Page:The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542.djvu/278

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THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542
[eth. ann. 14

haco, a province with eight villages. In general, these villages all have the same habits and customs, although some have some things in particular which the others have not.[1] They are governed by the opinions of the elders. They all work together to build the villages, the women being engaged in making the mixture and the walls, while the men bring the wood and put it in place.[2] They have no line, but they make a mixture of ashes, coals, and dirt which is almost as good as mortar, for when the house is to have four stories, they do not make the walls more than half a yard thick. They gather a great pile of twigs of thyme and sedge grass and set it afire, and when it 1s half coals and ashes they throw a quantity of dirt and water on it and mix it all together. They make round balls of this, which they use instead of stones after they are dry, fixing them with the same mixture, which comes to be like a stiff clay. Before they are married the young men serve the whole village in general, and fetch the wood that is needed for use, putting it in a pile in the courtyard of the villages, from which the women take it to carry to their houses.

The young men live in the estufas, which are in the yards of the village.[3] They are underground, square or round, with pine pillars.


  1. Bandelier gives a general account of the internal condition of the Pueblo Indians, with references to the older Spanish writers, in his Final Report, pt.i, p. 135.
  2. Bandelier, Final Report, pt. i, p. 141, quotes from Benavides, Memorial, p. 43, the following account of how the churches and convents in the pueblo region were built: "los ha hecho tan solaméte las mugeres, y los muchachos, y muchachas de la dotrina; porque entre estos naciones se vea hazer las mugeres las paredes, y los hombres hilan y texen sus mantas, y van á la guerra, y 2 la caza, y si obligamos a algii hombre á hazer pared, se corre dello, y las mngeres se rien."

    Mota Padilla, cap. xxxii, p.159: "estoa pueblos [de Tigiies y Tzibola] estaban murados. . . si bien se diferenciaban en que los pueblos de Tzibola son fabricados de pizarras unidas con argamasa de tierra; y los de Tigiies son de una tierra giiijosa, aunque muy fuerte; sus fébricas tienen las puertas para adentro del pueblo, y la entrada de estos muros son puertas pequefias y se sube por unas escalerillas apgostas, y se entra de ellas á una sala de terraplen, y pur otra escalera se bajaal plan de la poblacion."

    Several days before Friar Marcos reached Chichilticalli, the natives, who were telling him about Cibols, described the way in which these lofty houses were built: "para dérmelo á entender, tomaban tierra y ceniza, y echabanle agus, y sefialabanme como ponian la piedra y como subian el edificio arriba, poniendo aquello y piedra hasta ponello en lo alto; preguntábales á los hombres de aqnella tierra si tenian alas para subir aquellos sobrados; reianse y señalábanme el escalera, tambien como la podria yo setalar, y tomaban un palo y ponianlo aobre la cabeza y decian que aque! altura hay de sobrado & sobrado." Relacion de Fray Marcos in Pacheco y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias, vol. iii, p. 339.

    Lewis H. Morgan, in his Ruts of a Stone Pueblo, Peabody Museum Reports, vol. xii, p. 541, says: "Adobe is a kind of pulverized clay with a bond of considerable strength by mechanical cohesion. In southern Colorado, in Arizona, and New Mexico there are immense tracts covered with what is called adobe soil. It varies somewhat in the degree of 1ta excellence. The kind of which they make their pottery has the largest per cent of alumina, and its presence is indicated by the salt weed which grows in this particular soil. This kind also makes the best adobe mortar. The Indians use it freely in laying their walla, as freely as our masons use lime mortar; and although it never acquires the hardness of cement, it disintegrates slowly. . . This adobe mortar is adapted only to the dry climate of southern Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, where the precipitation is less than Sinches perannum. . . To the presence of this adobe soil, found in such abundance in the regions named, and to the sandstone of the bluffs, where masses are often found in fragments, we must attribute the great progress made by these Indians in house building."

  3. Bandelier discusses the estufas in hie Final Report, pt. i, p. 144 ff., giving quotations from the Spanish writera, with his usual wealth of footnotes. Dr Fewkes, in his Zuñi Summer Ceremonials, says: "These rooms are semi-subterranean (in Zuñi), situated on the first or ground floor. never, so far as I have seen, on the second or higher stories. They are rectangular or square roams, built of stone, with openings just large enough to admit the head serving as windows, and still preserve the old form of entrance by ladders through a sky hole in the roof. Within, the estufas have bare walls and are unfurnished, but have a raised ledge about the walls, serving as seats."