Pueblo in Spanish simply means “a village.” When the first explorers, Cabeça de Vaca, Coronado and the early lieutenants and friars whom Cortez sent northward, in search more of gold than geography, penetrated what is now New Mexico and Arizona, they everywhere found Indians more or less nomadic, but the larger part of the natives belonging to a different class, and living in settled communities of permanent houses. To these the Spaniards naturally gave the name of “village,” or “pueblo” Indians, which, by a common process of lingual change, has become shortened into Pueblos, though Puebloans is a far better word. Their own tribal names have disappeared except in a few cases, such as the Zuñis and the Moquis, and the Spanish word covers all Village Indians distinguished from the roving Apaches, Mojaves and Utes, that surround them and centuries ago wrested from them much of their former territory. At present there are in all New Mexico but nineteen towns of the Village Indians, whose aggregate population in 1880 was only 10,469, as follows:

Taos391
San Juan408
Santa Clara212
San Ildefonso139
Picuris1,115
Nambé66
Pojuaque26
Tesuque99
Sochiti271
San Domingo1,123
San Felipe613
Jemez401
Silla (or Zia)58
Santa Aña489
Laguna968
Isoleta1,081
Sandia345
Zuñi2,082
Acoma582

Ascending the high bank along a road greatly gullied by the rains, we found ourselves in a large group of houses, each of which was joined to its neighbor as continuously as in a city block, but only one story high; or if there was a second story, it did not come out flush with the front wall, but was ten or fifteen feet back, the roof of the lower story serving as a portico to the upper floor, which was reached by an outside ladder.

These dwellings were built of mud bricks, called adobes, and in many cases the floors were lower than the level of the street—a matter of small concern, since the door-sill was so high as to shut out any water which might be running outside. Mixing in a little broken straw, rough blocks about twice the size of ordinary bricks are moulded, dried somewhat in the sun, and laid up in the form of a wall. Space is left for a door and some small holes for windows, quite high up. That is about all there seems to be of it, yet the inexpert find it not so easy to build a “doby” as they supposed. The consistency of the clay must be right, and I am told the wall must be laid so that the blocks somewhat brace each other by beveled sides, or else the great weight which rests on the top, otherwise wholly unsupported, will cause the middle of the wall to bulge. That these ancient houses stand so plumb and uncracked shows how proficient the Indians are at this peculiar architecture; and ought they not to be, for did not they invent it?

All the buildings are smoothly plastered outside and in. This is done some weeks after they are built, and after they have thoroughly dried. To obtain the necessary material for the outer “stucco” coat, the floor of the interior of the unfinished house is dug up and mixed with water until it becomes a soft paste. Then it is taken by the handful, dashed against the unchinked adobes, and spread smoothly with the palms, just as a town mason would use a trowel. The women do all this, and I remember surprising three damsels, as pretty as the New Mexican peasantry have to show, down on their knees and up to their elbows in seal-brown mud, plastering the new house, while father and mother were busy in the fields.

Most of the Indian dwellings,—and they are as good as the majority of the abodes of the Mexican ranchmen,—have two rooms, and sometimes three, but these are generally so dark that the eye must accustom itself to the gloom before their contents can well be discerned. This arises from the scarcity and diminutive size of the windows. Here in San Juan, indeed, I saw roughly sashed windows in many houses, or else a single pane of glass set in; but often only a grating is used to guard the aperture, or else holes in the walls are left so small that no enemy could crawl through. You can imagine the darkness inside, therefore, even on a bright day. Originally the pueblo was common property, and both men and women assisted in building it, but new ideas of individual possessions are invading the old notions. It was the former custom, too, to mix ashes with earth and charcoal into a substitute for mortar; yet, as we shall see later, the very ancient, ruined buildings of the ancestors of these Puebloans show an architecture in stone, with a cement now as hard, or even more tenacious, than the blocks it binds together. “They take great pride,” says an old book “in their, to them, magnificent structures, averring that as fortresses they have ever proved impregnable. To wall out black barbarism was what the Pueblos wanted; under these conditions time was giving them civilization.”

Entering one of the houses here in San Juan, we shall find the floor is only of earth, but that many skins are spread about. In one corner, or else beside the entrance door, will be one of the queer little round-topped fireplaces prevalent all over Spanish America; but if in the latter place, a low wall or wing of masonry runs out into the room, protecting the fire from contrary drafts. The cooking in summer is done out of doors almost wholly; but in cold weather, when utilizing these fireplaces, they use the iron pots and skillets which civilization has brought them, eking out with variously shaped earthen utensils of their own make, and baskets obtained from Apache and Navajo visitors.

You must expect to see very little furniture in an Indian’s house, though occasionally some familiar objects are found. The beds are made on the floor, and consist entirely of skins and blankets. The walls are often whitewashed, and though they never heard of Eastlake, they always make a dado of clay water. The soft brown tint contrasts well with the white frieze, and would be attractive in itself; but the clay here is full of specks of mica, which dust the walls with gleaming points not to be spurned in mural decoration.

The Indians admire pictures, but are not scrupulous as to artistic superiority. In nearly every house you will find a board a few inches square, upon which is painted a religious subject, usually in red and yellow, of some saint, or a group of them. Such pictures, and others whenever they can get them, are highly valued and will be adorned with peacock feathers and bright berries.

They love gay colors and choose them in their dress, which is a singular mixture of Indian, Mexican and American. There go a man and woman ahead of us who are fair types. Neither are of large size, and though an oddity of gait comes from their habit of walking with their toes straight before them, both are of erect carriage. The man is dressed in brown flannel shirt, hanging blouse-like about him, tightly fitted leggings of buckskin, with a broad seam-flap in place of fringe on the outside of each leg, and moccasins. Over his right shoulder and under his left arm is loosely draped a striped blanket made by the Navajo or Apache Indians of the interior, and diligently repaired in its worn places. His head is bare, under the blaze of the hot sun, save for a wreath of cottonwood leaves. Under this “bay crown” his smoothly-brushed and jet black hair, accurately parted in the middle along a line of red or yellow ochre, is plaited on either side into two long braids, intertwined and lengthened out with strips of red flannel and tufts of otter-skin.