There are several objects made of wood in the collection from Cliff Palace. some of the least problematical of which are long, pointed rods (fig. 3) with which the ancients probably made the holes in which they planted corn, in much the same way as the Hopi plant at the present day. These implements are commonly pointed at the end, but one, or two are broadened and flattened. No example of the spatular variety of dibble found by others, and none showing the point of attachment of a flat stone blade, occurs in the collection. One or two short broken sticks, having a knob cut on the unbroken end, are interpreted as handles of weapons—a use that is not definitely proven. There are several sticks that evidently were used for barring windows or for holding stone door-closes in place.

Among problematical wooden objects may be mentioned billets (pl. 33), flattened on one side and rounded at each end. Two of these were found, with calcined human bones, in the inclosure used for cremation of the dead, situated at the northern end of the large refuse heap. These, like the bowls with which they were associated, were coated with a white salt-like deposit. None of the many wooden objects figured by Nordenskiöld are exactly the same as those above mentioned, although the one shown in his plate XLIII, figure 17, is very close in form and size.

Plate 33. WOODEN OBJECTS (a billet (left); b objects used in game (middle); c billet (right))

Several bent twigs or loops of flexible wood from the refuse heaps were found; these are supposed to have been inserted in the masonry, one on each side of door and window openings, to hold in place the stick which served as a bolt for fastening the door or window stone in position.

Bent sticks, of dumb-bell shape, having a knob at each end (pl. 33, b), are believed to have been used in games. A similar object from the Mancos region is figured by Mr. Stewart Culin in his account of the games of the cliff-dwellers.a The ancient people of the semi-deserts of Atacama, in South America, employed a similar but larger stick, to which cords were attached for strapping bundles on their beasts of burden.

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aTwenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology.

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FIG 3. —Planting sticks

A small pointed stone attached with fiber to the end of a stick, similar to those found by Nordenskiöld in ruin 9 and at Long House, was found.

The Cliff Pahace people kindled fire by means of the fire-drill and fire-stick (hearth), a specimen of which, similar to one collected at Spruce-tree House, is contained in the collection. Both of these fire-making implements were broken when found, apparently thrown away on that account either by the original people or by subsequent visitors.

Many bone implements (pl. 34, 35) were found during the excavation of Cliff Palace. They are of the bones of birds and small mammals, or, now and then, of those of antelope or bear, the latter furnishing the best material for large scrapers. These implements were evidently sharpened by rubbing on the stones of walls or on the face of the cliff, as grooves, apparently made in this way, are there visible in several places. Scratches made in shaping or sharpening bones, repeatedly found on the masonry of Cliff Palace, are not peculiar, resembling those referred to in the report on Spruce-tree House. A small tube with a hole midway of its length doubtless served as a whistle, similar instruments being still often used in Hopi ceremonies to imitate the calls of birds.

Plate 34. BONE IMPLEMENTS

Sections of bones were found tied in pairs, and while it is not clear that these were threaded on a cord and worn as necklaces or armlets, as Nordenskiöld suggests, they may have been tied side by side, forming a kind of breastplate not unlike that used by the Plains tribes. In a room of Spruce-tree House, according to Nordenskiöld, eight similar pieces of bone were found strung on a fine thong of hide.

Plate 35. BONE IMPLEMENTS

Among other bone objects there is one, of unknown use, about an inch long and one-fourth of an inch in diameter, nearly cylindrical in shape. A bone with a hole in one end, similar to those figured by Nordenskiöld, forms part of the collection.

The single specimen of turquoise found at Cliff Palace was probably an ear pendant, and a black jet bead was apparently used for the same purpose. With the polished cylinder of hematite found one can still paint the face or body a reddish color, as the Hopi do with a similar object. From the sipapu of kiva D there was taken a small deerskin bag, tied with yucca fiber and containing a material resembling iron pyrites, evidently an offering of some kind to the gods of the underworld.

A button made of lignite, and beads of the same material, were found in the refuse heap in front of the ruin after a heavy rain. The former is broken, but it resembles that found at Spruce-tree House, although it is not so finely made, and also one from Homolobi, a ruin on the Little Colorado, near Winslow, Arizona.

The cobs and seeds of corn, squash and pumpkin seeds, beans, and fragments of gourds give some idea of the vegetable products known to the Cliff Palace people. Corn furnished the most important food of the people, and its dried leaves, stalks, and tassels were abundant in all parts of their refuse heaps. Naturally, in a cave where many small rodents have lived for years, it is rare to find seed corn above ground that has not been appropriated by these animals, and in the dry, alkaline bone-phosphate dust edible corn is not very common, although now and then occurs a cob with attached seeds. The corn of Cliff Palace, already figured by Nordenskiöld, resembles that still cultivated by some of the Hopi.

FIG. 4.—Woven forehead band.

The Cliff Palace people manufactured fairly good cloth, the component cords or strings being of two or three strands and well twisted. So finely made and durable are some of these cords that they might be mistaken for white men's work; some of them, however, are very coarse, and are tied in hanks. Among varieties of cords may be mentioned those wound with feathers, from which textiles, employed in the manufacture of ordinarily called "feather cloth," was made. Yucca and cotton were almost all kinds of fabrics. A few fragments of netting were found.

The finest cloth was manufactured from cotton, a good specimen of which, showing a pattern woven in different colors, is contained in the collection.

Several woven belts, and also a head-band similar to that figured in the report on Spruce-tree House, were uncovered by the excavations.

The largest fragment of cloth was taken out of the crematory, or inclosure containing the calcined human bones, at the northern end of the larger refuse heap. It appears to have been a portion of a bag, or possibly of a head covering, but it is so fragmentary that its true use is unknown. The pattern is woven in darker colored threads, with a salvage at two ends. The material out of which it was made has not been definitely determined, but it closely resembles that of the specimen figured by Nordenskiöld (plate L) from Mug House. Our excavations were rewarded with a fine woven head-band with loops at the ends (fig. 4), similar to that described and figured in the report on Spruce-tree House. Several small fragments of cloth were recovered from the refuse heap, but none of them was large enough to indicate the form of the garment to which they originally belonged.

In the group of fabrics may be included nets and cloth with feathers wound around warp and woof, similar to those figured from Spruce-tree House.

There were several specimens of yucca strings, tied in loops, generally six in number, which presumably were devoted to the same purpose as by the present Hopi, who attach to the string six ears of corn, representing the cardinal points on the six-directions altar, and hang them on the walls of a priest's house. If the cliff-dwellers used this string for a similar purpose, it would appear that they, like the Hopi, recognized six cardinal points—north, west, south, east, above, and below—and worshiped gods of these directions, to which they erected altars.a

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aFor a Hopi six-directions altar, see Journal of American Ethnology and Archleology, vol II, 1892.

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