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Nalakihu is a Hopi word meaning “Lone House” or “House Standing Alone.” This pueblo had 10 rooms on the ground floor, 3 or 4 more rooms which formed a second story, providing a home for about 25 to 30 people.
A charred roof beam of ponderosa pine, lying on the floor of the first room, gave a tree-ring date of A.D. 1183, indicating that this little pueblo was built in the late 1100s. Dates of 1192 and 1260 have been obtained on wood from the Citadel above which would cause us to believe that both pueblos were built at approximately the same time.
By observing how the walls of various rooms butt against each other we can deduce that the rooms at the secondary doorway constitute the oldest part of the pueblo, because these walls were erected at one time and the other walls butt against them. When these three rooms constituted the whole pueblo, it was probably a one-family house.
Three possible constructional stages through which Nalakihu may have passed. (Hatchways are omitted and drains are merely guesswork.)
Metate (or mealing grindstone) resting on collapsed roof material in Room 1. There is a mano, or handstone, in it.
The three rooms in front of Nalakihu had no firepits and apparently were used for storage. The same applies to rooms 5 and 7. The remaining rooms had firepits and other features indicating they were dwelling rooms, such as ventilators to bring in fresh air at floor level, deflectors to keep draft of incoming air off firepits, and in room 4, loom holes to anchor the lower horizontal bar of a vertical loom.
