A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola: Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 3-228Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola: Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 3-228
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities; Pueblo architecture
Mr. Stephen has been informed by the Indians that the man is a mason and
the woman the plasterer, the house belonging to the woman when finished;
but according to my own observation this is not the universal practice
in modern Tusayan. In the case of the house in Oraibi, illustrated in
Pl. XL from a photograph, much, if not all, of the masonry was laid, as
well as finished and plastered, by the woman of the house and her female
relatives. There was but one man present at this house-building, whose
grudgingly performed duty consisted of lifting the larger roof beams and
lintels into place and of giving occasional assistance in the heavier
work. The ground about this house was strewn with quantities of broken
stone for masonry, which seemed to be all prepared and brought to the
spot before building began; but often the various divisions of the work
are carried on by both men and women simultaneously. While the men were
dressing the stones, the women brought earth and water and mixed a mud
plaster. Then the walls were laid in irregular courses, using the mortar
very sparingly.
The house is always built in the form of a parallelogram, the walls
being from 7 to 8 feet high, and of irregular thickness, sometimes
varying from 15 to 22 inches in different parts of the same wall.
Pine, piñon, juniper, cottonwood, willow, and indeed all the available
trees of the region are used in house construction. The main beams for
the roof are usually of pine or cottonwood, from which the bark has been
stripped. The roof is always made nearly level, and the ends of the
beams are placed across the side walls at intervals of about 2 feet.
Above these are laid smaller poles parallel with the side walls, and not
more than a foot apart. Across these again are laid reeds or small
willows, as close together as they can be placed, and above this series
is crossed a layer of grass or small twigs and weeds. Over this
framework a layer of mud is spread, which, after drying, is covered with
earth and firmly trodden down. The making of the roof is the work of the
women. When it is finished the women proceed to spread a thick coating
of mud for a floor. After this follows the application of plaster to the
walls. Formerly a custom prevailed of leaving a small space on the wall
unplastered, a belief then existing that a certain Katchina came and
finished it, and although the space remained bare it was considered to
be covered with an invisible plaster.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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