National Museum, and John B. Reeside, U. S.
Geological Survey, as Composita subtilita (Hall); C. trilobata Dunbar
and Conrad; Linoproductus prattenianus (N. & P.); Linoproductus
sp.; Juresania sp.; Lucina sp.; Gyrodes compressa Meek; Ostraea cf.
O. plumosa Morton; Metoicoceras whitei Hyatt; and, possibly, Pteria
nebraskana Evans and Shumard). A majority comes from reexcavated
Room 6. Two have been considerably worked: the single valve
of L. prattenianus (U.S.N.M. No. 335641) is worn flat on one side
by abrasion; the fragment of Metoicoceras (fig. 88) is faceted from
rubbing and scraping. Obviously the priest who owned this ammonite
(it was found in Kiva R) regarded its medicinal properties highly
and we may readily believe that he concocted many a potent brew
from its scrapings. Similar mystic powers were attributed to a fragment
of micaceous schist, if we correctly interpret the cutting and
scraping evident on one face (fig. 89). Sections of crinoid stems, on
the other hand, show no modification at all and neither do various
calcareous nodules, pieces of stalactitic chalcedony, etc.

Among household rubbish in Room 325 was a dark, plummetshaped
object 1 inch in diameter by 1⅞ inches long, the sandstone
image of a dried Mission fig. It is ungrooved, undrilled; appears to be
a concretion but little altered if at all.

Pellets of azurite and malachite, according to our Navaho workmen,
are to be had west of the Jemez Mountains and north of Cuba. Other
minerals—selenite, calcite, galena, iron pyrites, thin flakes of mica,
etc.—probably were gathered beyond the Jemez, somewhere east of
the Continental Divide. We recovered such fragments throughout the
ruin and invariably in piles of debris. Few have been modified and
then only in an experimental sort of way. In no instance were these
minerals grouped as though part of a medicine man's bundle. A number

of drilled or grooved malachite pellets and several bits of selenite
have been described herein as objects of personal adornment. Calcite
flakes, when worked at all, commonly exhibit but one worn edge.

Water-worn quartz pebbles half an inch wide and perhaps twice as
long undoubtedly belong in this same category. They were too small
for pottery polishers. More or less translucent flakes of calcium
carbonate could be the filler from thin veins in sandstone formations;
small botryoidal masses of jasper and chalcedony could have originated
in geodes of the La Plata Mountains and so, too, faceted pencils
of crystal quartz.

Silicified wood is usually included among the concretions, fossil
shells, and miscellaneous rocks in a modern Pueblo shrine. Our excavations
disclosed both worked and unworked pieces, the former
invariably as hammerstones. A likely source of this fossil wood is
the Bad Lands of the Ojo Alamo section, north of the Escavada.
Here, too, might be one source of our quartz and jasper pebbles.

For no particular reason we include here two fragments on which
even mineralogists fail to agree. Both were found in burned kivas.
That from Kiva D, Pueblo Bonito (pl. 70, fig. a), looks like solidified

Plate 82.—a, b, Earthenware bowl and shell trumpet from a wall niche, Kiva R; c-e,
mortars made from sandstone concretions; and f-j, cylinders of soft sandstone.

A, Wrapped pendent elements thought to have adorned some religious object.

Plate 83

B, Sandstone heads believed to represent Mountain Lion, hunter of the north.

Plate 84.—Cylindrical basket decorated with a painted design in black, orange, green,
and brown.

Plate 85.—Painted bifurcated basket from Room 320, obverse (left) and reverse.

sea foam and weighs but little more. The second (b), in two pieces,
more glassy in appearance and more vesicular, was found near the
floor on the eastern side of Kiva C, at Pueblo del Arroyo.

Both these circular subterranean chambers had been destroyed by
fire and my initial thought was that the two slaglike pieces were
products of those conflagrations. Dr. W. F. Foshag, of the U. S.
National Museum, shared this impression but Drs. C. N. Fenner and
Fred E. Wright, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, were
positive the fragments originated in some distant volcano.[5]

Pepper found pieces of like substance in Rooms 10 and 38, neither

of which had been burned. Four of those from Room 10 were shaped
like arrowpoints, or parts thereof; two were white and two dark.
Pepper's conclusion, derived from blowpipe analysis, was that the
material was of volcanic origin (Pepper, 1920, pp. 59, 191).

Plume holder (?).—Among household debris dumped through the
hatchway of Kiva L was part of an unusual object, tentatively identified
as a plume holder (fig. 90). It is of fine-grained paste, apparently
rock-tempered, meticulously stone-polished, and fired to a blue-gray

in the middle. Its base, unscarred by attrition, is both longitudinally
and transversely concave; its upper surface is correspondingly convex.
While the clay was still plastic, two holes were punched through from
the end and out the top.

At its whole end the fragment is 2¾ inches wide by 1⅛ thick. The
broken end has a width of 3[fraction 1 by 16] inches and a thickness of 1⅜. Since its
length is only 2¼ inches, the fragment clearly represents less than half
the original.

From Room 80 Pepper (1920, p. 268, fig. 111) recovered a like
object with pairs of slanting holes at both ends and one side. No
description is given.

Jeancon (1922, p. 27, pl. 19), from Pueblo I or even earlier ruins in
the Pagosa-Piedra region of southwestern Colorado, reports another
example likewise with paired holes slanting up from the two ends and
one side. But his dimensions, 5¼ inches long by 1¾ wide and [fraction 9 by 16] inch
thick, indicate a specimen with less than half the width and thickness
of ours. His is the earliest example of the type known to us.

Our fragment has been designated a possible plume holder because
of its remote resemblance to the clay pedestals on Hopi altars. These
latter support crooks and other symbolic objects. Voth (1903, pl. 3, 1)
illustrates the Flute Society emblem upheld by a semiglobular base
from which at least four feathered sticks project at angles (see also
Stephen, 1936, fig. 427, p. 791). If the paired holes in our concavoconvex
specimen likewise were designed to receive small sticks the
latter would project outward only if the specimen rested on its convex
face.

Clay ball on stick.—Among the objects unearthed in Room 326, a
burial chamber, was an unfired clay ball pierced by a rounded stick,
slightly pointed at the bottom (fig. 91, a). The ball is seven-eighths
inch high with diameters of thirteen-sixteenths and seven-eighths inch.
Its upper surface is wrinkled as though the clay, while moist, had
been wrapped in cornhusk, closely gathered and tied at the neck. A
light-brown substance that may once have covered the entire ball folds
into the upper half as a shaft lining; traces of kaolin remain in the
corrugations.

In the second specimen (b), exposed as we leveled the refill in Room
48, the pin is complete and notched at the end. It extends 1[fraction 1 by 16] inches
above but does not pierce the ball. The latter is fifteen-sixteenths inch
high with diameters of fifteen-sixteenths and 1¼ inches; its paste is
noticeably granular and includes at least three conspicuous galena
crystals. As illustrated, the ball weighs 1¼ ounces. Here, again, surface
irregularities suggest molding in a rush or cornhusk bag.

EFFIGIES AND FIGURINES

Effigies doubtless were as indispensable in the religious practices of
the ancient Bonitians as they are in those of present-day Pueblos.
And if they were guarded as carefully from the uninitiated then as
now it explains why so few have been recovered through archeological
exploration.

Mountain-lion (?) heads.—One may only guess at the animal or
animals represented by the two sandstone carvings illustrated in plate
83, B. Facial features are not indicated but both have ears above a
slightly concave "face." They may be Mountain Lion, hunter of the
north. The first still bears a faint trace of red ocher, but its ears have

been battered away. Both carvings were found in Room 272 which
was partly filled with Late Bonitian sweepings. It will be noted also
that the base of each was left roughly spalled, with tool marks still
visible; that neither shows the wear and grime that follow repeated
handling and pushing about on adobe floors.

In Room 64, Pueblo del Arroyo, we found a slightly more realistic
"lion" head (U.S.N.M. No. 334876). It is smaller than the two above
mentioned but, like them, is carved from friable yellow sandstone.
A straight incised line forms the mouth; eyes are not indicated; ears
are rounded knobs. Since marks of the pecking hammer show at the
base of the neck, this head also is obviously complete in itself. Contrasted
with these, two apparent effigies from other Chaco ruins are
provided with tenonlike bodies that suggest horizontal placement in
a wall. One of them, found at Sinklezin ruin by the Griffin children
in 1925, and still in their custody at Pueblo Bonito 4 years later, is

shown in plate 80, A. The second (pl. 80, B), from Kinkletso, has
not been seen by the present writer.

Stone effigies of diverse animals are essentials on certain modern
Pueblo altars, but none known to me even remotely resembles the
sandstone heads from Chaco Canyon. These modern examples are
more nearly comparable to those exhumed on the Zuñi reservation by
Roberts (1932, pp. 147-149).

Hopi, Zuñi, and Navaho, perhaps all Southwestern tribesmen, deposit
in their corrals and grazing lands unfired clay figures of domestic
animals as prayer offerings for the increase of herds and flocks. An
entirely different concept governs the small figures of prey animals

Fig. 92.—Bird carved from
turquoise.

worn as amulets by many living Indians.
As protection against witchcraft
and evil spirits, every one of our
Zuñi workmen during seven summers
at Pueblo Bonito wore a prehistoric
arrowhead on a neck cord or attached
to his hatband.

Without description, Parsons (1939,
p. 304) refers to "the animal figurines
which guard each house" in Hopiland.
These are fed regularly, generally a
pinch of cornmeal or a crumb of bread.
"Places where the fetishes are kept
. . . are disturbed as little as possible
. . . there is always the greatest reluctance
to remove a fetish, which is some-
times left behind, but looked after, in an otherwise abandoned house"
(ibid., p. 480).

Birds.—The turquoise bird represented by figure 92 undoubtedly
had been interred with one of the bodies in Room 329. But, as was
explained on page 99, its weight (49.37 grams), its shape, and the
position of the two holes, drilled to meet half an inch above the keel,
render the figure ill-suited for use as a pendant. Furthermore, the
edge of the drilling is sharp, unworn by a suspension cord. There are
no wear facets on breast or back; the turquoise is of poor quality, pale
green and chalky. For these reasons it seems likely that the effigy
served, not as a personal ornament, but ceremonially, and in some such
manner as the four wooden birds suspended above the altar of the
Hunter Fraternity at Zuñi (Stevenson, 1904, pl. 59) or those on the
Blue Flute and Drab Flute altars at Mishongnovi (Fewkes, 1900c,
pp. 989-992).

The Hopi bird effigies just cited stand on straight sticks thrust into
altar sand, but the holes in our Pueblo Bonito specimen, as may be
seen from the angle of drilling, were never intended for leg sockets.
Rather they were the means by which the effigy was secured to something
else. Hough (1914, pp. 103-104) figures from Bear Creek Cave,
Arizona, wooden staffs with birds carved on one end and, from both
Hopi and Zuñi villages, compound wooden birds drilled through the
body for attachment at the keel.

Pepper (1905b; 1909) found a number of bird effigies made of
"decomposed turquoise" in Rooms 33 and 38. From his illustration
and description, they are smaller than our lone example and their
beaks thrust forward instead of hanging drowsily upon the breast.

"Frogs."—Pepper's jet frog from Room 38 (Pepper, 1905b, p.
190) and ours, from Room 336, likewise may have been objects of
religious import. However, and solely as regards our own find (fig.
20, o), placement of the suspension holes seems rather to identify the
piece as an ornament. Paired on the underside of the shoulders, these
drillings allow the figure to hang almost perpendicularly, the hind legs
a little inside of plumb. On the other hand, the four drilled holes are
not cord-worn; the back of the effigy is more highly polished than the
belly; jet is exceedingly brittle and outjutting legs such as ours possesses
were bound to be broken if the piece hung free from a neck
cord.

Human figures.—When earthenware utensils were under consideration
we included those modeled in the form of men and beasts. We
had no reason to place them in any other category. However, human
effigies in clay or stone are different. They occur sporadically in
Pueblo shrines and on Pueblo altars today although less frequently,
perhaps, than concretions with some fancied resemblance to mythological
beings or parts thereof.

At Pueblo Bonito we found only one human effigy, rudely modeled
in clay (fig. 93). Its mouth and eyes are casually gouged; nose and
breasts pinched-up. At midlength the body is 1⅞ inches wide by 1[fraction 1 by 16]
inches thick. The clay, sun-dried and readily scratched by a thumbnail,
is rather sandy and contains particles of charcoal but no visible
temper.

Clay figurines, usually female, were made by primitive peoples the
world around as a religious expression. In general they were offered
to some potent god with a prayer for bountiful crops, for increase of
family and flocks. In the Aztec-Toltec domain of Mexico, figurines
represent a fertility cult of long standing.

Throughout the old Pueblo area, modeled figurines likewise evidence

the former presence of such a cult. It had become firmly established
at least as early as the Basket Maker III period and it persisted
until Pueblo IV or later. Figurines have been reported from sites
widely separated by time and distance; their local characteristics have
been noted, in part, but the only comparative study of which the
present writer is aware is that essayed by Haury (in Gladwin et al.,
1937, vol. 1, pp. 233-242) and published just as Steward made known
his observations in northern and western Utah (Steward, 1936).

Our lone Pueblo Bonito example lacks the sophistication of Haury's
Snaketown figurines; it lacks the basal cleft and the punctate embel-

Fig. 93.—Clay figurine.

lishment of Basket Maker specimens
figured by Morris (1927, p. 153)
and Guernsey (1931, pl. 51); it
lacks the applique dress and anatomical
features to be seen on many
of the central Utah examples described
by Morss (1931, pp. 46-50)
and Steward (1936, pp. 22-28) and
it is quite unlike the Pecos figurines
illustrated by Kidder (1932, pp.
112-125). In its limblessness, its
pinched-up nose and breasts, our
Pueblo Bonito specimen resembles
some of those from Utah but it
is more rectangular, thicker and
heavier.

The basal fragment of another
possible figurine (U.S.N.M. No.
336084), oval in cross section and
rather smooth-surfaced, came from Room 288.

"A number of small crude objects of unbaked clay" found by
Pepper in the rubbish fill of Room 25, and which Cushing called "seed
offerings," included at least two figurines comparable to ours from
Room 308. Both had mouth and eyes indicated by fingernail indentations;
both had modeled breasts, and the larger, a modeled nose. The
upper face of this latter was painted red, while chin, neck, and chest
were black (Pepper, 1920, pp. 101-103).

From Pueblo del Arroyo we recovered two additional clay figurines
(Nos. 334683-4). One, a discoidal face on a necklike body, is surprisingly
like that figured by Kidder and Guernsey (1919, p. 143,
fig. 62, b) from Marsh Pass. The second is a somewhat cylindrical
lump of clay with squared bits of charcoal inset to represent eyes and

mouth. These two and a third from a nearby structure, added to those
from Pueblo Bonito, prove the existence of a figurine cult in Chaco
Canyon at the height of Pueblo III. Our available specimens are too
few, however, to permit at this time selection of the dominant type.

PIPES AND CLOUD BLOWERS

Among the Pueblo Indians smoking is a formality, beginning and
ending every important ceremony. The chief priest accepts a pipe
filled with native tobacco and, after a few solemn puffs, hands it to his
associate next on the left. Each in turn puffs smoke toward the altar
and passes on the pipe. Smoke reconsecrates altar and altar paraphernalia.
Formal smoking is a recognized rite without which no ceremony
would be regarded as complete and efficacious. As bearers of individual
prayers, smoke clouds rise to mingle with clouds in the sky and
thus bring rain.

The Bonitians used both stone and earthenware pipes. In shape,
these vary from the tubular or "cigar-holder" form to the "elbow"
type, whereon the bowl stands more or less at right angles to the stem.
Six of our pipes and pipe fragments are of stone; 10, of earthenware.

Three earthenware pipes belong to that class commonly called
"cloud blowers." One, the fragmentary example in figure 94, a, has a
bowl that comes to within seven-eighths inch of the mouthpiece. This
suggests a relatively short pipe, since the fragment itself is only 1⅝
inches long. While plastic, and in the process of manufacture, the pipe
was ornamented three-fourths of the way around with spaced punctations
produced by the hollow end of a wire-grass stem or something
akin. A similar reed could have formed the smoke passage in any of
the pipes before us.

Figures 94, e, and 95, both from Kiva R, are cloud blowers of
Pueblo III vintage. The first remains unstained by tobacco while the
second carries within its bowl unmistakable evidence of having been
smoked, if only half a dozen times.

Considering the shallowness and position of its bowl, a cloud blower
could not be used as we are accustomed to seeing pipes smoked. From
earliest times, no doubt, the type was employed to produce symbolic
clouds. Smoke was blown through the stem and out the bit end rather
than drawn into the mouth of the smoker and then expelled. The
procedure is clearly portrayed by Voth (1903, p. 15) in his description
of the Oáqöl ceremony at Oraibi.

During the sixth song on the first day the chief priest goes to the
fireplace and lights his cloud producer, "a large, cone-shaped pipe
which he has previously filled, takes a little honey into his mouth,

kneels before the medicine bowl, and taking the wide end of the pipe
between his lips, blows large clouds of smoke towards the altar, over
the objects in front of it, and into the medicine bowl."

Fig. 94—Earthenware pipes and cloud blowers.

We lack the dimensions of that particular Hopi pipe but our specimen
(fig. 95), 1⅝ inches across the bowl, when filled with burning
tobacco would test the elasticity of any priestly mouth. Or perhaps
Pueblo cloud-making practices have changed since introduction of
this bell-ended form early in Pueblo III times.

Seven of the nine pipes Fewkes (1923, p. 95) found in Pipe Shrine
House, Mesa Verde, are cloud blowers and five possess the expanding
bowl of our figures 94, e, and 95. Two of the five have an over-all
width of 3⅛ inches. One wonders, then, whether bell-ended cloud
blowers were not originally held a short distance from the lips as the
priest blew into the lighted bowl and caused smoke clouds to issue
from the opposite end. Related examples from the Pagosa-Piedra
region, as described by Jeancon and Roberts (1923-24, pp. 35, 304),
are cruder and presumably older than those from Pipe Shrine House.

Figures 94, d, and 96 illustrate earthenware elbow pipes. Both are
from Kiva G; both were thinly slipped with white before the black

mineral paint was applied. Within the broken bowl of the second a
painted rim band may be seen and part of a circle below. The paste
is a uniform blue-gray, apparently sherd-tempered, and almost overfired.
A serpent stretches its undulating length down the back of the
stem. On the first example, the stem has been ground off to provide
a new mouthpiece.

The diminutive pipe represented by figure 94, c, is sand-tempered,
unslipped, and unpainted.[6] Its size and finish are in marked contrast
to figure 96, for instance, or 94, b. This latter, from Old Bonitian
Room 320, is stone-polished over a thin black paint, presumably
organic. Its basal protuberance is more pointed than that on the
miniature.

Specimens shown in figure 94, f and g, might reflect intermediate
stages in pipe development. They seem about midway between the

tubular pipes of Basket Maker times and the elbow variety of Pueblo
I-III. The first came from apparently Old Bonitian rubbish in Kiva
V; the second, from an exploratory trench on the east side of the
West Court. Both are smoothed externally but unslipped; the paste
of the second (g) is light gray and rock-tempered. A ⅛-inch deposit
of ash clings to the inside of its broken bowl.

With a single exception, that from Room 320 (fig. 94, b), our
earthenware pipes and fragments came from Late Bonitian rooms and
kivas. One of these, Room 327, was half full of dominantly Late
rubbish and two, Room 307 and Kiva V, contained mixed debris. The
fragment from Room 327 is an inch-long section (U.S.N.M. No.
336046) from a pipe of cigar-holder type. Its surface is polished black
and its fine-grained paste discloses no visible temper.

Fig. 96.—Earthenware pipe from Kiva G.

Our stone pipes are of materials foreign to Chaco Canyon. The first,
figure 97, a, is of pale yellow claystone, a rock sometimes employed
for tcamahias. In its present condition the specimen measures 1[fraction 11 by 16]
inches long by three-fourths inch in greatest diameter. But the bowl
as it now exists is only seven-sixteenths inch deep; a newly ground
edge evidences repair with a view to retention after the original rim
was broken. Part of a hollow bone mouthpiece crowds the [fraction 7 by 32]-inch
drilling at the small end—the only one of our pipes, stone or earthenware,
so fitted. This interesting example comes from 201, a storeroom
built by Late Bonitians against the outer north wall of Old Bonitian
Room 6. Since it lay among fallen masonry and blown sand, the
specimen presumably had been placed for safekeeping either in a
second-story wall niche or between ceiling poles.

Figure 97, c, illustrates an elbow pipe of steatite, found by one of
our Navaho while loading wagons outside the northeast quarter of
the ruin, between Rooms 186 and 189. I did not learn whether it
was found among earth and rock thrown out of those four rooms
or beneath the lower, older accumulation of blown sand and fallen
stonework.

An even more interesting specimen is that pictured in figure 97, b.
It is of translucent travertine that might have been obtained in southwestern

Colorado or in the Zuñi Mountains of New Mexico. The
bowl base is flat but merges with the rounded stem, the bit end of
which is missing. Above, the bowl is rimmed by a disklike collar that
protrudes slightly all around. The bore is one-half inch in rim diameter
by thirteen-sixteenths inch in depth. About one-eighth inch from its
rounded bottom the hole has a diameter of five-sixteenths inch, thus
showing use of a stone drill rather than a hollow reed. Ringing of the
orifice is the result of incipient boring on the part of a tubular drill

Fig. 97.—Stone pipes and accessories.

five-eighths inch in diameter. As noted in the drawing, the stem
perforation was drilled a little above center.

At time of finding, the pipe was equipped with a bowl plug (fig. b′).
This plug is of a mineral similar to, but more opaque than, travertine;
it fits closely but not snugly; the drilled hole through one side conforms
with that in the pipestem. The lesser, incomplete hole to the
right suggests that the plug slipped after drilling began. Neither pipe
nor plug is fire-stained.

The pipe (fig. 97, b) lay among a small quantity of sweepings on
the floor of Room 332, one of two Late Bonitian closets east of
Kiva U. In those same sweepings were two other pipe fragments
of translucent travertine (U.S.N.M. No. 336049).

Still another Room 332 specimen is illustrated by figure 97, d. It,

too, is of travertine. Length is three-fourths inch; greatest diameter,
three-eighths inch. The larger portion is polished; the smaller end,
also conical, is not polished. The longitudinal boring is five-thirtyseconds
of an inch in diameter at the larger end, and less than oneeighth
at the smaller. This unusual object has been tentatively identified
as an ornamental mouthpiece for a pipe.

Among Late Bonitian rubbish in Old Bonitian Room 307 we found
a fragment of "satin spar" (U.S.N.M. No. 336044) that looks like a
vertical section from a pipe bowl. The fragment had been squared off
top and bottom and longitudinal grooves at either edge evidence an
attempt to salvage the middle quarter-inch, perhaps for a pendant.

Among the pipes described by Pepper were one of coarse green
steatite, elbow type, from Room 9, and an earthenware bell-ended
cloud blower from Room 12 (Pepper, 1920, p. 52, fig. 12, b; p. 64,
fig. 20, c). Both are Old Bonitian rooms in the north-central portion
of the pueblo.

We have no certain knowledge of the tobacco smoked by Bonitian
ritualists. In response to my request, Navaho and Zuñi members of
the excavation crew brought in plants of native tobacco which were
said to occur both in Chaco Canyon and on the mesas above. These
plants were later identified at the National Herbarium as Nicotiana
attenuata Torrey, a species widely distributed throughout the Upper
Sonoran Life Zone of the Southwest and the one most commonly
used by the Indians.

Both Zuñi and Navaho say they gather the plants when in flower;
dry them out of doors and crush the leaves in the palm for rolling in
cornhusk cigarettes. As described by Fewkes (1896, p. 19), N.
attenuata is smoked in Hopi pipes on ceremonial occasions, and is
used at other times as an ingredient in prayer offerings. Hopi practices
have not changed appreciably although Whiting (1939, pp. 40, 90)
observes that the tobacco is now often mixed with other plants. For
instance, rain is more likely to follow if the dried leaves and flowers
of Onosmodium thurberi are added. Young leaves of spruce, pine,
and aspen are gathered every four years to be dried, carefully stored,
and mixed with native tobacco so that larger smoke clouds on ceremonial
occasions will bring rain sooner.

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Bone whistles.—Five fragments of tubular bone whistles (U.S.N.M.
Nos. 335114-335117) are our only wind instruments. They belong to
a class generally described as "birdcalls," and vary in length from
2[fraction 5 by 16] to 3⅛ inches. Each is broken at its vent, cut through one wall at

approximately one-half the original length. Immediately beneath the
vent on two specimens lesser holes were drilled laterally through both
walls as though to support the diaphragm. Three of the five were
made from ulnae of the golden eagle; one, from the femur of a
bobcat. The fifth fragment is an unidentified mammal bone. All came
from Late Bonitian dwellings of third- or fourth-type construction.

An eagle wing-bone whistle is used in the Oraibi Powamu ceremony.
During the ninth song, one of the priests blows tiny bird feathers in
turn to each of the cardinal points and follows the blowing with a few
sharp notes on his whistle. During the fifth song on the fifth day, a
priest drops a pinch of corn pollen into a medicine bowl and then blows
upon it with a bone whistle (Voth, 1901, pp. 79, 80, 88).

On the afternoon of the first day of the Oraibi Oáqöl ceremony,
the chief priestess deposits prayer feathers and cornmeal near a certain
spring then blows four times on a bone whistle before depositing the
remainder of her offerings in the spring itself (Voth, 1903, p. 12).

While excavation of Hawikuh was in progress, specimens such as
our five fragments must have been were identified by elderly Zuñi as
birdcalls (Hodge, 1920, p. 128). Shorter ones may occasionally have
found a way onto necklaces or wrist guards but their prime purpose
was ceremonial.

Wooden flutes.—Six remarkable wooden flutes or fragments thereof
from Room 33 are described by Pepper (1909, pp. 199-204). Their
associated artifacts formed the paraphernalia of some society or religious
order. Wooden flutes have played a part in Pueblo life, both
secular and esoteric, from early times to the present day.

During his visit to a Tigua village in 1540, Castañeda observed that
music was piped for the pleasure of girls at their mealing bins. "A
man sits at the door playing on a fife while they grind, moving the
stones to the music and singing together" (Winship, 1896, p. 522).
Over 300 years later a like custom at Zuñi, but on a more elaborate
scale, was described by Cushing (1920, pp. 383-387). Few except
tribesmen would recognize music in the squealing of a Zuñi flute.

Shell trumpet.—The shell trumpet illustrated on plate 82, b, lay in
front of the accompanying black-on-white bowl in the north bench
recess, Kiva R. It has been identified as Phyllonotus nitidus Broderip,
with a range from Magdalena Bay, Lower California, to Acapulco.
Its spire has been ground off, opening into the body; its outer lip is
drilled, presumably for a suspension cord; the tip of the columella and
most nodules are somewhat battered; a slight polish on the varices
evidences repeated handling.

Among several fragments of like shells are two, from Room 201

and Kiva A, respectively, whose apexes likewise have been cut away
(U.S.N.M. No. 335721). The second of these two still retains traces
of its coniferous-pitch mouthpiece.

Pepper (1920, pp. 69, 85, 190) found several shell trumpets, some
with mouthpieces of clay and "gum," during the course of his excavations
at Pueblo Bonito. Shell trumpets are still employed in Hopi
and Zuñi rituals.

CEREMONIAL BASKETRY

Bonitian baskets reserved for consideration under this heading are
of three kinds: Cylindrical, bifurcated, and shallow elliptical trays.

Cylindrical baskets and oval trays have been described hereinbefore
as household utensils. In the same paragraphs, however, attention was
directed to their associations at time of discovery and the possibility
of a ritual connection. In four instances cylindrical baskets and shallow
elliptical trays accompanied the bodies of women. Six cylindrical
baskets and one bifurcated basket were among the diverse objects in
a one-time storeroom, the improvised tomb for 10 women and girls.
Hence the question: Could these unusual containers have belonged
among the paraphernalia of some women's society?

Like their earthenware counterparts, cylindrical baskets seem lacking
in many respects as utensils for everyday household use. This is
especially true of that illustrated on plate 84. Its flat bottom averages
3¾ inches in diameter; its original height is estimated at 5 inches. Fine
workmanship is indicated by a count of 7 coils and 20 stitches per
inch. The stitches are uninterlocked on a two-rod-and-bundle, bunched
foundation. Coiling is counterclockwise; the rim is wrapped normally
but the terminal tie is missing.

The basket was so fragile we added a lining of plaster for support.
Its painted ornamentation, four rows of diamonds ascending to the
right and repeated three times, is represented by the drawing in figure
98. The first three rows are, respectively, black, orange, and bluegreen;
the fourth row remains the natural splint color.

An even more exquisite example in this same category is the one
Pepper found with Skeleton 14, beneath the floor of Room 33. Not
only its turquoise overlay but its store of beads and pendants mark it
as one entirely removed from the mundane life of the village. In the
same room were the remains of a second cylindrical basket, covered
with a mosaic of shell and turquoise and wrapped about with a necklace
of turquoise and shell beads (Pepper, 1909, pp. 227-228; 1920,
pp. 164-173).

Our elliptical basketry trays are of much finer construction and are

complete in themselves, nevertheless one sees in each the parallel of
that forming the base of a bifurcated basket.

Bifurcated baskets, both in shape and in size, were entirely unsuited
for any conceivable domestic task. Their capacity was too limited for
practical use in gathering foodstuffs and other materials. Therefore

we must conclude that they were developed expressly for religious
purposes, for the support or transportation of unidentified objects
required in unknown rituals. Those from Pueblo Bonito will be better
understood if we first review the distribution of this curious form and
its development.

The earliest published notice of a bifurcated basket known to the
present writer is that by Cummings (1910, p. 4), reporting one from
the Segihatsosi, in the Kayenta district, northeastern Arizona. He also
notes a second example, found in nearby Segi Canyon that same summer

(1909) by a Government surveying party under W. B. Douglass.
A few years later Cummings himself unearthed a third specimen in
Bat-woman House, a Pueblo III cliff dwelling dated A.D. 1275 and
occupying a shallow cave in one of the rincons on the west side of
Dogoszhi Biko, the upper east branch of Laguna Creek (Cummings,
1915, p. 281; McGregor, 1936, p. 37; Hargrave, 1935, p. 32).

The Segi Canyon basket, now in the U. S. National Museum, was
featured by Fewkes (1911a, p. 29) as "a Cliff-dweller's cradle" and
attributed to "Cradle House" on the west side of "East Canyon," the
Dogoszhi Biko of the preceding paragraph.

Weltfish (1932, p. 7) echoes Fewkes's identification and traces
another specimen mentioned by him from Chicago to Philadelphia and
the University of Pennsylvania Museum. From the latter institution
we have Farabee's altogether satisfactory description of this, the
fourth, bifurcated basket—a truly remarkable product that still looks
brand new. It was found prior to 1904 in a cliff house in Moki
Canyon, southeastern Utah; its balanced red-and-black design, on a
background of undyed splints, is of almost pristine freshness (Farabee,
1920, pp. 202-211).

Farabee also cites two unfinished specimens in the Deseret Museum,
Salt Lake City. My own notes on these two, written July 19, 1916,
state that each consists of the uncompleted legs only; that both came
from San Juan County, Utah. No. 526, presented by Platt D. Lyman,
measures about 7 inches high by 7½ inches wide. No. 790 was purchased
from a Mr. Lang and is labeled "from Cave 1."[7]

Specimen 790 admirably illustrates the beginning of a bifurcated
basket for it is no more than a long, narrow, oval tray the ends of
which have been bent down to form a capital A whose bar is a yucca
cord piercing the inner side of the legs halfway between toe and crotch.
The cord clearly was intended to hold the tray in this unnatural
position until the legs and lower body could be completed. That the

Plate 86.—The peculiar construction of the bifurcated basket from Room 320 is clearly
seen in this view.

Plate 87

A, Part of a bifurcated basket from Room 326, mounted on wire screen
for preservation.

B, The miniature bifurcated basket buried with
Skeleton 8, Room 326, was partially preserved.

Plate 88.—Earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets, obverse (upper) and reverse.

Plate 89.—A cockleshell and its contents, found in a masonry box beneath the floor of
Kiva D.

position was forced is further evidenced by the outward spread of the
fabric, front and back, at the fold.

Now these two, and the four completed baskets above mentioned,
are the only ones of their kind known to the present writer prior to
our Pueblo Bonito explorations. That from Segihatsosi was found by
old Hoskininni about 1884. Afraid of the Anasazis, he promptly
reburied the piece but disinterred it in June 1909 for presentation
to Mrs. John Wetherill. A few weeks later Mrs. Wetherill gave
the basket to Prof. Byron Cummings, leader of a University of
Utah exploring party. In 1915 it was borrowed for exhibition at the
Panama-California Exposition, San Diego, and there it remained
until 1938 when Professor Cummings finally regained possession and
donated it to the Arizona State Museum, Tucson. At the time she
examined this specimen in San Diego, Miss Weltfish apparently was
not informed of its ownership.

Farabee observed the close resemblance between his Moki Canyon
basket and those from the Segi and Segihatsosi. As Weltfish (1932,
p. 7) remarks, they are so nearly alike they "might have been made
by the same woman." That from Bat-woman House, now in the
University of Utah Museum, presumably has never been published.

Two of those from northeastern Arizona came from the eastern
branch of upper Laguna Canyon; the third, from nearby Segihatsosi.
In this picturesque district all the more conspicuous cliff dwellings
were still inhabited in the third quarter of the thirteenth century.
Moki Canyon empties into the Rio Colorado approximately 50 air
miles to the north. The Deseret Museum's unfinished baskets No. 526
and No. 790 may be ascribed to the wild country between Grand Gulch
and upper Cottonwood Creek. Thus the six specimens under consideration
were all found within a 40-mile radius of the point where the
San Juan River crosses the 110th meridian.[8]

From this same circumscribed area come also the oval, relatively
shallow, Basket Maker II hamper illustrated by Guernsey and Kidder
(1921, pl. 23, k, l) and a larger, deeper carrying basket of Pueblo I
age. This latter, the lone representative of its period, has outward
sloping sides that flare sharply above the middle and an over-all zoned
decoration in red and black (Guernsey, 1931, p. 95, pl. 13, b). Of
even greater interest to our present discussion is the fact that the
middle rim, front and back, rises a couple of inches above the sides

in consequence of a dip to right and left as coiling followed the line
initially fixed by a slight basal arch.

This basal arch is lacking on what looks like the lower third of an
unfinished basket of the same type, photographed among Grand Gulch
specimens by Pepper (1902, p. 8, middle; p. 23, second row, middle).
It is lacking, too, on an oval-bodied, wide-shouldered carrying basket
figured by Cummings (1910, p. 34, bottom), although the upper coils
are undulating. This latter specimen, purchased by Professor Cummings
in Moab, Utah, in 1907 for the University Museum, was found
on Salt Creek, at the eastern margin of Beef Basin, in 1894 or 1895.
With it was a bowl-and-hollow-handle ladle of P. III design and
decoration.

In the Teocentli of December 1939 (No. 28, p. 4), Haury describes
from northeastern Arizona "an excellent bifurcated burden basket
with a painted decoration in red, green, and yellow . . . found in a
vault grave of unusual type dating from about the middle of the 13th
century."

From information and photographs kindly furnished by W. S.
Fulton, director of the Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, Ariz., we learn
that the shoulders of this fine specimen are less pronounced than in
the Moab basket; that the lower portion is about 20 percent longer;
that tumpline attachments are present; that its painted decoration overlies
an unusual design in dyed splints; that the arching of the basal
coils is less marked than in Guernsey's Pueblo I example. This arching
does not force the body coils out of a horizontal position; certainly it
is not of a degree to justify placing the specimen in the "bifurcated"
classification.[9]

Natural History in 1927 (vol. 27, No. 6, p. 637) announced Earl
Morris's recovery of four Basket Maker III miniature carrying baskets
from the Mummy Cave talus. They are exquisite little pieces,
clean and fresh as though newly made. Accompaniments of a child
burial, they are decorated with dyed-splint designs in red and black;
the lower half of each, like Guernsey's Pueblo I prize, is more or less
wedge-shaped, front to back, but not forked. In the same lot is a fifth,
unornamented specimen (A.M.N.H. 29.1-8640).

Assuming that these miniatures faithfully portray an adult form,
that Guernsey's Pueblo I specimen is typical of its period, and that
Cumming's Moab purchase and Fulton's northeastern Arizona acquisition
belong to Pueblo II or later, two parallel lines of Anasazi carrying
baskets seem indicated.

First is the strictly utilitarian variety in which increased capacity
remained ever the prime desideratum. Next, and contemporaneously,
there was evolved a form deliberately sacrificing cubic content to an
eccentricity, the arched base.

Guernsey's Pueblo I basket is the earliest example with basal arching
known to me. Latest, are the deeply forked specimens enumerated
above, including three from thirteenth-century cliff villages in the Segi
and Segihatsosi. Between these three and their progenitor is a time
interval of at least 300 years. During that interval the type changed
from a capacious, wide-mouthed, purposeful hamper to one of less
than half its capacity, with straight walls and a basal fork approximately
one-third the total height.

Pueblo Bonito is two centuries older than the Segi cliff dwellings
and, as one might have anticipated, its basketry differs in several
respects.

Bifurcated baskets from Pueblo Bonito include one well-preserved
example and portions of at least five others.

First and foremost is that from Room 320. When found, it lay on
the floor, leaning against the east wall (pl. 92, lower). Near its rim
was the cylindrical basket shown as figure e, plate 45, and beyond its
feet two more (figs. d and f).

From front or side the basket is noticeably V-shaped—wide at top,
narrow and pointed at bottom (pls. 85 and 86). Maximum width and
thickness at rim, 12 inches and 8 inches; height, 15⅝ inches. The left
leg is a trifle shorter than the right; their average length, 4¼ inches.
Front and back, walls above the crotch have been pressed in until they
are only 1¼ to 1⅜ inches apart. The resultant folds, sharpest in the
upper half and especially on the front side, divide the basket cavity
into two triangular compartments roughly 5½ inches on a side and 15
inches deep. Missing stitches let it be seen that many of the foundation
rods are cracked or broken at the folds. Were it not for this distortion,
thickness at rim would be increased to 15 inches; rim circumference
would measure 41 inches.

The basket had its beginning in a single willow rod, a full quarter
inch in diameter and more or less encompassed by barklike fibers. For
8 inches rod and fibers were closely wrapped with sewing splints then
doubled back, around the other end, and again down the opposite side.
As the doubling progressed, rod and bundle were firmly stitched to the
first 8-inch section.

The second coil was built on a slightly smaller rod; the third introduced
a foundation of two still smaller rods with fiber bundle above
and between them. It is probably pure accident that inception of the

first coil lies under the left foot; that the two subsequent reductions in
foundation rods occur halfway down the right leg and in front. The
stitches of these first three coils are larger and less compact than those
that follow. A majority are split on the outside, suggesting a concave
work surface. Viewed from that angle, coiling is counterclockwise.

With the third complete encirclement of its initial 8-inch section, the
narrow mat was bent into an A form and presumably anchored in that
position. I detect no trace of the holding cord itself but note that at the
apex rods are cracked and stitches crowded by the sharp bending.
Thereafter the sewing followed up one leg and down the other. To
shorten the coils and bring them the sooner to regularity, a filler was
inserted on the outside of the legs where each coil dropped lowest.
Filler for the fourth and part of the fifth coils was only a little additional
fiber, but for the next few an extra foundation rod was broken
into pieces or doubled three or four times to bridge the downcurve.
Stitches three-eighths to three-fourths of an inch long were required
to bind foundation rods, bundle, and filler together; not until the
twenty-fifth coil did these end stitches assume normal length.

There are 59 coils in the basket; the last was self-wrapped but its
terminal tie is missing. In the upper 4 inches 22 coils appear in front
and 23 at the back. Body stitches average 16 per inch.

With black-dyed splints the maker provided a sparse, all-over design
of thin lines and half terraces. Horizontal lines are one coil wide;
vertical lines, two stitches in width. Subsequently, that portion of the
decoration visible on the front and sides was painted black, and with
greenish-blue paint balancing lines and terraces were introduced (fig.
99). No effort was made to illuminate continuation of the same dyedsplint
elements across the rear wall.

A few additional notes.—A slight sheen on the lower half of the
back, above the crotch, may be the result of friction. No provision was
made for tumpline attachments, an omission almost unique. With the
possible exception of their upper rear, both legs are coated with a
membranous substance as far as the lower framing line of the decoration.
Some cracking of foundation rods vertically down the right front
shoulder and down the rear left shoulder is due to pressure from the
overburden of blown sand, rubbish, and fallen masonry during the
years prior to exhumation. Two small stones on the floor left imprints
on the left front shoulder.

Our next example is a body fragment from Room 326 (pl. 87, A).
Although damp when exposed, most of it was saved by prompt and
liberal application of melted paraffin. In the laboratory, when we
sought to remove this wax, the fragment collapsed and we lost its

Fig. 99.—Design painted on bifurcated basket from Room 320.

vertical median constrictions. The technique is again two-rod-andbundle,
bunched foundation with uninterlocking stitches. There are
5 coils and 15 stitches to the inch. Portions of the self rim remain but
its termination is missing.

Two, possibly three, like baskets are represented in miscellaneous
fragments from the same room. One lot, gathered from among scattered
human bones, sweepings, and debris of reconstruction on a few
square feet in the middle floor, includes three large pieces from a basket
about the size of that first described. These three exhibit 8 coils and
22 stitches per inch. Other fragments, presumably from bifurcated
baskets, show from 4½ to 6 coils per inch and from 16 to 20 stitches;
three scraps bear traces of green and blue paint.

Another fragment, poorly preserved at best, has been cleaned and
freed from surplus paraffin but unsuccessfully mounted. In its present
condition it suggests a basket 12 or 14 inches high with rim width and
depth of about 8 and 5 inches, respectively. Coils run 5½ to the inch;
stitches, 16. Between coils in several places are what appear to be
flakes of orange paint. This is the fragment elsewhere cited as having
been found, together with part of a cylindrical basket, above an infant
burial (No. 10) in the southeast corner of Room 326.

Smallest of our series is that illustrated on plate 87, B. It was one
of the burial offerings with Skeletons 8 and 9. In the photograph,
plate 94, left, it may be seen resting against a sandstone slab (fig. d,
pl. 27) with a cylindrical basket, an ellipitical basket tray, and several
earthenware bowls and pitchers close by.

Here again we were unable to preserve the rim and median constrictions
of the partially decayed specimen. Although the body is now
somewhat distorted, it is obvious the legs were originally disproportionately
short. In its present imperfect condition the specimen measures
8 inches high; its legs average only 1¼ inches. With 8 coils and
22 stitches to the inch, this smallest of the series equals in fineness of
stitching one of the largest, the one represented by three of the fragments
described above.

Our Pueblo Bonito bifurcated baskets and fragments all illustrate
the same coiling technique: uninterlocking stitches on a two-rod-andbundle,
bunched foundation. All were provided with relatively short,
pointed legs; all were constricted vertically through the middle, a distinctive
feature; all exhibit undulating coils and a fullness of fabric at
the brim. In execution, therefore, and apparently in concept, we have
here what seems to be a distinct variety, an eastern type.

In contrast, comparable baskets from western cliff dwellings are
from 5 to 6 inches taller than our best eastern example; they have

straighter-walled, more-columnar bodies and sturdier legs that measure
about one-third the total height. Their workmanship is coarser; coils
and stitching, larger. In either case, eastern and western varieties, as
we now know them, only remotely resemble the Pueblo I carrying
basket that, presumably, furnished the idea of a basal notch.

The use to which these bifurcated baskets were put is purely conjectural.
They were ill-suited and entirely inadequate for transporting
fuel or foodstuffs. They certainly were not cradles, as Farabee (1920,
p. 211) pointed out so clearly. The only alternative then is to believe
them a specialized carrying basket, an accessory in the ritual of some
long-dead cult.

Describing the Moki Canyon specimen, Farabee (1920, p. 206) observes:
"The back of the basket where the [tumpline] thongs are
attached shows some polish from use and the bottoms of the legs show
considerable wear. On the inside there is some polish for four inches
down from the top but lower down the surface is very rough and
shows no wear except on the crotch where apparently the burden,
whatever it was, rested."

Repairs made with coarser splints and triple-length stitches are
conspicuous on the backs of the Segihatsosi basket (Cummings, 1910,
p. 34) and that figured by Fewkes (1911a, pl. 20). On each, vertically
paired holes for attachment of a carrying band are to be seen at either
side and just above the mended area. The extent of these repairs and,
indeed, the very necessity for them evidences repeated use of the baskets
for transporting fairly heavy burdens. A light weight, no matter
how often carried, would not have induced equal wear.

And this again raises the question: What kind of objects were
moved in bifurcated baskets and for what distances? The only suggestion
that has come to my attention is that offered by the old Navaho
shaman who explained that the bifurcated basket was a container for
the arrows and sacred medicines of the Slayer God and that its two
legs represented the ears of the Bat-woman (Cummings, 1915, p. 281).

There are no holes for tumpline attachments at the back of our
painted Pueblo Bonito basket, no handles, and no mark such as might
have been caused by a netted cord or other suspension device. If this
basket was moved from place to place, it was carried in the arms of its
bearer. There is no certain indication of wear on its back; no frictionrubbed
area inside. The vertical grooves press in from front and back
until they practically divide the basket. This structural feature further
limited the character and bulk of objects placed within. Nevertheless,
the constrictions were considered essential, for they are clearly indicated

both on our bifurcated baskets and on the earthenware models
next to be considered.[10]

Earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets.—We have for consideration
under this heading six specimens from Pueblo Bonito and two
from Pueblo del Arroyo. The latter (pl. 88, figs. b, b′, c, c′), with
several other unusual objects, had fallen with collapse of the secondstory
floor of Room 27. Their respective designs differ but both have
black-painted rims, flattened lugs at the back punched through horizontally,
and surmounting loops attached to the rear rim. After the
modeling was completed, both front and back were pressed in vertically
along the median line but not enough to bring the inner walls
together. On the larger of the two specimens, this pressure caused
the inner front wall to crack throughout its upper half. The legs of
this specimen are hollow; those of the smaller one, solid.

The third specimen (a, a′) lay among disarticulated skeletons in the
middle north half of Room 329, Pueblo Bonito (pl. 97, lower). It has
much in common with the other two and yet differs from them in
several respects. After the lower part had been completed its walls
were pressed in until they actually met vertically through the middle.
This left on either side the junction cavities no more than an inch in
depth. Thereafter the four uprights and the ring they support were
casually attached inside the brim. The right rear and left front legs
presumably were positioned last because less effort was made to obliterate
their union with the inner wall.

The superimposed jar likewise was made separately and positioned
while the clay was still moist. Subsequent modeling fixed it so firmly
in place on the ring that a bit of tooling was necessary to emphasize
the point of separation. Finally, two pairs of holes to symbolize
tumpline attachments were provided. But while the upper holes were
punched all the way through—in one case the punch tip actually dented
the opposite wall—the lower two were merely quarter-inch deep indentations.
It is the miniature jar in this instance rather than the basket
effigy that bears the black rim line characteristic of Chaco pottery.
Like the two from Pueblo del Arroyo, this composite is externally
slipped, hand-smoothed while plastic, and partially stone-polished.

Four other effigies of bifurcated baskets, each with a superincumbent
jar, have come to my attention. One is in the Southwest Museum
at Los Angeles (P. G. Gates collection, G-268.105), provenience unknown.
Another, in the San Diego Museum (No. 5177), belongs to

the Rio Puerco collection purchased in 1912 and believed to have been
gathered within a radius of 40 miles of Houck, Ariz. In both cases the
jar stands upon four legs attached to the basket rim, as in our Pueblo
Bonito specimen, but without the latter's supporting ring. My notes
do not indicate the nature of the symbolic tumpline attachments, if
any.

A third example, also from the Houck area, is illustrated by a sketch
received at the National Museum some years ago from a Dr. Regnier,
of Regnier, Okla. Its painted design consists of solid triangles, ticked
along their opposed hypotenuses; two vertical lugs, transversely perforated,
lie on the back. Instead of four vertical posts, rolls of clay
rise from the rim to loop across the median grooves, front and back,
as supports for the miniature jar.[11]

The fourth specimen of the kind known to me is in the Museum of
the American Indian, Heye Foundation (No. 5-2632), and is recorded
as from Chaco Canyon. The lower part portrays an oval carrying
basket with wide-flaring rim and vertical loop handles at the sides
rather than on the back. Both front and back are slightly indented
along the median line but there is no basal cleft. Within the rim and
rising well above it is a hollow, globular mass representing an Early
Pueblo neckless olla. Over a heavy white slip, three squiggled black
lines encircle the shoulder of the miniature olla; three more lie just
below the rim of the basket effigy, and three shorter lines hang vertically
at either side of the median groove. As in the case of the other
three cited, the decoration on this example is more suggestive of
Pueblo II than Pueblo III.

Of our five remaining earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets
from Pueblo Bonito, four evidence some sort of superstructure. That
illustrated by figure 100, b, is sherd-tempered, heavily slipped, stonepolished,
and ornamented with a black pigment that fired reddish
brown. It was found with late hachured sherds in Room 350, one of
two adjoining subterranean chambers at the south end of the West
Court. The rim is rounded and unpainted; front and back are slightly
indented; the back is undecorated and lacking in tumpline attachments
of any sort; the maximum curvature, front and back, is flattened by
attrition, indicating long use and repeated placement in a recumbent
position.

Within the vessel cavity, paired quarter-inch ropes of clay were
dropped to the very bottom and pressed firmly against the rear wall.

Fig. 100.—Earthenware effigies of bifurcated baskets.

The inner roll of each pair rises halfway up the middle and then, flattened
by a finger, turns outward at approximately right angles to join
its companion. At the front, single clay ropes were brought up in the
same manner, meeting in the middle and continuing thence gradually
outward respectively to reach the rim opposite the two inner rolls of
the rear pairs. Those in front were positioned last; all were more or
less flattened as far down as the potter could reach with her finger.

In temper, surface treatment, paint color, and absence of tumpline
attachments, our next specimen (fig. 100, d), agrees with that last
described. But the body is not as well balanced, being thicker at its
left shoulder. The highest point here preserves a bit of the rim. Fire
clouds remain on the upper right and lower left front. Within, a single
clay rod [fraction 3 by 16] of an inch in diameter rises vertically through the middle
(front and back were compressed just enough to hold this rod in
place) to where it was broken off two-thirds of the distance above the
crotch. A discard, the fragment was retrieved from the east refuse
mound.

Our third example indicates a different sort of superstructure but,
again, there is not enough left for reconstruction (fig. 100, a, a′). Restored
from fragments recovered in Room 330, the effigy is sherdtempered
with a stone-polished slip. Double-roll, vertical-loop line
attachments were fastened on the back by the riveting process. The
slip does not extend beneath these loops but lines of the decoration do.
With its stubby legs the lower inch and a half of the body appears
to have been made solid; above the crotch, pressure front and back
brought the vessel walls almost in contact. The resulting external
grooves broaden at the top in keeping with the outflare of the basket.
It will be noted, also, that the brim rises in the middle; sweeps low on
either side.

Enough of the brim is present to show that it was somewhat thinned
at the edge, rounded, and unpainted. Within is all that remains of the
secondary feature—modeled walls ⅛ inch thick that curved up and
inward. Marks of an edged, spatulalike tool and fingernail imprints
appear where the added clay was pressed and shaped to the wall of
the effigy.

Finally, we have the miniature illustrated by figure 100, c, our smallest
example. It is unslipped and undecorated; the only one of the series
that is sand-tempered. The body, from feet to cavity, is solid. We
found the fragment among debris of occupation underlying the terrace
designated Room 347, fronting Room 324.

Thus, of our eight complete or fragmentary earthenware models of

bifurcated baskets, five came from household rubbish; one was recovered
in Room 330, a burial chamber; two only, those from Pueblo del
Arroyo, apparently had been stored away. In no instance did the
position of the object as found, or its associations, provide a clue to its
purpose. Since they cannot have been utilitarian, we may conclude that
these effigies, like the baskets they represent, were entirely ceremonial.

Less sophisticated models have been found farther west, in the same
culture horizons that produced the early varieties of carrying baskets.
As "funnel-shaped objects," Guernsey (1931, fig. 26, a-b, p. 86) figures
two unfired clay effigies of Basket Maker III panniers. There
can be no doubt as to the concept portrayed. The elongate body with
reduced base, the outflaring rim, the punched holes simulating tumpline
attachments, all unite in identifying the model with contemporary
burden baskets.

From Mummy Cave, Canyon del Muerto, Morris recovered the clay
model of a wider, deeper basket with zoned decoration indicated by
punctations (Morris, 1927, p. 154, fig. 6, f). If his figure 6, e, be
reversed, Morris has another such model but this time with punched
holes at the back and a more pronounced basal cleft. Likewise, if the
drawings of them be turned about, a group described as "nipple-shaped
objects" unquestionably picture the Early Basket Maker hamper, as
Morris himself observed (ibid., figs. 10-12, pp. 156-158).

In the Fremont district, west of the Rio Colorado in Utah, Morss
(1931, p. 50) found fragments of six undecorated "nipple-shaped
objects, similar to those described by Morris." Roberts (1929, p. 125)
unearthed several fragments bearing punctate decoration at a Basket
Maker III site 9 miles east of Pueblo Bonito. And Morris (1939,
p. 166) recovered parts of two at Site 33, a Pueblo I ruin in the La
Plata district. The smaller of these has just the suggestion of a basal
notch and thus accords with its utilitarian contemporaries but, from
the description, one seems justified in placing the larger somewhat
later. Although undecorated, its upsweep of rim, front and back, its
exaggerated rim flare at either side, its narrow body with short,
pointed legs and vertical, median grooves are features more in harmony
with the basket effigies of Pueblo Bonito than with those from older
ruins.

Our Chaco Canyon observations, combined with those of coworkers
in other areas, thus warrant the conclusion that miniature earthenware
models of carrying baskets, fired and unfired, were among the paraphernalia
of some cult that came into being in Basket Maker times and
persisted at least until Pueblo III.

Clay-coated basketry.—Another specimen thought to have been
made for ceremonial use is that represented by the fragment shown
in figure 101. Coiled on a one-rod foundation with uninterlocking
stitches, the fabric is covered inside and out with red clay to a minimum
thickness of one-sixteenth inch. The clay is very fine-grained
and doubtless gets its color from a high iron oxide content; it is hard
and brittle as though fired, but this may be accidental since the two
shortest rods are charred at the end.

Both surfaces were carefully
smoothed and one was then embellished
with a design that included stepped triangles
or rectangles. Thick black paint
was employed on the fragment before
us. Our fragment, recovered from
Room 300, lacks perceptible curvature
but it probably belonged to the same
vessel as the rim sherd Pepper (1920,
p. 69) found in Old Bonitian Room 13,
next on the south.

Morris describes three fragments of
red-paste-covered baskets from Chaco

Fig. 101.—Basket fragment,
clay-coated and painted.

rubbish in Aztec Ruin (Morris and Burgh, 1941, p. 26).

"Ring-bottomed vase."—This term is adopted from Morris (1919b,
p. 198), and with equal hesitation, to describe the queer little vessel
illustrated on plate 9, C. What special purpose, if any, it was designed
to serve, remains unknown. It is included with objects supposedly
ceremonial only because it had fallen, with collapse of the upper floors,
into the lowermost chamber of Room 249, where macaws were imprisoned,
and because we assume the attendant priests stored their
paraphernalia in those upper rooms.

Morris's example came from a Basket Maker III or Pueblo I ruin
in southwestern Colorado. It is undecorated and has a tubular handle.
Jeancon (1923, pp. 46-47) describes two others, of biscuit ware and
without handles, from the ruin of Po-shu-ouinge in Chama Valley,
N. Mex.

The basal ring of our Pueblo Bonito specimen is hollow and connects
on either side with the cylindrical neck. The strap handle is
solid and was attached by riveting. Opposite the handle a miniature
jar rests on the body of the vessel and opens into it. A black rim line
on this jar has been partially worn off; a similar line circled the
principal orifice, with a "spirit path" above the handle. The vessel,

smoothed but not polished, originally bore a chalky-white slip; firing
clouds largely obscure the painted ornamentation on the neck. The
solid design, which dates the specimen about midway in the history of
Pueblo Bonito, covers all but the bottom and inner face of the ring.

Sacrificial deposits.—Earlier in this chapter we remarked the finding
of "ceremonial sticks" embedded in house walls, and elongated repositories
designed, presumably, for like offerings. The deposits now to be
considered are of somewhat different character. One was sealed in a
kiva wall; another lay in a masonry box beneath a kiva floor; still
others had been hidden among roofing timbers.

Between decayed ceiling poles about 3 feet above the bench in both
the southeast and southwest quarters of Kiva R, we found sacrificial
offerings of bone, shell, and turquoise beads, shell-bracelet fragments,
broken pendants, etc., and part of the upper bill of a redhead duck
(Nyroca americana). Although these materials (U.S.N.M. Nos.
336004-336010) were removed in seven lots, it is believed that they
originally formed but two deposits, each of which had been broken up
through settling of the domed ceiling. In one lot the number of
olivellas would have sufficed for a necklace.

The character and diversity of these two offerings are reminiscent
of those concealed in pilaster logs. The latter, however, in even larger
measure were made up of scraps from the lapidary's workbench although
whole beads and pendants were included and, occasionally,
brightly colored feathers, or twigs from unidentified plants. Sacrificial
deposits in kiva pilasters will be discussed at greater length in a subsequent
report.

Whenever they occur in an offering, unbroken turquoise pendants
are likely to be off-color—too pale or too green for the fastidious
Bonitian. They are of a quality that reminds one of Zuñi sacrifices at
springs and shrines in the days of the Conquest. For instance, the
anonymous author of the Relacion del Suceso observed that, in addition
to prayer sticks, the Zuñi offered "such turquoises as they have,
although poor ones" (Winship, 1896, p. 573). So, too, in pre-Spanish
times—when the devout Pueblo sacrificed turquoise to his gods he
oftentimes used that of least value.

Three inlaid scrapers from Room 244 are illustrated in plate 36,
figures a-c. Each was made from the left humerus of a deer. The fact
that they lay side by side on the middle floor of an otherwise empty
room suggests another offering.

Half a handful of turquoise bits, both worked and unworked
(U.S.N.M. No. 340007), was enclosed in a small block of masonry

built against a partially razed older wall underlying the southwest
foundation in Room 186. The Zuñi workman who made the find said
it had been put there "to hold up the wall."

Under the floor of Kiva D we chanced upon a crude masonry box
built against the concave wall of an older, abandoned kiva. In that box
was one of the most colorful offerings recovered by the expedition
(pl. 89).

First of all was a creamy-white cockleshell (Laevicardium elatum),
from somewhere along the Pacific coast between San Pedro and
Panama. It served as a receptacle for the following:

• a. 3 bracelet pendants and 1 fragment (Glycymeris giganteus).

• b. 1 dark brown hematite cylinder.

• c. 3 olivellas (Olivella sp.).

• d. 1 blue azurite pellet and 15 tiny bits not shown.

• e. 20 figure-8 shell beads.

• f. 3 fragments of nacreous Haliotis sp.

• g. 3 worked pieces of turquoise matrix.

• h. 1 shell fragment, unidentified.

• i. 3 purple disks of Spondylus princeps.

A larger, more diversified offering was concealed in the north wall
of Kiva Q and accidentally exposed during our work of repair. It
included the following, partly shown in plate 90:

• a. Shreds, apparently, of juniper and rush; 3 scraps of abalone shell; 1 bit
  of twined fabric, perhaps a sandal.

• b. 1 flint and 2 obsidian arrowheads; 1 red claystone and 4 turquoise
  tesserae.

• c. 9 pendants of abalone shell.

• d. 1 quartz crystal; 3 azurite pellets.

• e. 3 bone awls.

• f. 2 brown chert blades and 1 of quartzite.

• g. 1 flint knife blade.

• h. 2 flint, 2 fine quartzite spalls.

• i. 2 quartz, 2 quartzite pebbles, unworked.

• j. 2 sandstone jar covers.

• k. Base of indented corrugated cooking pot.

• l. Bowl of cloud blower.

• m. Fragments of 2 B/W jars with middle and late hatching.

• n. 1 B/W bowl sherd, squiggled decoration.

• o. Sandstone concretionary cup with slight pecking inside.

• p. 3 quartzite hammers.

• q. Part of sandstone muller.

• r. Sandstone pallet, slightly concave on middle face.

• s. Not shown: Claws and phalanges, of the black bear, dog, and mountain
  lion. Also not shown, the following turquoise: 1 small, undrilled pendant,
  2 small discoidal beads; 6 blanks for beads; 7 fragments more or
  less worked, and 6 bits of matrix.

In addition:

2 bone and 1 slate discoidal beads; 2 olivellas, spires removed; 1 squash seed;
4 wild-grape seeds (Vitis arizonica); 1 unidentified seed fragment; and 1
spine of western locust (Robinia neomexicana).

Of more than passing interest in this assemblage are the digital
bones of the bear, dog, and mountain lion. As identified by H. Harold
Shamel, of the division of mammals, U. S. National Museum, the lot
includes:

• Black bear (Euarctos americanus):

  • 33 proximal phalanges.

  • 76 middle phalanges.

  • 4 claws.

  • 1 metacarpal.

  • 4 metatarsals.

  • 26 disunited digital extremities.

  • 7 carpal bones.

  • 27 sesamoids (a few possibly dog).

• Dog (Canis familiaris):

  • 3 proximal phalanges.

  • 4 middle phalanges.

  • 21 claws.

• Puma (Felis concolor):

  • 2 claws.

No distal phalanges are present and only four bear claws. Furthermore,
7 proximal and 26 middle phalanges are scored by flint knives.
In every case these marks lie on the body, somewhere between its
articular surfaces; in nearly every instance the cuts are approximately
at right angles to the long axis of the bone. Like scoring occurs on
one middle phalanx of the dog. No knife mark at all appears on five
bear middle phalanges with pronounced arthritic (?) accretions.

Among historic Pueblos, east and west, bears are prey animals and
thus associated with war. They are also associated with the west,
where dwell the dead. Bears are considered humans in animal form;
hence the universal Pueblo taboo against killing them for food. In
most villages bears are closely connected with curing societies (Parsons,
1939). Stevenson (1904, pls. 108, 127) shows bear paws on
altars of the Sword Swallower and Little Fire fraternities at Zuñi.
But these observations do not explain the presence of digital bones of
the bear in a sealed sacrificial offering.