hisatsinom
TRANSCRIPT
INDIGENOUS AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE
Tony WardMarch 2010
POPULAR IMAGE
The popular image of the Indians is that of the so-called Plains Indians (Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Pawnee, Blackfoot etc) who led a nomadic life on the great plains, following the vast herds of buffalo. They did not acquire horses until the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 when the Indians of the South-West rose up against the Spanish, forcing them out of the area and leaving behind many horses. The Pueblo Indians traded these to the Plains tribes, facilitating a much more efficient system of hunting.
But the Indigenous peoples of this continent had been here for much longer. Scholars believe that they have continually occupied the continent for 10,000-15,000 years - long before the “civilizations” of Greece, Rome, Egypt etc. It is believed that they migrated from Asia across the Bering Straight and slowly spread throughout both Northern and Southern American continents, from Alaska down to Tierra Del Fuego. They left behind many traces of their occupation across the entire United States.
EARLIEST SETTLEMENTS 10,000-15,000 YEARS AGO
3200-1000 YEARS AGO
“HISATSINOM”
I want to focus on a particular group of indians who lived in the South West about a thousand years ago. They are often named the “Anasazi” - a Navajo word meaning “Ancient Enemies” (a term offensive to the Hopi). They lived in the Four Corners area for more than 2000 years, building a number of remarkable village structures, before they were forced to abandon them around 1300 because of what is now called the “Great Draught” that lasted for 300 years from A.D. 1150.
BUILDING 1: MESA VERDE
1891 1944
Mesa Verde was “discovered” by a white rancher, Richard Wetherill in 1888, and is now listed as a World Heritage Site. It was he who originally used the term “Anasazi”.
THE LONG-HOUSE 1977
LONGHOUSE SEASONS
BUILDING 2: BETATAKIN
Summer Evening Winter Evening
SummerMorning Winter Morning Summer Noon
BETATAKIN
BUILDING 3: KEET SEEL
CANYON DE CHELLY
WHITE HOUSE
ANTELOPE HOUSE
Mummy House Mummy House/Cave
Standing Cow Ruin
BUILDING 4: ACOMA PUEBLO
Acoma is, along with the Hopi town of Oraibi, the oldest inhabited settlement in the United States. It was already well established when the Spaniards first saw it in 1540. The ancient pueblo, known as the Sky City, is spectacularly situated like a medieval fortress atop its 600-foot-high rock, halfway between Gallup and Albuquerque in New Mexico.
When the column of Spanish troops came into view on a cold winter afternoon of January 21, 1599 the fighting men of Acoma fanned out from their village to guard the edge of the mesa. As the Spaniards drew closer, the defenders unleashed a barrage of insults, rocks, and arrows from more than 300 feet above. Just seven weeks earlier, a party of Spanish soldiers seeking food had been treated in a friendly manner until their demands turned aggressive and provoked a furious reaction. When it was over, almost all the intruders were dead. The military governor resolved to make an example of Acoma, and dispatched 70 of his best men under the command of Vicente de Zaldivar. These were the troops approaching the seemingly impregnable "Sky City" that January afternoon. Over the next 3 days the Spaniards fought their way to the top of the mesa, where they rolled out a fearsome new weapon, a cannon that spewed thunderous blasts of small stones, tearing flesh and shattering bones. The battle became a massacre. As many as 800 Acomans soon lay dead in the rubble of their ruined city. Some 500 survivors were herded into dismal captivity: all males over the age of 12 were condemned to 20 years' servitude; those over 25 were also sentenced to have one foot cut off. In time, some of the Acomans managed to escape and made their way home, there to begin the long process of rebuilding. The Sky City has been continuously inhabited since then, and never again has it fallen to an invader.
The buildings at Acoma Pueblo are considered (along with the Hopi village of Oraibi and Taos Pueblo) to be among the longest continually inhabited buildings in the USA. They have been occupied from about 1000 AD. down to the present
ACOMA
1940 1996
19961996
BUILDING 5: TAOS PUEBLO
The main buildings of the Taos Pueblo were constructed between 1000 and 1450 AD and appeared then much as they do today. They are considered (along with the Hopi village of Oraibi and the Keresan village of Acoma) to be among the longest continually inhabited buildings in the USA. The Mission building shown here was built in 1850 and replaced one dating from 1619, after the Spanish invasion of 1540. The image on the left is by Ansel Adams (1940). The portico is a more recent addition.
BUILDING 6: PUEBLO BONITO
Chaco Canyon
PRIMITIVE PEOPLE?The eminent scholar and researcher, Ralph Knowles, won the AIA Gold Medal for Research in 1974 for his analysis of the environmental sustainability of the Anasazi and Pueblo architecture. Using the University of Southern California mainframe computer coupled with on-site readings he created sustainability models of the old Indian architecture illustrated here. This is what he discovered.......
MESA VERDE
The cave that houses the LongHouse at Mesa Verde is 500’ wide and 130’ deep and is so organized that its roof cuts out the overhead summer sun but captures all of the precious radiant heat of the winter sun. This heat is then radiated from the cave and building walls back into the space, allowing for a very balanced temperature throughout the year. Activities within the Longhouse were zoned at different levels and different locations to make optimum use of seasonal variations in temperature.
S
OTHER CAVE DWELLINGS
BetatakinMesa Verde Keet Seel
White House Antelope House Mummy Cave
Although Mesa Verde is the biggest and the best preserved cave dwellings in the Southwest, here are a great many similar ones. All of them have the same environmental and thermal characteristics. Working with fixed and predetermined constraints, their builder/occupiers were able to achieve a remarkable fit between their environment and their social and cultural needs
ACOMA PUEBLO
Unlike cave dwellings, Acoma Pueblo has no overarching geometric constraints. It is built atop a mesa in a series of conneted row houses, mostly three stories high, and oriented along an East-West axis facing each block due South, into the sun. Each block is stepped back from the others so as not to cast its winter shadow on them. Each level is stepped back to form Winter sun-drenched terraces
Yet the builders of Acoma Pueblo (since about 1000AD.) had even greater levels of understanding and sophistication.
If we look at the possible configurations of spaces and volumes that the builders might have used in terms of their solar orientation (right) we discover that they chose the most efficient option (top left), except for a vertical high-rise (bottom right) for which they did not possess the technology at that time (bottom right)
And still more!
.8333
.6666
.6111
.5833
.5666
.5555
.5475
.5411
.5370
.5333
.5303
An assumed unit cube volume is able to receive solar energy, on a maximum of 5 sides. If we add cubes side by side the possible receptive area diminishes progressively. After 8 cubes have been added the loss of surface receptivity levels off (below).
1
2
6
5
4
3
11
10
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8
7
Similarly, if we assume an East-West orientation for the block, with possible solar receptivity on the ends, then the impact of this end insolation diminishes after 8 blocks (right).
The housing units at Acoma tend to be arranged roughly in blocks of eight
Possible Insolation for combinations of cubes
MULTI-LEVEL INSOLATION
Possible Insolation per unit volume
1 Unit = .5833 x2 = .4166 x3 = .3611 x4 = .3333 x5 = .3166 x6 = .3055 x7 = .2976 x8 = .2916 x9 = .2870 x10 = .2833
Looking at the Acoma Blocks more literally, taking into account the three-tiered organization of the Acoma pueblo buildings, we find that efficiencies of possible insolation begin to also tail in rows of around 8 combined units
THERMAL CONSTRUCTION
Furthermore, we find that the efficiency of the forms is very close to pefect in terms of the amount of possibe insolation (left) while the incidental energy works at maximum efficiency (and inversely) for both Summer cooling and Winter heating respectively (right)
END WALLS
Knowles confirms that the original builders of Acoma understood the thermal efficiencies of row housing in sophisticated ways. They recognized that beyond a certain point the insulation efficiencies of shared walls began to diminish and that they even constructed the end walls differently to maintain efficiencies of Winter heating and Summer cooling
But there’s More!If we take into account the different kinds of construction of walls and roofs, we find that the walls are much more efficient at capturing and transmitting heat from the low Winter sun than the roofs, and that the roofs are much more efficient at insulating the interiors from the high overhead Summer sun. Taken together, the walls and roofs operate to mediate a constant internal room temperature across 24 hours and across seasons.
REFLECTIONSWe can say that the builders of Acoma had a sophisticated knowledge of the relationship between building form and energy efficiency in the context of the high desert environment of the South West. They took the knowledge of the Anasazi (Mesa Verde) cave builders and extended it beyond received geometries into the realm of whole-building design.
If, in our currently threatened ecosystem, sophisticated solutions involve “doing more with less” then the Acoma builders have a thing or two to teach us. Theirs was a very sophisticated technological culture!
PUEBLO BONITO
Pueblo Bonito lies in Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. It lies about 100’, facing due South, with its back to the mesa cliff about 100’ away. It was built in two phases, in A.D. 919 and again in A.D.1050. The original construction is literally a curved version of Acoma Pueblo. The newer construction is considerably more sophisticated than the original and it is surmised that it was undertaken by strangers or visitors. In 20 years they tripled the size of the Pueblo to accommodate up to 800 individuals.
Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon
INTENTIONAL DESIGN
Plan of Old Bonito
S
In plan, it was not unlike the Long-house at Mesa Verde, but slightly smaller (300’ x 120’ deep). Unlike Mesa Verde, it was constructed independently of any supportive cave environment. Hence the heat-gain/heat-loss characteristics that supported its environmental quality had to be invented - based upon a design model.
Although the construction is somewhat crude, it appears that Old Bonito, like the Long-house and Acoma Pueblo, operated as a very efficient thermal environment. However, unlike these others, Old Bonito has several unique and striking features. Perhaps the most significant is that the entire pueblo acts as a sundial. At the Summer solstice sunrise, the first rays of the sun above the mesa edge cut a line directly across the two ends of the pueblo (right).
CHARTING THE SEASONSThis characteristic is even more extensive than it first seems.At the Winter solstice, the setting sun casts a shadow from the Western end of the arc across to the Eastern edge (bottom right). It seems that the geometries of whole village were used to identify key points in the growing season.
Additionally, the pueblos is so constructed that the high rear walls cut out the late, low summer sun, while the slight inclination of the pueblo to the South East ensures that in Winter, all of the surfaces of walls and floors are in direct sunlight from dawn onwards
NEW BONITO
Around A.D. 1050 a new group of strangers or visitors arrived in Chaco Canyon and were peacefully accepted by the residents of Old Bonito. The newcomers immediately embarked upon a massive rebuilding program - dramatically increasing the size of the old pueblo and orienting it directly to the South. After a false start (on the Eastern wing, building straight out) they curved the building to the right (South), forming the pueblo into a rough semi-circle and using a modular unit of construction similar to that at Acoma Pueblo.
SYSTEMIC COMPARISON: 1Comparing the insolation between Old and New Bonito, Knowles discovered find that while they are about the same in Winter, there is a significant increase (233%) in Summer at New Bonito. This is largely due to its increased size - 40,000 sq. ft to 130,000 sq. ft. (top right)
Adjusting this increased efficiency by unit area, he also found that the two systems were much more similar - particularly in Winter, with a slightly higher insolation in Summer at New Bonito (bottom right).
SYSTEMIC COMPARISON: 2Knowles also found that overall, there was a slight (5%-7%) difference in the way that the surfaces of Old and New Bonito received incident energy (left).
Interestingly, while in Old Bonito the Winter/Summer reception of incident energy on vertical and horizontal surfaces were inverted and symmetrical (bottom left), in New Bonito, they are asymmetrical (bottom right)
W S
WS
Knowles was able to demonstrate that New Bonito had less of an increase in Summer insolation than Old Bonito (and was therefore more efficient) and that both Old and New Bonito, like Acoma, were able to absorb energy more efficiently in their vertical surfaces in Winter and on their horizontal surfaces in Summer. Furthermore, the construction techniques of both surfaces - like those at Acoma - were able to balance the seasonal differences in temperature.
SYSTEMIC COMPARISON: 3While, because of its greater size, the energy transmitted to interior spaces is overall much greater for New Bonito, when measured as a function of unit volume, it can be seen to be relatively equally (top right)
On the other hand, when he analysed the way different surfaces transmitted energy to interior spaces in Summer and Winter, Knowles discovered that New Bonito had a much greater stability through the Winter months and across each day (bottom right)
Extraordinarily, while Old Bonito was 15% more efficient in Winter and able to mediate seasonal differences, New Bonito was also able to mediate daily variations in temperature over a constant 33% efficiency between sunrise and sunset.
SUMMARY
One of the significant features of both Old and New Bonito is the way that the location of the cliff reduces the degree of Summer insolation (and hence overheating) - shown by the dotted lines in the graphs above.
Knowles concludes that the exact location of the pueblo, its precise geometries, the detailing and construction of its vertical and horizontal surfaces and the articulation and clustering of its units could not have been accidental, but must be attributable to a sophisticated understanding of thermodynamics, climate, seasonal variations and construction technologies. Furthermore, its precise overall semicircular shape, coupled with these understandings suggests that its designer/builders began with a preconceived model or plan, since its full efficiencies are only achieved when the plan is fully realized.
At that time this level of knowledge and technological skill and sophistication did not exist anywhere else in the whole continent. The only culture that possessed comparable building and astronomic knowledge at that time were the Mayans, and to some extent the Aztecs of Central America. It has been suggested that the Indians of the Southwest - the forebears of the Hopi, acquired their knowledge through trade with Mexican nations.
REFLECTIONSBy the time Columbus arrived in Haiti in 1492, the Anasazi buildings had already been abandoned by their occupants for more than 50 years - an abandonment brought about by a draught that lasted for more than 3 centuries and that lowered the water table in these already arid lands. Knowles suggests that their cultures and societies “died out”, leaving the mysterious legacy of a “lost” civilization. The truth may be more prosaic and at the same time more challenging. Several proximate Indian tribes in today’s world have oral histories and cultural practices that connect them back to these earlier peoples. The Hopi, the Tewa and the Acomans are a case in point.
“Anasazi” is a cultural label applied by anthropologist who took up the word from Richard Wetherill, the first white man to discover Mesa Verde. The word means “Ancient Enemies” in Navajo. We do not know what these people called themselves. The modern Hopi use the word "Hisatsinom" in preference to Anasazi which is to them offensive.
COLONIAL HEGEMONYIt is easier for us to believed that these sophisticated peoples “died out” rather than that they were the ancestors of people who still live in the United States and whom we have abused, terrorize and oppressed. It is perhaps easier to justify the genocide of “primitive” peoples under the banner of “progress” or “Manifest destiny”.
By extension, to acknowledge that they had, perhaps, a more sophisticated understanding of social, cultural and environmental issues than we do is to call the very notion of “progress” into question, and with it, the indefensible justification of our own past colonial crimes against humanity.
HOPITUH SHI-NU-MU (THE PEACEFUL ONES)
WALPI 1876
1920
HOPI SPIRITUALITYTheir villages are sacred to the Hopi - as is their entire environment. They believe that they emerged from within the earth at a place called Sipapu in what they now call the Grand Canyon. They also believe that this is the fourth time the world has been created and that each time the Creator destroyed it again because the human beings made a mess of it. Theirs is the responsibility for keeping the present world intact and in balance. All of their spiritual practices are directed to this end. At various times of the year, the Katchinas (spirit beings) who live in the distant San Francisco Mountains come down into the villages and perform their sacred ritual dances (of which the Snake Dance is one). The intention of these rituals, is to maintain the continuity and balance of the universe. The Hopi believe that if they neglect to perform their rituals then the world will once again be destroyed by the Creator. Most Kitchen dances are not accessible to non-Hopi, but some are. They can last for days, and the whole village becomes the site of their performances with spectators sitting on rooftops to watch.
SNAKE DANCE
18801920
MAINTAINING THE BALANCEAnnually, Hopi priests traverse the Hopi homeland, maintaining, through spiritual practices, an unbroken ritual connection with their distant ancestors. At Sipapu (top right) and Betatakin (bottom right) they carry out their ritualized responsibilities not just for the benefit of the Hopi, but for all living creatures. (See: Hopi, Jake and Susanne Page, Rio Nuevo Publishers, 1984)
MISHNOGOVIWALPI
It is nowadays forbidden to take pictures of the Hopi townships. If you attempt to do so your camera will be confiscated. If you ask you will cause embarrassment and you will be refused. So don’t even try!