56 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
It is a reasonable conclusion, therefore, that among all the tribes, north 
of New Mexico, the law of hospitality, as practiced by the Iroquois, was 
universally recognized; and that in all Indian villages and encampments 
without distinction the hungry were fed through the open hospitality of 
those who possessed a surplus. Notwithstanding this generous custom, it 
is well known that the Northern Indians were often fearfully pressed for the 
means of subsistence during a portion of each year. A bad season for 
their limited productions, and the absence of accumulated stores, not unfre- 
quently engendered famine over large districts. From the severity of the 
struggle for subsistence, it is not surprising that immense areas were 
entirely uninhabited, that other large areas were thinly peopled, and that 
dense population nowhere existed. 
Among the Village Indians of New Mexico the same hospitality is now 
extended to Americans visiting their pueblos, and which presumptively is 
simply a reflection of their usage among themselves and toward other 
tribes. In 1852 Dr. Tenbroeck, assistant surgeon United States Army, 
accompanied his command to the Moki pueblos. In his journal he remarks: 
‘Between eleven and twelve to-day we arrived at the first towns of Moki. 
All the inhabitants turned out, crowding the streets and house-tops to have 
a view of the white men. All the old men pressed forward to shake hands 
with us, and we were most hospitably received and conducted to the gov- 
ernor’s house, where we were at once feasted upon guavas and a leg of 
mutton broiled upon the coals. After the feast we smoked with them, and 
they then said that we should move our camp in, and that they would give 
us a room and plenty of wood for the men, and sell us corn for the animals.”! 
In 1858 Lieut. Joseph C. Ives was at the Moki Pueblo of Mooshahneh [Mi- 
shong-i-ni-vi]. ‘The town is nearly square,” he remarks, ‘and surrounded 
by a stone wall fifteen feet high, the top of which forms a landing extending 
around the whole. Flights of stone steps lead from the first to a second 
landing, upon which the doors of the houses open. Mounting the stairway 
opposite to the ladder, the chief crossed to the nearest door and ushered us 
into a low apartment, from which two or three others opened towards the 
interior of the dwelling. Our host COuEIGOnaLy asked us to be seated upon 
18¢ hooleraft? 8 History, Condition, and Brospeens of ‘the Indian Tribes, iv, 81. 
