A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola | Page 4

formerly occupied. Of these the

greater number are scattered along the upper course of the Rio Grande
and its tributaries in New Mexico; a few of them, comprised within the
ancient provinces of Cibola and Tusayan, are located within the
drainage of the Little Colorado. From the time of the earliest Spanish
expeditions into the country to the present day, a period covering more
than three centuries, the former province has been often visited by
whites, but the remoteness of Tusayan and the arid and forbidding
character of its surroundings have caused its more complete isolation.
The architecture of this district exhibits a close adherence to aboriginal
practices, still bears the marked impress of its development under the
exacting conditions of an arid environment, and is but slowly yielding
to the influence of foreign ideas.
The present study of the architecture of Tusayan and Cibola embraces
all of the inhabited pueblos of those provinces, and includes a number
of the ruins traditionally connected with them. It will be observed by
reference to the map that the area embraced in these provinces
comprises but a small portion of the vast region over which pueblo
culture once extended.
This study is designed to be followed by a similar study of two typical
groups of ruins, viz, that of Canyon de Chelly, in northeastern Arizona,
and that of the Chaco Canyon, of New Mexico; but it has been
necessary for the writer to make occasional reference to these ruins in
the present paper, both in the discussion of general arrangement and
characteristic ground plans, embodied in Chapters II and III and in the
comparison by constructional details treated in Chapter IV, in order to
define clearly the relations of the various features of pueblo
architecture. They belong to the same pueblo system illustrated by the
villages of Tusayan and Cibola, and with the Canyon de Chelly group
there is even some trace of traditional connection, as is set forth by Mr.
Stephen in Chapter I. The more detailed studies of these ruins, to be
published later, together with the material embodied in the present
paper, will, it is thought, furnish a record of the principal characteristics
of an important type of primitive architecture, which, under the
influence of the arid environment of the southwestern plateaus, has
developed from the rude lodge into the many-storied house of

rectangular rooms. Indications of some of the steps of this development
are traceable even in the architecture of the present day.
The pueblo of Zuñi was surveyed by the writer in the autumn of 1881
with a view to procuring the necessary data for the construction of a
large-scale model of this pueblo. For this reason the work afforded a
record of external features only.
The modern pueblos of Tusayan were similarly surveyed in the
following season (1882-'83), the plans being supplemented by
photographs, from which many of the illustrations accompanying this
paper have been drawn. The ruin of Awatubi was also included in the
work of this season.
In the autumn of 1885 many of the ruined pueblos of Tusayan were
surveyed and examined. It was during this season's work that the details
of the kiva construction, embodied in the last chapter of this paper,
were studied, together with interior details of the dwellings. It was in
the latter part of this season that the farming pueblos of Cibola were
surveyed and photographed.
The Tusayan farming pueblo of Moen-kopi and a number of the ruins
in the province were surveyed and studied in the early part of the
season of 1887-'88, the latter portion of which season was principally
devoted to an examination of the Chaco ruins in New Mexico.
In the prosecution of the field work above outlined the author has been
greatly indebted to the efficient assistance and hearty cooperation of Mr.
Cosmos Mindeleff, by whom nearly all the pueblos illustrated, with the
exception of Zuñi, have been surveyed and platted.
The plans obtained have involved much careful work with surveying
instruments, and have all been so platted as faithfully to record the
minute variations from geometric forms which are so characteristic of
the pueblo work, but which have usually been ignored in the hastily
prepared sketch plans that have at times appeared. In consequence of
the necessary omission of just such information in hastily drawn plans,
erroneous impressions have been given regarding the degree of skill to

which the pueblo peoples had attained in the planning and building of
their villages. In the general distribution of the houses, and in the
alignment and arrangement of their walls, as indicated in the plans
shown in Chapters II and III, an absence of high architectural
attainment is found, which is entirely in keeping with the lack of skill
apparent in many of the constructional devices shown in Chapter