The ancient pueblo builder, like his modern successor, was so closely in
touch with nature, so dependent on his immediate physical surroundings,
that variations in some at least of his arts are more natural and to be
expected than uniformity. Especially is this true of the art of
construction, and variations in masonry are more often than not the
result of variations in the material employed, which is nearly always
that most convenient to hand. Yet there were other conditions that
necessarily influenced it, such, for example, as the character of the
structure to be erected, whether permanent or temporary. The summer
village of Ojo Caliente presents a type of masonry much ruder than any
found in the home village of Zuni, although both were built and occupied
by the same people at the same time.
Within the limits of Canyon de Chelly, where the physical conditions and
the character of material are essentially uniform, a considerable
variation in the masonry is found, implying that some conditions other
than the usual ones have influenced it. Were the masonry of one class of
ruins inferior or superior throughout to that of another it might be
easily explained, but variations within each class are greater than
those between classes. Conditions analogous to those which prevailed in
the case of Ojo Caliente and Zuni may have governed here, or there may
have been other conditions of which we now know nothing. It may be that
sites originally occupied as farming shelters subsequently became
regular villages, as has happened in other regions. The position of the
kivas in many of the ruins suggests this. As a whole the masonry is
inferior to that found in the Mancos canyon and the Chaco, and superior
to that of Tusayan, but, as in Tusayan, where the masonry is sometimes
very roughly constructed, the builders were well acquainted with the
methods which produced the finer and better work.
The highest type of masonry in the pueblo system of architecture
consists of small blocks of stone of nearly uniform size, dressed, and
laid in courses, and rubbed down in situ. No attempt was made to break
joints. This system requires the careful preparation of the material
beforehand, and examples of it are not very common in Canyon de Chelly.
As a variant we have walls composed of stones of fairly uniform size,
laid with the best face out and with the interstices chinked with small
spalls. The chinking is carried to such an extent in some places, as in
the Chaco ruins, that the walls present the effect of a mosaic composed
of small spalls. Chinking is almost a universal practice, and in some
localities had passed, or was passing, from a mere constructive to a
real decorative feature. Here we have the beginning of that architecture
which has been defined by Ferguson as "ornamental and ornamented
construction"--in other words, of architecture as an art rather than as
a craft.
The use of an exterior finish of plaster was conducive to poor masonry.
Such plastering is found throughout the region, but it is much more
abundant in the modern than in the ancient work. Perhaps we may find in
this a suggestion of relative age; not in the use of plastering, but in
its prevalence.
Pueblo masonry is composed of very small units, and the results obtained
testify to the patience and industry of the builders rather than to
their knowledge and skill. In fact, their knowledge of construction was
far more limited than would at first sight be supposed. The marked
tabular character of the stone used rendered but a small amount of
preparation necessary for even the best masonry. For over 90 per cent of
it there was no preparation other than the selection of material. The
walls and buildings were always modified to suit the ground, never the
reverse, and instances in which the site was prepared are very rare, if
not indeed unknown. There are no such instances in De Chelly, where
sites were often irregular, and a small amount of work would have
rendered them much more desirable.
Plate LVII shows a type of masonry which is quite common in De Chelly.
It is the west room of ruin 16, near the mouth of Del Muerto. An attempt
at regularity, and possibly at decorative effect, is apparent in the use
of courses of fairly uniform thickness, alternating with other courses
or belts composed of small thin fragments. Beautiful examples of masonry
constructed on this method occur in the Chaco ruins, but here, while the
method was known, the execution was careless or faulty. Chinking with
small spalls has been extensively practiced and gives the wall an
appearance of smoothness and finish. A similar wall, rather better
constructed, occurs at the point marked 3 on the map, and in this case
the stones composing the wall were rubbed down in situ. Another wall,
which occurs in the same ruin, is shown in plate LVIII. In places very
large stones have been used, larger than one man could handle
conveniently, but the general effect of the wall face is very good. This
effect was obtained by placing the best face of the stone outward and by
careful chinking.
[Illustration: Plate LVII
Masonry in Canyon De Chelly]
Chinking was sometimes done, not with slips of stone driven in with a
hammer, after the usual style, but with bits of mud pressed in with the
fingers. The mud was used when about the consistency of modeling clay,
and bears the imprints of the fingers that applied it; even the skin
markings show clearly and distinctly. From this use of mud to its use as
an exterior plaster there is but a short step; in fact, examples which
are intermediate can be seen throughout the canyon. In places mud has
been applied to small cracks and cavities in larger quantities than was
necessary, and the excess has been smoothed over the adjacent stones
forming a wall partly plastered, or plastered in patches. Plate LIX,
which shows the interior of a room in ruin 10, will illustrate this.
Here the process has been carried so far that the wall is almost
plastered, but not quite. In plastered walls the process was carried a
step farther, and the surface was finished by the application of a final
coat of mud made quite liquid. The interior plastering of kivas was
always much more carefully done than that of any other walls. Owing to
blackening by smoke and recoating, the thickness of the plastering in
kivas can be easily made out. Often it is as thin as ordinary paper.
Plate LX shows walls in which an abundance of mud mortar was used, and
the effect is that of a plastered wall. The difference between these
walls and those shown in plate LVII is only one of degree, the wall
shown in plate LIX being of an intermediate type. No instance occurs in
the canyon where a coating of mud was evenly applied to the whole
surface of a wall, in the way, for example, that stucco is used by us.
It seems probable, therefore, that the application of plaster as a
finish grew out of the use of stone spalls for chinking, and its
prevalence in modern as compared with old structures is suggestive. It
is not claimed, however, that because we have examples of the
intermediate stages in De Chelly that the process was developed there.
The step is such a slight one that it might have been made in a hundred
different localities at a hundred different times or at one time; but it
is well to note that in any given group of ruins or locality it is
likely to be later than masonry chinked with stones. Surface finishing
in mud plaster is the prevailing method at the present day, and
well-executed masonry of stone carefully chinked is almost invariably
ancient. The use of surface plaster is largely responsible for the
deterioration of stonework that has taken place since the beginning of
the historic period. The modern village of Zuni, which dates from the
beginning of the eighteenth century, although built on the site of an
older village, is essentially a stone-built village, though that fact
would never appear from a cursory examination, so completely is the
stonework covered by surface plaster.
In Tusayan (Moki) walls have been observed in progress of erection. The
stones were laid up dry, and some time after, when the rains came and
pools of water stood here and there in pockets on the mesa top, mud
mortar was mixed and the interstices were filled. This method saved the
transportation of water from the wells below up to the top of the mesa,
a task entailing much labor. Doubtless a similar method was followed in
De Chelly, where the stream bed carries water only during a part of the
year. But stone was also actually laid in mud mortar, as shown in plate
LII, which illustrates a rough type of masonry.
It is probable that the practice of chinking grew up out of the scarcity
of water, when walls were erected during the dry season and finished
when the rains made the manufacture of mud mortar less of a task. The
rough wall shown in the illustration is the outside of an interior wall
of a kiva, and it was probably covered by the rectangular inclosing wall
that came outside of it. It will be noticed that chinking, both with mud
and with spalls, was extensively practiced and seems here to have been
an essential part of the construction. In this example it could have no
relation to the finish of the wall, for the wall was not finished.
Much of the masonry in the canyon is of the type described, but examples
differ widely in degree of finish and in material selected. Some of the
walls appear very rough and even crude, so much so that they almost
appear to be the first efforts of a people at an unknown art, but a
closer inspection shows that even the rudest walls were erected with a
knowledge of the principles which were followed in the best ones, and
that the difference resulted only from the care or lack of care
employed. The rudest walls are much superior to the masonry of the
Navaho cists which are found in conjunction with them and which are
constructed on a different method.
Although walls were often built on sloping rock, and the builders had
experience and at times disastrous experience to guide them, the
necessity for a fiat and solid foundation was never appreciated. Walls
were sometimes built on loose debris; even refuse which had been covered
and formed an artificial soil was considered sufficient. There are many
instances in the canyon where lack of foresight or lack of knowledge in
this respect has brought about the destruction of walls. Walls resting
on foreign material occur throughout the region; they are not confined
to anyone class of ruins or to any part of the canyon, but are found as
much or more in the most recent as in the most ancient examples. Mummy
Cave ruin and Casa Blanca are good examples. In the latter the small
room on the left of the upper group (plate XLVII) is especially
interesting. The side walls appear to rest on a deposit of refuse nearly
2 feet thick, which in turn rests on the sloping rock. The front wall is
supported by a buttress as shown; without this support it would
certainly have been pushed out. The buttress appears to have been built
at the same time as the front wall, although its use in this way is not
aboriginal. The whole arrangement is such as would result if this room,
originally represented by a low front wall perhaps, were constructed
when the site became inadequate and consequently at a late period in its
occupancy.
The character of the refuse and debris upon which some of the walls rest
is worth notice. It is well known that sheep were introduced into this
country by the Spaniards, and the presence in the ruins of sheep dung,
or of a material which closely resembles it, is important. Much of this
is due to subsequent Navaho occupancy, and many ruins are used today by
these Indians as sheepfolds. It is said, moreover, that at the time of
the Navaho war, when the soldiers bayoneted all the sheep they could
find, large flocks were driven up into some cliff ruins that are almost
inaccessible, and kept there for a time in security. But many instances
are found where the walls rest directly upon layers of compacted dung.
An example is shown in plate LII, and others are mentioned in the text
under the descriptions of various ruins.
[Illustration: Plate LVIII
Chinked Walls in Canyon De Chelly]
It has been suggested that the compacted dung found in the ruins was the
product not of sheep, but of some other domesticated animal which
existed in this country at the time of the first Spanish invasion, but
the evidence to support this hypothesis is so very slight that so far
the suggestion is only a suggestion. Not the slightest trace of this
animal has been found, although it is alleged that it was domesticated
among the pueblos three hundred and fifty years ago.
Although the idea of a strengthening or supporting buttress is thought
to be a foreign introduction, a hypothesis that is strengthened by the
occurrence of other features, the masonry itself is aboriginal in its
principles and probably also in execution. The conservatism of the
Indian mind in such matters is well known. The Zuni today use stone more
than adobe, although for a hundred years or more there has been an adobe
church in the midst of the village.
Adobe construction in this region is only partially successful. North of
the Gila river, in the plateau country, the climate is not suited to it;
the rains are too heavy and the frosts are destructive. Constant
vigilance and prompt repairs are necessary, and even then the adobe work
is not satisfactory. Certainly in the northern part of the country the
aborigines would not have developed this method of construction in the
face of the difficulties with which it is surrounded; yet there are
examples of adobe work in some of the most important ruins in De Chelly,
as has already been stated. The fact that the only previously known
examples of adobe work occur in ruins which are known to have been
inhabited subsequent to the Spanish conquest, such as the ruin of
Awatobi, in Tusayan, is suggestive. Moreover, adobe construction in this
region belongs to a late period; for the walls are almost always very
thin, usually 6 or 7 inches. The old type of massive walls, 2 or even
3 feet thick, are seldom or never found constructed of adobe, although
such thickness is more necessary in this material than in stone.
There is another method of construction which, although not masonry,
should be noticed here. This is the equivalent of the Mexican "jacal"
construction, and consists of series of poles or logs planted vertically
in the ground close to each other and plastered with mud either outside
or on both sides. The only example of this found in the canyon occurs in
the western part of the lower Casa Blanca ruin, and has already been
mentioned. Did it not occur elsewhere it could be dismissed here as
simply another item of evidence of the modern occupancy of the ruin, but
Dr W. R. Birdsall mentions walls in the Mesa Verde ruins which are
"continued upward upon a few tiers of stone by wickerwork heavily
plastered inside and outside"[14] and Nordenskioeld mentions a similar
construction in the interior of a kiva. Whether a similar foundation or
lower part of stone existed in the Casa Blanca ruin could not be
determined without excavation.
[Footnote 14: Bull. Am. Geog. Soc., vol. xxiii, p. 598.]