University of Virginia Library

FOODSTUFFS AND CLOTHING

A few scraps of woven goods, a sackful of bird and mammal bones
from kitchen rubbish, and a small selection of fruits from native
plants are all we have to show what the local population ate and wore.
If we were to complete the list, even in part, we should have to rely
upon the published records of archeological research in contemporary
ruins where a like culture prevailed, as Pueblo Bonito and Aztec Ruin.

Clothing was prepared from cotton, dogbane, yucca, and perhaps
other vegetal fibers, and the tanned skins of mammals. A 3-inch
square fragment of cotton cloth, plain-woven 30 threads to the inch
(U.S.N.M. No. 334715) was found on the floor of Room 9B-II. A
cotton blanket, of which we were able to save very little (No. 334716),
had been wrapped about the body of an infant (field No. 90) buried in
Room 4. A knotted 2-ply apocynum thread dyed red came from second-story
Room 9B-I and short lengths of yucca cord of varied diameter

were recovered in Rooms 8B-I and 16A. We should have
found, but did not, lengths of yucca-fiber cord intertwisted with strips
of fur or feathers to evidence the cold-weather blankets (doubling as
bedding) used in Pueblo homes from prehistoric times until the close
of the nineteenth century. Three scraps of unidentifiable mammal
skin, tanned and tailored (U.S.N.M. No. 334721), also came from
Room 8B-I.

Sandals are represented by four fragments only—two plaited of
narrow strips of yucca leaves and two woven of dogbane fibers (Apocynum
sp.). The larger of these two latter (No. 334714) is from the
instep and measures approximately 5 inches long by 3½ inches wide.
On a foundation of 29 stiff, 3-fiber yucca warp threads it is woven
with a 2-color bar-and-stepped-square design on the upper side and a
raised pattern below. This fragment, likewise from the floor of second-story
Room 8B-I, is the only evidence of cloth sandals with
colored ornamentation unearthed during our seven summers in Chaco
Canyon. The outline of a complete example, for the right foot, was
drawn with chalky-white kaolin on the brown north-wall plaster of
Room 44 (pl. 14, B).

Two pieces of sandals, twill plaited of narrow strips of yucca
leaves in the familiar over-2-under-2 technique, were recovered from
Room 8B-I (fig. 3) and Room 44A. Sandals such as these, with a
notch on the outer edge at the little toe, doubtless were the favored
footgear at Pueblo del Arroyo, although a coarser, notchless variety,
braided with wide strips of the broad-leafed yucca (Y. baccata), was
equally well known.

Ornaments.—The meager assortment of ornaments in our collection
was recovered chiefly from household rubbish. Beads and pendants
predominate, and most of them were fashioned from shells
originating in the Gulf of California. The series is less diversified
than that from Pueblo Bonito but includes no species not represented
there. Of two "saucer-shaped" beads, both ⅜ inch in diameter and cut
from the wall of an olivella, one (field No. 303) is faced with a disk
of jet and drilled transversely under the disk for stringing.

We have two beautifully polished jet pendants, both from Room 32
and somewhat heat blistered on the back. One is square with three
rounded corners, and the other is triangular with all corners rounded
(U.S.N.M. Nos. 334753-334754). The former, sawed from a thicker
piece, had holes for a suspension cord drilled to meet below the surface
behind its one squared angle. We have half of a discoidal red claystone
pendant and three that are oblong, two of them undrilled. Several

fragments of calcite and selenite and a cube of galena bear
abrasion scratches as though they had been considered momentarily
as possible ornaments.

Turquoise was conspicuously lacking in Pueblo del Arroyo. We recovered
only 15 discoidal beads and fragments, all from an offering in
Pilaster 8, Kiva C, and only 16 whole and fragmentary pendants of
which 13 came from various Kiva C pilasters. Of the other three,
two are half an inch long or less while the third, found burned and
broken in Room 41, represents a once magnificent specimen (fig. 8).
In addition we have 10 small shaped pieces of turquoise, mostly tesserae
(U.S.N.M. No. 334741), and a handful of chips from a lapidary's
workbench in Room 24 (No. 334744).

Copper bells presumably were worn as personal ornaments. We
recovered two small complete examples and fragments of three others,
and of the five only one (U.S.N.M. No. 334766) came from a kiva, J.
In addition, a piece of sheet copper 1⅝ inches square was found in
Kiva F (No. 334767). Three of the six specimens were included in
our analysis of copper bells from Pueblo Bonito.[1]

Foodstuffs.—The remains of foodstuffs recovered during the course
of our excavations are as scant as those of clothing. Seeds, rind fragments,
and stems of the common pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) were
found in several rooms, but maize, or Indian corn (Zea mays Linn.),
the staff of life here as elsewhere in the Plateau Province since the
beginning of Pueblo history, was represented by a mere hatful of
charred cobs from Room 65. Pinyon nut shells were noted among
debris of occupation in three rooms, 43, 46, and 65; a thimbleful of
prickly-pear seeds (Opuntia sp.) were found together in Room 44.
Other fruit- or seed-bearing trees and shrubs, native grasses, and
wild potatoes (Solanum sp.) likewise contributed their annual harvests
as we know from findings in Pueblo Bonito. However, the cockleburs
(Xanthium saccharatium Wallr.) embedded in the wall masonry of
Room 47 are believed to represent, not a possible food plant, but
merely an annual annoyance to the women who mixed mud mortar
with their bare feet.

The inhabitants of Pueblo del Arroyo were agriculturists and, as
such, depended for their livelihood primarily upon plants cultivated
in small garden plots. Nevertheless, they probably trapped ground
squirrels, as Pueblo farmers still do, and hunted larger game whenever

opportunity offered. Animals, all or most of which presumably
were eaten, were represented in local trash heaps by bones of the
following species:

• Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus)

• Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana)

• Elk (Cervus canadensis)

• Mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis)

• Jack rabbit (Lepus californicus)

• Cottontail (Sylvilagus auduboni)

• Badger (Taxidea taxus)

• Beaver (Castor canadensis)

• Bobcoat (Lynx baileyi)

• Coyote (Canis lestes)

• Indian dog (Canis familiaris)

Dogs and turkeys had been domesticated by the several Pueblo
tribes long before advent of the Spaniards in 1540, but there is still
doubt as to whether they were regularly eaten. The unknown author
of the "Relación del Suceso," a member of the Coronado Expedition,
observed (Winship, 1896, p. 573) that the Pueblos kept turkeys "more
for their feathers than to eat, because they make long robes of them."
Parsons (1939, p. 22) expressed surprise upon seeing Taos men eat
turkey, since in villages south of Taos "turkey is a ritual bird, kept
that its feathers may be used in prayer offerings; and it would not be
eaten, people say, even in time of famine."

Hopi of the present century insist that they would not eat dog or
coyote except to ward off starvation (Parsons, ibid., p. 22) but Alexander
M. Stephen (1936, pp. 266, 939), with no famine in prospect,
saw two dogs killed and dressed for the table, one of them "a large,
fat, young dog" that had broken a window pane while accidentally
locked in one of the houses and therefore "deserved to be killed."

Birds presumably were kept or caught for their feathers, not to eat.
Turkeys had been domesticated in P.I times if not before, and thereafter
strips of turkey feathers were twisted with yucca fibers to
make winter blankets. We found bones of the wild turkey (Meleagris
gallopavo) wherever household rubbish was thrown and, chroniclers
of the Conquest period to the contrary (Winship, 1896, p. 573), I
find it difficult to believe that pre-Spanish Pueblo peoples had not discovered
the edibility of boiled breast of turkey.

Other than wild turkey, only the following species were recognized
among our bird bones from Pueblo del Arroyo:

• Macaw (Ara macao; A. militaris)

• Prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus)

• Raven (Corvus corax)

• Red-tailed hawk (Buteo borealis)

Whether eaten or not, Indian dogs and coyotes were familiar sights
at Pueblo del Arroyo as indicated by the following findings:

                     

Room	Field No.	Description
3	88	Coyote, cranium only
11	..	Coyote skeleton, incomplete
20	..	Dog, puppy, incomplete skeleton
37	..	Dog, cranium only
Kiva C	..	Coyote and young dog, miscellaneous bones
Kiva F	484	Dog skeleton (on floor)
Kiva F	485	Dog skeleton (on east side, bench level)
Kiva F	486	Young dog, incomplete
Kiva I	487	Dog skeleton, cranium missing
Kiva I	..	Dog skeleton (on east side)

These remains, divided between the Museum of Comparative
Zoology, Cambridge, Mass., and the United States National Museum,
were described by the late Glover M. Allen (1954).

Three articulated macaw skeletons (Ara macao, A. militaris, A.
sp.) were found on a shallow accumulation of sand in Room 63
(U.S.N.M. Nos. 334950-334952), and an incomplete skeleton of the
gorgeous red-blue-yellow macaw (A. macao) was recovered in
Room 44. This latter find (field No. 312) is of more than usual
interest because it provides evidence of an apparent clash of tempers.
We may imagine a sudden painful bite from an irritated beak and a
sharp, angry blow in retaliation. Landing full on the bird's breast, the
blow resulted in permanent injury which A. Wetmore describes as
follows: "The lower end in both coracoids has been fractured and
then has healed in such a way as to bring complete fusion at the
normal area of attachment to the sternum, as well as with the manubrial
area. The free edge of the keel of the sternum also shows an
old injury, being distorted to the side in subsequent healing." (Note:
The coracoids were driven within the sternal apparatus; the keel distortion
is due to lack of sunlight or calcium deficiency.)

The quill fragment of a turkey wing feather wrapped about with a
length of coarse 2-ply yucca cord and the forward part of a blue
feather, presumably macaw, lay on the floor of Room 9B-III (Nos.
334720-334722). An incomplete turkey skeleton came from Room 63.
Captive macaws and eagles are to be seen occasionally in present-day
Pueblo villages where there is a year-long need for their feathers on
prayer offerings.

As a final possible item of food there was fish. There has never
been a living stream in Chaco Canyon and there is no likely source of
fish nearer than the San Juan River, 50 miles to the north, hence
our astonishment when seven scales of the gar pike (Lepisosteus sp.,

U.S.N.M. No. 334958) were unearthed in Room 44. The gar pike
has not been reported from the Rio San Juan but it is at home in the
Rio Grande over 100 miles to the east.