THE INDIANS OF YSLETA.Therich and thriving Pueblo of the Ysléta Indians is situated on the western bank of the Rio Grande del Norte, about nine miles below the little town of Albuquerque in New Mexico.We strike southward from Albuquerque along the east bank of the river. Three miles below the town we enter on flat and uninteresting bottomland. The eye is not relieved by a dwelling, not even by a tree, for a distance of five miles. We thus come to a rancho, deserted when we last passed there, but which still gave evidence of former comfort. The owner had joined the Texan Confederates, and quitted the territory.Now we begin to cross the Sand Hills—a not unexciting performance. The road is a narrow and shifting one, growing daily narrower and of steeper slope, as the winds blow the sand upon it and fill it up. The wagon moves along slowly at an angle of 45°. The road winds tortuously along the face of the Sand Hills for about two miles, sometimes making short and abrupt turns. It is from two to three hundred feet above the river which washes the base of the hills. I feel an unpleasant tingling sensation at my elbows, and a great and almost uncontrollable desire to walk—“to lighten the load,” of course. Once on the road, there is no going back, and one is entirely at the mercy of one’s mules. You must let them go their own way. If they should grow restive or become frightened, a broken neck, a general and irretrievable “smash up,” an unpleasant and unrecorded grave in the quicksands of the Rio Grande, would be the result. A six-mule wagon went off at one of the sharp turns some years ago. Its fate was discovered by persons who travelled some hours behind it, and who noticed the tracks. The wagon and team had been engulfed, and had entirely disappeared before they arrived.From the Sand Hills, we have a beautiful view of the Pueblo of Ysléta on the opposite side of the river. The spectacle of the Indians fording the river in certain spots, and driving theirburrosup the steep sides of the Sand Hill on which their Pueblo is built, enhances the picturesqueness of the scene.We have passed the Sand Hills, and now we cross the river to visit the Pueblo. We have struck a little above the ford, however; the water is in the bed of our wagon. We have to stand on the seats in order to keep dry, and we perceive, not without alarm, that the mules are swimming. By striking down-stream a little, however, the mules find bottom again, and pull us out all safe on the western bank.A steep and narrow path leads up to the summit of the Sand Hill on which the Pueblo is perched. The Pueblos always have built and still build their dwellings on the hill-tops: for defensive reasons in the olden times, for security against inundations in the present. The houses are built of the customary adobe. They are washed outside with a whitish wash which resists the action of the weather; the mode of its preparation is said to be knownonly to the Pueblos. I have seen nothing like it in any of the Mexican towns. The houses are generally two stories high, the lower story projecting considerably beyond the upper. The entrance is through the roof, to which you climb by a ladder placed against the outside. This mode of entrance is also a relic of defensive precaution in past times of hostilities with other tribes of Indians and with the Spanish invaders. The internal arrangement of the houses is the reverse of ours. The kitchen is in the upper story, and the sitting or sleeping room in the lower. You descend into the latter from the former by an opening in the floor so small that not even the lightest weight of the Fat Man’s Club could hope to squeeze through. The Pueblos have no monstrous developments of adipose tissue; the opening is large enough for them. The lower room is thoroughly secured even against ventilation. The only window consists of one piece of glass, without frame, imbedded in the wall.The earthen vessels for family use are manufactured by the Pueblos themselves, and are ornamented with fantastic designs of most primitive execution. Chief among these vessels is thetinaja, globular in shape, with an orifice at the top large enough to permit taking out the liquid contents with a small dipper. Thetinajais porous, to permit evaporation through its sides. In hot weather, thetinajasare filled from the river or spring before sunrise, carefully covered, and set in the shade. With these precautions, they keep the water almost ice-cold. They are used in all Mexicanménages, as well as in the households of the Pueblos.The costume of the Pueblo men is not lacking in picturesqueness, more particularly when distance lends its proverbial effect. They wear a short loose sack of white cotton, or manta, ordinarily made of carefully washed flour-sacks; for your Pueblo Indian is economical, and, when he has sustained the inward man with the contents of the flour-sack, he covers the outer man with the sack itself. The pantaloons are of the same material, loose but short, not usually reaching below the knee. The enchantment of distance dispelled, however, traces of the former uses of the material may be discovered in such inscriptions on the shoulders or the seat as the following: “Superfine Family,” or “Choice Family Extra.” The Pueblo wears his hair long, tied behind in a cue, around which is wound a piece of red cloth or ribbon, according to the financial standing of the wearer, or mayhap the greatness or solemnity of the occasion. The head gear is generally a broad-brimmed straw hat. The foot covering is a deer-skin moccasin.The costume of the gentler sex is eminently ungraceful. The women wind long strips of buckskin tightly around the leg, in successive layers, resulting in an enormous bandage from three to four inches thick reaching from the ankle to above the knee. Thechaussureis a moccasin. The effect produced by this arrangement is that of a femininetorsoset on two huge bolsters. All symmetry of form or grace of gait is destroyed. The walk is a sort of shuffle. The upper covering of the figure is a dark woollen stuff, coarse in texture, and of Pueblo woof. This reaches to the knee, and is composed of two rectangular pieces joined at the upper edges, which form the shoulders, and leaving a space for the passage of the head and neck. The pieces hang down before and behind, and are held together at the waist by a belt or cincture. The women cut their hairsquarely across the forehead, leaving the side locks and back hair to hang down loosely. Many of the men, too, besides wearing a cue, cut the hair straight across the forehead, and wear the pendent side-locks. The women wear their arms bare, save the ornamentation of from one to a dozen bracelets of thick wire, which glitters, but is not gold. They wear necklaces of coral, moss-agates, or common glass beads, according to the wealth or importance of the wearer. The men also frequently wear similar necklaces.The portion of the feminine toilet which requires most elaboration is evidently the leg-bandage. It is taken off to cross the ford on foot, and its removal seems to be as slow a process as unrolling a mummy. The object of such a covering for the nether limbs I am unable to imagine.The Pueblo is a handsome Indian. I have seen very finely cut features among the men. Many of them have beautifully fresh complexions, on which a bright apple-rosy tint is gradually shaded into a deep rich brown. They are generally of medium stature, however. Their feet and hands are correspondingly small. Their faces have not that animal, thatwolfish, expression of the wild Indians of the mountains or the plains; on the contrary, they beam with good nature, simplicity, and single-heartedness. They are thrifty and industrious. The men do the out-door work; the women attend to the household affairs, or, in the season, peddle the grapes, apricots, peaches, melons, etc., raised in their Pueblo. Should you meet a Pueblo and his squaw travelling with the universalburro, you will always find the lady mounted on the animal, while her cavalier, urging on John Burro with his stick, trots along gaily behind, and smilingly gives you a cheery “Come te va?” as he passes.The Pueblos do not intermarry with the Mexicans. The women are chaste in their lives, and domestic in their habits. Vice is almost unknown among them. I have lived some years in the vicinity of two or three Indian Pueblos, and have neither known of nor heard of an abandoned woman among them. I wish I could say the same of other races in the territory. In this regard, the Pueblos also differ greatly from the wild Indians whose lives are continued scenes of bestiality.During my residence in their vicinity, the Pueblos had daily access to my dwelling. They were our fruit and vegetable purveyors. I have not known an instance of their stealing a pin’s worth, though they had ample opportunities to pilfer had they been so inclined. In this regard, their example might be imitated with profit by people with greater pretensions to civilization, and in this also they differ widely from the savage Indians who are, to a man, thieves both by nature and habit. In fine, the Pueblos are among the most moral, peaceful, simple, and honest citizens of New Mexico.The Pueblos are Catholics. Their Catholicity, in its out-door festivals, has just sufficient tinge of the antique observances of the Montezumas to throw a romantic glamour around it. They have churches in all their Pueblos. Some of these—Ysléta among the number—have a priest regularly stationed in them, and many of the churches are served by the priests of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in which they are situated. The churches are adobe structures, not always cruciform, with a belfry, and adorned inside with grotesquefigures, the product of their own primitive art.The weapon of the Pueblos is still the bow and arrow. A few have old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles. The Pueblos do not lack the combative instinct, and are more than a match for the Apaches and Navajoes, man to man. They have frequently acted in conjunction with our troops against these tribes; but their co-operation is often rendered valueless by their custom, most strictly adhered to, of returning to their village as soon as they have taken a scalp, for the purpose of having the customary scalp-dance. I regret to say that they give no quarter, and spare neither age nor sex, except when it suits them to makepeóns, or slaves, of the women and children. They say, in self-justification, that little Indians soon become big Indians if allowed to grow. The measure they mete is meted again to them by the hostile tribes.As in courtesy bound, we direct our steps to the dwelling of the “governor,” who is known as “Don Ambrosio.” His house is of more modern construction than the customary Pueblo dwelling. We were admitted through acorraland a door—not in the roof, but in the side of the house, after the fashion of “the whites.” The room we were received in was a long apartmentà la Mexicaine, with benches around the walls. Some of the finest Navajo blankets I ever saw were displayed upon the benches. The walls were hung around with French colored lithographs of a religious character.Governor Ambrosio was a dapper little Indian, with long snow-white hair falling loosely to his shoulders. His complexion was clear and peach-bloomy. Though full of years and honors, he was full of life and health. His son, who acted as his lieutenant, was a man about thirty-odd years, the image of his father, in stature, size, complexion, and everything except the white hair, the junior’s being jet-black. The women of the family were pleasingly featured, but their inartistic dress destroyed the effect of their good looks.Ambrosio is said to be quite wealthy, with fifty or sixty thousand dollars inoroand inplata; for your Pueblo does not consider greenbacks good hoarding. Ambrosio, Jr., showed us the fruithouse, where the senses of sight and smell were regaled with the pleasant spectacles and odors of heaps of rich, fragrant quinces and apples, the latter small but rosy as young Ambrosio’s pleasant face.Ambrosio’s style of farming is more in accordance with modern progressive ideas than that of some of his neighbors. His mules were fat, round, and sleek, and in thecorrallay an American plough of modern construction. Many among the middle and lower classes in New Mexico still plough “with a sharp stick.” The irrigating dikes, oracequias, of the Pueblos are well and carefully attended to; they are not permitted to overflow in the wrong places and at the wrong times—a neglect which so frequently causes the traveller from the valley of the Rio Grande to soar from prosaic observation to the sublimity of anathema. In their fields, I saw men, only, engaged in agricultural labors.S. Augustine is the patron saint of Ysléta. Its greatfiestais the “San Augustin.” The feast is held about the time when all the grapes are gathered and some of the new wine already made. It is essentially a grape and wine feast. But to his other virtues, the Pueblo adds thegreat one of temperance. Mass is celebrated in the morning, and the whole Pueblo is out in its showiest attire. The dance known as “the Montezuma” is performed by young men selected for the occasion. Americans and Mexicans are kindly received and hospitably entreated in the Pueblo on these festival occasions. I have heard of but one instance in which this kindness and hospitality was abused. It was by a miserable gambler—a “white man,” and, I regret to say, an American—who, at the San Augustin of 186-, without the slightest provocation, shot dead a Pueblo boy. The territory got rid of the desperado, who had to fly, for his worthless life, from the wrath of the outraged Indians of Ysléta.
THE INDIANS OF YSLETA.Therich and thriving Pueblo of the Ysléta Indians is situated on the western bank of the Rio Grande del Norte, about nine miles below the little town of Albuquerque in New Mexico.We strike southward from Albuquerque along the east bank of the river. Three miles below the town we enter on flat and uninteresting bottomland. The eye is not relieved by a dwelling, not even by a tree, for a distance of five miles. We thus come to a rancho, deserted when we last passed there, but which still gave evidence of former comfort. The owner had joined the Texan Confederates, and quitted the territory.Now we begin to cross the Sand Hills—a not unexciting performance. The road is a narrow and shifting one, growing daily narrower and of steeper slope, as the winds blow the sand upon it and fill it up. The wagon moves along slowly at an angle of 45°. The road winds tortuously along the face of the Sand Hills for about two miles, sometimes making short and abrupt turns. It is from two to three hundred feet above the river which washes the base of the hills. I feel an unpleasant tingling sensation at my elbows, and a great and almost uncontrollable desire to walk—“to lighten the load,” of course. Once on the road, there is no going back, and one is entirely at the mercy of one’s mules. You must let them go their own way. If they should grow restive or become frightened, a broken neck, a general and irretrievable “smash up,” an unpleasant and unrecorded grave in the quicksands of the Rio Grande, would be the result. A six-mule wagon went off at one of the sharp turns some years ago. Its fate was discovered by persons who travelled some hours behind it, and who noticed the tracks. The wagon and team had been engulfed, and had entirely disappeared before they arrived.From the Sand Hills, we have a beautiful view of the Pueblo of Ysléta on the opposite side of the river. The spectacle of the Indians fording the river in certain spots, and driving theirburrosup the steep sides of the Sand Hill on which their Pueblo is built, enhances the picturesqueness of the scene.We have passed the Sand Hills, and now we cross the river to visit the Pueblo. We have struck a little above the ford, however; the water is in the bed of our wagon. We have to stand on the seats in order to keep dry, and we perceive, not without alarm, that the mules are swimming. By striking down-stream a little, however, the mules find bottom again, and pull us out all safe on the western bank.A steep and narrow path leads up to the summit of the Sand Hill on which the Pueblo is perched. The Pueblos always have built and still build their dwellings on the hill-tops: for defensive reasons in the olden times, for security against inundations in the present. The houses are built of the customary adobe. They are washed outside with a whitish wash which resists the action of the weather; the mode of its preparation is said to be knownonly to the Pueblos. I have seen nothing like it in any of the Mexican towns. The houses are generally two stories high, the lower story projecting considerably beyond the upper. The entrance is through the roof, to which you climb by a ladder placed against the outside. This mode of entrance is also a relic of defensive precaution in past times of hostilities with other tribes of Indians and with the Spanish invaders. The internal arrangement of the houses is the reverse of ours. The kitchen is in the upper story, and the sitting or sleeping room in the lower. You descend into the latter from the former by an opening in the floor so small that not even the lightest weight of the Fat Man’s Club could hope to squeeze through. The Pueblos have no monstrous developments of adipose tissue; the opening is large enough for them. The lower room is thoroughly secured even against ventilation. The only window consists of one piece of glass, without frame, imbedded in the wall.The earthen vessels for family use are manufactured by the Pueblos themselves, and are ornamented with fantastic designs of most primitive execution. Chief among these vessels is thetinaja, globular in shape, with an orifice at the top large enough to permit taking out the liquid contents with a small dipper. Thetinajais porous, to permit evaporation through its sides. In hot weather, thetinajasare filled from the river or spring before sunrise, carefully covered, and set in the shade. With these precautions, they keep the water almost ice-cold. They are used in all Mexicanménages, as well as in the households of the Pueblos.The costume of the Pueblo men is not lacking in picturesqueness, more particularly when distance lends its proverbial effect. They wear a short loose sack of white cotton, or manta, ordinarily made of carefully washed flour-sacks; for your Pueblo Indian is economical, and, when he has sustained the inward man with the contents of the flour-sack, he covers the outer man with the sack itself. The pantaloons are of the same material, loose but short, not usually reaching below the knee. The enchantment of distance dispelled, however, traces of the former uses of the material may be discovered in such inscriptions on the shoulders or the seat as the following: “Superfine Family,” or “Choice Family Extra.” The Pueblo wears his hair long, tied behind in a cue, around which is wound a piece of red cloth or ribbon, according to the financial standing of the wearer, or mayhap the greatness or solemnity of the occasion. The head gear is generally a broad-brimmed straw hat. The foot covering is a deer-skin moccasin.The costume of the gentler sex is eminently ungraceful. The women wind long strips of buckskin tightly around the leg, in successive layers, resulting in an enormous bandage from three to four inches thick reaching from the ankle to above the knee. Thechaussureis a moccasin. The effect produced by this arrangement is that of a femininetorsoset on two huge bolsters. All symmetry of form or grace of gait is destroyed. The walk is a sort of shuffle. The upper covering of the figure is a dark woollen stuff, coarse in texture, and of Pueblo woof. This reaches to the knee, and is composed of two rectangular pieces joined at the upper edges, which form the shoulders, and leaving a space for the passage of the head and neck. The pieces hang down before and behind, and are held together at the waist by a belt or cincture. The women cut their hairsquarely across the forehead, leaving the side locks and back hair to hang down loosely. Many of the men, too, besides wearing a cue, cut the hair straight across the forehead, and wear the pendent side-locks. The women wear their arms bare, save the ornamentation of from one to a dozen bracelets of thick wire, which glitters, but is not gold. They wear necklaces of coral, moss-agates, or common glass beads, according to the wealth or importance of the wearer. The men also frequently wear similar necklaces.The portion of the feminine toilet which requires most elaboration is evidently the leg-bandage. It is taken off to cross the ford on foot, and its removal seems to be as slow a process as unrolling a mummy. The object of such a covering for the nether limbs I am unable to imagine.The Pueblo is a handsome Indian. I have seen very finely cut features among the men. Many of them have beautifully fresh complexions, on which a bright apple-rosy tint is gradually shaded into a deep rich brown. They are generally of medium stature, however. Their feet and hands are correspondingly small. Their faces have not that animal, thatwolfish, expression of the wild Indians of the mountains or the plains; on the contrary, they beam with good nature, simplicity, and single-heartedness. They are thrifty and industrious. The men do the out-door work; the women attend to the household affairs, or, in the season, peddle the grapes, apricots, peaches, melons, etc., raised in their Pueblo. Should you meet a Pueblo and his squaw travelling with the universalburro, you will always find the lady mounted on the animal, while her cavalier, urging on John Burro with his stick, trots along gaily behind, and smilingly gives you a cheery “Come te va?” as he passes.The Pueblos do not intermarry with the Mexicans. The women are chaste in their lives, and domestic in their habits. Vice is almost unknown among them. I have lived some years in the vicinity of two or three Indian Pueblos, and have neither known of nor heard of an abandoned woman among them. I wish I could say the same of other races in the territory. In this regard, the Pueblos also differ greatly from the wild Indians whose lives are continued scenes of bestiality.During my residence in their vicinity, the Pueblos had daily access to my dwelling. They were our fruit and vegetable purveyors. I have not known an instance of their stealing a pin’s worth, though they had ample opportunities to pilfer had they been so inclined. In this regard, their example might be imitated with profit by people with greater pretensions to civilization, and in this also they differ widely from the savage Indians who are, to a man, thieves both by nature and habit. In fine, the Pueblos are among the most moral, peaceful, simple, and honest citizens of New Mexico.The Pueblos are Catholics. Their Catholicity, in its out-door festivals, has just sufficient tinge of the antique observances of the Montezumas to throw a romantic glamour around it. They have churches in all their Pueblos. Some of these—Ysléta among the number—have a priest regularly stationed in them, and many of the churches are served by the priests of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in which they are situated. The churches are adobe structures, not always cruciform, with a belfry, and adorned inside with grotesquefigures, the product of their own primitive art.The weapon of the Pueblos is still the bow and arrow. A few have old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles. The Pueblos do not lack the combative instinct, and are more than a match for the Apaches and Navajoes, man to man. They have frequently acted in conjunction with our troops against these tribes; but their co-operation is often rendered valueless by their custom, most strictly adhered to, of returning to their village as soon as they have taken a scalp, for the purpose of having the customary scalp-dance. I regret to say that they give no quarter, and spare neither age nor sex, except when it suits them to makepeóns, or slaves, of the women and children. They say, in self-justification, that little Indians soon become big Indians if allowed to grow. The measure they mete is meted again to them by the hostile tribes.As in courtesy bound, we direct our steps to the dwelling of the “governor,” who is known as “Don Ambrosio.” His house is of more modern construction than the customary Pueblo dwelling. We were admitted through acorraland a door—not in the roof, but in the side of the house, after the fashion of “the whites.” The room we were received in was a long apartmentà la Mexicaine, with benches around the walls. Some of the finest Navajo blankets I ever saw were displayed upon the benches. The walls were hung around with French colored lithographs of a religious character.Governor Ambrosio was a dapper little Indian, with long snow-white hair falling loosely to his shoulders. His complexion was clear and peach-bloomy. Though full of years and honors, he was full of life and health. His son, who acted as his lieutenant, was a man about thirty-odd years, the image of his father, in stature, size, complexion, and everything except the white hair, the junior’s being jet-black. The women of the family were pleasingly featured, but their inartistic dress destroyed the effect of their good looks.Ambrosio is said to be quite wealthy, with fifty or sixty thousand dollars inoroand inplata; for your Pueblo does not consider greenbacks good hoarding. Ambrosio, Jr., showed us the fruithouse, where the senses of sight and smell were regaled with the pleasant spectacles and odors of heaps of rich, fragrant quinces and apples, the latter small but rosy as young Ambrosio’s pleasant face.Ambrosio’s style of farming is more in accordance with modern progressive ideas than that of some of his neighbors. His mules were fat, round, and sleek, and in thecorrallay an American plough of modern construction. Many among the middle and lower classes in New Mexico still plough “with a sharp stick.” The irrigating dikes, oracequias, of the Pueblos are well and carefully attended to; they are not permitted to overflow in the wrong places and at the wrong times—a neglect which so frequently causes the traveller from the valley of the Rio Grande to soar from prosaic observation to the sublimity of anathema. In their fields, I saw men, only, engaged in agricultural labors.S. Augustine is the patron saint of Ysléta. Its greatfiestais the “San Augustin.” The feast is held about the time when all the grapes are gathered and some of the new wine already made. It is essentially a grape and wine feast. But to his other virtues, the Pueblo adds thegreat one of temperance. Mass is celebrated in the morning, and the whole Pueblo is out in its showiest attire. The dance known as “the Montezuma” is performed by young men selected for the occasion. Americans and Mexicans are kindly received and hospitably entreated in the Pueblo on these festival occasions. I have heard of but one instance in which this kindness and hospitality was abused. It was by a miserable gambler—a “white man,” and, I regret to say, an American—who, at the San Augustin of 186-, without the slightest provocation, shot dead a Pueblo boy. The territory got rid of the desperado, who had to fly, for his worthless life, from the wrath of the outraged Indians of Ysléta.
Therich and thriving Pueblo of the Ysléta Indians is situated on the western bank of the Rio Grande del Norte, about nine miles below the little town of Albuquerque in New Mexico.
We strike southward from Albuquerque along the east bank of the river. Three miles below the town we enter on flat and uninteresting bottomland. The eye is not relieved by a dwelling, not even by a tree, for a distance of five miles. We thus come to a rancho, deserted when we last passed there, but which still gave evidence of former comfort. The owner had joined the Texan Confederates, and quitted the territory.
Now we begin to cross the Sand Hills—a not unexciting performance. The road is a narrow and shifting one, growing daily narrower and of steeper slope, as the winds blow the sand upon it and fill it up. The wagon moves along slowly at an angle of 45°. The road winds tortuously along the face of the Sand Hills for about two miles, sometimes making short and abrupt turns. It is from two to three hundred feet above the river which washes the base of the hills. I feel an unpleasant tingling sensation at my elbows, and a great and almost uncontrollable desire to walk—“to lighten the load,” of course. Once on the road, there is no going back, and one is entirely at the mercy of one’s mules. You must let them go their own way. If they should grow restive or become frightened, a broken neck, a general and irretrievable “smash up,” an unpleasant and unrecorded grave in the quicksands of the Rio Grande, would be the result. A six-mule wagon went off at one of the sharp turns some years ago. Its fate was discovered by persons who travelled some hours behind it, and who noticed the tracks. The wagon and team had been engulfed, and had entirely disappeared before they arrived.
From the Sand Hills, we have a beautiful view of the Pueblo of Ysléta on the opposite side of the river. The spectacle of the Indians fording the river in certain spots, and driving theirburrosup the steep sides of the Sand Hill on which their Pueblo is built, enhances the picturesqueness of the scene.
We have passed the Sand Hills, and now we cross the river to visit the Pueblo. We have struck a little above the ford, however; the water is in the bed of our wagon. We have to stand on the seats in order to keep dry, and we perceive, not without alarm, that the mules are swimming. By striking down-stream a little, however, the mules find bottom again, and pull us out all safe on the western bank.
A steep and narrow path leads up to the summit of the Sand Hill on which the Pueblo is perched. The Pueblos always have built and still build their dwellings on the hill-tops: for defensive reasons in the olden times, for security against inundations in the present. The houses are built of the customary adobe. They are washed outside with a whitish wash which resists the action of the weather; the mode of its preparation is said to be knownonly to the Pueblos. I have seen nothing like it in any of the Mexican towns. The houses are generally two stories high, the lower story projecting considerably beyond the upper. The entrance is through the roof, to which you climb by a ladder placed against the outside. This mode of entrance is also a relic of defensive precaution in past times of hostilities with other tribes of Indians and with the Spanish invaders. The internal arrangement of the houses is the reverse of ours. The kitchen is in the upper story, and the sitting or sleeping room in the lower. You descend into the latter from the former by an opening in the floor so small that not even the lightest weight of the Fat Man’s Club could hope to squeeze through. The Pueblos have no monstrous developments of adipose tissue; the opening is large enough for them. The lower room is thoroughly secured even against ventilation. The only window consists of one piece of glass, without frame, imbedded in the wall.
The earthen vessels for family use are manufactured by the Pueblos themselves, and are ornamented with fantastic designs of most primitive execution. Chief among these vessels is thetinaja, globular in shape, with an orifice at the top large enough to permit taking out the liquid contents with a small dipper. Thetinajais porous, to permit evaporation through its sides. In hot weather, thetinajasare filled from the river or spring before sunrise, carefully covered, and set in the shade. With these precautions, they keep the water almost ice-cold. They are used in all Mexicanménages, as well as in the households of the Pueblos.
The costume of the Pueblo men is not lacking in picturesqueness, more particularly when distance lends its proverbial effect. They wear a short loose sack of white cotton, or manta, ordinarily made of carefully washed flour-sacks; for your Pueblo Indian is economical, and, when he has sustained the inward man with the contents of the flour-sack, he covers the outer man with the sack itself. The pantaloons are of the same material, loose but short, not usually reaching below the knee. The enchantment of distance dispelled, however, traces of the former uses of the material may be discovered in such inscriptions on the shoulders or the seat as the following: “Superfine Family,” or “Choice Family Extra.” The Pueblo wears his hair long, tied behind in a cue, around which is wound a piece of red cloth or ribbon, according to the financial standing of the wearer, or mayhap the greatness or solemnity of the occasion. The head gear is generally a broad-brimmed straw hat. The foot covering is a deer-skin moccasin.
The costume of the gentler sex is eminently ungraceful. The women wind long strips of buckskin tightly around the leg, in successive layers, resulting in an enormous bandage from three to four inches thick reaching from the ankle to above the knee. Thechaussureis a moccasin. The effect produced by this arrangement is that of a femininetorsoset on two huge bolsters. All symmetry of form or grace of gait is destroyed. The walk is a sort of shuffle. The upper covering of the figure is a dark woollen stuff, coarse in texture, and of Pueblo woof. This reaches to the knee, and is composed of two rectangular pieces joined at the upper edges, which form the shoulders, and leaving a space for the passage of the head and neck. The pieces hang down before and behind, and are held together at the waist by a belt or cincture. The women cut their hairsquarely across the forehead, leaving the side locks and back hair to hang down loosely. Many of the men, too, besides wearing a cue, cut the hair straight across the forehead, and wear the pendent side-locks. The women wear their arms bare, save the ornamentation of from one to a dozen bracelets of thick wire, which glitters, but is not gold. They wear necklaces of coral, moss-agates, or common glass beads, according to the wealth or importance of the wearer. The men also frequently wear similar necklaces.
The portion of the feminine toilet which requires most elaboration is evidently the leg-bandage. It is taken off to cross the ford on foot, and its removal seems to be as slow a process as unrolling a mummy. The object of such a covering for the nether limbs I am unable to imagine.
The Pueblo is a handsome Indian. I have seen very finely cut features among the men. Many of them have beautifully fresh complexions, on which a bright apple-rosy tint is gradually shaded into a deep rich brown. They are generally of medium stature, however. Their feet and hands are correspondingly small. Their faces have not that animal, thatwolfish, expression of the wild Indians of the mountains or the plains; on the contrary, they beam with good nature, simplicity, and single-heartedness. They are thrifty and industrious. The men do the out-door work; the women attend to the household affairs, or, in the season, peddle the grapes, apricots, peaches, melons, etc., raised in their Pueblo. Should you meet a Pueblo and his squaw travelling with the universalburro, you will always find the lady mounted on the animal, while her cavalier, urging on John Burro with his stick, trots along gaily behind, and smilingly gives you a cheery “Come te va?” as he passes.
The Pueblos do not intermarry with the Mexicans. The women are chaste in their lives, and domestic in their habits. Vice is almost unknown among them. I have lived some years in the vicinity of two or three Indian Pueblos, and have neither known of nor heard of an abandoned woman among them. I wish I could say the same of other races in the territory. In this regard, the Pueblos also differ greatly from the wild Indians whose lives are continued scenes of bestiality.
During my residence in their vicinity, the Pueblos had daily access to my dwelling. They were our fruit and vegetable purveyors. I have not known an instance of their stealing a pin’s worth, though they had ample opportunities to pilfer had they been so inclined. In this regard, their example might be imitated with profit by people with greater pretensions to civilization, and in this also they differ widely from the savage Indians who are, to a man, thieves both by nature and habit. In fine, the Pueblos are among the most moral, peaceful, simple, and honest citizens of New Mexico.
The Pueblos are Catholics. Their Catholicity, in its out-door festivals, has just sufficient tinge of the antique observances of the Montezumas to throw a romantic glamour around it. They have churches in all their Pueblos. Some of these—Ysléta among the number—have a priest regularly stationed in them, and many of the churches are served by the priests of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in which they are situated. The churches are adobe structures, not always cruciform, with a belfry, and adorned inside with grotesquefigures, the product of their own primitive art.
The weapon of the Pueblos is still the bow and arrow. A few have old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifles. The Pueblos do not lack the combative instinct, and are more than a match for the Apaches and Navajoes, man to man. They have frequently acted in conjunction with our troops against these tribes; but their co-operation is often rendered valueless by their custom, most strictly adhered to, of returning to their village as soon as they have taken a scalp, for the purpose of having the customary scalp-dance. I regret to say that they give no quarter, and spare neither age nor sex, except when it suits them to makepeóns, or slaves, of the women and children. They say, in self-justification, that little Indians soon become big Indians if allowed to grow. The measure they mete is meted again to them by the hostile tribes.
As in courtesy bound, we direct our steps to the dwelling of the “governor,” who is known as “Don Ambrosio.” His house is of more modern construction than the customary Pueblo dwelling. We were admitted through acorraland a door—not in the roof, but in the side of the house, after the fashion of “the whites.” The room we were received in was a long apartmentà la Mexicaine, with benches around the walls. Some of the finest Navajo blankets I ever saw were displayed upon the benches. The walls were hung around with French colored lithographs of a religious character.
Governor Ambrosio was a dapper little Indian, with long snow-white hair falling loosely to his shoulders. His complexion was clear and peach-bloomy. Though full of years and honors, he was full of life and health. His son, who acted as his lieutenant, was a man about thirty-odd years, the image of his father, in stature, size, complexion, and everything except the white hair, the junior’s being jet-black. The women of the family were pleasingly featured, but their inartistic dress destroyed the effect of their good looks.
Ambrosio is said to be quite wealthy, with fifty or sixty thousand dollars inoroand inplata; for your Pueblo does not consider greenbacks good hoarding. Ambrosio, Jr., showed us the fruithouse, where the senses of sight and smell were regaled with the pleasant spectacles and odors of heaps of rich, fragrant quinces and apples, the latter small but rosy as young Ambrosio’s pleasant face.
Ambrosio’s style of farming is more in accordance with modern progressive ideas than that of some of his neighbors. His mules were fat, round, and sleek, and in thecorrallay an American plough of modern construction. Many among the middle and lower classes in New Mexico still plough “with a sharp stick.” The irrigating dikes, oracequias, of the Pueblos are well and carefully attended to; they are not permitted to overflow in the wrong places and at the wrong times—a neglect which so frequently causes the traveller from the valley of the Rio Grande to soar from prosaic observation to the sublimity of anathema. In their fields, I saw men, only, engaged in agricultural labors.
S. Augustine is the patron saint of Ysléta. Its greatfiestais the “San Augustin.” The feast is held about the time when all the grapes are gathered and some of the new wine already made. It is essentially a grape and wine feast. But to his other virtues, the Pueblo adds thegreat one of temperance. Mass is celebrated in the morning, and the whole Pueblo is out in its showiest attire. The dance known as “the Montezuma” is performed by young men selected for the occasion. Americans and Mexicans are kindly received and hospitably entreated in the Pueblo on these festival occasions. I have heard of but one instance in which this kindness and hospitality was abused. It was by a miserable gambler—a “white man,” and, I regret to say, an American—who, at the San Augustin of 186-, without the slightest provocation, shot dead a Pueblo boy. The territory got rid of the desperado, who had to fly, for his worthless life, from the wrath of the outraged Indians of Ysléta.