Few Indian ruins are excavated in which the remains of corn are not found. The ancient inhabitants raised corn—much corn. It was the most important item in their diet. The fields in the lower end of the [Canyon] were fertile. The valley was a paradise for primitive people. During corn planting time tiny kernels were sown in the rich fertile ground which had been broken with digging sticks and crude hoes. There were likely no large continuous fields in this valley but only small patches where individuals might have had separate fields. Adolph [Bandelier] suggested that the ancient people irrigated in the Valley of the Frijoles. How lucky they were if this were true. It is more likely that they depended on the waters from the heavens. When it was extremely dry the Indian women transported water from the little river in urns on the tops of their heads. And so heavy were the jars filled with water that they were obliged to use soft pot-rests of grass. Corn was planted in April and was likely sown under a waxing moon so that it would grow with the moon. The Tewas believed that when corn was sown under a waning moon, the seeds quit growing. With careful nursing and watering from April until September, the pigmy ears grew. In the early fall the corn was gathered by the men.
A day at [Tyuonyi] during “corn gathering month” about 1537 A.D. was an interesting one. The large [plaza] inside [Puwige] was swept clean, if customs of yesteryear parallel those of today, and the corn was brought therein. Corn, they believed, had life like people and would be glad to be brought in and housed and protected. It was placed in piles and everybody from the [pueblo] helped with the husking—men, women and children. And when they finished they might have gone to the cliffs to help their relatives with their husking. As fast as the ears were husked they were thrown on the flat mud roofs of the houses to dry. These Indians did not use all the corn at once. The old women thought of crop failures the next year and so they saved a double amount of the life-giving grains to plant the year after. After all the husking was done, the pueblo was swept clean with brooms made of grass bound with [yucca] fiber or corn husks. This was in preparation for a festival—a dance perhaps, to observe the gathering-in of the crop. Strange customs these Indians had! While corn was standing in the fields it was the property of the men. As soon as it was gathered, husked and stored, it belonged to the women who were the caretakers, even though they took little part in pueblo life at Frijoles which was predominantly a masculine society.
Not all the four hundred rooms at [Puwige] were used for dwellings. Perhaps no more than a hundred Indians lived here. The smaller rooms around the inside of the circle, more than likely, were used for storage purposes. If this were so, it was here that great stores of corn were kept—inside the circle, safe from plunderers and robbers. How important this corn was! It might have been offered to the Gods as a request for various favors and Indian women might have taken corn along when they went to look for pottery clay, for clay was a scarce item here. And some of the people might have worn little bags of corn around their necks. Even in [prehistoric] times a corn cake would have tasted good. Green corn was pounded into a pulp, patted into a cake and then baked on a hearth of black stone over a little fireplace. And Indian women could have greased the little cakes with the fat of a deer to make them tasty. When the corn was all dry old women knelt before their angled [metates] set in bins and with a hand-piece or [mano] of black basalt they ground. Their fingernails were worn oblique on the ends from constant rubbing in rhythmic time with a corn-grinding chant sung by the men as they beat a drum or two. And they ground on three or four metates. First, they broke the corn, then by the time it was passed on and ground on each of the metates, it was transformed into fine corn flour. And lastly, it was stored away or perhaps packed over the mountains to other villages. Some of it might have been traded for buffalo hides by traders who penetrated the buffalo region to the east, far out of the realm of the [pueblos] of the [Rio Grande] and adjacent mountains.
There were many uses for corn. Bundles of grass were bound together at the tops with twisted corn shucks and used as brooms. And even cigarettes could have been made by wrapping corn husks around the dry leaves of some tobacco plant. Only the old men smoked. Smoking could have taken place in one of the [kivas] at a time when a delegation arrived from another [pueblo]. [Keres] and Tewas might have held council at [Tyuonyi], about Tyuonyi itself, and passed around from each to other a fire-stick with a glowing end from the fireplace as a lighter. Mats and door-flaps were made of plaited corn husks and it would not have been an uncommon sight to find these coverings over the openings of some of the houses at the base of the cliff. Corn was certainly an important item.
Archæologists have recovered beans also—[pinto] beans. It was a type known to the Indians before the Spaniards ever thought about the New World. During some of our excavation work I found that the people who had lived in the Ceremonial Cave, far above the concentration of the [Canyon]’s population, knew about beans as well as the rest of the dwellers. Beans were one of the staple foods. The people at [San Ildefonso] today know them as “[tewatu].” It is possible that the same name was given beans at [prehistoric] Frijoles.
There were many uses for gourds also. Half-sections were scraped clean of their pulp and used as dippers and ladles. Whole gourds were used as rattles in ceremonial dances. Broken pieces could have been used to scrape and smooth wet pottery before it was fired.
Almost everywhere were products of the earth. And they were used to their fullest extent. These people even knew about cotton. Whether it was ever raised in Hidden Valley is questionable. Pieces of the simple over-and-under weave cloth have been found in the ruins. The growing season in the mountains might have been too short. It might be that these Indians traded with their neighbors to the south for their necessary supply of cotton. Cotton was woven into ceremonial paraphernalia and also into garments. Men wore cotton breech clouts while women wore large mantas of cotton cloth. This cloth was suspended from one shoulder downward covering one side of the breast, wrapped once around the waist and then taken up the back of the shoulder and tied in a knot. A very important item was cotton.