g6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 66 



ways, too wide for ordinary cliff-house doorways. The walls of one 

 of the rooms of the western group are plastered, and,decorated with a 

 procession of animals and men painted in red. Two of the human 

 figures, unfortunately mutilated within the last six years, suggest 

 phallic beings still personated by the Hopi, a similarity which im- 

 plies that the Mesa Verde cliff-dwellers had a cult like that of the 



Fig. 1 19. — Head-rest from Oak-tree House, Mesa Verde National Park, 



Colorado. 



Hopi, and as phallic rites and personages are pre-eminently associated 

 by the latter with New-fire ceremonies, it may be that the cliff- 

 dwellers of Painted House practised the same or similar rites. 



The specialization of these two great buildings for ceremonial pur- 

 poses and the evidences of the former existence of a considerable 

 population nearby, seen in the size of Cliff Palace and other cliff- 

 houses in the neighboring caves. ini]mrt peculiar interest to the study 



