194 PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE. 
slabs for this purpose when the openings were conveniently near the 
floors. No example of the stone-close has as yet been found in Tusayan. 
The annular doorway described above aftords the only instance known 
to the writer where access openings were closed with a rigid device of 
aboriginal invention; and from the character of its material this device 
was necessarily restricted to openings of small size. The larger reet- 
angular doorways, when not partly closed by masonry, probably were 
covered only with blankets or skin rugs suspended from the lintel. In 
the discussion of sealed windows modern examples resembling the stone- 
close device will be noted, but these are usually employed in a more 
permanent manner. 
The small size of the ordinary pueblo doorway was perhaps due as 
much to the fact that there was no convenient means of closing it as it 
was to defensive reasons. Many primitive habitations, even quite rude 
ones built with no intention of defense, are characterized by small doors 
and windows. The planning of dwellings and the distribution of open- 
ings in such a manner as to protect and render comfortable the inhabited 
rooms implies a greater advance in architectural skill than these build- 
ers had achieved. 
The inconveniently small size of the doorways of the modern pueblos 
is only a survival of ancient conditions. The use of full-sized doors, 
admitting a man without stooping, is entirely practicable at the present 
day, but the conservative builders persist in adhering to the early type. 
The ancient position of the door, with its sill at a considerable height 
from the ground, is also retained. From the absence of any convenient 
means of rigidly closing the doors and windows, in early times external 
openings were restricted to the smallest practicable dimensions. The 
convenience of these openings was increased without altering their di- 
mensions by elevating them to a certain height above the ground. In 
the ruin of Kin-tiel there is marked uniformity in the height of the 
openings above the ground, and such openings were likely to be quite 
uniform when used for similar purposes. The most common elevation 
of the sills of doorways was such that a man could readily step over at 
one stride. It will be seen that the same economy of space has effected 
the use of windows in this system of architecture. 
WINDOWS. 
In the pueblo system of building, doors and windows are not always 
clearly differentiated. Many of the openings, while used for access to 
the dwellings, also answer all the purposes of windows, and, both in 
their form and in their position in the walls, seem more fully to meet 
the requirements of openings for the admission of light and air than 
for access. We have seen in the illustrations in Chapters 11 and rv, 
openings of considerable size so located in the face of the outer wall as 
to unfit them for use as doorways, and others whose size is wholly in- 
adequate, but which are still provided with the typical though diminu- 
