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Mesa Verde
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Mesa Verde
IN THE CLIFF DWELLINGS
LIFE must have been difficult in this dry country when the Mesa Verde communities flourished in the sides of these sandstone cliffs. Game was scarce and hunting arduous. The Mancos River yielded a few fish. The earth contributed berries or nuts. Water was rare and found only in sequestered places near the heads of the canyons. Nevertheless, the inhabitants cultivated their farms and raised their corn, which they ground on flat stones called metates. They baked their bread on flat stone griddles. They boiled their meat in well-made vessels some of which were artistically decorated.
Their life was difficult, but confidently did they believe that they were dependent upon the gods to make the rain fall and the corn grow. They were a religious people who worshipped the sun as the father of all and the earth as the mother who brought them all their material blessings. They possessed no written language and could only record their thoughts by a few symbols which they painted on their earthenware jars or scratched on the rocks.
As their sense of beauty was keen, their art, though primitive, was true; rarely realistic, generally symbolic. Their decoration of cotton fabrics and ceramic work might be called beautiful, even when judged by the highly developed taste of to-day. They fashioned axes, spear points, and rude tools of stone; they wove sandals and made attractive basketry.
They were not content with rude buildings and had long outgrown the caves that satisfied less civilized Indians farther north and south of them.
The photographs of Cliff Palace on the following three pages will show not only the protection afforded by the overhanging cliffs but the general scheme of community living.
The population was composed of a series of units, possibly clans, each of which had its own social organization more or less distinct from the others. Each had ceremonial rooms, called kivas. Each also had living rooms and storerooms. There were twenty-three social units or clans in Cliff Palace.
The kivas were the rooms where the men spent most of the time devoted to ceremonies, councils, and other gatherings. The religious fraternities were limited to the men of a clan.
CLIFF PALACE WITH ITS TWO HUNDRED AND TWO ROOMS AND TWENTY-THREE KIVAS
IS THE LARGEST AND BEST PRESERVED OF THE KNOWN CLIFF DWELLINGS
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Last Modified: Mon, Oct 31, 2002 10:00:00 pm PDT
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