In the autumn of 1885 many of the ruined pueblos of Tusayan were surveyed and examined. It was during this season’s work that the details of the kiva construction, embodied in the last chapter of this paper, were studied, together with interior details of the dwellings. It was in the latter part of this season that the farming pueblos of Cibola were surveyed and photographed.
The Tusayan farming pueblo of Moen-kopi and a number of the ruins in the province were surveyed and studied in the early part of the season of 1887-’88, the latter portion of which season was principally devoted to an examination of the Chaco ruins in New Mexico.
In the prosecution of the field work above outlined the author has been greatly indebted to the efficient assistance and hearty cooperation of Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff, by whom nearly all the pueblos illustrated, with the exception of Zuñi, have been surveyed and platted.
The plans obtained have involved much careful work with surveying instruments, and have all been so platted as faithfully to record the minute variations from geometric forms which are so characteristic of the pueblo work, but which have usually been ignored in the hastily prepared sketch plans that have at times appeared. In consequence of the necessary omission of just such information in hastily drawn plans, erroneous impressions have been given regarding the degree of skill to which the pueblo peoples had attained in the planning and building of
their villages. In the general distribution of the houses, and in the alignment and arrangement of their walls, as indicated in the plans shown in Chapters II and III, an absence of high architectural attainment is found, which is entirely in keeping with the lack of skill apparent in many of the constructional devices shown in Chapter IV.
Plate II. Old Mashongnavi, plan.
In preparing this paper for publication Mr. Cosmos Mindeleff has rendered much assistance in the revision of manuscript, and in the preparation of some of the final drawings of ground plans; on him has also fallen the compilation and arrangement of Mr. A. M. Stephen’s traditionary material from Tusayan, embraced in the first chapter of the paper.
This latter material is of special interest in a study of the pueblos as indicating some of the conditions under which this architectural type was developed, and it appropriately introduces the more purely architectural study by the author.