A STUDY OF PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE IN TUSAYAN 
AND CIBOLA. 
By Victor MINDELEFF. 
INTRODUCTION. 
The remains of pueblo architecture are found scattered over thousands 
of square miles of the arid region of the southwestern plateaus. This 
vast area includes the drainage of the Rio Pecos on the east and that of 
the Colorado on the west, and extends from central Utah on the north 
beyond the limits of the United States southward, in which direction 
its boundaries are still undefined. 
The descendants of those who at various times built these stone vil- 
lages are few in number and inhabit about thirty pueblos distributed 
irregularly over parts of the region formerly occupied. Of these the 
greater number are scattered along the upper course of the Rio Grande 
and its tributaries in New Mexico; a few of them, comprised within the 
ancient provinces of Cibola and Tusayan, are located within the drainage 
of the Little Colorado. From the time of the earliest Spanish expedi- 
tions into the country to the present day, a period covering more than 
three centuries, the former province has been often visited by whites, 
but the remoteness of Tusayan and the arid and forbidding character 
of its surroundings have caused its more complete isolation, The archi- 
tecture of this district exhibits a close adherence to aboriginal practices, 
still bears the marked impress of its development under the exacting 
conditions of an arid environment, and is but slowly yielding to the in- 
fluence of foreign ideas. 
The present study of the architecture of Tusayan and Cibola embraces 
all of the inhabited pueblos of those provinces, and includes a number 
of the ruins traditionally connected with them. It will be observed by 
reference to the map that the area embraced in these provinces comprises 
but a small portion of the vast region over which pueblo culture once 
extended. 
This study is designed to be followed by a similar study of two typical 
groups of ruins, viz, that of Canyon de Chelly, in northeastern Arizona, 
and that of the Chaco Canyon, of New Mexico; but it has been necessary 
for the writer to make occasional reference to these ruins in the present 
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