CHAPTER ve 
HOUSES OF INDIAN TRIBES NORTH OF NEW MEXICO. 
The growth of the idea of house architecture in general is a subject 
more comprehensive than the scope of this volume. But there is one phase 
of this growth, illustrating as it does the condition of society and of the 
family in savagery and in barbarism, to which attention will be invited. 
It is found in the domestic architecture of the American aborigines, con- 
sidered as a whole, and as parts of one system. As-a system it stands 
related to the institutions, usages, and customs presented in the previous 
chapters. There is not only abundant evidence in the collective architec- 
ture of the Indian tribes of the gradual development of this great faculty 
or aptitude of the human mind among them, through three ethnical periods, 
but the structures themselves, or a knowledge of them, remain for com- 
parison with each other. A comparison will show that they belong to a 
common indigenous system of architecture. There is a common principle 
running through all this architecture, from the hut of the savage to the 
commodious joint-tenement house of the Village Indians of Mexico and 
Central America, which will contribute to its elucidation. 
The indigenous architecture of the Village Indians has given to them, 
more than aught else, their position in the estimation of mankind. 'The 
facts of their social condition in other respects, which, unfortunately, are 
obscure, have been much less instrumental in fixing their status than exist- 
ing architectural remains. The Indian edifices in Mexico and Central 
America of the period of the Conquest may well excite surprise and even 
admiration ; from their palatial extent, from the material used in their con- 
struction, and from the character of their ornamentation, they are highly 
creditable to their skill in architecture. But a false interpretation has, from 
the first, been put upon this architecture, as I think can be shown, and 
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