Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines

by Lewis Henry Morgan

3 feet 4 inches by 6 feet 6 inches, 4 feet by 8 feet 4 inches, 4 feet 7 inches by 14 feet 2 inches, 6 feet 5 inches by 14 feet 9 inches, 7 feet 3 inches by 16 feet 9 inches, 6 feet 4 inches by 11 feet 7 inches, 7 feet 3 inches by 7 feet 5 inches, 8 feet 7 inches by 15 feet. Height of rooms, 8 feet. The rooms were faced with stone laid up in the main in courses. They were small, from four to eight inches square, and the walls from two to three feet in thickness. Adobe mortar was used abundantly in the inner part of the wall, but not showing on the face at the joints, the stones being laid together as closely as the natural surfaces of the stone would permit, and without mortar near the edge. This feature was also characteristic of the walls of the pueblo first described.

Mr. Bandelier made to me recently the important suggestion that as far as any progress or improvement in this architecture, in style or character, can be discerned, it seems to have been from smaller to larger rooms, followed by a reduction of the size of the house in ground dimensions. The last is more particularly illustrated by the houses in Yucatan, where single rooms are found, in rare cases, sixty feet long, but where the size of the house in ground dimensions is much smaller than of those in New Mexico. It was in consequence of an examination of some very old pueblo ruins in New Mexico, east of the Rio Grande, near Santo Domingo. There the pueblo was more like a cluster of cells than of rooms, as many of them were but four or five feet square, contrasting strongly with the present inhabited pueblos. The same fact may be seen at Taos. It was mentioned (p. 144) that the Taos Indians many years ago conquered and dispossessed the former occupants of a pueblo at this place, and that some remains of the old pueblo were still standing. In 1878 I visited one of the ground-rooms in the old structure still standing, and entirely alone. It was about five feet by six in ground-dimensions, and was then occupied by a solitary Taos Indian, a sort of hermit, as his place of residence. A bunk across one side furnished him both a bed and a seat, and the remaining room was scarcely sufficient to turn around in, but it gave him all the home he had, and, doubtless, all the room he needed. Another room, a few feet distant, also a part of the old pueblo, was still standing. These rooms were of adobe, and were about six feet high. As the Indian gained in experience and knowledge in the use and construction of the joint-tenement houses, improvements would gradually manifest themselves. It is important to find and trace this progress, as we have every reason to believe that it is one system of architecture throughout North America at least, with a connection of all its forms.

Along the curving or westerly side of the first building, and along the northerly side, there are cedar beams projecting about four feet from the wall in the second story on the line of the ceiling. They are about four inches in diameter. Their object is not apparent.

In one of the basement rooms of the second building are a series of pictographs upon a plastered wall. Our limited time would not permit a sketch.

Midway between the pueblo, Fig. 40, and the one now being considered is a circular ruin three hundred and thirty feet in circuit, which seems to have consisted of two concentric rows of apartments around an inclosed estufa. It was built of cobblestone and adobe mortar. Pit-holes indicate the form and plan of the inclosing rooms, but the ruin is too indistinct to form a clear idea of its structure. A removal of the loose material would probably disclose the original ground plan.

A few hundred feet north are the ruins of four other structures of cobblestone and adobe quite near each other. They were, without doubt, pueblo houses, but they are now a mass of undistinguishable ruins, and, from present appearance, were probably ruins, when the stone pueblos were inhabited. The river here runs nearer the western border of the valley than the eastern, and quite near the pueblo last noticed, but from this point it bears toward the east side of the valley.

About a mile in a direction a little south of east and near the river are the ruins of two other large pueblos, of which the lower one is one thousand and forty feet in circuit, and the one above four hundred and fifty-two feet. Both are built of sandstone and cobblestone and adobe mortar. No part of the walls are standing above the rubbish; but they were apparently contemporary with the stone pueblos. The first stands upon the brink of the river, which is now cutting away its foundations, thus proving that it was insecurely located. The mass of fallen material is very great, showing an apparent depth of at least fifteen feet. Some of the basement rooms in each of these pueblos are probably still entire, judging from the great mass of material over them. Great pit-holes indicate the position of chambers and inclosing-walls. The largest of the two pueblos is 300 feet in depth. In one place, where some excavation has been done, the corner of a basement room is in sight. All these ruins ought to be re-examined, and so far excavated as to recover complete ground plans.

Near the mouth of the river are said to be still other ruins, and still others on the east side of the river, which we had no time to examine.

The valley of the Animas River is here broad and beautiful, about three miles wide. The river passes nearly through the center of the valley. The cliff, on the east side of the level plain, is bold and mountainous, rising from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet high, while on the west side the valley is bordered with the mesa formation in two benches, one rising back of the other, and both as level as a floor, with the highlands forming the divide between the Animas and La Plata Rivers in the distance.

From the number and size of the houses, there was probably a population of at least five thousand persons at this settlement, living by horticulture. It is not now known by what tribe of Indians these pueblos were inhabited or constructed.