Indians of the Mesa Verde

by Don Watson

Life in a cliff dwelling. Museum diorama of Spruce Tree House

The weather grows steadily warmer and winter is left behind. There is much activity in the city. Everyone is up at sunrise and the work of the day is immediately started. After several hours of work, breakfast is eaten late in the morning, then the activities are resumed. The second and last meal of the day, an early supper, brings an end to the day’s activities.

During the winter the cave became damp and musty; everything needs to be aired out. Clothing, blankets, robes and floor mats are spread out on the terraces and roofs to bake in the sun. The women tie small bunches of stiff grass with cords and with these brush-like brooms sweep the houses and courtyards thoroughly. Trash is swept into the back of the cave where the turkeys roost or out on the ever-growing trash pile which slides far down the slope in front.

Even the kivas, the underground ceremonial rooms, are cleaned and the walls are replastered to hide the soot that has accumulated. The men do some of the cleaning but women are often invited to help, especially with the plastering. It is considered a great honor for a woman to be chosen to plaster a kiva.

A major part of the spring work is the repairing of houses. It is work that never seems to end for repairs and alterations are always in progress in some part of the city except in the winter when it is too cold. Spring is the best time for the repair work as there is an abundance of water for the mortar and the home owners are filled with a desire to build and improve. Cracks are merely filled with mud and small chinking stones. Sometimes a small section of wall has bulged dangerously and must be replaced. Often the walls have been built on a foundation of loose trash and as a result, settle until they are in danger of falling. Such walls, sometimes entire rooms, must be torn down and rebuilt. Sometimes a house is deserted by its owners for some reason and gradually goes to ruin. As it crumbles the stones and the roof poles are used in the repairing or building of other houses. It is an endless cycle, this building and repairing of houses, and all stages of it can be seen in the town almost any time.

Most of the repair work is done by the women for the houses belong to them. When there is heavy work, new poles to cut or new stones to shape, the men help but even then the women supervise.

Very often, as is true among all people, the women change the decorations of their houses. A new whim stirs the housewife’s imagination and in an hour’s time the entire scheme is changed. The husband never knows what to expect when he returns from a day in the fields. Decorations are easily applied for they consist of thin layers of clay mud, spread on the walls with the hands. Sometimes the entire house is smoothly plastered with red, yellow, grey, brown or white clay. Other houses are plastered only on the outside; some only on the inside. Here is a house that is plastered half-way down from the ceiling; next door is one that is plastered half-way up from the floor.

Many of the walls are decorated with bright paintings. Red ochre makes a rich red plaster, while up on the mesa top is a layer of clay that gives a clean chalky-white color. When the two are combined, the effect is striking. Most of the paintings are small; the picture of an animal, a geometric design or perhaps just a band of color across a wall. In the center of Cliff Palace is a house that has a row of nine, bright red hands painted above the door. The woman who lives there placed her left hand on the wall and traced it nine times. Then she filled in the outlines with red ochre to produce the odd decoration.

Near the south end of the town is the most beautifully decorated house of all. It is the third-floor room of the great four-story tower, the tallest structure in the cave. The young lady who lives there is very artistic and all four inside walls are beautifully painted in red and white. The lower half of the walls she painted with red ochre. The upper half she covered with the chalky-white clay. Where the two bands of color came together she painted large red triangles in groups of three. Thus the edge of the red border consists of three triangles, or peaks, then a straight line, three more triangles, and so on around the room. On the white upper portions of the walls are geometric designs painted in red; parallel straight lines, parallel zigzag lines and parallel fringed lines.