9983 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
conquest. Although it may seem strange to the reader, it requires a knowl- 
edge of several classes of facts to comprehend this dinner, such as: 1. The 
organization in gentes, phratries, and tribes. 2. The ownership of lands in 
common. 3. The law of hospitality. 4. The practice of communism in 
living. 5. The communal character of their houses. 6. Their custom of 
having but one prepared meal each day, a dinner. 7 Their separation at 
meals, the men eating first, and the women and children afterwards. ‘These 
several topics have been considered in previous chapters. 
Not a vestige of the ancient pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan) remains 
to assist us to a knowledge of its architecture. Its structures, which were 
useless to a people of European habits, were speedily destroyed to make 
room for a city adapted to the wants of a civilized race. We must seek for 
its characteristics in contemporary Indian houses which still remain in ruins, 
and in such of the early descriptions as have come down to us, and then 
leave the subject with but little accurate knowledge. Its situation, partly 
on dry land and partly in the waters of a shallow artificial pond formed by 
causeways and dikes, led to the formation of streets and squares, which were 
unusual in Indian pueblos, and gave to ita remarkable appearance. “There 
were three sorts of broad and spacious streets,” Herrera remarks; ‘‘one sort 
all water with bridges, another all earth, and a third of earth and water, 
there being a space to walk along on land and the rest for canoes to pass, 
so that most of the streets had walks on the sides and water in the mid- 
dle.” Many of the houses were large, far beyond the supposable wants 
of a single Indian family. They were constructed of adobe brick and of 
stone, and plastered over in both cases with gypsum, which made them a 
brilliant white; and some were constructed of a red porous stone. In cut- 
ting and dressing this stone flint implements were used.’ The fact that the 
houses were plastered externally leads us to infer that they had not learned 
to dress stone and lay them in courses. It is not certainly established that 
they had learned the use of a mortar of lime and sand. In the final attack 
and capture, it is said that Cortes, in the course of seventeen days, de- 
stroyed and leveled three-quarters of the pueblo, which demonstrates the 
flimsy character of the masonry. Some of the houses were constructed on 
‘History of America, ii, 361, 2Clavigero, ii, 238. 
