Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1878-02-13
NUMBER 13.
STYLE IN TAOS.


Santa Fe Correspondence Denver Tribnne.
The people of Taos are economical il
the way Of house room. There are bu
two dwellings at Taos, and in these tw,
all the inhabitants reside. They are no
owned by any one or two parties, and tn,
apartments "let" as in some othel
placesI could mention, where the houses
are almost as thickly inhabited; but a.
best could learn the people possess tn.
houses in co-partnership, and all live lik.
one happy family. A house properly
constitutes village. One of the build
ings at Taos covers about an acre ol
ground, and the other about an acre and
a quarter. They are constructed, as il
generally known, l presume, like pyra-
mids, one story on another until they
reach fifty c: sixty feet into the air, each
story being set in from the edge of the
one below sufficiently far to bring the
structure almost TO n point by the time
five stories are attained. 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 par.
tition walls which serve to support the
Soofs and top walls as well rs to separate
the rooms. The inside walls are thus the
highest and strongest. Being thoroughly
protected from what slight rainfall there
in this country, they stand for ages.
The entrances are from the top, the
ascents and descents being made by
means of ladders. A ladder il about as
useful thing as Pueblo village as,
lead nencil is in a newspaper
Office. These ladders stand everywhere,
outside and inside of and all around a
village. They are used to climb from
the ground to the first roof, from the
first to the second, and SO on to the top,
and then from the top to the first floor
from above, and 30 on back again to the
bottom. The people go up and down
them with the agility Of monkeys. Even
their domestic animals climb them with
perfect ease. An Indian dog il the next
thing to an Indian after his first cousin,
and the animals must of course be in
the house. Consequently, one of the
FIRST lessons Pueblo dog must learn il
to climb up and down these ladders.
The chickens, also, understand the molus
operdndi, and the housewife often thus has
whole brood eating crumbs from her
fourth floor. The houses are divided
into compartments, the rooms being
about ten or twelve feet square. A
family occupies one compartment, and
whoever owns the ground floor owns and
occupies all above it. 1t may be seen
that those having their residences in the
center of the building have much more
cOmmodious quarters than their outside
neighbors. When in one of the Taos
"hives," family, occupying central
apartments, has five rooms, those upon
whom are conferred front corner rooms
have but one. They have rules regulat-
ing the distribution, generally giving
the most capaciOus apartments to their
most honored citizens. These people,
when "at home," are 80 effectually sepa-
rated 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 all we'll 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 as new paper
of pins. There have been about seventy
deaths from smallpox in the place during
the last few months, and, fearing that
the walls might be inOculated, l did not
go inside.
These Indians have lived at this place
for over three hundred years, as we have
reason to believe from the old Spanish
records still extant; how much longer
will probably never be known, as they
have no knowledge themselves. 1t il,
however, believed that they settled here
about she time or soon after Cortez at
tackled Mexico.