THE PUEBLO DWELLERS. 71 
The material was then molded into balls and laid 
like stones in courses with mortar of similar material. 
This masonry work he tells us was performed by the 
women, but that the men did the carpenter work, 
preparing the timbers and putting them into place. 
The inner walls were plastered and sometimes painted, 
but he does not tell us what material was used. At the 
present time burned gypsum is employed as a white- 
wash, but this method has probably been adopted from 
the Mexicans who also make use of it. 
Acoma is built of rubble and clay. A village in the 
same situation as the present one_and probably the one 
described by several of Coronado’s party, was partly 
burned in 1599. The village was not destroyed during 
the rebellion a century later, and the walls now in use 
may be the same seen in 1540, repaired and in part 
rebuilt from time to time. 
While Zuni is built mostly of adobe, the cornices 
frequently have several courses of flat stones. 
The Hopi houses are built of stone poorly dressed 
and poorly laid as compared with the best prehistoric. 
masonry. Mindeleff, who published a splendid account 
of Pueblo architecture, observed women building a 
detached house with the help of one man who lifted 
the timbers into place. While the men are said to 
build the walls sometimes, the women are always ex- 
pected to do the plastering. The ceilings are made in 
the prehistoric fashion with beams, cross poles, brush, 
and clay spread over all and tramped down. The floors 
are sometimes flagged with large flat stones. The 
walls inside are generally whitened with gypsum and 
sometimes ornamented by leaving unwhitened bands 
above and below. The fireplaces situated in one corner 
of the room are provided with hoods which receive 
the smoke and communicate with chimneys which are 
