295 

 The Cliff Dwellers of Arizona. 



Albert B. Reagan. 



The cliff dwellers of Arizona were saiall of stature, the adult male 

 not being over tifty-two inches in height. Their sliulls are brachycephalic 

 (or broader across than lengthwise), like those of the Zunyis, Aztecs and 

 Peruvians. Their skulls have also a little extra bone in the back part of 

 the head, a peculiarity of the Incas, and known as the Inca bone. This 

 bone seems to indicate a close relationship between this mysterious race 

 in Arizona and the semi-civilized races of South America. 



The cliff dwellers lived in narrow canyons that afforded water for 

 cooking and drinking piu-poses, and for irrigating their fields. At the 

 sides of the canyons, under the projecting cliff, they built their adobe 

 houses, so that the cliff' protected them both from rain and storm, and 

 from the attacks of an enemy, except at the front. 



Besides the cliff home that the cliff dwellers lived in in time of peace, 

 they had caves, natural caves in tlie rocks, into which they retreated 

 when hard pressed by an enemy. The large cliff cave on the East Fork 

 of White River just east of Fort Apache is an example. At this place 

 a continuous cave, composed of chiseled-out narrow passages, corridors 

 and rooms, runs back along a fissure some 200 feet beneath the surface, 

 it is said, for a distance of four and a half miles. 



In case the cliff" dwellers could find no cave, they changed their place 

 of habitation, in time of great danger, to the lofty heights above the 

 canyon floor; and there built a village on some projecting ledge. Such 

 a village stands out against the almost perpendicular walls of the Sierra 

 Anches mountains more than a mile in altitude above the floor of Cherry 

 Creek canyon below. 



Their dwellings, except of course the caves, were adobe structures. 

 They were built under and against a cliff; and resembled the old Pueblo 

 style of house very much. The second story was set back a little on the 

 floor of the first; and the third story set back a little on the fioor of the 

 second; and so on till the "step-front like" house was finished. In each 

 house there was but one door, a hole in the roof of the highest room. 

 From the ground to the top of the first story, and from story to story lad- 



