Plate LIX. The mesa of Tâaaiyalana, from Zuñi.

[ TÂAAIYALANA.]

On the abandonment of the pueblos known as the Seven Cities of Cibola, supposed to have occurred at the time of the general uprising of the pueblos in 1680, the inhabitants of all the Cibolan villages sought refuge on the summit of Tâaaiyalana, an isolated mesa, 3 miles southeast from Zuñi, and there built a number of pueblo clusters.

This mesa, otherwise known as “Thunder Mountain,” rises to the height of 1,000 feet above the plain, and is almost inaccessible. There are two foot trails leading to the summit, each of which in places traverses abrupt slopes of sandstone where holes have been pecked into the rock to furnish foot and hand holds. From the northeast side the summit of the mesa can be reached by a rough and tortuous burro trail. All the rest of the mesa rim is too precipitous to be scaled. Its appearance as seen from Zuñi is shown in Pl. LIX.

On the southern portion of this impregnable site and grouped about a point where nearly the whole drainage of the mesa top collects, are found the village remains. The Zuñis stated that the houses were distributed in six groups or clusters, each taking the place of one of the abandoned towns. Mr. Frank H. Cushing [4] was also under the impression that these houses had been built as six distinct clusters of one village, and he has found that at the time of the Pueblo rebellion, but six of the Cibolan villages were occupied. An examination of the plan, however, will at once show that no such definite scheme of arrangement governed the builders. There are but three, or at most four groups that could be defined as distinct clusters, and even in the case of these the disposition is so irregular and their boundaries so ill defined, through the great number of outlying small groups scattered about, that they can hardly be considered distinct. There are really thirty-eight separate buildings (Pl. LX) ranging in size from one of two rooms, near the southern extremity to one of one hundred and three rooms, situated at the southwestern corner of the whole group and close to the western edge of the mesa where the foot trails reach the summit. There is also great diversity in the arrangement of rooms. In some cases the clusters are quite compact, and in others the rooms are distributed in narrow rows. In the large cluster at the northwestern extremity the houses are arranged around a court; with this exception the clusters of rooms are scattered about in an irregular manner, regardless of any defensive arrangement of the buildings. The builders evidently placed the greatest reliance on their impregnable site, and freely adopted such arrangement as convenience dictated.

[full size]
Plate LX. Tâaaiyalana, plan.

The outlined area in the lower right was printed as an inset directly below the scale of distance.

The masonry of these villages was roughly constructed, the walls being often less than a foot thick. Very little adobe mortar seems to have been used; some of the thickest and best preserved walls have apparently been laid nearly dry (Pl. LXI). The few openings still preserved also show evidence of hasty and careless construction. Over most of the area the debris of the fallen walls is very clearly marked, and is but little encumbered with earth or drifted sand. This imparts an odd effect of newness to these ruins, as though the walls had recently fallen. The small amount of debris suggests that the majority of these buildings never were more than one story high, though in four of the broadest clusters (see plan, Pl. LX) a height of two, and possibly three, stories may have been attained. All the ruins are thickly covered by a very luxurious growth of braided cactus, but little of which is found elsewhere in the neighborhood. The extreme southeastern cluster, consisting of four large rooms, differs greatly in character from the rest of the ruins. Here the rooms or inclosures are defined only by a few stones on the surface of the ground and partly embedded in the soil. There is no trace of the debris of fallen walls. These outlined inclosures appear never to have been walled to any considerable height. Within one of the rooms is a slab of stone, about which a few ceremonial plume sticks have been set on end within recent times.