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
[Illustration: Fig. 109. Construction of a Zuñi corral.]
Within the village of Zuñi inclosures resembling miniature corrals are
sometimes seen built against the houses; these are used as cages for
eagles. A number of these birds are kept in Zuñi for the sake of their
plumage, which is highly valued for ceremonial purposes. Pl. CXI
illustrates one of these coops, constructed partly with a thin adobe
wall and partly with stakes arranged like those of the corrals.
In both of the pueblo groups under discussion, small gardens contiguous
to the villages are frequent. Those of Tusayan are walled in with stone.
Within the pueblo of Zuñi a small group of garden patches is inclosed by
stake fences, but the majority of the gardens in the vicinity of the
principal villages are provided with low walls of mud masonry. The small
terraced gardens here are near the river bank on the southwest and
southeast sides of the village. The inclosed spaces, averaging in size
about 10 feet square, are used for the cultivation of red peppers,
beans, etc., which, during the dry season, are watered by hand. These
inclosures, situated close to the dwellings, suggest a probable
explanation for similar inclosures found in many of the ruins in the
southern and eastern portions of the ancient pueblo region. Mr.
Bandelier was informed by the Pimas[10] that these inclosures were
ancient gardens. He concluded that since acequias were frequent in the
immediate vicinity these gardens must have been used as reserves in case
of war, when the larger fields were not available, but the manner of
their occurrence in Zuñi suggests rather that they were intended for
cultivation of special crops, such as pepper, beans, cotton, and perhaps
also of a variety of tobacco--corn, melons, squashes, etc., being
cultivated elsewhere in larger tracts. There is a large group of gardens
on the bank of the stream at the southeastern corner of Zuñi, and here
there are slight indications of terracing. A second group on the steeper
slope at the southwestern corner is distinctly terraced. Small walled
gardens of the same type as these Zuñi examples occur in the vicinity of
some of the Tusayan villages on the middle mesa. They are located near
the springs or water pockets, apparently to facilitate watering by hand.
Some of them contain a few small peach trees in addition to the
vegetable crops ordinarily met with. The clusters here are, as a rule,
smaller than those of Zuñi, as there is much less space available in the
vicinity of the springs. At one point on the west side of the first
mesa, a few miles above Walpi, a copious spring serves to irrigate quite
an extensive series of small garden patches distributed over lower
slopes.
[Footnote 10: Fifth Ann. Rept. Arch. Inst. Am., p. 92.]
[Illustration: Fig. 110. Gardens of Zuñi.]
[Illustration: Plate CVI. Sealed openings in a detached house of
Nutria.]
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