The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1896-06-26
RICH PUEBLOS.
PROSPEROUS INDIAN COLONIES
IN NEW MEXICO AND ARIZONA.
They Own the Best Lands and Pay
No Taxes - Following Quaint
:, Ancient Customs-Respect
= for the Aged.

| are many thousands OF American
citizens who neither vote nor pay
taxes, and yet they own the rich
| est lands, and some of them rank with
| the wealthiest men of the Southwest.
These citizens are Pueblo Indians,
| and mighty interesting people they
| are. They live in their own villages,
which look more like forts or tene-
ments than anything else. govern
| themselves without much interference
| from the United States authorities !;
and manage to get along very well de-
spite the fact mat many of them,
while processing Christianity, depend
more upon the old gods of their fore
| fathers. Their customs, mode of llv-
ing, beliefs, superstitions and tradi-
lions are but very little different from
those that the old Spaniards marvelled
at when they came into the country
| from old Mexico toward the latter part
of the sixteenth century.
The nearest pueblo to Sante Fe is
the Pueblo of Tesuque. 1t is about
nine miles distant. Tesuque is a flat
looking little place. 1t is not any
thing like as large as Taos or 1deta, or
many of the other pueblos of New
Mexico. The rising generation has
succumbed somewhat to the advanced
ideas of the people of Sante Fe, and
now you see occasionally house with
door in it on level with the ground.
The houses are built on top of each
other, and where the whole affair is in
some places three and four stories
high, it looks from distance like
giant flight of steps. Nowadays one
can enter some of the houses on the
story along the ground through doors
cut in the sides. To enter most of
them, however, you have to climb up
ladder to the second terrace, and
then down into them through trap
holes in the roof. The roofs of the
lower houses furnish sidewalks for
the families living one story nearer to
heaven.
The houses are about ten feet high.
In olden times it is said only the
women and children slept and lived in
these houses. The men lived in the
estufas. These estufas or council
rooms are great, round, low affairs.
They have no doors, but you have to
climb up a ladder to the top and de-
scend into them through trap doors.
The interiors are plain. Sometimes
on the walls are sacred paintings and
drawings and antlers. For many years
the Pueblos have had more of family
life, the custom being introduced by
the Christian, according to the same
story. The respect of the children
for their parents and the affection of
man and wife for each other and for
their children are delightful.
Zuni, in the far western part of the
country, has one six-storied house
covering a vast territory and contain
ing many rooms. The Moqui towns
are three-storied. All of these towns
are extremely old, their grants dating
back mostly to 1859, and even then
they had been in existence hundreds
of years.
The government of the Pueblo
Indians is in the hands of a cazique
or chief, war captain and fiscal major.
They are elected and have assistants.
The village generally settles its own
quarrels, and one rarely or never
hears of Indians coming into the
United States courts. Witchcraft is
firmly believed in up to this day.
1t is generally accepted belief
which are to be found throug hout
New Mexico and Arizona, were merely
the homes of refuge of the Pueblos.
The pueblos themselves are little
more than forts, and it is believed
that in times of extreme danger the
Indians fled to the strong fortresses
built in the cliffs. There are some
ruins of cliff dwellings but few miles
from Sante Fe. These dwellings were
almost invariably prepared and half
built by nature herself. The wind
and sand followed out the softer
stratum of sandstone between two
more substantial strata of solid rock,
thus furnishing the floor, the roof and
back of the fortress.
The Indians had then but to build
the two sides and the front, using mud
and clay in doing SO. The cliff dwell
ings are generally about twelve feet
long, eight feet deep and from five to
nine feet high. There were very sell
dom any windows, and the doors, cut
very low and generally about eighteen
inches square, served as chimneys
also. In the gorges of the Cochiti
uplands, abovt fifty miles northwest OF
Santa Fe, are to be found caves in cliff
dwellings followed out of the pumice-
stone cliffs. Near Flagstaff in Arizona
are several canons in which arc to be
found the ruins Of innumorable cliff
dwellings.
The children belong to the mother
and used invariably to take her last
name, which does not change when she
is married. Nowadays this custom Is
changing, the girls generally taking
their mothers name, the boys the
fathers, In each tribe there are any
number of different clans, such as the
Sun People, the Deer People, the Fire
People. A young man may not marry
a woman of his own clan, but If he is
one of the beers he must take unto
wife young lady of the FIRES or the
Suns. Descent is from the mother.
Adoption of children into different
clan from the parents is easily ef-
fected. There are generally from six
to twelve clans in each tribe, some
| times more.
Children are generally baptized
when, in the spring, the irrigation
bitches are opened, on which occasion
there are grcat dances. The infant is
! held up in the air in the arms of
| godfather before the dancers. The
| godfather selects name and seals it