The comparative civilization of the Pueblo Indians has always attracted
the attention of the ethnologist. Until lately, however, he had but a
_minimum_ amount of trustworthy information concerning either their
habits or their language. He has now a fair amount of _data_ for both.
For philological purposes he has vocabularies for six (probably for
all) of them.
Of the Pueblo languages two belong to the drainage of the Rio Colorado
and four to that of the Rio Grande. Of these two divisions the former
lies the farthest west, and, of the two Colorado Pueblos, the most
western is that of
_The Moqui._--The Moqui vocabulary was procured by Lieut. Simpson from
a Moqui Indian who happened to be at Chelly.
_The Zuni_ country lies in 35° north latitude, to the south and east of
the Moqui, and is probably divided by the Sierra de Zuni from
_The Acoma, or Laguna_, the most southern of the Pueblos of the Rio
Grande. North of the Acoma area lies that of
_The Jemez_, on the San Josef.
The two that still stand over lie on the main stream of the Rio Grande
itself. They are--
_The Tesuque_; and
_The Taos or Picuri._--The northern boundaries of the Tesuque seem to
be the southern ones of Taos. Connect these _Pueblos_ with the town of
Taos, and the Tesuque with Santa Fé, and the ordinary maps give us the
geography.
The philological affinities of the Pueblo languages scarcely coincide
with the geographical relations. The Moqui lies far west. Laying this
then out of the question, the three that, in their outward signs, most
strike the eye in tables, as agreeing with each other, are the Laguna,
the Jemez, and the Tesuque. The other two that thus outwardly agree
are the Taos and the Zuni,--two that are not in the most immediate
geographical juxtaposition.
What is meant by the "outward signs that most strike the eye on
tables"? This is shown in the following tables:--