[full size]
Plate LXXVI. Zuñi, plan.

Key to Zuñi plan (Plate LXXVI).

Some of the Cibolan villages were valley pueblos, built at a distance from the rocky mesas and canyons that must have served as quarries for the stone used in building. The Halona site was of this type, the nearest supply of stone being 3 miles distant. At this point (Halona) the Zuñi River is perennial, and furnishes a plentiful supply of water at all seasons of the year. It disappears, however, a few miles west in a broad, sandy wash, to appear again 20 miles below the village, probably through the accession of small streams from springs farther down. The so-called river furnishes the sole water supply at Zuñi, with the exception of a single well or reservoir on the north side of the village.

Zuñi has been built at a point having no special advantages for defense; convenience to large areas of tillable soil has apparently led to the selection of the site. This has subjected it in part to the same influences that had at an earlier date produced the carefully walled fortress pueblos of the valleys, where the defensive efficiency was due to well planned and constructed buildings. The result is that Zuñi, while not comparable in symmetry to many of the ancient examples, displays a remarkably compact arrangement of dwellings in the portions of the pueblos first occupied, designated on the plan ([Pl. LXXVI]) as houses 1 and 4. Owing to this restriction of lateral expansion this portion of the pueblo has been carried to a great height.

Plate LXXVII. Outline plan of Zuñi, showing distribution of oblique openings.

[Pl. LXXVIII] gives a general view of these higher terraces of the village from the southeast. A height of five distinct terraces from the ground is attained on the south side of this cluster. The same point, however, owing to the irregularity of the site, is only three terraces above the ground on the north side. The summit of the knoll upon which the older portion of Zuñi has been built is so uneven, and the houses themselves vary so much in dimensions, that the greatest disparity prevails in the height of terraces. A three-terrace portion of a cluster may have but two terraces immediately alongside, and throughout the more closely built portions of the village the exposed height of terraces varies from 1 foot to 8 or 10 feet. Pl. LXXIX illustrates this feature.