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
Carefully worked paneled doors are much more common in Zuñi than in
Tusayan, and within the latter province the villages of the first mesa
make more extended use of this type of door, as they have come into more
intimate contact with their eastern brethren than other villages of the
group. Fig. 77 illustrates a portion of a Hano house in which two wooden
doors occur. These specimens indicate the rudeness of Tusayan
workmanship. It will be seen that the workman who framed the upper one
of these doors met with considerable difficulty in properly joining the
two boards of the panel and in connecting these with the frame. The
figure shows that at several points the door has been reenforced and
strengthened by buckskin and rawhide thongs. The same device has been
employed in the lower door, both in fastening together the two pieces of
the panel and in attaching the latter to the framing. These doors also
illustrate the customary manner of barring the door during the absence
of the occupant of the house.
The doorway is usually framed at the time the house is built. The sill
is generally elevated above the ground outside and the floor inside, and
the door openings, with a few exceptions, are thus practically only
large windows. In this respect they follow the arrangement
characteristic of the ancient pueblos, in which all the larger openings
are window-like doorways. These are sometimes seen on the court margin
of house rows, and frequently occur between communicating rooms within
the cluster. They are usually raised about a foot and a half above the
floor, and in some cases are provided with one or two steps. In Zuñi,
doorways between communicating rooms, though now framed in wood,
preserve the same arrangement, as may be seen in Pl. LXXXVI.
[Illustration: Fig. 78. Framing of a Zuñi door-panel.]
The side pieces of a paneled pueblo door are mortised, an achievement
far beyond the aboriginal art of these people. Fig. 78 illustrates the
manner in which the framing is done. All the necessary grooving, and the
preparation of the projecting tenons is laboriously executed with the
most primitive tools, in many cases the whole frame, with all its
joints, being cut out with a small knife.
[Illustration: Plate XCI. A group of stone corrals near Oraibi.]
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