In some of the ancient pueblos such openings were arranged on a distinctly defensive plan, and were constructed with great care. Openings of this type, not more than 4 inches square, pierced the second story outer wall of the pueblo of Wejegi in the Chaco Canyon. In the pueblo of Kin-tiel ([Pl. LXIII]) similar loop-hole-like openings were very skillfully constructed in the outer wall at the rounded northeastern corner of the pueblo. The openings pierced the wall at an oblique angle, as shown on the plan. Two of these channel-like loopholes maybe seen in [Pl. LXV]. This figure also shows the carefully executed jamb corners and faces of three large openings of the second story, which, though greatly undermined by the falling away of the lower masonry, are still held in position by the bond of thin flat stones of which the wall is built.
Plate CVI. Sealed openings in a detached house of Nutria.
It is often the practice in the modern pueblos to seal up the windows of a house with masonry, and sometimes the doors also during the temporary absence of the occupant, which absence often takes place at the seasons of planting and harvesting. At such times many Zuñi families occupy outlying farming pueblos, such as Nutria and Pescado, and the
Tusayans, in a like manner, live in rude summer shelters close to their fields. Such absence from the home pueblo often lasts for a month or more at a time. The work of closing the opening is done sometimes in the roughest manner, but examples are seen in which carefully laid masonry has been used. The latter is sometimes plastered. Occasionally the sealing is done with a thin slab of sandstone, somewhat larger than the opening, held in place with mud plastering, or propped from the inside after the manner of the “stone close” previously described. [Fig. 92] illustrates specimens of sealed openings in the village of Hano of the Tusayan group. The upper window is closed with a single large slab and a few small chinking stones at one side. The masonry used in closing the lower opening is scarcely distinguishable from that of the adjoining walls. [Pl. CVI] illustrates a similar treatment of an opening in a detached house of Nutria, whose occupants had returned to the home pueblo of Zuñi at the close of the harvesting season. The doorway in this case is only partly closed, leaving a window-like aperture at
its top, and the stones used for the purpose are simply piled up without the use of adobe mortar.
Fig. 92. Sealed openings in Tusayan.