Title: Types of prehistoric Southwestern architecture
Author: Fewkes, Jesse Walter
Language: English
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SOUTHWESTERN ARCHITECTURE ***



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  American Antiquarian Society


  TYPES OF PREHISTORIC
  SOUTHWESTERN
  ARCHITECTURE

  BY
  J. WALTER FEWKES


  REPRINTED FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY
  FOR APRIL, 1917.


  WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.
  PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY
  1917



  THE DAVIS PRESS
  WORCESTER, MASS.



TYPES OF PREHISTORIC SOUTHWESTERN ARCHITECTURE

BY J. WALTER FEWKES


Among primitive peoples the calendar, sun worship and agriculture are
closely connected. When man was just emerging from the hunting or
fishing stages into early agricultural conditions it rarely happened
that he replanted the same fields year after year, for it was early
recognized that the land, however fertile, would not yield good crops
in successive years but should lie fallow one or more years before
replanting. The primitive agriculturist learned by experience that a
change was necessary to insure good crops. To effect this change the
agriculturist moved his habitation and planted on the sites where the
soil was found to be fertile. There was thus a continual shifting of
planting places which accounts in part for frequent migrations. In
our Southwest this nomadic condition was succeeded by a stationary
agricultural stage. Necessary water was supplied by irrigation
which also contributed nourishment necessary for the enrichment of
the soil. When an agricultural population is thus anchored to one
locality, permanent, well-constructed habitations are built near
farms that are tilled year after year.

The following ideas on the relation of agricultural people, the
calendar and sun worship were practically adopted from Mr. E. J.
Payne’s “History of the New World called America.”

It is obligatory for the agriculturist, especially when the country
is arid, to have a reliable calendar; he must know the best time for
planting that the seeds may germinate, the epoch when the rains are
most abundant that the plants may grow, and the season when the hot
sun may mature the growing corn. Agricultural life necessitates an
exact calendar.

Several methods are used by the primitive agriculturist to determine
the time for planting, the most reliable of which is the position
of the sun and moon on the horizon rising or setting. The movements
of the latter, especially the phases of the new moon, although
important, do not serve as the best basis of the annual calendar.
The time of the year cannot be told by observations of the moon. The
phases of the moon play a certain rôle among agricultural people,
since this planet takes a subordinate place in determining the
calendar. The positions of the sun, or the points of its rising and
setting on the horizon and its altitude at midday, afforded the
primitive agriculturist data that could be relied upon from year to
year to determine the season. The position of the sun at midsummer
and midwinter, rising or setting, is associated with most important
events; the winter solstice indicates the time when the fields
should be prepared for cultivation; when the irrigating ditches
should be cleared out and prepared for planting. We consequently
find the winter solstice, which occurs at the close of December, is
practically set aside by all agricultural people as an occasion of
a great festival in which sun-worship is dominant. At this time we
also find a complicated ceremony, the object of which is to draw back
the sun and prepare the people for the work before them. Around this
midwinter festival were crowded rites of the purification of the
earth from evil influences of winter, a dramatic personation of the
return of the sun god, preliminary to the call to the husbandman to
begin his work. The planting itself occurs somewhat later, or when
the sun reaches the vernal equinox, the determination of which is
less important than the solstice.

When agricultural man had discovered a reliable calendar and was
able to definitely determine the time for planting, growth, and
harvesting of his crops, his life became still more rigidly fixed
in sedentary conditions; he no longer was a hunter or shepherd; he
ceased to have a nomadic tendency. The consciousness of being able
to rely upon a definite food supply expresses itself in the art of
building. He is led to construct more durable habitations. Successful
agriculture, stable architecture, and a reliable calendar are thus
closely connected. The most successful agriculture in aboriginal
North America is found in regions where knowledge of the calendar
was most highly developed. Early efforts to perfect the calendar by
studies of the sun intensified sun worship. The most highly developed
expressions of solar worship as well as the best constructed masonry
on the American continent are associated with the highest development
of the calendar. There can be adduced no better illustration than
the masonry of Peruvian temples which compares favorably with any in
the world. The surface ornamentation of these buildings is not as
elaborate as in those of Central America, but there are few examples
of masonry in the Old World with stones more accurately fitted
together, the walls more enduring—a remarkable fact when we consider
that the people who built these colossal structures in the New
World were unfamiliar with the metals, iron and steel. Sun worship
is the basis of the ancient Peruvian culture expressed by these
extraordinary buildings. Although our knowledge of Peruvian calendric
signs is not as accurate as of that of Central America, all evidence
goes to show that the calendar of the Incas was not inferior to that
of the Mayas.

In prehistoric North America we find remains of buildings constructed
of masonry quite equal to that of the same epoch in the Old World.
This may be illustrated by reference to the cliff-dwellers’ towers
in our Southwest. If some of the towers of Sardinia were placed
side by side with those of southwestern Colorado, any impartial
observer would say that the masonry in the latter was equal to that
in the former. The megalithic dolmens of England exhibit no walls
superior in masonry to massive walls in the mountain canyons of Utah
and Arizona constructed before the advent of the whites. In other
words it is evident that the architecture of a people is not wholly
an index of stage of culture. If the prehistoric aborigines of our
Southwest be judged by buildings we may say they had progressed in
historic development into a stage attained by nations more advanced
because they were acquainted with metals.

The prehistoric people of our Southwest called pueblos and
cliff-dwellers constructed many different forms of rooms which can
be compared and reduced to a few types. It is the object of the
following pages to examine the morphology of these buildings.

It will be found on examination that these prehistoric buildings were
constructed on certain universal lines, reproducing with startling
similarity types which are world-wide. It will also be found that
habitations or buildings devoted to certain utilitarian purposes
have one form, while sacred buildings have another, following a
law geographically widespread. Man shares with the animal a desire
for protection for his family or food accumulated or awaiting
consumption. This holds true among agricultural peoples whose food
is cereal and can be stored indefinitely or prepared for use when
necessary. It is not necessary to suppose that man learned the habit
of storing food from bees and squirrels; the same needs produced the
same habits. The earliest storage places adopted by man were caves,
trunks of trees or pits dug in the earth, the first mentioned being
the most common. The first step taken to improve this storage place
was the construction of a wall to close the entrance to the cave or
pit. A further modification, practically an expansion of this simple
idea, led to the construction of an elaborate dwelling having rooms
specialized for different economical purposes within the shelter of
the cave.

This same idea of protection led to another line of development in
which the cave is wanting. The construction of a stone cairn in
the open would also serve for protection of the food supply. Such
a building, erected simply for storage, naturally drew about it
subordinate rooms for dwellings, at first temporary in structure but
later, as ability in stone-working improved, permanent buildings or
community-houses of durable material. This second type of prehistoric
building, erected independent of caves, evolved along lines different
from the first; in forms of construction the two types are similar,
but they differ as to sites; one became a cliff or cave dwelling; the
other, what is called a village or pueblo.

Consider another line of development. The buildings we have already
considered were erected primarily for the preservation and protection
of material possessions. Man, in whatever stage, regards it as
necessary to construct a building for religious purposes; in many
instances this structure is nothing more than a row of upright
stones enclosing an area devoted to his gods. No roof was considered
necessary since the objects of worship were practically forces of
nature. As time went on, priests or congregations gathered to perform
rites within the circular or other areas, or in their neighborhood.
These ceremonies rendered secrecy necessary. A priesthood developed
with a systematic ritual, which had to be hidden from the eyes of
the inquisitive by roofs and side walls, thus forming a building,
from which developed the temple or sacred room. Subsequently other
buildings were annexed for habitations of priests or laymen. A
condition of this kind occurs in our prehistoric Southwestern
architecture. The sanctuary in this region is a well-constructed
circular building, of peculiar type. It was not a dwelling but a
place of ceremonious worship. Habitations distinct from these
ceremonial rooms had walls so perishable that traces of them are hard
to find, the sanctuary walls alone remaining as an indication of the
building art of that period. A more advanced stage along this line
of evolution was the addition of rooms with permanent walls to the
base of the sanctuary, by which a union of two different kinds of
buildings, sacred and secular, was brought about. These three lines
of architectural development in our prehistoric Southwest verged in a
parallel development into the same form, all starting from the rudest
structure and culminating in an almost identical type, one the cave
habitation, the other the storage room with its annex, and the third
the sacred building or sanctuary, around which are clustered rooms
for secular purposes. A combination of the three types, producing a
composite cluster, gives us what is called the terraced community
house or pueblo.

The term “pueblo,” signifying a village or town, was applied by
Spanish explorers to Indian villages in our Southwest at the close of
the sixteenth century. Certain other collections of houses, to which
the word “rancherias” (ranches) was applied, were also mentioned, the
distinction between the two being that the buildings of the latter
were more widely scattered. At present we speak of pueblo and pueblo
culture in a more exact way, and in a scientific discussion of the
origin of this culture it is necessary to restrict the Spanish terms,
or to define a pueblo from a cultural point of view. This leads to an
enumeration of distinctive architectural features which characterize
the two types.

The Spaniards, giving little attention to ruins in the country
through which their route lay, confined the term “pueblo” to
inhabited towns. These early travelers found the majority of these
in a limited area along the Rio Grande or along the Little Colorado
and in the mountains of what is now northern Arizona. There were
wide expanses of country not visited by the Spaniards, which we
now know had at that time ruined buildings indicative of a past
population, that are similar in form to those inhabited. We find on
scientific examination evidence that the life in them was higher in
development than in the villages seen by the explorers. Manifestly
our subject must be so treated that all pueblos, whether uninhabited
or inhabited, should be taken into account in morphological studies.
On comparison of ruined pueblos with those inhabited in the sixteenth
century certain identities in form are revealed, but there are found
also radical differences showing degrees of culture. Indications
exist that certain arts of the later pueblos have degenerated: the
masonry is not so good and pottery, textiles, and other manufactured
articles are inferior.

The accounts given by early Spanish chroniclers afford scanty
information on details of arts, and historical documents are
correspondingly imperfect. In consideration of the subject from the
point of view of chronology, our knowledge must be derived, not
from previous histories but from archeological remains that are
fortunately very abundant through the whole region.

The simplest type of pueblo building, called the unit type, consists
of one or more rectangular rooms and a circular chamber. This form
passes imperceptibly into the linear type, a row of single rooms
united by the side of one circular room midway in length. The linear
type naturally may have single or multiple rooms, or it may be
composed of one or more rows parallel with each other, the doorways
opening on the same side or in the same direction. When the lines
of rooms are double, and the doorways of each row open in opposite
directions, we may designate this the double linear having external
doorways. Linear ruins may be one or more stories high; when there
is more than one story, doors or lateral openings are generally
wanting. On the ground floor, which is entered from the roof, the
superimposed rooms have lateral passageways from the roof of the
lower story.

A double row of buildings may be set in such a way that the doorways
face each other, or four such rows may form a rectangle enclosing a
court, which often lacks one side. Another type has the pyramidal
form, made up of rooms crowded together with the superimposed stories
opening in all directions.

Wholly different in form from the various linear types above
enumerated are the circular buildings enclosing a central court on
which the doorways of the lowest story open, and which those of the
upper stories face.

Pueblos both ancient and modern can be placed in one or another of
the above-mentioned types, although in some cases two of these types
may be combined, making a composite building reaching a considerable
size. In whatever type the pueblo is placed, the circular-form
room also exists, either enclosed in the rows or free from the
rows of secular rectangular chambers. The pyramidal, rectangular,
and linear types are comparatively modern, having persisted to the
present day, when many are inhabited; the circular type is confined
wholly to ancient times and is no longer inhabited. Open pueblos
are independent of cliffs as distinguished from those dependent
or those built within caves. Dependent and independent buildings
are morphologically the same, but the dependent or so-called cliff
pueblos were not inhabited at the advent of the Europeans.

An examination of the main features of the groups above mentioned
reveals certain common features, an enumeration of which still
further defines the pueblo type. All have both the terraced and
the community form. They are all accompanied by a sacred room of
circular form compactly enclosed in the mass of building or built
separate from it. If we examine the distribution geographically of
the pueblo type, ancient and modern, we find it limited to the area
including the southern parts of Colorado, Utah, and the greater part
of New Mexico, its highest development occurring in the mountains.
It is preeminently limited to a plateau region, and theoretically
we may suppose that it owes its peculiarities to the characteristic
physiographic conditions of this environment. If we consider this
type chronologically we find the oldest and best examples situated in
the northern part of the area; the evidence is good that influence
from that nucleus extended west and south, the architecture as we
recede from the place of origin becoming inferior or losing some of
its essential features, probably on account of contact with unrelated
peoples. This modification and the accompanying departure from the
type are especially marked in extensions that came in contact with
people who constructed rooms compactly united, from southern Arizona,
where environmental conditions show a great contrast to the mountain
region in which the pueblo originated. The plains bordering the Gila
and its tributaries are low and level, covered with a vegetation
wholly different from that of the mountain canyons in which pueblo
buildings originated. Climatically southern Arizona is very warm
throughout the year; the mountains of Colorado are covered with
snow from November to March, inclusive. These conditions have led
in the former region to the separation of the dwellings or a more
open life of the aborigines; the rooms are larger and not crowded
together as in pueblos; the material used in their construction is
also different; stone is not available; its absence led to the use of
clay and mud as the only materials out of which man could construct
his dwellings. Another powerful influence created architectural
modifications in these two regions. In the mountains the village
builders were beset on all sides by hostiles or nomads bent on
plunder. It was here necessary for man to construct his building with
a view to defense by concentration of the rooms. The level plains of
southern Arizona and the rivers with a constant flow of water brought
about irrigation along the Gila, thus making possible a larger
population. All these conditions, reflected in the character of the
buildings in the southern region, as contrasted with the northern,
have greatly modified the culture and sociological conditions of the
aborigines of the two localities. In their extension their boundaries
met each other and their contact has led to types of buildings
with characters of both. In one locality, Hopi, the circular kiva
has disappeared, and a rectangular room has taken its place. Both
Hopi and Zuñi pueblos have descendants of the ancestral clans from
the Gila still surviving, and there we find the pueblo type with
rectangular kivas both enclosed in house masses and separated from
them.

Offshoots of the mountain or pueblo culture following down the San
Juan River penetrated to Hopi and settled at Walpi, shortly after
which they were joined by clans from Little Colorado bringing Gila
culture, as is recounted in legends still existing. The mountain
culture introduced the terraced form of building and the kiva free
from the house masses. But this kiva has a rectangular form due
either to the configuration of the mesa top or to influences from
the south, where the sacred room is rectangular and enclosed by
dwellings. In a case of Zuñi we have the plain type or southern
contingent predominating, the original settlement at Zuñi having
been made by clans from the far south, which were later joined and
modified by those from the north. Here we have at the present day the
sacred room of rectangular shape hidden away among the dwellings.
This was a secondary condition probably brought about by the
influence of Catholic missionaries, who forced the Zuñi to abandon
their sacred room in the courts of the town, and resort to secrecy
to perform the forbidden rites. Both Hopi and Zuñi show in their
architecture the influence of two component stocks or peoples, a
fact more strikingly brought out in their religious ceremonials.

The prehistoric center of pueblo culture origin is situated many
miles distant from the area now inhabited by its survivals. When the
Spanish travelers first came in touch with this unique condition
of life, its center of origin was no longer inhabited. Legendary
accounts still survive in the modern pueblos that they came from the
north; our main source of information or proof of the truth of these
legends is the character of architecture and pottery obtained from
the northern ruins, aided by what may be gathered from the modified
architecture of the inhabited pueblos, or from historical documents.

It is a universal characteristic of primitive men that the most
enduring and best-constructed buildings are those devoted to worship.
We find, for instance, throughout the Old World that the prehistoric
structures of this kind which have survived as monuments of the
past are temples, either in the form of rude monoliths or imposing
buildings, the habitations of their builders having long since
disappeared, as they were built of perishable material and their
sites can now be detected only by low mounds.

Temples, however, were more lasting and work on them was cumulative;
each generation improved on its predecessor, and as they were built
of stone the additions of successive generations were permanent,
and remained as an index of past civilization. The same is true
among prehistoric pueblos of North America. They also erected dual
buildings: one being a perishable habitation; the other the permanent
religious building.

Let us consider the chronological evolution of these two types of
architecture. In the very earliest condition the primitive people of
the Southwest constructed a massive-walled building to serve for the
performance of their rites and ceremonies. Each social group had its
own sanctuary, which we now recognize as the kiva, commonly built in
the form of towers scattered throughout the mountainous regions of
Utah and Colorado. As is customary with similar religious edifices,
we find these, as a rule, perched on the tops of high cliffs, not for
outlooks, but for conspicuous buildings for refuge of the neighboring
population. In ancient Greece we find the temples of Cecrops, the
ancient deity of Athens, on an Acropolis, and towering above Corinth
is the Acrocorinth. Towers almost identical with those of Colorado
occur in different localities in Europe. We find them, for example,
in Ireland, in Spain, in Sardinia, and in Corsica, where they have
received a different name, but are always associated with the very
earliest inhabitants of those localities. In Peru we find the
problematical _chulpas_. The function of these towers in both the Old
and the New World has been a bone of contention among archeologists.
The best explanation that has been advanced for Old World towers is
that they are defensive and religious structures; the towers of the
New World may have had a similar use, as they are alike in form. In
other words, we may suppose that they also are religious structures,
but we can add in support of that theory evidence not available in
Europe, for we find that, the form of the tower is identical with
that of the sacred room or kiva, and that it has survived to the
present time as a special chamber for worship.

Having then determined that we can regard the oldest form of pueblo
building as a religious structure, let us pass to the probable
steps in the evolution from this early condition into the highest
development of that strictly American type of habitation. It is
evident, if the tower be looked on as the sanctuary of the clan, that
the existence of two or more clans united would necessitate the same
number of towers, a condition which we find repeated in the areas
under consideration. Granted that the first step in the evolution of
the pueblo would be the union of the secular with the sacred room,
this might be accomplished either by adding the tower to the group
of dwellings, if the latter were situated in a cave, or by moving
the habitations out of the cave and annexing them to the base of the
tower. Both of these methods seem to have been adopted, resulting
on the one hand in cliff-dwellings, and on the other in communal
buildings in the open or on top of a plateau. Subsequent stages in
the evolution of the pueblo consist in the enlargement because of
the growth of the clan of the outlines of the dwelling clustered
around the base of the tower until subsequently contiguous groups
joined, making one village, composed of as many clans as there are
architectural units. The sacred building lost its predominance in
this enlargement, and the tower passed without morphological changes
into the kiva. We can trace all these modifications in the canyons
and plateaus of southwestern Colorado.

Sociological advance goes hand in hand with architectural
complication. In the beginning the number of social units is
indicated by the number of kivas; the next stage is the diminution
in relative number of sacred rooms and other changes which appear
in the relative size of the kivas. The several social units brought
in such intimate contact naturally evolved a system of worship
reflecting that union. This appears most clearly in the formation
of a fraternity of priests to perform the ceremony resulting from
consolidation, which leads to the abandonment of kivas rendered
unnecessary, or to the fusion of several into one, and the
enlargement of those remaining to accommodate the fraternity composed
of men of several social units. This enlargement is shown at Far
View House, a pueblo lately excavated in the Mesa Verde National
Park, Colorado. The total population of this pueblo was probably as
large as that of Cliff Palace, but whereas in this cliff dwelling
we find twenty-three sacred rooms, in Far View House there are but
four, one of which (the central) is four times as large as any in
Cliff Palace. It is easy to see why the central kiva in the pueblo
is more centrally placed than the others, when we remember that it
was probably the oldest, and was the first settled, and in subsequent
growth of the village remained the predominant one of the group.

Following the lines of social evolution and architectural types
considered in the preceding pages, we come now to a classification
of buildings in the Southwest. Passing over the earliest expression
of architecture, where a hut or dugout shows few peculiar features
but practically is universal among a seminomadic people, we come to
durable houses built of clay or stone. Even in these small buildings
we recognize two types of rooms—circular and rectangular. We find
two distinct types of village communities, one occupying the area
extending from Utah to the inhabited pueblos on the Rio Grande.
This group may be known in prehistoric culture by circular ruins
and circular kivas. Here probably arose the original terraced form
of building. The purest expression of its architecture occurs in
cliff-dwellings like Cliff Palace and Spruce-tree House in the Mesa
Verde National Park, but its extensions west and south are modified
as the distance from the place of origin increases.

The second type of buildings in the Southwest arose in the Gila
valley, and is best illustrated by Casa Grande in southern Arizona.
From this nucleus extensions of architectural forms were carried
northward and eastward to the pueblos now inhabited by Hopi and Zuñi
Indians. A characteristic feature of this type is the massive-walled
buildings surrounded by a rectangular wall or compound. The circular
kiva and circular ruin do not exist in present forms of this type.
Ruins in southern Arizona, belonging to this type, often have very
much modified forms, especially as the type extended northward and
came in contact with extensions of the pueblo culture. Architectural
characters and other features of this type show marked affinities
with the corresponding culture of prehistoric peoples of Mexico.

The mythology and ritual of the people in this area are more closely
related to Mexican than to northern or pueblo culture. This may be
illustrated by many examples, of which one instance may be taken.
One of the most marked peculiarities of the prehistoric culture in
this zone is the elaborate worship of a supernatural being called
the Horned Serpent.[1] The Horned Serpent cult was introduced into
Hopiland from the Gila and is associated with the sky-god, whose
symbol is the sun. Evidences of the widespread influence of this
cult in prehistoric times is shown by figures of this being found
on pottery all the way from Hopi to the Mexican plateau. Among the
Maya and Aztec, when Horned Snake worship was perhaps the most
complicated anywhere in pre-Columbian America, it was, as it is at
Hopi, intimately associated with sun-worship. The Horned and Plumed
Serpent figures adorn many prehistoric buildings of Mexico, and
occur in all the codices of the Maya. Here we have the symbol not
originally regarded as serpents. Kukulcan, or Quetzalcoatl, were but
beneficent beings who taught the ancients agriculture and other arts,
but whose benign presence was banished through the machinations of
a sorcerer. The striking similarities in the objective symbolism of
the Plumed Serpent of Mexican mythology and the Hopi Horned Serpent
have been shown elsewhere; the ceremonies in which his effigy is
used in the Hopi ritual are practically connected with sun-worship,
and were introduced from the south. Wherever the influence of the
architectural type above considered is detected we find evidences of
Horned Serpent cult.

The most important rite at Walpi in which idols of this being are
used occurs at the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, and are
always connected with a highly developed sun-worship. These appear
as effigies, which in one ceremonial drama are carried by a being
personating the sun; in other dramatic rites they are thrust through
openings in a screen on which sun emblems are painted. An idol of the
Horned Serpent, made of the giant cactus, a plant abundant in the
Gila valley, is carried by the chief of the Sun priests’ ceremony
celebrated in midwinter. Numerous other examples of the association
of the sun and the Horned Serpent in the solar worship of the Hopi
have been elsewhere described and might be mentioned to prove that
the religious conception back of the Horned Serpent cult is the
symbolical representation of a nature power of the sky or the sun.
The conception typified by the Horned Snake cult of the Hopi and that
of the Plumed Snake of Mexico is the same; that symbols of this being
occur on prehistoric objects found in the region stretching from the
Hopi country far into Central America cannot be questioned. Whether
one was derived from the other or both were independently evolved is
another question.

The ancient people of the pueblo type widespread throughout New
Mexico and Colorado likewise used in their ceremonials a Plumed
Serpent symbol, which has been identified as the Great Horned Snake.
The cult of this being is also associated with sun-worship, but as
the little we know of the symbolism of this being is derived from
the winter solstice ceremony at the Tewa pueblo Hano and a few
pictographs or paintings on Tewa pottery, it is not possible to
hazard a conjecture regarding its teaching on culture derivation. The
evidence, so far as it goes, supports the theory that a Sun Serpent
cult like that of ancient Mexico exists in our Southwest today in a
much more primitive form.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] In the Snake Dances of the pueblo region, we have more striking
evidence of ancestor worship. The ceremonials in which the Horned
Snake idols appear show a more elaborate sun-worship.



  Transcriber’s Notes

  pg 9 Changed and other manufactured articles are interior
         to: inferior



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