[Illustration: FIG. 255--Ground plan of San Bernardino de Awatobi]
The ground plan (figure 255) of the mission resembles that of the Zuñi church, and is not unlike the plans of the churches in the Rio Grande pueblos. The tall buttresses, which rise 15 or 20 feet above the trail up the mesa on the southern corner, are, I believe, remnants of towers which formerly supported a balcony. During a previous visit to Tusayan I obtained fragments[72] of the ancient bell, which are now on exhibition in the Hemenway section of the Peabody Museum at Cambridge.
The stone walls of the mission were rarely dressed or carefully fitted, the interstices being filled in with loose rubble laid in adobe. There was apparently a gallery over the entrance to the building overlooking many smaller buildings, which evidently were the quarters of the resident priest. The construction of the walls was apparently a laborious task, as many of the stones are large and must have been brought a considerable distance. These stones were laid in adobe, and apparently were plastered without and within, although little evidence of the former plastering may now be seen. At the northwestern corner, however, there still remain well-made adobe walls, the clay having been intermixed with straw. From the general appearance of these walls I regard them as of late construction, probably long after the destruction of the mission.
An examination of the plan of the mission building shows that it was oriented about north and south, with the entrance toward the latter direction. Compared with many other pueblo missions, this would seem to be an exceptional position. In my excavations I naturally sought the probable position of the entrance and, opposite it, the recess for the altar. It is evident, from the form of the standing walls, that an entrance from the east would be blocked by standing walls, and the axis of the building is north and south. The theory that the door was at the south has much in its favor, but there are several almost fatal objections to this conclusion.
If, however, we suppose that the entrance was in the south wall, the high walls still standing above the trail up the mesa would then recall the façades of other missions. The rooms east of the largest inclosure, by this interpretation, would be outbuildings--residence rooms for the padres--one side of which forms the eastern walls of the church edifice. The form of the Awatobi church, as indicated by the walls still standing, is very similar to that of Zuñi, notwithstanding the orientation appears to be somewhat different.