be very rash to conclude from
this that the cave-dwellers of northwestern Chihuahua are identical
with the Moqui ancestors. I afterwards brought to light several
other bodies which had been interred under similar conditions. The
bottom of the burial caves seems to have always been overlaid with
a roughly level, concrete floor. There was no trace here of cysts,
or other formal sepulture.
None of the remains wore ornaments of metal, but various shell
ornaments, anklets and bracelets of beautifully plaited straw, which,
however, crumbled into dust when touched. Their clothing consisted of
three layers of wrappings around the loins. Next to the body was placed
a coarse cotton cloth; then a piece of matting, and over that another
cotton cloth. Between the legs was a large wad of cotton mixed with
the feathers of the turkey, the large woodpecker, and the bluejay. In
a few instances, the cotton cloth was dyed red or indigo. Near the
head of each body stood a small earthenware jar of simple design;
in some cases we also found drinking gourds placed at the head,
though in one instance the latter had been put on the breast of the
dead. Buried with the person we found a bundle of "devil's claws"
(_Martynia_). These are used by the Mexicans of to-day for mending
pottery. They drill holes through the fragments to be joined and pass
into them one of these claws, just as we would a rivet. The claw is
elastic and strong, and answers the purpose very well. My Mexicans
understood at once to what use they had been put.
As already alluded to, trincheras were also found in Cave Valley,
where they were quite numerous. There was one or more in every
ravine and gully, and what was a new feature, some were built across
shallow drainages on the very summit of a hill. This summit was a
bald conglomerate, about 150 feet above the valley. In one place we
observed eight trincheras within 150 feet of each other, all built
of large stones in the cyclopean style of masonry. The blocks were
lava and hard felsite, measuring one and a half to three feet. As
a rule, these trincheras had a lateral extent of thirty feet, and
in the central part they were fifteen feet high. After all the great
labour expended in their construction, the builders of these terraces
had secured in each only a space thirty feet long and fifteen feet
wide; in other words, these eight terraces yielded together barely
3,000 square feet, which means space enough for planting fiv
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