anned portions of the
village, though they do not occur either at Acoma or in the Tusayan
villages. They afford an interesting example of the transfer and
continuance in use of a constructional device developed in one place by
unusual conditions to a new field in which it was uncalled for, being
less efficient and more difficult of introduction than the devices in
ordinary use.
[Illustration: Fig. 100. Typical sections of Zuni oblique openings.]
FURNITURE.
The pueblo Indian has little household furniture, in the sense in which
the term is commonly employed; but his home contains certain features
which are more or less closely embodied in the house construction and
which answers the purpose. The suspended pole that serves as a clothes
rack for ordinary wearing apparel, extra blankets, robes, etc., has
already been described in treating of interiors. Religious costumes and
ceremonial paraphernalia are more carefully provided for, and are stored
away in some hidden corner of the dark storerooms.
[Illustration: Plate CII. Remains of a gateway in Awatubi.]
The small wall niches, which are formed by closing a window with a thin
filling-in wall, and which answer the purpose of cupboards or
receptacles for many of the smaller household articles, have also been
described and illustrated in connection with the Zuni interior (Pl.
LXXXVI).
[Illustration: Fig. 101. Arrangement of mealing stones in a Tusayan
house.]
In many houses, both in Tusayan and in Cibola, shelves are constructed
for the more convenient storage of food, etc. These are often
constructed in a very primitive manner, particularly in the former
province. An unusually frail example may be seen in Fig. 67, in
connection with a fireplace. Fig. 101, showing a series of mealing
stones in a Tusayan house, also illustrates a rude shelf in the corner
of the room, supported at one end by an upright stone slab and at the
other by a projecting wooden peg. Shelves made of sawed boards are
occasionally seen, but as a rule such boards are considered too valuable
to be used in this manner. A more common arrangement, particularly in
Tusayan, is a combination of three or four slender poles placed side by
side, 2 or 3 inches apart, forming a rude shelf, upon which trays of
food are kept.
Another device for the storage of food, occasionally seen in the pueblo
house, is a pocket or bin built into the corner of a room. Fig. 101,
illustrating the plan of a Tusa
|