550 FEWKES: UNIT TYPE OF PUEBLO ARCHITECTURE 



there are rectangular ruins, round ruins, and circular kivas of 

 subterranean character, as well as the terraced houses which 

 distinguish the consolidated community dwellings. Archaic 

 pueblo cults, as those of the Snake dances (Acoma, Sia, Laguna, 

 and Hopi), some of which are extinct, and others (as of the Hopi) 

 still celebrated, distinguish in a measure the ancient pre-puebloan, 

 and were transmitted into Keres culture.^ 



There are not enough data at hand to show that the Keresan 

 language was once spoken on the San Juan or throughout north- 

 ern New Mexico or southern Colorado; legends declare that 

 Keresan colonists have introduced Keresan rites, songs, and 

 prayers in the distant pueblos Zuni and Hopi, and elsewhere. 

 While we may never know the speech of the ancient pre-puebloan 

 inhabitants or of the cliff-dwellers, there are legends among 

 Pueblos that their ancestors inhabited caves, and strangely 

 enough the Navajo Indians have a like legend for their oldest 

 clan. 



The area above identified shows evidences of long occupation 

 by man, and in it occur some of the finest terraced-house ruins 

 in the Southwest. Although it is commonly believed that 

 the particular form of buildings that characterize the pueblos 

 was derived from Mexico, there is little in comparative data to 

 support this conclusion. Aboriginal terraced buildings are not 

 found in Mexico or in Cahfornia.* It is more probable that this 



^ The known association of Snake dances and Snake clans and their presence 

 in the Keresan pueblos Sia, Acoma, and old Laguna, as well as at Hopi, may 

 play an important role, when enough data are collected to permit an intelligent 

 discussion of the theory of a close kinship between the inhabitants of the San 

 Juan pueblos and the Keres and Shoshoneans (as Paiute and others). The Hopi 

 claim that their Snake clan and its festival, the Snake dance, came from Toko- 

 nabi on the San Juan, and that the Acoma Snake dance, now extinct, came from 

 the same region. 



^ The observation that "casas grandes a la manera de los de la Nueva Espana," 

 and "pueblo-like" settlements are found on the California coast, as stated by 

 Cabrillo (Doc. Ined. de Indias, 3: 401, 412-13; 5: 491; 14: 177, 181.) is believed 

 to be too indefinite to support the theory that terraced pueblos were intended. 

 The ruins Quiarra and Abojo in Lower California, mentioned by Johann Xantus 

 (Globus, 1861, p. 143), and referred to pueblos by Fritz Krause, in his excellent 

 monograph on pueblos, are not terraced, and do not belong to the true pueblo 

 type as limited by the author of the present article. 



