MINDELEFF] 



CONCLUSION. 



261 



The relation of these lodges to the village ruins and the character of 

 the sites occupied by them support tlie conclusion that they were 

 farming outlooks, probably occupied only during the farming season, 

 according to the methods followed by many of the Pueblos today, and 

 that the defensive motive had little or no influence on the selection of 

 the site or the character of the structures. The bowlder-marked sites 

 and the small single-room remains illustrate other phases of the same 

 horticultural methods, methods somewhat resembling the "intensive 

 culture," of modern agriculture, but requiring further a close supervision 

 or watching of the crop during the period of ripening. As the area 

 of tillable land in the pueblo region, especially in its western part, is 

 limited, these requirements have developed a class of temporary struc- 

 tures, occupied only during the farming season. In Tusayan, wheje 

 the most primitive architecture of the pueblo type is found, these 

 I structures are generally of brush; in Canyon de Chelly they are clitt- 

 I dwellings; on the Kio Verde they are cavate lodges, bowlder-marked 

 sites and single house remains; but at Zuni they have reached their 

 highest development in the three summer villages of Ojo Caliente, 

 Nutria, and Pescado. 



Smce'the American ()ccu]iancy of the country and the consequent 

 removal nf tlie hostile ]iiessnre which has kept the Puel)l() tribes in 

 checl;. de\ clopment has been rapid and now threatens a speedy extinc- 

 tion of pueblo life. The old Laguna has been abandoned, Acoma is 

 being depopulated, the summer pueblos of Zuni an^ now occupied all 

 the^ear'found by half a dozen or more fiunilies, and even in Tusayan'' 

 the most conservative of all the pueblo groups, the abandonment of the 

 home village and location in more convenient single houses has com- 

 menced. It is the old process over again, but with the difference that 

 lormerly the cycle was completed by the reaggregatiou of the various 

 { families, ami little bands into larger groups under hostile pressure from 

 i wncTerTi'ibes, but now that pressure has been permanently removed, and 

 I iu'a few years, or at most in a few generations, the old pueblo life will 

 ! be" known "Duly by its records. 



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