[ CHAPTER IV.]
ARCHITECTURE OF TUSAYAN AND CIBOLA COMPARED BY CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS.
[ INTRODUCTION.]
In the two preceding chapters the more general features of form and distribution in the ruined and inhabited pueblos of Tusayan and Cibola have been described. In order to gain a full and definite idea of the architectural acquirements of the pueblo builders it will be necessary to examine closely the constructional details of their present houses, endeavoring, when practicable, to compare these details with the rather meager vestiges of similar features that have survived the destruction of the older villages, noting the extent to which these have departed from early types, and, where practicable, tracing the causes of such deviation. For convenience of comparison the various details of housebuilding for the two groups will be treated together.
The writer is indebted to Mr. A. M. Stephen, the collector of the traditionary data already given, for information concerning the rites connected with house building at Tusayan incorporated in the following pages, and also for the carefully collected and valuable nomenclature of architectural details appended hereto. Material of this class pertaining to the Cibola group of pueblos unfortunately could not be procured.
[ HOUSE BUILDING.]
[ RITES AND METHODS.]
The ceremonials connected with house building in Tusayan are quite meager, but the various steps in the ritual, described in their proper connection in the following paragraphs, are well defined and definitely assigned to those who participate in the construction of the buildings.
So far as could be ascertained there is no prearranged plan for an entire house of several stories, or for the arrangement of contiguous houses. Most of the ruins examined emphasize this absence of a clearly defined general plan governing the location of rooms added to the original cluster. Two notable exceptions to this want of definite plan occur among the ruins described. In Tusayan the Fire House ([Fig. 7]) is evidently the result of a clearly defined purpose to give a definite form to the entire cluster, just as, on a very much larger scale, does the ruin of Kin-tiel, belonging to the Cibola group ([Pl. LXIII]). In both these cases the fixing of the outer wall on a definite line seems to have been regarded as of more importance than the specific locations of individual rooms or dwellings within this outline. Throughout that part of Tusayan which has been examined, however, the single room seems now to be regarded as the pueblo unit, and is spoken of as a complete house. It is the construction of such a house unit that is here to be described.