FEDERAL ART PROJECT, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE. CUT COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO ARTIST’S RESTORATION OF [PUWIGE]
COURTESY NAT’L. PARK SERVICE AERIAL VIEW OF [PUWIGE] RESTORED
The place on which [Puwige] was erected was so situated that the Indians had to make walls with sharp turns to follow the contour of the land. This must have been a popular place to live for as time went on more and more rooms were added. Indians evidently preferred this to the vulnerable cliffs. It was not all planned and executed at one time. Some second-story rooms were added and then porches of poles and brush were built. Additions of rooms continued until Puwige was shaped in the form of a crescent with the open part facing the little river which was only a few feet away. Indians lived here for untold years. Something happened. I know not what. It seems that they closed the gap by building three rows of rooms. It was no more a crescent but a circle of rooms built around a large [plaza] or inner court. Rooms were built in rows, seven deep on the east side of the circle and three on the west side. There were about three hundred rooms on the ground floor and many second and third-story rooms—four hundred in all, more or less. The place was turned into a veritable fort. These people were cunning. They cut seven rooms out through the east side and formed a narrow passageway through which everyone had to pass in order to enter his home. They went from the outside of the [pueblo] through this narrow passage, dodging obstructions, until they reached the huge inner court. And then they ascended to their respective dwellings by means of small ladders, pulling them to their roof-tops during times of danger. Leave it to the Tewas, “the little strong people,” to find ways and means of protecting themselves from lurking danger.
I was once told a story by some [San Ildefonso] Indians about this [Puwige] hallway. Guarding the hallway was a half-circle barricade of stone and mud. It was several feet thick and both ends joined the walls of the main building. Through this circular wall was a small opening. The wall must have stood six or eight feet high to have been effective. Now the Tewas contend that at one time, long ago, a sentry was stationed day and night inside the circle. When Puwige was attacked the alarm was given and a huge boulder was rolled in front of the opening. This was to slow down the attackers. If they were fortunate enough to get by the boulder then it was intended that they stumble over a slab of basalt set edgewise in the passageway. It must have stood a foot or more in the air. If the attackers got by the stone without losing balance, then they encountered numerous wooden posts bedded upright in the dirt floor of the long narrow passage. How confusing and prohibitive! Entrance to Puwige was almost impossible unless “the little strong people” desired it. For the villager, an Indian woman with a water jar on her head, moving along slowly, entrance was easy, but for the enemy—no. Warriors stood on housetops, high in the air, and shot sharp-pointed arrows at enemies. They threw rocks and pottery vessels. They fought with clubs—anything they could get their hands on. Puwige was not easy to penetrate.
Was this [Puwige] occupied by any particular group or were the people of the cliff houses allowed to scramble down and hurry to the inside for protection? Was it a fort for the entire community or just for the people who lived here? The cliff homes were being lived in at the same time as Puwige and might have been more effective as defense units. There was only one side to protect in the cliff homes—the front. And who were the attackers: [Navaho], [Keres] or other groups? Legend has it that the Navaho plundered the [pueblos] for years and years and history tells us so. They stole the hard-earned stores of food from the pueblos and ran off with the women and children whom they made slaves. But it isn’t likely that the Navaho, on foot during the days of Puwige, cared much about penetrating the mountain homes. It would have been a chore to carry the loot back with them. The Navajo likely did not relish the idea of coming over the high range of mountains from the west for a few pots of beans and corn. Would it not be more likely that the so-called “little strong people” might have feared attacks during the night by the Keres to the south who had been driven from their [Canyon] homes? [Tyuonyi] was “the oasis of the [Pajarito]” and the Tewas did not intend to be driven from their fertile valley. Some lurking band could have crept over the south cliff when all was quiet—while Tewas were resting peacefully below. And the attackers were quiet too, with their moccasined feet, like the mountain lion which creeps upon a fawn. A falling rock or the crackling of a dead branch would be a dead give-away. This was not to happen to “the little strong people.”
COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO CEREMONIAL CAVE
COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO [KIVA] IN CEREMONIAL CAVE