Prehistoric Indians of the Southwest

by H. M. Wormington

Most of the information we have about the Basketmakers we owe to their burial practices and to their habit of placing extensive mortuary offerings with their dead. There may have been some graves in the open, but these have not been found. Those we know are from caves. Where cave floors were covered with rocks, bodies were sometimes placed in crevices. Usually, however, they were placed in pits or cists which had originally been constructed for storage. There were many multiple burials and up to nineteen bodies have been found in a single grave, although two or three is the normal number. Usually all the bodies seem to have been buried at the same time and, since there is rarely any indication of violence, we may assume that epidemics must sometimes have occurred. It is rare that the cause of death can be determined, but in an occasional case, it is possible. The body of one young man was found with a bladder stone, large enough to have caused death, lying in his pelvic cavity.[37]

The bodies were tightly flexed, with the knees drawn up almost to the chin. This must have been done soon after death occurred and before the body had stiffened. Bodies were usually wrapped in fur blankets, but occasionally tanned deer skins were used. In some cases a large twined bag split down one side provided an inner covering. A large basket was usually inverted over the face. In addition to these and other baskets, mortuary offerings included sandals, beads and ornaments, weapons, digging sticks and other implements, and cone-shaped stone pipes. It is not known what was smoked in these pipes, but some form of wild tobacco may have been used. It is unlikely that they were smoked for pleasure. More probably the blowing of smoke had some ceremonial significance, as it does with many living Southwestern Indians who connect smoke clouds with the rain clouds which play such an important part in their lives and which are accordingly represented in their religious rites. Bodies were sometimes incased in adobe, but this was rather rare. Usually the pit was lined with bark, grass, or fiber, and the body covered with the same material.

Some quite unusual graves have been found.[37] One contained the mummy of a man wearing leather moccasins, the only ones ever found in a Basketmaker site. This individual had been cut in two at the waist and then sewed together again. Another interesting burial was that of a girl about eighteen years old and a young baby.[76] Under the shoulders of the girl’s mummy was the entire head skin of an adult. The scalp and facial skin had been removed in three pieces, dried or cured in some way, then sewed back together again. The hair was carefully dressed, and the face and tonsure part of the scalp painted with red, white, and yellow. It had apparently been suspended around the girl’s neck and may have been some sort of a trophy.

There was a high mortality rate for children and infants. Their burials were handled somewhat differently from those of adults. Young children were sometimes buried in baskets, sometimes in large bags. Babies were usually buried in their cradles. These were ingeniously constructed with a stick bent to form an oval and filled with a framework of rods placed in a criss-cross arrangement and tied. The cradles were padded with juniper bark and covered with fur-cloth blankets, often made of the white belly skins of rabbits. Babies were tied in the cradle with soft fur cord. The cradle could be carried on the mother’s back, hung on a branch, propped against a rock or tree, or laid on the ground. Diapers were made of soft juniper bark. Pads were used to prevent umbilical hernia. These were made of wads of corn husks or grass or a piece of bark, wrapped in a piece of prairie dog skin and tied in position with a fur cord. The umbilical cord was dried and tied to a corner of the outer blanket used in the cradle.

The only domesticated animal which the Basketmakers possessed was the dog, and two burials have been found where dogs were interred with people.[38] One large dog resembling a collie was buried with a man, and a smaller black-and-white dog which looked rather like a short haired terrier was found with a woman. Since these dogs are not related to coyotes and other doglike animals found in America, it is believed that they must have been domesticated in the Old World and accompanied their masters when they came to this hemisphere. Probably the dogs were pets, for the scarcity of their bones in refuse heaps indicates that they were not eaten. Some dog hair was used in weaving, but not to a sufficient extent to make it seem probable that dogs were kept entirely for the purpose of providing material.

The exigencies of survival cannot have left the Basketmakers too much leisure, but all of their time cannot have been taken up by work. Undoubtedly religious ceremonies occupied them to some extent. Rattles made of deer hoofs and bone were probably used to set the rhythm of ceremonial dances. These may have been worn around the waist or ankles or mounted on handles. Whistles have been found made of hollow bird bones. There is reason to believe that the Basketmakers were not unfamiliar with gambling. Gaming sticks and bones, similar to those used by modern Indians, have been found in Basketmaker sites. The sticks are of wood, about three inches long, flat on one side and convex on the other, and marked with [incised] lines. The gaming bones are lozenges about one inch long and roughly oval in shape. Doubtless even in that far off time the canyons sometimes echoed with the prehistoric version of “Seven come eleven, baby needs some sandals.”

Fig. 14—Mummies of two varieties of Basketmaker dogs. (Courtesy Peabody Museum, Harvard University.)

On cliff faces are found pictures, sometimes [incised] but more usually painted, which are attributed to the Basketmakers. These usually show square-shouldered human figures or hand prints. The latter were normally made by dipping the hand in paint then placing it against the surface to be marked, but in some cases they were painted. The significance of these and later pictographs is not known, although there are innumerable theories. The most probable explanation seems to be that they had some religious significance but it is also possible that they were records, were designed to give information, or were done for amusement.