"The Navajos and Apaches," said Mr. Morehouse, "have neither houses nor towns; the Pueblos have nineteen compact little cities, and the Mexicans several hundred villages, a part of which are shared by the invader.
"'The numerous sacred dances of the Pueblos,' says Cummings, 'are by far the most picturesque sights in America, and the least viewed by Americans, who never found anything more striking abroad. The mythology of Greece and Rome is less than theirs in complicated comprehensiveness; and they are a far more interesting ethnological study than the tribes of inner Africa, and less known of by their white countrymen.'
"The Pueblos of New Mexico," explained the Antiquary, "are by no means to be confounded with the Toltecs or Aztecs. It is, however, barely possible that in prehistoric ages the race in possession of Mexico may have had some tribal characteristics of the latter-day Pueblo. As of that remote time, there is not even a traditionary record; this supposition is absolutely conjectural.
"By investigation and comparison it has, however, been proved that the Pueblos have racial characteristics connecting them with some mysterious stage of human life even older than that of the more barbarous Toltecs or Aztecs.
"This race has from time immemorial had its book of Genesis. It is not, like that of the Hebrew, a written record, but has been orally handed down, and with careful precision, beginning with their original emergence, as half-formed human beings, from the dark of the mystic underworld of 'Shipapu' to the world of light.
"After the fashion of most barbarous races, the Pueblo appears originally to have 'pitched his moving tent' in various parts of Mexico; and it may be inferred that he endured many casualities before settling himself in life. It was to tide over this trying epoch in his existence that 'Those Above,' according to tradition, made for the tribes that quaint 'Delight-Monger,' with whom we have already made acquaintance, who led them in their wanderings from the womb of Shipapu to the solid centre of their world; but, as has been already stated, this record, going back to an indefinite period of time, and having only the dubious authority of folk-lore, is only of traditional value.
"The Pueblo, no less than the Aztec, is the most religious of human beings. His ceremonial, like that of the age of Montezuma, is wonderfully and minutely elaborated; and though originating in a civilization less splendid and refined, it is really less barbarous, since its rites have never, like those of the Aztec, included the horrors of human sacrifice and cannibalism.
"The Pueblo, since his exit from the womb of mother Earth, seems to have given his principal attention to the cultivation of its soil. All the same, he appears never to have shirked the less peaceful responsibilities of his tribe,—putting on his war-paint at the shortest notice, to settle the quarrels of his clan.
"Although like most men of savage birth and breeding, cruel in warfare, he seems never to have been abstractedly blood-thirsty, never to have killed, like his ever-belligerent neighbor, the Apache, purely for killing's sake; but, his quarrel once ended, and the present security of his clan well achieved, he has contentedly returned to the peaceful ways of life; diligently sowing, weeding, and harvesting his crops of maize, melons, squashes, and beans, and—ever mindful of the propitiative requirements of 'Those Above'—taking careful heed of his religious duties.
"For a succinct account of the Pueblo cave (or cliff) dwellers," said the Antiquary, "I am largely indebted to Bandelier, from whose valuable Pueblo researches I shall often take the liberty to quote.