[6] See Mindeleff, Architecture of Tusayan and Cibola, Eighth Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnology, p. 157.
[7] In my "Study of Pueblo Pottery," etc. (Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1882-83), I have said that "The archaic name for a building or walled structure is héshota, a contraction of the now obsolete term héshotapone; from hésho, gum, or resin-like; shótaie, leaned or placed together convergingly; tápoane, a roof (covering) of wood, or a roof (covering) supported by wood."
I regret to say that the etymology of this word as thus rendered was not quite correct, and therefore its meaning as interpreted in the passage which immediately followed was also mistaken. It is quite true that hésho signifies gum or resin, etc. (referring, as I then supposed, to áhesho, or gum rock, a name for lava; used constructively in the oldest round huts of the basaltic regions); but the root he enters into many other compounds, such as not only wax, gum, pitch, metal (as being rock-pitch, that is, melted from rocks), etc., but also mud, clay-paste, mud-mortar, and finally adobe, as being dried mud mortar; hence walls made either with or of adobe, etc. Had I been, at the time of this first writing, as familiar with the language as I now am I should not have connected as a single root he and sho, making hésho (gum or pitch) of it. For, as elsewhere stated in the same essay, shówe signifies canes, (shóole, a cane or reed), and it now appears that the syllable thus derived formed a root by itself. But I had not then learned that the greater number of the ruins of southern Arizona, especially of the plains, consisted of gabion-like walls, that is, of walls made by packing stiff earth or rubble mortar or cement between double or parallel cane-wattled stockades, and then heavily plastering this exterior or casing (as was the case in the main walls of the celebrated Casa Grande and the temple mound of Los Muertos); or else, in less massive ruins of lesser walls the cores or supports of which consisted of close-set posts lathed with reeds or canes, the mud or cement being built up either side of these cores, or, in case of the thinnest walls, such as partitions, merely plastered to either face.
I can not doubt that even the grandest and most highly developed of these ruins—the Casas Grandes themselves, which look today as if constructed wholly of massive masonry—no less than the simplest plastered stockade walls, were developed from such beginnings as the mere mud-plastered cane and stockade screens of the ancient rancheria builders. Thus, I am constrained to render the primary meaning of héshotapoane as approximately "mud-plastered cane and stick structure;" from heliwe, mud mortar; shówe, canes or reeds; táwe, wood, or tátawe, wood-posts; póa, to place (leaningly or closely) over against; and ne, (any) thing made. From this, the generic term héshota, for walled structure (especially ruined wall-structures), would very naturally have been derived, and this might or might not have given rise to the use of the prefix he, as occurring in all names for mortar-laid walls.
[8] As stated more fully in the introductory paragraphs, notes giving the etymologies of native terms and explaining and amplifying obscure or brief allusions and presenting the special sense in which certain expressions and passages are used will be given in the second part of this paper, to appear in the future.
Transcriber's Corrections:
| page | original text | correction |
| [324] | peoples' | people's |
| [360] | inclosure. | inclosure." |
| [375] | Kyä´klu | K‘yäk´lu |
| [385] | thereof. | thereof." |
| [393] | wind. | wind." |
| [397] | Thus | "Thus |
| [403] | k‘áetone | k‘yáetone |
| [412] | Sá´lamopia | Sálamopia |
| [415] | Kâ´‘hluelawan | Kâ´‘hluëlawan |
| [426] | Póshaiaŋk‘ya | Póshaiyaŋk‘ya |
| [430] | Hánthlipiŋk‘ya | Hán‘hlipiŋk‘ya |
| [434] | old | told |
| [437] | sunrise. | sunrise." |
| [446] | Of | "Of |