At Tusayan there is no evidence that a church or mission house ever formed part of the villages on the mesa summits. Their plans are complete in themselves, and probably represent closely the first pueblos built on these sites. These summits have been extensively occupied only in comparatively recent times, although one or more small clusters may have been built here at an early date as outlooks over the fields in the valleys below.

It is to be noted that some of the ruins connected traditionally and historically with Tusayan and Cibola differ in no particular from stone pueblos widely scattered over the southwestern plateaus which have been from time to time invested with a halo of romantic antiquity, and

regarded as remarkable achievements in civilization by a vanished but once powerful race. These deserted stone houses, occurring in the midst of desert solitudes, appealed strongly to the imaginations of early explorers, and their stimulated fancy connected the remains with “Aztecs” and other mysterious peoples. That this early implanted bias has caused the invention of many ingenious theories concerning the origin and disappearance of the builders of the ancient pueblos, is amply attested in the conclusions reached by many of the writers on this subject.

In connection with the architectural examination of some of these remains many traditions have been obtained from the present tribes, clearly indicating that some of the village ruins, and even cliff dwellings, have been built and occupied by ancestors of the present Pueblo Indians, sometimes at a date well within the historic period.

The migrations of the Tusayan clans, as described in the legends collected by Mr. Stephen, were slow and tedious. While they pursued their wanderings and awaited the favorable omens of the gods they halted many times and planted. They speak traditionally of stopping at certain places on their routes during a certain number of “plantings,” always building the characteristic stone pueblos and then again taking up the march.

When these Indians are questioned as to whence they came, their replies are various and conflicting; but this is due to the fact that the members of one clan came, after a long series of wanderings, from the north, for instance, while those of other gentes may have come last from the east. The tribe to-day seems to be made up of a collection or a confederacy of many enfeebled remnants of independent phratries and groups once more numerous and powerful. Some clans traditionally referred to as having been important are now represented by few survivors, and bid fair soon to become extinct. So the members of each phratry have their own store of traditions, relating to the wanderings of their own ancestors, which differ from those of other clans, and refer to villages successively built and occupied by them. In the case of others of the pueblos, the occupation of cliff dwellings and cave lodges is known to have occurred within historic times.

Both architectural and traditional evidence are in accord in establishing a continuity of descent from the ancient Pueblos to those of the present day. Many of the communities are now made up of the more or less scattered but interrelated remnants of gentes which in former times occupied villages, the remains of which are to-day looked upon as the early homes of “Aztec colonies,” etc.

The adaptation, of this architecture to the peculiar environment indicates that it has long been practiced under the same conditions that now prevail. Nearly all of the ancient pueblos were built of the sandstone found in natural quarries at the bases of hundreds of cliffs throughout these table-lands. This stone readily breaks into small pieces of regular

form, suitable for use in the simple masonry of the pueblos without receiving any artificial treatment. The walls themselves give an exaggerated idea of finish, owing to the care and neatness with which the component stones are placed. Some of the illustrations in the last chapter, from photographs, show clearly that the material of the walls was much ruder than the appearance of the finished masonry would suggest, and that this finish depended on the careful selection and arrangement of the fragments. This is even more noticeable in the Chaco ruins, in which the walls were wrought to a high degrees of surface finish. The core of the wall was laid up with the larger and more irregular stones, and was afterwards brought to a smooth face by carefully filling in and chinking the joints with smaller stones and fragments, sometimes not more than a quarter of an inch thick; this method is still roughly followed by both Tusayan and Cibolan builders.

Although many details of construction and arrangement display remarkable adaptation to the physical character of the country, yet the influence of such environment would not alone suffice to produce this architectural type. In order to develop the results found, another element was necessary. This element was the necessity for defense. The pueblo population was probably subjected to the more or less continuous influence of this defensive motive throughout the period of their occupation of this territory. A strong independent race of people, who had to fear no invasion by stronger foes, would necessarily have been influenced more by the physical environment and would have progressed further in the art of building, but the motive for building rectangular rooms—the initial point of departure in the development of pueblo architecture—would not have been brought into action. The crowding of many habitations upon a small cliff ledge or other restricted site, resulting in the rectangular form of rooms, was most likely due to the conditions imposed by this necessity for defense.