82 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
to domesticate animals, and came to rely upon a meat and milk subsistence. 
The next condition of advancement at which the Indian would naturally 
reach is the pastoral, the raising of flocks and herds of domestic animals. 
The Indian has taught himself to raise the horse in herds, and some of the 
tribes raise sheep and goats. A few of them raise cattle. If the govern- 
ment could assist them in this until they were started, they would soon 
become expert herdsmen; would make a proper use of the unoccupied 
prairie area in the interior of the continent as well as of the reservations, 
and would become prosperous and abundant in their resources. 
Among the sedentary Village Indians of New Mexico, who were in the 
Middle Status of barbarism, the land system is much the same in principle, 
but with special usages adapted to a more advanced condition At Taos, 
the pueblo lands are held under a Spanish grant of 1689, covering four 
Spanish square leagues. This grant was afterward confirmed, as I am in- 
formed by David J. Miller, esq. of the surveyor-general’s office at Santa 
Fé, by letters patent of the United States. It is, of course, to the Taos 
Indians in common as a tribe, and without the power of alienation except 
among themselves These lands have been allotted from time to time to 
individuals, and held in severalty for cultivation; but these allotments, so 
to call ther, are verbal, and the rights of persons to their possession are 
settled and adjusted by the chiefs in case of disputes. Mr. Miller wrote me 
from Taos, under date of December 5, 1877, that “A land-owner cannot, 
under any circumstance, sell to any but a Pueblo Indian, and one of this 
(Taos) pueblo If he should do so he would be banished the pueblo, and 
the sale be treated as void. There is an instance now in this pueblo of a San 
Juan Indian man married here, but he is not allowed to acquire land in the 
pueblo premises. His wife has lands which he cultivates. A piece of land 
belonging to 2 man may or may not be utilized by him, but it is recognized 
and treated as his in fee until he sell it or dies. If a lad grows up and 
marries, and his father or father-in-law has no land to give him, he may pur- 
chase in the pueblo, or the: pueblo may assign him land, whereby the title 
in fee as private property remains in him until he sells or dies. When he 
dies it is divided equally among widow and children. If the children are 
small, his brother or other relatives cultivate the land for them until they 
