This ruin, which lies about 10 miles from Marsh pass, is a most interesting cliff-dwelling.[32] As this is the best preserved of all the ruins thus far discovered in the Navaho National Monument, it should be excavated and repaired for future visitors and students. Kitsiel is a large ruin, its length (estimated at 300 feet) being not less than that of the greatest cliff-dwelling of the Mesa Verde National Park. Like other ruins in the vicinity, it is not so picturesque as the structures of that region, lacking round towers and other features so attractive in Cliff Palace.[33] The accompanying illustration (pl. [13]) presents the ground plan of this ruin, the architectural features of which are similar to those of Betatakin.
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 50 PLATE 11
BETATAKIN—CENTRAL PART
One of the most striking features of Kitsiel is the great log, 35 feet long, under which the visitor passes to inspect the interior of the ruin. West of this log, which evidently once supported a retaining wall, the rooms are well preserved; east of it this wall in places has slipped down the cliff and its component stones are to be found in the talus below.
It is difficult to discover how many rooms this great cliff-house formerly had, but there is little doubt that they numbered more than 150, besides the kivas. This ruin is believed to be one of the largest known cliff-dwellings of the Southwest, ranking in size the Cliff Palace in the Mesa Verde, which it does not rival, however, in variety of architectural features. The masonry in Kitsiel is inferior to that in the Spruce-tree House and the Balcony House, the walls of which show the highest aboriginal achievement in stonework north of Mexico.[34]
The walled inclosures of Kitsiel are reducible to a few types of which the following may be distinguished:
(1) Kivas, or circular subterranean rooms with a large banquette on one side, the walls being generally broken down and without pilasters or roof-supports.
(2) Kihus, or rectangular rooms with doors on one side, each having a low bank, or “deflector,” rising from the floor between the doorway and the fire-hole. Instead of this bank being free from the wall, as at Betatakin, it is generally joined to it on one side, the floor at the point of junction being raised slightly above the remaining level. Smoke-holes are sometimes, but not always, present in the roof. These rooms, like the circular rooms, are ceremonial in character. The only opening in their floors that can be compared with the ceremonial aperture, or sipapû, is a shallow depression a few inches deep. The diameters of these openings are greater than in the case of the sipapû in Cliff Palace kivas.