The Braced-up Cliff at Pueblo Bonito ' 
By Net M. Jupp 
Associate in Anthropology 
Smithsonian Institution 
[With 6 plates] 
Tue HucE, detached section of sandstone cliff that long towered 
above the rear rooms of Pueblo Bonito finally collapsed January 22, 
1941. And when it fell, as the Bonitians feared, it did vast damage to 
their beautiful village. 
L. T. McKinney, custodian of Chaco Canyon National Monument at 
the time of the collapse, reported that the fall came with a tremendous 
roar at 3:24 p.m. following intermittent rumblings of several hours’ 
duration. Frost action was doubtless a contributing factor, since the 
winter of 1940-41 is said to have been unusually cold and wet in Chaco 
Canyon. Between March 1934 and December 1940 the Southwestern 
Monuments Monthly Reports recorded periodic measurements to show 
that the famous cliff was slowly settling but I find nothing relative to 
its tragic end. 
A mass of solid sandstone 150 feet long, 100 feet high, 20 to 30 feet 
thick, and weighing nearly 30,000 tons, the great cliff overhanging 
Pueblo Bonito was indeed a fearful, awe-inspiring body. It was a 
living, breathing thing! As one stood to admire, it seemed actually 
to lean forward to engulf one (pl. 2, fig. 2). 
We cannot know whether the occupants of Pueblo Bonito endowed 
the monster rock with any mystical quality, but they probably did not. 
They certainly recognized it as an ever-present danger but they prob- 
ably reasoned that it could be restrained or conquered more surely by 
human ingenuity and determination than by prayer and sacrifice to 
their gods. (In our examination we observed no trace of propitiatory 
offerings.) They conquered at least their fears of it by a succession 
of primitive engineering measures that succeeded far better than they 
could have hoped for, that has since commanded respectful attention 
from all thoughtful passers-by, that preserved the now-fallen cliff for 
several centuries and provided it with a most distinctive name, ¢sé’ 
1 Published by permission of the President of the National Geographic Society. The 
author was leader of the Society’s Pueblo Bonito explorations, 1921-27. 
501 
