The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-03-27
QUEER HOUSES.
The Kind of Buildings Found In New lIex1co
Taos and Its Inhabitants.

The Kind of Buildings Found In New nexlcf
Taos and Its Inhabitants.
The correspondent of Denver (Col.
paper writes from New Mexico as fol-
lows The people of Taos are economi'
cal in the way of house room. There
are but two dwellings, at Taos, and IL
those two all the inhabitants reside.
They are not owned by any one or two
parties, and the apartments &C lie" as In
some other places 1 could mention,
where the houses are almost as thlckly
inhabited but as best / could learn the
people possess the houses in co-partner-
ship, and all live like one happy family.
A house properly constitutes village.
One of the buildings at Taos covers
about an acre of ground, and the other
about an acre and quarter. They are
constructed, as is generally known, l
presume, like pyramids, one story on
another until they reach fifty or sixty
feet into the air, each story being set in
from the edge of the one below suffi-
ciently far to bring the structure almost
to point by the time five stories are at
tained. The walls are of adobe and the
bottom ones are very thick, as they must
be to support the immense weight that
they are compelled to hold up. There
are innumerable partition walls which
serve to support the roofs and top walls
as well as to separate the rooms. The
inside walls are thus the highest and
strongest. Being thoroughly protected
from what slight rainfall there is in this
country, they stand for ages. The en-.
frances are from the top, the ascents and
descents being made by means of lad
de1s. A ladder is about as useful a
thing in Pueblo village ss lead pen
Gil 1s IN a newspaper Office. These lad
ders stand everywhere, outside and in
side of and all around village. They
are used to climb from the ground to the
first roof, from the first to the second,
and 80 on to the top, and then from the
top to the first floor from above, and 80
on back again to the bottom. The peo-
pie 60 up and down them with the agl-
ity of monkeys. Even their domestic
animals climb them with perfect ease.
An Indian dog is the next thing to an In
dian after his first cousin, and the animals
must of course be in the house. Conse-
quently, one of tile first lessons a Pueblo
dog must learn is to climb up and down
these ladders. The chickens also un-
derstand the modus operandi, and the
housewife often thus has whole brood
picking crumbs from her fourth floor.
The houses are divided into compart-
ments, the rooms being about ten or
twelve feet square. A family occupies
one compartment, and whosoever occu-
pies the ground floor owns and occupies
all above it. It may be seen that those
having their residences in the center of
the building have much more commo-
dious quarters than their outside neigh
bors. When in one of the Taos s'hives,
family occupying central apartments,
has five rooms, those upon whom are
conferred front corner rooms have but
one. They have rules. regulating the
distribution, generally giving the most
capacious apartments to their most hon.
ored citizens. These people, when cat
home," are 80 effectually separated by
the immense walls between them that
they are no more troubled by their
neighbors than are the people who live
along Fourteenth street in Denver.
The family relations are well pre-
served. and am told that domestic dis
cord does not prevail here more than
among more civilized communities. The
lamb and the lion Lie down together.
The mother-in-law and son-in-law sit in
opposite corners and smoke the pipe OF
peace. There are about seven hundred
Indians in this village, and they all in
habit these two houses, consequently
they are about as thick ss new paper
of pins. There have been about seventy
deaths from smallpox in the place dur
ing the last few months, and, fearing
that the walls might be innoculated, I
did not go inside.
These Indians have lived at this place
for over 800 years, as we have every
reason to believe from the old Spanish
records still e1tant; how much longer
will probably never be known, as they
have no knowledge themselves. 1T is,
however, believed, that they settled
here about the time or soon after Cor
tez attacked Mexico.