Part 10 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XLIV. Moen-kopi.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate (unnumbered key).]
At the time of the survey the occupation of this village throughout the year was proposed by several families, who wished to resort to the parent village only at stated ceremonials and important festivals.
The comparative security of recent times is thus tending to the disintegration of the huge central pueblo. This result must be inevitable, as the dying out of the defensive motive brings about a realization of the great inconvenience of the present centralized system.
ZUI.
The pueblo of Zui is built upon a small knoll on the north bank of the Zui River, about three miles west of the conspicuous mesa of Taaiyalana. It is the successor of all the original Seven Cities of Cibola of the Spaniards, and is the largest of the modern pueblos.
As before stated, the remains of Halona, one of the seven cities, as identified by Mr. Cus.h.i.+ng, have served as a nucleus for the construction of the modern pueblo, and have been incorporated into the most densely cl.u.s.tered portions, represented on the plan (Pl. LXXVI) by numbers 1 and 4.
Some of the Cibolan villages were valley pueblos, built at a distance from the rocky mesas and canyons that must have served as quarries for the stone used in building. The Halona site was of this type, the nearest supply of stone being 3 miles distant. At this point (Halona) the Zui River is perennial, and furnishes a plentiful supply of water at all seasons of the year. It disappears, however, a few miles west in a broad, sandy wash, to appear again 20 miles below the village, probably through the accession of small streams from springs farther down. The so-called river furnishes the sole water supply at Zui, with the exception of a single well or reservoir on the north side of the village.
Zui has been built at a point having no special advantages for defense; convenience to large areas of tillable soil has apparently led to the selection of the site. This has subjected it in part to the same influences that had at an earlier date produced the carefully walled fortress pueblos of the valleys, where the defensive efficiency was due to well planned and constructed buildings. The result is that Zui, while not comparable in symmetry to many of the ancient examples, displays a remarkably compact arrangement of dwellings in the portions of the pueblos first occupied, designated on the plan (Pl. LXXVI) as houses 1 and 4. Owing to this restriction of lateral expansion this portion of the pueblo has been carried to a great height.
Pl. LXXVIII gives a general view of these higher terraces of the village from the southeast. A height of five distinct terraces from the ground is attained on the south side of this cl.u.s.ter. The same point, however, owing to the irregularity of the site, is only three terraces above the ground on the north side. The summit of the knoll upon which the older portion of Zui has been built is so uneven, and the houses themselves vary so much in dimensions, that the greatest disparity prevails in the height of terraces. A three-terrace portion of a cl.u.s.ter may have but two terraces immediately alongside, and throughout the more closely built portions of the village the exposed height of terraces varies from 1 foot to 8 or 10 feet. Pl. LXXIX ill.u.s.trates this feature.
The growth of the village has apparently been far beyond the original expectation of the builders, and the crowded additions seem to have been joined to the cl.u.s.ters wherever the demand for more s.p.a.ce was most urgent, without following any definite plan in their arrangement. In such of the ancient pueblo ruins as afford evidence of having pa.s.sed through a similar experience, the crowding of additional cells seems to have been made to conform to some extent to a predetermined plan. At Kin-tiel we have seen how such additions to the number of habitable rooms could readily be made within the open court without affecting the symmetry and defensive efficiency of the pueblo; but here the nucleus of the large cl.u.s.ters was small and compact, so that enlargement has taken place only by the addition of rooms on the outside, both on the ground and on upper terraces.
The highest point of Zui, now showing five terraces, is said to have had a height of seven terraces as late as the middle of the present century, but at the time of the survey of the village no traces were seen of such additional stories. The top of the present fifth terrace, however, is more than 50 feet long, and affords sufficient s.p.a.ce for the addition of a sixth and seventh story.
The court or plaza in which the church (Pl. Lx.x.x) stands is so much larger than such inclosures usually are when incorporated in a pueblo plan that it seems unlikely to have formed part of the original village.
It probably resulted from locating the church prior to the construction of the eastern rows of the village. Certain features in the houses themselves indicate the later date of these rows.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XLV. The Mormon mill at Moen-kopi.]
The arrangement of dwellings about a court (Pl. Lx.x.xII), characteristic of the ancient pueblos, is likely to have prevailed in the small pueblo of Halona, about which cl.u.s.tered the many irregular houses that const.i.tute modern Zui. Occasional traces of such an arrangement are still met with in portions of Zui, although nearly all of the ancient pueblo has been covered with rooms of later date. In the arrangement of Zui houses a noticeable difference in the manner of cl.u.s.tering is found in different parts of the pueblo. That portion designated as house No. 1 on the plan, built over the remains of the original small pueblo, is unquestionably the oldest portion of the village. The cl.u.s.tering seems to have gone on around this center to an extraordinary and exceptional extent before any houses were built in other portions. House No. 4 is a portion of the same structure, for although a street or pa.s.sageway intervenes it is covered with two or three terraces, indicating that such connection was established at an early date. The rows on the lower ground to the east (Pl. Lx.x.xI), where the rooms are not so densely cl.u.s.tered, were built after the removal of the defensive motive that influenced the construction of the central pile. These portions, arranged approximately in rows, show a marked resemblance to pueblos of known recent date. That they were built subsequently to the main cl.u.s.ters is also indicated by the abundant use of oblique openings and roof holes, where there is very little necessity for such contrivances.
This feature was originally devised to meet the exceptional conditions of lighting imposed by dense crowding of the living rooms. It will be referred to again in examining the details of openings, and its wide departure from the arrangement found to prevail generally in pueblo constructions will there be noted. The habit of making such provisions for lighting inner rooms became fixed and was applied generally to many cl.u.s.ters much smaller in size than those of other pueblos where this feature was not developed and where the necessity for it was not felt.
These less crowded rooms of more recent construction form the eastern portion of the pueblo, and also include the governors house on the south side.
The old ceremonial rooms or kivas, and the rooms for the meeting of the various orders or secret societies were, during the Spanish occupancy, crowded into the innermost recesses of this ancient portion of Zui under house No. 1. But the kivas, in all likelihood, occupied a more marginal position before such foreign influence was brought to bear on them, as do some of the kivas at the present time, and as is the general practice in other modern pueblos.
CHAPTER IV.
ARCHITECTURE OF TUSAYAN AND CIBOLA COMPARED BY CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS.
INTRODUCTION.
In the two preceding chapters the more general features of form and distribution in the ruined and inhabited pueblos of Tusayan and Cibola have been described. In order to gain a full and definite idea of the architectural acquirements of the pueblo builders it will be necessary to examine closely the constructional details of their present houses, endeavoring, when practicable, to compare these details with the rather meager vestiges of similar features that have survived the destruction of the older villages, noting the extent to which these have departed from early types, and, where practicable, tracing the causes of such deviation. For convenience of comparison the various details of housebuilding for the two groups will be treated together.
The writer is indebted to Mr. A. M. Stephen, the collector of the traditionary data already given, for information concerning the rites connected with house building at Tusayan incorporated in the following pages, and also for the carefully collected and valuable nomenclature of architectural details appended hereto. Material of this cla.s.s pertaining to the Cibola group of pueblos unfortunately could not be procured.
HOUSE BUILDING.
RITES AND METHODS.
The ceremonials connected with house building in Tusayan are quite meager, but the various steps in the ritual, described in their proper connection in the following paragraphs, are well defined and definitely a.s.signed to those who partic.i.p.ate in the construction of the buildings.