Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines

by Lewis Henry Morgan

A mile or more below the ranch of Mr. Mitchell, in the bordering walls of the McElmo Canyon, are two cliff houses. The walls of the bluff are here about twenty feet high, with large cavities formed in them here and there. These houses, each of which consists of but two or three small chambers, are built of stone, and stand but a few feet above the bottom of the canyon. They are narrow, and not very high, as the cavity in the rock is not very deep. Corrals for some kind of domestic animals are found by the side of these houses in the same hollows in the rock. This is proved by a mass of excrement, about a foot in depth, still there, whether of the goat or sheep cannot be stated, but this fact shows that they were inhabited subsequent to the period of European discovery, although they may have been built and used before. The canyon, at this point, is from three hundred to five hundred feet wide.

I wish to call attention again to the San Juan district, to its numerous ruins, and to its importance as an early seat of Village Indian life. These ruins and those of a similar character in the valley of the Chaco, together with numerous remains of structures of sandstone, of cobblestone, and adobe in the San Juan Valley, in the Pine River Valley, in the La Plata Valley, in the Animas River Valley, in the Montezuma Valley, on the Hovenweep, and on the Rio Dolores, suggest the probability that the remarkable area within the drainage of the San Juan River and its tributaries has held a prominent place in the first and most ancient development of Village Indian life in America. The evidence of Indian occupation and cultivation throughout the greater part of this area is sufficient to suggest the hypothesis that the Indian here first attained to the condition of the Middle Status of barbarism, and sent forth the migrating bands who carried this advanced culture to the Mississippi Valley, to Mexico, and Central America, and not unlikely to South America as well.

Indian migrations are gradual outflows from an overstocked area, followed by organization into independent tribes, and continuing through centuries of time, until the ethnic life of each tribe is expended, or a successful establishment is finally gained in a new and perhaps far distant land. They planted gardens and constructed houses as they advanced from district to district, and removed as circumstances prompted a change of location.

Since the cultivation of maize and plants precedes or is synchronous with this stage of development, it leads to the supposition that maize must have been indigenous in this region, and that it was here first brought under cultivation. There are some facts that seem to favor this hypothesis.

[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.]

At present I wish to call attention to such existing evidence as points to the San Juan district as the anterior home of a number of historic Indian tribes.

1. The Mound-Builders. Although these tribes had disappeared at the epoch of European discovery, and cannot be classed with any known Indian stock, their condition as horticultural tribes, their knowledge of some of the native metals, and the high character of their stone implements and pottery place them in the clans of Village Indians. The nearest region from which they could have been derived is New Mexico. There is no reason for referring them to the San Juan region more than to the nearer country of the Rio Grande, unless it should appear probable that the inhabitants of the latter valley were themselves migrants from the same region. But there are good reasons for deriving the Mound-Builders from the Village Indians in some part of New Mexico.

2. The Mexican Tribes. The seven principal tribes of Mexico, called collectively the Nahuatlacs, spoke dialects of the same language, and all alike had a tradition that their ancestors came from the north, and that the separate tribes came into Mexico at long intervals apart. They arrived in the following order as to time: 1, Sochomilcos; 2, Chalcas; 3, Tepanecans; 4, Tescucans; 5, Tlatluicans; 6, Tlascalans; 7, Aztecs or Mexicans. They settled in different parts of Mexico. The Cholulans, Tepeacas, and Huexatsincos spoke dialects of the Nahuatlac language, and were severally subdivisions of one or the other preceding tribes. They had the same tradition of a northern origin. These several tribes were among the most prominent in Mexico at the period of Spanish discovery. Some of the tribes of Yucatan and Central America also had similar traditions of an original migration of their ancestors from the north.

Acosta, who visited Mexico in 1585, and whose work was published at Seville in 1589, states the order of the migration of the Mexican tribes as above given, and further says that they "come from other far countries which lie toward the north, where now they have discovered a kingdom they call New Mexico. There are two provinces in this country, the one called Aztlan, which is to say, a place of Herons [Cranes], and the other Teculhuacan, which signifies a land of such whose grandfathers were divine. The Navatalcas [Nahuatlacs] point their beginning and first territory in the figure of a cave, and say they came forth of seven caves to come and people the land of Mexico." [Footnote: The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, London ed., 1604, Grimstone's Trans., pp. 497, 504.] The same tradition substantially, is given by Herrera, [Footnote: General History of America, London ed., 1725, Stevens's Trans. III, 188.] and also by Clavigero.

[Footnote: History of Mexico, Cullen's Trans., 1, 119.]