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The ruin was described and figured a few years later by Mr Victor Mindeleff in his valuable memoir on Cibola and Tusayan architecture. Bourke's reference is very brief and Mindeleff's plan deficient, as it includes only a portion of the ruin, namely, the conspicuous mission walls and adjacent buildings, overlooking entirely the older or western mounds, which are the most characteristic.
This variety of dwelling was overlooked in both Mearns' and Mindeleff's classifications, from the fact that it seems to be confined to the region of the valley characterized by the red-rock formation, which appears not to have been explored by them.
Notwithstanding Mindeleff's excellent descriptions of the cavate dwellings of this region, already cited, I have thought it well to bring into prominence certain features which seem to me to indicate that this form of aboriginal dwelling was high in its development, showing considerable skill in its construction, and was fashioned on the same general plan as the others.
The mission at Oraibi likewise stood on a mesa top, so that we must qualify Mindeleff's statement that "at Tusayan there is no evidence that a church or mission house ever formed part of the villages on the mesa summits.... These summits have been extensively occupied only in comparatively recent time, although one or more churches may have been built here at an early date as outlooks over the fields in the valley below."
While engaged in preparing this report, having in fact written most of it, I received Mr Cosmos Mindeleff's valuable article on the Verde ruins, in which special attention is given to the cavate lodges and villages of this interesting valley.
In 1892 I published the first complete ground-plan of the ruins of Awatobi, including both eastern and western sections. As Mindeleff's plan is defective, his characterization of the architectural features of the pueblo is consequently faulty.
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