MORGAN,] HOUSES OF TWO OR MORE STORIES. 133 
at Acoma, Jemez, and Taos, and although their plan and mode of life have 
changed in some respects in the interval, it is not unlikely that they remain 
to this day a fair sample of the life of the Village Indians from Zuni to 
Cuzco as it existed in the sixteenth century. 
The Indians north of New Mexico did not construct their houses more 
than one story high, or of more durable materials than a frame of poles or 
of timber covered with matting or bark, or coated over with earth. A 
stockade around their houses was their principal protection. In New Mex- 
ico, going southward, are met for the first time houses constrneted with 
several stories. Sun-dried brick must have come into use earlier than stone. 
The practice of the ceramic art would suggest the brick sooner or later. 
At all events, what are supposed to be the oldest remains of architecture in 
New Mexico, such as the Casas Grandes of the Gila and Salinas rivers, are 
of adobe brick. They also used cobble-stone with adobe mortar, and 
finally thin pieces of tabular sandstone, prepared by fracture, which made 
a solid and durabie stone wall. Some of the existing pueblo houses in 
New Mexico are as old as the expedition of Coronado (1540-1542). Oth- 
ers, constructed since that event, and now occupied, are of the aboriginal 
model. There are at present about twenty of these pueblos in New Mexico, 
inhabited by about 7,000 Village Indians, the descendants of those found 
there by Coronado. They are still living substantially under their ancient 
organization and usages. Besides these, there are seven pueblos of the 
Mokis, near the Little Colorado, occupied by about 3,000 Indians, who 
have remained undisturbed to the present time, except by Roman Catholic 
missionaries, and among whom the entire theory of life of the Sedentary 
Village Indians may yet be obtained. These Village Indians represent at 
the present moment the type of life found from Zuni to Cuzco at the epoch 
of the Discovery, and, while they are not the highest, they are no unfit 
representatives of the entire class. 
The Yucatan and Central American indians were, in their architecture, 
in advance of the remaining aborigines of North America. Next to them, 
probably, were the Aztecs, and some few tribes southward. Holding the 
third position, though not far behind, were the Village Indians of New 
‘Mexico. All alike they depended upon horticulture for subsistence, and 
