MONTEZUMA CASTLE

The pioneer who in the 1840's slogged up Beaver Creek away from the Verde River in central Arizona must have been amazed as he glanced up at the white escarpment along the wooded stream, for he saw, nestled high up in a large shallow cave, a chocolate-brown cliff dwelling.

"Aztec Indians!" he must have thought, and later visitors must have agreed, for by 1906 the name of the famous Mexican Indian Chief Montezuma had become firmly associated with the cliff-house we know today as Montezuma Castle. In that year President Theodore Roosevelt set them aside as a national monument, making them one of the first national monuments in the country. Since 1927 a resident National Park Service custodian has been charged with the responsibility of preserving the cliff dwellings and exhibiting them to the public.

Explorers who visited the building found access difficult. A talus slope rose 40 feet to the bottom of a limestone cliff, which in turn rose 40 feet to the base of the building. It is believed that the builders used poles and sticks lashed together to form ladders, but no vestige of them was found. Part way up the cliff there are two smoke-blackened rooms where sentries could be posted at night to patrol both the approach from the creek bottom and the trail which comes in along the face of the cliff. When an alarm was sounded, ladders could be pulled up hurriedly and the settlement made ready for combat.

We now think of Montezuma Castle more as a fortified apartment house than a castle. The building has five stories including 20 rooms. It must have housed at least 15 families, to include a total population of perhaps 50 individuals. Numerous portholes through the walls permitted observation of all the creek bottom in front of the building; and, with sentries guarding the trail at night, the householders could sleep with a feeling of perfect security. No doubt this and the need for storage explains why the Indians felt it worth while to construct such inaccessible dwellings.

Studies made on various types of pottery found at the base of the cliff indicate the work of construction started about 1000 A. D. and continued intermittently for perhaps 300 years. Then at least 200 years before Columbus landed the dwellings were abandoned. Surely the builders did not leave willingly; enemy raids and pestilence took their toll until the last survivors decided to migrate. Perhaps they became the progenitors of one of the Hopi clans as is indicated by Hopi legend. Archaeologists recognize many similarities between the Hopis and the Castle dwellers. Broadly, both groups fit the three primary characteristics of Pueblo Indians they were farmers, apartment house builders, and pottery makers.

The first visitors to the Castle found great quantities of corncobs, also the remains of beans, squash, and cotton. Across the creek from the dwellings, a tillable terrace must have been devoted to their little fields and gardens. A stout stick, with a short branch near the base, would be used to plant seeds in the unplowed fields. With his foot the Indian would force the stick into the ground and work it back and forth to loosen the soil. Seeds would be planted deeply, so the roots would be protected from the scorching heat of summer. Summer rainfall was probably scanty, and there is little doubt that the fields were irrigated. In fact at Montezuma Well, just eight miles up Beaver Creek, an extensive irrigation system can still be traced.

Tillable land was limited to the areas that could be irrigated. Dr. Ralph Linton of Columbia University believes this was cultivated so intensively that the fertility of the soil was finally exhausted, and a dwindling yield no longer supplied the demand. Then the Indian communities turned against each other in strife over the more desirable pieces of land. Some communities were soon displaced, and after a period of years even those most favorably located had to be abandoned because they, too, were unable to make a living. Archaeologists find evidence that within a century most of the Verde Valley communities were abandoned. It was once thought that nomadic enemies displaced the Castle dwellers and other similar Indians. However, excavators have failed to find the remains of these nomadic assailants and there is no evidence of carnage or catastrophe in this area. The graves archaeologists have excavated indicate the remains were carefully buried as population dwindled over a period of many years. At last the straggling community would meet in council and decide to attack another community more favorably located or to migrate to a new frontier. This was a hard choice to make when a lifetime of effort was invested in their homes and they could take with them only what they could carry.

JOHN L. BLACKFORD

Pioneers found Montezuma Castle much as we see it today. The walls were constructed of rough chunks of limestone laid in adobe mortar. Then the walls were carefully plastered both inside and out with mud plaster, some of it still showing the fingerprints of women's hands. There was enough lime in the soil used for mortar so that the Indians' plaster was as hard as lime plaster today. When the home became too smoked and dirty, a thin, new coat of plaster was applied with a wad of coarse fiber used in lieu of a brush. In some rooms six or more coats of plaster may be distinguished.

Perhaps many interesting pictographs are hidden on the underlying coats of plaster. In one room is an exposed rectangular pictograph measuring about 8 by 10 inches and divided into four quarters by lines that intersect in the center. The upper left and lower right quarters have wavy vertical lines that suggest water.

Of the 20 rooms in Montezuma Castle at least 15 are presumed to have been dwellings. The rooms have an average of 100 square feet of floor space, but they vary greatly in size and shape according to space allowed by the contour of the cliff cave in which they are built. Inside the home there was no fireplace, but fires were built in an open pit placed close to the door so some of the smoke could escape. The homes may have been illuminated by pine knots or bundles of juniper bark used for torches. Not all the smoke found its way out and even today the walls are still heavily smoke blackened. We might expect a smoke hole through the wall above the door but such a device let out heat as well as smoke and would require more fuel in the winter. No doubt women searched for wood in an everwidening circle as the supply was exhausted, and by the time they had secured enough fuel for their homes, they insisted that heating be done without the luxury of a smoke hole.

Whenever weather permitted, cooking might be done on the housetops or open balconies.

A parapet wall enclosed the area for the safety of Junior, and Mother went about her work concerned only lest he climb onto the wall and tumble 70 feet to the base of the cliff. The preparation of meals required a tremendous amount of labor. Corn formed the foundation of the Indian's diet. It was ground by hand labor on a trough-shaped boulder we call a metate. The metates were made from granite, or other stone equally hard, and the great amount of wear on some indicate a long period of use. Some stones were worn down six inches or more, until a hole appeared in the bottom and the metate was discarded.

The occupants of Montezuma Castle lived in a stone age with no knowledge of the use of metal. Picks were formed from elongated cobblestones dressed to a blunt point. A stick bent to form the letter "J" was lashed to a shallow groove in the pick that ran threefourths the way around the stone. Axes were made in a similar fashion, except that they were dressed to a blade-like edge. Some axes were double bitted and highly polished, but with even the best, an axeman must have worked long hours to fell a single tree. The roofs of some rooms include sycamore logs that measure up to a foot in diameter. What a task it must have been to secure the logs and hoist them up the cliff with the aid of fiber ropes! The Indian's work could not be lightened by the use of a pulley for there is no place in this continent where the native aborigine used a wheel of any sort.

Perhaps the best example of the cliff-dweller's art lies in the quality of their textiles. Numerous fragments of cotton cloth in various patterns have been found in Montezuma Castle and in neighboring caves. The production of cloth required a rigid loom much like that used by the Navajos of today. Some of the cloth was tightly woven in a texture that closely resembles modern canvas. Other pieces were like drawn work and variegated patterns were produced by a weft-floating technique.

Within the limits of Montezuma Castle scientists obtained few artifacts, because pioneers had found them first and carried them away to gather dust on household mantels. However, another site known as the Lower Ruin around the bend of the cliff from the Castle was ex-cavated in 1933-1934. This building must have stood six stories high and included at least 40 rooms, but it stood exposed to the elements at the base of the cliff, without the protection afforded by a sheltering cave. Its walls had collapsed, leaving only a great heap of rubble. When excavators under the direction of former custodian Earl Jackson cleared this away, they found numerous metates, pottery ollas, stone and bone implements, and other artifacts that are now exhibited in the monument's museum where they are viewed by thousands of tourists each year.

Montezuma Castle National Monument is administered by the National Park Service under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. A ranger is on duty every day of the year to guide visitors through the Castle on an hourly schedule. Visitors best come prepared for climbing, since there are seven ladders included in the climb of 120 feet to the top of the cave.

In its administration of Montezuma Castle the National Park Service is endeavoring to follow a theme expressed by Chief Landscape Architect Thomas C. Vint, "Better to preserve than to repair, better repair than restore, better restore than construct." A constant effort is made to preserve this excellent cliff-dwelling for future generations to enjoy.