$ 
1877.] Concerning Two Divisions of Indians. TƏT 
stone, be supported on a swamp, and how could they transport 
such large masses from the distance they had to be brought, 
without draught animals, — for they had no horses until the 
Europeans entered the country. Engineers have decided, after 
careful examinations of the foundation of the ancient city of Mex- 
ico, that buildings of the size spoken of by the Spaniards could 
never have been supported upon a marsh, as the foundations of the 
ancient city prove to have been; besides, if they did exist, some 
fragments would be found, as they could not be so entirely obliter- 
ated that not even a vestige would be left unless the pieces of 
sculpture and the calendar stone, which have been dug up in the 
city, may be considered to have belonged to the ancient city of 
Mexico. They may have been the ornaments of a Toltec building, 
brought by the Spaniards from some of the large Toltec towns with 
a view of sending them to Spain to give color to their reports, 
but owing to the difficulty of their transportation to the sea-coast 
at that day were left to be cast away, and resurrected years after 
as Aztec remains. Now, taking this view of the subject, we are 
led to the conclusion that the ancient city of Mexico was a collec- 
tion of small one or two story houses made of adobe or sun-dried 
bricks, or in some cases possibly built of upright poles with sticks 
braced between and mud plastered over them. This kind of a 
house is frequently met with at this day, for round poles, sticks, 
and straw are used with a covering of clay for a roof. The peo- 
ple were not to be despised for living in these kinds of dwellings ; 
their neighborhood afforded no other building materials, and 
their descendants of to-day live in houses made of like materials. 
Indeed, what else could the Apache, Mojave, Yuma, and Coco- 
pah Indians use so easily and quickly as earth and poles, sticks 
_ and straw? Houses built of these materials answered all their 
wants. 
The second division of Indians, those that buried their dead, 
were the Toltecs, neighbors to the Aztecs or cremationists. The 
dwellings of the former were superior to the latter, being con- 
_ founded with and called Aztec. The Spanish conquerors re- 
_ ported these habitations as magnificent, in order to magnify their 
conquests. As superior as were the buildings of the Toltecs over 
those of the Aztecs, yet they were not of the grandeur reported 
~ by Spanish historians. Considering the Pimo Indians of Arizona, 
_ Moqui, Zuni, and the Rio Grande Indians of New Mexico, to be 
of the Toltec division, with the exception of the Pimos they live 
VOL. XI.— NO. 12. 47 
