Textiles
Fig. 4.—Woven forehead band.
The Cliff Palace people manufactured fairly good cloth, the component cords or strings being of two or three strands and well twisted. So finely made and durable are some of these cords that they might be mistaken for white men's work; some of them, however, are very coarse, and are tied in hanks. Among varieties of cords, may be mentioned those wound with feathers, from which textiles, ordinarily called "feather cloth," was made. Yucca and cotton were employed in the manufacture of almost all kinds of fabrics. A few fragments of netting were found.
The finest cloth was manufactured from cotton, a good specimen, of which, showing a pattern woven in different colors, is contained in the collection.
Several woven belts, and also a head-band similar to that figured in the report on Spruce-tree House, were uncovered by the excavations.
The largest fragment of cloth was taken out of the crematory, or inclosure containing the calcined human bones, at the northern end of the larger refuse heap. It appears to have been a portion of a bag, or possibly of a head covering, but it is so fragmentary that its true use is unknown. The pattern is woven in darker colored threads, with a selvage at two ends. The material out of which it was made has not been definitely determined, but it closely resembles that of the specimen figured by Nordenskiöld (plate L) from Mug House. Our excavations were rewarded with a fine woven head-band with loops at the ends ([fig. 4]), similar to that described and figured in the report on Spruce-tree House. Several small fragments of cloth were recovered from the refuse heap, but none of them was large enough to indicate the form of the garment to which they originally belonged.
In the group of fabrics may be included nets and cloth with feathers wound around warp and woof, similar to those figured from Spruce-tree House.
There were several specimens of yucca strings, tied in loops, generally six in number, which presumably were devoted to the same purpose as by the present Hopi, who attach to the string six ears of corn, representing the cardinal points on the six-directions altar, and hang them on the walls of a priest's house. If the cliff-dwellers used this string for a similar purpose, it would appear that they, like the Hopi, recognized six cardinal points—north, west, south, east, above, and below—and worshiped gods of these directions, to which they erected altars.[76]