ART. 5 EXCAVATION AND REPAIR OF BETATAKIN JUDD 7 



charge of the reconstruction contemplated within the new monument. 

 This recommendation would have been followed gladly since Pro- 

 fessor Cummings, the first archeologist to examine the prehistoric 

 villages in question, was logically the one to restore them. But the 

 law required that Federal funds be disbursed only by a Federal 

 employee. Thus it came about that the present writer, a member of 

 the Smithsonian staff, was assigned the task of carrying out the 

 provisions of the act of May 18, 1916. 



It was westward bound that I determined to restrict my efforts 

 to Betatakin. Based on personal knowledge of the Kayenta district, 

 this decision seemed wise for three reasons, previously mentioned : ^^ 

 (1) More than one ruin could not be excavated and restored in the 

 time available, from the sum appropriated; (2) Betatakin was, per- 

 haps, in greatest need of repair; (3) the site was more accessible than 

 the others and furnished abundant water for camp purposes. 



When our animals were unpacked at Betatakin on the afternoon 

 of March 27, 1917, we first cleared away the snow and improvised 

 sleeping quarters under the scrub oaks that border a little flat near 

 the gurgling stream. Firewood was close at hand, but our thin, 

 cotton tents afforded scant protection from the wintry blasts that 

 played almost incessantly up or down the canyon. During the 

 weeks which followed we frequently retired to the old dwellings in 

 the cliff there to seek shelter from the storms. 



Our work began with a cursory examination of the talus immedi- 

 ately below the village. Neither house remains nor burials were 

 disclosed there; stratified deposits from which length of occupancy 

 and local changes in the technique of pottery manufacture might be 

 gauged were utterly lacking. The inhabitants of Betatakin amassed 

 no single trash pile — the delight of dirt archeologists — ^but utilized 

 their household debris in widening the rock terraces of the cave, 

 thus to increase its habitable space. 



During the centuries which followed abandonment of the pueblo, 

 walls had collapsed; tons of wind-blown sand had lodged in the 

 empty rooms and the courts between. In such accumulations, 

 watered by seepage, long banks of columbine and intertwining box 

 elders and scrub oaks had taken root. Huge blocks of sandstone had 

 broken from the cave roof to crush the eastern house group. Most 

 of the ancient dwellings had been previously excavated and refilled 

 to protect the fractured masonr3^ All this vast quantity of sand, 

 rock, and overturned rubbish must necessarily be cleared away before 

 our principal task could properly begin. 



This task, let me repeat, was solely one of repair and preservation. 

 Betatakin had been thoroughly explored by Professor Cummings 



i=Judd, 1918. 



