As he sprinkles this offering he sings to the
Sun his Kitdauwi, house song: "Si-ai, a-hai, si-ai, a-hai." The meaning
of these words the people have now forgotten.
Mr. Stephen has been informed by the Indians that the man is a mason and
the woman the plasterer, the house belonging to the woman when finished;
but according to my own observation this is not the universal practice
in modern Tusayan. In the case of the house in Oraibi, illustrated in
Pl. XL from a photograph, much, if not all, of the masonry was laid, as
well as finished and plastered, by the woman of the house and her female
relatives. There was but one man present at this house-building, whose
grudgingly performed duty consisted of lifting the larger roof beams and
lintels into place and of giving occasional assistance in the heavier
work. The ground about this house was strewn with quantities of broken
stone for masonry, which seemed to be all prepared and brought to the
spot before building began; but often the various divisions of the work
are carried on by both men and women simultaneously. While the men were
dressing the stones, the women brought earth and water and mixed a mud
plaster. Then the walls were laid in irregular courses, using the mortar
very sparingly.
The house is always built in the form of a parallelogram, the walls
being from 7 to 8 feet high, and of irregular thickness, sometimes
varying from 15 to 22 inches in different parts of the same wall.
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