FEWKES— RUINS IN FEWKES CANON 



previously been dug into and standing walls had been torn down to 

 admit light for the pot-hunters. Many walls were left tottering on 

 their foundations; others were completely broken through to afford 

 access to the rear rooms. 



The entire ground-plan (fig. i) of Oak-tree House is somewhat 

 difficult to trace on account of the destruction of the eastern and 

 western ends. The kivas of these parts are practically gone, but 

 rooms in the deeper portions of the cave are protected by the cavern 

 roof and the walls of these are fairly well preserved. The kivas were 

 buried in debris, but their walls are only slightly mutilated. 



The largest and most conspicuous fragment of masonry above 

 ground (pi. II, b) stands on top of a large rock (f) fallen from the 

 roof of the cave before any of the habitations were constructed. This 

 rock projects over a section of the wall of Kiva B on one side, and of 

 Kiva D on the other, a relation showing that these rooms were con- 

 structed after the rock had fallen, otherwise the masonry of the rooms 

 would have been crushed by the fall. 



Of the two types of rooms in Oak-tree House, sacred and secular, 

 the former are circular, resembling in structural features the type of 

 kiva common in the cliff-houses of the Mesa Verde and the McElmo, 

 Chaco, and other canons of the upper San Juan valley. The kivas are, 

 as a rule, subterranean, and the roofs, now destroyed, were vaulted 

 inside in much the same way as those of Spruce-tree House. The in- 

 dications are that these rooms were entered from the roof by means 

 of ladders, and that the exterior of the roof was level with the courts. 

 The roofs were supported by pilasters projecting from the inner walls, 

 generally six in number, with recesses between, in which banquettes 

 were built. Small square niches, generally situated in the wall below 

 the level of the tops of the banquettes, served as receptacles for sacred 

 meal, medicine bowls, and other objects. The fireplace, which still 

 contains wood ashes, is a circular depression in the floor near the 

 middle of the room. The smoke of former fires made its way through 

 the hatchway, and fresh air was admitted at the level of the floor by 

 a horizontal flue and a vertical shaft. There was an upright slab of 

 stone or a wall of the same material which served as a deflector, set 

 in the floor between the firepit and the opening of the air-shaft, as 

 has been shown elsewhere to be the case in the Spruce-tree House and 

 the Cliff Palace kivas. The small opening in the floor comparable 

 with the ceremonial sipapu of Hopi kivas, exists in several of the 

 ceremonial rooms at Oak-tree House. 



The two most remarkable chambers in this ruin are the D-shaped 

 Kiva D, and a non-ceremonial circular room (a) in the rear of the cave, 



[ioi] 



