Contact:s a cave room. An Indian would s
oon
s uffocate inside a cave. During the rainy seasons the
roofs
leaked and
great quantities of mud were stirred up and
spread over the top and smoothed down flat. The women
could always find more when that washed off. In time weeds
and wild grasses took root in these dirt roofs.
But somewhere, somehow, not at Tyuonyi perhaps, but
in some nearby valley or on some high mesa top at one of a
hundred colony sites, Indian neighbors found that still larger
chunks of tuff could be used for building blocks. This would
save much labor. So much mud in aTvall would not be necessary.
It is possible that this use of larger building stones was
not a matter of independent origin at any one of many prim
itive villages on the high mesas and in the deep canyons of
the Pajarito. Indians, after years and y
ears of living, simply came into the use of larger building blocks by the trial and error method. They served the purpose better. A dry spell or so, when it did not rain, might have made it necessary to transport more and more water in urns from water holes or nearby streams. This was womens work and hard work too. And more stone and less mud made stronger walls for houses anyway. Some of the stond was so soft that it could be shaped into blocks to fit into the walls. These blocks did not lay absolutely flat because their surfaces were irregular. Small stones were forced between the cracks and when the mud mortar dried the