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Show 4 what extent wood and adobe were nsed can hardly be determined. It is evident, however, that the greater portion of the villages and dwellings of the lowlands have been of material other than stone, frequently doubtless of rubble and adobe combined. As to situation, they may be classified very properly under three heads: ( 1) lowland or agricultural settlements; ( 2) cave- dwellings; and ( 3) cliff- houses or fortresses. Those of the first class are chiefly on the river- bottoms, in close proximity to water, in the very midst of the most fertile lands, and located without reference to security or means of defense. Those of the second are in the vicinity of agricultural lands, but built in excavations in low- bluff faces of the Middle Cretaceous shales. The sites are chosen also, I imagine, with reference to security; while the'situ-ation of the cliff- houses is chosen totally with reference to security and defense, built high up in the steep and inaccessible cliffs, and having the least possible degree of convenience to field or water. As to use, the position for the most part determines that. The lowland ruins are the remains of agricultural settlements, built and occupied much as similar villages and dwelliugs would be occupied by peaceable and unmolested peoples of to- day. The cave- dwellers, although they may have been of the same tribe and contemporaneous, probably built with reference to their peaceable occupations as well as to ddfense, and it is impossible to say whether or not they made these houses their constant dwelling- places. The cliff- houses could only have been used as places of refuge and defense. During seasons of invasion and war, families were probably sent to them for security, while the warriors defended their property or went forth to battle; and one can readily imagine that when the hour of total defeat came, they served as a last resort for a desperate and disheartened people. In form, the parallelogram and circle predominate, and a considerable degree of architectural skill is displayed. Where the conformation of the ground, permits, the squares are perfect squares and the circles perfect circles. A greater part of the ordinary structures are square or rectangular; while attached to each group, and sometimes without indications of contiguous buildings, are the circular ruins frequently resembling towers. These are the most pretentious structures, being often as much as forty feet in diameter, and in many cases having double or triple walls. They are solidly built of hewn stone, dressed on the outside to the curve, neatly jointed, and laid in mortar. The space between the outer walls is invariably divided by heavy partition- walls into a number of apartments, while a circular depression, or estufa* occupies the center of the inclosure. It seems evident, from the extraordinary form of these structures and the unusual care shown in their constructiou, that they were not designed for the ordinary uses of dwelling or defense. It has been observed that, among nearly all the ancient tribes of North America, the grandest and most elaborate works of art were the offspring of their superstitions, and it does not seem at all improbable that these great towers had a religious origin. It is stated that the eternal fire- an essential of their worship- has always been kept in circular inclosures, and that the circle symbolizes the sun, their deity. The occurrence, therefore, of one or more of these circular inclosures in each of their settlements can be rationally accounted for; but it is with less certainty we arrive at conclusions in regard to the triple walls and the cell- like apartments. In the inhabited * A Spanish word signifying " sweat- house" or council- honse. |
