Although this church building has for many generations
furnished a conspicuous example of typical adobe construction to the
Zu?i, he has never taken the lesson sufficiently to heart to closely
imitate the Spanish methods either in the preparation of the material or
in the manner of its use. The adobe bricks of the church are of large
and uniform size, and the mud from which they were made had a liberal
admixture of straw. This binding material does not appear in Zu?i in any
other example of adobe that has been examined, nor does it seem to have
been utilized in any of the native pueblo work either at this place or
at Tusayan. Where molded adobe bricks have been used by the Zu?i in
housebuilding they have been made from the raw material just as it was
taken from the fields. As a result these bricks have little of the
durability of the Spanish work. Pl. XCVI illustrates an adobe wall of
Zu?i, part of an unroofed house. The old adobe church at Hawikuh (Pl.
XLVIII), abandoned for two centuries, has withstood the wear of time and
weather better than any of the stonework of the surrounding houses. On
the right-hand side of the street that shows in the foreground of Pl.
LXXVIII is an illustration of the construction of a wall with adobe
bricks. This example is very recent, as it has not yet been roofed over.
The top of the wall, however, is temporarily protected by the usual
series of thin sandstone slabs used in the finishing of wall copings.
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