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
On the southern portion of this impregnable site and grouped about a
point where nearly the whole drainage of the mesa top collects, are
found the village remains. The Zuñis stated that the houses were
distributed in six groups or clusters, each taking the place of one of
the abandoned towns. Mr. Frank H. Cushing [4] was also under the
impression that these houses had been built as six distinct clusters of
one village, and he has found that at the time of the Pueblo rebellion,
but six of the Cibolan villages were occupied. An examination of the
plan, however, will at once show that no such definite scheme of
arrangement governed the builders. There are but three, or at most four
groups that could be defined as distinct clusters, and even in the case
of these the disposition is so irregular and their boundaries so ill
defined, through the great number of outlying small groups scattered
about, that they can hardly be considered distinct. There are really
thirty-eight separate buildings (Pl. LX) ranging in size from one of two
rooms, near the southern extremity to one of one hundred and three
rooms, situated at the southwestern corner of the whole group and close
to the western edge of the mesa where the foot trails reach the summit.
There is also great diversity in the arrangement of rooms. In some cases
the clusters are quite compact, and in others the rooms are distributed
in narrow rows. In the large cluster at the northwestern extremity the
houses are arranged around a court; with this exception the clusters of
rooms are scattered about in an irregular manner, regardless of any
defensive arrangement of the buildings. The builders evidently placed
the greatest reliance on their impregnable site, and freely adopted such
arrangement as convenience dictated.
[Footnote 4: See Millstone for April, 1884, Indianapolis, Indiana.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account