Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology: to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891
History
Eighth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology: to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1886-1887, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891
Navajo Indians -- Rites and ceremonies; Pueblo Indians -- Antiquities; Pueblo architecture
Mr. Cushing had found displaced fragments of such circular stone
doorways at ruins some distance northwest from Zuñi, but had been under
the impression that they were used as roof openings. All examples of
this device known to the writer as having been found in place occurred
in side walls of rooms. Mr. E. W. Nelson, while making collections of
pottery from ruins near Springerville, Arizona, found and sent to the
Smithsonian Institution, in the autumn of 1884, “a flat stone about 18
inches square with a round hole cut in the middle of it. This stone was
taken from the wall of one of the old ruined stone houses near
Springerville, in an Indian ruin. The stone was set in the wall between
two inner rooms of the ruin, and evidently served as a means of
communication or perhaps a ventilator. I send it on mainly as an example
of their stone-working craft.” The position of this feature in the
excavated room of Kin-tiel is indicated on the ground plan, Fig. 60,
which also shows the position of other details seen in the general view
of the room, Pl. C.
A small fragment of a “stone-close” doorway was found incorporated into
the masonry of a flight of outside stone steps at Pescado, indicating
its use in some neighboring ruin, thus bringing it well within the
Cibola district. Another point at which similar remains have been
brought to light is the pueblo of Halona, just across the river from the
present Zuñi. Mr. F. Webb Hodge, recently connected with the Hemenway
Southwestern Archeological Exposition, under the direction of Mr. F. H.
Cushing, describes this form of opening as being of quite common
occurrence in the rooms of this long-buried pueblo. Here the doorways
are associated with the round slabs used for closing them. The latter
were held in place by props within the room. No slabs of this form were
seen at Kin-tiel, but quite possibly some of the large slabs of nearly
rectangular form, found within this ruin, may have served the same
purpose. It would seem more reasonable to use the rectangular slabs
for this purpose when the openings were conveniently near the floors.
No example of the stone-close has as yet been found in Tusayan.
The annular doorway described above affords the only instance known to
the writer where access openings were closed with a rigid device of
aboriginal invention; and from the character of its material this device
was necessarily restricted to openings of small size. The larger
rectangular doorways, when not partly closed by masonry, probably were
covered only with blankets or skin rugs suspended from the lintel.
In the discussion of sealed windows modern examples resembling the
stone-close device will be noted, but these are usually employed in a
more permanent manner.
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