136 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
dered its hospitality in the form of food placed before him. A failure to 
tender it is deemed a grave breach of hospitality and an insult; anda 
declension to partake of it would be regarded as a breach of etiquette. As 
among us, they have their rich and their poor, and the former give to the 
’ Here we find a nearly exact repetition 
J 
latter cheerfully and in due plenty.’ 
of the Iroquois and Mandan rules of hospitality before given. Whether 
or not they formerly practiced communism in household groups, I am not 
informed. Their houses are adapted to this mode of life, as will presently 
be shown; and upon that fact and their stage of social advancement, the 
deduction of the practice must for the present rest. 
JOINT TENEMENT HOUSES OF VILLAGE INDIANS IN NEW MEXICO. 
Santo Domingo is composed of several structures of adobe brick 
grouped together, as shown in the engraving, Fig. 22. Each is about two 
hundred feet long, with two parallel rows of apartments on the ground, of 
which the front row is carried up one story, and the back two; the flat roof of 
the first story forming a terrace in front of the second. The first story is 
closed up solid for defensive reasons, with the exception of small window 
openings. The first terrace is reached by means of ladders from the ground; 
the rooms in the first story are entered through trap-doors in the floors, and in 
the second through doors opening upon the terrace, and also through trap- 
doors through the floors which form the roof, These structures are typical of 
all the aboriginal houses in New Mexico. They show two principal features: 
first, the terraced form of architecture, common also in Mexico, with the 
house tops as the social gathering places of the inmates; and, second, a 
closed ground story for safety. Every house, therefore, is a fortress. Lieu- 
tenant Abert remarks upon one of the houses of this pueblo, of which he gives 
an elevation, that ‘the upper story is narrower than the one below, so that 
there is a platform or landing along the whole length of the building. To 
enter, you ascend to the platform by means of ladders that could easily be 
removed; and, as there is a parapet wall extending along the platform, these 
