32 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 51 



colors. Indistinct figures are scratched on several walls, but the 

 majority of these are too obscure to be traced or deciphered. The 

 plastering on the exterior and the interior of the same wall is often 

 of different color. 



Paintings and Rock Markings 



Figures are painted on the white plastering of the third story of 

 room 11 and on the lower border of the banquette of kiva I, the 

 former being the most elaborate mural paintings known in cliff- 

 dwellings, showing several symbols which are reproduced on pot- 

 tery. A- reversed symbolic rain-cloud figure, painted white, occurs on 

 the exterior of the low ledge house." Mural paintings of unusual 

 form are found on the under side of the projecting rock forming part 

 of the floor of room 3, and there are scratches on the plastering of the 

 wall of kiva K. The latter figures Avere intended to represent animals, 

 heads of grotesque beings, possibly birds, and terraced designs sym- 

 bolic of rain clouds. As one or more of these symbols occur on pottery 

 fragments, there appears no doubt that both were made by the same 

 people. Among rock markings may also be mentioned shallow, con- 

 cave grooves made by rubbing harder stones, which can be seen on the 

 cliffs in front of rooms 92 and 93 and in the court west of room 51. 



Among the figures painted on whitewashed walls of room 11 may 

 be mentioned triangles, parallel red lines with dots, and a square 

 figure, in red, crossed by zigzags, recalling the designs on old Navaho 

 blankets. 



The parallel lines are placed vertically and are not unlike, save in 

 color, those which the Hopi make with prayer meal on the walls of 

 their kivas, in certain ceremonies. But it is to be noted that the Hopi 

 markings are made horizontally instead of vertically, as at Cliff' 

 Palace. The dots represented on the sides of some of these parallel 

 lines (room 11) are similar to those appearing on straight lines or 

 triangles in the decoration of Mesa Verde pottery. The triangular 

 figures still used by the Hopi in decorating the margins of dados in 

 their houses also occur on some of the Cliff-Palace walls, but are 

 placed in a reversed position. They are said to represent a butterfly, 

 a rain cloud, or a sex symbol. It is interesting to note in passing that 

 two or more triangles placed one above another appear constantly in 

 the same position in Moorish tile and stucco decorations, but this, of 

 course, is only a coincidence, as there is no evidence of a cultural 

 connection. 



"This figure resembles closely that on the outside walls of the third story of room 11 of 

 Spruce-tree House. (See pis. 4, 5, 6, Bnlletin 1,1, Bureau of American EtJmologij.) 



