houses could be converted into formidable forts."[1] The number of apartments in each house is not stated. The different houses at that time were inhabited by eight hundred Indians. Chimneys now appear above the roofs, the fire-place being at the angle of the chamber in front. These were evidently of later introduction. The defensive element, so prominent in this architecture, was not so much to protect the Village Indians from each other, as from the attacks of migrating bands flowing down upon them from the North. The pueblos now in ruins throughout the original area of New Mexico, and for some distance north of it, testify to the perpetual struggle of the former to maintain their ground, as well as prove the insecurity in which they lived. It could be shown that the second and additional stories were suggested by the defensive principle.
Zuñi, Fig. 23, is the largest occupied pueblo in New Mexico at the present time. It probably once contained five thousand inhabitants, but in 1851 the number was reduced to fifteen hundred The village consists of several structures, most of them accessible to each from their roof terraces. They are constructed of adobe brick, and of stone embedded in adobe mortar, and plastered over.
In the summer of 1879, Mr. James Stevenson, in charge of the field parties under Major Powell, made an extended visit to Zuñi and the neighboring pueblos, for the purpose of making collections of their implements, utensils, etc., during which time the photographs from which the accompanying illustrations of the pueblos were made. His wife accompanied him, and she has furnished us the following description of that pueblo:
"Zuñi is situated in Western New Mexico, being built upon a knoll covering about fifteen acres, and some forty feet above the right bank of the river of the same name.
"Their extreme exclusiveness has preserved to the Zuñians their strong individuality, and kept their language pure. According to Major Powell's classification, their speech forms one of four linguistic stocks to which may be traced all the pueblo dialects of the southwest. In all the large area which was once thickly dotted with settlements, only-thirty-one remain, and these are scattered hundreds of miles apart from Taos, in Northern New
- ↑ Ex. Doc. No. 41, 1st session 30th Congress, 1848, p. 462.
