AET. 5 EXCAVATION" AND REPAIR OF BETATAKIN JUDD 5 



In describing the procession of prehistoric civilizations through 

 the Kayenta district, Kidder ^ writes : " * * * it seems likely from 

 the finds of their typical pottery at Pueblo Bonito and Cliff Palace 

 that the proto-Kayenta villages were inhabited at the same time as 

 the great dwellings of the Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon ; and that 

 the late Kayenta sites were erected after the Mesa Verde and Chaco 

 Canyon had been abandoned. Thus Kitsiel and Betatakin may well 

 have been the last large communities that existed in the San Juan 

 drainage." Cummings '^ had previously drawn a similar inference ; 

 more recently, his and Kidder's deductions have been fully confirmed 

 by the as yet unpublished explorations of the National Geographic 

 Society at Pueblo Bonito, under direction of the present writer, and 

 by the related " tree-ring " chronology now being erected by Dr. 

 A. E. Douglass,, of the University of Arizona. 



But herein we are concerned solely with the excavation and repair 

 of Betatakin. No comparison is to be drawn between it and othef 

 ruins of the Kayenta district or elsewhere; no effort will be made 

 to determine the place occupied by Betatakin on the ladder of 

 Pueblo history. The present paper serves merely to present certain 

 observations resulting from our 1917 expedition, as an aid to that 

 more intimate study of the village yet to be written. 



Although Betatakin is now a familiar name to most students of 

 Pueblo archeology, few are aware that it was first seen by whites on 

 August 5, 1909, when a Utah University exploring party led by Prof. 

 Byron Cummings and guided by John Wetherill was directed to it 

 by a Navajo Indian, casually met in Segi Canyon. This Indian 

 pointed the way and then sat down beside the trail to await the 

 party's return. Through inherent fear of all things associated with 

 the dead, he steadfastly refused to advance within sight of the ruin. 

 The Kayenta district was wild and untamed at that time ; canyons to 

 the westward sheltered many young Indians who had yet to see their 

 first white man, unbelievable though this may seem.^ Archeological 

 explorers looked like prospectors; buttes in Monument Valley bore 

 the names of men killed while seeking minerals on the reservation in 

 open defiance of Navajo wishes. At Oljeto, Wetherill and Colville 

 maintained the only trading post between Bluff and Tuba. 



As student assistant to Doctor Cummings I participated in the 

 brief, initial inspection of Betatakin, but I was not present in the 



^1924, p. 73. 



« 1915, p. 278. 



'' In August, 1909, while guiding W. B. Douglass from Rainbow Bridge to Keet Seel and 

 Betatakin, the present writer witnessed inauguration of a 3-day war ceremony, surrepti- 

 tiously held near the head of Piute Canyon ; a few days later, in Oljeto, he was informed 

 by old Hoskinnini, revered chief of the northern Navajos, that the Douglass party were 

 the first whites ever seen by several Indians, in their mid twenties, attending that 

 ceremony. 



