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.
Plate CVII. Partial filling-in of a large opening in Oraibi, converting it into a doorway.
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 Zuñi, 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 Zuñi particularly, where the original arrangement for entering and lighting many of the rooms must have been wholly lost in the dense clustering 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 Zuñi. Pl. CVII illustrates 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 illustrates 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 illustration shows no trace of a transom over the smaller doorway. A small loophole in the corner of this large opening is still left open. It will be noted that the original transoms of the large openings have in all these cases been entirely filled up with masonry.
Plate CVIII. Large openings reduced to small windows, Oraibi.