The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft
fine physique, tall and bony, many of them exceeding six feet in height, broad-chested, erect, and muscular, but frequently light-limbed with small hands, though the feet of both sexes are large. They have large features, expressive of frankness and good nature, with prominent cheek-bones and aquiline nose, those of the women being somewhat retroussés.798 The females are symmetrically formed, with beautifully tapered limbs, full busts, pleasing features, embellished with white and evenly set teeth.799 Their coarse hair grows to a great length and thickness, and their dark complexion becomes yet darker toward the south.800 The ordinary dress of the Pueblos is the breech-cloth and blanket; some add a blouse of cotton or deer-skin, a waist-belt, and buckskin leggins and moccasins. The women wear a long, cotton, sleeveless tunic, confined round the waist by a colored girdle, a species of cape bordered in different colors, fastened round the neck at the two corners, and reaching down to the waist, while over the head a shawl is thrown. The feet are protected by neat moccasins of deer-skin or woolen stuff, surmounted by leggins of the same material. They have a habit of padding the leggins, which makes them appear short-legged with small feet.801 The men bind a handkerchief or colored band round the head. Young women dress the hair in a peculiarly neat and becoming style. Parting it at the back, they roll it round hoops, when it is fastened in two high bunches, one on each side of the head, placing sometimes a single feather in the center; married women gather it into two tight knots at the side or one at the back of the head; the men cut it in front of the ears, and in a line with the eye-brows, while at the back it is plaited or gathered into a single bunch, and tied with a band.801 On gala occasions they paint and adorn themselves in many grotesque styles; arms, legs, and exposed portions of the body are covered with stripes or rings, and conical-shaped head-dresses; feathers, sheep-skin wigs, and masks, are likewise employed.802 The habiliments of the Pimas are a cotton serape of their own manufacture, a breech-cloth, with sandals of raw-hide or deer-skin. Women wear the same kind of serape, wound round the loins and pinned, or more frequently tucked in at the waist, or fastened with a belt in which different-colored wools are woven; some wear a short petticoat of deer-skin or bark.803 They wear no head-dress. Like the Pueblos, the men cut the hair short across the forehead, and either plait it in different coils behind, which are ornamented with bits of bone, shells, or red cloth, or mix it with clay, or gather it into a turban shape on top of the head, leaving a few ornamented and braided locks to hang down over the ears.804 Each paints in a manner to suit the fancy; black, red, and yellow are the colors most in vogue, black being alone used for war paint. Some tattoo their newly born children round the eyelids, and girls, on arriving at the age of maturity, tattoo from the corners of the mouth to the chin. Some tribes oblige their women to cut the hair, others permit it to grow.805 For ornament, shell and bead necklaces are used; also ear-rings of a blue stone found in the mountains.806 The dwellings of the PIMA AND MARICOPA DWELLINGS. agricultural Pimas, Maricopas, and Pápagos consist of dome-shaped huts, either round or oval at the base. There are usually thirty or more to a village, and they are grouped with some regard to regularity. Strong forked stakes are firmly fixed in the ground at regular distances from each other, the number varying according to the size of the hut, cross-poles are laid from one to the other, around these are placed cotton-wood poles, which are bent over and fastened to the transverse sticks, the structure is then wattled with willows, reeds, or coarse straw, and the whole covered with a coat of mud. The only openings are an entrance door about three feet high, and a small aperture in the center of the roof that serves for ventilation. Their height is from five to seven feet, and the diameter from twenty to fifty. Outside stands a shed, open at all sides with a roof of branches or corn-stalks, under which they prepare their food. Their houses are occupied mainly during the rainy season; in summer they build light sheds of twigs in their corn-fields, which not only are more airy, but are also more convenient in watching their growing crops. Besides the dwelling-place, each family has a granary, similar in shape and of like materials but of stronger construction; by frequent plastering with mud they are made impervious to rain.807 The towns of the Pueblos are essentially unique, and are the dominant feature of these aboriginals. Some of them are situated in valleys, others on mesas; sometimes they are planted on elevations almost inaccessible, reached only by artificial grades or by steps cut in the solid rock. Some of the towns are of an elliptical shape, while others are square, a town being frequently but a block of buildings. Thus a Pueblo consists of one or more squares, each enclosed by three or four buildings of from three to four hundred feet in length, and about one hundred and fifty feet in width at the base, and from two to seven stories of from eight to nine feet each in height. The buildings forming the square do not meet, but in some cases are connected by bridges or covered gangways, and in some instances the houses project over the streets below, which being narrow, are thus given an underground appearance. The stories are built in a series of gradations or retreating surfaces, decreasing in size as they rise, thus forming a succession of terraces.
In some of the towns these terraces are on both sides of the building; in others they face only toward the outside; while again in others they are on the inside. In front of the terraces is a parapet, which serves as a shelter for the inhabitants when forced to defend themselves against an attack from the outside. These terraces are about six feet wide, and extend round the three or four sides of the square, forming a walk for the occupants of the story resting upon it, and a roof for the story beneath; so with the stories above. As there is no inner communication with one another, the only means of mounting to them is by ladders which stand at convenient distances along the several rows of terraces, and they may be drawn up at pleasure, thus cutting off all unwelcome intrusion. The outside walls of one or more of the lower stories are entirely solid, having no openings of any kind, with the exception of, in some towns, a few loopholes. All the doors and windows are on the inside opening on the court. The several stories of these huge structures are divided into multitudinous compartments of greater or lesser size, which are apportioned to the several families of the tribe. Access is had to the different stories by means of the ladders, which at night and in times of danger are drawn up after the person entering. To enter the rooms on the ground floor from the outside, one must mount the ladder to the first balcony or terrace, then descend through a trap door in the floor by another ladder on the inside. The roofs or ceilings, which are nearly flat, are formed of transverse beams which slope slightly outward, the ends resting on the side walls; on these, to make the floor and terrace of the story above, is laid brush wood, then a layer of bark or thin slabs, and over all a thick covering of mud sufficient to render them water-tight. The windows in the upper stories are made of flakes of selenite instead of glass. The rooms are large, the substantial partitions are made of wood, and neatly whitewashed. The apartments on the ground floor are gloomy, and generally used as store-rooms; those above are sometimes furnished with a small fireplace, the chimney leading out some feet above the terrace. PUEBLO HOUSES. Houses are common property, and both men and women assist in building them; the men erect the wooden frames, and the women make the mortar and build the walls. In place of lime for mortar, they mix ashes with earth and charcoal. They make adobes or sun-dried bricks by mixing ashes and earth with water, which is then moulded into large blocks and dried in the sun. Some of the towns are built with stones laid in mud. Captain Simpson describes several ruined cities, which he visited, which show that the inhabitants formerly had a knowledge of architecture and design superior to any that the Pueblos of the present day possess. Yet their buildings are even now well constructed, for although several stories in height, the walls are seldom more than three or four feet in thickness. The apartments are well arranged and neatly kept; one room is used for cooking, another for grinding corn and preserving winter supplies of food, others for sleeping-rooms. On the balconies, round the doors opening upon them, the villagers congregate to gossip and smoke, while the streets below, when the ladders are drawn up, present a gloomy and forsaken appearance. Sometimes villages are built in the form of an open square with buildings on three sides, and again two or more large terraced structures capable of accommodating one or two thousand people are built contiguous to each other, or on opposite banks of a stream. In some instances the outer wall presents one unbroken line, without entrance or anything to indicate the busy life within; another form is to join the straight walls, which encompass three sides of a square, by a fourth circular wall; in all of which the chief object is defense. The Pueblos take great pride in their picturesque and, to them, magnificent structures, affirming that as fortresses they have ever proved impregnable. To wall out black barbarism was what the Pueblos wanted, and to be let alone; under these conditions time was giving them civilization.808
PUEBLO