Plate LVIII. Fragments of Halona wall.
Mr. Cushing thought that the outer western wall of the ancient pueblo was curved in outline. It is more probable, however, that it regulated the lines of the present outer rooms, and is reflected in them, as the usual practice of these builders was to put one partition directly over another in adding to the height of a building. This would suggest a nearly rectangular form, perhaps with jogs and offsets, for the old builders could not incorporate a curved outer wall into a mass of rectangular cells, such as that seen in the present pueblo. On the other hand, the outer wall of the original pueblo may have been outside of rooms now occupied, for the village had been abandoned for some time before the colony returned to the site.
Plate LIX. The mesa of Tâaaiyalana, from Zuñi.
[ TÂAAIYALANA.]
On the abandonment of the pueblos known as the Seven Cities of Cibola, supposed to have occurred at the time of the general uprising of the pueblos in 1680, the inhabitants of all the Cibolan villages sought refuge on the summit of Tâaaiyalana, an isolated mesa, 3 miles southeast from Zuñi, and there built a number of pueblo clusters.
This mesa, otherwise known as “Thunder Mountain,” rises to the height of 1,000 feet above the plain, and is almost inaccessible. There are two foot trails leading to the summit, each of which in places traverses abrupt slopes of sandstone where holes have been pecked into the rock to furnish foot and hand holds. From the northeast side the summit of the mesa can be reached by a rough and tortuous burro trail. All the rest of the mesa rim is too precipitous to be scaled. Its appearance as seen from Zuñi is shown in [Pl. LIX].
On the southern portion of this impregnable site and grouped about a point where nearly the whole drainage of the mesa top collects, are found the village remains. The Zuñis stated that the houses were distributed in six groups or clusters, each taking the place of one of the abandoned towns. Mr. Frank H. Cushing [4] was also under the impression
that these houses had been built as six distinct clusters of one village, and he has found that at the time of the Pueblo rebellion, but six of the Cibolan villages were occupied. An examination of the plan, however, will at once show that no such definite scheme of arrangement governed the builders. There are but three, or at most four groups that could be defined as distinct clusters, and even in the case of these the disposition is so irregular and their boundaries so ill defined, through the great number of outlying small groups scattered about, that they can hardly be considered distinct. There are really thirty-eight separate buildings ([Pl. LX]) ranging in size from one of two rooms, near the southern extremity to one of one hundred and three rooms, situated at the southwestern corner of the whole group and close to the western edge of the mesa where the foot trails reach the summit. There is also great diversity in the arrangement of rooms. In some cases the clusters are quite compact, and in others the rooms are distributed in narrow rows. In the large cluster at the northwestern extremity the houses are arranged around a court; with this exception the clusters of rooms are scattered about in an irregular manner, regardless of any defensive arrangement of the buildings. The builders evidently placed the greatest reliance on their impregnable site, and freely adopted such arrangement as convenience dictated.