A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola Part 20

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 80. A large Tusayan doorway with small transom openings.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 81. A doorway and double transom in Walpi.]

The transom bars over exterior doorways of houses probably bear some relation to a feature seen in some of the best preserved ruins and still surviving to some extent in Tusayan practice. This consists of a straight pole, usually of the same dimensions as the poles of which the lintel is made, extending across the opening from 2 to 6 inches below the main lintel, and fixed into the masonry in a position to serve as a curtain pole. Originally this pole undoubtedly served as a means of suspension for the blanket or skin rug used in closing the opening, just as such means are now used in the huts of the Navajo, as well as occasionally in the houses of Tusayan. The s.p.a.ce above this cross stick answered the same purpose as the transoms of the present time.

A most striking feature of doorways is the occasional departure from the quadrangular form, seen in some ruined villages and also in some of the modern houses of Tusayan. Fig. 82 ill.u.s.trates a specimen of this type found in a small cliff ruin, in Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly. Ancient examples of this form of opening are distinguished by a symmetrical disposition of the step in the jamb, while the modern doors are seldom so arranged.

A modern example from Mashongnavi is shown in Fig. 83. This opening also ill.u.s.trates the double or divided transom. The beam ends shown in the figure project beyond the face of the wall and support an overhanging coping or cornice. A door-like window, approximating the symmetrical form described, is seen immediately over the pa.s.sage-way shown in Pl.

XXII. This form is evidently the result of the partial closing of a larger rectangular opening.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 82. An ancient doorway in Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly cliff ruin.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 83. A symmetrically notched doorway in Mashongnavi.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XCIII. Upright blocks of sandstone built into an ancient pueblo wall.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 84. A Tusayan notched doorway.]

Fig. 84 shows the usual type of terraced doorway in Tusayan, in which one jamb is stepped at a considerably greater height than the other.

In Tusayan large openings occur in which only one jamb is stepped, producing an effect somewhat of that of the large balcony openings with flights of stone steps at one side, previously ill.u.s.trated. An opening of this form is shown in Fig. 85. Both of the stepped doorways, ill.u.s.trated above, are provided with transom openings extending from one roof beam to another. In the absence of a movable door the openings were made of the smallest size consistent with convenient use. The stepped form was very likely suggested by the temporary partial blocking up of an opening with loose, flat stones in such a manner as to least impair its use. This is still quite commonly done, large openings being often seen in which the lower portion on one or both sides is narrowed by means of adobe bricks or stones loosely piled up. In this connection it may be noted that the secondary lintel pole, previously described as occurring in both ancient and modern doorways, serves the additional purpose of a hand-hold when supplies are brought into the house on the backs of the occupants. The stepping of the doorway, while diminishing its exposed area, does not interfere with its use in bringing in large bundles, etc. Series of steps, picked into the faces of the cliffs, and affording access to cliff dwellings, frequently have a supplementary series of narrow and deep cavities that furnish a secure hold for the hands. The requirements of the precipitous environment of these people have led to the carrying of loads of produce, fuel, etc., on the back by means of a suspending band pa.s.sed across the forehead; this left the hands free to aid in the difficult task of climbing. These conditions seem to have brought about the use, in some cases, of handholds in the marginal frames of interior trapdoors as an aid in climbing the ladder.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 85. A large Tusayan doorway with one notched jamb.]

One more characteristic type of the ancient pueblo doorway remains to be described. During the autumn of 1883, when the ruined pueblo of Kin-tiel was surveyed, a number of excavations were made in and about the pueblo.

A small room on the east side, near the brink of the arroyo that traverses the ruin from east to west, was completely cleared out, exposing its fireplace, the stone paving of its floor, and other details of construction. Built into an inner part.i.tion of this room was found a large slab of stone, pierced with a circular hole of sufficient size for a man to squeeze through. This slab was set on edge and incorporated into the masonry of the part.i.tion, and evidently served as a means of communication with another room. The position of this doorway and its relation to the room in which it occurs may be seen from the ill.u.s.tration in Pl. C, which shows the stone in situ. The doorway or stone-close is shown in Fig. 86 on a sufficient scale to indicate the degree of technical skill in the architectural treatment of stone possessed by the builders of this old pueblo. The writer visited Zui in October of the same season, and on describing this find to Mr. Frank H.

Cushing, learned that the Zui Indians still preserved traditional knowledge of this device. Mr. Cushing kindly furnished at the time the following extract from the tale of The Deer-Slayer and the Wizards, a Zui folk-tale of the early occupancy of the valley of Zui.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XCIV. Ancient wall of upright rocks in southwestern Colorado.]

How will they enter? said the young man to his wife. Through the stone-close at the side, she answered. In the days of the ancients, the doorways were often made of a great slab of stone with a round hole cut through the middle, and a round stone slab to close it, which was called the stone-close, that the enemy might not enter in times of war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 86. An ancient circular doorway or stone-close in Kin-tiel.]

Mr. Cushing had found displaced fragments of such circular stone doorways at ruins some distance northwest from Zui, but had been under the impression that they were used as roof openings. All examples of this device known to the writer as having been found in place occurred in side walls of rooms. Mr. E. W. Nelson, while making collections of pottery from ruins near Springerville, Arizona, found and sent to the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, in the autumn of 1884, a flat stone about 18 inches square with a round hole cut in the middle of it. This stone was taken from the wall of one of the old ruined stone houses near Springerville, in an Indian ruin. The stone was set in the wall between two inner rooms of the ruin, and evidently served as a means of communication or perhaps a ventilator. I send it on mainly as an example of their stone-working craft. The position of this feature in the excavated room of Kin-tiel is indicated on the ground plan, Fig. 60, which also shows the position of other details seen in the general view of the room, Pl. C.

A small fragment of a stone-close doorway was found incorporated into the masonry of a flight of outside stone steps at Pescado, indicating its use in some neighboring ruin, thus bringing it well within the Cibola district. Another point at which similar remains have been brought to light is the pueblo of Halona, just across the river from the present Zui. Mr. F. Webb Hodge, recently connected with the Hemenway Southwestern Archeological Exposition, under the direction of Mr. F. H.

Cushing, describes this form of opening as being of quite common occurrence in the rooms of this long-buried pueblo. Here the doorways are a.s.sociated with the round slabs used for closing them. The latter were held in place by props within the room. No slabs of this form were seen at Kin-tiel, but quite possibly some of the large slabs of nearly rectangular form, found within this ruin, may have served the same purpose. It would seem more reasonable to use the rectangular slabs for this purpose when the openings were conveniently near the floors.

No example of the stone-close has as yet been found in Tusayan.

The annular doorway described above affords the only instance known to the writer where access openings were closed with a rigid device of aboriginal invention; and from the character of its material this device was necessarily restricted to openings of small size. The larger rectangular doorways, when not partly closed by masonry, probably were covered only with blankets or skin rugs suspended from the lintel.

In the discussion of sealed windows modern examples resembling the stone-close device will be noted, but these are usually employed in a more permanent manner.

The small size of the ordinary pueblo doorway was perhaps due as much to the fact that there was no convenient means of closing it as it was to defensive reasons. Many primitive habitations, even quite rude ones built with no intention of defense, are characterized by small doors and windows. The planning of dwellings and the distribution of openings in such a manner as to protect and render comfortable the inhabited rooms implies a greater advance in architectural skill than these builders had achieved.

The inconveniently small size of the doorways of the modern pueblos is only a survival of ancient conditions. The use of full-sized doors, admitting a man without stooping, is entirely practicable at the present day, but the conservative builders persist in adhering to the early type. The ancient position of the door, with its sill at a considerable height from the ground, is also retained. From the absence of any convenient means of rigidly closing the doors and windows, in early times external openings were restricted to the smallest practicable dimensions. The convenience of these openings was increased without altering their dimensions by elevating them to a certain height above the ground. In the ruin of Kin-tiel there is marked uniformity in the height of the openings above the ground, and such openings were likely to be quite uniform when used for similar purposes. The most common elevation of the sills of doorways was such that a man could readily step over at one stride. It will be seen that the same economy of s.p.a.ce has effected the use of windows in this system of architecture.

WINDOWS.

In the pueblo system of building, doors and windows are not always clearly differentiated. Many of the openings, while used for access to the dwellings, also answer all the purposes of windows, and, both in their form and in their position in the walls, seem more fully to meet the requirements of openings for the admission of light and air than for access. We have seen in the ill.u.s.trations in Chapters III and IV, openings of considerable size so located in the face of the outer wall as to unfit them for use as doorways, and others whose size is wholly inadequate, but which are still provided with the typical though diminutive single-paneled door. Many of these small openings, occurring most frequently in the back walls of house rows, have the jambs, lintels, etc., characteristic of the typical modern door. However, as the drawings above referred to indicate, there are many openings concerning the use of which there can be no doubt, as they can only provide outlook, light, and air.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XCV. Ancient floor-beams at Kin-tiel.]

In the most common form of window in present use in Tusayan and Cibola the width usually exceeds the height. Although found often in what appear to be the older portions of the present pueblos, this shape probably does not date very far back. The windows of the ancient pueblos were sometimes square, or nearly so, when of small size, but when larger they were never distinguishable from doorways in either size or finish, and the height exceeded the width. This restriction of the width of openings was due to the exceptionally small size of the building stone made use of. Although larger stones were available, the builders had not sufficient constructive skill to successfully utilize them. The failure to utilize this material indicates a degree of ignorance of mechanical aids that at first thought seems scarcely in keeping with the ma.s.siveness of form and the high degree of finish characterizing many of the remains; but as already seen in the discussion of masonry, the latter results were attained by the patient industry of many hands, although laboring with but little of the spirit of cooperation. The narrowness of the largest doors and windows in the ancient pueblos suggests timidity on the part of the ancient builders. The apparently bolder construction of the present day, shown in the prevailing use of horizontal openings, is not due to greater constructive skill, but rather to the markedly greater carelessness of modern construction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 87. Diagram ill.u.s.trating symmetrical arrangement of small openings in Pueblo Bonito.]

The same contrast between modern and ancient practice is seen in the disposition of openings in walls. In the modern pueblos there does not seem to be any regularity or system in their introduction, while in some of the older pueblos, such as Pueblo Bonito on the Chaco, and others of the same group, the arrangement of the outer openings exhibits a certain degree of symmetry. The accompanying diagram, Fig. 87, ill.u.s.trates a portion of the northern outer wall of Pueblo Bonito, in which the small windows of successive rooms, besides being uniform in size, are grouped in pairs. The degree of technical skill shown in the execution of the masonry about these openings is in keeping with the precision with which the openings themselves are placed. Pl. CV, gives a view of a portion of the wall containing these openings.

In marked contrast to the above examples is the slovenly practice of the modern pueblos. There are rarely two openings of the same size, even in a single room, nor are these usually placed at a uniform height from the floor. The placing appears to be purely a matter of individual taste, and no trace of system or uniformity is to be found. Windows occur sometimes at considerable height, near or even at the ceiling in some cases, while others are placed almost at the base of the wall; examples may be found occupying all intermediate heights between these extremes.

Many of the ill.u.s.trations show this characteristic irregularity, but Pls. LXXIX and Lx.x.xII of Zui perhaps represent it most clearly.

The framing of these openings differs but little from that of the ancient examples. The modern opening is distinguished princ.i.p.ally by the more careless method of combining the materials, and by the introduction in many instances of a rude sash. A number of small poles or sticks, usually of cedar, with the bark peeled off, are laid side by side in contact, across the opening, to form a support for the stones and earth of the superposed masonry. Frequently a particularly large tablet of stone is placed immediately upon the sticks, but this stone is never long enough or thick enough to answer the purpose of a lintel for larger openings. The number of small sticks used is sufficient to reach from the face to the back of the wall, and in the simplest openings the surrounding masonry forms jambs and sill. American or Spanish influence occasionally shows itself in the employment of sawed boards for lintels, sills, and jambs. The wooden features of the windows exhibit a curiously light and flimsy construction.

A large percentage of the windows, in both Tusayan and Cibola, are furnished with gla.s.s at the present time. Occasionally a primitive sash of several lights is found, but frequently the gla.s.s is used singly; in some instances it is set directly into the adobe without any intervening sash or frame. In several cases in Zui the primitive sash or frame has been rudely decorated with incised lines and notches. An example of this is shown in Fig. 88. The frame or sash is usually built solidly into the wall. Hinged sashes do not seem to have been adopted as yet. Often the introduction of lights shows a curious and awkward compromise between aboriginal methods and foreign ideas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 88. Incised decoration on a rude window sash in Zui.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XCVI. Adobe walls in Zui.]

Characteristic of Zui windows, and also of those of the neighboring pueblo of Acoma, is the use of semitranslucent slabs of selenite, about 1 inch in thickness and of irregular form. Pieces are occasionally met with about 18 inches long and 8 or 10 inches wide, but usually they are much smaller and very irregular in outline. For windows pieces are selected that approximately fit against each other, and thin, flat strips of wood are fixed in a vertical position in the openings to serve as supports for the irregular fragments of selenite, which could not be retained in place without some such provision. The use of window openings at the bases of walls probably suggested this use of vertical sticks as a support to slabs of selenite, as in this position they would be particularly useful, the windows being generally arranged on a slope, as shown in Fig. 89. Similar glazing is also employed in the related, obliquely pierced openings of Zui, to be described later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 89. Sloping selenite window at base of Zui wall on upper terrace.]

Selenite, in all probability, was not used in pre-Spanish times. No examples have as yet been met with among ruins in the region where this material is found and now used. Throughout the south and east portion of the ancient pueblo region, explored by Mr. A. F. Bandelier, where many of the remains were in a very good state of preservation, no cases of the use of this substance were seen. Fig. 90 ill.u.s.trates a typical selenite window.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 90. A Zui window glazed with selenite.]

In Zui some of the kivas are provided with small external windows framed with slabs of stone. It is likely that the kivas would for a long time perpetuate methods and practices that had been superseded in the construction of dwellings. The use of stone jambs, however, would necessarily be limited to openings of small size, as such use for large openings was beyond the mechanical skill of the pueblo builders.

Fig. 91 ill.u.s.trates the manner of making small openings in external exposed walls in Zui. Stone frames occur only occasionally in what seem to be the older and least modified portions of the village. At Tusayan, however, this method of framing windows is much more noticeable, as the exceptional crowding that has exercised such an influence on Zui construction has not occurred there. The Tusayan houses are arranged more in rows, often with a suggestion of large inclosures resembling the courts of the ancient pueblos. The inclosures have not been encroached upon, the streets are wider, and altogether the earlier methods seem to have been retained in greater purity than in Zui. The unbroken outer wall, of two or three stories in height, like the same feature of the old villages, is pierced at various heights with small openings that do not seriously impair its efficiency for defense. Tusayan examples of these loop-hole-like openings maybe seen in Pls. XXII, XXIII, and x.x.xIX.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 91. Small openings in the back wall of a Zui house-cl.u.s.ter.]

In some of the ancient pueblos such openings were arranged on a distinctly defensive plan, and were constructed with great care.

Openings of this type, not more than 4 inches square, pierced the second story outer wall of the pueblo of Wejegi in the Chaco Canyon. In the pueblo of Kin-tiel (Pl. LXIII) similar loop-hole-like openings were very skillfully constructed in the outer wall at the rounded northeastern corner of the pueblo. The openings pierced the wall at an oblique angle, as shown on the plan. Two of these channel-like loopholes maybe seen in Pl. LXV. This figure also shows the carefully executed jamb corners and faces of three large openings of the second story, which, though greatly undermined by the falling away of the lower masonry, are still held in position by the bond of thin flat stones of which the wall is built.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate XCVII. Wall coping and oven at Zui.]

It is often the practice in the modern pueblos to seal up the windows of a house with masonry, and sometimes the doors also during the temporary absence of the occupant, which absence often takes place at the seasons of planting and harvesting. At such times many Zui families occupy outlying farming pueblos, such as Nutria and Pescado, and the Tusayans, in a like manner, live in rude summer shelters close to their fields.

Such absence from the home pueblo often lasts for a month or more at a time. The work of closing the opening is done sometimes in the roughest manner, but examples are seen in which carefully laid masonry has been used. The latter is sometimes plastered. Occasionally the sealing is done with a thin slab of sandstone, somewhat larger than the opening, held in place with mud plastering, or propped from the inside after the manner of the stone close previously described. Fig. 92 ill.u.s.trates specimens of sealed openings in the village of Hano of the Tusayan group. The upper window is closed with a single large slab and a few small c.h.i.n.king stones at one side. The masonry used in closing the lower opening is scarcely distinguishable from that of the adjoining walls.

Pl. CVI ill.u.s.trates a similar treatment of an opening in a detached house of Nutria, whose occupants had returned to the home pueblo of Zui at the close of the harvesting season. The doorway in this case is only partly closed, leaving a window-like aperture at its top, and the stones used for the purpose are simply piled up without the use of adobe mortar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 92. Sealed openings in Tusayan.]

Windows and doors closed with masonry are often met with in the remains of ancient pueblos, suggesting, perhaps, that some of the occupants were absent at the time of the destruction of the village. When large door-like openings in upper external walls were built up and plastered over in this way, as in some ruins, the purpose was to economize heat during the winter, as blankets or rugs made of skins would be inadequate.

Besides the closing and reopening of doors and windows just described, the modern pueblo builders frequently make permanent changes in such openings. Doors are often converted into windows, and windows are reduced in size or enlarged, or new ones are broken through the walls, apparently, with the greatest freedom, so that they do not, from their finish or method of construction, furnish any clue to the antiquity of the mud-covered wall in which they are found. Occasionally surface weathering of the walls, particularly in Zui, exposes a bit of horizontal pole embedded in the masonry, the lintel of a window long since sealed up and obliterated by successive coats of mud finish. It is probable that many openings are so covered up as to leave no trace of their existence on the external wall. In Zui particularly, where the original arrangement for entering and lighting many of the rooms must have been wholly lost in the dense cl.u.s.tering of later times, such changes are very numerous. It often happens that the addition of a new room will shut off one or more old windows, and in such cases the latter are often converted into interior niches which serve as open cupboards.

Such niches were sometimes of considerable size in the older pueblos.

Changes in the character of openings are quite common in all of the pueblos. Usually the evidences of such changes are much clearer in the rougher and more exposed work of Tusayan than in the adobe-finished houses of Zui. Pl. CVII ill.u.s.trates a large, balcony-like opening in Oraibi that has been reduced to the size of an ordinary door by filling in with rough masonry. A small window has been left immediately over the lintel of the newer door. Pl. CVIII ill.u.s.trates two large openings in this village that have been treated in a somewhat similar manner, but the filling has been carried farther. Both of these openings have been used as doorways at one stage of their reduction, the one on the right having been provided with a small transom; the combined opening was arranged wholly within the large one and under its transom. In the further conversion of this doorway into a small window, the secondary transom was blocked up with stone slabs, set on edge, and a small loophole window in the upper lefthand corner of the large opening was also closed. The masonry filling of the large opening on the left in this ill.u.s.tration shows no trace of a transom over the smaller doorway.