376 (Miscellany, [208 
which most likely served as food. The Utes at the present time 
dry large quantities cut into strips for winter use. The Yucca fiber 
was separated into threads, which were twisted into strands varying 
in thickness according to the purpose for which they were designed. 
The best sandals were made of the fine thread, woven so as to be 
ornamented with geometrical designs; for the commoner sandals 
they used coarser twine, while the coarsest ones are of” braided 
rushes. They depended for warmth upon a fabric made of turkey 
feathers ingeniously woven with Yucca twine. The long feathers 
were split and twisted around the Yucca thread, which was then 
loosely woven into a blanket of feathers soft and warm. The dead 
are often found with this for the first covering. The skins of deer 
were used, too, but rarely, probably because of the difficulty of se- 
curing them with their poor weapons. They either raised turkeys 
or the wild ones were abundant, since implements such as awls and 
needles were made of the bones, and turkey bones blackened with 
fire are common. 
The common rush Phragmites communis was used to make a 
coarse matting, not unlike that which is packed around tea-chests, 
but woven in different designs. This was used as a second covering 
for the dead. Willow twigs fastened together something like the 
slats of Venetian blinds formed the outside cover, the coffin of these 
prehistoric people. The Yucca fiber, in connection with the common 
Juncus, was used in making baskets finer than any made by Indians 
of the present day. 
The pitions and cedars are thick on the mesas of this country, and 
the former furnished an edible nut which the cliff dwellers collected 
for food. The timbers for their houses were chiefly cedar, as shown 
by the beams that still form the floors of the upper rooms and the 
supports of balconies. These beams are curious, pointed at the ends 
and very jagged from the stone axes used to roughly hack them 
into shape. Coarse grass with stiff stems, Oryzopsis cuspidata, was 
tied into bundles to make brushes, probably for the hair. The wild 
tobacco, Nicotiana attenuata is common near their homes and in the 
cafions where their houses stand like statues in their rocky 
niches the wild fruits are more abundant than elsewhere, leading to 
the belief that to some extent they were cultivated. A. E, 
