THE ANCESTRAL PUEBLOAN THREE MOUNTAIN THEME REVISITED:

Stone slab with three mountains,

Plate XLVI, 22nd Annual Report of

the Bureau of American Ethnology

to the Secretary of the Smithsonian

Institution. J. W. Fewkes, 1904.

I have previously posted two columns in RockArtBlog on the Three Mountain theme in Mesa Verde (see references below). Here I am bringing another example from elsewhere into the picture as well. In 1900 and 1901 Jesse Walter Fewkes was excavating for the Bureau of American Ethnography and found this artifact in a burial at Chevelon Ruin, one of the Homolovi Cluster of ruins near Winslow, AZ.

Fewkes discovered a burial which had been covered by a rock slab with painted designs. He described this in his report which was included in the 22nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1900-1901, Part One.

Fewkes' description and analysis of the artifact:

"This object, which is much larger than any of those which have been mentioned, is painted on both sides with highly suggestive designs of a symbolic nature. The decoration on one side is almost wholly obliterated, but on one corner we detect clearly the modern symbols of the dragon-fly. The pigments with which this stone is painted were easily washed off, and this accounts for the loss of the decoration on the surface which was uppermost as it lay in the grave over the body. The design on the other face, however, is more distinct. It consists of three triangular figures enclosed in a border, recalling a san mosaic such as is used in modern presentation of the Hopi ritual. Two colors, black and white, are readily detected in the border - the black outside the white. The field enclosed by this border is yellow, and the three triangular figures are black, with enclosed rectangles, which are white. At the apex of each triangle there is a rude figure of a bird painted red, in which the head, body, and two tail feathers are well differentiated.

Three Mountain Kiva painting, Eagle's Nest,

Ute Mountain Ute Reservation,

Colorado. Photo Peter Faris, 1981. 

Three mountain theme painted

on a wall, Spruce Tree House,

Mesa Verde, Colorado.

Photo Peter Faris, 2002.

The whole character of the design on this stone calls to mind the decorations on the walls of a kiva of a cliff dwelling of the Mesa Verde, described by Nordenskjold, and figured in his beautiful memoir. In the designs on the kiva wall of 'ruin 9' we find groups of three triangles arranged around the whole estufa at intervals on the upper margin of a dado, and each of these triangles is surrounded by a row of dots. The field on which they are painted is yellow, and the triangles and dots are red or reddish brown. On a wall of Spruce Tree house Nordenskjold found a similar dado with triangular designs, and it is interesting to note that in the figure of this ornamentation which he gives rude drawings of birds appear in close proximity to the triangles.

Three mountain theme painted

on a wall, Cliff Palace,

Mesa Verde, Colorado.

Photo Internet, Public Domain.

Fewkes had analyzed this composition and proposed that the three triangles were rain clouds. (Fewkes 1904:105) Irrespective of Fewkes analysis the three triangles do not match any cloud portrayals I know of, I think it is much more likely that they represent mountains, making this another example of the three-mountain theme common to the four-corners area.

San Francisco Peaks, Arizona.

Photo Internet, Public Domain.

Since this rock slab had been used to cover a burial this suggests that the interred body was being sent to the home of the kachinas, the San Francisco Peaks. Whereas, in my previous columns I had posited that the three-mountain theme might refer to the three peaks of Huerfano Butte because of its central location in the fire-beacon communication system (see references below) I now need to add the possibility that they refer to the three main peaks of the San Francisco Peaks, the home of the kachinas. Especially since many of the painted examples of the Three Mountain theme are in kivas, and kivas are dedicated to kachinas, which come from the San Francisco Peaks. An additional factor is that the San Francisco Peaks are only 70 miles or so to the Northwest of Winslow so propinquity would seem to be on the side of this argument. In either case, we know that the Three Mountain theme was important to ancestral Pueblo peoples, and over a larger area than I was aware of before.

It might even be the case that both Huerfano Butte and the San Franciso Peaks are correct. Perhaps the ancestral pueblo peoples who found significance in the Three Mountain theme applied it to nearby features that they were familiar with, so at Mesa Verde the Huerfano Butte had this significance to them, and at Chevelon pueblo it might well have been the San Francisco Peaks. 

NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should read the originals at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter

2016 Huerfano Butte, New Mexico, as the Model for Painted Mountains at Mesa Verde, Nov. 26, 2016, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search?q=3-Mountains+theme

2017 Another Example of the Three Mountain Theme at Mesa Verde, Jan. 21, 2017, https://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search?q=3-Mountains+theme

Fewkes, Jesse Walter

1904 Two Summers Work In Pueblo Ruins, in 22nd Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1900-1901, Part One, by J. W. Powell, Director, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C.