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d and acknowledged by the artisan; on the contrary, experiments, resulting in improvement, are largely prompted by practical requirements. Particularly is this the case in the art of house-building. SHUMOPAVI. This village, although not so isolated as Oraibi, has no near neighbors and is little visited by whites or Indians. The inhabitants are rarely seen at the trading post to which the others resort, and they seem to be pretty well off and independent as compared with their neighbors of the other villages (Pl. XXXIV). The houses and courts are in keeping with the general character of the people and exhibit a degree of neatness and thrift that contrasts sharply with the tumble-down appearance of some of the other villages, especially those of the Middle Mesa and Oraibi. There is a general air of newness about the place, though it is questionable whether the architecture is more recent than that of the other villages of Tusayan. This effect is partly due to the custom of frequently renewing the coating of mud plaster. In most of the villages little care is taken to repair the houses until the owner feels that to postpone such action longer would endanger its stability. Many of the illustrations in this chapter indicate the proportion of rough masonry usually exposed in the walls. At Shumopavi (Pl. XXXV), however, most of the walls are smoothly plastered. In this respect they resemble Zuni and the eastern pueblos, where but little naked masonry can be seen. Another feature that adds to the effect of neatness and finish in this village is the frequent use of a whitewash of gypsum on the outer face of the walls. This wash is used partly as an ornament and partly as protection against the rain. The material, called by the Mexicans "yeso," is very commonly used in the interior of their houses throughout this region, both by Mexicans and Indians. More rarely it is used among the pueblos as an external wash. Here, however, its external use forms quite a distinctive feature of the village. The same custom in several of the cliff houses of Canyon de Chelly attests the comparative antiquity of the practice, though not necessarily its pre-Columbian origin. Shumopavi, compared with the other villages, shows less evidence of having been built on the open court idea, as the partial inclosures assume such elongated forms in the direction of the long, straight rows of the rooms; yet examination shows that the idea was present to a
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