At the ancient city itself the explorer discovered the ruins to be more extensive than ever heretofore supposed, and estimates that it would require the labor of five hundred men for six months, under the direction of a corps of topographers, simply to determine the general plan of the city. Eight hundred and sixty-one square feet of casts of bas-reliefs were taken. It was ascertained at Palenque, by breaking off portions of the vesture upon the stucco reliefs, that the human body had in all cases been first carefully modeled, and that the drapery had subsequently been superposed. Whether this fact throws light simply upon the process employed, or indicates a reaction or evolution in art, is equally interesting and uncertain.

D.

HOUSE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS AND PUEBLOS.

AMONG the unsolved problems of American archæology is that of the use to which the extensive systems of embankments attributed to the Mound-builders were put. The Newark (Ohio) system of works, now covering two miles square, but formerly presenting twelve miles of embankment, reaching at some points a height of thirty-five feet, with sufficient width for a carriage-way on top, has been a veritable sphinx to all inquirers. Nor does it stand alone in an architectural aspect. Its square is precisely of the dimensions of a similar figure found at Hopetown, in the Scioto Valley. Its circles are connected with squares or octagons, a typical combination of features generally prevalent in mound structures. Furthermore, its trenches are all within the enclosures. The probability is that the clew to the solution of the problem has come to light. The discovery of what are pronounced to be mound-works, in connection with the Pueblo ruins of Colorado and New Mexico and Arizona, has given us the hint. Mr. Wm. H. Holmes in “A Notice of the Ancient Ruins of South-western Colorado, examined during the Summer of 1875,”[808] shows us the Mound and Pueblo ruin in close proximity. In describing a ruined village on the Rio La Plata, he says: “North of this, about 300 feet, is a truncated rectangular mound, 9 or 10 feet in height and 50 feet in width by 80 in length. On the east end, near one of the angles, is a low, projecting pile of débris that may have been a tower. There is nothing whatever to indicate the use of this structure. Its flat top and height give it more the appearance of one of the sacrificial mounds of the Ohio Valley than any other observed in this part of the West. It may have been, however, only a raised foundation, designed to support a superstructure of wood or adobe.... South of this, and occupying the extreme southern end of the terrace, are a number of small circles and mounds, while an undetermined number of diminutive mounds are distributed among the other ruins.” Mr. W. H. Jackson, in the same document (p. 29) that contains Mr. Holmes’ report, mentions the remains of “many circular towns” on a high plateau between the Montezuma and the Hovenweep. The year following, the lamented scholar, Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, acting on the suggestion or originating a hypothesis of his own, announced in the North American Review for July, 1876, what has since been called his “Pueblo Theory.” A fuller exposition of his views were embodied in his paper “On Houses of the American Aborigines,” published in the Report of the Archæological Institute of America for 1879–1880. Mr. Morgan illustrates the prevalence of communal houses among the aborigines east of the Mississippi, citing the long houses of the Iroquois; and west of the river the communal lodges of the Minnitares and Mandans, and of Columbia River Indians seen by Lewis and Clark in 1805. The writer further illustrates the communal architecture of the aborigines by discussions relating to the joint tenement houses of the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. Having thus laid his foundation, he applies the communal idea and its expression in the Mandan and Pueblo structures in a conjectural restoration of the mound villages. He supposes that, as adobe would not withstand the frosts and rains of the Ohio Valley, the Mound-builder people resorted to the structure of wooden edifices. He says: “They might have raised these embankments of earth, enclosing circular, rectangular, or square areas, and constructed their long houses upon them.” Mr. Morgan would build upon the squares and circles houses having a wooden framework, upon which turf and grass were placed both upon roof and sides. In order that this should be possible, the sides are supposed to have been inclined at the same angle with the embankment, the superstructure being a continuation of the earthern foundation so far as outline and geometrical figure is concerned. To preserve analogy with the closed, windowless ground-storey of New Mexico Pueblos, Mr. Morgan supposes that the outer side or sides of the edifice were closed, presenting only blank walls of heavy turf or gravel to view; while the walls facing within the enclosure were windowed, and pierced with doors. The entrances to the enclosures, he supposes, were guarded with palisades. There the defensive feature of the Pueblo house was preserved. In his elaborate work, the “Houses and House Life of the American Aborigines,”[809] that last touch of a vanished hand, the author has discussed at length the development of the joint tenement house among the Mound-builders. After illustrating the principle, as applied in the restoration of High Bank works (Ross County, Ohio), he adds: “These embankments, therefore, require triangular houses of the kind described, and long houses as well, covering their entire length. But the interior plan might have been different; for example, the passage-way might have a long exterior wall, and the stalls or apartments on the court side, and but half as many in number; and, instead of one continuous house, in the interior, 450 feet in length, it might have been divided into several, separated from each other by cross partitions. The plan of life, however, which we are justified in ascribing to them, from known usages of Indian tribes in a similar condition of advancement, would lead us to expect large households formed on the basis of kin, with the practice of communism in living in each household, whether large or small.” The plausibility of Mr. Morgan’s hypothesis is, to say the least, striking. However, his supposition that the Mound-builders and Pueblos were of the same race, is not unattended with difficulties. Conspicuous among them is the marked dissimilarity of the ceramic ornament employed by the two peoples. Nothing is more stable than the art of a race or age. Nothing more truly reveals the inner life of a people than its pottery. The Mound-builders and Pueblos each had their ceramic types. But they were wholly unlike—apparently the work of unrelated races. Yet, community of burial, as well as community of residence, to which may be added similarity of cranial type, are facts that declare for Mr. Morgan’s hypothesis as to the relation of the peoples in question.[810]

INDEX.

THE END.