wide, but usually they are much smaller and very irregular in outline. For windows pieces are selected that approximately fit against each other, and thin, flat strips of wood are fixed in a vertical position in the openings to serve as supports for the irregular fragments of selenite, which could not be retained in place without some such provision. The use of window openings at the bases of walls probably suggested this use of vertical sticks as a support to slabs of selenite, as in this position they would be particularly useful, the windows being generally arranged on a slope, as shown in [Fig. 89]. Similar glazing is also employed in the related, obliquely pierced openings of Zuñi, to be described later.
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Fig. 89.
Sloping selenite window at base of Zuñi wall on upper terrace. |
Selenite, in all probability, was not used in pre-Spanish times. No examples have as yet been met with among ruins in the region where this material is found and now used. Throughout the south and east portion of the ancient pueblo region, explored by Mr. A. F. Bandelier, where many of the remains were in a very good state of preservation, no cases of the use of this substance were seen. [Fig. 90] illustrates a typical selenite window.
| Fig. 90.
A Zuñi window glazed with selenite. |
In Zuñi some of the kivas are provided with small external windows framed with slabs of stone. It is likely that the kivas would for a long time perpetuate methods and practices that had been superseded in the construction of dwellings. The use of stone jambs, however, would necessarily be limited to openings of small size, as such use for large openings was beyond the mechanical skill of the pueblo builders.
[Fig. 91] illustrates the manner of making small openings in external exposed walls in Zuñi. Stone frames occur only occasionally in what seem to be the older and least modified portions of the village. At Tusayan, however, this method of framing windows is much more noticeable, as the exceptional crowding that has exercised such an influence on Zuñi construction has not occurred there. The Tusayan houses are arranged more in rows, often with a suggestion of large inclosures resembling the courts of the ancient pueblos. The inclosures have not been encroached upon, the streets are wider, and altogether the earlier methods seem to have been retained in greater purity than in Zuñi. The unbroken outer wall, of two or three stories in height, like the same feature of the old villages, is pierced at various heights with small openings that do not seriously impair its efficiency for defense. Tusayan examples of these loop-hole-like openings maybe seen in Pls. [XXII], [XXIII], and [XXXIX].
Fig. 91. Small openings in the back wall of a Zuñi house-cluster.