Honanki
The largest ruin visited in the Red-rock country was called, following Hopi etymology, Honanki; but the nomenclature was adopted not because it was so called by the Hopi, but following the rule elsewhere suggested.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. C
PALATKI (RUIN I)
This ruin lies under a lofty buttress of rock westward from Lloyd's canyon, which presented the only available camping place in its neighborhood. At the time of my visit there was but scanty water in the canyon and that not potable except for stock. We carried with us all the water we used, and when this was exhausted were obliged to retrace our steps to Oak creek. There are groves of trees in the canyon and evidences that at some seasons there is an abundant water supply. A corral had been made and a well dug near its mouth, but with these exceptions there were no evidences of previous occupancy by white men. We had hardly pitched our camp before tracks of large game were noticed, and before we left we sighted a bear which had come down to the water to drink, but which beat a hasty retreat at our approach. As previously stated, the knowledge of this ruin was communicated to me by Mr Schürmann.
Fig. 248—Ground plan of Honanki
The Honanki ruin ([figure 248]) extends along the base of the cliff for a considerable distance, and may for convenience of description be divided into two sections, which, although generally similar, differ somewhat in structural features. The former is lineal in its arrangement, and consists of a fringe of houses extending along the base of the cliff at a somewhat lower level than the other. The walls of this section were for the greater part broken, and at no place could anything more than the foundation of the front wall be detected, although fragments of masonry strewed the sides of the declivity near its base. The house walls which remain are well-built parallel spurs constructed at right angles to the cliff, which served as the rear of all the chambers. At the extreme right end of this row of rooms, situated deep in a large cavern with overhanging roof, portions of a rear wall of masonry are well preserved, and the lateral walls of one or two chambers in this portion of the ruin are still intact. Straggling along from that point, following the contour of the base of the cliff under which it lies, there extends a long row of rooms, all destitute of a front wall.
The first division ([plate cii]), beginning with the most easterly of the series, is quite hidden at one end in a deep cavern. At this point the builders, in order to obtain a good rear wall to their rooms, constructed a line of masonry parallel with the face of the cliff. At right angles to this construction, at the eastern extremity, there are remnants of a lateral wall, but the remainder had tumbled to the ground. The standing wall of z is not continuous with that of the next room, y, and apparently was simply the rear of a large room with the remains of a lateral wall at right angles to it. The other walls of this chamber had tumbled into a deep gorge, overgrown with bushes which conceal the fragments. This building is set back deeply in the cave, and is isolated from the remaining parts of the ruin, although at the level which may have been its roof there runs a kind of gallery formed by a ledge of rock, plastered with adobe, which formerly connected the roof with the rest of the pueblo. This ledge was a means of intercommunication, and a continuation of the same ledge, in rooms s, t, and u, supported the rafters of these chambers. At u there are evidences of two stories or two tiers of rooms, but those in front have fallen to the ground.
The standing wall at u is about five feet high, connected with the face of the cliff by masonry. The space between it and the cliff was not large enough for a habitable chamber, and was used probably as a storage place. In front of the standing wall of room u there was another chamber, the walls of which now strew the talus of the cliff.
The highest and best preserved room of the second series of chambers at Honanki is that designated p, at a point where the ruin reached an elevation of 20 feet. Here we have good evidence of rooms of two stories, as indicated by the points of insertion of the beams of a floor, at the usual levels above the ground. In fact, it is probable that the whole section of the ruin was two stories high throughout, the front walls having fallen along the entire length. From the last room on the left to the eastern extremity of the line of houses which leads to the main ruin of Honanki, no ground plans were detected at the base of the cliffs, but fallen rocks and scattered débris are strewn over the whole interval.
The eastern part of the main ruin of Honanki, however, lies but a short distance west of that described, and consists of many similar chambers, arranged side by side. These are lettered in the diagram h to u, beginning with h, which is irregularly circular in form, and ends with a high wall, the first to be seen as one approaches the ruin from Lloyd canyon. This range of houses is situated on a lower foundation and at a lower level than that of the main quarter of Honanki, and a trail runs along so close to the rooms that the whole series is easily visited without much climbing. No woodwork remains in any of these rooms, and the masonry is badly broken in places either by natural agencies or through vandalism.
Beginning with h, the round room, which adjoins the main quarter of Honanki, we find much in its shape to remind us of a kiva. The walls are in part built on foundations of large bowlders, one of which formed the greater part of the front wall. This circular room was found to be full of fallen débris, and could not be examined without considerable excavation. If it were a kiva, which I very much doubt, it is an exception among the Verde valley ruins, where no true kiva has yet been detected.[27]
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CI
FRONT WALL OF PALATKI (RUIN II)
Following h there is an inclosure which originally may have been a habitable room, as indicated by the well-constructed front wall, but it is so filled with large stones that it is difficult to examine its interior. On one side the wall, which is at right angles to the face of the cliff, is 10 feet high, and the front wall follows the surface of a huge bowlder which serves as its foundation.
Room i is clearly defined, and is in part inclosed by a large rock, on top of which there still remains a fragment of a portion of the front wall. A spur of masonry connects this bowlder with the face of the cliff, indicating all that remains of the former division between rooms i and j. An offshoot from this bowlder, in the form of a wall 10 feet high, formerly inclosed one side of a room. In the rear of chamber j there are found two receptacles or spaces left between the rear wall and the face of the cliff, while the remaining wall, which is 10 feet high, is a good specimen of pueblo masonry.
The two side walls of room k are well preserved, but the chamber resembles the others of the series in the absence of a front wall. In this room, however, there remains what may have been the fragment of a rear wall parallel with the face of the cliff. This room has also a small cist of masonry in one corner, which calls to mind certain sealed cavities in the cavate dwellings.
The two side walls of m and n are respectively eight and ten feet high. There is nothing exceptional in the standing walls of room o, one of which, five feet in altitude, still remains erect. Room p has a remnant of a rear wall plastered to the face of the cliff.
Room r ([plate ciii]) is a finely preserved chamber, with lateral walls 20 feet high, of well-constructed masonry, that in the rear, through which there is an opening leading into a dark chamber, occupying the space between it and the cliff. It is braced by connecting walls at right angles to the face of the solid rock.
At s, the face of the cliff forms a rear wall of the room, and one of the side walls is fully 20 feet high. The points of insertion of the flooring are well shown, about 10 feet from the ground, proving that the ruin at this point was at least two stories high.
Two walled inclosures, one within the other, characterize room u. On the cliff above it there is a series of simple pictographs, consisting of short parallel lines pecked into the rock, and are probably of Apache origin. This room closes the second series, along the whole length of which, in front of the lateral walls which mark different chambers, there are, at intervals, piles of débris, which enabled an approximate determination of the situation of the former front wall, fragments of the foundations of which are traceable in situ in several places.
The hand of man and the erosion of the elements have dealt harshly with this portion of Honanki, for not a fragment of timber now remains in its walls. This destruction, so far as human agency is concerned, could not have been due to white men, but probably to the Apache, or possibly to the cliff villagers themselves at the time of or shortly after the abandonment of the settlement.
From the second section of Honanki we pass to the third and best-preserved portion of the ruins ([figure 249]), indicated in the diagram from a to g. To this section I have referred as the "main ruin," for it was evidently the most populous quarter of the ancient cliff dwelling. It is better preserved than the remainder of Honanki, and is the only part in which all four walls of the chambers still remain erect. Built at a higher level than the series of rooms already considered, it must have towered above them, and possibly served as a place of retreat when danger beset the more exposed quarters of the village.
Fig. 249—The main ruin of Honanki
Approaching the main ruin of Honanki ([plate civ]) from the east, or the parts already described, one passes between the buttress on which the front wall of the rounded room h is built and a fragment of masonry on the left, by a natural gateway through which the trail is very steep. On the right there towers above the visitor a well-preserved wall of masonry, the front of room a, and he soon passes abreast of the main portion of the ruin of Honanki. This section is built in a huge cavern, the overhanging roof of which, is formed by natural rock, arching far above the tops of the highest walls of the pueblo and suggesting the surroundings of the "Cliff Palace" of Mesa Verde, so well described by the late Baron G. Nordenskiöld in his valuable monograph on the ruins of that section of southern Colorado. The main ruin of Honanki is one of the largest and best preserved architectural monuments of the former people of Verde valley that has yet been described. Although somewhat resembling its rival, the well-known "Casa Montezuma" of Beaver creek, its architecture is dissimilar on account of the difference in the form of the cavern in which it is built and the geological character of the surrounding cliffs. Other Verde ruins may have accommodated more people, when inhabited, but none of its type south of Canyon de Chelly have yet been described which excel it in size and condition of preservation. I soon found that our party were not the first whites who had seen this lonely village, as the names scribbled on its walls attested; but so far as I know it had not previously been visited by archeologists.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CII
HONANKI (RUIN II)
In the main portion of Honanki we found that the two ends of the crescentic row of united rooms which compose it are built on rocky elevations, with foundations considerably higher than those of the rooms in the middle portion of the ruins. The line of the front wall is, therefore, not exactly crescentic, but irregularly curved ([figure 249]), conforming to the rear of the cavern in which the houses are situated. About midway in the curve of the front walls two walls indicative of former rooms extend at an angle of about 25° to the main front wall. All the component rooms of the main part of Honanki can be entered, some by external passageways, others by doorways communicating with adjacent chambers. None of the inclosures have roofs or upper floors, although indications of the former existence of both these structural features may readily be seen in several places. Although wooden beams are invariably wanting, fragments of these still project from the walls, almost always showing on their free ends, inside the rooms, the effect of fire. I succeeded in adding to the collection a portion of one of these beams, the extremity of which had been battered off, evidently with a stone implement. In the alkaline dust which covered the floor several similar specimens were seen.
The stones which form the masonry of the wall ([figure 250]) were not, as a rule, dressed or squared before they were laid with adobe mortar, but were generally set in place in the rough condition in which they may still be obtained anywhere under the cliff.
All the mortar used was of adobe or the tenacious clay which serves so many purposes among the Pueblos. The walls of the rooms were plastered with a thick layer of the same material. The rear wall of each room is the natural rock of the cliff, which rises vertically and has a very smooth surface. The great natural archway which covers the whole pueblo protects it from wind and rain, and as a consequence, save on the front face, there are few signs of natural erosion. The hand of man, however, has dealt rudely with this venerable building, and many of the walls, especially of rooms which formerly stood before the central portion, lie prone upon the earth; but so securely were the component stones held together by the adobe that even after their fall sections of masonry still remain intact.
Fig. 250—Structure of wall of Honanki
There are seven walled inclosures in the main part of Honanki, and as each of these was formerly at least two stories high there is substantial evidence of the former existence of fourteen rooms in this part of the ruin. There can be little doubt that there were other rooms along the front of the central portion, and the fallen walls show them to have been of large size. It would likewise appear that the middle part was higher than the two wings, which would increase the number of chambers, so that with these additions it may safely be said that this part of Honanki alone contained not far from twenty rooms.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CIII
WALLS OF HONANKI
The recess in the cliff in which the ruin is situated is lower in the middle than at either side, where there are projecting ledges of rock which were utilized by the builders in the construction of the foundations, the line of the front wall following the inequalities of the ground. It thus results that rooms g, a, b, and a part of c, rise from a foundation about breast high, or a little higher than the base of rooms d, e, and f.
The front wall of a has for its foundation a spur or ledge of rock, which is continued under b and a part of c. The corner or angle of this wall, facing the round chamber, is curved in the form of a tower, a considerable section of its masonry being intact. Near the foundation and following the inequalities of the rock surface the beginning of a wall at right angles to the face of the ruin at this point is seen. A small embrasure, high above the base of the front wall, on the side by which one approaches the ruin from the east, and two smaller openings on the same level, looking out over the valley, suggest a floor and lookouts. The large square orifice in the middle of the face of the wall has a wooden lintel, still in place; the opening is large enough for use as a door or passageway. The upper edge of the front wall is somewhat irregular, but a notch in it above the square opening is conspicuous.
The rear wall of room a was the face of the cliff, formed of solid rock without masonry and very much blackened by smoke from former fires. As, however, there is evidence that since its destruction or abandonment by its builders this ruin has been occupied as a camping place by the Apache, it is doubtful to which race we should ascribe this discoloration of the walls by soot.
On the ground floor there is a passageway into chamber b, which is considerably enlarged, although the position of the lintel is clearly indicated by notches in the wall. The beam which was formed there had been torn from its place and undoubtedly long ago used for firewood by nomadic visitors. The open passageway, measured externally, is about 15 feet above the foundation of the wall, through which it is broken, and about 8 feet below the upper edge of the wall.
Room b is an irregular, square chamber, two stories high, communicating with a and c by passages which are enlarged by breakage in the walls. A small hole in the front wall, about 6 feet from the floor, opens externally to the air. The walls are, in general, about 2 feet thick, and are composed of flat red stones laid in clay of the same color. The cliff forms the rear wall of the chamber. The clay at certain places in the walls, especially near the insertions of the beams and about the window openings, appears to have been mixed with a black pitch, which serves to harden the mixture.
Room c is the first of a series of chambers, with external passageways, but its walls are very much broken down, and the openings thereby enlarged. The front wall is almost straight and in one place stands 30 feet, the maximum height of the standing wall of the ruins. In one corner a considerable quantity of ashes and many evidences of fire, some of which may be ascribed to Apache occupants, was detected. A wooden beam, marking the line of the floor of a second story, was seen projecting from the front wall, and there are other evidences of a floor at this level. Large beams apparently extended from the front wall to the rear of the chamber, where they rested on a ledge in the cliff, and over these smaller sticks were laid side by side and at right angles to the beams. These in turn supported either flat stones or a layer of mud or clay. The method of construction of one of these roofs is typical of a Tusayan kiva, where ancient architectural forms are adhered to and best preserved.
The entrance to room d is very much enlarged by the disintegration of the wall, and apparently there was at this point a difference in level of the front wall, for there is evidence of rooms in advance of those connected with the chambers described, as shown by a line of masonry, still standing, parallel to the front face of inclosures c and d.
Room e communicates by a doorway with the chamber marked f, and there is a small window in the same partition. This room had a raised banquette on the side toward the cliff, recalling an arrangement of the floor similar to that in the cavate dwellings opposite Squaw mountain which I have described. This platform is raised about three feet above the remainder of the floor of f, and, like it, is strewn with large slabs of stone, which have fallen from the overhanging roof. In the main floor, at one corner, near the platform, there is a rectangular box-like structure made of thin slabs of stone set on edge, suggesting the grinding bins of the Pueblos. Room f communicates with g by a passageway which has a stone lintel. The holes in the walls, in which beams were once inserted, are seen in several places at different levels above the floor. The ends of several beams, one extremity of which is invariably charred, were found set in the masonry, and others were dug from the débris in the floor.
As a result of the curve in the front wall of the ruin at that point, the shape of room f is roughly quadrate, with banquettes on two sides. There are six large beam holes in the walls, and the position of the first floor is well shown on the face of the partition, separating f from g. The passageway from one of these rooms to the other is slightly arched.
Room g is elongated, without an external entrance, and communicates with f by a small opening, through which it is very difficult to crawl. Its longest dimension is almost at right angles to the front face of the remaining rooms, and it is raised above them by its foundation on an elevated rock like that of a, b, and c. There is a small, square, external opening which may have served as the position of a former beam or log. The upper level of the front wall is more or less broken down in places, and formerly may have been much higher. Beyond g a spur of masonry is built at right angles to the cliff, inclosing a rectangular chamber at the end of the ruin which could not be entered. Possibly in former times it was accessible by means of a ladder from the roof, whence communication with other portions of the structure was also had.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY—— SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. CIV
APPROACH TO MAIN PART OF HONANKI
A short distance beyond the westernmost rooms of Honanki, almost covered with bushes and adjoining the base of the cliff, there is a large ash heap in which are many fragments of pottery and the bones of various animals. It is probable that excavation in this quarter would reveal many interesting objects. In the cliffs above this ash heap, far beyond reach, there is a walled niche which has never been disturbed. This structure is similar to those near the cavate dwellings, and when opened will probably be found to contain buried mortuary objects of interesting character. I did not disturb this inclosure, inasmuch as I had no ladders or ropes with which to approach it.
It is very difficult to properly estimate, from the number of rooms in a cliff house, the former population, and as a general thing the tendency is rather to overstate than to fall short of the true total. In a pueblo like Hano, on the first or east mesa of Tusayan, for instance, there are many uninhabited rooms, and others serve as storage chambers, while in places the pueblo has so far fallen into ruin as to be uninhabitable. If a pueblo is very much concentrated the population varies at different seasons of the year. In summer it is sparsely inhabited; in winter it is rather densely populated. While Palatki and Honanki together had rooms sufficient to house 500 people, I doubt whether their aggregate population, ever exceeded 200. This estimate, of course, is based on the supposition that these villages were contemporaneously inhabited.
The evidences all point to a belief, however, that they were both permanent dwelling places and not temporary resorts at certain seasons of the year.
The pictographs on the face of the cliff above Honanki are for the greater part due to the former Apache occupants of the rooms, and are situated high above the tops of the walls of the ruin. They are, as a rule, drawn with white chalk, which shows very clearly on the red rock, and are particularly numerous above room g. The figure of a circle, with lines crossing one another diametrically and continued as rays beyond the periphery, possibly represent the sun. Many spiral figures, almost constant pictographs in cliff ruins, are found in several places. Another strange design, resembling some kind of insect, is very conspicuous.
A circle painted green and inclosed in a border of yellow is undoubtedly of Apache origin. There is at one point a row of small pits, arranged in line, suggesting a score or enumeration of some kind, and a series of short parallel lines of similar import was found not far away. This latter method of recording accounts is commonly used at the present time in Tusayan, both in houses and on cliffs; and one of the best of these, said to enumerate the number of Apache killed by the Hopi in a raid many years ago, may be seen above the trail by which the visitor enters the pueblo of Hano on the East Mesa. The names of several persons scratched on the face of the cliff indicate that Americans had visited Honanki before me.
The majority of the paleoglyphs at both Palatki and Honanki are of Apache origin, and are of comparatively modern date, as would naturally be expected. In some instances their colors are as fresh as if made a few years ago, and there is no doubt that they were drawn after the building was deserted by its original occupants. The positions of the pictographs on the cliffs imply that they were drawn before the roofs and flooring had been destroyed, thus showing how lately the ruin preserved its ancient form. In their sheltered position there seems to be no reason why the ancient pictographs should not have been preserved, and the fact that so few of the figures pecked in the cliff now remain is therefore instructive.
One of the first tendencies of man in visiting a ruin is to inscribe his name on its walls or on neighboring cliffs. This is shared by both Indians and whites, and the former generally makes his totem on the rock surface, or adds that of his gods, the sun, rain-cloud, or katcinas. Inscriptions recording events are less common, as they are more difficult to indicate with exactitude in this system of pictography. The majority of ancient pictographs in the Red-rock country, like those I have considered in other parts of Verde valley, are identical with picture writings now made in Tusayan, and are recognized and interpreted without hesitation by the Hopi Indians. In their legends, in which the migrations of their ancestors are recounted, the traditionists often mention the fact that their ancestors left their totem signatures at certain points in their wanderings. The Patki people say that you will find on the rocks of Palatkwabi, the "Red Land of the South" from which they came, totems of the rain-cloud, sun, crane, parrot, etc. If we find these markings in the direction which they are thus definitely declared to exist, and the Hopi say similar pictures were made by their ancestors, there seems no reason to question such circumstantial evidence that some of the Hopi clans once came from this region.[28]
One of the most interesting of the pictographs pecked in the rock is a figure which, variously modified, is a common decoration on cliff-dweller pottery from the Verde valley region to the ruins of the San Juan and its tributaries. This figure has the form of two concentric spirals, the ends of which do not join. As this design assumes many modifications, it may be well to consider a few forms which it assumes on the pottery of the cliff people and on that of their descendants, the Pueblos.
The so-called black-and-white ware, or white pottery decorated with black lines, which is so characteristic of the ceramics of the cliff-dwellers, is sometimes, as we shall see, found in ruins like Awatobi and Sikyatki; but it is so rare, as compared with other varieties, that it may be regarded as intrusive.
One of the simplest forms of the broken-line motive is a Greek fret, in which there is a break in the component square figures or where the line is noncontinuous. In the simplest form, which appears prominently on modern pottery, but which is rare or wanting on true black-and-white ware, we have two crescentic figures, the concavities of which face in different directions, but the horns overlap. This is a symbol which the participants in the dance called the Húmiskatcina still paint with pigments on their breasts, and which is used on shields and various religious paraphernalia.
A study of any large collection of decorated Pueblo ware, ancient or modern, will show many modifications of this broken line, a number of which I shall discuss more in detail when pottery ornamentation is considered. A design so distinctive and so widespread as this must certainly have a symbolic interpretation. The concentric spirals with a broken line, the Hopi say, are symbols of the whirlpool, and it is interesting to find in the beautiful plates of Chavero's Antigüedades Mexicanas that the water in the lagoon surrounding the ancient Aztec capital was indicated by the Nahuatl Indians with similar symbols.