Here again we find that the ceremonial chamber that forms so important a feature among these people, occupies no fixed relation to the dwellings, and its location is largely a matter of accident, a site that would admit of the partial excavation or sinking of the chamber below the surface being the main requisite. The northwest court contains another of the small inclosed shrines already described as occurring at Shupaulovi and elsewhere.

The stonework of this village also possesses a somewhat distinctive character. Exposed masonry, though comparatively rare in this well-plastered pueblo, shows that stones of suitable fracture were selected and that they were more carefully laid than in the other villages. In places the masonry bears a close resemblance to some of the ancient work, where the spaces between the longer tablets of stone were carefully chinked with small bits of stone, bringing the whole wall to a uniform face, and is much in advance of the ordinary slovenly methods of construction followed in Tusayan.

Shumopavi is the successor of an older village of that name, one of the cities of the ancient Tusayan visited by a detachment of Coronado’s expedition in 1540. The ruins of that village still exist, and they formerly contained vestiges of the old church and mission buildings established by the monks. The squared beams from these buildings were considered valuable enough to be incorporated in the construction of ceremonial kivas in some of the Tusayan villages. This old site was not visited by the party.

[ ORAIBI.]

This is one of the largest modern pueblos, and contains nearly half the population of Tusayan; yet its great size has not materially affected the arrangement of the dwellings. The general plan (see Pl. XXXVI), simply shows an unusually large collection of typical Tusayan house-rows, with the general tendency to face eastward displayed in the other villages of the group. There is a remarkable uniformity in the direction of the rows, but there are no indications of the order in which the successive additions to the village were made, such as were found at Mashóngnavi.

The white strip along the middle of this plan represents the area near a tight fold in the printed original. The width of the unreadable area is conjectural.

[full size]
Plate XXXVI. Oraibi, plan.