When the harvest finally ends there are enough beans and corn in storage to last not only until the next harvest, but on through two or three years if coming harvests should fail. By carefully conserving the supplies the people could survive two or three seasons of drouth. That is the possibility for which they must always be prepared, for normal harvests do not come every year.
All through the harvest the workers have watched for perfect ears of corn and when found they were put aside. These will be saved for seed and they are stored separately in the safest, driest places. Even though planting time is months away small ceremonies are performed over these precious ears.
Although the agricultural products are of first importance to the people of Cliff Palace, there are in addition countless wild products that they must gather and store away. Throughout the autumn, when they are not busy with their harvest, they search the mesas and canyons for these natural foodstuffs. Corn, beans, and squash would be a tiresome diet so meat, nuts, roots, fruit, seeds and berries are needed.
This year there is a splendid crop of pinon nuts and the women and children are busy gathering them. The early frosts have opened the cones and the ground under each pinon tree is covered with brown nuts that are scarcely larger than beans. Squirrels, chipmunks and Indians engage in a lively contest for them but there are more than enough for all. They are stored away in baskets to be eaten later in the winter. Usually they are cracked one at a time with the teeth and eaten raw but sometimes they are ground, shell and all, into an oily butter and eaten with corn bread. Pinon nuts are highly prized but they cannot be depended upon regularly. Sometimes several years elapse between crops.
In addition to pinon nuts many other plant products are gathered, dried and stored for the winter. Yucca pods, cactus fruits, berries, roots and seeds all have their uses. Medicinal herbs are also gathered as well as plants that will be needed for dying cotton cloth and buckskin. Bundles of drying plants hang on the walls of every house.
During the summer there was little hunting, for the deer and mountain sheep drifted north into the higher country. Now they are returning and as soon as the harvest is over, the men begin to lay in the winter’s supply of meat. Hunting parties vary in size from one man to all of the men in the town and there are always important ceremonial preparations. Prayer sticks are made, prayers are said and each man carries a tiny stone image of some animal, such as the mountain lion, which is a good hunter. When the organized town hunts are planned, the hunt society holds ceremonies in its kiva the night before the hunt begins. Unless these ceremonial preparations are made, a hunt cannot be successful. If a man were to neglect the ceremonies it would be worse than if he were to forget to take his weapons.
Corn is husked and spread on the roofs to dry
The man who cut the log too short