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Show EVERYDAY LIFE IN PUEBLO BONITO 245 The earliest known description of Pueblo Bonito and its neighboring ruins was written by Lieut. J. H. Simpson, attached to Colonel Washington's command on a punitive expedition against the Navajo in 1849; an<l t n e southern Apaches were not completely subjugated until a much later period. It would indeed be interesting could we learn what enemy tribes worried the prehistoric Bonitians. That their attacks were relentless and recurrent has been established by The Society's expeditions. The single gateway to Pueblo Bonito was reduced to a narrow door, and this was subsequently and permanently closed in the interest of still greater security. Thereafter, access to the great house was gained by a ladder which, in time of necessity, could be drawn up to the rooftops. INHABITANTS FORCED TO SEAL THEIR DOORS AND WINDOWS Doorways and elevated windows in the curved outer wall of the pueblo were all closed with masonry long before the village was finally abandoned. Without deep-rooted fear of savage marauders, these precautions would never have been taken. With the passing years the Bonitians drew more and more within the shell of their pueblo, as a tortoise, when threatened, retires within its carapace. But even closed doors and a blocked gateway did not entirely shield these ancient folk from their enemies. The latter, gaining confidence from repeated successes, returned to the attack with ever-increasing frequency. Peaceful villagers are no match for trained warriors. Hand-to-hand struggles were waged in the very courts of the village; hafted stone axes and wooden war clubs bruised brown bodies and broke many a bone; flint-tipped arrows sought out crouching defenders of the terraced houses. Terrifying war cries echoed through the canyon; fearful women hurried weeping children to the shelter of inner rooms. Again, we may only surmise the general fact of such sporadic warfare, since no definite proof of it has come down to us. The Bonitians kept no diary of passing events and the glyphic carvings they pecked on the cliffs remain mostly unintelligible. But similar defense against hostile tribes within the past century was forced upon the various Hopi towns of Arizona, upon the Zufii of western New Mexico, and the Tewa of the Rio Grande. Final abandonment, in 1838, of Pecos- the largest Pueblo village visited by Coro-nado on his expedition in 1540-was a direct result of relentless attacks by Comanche war parties from the Texas plains. And like conditions almost certainly obtained during the occupancy of Pueblo Bonito, if we may judge from the circumstantial evidence at hand. SEVENTY-ONE BODIES FOUND, VICTIMS OE GRAVE ROBBERS Not only did these unknown marauders execute systematic and periodic raids against the Bonitians, killing the men when possible, stealing their women and children, and plundering their fields, but they even pillaged the burial chambers. Prehistoric peoples of the Southwest sometimes interred their dead in rooms of the village. Four such rooms have been found in Pueblo Bonito. Of the seventy-one bodies buried there, most had been wantonly disturbed at a time shortly before, or shortly after, the village was deserted by its builders. If the former, we may be sure the defenders had been so reduced in numbers as to be well-nigh helpless against their enemies. Herein lies one possible reason for the abandonment of Pueblo Bonito. In these four chambers a most astonishing condition was found to prevail. Skulls had been tossed aside; arms and legs had been torn from desiccated bodies that lay crushed on their burial mats; toe and finger bones, ribs and vertebrae, were scattered in hopeless confusion; mortuary offerings-baskets, earthenware vessels, and implements formerly used by the deceased- had been overturned and trampled upon (see pages 236, 237, 240, 241, 255). And the cause of all this destruction? Hasty, vandalistic search for turquoise or other treasured ornaments buried with the dead (see page 239), WEALTH RECKONED IN TURQUOISES Nothing was more highly prized than the turquoise by the Pueblos of a thousand |