The small northern plateau between the transverse circumvallation and the top-wall of A is therefore nearly shut out from communication to the S.W. This plateau is a trapezium 45 m.—148 ft.—long from N. to S.,—50 m.—164 ft.[p. 86]—wide on the S., and 30 m.—98 ft.—on the N. It holds but few ruins; but, among these, a valuable find was made a short time ago by Mr. Harry Dent, of Baughls.
These ruins, in the main, can be described as follows: The slope descending from the top-wall is a heap of rubbish with shrivelled posts of wood, impossible to disentangle without excavations. North of this débris, and 29 m.—95 ft.—from A a B, stands a knoll, or mound, covered with stones. Looking south from this, I thought I noticed that it stood in the line of the second row of chambers of the east wing of A, counting from E. to W.; and retracing my steps in that direction I found, indeed, traces of stone foundations disappearing under the great débris, which indicated a corridor, or perhaps series of rooms, about 2 m.—6 ft. 6 in.—wide. It therefore looked like a northern annex to A. From the mound, which I have designated by V ([Pl. I.], Fig. 5), other foundations radiate to the W. and N.W. Those west soon disappear, but to the N.W. they are plainly visible for 14 m.—46 ft.—to another mound, or knoll T, similar to the first, whence another line of foundations vanishes to the west also. This appears to be the utmost limit of structures north, except the wall of enclosure, from which to T on the south is about 10 m.—33 ft. About the N.W. corner of A large heaps of rubbish descend in shapeless terraces outside and merge into the slope of the mesilla. They are, like the entire slope itself, covered with fragmentary pottery. About their eastern declivity, also, I thought I saw foundations, but could not be sure whether or not they connected with those extending westward from the two mounds just mentioned.
In the eastern section of mound V, Mr. Dent has, as I was informed and saw, dug down one metre into the dark loamy clay and stones of which the knoll is composed, and has thus exposed a small stone chamber, or flue, walled in to the north,[p. 87] west, and south in the ordinary manner, and closed with earth, etc., at the east. Whether there was any stone top other than rocks heaped up above the hillock I could not learn; neither did I, in digging down further, find any floor. This chimney-like structure is 1.32 m.—3 ft. 8 in.—wide from E. to W., and 0.70 m.—2 ft. 3 in.—from N. to S. It is therefore too large for a chimney, or flue, and too small for a room. Out of it Mr. Dent, whom I could not find personally, as he was absent at the time, extracted a human skeleton and much fairly preserved pottery. Of course, I was unable to see what he carried off (among which was the skull), but I saw and dug further in the same excavation, removing out of it bone splinters and the best preserved pottery piece of the entire collection. They are, in part, very similar to the yellow bowls still made by the Indian pueblo of Nambé (a Tehua tribe); but many of them have been so charred and blackened that it is impossible to make out their color. The pottery is all thin. Among it were also bits of charcoal and of rotten wood. The structure therefore appears to have been a grave, in which the body was placed in a sitting posture with its face to the east. Subsequent information and discovery have fully confirmed this view. I shall return to this on a subsequent page, and only state here that my efforts to find another skeleton in the same location failed.
The aboriginal remains encircled by the great wall of circumvallation and north of the old church are now exhausted, so far as my work among them goes, and the surroundings of the mesilla shall therefore become the subject of report.
The slope towards the east and south-east is rocky on the top, covered with sandy soil growing grama and very few cedar bushes, studded with ant-hills, and devoid of all remains of human structures so far as I could see. Pottery and obsidian are ever present, but become perceptibly less and[p. 88] almost disappear further east. The rills which drain the eastern slope carry much of this broken stuff into a small arroyo that winds to the left of the mesilla. About one quarter of a mile east of the building A, on a bare sunny and grassy level, are, quite alone, the foundations of a singular ruin. They run N. and S., consist of three rows of stones laid aside of each other longitudinally, and have the shape shown in Pl. V., Fig. 10.
Its length from N. to S. is 25 m.—82 ft.,—and its width about 10 m.—33 ft. From its form I suspect it to have been a Christian chapel, erected, or perhaps only in process of erection, before 1680. Not only is it completely razed, but even the material of the superstructure seems to have been carried off. Stones are scattered about the premises, but I found neither obsidian nor pottery. It stands protected from the north by the extremely rocky ledge terminating the mesilla towards the east, and appears without the least connection with the Indian pueblo proper.
It is the almost circular bottom on the west of the mesilla, encompassed by the north rock of A to the north, by the whole length of the mesilla to the east, by the gradual expanse below the church on the south, and by the Arroyo de Pecos on the west, that contains the aboriginal remains. Much better than a description, a diagram will illustrate their extent and shape. [Pl. I.], Fig. 5.
The distances are not very correctly given, and the shape of F is slightly exaggerated in irregularity.
A and B being the respective large buildings, C the church, D the great gate of the circumvallation; E is a stone or rubble wall of undeterminable length running along the foot of the mesilla in a slight curve till near the "wash-out" sallying from the gate, and F is an irregular lozenge, or trapeze, enclosed by a heavy low stone or rubble wall which might in[p. 89] some places be called an embankment. The corner l is 50 m.—165 ft.—from the border of the creek-bottom, which there is cut off abruptly from 1 m. to 3 m.—3 ft. 3 in. to 10 ft.,—presenting a section of red clay and gravel with pottery fragments. The line l r m runs W.N.W. to E.S.E., and is 138 m.—452 ft.—long; the line m s n measures 121 m.—398 ft.,—n o p 146 m.—480 ft., and p l 100 m.—330 ft. From r to s an embankment of earth and stone runs almost in a circle, and the whole triangle r m s forms a slightly elevated platform, in the centre of which is a pond (estanque) t, which, even at the present time, is filled with water. Viewed through the gate from above, this pond appears, with a part of the enclosure, as seen in [Pl. IX.] Several gullies (barrancas) have cut through the western and southern parts of the enclosure.
This enclosed area, now covered with tufts of grama, occasional cactuses, knolls and scattered drift and pottery, was according to Sr. Ruiz, the former huerto del pueblo; that is, the fields of the inhabitants of the pueblo, where they planted and raised Indian corn, beans, calabashes, squash, and, after the advent of the Spaniards, also wheat, melons, and perhaps other fruit. Not a vestige of former cultivation is left; but the platform r m s, with a pond in the centre, at once explains their mode of securing the water for irrigation. Through the gateway D the drainage of the mesilla was conducted directly to the platform r m s, where the pond t acted as a reservoir, out of which the fields themselves could be very easily and equitably supplied with moisture. Whether this was done by channels radiating from below the curve r s over the area F, or by carrying the water, I cannot tell, neither my informants nor the appearance of the area giving any clew. But I could not escape being forcibly struck by this plain and still very forcible illustration of communal living. Not only did the[p. 90] Pecos Indians live together, and build their houses together, but they raised their crops in one common field (though divided into individual or rather family plots, according to Ruiz), irrigated from one common water source which gathered its contents of moisture from the inhabited surface of the pueblo grounds. "The lands," said Mariano Ruiz, "belong to the tribe, but each man can sell his own crops." ("Las tierras son del pueblo, pero cada uno puede vender sus cosechas.") It forcibly recalls the system of "distribution and tenure of lands" among the ancient Mexicans.