THE BANDELIER NATIONAL FOREST 



567 



dwelling room. Just how the poles were placed in the 

 holes is not clear unless they were sprung in while green 

 and flexible. In several we found holes placed at such 

 points as to make quite certain they were used to hold 

 the poles that supported the rude looms or weaving 

 frames of the blanket weavers as the Navajo squaws 

 now suspend the upper pole of their looms between two 

 forked posts set in the ground. On the walls of many 

 were small niches perhaps a foot high and six or eight 

 inches deep into the rock 

 used doubtless for holding 

 the ceremonial prayer meal, 

 or some of the many house- 

 hold deities, "Katcinas" the 

 present day pueblos hold so 

 dear. 



Possibly some of these 

 rooms were used for store 

 rooms while the family 

 lived in the masonry built 

 houses in the canyon be- 

 low. Often these were 

 built right against the wall 

 of the canyon in front of 

 the room so the family 

 stepped direct from the ex- 

 cavated rooms into the 

 masonry ones outside. 



Some of the cave rooms 

 are decorated with rude 

 colored drawings of ani- 

 mals, men, birds and odd 

 geometrical designs. Some 

 thus decorated may have 

 been and doubtless were 

 used for ceremonial pur- 

 poses. One large room is 

 decorated with a huge 

 serpent, the "plumed ser- 

 pent" of the Pueblo Indians 

 many of whom, especially 

 the Hopi, believe the peo- 

 ple of this earth sprang 

 from the union of the 

 "Snake woman" of their 

 mythical life and a pueblo 

 youth. 



Toward the head of the 

 valley there is a wonderful 

 ceremonial cave located in a large natural ampitheatre 

 in the solid rock perhaps two hundred feet above the 

 floor of the valley. For years it lay undiscovered, being 

 finally located by some one from the opposite side of 

 the canyon. 



The cave itself is very large, being more than a hun- 

 dred feet long and sixty or more high in front, sloping 

 back to about eight or ten feet at the rear. 



In the center of the cave or ampitheatre is a "Kiva" 

 (Kee-vah) or ceremonial chamber which has been cleared 



A REST AFTER A STEEP CLIMB 



Just outside of one of the thousands 61 rooms in the rocky walls. The 

 small hole above the door was evidently a smoke hole or for ventilation. 



of the debris ot ages and carefully restored to its origi- 

 nal condition. The restoration consisted more of clear- 

 ing out the rubbish than of rebuilding, for excepting the 

 new roof of heavy cedar logs, the room now is practi- 

 cally the same as it was the day these dead and gone 

 people used it for the last time. The walls were origi- 

 nally plastered with mud smoothed down by the hands 

 of its builders, and you can see the very fingerprints 

 and almost the "life lines" of their palms in the plaster, 



so fresh and clear it is dif- 

 ficult to believe it was not 

 done yesterday. 



There is more or less 

 ornamentation on the walls 

 the colors of which are 

 bright and un faded after 

 the ages they have been 

 there. On the sides are the 

 usual niches found in 

 kivas of today at Taos, 

 Cochiti, Zuni and other 

 modern pueblos. In the 

 center of the roof a small 

 hatchway about two and 

 one-half feet square gives 

 entrance to the room be- 

 low. The long slim ladder 

 poles rise above the roof 

 just as they once did and 

 one can easily picture the 

 scene in the olden times 

 when the mystical cere- 

 monies took place and the 

 totem of the clan occupying 

 it swung from the end of 

 the ladder poles warning 

 all outsiders to keep their 

 distance. 



You see the long lines 

 of dancers swaying back 

 and forth in their rhythmic 

 posing, the cave lit by the 

 great fires that flung their 

 ruddy glow far out into the 

 dark of the canyon below 

 while the sacred drum, 

 formed of a huge pottery 

 olla, its mouth covered 

 with a deer skin, sent its 

 boomings reverbrating back and forth between the en- 

 closing walls of the canyon. Thanks to the labors of 

 the Amthropological Society of Santa Fe these restora- 

 tions have been done by those who loved their work, and 

 done well. Here each year come members and their 

 friends to camp for days amid such interesting surround- 

 ings. Lectures are given, papers read, other ruins of 

 which there are an unending number, opened up and 

 explored and every one has the time of their life. 



Again the full moon moves majestically out from the 



