Plate LIV. Recent wall at K’iakima.
A striking feature of this ruin is the occurrence in the northeast corner of the village of large upright slabs of stone. The largest of these is about 3 feet wide and stands 5½ feet out of the ground. One of the slabs is of such symmetrical form that it suggests skillful artificial treatment, but the stone was used just as it came from a seam in the cliff above. From the same seam many slabs of nearly equal size and symmetrical form have fallen out and now lie scattered about on the talus below. Some are remarkable for their perfectly rectangular form, while all are distinguished by a notable uniformity in thickness. Close by, and apparently forming part of the same group, are a number of stones imbedded in the ground with their upper edges exposed and placed at right angles to the faces of the vertical monuments. The taller slabs are said by the Indians to have been erected as a defense against the attacks of the Apache upon this pueblo, but only a portion of the group could, from their position, have been of any use for this
purpose. The stones probably mark graves. Although thorough excavation of the hard soil could not be undertaken, digging to the depth of 18 inches revealed the same character of pottery fragments, ashes, etc., found in many of the pueblo graves. Mr. E. W. Nelson found identical remains in graves in the Rio San Francisco region which he excavated in collecting pottery. Comparatively little is known, however, of the burial practices of this region, so it would be difficult to decide whether this was an ordinary method of burial or not.
This pueblo has been identified by Mr. Cushing, through Zuñi tradition, as the scene of the death of Estevanico, the negro who accompanied the first Spanish expedition to Cibola.
[ MATSAKI.]
Matsaki is situated on a foothill at the base of Tâaaiyalana, near its northwestern extremity. This pueblo is in about the same state of preservation as K’iakima, no complete rooms being traceable over most of the area. Traces of walls, where seen, are not uniform in direction, suggesting irregular grouping of the village. At two points on the plan rooms partially bounded by standing walls are found. These appear to owe their preservation to their occupation as outlooks over fields in the vicinity long after the destruction of the pueblo. One of the two rooms shows only a few feet of rather rude masonry. The walls of the other room, in one corner, stand the height of a full story above the surrounding débris, a low room under it having been partially filled up with fallen masonry and earth. The well preserved inner corner of the exposed room shows lumps of clay adhering here and there to the walls, the remnants of an interior corner chimney. No trace of the supports for a chimney hood, such as occur in the modern fireplaces, could be found. The form outlined against the wall by these slight remains indicates a rather rudely constructed feature which was added at a late date to the room and formed no part of its original construction. It was probably built while the room was used as a farming outlook. As shown on the ground plan ([Pl. LV]), a small cluster of houses once stood at some little distance to the southwest of the main pueblo and was connected with the latter by a series of rooms. The intervening space may have been a court. At the northern edge of the village a primitive shrine has been erected in recent times and is still in use. It is rudely constructed by simply piling up stones to a height of 2½ or 3 feet, in a rudely rectangular arrangement, with an opening on the east. This shrine, facing east, contains an upright slab of thin sandstone on which a rude sun-symbol has been engraved. The governor of Zuñi, in explaining the purpose of this shrine, compared its use to that of our own astronomical observatories, which he had seen.
Plate LV. Matsaki, plan.