We are told by the historian that there were originally two distinct
classes of Indians occupying the territory now embraced by the United
States, viz., the village Indians or horticultural Indians, and the
extremely rural Indians or nonhorticultural variety.
The village Indians or horticulturalists subsisted upon fruits and
grain, ground in a crude way, while the non-horticulturalists lived on
wild game, berries, acorns and pilgrims.
Of the latter class few traces remain, excepting rude arrow heads and
coarse stone weapons. These articles show very little skill as a rule,
the only indication of brains that I ever discovered being on a large
stone hammer or Mohawk swatter, and they were not the brains of the man
who made it either.
The village Indians, however, were architects from away up the gulch.
They constructed a number of architectural works of great beauty,
several of which I have visited. They were once, no doubt, regarded
as very desirable residences, but now, alas, they have fallen into
innocuous desuetude--at least that is what it looked like to me, and the
odor reminded me of innocuous desuetude in a bad state of preservation.
In New Mexico, over 300 years ago, there were built a number of pereblos
or villages which still stand up, in a measure, though some of them are
in a recumbent position. These pereblos or villages are formed of three
or four buildings constructed in the retrousse style of architecture,
and made of adobe bricks. These bricks are generally of a beautiful,
soft, black and tan color, and at a distance look like the first loaf
of bread baked by a young lady who has been reared in luxury but whose
father has been suddenly called away to Canada. The adobe brick is said
to be so indigestible, in fact, that I am confident the day is not far
distant when it will be found on every hotel bill of fare in our broad
sin-cursed land.
One of these dwellings was generally about 200 feet long, with no
stairways in the interior, but movable ladders on the outside instead.
This manner of reaching the upper floor had its advantages, and yet it
was not always convenient. One feature in its favor was the isolation
which a man could pull around himself by going in at the second-story
window and pulling the ladder up after him, as there was no entrance to
the house on the ground floor. If a man really courted retirement,
and wanted to write a humorous lecture or a $2 homily, he could insert
himself through the second-story window, pull in the staircase and go
to work. Then no one could disturb him without bribing a hook and ladder
company to come along and let him in.
But the great drawback was the annoyance incident to ascending these
ladders at a late hour in the night, while under the influence of Aztec
rum, a very seductive yet violently intoxicating beverage, containing
about eight parts cheer to ninety-two parts inebriate.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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