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 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.
[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 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.
[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 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!