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Updated: June 3, 2025
The highest type of masonry in the pueblo system of architecture consists of small blocks of stone of nearly uniform size, dressed, and laid in courses, and rubbed down in situ. No attempt was made to break joints. This system requires the careful preparation of the material beforehand, and examples of it are not very common in Canyon de Chelly.
No kiva has been found in De Chelly with a roof in place. Nearly all of them are inclosed in rectangular chambers, and it seems more than probable that the roofing of the kiva was simply the roofing of the inclosing chamber. As a rule the inclosing rectangular walls were erected at the same time as the kiva proper, and the outside of the inner circular wall was not finished at all.
If similar conditions prevailed in De Chelly, there might be many more ruins of this class than those so far discovered. Even those found are not easily distinguished and might easily be passed over. Possibly there were small ruins of this type scattered over the whole canyon bottom. An example which occurs at the point marked 12 on the map, and shown in plate XLIV, presents no trace on the surface except some potsherds, which in this locality mean nothing. The site is a low hill or end of a slope, the top of which is perhaps 25 feet above the stream bed, but separated from it by a belt of recent alluvium carpeted with grass. The hill itself was formed of talus, covered with alluvium, all but a small portion of which was subsequently cut away, leaving an almost vertical face 15 or 18 feet high. In this face the ends or vertical sections of several walls can be seen; one of them is nearly 3
The cliff outlooks in Canyon de Chelly and in other regions, the cavate lodges of New Mexico and Arizona, the "watch towers" of the San Juan and of the Zuñi country, the summer villages attached to many of the pueblos, the single-room remains found everywhere, even the brush shelters or "kisis" of Tusayan, are all functionally analogous, and all are the outgrowth of certain industrial requirements, which were essentially the same throughout the pueblo country, but whose product was modified by geological and topographical conditions.
In calling attention to the characteristic cliff dwellings of the Red-rocks I am making known a new region of ruins closely related to those of Canyon de Tségi, or Chelly, the San Juan and its tributaries.
Farther south the Moencopie with its tributaries is a labyrinth of gorges; and all the streams that run west into the Colorado, south into the Little Colorado, or north into the San Juan have carved deep, wild, and romantic gorges. Immediately west of the Chusca Plateau the Canyon del Muerta and the Canyon de Chelly are especially noticeable.
The still later idea that the cliff dwellings were used as places of refuge by various pueblo tribes who, when the occasion for such use was passed, returned to their original homes, or to others constructed like them, may explain some of the cliff ruins, but if applicable at all to those of De Chelly, it applies only to a small number of them.
Entrance to the kivas is invariably from the roof by a ladder. This appears to be a ceremonial requirement. Doorways at the ground level are not only unknown, but also impracticable; but in De Chelly there are some puzzling features which might easily be mistaken for such doorways. The principal kiva in the ruin, which occurs at the point marked 10 on the map, and described above (page 123, figure 24), is on the edge of the ledge, and its outer wall is so close as to make a passage difficult, although not impossible. At the point where the curved wall comes nearest the cliff there is a narrow gap or opening, not more than 15 inches wide. In front of this there appears to be a little platform on the sloping rock, 2
In the large ruins of Chaco canyon the kivas occur in groups arranged along the inner side of the rooms; always, where the ground plan is such as to permit it, arranged on the border of an inner court. In Canyon de Chelly the kivas are always circular and are placed generally on the outer edge of the settlement, which is usually the front. Rept. Bur.
In the case of Canyon de Chelly the same statement might be made, for more than 99 Navaho in 100, when asked what became of the people who built the old houses in De Chelly, will state that a great wind arose and swept them all away, which is equivalent to saying that they do not know.
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