Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines

by Lewis Henry Morgan

RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF YUCATAN AND CENTRAL AMERICA.

Pueblos in Yucatan and Central America—Their situation—Their house architecture—Highest type of aboriginal architecture—Pueblos were occupied when discovered—Uxmal houses erected on pyramidal elevations—Governor's house—Character of its architecture—House of the Nuns—Triangular ceiling of stone—Absence of chimneys—No cooking done within the house—Their communal plan evidently joint-tenement houses—Present communism of Mayas—Presumtively inherited from their ancestors—Ruins of Zayi—The closed house— Apartments constructed over a core of masonry—Palenque—Mr. Stephens' misconception of these ruins—Whether the post and lintel of stone were used as principles of construction—Plan of all these houses communal—Also fortresses—Palenque Indians flat-heads— American ethnography—General conclusions.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FRONTISPIECE. Zunyi Water Carrier.

Fig. 1. Earth Lodges of the Sacramento Valley

Fig. 2. Gallinomero Thatched Lodge

Fig. 3. Matdu Lodge in the high Sierra

Fig. 4. Yukuta Tule Lodges

Fig. 5. Kutchin Lodge

Fig. 6. Ground-plan of Necrohokioo