A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola / Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 3-228

by Victor Mindeleff; Cosmos Mindeleff

Fig. 65.A semi-detached square chimney hood of Zuñi.

Fig. 66.Unplastered Zuñi chimney hoods, illustrating construction.

All the joints of these hoods, and even the material used, are generally concealed from view by a carefully applied coating of plaster, supplemented by a gypsum wash, and usually there is no visible evidence of the manner in which they are built, but the construction is little superior to that of the simple corner hoods. The method of framing the various types of hoods is illustrated in [Fig. 66]. The example on the left shows an unplastered wooden hood skeleton. The arrangement of the parts in projecting rectangular stone hoods is illustrated in the right-hand diagram of the figure. In constructing such a chimney a thin buttress is first built against the wall of sufficient width and

height to support one side of the hood. The opposite side of the hood is supported by a flat stone, firmly set on edge into the masonry of the wall. The front of the hood is supported by a second flat stone which rests at one end on a rude shoulder in the projecting slab, and at the other end upon the front edge of the buttress. It would be quite practicable for the pueblo builders to form a notch in the lower corner of the supported stone to rest firmly upon a projection of the supporting stone, but in the few cases in which the construction could be observed no such treatment was seen, for they depended mainly on the interlocking of the ragged ends of the stones. This structure serves to support the body of the flue, usually with an intervening stone-covered space forming a shelf. At the present period the flue is usually built of thin sandstone slabs, rudely adjusted to afford mutual support. The whole structure is bound together and smoothed over with mud plastering, and is finally finished with the gypsum wash, applied also to the rest of the room. Mr. A. F. Bandelier describes “a regular chimney, with mantel and shelf, built of stone slabs,” which he found “in the caves of the Rito de los Frijoles, as well as in the cliff dwellings of the regular detached family house type,”[7] which, from the description, must have closely resembled the Zuñi chimney described above. Houses containing such devices may be quite old, but if so they were certainly reoccupied in post-Spanish times. Such dwellings are likely to have been used as places of refuge in times of danger up to a comparatively recent date.

Fig. 67. A fireplace and mantel in Sichumovi.

Among the many forms of chimneys and fireplaces seen in Tusayan a curious approach to our own arrangement of fireplace and mantel was noticed in a house in Sichumovi. In addition to the principal mantel ledge, a light wooden shelf was arranged against the wall on one side of the flue, one of its ends being supported by an upright piece of wood with a cap, and the other resting on a peg driven into the wall. This fireplace and mantel is illustrated in [Fig. 67].

Aside from the peculiar “guyave” or “piki” baking oven, there is but little variation in the form of indoor fireplaces in Cibola, while in Tusayan it appears to have been subjected to about the same mutations

already noted in the outdoor cooking pits. A serious problem was encountered by the Tusayan builder when he was called upon to construct cooking-pit fireplaces, a foot or more deep, in a loom of an upper terrace. As it was impracticable to sink the pit into the floor, the necessary depth was obtained by walling up the sides, as is shown in [Fig. 68], which illustrates a second-story fireplace in Mashongnavi. Other examples may be seen in the outdoor chimneys shown in Figs. [72] and [73].

Fig. 68. A second-story fireplace in Mashongnavi.

A modification of the interior fireplace designed for cooking the thin, paper-like bread, known to the Spanish-speaking peoples of this region as “guyave,” and by the Tusayan as “piki,” is common to both Cibola and Tusayan, though in the former province the contrivance is more carefully constructed than in the latter, and the surface of the baking stone itself is more highly finished. In the guyave oven a tablet of carefully prepared sandstone is supported in a horizontal position by two slabs set on edge and firmly imbedded in the floor. A horizontal flue is thus formed in which the fire is built. The upper stone, whose surface is to receive the thin guyave batter, undergoes during its original preparation a certain treatment with fire and piñon gum, and perhaps other ingredients, which imparts to it a highly polished black finish. This operation is usually performed away from the pueblo, near a point where suitable stone is found, and is accompanied by a ceremonial, which is intended to prevent the stone from breaking on exposure to the fire when first used. During one stage of these rites the strictest silence is enjoined, as, according to the native account, a single word spoken at such a time would crack the tablet.