MINDELEFF. | CONCLUSION. 225 
regarded as remarkable achievements in civilization by a vanished but 
once powerful race. These deserted stone houses, occurring in the 
midst of desert solitudes, appealed strongly to the imaginations of early 
explorers, and their stimulated fancy connected the remains with “ Az- 
tees” and other mysterious peoples. That this early implanted bias 
has caused the invention of many ingenious theories concerning the 
origin and disappearance of the builders of the ancient pueblos, is amply 
attested in the conclusions reached by many of the writers on this sub- 
ject. 
In connection with the architectural examination of some of these 
remains many traditions have been obtained from the present tribes, 
clearly indicating that some of the village rums, and even cliff dwell- 
ings, have been built and occupied by ancestors of the present Pueblo 
Indians, sometimes at a date well within the historic period. 
The migrations of the Tusayan clans, as described in the legends 
collected by Mr. Stephen, were slow and tedious. While they pursued 
their wanderings and awaited the favorable omens of the gods they 
halted many times and planted. They speak traditionally of stopping 
at certain places on their routes during a certain number of “ plant- 
ings,” always building the characteristic stone pueblos and then again 
taking up the march. 
When these Indians are questioned as to whence they came, their re- 
plies are various and conflicting; but this is due to the fact that the 
members of one clan came, after a long series of wanderings, from the 
north, for instance, while those of other gentes may have come last from 
the east. The tribe to-day seems to be made up of a collection or a con- 
federacy of many enteebled remnants of independent phratries and groups 
once more numerous and powerful. Some clans traditionally referred 
to as having been important are now represented by few survivors, and 
bid fair soon to become extinct. So the members of each phratry have 
their own store of traditions, relating to the wanderings of their own an- 
cestors, which differ from those of other clans, and refer to villages sue- 
cessively built and occupied by them. In the case of others of the pueblos, 
the occupation of cliff dwellings and cave lodges is known to have oe- 
curred within historic times. 
Both architectural and traditional evidence are in accord in establish- 
ing a continuity of descent from the ancient Pueblos to those of the pres- 
ent day. Many of the communities are now made up of the more or less 
scattered but interrelated remnants of gentes which in former times oe- 
cupied villages, the remains of which are to-day looked upon as the early 
homes of “Aztec colonies,” ete. 
The adaptation of this architecture to the peculiar environment indi- 
cates that it has long been practiced under the same conditions that now 
prevail. Nearly all of the ancient pueblos were built of the sandstone 
found in natural quarries at the bases of hundreds of cliffs throughout 
these table-lands. This stone readily breaks into small pieces of regular 
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