MINDELEFF] STORAGE CISTS 167 
dark rooms, which would otherwise be useless, provide the necessary 
space, but in the settlements in De Chelly, which were very small as 
a rule, there were few such rooms, and special structures had to be 
erected. These differed from the dwelling rooms only in size, although 
as a rule, perhaps, the openings by which they were entered were not 
so large as those of the dwellings and were sometimes, possibly always, 
provided with some means by which they could be closed. 
Immense numbers of these storage cists are found in the canyon, 
some of them with masonry so roughly exeeuted that it is difficult to 
discriminate between the old pueblo and the modern Navaho work. 
Sometimes these cists or small rooms form part of a village, more often 
they are attached to the cliff outlooks, and not infrequently they stand 
alone on sites overlooking the lands whose product they contained. It 
is probable that many of the cliff outlooks themselves were used quite 
as much for temporary storage as for habitations during the farming 
season. These two uses, although quite distinet, do not conflict with 
each other. Doubtless many excellent sites, now marked only by the 
remains of storage cists, were occupied also during the summer as out- 
looks without the erection of any house structures. Some of the mod- 
ern pueblos now use temporary shelters of brush for outlooks. 
It is not meant that the crops when gathered were placed in these 
cists and kept there until used. The*harvest was, as a rule, perma- 
nently stored in the home villages, and the cists were used only for 
temporary storage. Doubtless the old practice resembled somewhat 
that followed by the Navaho today. The harvest is gathered at the 
proper time and what is not eaten at once is hidden away in cists of 
old or modern construction. If it is well hidden, the grain may remain 
in the cists for a long time if not withdrawn for consumption; but as a 
rule it is taken away a few months later. The annual emigration of 
the Navaho commences soon after the harvest, and at intervals dur- 
ing the winter and spring, and in summer, if the supply is not then 
exhausted, visits are paid to the cists and portions of the grain are 
carried away. 
A large proportion of the cists are of modern Navaho work, but that 
some of them were used by the pueblo people who preceded them seems 
probable from the similarity in horticultural methods, and from the 
small size of many of the villages. A village inhabited by half a dozen 
people was not uncommon; one which could accommodate more than 
fifty was rare. Moreover, some of the storage cists that occur in con- 
junction with dwellings differ from the latter only in size and in their 
separation from the other rooms. The masonry is quite as good as that 
of the houses, and much superior to the Navaho work. 
Plate LXI shows an example which occurs in the lower part of the 
canyon, at the point marked 1 on the map. It is placed on a little 
ledge or block of rock, 12 feet above the stream and about 8 feet above 
the bottom land belowit. ‘This is the first considerable area of bottom 
land in the canyon. The cist is 2 feet square inside and occupies the 
