472 



ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1916. 



of a stage in southwestern masonry antecedent to the employment 

 of hewn stones.^ As a rule there were no stones in the wall con- 

 struction that could not be carried by a single pair of hands. 



A majority of stones show evidences of artificial pecking or dress- 

 ing on their surfaces, a few being smoothed by attrition. Plastering 

 as a rule is absent, but appears in layers over the surfaces of the 

 small kivas. Its absence on the rectangular rooms and presence on 

 the kiva walls suggests that it was protected by the vaulted roofs 

 of the latter, which fell long after those of the former. 



There are many stones with incised decorative figures, possibly 

 " mason marks," different from those of Sun Temple set in the inner 

 walk of the building. The spiral (fig. 2), representing the serpent 

 of the water, occurs several times. The same figure was noticed on a 



round room lately discovered a mile 

 from Spruce-tree House and on a 

 round tower in Cannon Ball ruin, 

 near the McElmo. One of these spi- 

 rals was accompanied by radiating, 

 peripheral, parallel lines, suggesting 

 a figure of the feathered snake. Sev- 

 eral of the more striking figures from 

 stones fallen or still remaining in the 

 walls are shown in the accompanying 

 figures (fig. 3). They resemble de- 

 signs on black and white pottery ware. 

 Various interpretations have been 

 suggested to explain these figures, 

 some of which are fanciful; there is 

 no reason to doubt that they were 

 primarily decorative, but they may also be symbolic. The compli- 

 cated form of several incised figures suggests something more than 

 meaningless efforts at embellishment, but it is too much to hope that 

 they have any value as inscriptions. Although these designs are 

 regarded as decorative, the limitation of the spiral to round rooms, 

 towers, or kivas hints at a deeper significance. There is an obscure 

 legend among the Hopi that circular kivas are connected in some 

 way with snake ceremonials, and the association of the spiral sign 

 and circular rooms seems to support, in a way, this idea. 



TYPES OF ROOMS. 



The rooms have two shapes, circular and rectangidar, w^ith tri- 

 angular recesses between them, which are inclosures, not rooms. 

 The circular rooms are evidently kivas or ceremonial chambers, 



Fig. 2.- 



-Serpent symbols incised on 

 roclis in masonry. 



1 Jackson describes an extensive wall of a ruin in Montezuma Canyon constructed 

 in this manner. 



