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
All the joints of these hoods, and even the material used, are generally
concealed from view by a carefully applied coating of plaster,
supplemented by a gypsum wash, and usually there is no visible evidence
of the manner in which they are built, but the construction is little
superior to that of the simple corner hoods. The method of framing the
various types of hoods is illustrated in Fig. 66. The example on the
left shows an unplastered wooden hood skeleton. The arrangement of the
parts in projecting rectangular stone hoods is illustrated in the
right-hand diagram of the figure. In constructing such a chimney a thin
buttress is first built against the wall of sufficient width and height
to support one side of the hood. The opposite side of the hood is
supported by a flat stone, firmly set on edge into the masonry of the
wall. The front of the hood is supported by a second flat stone which
rests at one end on a rude shoulder in the projecting slab, and at the
other end upon the front edge of the buttress. It would be quite
practicable for the pueblo builders to form a notch in the lower corner
of the supported stone to rest firmly upon a projection of the
supporting stone, but in the few cases in which the construction could
be observed no such treatment was seen, for they depended mainly on the
interlocking of the ragged ends of the stones. This structure serves to
support the body of the flue, usually with an intervening stone-covered
space forming a shelf. At the present period the flue is usually built
of thin sandstone slabs, rudely adjusted to afford mutual support. The
whole structure is bound together and smoothed over with mud plastering,
and is finally finished with the gypsum wash, applied also to the rest
of the room. Mr. A. F. Bandelier describes “a regular chimney, with
mantel and shelf, built of stone slabs,” which he found “in the caves of
the Rito de los Frijoles, as well as in the cliff dwellings of the
regular detached family house type,”[7] which, from the description,
must have closely resembled the Zuñi chimney described above. Houses
containing such devices may be quite old, but if so they were certainly
reoccupied in post-Spanish times. Such dwellings are likely to have been
used as places of refuge in times of danger up to a comparatively recent
date.
[Footnote 7: Fifth Ann. Rept. Arch. Inst. Am., p. 74.]
[Illustration: Fig. 66. Unplastered Zuñi chimney hoods, illustrating
construction.]
Among the many forms of chimneys and fireplaces seen in Tusayan a
curious approach to our own arrangement of fireplace and mantel was
noticed in a house in Sichumovi. In addition to the principal mantel
ledge, a light wooden shelf was arranged against the wall on one side of
the flue, one of its ends being supported by an upright piece of wood
with a cap, and the other resting on a peg driven into the wall. This
fireplace and mantel is illustrated in Fig. 67.
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