The house architecture of the Northern tribes is of little importance, in itself considered; but, as an outcome of their social condition and for comparison with that of the Southern Village Indians, it is highly important. An attempt will be made to show, firstly, that the known communism in living of the former tribes entered into and determined the character of their houses, which are communal; and, secondly, that wherever the structures of the latter class are obviously communal, the practice of communism in living at the period of discovery may be inferred from the structures themselves, although many of them are now in ruins, and the people who constructed them have disappeared. Some evidence, however, of the communism of the Village Indians has been presented.

COMMUNAL HOUSES OF TRIBES IN SAVAGERY.

Mr. Stephen Powers, in his recent and instructive work on the "California Tribes," enumerates seven varieties of the lodge constructed by these tribes, adapted to the different climates of the State. One form was adapted to the raw and foggy climate of the California coast, constructed of redwood poles over an excavated pit, another to the snow-belt of the Coast Range and of the Sierras; another to the high ranges of the Sierras; another to the warm coast valleys; another, limited to a small area, constructed of interlaced willow poles, the interstices being open; another to the woodless plains of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, dome-shaped and covered with earth; and another to the hot and nearly rainless region of the Kern and Tulare valleys, made of tule. Four of these varieties are given below, the illustrations being taken from his work. [Footnote: Powell's Geographical Survey, &c., of the Rocky Mountain Region, Contributions to American Ethnology, vol. iii, Powers' Tribes of California, p. 436.]

"In making a wigwam, they excavated about two feet, banked up the earth enough to keep out the water, and threw the remainder on the roof dome-shaped. With the Lolsel the bride often remains in the father's house, and her husband comes to live with her, whereupon half the purchase money is returned. Thus there will be two or three families in one lodge. They are very clannish, especially the mountain tribes, and family influence is all potent." [Footnote: ib., p. 221.]

Elsewhere he remarks upon this form of house as follows: "On the great woodless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, the savages naturally had recourse to earth for a material. The round, domed-shaped, earth-covered lodge is considered the characteristic one of California; and probably two-thirds of its immense aboriginal population lived in dwellings of this description. The doorway is sometimes directly on top, sometimes on the ground, at one side. I have never been able to ascertain whether the amount of rain-fall of any given locality had any influence in determining the place of the door." [Footnote: ib., p. 437.]

This mode of entrance reappears in the more artistic house of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, where the rooms are entered by means of a trap-door in the roof, the descent being made by a ladder. The "immense aboriginal population" of California, claimed by Mr. Powers, is too strong a statement.

"This wigwam is in the shape of the capital letter L, made up of slats leaning up to a ridge-pole and heavily thatched. All along the middle of it the different families or generations have their fires, while they sleep next the walls, lying on the ground, underneath rabbit-skins and other less elegant robes, and amid a filthy cluster of baskets, dogs, and all the wretched trumpery dear to the aboriginal heart. There are three narrow holes for dens, one at either end and one at the elbow." This is Mr. Powers' fifth variety of the lodge. [Footnote: Powers' Tribes of Cal., p. 284.]

"In the very highest region of Sierra, where the snow falls to such an enormous depth that the fire would be blotted out and the whole open side snowed up, the dwelling retains substantially the same form and materials, but the fire is taken into the middle of it, and one side of it (generally the east one) slopes down more nearly horizontal than the other, and terminates in a curved way about three feet high and twice as long." Half a dozen such houses make an Indian village, with the addition of a "dome-shaped assembly or dance house" in the middle space. "One or more acorn-granaries of wicker-work stand around each lodge, much like hogsheads in shape and size, either on the ground or mounted on posts as high as one's head, full of acorns and capped with thatch." [Footnote: Powers' Tribes of Cal., p. 284.]

In Southern California, where the climate is both dry and hot, the natives constructed a wigwam entirely different from those found in other parts of the State. "In the Yokut nation," Mr. Powers remarks, "there appears to be more political solidarity, more capacity in the petty tribes of being grouped into large and coherent masses than is common in the State. This is particularly true of those living on the plains, who display in their encampments a military precision and regularity which are remarkable. Every village consists of a single row of wigwams, conical or wedge-shaped, generally made of tule, and just enough hollowed out within so that the inmates may sleep with the head higher than the feet, all in perfect alignment, and with a continuous awning of brushwood stretching along in front. In one end-wigwam lives the village captain; on the other the shaman of si-se'-ro. In the mountains there is some approach to this martial array, but it is universal on the plains." [Footnote: Powers' Tribes of Cal., p. 370.]

As a rule these houses were occupied by more families than one, as is shown by the same author. In the northern part of the State "the Tatu wigwams do not differ essentially from those of the vicinal tribes. They are constructed of stout willow wicker-work, dome-shaped, and thatched with grass. Sometimes they are very large and oblong, with sleeping-room for thirty or forty persons." [Footnote: ib., p. 139.]

The Yo-kai'-a inhabit a section of the north-west part of the State. "Their style of lodge is the same which prevails generally along Russian River, a huge frame-work of willow poles covered with thatch, and resembling a large flattish haystack. Though still preserving the same style and materials, since they have adopted from the Americans the use of boards they have learned to construct all around the wall of the wigwam a series of little state rooms, if I may so call them, which are snugly boarded up and furnished with bunks inside. This enables every family in these immense patriarchal lodges to disrobe and retire with some regard to decency, which could not be done in the one common room of the old style wigwam." [Footnote: ib., p. 163.]

Again: "The Se-nel, together with three other petty tribes, mere villages, occupy that broad expanse of Russian River Valley on one side of which now stands the American village of Senel. Among them we find unmistakably developed that patriarchal system which appears to prevail all along Russian River. They construct immense dome-shaped or oblong lodges of willow poles an inch or two in diameter, woven in square lattice-work, securely lashed and thatched. In each one of these live several families, sometimes twenty or thirty persons, including all who are blood relations. Each wigwam, therefore, is a pueblo, a law unto itself; and yet these lodges are grouped in villages, some of which formerly contained hundreds of inhabitants." [Footnote: ib., p. 168.]

I cannot find that Mr. Powers mentions the practice of communism in these households, but the fact seems probable. Their usages in the matter of hospitality are much the same as in the other tribes. Their principal food was salmon, acorn-flour bread, game, kamas, and berries. They were, without pottery, cooked in ground ovens, and also in water-tight baskets by means of heated stones.

A brief reference may be made to the skin lodge of the Kutchin or Louchoux of the Yukon and Peel Rivers.



This simple structure, the ground plan and elevation of which were taken from the Smithsonian Report, is thus described by Mr. Strachan Jones: [Footnote: Report for 1866, p. 321.] "Deer-skins are dressed with the hair on, and sewed together, forming two large rolls, which are stretched over a frame of bent poles. The lodge is nearly elliptical, about twelve or thirteen feet in diameter and six feet high, very similar to a tea-cup turned over. The door is about four feet high, and is simply a deer-skin fastened above and hanging down. The hole to allow the smoke to escape is about four feet in diameter. Snow is heaped up outside the edges of the lodge and pine brush spread on the ground inside, the snow having been previously shoveled off with snow-shoes. The fire is made in the middle of the lodge, and one or more families, as the case may be, live on each side of the fire, every one having his or her particular place." [Footnote: ib., p. 322.] He further remarks that "they have no pottery," and that they boil water "by means of stones heated red hot and thrown into the kettle." [Footnote: ib., p. 321.]

The principal fact to be noticed is that the lodge is comparted into stalls open on the central space, in the midst of which is the fire-pit, evidently for the accommodation of more families than one. This arrangement of the interior will reappear in numerous other cases. The Kutchin must be classed as savages, although near the close of that condition.

The tribes of the valley of the Columbia lived more or less in villages, but, like the tribes of California, were without horticulture and without pottery. But they found an abundant subsistence in the shell-fish of the coast, and in the myriads of fish in the Columbia and its tributaries. They also subsisted upon kamash and other bread roots of the prairies, which they cooked in ground ovens, and upon berries and game. They were expert boatmen and fishermen, manufactured water-tight baskets, implements of wood, stone, and bone, and used the bow and arrow. As another quite remarkable fact, they used plank in their houses, made by splitting logs with stone and elk-horn chisels. Like the Kutchin, they were in the Upper Status of savagery.

When Lewis and Clarke visited the Columbia River district (1805-1806) they found the Indian tribes living in houses of the plainest communal type, and some of them approaching in ground dimensions and in the number of their occupants the pueblo houses in New Mexico. They speak of a house of the Chopunish (Nez Perces) as follows: "This village of Tumachemootool is in fact only a single house one hundred and fifty feet long, built after the Chopunish fashion, with sticks, straw and dried grass. It contains twenty-four fires, about double that number of families, and might perhaps muster a hundred fighting men." [Footnote: Travels, etc., l. c., p. 548.]

This would give five hundred people in a single house. The number of fires probably indicates the number of groups practicing communism in living among themselves, though for aught we know it may have been general in the entire household.



Another great house, Ncerchokioo, is thus described: "This large building is two hundred and twenty-six feet in front, entirely above ground, and may be considered a single house, because the whole is under one roof, otherwise it would seem more like a range of buildings, as it is divided into seven distinct apartments, each thirty feet square, by means of broad boards set up on end from the floor to the roof. The apartments are separated from each other by a passage or alley four feet wide, extending through the whole depth of the house, and the only entrance is from the alley through a small hole about twenty inches wide and not more than three feet high. The roof is formed of rafters and round poles laid on horizontally. The whole is covered with a double roof of bark of white cedar." [Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 503.]

The apartments, as in the previous case of the fires, may be supposed to indicate the number of groups into which the great household was subdivided for the practice of communism.

Elsewhere, speaking of the houses of the Clahclellahs, they remark: "These houses are uncommonly large; one of them measured one hundred and sixty by forty feet, and the frames are constructed in the usual manner.... Most of the houses are built of boards and covered with bark, though some of the more inferior kind are constructed wholly of cedar bark, kept smooth and flat by small splinters fixed crosswise through the bark, at the distance of twelve or fourteen inches apart." [Footnote: ib., p. 515.]

The houses of the coast tribes (Clatsops and Chinooks) are also described. "The houses in this neighborhood are all large wooden buildings, ranging in length from twenty to sixty feet, and from fourteen to twenty in width. They are constructed in the following manner: two posts of split timber or more, agreeable to the number of partitions, are sunk in the ground, above which they rise to the height of fourteen or eighteen feet. They are hollowed at the top, so as to receive the end of a round beam or pole (ridge-pole) stretching from one to the other, and forming the upper point of the roof for the whole extent of the building. On each side of this range is placed another, which forms the eaves of the house, and is about five feet high; and as the building is often sunk to the depth of four or five feet, the eaves come very near the surface of the earth. Smaller pieces of timber are now extended by pairs, in the form of rafters, from the lower to the upper beams, where they are attached at both ends with cords of cedar bark. On these rafters two or three ranges of small poles are placed horizontally, and secured in the same way with strings of cedar bark. The sides are now made, with a range of white boards, sunk a small distance into the ground, with upper ends projecting above the poles at the eaves.... The gable end and partitions are formed in the same way.... The roof is than covered with a double range of thin boards, except an aperture of two or three feet in the center, for the smoke to pass through. The entrance is by a small hole, cut out of the boards, and just large enough to admit the body. The very largest houses only are divided by partitions, for though three or four families reside in the same room, there is quite space enough for all of them. In the center of each room is a space six or eight feet square, sunk to the depth of twelve inches below the rest of the floor, and inclosed by four pieces of square timber. Here they make the fire, for which purpose pine bark is generally preferred. Around the fireplace mats are placed, and serve as seats during the day, and very frequently as beds at night. There is, however, a more permanent bed made by fixing, in two or sometimes three sides of the room, posts reaching from the roof to the ground, and at the distance of four feet from the wall. From these posts to the wall itself, one or two ranges of boards are placed so as to form shelves, in which they either sleep or there stow away their various articles of merchandise." [Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 431.]

These explorers found the houses of the Indian tribes throughout the Columbia Valley occupied by several families, the smallest of them containing from twenty to forty persons, and the largest five hundred. The presence of large households is fully shown as the rule in their house-life. The practice of communism by the household, as stated by these authors, has already (supra, p. 71) been presented. This tendency to aggregation in groups, for subsistence and for mutual protection, reveals the weakness of the single family in the presence of the hardships of life. Communism in living was very plainly a necessity of their condition.

In a recent description (1869) of the modern houses of the Makah Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington Territory, by Mr. James G. Swan, the old usage which led to joint-tenement houses still asserts itself. Speaking of the manner of building these houses in detail, he remarks that "they are designed to accommodate several families, and are of various dimensions; some of them being sixty feet long by thirty wide, and from ten to fifteen feet high." The houses were made of split boards on a frame of timber. [Footnote: Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, No. 220, p. 5.]

COMMUNAL HOUSES OF TRIBES IN LOWER STATUS OF BARBARISM.



Among the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism some diversity existed in the plans of the lodge and house. Fig. 7, which is taken from Schoolcraft's work on the Indian tribes, shows the frame of an Ojibwa cabin or lodge of the best class, as it may still be seen on the south shore of Lake Superior. Its mechanism is sufficiently shown by the frame of elastic poles exhibited by the figure. It is covered with bark, usually canoe birch, taken off in large pieces and attached with splints. Its size on the ground varied from ten to sixteen feet, and its height from six to ten. Twigs of spruce or hemlock were strewn around the border of the lodge on the ground floor, upon which blankets and skins were spread for beds. The fire-pit was in the center of the floor, over which, in the center of the roof, was an opening for the exit of the smoke. Such a lodge would accommodate, in the aboriginal plan of living, two and sometimes three married pairs with their children. Several such lodges were usually found in a cluster, and the several households consisted of related families, the principal portion being of the same gens or clan. I am not able to state whether or not the households thus united by the bond of kin practiced communism in living in ancient times, but it seems probable. Carver, who visited an Ojibwa village in Wisconsin in 1767, makes it appear that each house was occupied by several families. "This town," he remarks, "contains about forty houses, and can send out upwards of a hundred warriors, many of whom are fine young men." This would give, by the usual rule of computation, five hundred persons, and an average of twelve persons to a house. [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 65.]



When first discovered the Dakotas lived in houses constructed with a frame of poles and covered with bark, each of which was large enough for several families. They dwelt principally in villages in their original area on the head-waters of the Mississippi, the present State of Minnesota. Forced upon the plains by an advancing white population, but after they had become possessed of horses, they invented a skin tent eminently adapted to their present nomadic condition. It is superior to any other in use among the American aborigines from its roominess, its portable character, and the facility with which it can be erected and struck. The frame consists of thirteen poles from fifteen to eighteen feet in length, which, after being tied together at the small ends, are raised upright with a twist so as to cross the poles above the fastening. They are then drawn apart at the large ends and adjusted upon the ground in the rim of a circle usually ten feet in diameter. A number of untanned and tanned buffalo skins, stitched together in a form adjustable to the frame, are drawn around it and lashed together, as shown in the figure. The lower edges are secured to the ground with tent-pins. At the top there is an extra skin adjusted as a collar, so as to be open on the windward side to facilitate the exit of the smoke. A low opening is left for a doorway, which is covered with an extra skin used as a drop. The fire-pit and arrangements for beds are the same as in the Ojibwa lodge, grass being used in the place of spruce or hemlock twigs. When the tent is struck, the poles are attached to a horse, half on each side, like thills, secured to the horse's neck at one end, and the other dragging on the ground. The skin-covering and other camp-equipage are packed upon other horses and even upon their dogs, and are thus transported from place to place on the plains. This tent is so well adapted to their mode of life that it has spread far and wide among the Indian tribes of the prairie region. I have seen it in use among seven or eight Dakota sub-tribes, among the Iowas, Otoes, and Pawnees, and among the Black-feet, Crows, Assiniboines, and Crees. In 1878 I saw it in use among the Utes of Colorado. A collection of fifty of these tents, which would accommodate five hundred persons, make a picturesque appearance. Under the name of the "Sibley tent" it is now in use, with some modifications of plan, in the United States Army, for service on the plains.



Sir Richard Grenville's expedition in 1585 visited the south part of the original colony of Virginia, now included in North Carolina. They landed at Roanoke Island, and also ascended a section of Albemarle Sound as far as the villages of Pomeiock and Secotan. An artist, John Wyth, before mentioned, was a member of this expedition, and we are indebted to him for a number of valuable sketches—the two villages named among the number, of which copies are given, together with representations of the people and of their industrial arts. The description of Pomeiock is as follows: "The towns in Virginia are very like those of Florida, not, however, so well and firmly built, and are enclosed by a circular palisade with a narrow entrance. In the town of Pomeiock, the buildings are mostly those of the chiefs and men of rank. On one side is the Temple (council-house) (A) of a circular shape, apart from the rest, and covered with mats on every side, without windows, and receiving no light except through the entrance. The residence of their chief (B) is constructed of poles fixed in the ground, bound together and covered with mats, which are thrown off at pleasure, to admit as much light and air as they may require. Some are covered with the boughs of trees. The natives, as represented in the plate, are indulging in their sports. When the spring or pond is at a distance from the town, they dig a ditch from it that supplies them with water." [Footnote: Wyth's Sketches of Virginia, first published by De Bry, 1690, Langly's ed., 1841, Plate 21.]

The village consisted of seventeen joint-tenement houses and a council-house, arranged around a central open space, and surrounded with a palisade. Here the Algonkin lodge, unlike that of the Ojibwas, is a long, round-roofed house, apparently from fifty to eighty feet in length, covered with movable matting in the place of bark, and large enough to accommodate several families. The suggestion of this author, that "the buildings were mostly those of chiefs and men of rank," embodies the precise error which has repeated itself from first to last with respect to the houses of American aborigines. Because the houses at Pomeiock were large, they were the residences of chiefs; and because the House of the Nuns at Uxmal was of palatial extent, it was the exclusive residence of an Indian potentate—conclusions opposed to the whole theory of Indian life and institutions. Indian chiefs, the continent over, were housed with the people, and no better, as a rule, than the poorest of them.

"Some of their towns," says the same author, "are not enclosed with a palisade and are much more pleasant; Secotan, for example, here drawn from nature. The houses are more scattered and a greater degree of comfort and cultivation is observable, with gardens in which tobacco (E) is cultivated, woods filled with deer, and fields of corn. In the fields they erect a stage (F), in which a sentry is stationed to guard against the depredations of birds and thieves. Their corn they plant in rows (H), for it grows so large, with thick stalk and broad leaves, that one plant would stint the other and it would never arrive at maturity. They have also a curious place (C) where they convene with their neighbors at their feasts, as more fully shown on Plate 20, and from which they go to the feast (D). On the opposite side is their place of prayer (B), and near to it the sepulchre of their chiefs (A).... They have gardens for melons (I), and a place (K) where they build their sacred fires. At a little distance from the town is the pond (L) from which they obtain their water." [Footnote: Sketches, etc., of Virginia, description of Plate 22.]

The houses of the Powhatan Indians of Virginia proper, as described by Captain John Smith, were precisely like those of Pomeiock and Secotan. A part of the interior of the house in which Smith was received by Powhatan as a prisoner is engraved upon his map of Virginia, of which the following is a copy:



"Their houses are built," Smith remarks, "like our arbors, of small young sprigs, bowed and tied, and so close covered with mats, or the bark of trees, very handsomely, that notwithstanding either wind, rain, or weather, they are as warm as stoves, but very smoky; yet, at the top of the house there is a hole made for the smoke to go into right over the fire. Against the fire they lie on little hurdles of reeds covered with a mat, borne from the ground a foot or more by a hurdle of wood. On these, round about the house, they lie, heads and points, one by the other against the fire, some covered with mats, some with skins, and some stark naked lie on the ground, from six to twenty in a house." [Footnote: History of Virginia, i, 130.]

The engraving is probably an improvement upon the original house in the symmetry of the structure, but it is doubtless a truthful representation of its mechanism. It seems likely that a double set of upright poles were used, one upon the outside and one on the inside, between which the mattings of canes or willows were secured, as the houses at Pomeiock and Secotan are ribbed externally at internals of about eight feet, showing four, five, and six sections. Each house, on this hypothesis, would be from twenty-four to forty-eight feet long. A reference (supra, p. 67) has been made to the size of the houses of the Virginia Indians, from which their communistic character may be inferred.

In the "Journal of a Voyage to New York," in 1679-1680, by Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, edited and translated by Hon. Henry C. Murphy, there is a careful description of a house of the Nyack Indians of Long Island, an Algonkin tribe, affiliated linguistically with the Virginia Indians. The Nyack house corresponds very closely with those last named. "We went from hence to her habitation," these authors remark, "where we found the whole troop together, consisting of seven or eight families, and twenty or twenty-two persons, I should think. Their house was low and long, about sixty feet long and fourteen or fifteen feet wide. The bottom was earth; the sides and roof were made of reed and the bark of chestnut trees; the posts or columns were limbs of trees stuck in the ground, and all fastened together. The top or ridge of the roof was open about half a foot wide, from one end to the other, in order to let the smoke escape, in the place of a chimney. On the sides or walls of the house, the roof was so low that you could hardly stand under it. The entrance, or doors, which were at both ends, were so small and low that they had to stoop down and squeeze themselves to get through them. The doors were made of reed or flat bark. In the whole building there was no lime, stone, iron, or lead. They build their fires in the middle of the floor, according to the number of families which live in it, so that from one end to the other each of them boils its own pot, and eats when it likes, not only the families by themselves, but each Indian alone, according as he is hungry, at all hours, morning, noon, and night. By each fire are the cooking utensils, consisting of a pot, a bowl or calabash, and a spoon, also made of a calabash. These are all that relate to cooking. They lie upon mats with their feet towards the fire, on each side of it. They do not sit much upon anything raised up, but, for the most part, sit on the ground or squat on their ankles. Their other household articles consist of a calabash of water, out of which they drink, a small basket in which to carry and keep their maize and small beans, and a knife.... All who live in one house are generally of one stock or descent, as father and mother with their offspring. Their bread is maize pounded on a block by a stone, but not fine. This is mixed with water and made into a cake, which they bake under the hot ashes. They gave us a small piece when we entered, and although the grains were not ripe, and it was half baked and coarse grains, we nevertheless had to eat it, or, at least, not throw it away before them, which they would have regarded as a great sin or a great affront." [Footnote: Journal, etc., p. 124.]

There is nothing in these statements forbidding the supposition that the household described practiced communism in living. The composition of the household shows that it was formed on the principle of gentle kin, while the several families cooked at the different fires, which was the usual practice in the different tribes; the stores were probably common, and the household under a matron. It will be noticed also that they gave him maize bread when he first entered the house. He little supposed that it was in obedience to a law or usage universal in the Indian family.



During the greater part of the year the Iroquois resided in villages. The size of the village was estimated by the number of the houses, and the size of the house by the number of fires it contained. One of the largest of the Seneca-Iroquois villages, situated at Mendon, near Rochester, N. Y. is thus described by Mr. Greenbalgh, who visited it in 1677: "Tiotohatton is on the brink or edge of a hill, has not much cleared ground, is near the river Tiotohatton [outlet of Honeoye Lake], which signifies bending. It lies to the westward of Canagora (Canandaigua) about thirty miles, contains about 120 houses, being the largest of all the houses we saw, the ordinary being fifty to sixty feet long, with twelve and thirteen fires in one house. They have a good store of corn growing to the northward of the town". [Footnote: Documentary History of New York, vol i. p 13.]

The "long-house" of the Iroquois, from which they called themselves, as one confederated people, Ho-de'-no-sau-nee (People of the Long-House), was from fifty to eighty and sometimes one hundred feet long. It consisted of a strong frame of upright poles set in the ground, which were strengthened with horizontal poles attached with withes, and surmounted with a triangular, and in some cases with a round roof. It was covered over, both sides and roof, with large strips of elm bark tied to the frame with strings or splints. An external frame of poles for the sides and of rafters for the roof were then adjusted to hold the bark shingles between them, the two frames being tied together.



The interior of the house was comparted at intervals of six or eight feet, leaving each chamber entirely open like a stall upon the passage way which passed through the center of the house from end to end. At each end was a doorway cohered with suspended skins. Between each four apartments, two on a side, was a fire-pit in the center of the hall, used in common by their occupants. Thus a house with five fires would contain twenty apartments and accommodate twenty families, unless some apartments were reserved for storage. They were warm, roomy, and tidily-kept habitations. Raised bunks were constructed around the walls of each apartment for beds. From the roof-poles were suspended their strings of corn in the ear, braided by the husks, also strings of dried squashes and pumpkins. Spaces were contrived here and there to store away their accumulations of provisions. Each house, as a rule was occupied by related families, the mothers and their children belonging to the same gens, while their husbands and the fathers of these children belonged to other gentes; consequently the gens or clan of the mother largely predominated in the household. Whatever was taken in the hunt or raised by cultivation by any member of the household, as has elsewhere been stated, was for the common benefit. Provisions were made a common stock within the household.

Here was communism in living carried out in practical life, but limited to the household, and an expression of the principle in the plan of the house itself. Having found it in one stock as well developed as the Iroquois, a presumption of its universality in the Indian family at once arises, because it was a law of their condition. Evidence of its general prevalence has elsewhere been presented.

In a previous chapter the usages of the Iroquois in regard to eating have been given. It came practically to one cooked meal each day. The separate fires in each house were for convenience in cooking, all the stores in the house being common. The plan of life within them was studied and economical. This is shown by the presence of a matron in each household, who made a division of the food from the kettle to each family according to their needs, and reserved what remained for future disposal. It shows system and organization in their long-houses, with a careful supervision of their stores, and forethought as well as equity in the management and distribution of their food. In these households, formed on the principle of kin, was laid the foundation for that "mother power" which was even more conspicuous in the tribes of the Old World, and which Professor Bachofen was the first to discuss under the name of gyneocracy and mother-right. [Footnote: Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1861.]

Since the mothers who dwelt together were usually sisters, own or collateral, and of the same gens, and since their children were also of the gens of their mother, the preponderating number in the household would be of gentile kin. The right and the influence of the mother were protected and strengthened through the maternal as well as the gentile bond. The husbands were in the minority as to kindred. In case of separation it was the husband and not the wife who left the house. But this influence of the woman did not reach outward to the affairs of the gens phratry, or tribe, but seems to have commenced and ended with the household. This view is quite consistent with the life of patient drudgery and of general subordination to the husband which the Iroquois wife cheerfully accepted as the portion of her sex. Among the Grecian tribes descent had been changed to the male line at the commencement of the historical period. It thus reversed the position of the wife and mother in the household: she was of a different gens from her children, as well as her husband; and under monogamy was now isolated from her gentile kindred, living in the separate and exclusive house of her husband. Her new condition tended to subvert and destroy that power and influence which descent in the female line and the joint-tenement houses had created. It is, therefore, the more surprising that so many traces of this anterior condition should have remained in the Grecian and other tribes which Professor Bachofen has pointed out, since gyneocracy and mother-right, as discussed by him, must have originated among these tribes when under the gentile organization, and with descent in the female line.

The "Joint Undivided Family" of the Hindus at the present time, "joint in food, worship, and estate," brought to our notice by Sir Henry Maine, [Footnote: Early History of Institutions, Holt's ed., pp. 100 and 106.] is a similar but probably more numerous household than that of the Iroquois. As soon as special investigation is made, joint-tenement houses and communism in living are found to be persistent features of barbarous life in the Old World as well as the New, but limited to the household. Strabo informs us that the Gauls lived in great houses, constructed of planks and wicker, with dome roofs covered with heavy thatch. [Footnote: Lib. iv, c. 4, s. 3.] Wherever such houses existed there is at least a presumption that they were occupied by several families, who formed a single household and practiced communism.

The Iroquois long-houses disappeared before the commencement of the present century. Very little is now remembered by the Indians themselves of their form and mechanism, or of the plan of life within them. Some knowledge of these houses remains among that class of Indians who are curious about their ancient customs. It has passed into the traditionary form, and is limited to a few particulars. A complete understanding of the mode of life in these long-houses will not, probably, ever be recovered. In 1743 Mr. John Bartram attended a council at Onondaga, and kept a journal, afterwards published, in which he inserted a ground plan of the long-house in which they were quartered. It is the first ground plan of one of these houses ever published, so far as the author is aware, and the only one prior to the appearance of Johnson's Cyclopaedia in 1875.



It should be noted that in 1696 Count Frontenac invaded Onondaga with a large French and Indian force, and that the Onondagas destroyed their principal village and retired. "The cabins of the Indians," says the relator, "and the triple palisade which encircled their fort were found entirely burnt." [Footnote: Documentary History of New York, p. 332.]

The new village visited by Mr. Bartram was probably quite near the site of the old. He says, "The town in its present state is about two or three miles long, yet the scattered cabins on both sides of the water are not above forty in number; many of them hold two families, but all stand single, so that the whole town is a strange mixture of cabins, interspersed with great patches of high grass, bushes and shrubs, some of peas, corn, and squashes.... We alighted at the council-house, where the chiefs were already assembled to receive us, which they did with a grave, cheerful complaisance according to their custom. They showed us where to lay our luggage, and repose ourselves during our stay with them, which was in the two end apartments of this large house. The Indians that came with us were placed over against us. This cabin is about eighty feet long and seventeen broad, the common passage six feet wide, and the apartments on each side five feet, raised a foot above the passage by a long sapling hewed square, and fitted with joists that go from it to the back of the house. On these joists they lay large pieces of bark, and on extraordinary occasions spread mats made of rushes, which favor we had. On these floors they set or lye down every one as he will. The apartments are divided from each other by boards or bark six or seven feet long from the lower floor to the upper, on which they put their lumber. When they have eaten their hominy, as they set in each apartment before the fire, they can put the bowl over head, having not above five foot to reach. They set on the floor sometimes at each end, but mostly at one. They have a shed to put their wood into in the winter, or in the summer to set, converse or play, that has a door to the south. All the sides and roof of the cabin is made of bark, bound fast to poles set in the ground, and bent round on the top, or set aflat for the roof as we set our rafters; over each fire-place they leave a hole to let out the smoke, which in rainy weather they cover with a piece of bark, and this they can easily reach with a pole to push it on one side or quite over the hole. After this manner are most of their cabins built." [Footnote: Observations, etc.; Travels to Onondaga, Lond. ed., 1751, pp. 40, 41]

The end section shows a round roof, as in the houses of the Virginia Indians, and the ground plan agrees in all respects with the old long-houses of the Seneca-Iroquois as described by them to the author before he had seen Mr. Bartram's plan.

In the Documentary History of New York (vol. iii, p. 14) there is a remarkable picture of the principal village of the Onondagas which was visited or rather attacked by Champlain in 1615. The location of this village was not established until 1877, when General John S. Clarke, of Auburn, by means of Champlain's map and sketch of the village, and his relation of the particulars of the expedition, found the site of the village in the town of Fenner, some miles northeast of the Onondaga Valley.

It was situated upon the edge of a natural pond, covering ten acres of land, and between a small brook which emptied into the pond on the left and the outlet of the pond which passed it on the right. The space covered by the village site was about six acres of land, strongly fortified by a series of palisades. Champlain states in his relation that "their village was enclosed with strong quadruple palisades of large timber, thirty feet high, interlocked the one with the other, with an interval of not more than half a foot between them, with galleries in the form of parapets, defended with double pieces of timber, proof against our arquebuses, and on one side they had a pond with a never-failing supply of water, from which proceeded a number of gutters which they had laid along the intermediate space, throwing the water without, and rendering it effectual inside for the purpose of extinguishing the fire. Such was their mode of fortification and defence, which was much stronger than the villages of the Attigouatuans (Hurons) and others." [Footnote: Doc. Hist. New York, iii, 14.]

Although Champlain attacked this place with fire-arms, then first heard by the Onondagas, and by means of a rude tower of his invention, and with a considerable force of French and Indians, he was unable to capture it, and retired. The use of water, with gutters to flood the ground upon an outer palisade when attacked with fire, as imperfectly shown in the engraving, was certainly ingenious. General Clarke has investigated the defensive works of the Iroquois, and it is to be hoped that he will soon give the results to the public.

Knowing, as we now do, that the space inclosed within the palisades was about six acres of land, the houses are not only seen to be log houses, but arranged or constructed side by side in blocks, and the whole thrown together in the form of a square, with an open space in the center. The houses seem to be in threes and fours, and even sixes, side by side, and from sixty to one hundred feet in length; but if this conclusion is fairly warranted by the engraving, it might well be that each house was separated from its neighbor by a narrow open space or lane. It is the only representation I have ever seen of a palisaded village of the Iroquois of the period of their discovery. It covered about fifty-four acres of land.

The Mandans and Minnetarees of the Upper Missouri constructed a timber-framed house, superior in design and in mechanical execution to those of the Indians north of New Mexico. In 1862 I saw the remains of the old Mandan village shortly after its abandonment by the Arickarees, its last occupants. The houses, nearly all of which were of the same model, were falling into decay—for the village was then deserted of inhabitants, but some of them were still perfect, and the plan of their structure easily made out. The above ground-plan of the village was taken from the work of Prince Maximilian, and the remaining illustrations are from sketches and measurements of the author. It was situated upon a bluff on the west side of the Missouri, and at a bend in the river which formed an obtuse angle, and covered about six acres of land. The village was surrounded with a stockade made of timbers set vertically in the ground, and about ten feet high, but then in a dilapidated state.



The houses were circular in external form, the walls being about five feet high, and sloping inward and upward from the ground, upon which rested an inclined roof, both the exterior wall and the roof being plastered over with earth a foot and a half thick. For this reason they have usually been called "dirt lodges."



These houses are about forty feet in diameter, with the floor sunk a foot or more below the surface of the ground, six feet high on the inside at the line of the wall and from twelve to fifteen feet high at the center. Twelve posts, six or eight inches in diameter, are set in the ground, at equal distances, in the circumference of a circle, and rising about six feet above the level of the floor. String-pieces resting in forks cut in the ends of these posts, form a polygon at the base and also upon the ground floor. Against these an equal number of braces are sunk in the ground about four feet distant, which slanting upward, are adjusted by means of depressions cut in the ends, so as to hold both the posts and the stringers firmly in their places. Slabs of wood are then set in the spaces between the braces at the same inclination, and resting against the stringers, which when completed surrounded the lodge with a wooden wall. Four round posts, each six or eight inches in diameter, are set in the ground near the center of the floor, in the angles of a square, ten feet apart, and rising from ten to fifteen feet above the ground floor. These again are connected by stringers resting in forks at their tops, upon which and the external wall the rafters rest.



The engraving exhibits a cross-section, as described. Poles three or four inches in diameter are placed as rafters from the external wall to the string-pieces above the central parts, and near enough together to give the requisite strength to support thee earth covering placed upon the roof. These poles were first covered over with willow matting, upon which prairie grass was overspread, and over all a deep covering of earth. An opening was left in the center, about four feet in diameter, for the exit of the smoke and for the admission of light. The interior was spacious and tolerably well lighted, although the opening in the roof and a single doorway were the only apertures through which light could penetrate. There was but one entrance, protected by what has been called the Eskimo doorway; that is, by a passage some five feet wide, ten or twelve feet long, and about six feet high, constructed with split timbers, roofed with poles, and covered with earth. Buffalo-robes suspended at the outer and inner entrances supplied the place of doors. Each house was comparted by screens of willow matting or unhaired skins suspended from the rafters, with spaces between for storage. These slightly-constructed apartments opened towards the central fire like stalls, thus defining an open central area around the fire-pit, which was the gathering place of the inmates of the lodge. This fire-pit was about five feet in diameter, a foot deep, and encircled with flat stones set up edgewise. A hard, smooth, earthen floor completed the interior. Such a lodge would accommodate five or six families, embracing thirty or forty persons. It was a communal house, in accordance with the usages and institutions of the American aborigines, and growing naturally out of their mode of life. I counted forty-eight houses, winch would average forty feet in diameter, all constructed upon this plan besides several rectangular log houses of later erection and of the American type.



These houses, of which a representation is given in Fig. 19, were thickly studded together to economize the space within the stockade, so that in walking through the village you passed along some circular foot-paths. There was no street, and it was impossible to see in any direction except for short distances. In the center there was an open space, where their religious rites and festivals were observed. [Footnote: The war post, which stood in the center, and a number of stone and bone implements I brought away with me, as mementoes of the place. They are now in my collection.]

Not the least interesting fact connected with these creditable structures was the quantity of materials required for their erection and the amount of labor required for their transportation for long distances down the river, and to fashion them, with the aid of fire and stone implements, into such comfortable dwellings. The trees are here confined to the bottom lands between the banks of the river, the river being bordered for miles by open prairies, and the trees growing in patches at long distances apart. To cut the timber without metallic implements, and to transport it without animal power, indicate a degree of persevering industry highly creditable to a people who, at this stage of progress, are averse to labor on the part of the males. Habitual male industry makes its first appearance in the next or the Middle Status of barbarism. The men here did the heavy work.

In the spaces between the lodges were their drying-scaffolds (Fig. 20), one for each lodge, which were nearly as conspicuous in the distance as the houses themselves. They were about twenty feet long, twelve feet wide, and seven feet high to the flooring, made of posts set upright, with cross-pieces resting in forks. Other poles were then placed longitudinally, upon which was a flooring of willow mats. These scaffolds, mounted with ladders (Fig. 21), were used for drying their skins, and also their maize, meat, and vegetables.



The Indians knew the use of the ladder, and some of them made an excellent article before the discovery of America. When Coronado visited and captured the seven so-called cities of Cibola in 1540-1542, he found the people living in seven or eight large joint-tenement houses, each capable of holding about a thousand persons. These houses were without entrances from the ground, but they mounted to the first terrace by means of ladders, and so to each successive story above. "The ladders which they have for their houses," Coronado says in his relation, "are all in a manner movable and portable as ours be." [Footnote: Hakluyt, Coll. of Voyages, London ed., 1812, vol. 5, p. 498.]

The ladders at the Mandan village were made of two limbs growing nearly parallel and severed below the junction, as shown in the figure, and set with the forked end upon the ground, and the ends against the scaffold. Depressions were sunk in the rails to receive the rounds, which were secured by rawhide strings. They were usually from ten to twelve feet long, and one or two at each scaffold.

Situated thus picturesquely on a bluff, at an angle of the river, with houses of this peculiar model and with such an array of scaffolds rising up among them, the village was strikingly conspicuous for some distance both above and below on the river, and presented a remarkable appearance.

Afterwards, at the present Minnetaree and Mandan village about sixty-five miles above on the east side of the Missouri, and also at the new Arickaree village on the west side, and quite near it, I had an opportunity to see houses precisely similar to those described in actual occupation by the Indians, with their interior arrangements and their mode of life.

A reference, at least, should be made to the Maricopas and Mohaves of the Lower Colorado River, who, although village Indians of the pueblo type, still live in ordinary communal houses of the northern type, which are thus described by General Emory: "They (the Maricopas) occupy thatched cottages thirty or forty feet in diameter, made of twigs of cottonwood trees, interwoven with straw of wheat, cornstalks, and cane." [Footnote: Notes, &c., New Mexico, p. 132. See also Bartlet's Personal Narrative, p. 230.]

Those occupied by the Mohaves, as described by Captain Sitgreave, are similar in character. [Footnote: Expedition, &c., Zunyi and Colorado, p. 19.]

The Pimas of the Gila River, on the contrary, claim that their ancestors erected houses of adobe brick, and cultivated by irrigation. They point to the remains of ancient structures and of old acequias in the valley of the Gila, as Captain Crossman informs us, as the works of their forefathers. But now their condition is very similar to that of the Mohaves. The last-named writer remarks that "generally several married couples with their children live in one hut." [Footnote: Smithsonian Report for 1871, p. 415.]

The first two tribes, although their antecedent history is little known, seem to be in a transitional stage from the Lower to the Middle Status of barbarism, having passed into the horticultural and sedentary condition without being far enough advanced to imitate their near neighbors in the use of adobe brick and of stone in their houses. They seem to be existing examples of that ever-recurring advancement of ruder tribes in past ages, through which the Village Indians of the pueblo type were constantly replenished from the more barbarous tribes. The present Taos Indians are another example.

It is made reasonably plain, I think, from the facts stated, that in the Upper Status of savagery, and also in the Lower Status of barbarism, the Indian household was formed of a number of families of gentile kin; that they practiced communism in living in the household, and that this principle found expression in their house architecture and predetermined its character.



CHAPTER VI.

HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF NEW MEXICO.

We are next to consider the houses and mode of life of the Sedentary Village Indians, among whom architecture exhibits a higher development, with the use of durable materials, and with the defensive principle superadded to that of adaptation to communism in living. It will not be difficult to discover and follow this latter principle, as one of the chief characteristics of this architecture in the pueblo houses in New Mexico, and in the region of the San Juan River, and afterwards in those of Mexico and Central America. Throughout all these regions there was one connected system of house architecture, as there was substantially one mode of life.

In New Mexico, going southward, the Indians, at the epoch of discovery, were not in a new dress and in an improved condition. They had advanced out of the Lower and into the Middle Status of barbarism; the houses in which they dwelt were of adobe brick or of stone, two, three, four, and sometimes five and six stories in height, and containing from fifty to five hundred apartments. They cultivated maize and plants by means of irrigating canals. The water was drawn from a running stream, taken at a point above the pueblo and carried down and through a series of garden beds. They wore mantles of cotton, as well as garments of skin.

[Footnote: "They have no cotton-wool growing, because the country is cold, yet they wear mantles thereof, as your honor may see by the show thereof; and true it is, that there was found in their houses certain yarn made of cotton-wool."—Coronado's Relation, Hakluyt's Coll. of Voyages, London ed., 1600, iii, p. 377.]

[Footnote: "Their garments were of cotton and deer skins, and the attire, both of men and women, was after the manner of Indians of Mexico.... Both men and women wore shoes and boots, with good soles of neat's leather—a thing never seen in any part of the Indies."— Voyages to New Mexico, by Friar Augustin Rueyz, a Franciscan, in 1581, and Antonio de Espejo in 1583. Explorations for Railroad Route, &c., Report Indian Tribes, vol. iii, p. 114.]

The present Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are in the main their descendants. They live, some of them, in the same identical houses their forefathers occupied at the time of Coronado's expedition to New Mexico in 1541-1542, as at Acoma, Jemez, and Taos, and although their plan and mode of life have changed in some respects in the interval, it is not unlikely that they remain to this day a fair sample of the life of the Village Indians from Zunyi to Cuzco as it existed in the sixteenth century.

The Indians north of New Mexico did not construct their houses more than one story high, or of more durable materials than a frame of poles or of timber covered with matting or bark, or coated over with earth. A stockade around their houses was their principal protection. In New Mexico, going southward, are met for the first time houses constructed with several stories. Sun-dried brick must have come into use earlier than stone. The practice of the ceramic art would suggest the brick sooner or later. At all events, what are supposed to be the oldest remains of architecture in New Mexico, such as the Casas Grandes of the Gila and Salinas rivers, are of adobe brick. They also used cobble-stone with adobe mortar, and finally thin pieces of tabular sandstone, prepared by fracture, which made a solid and durable stone wall. Some of the existing pueblo houses in New Mexico are as old as the expedition of Coronado (1540-1542). Others, constructed since that event, and now occupied, are of the aboriginal model. There are at present about twenty of these pueblos in New Mexico, inhabited by about 7, 000 Village Indians, the descendants of those found there by Coronado. They are still living substantially under their ancient organization and usages. Besides these, there are seven pueblos of the Mokis, near the Little Colorado, occupied by about 3,000 Indians, who have remained undisturbed to the present time, except by Roman Catholic missionaries, and among whom the entire theory of life of the Sedentary Village Indians may yet be obtained. These Village Indians represent at the present moment the type of life found from Zunyi to Cuzco at the epoch of the Discovery, and, while they are not the highest, they are no unfit representatives of the entire class.

The Yucatan and Central American Indians were, in their architecture, in advance of the remaining aborigines of North America. Next to them, probably, were the Aztecs, and some few tribes southward. Holding the third position, though not far behind, were the Village Indians of New Mexico. All alike they depended upon horticulture for subsistence, and cultivated by irrigation; cotton being superadded to the maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco, cultivated by the northern tribes. Their houses, with those previously described, represent together an original indigenous architecture, which, with its diversities, sprang out of their necessities. Its fundamental communal type, I repeat, is found not less clearly in the houses about to be described, and in the so-called palace at Palenque, than in the long-house of the Iroquois. An examination of the plan of the structures in Mexico, New Mexico, and Central America will tend to establish the truth of this proposition.

New Mexico is a poor country for civilized man, but quite well adapted to Sedentary Indians, who cultivate about one acre out of every hundred thousand. This region, and the San Juan, immediately north of it, possessed a number of narrow fertile valleys, containing together, possibly, 50,000 inhabitants, and it is occupied now by their descendants (excepting the San Juan) in manner and form as it was then. Each pueblo consisted either of a single great house, or of three or four such houses grouped together; and what is more significant, the New Mexican pueblo is a fair type of those now found in ruins in Yucatan, Chiapas, Guatemala, and Honduras, in general plan and in situation. All the people lived together in these great houses on terms of equality, for their institutions were essentially democratical. Common tenements for common Indians around these structures were not found there by Coronado in 1541, neither have any been found there since. There is not the slightest ground for supposing that any such tenements ever existed around those in Yucatan and Central America. Every structure was in the nature of a fortress, showing the insecurity in which they lived.

Since the year 1846, the date of the conquest of New Mexico, a number of military reconnaissances, under the direction of the War Department, have been made in various parts of the Territory. The army officers in change devoted their chief attention to the physical geography and resources of the regions traversed; but, incidentally, they investigated the pueblos in ruins, and the present condition of the Pueblo Indians. The admirable manner in which they have executed the work is shown by the series of reports issued from time to time by the government. More recently, the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, under Prof. F. V. Hayden, geologist in charge, and also the Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, Maj. J. W. Powell, geologist in charge, have furnished a large amount of additional information concerning the ruins on the San Juan and its tributaries, the Cliff Houses on the Mancos River and elsewhere, and the Moki Pueblos. Valuable as this information is to us, it falls short of a full exposition of these several subjects.

At the time of Coronado's expedition to capture the Seven Cities of Cibola, so called in the relations of the period, the aborigines of New Mexico manufactured earthen vessels of large size and excellent workmanship, wove cotton fabrics with spun thread, cultivated irrigated gardens, were armed with the bow, arrow, and shield, wore deer-skins and buffalo robes and also cotton mantles as external garments, and had domesticated the wild turkey.

[Footnote: "We found here Guinea cocks [turkeys], but few. The Indians tell me in all these seven cities that they eat them not, but that they keep them only for their feathers. I believe them not, for they are excellent good, and greater than those of Mexico."— Coronado Rel., Hakluyt, iii, 377.]

"They had hardly provisions enough for themselves," remarks Jaramillo of the Cibolans, "and what they had consisted of maize, beans, and squashes." [Footnote: Relation of Capt. Juan Jaramillo, Coll. Terneaux-Compans, ix, 369.]

"What was true of the Cibolans in this respect was doubtless true of the Sedentary Indians in general. Each pueblo was an independent organization under a council of chiefs, except as several contiguous pueblos, speaking dialects of the same language, were confederated for mutual protection, of which the seven Cibolan pueblos, situated probably in the valley of the Rio Chaco, within an extent of twelve miles, afford a fair example." The degree of their advancement is more conspicuously shown in their house architecture.

The present Village Indians of New Mexico, or at least some of them, still manufacture earthen vessels, and spin and weave cotton fabrics in the aboriginal manner, and live in houses of the ancient model. Some of them, as the Mokis and Lagunas, are organized in gentes, and governed by a council of chiefs, each village being independent and self-governing. They observe the same law of hospitality universally practiced by the Northern Indians. Upon this subject, Mr. David J. Miller, of Santa Fe, writes as follows to the author: "A visitor to one of their houses is invariably tendered its hospitality in the form of food placed before him. A failure to tender it is deemed a grave breach of hospitality and an insult; and a declension to partake of it would be regarded as a breach of etiquette. As among us, they have their rich and their poor, and the former give to the latter cheerfully and in due plenty." Here we find a nearly exact repetition of the Iroquois and Mandan rules of hospitality before given. Whether or not they formerly practiced communism in household groups, I am not informed. Their houses are adapted to this mode of life, as will presently be shown; and upon that fact and their stage of social advancement, the deduction of the practice must for the present rest.

* * * * *

JOINT TENEMENT HOUSES OF VILLAGE INDIANS IN NEW MEXICO.

Santo Domingo is composed of several structures of adobe brick grouped together, as shown in the engraving, Fig 22. Each is about two hundred feet long, with two parallel rows of apartments on the ground, of which the front row is carried up one story, and the back two; the flat roof of the first story forming a terrace in front of the second. The first story is closed up solid for defensive reasons, with the exception of small window openings. The first terrace is reached by means of ladders from the ground; the rooms in the first story are entered through trap-doors in the floors, and in the second through doors opening upon the terrace, and also through trap-doors through the floors which form the roof. These structures are typical of all the aboriginal houses in New Mexico. They show two principal features: first, the terraced form of architecture, common also in Mexico, with the house tops as the social gathering places of the inmates; and, second, a closed ground story for safety. Every house, therefore, is a fortress. Lieutenant Abert remarks upon one of the houses of this pueblo, of which he gives an elevation, that "the upper story is narrower than the one below, so that there is a platform or landing along the whole length of the building. To enter, you ascend to the platform by means of ladders that could easily be removed; and, as there is a parapet wall extending along the platform, these houses could be converted into formidable forts." [Footnote: Ex. Doc. No. 41, 1st session 30th Congress, 1848, p. 462.]

The number of apartments in each house is not stated. The different houses at that time were inhabited by eight hundred Indians. Chimneys now appear above the roofs, the fire-place being at the angle of the chamber in front. These were evidently of later introduction. The defensive element, so prominent in this architecture, was not so much to protect the Village Indians from each other, as from the attacks of migrating bands flowing down upon them from the North. The pueblos now in ruins throughout the original area of New Mexico, and for some distance north of it, testify to the perpetual struggle of the former to maintain their ground, as well as prove the insecurity in which they lived. It could be shown that the second and additional stories were suggested by the defensive principle.

Zunyi, Fig. 23, is the largest occupied pueblo in New Mexico at the present time. It probably once contained five thousand inhabitants, but in 1851 the number was reduced to fifteen hundred. The village consists of several structures, most of them accessible to each from their roof terraces. They are constructed of adobe brick, and of stone embedded in adobe mortar, and plastered over.

In the summer of 1879, Mr. James Stevenson, in charge of the field parties under Major Powell, made an extended visit to Zunyi and the neighboring pueblos, for the purpose of making collections of their implements, utensils, etc., during which time the photographs from which the accompanying illustrations of the pueblos were made. His wife accompanied him, and she has furnished us the following description of that pueblo:

"Zunyi is situated in Western New Mexico, being built upon a knoll covering about fifteen acres, and some forty feet above the right bank of the river of the same name.

"Their extreme exclusiveness has preserved to the Zunyians their strong individuality, and kept their language pure. According to Major Powell's classification, their speech forms one of four linguistic stocks to which may be traced all the pueblo dialects of the southwest. In all the large area which was once thickly dotted with settlements, only thirty-one remain, and these are scattered hundreds of miles apart from Taos, in Northern New Mexico to Islet, in Western Texas. Among these remnants of great native tribes, the Zunyians may claim perhaps the highest position, whether we regard simply their agricultural and pastoral pursuits, or consider their whole social and political organization.

"The town of Zunyi is built in the most curious style. It resembles a great beehive, with the houses piled one upon another in a succession of terraces, the roof of one forming the floor or yard of the next above, and so on, until in some cases five tiers of dwellings are successively erected, though no one of them is over two stories high. These structures are of stone and 'adobe'. They are clustered around two plazas, or open squares, with several streets and three covered ways through the town.

"The upper houses of Zunyi are reached by ladders from the outside. The lower tiers have doors on the ground plan, while the entrances to the others are from the terraces. There is a second entrance through hatchways in the roof, and thence by ladders down into the rooms below. In many of the pueblos there are no doors whatever on the ground floor, but the Zunyians assert that their lowermost houses have always been provided with such openings. In times of threatened attack the ladders were either drawn up or their rungs were removed, and the lower doors were securely fastened in some of the many ingenious ways these people have of barring the entrances to their dwellings. The houses have small windows, in which mica was originally used, and is still employed to some extent; but the Zunyians prize glass highly, and secure it, whenever practicable, at almost any cost. A dwelling of average capacity has four or five rooms, though in some there are as many as eight. Some of the larger apartments are paved with flagging, but the floors are usually plastered with clay, like the walls. Both are kept in constant repair by the women, who mix a reddish-brown earth with water to the proper consistency and then spread it by hand, always laying it in semicircles. It dries smooth and even, and looks well. In working this plaster the squaw keeps her mouth filled with water, which is applied with all the dexterity with which a Chinese laundry-man sprinkles clothes. The women appear to delight in this work, which they consider their special prerogative, and would feel that their rights were infringed upon were men to do it. In building, the men lay the stone foundations and set in place the huge logs that serve as beams to support the roof, the spaces between these rafters being filled with willow-brush; though some of the wealthier Zunyians use instead shingles made by the carpenters of the village. The women then finish the structure. The ceilings of all the older houses are low; but Zunyi architecture has improved and the modern style gives plenty of room, with doors through which one may pass without stooping. The inner walls are usually whitened. For this purpose a kind of white clay is dissolved in boiling water and applied by hand. A glove of undressed goat-skin is worn, the hand being dipped in the hot liquid and then passed repeatedly over the wall.

"In Zunyi, as elsewhere, riches and official position confer importance upon their possessors. The wealthy class live in the lower houses, those of moderate means next above, while the poorer families have to be content with the uppermost stories. Naturally no one will climb into the garret who has the means of securing more convenient apartments, under the huge system of 'French flats', which is the way of living in Zunyi. Still there is little or no social distinction in the rude civilization, the whole population of the town living almost as one family. The Alcalde, or Lieutenant-Governor, furnishes an exception to the general rule, as his official duties require him to occupy the highest house of all, from the top of which he announces each morning to the people the orders of the Governor, and makes such other proclamation as may be required of him.

"Each family has one room, generally the largest in the house, where they work, eat, and sleep together. In this room the wardrobe of the family hangs upon a log suspended beneath the rafters, only the more valued robes, such as those worn in the dance, being wrapped and carefully stored away in another apartment. Work of all kinds goes on in this large room, including the cookery, which is done in a fire-place on the long side, made by a projection at right angles with the wall, with a mantel-piece on which rests the base of the chimney. Another fire-place in a second room is from six to eight feet in width, and above this is a ledge shaped somewhat like a Chinese awning. A highly-polished slab, fifteen or twenty inches in size, is raised a foot above the hearth. Coals are heaped beneath this slab, and upon it the Waiavi is baked. This delicious kind of bread is made of meal ground finely and spread in a thin batter upon the stone with the naked hand. It is as thin as a wafer, and these crisp, gauzy sheets, when cooked, are piled in layers and then folded or rolled. Light bread, which is made only at feast times, is baked in adobe ovens outside the house. When not in use for this purpose the ovens make convenient kennels for the dogs and play-houses for the children. Neatness is not one of the characteristics of the Zunyians. In the late autumn and winter months the women do little else than make bread, often in fanciful shapes, for the feasts and dances which continually occur. A sweet drink, not at all intoxicating, is made from the sprouted wheat. The men use tobacco, procured from white traders, in the form of cigarettes from corn-husks; but this is a luxury in which the women do not indulge.

"The Pueblo mills are among the most interesting things about the town. These mills, which are fastened to the floor a few feet from the wall, are rectangular in shape, and divided into a number of compartments, each about twenty inches wide and deep, the whole series ranging from five to ten feet in length, according to the number of divisions. The walls are made of sandstone. In each compartment a flat grinding stone is firmly set, inclining at an angle of forty-five degrees. These slabs are of different degrees of smoothness, graduated successively from coarse to fine. The squaws, who alone work at the mills, kneel before them and bend over them as a laundress does over the wash-tub, holding in their hands long stones of volcanic lava, which they rub up and down the slanting slabs, stopping at intervals to place the grain between the stones. As the grinding proceeds the grist is passed from one compartment to the next until, in passing through the series, it becomes of the desired fineness. This tedious and laborious method has been practiced without improvement from time immemorial, and in some of the arts the Zunyians have actually retrograded."

The living-rooms are about twelve by eighteen feet and about nine feet high, with plastered walls and an earthen floor, and usually a single window opening for light. To form a durable ceiling round timbers about six inches in diameter are placed three or four feet apart from the outer to the inner wall. Upon these, poles are placed transversely in juxtaposition. A deep covering of adobe mortar is placed upon them, forming the roof terrace in front, and the floor of the apartments above in the receding second story. Water-jars of their own manufacture, of fine workmanship, and holding several gallons, closely woven osier baskets of their own make, and blankets of cotton and wool, woven by their own hand-looms, are among the objects seen in these apartments. They are neatly kept, roomy and comfortable, and differ in no respect from those in use at the period of the conquest, as will elsewhere be shown. The mesa elevation upon which the old town of Zunyi was situated is seen in the background of the engraving, Fig. 23.

It should be noticed that this architecture, and the necessities that gave it birth, led to a change in the mode of life from the open ground to the terraces or flat roofs of these great houses. When not engaged in tillage, the terraces were the gathering and living places of the people. During the greater part of the year they lived practically in the open air, to which the climate was adapted, and upon their housetops, first for safety and afterwards from habit.

Elevations of the principal pueblos of New Mexico have from time to time been published. They agree in general plan, but show considerable diversity in details. Rude but massive structures, they accommodated all the people of the village in security within their walls.

The Moki Pueblos are supposed to be the towns of Tusayan, visited by a detachment of Coronado's expedition in 1541. Since the acquisition of New Mexico they have been rarely visited, because of their isolation and distance from American settlements.

The accompanying illustration of Wolpi, Fig. 25, one of these pueblos, is from a photograph taken by Major Powell's party.

In 1858 Lieut. Joseph C. Ives, in command of the Colorado Exploring Expedition, visited the Moki Pueblos, near the Little Colorado. They are seven in number, situated upon mesa elevations within an extent of ten miles, difficult of access, and constructed of stone. Mi-shong'-i-ni'-vi, the first one entered, is thus described. After ascending the rugged sides of the mesa by a flight of stone steps, Lieutenant Ives remarks: "We came upon a level summit, and had the walls of the pueblo on one side and an extensive and beautiful view upon the other. Without giving us time to admire the scene, the Indians led us to a ladder planted against the front face of the pueblo. The town is nearly square, and surrounded by a stone wall fifteen feet high, the top of which forms a landing extending around the whole. Flights of stone steps led from the first to a second landing, upon which the doors of the houses open. Mounting the stairway opposite to the ladder, the chief crossed to the nearest door and ushered us into a low apartment, from which two or three others opened towards the interior of the dwelling. Our host courteously asked us to be seated upon some skins spread along the floor against the wall, and presently his wife brought in a vase of water and a tray filled with a singular substance (tortillas), that looked more like a sheet of thin blue wrapping paper than anything else I had ever seen. I learned afterwards that it was made from corn meal, ground very fine, made into a gruel, and poured over a heated stone to be baked. When dry it has a surface slightly polished, like paper. The sheets are folded and rolled together, and form the staple article of food of the Moki Indians. As the dish was intended for our entertainment, and looked clean, we all partook of it. It has a delicate fresh-bread flavor, and was not at all unpalatable, particularly when eaten with salt.... The room was fifteen feet by ten; the walls were made of adobes; the partitions of substantial beams; the floors laid with clay. In one corner were a fire-place and chimney. Everything was clean and tidy. Skins, bows and arrows, quivers, antlers, blankets, articles of clothing and ornament were hanging upon the walls or arranged upon the shelves. At the other end was a trough divided into compartments, in each of which was a sloping stone slab, two or three feet square, for grinding corn upon. In a recess of an inner room was piled a goodly store of corn in the ear.... Another inner room appeared to be a sleeping apartment, but this being occupied by females we did not enter, though the Indians seemed to be pleased rather than otherwise at the curiosity evinced during the close inspection of their dwelling and furniture.... Then we went out upon the landing, and by another flight of steps ascended to the roof, where we beheld a magnificent panorama.... We learned that there were seven towns.... Each pueblo is built around a rectangular court, in which we suppose are the springs that furnish the supply to the reservoirs. The exterior walls, which are of stone, have no openings, and would have to be scaled or battered down before access could be gained to the interior. The successive stories are set back, one behind the other. The lower rooms are reached through trap-doors from the first landing. The houses are three rooms deep, and open upon the interior court. The arrangement is as strong and compact as could well be devised but as the court is common, and the landings are separated by no partitions, it involves a certain community of residence." [Footnote: Colorado Exploring Expedition, p. 121.]

This account leaves a doubt whether the stones receded from the inclosed court outward or from the exterior inward. Lieutenant Ives does not state that he passed through the building into the court and ascended to the first platform from within, and yet the remainder of the description seems to imply that he did, and that the structure occupied but three sides of the court, since he states that "the houses are three rooms deep and open upon the interior court." The structure was three stories high.



The above engraving was prepared for an article by Maj. Powell, on these Indians. Two rooms are shown together, apparently by leaving out the wooden partition which separated them, showing an extent of at least thirty feet. The large earthen water-jars are interesting specimens of Moki pottery. At one side is the hand mill for grinding maize. The walls are ornamented with bows, quivers, and the floor with water-jars, as described by Lieutenant Ives.

In places on the sides of the bluffs at this and other pueblos, Lieutenant Ives observed gardens cultivated by irrigation. "Between the two," he remarks, "the faces of the bluff have been ingeniously converted into terraces. These were faced with neat masonry, and contained gardens, each surrounded with a raised edge so as to retain water upon the surface. Pipes from the reservoirs permitted them at any time to be irrigated." [Footnote: Colorado Exploring Expedition, p. 120.]

Fig. 27 shows one of two large adobe structures constituting the pueblo of Taos, in New Mexico. It is from a photograph taken by the expedition under Major Powell. It is situated upon Taos Creek, at the western base of the Sierra Madre Range, which forms the eastern border of the broad valley of the Rio Grande, into which the Taos stream runs. It is an old and irregular building, and is supposed to be the Braba of Coronado's expedition. [Footnote: Relation of Castenada, Coll. H. Ternaeux-Compans. ix, 138. Trans. of American Ethnological Society.]

Some ruins still remain, quite near, of a still older pueblo, whose inhabitants, the Taos Indians affirm, they conquered and dispossessed. The two structures stand about twenty-five rods apart, on opposite sides of the stream, and facing each other. That upon the north side, represented in the above engraving, is about two hundred and fifty feet long, one hundred and thirty feet deep, and five stories high; that upon the south side is shorter and deeper, and six stories high. The present population of the pueblo, about four hundred, are divided between the two houses, and they are a thrifty, industrious, and intelligent people. Upon the east side is a long adobe wall, connecting the two buildings, or rather protecting the open space between them. A corresponding wall, doubtless, closed the space on the opposite side, thus forming a large court between the buildings, but, if so, it has now disappeared. The creek is bordered on both sides with ample fields or gardens, which are irrigated by canals, drawing water from the stream. The adobe is of a yellowish-brown color, and the two structures make a striking appearance as they are approached. Fire-places and chimneys have been added to the principal room of each family; but it is evident that they are modern, and that the suggestion came from Spanish sources. They are constructed in the corner of the room. The first story is built up solid, and those above recede in the terraced form. Ladders planted against the walls show the manner in which the several stories are reached, and, with a few exceptions, the rooms are entered through trap-doors by means of ladders. Children and even dogs run up and down these ladders with great freedom. The lower rooms are used for storage and granaries, and the upper for living rooms; the families in the rooms above owning and controlling the rooms below. The pueblo has its chiefs.

The measurements of the two edifices were furnished to the writer in 1864 by Mr. John Ward, at that time a government Indian agent, by the procurement of Dr. M. Steck, superintendent of Indian affairs in New Mexico. Among further particulars given by Mr. Ward are the following: "The thickness of the walls of these houses depends entirely upon the size of the adobe and the way in which it is laid upon the wall; that is, whether lengthwise or crosswise. There is no particular standard for the size of the adobes. On the buildings in question the adobes on the upper stories are laid lengthwise, and will average about ten inches in width, which gives the thickness of the walls. On the first story or ground rooms the adobes are in most places laid crosswise, thus making the thickness of these walls just the length of the adobe, which averages about twenty inches. The width of an adobe is usually one-half its length, and the thickness will average about four inches. The floors and roofs are coated with mud mortar from four to six inches thick, which is laid on and smoothed over with the hand. This work is usually performed by women. When the right kind of earth can be obtained the floor can be made very hard and smooth, and will last a very long time without needing repairs. The walls both inside and out are coated in the same manner. On the inside, however, more care is taken to make the walls as even and smooth as possible, after which they are whitewashed with gesso or gypsum."

Several rooms on the ground floor were measured by Mr. Ward and found to be, in feet, 14 by 18, 20 by 22, and 24 by 27, with a height of ceiling averaging from 7 to 8 feet. In the second story they measured, in feet, 14 by 23, 12 by 20, and 15 by 20, with a height of ceiling varying from 7 to 7 1/2 feet. The rooms in the third, fourth, and fifth stories were found to diminish in size with each story. There is probably a mistake here, as the main longitudinal partition walls must have been carried up upon each other from bottom to top. A few of the doorways were measured and found to range from 2 1/2 feet wide by 4 1/2 feet high and 2 1/3 feet wide by 4 10/12 feet high. The scuttles or trap-doors in the floors, through which they descended into these rooms by means of ladders, were 3 feet by 2 1/2, 3 feet by 2, and 1 feet 10 inches by 2 1/2 feet, and the window openings through the walls were, in inches, 14 by 14, 8 by 16, 16 by 20, and 18 by 18.

Mr. Ward then proceeds: "No room has more than two windows; very few have more than one. The back rooms usually have one or more round holes made through the walls from six to eight inches in diameter These openings furnish the apartments with a scanty supply of light and air The first story or the ground rooms are usually without doors or windows, the only entrance being through the scuttle-holes or doors in the roof, which are within the rooms comprising the story immediately above. These basement rooms are used for store-rooms. Those in the upper stories are the rooms mostly inhabited. Those located in the front part of the building receive their light through the doors and windows before described. The back rooms have no other light than that which goes in through the scuttle-holes and the partition walls leading from the front rooms, that is, where a room is so situated as to have both. Others again have no other light than that which enters through the holes already described. Such rooms are always gloomy. Some families have as many as four or five rooms, one of which is set apart for cooking, and is furnished with a large fire-place for the purpose. Those who have only two or three rooms usually cook and sleep in the same apartment, and in such cases they cook in the usual fireplace, which stands in one corner of the room. No perceptible addition has been made to either of the buildings for many years, and it is evident that after the death or removal of their owners they were entirely neglected. Those in good condition are still occupied. From the best information attainable the original buildings were not erected all at one time, but were added to from time to time by additional rooms, including the second, third, and more stories. There are no regular terraces, the roof of the rooms below answering that purpose. Thus it is that no entire circuit can be made around any one of these stories, the only thing that can be called a terrace being the narrow space left in front of some of the rooms from the roofs of the lower rooms."

Mr. Ward seems to object to the word "terrace" in defining the platform left in front of each story as a means of access to its apartments and to the successive stories. It was used by the early Spanish writers to explain the same peculiarity found in many of the great houses in the pueblo of Mexico and elsewhere over Mexico, the roofs being flat and the stories receding from each other. While this platform is not in strictness a terrace, the term expresses this architectural feature with sufficient clearness. The two structures at Taos are large enough to accommodate five hundred persons in each, the inmates living in the Indian fashion. They were occupied in 1864 by three hundred and sixty-one Taos Indians.

"Each terrace is reached," remarks Mr. Miller before mentioned, speaking of the pueblos in general, "by a wooden ladder, first from the ground and afterward from the one below; and ingress and egress to and from the rooms below is on the inside in the room above through trap-doors and upon ladders. It is wonderful to see with what agility the Indian children and the dogs run up and down these ladders. Nowhere is there any side communication between the rooms in the great building, and but one family occupy each series of rooms situated one above the other." This last statement is too broadly made, as we have seen that Mr. Ward has given the measurements of doors through partition walls. Such doors will also be shown in a subsequent engraving. But there is no doubt of the fact that the number of lateral rooms communicating with each other was small, and that the families or groups, if such existed, united in a communal household, were separated from each other by solid partition walls, a fact which will reappear in the house-architecture of Yucatan.

In 1877, David J. Miller, esq, of Santa Fe, visited the Taos Pueblo at my request, to make some further investigations. He reports to me the following facts: The government is composed of the following persons, all of whom, except the first, are elected annually. 1. A cacique or principal sachem. 2. A governor or alcalde. 3. A lieutenant-governor. 4. A war captain, and a lieutenant war captain. 5. Six fiscals of policemen. "The cacique," Mr. Miller says, "has the general control of all officers in the performance of their duties, transacts the business of the pueblo with the surrounding whites, Indian agents, etc., and imposes reprimands or severer punishments upon delinquents. He is keeper of the archives of the pueblo; for example, he has in his keeping the United States patent for the tract of four square leagues on which the pueblo stands, which was based upon the Spanish grant of 1689; also deeds of other purchased lands adjoining the pueblo. He holds his office for life. At his death, the people elect his successor. The cacique may, before his death, name his successor, but the nomination must be ratified by the people represented by their principal men assembled in the estufa. In this cacique may be recognized the sachem of the northern tribes, whose duties were purely of a civil character. Mr. Miller does not define the duties of the governor. They were probably judicial, and included an oversight of the property rights of the people in their cultivated lands, and in rooms or sections of the pueblo houses."

"The lieutenant-governor," he remarks, "is the sheriff to receive and execute orders. The war captain has twelve subordinates under his command to police the pueblo, and supervise the public grounds, such as grazing lands, the cemetery, estufas, &c. The lieutenant war captain executes the orders of his principal, and officiates for him during his absence, or in case of his disability. The six fiscals are a kind of town police. It is their duty to see that the catechism (Catholic) is taught in the pueblo, and learned by the children, and generally to keep order and execute the municipal regulations of the pueblo under the direction of the governor, who is charged with the duty of seeing to their execution."

"The regular time for meeting in the estufa is the last day of December, annually, for the election of officers for the ensuing year. The cacique, governor, and principal men nominate candidates, and the election decides. There may also be a fourth nomination of candidates, that is, by the people. In the election, all adult males vote; the officers first, and then the general public. The officers elected are at the present time sworn in by the United States Territorial officials."

In this simple government we have a fair sample, in substance and in spirit, of the ancient government of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. Some modification of the old system may be detected in the limitation of officers below the grade of cacique to one year. From what is known of the other pueblos in New Mexico, that of Taos is a fair example of all of them in governmental organization at the present time. They are, and always were, essentially republican, which is in entire harmony with Indian institutions. I may repeat here what I have ventured to assert on previous occasions, that the whole theory of governmental and domestic life among the Village Indians of America from Zunyi to Cuzco can still be found in New Mexico.

The representation of a room in this pueblo, Fig. 28, is from a sketch by Mr. Galbraith, who accompanied Major Powell's party to New Mexico.

What Mr. Miller refers to as "property rights and titles" and "ownership in fee" of land, is sufficiently explained by the possessory right which is found among the northern Indian tribes. The limitations upon its alienation to an Indian from another pueblo, or to a white man, not to lay any stress upon the absence of written titles or conveyances of land which have been made possible by Spanish and American intercourse, show very plainly that their ideas respecting the ownership of the absolute title to land, with power to alienate to whomsoever the person pleased, were entirely above their conception of property and its uses. All the ends of individual ownership and of inheritance were obtained through a mere right of possession, while the ultimate title remained in the tribe. According to the statement of Mr. Miller, if the father dies, his land is divided between his widow and children, and if a woman, her land is divided equally between her sons and daughters. This is an important statement, because, assuming its correctness, it shows inheritance of children from both father and mother, a total departure from the principles of gentile inheritance. In 1878 I visited the Taos pueblo. I could not find among them the gens or clan, [Footnote: Mr. Baudelier has since ascertained that they are organized in gentes.] and from lack of time did not inquire into their property regulations or rules of inheritance. The dozen large ovens I saw while there near the ends or in front of the two buildings, each of which was equal to the wants of more than one family, were adopted from the Spanish. They not unlikely had some connection with the old principle of communism.

It will prove a very difficult undertaking to ascertain the old mode of life three hundred and fifty years ago in New Mexico, Mexico, and Central America, as it was then in full vitality, a natural outgrowth of Indian institutions. The experiment to recover this lost condition of Indian society has not been tried. The people have been environed with civilization during the latter portion of this period, and have been more or less affected by it from the beginning. Their further growth and development was arrested by the advent of European civilization, which blighted their more feeble culture. Since their discovery they have steadily declined in numbers, and they show no signs of recovery from the shock produced by their subjugation. Among the northern tribes, who were one Ethnical Period below the Pueblo Indians, their social organization and their mode of life have changed materially under similar influences since the period of discovery. The family has fallen more into the strictly monogamian form, each occupying a separate house; communism in living in large households has disappeared, the organization into gentes has in many cases fallen out or been rudely extinguished by external influences; and their religious usages have yielded. We must expect to find similar and even greater changes among the Village Indians of New Mexico. The white race were upon them in Mexico and New Mexico a hundred years earlier than upon the Indian tribes of the United States. But, as if to stimulate investigation into their ancient mode of life, some of these tribes have continued through all these years to live in the same identical houses occupied by their forefathers in 1540 at Acoma, Jemez, and Taos. These pueblos were contemporary with the pueblo of Mexico captured by Cortez in 1520. The present inhabitants are likely to have retained some part of the old plan of life, or some traditionary knowledge of what it was. They must retain some of the usages and customs with respect to the ownership and inheritance of sections of these houses, and of the limitations upon the power of sale that they should not pass out of the kinship. The same also with respect to sections of the village garden. All the facts with respect to their ancient usages and mode of life should be ascertained, so far as it is now possible to do so from the present inhabitants of these pueblos. The information thus given will serve a useful purpose in explaining the pueblos in ruins In Yucatan and Central America, as well as on the San Juan, the Chaco, and the Gila.