moccasined feet going to and from the northern villages some te

n miles distant. The steam
of hatred betw
een the building
in the great period jealous
-groups could h
ave cooled off but   
probably never

completely. Toward the clo

• se of the fifteenth century primitive Te
• wa farmers, it seems, had again settled in Frijoles Canyon. They went to work in earnest this Ume, building houses, not with mud walls which would wash down when it rained, but
• with walls of stone, which type of construction their predecessors had begun.
• Some of the caves occupied by the e
  • arlier people could have eroded aw
  • ay while others could have been re
  • -hewn by these later occupants.. Who knows? Crumbling remains of old talu
• Course methodology includes classroom presentations, field laboratories, and practical exercises

s houses might

• have been leveled off at the base of the cliff and new homes built over them. Indian men carved the heavy stones into square and rectangular blocks with stone axes.
• The stones lay almost flat and the masons did not have to be too careful in their fashioning because small pieces of of rock hammered tight in the joints would hold the blocks steady. Th
• ese walls were laid on footings of smooth-wom river pebbles. Block after block was carved and laid into structures seven
• feet high. Indian women carried water from the little river in ollas on the tops of their heads and trudged day after day up the steep slo
• pes to the cliff. They gathered clay, perhaps not from Frijoles Canyon, because it was hard to find. They might have traveled miles for enough to appl
• y a thin coating of wash over the stone walls of their homes. Indian men labored with stone axes to fell the trunks of pines which they used in buildi
• ng roofs to their houses. They gouged holes out of the soft cliff to insert the ends of roof beams and sealed them in tightly with mud mortar. Across these vigas they laid small po
• les. Many miles were covered to obtain long slender canes and cat-tail stems from the muddy low banks of the Rio Gr
• ande for the next roof layer. Then pine needles and brush supplied the next coat. Something leafy had to hold the thick
• mud coats which were smoothed flat over the top. Sometimes Indian houses had doors in the front walls

and someti

mes they did not.

It all depended upon the wish of the individual builder. Most of the houses had two-pole ladders of pine. Rungs were lashed down tight with w

• illows, pliable reeds
• or even strings of ra
• whide or rope made from t
• he yucca fiber. By means of ladde
• rs the Indian could clim

b to his roof-top and go down through a small hatchway or opening. This gave added protection against hostile groups. In any one of many cavate or house rooms was a fireplace. In the ceiling above was an opening for the escape of the smoke. Cliff dwellings were smoky places regardless of the type or style. Time developed the terraced community apartment house for the prehistoric Pueblo Indian in the cliff as well as

in the ope

n flats on the flo   

or of the Canyo

n. Second stories, it seems,

came quite late in the evolution of house types at Frijoles. Narrow mud walls of such poor quality as were built in earlier times at Tyuonyi would never have held two sto

• Understanding the terrorist threat
• ries but the new walls of fashioned
• rock would h
• old them because they were more stable. It stands to reason that when ston

Contact your e and mortar were laid or into a wall, the process of drying