The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-01-13
FEAST DAY AMONG THE PUEBLOS.
Primitive Customs and Modern Ways
Mixed Among These Indians.

New York Sun.
I'm four months transcontinsrtal journey,
Sitka." said a tourist newly returned from
the Pacific coast. nothing. in the way OF
the Pueblo Indians OF New Mexico. While
at Albuquerque in September on my way
with him to the Indian village of Isleta, a
few miles below the town. on the day Of
the annual religious feast of the people,
"%Isleta, though an Indian pueblo. has
mve,l w .hs character ina act cb Of e i i'm n,a MeSi snd
many small adobe houses; but the majority
q fivs the e villa. ybiiilagerI rs still still live, after their ,Iss print 1nr-
race-shaped structures two or three stories
in height. each accommodating several fam
lies. Each of these great community houses
which the inmates ascend from the ground
which is part Of the roof of the story below,
the dusky inhabitants pursue their house
up and down the ladders men, women and
children. dogs and goats climb as uneon-
cernedly as people might promenade on a
I'm the outskirts of the town away from
the great houses were tiny fat-roofed
abodes like those of the poorer Mexicans,
surrounded by mud-walled yards, corrals,
vineyards, and apricot and peach orchards,
alfalfa fields. all marked into squares by
little waterways fed from the great irri-
eating ditch leading miles back from the
Rio Grande. Everywhere outside the Guilt
waited tracts were wastes of sand which,
across the river, rolled up in bare, smooth
hills like moutainous ocean waves.
What saint it is whose feast the Indians
were celebrating on that day. l did not
learn, or have forgotten. Their pious exer-
professions dispersed when 1 arrived on
the scene. and now the mora jovial exer-
cises of the day were under full headway
foot and horse racing. and gambling all
going on at once, and at booths and tables
plentiful refreshments of a spirituous ma.
f11ra wara diS0l9 we'd on sale. the faVorita
beverage for the Indians and the visitors
alike being native wine, of which great
picturesque figures, the men in their dress
of white cotton tunic and trousers, buck
hair banged in front and bound behind
with a bright red band; the women in
gaudy cotton waists, short skirts, and cy-
lindrical padded leggings. patterned, SEEM
ingly, after a stovepipe, below which their
tiny moccaSined feet suggested the pretty
contours concealed by their unwieldy leg
wear.
1.-THE Indian men gambled at monte and
chusas as eagerly as the 3Mexicans, who
had come in great numbers to the festival.
Thu dancing was performed entirely by
men, in the characteristic Indian step of
hopping alternately on one foot and then
on the other in a circle to the music of
a tom-tom or native drum OF, ~sheepskin
stretched over a frame like a tambourine.
The dancers varied the performance by an
occasional leap or the cutting of a pigeon
wing and by the chanting of songs in the
old language. which few of the singers
themselves understand.
Except for the carriages and latter-day
costumes of visitors from the towns and
ranches, the scene carried little sugges-
ton of the United States in the last de-
cade of the nineteenth century. To en-
nance the impression Of strangeness and
antiquity there was to be seen in its fur
row in a field hard by the plaza single
handled a wooden plough, such as the
Romans used before there ever was a
Christian saint or a calendar. and not far
from it stood a massive old wooden caretta
(cart) built without a scrap of iron, all
its parts being bound together with raw
hide. In the yards and courts of some
of the houses were the rawhide tubs in
which at the vintage time bare-legged In
dams :Iesd out The juice of grapes.
There was much enjoyment and hilarity
among the Indians and their Mexican visi-
tors, and. so far as / saw. everybody.
even the losers at monte. were good tenn
pered. The festivities were marred by one
accident occurring after my friend and 1
had left the scene. A young Indian, the
son of the governor of the tribe. while
galloping and shouting about the plaza was
thrown from his horse and killed. To u
looker-on from the East, unaccustomed TO
the sight of reckless riding. IL would seem
that many such accidents must happen.
but they arc of rare occurrence. IT was
with reluctance that J quilted this strange
and picturesque scene, some or whose
features were those of Spain. In the fif-
teenth century, and others. like the ndian
costumes and terraced houses. are per-
petuations of the standardization when
existed along the upper Rio Grande before
ever "a European keel ploughed American
pvafaraV