Kiva W is not generally included among the Cliff Palace ceremonial rooms on account of its isolation from the houses, but there is no doubt that it should be so enumerated. It lies about 50 feet west of the end of the last room in the cliff-dwelling, and is not accompanied with secular rooms. Although situated on the same level as the houses, its walls rise two tiers high, but no part of the inclosure is subterranean.
From the height of the walls it at first seemed as if in kiva W there were evidences of a room above. This condition would be contrary to the rule and, to the Hopi mind, ceremonially impossible; but if its upper walls are regarded as homogeneous with the high walls that surround kivas O and R, and we interpret this as an example of the second type of kiva, the anomaly is explained.
Although this kiva is placed provisionally in the second type mainly because of these lofty side walls, on account of its isolation at the end of Cliff Palace several observers have not regarded it as belonging to the ruin. Neither Nordenskiöld nor Morley and Kidder included it in their ground plans, nor does Nordenskiöld mention it in his enumeration of Cliff Palace kivas.
As kiva W is almost wholly unprotected by the cave roof, its walls have greatly suffered from the downpour of rains to which they are exposed. The masonry is fairly good. Evidently it was an important building, and was isolated from other rooms possibly for some special purpose. As there are few or no walls of secular rooms near it, one may believe that it was resorted to by the villagers on special occasions and did not belong to any one clan.
MINOR ANTIQUITIES
In the preceding pages have been described the major antiquities, such as walls and those permanent objects which could not be removed from the places where they were constructed without more or less harm. There remain to be considered the minor antiquities, or the smaller objects which are movable and of a more perishable nature, especially if left in the places where they were found. It was mainly in search of such objects that much of the mutilation of Cliff Palace was done.
It was not expected that excavations would yield any considerable number of specimens, since for years Cliff Palace had been dug over in search of them, and many hundreds of objects had already been found and carried away to be sold either to museums or to individuals. Notwithstanding these unfavorable conditions, the collection of objects, now deposited in the National Museum, is sufficient to afford some idea of the culture of the Cliff Palace people.
Among the objects that may be mentioned in the category of minor antiquities are pottery, basketry, implements of stone, bone, and wood, fabrics of various kinds, ornaments, fetishes, and the like—all those objects commonly called artifacts that make up collections from cliff-dwellings generally.
The excavations at Cliff Palace have revealed no specimens strikingly different from those already described as from Spruce-tree House. We would expect some variation in the symbols on pottery from the two ruins, but the differences are not conspicuous in the few specimens that have been compared. Nor is there any peculiarity in the form of the pottery, as the ceramic objects from Cliff Palace practically duplicate those from Spruce-tree House, already described, and probably are not much unlike those still buried in Long House, Balcony House, and the House with the Square Tower.
| BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY | BULLETIN 51 [PLATE 29] |
| |
| |
| BASKET HOPPER—SIDE AND BOTTOM VIEWS | |
