FEWKES] ANTIQUITIES OF MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK 31 



quantity of earth and water upon it and mix the whole together. 

 They knead this stuff into round kimps, which they learn to dry and 

 use instead of stone." 



Attention may be called to the fact that not only the adobes found 

 at Cliff Palace but also the mortar used in the construction of the 

 walls contain ashes and sometimes even small fragments of charcoal. 

 Clay or adobe plastered on osiers woven between upright sticks, so 

 common in the walls of cliff-dwellings in Canyon de Chelly and in 

 the ruins in the Navaho Monument, while not unknown in the Mesa 

 Verde, is an exceptional method of construction and was not observed 

 at Cliff Palace. The survival ^ of this method of building a wall, if 

 survival it be, may be seen in the deflector of kiva K. 



Plastering 



The walls of a number of rooms were coated with a layer of plas- 

 tering of sand or clay- This was found on the outside of some walls, 

 where it is generally worn, but it is best preserved on the interior 

 surfaces. Perhaps the most striking examples of plastering on ex- 

 terior walls occurs on the Speaker-chief's House, where the smooth- 

 ness of the finish is noteworthy. 



From impressions of hands and fingers on this plastering it is 

 evident that it was laid on not with troAvels but with the hands, and 

 as the impressions of hands are small the plasterers were probably 

 women or children. In several instances whore the plastering is 

 broken several successive layers are seen, often in different colors, 

 sometimes separated by a thin black layer deposited by smoke. The 

 color of the plastering varies considerably, sometimes showing red, 

 often yellow or white, depending on the different colored sand or mud 

 employed.'' The plastering not only varies in color but also in thick- 

 ness and in finish. In the most protected rooms of the cave practi- 

 cally all the superficial plastering still remains on both the interior 

 and the exterior of the walls, but for the greater part it has been 

 washed from the surfaces and out of the joints in the outer buildings. 

 The mortar was evidently rubbed smooth with the hands, aided, per- 

 haps, with flat stones. The exterior of one or tAvo rooms shows several 

 coats of plaster, and different parts of the same Avails are of different 



" In at least one of the Oraibi kivas the plastering of the wall is laid on sticks 

 that form a kind of lathing. Whether this is a survival of an older method of con- 

 struction or is traceable to European influence has not been determined, but it is believed 

 to be a survival of prehistoric wall construction. 



''The red color is derived from the red soil common everywhere on the mesa. Yellow 

 was obtained from disintegrated rock, and white is a marl which is found at various 

 places. The mortar used by the ancient masons became harder, almost cement, when 

 made of marl mixed with iadobe. 



