From a study of the remains of these primitive Arizonian ancestors of the Zuñis in the light of present-day Zuñi archaisms, and especially of the creation myths themselves, it would be possible to present a much fuller sketch of them. But that which has already been outlined is sufficiently full, I trust, to prove evidential that the following Zuñi expressions and characteristics were as often derived from this southwestern branch as from the cliff dweller or aboriginal branch of the Zuñi ancestry:
The Zuñi name of an outer village wall is hék‘yapane, which signifies, it would seem, "cliff-face wall;" for it is derived, apparently, from héăne, an extended wall; and ák‘yapane, the face of a wide cliff. Thus it is probably developed from the name which at first was descriptive of the encircling rear wall of a cave village, afterward naturally continued to be applied to the rear but encircling or outside wall of a round town, and hence now designates even a straight outer wall of a village, whether of the front or the rear of the houses.
The name for the outer wall of a house, however, is héine, or héline, which signifies a mud or adobe inclosure; from héliwe, mud (or mud-and-ash) mortar, and úline, an inclosure. Since in usage this refers to the outer wall of a house or other simple structure, but not to that of a town or assemblage of houses, its origin may with equal propriety be attributed to the mud-plastered corral or adobe sides or inclosures of such rancherias as I have already described.[7]
Again, the names in Zuñi, first, for a room of a single-story structure, and, second, for an inner room on the ground floor of such or of a terraced structure, are (1) télitona, "room or space equally inclosed," that is, by four equal or nearly equal walls; and (2) téluline, "room or space within (other rooms or) an inclosure." Both of these terms, although descriptive, may, from their specific use, be attributed to single-story rancheria origin, I think, for in the cliff villages there was no ground-floor room. The name for a lowermost room in the cliff villages still seemingly survives in the Zuñi name for a cellar, which is ápaline, from a, rock, and páloiye, buried in or excavated within; while the cliff name for an upper room or top-story room, óshtenu‘hlane, from óshten, a cave-shelter or cave roof, and ú‘hlane, inclosed by, or built within the hollow or embrace of, also still survives. Yet other examples of diversely derived house-names in this composite phraseology might be added, but one more must suffice. The Zuñi name for a ladder is ‘hlétsilone, apparently from ‘hléwe, slats (‘hléma, slat), and tsilulona, hair, fiber, or osier, entwined or twisted in. This primary meaning of the name would indicate that before the ladder of poles and slats was used, rope ladders were commonly in vogue, and if so, would point unmistakably to the cliffs as the place of its origin; for many of the cliff dwellings can not now be reached save by means of ropes or rope ladders. Yet, although the name for a stairway (or steps even of stone or adobe) might naturally, one would suppose, have been derived from that of a ladder (if ladders were used before stairs, or vice versa if the reverse was the case), nevertheless it has a totally independent etymology, for it is íyechiwe, from íkŏiyächi, forked log or crotch-log, and yéhchiwe, walking or footing-notched; that is, notched step-log or crotch. And this it would seem points as unmistakably to such use of forked and notched step logs or crotch-logs as I have attributed to the rancheria builders, as does the "rope-and-slat" ladder-name to the use of the very different climbing device I have attributed to the cliff dwellers.
It is probable that when the round-town builders had peopled the trail of salt as far from the northward as to the region of Zuñi and beyond, the absence of very deep canyons, containing rock-sheltered nooks sufficiently large and numerous to enable them to find adequate accommodation for cliff villages, gradually led them to abandon all resort to the cliffs for protection—made them at last no longer cliff dwellers, even temporarily, but true Pueblos, or town dwellers of the valleys and plains.
But other influences than those of merely natural or physical environment were required to change their mode of building, and correspondingly, to some extent, their institutions and modes of life from those of round-town builders to those of square-town builders, such as in greater part they were at the time of the Spanish discoveries. In the myths themselves may be found a clew as to what these influences were in that which is told of the coming together of the "People of the Midmost" and these "Dwellers-in-the-towns-builded-round." For there is evidence in abundance also of other kind, and not a little of it of striking force and interest, that this coming together was itself the chief cause of the changes referred to. It has been seen that the western branch of the Zuñi ancestry (who were these "People of the Midmost") were almost from the beginning dwellers in square structures; that their village clusters, even when several of their dwelling places happened to be built together, were, as shown by their remains wherever found, built precisely on the plans of single-house structures—that is, they were simple extensions, mostly rectilinear, of these single houses themselves.
Now peoples like those of the round towns, no less than primitive peoples generally, conceive of everything made, whether structure, utensil, or weapon, as animistic, as living. They conceive of this life of things as they do of the lives of plants, of hibernating animals, or of sleeping men, as a still sort of life generally, but as potent and aware, nevertheless, and as capable of functioning, not only obdurately and resistingly but also actively and powerfully in occult ways, either for good or for evil. As every living thing they observe, every animal, has form, and acts or functions according to its form—the feathered and winged bird flying, because of its feathered form; the furry and four-footed animal running and leaping, because of its four-footed form, and the scaly and finny fish swimming, because also of its fins and scales and form appropriate thereto—so these things made or born into special forms of the hands of man also have life and function variously, according to their various forms.
As this idea of animals, and of things as in other sort animals, is carried out to the minutest particular, so that even the differences in the claws of beasts, for example, are supposed to make the difference between their powers of foot (as between the hugging of the bear and the clutching of the panther), it follows that form in all its details is considered of the utmost importance to special kinds of articles made and used, even of structures of any much used or permanent type. Another phase of this curious but perfectly natural attributive of life and form-personality to material things, is the belief that the forms of these things not only give them power, but also restrict their power, so that if properly made, that is, made and shaped strictly as other things of their kind have been made and shaped, they will perform only such safe uses as their prototypes have been found to serve in performing before them. As the fish, with scales and fins only, can not fly as the duck does, and as the duck can not swim under the water except so far as his feathers, somewhat resembling scales, and his scaly, webbed feet, somewhat resembling fins enable him to do so, thus also is it with things. In this way may be explained better than in any other way, I think, the excessive persistency of form-survival, including the survival of details in conventional ornamentation in the art products of primitive peoples—the repetitions, for instance, in pottery, of the forms and even the ornaments of the vessels, basketry, or what not, which preceded it in development and use and on which it was first modeled. This tendency to persist in the making of well-tried forms, whether of utensil or domicile, is so great that some other than the reason usually assigned, namely, that of mere accustomedness, is necessary to account for it, and the reason I have given is fully warranted by what I know of the mood in which the Zuñis still regard the things they make and use, and which is so clearly manifest in their names of such things. It is a tendency so great, indeed, that neither change of environment and other conditions, nor yet substitution of unused materials for those in customary use for the making of things, will effect change in their forms at once, even though in preserving older forms in this newer sort of material the greatest amount of inconvenience be encountered. There is, indeed, but one influence potent enough to effect change from one established form to another, and that is acculturation; and even this works but slowly and only after long and familiar intercourse or after actual commingling of one people with a diversely developed people has taught them the safety and efficiency of unfamiliar forms in uses familiarly associated with their own accustomed but different forms. Sooner or later such acculturation invariably effects radical change in the forms of things used by one or the other of the peoples thus commingling, or by both; though in the latter case the change is usually unequal. In the case here under consideration there is to be found throughout the nearer Zuñi country ruins of the actual transitional type of pueblo thus formed by the union of the two ancestral branches of the Zuñis, the round town with its cliff-like outer wall merging into the square, terraced town with its broken and angular or straight outer walls; and in these composite towns earliest appears, too, the house wall built into (not merely against) the outer walls of the curved portions no less than into the outer walls of the squared or straight portions.
The composite round and square pueblo ruin is not, however, confined to this transitional type or to its comparatively restricted area wherever occurring, but is found here and there as far northward, for instance, as the neighborhood of older cliff ruins. But in such cases it seems to have been developed, as heretofore hinted, in the comparatively recent rebuilding of old rounded towns by square-house builders. Quite in correspondence with all this is the history of the development, from the round form into the square, of the kivas of the later Zuñi towns; that is, like the towns themselves, the round kivas of the earlier round towns became, first in part and then nearly squared in the composite round and square towns, and finally altogether squared in the square towns. This was brought about by a twofold cause. When the cliff dwellers became inhabitants of the plains, not only their towns, but also the kivas were enlarged. To such an extent, indeed, were the latter enlarged that it became difficult to roof them over in the old fashion of completing the upper courses of the walls with cross-laid logs, and of roofing the narrowed apex of this coping with combined rafter and stick structures; hence in many cases, although the round kiva was rigidly adhered to, it was not unfrequently inclosed within a square wall in order that, as had come to be the case in the ordinary living rooms, rafters parallel to one another and of equal length might be thrown across the top, thus making a flat roof essentially like the flat terrace roofs of the ordinary house structure.
It is not improbable that the first suggestion of inclosing the round kiva in a square-walled structure and of covering the latter with a flat roof arose quite naturally long before the cliff dwellers descended into the plains. It has been seen that frequently, in the larger and longest occupied cliff-towns, the straight-walled houses grew outward wholly around the kivas; and when this occurred the round kiva was thus not only surrounded by a square inclosure—formed by the walls of the nearest houses,—but also it became necessary to cover this inclosing space with a flat roof, in order to render continuous the house terrace in which it was constructed. Still, the practice never became general or intentional in the earlier cliff-towns; probably, indeed, it became so in the now ruined round towns only by slow degrees. Yet it needed after this (in a measure) makeshift beginning only such influence of continued intercourse between the square-house building people and these round-town building people to lead finally to the practical abandonment by the latter of the inner round structure surviving from their old-fashioned kivas, and to make them, like the modern Zuñi kiva, square rather than round.