A considerable collection of objects made of wickerwork and woven vegetal fiber was found in the alkaline dust and ashes of the Red-rock cliff houses, and while there is some difficulty here as elsewhere, in deciding whether certain specimens belonged to the original builders or to later temporary occupants, there is little doubt that most of them were the property of the latter.

There were many specimens of basketry found on the surface of the rubbish of the floors which, from the position of their occurrence and from their resemblance to the wickerwork still used by the Apache, seem without doubt to have been left there by temporary occupants of the rooms. There were likewise many wisps of yucca fiber tied in knots which must probably be regarded as of identical origin. The Yucca baccata affords the favorite fiber used by the natives at the present time, and it appears to have been popular for that purpose among the ancients.

Several specimens of sandals, some of which are very much worn on the soles, were found buried at the floor level. These are all of the same kind, and are made of yucca leaves plaited in narrow strips. The mode of attachment to the foot was evidently by a loop passing over the toes. Hide and cloth sandals have as yet not been reported from the Red-rock ruins of Verde valley. These sandals belonged to the original occupants of the cliff houses.

Fabrics made of cotton are common in the ruins of the Red-rocks, and at times this fiber was combined with yucca. Some of the specimens of cotton cloth were finely woven and are still quite strong, although stained dark or almost black. Specimens of netting are also common, and an open-mesh legging, similar to the kind manufactured in ancient times by the Hopi and still worn by certain personators in their sacred dances, were taken from the western room of Honanki. There were also many fragments of rope, string, cord, and loosely twisted bands, resembling head bands for carrying burdens.

A reed ([figure 252]) in which was inserted a fragment of cotton fiber was unlike anything yet reported from cliff houses, and as the end of the cotton which projected beyond the cavity of the reed was charred, it possibly was used as a slow-match or tinder-box.

Several shell and turquois beads were found, but my limited studies of the cliff-houses revealed only a few other ornaments, among them being beads of turkey-bone and a single wristlet fashioned from a Pectunculus. One or two fragments of prayer-sticks were discovered in a rock inclosure in a cleft to the west of the ruin.

Conclusions Regarding the Verde Valley Ruins

The ruins of the Verde region closely resemble those of Tusayan, and seem to support the claim of the Hopi that some of their ancestors formerly lived in that region. This is true more especially of the villages of the plains and mesa tops, for neither cave-houses nor cavate dwellings are found in the immediate vicinity of the inhabited Tusayan pueblos. The objects taken from the ruins are similar to those found universally over the pueblo area, and from them alone we can not say more than that they probably indicate the same substratum of culture as that from which modern pueblo life with its many modifications has sprung.

The symbolism of the decorations on the fragments of pottery found in the Verde ruins is the same as that of the ancient pueblos of the Colorado Chiquito, and it remains to be shown whether the ancestors of these were Hopi or Zuñi. I believe it will be found that they were both, or that when the villages along the Colorado Chiquito[29] were abandoned part of the inhabitants went to the mesas of Tusayan and others migrated farther up the river to the Zuñi villages.

Two centers of distribution of cliff houses occur in our Southwest: those of the upper tributaries of the Colorado in the north and the cliff houses of the affluents of the Salt and the Gila in the south. The watershed of the Rio Grande is, so far as is known, destitute of this kind of aboriginal dwellings. Between the two centers of distribution lie the pueblos of the Little Colorado and its tributaries, the home of the ancestors of the Hopi and the Zuñi. The many resemblances between the cliff houses of the north and those of the south indicate that the stage of culture of both was uniform, and probably the same conditions of environment led both peoples to build similar dwellings. All those likenesses which can be found between the modern Zuñi and the Hopi to the former cliff peoples of the San Juan region in the north, apply equally to those of the upper Salado and the Gila and their tributaries to the south; and so far as arguments of a northern origin of either, built on architectural or technological resemblances, are concerned, they are not conclusive, since they are also applicable to the cliff peoples of the south. The one important difference between the northern and the southern tier of cliff houses is the occurrence of the circular kiva, which has never been reported south of the divide between the Little Colorado and the Gila-Salado drainage. If a kiva was a feature in southern cliff houses, which I doubt, it appears to have been a rectangular chamber similar to a dwelling room. The circular kiva exists in neither the modern Hopi nor the Zuñi pueblos, and it has not been found in adjacent Tusayan ruins; therefore, if these habitations were profoundly influenced by settlers from the north, it is strange that such a radical change in the form of this room resulted. The arguments advanced that one of the two component stocks of the Zuñi, and that the aboriginal, came from the cliff peoples of the San Juan, are not conclusive, although I have no doubt that the Zuñi may have received increment from that direction.