Montezuma Castle National Monument 3

Montezuma Castle National Monument 3

Clothing included garments woven from cultivated cotton and a variety of

bands, sandals, and other apparel made from yucca and other wild plants;

animal skins also were utilized. Ornaments and ceremonial paraphernalia

were made from such materials as turquoise, animal bones, imported sea

shells, and brightly colored bird feathers.

 

Implements and utensils found in the houses of these people include such

objects as stone metates and manos for grinding corn, hammers, knives,

drills, bone awls and needles, baskets, and many ornaments of shell and

turquoise, often carved in bird and animal forms.

 

Items missing from the pre-Spanish Indian culture include metals,

livestock, wheeled vehicles, and writing.

 

Life in the Sinagua pueblos of the Verde, though lacking the variety

found in a modern city, had more of natural beauty and simplicity. Like

any other people, the Sinagua would not have selected this spot for

their homes if the necessities of their everyday life had not been

present. In this region, their needs were filled by a good water supply,

bottomlands for farming, wild berries and edible shrubs, game for meat,

and materials for buildings, pottery, and tools.

 

In addition, they had one thing which most Indians in Arizona had to

travel great distances to obtain—a large deposit of salt. This they

mined a few miles southwest of present-day Camp Verde where their

collapsed tunnels can be traced even today. Occasionally the handle of a

stone pick may still be seen projecting from a collapsed tunnel. Many

bits of matting and unburned torches that the Indians apparently used

for lighting their tunnels have been recovered. In 1928 several

well-preserved Indian bodies were removed from one of these mines where

they had been trapped when one of the tunnels caved in.

 

The Sinagua also were fortunate in having a deposit of a red rock called

argillite not too far away. From this material they fashioned stone

pendants, beads, earrings, and other ornaments with which they adorned

themselves.

 

To satisfy their vanity further, the Indians imported luxuries not

available in this area. Bracelets, pendants, beads, rings, and inlay

made from shell were acquired by trade with tribes to the south who

obtained the shell from the Gulf of California. The Sinagua also

bartered for turquoise pendants, earrings, beads, and inlay pieces from

other groups. Probably their greatest trade was in pottery. These

Sinagua Indians rarely decorated their pottery, and judging by the

quantity of painted pieces recovered from their sites, they engaged in

lively trade for the wares of their northeastern neighbors. One might

say that they imported their “china” in quantity.

 

Through a study of this pottery we find that from about 1150 to 1250,

decorated pieces were obtained from the Indians in the north, near

modern Flagstaff. Some of this pottery the Sinagua retraded to the

Hohokam around present-day Phoenix. (How many of us today would be

successful in taking dishes over a distance of 200 miles on foot without

breaking a goodly portion?) After 1250, due to depopulation east of the

Flagstaff area, the people of the Verde Valley obtained decorated

pottery from the region farther east, around modern Winslow; and also,

farther north, from the present Hopi Indian reservation area.

 

The trade possibilities of the Sinagua were almost unlimited. They were

located between the large Hohokam settlements of southern Arizona and

the widespread pueblos of northern Arizona. Natural routes of travel

along streams led them into both areas, and they had salt, argillite,

and cotton to offer in exchange.

 

Despite the importance of trade, which was primarily for luxury items,

the Sinagua Indians were basically farmers and depended mainly on food

they raised themselves. In Montezuma Castle, American pioneers found

corncobs in abundance and sometimes the remains of beans and squash.

There were also numerous corn-grinding stones or metates, made from

basaltic boulders carried into the area by flood waters in Beaver Creek.

Roughly rectangular, the stones measure about 14 by 18 inches, and are 6

to 8 inches thick. Corn was ground by rubbing a smaller stone (mano)

back and forth on the metate. This process gradually wore a trough down

into the metate.

 

[Illustration: _Montezuma Castle artifacts including piece of gourd

with carved handle, squash, cotton bolls, spindle, and corn._]

 

[Illustration: _Jars, metates and manos, and fireplace as found in

excavated ruin at cliff base west of Montezuma Castle._]

 

The people also were gatherers and hunters to some extent. Remains of

hackberries, mesquite beans, black walnuts, and sego-lily bulbs have

been found in the cliff dwellings. Mescal or agave (sometimes called

century plant) was used. Small wads or “quids” of fiber from this plant

have been found; they were chewed by the Indians to extract the sweet

juices.

 

Although identifiable animal bones from Montezuma Castle and nearby

dwellings are rare, they have been found in other pueblos in the valley.

From a site about 10 miles away, bones of elk, mule deer, antelope,

bear, rabbit, turtle, and fish have been recovered.

 

Some food for winter use must have been held in storage. Probably the

Castle dwellers, like the modern Hopis, stacked mature corn on the cob

across the end of a room like cordwood. Strings of squash, cut into

rings and dried in the sun, were probably strung from the roof in an

out-of-the-way corner. Meat was undoubtedly preserved in a similar

fashion—by drying rather than smoking or salting it. Perhaps the stores

of food and the seed held for the next spring’s planting were sought by

neighboring pueblos where crops may have failed. As pointed out earlier,

food shortages could have provided one of the principal reasons for

intervillage warfare, especially after 1300 when the area became

overcrowded.

 

Cooking fires were kindled by the friction of a wooden spindle rotated

in a hearth stick until enough heat was generated to ignite tinder.

Perhaps some family in Montezuma Castle was responsible for maintaining

a perpetual fire from which embers could be carried to other households.

This is not so strange when we recall that only 100 years ago pioneer

neighbors sometimes called on each other to borrow a coal of fire.

 

These Sinagua Indians were artisans who manufactured pottery, and stone

and shell ornaments. Their pottery was a reddish-brown ware (so colored

from minerals in the native clay) and it was usually undecorated, though

sometimes painted red. Sand was used as a tempering or binding agent.

They made pottery bowls, cooking pots, and water jars—some of the latter

of 3- or 4-gallon capacity. In refuse dumps near the dwellings,

archeologists have found quantities of broken pottery—it is principally

through a study of these dumps that the chronology of Indian occupation

in this area is revealed.

 

Pottery was made from clay found in the region. After the clay was

pulverized, the correct amounts of water and tempering materials were

added. There were no potter’s wheels, so the vessels were shaped by

hand. The Sinagua accomplished this with the aid of a stone “anvil” held

inside the pot and a wooden paddle used against the outside. Finishing

was usually done by rubbing the surface perfectly smooth with a

polishing stone or pebble dipped in water. Although some Indian pottery

has a high polish, none of it carries a true, over-all glaze.

 

Modern Indians, in firing their pottery, usually burn animal dung for

fuel, but the pre-Columbian Indians used vegetable material, possibly

juniper wood. Several pieces of pottery might be stacked together so

that all would be evenly exposed to the heat of the fire. Large pieces

of broken pottery were used to protect the new pieces from direct

contact with the flames. The firing process required several hours, with

time allowed for the pottery to cool slowly.

 

Stone and shell ornaments are examples of other crafts, and some

beautiful specimens have been found. The shells came from the Pacific

Ocean or the Gulf of California and are believed to have been imported

through trade with neighboring tribes. Prehistoric trade routes, over

which specific types of shells were distributed, extended from the Gulfs

of Mexico and California to north-central New Mexico and from the

Pacific Ocean to southern Utah.

 

The shell was worked in various ways. The tips were ground from olivella

shells which were then strung on sinew and worn as beads. Larger shells

were sometimes covered with a mosaic of turquoise and colored stones.

The turquoise was mined with stone tools, and by the time it was removed

from its matrix, cut, and polished, it represented a considerable

investment of labor. Argillite found in the Verde River region was also

mined. Lac, an insect secretion found on creosote bushes, was sometimes

used to cement the turquoise and argillite to the shell base.

 

The Sinagua also excelled in the art of weaving. They wove sandals,

baskets, mats, and cotton fabrics. Some of the latter exhibit lace-like

open work while other pieces are tightly woven resembling modern canvas.

Cotton was raised here, near the fields of corn, and woven by the

Sinagua into the finished articles. A few cotton bolls with lint and

seeds have been found in the dwellings.

 

Instead of spinning wheels, the Indians used a wooden spindle about the

thickness of a lead pencil and perhaps 18 inches long. About 5 or 6

inches from one end there was a disc- or sphere-shaped counterweight

made from a piece of wood or pottery. Corded cotton was spun into yarn

by feeding it onto the end of the spindle as it was twirled between the

thumb and fingers, or, between the hand and the thigh as the spinner sat

on the ground.

 

Among the modern Indians of the Southwest, the most and the best weaving

is done by the Navajo, an Apache people who learned weaving only a few

hundred years ago from the Pueblos. Modern Navajo weaving is done by the

women. Weaving among modern Pueblos, notably the Hopi, is done by men;

and ancient weaving of pre-Spanish Pueblos may have been men’s work

also.

 

[Illustration: _Bird-shaped ornament of turquoise mosaic on

seashell._]

 

[Illustration: _Pre-Columbian weaving with openwork design._]

 

[Illustration: _Child burial in floor of third-story room in

Montezuma Castle._]

 

Most weaving required the use of a loom, a rectangular vertical

framework somewhat larger than the size of the finished product. Proper

tension on vertical (warp) threads was maintained by lashing at the ends

of the loom. Black and white patterns were known, and some red was used.

The museum at Montezuma Castle exhibits some of the finest examples of

prehistoric Pueblo Indian weaving.

 

The Sinagua Indians in the Verde Valley apparently had no formal

cemeteries. Children were often buried near the dwellings or under the

floor. We learn from modern Pueblo Indians that some prefer to bury a

child near the home. This comes from the belief that the child’s spirit

will remain until the death of the mother and can then be guided safely

to the hereafter; or, that it will return in the person of the next baby

to be born in the family. Occasional child burials were found in wall

cavities in the pueblo ruin at Tuzigoot National Monument. Tuzigoot is a

few miles northwest of Montezuma Castle and was occupied during the same general period.