CHAPTER II.
The homes of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, especially as regards the size and disposition of the rooms, are to-day slightly modified from what they were in former times. An advance has been made, inasmuch as the buildings are not any longer the vast and ill-ventilated honeycombs composed of hundreds of dingy shells, which they were centuries ago. The houses, while large and many-storied, are comparatively less extensive, and the apartments less roomy than at the time when the Queres lived in the Rito de los Frijoles.
The two rooms where we left the lads and their mother at the close of the preceding chapter formed such a home. In the front one the family slept at night, with the exception of Okoya who was obliged to join the other youths in the estufa of his clan. The husband was not always at home after sunset. But the mother, Shyuote, and a little girl four years old invariably took their nightly rest there. To the little girl we have not yet been introduced. When the boys returned she was in the court-yard at play, and in the usual state of complete undress which is the regular condition of Indian children of her age.
The inner cell was kitchen and storeroom, and there the family partook of their meals.
Among the Pueblos the house was in charge of the women exclusively, everything within the walls of the house, the men's clothing and weapons excepted, belonging to the housekeeper. Even the crops if once housed were controlled by her. As long as they were in the field, the husband or masculine head of the family could dispose of them. Afterward he must consult the woman, and he could not sell an ear of corn without her consent. It is still so to-day in many villages. Formerly all the field-products were gathered and stored in the granaries of the several clans whence each household drew its supplies. Even the proceeds of communal hunts and fisheries were treated in this manner. Only where the husband, son, or brother killed game while out alone, could he do with it as he pleased.
Not many centuries ago the members of each clan, or rather the women, their offspring, and aged people who were taken care of by their children, lived together. They occupied a certain section of the great hive which the communal dwelling represented, and such a section was not unappropriately called in Spanish a quartel or quarter. The husband also stayed with his wife and the younger children, but he had no rights as owner, or proprietor, to his abode. Since it was the custom for women to raise the walls of buildings, and to finish the house inside and outside, they owned it also. The man was only tolerated. His home was properly with his clan, whither he must return in case his spouse departed this life before him.
It was different in regard to the fields. Each clan had its particular holding, and since the field-work devolved upon the men, the cultivated plots belonged to them alone. Within each allotment every member who was of age, or so situated as to have to support himself or a family, owned and tilled a certain plot which was his by common consent, although in no manner determined by metes or bounds. The condition of ownership was regular improvement of the plot, and if that condition was not complied with, any other member of the same clan could step in and work it for his own benefit. In case of death the field reverted to the maternal relative of its owner, whereas the widow and children fell back for support upon the resources of their own clan. Hence the singular feature that each household got its livelihood from two distinct groups of blood-relatives. The home which we have entered belonged to the quarters of the Gourd people, or clan Tanyi hanutsh, from which the mother descended; and Okoya had slept at night in the estufa of that cluster ever since his thirteenth year. But the cultivated patch which the father tilled pertained to the fields of his clan, that of Water, Tzitz hanutsh. Though the Water people were his relatives, the crop raised by him found its way into the storeroom of Tanyi for the support of the family which he claimed as his own.
Okoya's mother scanned her boys with a sober glance, and turned back into the kitchen without uttering a word.
Soon a grating sound issued from that apartment, indicating that toasted corn was being ground on the flat slab called in Queres, yakkat, and now usually termed metate in New Mexico. The boys meanwhile had approached a niche in the wall. Each one took a pinch of yellow cornmeal from the painted bowl, and scattered it successively to the north, west, south, east; then threw a little of it up in the air and to the ground before him. During this performance their lips moved as if in prayer. Then they separated, for the spirits had been appealed to, and their entrance into their home was under the special protection of Those Above. Shyuote, whose trout had been ruined during the combat with the girls, threw himself on the roll in the corner, there to mourn over his defeat. Okoya went out into the court-yard. Both expected an early meal, for the fire crackled in the dark kitchen, and a clapping of hands gave evidence that corn-cakes were being moulded to appease their hungry stomachs.