FEWKES— RUINS IN FEWKES CANON 



nalia, 1 such as the serpent effigies of the Snake drama, or the ollas 

 or pottery vessels used in the snake-washing ceremony, were formerly 

 kept in caves outside the pueblos, lest they might harm the careless 

 or the inquisitive, and some such thought might have been in the 

 minds of the cliff-dwellers of the Mesa Verde. As bearing on the 

 possible use of some of the more inaccessible small ruins as storage 

 places, or receptacles for water vessels or for paraphernalia used for 

 secular or religious purposes, I have introduced a photograph (pi. ill) 

 of the pottery found in 1914 by Mr Jeep in the cliff-ruin known as 

 Daniels House. 



GROUND-PLAN OF OAK-TREE HOUSE 



The floor of the cave in which Oak-tree House stands has an un- 

 even surface and is covered with bowlders. It measures about 100 

 feet in length, from east to west, and 75 feet in breadth, from north 

 to south. As in the case of most Mesa Verde cliff-dwellings of its 

 type, the ruin is divided into two sections: one, the smaller, on a 

 ledge in the cliff at one side and above, the other situated on the 

 same level as the top of the talus. 



The ground-plan (fig. 1) of Oak-tree House cannot be called char- 

 acteristic, but resembles that of Spruce-tree House and some of the 

 other cliff -houses in the Mesa Verde National Park. Greater or lesser 

 modifications, as shown in the accompanying plan, have resulted from 

 destruction of walls by the falling of large stones from the roof of the 

 cave, which have practically demolished almost all the walls of the 

 western end of the structure. The foundations of these walls are of 

 course buried beneath the fallen rocks. The ruin shows two types of 

 rooms — secular or domiciliary, and ceremonial chambers or kivas. 

 The latter have the best masonry and are the most characteristic. 



The kivas, as a rule, are found in front of secular rooms. There 

 are no refuse heaps of considerable size back of the secular rooms, or 

 in the rear of the cave, although there are recesses and a few dark 

 rooms whose rear is formed by the wall of the cave, an exceptional 

 feature in the Mesa Verde ruins. 



1 Some of the effigies of the Plumed Serpent used in the March festival are now kept in four jars 

 set in the masonry of a banquette of a room in the pueblo of Hano. The covers of the jars 

 are so cleverly luted in the surface of the banquette that they are thoroughly hidden from view; 

 in fact, I slept on the banquette during several weeks without intimation that the serpent effigies 

 were beneath me. The old shrine in which the effigies were formerly kept is a cave on the western 

 side of the mesa, north of Hano pueblo. In 1900 a few hoops and broken heads of the effigies were 

 all that remained there, although the place is still regarded as the ancient home of the Great Ser- 

 pent effigies. It was abandoned many years ago as a receptacle of the effigies on account of its 

 exposed position. The bowl in which the reptiles used in the Snake dance at Walpi are washed, 

 and the vases in which they are kept during the exercises in the kiva, are kept in a cave in the 

 mesa cliff west of Walpi. 



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