Such
shelters were built of stone or of brush, according to which material
was most available.
In very precipitous localities, as the Canyon de Chelly, these outlooks
naturally became the so-called cliff-dwellings or isolated shelters.
In Cibola single stone houses are in common use, not to the exclusion,
however, of the lighter structures of brush, while in Tusayan these
lighter forms, of which there are a number of well defined varieties,
are almost exclusively used. A detailed study of the methods of
construction employed in these rude shelters would be of great interest
as affording a comparison both with the building methods of the ruder
neighboring tribes and with those adopted in constructing some of the
details of the terraced house; the writer, however, did not have an
opportunity of making an examination of all the field shelters used in
these pueblos. Two of the simpler types are the "tuwahlki," or watch
house, and the "kishoni," or uncovered shade. The former is constructed
by first planting a short forked stick in the ground, which supports one
end of a pole, the other end resting on the ground. The interval between
this ridge pole and the ground is roughly filled in with slanting sticks
and brush, the inclosed space being not more than 3 feet in height, with
a maximum width of four or five feet. These shelters are for the
accommodation of the children who watch the melon patches until the
fruit is harvested.
[Illustration: Fig.
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