14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGX [bdll.32 



I. Ruins of the Pajarito Plateau 



This name, the Pajarito plateau, proposed by the writer some years 

 ago and now generally adopted, is applied to the table-land on the 

 eastern side of the Jemez mountains. The name is usually confined 

 to the region lying east of the footliills, wliich is bordered on the east 

 by the Rio Grande, on the north by the Rio Chama, and on the south by 

 the Canada de Cochiti! It is roughly crescent-shaped and is about 

 fifty miles long with a width varying from ten to fifteen miles. It is 

 boldly defined on all sides. A considerable portion of the plateau 

 was covered originally by a sheet of volcanic tufa, varying in thick- 

 ness from 100 to 1,000 feet. The source of this material was the now 

 extinct volcanic cones of the Jemez range. Rudely dressed from the 

 somewhat regular blocks into which it is readily broken, it furnished 

 a durable and easily worked building material for the primitive inhabit- 

 ants of the plateau; while caves, both 

 natural and artificial, afforded comfort- 

 able and secure abodes with the expendi- 



r ™-— <~^ ture of but little labor. In considering 



h] e * ("T-t the ruins of this area it will be convenient 



I" 1^"% to defer the description of the succession 



h-l of large pueblos which occupy the north- 



") '^ em rim of the plateau, including them 



^^ ^,^ with the group situated in the Chama 



I /""" drainage. 



f-.^ The Pajarito plateau group begins then 



;i? with the ruins in the vicinity of Santa 

 Clara creek (see map, pi. xvii) , a few miles 



Fig. 1.— Ground I Ian of Shulinne. c i t t -ii c o i /-ii 



west or the Indian village or Santa Clara. 

 This section was visited and briefly described by Stevenson, Powell, 

 and Bandelier in the early eighties. It has been made the subject 

 of numerous popular articles, among which may be mentioned those 

 of Lummis and Wallace. All the pueblos on the Pajarito plateau 

 were built of stone. Only the most conspicuous ruins can be pointed 

 out in tliis paper, ' A multitude of " small house " pueblos and innumer- 

 able cliff-dwellings of minor importance are passed without notice. 



No. 1. Sliujinne (fig. 1). — This is a small pueblo ruin with an 

 accompanying cliff-village, situated on a high mesa which rises ab- 

 ruptly above the plateau on the north side of Santa Clara canyon, 

 about ten miles west of the Santa Clara village. The site is a most 

 picturesque one, visible in some directions from a distance of twenty- 

 five miles. The pueblo was rather inferior in construction and is 

 reduced to low mounds. The cliff-dwellings are quite generally 

 broken down. 



No. 2. Puye. — This settlement consisted of the large pueblo on the 





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