3/6 Miscella}iy . [zoe 



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 difiiculty 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 piiions 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 atteyniata is common near their homes and in the 

 canons 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. 



