344 ZUXI CREATION MYTHS. [eth.ann. l? 



The ruins of tlie.se rouuded towns of tbe Corn tribes which Hernando 

 de Alvarado and Fray Juan de Padilla saw in 1540 while going south- 

 eastward from Zutii, are especially characteristic of the Zuui region, 

 and extend quite generally both southward toward the Eito Quemado 

 and the Saliuas in western central New Mexico, and, by way of the 

 €haco, northward nearly to the Colorado boundary. They are as often 

 lialf round as they are wholly oblong or circular, and even when com- 

 pletely rounded or oval in outline are usually divided into two semicir- 

 cular parts by an irregular court or series of courts extending lengthwise 

 through the middle, and thus making them really double villages of the 

 half-round type. 



A com])arison of the ground plans of these round or semicircular 

 ruins with those of the typical cliff ruins reveals the fact that they 

 ■were simply cliff towns transferred, as it were, to the level of the open 

 plains or mesa tops. Their outer or encircling walls were, save at the 

 extremities of the courts, generally uiibi'okeu and perjjendicular, as 

 uninterrupted and sheer, almost, as were the natural canyon walls sur- 

 rounding to the rearward the older cliff towns to which they thus cor- 

 responded and which they apparently' were built to replace; and the 

 houses descended like steps from these outer walls in terraced stories, 

 facing, like the seats of an amphitheater, the open courts, precisely as 

 descended the terraced stories of the cliff dwellings from the encircling 

 rock walls of the sheltered ledges or shelves on which they were 

 reared, necessarily facing iu the same manner the open canyons below. 

 Thus the courts may be sui)posed to have replaced the canyons, as the 

 outer walls replaced the cliffs or the back walls built nearest them in 

 the rear of at least the deeper village caves or shelters. 



Other structural and kindred features of the cliff towns are fo".nd to 

 be equally characteristic of the round ruins, features which, originating 

 iu the conditions of building and dwelling in the cliffs, came to be 

 perpetuated in the round towns afterward built on the plains. 



So limited was the foothold afforded by the scant ledges or in the 

 sheltered but shallow hollows of the clitfs where the ancient cliff 

 dwellers were at first forced as a measure of safety to take refuge and 

 finally to build, that they had to economize space to the utmost. Hence 

 in part only tbe women and children, being smaller and more in need 

 of protection than the men, were accommodated with dwelling places 

 as such, the rooms of which were so diminutive that, to account for 

 them, theories of the dwarfish size of I'he cliff dwellers as a race have 

 been common. As a further measure of economy these rooms were 

 built atop of one another, sometimes to the height of several stories — 

 ri]), in fact, to the very roof at the rear of the cavern in most cases— 

 and thence they were terraced toward the front in order that light 

 and air might be admitted as directly as possible to each story. 



For the double purpose of accommodating the men and of serving 

 as assembly rooms for councils and ceremonial functions, large circular 



