296 



ders extended, over which one had to climb to gain entrance to the house. 

 In time of trouble and always at night these ladders were most likely 

 carried to the roof and placed within. The house itself was a fortress. 



These dwellers of the cliffs were an agricultural race. They farmed 

 in the little "flats" adjacent to their places of abode, as the remains of 

 their irrigating ditches show, as Avell as their grain bins. Some of these 

 grain bins were visited by the writer; and were found partly filled with 

 corn cobs and barley heads, from which the barley kernels had been 

 removed by vermin. The barley heads, thus found, seem to indicate that 

 this people knew nothing of the art of threshing gi-ain even with a flail; 

 but in harvesting it they headed it, and stored it away in the head. Then, 

 when they desired to use any of the grain, they threshed it by a hand- 

 rubbing process. 



In religion it can at best be stated that the cliff dwellers were sun 

 worshipers, as is shown by the drawings on the vases and urns which 

 they used in their exercises of worship. One of these vases, found by 

 the writer in a Canyon Creek cliff house in Arizona, was jug shaped, 

 except that it did not possess a neck. Around the circular opening at 

 the top were drawn the rays of the sun in red and black. Many more 

 of their vases have similar drawings on them. Further evidence con- 

 cerning what their religion consisted of, !s thus far wanting. 



Who these cliff dwellers were, where they came from and what be- 

 came of them, is a matter of conjecture; and will probably remain so. 



