HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF NEW MEXICO.
We are next to consider the houses and mode of life of the Sedentary
Village Indians, among whom architecture exhibits a higher
development, with the use of durable materials, and with the
defensive principle superadded to that of adaptation to communism in
living. It will not be difficult to discover and follow this latter
principle, as one of the chief characteristics of this architecture
in the pueblo houses in New Mexico, and in the region of the San
Juan River, and afterwards in those of Mexico and Central America.
Throughout all these regions there was one connected system of house
architecture, as there was substantially one mode of life.
In New Mexico, going southward, the Indians, at the epoch of
discovery, were not in a new dress and in an improved condition.
They had advanced out of the Lower and into the Middle Status of
barbarism; the houses in which they dwelt were of adobe brick or of
stone, two, three, four, and sometimes five and six stories in height,
and containing from fifty to five hundred apartments. They
cultivated maize and plants by means of irrigating canals. The water
was drawn from a running stream, taken at a point above the pueblo
and carried down and through a series of garden beds. They wore
mantles of cotton, as well as garments of skin.
[Footnote: "They have no cotton-wool growing, because the country is
cold, yet they wear mantles thereof, as your honor may see by the
show thereof; and true it is, that there was found in their houses
certain yarn made of cotton-wool."--Coronado's Relation, Hakluyt's
Coll. of Voyages, London ed., 1600, iii, p. 377.]
[Footnote: "Their garments were of cotton and deer skins, and the
attire, both of men and women, was after the manner of Indians of
Mexico.... Both men and women wore shoes and boots, with good soles
of neat's leather--a thing never seen in any part of the Indies."--
Voyages to New Mexico, by Friar Augustin Rueyz, a Franciscan, in 1581,
and Antonio de Espejo in 1583. Explorations for Railroad Route, &c.,
Report Indian Tribes, vol. iii, p. 114.]
The present Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are in the main their
descendants. They live, some of them, in the same identical houses
their forefathers occupied at the time of Coronado's expedition to
New Mexico in 1541-1542, as at Acoma, Jemez, and Taos, and although
their plan and mode of life have changed in some respects in the
interval, it is not unlikely that they remain to this day a fair
sample of the life of the Village Indians from Zunyi to Cuzco as it
existed in the sixteenth century.
The Indians north of New Mexico did not construct their houses more
than one story high, or of more durable materials than a frame of
poles or of timber covered with matting or bark, or coated over with
earth. A stockade around their houses was their principal protection.
In New Mexico, going southward, are met for the first time houses
constructed with several stories. Sun-dried brick must have come
into use earlier than stone. The practice of the ceramic art would
suggest the brick sooner or later. At all events, what are supposed
to be the oldest remains of architecture in New Mexico, such as the
Casas Grandes of the Gila and Salinas rivers, are of adobe brick.
They also used cobble-stone with adobe mortar, and finally thin
pieces of tabular sandstone, prepared by fracture, which made a
solid and durable stone wall. Some of the existing pueblo houses in
New Mexico are as old as the expedition of Coronado (1540-1542).
Others, constructed since that event, and now occupied, are of the
aboriginal model. There are at present about twenty of these pueblos
in New Mexico, inhabited by about 7, 000 Village Indians, the
descendants of those found there by Coronado. They are still living
substantially under their ancient organization and usages. Besides
these, there are seven pueblos of the Mokis, near the Little Colorado,
occupied by about 3,000 Indians, who have remained undisturbed to
the present time, except by Roman Catholic missionaries, and among
whom the entire theory of life of the Sedentary Village Indians may
yet be obtained. These Village Indians represent at the present
moment the type of life found from Zunyi to Cuzco at the epoch of
the Discovery, and, while they are not the highest, they are no
unfit representatives of the entire class.
The Yucatan and Central American Indians were, in their architecture,
in advance of the remaining aborigines of North America. Next to them,
probably, were the Aztecs, and some few tribes southward. Holding
the third position, though not far behind, were the Village Indians
of New Mexico. All alike they depended upon horticulture for
subsistence, and cultivated by irrigation; cotton being superadded
to the maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco, cultivated by the
northern tribes. Their houses, with those previously described,
represent together an original indigenous architecture, which, with
its diversities, sprang out of their necessities. Its fundamental
communal type, I repeat, is found not less clearly in the houses
about to be described, and in the so-called palace at Palenque, than
in the long-house of the Iroquois. An examination of the plan of the
structures in Mexico, New Mexico, and Central America will tend to
establish the truth of this proposition.
New Mexico is a poor country for civilized man, but quite well
adapted to Sedentary Indians, who cultivate about one acre out of
every hundred thousand. This region, and the San Juan, immediately
north of it, possessed a number of narrow fertile valleys,
containing together, possibly, 50,000 inhabitants, and it is
occupied now by their descendants (excepting the San Juan) in manner
and form as it was then. Each pueblo consisted either of a single
great house, or of three or four such houses grouped together; and
what is more significant, the New Mexican pueblo is a fair type of
those now found in ruins in Yucatan, Chiapas, Guatemala, and Honduras,
in general plan and in situation. All the people lived together in
these great houses on terms of equality, for their institutions were
essentially democratical. Common tenements for common Indians around
these structures were not found there by Coronado in 1541, neither
have any been found there since. There is not the slightest ground
for supposing that any such tenements ever existed around those in
Yucatan and Central America. Every structure was in the nature of a
fortress, showing the insecurity in which they lived.
Since the year 1846, the date of the conquest of New Mexico, a
number of military reconnaissances, under the direction of the War
Department, have been made in various parts of the Territory. The
army officers in change devoted their chief attention to the
physical geography and resources of the regions traversed; but,
incidentally, they investigated the pueblos in ruins, and the
present condition of the Pueblo Indians. The admirable manner in
which they have executed the work is shown by the series of reports
issued from time to time by the government. More recently, the
Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, under Prof. F.
V. Hayden, geologist in charge, and also the Geographical and
Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region, Maj. J. W. Powell,
geologist in charge, have furnished a large amount of additional
information concerning the ruins on the San Juan and its tributaries,
the Cliff Houses on the Mancos River and elsewhere, and the Moki
Pueblos. Valuable as this information is to us, it falls short of a
full exposition of these several subjects.
At the time of Coronado's expedition to capture the Seven Cities of
Cibola, so called in the relations of the period, the aborigines of
New Mexico manufactured earthen vessels of large size and excellent
workmanship, wove cotton fabrics with spun thread, cultivated
irrigated gardens, were armed with the bow, arrow, and shield, wore
deer-skins and buffalo robes and also cotton mantles as external
garments, and had domesticated the wild turkey.
[Footnote: "We found here Guinea cocks [turkeys], but few. The
Indians tell me in all these seven cities that they eat them not,
but that they keep them only for their feathers. I believe them not,
for they are excellent good, and greater than those of Mexico."--
Coronado Rel., Hakluyt, iii, 377.]
"They had hardly provisions enough for themselves," remarks
Jaramillo of the Cibolans, "and what they had consisted of maize,
beans, and squashes." [Footnote: Relation of Capt. Juan Jaramillo,
Coll. Terneaux-Compans, ix, 369.]
"What was true of the Cibolans in this respect was doubtless true of
the Sedentary Indians in general. Each pueblo was an independent
organization under a council of chiefs, except as several contiguous
pueblos, speaking dialects of the same language, were confederated
for mutual protection, of which the seven Cibolan pueblos, situated
probably in the valley of the Rio Chaco, within an extent of twelve
miles, afford a fair example." The degree of their advancement is
more conspicuously shown in their house architecture.
The present Village Indians of New Mexico, or at least some of them,
still manufacture earthen vessels, and spin and weave cotton fabrics
in the aboriginal manner, and live in houses of the ancient model.
Some of them, as the Mokis and Lagunas, are organized in gentes, and
governed by a council of chiefs, each village being independent and
self-governing. They observe the same law of hospitality universally
practiced by the Northern Indians. Upon this subject, Mr. David J.
Miller, of Santa Fe, writes as follows to the author: "A visitor to
one of their houses is invariably tendered its hospitality in the
form of food placed before him. A failure to tender it is deemed a
grave breach of hospitality and an insult; and a declension to
partake of it would be regarded as a breach of etiquette. As among us,
they have their rich and their poor, and the former give to the
latter cheerfully and in due plenty." Here we find a nearly exact
repetition of the Iroquois and Mandan rules of hospitality before
given. Whether or not they formerly practiced communism in household
groups, I am not informed. Their houses are adapted to this mode of
life, as will presently be shown; and upon that fact and their stage
of social advancement, the deduction of the practice must for the
present rest.
* * * * *
JOINT TENEMENT HOUSES OF VILLAGE INDIANS IN NEW MEXICO.
Santo Domingo is composed of several structures of adobe brick
grouped together, as shown in the engraving, Fig 22. Each is about
two hundred feet long, with two parallel rows of apartments on the
ground, of which the front row is carried up one story, and the back
two; the flat roof of the first story forming a terrace in front of
the second. The first story is closed up solid for defensive reasons,
with the exception of small window openings. The first terrace is
reached by means of ladders from the ground; the rooms in the first
story are entered through trap-doors in the floors, and in the
second through doors opening upon the terrace, and also through
trap-doors through the floors which form the roof. These structures
are typical of all the aboriginal houses in New Mexico. They show
two principal features: first, the terraced form of architecture,
common also in Mexico, with the house tops as the social gathering
places of the inmates; and, second, a closed ground story for safety.
Every house, therefore, is a fortress. Lieutenant Abert remarks upon
one of the houses of this pueblo, of which he gives an elevation,
that "the upper story is narrower than the one below, so that there
is a platform or landing along the whole length of the building. To
enter, you ascend to the platform by means of ladders that could
easily be removed; and, as there is a parapet wall extending along
the platform, these houses could be converted into formidable forts."
[Footnote: Ex. Doc. No. 41, 1st session 30th Congress, 1848, p. 462.]
The number of apartments in each house is not stated. The different
houses at that time were inhabited by eight hundred Indians.
Chimneys now appear above the roofs, the fire-place being at the
angle of the chamber in front. These were evidently of later
introduction. The defensive element, so prominent in this
architecture, was not so much to protect the Village Indians from
each other, as from the attacks of migrating bands flowing down upon
them from the North. The pueblos now in ruins throughout the
original area of New Mexico, and for some distance north of it,
testify to the perpetual struggle of the former to maintain their
ground, as well as prove the insecurity in which they lived. It
could be shown that the second and additional stories were suggested
by the defensive principle.
Zunyi, Fig. 23, is the largest occupied pueblo in New Mexico at the
present time. It probably once contained five thousand inhabitants,
but in 1851 the number was reduced to fifteen hundred. The village
consists of several structures, most of them accessible to each from
their roof terraces. They are constructed of adobe brick, and of
stone embedded in adobe mortar, and plastered over.
In the summer of 1879, Mr. James Stevenson, in charge of the field
parties under Major Powell, made an extended visit to Zunyi and the
neighboring pueblos, for the purpose of making collections of their
implements, utensils, etc., during which time the photographs from
which the accompanying illustrations of the pueblos were made. His
wife accompanied him, and she has furnished us the following
description of that pueblo:
"Zunyi is situated in Western New Mexico, being built upon a knoll
covering about fifteen acres, and some forty feet above the right
bank of the river of the same name.
"Their extreme exclusiveness has preserved to the Zunyians their
strong individuality, and kept their language pure. According to
Major Powell's classification, their speech forms one of four
linguistic stocks to which may be traced all the pueblo dialects of
the southwest. In all the large area which was once thickly dotted
with settlements, only thirty-one remain, and these are scattered
hundreds of miles apart from Taos, in Northern New Mexico to Islet,
in Western Texas. Among these remnants of great native tribes, the
Zunyians may claim perhaps the highest position, whether we regard
simply their agricultural and pastoral pursuits, or consider their
whole social and political organization.
"The town of Zunyi is built in the most curious style. It resembles
a great beehive, with the houses piled one upon another in a
succession of terraces, the roof of one forming the floor or yard of
the next above, and so on, until in some cases five tiers of
dwellings are successively erected, though no one of them is over
two stories high. These structures are of stone and 'adobe'. They
are clustered around two plazas, or open squares, with several
streets and three covered ways through the town.
"The upper houses of Zunyi are reached by ladders from the outside.
The lower tiers have doors on the ground plan, while the entrances
to the others are from the terraces. There is a second entrance
through hatchways in the roof, and thence by ladders down into the
rooms below. In many of the pueblos there are no doors whatever on
the ground floor, but the Zunyians assert that their lowermost
houses have always been provided with such openings. In times of
threatened attack the ladders were either drawn up or their rungs
were removed, and the lower doors were securely fastened in some of
the many ingenious ways these people have of barring the entrances
to their dwellings. The houses have small windows, in which mica was
originally used, and is still employed to some extent; but the
Zunyians prize glass highly, and secure it, whenever practicable, at
almost any cost. A dwelling of average capacity has four or five
rooms, though in some there are as many as eight. Some of the larger
apartments are paved with flagging, but the floors are usually
plastered with clay, like the walls. Both are kept in constant
repair by the women, who mix a reddish-brown earth with water to the
proper consistency and then spread it by hand, always laying it in
semicircles. It dries smooth and even, and looks well. In working
this plaster the squaw keeps her mouth filled with water, which is
applied with all the dexterity with which a Chinese laundry-man
sprinkles clothes. The women appear to delight in this work, which
they consider their special prerogative, and would feel that their
rights were infringed upon were men to do it. In building, the men
lay the stone foundations and set in place the huge logs that serve
as beams to support the roof, the spaces between these rafters being
filled with willow-brush; though some of the wealthier Zunyians use
instead shingles made by the carpenters of the village. The women
then finish the structure. The ceilings of all the older houses are
low; but Zunyi architecture has improved and the modern style gives
plenty of room, with doors through which one may pass without
stooping. The inner walls are usually whitened. For this purpose a
kind of white clay is dissolved in boiling water and applied by hand.
A glove of undressed goat-skin is worn, the hand being dipped in the
hot liquid and then passed repeatedly over the wall.
"In Zunyi, as elsewhere, riches and official position confer
importance upon their possessors. The wealthy class live in the
lower houses, those of moderate means next above, while the poorer
families have to be content with the uppermost stories. Naturally
no one will climb into the garret who has the means of securing
more convenient apartments, under the huge system of 'French
flats', which is the way of living in Zunyi. Still there is
little or no social distinction in the rude civilization, the whole
population of the town living almost as one family. The Alcalde, or
Lieutenant-Governor, furnishes an exception to the general rule, as
his official duties require him to occupy the highest house of all,
from the top of which he announces each morning to the people the
orders of the Governor, and makes such other proclamation as may be
required of him.
"Each family has one room, generally the largest in the house, where
they work, eat, and sleep together. In this room the wardrobe of the
family hangs upon a log suspended beneath the rafters, only the more
valued robes, such as those worn in the dance, being wrapped and
carefully stored away in another apartment. Work of all kinds goes
on in this large room, including the cookery, which is done in a
fire-place on the long side, made by a projection at right angles
with the wall, with a mantel-piece on which rests the base of the
chimney. Another fire-place in a second room is from six to eight
feet in width, and above this is a ledge shaped somewhat like a
Chinese awning. A highly-polished slab, fifteen or twenty inches in
size, is raised a foot above the hearth. Coals are heaped beneath
this slab, and upon it the Waiavi is baked. This delicious kind of
bread is made of meal ground finely and spread in a thin batter upon
the stone with the naked hand. It is as thin as a wafer, and these
crisp, gauzy sheets, when cooked, are piled in layers and then
folded or rolled. Light bread, which is made only at feast times, is
baked in adobe ovens outside the house. When not in use for this
purpose the ovens make convenient kennels for the dogs and
play-houses for the children. Neatness is not one of the
characteristics of the Zunyians. In the late autumn and winter
months the women do little else than make bread, often in fanciful
shapes, for the feasts and dances which continually occur. A sweet
drink, not at all intoxicating, is made from the sprouted wheat. The
men use tobacco, procured from white traders, in the form of
cigarettes from corn-husks; but this is a luxury in which the women
do not indulge.
"The Pueblo mills are among the most interesting things about the
town. These mills, which are fastened to the floor a few feet from
the wall, are rectangular in shape, and divided into a number of
compartments, each about twenty inches wide and deep, the whole
series ranging from five to ten feet in length, according to the
number of divisions. The walls are made of sandstone. In each
compartment a flat grinding stone is firmly set, inclining at an
angle of forty-five degrees. These slabs are of different degrees of
smoothness, graduated successively from coarse to fine. The squaws,
who alone work at the mills, kneel before them and bend over them as
a laundress does over the wash-tub, holding in their hands long
stones of volcanic lava, which they rub up and down the slanting
slabs, stopping at intervals to place the grain between the stones.
As the grinding proceeds the grist is passed from one compartment to
the next until, in passing through the series, it becomes of the
desired fineness. This tedious and laborious method has been
practiced without improvement from time immemorial, and in some of
the arts the Zunyians have actually retrograded."
The living-rooms are about twelve by eighteen feet and about nine
feet high, with plastered walls and an earthen floor, and usually a
single window opening for light. To form a durable ceiling round
timbers about six inches in diameter are placed three or four feet
apart from the outer to the inner wall. Upon these, poles are placed
transversely in juxtaposition. A deep covering of adobe mortar is
placed upon them, forming the roof terrace in front, and the floor
of the apartments above in the receding second story. Water-jars of
their own manufacture, of fine workmanship, and holding several
gallons, closely woven osier baskets of their own make, and blankets
of cotton and wool, woven by their own hand-looms, are among the
objects seen in these apartments. They are neatly kept, roomy and
comfortable, and differ in no respect from those in use at the
period of the conquest, as will elsewhere be shown. The mesa
elevation upon which the old town of Zunyi was situated is seen in
the background of the engraving, Fig. 23.
It should be noticed that this architecture, and the necessities
that gave it birth, led to a change in the mode of life from the
open ground to the terraces or flat roofs of these great houses.
When not engaged in tillage, the terraces were the gathering and
living places of the people. During the greater part of the year
they lived practically in the open air, to which the climate was
adapted, and upon their housetops, first for safety and afterwards
from habit.
Elevations of the principal pueblos of New Mexico have from time to
time been published. They agree in general plan, but show
considerable diversity in details. Rude but massive structures, they
accommodated all the people of the village in security within their
walls.
The Moki Pueblos are supposed to be the towns of Tusayan, visited by
a detachment of Coronado's expedition in 1541. Since the acquisition
of New Mexico they have been rarely visited, because of their
isolation and distance from American settlements.
The accompanying illustration of Wolpi, Fig. 25, one of these pueblos,
is from a photograph taken by Major Powell's party.
In 1858 Lieut. Joseph C. Ives, in command of the Colorado Exploring
Expedition, visited the Moki Pueblos, near the Little Colorado. They
are seven in number, situated upon mesa elevations within an extent
of ten miles, difficult of access, and constructed of stone.
Mi-shong'-i-ni'-vi, the first one entered, is thus described. After
ascending the rugged sides of the mesa by a flight of stone steps,
Lieutenant Ives remarks: "We came upon a level summit, and had the
walls of the pueblo on one side and an extensive and beautiful view
upon the other. Without giving us time to admire the scene, the
Indians led us to a ladder planted against the front face of the
pueblo. The town is nearly square, and surrounded by a stone wall
fifteen feet high, the top of which forms a landing extending around
the whole. Flights of stone steps led from the first to a second
landing, upon which the doors of the houses open. Mounting the
stairway opposite to the ladder, the chief crossed to the nearest
door and ushered us into a low apartment, from which two or three
others opened towards the interior of the dwelling. Our host
courteously asked us to be seated upon some skins spread along the
floor against the wall, and presently his wife brought in a vase of
water and a tray filled with a singular substance (tortillas), that
looked more like a sheet of thin blue wrapping paper than anything
else I had ever seen. I learned afterwards that it was made from
corn meal, ground very fine, made into a gruel, and poured over a
heated stone to be baked. When dry it has a surface slightly polished,
like paper. The sheets are folded and rolled together, and form the
staple article of food of the Moki Indians. As the dish was intended
for our entertainment, and looked clean, we all partook of it. It
has a delicate fresh-bread flavor, and was not at all unpalatable,
particularly when eaten with salt.... The room was fifteen feet by
ten; the walls were made of adobes; the partitions of substantial
beams; the floors laid with clay. In one corner were a fire-place
and chimney. Everything was clean and tidy. Skins, bows and arrows,
quivers, antlers, blankets, articles of clothing and ornament were
hanging upon the walls or arranged upon the shelves. At the other
end was a trough divided into compartments, in each of which was a
sloping stone slab, two or three feet square, for grinding corn upon.
In a recess of an inner room was piled a goodly store of corn in the
ear.... Another inner room appeared to be a sleeping apartment, but
this being occupied by females we did not enter, though the Indians
seemed to be pleased rather than otherwise at the curiosity evinced
during the close inspection of their dwelling and furniture.... Then
we went out upon the landing, and by another flight of steps
ascended to the roof, where we beheld a magnificent panorama.... We
learned that there were seven towns.... Each pueblo is built around
a rectangular court, in which we suppose are the springs that
furnish the supply to the reservoirs. The exterior walls, which are
of stone, have no openings, and would have to be scaled or battered
down before access could be gained to the interior. The successive
stories are set back, one behind the other. The lower rooms are
reached through trap-doors from the first landing. The houses are
three rooms deep, and open upon the interior court. The arrangement
is as strong and compact as could well be devised but as the court
is common, and the landings are separated by no partitions, it
involves a certain community of residence." [Footnote: Colorado
Exploring Expedition, p. 121.]
This account leaves a doubt whether the stones receded from the
inclosed court outward or from the exterior inward. Lieutenant Ives
does not state that he passed through the building into the court
and ascended to the first platform from within, and yet the
remainder of the description seems to imply that he did, and that
the structure occupied but three sides of the court, since he states
that "the houses are three rooms deep and open upon the interior
court." The structure was three stories high.
[Illustration: Fig. 26.--Room in Moki House.]
The above engraving was prepared for an article by Maj. Powell, on
these Indians. Two rooms are shown together, apparently by leaving
out the wooden partition which separated them, showing an extent of
at least thirty feet. The large earthen water-jars are interesting
specimens of Moki pottery. At one side is the hand mill for grinding
maize. The walls are ornamented with bows, quivers, and the floor
with water-jars, as described by Lieutenant Ives.
In places on the sides of the bluffs at this and other pueblos,
Lieutenant Ives observed gardens cultivated by irrigation. "Between
the two," he remarks, "the faces of the bluff have been ingeniously
converted into terraces. These were faced with neat masonry, and
contained gardens, each surrounded with a raised edge so as to
retain water upon the surface. Pipes from the reservoirs permitted
them at any time to be irrigated." [Footnote: Colorado Exploring
Expedition, p. 120.]
Fig. 27 shows one of two large adobe structures constituting the
pueblo of Taos, in New Mexico. It is from a photograph taken by the
expedition under Major Powell. It is situated upon Taos Creek, at
the western base of the Sierra Madre Range, which forms the eastern
border of the broad valley of the Rio Grande, into which the Taos
stream runs. It is an old and irregular building, and is supposed to
be the Braba of Coronado's expedition. [Footnote: Relation of
Castenada, Coll. H. Ternaeux-Compans. ix, 138. Trans. of American
Ethnological Society.]
Some ruins still remain, quite near, of a still older pueblo, whose
inhabitants, the Taos Indians affirm, they conquered and dispossessed.
The two structures stand about twenty-five rods apart, on opposite
sides of the stream, and facing each other. That upon the north side,
represented in the above engraving, is about two hundred and fifty
feet long, one hundred and thirty feet deep, and five stories high;
that upon the south side is shorter and deeper, and six stories high.
The present population of the pueblo, about four hundred, are
divided between the two houses, and they are a thrifty, industrious,
and intelligent people. Upon the east side is a long adobe wall,
connecting the two buildings, or rather protecting the open space
between them. A corresponding wall, doubtless, closed the space on
the opposite side, thus forming a large court between the buildings,
but, if so, it has now disappeared. The creek is bordered on both
sides with ample fields or gardens, which are irrigated by canals,
drawing water from the stream. The adobe is of a yellowish-brown
color, and the two structures make a striking appearance as they are
approached. Fire-places and chimneys have been added to the
principal room of each family; but it is evident that they are modern,
and that the suggestion came from Spanish sources. They are
constructed in the corner of the room. The first story is built up
solid, and those above recede in the terraced form. Ladders planted
against the walls show the manner in which the several stories are
reached, and, with a few exceptions, the rooms are entered through
trap-doors by means of ladders. Children and even dogs run up and
down these ladders with great freedom. The lower rooms are used for
storage and granaries, and the upper for living rooms; the families
in the rooms above owning and controlling the rooms below. The
pueblo has its chiefs.
The measurements of the two edifices were furnished to the writer in
1864 by Mr. John Ward, at that time a government Indian agent, by
the procurement of Dr. M. Steck, superintendent of Indian affairs in
New Mexico. Among further particulars given by Mr. Ward are the
following: "The thickness of the walls of these houses depends
entirely upon the size of the adobe and the way in which it is laid
upon the wall; that is, whether lengthwise or crosswise. There is no
particular standard for the size of the adobes. On the buildings in
question the adobes on the upper stories are laid lengthwise, and
will average about ten inches in width, which gives the thickness of
the walls. On the first story or ground rooms the adobes are in most
places laid crosswise, thus making the thickness of these walls just
the length of the adobe, which averages about twenty inches. The
width of an adobe is usually one-half its length, and the thickness
will average about four inches. The floors and roofs are coated with
mud mortar from four to six inches thick, which is laid on and
smoothed over with the hand. This work is usually performed by women.
When the right kind of earth can be obtained the floor can be made
very hard and smooth, and will last a very long time without needing
repairs. The walls both inside and out are coated in the same manner.
On the inside, however, more care is taken to make the walls as even
and smooth as possible, after which they are whitewashed with gesso
or gypsum."
Several rooms on the ground floor were measured by Mr. Ward and
found to be, in feet, 14 by 18, 20 by 22, and 24 by 27, with a
height of ceiling averaging from 7 to 8 feet. In the second story
they measured, in feet, 14 by 23, 12 by 20, and 15 by 20, with a
height of ceiling varying from 7 to 7 1/2 feet. The rooms in the
third, fourth, and fifth stories were found to diminish in size with
each story. There is probably a mistake here, as the main
longitudinal partition walls must have been carried up upon each
other from bottom to top. A few of the doorways were measured and
found to range from 2 1/2 feet wide by 4 1/2 feet high and 2 1/3
feet wide by 4 10/12 feet high. The scuttles or trap-doors in the
floors, through which they descended into these rooms by means of
ladders, were 3 feet by 2 1/2, 3 feet by 2, and 1 feet 10 inches by
2 1/2 feet, and the window openings through the walls were, in
inches, 14 by 14, 8 by 16, 16 by 20, and 18 by 18.
Mr. Ward then proceeds: "No room has more than two windows; very few
have more than one. The back rooms usually have one or more round
holes made through the walls from six to eight inches in diameter
These openings furnish the apartments with a scanty supply of light
and air The first story or the ground rooms are usually without
doors or windows, the only entrance being through the scuttle-holes
or doors in the roof, which are within the rooms comprising the
story immediately above. These basement rooms are used for
store-rooms. Those in the upper stories are the rooms mostly
inhabited. Those located in the front part of the building receive
their light through the doors and windows before described. The back
rooms have no other light than that which goes in through the
scuttle-holes and the partition walls leading from the front rooms,
that is, where a room is so situated as to have both. Others again
have no other light than that which enters through the holes already
described. Such rooms are always gloomy. Some families have as many
as four or five rooms, one of which is set apart for cooking, and is
furnished with a large fire-place for the purpose. Those who have
only two or three rooms usually cook and sleep in the same apartment,
and in such cases they cook in the usual fireplace, which stands in
one corner of the room. No perceptible addition has been made to
either of the buildings for many years, and it is evident that after
the death or removal of their owners they were entirely neglected.
Those in good condition are still occupied. From the best
information attainable the original buildings were not erected all
at one time, but were added to from time to time by additional rooms,
including the second, third, and more stories. There are no regular
terraces, the roof of the rooms below answering that purpose. Thus
it is that no entire circuit can be made around any one of these
stories, the only thing that can be called a terrace being the
narrow space left in front of some of the rooms from the roofs of
the lower rooms."
Mr. Ward seems to object to the word "terrace" in defining the
platform left in front of each story as a means of access to its
apartments and to the successive stories. It was used by the early
Spanish writers to explain the same peculiarity found in many of the
great houses in the pueblo of Mexico and elsewhere over Mexico, the
roofs being flat and the stories receding from each other. While
this platform is not in strictness a terrace, the term expresses
this architectural feature with sufficient clearness. The two
structures at Taos are large enough to accommodate five hundred
persons in each, the inmates living in the Indian fashion. They were
occupied in 1864 by three hundred and sixty-one Taos Indians.
"Each terrace is reached," remarks Mr. Miller before mentioned,
speaking of the pueblos in general, "by a wooden ladder, first from
the ground and afterward from the one below; and ingress and egress
to and from the rooms below is on the inside in the room above
through trap-doors and upon ladders. It is wonderful to see with
what agility the Indian children and the dogs run up and down these
ladders. Nowhere is there any side communication between the rooms
in the great building, and but one family occupy each series of
rooms situated one above the other." This last statement is too
broadly made, as we have seen that Mr. Ward has given the
measurements of doors through partition walls. Such doors will also
be shown in a subsequent engraving. But there is no doubt of the
fact that the number of lateral rooms communicating with each other
was small, and that the families or groups, if such existed, united
in a communal household, were separated from each other by solid
partition walls, a fact which will reappear in the house-architecture
of Yucatan.
In 1877, David J. Miller, esq, of Santa Fe, visited the Taos Pueblo
at my request, to make some further investigations. He reports to me
the following facts: The government is composed of the following
persons, all of whom, except the first, are elected annually. 1. A
cacique or principal sachem. 2. A governor or alcalde. 3. A
lieutenant-governor. 4. A war captain, and a lieutenant war captain.
5. Six fiscals of policemen. "The cacique," Mr. Miller says,
"has the general control of all officers in the performance of their
duties, transacts the business of the pueblo with the surrounding
whites, Indian agents, etc., and imposes reprimands or severer
punishments upon delinquents. He is keeper of the archives of the
pueblo; for example, he has in his keeping the United States patent
for the tract of four square leagues on which the pueblo stands,
which was based upon the Spanish grant of 1689; also deeds of other
purchased lands adjoining the pueblo. He holds his office for life.
At his death, the people elect his successor. The cacique may,
before his death, name his successor, but the nomination must be
ratified by the people represented by their principal men assembled
in the estufa. In this cacique may be recognized the sachem of the
northern tribes, whose duties were purely of a civil character.
Mr. Miller does not define the duties of the governor. They were
probably judicial, and included an oversight of the property rights
of the people in their cultivated lands, and in rooms or sections of
the pueblo houses."
"The lieutenant-governor," he remarks, "is the sheriff to receive
and execute orders. The war captain has twelve subordinates under
his command to police the pueblo, and supervise the public grounds,
such as grazing lands, the cemetery, estufas, &c. The lieutenant war
captain executes the orders of his principal, and officiates for him
during his absence, or in case of his disability. The six fiscals
are a kind of town police. It is their duty to see that the
catechism (Catholic) is taught in the pueblo, and learned by the
children, and generally to keep order and execute the municipal
regulations of the pueblo under the direction of the governor, who
is charged with the duty of seeing to their execution."
"The regular time for meeting in the estufa is the last day of
December, annually, for the election of officers for the ensuing year.
The cacique, governor, and principal men nominate candidates, and
the election decides. There may also be a fourth nomination of
candidates, that is, by the people. In the election, all adult males
vote; the officers first, and then the general public. The officers
elected are at the present time sworn in by the United States
Territorial officials."
In this simple government we have a fair sample, in substance and in
spirit, of the ancient government of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.
Some modification of the old system may be detected in the
limitation of officers below the grade of cacique to one year. From
what is known of the other pueblos in New Mexico, that of Taos is a
fair example of all of them in governmental organization at the
present time. They are, and always were, essentially republican,
which is in entire harmony with Indian institutions. I may repeat
here what I have ventured to assert on previous occasions, that the
whole theory of governmental and domestic life among the Village
Indians of America from Zunyi to Cuzco can still be found in New
Mexico.
The representation of a room in this pueblo, Fig. 28, is from a
sketch by Mr. Galbraith, who accompanied Major Powell's party to New
Mexico.
What Mr. Miller refers to as "property rights and titles" and
"ownership in fee" of land, is sufficiently explained by the
possessory right which is found among the northern Indian tribes.
The limitations upon its alienation to an Indian from another pueblo,
or to a white man, not to lay any stress upon the absence of written
titles or conveyances of land which have been made possible by
Spanish and American intercourse, show very plainly that their ideas
respecting the ownership of the absolute title to land, with power
to alienate to whomsoever the person pleased, were entirely above
their conception of property and its uses. All the ends of
individual ownership and of inheritance were obtained through a mere
right of possession, while the ultimate title remained in the tribe.
According to the statement of Mr. Miller, if the father dies, his
land is divided between his widow and children, and if a woman, her
land is divided equally between her sons and daughters. This is an
important statement, because, assuming its correctness, it shows
inheritance of children from both father and mother, a total
departure from the principles of gentile inheritance. In 1878 I
visited the Taos pueblo. I could not find among them the gens or clan,
[Footnote: Mr. Baudelier has since ascertained that they are
organized in gentes.] and from lack of time did not inquire into
their property regulations or rules of inheritance. The dozen large
ovens I saw while there near the ends or in front of the two
buildings, each of which was equal to the wants of more than one
family, were adopted from the Spanish. They not unlikely had some
connection with the old principle of communism.
It will prove a very difficult undertaking to ascertain the old mode
of life three hundred and fifty years ago in New Mexico, Mexico, and
Central America, as it was then in full vitality, a natural
outgrowth of Indian institutions. The experiment to recover this
lost condition of Indian society has not been tried. The people have
been environed with civilization during the latter portion of this
period, and have been more or less affected by it from the beginning.
Their further growth and development was arrested by the advent of
European civilization, which blighted their more feeble culture.
Since their discovery they have steadily declined in numbers, and
they show no signs of recovery from the shock produced by their
subjugation. Among the northern tribes, who were one Ethnical Period
below the Pueblo Indians, their social organization and their mode
of life have changed materially under similar influences since the
period of discovery. The family has fallen more into the strictly
monogamian form, each occupying a separate house; communism in
living in large households has disappeared, the organization into
gentes has in many cases fallen out or been rudely extinguished by
external influences; and their religious usages have yielded. We
must expect to find similar and even greater changes among the
Village Indians of New Mexico. The white race were upon them in
Mexico and New Mexico a hundred years earlier than upon the Indian
tribes of the United States. But, as if to stimulate investigation
into their ancient mode of life, some of these tribes have continued
through all these years to live in the same identical houses
occupied by their forefathers in 1540 at Acoma, Jemez, and Taos.
These pueblos were contemporary with the pueblo of Mexico captured
by Cortez in 1520. The present inhabitants are likely to have
retained some part of the old plan of life, or some traditionary
knowledge of what it was. They must retain some of the usages and
customs with respect to the ownership and inheritance of sections of
these houses, and of the limitations upon the power of sale that
they should not pass out of the kinship. The same also with respect
to sections of the village garden. All the facts with respect to
their ancient usages and mode of life should be ascertained, so far
as it is now possible to do so from the present inhabitants of these
pueblos. The information thus given will serve a useful purpose in
explaining the pueblos in ruins In Yucatan and Central America, as
well as on the San Juan, the Chaco, and the Gila.
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."