PRELIMINARY REPORT ON A VISIT TO THE NAVAHO NATIONAL 
MONUMENT, ARIZONA 
By JessE WALTER FEWKES 
INTRODUCTION 
On the completion of the work of excavation and repair of Cliff 
Palace, in the Mesa Verde National Park, in southern Colorado, in 
charge of the writer, under the Secretary of the Interior, he was 
instructed by Mr. W. H. Holmes, then Chief of the Bureau of 
American Ethnology, to make an archeologic reconnaissance of the 
northern part of Arizona, where a tract of land containing im- 
portant prehistoric ruins had been reserved by the President under 
the name Navaho National Monument. In the following pages are 
considered some of the results of that trip, a more detailed account 
of the ruins being deferred to a future report, after a more extended 
examination shall have been made.* Mention is made of afew objects 
collected, and recommendations are submitted for future excavation 
and repair work on these remarkable ruins to preserve them for 
examination by students and tourists. As will appear later, a scien- 
tific study of them is important, for they are connected with Hopi 
pueblos still inhabited, in which are preserved traditions concerning 
the ruins and their ancient inhabitants. 
The present population of Walpi, a Hopi pueblo, is made up of 
descendants of various clans, whose ancestors once lived in distant 
villages, now ruins, situated in various directions from its site on 
the East mesa. One of the problems before the student of the Pueblos 
is to locate accurately the ancestral villages where these clans lived 
in prehistoric times. From an examination of the architecture of 
these villages and a study of the character of secular and cult objects 
found in them, the culture of the clans that inhabited these dwellings 
could be roughly determined. The culture at any epoch in the history 
of the clan being known, data are available that may make possible 
comparison and correlation with that which is still more ancient: 
in other words, that may add a chapter to our knowledge of the 
migrations of the Hopi Indians in prehistoric times. 
a The author’s first visit to these ruins was made in September, 1909, and he returned to the work in 
the following May. A few notes made on the latter trip on ruins not observed during the former are 
incorporated in this report. 
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