HABITATIONS AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENT.
It is conceded that the peculiarities of a culture-status are due chiefly to the necessities encountered during its development. In this sense the Pueblo phase of life was, like the Egyptian, the product of a desert environment. Given that a tribe or stock of people is weak, they will be encroached upon by neighboring stronger tribes, and driven to new surroundings if not subdued. Such we may believe was the influence which led the ancestors of the Pueblo tribes to adopt an almost waterless area for their habitat.
It is apparent at least that they entered the country wherein their remains occur while comparatively a rude people, and worked out there almost wholly their incipient civilization. Of this there is important linguistic evidence.
A Navajo hogan, or hut, is a beehive-shaped or conical structure (see Fig. 490) of sticks and turf or earth, sometimes even of stones chinked with mud. Yet its modern Zuñi name is hám´ pon ne, from ha we, dried brush, sprigs or leaves; and pó an ne, covering, shelter or roof (po a to place over and ne the nominal suffix); which, interpreted, signifies a "brush or leaf shelter." This leads to the inference that the temporary shelter with which the Zuñis were acquainted when they formulated the name here given, presumably in their earliest condition, was in shape like the Navajo hogan, but in material, of brush or like perishable substance.
The archaic name for a building or walled inclosure is hé sho ta, a contraction of the now obsolete term, hé sho ta pon ne, from hé sho, gum, or resin-like; shó tai e, leaned or placed together convergingly; and tá po an ne, a roof of wood or a roof supported by wood.
The meaning of all this would be obscure did not the oldest remains of the Pueblos occur in the almost inaccessible lava wastes bordering the southwestern deserts and intersecting them and were not the houses of these ruins built on the plan of shelters, round (see Figs. 491, 492, 493), rather than rectangular. Furthermore, not only does the lava-rock of which their walls have been rudely constructed resemble natural asphaltum (hé sho) and possess a cleavage exactly like that of piñon-gum and allied substances (also hé sho), but some forms of lava are actually known as á he sho or gum-rock. From these considerations inferring that the name hé sho ta pon ne derivatively signifies something like "a gum-rock shelter with roof supports of wood," we may also infer that the Pueblos on their coming into the desert regions dispossessed earlier inhabitants or that they chose the lava-wastes the better to secure themselves from invasion; moreover that the oldest form of building known to them was therefore an inclosure of lava-stones, whence the application of the contraction hé sho ta, and its restriction to mean a walled inclosure.
RECTANGULAR FORMS DEVELOPED FROM CIRCULAR.
It may be well in this connection to cite a theory entertained by Mr. Victor Mindeleff, of the Bureau of Ethnology, whose wide experience among the southwestern ruins entitles his judgment to high consideration. In his opinion the rectangular form of architecture, which succeeds the type under discussion, must have been evolved from the circular form by the bringing together, within a limited area, of many houses. This would result in causing the wall of one circular structure to encroach upon that of another, suggesting the partition instead of the double wall. This partition would naturally be built straight as a twofold measure of economy. Supposing three such houses to be contiguous to a central one, each separated from the latter by a straight wall, it may be seen that (as in the accompanying plan) the three sides of a square are already formed, suggesting the parallelogramic as a convenient style of sequent architecture.
All this, I need scarcely add, agrees not only with 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.
It is therefore not surprising that the flat roof of to-day is named té k'os kwïn 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 kwïn 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.
The modern name for house is k'iá kwïn 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.
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 story should be carried along and the name first applied to it survive, even to the present day? That the upper story took its name from the rock-shelter may be further illustrated. The word ósh ten comes from ó sho nan te, the condition of being dusky, dank, or mildewy; clearly descriptive of a cavern, but not of the most open, best lighted, and driest room in a Pueblo house.
To continue, we may see how the necessity for protection would drive the petty clans more and more to the cliffs, how the latter at every available point would ultimately come to be occupied, and thus how the "_Cliff-dwelling_" (see Fig. 498), was confined to no one section but was as universal as the farm-house type of architecture itself, so widespread, in fact, that it has been heretofore regarded as the monument of a great, now extinct race of people!
COMMUNAL PUEBLOS DEVELOPED FROM CONGREGATION OF CLIFF-HOUSE TRIBES.
We may see, finally, how at last the cañons proved too limited and in other ways undesirable for occupation, the result of which was the confederation of the scattered cliff-dwelling clans, and the construction, first on the overhanging cliff-tops, then on mesas, and farther and farther away, of great, many-storied towns, any one of which was named, in consequence of the bringing together in it of many houses and clans, thlu él lon ne, from thlu a, many springing up, and él lon a, that which stands, or those which stand; in other words, "many built standing together." This cannot be regarded as referring to the simple fact that a village is necessarily composed of many houses standing together. The name for any other village than a communal pueblo is tí na kwïn ne, from _tí na_--many sitting around, and kwïn ne, place of. This term is applied by the Zuñis to all villages save their own and those of ourselves, which latter they regard as Pueblos, in their acceptation of the above native word.
Here, then, in strict accordance with, the teachings of myth, folk-lore and tradition, I have used the linguistic argument as briefest and most convincing in indicating the probable sequence of architectural types in the evolution of the Pueblo; from the brush lodge, of which only the name survives, to the recent and present terraced, many-storied, communal structures, which we may find throughout New Mexico, Arizona, and contiguous parts of the neighboring Territories.[1]
[1] See for confirmation the last Annual Report to the Archæological Institute of America, by Adolph F. Bandelier, one of the most indefatigable explorers and careful students of early Spanish history in America.
