1877.] The Ancient and Modern Pueblo Tribes. 597 
proficiency to which they attained in the manufacture of pottery, 
the shaping of instruments and utensils, and the building of stone 
houses. 
The original people inhabited a great extent of territory, cov- 
ering many thousands of square miles, and must, at one time, 
have been a powerful race. 
The ruins bear on their faces the impress of great antiquity, 
how old none can tell. Yet they were built long before those 
pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico, which are occupied by the 
present industrial tribes, and which were standing as they now. 
are at least three and a half centuries ago, when the Spanish 
expeditions visited them. That the same people who built the 
ruins erected these more recent habitations there can be no doubt. 
This can be satisfactorily proved by a comparison of the archi- 
tecture, implements, hieroglyphics, and other productions of la- 
bor, besides the characteristics of the people, their habits, man- 
ners, customs, religious ceremonials, etc., and we must therefore 
admit that they extend back, at the very lowest calculation, four 
hundred years, and in all probability much farther. 
The modern Moquis of Arizona and their allies, the Pueblos 
and Zuiiis of New Mexico, who dwell in towns situated to the 
east and southeast of the villages of the former, undoubtedly pos- 
sess a common ancestry, as inferred from their similar habits and 
the glimpses we obtain of their ancient history. It is believed, 
if it be not an established fact, that those ancient ruins which are 
so common in New Mexico originated among the prehistoric 
Zuiiis and Pueblos, just as those same remains which are found. 
in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona are supposed to have been built 
by the ancestors of the Moquis. Therefore it may reasonably 
be inferred, at least, that the three tribes originally descended 
from the same ancestral stock. It consequently matters little what 
we call the ancients, whether Mogquis, Zuañis, or Pueblos, although 
for convenience and on account of their architectural peculiarities, 
we may term them the ancient Pueblos, or town builders, 
All through the great extent of country, once inhabited by 
this people, we find stone implements of every degree of profi- 
ĉency of manufacture, from the rude pebble which has been 
Picked up from the river-bank and used as a hammer to the 
carefully fashioned and smoothly polished Neolithic tools which 
are examples of a highly perfected art. But the improvement 
“eases here. No vestiges of bronze or iron have yet been found. 
In many of the remaining walls of the ancient buildings, the 
