OCR Text |
Show ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF FIRST INHABITANTS 25 point where the Rio Grande enters White Rock canyon. The ruin is reached by following up the Alamo canyon from its confluence with the Guages. The top of the mesa is reached at the head of that part of the Alamo canyon known as the Black Gorge. The first canyon entering the Alamo from the north above this point is Following this up about two miles a point known as the Ot-o-wi. is reached where the long, narrow potrero bounding the canyon on the north is entirely shut out for a distance of nearly a mile, thus throwing into a squarish open park the width of the two small canFrom the midst of this yons and the formerly intervening mesa. little park, roughly a mile square, a view of surpassing beauty is to Half a mile to the south the huge mesa which is terminated be had. by Rincon del Pueblo bounds the valley with a high unbroken line, The perhaps five hundred feet above the dry arroyo at the bottom. same distance to the north is the equally high and abrupt Ot-o-wi mesa, and east and west, an equal distance and to about an equal height, rise the wedge-like terminal buttes which define this great gap in the middle of the mesa. Toward into the beautifully wooded gorges. The parallel canyons running the four corners one looks The entire area is well forested. through this glade are prevented from forming a confluence by a high ridge, the remnant of the intervening mesa. Upon the high point of this ridge is located a large pueblo ruin which formed the nucleus of the Ot-o-wi settlement. In every direction are clusters of excavated cliff-dwellings of contemporaneous occupation, and on a parallel ridge to the south are the ruins of one pueblo of considerable size and seven small ones, all ante-dating the Ot-o-wi settlement.*° The Two types of excavated cliff-dwellings are found at Ot-o-wi. first is the open-front dwelling, usually, though not always, singlechambered, in most cases a natural cave enlarged and shaped by excavation. The second type is wholly artificial, with closed front of the Cliff-dwellings of this type are usually mulnatural rock in situ. tiple chambered, with floors below the level of the threshold; they have generally a crude fire-place beside the doorway, but are selThe rooms are commonly rectandom provided with smoke-vents. 10 Hewett, Dr. Edg: : L., Antiquities of the Jemez Plateau, Bul. 32, B. A. E., p. 18, 1906. |