Eighth Annual Report

Chapter III.

WALPI.

1. Djivato kiva Goat.

2. Al kiva Ala, Horn.

3. Nacab kiva Nacabi, half-way or central.

4. Pickuibi kiva Opening oak bud.[5]

Wikwalobi kiva Place of the watchers.

5. Mung kiva Mungwi chief.

No. 5 is the mungkiva.

[Footnote 5: These two names are common to the kiva in which the Snake order meets and in which the indoor ceremonies pertaining to the Snake-dance are celebrated.]

SICHUMOVI.

1. Baventcomo Water mound.

2. Kwinzaptcomo Oak mound.

Baventcomo is the mungkiva.

MASHONGNAVI.

1. Tcavwuna kiva A small coiled-ware jar.

2. Honan kiva Honani, Badger, a gens.

3. Gyarzohi kiva Gyarzo, Paroquet, a gens.

4. Kotcobi kiva High place.

5. Al kiva Ala, Horn.

Teavwuna kiva is the mungkiva.

SHUPAULOVI.

1. Atkabi kiva Place below.

2. Kokyangobi kiva Place of spider.

Atkabi kiva is the mungkiva.

SHUMOPAVI.

1. Nuvwatikyuobi High place of snow, San Francisco Mountain.

2. Al kiva Ala, Horn.

3. Gyarzobi Gyarzo, Paroquet, a gens.

4. Tcosobi Blue Jay, a gens.

Tcosobi is the mungkiva.

ORAIBI.

1. Tdau kiva Tdauollauwuh The singers.

2. Hawiobi kiva Hawi, stair; High stair place.

obi, high place.

3. Ish kiva Isauwuh Coyote, a gens.

4. Kw.a.n.g kiva Kwakwanti Religious order.

5. Mazrau kiva Mamzrauti Female order.

6. Nacabi kiva Half way or Central place.

7. Sakwalen kiva Sakwa lena Blue Flute, a religious order.

8. Pongobi kiva Pongo, a circle An order who decorate themselves with circular marks on the body.

9. Hano kiva Hanomuh A fashion of cutting the hair.

10. Motc kiva Momtci The Warriors, an order.

11. Kwitakoli kiva Kwita, ordure; Ordure heap.

koli, a heap.

12. Katcin kiva Katcina A gens.

13. Tcu kiva Tcua, a snake Religions order.

Tdau kiva is the mungkiva.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate LXIV. North wall of Kin-tiel.]

DETAILS OF TUSAYAN AND CIBOLA CONSTRUCTION.

WALLS.

The complete operation of building a wall has never been observed at Zui by the writer, but a close examination of numerous finished and some broken-down walls indicates that the methods of construction adopted are essentially the same as those employed in Tusayan, which, have been repeatedly observed; with the possible difference, however, that in the former adobe mud mortar is more liberally used. A singular feature of pueblo masonry as observed at Tusayan is the very sparing use of mud in the construction of the walls; in fact, in some instances when walls are built during the dry season, the larger stones are laid up in the walls without the use of mud at all, and are allowed to stand in this condition until the rains come; then the mud mortar is mixed, the interstices of the walls filled in with it and with c.h.i.n.king stones, and the inside walls are plastered. But the usual practice is to complete the house at once, finishing it inside and out with the requisite mortar. In some instances the outside walls are coated, completely covering the masonry, but this is not done in many of the houses, as may be seen by reference to the preceding ill.u.s.trations of the Tusayan villages. At Zui, on the other hand, a liberal and frequently renewed coating of mud is applied to the walls. Only one piece of masonry was seen in the entire village that did not have traces of this coating of mud, viz, that portion of the second story wall of house No. 2 described as possibly belonging to the ancient nucleus pueblo of Halona and ill.u.s.trated in Pl. LVIII. Even the rough masonry of the kivas is partly surfaced with this medium, though many jagged stones are still visible.

As a result of this practice it is now in many cases impossible to determine from mere superficial inspection whether the underlying masonry has been constructed of stone or of adobe; a difficulty that may be realized from an examination of the views of Zui in Chapter III.

Where the fall of water, such as the discharge from a roof-drain, has removed the outer coating of mud that covers stonework and adobe alike, a large proportion of these exposures reveal stone masonry, so that it is clearly apparent that Zui is essentially a stone village. The extensive use of sun-dried bricks of adobe has grown up within quite recent times. It is apparent, however, that the Zui builders preferred to use stone; and even at the present time they frequently eke out with stonework portions of a house when the supply of adobe has fallen short.

An early instance of such supplementary use of stone masonry still survives in the church building, where the old Spanish adobe has been repaired and filled in with the typical tabular aboriginal masonry, consisting of small stones carefully laid, with very little intervening mortar showing on the face. Such reversion to aboriginal methods probably took place on every opportunity, though it is remarkable that the Indians should have been allowed to employ their own methods in this instance. Although this church building has for many generations furnished a conspicuous example of typical adobe construction to the Zui, he has never taken the lesson sufficiently to heart to closely imitate the Spanish methods either in the preparation of the material or in the manner of its use. The adobe bricks of the church are of large and uniform size, and the mud from which they were made had a liberal admixture of straw. This binding material does not appear in Zui in any other example of adobe that has been examined, nor does it seem to have been utilized in any of the native pueblo work either at this place or at Tusayan. Where molded adobe bricks have been used by the Zui in housebuilding they have been made from the raw material just as it was taken from the fields. As a result these bricks have little of the durability of the Spanish work. Pl. XCVI ill.u.s.trates an adobe wall of Zui, part of an unroofed house. The old adobe church at Hawikuh (Pl.

XLVIII), abandoned for two centuries, has withstood the wear of time and weather better than any of the stonework of the surrounding houses. On the right-hand side of the street that shows in the foreground of Pl.

LXXVIII is an ill.u.s.tration of the construction of a wall with adobe bricks. This example is very recent, as it has not yet been roofed over.

The top of the wall, however, is temporarily protected by the usual series of thin sandstone slabs used in the finishing of wall copings.

The very rapid disintegration of native-made adobe walls has brought about the use in Zui of many protective devices, some of which will be noticed in connection with the discussion of roof drains and wall copings. Figs. 32 and 33 ill.u.s.trate a curious employment of pottery fragments on a mud-plastered wall and on the base of a chimney to protect the adobe coating against rapid erosion by the rains. These pieces, usually fragments from large vessels, are embedded in the adobe with the convex side out, forming an armor of pottery scales well adapted to resist disintegration, by the elements.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate LXV. Standing walls of Kin-tiel.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 32. A Zui chimney, showing pottery fragments embedded in its adobe base.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 33. A Zui oven with pottery scales embedded in its surface.]

The introduction of the use of adobe in Zui should probably be attributed to foreign influence, but the position of the village in the open plain at a distance of several miles from the nearest outcrop of suitable building stone naturally led the builders to use stone more sparingly when an available subst.i.tute was found close at hand. The thin slabs of stone, which had to be brought from a great distance, came to be used only for the more exposed portions of buildings, such as copings on walls and borders around roof openings. Still, the pueblo builders never attained to a full appreciation of the advantages and requirements of this medium as compared with stone. The adobe walls are built only as thick as is absolutely necessary, few of them being more than a foot in thickness. The walls are thus, in proportion, to height and weight, sustained, thinner than the crude brick construction of other peoples, and require protection and constant repairs to insure durability. As to thickness, they are evidently modeled directly after the walls of stone masonry, which had already, in both Tusayan and Cibola, been pushed to the limit of thinness. In fact, since the date of the survey of Zui, on which the published plan is based, the walls of several rooms over the court pa.s.sageway in the house, ill.u.s.trated in Pl. Lx.x.xII, have entirely fallen in, demonstrating the insufficiency of the thin walls to sustain the weight of several stories.

The climate of the pueblo region is not wholly suited to the employment of adobe construction, as it is there practiced. For several months in the year (the rainy season) scarcely a day pa.s.ses without violent storms which play havoc with the earth-covered houses, necessitating constant vigilance and frequent repairs on the part of the occupants.

Though the practice of mud-coating all walls has in Cibola undoubtedly led to greater carelessness and a less rigid adherence to ancient methods of construction, the stone masonry may still be seen to retain some of the peculiarities that characterize ancient examples. Features of this cla.s.s are still more apparent at Tusayan, and notwithstanding the rudeness of much of the modern stone masonry of this province, the fact that the builders are familiar with the superior methods of the ancient builders, is clearly shown in the masonry of the present villages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate LXVI. Kinna-Zinde.]

Perhaps the most noteworthy characteristic of pueblo masonry, and one which is more or less present in both ancient and modern examples, is the use of small c.h.i.n.king stones for bringing the masonry to an even face after the larger stones forming the body of the wall have been laid in place. This method of construction has, in the case of some of the best built ancient pueblos, such as those on the Chaco in New Mexico, resulted in the production of marvelously finished stone walls, in which the mosaic-like bits are so closely laid as to show none but the finest joints on the face of the wall with but little trace of mortar. The c.h.i.n.king wedges necessarily varied greatly in dimensions to suit the sizes of the interstices between the larger stones of the wall. The use of stone in this manner no doubt suggested the banded walls that form so striking a feature in some of the Chaco houses. This arrangement was likely to be brought about by the occurrence in the cliffs of seams of stone of two degrees of thickness, suggesting to the builders the use of stones of similar thickness in continuous bands. The ornamental effect of this device was originally an accidental result of adopting the most convenient method of using the material at hand. Though the masonry of the modern pueblos does not afford examples of distinct bands, the introduction of the small c.h.i.n.king spalls often follows horizontal lines of considerable length. Even in mud-plastered Zui, many outcrops of these thin, tabular wedges protrude from the partly eroded mudcoating of a wall and indicate the presence of this kind of stone masonry. An example is ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 34, a tower-like projection at the northeast corner of house No. 2.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 34. Stone wedges of Zui masonry exposed in rain-washed wall.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 35. An unplastered house wall in Ojo Caliente.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate LXVII. Nutria, plan.]

In the Tusayan house ill.u.s.trated in Pl. Lx.x.xIV, the construction of which was observed at Oraibi, the interstices between the large stones that formed the body of the wall, containing but small quant.i.ties of mud mortar, were filled in or plugged with small fragments of stone, which, after being partly embedded in the mud of the joint, were driven in with unhafted stone hammers, producing a fairly even face of masonry, afterward gone over with mud plastering of the consistency of modeling clay, applied a handful at a time. Piled up on the ground near the new house at convenient points for the builders may be seen examples of the larger wall stones, indicating the marked tabular character of the pueblo masons material. The narrow edges of similar stones are visible in the unplastered portions of the house wall, which also ill.u.s.trates the relative proportion of c.h.i.n.king stones. This latter, however, is a variable feature. Pl. XV affords a clear ill.u.s.tration of the proportion of these small stones in the old masonry of Payupki; while in Pl. XI, ill.u.s.trating a portion of the outer wall of the Fire House, the tablets are fewer in number and thinner, their use predominating in the horizontal joints, as in the best of the old examples, but not to the same extent. Fig. 35 ill.u.s.trates the inner face of an unplastered wall of a small house at Ojo Caliente, in which the modern method of using the c.h.i.n.king stones is shown. This example bears a strong resemblance to the Payupki masonry ill.u.s.trated in Pl. XV in the irregularity with which the c.h.i.n.king stones are distributed in the joints of the wall. The same room affords an ill.u.s.tration of a cellar-like feature having the appearance of an intentional excavation to attain a depth for this room corresponding to the adjoining floor level, but this effect is due simply to a clever adaptation of the house wall to an existing ledge of sandstone. The latter has had scarcely any artificial treatment beyond the partial smoothing of the rock in a few places and the cutting out of a small niche from the rocky wall. This niche occupies about the same position in this room that it does in the ordinary pueblo house. It is remarkable that the pueblo builders did not to a greater extent utilize their skill in working stone in the preparation of some of the irregular rocky sites that they have at times occupied for the more convenient reception of their wall foundations; but in nearly all such cases the buildings have been modified to suit the ground. An example of this practice is ill.u.s.trated in Pl. XXIII, from the west side of Walpi. In some of the ancient examples the labor required to so prepare the sites would not have exceeded that expended on the ma.s.sive masonry composed of numberless small stones. Many of the older works testify to the remarkable patience and industry of the builders in ama.s.sing and carefully adjusting vast quant.i.ties of building materials, and the modern Indians of Tusayan and Cibola have inherited much of this ancient spirit; yet this industry was rarely diverted to the excavation of room or village sites, except in the case of the kivas, in which special motives led to the practice. In some of the Chaco pueblos, as now seen, the floors of outer marginal rooms seem to be depressed below the general level of the surrounding soil; but it is now difficult to determine whether such was the original arrangement, as much sand and soil have drifted against the outer walls, raising the surface. In none of the pueblos within the limits of the provinces under discussion has there been found any evidence of the existence of underground cellars; the rooms that answer such purpose are built on the level of the ground.

At Tusayan the ancient practice of using the ground-floor rooms for storage still prevails. In these are kept the dried fruit, vegetables, and meats that const.i.tute the princ.i.p.al winter food of the Tusayan.

Throughout Tusayan the walls of the first terrace rooms are not finished with as much care as those above that face the open courts. A quite smoothly finished coat of adobe is often seen in the upper stories, but is much more rarely applied to the rough masonry of the ground-floor rooms. At Zui no such difference of treatment is to be seen, a result of the recent departure from their original defensive use. At the present day most of the rooms that are built on the ground have external doors, often of large size, and are regarded by the Zui as preferable to the upper terraces as homes. This indicates that the idea of convenience has already largely overcome the traditional defensive requirements of pueblo arrangement. The general finish and quality of the masonry, too, does not vary noticeably in different portions of the village. An occasional wall may be seen in which underlying stones may be traced through the thin adobe covering, as in one of the walls of the court ill.u.s.trated in Pl. Lx.x.xII, but most of the walls have a fairly smooth finish. The occasional examples of rougher masonry do not seem to be confined to any particular portion of the village. At Tusayan, on the other hand, there is a noticeable difference in the extent to which the finishing coat of adobe has been used in the masonry. The villages of the first mesa, whose occupants have come in frequent contact with the eastern pueblo Indians and with outsiders generally, show the effect in the adoption of several devices still unknown to their western neighbors, as is shown in the discussion of the distribution of roof openings in these villages, pp. 201-208. The builders of the first mesa seem also to have imitated their eastern brethren in the free use of the adobe coating over their masonry, while at the villages of the middle mesa, and particularly at Oraibi, the practice has been comparatively rare, imparting an appearance of ruggedness and antiquity to the architecture.

The stonework of this village, perhaps approaches the ancient types more closely than that of the others, some of the walls being noticeable for the frequent use of long bond stones. The execution of the masonry at the corners of some of the houses enforces this resemblance and indicates a knowledge of the principles of good construction in the proper alternation of the long stones. A comparison with the Kin-tiel masonry (Pl. Lx.x.xIX) will show this resemblance. As a rule in pueblo masonry an upper house wall was supported along its whole length by a wall of a lower story, but occasional exceptions occur in both ancient and modern work, where the builders have dared to trust the weight of upper walls to wooden beams or girders, supported along part of their length by b.u.t.tresses from the walls at their ends or by large, clumsy pieces of masonry, as was seen in the house of Sichumovi. In an upper story of Walpi also, part.i.tions occur that are not built immediately over the lower walls, but on large beams supported on masonry piers.

In the much higher terraces of Zui, the strength of many of the inner ground walls must be seriously taxed to withstand the superinc.u.mbent weight, as such walls are doubtless of only the average thickness and strength of ground walls. The dense cl.u.s.tering of this village has certainly in some instances thrown the weight of two, three, or even four additional, stories upon walls in which no provision was made for the unusual strain. The few supporting walls that were accessible to inspection did not indicate any provision in their thickness for the support of additional weight; in fact, the builders of the original walls could have no knowledge of their future requirements in this respect. In the pueblos of the Chaco upper part.i.tion walls were, in a few instances, supported directly on double girders, two posts of 12 or 14 inches in diameter placed side by side, without reinforcement by stone piers or b.u.t.tresses, the room below being left wholly un.o.bstructed. This construction was practicable for the careful builders of the Chaco, but an attempt by the Tusayan to achieve the same result would probably end in disaster. It was quite common among the ancient builders to divide the ground or storage floor into smaller rooms than the floor above, still preserving the vertical alignment of the walls.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate LXVIII. Nutria, view.]

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