A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth | Page 3

my own observations in the field but with the kind of linguistic research above recorded. It would also apparently explain the occurrence of the circular semisubterranean _kí wi tsi we_, or estufas. These being sacred have retained the pristine form long after the adoption of a modified type of structure for ordinary or secular purposes, according to the well known law of survival in ceremonial appurtenances.
In a majority of the lava ruins (for example those occurring near Prescott, Arizona), I have observed that the sloping sides rather than the level tops of mesa headlands have been chosen by the ancients as building-sites. Here, the rude, square type of building prevails, not, however, to the entire exclusion of the circular type, which, is represented by loosely constructed walls, always on the outskirts of the main ruins. The rectangular rooms are, as a rule, built row above row. Some of the houses in the upper rows give evidence of having overlapped others below. (See section, Fig. 495.)
FLAT AND TERRACED ROOFS DEVELOPED FROM SLOPING MESA-SITES.
We cannot fail to take notice of the indications which this brings before us.
(1) It is quite probable that the overlapping resulted from an increase in the numbers of the ancient builders relative to available area, this, as in the first instance, leading to a further massing together of the houses. (2) It suggested the employment of rafters and the formation of the flat roof, as a means of supplying a level entrance way and floor to rooms which, built above and to the rear of a first line of houses, yet extended partially over the latter. (3) This is I think the earliest form of the terrace.
[Illustration: FIG. 495.--Section illustrating evolution of flat roof and terrace]
It is therefore not surprising that the flat roof of to-day is named _té k'os kw?n ne_, from te, space, region, extension, _k'os kwi e_, to cut off in the sense of closing or shutting in from one side, and _kw?n ne_, place of. Nor is it remarkable that no type of ruin in the Southwest seems to connect these first terraced towns with the later not only terraced but also literally cellular buildings, which must be regarded nevertheless as developed from them. The reason for this will become evident on further examination.
[Illustration: FIG. 496.--Perspective view of a typical solitary house.]
[Illustration: FIG. 497.--Plan of a typical solitary house.]
The modern name for house is _k'iá kw?n ne_, from _k'iá we_, water, and kwin ne, place of, literally "watering place;" which is evidence that the first properly so called houses known to the Pueblos were solitary and built near springs, pools, streams, or well-places. The universal occurrence of the vestiges of single houses throughout the less forbidding tracts of the Pueblo country (see Figs. 496 and 497) leads to this inference and to the supposition that the necessity for protection being at last overcome, the denizens of the lava-fields, where planting was well-nigh impossible, descended, building wherever conditions favored the horticulture which gradually came to be their chief means of support. As irrigation was not known until long afterwards, arable areas were limited, hence they were compelled to divide into families or small clans, each occupying a single house. The traces of these solitary farm-houses show that they were at first single-storied. The name of an upper room indicates how the idea of the second or third story was developed, as it is _ósh ten u thlan_, from _ósh ten_, a shallow cave, or rock-shelter, and _ú thla nai e_, placed around, embracing, inclusive of. This goes to show that it was not until after the building of the first small farm-houses (which gave the name to houses) that the caves or rock-shelters of the cliffs were occupied. If predatory border-tribes, tempted by the food-stores of the horticultural farm-house builders, made incursions on the latter, they would find them, scattered as they were, an easy prey.
ADDED STORIES FOR CLIFF DWELLINGS DEVELOPED FROM LIMITATIONS OF CLIFF-HOUSE SITES.
[Illustration: FIG. 498.--A typical cliff-dwelling.]
This condition of things would drive the people to seek security in the neighboring cliffs of fertile canons, where not only might they build their dwelling places in the numerous rock-shelters, but they could also cultivate their crops in comparative safety along the limited tracts which these eyries overlooked. The narrow foothold afforded by many of these elevated cliff-shelves or shelters would force the fugitives to construct house over house; that is, build a second or upper story around the roof of the cavern. What more natural than that this upper room should take a name most descriptive of its situation--as that portion built around the cavern-shelter or _ósh ten_--or that, when the intervention of peace made return to the abandoned farms of the plains or a change of condition possible, the idea of the second