Fig. 77. Paneled wooden doors in Hano.
The doorway is usually framed at the time the house is built. The sill is generally elevated above the ground outside and the floor inside, and the door openings, with a few exceptions, are thus practically only large windows. In this respect they follow the arrangement characteristic of the ancient pueblos, in which all the larger openings are window-like doorways. These are sometimes seen on the court margin of house rows, and frequently occur between communicating rooms within the cluster. They are usually raised about a foot and a half above the floor, and in some cases are provided with one or two steps. In Zuñi, doorways between communicating rooms, though now framed in wood, preserve the same arrangement, as may be seen in [Pl. LXXXVI].
The side pieces of a paneled pueblo door are mortised, an achievement far beyond the aboriginal art of these people. Fig. 78 illustrates the manner in which the framing is done. All the necessary grooving, and the preparation of the projecting tenons is laboriously executed with the most primitive tools, in many cases the whole frame, with all its joints, being cut out with a small knife.
Fig. 78. Framing of a
Zuñi door-panel.
Doors are usually fastened by a simple wooden latch, the bar of which turns upon a wooden pin. They are opened from without by lifting the latch from its wooden catch, by means of a string passed through a small hole in the door, and hanging outside. Some few doors are, however, provided with a cumbersome wooden lock, operated by means of a square, notched stick that serves as a key. These locks are usually fastened to the inner side of the door by thongs of buckskin or rawhide, passed through small holes bored or drilled through the edge of the lock, and through the stile and panel of the door at corresponding points. The entire mechanism consists of wood and strings joined together in the rudest manner. Primitive as this device is, however, its conception is far in advance of the aboriginal culture of the pueblos, and both it and the string latch must have come from without. The lock was probably a contrivance of the early Mormons, as it is evidently roughly modeled after a metallic lock.
Many doors having no permanent means of closure are still in use. These are very common in Tusayan, and occur also in Cibola, particularly in the farming pueblos. The open front of the “tupubi” or balcony-like recess, seen so frequently at the ends of first-terrace roofs in Tusayan, is often constructed with a transom-like arrangement in connection with the girder supporting the edge of the roof, in the same manner in which doorways proper are treated. [Pl. XXXII] illustrates a balcony in which one bounding side is formed by a flight of stone steps, producing a notched or terraced effect. The supporting girder in this instance is embedded in the wall and coated over with adobe, obscuring the construction. Fig. 79 shows a rude transom over the supporting beam of a balcony roof in the principal house of Hano. The upper doorway shown in this house has been partly walled in, reducing its size somewhat. It is also provided with a small horizontal opening over the main lintel, which, like the doorway, has been partly filled with masonry. This upper transom often seems to have resulted from carrying such openings to the full height of the story. The transom probably originated from the spaces left between the ends of beams resting on the main girder that spanned the principal opening (see [Fig. 81]). Somewhat similar balconies are seen in Cibola, both in Zuñi and in the farming villages, but they do not assume so much importance as in Tusayan. An example is shown in [Pl. CI], in which the construction of this feature is clearly visible.