At the time of their discovery the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico generally worshiped the sun as their principal divinity. Although under constraint they became nominally Roman Catholic, they still retain, in fact, their old religious beliefs. Mr. Miller has sent me some information upon this subject concerning the pueblos of Taos, Jemez, and Zia.

"Before the Spaniards forced their religion upon the people, the pueblo of Taos had the Sun for their God, and worshiped the Sun as such. They had periodical assemblages of the authorities and the people in the estufas for offering prayers to the Sun, to supplicate him to repeat his diurnal visits, and to continue to make the maize, beans, and squashes grow for the sustenance of the people. 'The Sun and God,' said the governor (Mirabal) to me, 'are the same. We believe really in the Sun as our God, but we profess to believe in the God and Christ of the Catholic Church and of the Bible. When we die, we go to God in Heaven. I do not know whether Heaven is in the Sun, or the Sun is Heaven. The Spaniards required us to believe in their God, and we were compelled to adopt their God, their church, and their doctrines, willing or unwilling. We do not know that under the American Government we may exercise any religion we choose, and that the National Government and the church government are wholly disconnected. We have very great respect and reverence for the Sun. We fear that the Sun will punish us now, or at some future time, if we do evil. The modern pueblos have the Sun religion really, but they profess the Christian religion, of which they know nothing but what the Catholic religion teaches. They always believed that Montezuma would come again as the messiah of the pueblo. The Catholic religion has been so long outwardly practiced by the people that it could not now, they think, be easily laid aside, and the old Sun religion be established, because it is looked upon as established by the law of the land, and therefore necessarily practiced. Nevertheless, the Indians will always follow and practice, as they do, both religions. If,' said the governor, 'one Indian here at this pueblo were to declare that he intended to renounce and abandon the religion of his fathers (the worship of the Sun) and adopt the Christian religion as his only faith, and another Indian were to declare that he intended to repudiate the Christian religion and adopt and practice only the Sun religion, the former would be expelled the pueblo, and his property would be confiscated, but the other would be allowed to remain with all his rights.'

"There are three old men in the pueblo whose duty it is to impart the traditions of the people to the rising generation. These traditions are communicated to the young men according to their ages and capacities to receive and appreciate them. The Taos Indians have a tradition that they came from the north; that they found other Indians at this place (Taos) living also in a pueblo; that these they ejected after much fighting, and took and have continued to occupy their place. How long ago this was they cannot say, but it must have been a long time ago. The Indians driven away lived here in a pueblo, as the Taos Indians now do."

Mr. Miller also communicates a conversation had with Juan Jose, a native of Zia, and Jose Miguel, a native of Pecos, but then (December, 1877) a resident of the pueblo of Jemez, which he wrote down at the time, as follows: "Before the Spaniards came, the religion of Jemez, Pecos and Zia, and the other pueblos, was the Montezuma religion. A principal feature of this religion was the celebration of Dances at the pueblo. In it, God was the sun. Seh-un-yuh was the land the Pueblo Indians came from, and to it they went when dead. This country (Seh-un-yuh) was at Great Salt Lake. They cannot say whether this lake was the place where the Mormons now live, but it was to the north. Under this great lake there was a big Indian Pueblo, and it is there yet. [Footnote: The Iroquois have a similar tradition of the ancient existence of an Indian village under Otsego Lake in New York.] The Indian dances were had only when prescribed by the cacique. The Pueblo Indians now have two religions, that of Montezuma, and the Roman Catholic. The Sun, Moon, and Stars were Gods, of which the greatest and most potent was the Sun; but greater than he was Montezuma. In time of drought, or actual or threatened calamity, the Pueblo Indians prayed to Montezuma, and also to the Sun, Moon, and Stars. The old religion (that of Montezuma) is believed in all the New Mexican pueblos. They practice the Catholic religion ostensibly; but in their consciences and in reality the old religion is that of the pueblos. The tenets of the old religion are preserved by tradition, which the old men communicate to the young in the estufas. At church worship the Pueblo Indians pray to God, and also to Montezuma and the Sun; but at the dances they pray to Montezuma and the Sun only. During an actual or threatened calamity the dances are called by the cacique. They have two Gods; the God of the Pueblos, and the God of the Christians. Montezuma is the God of the Pueblo."

This account of the Sun worship of the Taos Indians, in which is intermingled that of Montezuma, and the further account of the worship of Montezuma at the pueblos of Zia and Jemez, with the recognition of the worship of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, are both interesting and suggestive. It is probable that Sun worship is the older of the two, while that of Montezuma, as a later growth, remained concurrent with the other in all the New Mexican pueblos without superseding it. In this supernatural person, known to them as Montezuma, who was once among them in bodily human form, and who left them with a promise that he would return again at a future day, may be recognized the Hiawatha of Longfellow's poem, the Ha-yo-went'-ha of the Iroquois. It is in each case a ramification of a widespread legend in the tribes of the American aborigines, of a personal human being, with supernatural powers, an instructor of the arts of life; an example of the highest virtues, beneficent, wise, and immortal.

"They have," remarks Mr. Miller, "one curious custom which has always been observed in the pueblo. It is for some one (sometimes several simultaneously) to seclude themselves entirely from the outer world, abstaining absolutely from all personal communication with others, and devoting themselves solely to prayer for the pueblo and its inhabitants. This seclusion lasts eighteen months, during which they are furnished daily, by a confidential messenger, with a little food, just enough to preserve life, and during which time they may not even inquire about their wives or children or be told anything of them though the messenger may know that some of them are sick or have died. The food the recluse is permitted to use is corn, beans, squashes, and buffalo and deer meat; that is, such food as was used before the coming of the Spaniards. This religious seclusion is in honor of the Sun. It is one of the rites of the ancient religion of the Pueblo, preserved and practiced now. One of the old men I talked with said that he had himself the previous year emerged from this hermitage; three others were now in, they having retired to exile in February, 1877, and will emerge in August, 1878, then to learn the news of the previous year and a half."



CHAPTER VII.

RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

The finest structures of the Village Indians in New Mexico, and northward of its present boundary line, are found on the San Juan and its tributaries, unoccupied and in ruins. Even the regions in which they are principally situated are not now occupied by this class of Indians, but are roamed over by wild tribes of the Apaches and the Utes. The most conspicuous cluster of these ruined and deserted pueblos are in the canyon or valley of the Rio Chaco, which stream is an affluent of the San Juan, a tributary of the Colorado. Similar ruins of stone pueblos are also found in the valley of the Animas River, and also in the region of the Ute Mountain in Southwestern Colorado. Ruins of clusters of small single houses built of cobble-stone and adobe mortar, and of large pueblos of the same material, are to be seen in the La Plata Valley, and in the Montezuma Valley, west of the Mancos River. On the Mancos River are a large number of cliff houses of stone, and also round towers of stone, of which the uses are not at present known. Cliff houses are also found on the Dolores River. Other ruins are found in the canyon of the Rio de Chelly.

The supposition is reasonable that the Village Indians north of Mexico had attained their highest culture and development where these stone structures are found. They are similar in style and plan to the present occupied pueblos in New Mexico, but superior in construction, as stone is superior to adobe or to cobble-stone and adobe mortar. They are also equal, if not superior, in size and in the extent of their accommodations, to any Indian pueblos ever constructed in North America. This fact gives additional interest to these ruins, which are here to be considered.

Two separate explorations and reports upon the Chaco ruins have been made. The first was by Lieut. J. H. Simpson, who examined them in 1849 and first brought them to notice, and the second was a re-examination by William H. Jackson in 1877. He was connected with Prof. F. V. Hayden's Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, and his report is in that of Professor Hayden, published in 1878, p. 411.

The canyon of the Chaco, which commences about one hundred and ten miles northwest from Santo Domingo, on the Rio Grande, is quite remarkable. It has enough of the characteristics of the canyon to justify the application of this peculiar term. But it differs from the great canyons in the lowness of the bordering walls and in the great breadth of the space between. Neither Simpson nor Jackson describe the canyon or valley with as much particularity as could be desired, but Mr. Jackson has furnished a map, Fig. 29, showing the course of the stream with the walls of the canyon shaded in, and with the breaks or gullies through these walls reduced to a scale. This shows that the level plain between the encompassing walls ranges from half a mile to a mile in places. The walls of the canyon are composed of friable sandstone, and are usually vertical. Their height is not given with precision. The engraving also shows the outline forms and comparative size of the several structures, with specimens of three varieties of masonry used in the walls. No. 2 shows an alternation of courses of stone from four to six inches thick and from eight to twelve inches long, with intervening courses of several thin stones. The same alternation of courses reappears in the pueblos in ruins on the Animas River, about sixty miles north. The canyon commences very much like the McElmo Canyon in Southwestern Colorado, whose vertical walls are at first about three feet high, with a level space between from three hundred to five hundred feet in width; its walls rising slowly as you descend. Without a present running stream, and bordered with open prairie land, it makes a novel appearance to the eye. Lieutenant Simpson remarks that after leaving the pueblo Pintado, which is above the commencement of the canyon, "two miles over a slightly rolling country, our general course still being to the northwest, brought us to the commencement of the Canyon de Chaco, its width here being about two hundred yards. Friable sandstone rocks, massive above, stratified below, constitute its enclosing walls." [Footnote: Lieutenant Simpson's Report, p. 77.]

And Mr. Jackson, who entered it from the same point, remarks that "two miles from the river we descended into the canyon of the Chaco. It is here only about fifty feet in depth, with vertical walls of yellowish gray sandstone." [Footnote: Hayden's Report, p. 436.]

At a point twelve miles down, at the Pueblo Una Vida, he remarks that "the canyon is here about five hundred yards wide, and is perfectly level from one side to the other."

[Footnote: ib., p. 437.] Farther down the walls of the canyon rise about a hundred feet, as appears in the restorations of the Pueblo Bonito and of the Pueblo of Hungo Pavie. Whether the canyon is accessible or not from the table-land above over against the several pueblos, by means of the arroyos which break through the walls and enter the canyon, does not appear from these reports; but it seems probable, Mr. Jackson says, that near the Pueblo Bonito he ascended to the top of the bluff by means of a stairway partly cut in the face of the rock. [Footnote: ib., p. 448.]

Lieutenant Simpson, in his report, has furnished ground plans of five of these structures with measurements. Mr. Jackson has furnished eleven ground plans with measurements, two of which are without the canyon. They agree substantially, but we shall follow Mr. Jackson, as his are the most complete. The following engravings, with two or three exceptions, are taken from his report. The remainder are from Lieutenant Simpson's report.

The great edifices on the Chaco are all constructed of the same materials, and upon the same general plan, but they differ in ground dimensions, in the number of rows of apartments, and, consequently, in the number of stories. They contained from one hundred to six hundred apartments each, and would severally accommodate from five hundred to four thousand persons, living in the fashion of Indians. Speaking of the Pueblo of Pintado, Lieutenant Simpson remarks as follows: "Forming one structure, and built of tabular pieces of hard, fine-grained, compact, gray sandstone (a material entirely unknown in the present architecture of New Mexico), to which the atmosphere has imparted a reddish tinge, the layers or beds being not thicker than three inches, and sometimes as thin as one-fourth of an inch, it discovers in the masonry a combination of science and art which can only be referred to a higher stage of civilization and refinement than is discoverable in the works of Mexicans or Pueblos of the present day. Indeed, so beautifully diminutive and true are the details of the structure as to cause it at a little distance to have all the appearance of a magnificent piece of mosaic work."

"In the outer face of the buildings there are no signs of mortar, the intervals between the beds being chinked with stones of the minutest thinness. The filling and backing are done in rubble masonry, the mortar presenting no indications of the presence of lime. The thickness of the main wall at base is within an inch or two of three feet; higher up, it is less, diminishing every story by retreating jogs on the inside, from bottom to top. Its elevation at its present highest point is between twenty-five and thirty feet, the series of floor beams indicating that there must have been originally three stories. The ground plan, including the court, in exterior development is about 403 feet. On the ground-floor, exclusive of the out-buildings, are fifty-four apartments, some of them as small as five feet square, and the largest about twelve by six feet. These rooms communicate with each other by very small doors, some of them as contracted as two and a half by two and a half feet; and in the case of the inner suite, the doors communicating with the interior court are as small as three and a half by two feet. The principal rooms, or those most in use, were, on account of their having large doors and windows, most probably those of the second story. The system of flooring seems to have been large transverse unhewn beams, six inches in diameter, laid transversely from wall to wall, and then a number of smaller ones, about three inches in diameter, laid longitudinally upon them. What was placed upon these does not appear, but most probably it was brush, bark, or slabs, covered with a layer of mud-mortar. The beams show no signs of the saw or axe; on the contrary, they appear to have been hacked off by means of some very imperfect instrument. On the west face of the structure, the windows, which are only in the second story, are three feet two inches by two feet two inches. On the north side they are only in the second and third stories, and are as small as fourteen by fourteen inches. At different points about the premises were three circular apartments sunk in the ground, the walls being of masonry. These apartments the Pueblo Indians called estufas, or places where the people held their political and religions meetings." [Footnote: Simpson's Report, p. 76.]

The main building, Fig. 30, is two hundred and thirty-eight feet long, and the wing one hundred and seventy-four feet. It seems probable, from the symmetrical character of most of these structures, that the original plan contemplated an extension of the main building, the addition of another wing, to be followed by the connection of the wings with a wall, thus closing the court. These buildings were not all completed at once, but were extended and increased in the number of stories from generation to generation, as the people increased in numbers and prosperity. The plan upon which these houses were erected favored such extension. The great size of some of these structures can only be explained by the hypothesis of growth through long periods of time. The stone for building this pueblo was found quite near. Mr. Jackson remarks that "on the side of the bluff facing the valley is an outcrop of a yellowish-gray sandstone, showing in some places a seam of from twelve to eighteen inches in thickness, where the rock breaks into thin slate-like layers. It was from this stratum that most of the material in the walls was obtained." [Footnote: Jackson's Report, p. 433.] He further remarks concerning the estufas: "In the northwest angle of the court are two circular rooms, or estufas, the best preserved one of which is built into the main building and forms a portion of it, while the other stands outside, but in juxtaposition, and is evidently a later and less perfect addition. They are each twenty-five feet in diameter. The inside walls are perfectly cylindrical, and in the case of the inner one are in good preservation for a height of about five feet.... There are no side apertures, so that light and access was probably obtained through the roof. These estufas, which figure so prominently in these ruins and in fact in all the ancient ruins extending southward from the basin of the Rio San Juan, are so identical in their structure, position, and evident uses with the similar ones in the pueblos now inhabited, that they indisputably connect one with the other, and show this region to have been covered at one time with a numerous population, of which the present inhabitants of the pueblos of Moki and of New Mexico are either the remnants or the descendants.... Beneath the ground plan [in Fig. 30] is a section through a restoration of the pueblo from north to south, showing the manner in which the stories were probably terraced from the interior of the court outward. There is no positive evidence in any of these ruins that they were thus built, but this arrangement naturally suggests itself as being the only way in which light and ease of access to the inner rooms could be readily obtained. It is also quite certain from the character of the standing walls that they were not terraced symmetrically but irregularly, after the manner of the present pueblos. There is every reason to believe that the first story was, in every case, reached from the outside by ladders, the succeeding stories being also approached from the outside, either by ladders or by stone stairways, after the manner of the Moqui pueblos. There is no positive evidence to sustain any conjecture upon this point, as in every ruin the upper stories are so entirely dismantled that no indications of any sort of stairway have ever been found. The ground-floor was divided into smaller apartments than the second floor, many of the rooms, as shown in the plan, being in the lower story divided into two or three. It would be impossible to say how high this story had been, as the floor is covered to a considerable extent with stones from the fallen walls. The second floor was ten feet between joists, and the third somewhat less, about seven feet, as near as we could judge from below. It is probable that there was a fourth story, but there is now very little evidence of it. Not a vestige of the vigas or other floor-timbers now remain. Some of the lintels over the doors or windows, composed of sticks of wood from one to two inches in thickness, laid close together, are now in fair preservation." [Footnote: Jackson's Report, p. 434.]

Twelve miles down the canyon from the Pueblo Pintado, are the ruins of the Pueblo Wege-gi, Fig. 30. The main building is two hundred and twenty-four feet, and the length of each wing is one hundred and twenty feet, measured on the outside, but which would include the depth of the main building. It is remarkably symmetrical. The rooms, Mr. Jackson says, are small, the largest being eight by fourteen feet, and the smallest eight feet square, and the estufas are each thirty feet in diameter. It is built like the last pueblo "of small tabular pieces of sandstone, arranged with beautiful effect of regularity and finish."

The Pueblo of Una Vida, Fig. 31, seems to have been in process of construction, and designed, when completed, to have been one of the largest in the valley. The main building is two hundred and fifty feet in length, and the wing two hundred feet. It requires for its completion a considerable extension of the main building, and the addition of another wing. If this supposition is tenable, it serves to show that these great houses were of slow construction, by the process of addition and extension from time to time, with the increase of the people in numbers. Upon this theory of construction, the first row of the main building on the court side would first be completed one story high, and covered with a flat roof; after which, by adding one parallel wall with partition walls at intervals, as many more apartments would be obtained; and by a third and fourth parallel wall, with partitions, twice as many more. The second row was carried up two stories, the third three, and the fourth four; the successive stories receding from the court side in the form of great steps or terraces, one above the other. The wings would be commenced and completed in the same manner. Further than this, it seems evident, from the present condition of the structure, that the main building was to be considerably extended, with a second wing like the first to fill out the original design and produce a symmetrical edifice. If these inferences are warranted, the interesting conclusion is reached that these Indian architects commenced their great houses upon a definite plan, which was to be realized in its completeness after years and perhaps generations had passed away. Like the pueblo last named, it is built of tabular pieces of sandstone, and is two miles and a half lower down in the canyon.

The highest portions of the wall still standing in this pueblo are fifteen feet in height, twenty-five feet in Wege-gi, and thirty feet in Hungo Pavie.

The Pueblo of Hungo Pavie or Crooked Nose, Fig. 31, is situated one mile further down in the canyon, upon the north side, and quite near the bordering walls. In exterior development, including the court, it is eight hundred and seventy-two feet, of which the back wall measures three hundred, and the side walls or wings one hundred and forty-four feet each. It is of medium size, but symmetrical, and larger than any single aboriginal structure in Central America in ground dimensions. There are seventy-three apartments in the first story, some of which are unusually large, being about thirteen by eighteen feet, and with fifty-three rooms in the second story, and twenty-nine in the third, contain an aggregate of one hundred and fifty-five rooms. It would accommodate from eight hundred to one thousand Indians.

To complete the representation of the architectural design of these "great houses of stone," the annexed elevation is given, Fig. 32. It is a restoration of the Pueblo of Hungo Pavie, made by Mr. Kern, who accompanied General Simpson as draughtsman, and copied from his engraving. The walls of the canyon are seen in the background of engraving. We may recognize in this edifice, as it seems to the author, a very satisfactory reproduction of the so-called palaces of Montezuma, which, like this, were constructed on three sides of a court which opened on a street or causeway, and in the terraced form. From the light which this architecture throws upon that of the Aztecs, which was contemporary, it appears extremely probable that these famous palaces, considered as exclusive residences of an Indian potentate, are purely fictitious; and that, on the contrary, they were neither more nor less than great communal or joint-tenement houses of the aboriginal American model, and with common Indians crowding all their apartments. From what is now known of the necessary constitution of society among the Village Indians, it scarcely admits of a doubt that the great house in which he lived was occupied on equal terms by many other families in common with his own, all the individuals of which were joint proprietors of the establishment which their own hands had constructed.

Two miles further down, and upon the north side of the canyon, near the bluff, are the ruins of the Pueblo of Chettro Kettle, or the Rain Pueblo, Fig. 33. The main building and the wings face the court, from which alone they are entered, and from which the several stories recede outward. Including the court, this great edifice has an exterior development of one thousand three hundred feet. The exterior wall of the main building measures four hundred and fifty-two feet in length, and the longest of the wings two hundred and twenty feet. These measurements are according to General Simpson.

From these measurements some impression may be formed of the extent of the accommodations such an edifice would afford, especially in Indian life, where a married pair and their children are found in a smaller space than one of these apartments supplied. The plan shows one hundred and seventy-five apartments in the ground story; one hundred and thirty-four in the second; one hundred and thirteen in the third; sixty in the fourth, and twenty-four in the fifth—making an aggregate of five hundred and six apartments. It is not probable that the several stories were carried up symmetrically, which would involve a diminution of some of the rooms in the upper stories. This pueblo is constructed of the same materials as those before named. "The circular estufas," Lieutenant Simpson remarks, "of which there are six in number, have a greater depth than any we have seen, and differ from them also in exhibiting more stories, one of them certainly showing two, and possibly three, the lowest one appearing to be almost covered up with debris."

This room, Fig. 34, is described by Lieutenant Simpson, but at the time of Mr. Jackson's visit he was unable to find it. "In the northwest corner of the ruins," Lieutenant Simpson remarks, "we found a room in an almost perfect state of preservation.... This room is fourteen by seven and a half feet in plan, and ten feet in elevation. It has an outside doorway, three and a half feet high by two and a quarter wide, and one at its west end, leading into the adjoining room, two feet wide, and at present, on account of rubbish, only two and a half feet high. The stone walls still have their plaster upon them in a tolerable state of preservation. In the south wall is a recess or niche, three feet two inches high by four feet five inches wide by four deep. Its position and size naturally suggested the idea that it might have been a fire-place, but if so, the smoke must have returned to the room, as there was no chimney outlet for it. In addition to this large recess, there were three smaller ones in the same wall. The ceiling showed two main beams, laid transversely; on these, longitudinally, were a number of smaller ones in juxtaposition, the ends being tied together by a species of wooden fibre, and the interstices chinked in with small stones; on these, again, transversely, in close contact, was a kind of lathing of the odor and appearance of cedar, all in a good state of preservation." [Footnote: Lieutenant Simpson's Report, p. 63.]

When in its original condition, this fine pueblo must have made a very striking appearance.

Immediately under the walls of the canyon, and about a quarter of a mile below the last pueblo, are the ruins of the still-greater Pueblo Bonito, Fig. 35. This edifice is, in some respects, the most interesting of the series as well as the best preserved in certain portions. Its exterior development, including the court, is one thousand three hundred feet. Its corners are rounded, and the east wing, now the most ruinous part of the structure, appears to have had row upon row of apartments added, until nearly one-third of the area of the court was covered. "Its present elevation," General Simpson observes, "shows that it had at least four stories of apartments. The number of rooms on the ground floor is one hundred and thirty-nine. In this enumeration, however, are not included the apartments which are not distinguishable in the eastern portion of the pueblo, and which would swell the number to about two hundred. There, then, having been at least four stories of rooms ... there must be a reduction ... of one range of rooms for every story after the first, which would increase the number to six hundred and forty-one." [Footnote: Simpson's Report, p. 81.]

No single edifice of equal accommodations, it may be here repeated, has ever been found in any part of North America. It would accommodate three thousand Indians.

One of the best of its rooms is shown in the engraving, Fig. 36. It will compare, not unfavorably, with any of equal size to be found at Palenque or Uxmal, although, from the want of a vaulted ceiling, not equal in artistic design. The nice mechanical adjustment of the masonry and the finish of the ceiling are highly creditable to the taste and skill of the builders. "It is walled up," says Simpson, "with alternate beds of large and small stones, the regularity of the combination producing a very pleasant effect. The ceiling of this room is also more tasteful than any we have seen, the transverse beams being smaller and more numerous, and the longitudinal pieces, which rest upon them, only about an inch in diameter, and beautifully regular These latter have somewhat the appearance of barked willow. The room has a doorway at each end, and one at the side, each of them leading into adjacent apartments. The light is let in by a window two feet by eight inches on the north side." [Footnote: Simpson's Report, p. 81.]

Mr. Jackson's study of the ruins enabled him to produce a restoration, which is given in his report, and of whose plate Fig. 37 is a copy. It is an interesting work, considered as a restoration, which can only claim to be an approximation. It will be noticed that three passage-ways were left open into the court, although the ground plan shows but one. In the Yucatan edifices, as the House of the Nuns at Uxmal, there is usually an arched gateway through the center of the building facing the court. The court was also open at each of the four angles, which, however, might have been protected by palisades in time of danger. The walls of the canyon are seen in the background of the engraving.

Of this pueblo, Mr. Jackson remarks that "three hundred yards below are the ruins of the Pueblo del Arroyo, Fig. 38, so named probably because it is on the verge of the deep arroyo which traverses the middle of the canyon." This was given only a passing glance by Simpson, but it well repays more careful inspection. It is of the rectangular form, but with the open space or court facing a few degrees north of east. The west wall is two hundred and sixty-eight feet long, and the two wings one hundred and twenty-five and one hundred and thirty-five feet, respectively; their ends connected by a narrow and low semi-circular wall. The wings are the most massively-built and best-preserved portion of the whole building, that portion which lies between them and back of the court being much more ruinous and dissimilar in many respects. The walls, of the south wing, which are in the first story, very heavy and massive, are still standing to the height of the third story. Many, of the vigas are still in place, and are large and perfectly smooth and straight undressed logs of pine, averaging ten inches in thickness; none of the smaller beams or other wood-work now remains. There is one estufa thirty-seven feet in diameter in this wing. In the north wing the walls are standing somewhat higher, but do not indicate more than three stories, though there was probably another. The vigas of the second floor project through the wall for a distance of about five feet along its whole northern face, the same as in the Pueblo Hungo Pavie. There are two estufas; one near the east end of the wing, which is twenty-seven feet in diameter, was three stories in height. The floor-beams are removed, but the remains show this plainly. The interior is nearly filled up, but it was originally over twenty-five feet in depth. The ruins of the other estufa are insignificant compared with this, and it probably consisted of but one low room. Facing the center of the court are remains of what were three circular rooms. At the end of the wings, outside of the building, are faint outlines of other circular apartments or inclosures, shown by dotted lines on the plan. In the central portion of the ruin, between the two wings, some rooms have been preserved entire. I crawled down into one of these through a small hole in the covering, and found its walls to consist of delicate masonry, thinly plastered and whitewashed. The ceiling was formed in the usual manner, fine willow brush supporting the earthen floor above, instead of the lath-like sticks or thin boards that were used in the exceptional cases noted.

Two miles below the Pueblo del Arroyo are the ruins of the Pueblo of Penyasca Blanca, Fig. 39. "This is the largest pueblo in plan we have seen," Lieutenant Simpson remarks, "and differs from others in the arrangement of the stones composing its walls. The walls of the other pueblos were all of one uniform character in the several beds composing it; but in this there is a regular alternation of large and small stones, which are about one foot in length and one-half a foot in thickness, form but a single bed, and then, alternating with these, are three or four beds of very small stones, each about an inch in thickness. The general plan of the structure also differs from the others in approximating the form of the circle. The number of the rooms at present discoverable upon the first floor is one hundred and twelve: and the existing walls show that there have been at least three stories of apartments. The number of circular estufas we counted was seven." [Footnote: Simpson's Report, p. 64.]

"In point of size," Mr. Jackson remarks, "the rooms of this ruin will average larger than in most of the others; the twenty-eight rooms, as they appear on the outer circumference, average twenty feet in length from wall to wall inside. The smallest, which are only ten feet wide, are at the two ends. The width of the rooms of each tier appears to have been constant throughout the length of the whole ruin. The dimensions given in these drawings are, in nearly every case, of those apartments which constitute the second story, as it is in those that there is the least obscuration of the walls.

"In most of the ruins the first floor is almost entirely filled up with debris, but when the ruins can be followed they show that this floor is generally divided into much smaller apartments, two or three occurring sometimes in place of each one above them. The eastern half of the ellipse, as above said, consists of a single continuous line of small apartments, with a uniform width of thirteen feet inside and an average length of twenty feet. By a curious coincidence the same number of rooms are in this row as in the outer tier of the main building. The walls of the central portion for a distance of about two hundred feet are in fair preservation, standing in places six to eight feet in height, the dividing walls showing apertures leading from one room to another. They are built of stones uniform in size, averaging six by nine by three and a half inches. Mortar was used between the stones instead of the small plates of stone. At both ends, for a distance of some two hundred feet from the point of juncture with the main building, the walls are entirely leveled, but enough remains to show the dimensions of each apartment. Twenty yards from the south end of the building are the ruins of a great circular room fifty feet in diameter, with some portions of its interior wall in such preservation that its character is readily discernible." [Footnote: Hayden's Tenth Annual Report, 1878, p. 446.]

Without the canyon, upon the mesa, and about half a mile back of the bluff, upon the north side, are the ruins of the Pueblo Alto, constructed of stone on three sides of a court, like those before described. The main building is three hundred feet long, and one wing is two hundred feet measured externally from the back end of the main building, the other wing is one hundred and seventy feet measured the same way. This wing is but two rooms deep, while the main building and the other wing are each three rooms deep. It has six estufas, with remains of a convex wall, connecting the two wings, and inclosing the court. These estufas, like those in the other pueblos, suggest the probability that they were places for holding the councils of the gentes and phratries.

This great ruin, with two others of smaller size, shown in Fig. 38 as No. 8 and No. 9, of which the first is one hundred and thirty-five feet long and one hundred feet deep, and the other seventy-eight by sixty-three feet, both of stone, complete the list of ruins in the canyon. The pueblo of Pintado, is, however, at the upper end, and without the canyon, and the Pueblo Alto, not yet described, is not in the canyon, but on the bluff. It is a remarkable display of ancient edifices; the most remarkable in New Mexico. With the bordering walls of the canyon, rising vertically, in places, one hundred feet high, it presented long vistas in either direction, with natural and inclosing walls. Shut in from all view of the table lands at the summit of these walls, this valley, at the time its great houses were occupied, must have presented a very striking picture of human life as it existed in the Middle Period of Barbarism. The greater part of the valley must have been covered with garden beds, from which the people derived their principal support, as the mesa lands without the canyon were too dry for cultivation. It no doubt presented an interesting picture of industrious and contented life, with a corresponding advancement in the arts of this period. There is still some uncertainty concerning the time when these pueblos were last occupied, and the fate of their inhabitants. There are a number of circumstances tending to show that they were the "Seven Cities of Cibola," against which the expedition of Coronado was directed in 1540-1542. There are seven pueblos in ruins in the canyon, without reckoning Nos. 8 and 9, the smallest in the valley. Some of the facts which point to these pueblos as the Towns of Cibola may here be noted.

In his Relation to the Viceroy, which is dated from the province of Cibola, August 3, 1540, Coronado describes his conquest and intimates his disappointment in the following language:

"It remaineth now to certify your Honor of the seven cities, and of the kingdoms and provinces whereof the Father Provincial made report unto your Lordship. And, to be brief, I can assure your Honor he said the truth in nothing that he reported, but all was quite contrary, saving only the names of the cities, and great houses of stone, for although they be not wrought with turqueses, nor with lime, nor bricks, yet they are very excellent good houses, of three, or four, or five lofts high, wherein are good lodging and fair chambers, with ladders instead of stairs, and certain cellars under the ground, very good and paved, which are made for winter,—they are in manner like stoves; and the ladders which they have for their houses are in a manner moveable and portable, which are taken away and set down when they please; and they are made of two pieces of wood, with their steps, as ours be. The seven cities are seven small towns, all made with these kind of houses that I speak of; and they stand all within four leagues together, and they are all called the Kingdom of Cibola, and every one of them have their particular name, and none of them is called Cibola, but all together they are called Cibola. And this town, which I call a city, I have named Granada, as well because it is somewhat like unto it, as also in remembrance of your Lordship. In this town where I now remain there may be some two hundred houses, all compassed with walls; and, I think, that, with the rest of the houses which are not so walled, they may be together five hundred. There is another town near this, which is one of the seven, and it is somewhat bigger than this, and another of the same bigness that this is of, and the four are somewhat less; and I send them all painted unto your Lordship with the voyage. And the parchment wherein the picture is was found here with other parchments. The people of this town seem unto me of a reasonable stature, and witty, yet they seem not to be such as they should be, of that judgment and wit to build these houses in such sort as they are.... They travel eight days' journey unto certain plains lying towards the North Sea. In this country there are certain skins, well dressed; and they dress them and paint them where they kill their oxen [buffalo]; for so they say themselves." [Footnote: Hakluyt, vol iii, p. 377.]

On the fourth day after the capture of Cibola, Coronado further says: "They set in order all their goods and substance, their women and children, and fled to the hills, leaving their towns as it were abandoned, wherein remained very few of them." [Footnote: ib., vol. iii, p. 379.]

It will be observed that the phrases "great houses of stone," and "good houses of three, or four, or five lofts high," not only describe the pueblo on the Chaco in apt language, but there are no other pueblos in New Mexico, exclusively of stone, of which we have knowledge, except those of the Mokis, in the Canyon de Chelly, on the Animas River, and elsewhere in Southwestern Colorado. There is an apparent difficulty in the narrative, in the reference made to the number of houses; but it is evident, I think, that Coronado meant apartments or sections, treating each great house as a block of houses, and expressing a doubt of their "judgment and wit to build these houses in such sort as they are." If any doubt remained, it is entirely removed by the fact that all the pueblo houses in New Mexico, whether occupied or in ruins, are great edifices constructed like these on the communal principle, and that two hundred such houses grouped in one town were an utter impossibility.

Jaramillo, who wrote his Relation some time after the return of the expedition, remarks, "that all the water-courses that we fell in with, whether brook or river, as far as that of Cibola, and I believe for one or two days' journey beyond, flow in the direction of the South Sea [the Pacific]; farther on they take the direction of the North Sea [the Atlantic]". [Footnote: Col. H. Ternaux-Compans, vol. ix, p. 370.]

This tends to show that Cibola was situated on a tributary of the Colorado, which gathers all the waters of New Mexico west of the Rio Grande and north of the Gila, and also that it was situated quite near the dividing ridge. It is but ten miles from the Canyon de Torrejon, on the Puerco, a tributary of the Rio Grande, to the commencement of the Rio de Chaco, an affluent of the San Juan, and but twenty-three miles to the Pueblo Pintado. In this respect the sites of the ruins on the Chaco are in close agreement with the description of the situations of the towns of Cibola. Castanyada, after speaking of the seven villages, and the character of the houses, remarks that "the valley is very narrow, between precipitous mountains" ["C'est une vallee tres-etroite entre des montagues escarpees"], [Footnote: Castenyada Relation, Ternaux-Compans, ix, p. 164.] which, in the light of Coronado's declaration, that "the country is all plain, and on no side mountains," may perhaps have reference to the encompassing walls of the canyon. This language, literally interpreted, does not describe this canyon, neither is there any valley in New Mexico, occupied by pueblos, which answers this description.

Upon the evidence contained in these several narratives, and with our present knowledge of New Mexico, the sites of the seven towns of Cibola cannot be determined with certainty. It is a question of probabilities; and those which seem the strongest in favor of the ruins on the Chaco are the following: Firstly, they are superior, architecturally, to any pueblos in New Mexico, now existing or in ruins, and agree in number and in proximity to each other, with the towns of Cibola as described. Secondly, they are upon an affluent of the San Juan, and within "one or two days' journey" of the waters which flow into the Gulf of Mexico; in other words, they are near the summit of the watershed of the two oceans, where Jaramillo distinctly states Cibola was situated. Thirdly, they are within eight days of the buffalo ranges, the nearest of which are upon the northeastern confines of New Mexico. Cibola was said to be thus situated. Moreover, the name Cibola implies the buffalo country. We are also told by Friar Marcos that the Indians south of the Gila trafficked with the Cibolans for ox-hides, which he found them wearing. Zunyi, the only known place, showing a probability that it was one of the seven towns, is too far distant from the buffalo ranges to answer to this portion of the narrative. Lastly, the evidence, collectively, favors a far northern as well as far eastern position for Cibola. The people of Cibola knew nothing of either ocean. This could hardly have been true of the people of Zunyi with respect to the Pacific, or at least the Gulf of California. Coronado himself was in doubt as to which sea was nearest, and seems to have been conscious of the widening of the continent upon both sides of him. Assuming that the pueblos on the Chaco were inhabited in 1540, they were the finest structures then in New Mexico. Coronado captured all the villages on the Rio Grande, and probably sent a detachment to the Moki Pueblos, and remained two years in the country. It seems impossible, therefore, that he should have failed to find the pueblos on the Chaco; and they answer his description better than any other pueblos in New Mexico.

With respect to the manner of constructing these houses, it was probably done, as elsewhere remarked, from time to time, and from generation to generation. Like a feudal castle, each house was a growth by additions from small beginnings, made as exigencies required. When one of these houses, after attaining a sufficient size, became overcrowded with inhabitants, it is probable that a strong colony, "like the swarm from the parent hive, moved out, and commenced a new house, above or below, in the same valley." This would be repeated, as the people prospered, until several pueblos grew up within an extent of twelve or fifteen miles, as in the valley of the Chaco. When the capabilities of the valley were becoming overtaxed for their joint subsistence, the colonists would seek more distant homes. At the period of the highest prosperity of these pueblos, the valley of the Chaco must have possessed remarkable advantages for subsistence. The plain between the walls of the canyon was between half a mile and a mile in width near the several pueblos, but the amount of water now passing through it is small. In July, according to Lieutenant Simpson, the running stream was eight feet wide and a foot and a half deep at one of the pueblos; while Mr. Jackson found no running water and the valley entirely dry in the month of May, with the exception of pools of water in places and a reservoir of pure water in the rocks at the top of the bluff. The condition of the region is shown by these two statements. During the rainy season in the summer, which is also the season of the growing crops, there is an abundance of water; while in the dry season it is confined to springs, pools and reservoirs. From the number of pueblos in the valley, indicating a population of several thousand, the gardens within it must have yielded a large amount of subsistence; the climate being favorable to its growth and ripening.



CHAPTER VIII.

RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES—CONTINUED.

About sixty miles north of the pueblos on the Chaco, and in the valley of the Animas River, is a cluster of stone pueblos, very similar to the former. These I visited in 1878. The valley is broad at this point, and for some miles above and below to its mouth. At the time of our visit (July 22) the river was a broad stream, carrying a large volume of water. We followed down the river from the point of its rise in the dividing range, where it was a mere brook, nearly the whole distance through Silverton to Animas City. The constant accession of mountain streams, and the rapid descent of its bed, soon changed it into a noisy and dashing stream. About twenty miles above Animas City we were compelled to ascend to the top of the bordering mountains to avoid the narrow canyon below, which was impassable; and in descending from Animas City to visit these pueblos we crossed over to the La Plata Valley, and after passing through this valley we recrossed to the Animas Valley to avoid similar canyons also impassable. The supply of water for irrigation at the pueblo was abundant. [Footnote: The engravings of Figs. 40, 41 and 41a were kindly loaned by Mr. F. W. Putnam of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Mass.]

The pueblo of which the ground plan is shown, Fig. 40, is one of four situated within the extent of one mile on the west side of the Animas River in New Mexico, about twelve miles above its mouth. Besides these four, there are five other smaller ruins of inferior structures within the same area. This pueblo was five or perhaps six stories high, consisting of a main building three hundred and sixty-eight feet long, and two wings two hundred and seventy feet long, measured along the external wall on the right and left sides, and one hundred and ninety-nine feet measured along the inside from the end back to the main building.



A fourth structure crosses from the end of one wing to the end of the other, thus inclosing an open court. It was of the width of one and perhaps two rows of apartments, and slightly convex outward, which enlarged somewhat the size of the court. The main building and the wings were built in the so-called terraced form; that is to say, the first row of apartments in the main building and in each wing on the court side were but one story high. The second row back of these were carried up two stories high, the third row three stories, and so on to the number of five stories for the main building and four for each wing. The external wall rose forty or fifty feet where the structure was five stories high and but ten feet on the court side, including a low parapet wall, where the structure was but one story high. There was no entrance to these great structures in the ground story. After getting admission within the court, they ascended to the roof of the first row of apartments by means of ladders, and in the same way, by ladders, to each successive story. As the second story receded from the first, the third from the second, and so on, each successive story made a great step ten feet high. The apartments were entered through trap-doors in the roof of each story, the descent being by ladders inside. In some places, without doubt, the upper stories were entered by doorways from the roof of the story in front.

The two wings are a mass of ruins. Pit-holes along the summit show the forms of the rooms, with plain traces of the original walls here and there, and excavations, made by curious settlers, have opened a number of rooms in the ground story of one of the wings. These we entered and measured. Some of the rooms were faced with stone, i.e., we found a stone wall regularly laid up, like the one in the main building, as will elsewhere be shown. Some of the walls in these rooms were of cobblestone and adobe; others were of stone with natural faces and cobblestone intermixed. We saw no wall of adobe brick alone. The fallen walls formed a mass about twelve feet deep over the site of the wings, being the deepest on the outside and thinning out on the court side.

The mass of material used in the construction of these edifices was very great and surprises the beholder. It is explained in part by the thickness of the walls. We measured a number of them. They were two feet four inches, two feet six inches, two feet nine inches, three feet, and in rare cases three feet six inches thick. None measured less than two feet.

The main building was originally the best constructed part of the edifice, it may be supposed, because a part of it now remains standing. The walls of the first story, of some part of the second, and, in some places, of a part of the third story, forming the second row of apartments from the outside, are still standing, and rise about twenty five feet from the ground. The measurements of the second row of apartments, as shown in the diagram were from the standing walls, and were made in the second story.

The first or basement story is filled up with the rubbish of the fallen walls, ceilings, and floors, in the second row of apartments named. In some cases they are full above the line of the original ceilings; in others nearly up to them. The main ceiling beams were of yellow cedar from eight to twelve inches in diameter, usually three and four in number, and were placed across the narrow way of the room. Stubs of these beams still remain in the walls parallel with the court. Just above the line of these beams in the other two walls were the ends of a row of poles about four inches in diameter, which passed transversely across the cedar beams Stubs of these poles, broken off short at the line of the walls, still remain in place. Upon these poles were originally thin pieces of split cedar limbs, and then the floor of adobe mortar, four or five inches thick. We thus get the position and height of the floor of the first and second stories, which were about nine feet six inches for the ground story, and nine feet for the second story.

The external wall of the main building has fallen the entire length of the structure. As these ruins are resorted to by the few settlers in the valley as a stone quarry to obtain stone for foundations to their houses and barns, and for stoning up their wells, the loose material is being gradually removed, and when the standing walls are more convenient to take they will be removed also. One farmer told me he thought that one quarter of the accessible material of this and the adjacent stone pueblo had already been removed. It is to be hoped that the number of these settlers inclined to Vandalism will not increase.

A part of the partition walls which connected the outside wall with the next parallel wall is still standing where the wall last named rises above the second story. They stand out for three or four feet like buttresses against the wall, and show that the masonry of the parallel and transverse walls was articulated, that the partition walls were continuous from front to rear, and that the walls of the several stories rested upon each other. All this is seen by a bare inspection of the walls as they now stand.

The masonry itself is the chief matter of interest in these structures. Every room in the main building was faced with stone on the four sides, having an adobe floor and a wooden ceiling. Each room had, as far as walls now remain to show, two doorways through the walls parallel with the court, and four openings about twelve inches square, two on the side of each doorway, near the ceiling. These openings were for light and ventilation. In a limited sense it may be said that the stones were dressed, and also that they were laid in courses, but, in the high and strict meaning of these terms, neither is true. The stones used were small and of different sizes. Sometimes they were nearly square, from six to eight inches on a side; sometimes a foot long by six inches wide. The latter is the size of the stones used at Uxmal and Chichen Itza, according to Norman. In some cases longer and thicker stones were used without any attempt to square the ends. In some instances thin pieces of stone were employed with parallel faces. In all cases the stone was a sandstone, now of a reddish brown color. It is the prevailing stone in the bluffs of the Animas River, and of all the rivers parallel with it running into the San Juan, as far as personal observation enabled me to judge. It is a soft rather than a hard stone, usually of a buff color when first quarried, and some of it has decayed in the using. The wasted and weatherworn appearance of some of these stones would otherwise indicate a very great age for the structure. With stone of the size used a good face can be formed by simple fracture, and a joint sufficiently close may be made by a few strokes with a stone maul. If finer work was aimed at, it must have been accomplished by rubbing the stones to a face. But this work is sufficiently explained by the former processes. In the row of apartments and stories named, both faces of each wall were of stone, so that all of the apartments were of stone on the inside. They were fair walls, both in masonry and workmanship, and creditable to the builders. There was an attempt to lay up these walls in courses of uniform thickness, but each course differing from the one above and below it. The attempt was only partially successful. They did not hesitate to break in upon the regularity of the courses. Some of the standing walls are now sprung; but most of them are straight, and fairly vertical, the adobe mortar being sound and the bond unbroken.

The Indian had a string from time immemorial. With it he could strike a circle, and lay out the four sides of a quadrangular structure with tolerable correctness. It is not too much to assume that with a string and sinker attached the Village Indian had the plumb-line, and could prove his wall as well as we can. At all events, the eye still proves the general correctness of their work.

The adobe mortar of the Pueblo Indians is something more than mud mortar, although far below a mortar of lime and sand. Adobe is a kind of finely pulverized clay with a bond of considerable strength by mechanical cohesion. In Southern Colorado, in Arizona, and New Mexico, there are immense tracts covered with what is called adobe soil. It varies somewhat in the degree of its excellence. The kind of which they make their pottery has the largest per cent of alumina, and its presence is indicated by the salt weed which grows in this particular soil. This kind also makes the best adobe mortar. The Indians use it freely in laying their walls, as freely as our masons use lime mortar; and although it never acquires the hardness of cement, it disintegrates slowly. The mortar in these walls is still sound, so that it requires some effort of strength to loosen a stone from the wall and remove it. But this adobe mortar is adapted only to the dry climate of Southern Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, where the precipitation is less than five inches per annum. The rains and frosts of a northern climate would speedily destroy it. To the presence of this adobe soil, found in such abundance in the regions named, and to the sandstone of the bluffs, where masses are often found in fragments, we must attribute the great progress made by these Indians in house-building.

The exclusive presence of this adobe mortar in all New Mexican structures of the aboriginal period shows that the tribes of New Mexico were then ignorant of a mortar of lime and sand. And here a digression may be allowed to consider whether a cement of this grade was known to the aborigines. Theoretically, the use of a mortar composed of quick-lime and sand, which gives a cement chemically united, would not be expected of the Indian tribes either in North or South America. There is no sufficient proof that they ever produced a cement of this high grade. It requires a kiln, artificially constructed, and a concentrated heat to burn limestone into lime, supposing they had learned that lime could be thus obtained, and some knowledge of the properties of quick-lime before they reached the idea of a true cement. The Spanish writers generally speak of walls of lime and stone, thus implying a mortar of lime and sand. Thus, Bernal Diaz speaks of the great temple in the Pueblo of Mexico as surrounded "with double enclosures built of stone and lime."

[Footnote: The True History of the Conquest of Mexico, Keatinge's Translation, Salem ed., 1803, vol. i, p. 208.] Clavigero remarks that "the houses of lords and people of circumstances were built of stone and lime." [Footnote: History of Mexico, Cullen's Trans., Phila. ed., 1817, vol. ii, p. 232.]

Again, "the ignorant Mr. De Pauw denies that the Mexicans had either the knowledge or made use of lime; but it is evident from the testimony of all the historians of Mexico, by tribute rolls, and above all from the ancient buildings still remaining, that all these nations made the same use of lime as all the Europeans do." [Footnote: ib., vol. ii, p. 237.]

In like manner, Herrera, speaking of Zempoala, near Vera Cruz, remarks that the Spaniards, entering the town, found "the houses [were] built of lime and stone;" [Footnote: History of America, Stevens' Trans., London ed., 1725, vol ii, p. 266.] and again, speaking of the houses in Yucatan, he remarks that "at the place where the encounter happened, there were three houses built of lime and stone." [Footnote: ib., p. 112.]

These several statements can hardly be said to prove the fact of the use of a mortar of lime and sand. Mr. John L. Stephens, in speaking of the ruins at Palenque, is more explicit: "The building was constructed of stone, with a mortar of lime and sand, and the whole front was covered with stucco, and painted." [Footnote: Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, vol. ii, p. 310.]

The back wall of the governor's house at Uxmal is nine feet thick through its length of two hundred and seventy feet. In this wall, by means of crowbars, "the Indians made a hole six and seven feet deep, but throughout the wall was solid and consisted of large stones imbedded in mortar, almost as hard as rock." [Footnote: ib., vol. i, p. 178.]

At the ruins of Zayi, there was one row of ten apartments, two hundred and twenty feet long, called the Casas Cerrada, or closed house, because the core over which the triangular ceiling was constructed had not been removed when the house was abandoned, of which Stephens says, "We found ourselves in apartments finished with the walls and ceilings like the others, but filled up (except so far as they had been emptied by the Indians) with solid masses of mortar and stones." [Footnote: Central American, Chiapas and Yucatan, vol. ii, p. 23.]

Norman, speaking of the ruins of the House of the Cacique at Chichen, remarks, "that the wall is made of large and uniformly square blocks of limestone set in mortar, which appears to be as durable as the stone itself." [Footnote: Rambles in Yucatan, p. 120.]

Elsewhere, speaking of the ruins of Yucatan generally, he observes, "the stones are cut in parallelopipeds of about twelve inches in length and six in breadth, the interstices filled up of the same materials of which the terraces are composed." [Footnote: ib. p. 127]

That these tribes used mortar of some kind in their stone walls cannot be doubted, but these several statements do not prove the use of quick-lime, which is the main question. Mr. Stephens' statement satisfied me until I saw the New Mexican pueblos. These show that a very efficient mortar can be had without the use of lime. The Indians of Mexico and the coast tribes near Vera Cruz plastered their houses externally with gypsum, which made them a brilliant white, and the stucco used upon the inner walls of houses in Chiapas and Yucatan was not unlikely made of gypsum. This mineral is abundant as well as easily treated. From it comes plaster of Paris, and from it may have come in some form the bond which held the mortar together, to the strength of which Mr. Stephens refers.

The neatness and general correctness of the masonry is now best seen in the doorways. In the standing walls of the second story, and of the first, where occasionally uncovered, there are to be seen two doorways in each room, as before stated, running in all cases across the building from the court side toward the external wall, and never in the direction of its length. These doorways measured some three feet two inches in height by two feet six inches in width, and others three feet four inches by two feet seven inches.

The stone used in these doorways are rather smaller than those in other parts of the wall, but prepared in the same manner.

I brought away two of these stones, taken from the standing walls of the main building, as samples of the character of the work with respect to size and dressing. Fig. 41 represents one of them, engraved from a photograph. It measures eight inches in its greatest length by six inches in its greatest width, and it is two and three-quarter inches in thickness.



The upper and lower faces of the stone are substantially but not exactly, parallel. It also shows one angle, which is substantially, but not exactly a right angle and it was so adjusted that the long edge was on the doorway and short one in the wall of a chamber or apartment, with the right angle at the corner between them. This stone was evidently prepared by fracture, probably with a stone maul, and the regularity of the breakage was doubtless partly due to skill and partly to accident. It shows no marks of the chisel or the drove, or of having been rubbed, and where the square is applied to the sides or angles the rudeness of the stone is perfectly apparent.

Fig. 41a represents a sandstone cut by American skilled workmen in the form of a brick, and it is intended to show by comparison the great difference between the dressed stone of the civilized man and the ruder stone of the mason in the condition of barbarism. The comparison shows that no instruments of exactness were used in the stone work of the pueblo, and that exactness was not attempted. But the accuracy of a practiced eye and hand, such as their methods afforded, was reached, and this was all they attempted. With stones as rude as that shown in the figure, a fair and even respectable stone wall may be laid. The art of architecture in stone is of slow and difficult growth. Stone prepared by fracture with a stone hammer precedes dressed stone, which requires metallic implements. In like manner mud mortar or adobe mortar precedes a mortar of lime and sand. The Village Indians of America were working their way experimentally, and step by step, in the art of house-building, as all mankind have been obliged to do, each race for itself; and the structures the Village Indians have raised in various parts of America, imperfect as they are by contrast, are highly creditable to their intelligence.

Stone lintels were not used for these doorways, as stones three feet long would have been required. No stones of half that length are to be seen in any of the walls. They had, however, the idea of a stone lintel, for they used them in this structure over the foot-square openings for light and air. We found a stone lintel over an opening eighteen inches wide in a cliff house on the Mancos River. This was so firmly imbedded that we found its removal impossible. They used for a lintel six round cedar cross-pieces, Fig. 42, each about four inches in diameter and now perfectly sound.



In some of these doorways we noticed a peculiar feature. On the side toward the external wall, one and sometimes two of these wooden lintels were placed, four and sometimes six inches lower than the remainder, so that on entering from the outside room into the second room, the top of the doorway rose higher as the room was entered. A necessity was experienced to save the head from bumps, and the wonder is that it did not occur to them to raise the doorways to the height of the body. As the doorways were always open, no doors being used, it may well be that larger openings would have created stronger currents of air through the building than they wished. The ends of these lintels were hacked off by stone implements of some kind.

The peculiar arrangement of the doorways tends to show that this great house was divided into sections by the partition walls extending from the court to the exterior wall; and that the rooms above were connected with those below by means of trap-doors and ladders. If this supposition be well founded, the five rooms on the ground floor; from the court back; communicated with each other by doorways. The four in the second story communicated with each other in the same manner, and with those below through trap-doors in the floors. The three rooms in the third story communicated with each other by doorways, and with those below as before. The same would be true of the two rooms of the fourth story. It seems probable that the connected rooms were occupied by a group of related families.

We afterwards found the same thing nearly exemplified in the present occupied Pueblo of Taos, in New Mexico. We found that the families lived in the second and upper stories, and used the rooms below them for storage and for granaries. Each family had two, four, and six rooms, and those who held the upper rooms held those below.

In the south wing before mentioned, several rooms on the ground floor are still perfect, with the ceilings in place upholding the rubbish above. The openings or trap-doorways of two of these rooms are still perfect, but the ladders are gone. The rooms had been opened, us elsewhere stated, by late explorers. One of these trap-doors measured sixteen by seventeen inches, and the other sixteen inches square. Each was formed in the floor by pieces of wood put together. The work was neatly done. These rooms were smaller than the rooms above. Some were as narrow as four feet six inches, others six feet, showing that one room had been divided into two. The basement rooms were probably occupied for storage exclusively, whence their division. They were dark, except as light entered through the trap-doorway from above.

The structure connecting the wings and bounding the court was evidently a single or double row of apartments. This is shown by the amount of fallen material, which is larger than a wall would require, and from pits or depressions which plainly marked the outline of apartments.

There are two circular estufas in the main building, one twenty-three feet and the other twenty-eight feet in diameter. A part of the wall of the first estufa is still standing. It is of stone, mostly of blocks about five inches square, and laid in courses, with considerable regularity. The work is equal to the best masonry in the edifice. In the open court, and near the outer structure, bounding it in front, is another estufa of great size, sixty-three and a half feet in diameter. These estufas, which are used as places of council, and for the performance of their religious rites, are still found at all the present occupied pueblos in New Mexico. There are six at Taos, three at each house, and they are partly sunk in the ground by an excavation. They are entered through a trap-doorway in the roof, the descent being by a ladder.

Outside the front wall closing the court, and about thirty feet distance therefrom, are the remains of a low wall crossing the entire front and extending beyond it. The end structures were about sixty-five feet long by forty feet wide, while at the center was a smaller structure, fifty-four feet long by eighteen wide. All its parts were connected. It was evidently erected for defensive purposes; but it is impossible to make out its character from the remains. One wing is several feet longer than the other, and the wall on the court side is about twenty feet longer than the opposite exterior wall, thus showing that they used no exact measurements.

There were no fire-places with chimneys in this structure. There are none in the ruins in Yucatan and Central America. It is a fair inference, therefore, that chimneys were entirely unknown to the aborigines at the time of their discovery. They have since that time been adopted into the old pueblo houses from American or Spanish sources. They are placed in one corner of the room. We saw recently at Taos two chimneys and two fire-places in one and the same room, one for cooking and the other for a fire to warm the room; proof conclusive that they were not to the chimney born. They were in an apartment of one of the principal chiefs.

In a number of rooms are recesses like niches left in the wall, about two feet six inches wide and high, and about eighteen inches deep. These furnished places to set household articles in, in the place of a mantel or shelf. We afterwards saw niches precisely similar at Taos, and thus used.

It remains to consider the number of rooms or apartments contained in this great edifice. It is plain that it was built in the terraced form, the second story set back from the first, the third from the second, and so on to the last, which was a single row of apartments, on the top somewhere, but not necessarily on the back side. Pueblos were not entirely uniform in this respect The edifice at Taos recedes in front and rear and even upon the sides. This may have been built in the same way, but it can neither be proved nor disproved from the ruins. The number of apartments would not vary much whether the upper stories were symmetrically or irregularly formed. If symmetrical, the main building contained two hundred and sixty apartments, and each wing seventy, making the computation for the latter by area and from the number of depression still discernible, thus making an aggregate of four hundred rooms.

The house was a fortress, proving the insecurity in which the people lived. It was also a joint tenement house of the aboriginal American model, indicating a plan of life not well understood. It may indicate an ancient communism in living, practiced by large households formed on the principle of kin. In such a case the communism was limited to the household as a part of a kinship.

Those familiar with the remains of Indian Pueblos in ruins will recognize at once the resemblance between this pueblo and the stone pueblos in ruins on the Rio Chaco, in New Mexico, about sixty miles distant from these ruins, particularly the one called Hungo Pavie, so fully described by General J. H. Simpson. There is one particular in which the masonry agrees, viz., in the use of courses of thin stones, about half an inch in thickness, sometimes three together, and sometimes five and six. These courses are carried along the wall from one side to the other, but often broken in upon. The effect is quite pretty. These stones measure six inches in length by one-half an inch in thickness. General Simpson found the same courses of thin stones, and even thinner, in the Chaco ruins, and comments upon the pleasing effect they produced.

This edifice was a credit to the skill and industry of the men among the Village Indians; for the men, and not the women, were the architects and the masons, although the women undoubtedly assisted in doing the work. Women brought stone and adobe and cedar, and made adobe mortar, without a doubt, as they still do. One of the hopeful features in their advancement was the beginning of the reversal of the old usage which put all labor upon the women. It is now the rule among the Village Indians for the men to assume the heavy work, which was doubtless the case when this pueblo was constructed. They cultivated maize, beans, and squashes, in garden beds, and irrigated them with water drawn from the river by means of a canal, and passed in several smaller streams through their gardens. The men now engage in the work of cultivation. This is a sure sign of progress.

Off the south wing of the building, and without it, are the remains of an additional building, large enough for twenty or thirty rooms on the ground, some part of which were, doubtless, carried up two or more stories high; but it is a mass of indistinct ruins, about which little can be said except that some of the rooms were unusually large. This may have been the first building constructed, and the one occupied while the stone pueblo was being built.



This outline plan is submitted with some hesitation, because the sketch from which it is taken was made in haste, and with no expectation of using it. It is but an approximation. Near the pueblo last described, and about five hundred feet northeasterly therefrom, is another pueblo in two sections, Fig. 43, with a space about fifteen feet wide between them. They may have been, and probably were, connected and inhabited as one structure. Some of the walls are still standing, and a number of the rooms in the ground story are well preserved, the ceilings still remaining in place. Although the structure is chiefly of stone like the last, some of the walls are of cobblestone and adobe mortar. The largest section seems to have had an open court in the center in the form of a parallelogram. This feature increased the difficulty of understanding the original form of the house and the arrangement of the rooms. The walls of the first, of parts of the second, and occasionally of parts of the third story, are still standing in places. Many of the rooms are small, as the measurements of the following rooms in the second story of the smallest building of the two will show:

3 feet 4 inches by 6 feet 6 inches, 4 feet by 8 feet 4 inches, 4 feet 7 inches by 14 feet 2 inches, 6 feet 5 inches by 14 feet 9 inches, 7 feet 3 inches by 16 feet 9 inches, 6 feet 4 inches by 11 feet 7 inches, 7 feet 3 inches by 7 feet 5 inches, 8 feet 7 inches by 15 feet. Height of rooms, 8 feet. The rooms were faced with stone laid up in the main in courses. They were small, from four to eight inches square, and the walls from two to three feet in thickness. Adobe mortar was used abundantly in the inner part of the wall, but not showing on the face at the joints, the stones being laid together as closely as the natural surfaces of the stone would permit, and without mortar near the edge. This feature was also characteristic of the walls of the pueblo first described.

Mr. Bandelier made to me recently the important suggestion that as far as any progress or improvement in this architecture, in style or character, can be discerned, it seems to have been from smaller to larger rooms, followed by a reduction of the size of the house in ground dimensions. The last is more particularly illustrated by the houses in Yucatan, where single rooms are found, in rare cases, sixty feet long, but where the size of the house in ground dimensions is much smaller than of those in New Mexico. It was in consequence of an examination of some very old pueblo ruins in New Mexico, east of the Rio Grande, near Santo Domingo. There the pueblo was more like a cluster of cells than of rooms, as many of them were but four or five feet square, contrasting strongly with the present inhabited pueblos. The same fact may be seen at Taos. It was mentioned (p. 144) that the Taos Indians many years ago conquered and dispossessed the former occupants of a pueblo at this place, and that some remains of the old pueblo were still standing. In 1878 I visited one of the ground-rooms in the old structure still standing, and entirely alone. It was about five feet by six in ground-dimensions, and was then occupied by a solitary Taos Indian, a sort of hermit, as his place of residence. A bunk across one side furnished him both a bed and a seat, and the remaining room was scarcely sufficient to turn around in, but it gave him all the home he had, and, doubtless, all the room he needed. Another room, a few feet distant, also a part of the old pueblo, was still standing. These rooms were of adobe, and were about six feet high. As the Indian gained in experience and knowledge in the use and construction of the joint-tenement houses, improvements would gradually manifest themselves. It is important to find and trace this progress, as we have every reason to believe that it is one system of architecture throughout North America at least, with a connection of all its forms.

Along the curving or westerly side of the first building, and along the northerly side, there are cedar beams projecting about four feet from the wall in the second story on the line of the ceiling. They are about four inches in diameter. Their object is not apparent.

In one of the basement rooms of the second building are a series of pictographs upon a plastered wall. Our limited time would not permit a sketch.

Midway between the pueblo, Fig. 40, and the one now being considered is a circular ruin three hundred and thirty feet in circuit, which seems to have consisted of two concentric rows of apartments around an inclosed estufa. It was built of cobblestone and adobe mortar. Pit-holes indicate the form and plan of the inclosing rooms, but the ruin is too indistinct to form a clear idea of its structure. A removal of the loose material would probably disclose the original ground plan.

A few hundred feet north are the ruins of four other structures of cobblestone and adobe quite near each other. They were, without doubt, pueblo houses, but they are now a mass of undistinguishable ruins, and, from present appearance, were probably ruins, when the stone pueblos were inhabited. The river here runs nearer the western border of the valley than the eastern, and quite near the pueblo last noticed, but from this point it bears toward the east side of the valley.

About a mile in a direction a little south of east and near the river are the ruins of two other large pueblos, of which the lower one is one thousand and forty feet in circuit, and the one above four hundred and fifty-two feet. Both are built of sandstone and cobblestone and adobe mortar. No part of the walls are standing above the rubbish; but they were apparently contemporary with the stone pueblos. The first stands upon the brink of the river, which is now cutting away its foundations, thus proving that it was insecurely located. The mass of fallen material is very great, showing an apparent depth of at least fifteen feet. Some of the basement rooms in each of these pueblos are probably still entire, judging from the great mass of material over them. Great pit-holes indicate the position of chambers and inclosing-walls. The largest of the two pueblos is 300 feet in depth. In one place, where some excavation has been done, the corner of a basement room is in sight. All these ruins ought to be re-examined, and so far excavated as to recover complete ground plans.

Near the mouth of the river are said to be still other ruins, and still others on the east side of the river, which we had no time to examine.

The valley of the Animas River is here broad and beautiful, about three miles wide. The river passes nearly through the center of the valley. The cliff, on the east side of the level plain, is bold and mountainous, rising from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high, while on the west side the valley is bordered with the mesa formation in two benches, one rising back of the other, and both as level as a floor, with the highlands forming the divide between the Animas and La Plata Rivers in the distance.

From the number and size of the houses, there was probably a population of at least five thousand persons at this settlement, living by horticulture. It is not now known by what tribe of Indians these pueblos were inhabited or constructed.

These pueblos, newly constructed and in their best condition, must have presented a commanding appearance. From the materials used in their construction, from their palatial size and unique design, and from the cultivated gardens by which they were doubtless surrounded, they were calculated to impress the beholder very favorably with the degree of culture to which the people had attained. It is a singular fact that none of the occupied pueblos in New Mexico at the present time are equal in materials or in construction with those found in ruins. It tends to show a decadence of art among them since the period of European discovery.

Westward of the Animas, the La Plata, and the Mancos Rivers, which run southwesterly into the San Juan, is the Montezuma Valley, a broad and level plain, so named by General Heffernan, of Animas City. It is about fifty miles in length, and apparently ten miles wide at the ranch of Mr. Henry L. Mitchell, which is situated at the commencement of the McElmo Canyon.



It stretches southward thirty-six miles to the San Juan. In this valley, which has no flowing stream through it at present (and there is no certainty that it ever had), and which is without water, except in springs and pools, and has but a slight rainfall during the year, Mr. Mitchell was successfully cultivating, at the time of our visit, wheat, oats, maize, and the garden vegetables. The valley is uninhabited, except by the family of Mr. Mitchell, and a solitary man living four miles westward. Their nearest neighbors are on the Mancos River, twenty-five miles distant. The bluffs bordering the eastern side of the valley rise boldly about fifteen hundred feet, with table lands above, while on the west the valley is bordered with mountains. About ten miles southwest of Mr. Mitchell's ranch the Ute Mountain rises out of the plain, and from this point appears as a solitary and detached mountain. The McElmo Canyon passes along its north and westerly sides, while the main valley passes southward along its eastern base. This high and noble mountain is situated in the southwest corner of Colorado, near the intersection of the boundary lines of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. It is a conspicuous object from the La Plata Valley. The Montezuma Valley possesses features of remarkable natural beauty.

Near Mr. Mitchell's ranch, and within a space of less than a mile square are the ruins of nine pueblo houses of moderate size. They are built of sandstone intermixed with cobblestone and adobe mortar. They are now in a very ruinous condition, without standing walls in any part of them above the rubbish. The largest of the number is marked No. 1 in the plan Fig. 44, of which the outline of the original structure is still discernible. It is ninety-four feet in length and forty-seven feet in depth, and shows the remains of a stone wall in front inclosing a small court about fifteen feet wide. The mass of material over some parts of this structure is ten or twelve feet deep. There are, no doubt, rooms with a portion of the walls still standing covered with rubbish, the removal of which would reveal a considerable portion of the original ground-plan.

A short distance below the pueblos last named is another cluster of the same number of pueblos, and much in the same condition; and upon rising ground near the foot of the bluff, on the east side of the valley, there are, as Mr. Mitchell informed me, the ruins of several pueblos of stone. He also informed me that similar ruins were to be found here and there in the valley to the San Juan. Four miles westerly, near the ranch of Mr. Shirt, are the ruins of another large stone pueblo, together with an Indian cemetery, where each grave is marked by a border of flat stones set level with the ground in the form of a parallelogram eight feet by four feet. Near the cluster of nine pueblos shown in the figure are found strewn on the ground numerous fragments of pottery of high grade in the ornamentation, and small arrow-heads of flint, quartz, and chalcedony delicately formed, and small knife-blades with convex and serrated edges in considerable numbers.



This is an immense ruin with small portions of the walls still standing, particularly of the round tower of stone of three concentric walls, incorporated in the structure, and a few chambers in the north end of the main building. The round tower is still standing nearly to the height of the first story. In its present condition it was impossible to make a ground-plan showing the several chambers, or to determine with certainty which side was the front of the structure, assuming that it was constructed in the terraced form. It is situated upon a vertical bluff of yellowish sandstone rock about twenty feet high and about four miles below Mr. Mitchell's ranch in the direction of the Ute Mountain and near its northeastern base. The bluff is broken through to the bottom in one place about twenty feet wide. Here there are some evidences that a spring of water was inclosed in a reservoir by means of masonry. The building is in two sections, separated by this break, of which the main one is five hundred and ten feet long, and the smallest one hundred and twenty feet, forming a nearly continuous front. They stand back ten or fifteen feet from the verge of the bluff, and are built of tabular pieces of sandstone and adobe mortar. Numerous pit-holes in each structure indicate the chambers and the line of the inclosing walls. The removal of the loose material would doubtless disclose the ground-plan, but it would involve immense labor. With the Ute Mountain rising majestically in the background, and the broad valley in front, the situation of the pueblo is remarkably fine.

The Round Tower is the most singular feature in this structure. While it resembles the ordinary estufa, common to all these structures, it differs from them in having three concentric walls. No doorways are visible in the portion still standing, consequently it must have been entered through the roof, in which respect it agrees with the ordinary estufa. The inner chamber is about twenty feet in diameter, and the spaces between the encircling walls are about two feet each; the walls are about two feet in thickness, and were laid up mainly with stones about four inches square, and, for the most part, in courses. There is a similar round tower, having but two concentric walls, at the head of the McElmo Canyon, and near the ranch of Mr. Mitchell. It is shown in Fig. 44, and stands entirely isolated. The diameter of the tower is thirty-four feet, of which the inner chamber is twenty-three feet; the space between the two walls is about six feet, and the thickness of the walls about two feet six inches. It is laid up in the same manner as the one last named, with stones about the same size, and the walls still standing are about five feet in height. Partition walls divide the outer space, one of which measured twenty inches in thickness.

Several hundred feet from the pueblo last named, further down the valley, is another pueblo of large extent, and in a very ruined condition.

A mile or more below the ranch of Mr. Mitchell, in the bordering walls of the McElmo Canyon, are two cliff houses. The walls of the bluff are here about twenty feet high, with large cavities formed in them here and there. These houses, each of which consists of but two or three small chambers, are built of stone, and stand but a few feet above the bottom of the canyon. They are narrow, and not very high, as the cavity in the rock is not very deep. Corrals for some kind of domestic animals are found by the side of these houses in the same hollows in the rock. This is proved by a mass of excrement, about a foot in depth, still there, whether of the goat or sheep cannot be stated, but this fact shows that they were inhabited subsequent to the period of European discovery, although they may have been built and used before. The canyon, at this point, is from three hundred to five hundred feet wide.

I wish to call attention again to the San Juan district, to its numerous ruins, and to its importance as an early seat of Village Indian life. These ruins and those of a similar character in the valley of the Chaco, together with numerous remains of structures of sandstone, of cobblestone, and adobe in the San Juan Valley, in the Pine River Valley, in the La Plata Valley, in the Animas River Valley, in the Montezuma Valley, on the Hovenweep, and on the Rio Dolores, suggest the probability that the remarkable area within the drainage of the San Juan River and its tributaries has held a prominent place in the first and most ancient development of Village Indian life in America. The evidence of Indian occupation and cultivation throughout the greater part of this area is sufficient to suggest the hypothesis that the Indian here first attained to the condition of the Middle Status of barbarism, and sent forth the migrating bands who carried this advanced culture to the Mississippi Valley, to Mexico, and Central America, and not unlikely to South America as well.

Indian migrations are gradual outflows from an overstocked area, followed by organization into independent tribes, and continuing through centuries of time, until the ethnic life of each tribe is expended, or a successful establishment is finally gained in a new and perhaps far distant land. They planted gardens and constructed houses as they advanced from district to district, and removed as circumstances prompted a change of location.

Since the cultivation of maize and plants precedes or is synchronous with this stage of development, it leads to the supposition that maize must have been indigenous in this region, and that it was here first brought under cultivation. There are some facts that seem to favor this hypothesis.

[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.]

At present I wish to call attention to such existing evidence as points to the San Juan district as the anterior home of a number of historic Indian tribes.

1. The Mound-Builders. Although these tribes had disappeared at the epoch of European discovery, and cannot be classed with any known Indian stock, their condition as horticultural tribes, their knowledge of some of the native metals, and the high character of their stone implements and pottery place them in the clans of Village Indians. The nearest region from which they could have been derived is New Mexico. There is no reason for referring them to the San Juan region more than to the nearer country of the Rio Grande, unless it should appear probable that the inhabitants of the latter valley were themselves migrants from the same region. But there are good reasons for deriving the Mound-Builders from the Village Indians in some part of New Mexico.

2. The Mexican Tribes. The seven principal tribes of Mexico, called collectively the Nahuatlacs, spoke dialects of the same language, and all alike had a tradition that their ancestors came from the north, and that the separate tribes came into Mexico at long intervals apart. They arrived in the following order as to time: 1, Sochomilcos; 2, Chalcas; 3, Tepanecans; 4, Tescucans; 5, Tlatluicans; 6, Tlascalans; 7, Aztecs or Mexicans. They settled in different parts of Mexico. The Cholulans, Tepeacas, and Huexatsincos spoke dialects of the Nahuatlac language, and were severally subdivisions of one or the other preceding tribes. They had the same tradition of a northern origin. These several tribes were among the most prominent in Mexico at the period of Spanish discovery. Some of the tribes of Yucatan and Central America also had similar traditions of an original migration of their ancestors from the north.

Acosta, who visited Mexico in 1585, and whose work was published at Seville in 1589, states the order of the migration of the Mexican tribes as above given, and further says that they "come from other far countries which lie toward the north, where now they have discovered a kingdom they call New Mexico. There are two provinces in this country, the one called Aztlan, which is to say, a place of Herons [Cranes], and the other Teculhuacan, which signifies a land of such whose grandfathers were divine. The Navatalcas [Nahuatlacs] point their beginning and first territory in the figure of a cave, and say they came forth of seven caves to come and people the land of Mexico." [Footnote: The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, London ed., 1604, Grimstone's Trans., pp. 497, 504.] The same tradition substantially, is given by Herrera, [Footnote: General History of America, London ed., 1725, Stevens's Trans. III, 188.] and also by Clavigero.