FEWKES] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 51 



vidiial hoop obtained was used in a secular game or a ceremony 

 may be open to differences of opinion. The author is inclined to 

 connect the specimen above referred to with basket dances, one of 

 which is called by the Hopi the OioakuUi.'^ In this dance the hoop is 

 rolled on the ground and the players throw or attempt to throw darts 

 through it. 



LEATHER AND SKIN OBJECTS 



Fragments of leather or dressed skin (fig. 37) were found in sev- 

 eral of the rooms. These are apparently parts of moccasins or 

 sandals, but may have been pouches or similar objects. A strip of 

 rawhide by means of which an ax was lashed to its handle was picked 



Fig. 37. Portion of leather moccnsln. 



up in the dump, where also was a fragment of what may have been a 

 leather pouch with a thong of hide woven in one edge. If skins of 

 animals were used for clothing, as they probably were, but slight 

 evidence of the fact remains. 



ABSENCE OF OBJECTS SHOWING EUROPEAN CITLTURE 



In the excavations which were necessary to clean out the rooms of 

 Spruce-tree House no object of European make was discovered. 

 There was no sign of any metal, even copper being unrepresented; 

 no object discovered shows traces of cutting by knives or other imple- 

 ments made of metal. Evidently European culture exerted no influ- 

 ence on the aborigines of Spruce-tree House. 



PICTOGRAPHS 



Near Spruce-tree House, as elsewhere on the ]Mesa Verde, are found 

 examples of those rock-etchings and other markings known as picto- 

 graphs. Some of these represent human beings in various attitudes, 

 and animals, as deer, mountain sheep, snakes, and other subjects not 



" See figure of Owakultl altar in the author's account of the Owakulti. Mr. Stewart 

 Culin thus comments on the " hoop-and-pole " game among Pueblos : " Similar ceremonies 

 or games were practised by the cliff-dwellers, as is attested by a number of objects from 

 Mancos canyon, Colorado, in the Free Museum of Science and Art of the University of 

 Pennsylvania." — Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



