A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola Part 24

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

The modern villages of Tusayan and Cibola differ more widely in arrangement and in the relation they bear to the surrounding topography than did their predecessors even of historic times.

Many of the older pueblos of both groups appear to have belonged to the valley types--villages of considerable size, located in open plains or on the slopes of low-lying foothills. A comparison of the plans in Chapters II and III will ill.u.s.trate these differences. In Tusayan the necessity of defense has driven the builders to inaccessible sites, so that now all the occupied villages of the province are found on mesa summits. The inhabitants of the valley pueblos of Cibola, although compelled at one time to build their houses upon the almost inaccessible summit of Taaiyalana mesa, occupied this site only temporarily, and soon established a large valley pueblo, the size and large population of which afforded that defensive efficiency which the Tusayan obtained only by building on mesa promontories. This has resulted in some adherence on the part of the Tusayan to the village plans of their ancestors, while at Zuni the great house cl.u.s.ters, forming the largest pueblo occupied in modern times, show a wide departure from the primitive types. In both provinces the architecture is distinguished from that of other portions of the pueblo region by greater irregularity of plan and by less skillfully executed constructional details; each group, however, happens to contain a notable exception to this general carelessness.

In Cibola the pueblo of Kin-tiel, built with a continuous defensive outer wall, occupies architecturally a somewhat anomalous position, notwithstanding its traditional connection with the group, and the Fire House occupies much the same relation in reference to Tusayan. The latter, however, does not break in upon the unity of the group, since the Tusayan, to a much greater extent than the Zui, are made up of remnants of various bands of builders. In Cibola, however, some of the Indians state that their ancestors, before reaching Zui, built a number of pueblos, whose ruins are distinguished from those ill.u.s.trated in the present paper by the presence of circular kivas, this form of ceremonial room being, apparently, wholly absent from the Cibolan pueblos here discussed.

The people of Cibola and of Tusayan belong to distinct linguistic stocks, but their arts are very closely related, the differences being no greater than would result from the slightly different conditions that have operated within the last few generations. Zui, perhaps, came more directly under early Spanish influence than Tusayan.

Churches were established, as has been seen, in both provinces, but it is doubtful whether their presence produced any lasting impression on the people. In Tusayan the sway of the Spaniards was very brief. At some of the pueblos the churches seem to have been built outside of the village proper where ample s.p.a.ce was available within the pueblo; but such an encroachment on the original inclosed courts seems never to have been attempted. Zui is an apparent exception; but all the house cl.u.s.ters east of the church have probably been built later than the church itself, the church court of the present village being a much larger area than would be reserved for the usual pueblo court. These early churches were, as a rule, built of adobe, even when occurring in stone pueblos. The only exception noticed is at Ketchipauan, where it was built of the characteristic Indian smoothly c.h.i.n.ked masonry. The Spaniards usually intruded their own construction, even to the composition of the bricks, which are nearly always made of straw adobe.

At Tusayan there is no evidence that a church or mission house ever formed part of the villages on the mesa summits. Their plans are complete in themselves, and probably represent closely the first pueblos built on these sites. These summits have been extensively occupied only in comparatively recent times, although one or more small cl.u.s.ters may have been built here at an early date as outlooks over the fields in the valleys below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate CX. Portion of a corral in Pescado.]

It is to be noted that some of the ruins connected traditionally and historically with Tusayan and Cibola differ in no particular from stone pueblos widely scattered over the southwestern plateaus which have been from time to time invested with a halo of romantic antiquity, and regarded as remarkable achievements in civilization by a vanished but once powerful race. These deserted stone houses, occurring in the midst of desert solitudes, appealed strongly to the imaginations of early explorers, and their stimulated fancy connected the remains with Aztecs and other mysterious peoples. That this early implanted bias has caused the invention of many ingenious theories concerning the origin and disappearance of the builders of the ancient pueblos, is amply attested in the conclusions reached by many of the writers on this subject.

In connection with the architectural examination of some of these remains many traditions have been obtained from the present tribes, clearly indicating that some of the village ruins, and even cliff dwellings, have been built and occupied by ancestors of the present Pueblo Indians, sometimes at a date well within the historic period.

The migrations of the Tusayan clans, as described in the legends collected by Mr. Stephen, were slow and tedious. While they pursued their wanderings and awaited the favorable omens of the G.o.ds they halted many times and planted. They speak traditionally of stopping at certain places on their routes during a certain number of plantings, always building the characteristic stone pueblos and then again taking up the march.

When these Indians are questioned as to whence they came, their replies are various and conflicting; but this is due to the fact that the members of one clan came, after a long series of wanderings, from the north, for instance, while those of other gentes may have come last from the east. The tribe to-day seems to be made up of a collection or a confederacy of many enfeebled remnants of independent phratries and groups once more numerous and powerful. Some clans traditionally referred to as having been important are now represented by few survivors, and bid fair soon to become extinct. So the members of each phratry have their own store of traditions, relating to the wanderings of their own ancestors, which differ from those of other clans, and refer to villages successively built and occupied by them. In the case of others of the pueblos, the occupation of cliff dwellings and cave lodges is known to have occurred within historic times.

Both architectural and traditional evidence are in accord in establis.h.i.+ng a continuity of descent from the ancient Pueblos to those of the present day. Many of the communities are now made up of the more or less scattered but interrelated remnants of gentes which in former times occupied villages, the remains of which are to-day looked upon as the early homes of Aztec colonies, etc.

The adaptation, of this architecture to the peculiar environment indicates that it has long been practiced under the same conditions that now prevail. Nearly all of the ancient pueblos were built of the sandstone found in natural quarries at the bases of hundreds of cliffs throughout these table-lands. This stone readily breaks into small pieces of regular form, suitable for use in the simple masonry of the pueblos without receiving any artificial treatment. The walls themselves give an exaggerated idea of finish, owing to the care and neatness with which the component stones are placed. Some of the ill.u.s.trations in the last chapter, from photographs, show clearly that the material of the walls was much ruder than the appearance of the finished masonry would suggest, and that this finish depended on the careful selection and arrangement of the fragments. This is even more noticeable in the Chaco ruins, in which the walls were wrought to a high degrees of surface finish. The core of the wall was laid up with the larger and more irregular stones, and was afterwards brought to a smooth face by carefully filling in and c.h.i.n.king the joints with smaller stones and fragments, sometimes not more than a quarter of an inch thick; this method is still roughly followed by both Tusayan and Cibolan builders.

Although many details of construction and arrangement display remarkable adaptation to the physical character of the country, yet the influence of such environment would not alone suffice to produce this architectural type. In order to develop the results found, another element was necessary. This element was the necessity for defense. The pueblo population was probably subjected to the more or less continuous influence of this defensive motive throughout the period of their occupation of this territory. A strong independent race of people, who had to fear no invasion by stronger foes, would necessarily have been influenced more by the physical environment and would have progressed further in the art of building, but the motive for building rectangular rooms--the initial point of departure in the development of pueblo architecture--would not have been brought into action. The crowding of many habitations upon a small cliff ledge or other restricted site, resulting in the rectangular form of rooms, was most likely due to the conditions imposed by this necessity for defense.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate CXI. Zui eagle-cage.]

The general outlines of the development of this architecture wherein the ancient builders were stimulated to the best use of the exceptional materials about them, both by the difficult conditions of their semi-desert environment and by constant necessity for protection against their neighbors, can be traced in its various stages of growth from the primitive conical lodge to its culmination in the large communal village of many-storied terraced buildings which we find to have been in use at the time of the Spanish discovery, and which still survives in Zui, perhaps its most striking modern example. Yet the various steps have resulted from a simple and direct use of the material immediately at hand, while methods gradually improved as frequent experiments taught the builders more fully to utilize local facilities. In all cases the material was derived from the nearest available source, and often variations in the quality of the finished work are due to variations in the quality of the stone near by. The results accomplished attest the patient and persistent industry of the ancient builders, but the work does not display great skill in construction or in preparation of material. The same desert environment that furnished such an abundance of material for the ancient builders, also, from its difficult and inhospitable character and the constant variations in the water supply, compelled the frequent employment of this material. This was an important factor in bringing about the attained degree of advancement in the building art. At the present day constant local changes occur in the water sources of these arid table-lands, while the general character of the climate remains unaltered.

The distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristics of Pueblo architecture may be regarded as the product of a defensive motive and of an arid environment that furnished an abundance of suitable building material, and at the same time the climatic conditions that compelled its frequent employment.

The decline of the defensive motive within the last few years has greatly affected the more recent architecture. Even after the long practice of the system has rendered it somewhat fixed, comparative security from attack has caused many of the Pueblo Indians to recognize the inconvenience of dwellings grouped in large cl.u.s.ters on sites difficult of access, while the sources of their subsistence are necessarily spa.r.s.ely scattered over large areas. This is noticeable in the building of small, detached houses at a distance from the main villages, the greater convenience to crops, flocks and water outweighing the defensive motive. In Cibola particularly, a marked tendency in this direction has shown itself within a score of years; Ojo Caliente, the newest of the farming pueblos, is perhaps the most striking example within the two provinces. The greater security of the pueblos as the country comes more fully into the hands of Americans, has also resulted in the more careless construction in modern examples as compared with the ancient.

There is no doubt that, as time shall go on, the system of building many-storied cl.u.s.ters of rectangular rooms will gradually be abandoned by these people. In the absence of the defensive motive a more convenient system, employing scattered small houses, located near springs and fields, will gradually take its place, thus returning to a mode of building that probably prevailed in the evolution of the pueblo prior to the cl.u.s.tering of many rooms into large defensive villages. Pl.

Lx.x.xIII ill.u.s.trates a building of the type described located on the outskirts of Zui, across the river from the main pueblo.

The cultural distinctions between the Pueblo Indians and neighboring tribes gradually become less clearly defined as investigation progresses. Mr. Cus.h.i.+ngs study of the Zui social, political, and religious systems has clearly established their essential ident.i.ty in grade of culture with those of other tribes. In many of the arts, too, such as weaving, ceramics, etc., these people in no degree surpa.s.s many tribes who build ruder dwellings.

In architecture, though, they have progressed far beyond their neighbors; many of the devices employed attest the essentially primitive character of the art, and demonstrate that the apparent distinction in grade of culture is mainly due to the exceptional condition of the environment.