The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-10-08
AN INTERESTING PEoPL e
The Homes, Habits and Customs of the
Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.

| The Homes, Habits and Customs Of the
Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.
OF all the native peoples that remain ia
North America none Is richer in folklore
| than the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico,
who are, believe, next TO the largest of
| the native races left in the United States.
| They number 1000 souls. Thev have nine
teen cities (called pueblos. alsoi IN this ter
/ ritory, and seven in Arizona; and each has
| its little outlying colonies. They are not
cities in size, it is true, for the largest
| tZuni) has only 800 people, and the small
est only about 100; but cities they are,
/ nevertheless.
And each city, with its fields, is wee
! fepublic-twenty-s of the smallest, and
| perhaps the Oldest, republics in the world,
| for they were already such when the first
| European eyes saw America. Each has its
| governor, its council, its sheriffs, its war
captains and other officials who are elected
annually; its laws, unwritten but unalter-
| able, which are more respected and better
enforced than the laws of any American
| community; its permanent and very COM
Portable houses, and its broad fields, con-
frmed first by Spain and later by patents
of the United States
The architecture of the pueblo houses is
quaint and characteristic. In the remote
pueblos they are as many as six stories in
height-built somewhat in the shape of an
enormous terraced pyramid. The Pueblos
along the Rio Grande, however, have felt
the influence of Mexican customs, and
their houses have but one and two stories.
All their buildings, including the huge,
quaint church, which each pueblo has, ara
made of stone plastered with adobe mud,
or of great sun dried bricks of adobe. They
are the most comfortable dwellings in the
southwest-cool in summer and warm in
winter.
The Pueblos are divided into six tribes,
each speaking quite distinct language of
its own. Isleta, the quaint village where
live, in an Indian house, with Indian
neighbors ard under Indian laws. is the
largest of them all, and the chief city of
the Teewahn race. All the languages of
the Pueblo tribes are exceedingly difficult
to learn.
Besides the cities now inhabited, the
ruins of about 1900 other pueblos-and
some of them the noblest ruins in the coun-
try-dot the brown valleys and rocky mesa
tops of New Mexico. All these ruins are
of stone, and are extremely interesting.
The implacable savages by whom they
were surrounded made necessary the
abandonment of hundreds of pueblos.
The Pueblo Indians have for nearly
two centuries given almost no trouble
to the European sharers of their do
main, but their wars of defense against
the savage tribes who surrounded them
completely, with the Apaches, Navajos,
Comanches and Utes, lasted until a very
few years ago. They are valiant fighters
for their homes, but prefer an honorable
peace. They are not indolent, but indus
trious-tilling their farms, tending their
stock and keeping all their affairs in order
The women own the houses and their
contents, and do not work outside, and the
men control the fields and crops. An un-
happy home is almost an unknown thing
among them, and the universal affection
of parents for children and respect of chill
dren for parents are extraordinary. | have
never seen child unkindly treated, a
parent saucily addressed or playmate
abused in all my long and intimate ac-
quaintance with the Pueblos.-C. f. Lum-
mis- in ST. Nicholas.