A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SOME INDIAN HOMES. 807 



Sometimes, too, the partitions or vertical walls between the houses 

 are extended upward, and externally are formed into steps, each 

 step being made by a slab of stone as seen in the figure. Ladders 

 are also used to reach the other terraces, as well as the roof that 

 tops the whole of this human bee-hive. In Zuni I found doors 

 opening from the street directly into the rooms of the ground- 

 floor, and there were many hatchways in the roofs, the rooms 

 below being reached by the means of ladders, such as the long 

 ones shown in my picture of Acoma. Chimneys are built up with 

 stone and mortar, and frequently are topped off by a large clay 

 olla set in the latter, after having its bottom knocked out so as to 

 give egress to the smoke from the stone fireplace found in so 

 many of the rooms. 



Small windows with four panes each admit a meager light to 

 the interior of these dwellings. These panes are most often com- 

 posed of mica obtained in the mountains, but of recent years they 

 have not infrequently obtained glass from the whites suitable for 

 the purpose, and they always prize that material very highly. 

 Rain which accumulates on the several roofs during the continu- 

 ance of storms, finds its escape at guttered apertures supplied with 

 small troughs, shown in the engraving. Often a dome-shaped 

 oven is built out on the roof in one of the angles, and in this they 

 bake their bread. One of these is also shown in the picture, and 

 at Las Nutrias Pueblo, in New Mexico, I saw that they built these 

 ovens out on the ground, and were baking tortillas in them at the 

 time of my visit. 



One of these pueblan houses rarely has less than three rooms, 

 and may contain as many as eight or nine. Most of those that I 

 have been in and I have been in a good many of them are kept 

 scrupulously clean and neat. Their repair devolves entirely upon 

 the women, who consider it their especial prerogative. The floors 

 are evenly laid in moistened clay, and when that material dries, 

 an excellent surface is the result, hard and smooth. They make a 

 kind of whitewash of gypsum, with which the smoothly plastered 

 walls are kept constantly white. 



The ceiling overhead is composed of a generous supply of stout 

 rafters of cedar that run horizontally across from wall to wall, 

 and at Zuni, the Indians had filled in the interspaces with osier 

 brush, covering the outside or roof with a heavy layer of adobe- 

 plaster. Often an entire family is confined to one large room, or, 

 if better circumstanced, they may control two or even more. 



Conspicuous among its finishings in the living-room are the 

 arrangements to do the family cooking. Sometimes the fireplace, 

 built of the usual masonry, is fitted into one of the angles of the 

 room ; sometimes it juts out at the middle of the long side of the 

 apartment ; in either situation the chimney, smaller in its dimen- 



