The term for the terraced roofs is ihpobi, and is applied to all of them; but the tupatca ihpobi, or third terrace, is the place of general resort, and is regarded as a common loitering place, no one claiming distinct ownership. This is suggestive of an early communal dwelling, but nothing definite can now be ascertained on this point. In this connection it may also be noted that the eldest sister’s house is regarded as their home by her younger brothers and her nieces and nephews.
Aside from the tupubi, there are numerous small rooms especially constructed for baking the thin, paper-like bread called piki. These are usually not more than from 5 to 7 feet high, with interior dimensions not larger than 7 feet by 10, and they are called tumcokobi, the place of the flat stone, tuma being the name of the stone itself, and tcok describing its flat position. Many of the ground-floor rooms in the dwelling houses are also devoted to this use.
The terms above are those more commonly used in referring to the houses and their leading features. A more exhaustive vocabulary of architectural terms, comprising those especially applied to the various constructional features of the kivas or ceremonial rooms, and to the “kisis,” or temporary brush shelters for field use, will be found near the end of this paper.
The only trace of a traditional village plan, or arrangement of contiguous houses, is found in a meager mention in some of the traditions, that rows of houses were built to inclose the kiva, and to form an appropriate place for the public dances and processions of masked dancers. No definite ground plan, however, is ascribed to these traditional court-inclosing houses, although at one period in the evolution of this defensive type of architecture they must have partaken somewhat of the symmetrical grouping found on the Rio Chaco and elsewhere.
[ LOCALIZATION OF GENTES.]
In the older and more symmetrical examples there was doubtless some effort to distribute the various gentes, or at least the phratries, in definite quarters of the village, as stated traditionally. At the present day, however, there is but little trace of such localization. In the case of Oraibi, the largest of the Tusayan villages, Mr. Stephen has with great care and patience ascertained the distribution of the various gentes in the village, as recorded on the accompanying skeleton plan
([Pl. XXXVII]). An examination of the diagram in connection with the appended list of the families occupying Oraibi will at once show that, however clearly defined may have been the quarters of various gentes in the traditional village, the greatest confusion prevails at the present time. The families numerically most important, such as the Reed, Coyote, Lizard, and Badger, are represented in all of the larger house clusters.