Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
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.
At several other points in the area shown on this map there are short walls, sometimes inside the lodges, sometimes outside. In all cases, however, they are rudely constructed and heavily plastered with mud; in short, the masonry of the cavate lodges exhibits an ignorance fully equal to that of the stone villages, while the execution is, if anything, ruder.
In view of the uncertainty on this point and the further fact that almost all the cavate lodges heretofore found were excavated in tufa, ash, or other soft volcanic deposits, the report of Mr. Joseph S. Diller, petrographer of the U.S. Geological Survey, will be of interest.
Probably there was no other exit than the door, and perhaps trapdoors or small openings in the roofs, such as were formerly employed in the inhabited pueblos, according to their traditions. In the cavate lodges no exit other than the door was possible, and many of them are found with their walls much blackened by smoke.
It is believed that the cliff ruins and cavate lodges, which are merely variants of each other due to geological conditions, were simply farming shelters of another type, produced by a certain topographic environment. The importance which it is believed should attach to the site on which a ruin is found will be apparent from the above. It was certainly a prominent element in the De Chelly group.
The cavate lodges near San Francisco mountain in Arizona were visited in 1883 by Col. James Stevenson, of the Bureau of Ethnology, and in 1885 by Maj. J. W. Powell. Major Powell describes a number of groups in the vicinity of Flagstaff.
As the cavate lodges of the San Francisco mountain region have been assigned to the Havasupai Indians of the Yuman stock, and those of the Rio Grande to the Santa Clara pueblo Indians of the Tanoan stock, it may be of interest to state that there is a vague tradition extant among the modern settlers of the Verde region that the cavate lodges of that region were occupied within the last three generations.
Cavate lodges comprise a type of structures closely related to cliff houses and cave dwellings. The term is a comparatively new one, and the structures themselves are not widely known.
There can be no doubt, however, that the cavate lodge doorways represent an earlier type in development, if not in time, than the notched doorways of Tusayan. Ann. Rep. Bur. Nowhere in the village ruins or in the cavate lodges of the lower Verde were any traces of chimneys or other artificial smoke exits found.
The difference is principally if not wholly the result of a different physical environment, i.e., cavate lodges and cave dwellings are only different phases of the same thing; but for the present at least the name will be used and the cavate lodges will be treated as a separate class.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking