MINDELEFF. ] DOORWAYS. 19 3 
time the following extract from the tale of “The Deer-Slayer and the 
Wizards,” a Zuni folk-tale of the early occupancy of the valley of 
Zuni. 
“<How will they enter?’ said the 
young man to his wife. ‘Through 
the stone-close at the side,’ she an- 
swered. In the days of the ancients, 
the doorways were often made of a 
great slab of stone with a round hole 
cut through the middle, and a round 
stone slab to close it, which was 
called the stone-close, that the en- 
emy might not enter in times of 
war.” 
Mr. Cushing had found displaced 
fragments of such circular stone ; 
doorways at ruins some distance Fi. 86. An ancient cirenlar doorway or “stone- 
northwest from Zuni, but had been pean ge tos 
under the impression that they were used as roof openings. All exam- 
ples of this device known to the writer as having been found in place 
occurred in side walls of rooms. Mr. E. W. Nelson, while making collec- 
tions of pottery from ruins near Springerville, Arizona, found and sent 
to the Smithsonian Institution, in the autumn of 1884, “a flat stone 
about 18 inches square with a round hole cut in the middle of it. This 
stone was taken from the wall of one of the old ruined stone houses near 
Springerville, in an Indian ruin. The stone was setin the wall between 
two inner rooms of the ruin, and evidently served as a means of com- 
munication or perhaps a ventilator. I send it on mainly as an example 
of their stone-working craft.” The position of this feature in the exca- 
vated room of Kin-tiel is indicated on the ground plan, Fig. 60, which 
also shows the position of other details seen in the general view of the 
room, Pl. c. 
A small fragment of a “stone-close” doorway was found incorporated 
into the masonry of a flight of outside stone steps at Pescado, indicat- 
ing its use in some neighboring ruin, thus bringing it well within the 
Cibola district. Another point at which similar remains have been 
brought to light is the pueblo of Halona, just across the river from the 
present Zuni. Mr. F. Webb Hodge, recently connected with the Hemen- 
way Southwestern Archeological Exposition, under the direction of Mr. 
F. H. Cushing, describes this form of opening as being of quite common 
occurrence in the rooms of thislong-buried pueblo. Here the doorways 
are associated with the round slabs used for closing them. The latter 
were held in place by props within the room. No slabs of this form 
were seen at Kin-tiel, but quite possibly some of the large slabs of 
nearly rectangular form, found within this ruin, may have served the 
same purpose. It would seem more reasonable to use the rectangular 
8 ETH——13 
