100 
HXRAMIC STUDIO 
ARTS OF THE CLIFF DWELLERS 
pepper's finds on prehistoric sites in chaco canyon 
THE Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canon, New Mexico, was ex- 
plored by Mr. George H. Pepper, assistant in ethnology, 
in the Museum of Natural History. His finds embrace many 
things that were hardly expected and may have an important 
bearing on the problem of the population of America in a very 
remote epoch ; and others which in their way surpass for art- 
istic quality anything of the sort found in Mexico or Peru. 
The cases are in the first large gallery to the westward on 
entering the main floor of the museum by the portal at the 
head of the stairway, after passing the middle gallery, where 
the stuffed beasts and birds are shown. On the south side is 
a series of cases containing models in plaster of typical pueblos 
like the Pueblo de Taos, and restored cliff dwellings, which 
may be fairly representative of the lofty eyries where Mr. 
Pepper dug the relics now partly arranged for public view. 
Digging in the floors of these prehistoric caves, he came 
upon whole sets of jaws, apparently assembled with some pur- 
pose, either directly connected with religious worship or 
merely stored there against the day of festival, when they 
were brought forth for religious use. Ceremonial sticks in 
large quantities and different shapes were found, sometimes 
with the symbolical feather attached ; long flutes of wood and 
other subjects belonging to the pre-Columbian past; but 
nothing to show the presence of white men, nothing that told 
of barter with the Spaniards or the influences of Spanish 
priests. Heaps of shells from the Pacific Coast there are, in- 
dicating trade with the California Indians, and at least one jar 
of brown pottery, which seems to have been brought from 
Mexico, and may have served as a model for the local jars in 
white pottery, of which there is a great wealth. 
Modern times are not omitted ; for some cases contain an 
interesting study of the blanket, basket, and pottery work of 
the Navajo Indians — the sumach roots and branches which 
yield the red dye when the juice is mingled with the ashes of 
the juniper, and the black dye when boiled down. Here is 
the Navajo wool in the fleece, and when shorn and treated 
with the vegetable dyes; the yarn in differing colors, the loom 
with a blanket partly wove, the blankets themselves in all 
their strong colors and designs, some of which are traceable 
far back to the pottery and textiles from the prehistoric sites. 
But the ancient remains are most curious. 
There are quadruple jars of small size connected together, 
in which dyes and paints were kept, the decorations being con- 
ventional signs for frogs and tadpoles, creatures connected 
with water, and therefore commonest in a country of arid 
mesas and plateaus, where water is a question of life and 
death. Here is a double jar like a dumb-bell, with the spout 
on the handle, the two ends decorated with a flower pattern 
of five petals and five tendrils. Yonder is a grand jar, with a 
serpent decoration on its widest circumference, a bold spiral 
proceeding from a pattern of four longish squares ; possibly 
we have here the remains of a rattlesnake figure in which 
the black points on the spiral represent the scales and the 
oblong squares at the other end, or stem end, the rattles. 
Big jars and bowls in solid black are fine in shape. Some of 
the more modern pieces are decorated in red and yellow and 
black, showing stags and bears, parrots or eagles and cocks, 
antelopes, flowers, with expanded petals, leaves and stalks, 
bold, simple decorations like mountain ranges, or terracelike, 
squared clouds. Here are modern rattles and a host of curi- 
ous dolls, manikins, and devilkins made of cotton and leather, 
painted and adorned with feathers and bows. Among the 
bowls is one whose decoration in bold black designs suggests 
the cuneiform from the Euphrates on a large scale — a design 
for all the world like the cuneiform of a fish — though there is 
no connection either by immigration or underlying meaning 
between the two. 
These cases are interesting also for the record they con- 
tain of the evolution of pottery from basket work. We see 
the impression on the clay of certain baskets, into which the 
clay was originally pressed before being dried by the sun and 
by fire and then baked. Among the Witherill objects ex- 
cavated in Utah which fill cases in the same gallery we find 
the mummies and the textiles of a very early race which 
seems to have understood basket work alone, not having 
reached the stage of pottery making, as was also the case of 
the Australians. But their baskets are certainly superb for 
quality and decorations, size, and usefulness, though the weave 
differs from that of the race whose remains are found above 
them in the Utah caves, and also from the weave of baskets 
made by modern Indians. 
In Mr. Pepper's find in Pueblo Bonito, in New Mexico, 
one can see a bottle shaped jar of pottery in which the maker 
has not only built the bowl up by spiral ropes of clay as the 
early basket maker would carry round and round a rope of 
straw to form his basket bowl, but he has indented the rope 
of clay as he wound it, so that the outside is rough like plaited 
straw. It is a very pretty example of the evolution of pottery 
from forms in basketwork. 
The decorations of this prehistoic pottery are often ex- 
plainable only on the belief that the potter had a woven 
basket before him which he imitated, shape, design, and all, 
in clay, for these designs are natural in basketwork, but not 
natural in the united surface of a clay bowl or pot. Here, 
too, are the stones they used to polish the bowlswith inside and 
out, and implements used for carving, weaving, and painting. 
Unequaled in other collections of prehistoric America is 
the case containing inlays of turquois or bone, jet and other 
materials, even on basketwork — but in the latter case the 
foundation fell to pieces as the object was excavated from the 
sand. Innumerable are the pieces of turquois carved for 
mosaic and inlay purposes with stone implements, many also 
are the largest pendants and ear, nose, and breast ornaments. 
In one there was an imperfection in the stone, so the ancient 
jeweler has carefully drilled out the bad spot and fashioned a 
plug of turquois which exactly fits the hole. In another case 
a pear-shaped piece of mosaic was needed, and this has been 
built of three pieces so perfectly fitting that one can scarcely 
see the lines of jointure. There are small ducks and pigeons 
of light stone, and a bird in jet with a decorative design in 
turquois passing along its body and wings. A large shell has 
been shaped like a beetle and an inlay of turquois carried 
round the thorax. A scoop made of deer's bone has bands 
of turquois alternating with lines of jet inlaid with the utmost 
skill, and certainly showing a fine eye for color. The finest 
piece in this collection, however, is a large carved frog in the 
blackest of jet, with turquois eyes and turquois inlays. This 
favorite reptile sings sweetly to people who for months have 
perhaps been praying for rain. As tadpole or half frog, or as 
complete in all its legs, the frog is like the duck, and more 
often than the dragon fly, a sign of water. There can be no 
doubt that a work of art so elaborate as this must have be- 
longed to the tribe as a talisman which was brought out for 
the ceremonies in honor of the rain gods. 
The installation of the old and modern Americana is 
