Please note the small opening above the door. The fireplace was built near the center of the room and the smoke escaped through this hole. The T-shaped doorway gave access to the room, and was easily covered during cold weather with a skin, mat, or slab of rock. Each room may have housed a family of four or five. They built terraces, in front of each set of rooms, which served as door steps. The rooms may seem small, but most of the every-day hours were spent outside, and they perhaps used the houses only for cooking and sleeping during inclement weather.
Ruin and Balanced Rock
The hollowed-out stone you see against the wall is a metate (meh-TAH-tay) or corn grinding stone.
STAKE NO. 12.
Mormon Tea or Torrey Ephedra (Ephedra torreyana). This shrub with its green stems is able to withstand great drought. A pleasant, bitter tea may be brewed with the leaves, which contain tannin. Mormon Tea plant is used medicinally by practically all southwestern Indians.
STAKE NO. 13.
Little remains of these rooms but piles of rubble. Most of the damage was done by vandals. Portions of only two walls are standing, but directly across the canyon from this point you will see a dwelling in an excellent state of preservation. Originally the walls were covered with plaster so that none of the masonry was visible. Apparently the balanced rock on the rim above this room did not frighten the Indian builders. Rooms built on two separate levels of the cave to the left of this site gave it the appearance of a two-story dwelling.
Woman Cracking Walnuts