ing is done. All the necessary grooving, and the
preparation of the projecting tenons is laboriously executed with the
most primitive tools, in many cases the whole frame, with all its
joints, being cut out with a small knife.

[Illustration: Plate XCI. A group of stone corrals near Oraibi.]

Doors are usually fastened by a simple wooden latch, the bar of which
turns upon a wooden pin. They are opened from without by lifting the
latch from its wooden catch, by means of a string passed through a small
hole in the door, and hanging outside. Some few doors are, however,
provided with a cumbersome wooden lock, operated by means of a square,
notched stick that serves as a key. These locks are usually fastened to
the inner side of the door by thongs of buckskin or rawhide, passed
through small holes bored or drilled through the edge of the lock, and
through the stile and panel of the door at corresponding points. The
entire mechanism consists of wood and strings joined together in the
rudest manner. Primitive as this device is, however, its conception is
far in advance of the aboriginal culture of the pueblos, and both it and
the string latch must have come from without. The lock was probably a
contrivance of the early Mormons, as it is evidently roughly modeled
after a metallic lock.

Many doors having no permanent means of closure are still in use. These
are very common in Tusayan, and occur also in Cibola, particularly in
the farming pueblos. The open front of the "tupubi" or balcony-like
recess, seen so frequently at the ends of first-terrace roofs in
Tusayan, is often constructed with a transom-like arrangement in
connection with the girder supporting the edge of the roof, in the same
manner in which doorways proper are treated. Pl. XXXII illustrates a
balcony in which one bounding side is formed by a flight of stone steps,
producing a notched or terraced effect. The supporting girder in this
instance is embedded in the wall and coated over with adobe, obscuring
the construction. Fig. 79 shows a rude transom over the supporting beam
of a balcony roof in the principal house of Hano. The upper doorway
shown in this house has been partly walled in, reducing its size
somewhat. It is also provided with a small horizontal opening over the
main lintel, which, like the doorway, has been partly filled with
masonry. This upper transom often seems to have resulted from carrying
such openings to the full height of the story. The