292 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



rifle pits thrown up during intertribal warfare among the Apaches 

 some years ago. (See Plate 6.) 



The debris surrounding the walls and obliterating the rooms is enor- 

 mous in mass, greater than that surrounding any ruin in the South- 

 west known to the writer. This debris consists of ashes and charcoal 

 mixed with bones, pottery, fragments, etc., which has altered the 

 contour of the land around the pueblo to a marked degree. Pottery 

 fragments are relatively fewer than in most other ruins, while bones 

 of animals are quite frequent. 



One cemetery lies on the east hillside, where a sandstone ledge crops 

 outabove the spring. This cemetery had been rifled by Skidi and others. 

 The pottery secured by Skidi, he says, was sold to Mr. Schott, for- 

 merly agent at Apache. It is evident that burials were made at length 

 in this cemetery, but the pottery, judging from the fragments, does 

 not differ from that scattered over the ruin. There was no opportu- 

 nity to ascertain whether cinerary burials occurred in this cemetery, 

 but it was gathered from Skidi that such burials had been uncovered. 



The collection secured by the Museum-Gates expedition at Forest- 

 dale was taken from a burial place along the free portion of the cir- 

 cular wall of the acropolis, marked in the plan. (Plate 3.) The burials 

 here were from 5 to 8 feet, 2 inches below the present surface, and 

 directly against the wall. Two varieties of interment were also 

 encountered here, namely, a few bodies flexed and placed against the 

 wall; the majority burned and placed in gray vases, which were luted 

 with clay, stopped with a stone, or covered with an upturned bowl. 

 A remarkable fact connected with the interments of this class is that 

 the vases are usually set on the bones of an infant. No explanation 

 derived from historical or present observances of any of the pueblo 

 tribes can be given of this strange custom, which appears to have been 

 of sacrificial character. It may also be said here that this is the most 

 northerly occurrence of incineration that has yet come to notice. 

 Fragments of a paho, painted green, were found on the ashes in one of 

 these vases and a very much corroded mass of copper, which appears 

 to have been a bell. Among the calcined bones were fragments of 

 awls, showing that possessions were burned with the body. The ashes 

 of a young person were inclosed in a bird-form vase. (Plate 8, fig. 1.) 

 The flexed burials contained pottery, according to the general custom, 

 the ware being red. Quantities of fragments of red bowls were 

 thrown out of this excavation, and some fragments of cooking vessels 

 in rugose ware, having wide, flaring rims, were seen. 



The Forestdale pottery is red and gray in color, the red preponder- 

 ating. It is found that the paste of both varieties is the same, the red 

 ware being. secured by covering the gray paste with a slip of yellow 

 ocher burning to red color. The red ware is found in form of bowls, 

 dippers, and small articles ; the decoration geometric rain clouds and 



