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
The few wooden stools observed show very primitive workmanship, and are
usually made of a single piece of wood. Fig. 107 illustrates two forms
of wooden stool from Zuñi. The small three-legged stool on the left has
been cut from the trunk of a piñon tree in such a manner as to utilize
as legs the three branches into which the main stem separated. The other
stool illustrated is also cut from a single piece of tree trunk, which
has been reduced in weight by cutting out one side, leaving the two ends
for support.
[Illustration: Fig. 108. A Zuñi chair.]
A curiously worked chair of modern form seen in Zuñi is illustrated in
Fig. 108. It was difficult to determine the antiquity of this specimen,
as its rickety condition may have been due to the clumsy workmanship
quite as much as to the effects of age. Rude as is the workmanship,
however, it was far beyond the unaided skill of the native craftsman to
join and mortise the various pieces that go to make up this chair. Some
decorative effect has been sought here, the ornamentation, made up of
notches and sunken grooves, closely resembling that on the window sash
illustrated in Fig. 88, and somewhat similar in effect to the carving on
the Spanish beams seen in the Tusayan kivas. The whole construction
strongly suggests Spanish influence.
Even the influence of Americans has as yet failed to bring about the use
of tables or bedsteads among the pueblo Indians. The floor answers all
the purposes of both these useful articles of furniture. The food dishes
are placed directly upon it at meal times, and at night the blankets,
rugs, and sheep skins that form the bed are spread directly upon it.
These latter, during the day, are suspended upon the clothes pole
previously described and illustrated.
CORRALS AND GARDENS.
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