Plate XLIX. Eastern Cove of Mummy Cave
The house remains in the eastern cove are partly shown in plate XLIX, which is from a photograph. The point of view is from the ledge in front of the tower. The ruins rest on a ledge in the back of the cove formed of debris well compacted and apparently consisting partly of sheep dung. The rooms are small, sometimes three deep against the back of the cove, and many of them could only have been used for storage. The principal structure is the western kiva, with its chimney-like attachments. This is described at length on pages 177, 179, 186, and 187. Adjoining it on the east is another kiva, part of whose wall is still two stories high, and clearly shown in the illustration. Some 50 or 60 feet to the east or southeast there is another circular structure, which apparently had no interior bench. The small semicircular structure shown on the plan and in the illustration, which rests against and is roofed by the rock, is a Navaho burial cist, and
another of these cists, of large size, occurs west of the principal kiva; but the ruin as a whole contains much less evidence of Navaho work than those farther down the canyon.
Many of the walls are built entirely of small pieces of stone, not more than 3 or 4 inches long by 2 inches wide and half an inch to an inch and a half thick. This construction is especially noticeable in inner walls. The joints are carefully plastered, evidently with the hand, but the mud is seldom allowed to cover the stone. It appears to have been applied externally, in pellets about the size of a walnut. The general thickness of walls is about 15 inches, although on the intermediate ledge they are over 2 feet, but some of the less important walls consist of a single layer, 6 to 8 inches thick. Walls are sometimes seen here supported by vertical timbers incorporated in them after the manner later described at some length. Ends of logs project here and there from the debris on the slope, but probably many of them are the débris of roofs.
The peculiar and anomalous features presented by the remains on the intermediate ledge seem to require some explanation. This portion of the ruin is not only different from the other portions, but different also from anything else in the canyon, and the difference is not one of degree only. Doubtless systematic excavation in the various parts of the ruin would afford an explanation. In the absence of such work we can only speculate on the problem.
The occurrence of two chimney-like shafts in connection with the rectangular rooms west of the tower is significant. Nowhere else in the canyons, except in the Casa Blanca ruin, do these structures occur, so far as known, except in connection with circular kivas. As regards the ruin named, it is almost certain that it was occupied in the historic period, probably in the seventeenth century.
The division of the ruin into three separate parts, the absence of kivas in the western cove, and the method of access to that portion all attract attention. If there were monks or other Spaniards in the settlement, the explanation would be plain; they and those of the natives allied with them would occupy the central ledge, and the anomalous features would be natural under the circumstances. Such a hypothesis would explain also the source of the many unaboriginal features which are found in other parts of the canyon, but there is no direct evidence to support it. It should be mentioned, however, that the walls here rest on about half an inch of substance which resembles compacted sheep dung. If the substance is really such, the walls must have been built within the historic period.
Fig. 17—Ruin in a rock cove.