172 
Indians of the Stone Houses 
reservoirs, one fed by a tiny spring. The 
women, with beautifully decorated earthen 
jars poised gracefully on their heads, com¬ 
ing and going from the wells, make a pict¬ 
ure long living in the mind. 
The Acoma fields are far away at Acom- 
ita. There, during the summer, they dwell 
in tiny box-like adobe houses and till their 
small but well-kept farms, journeying back 
to their cliff-perched home for all cere¬ 
monial occasions. They are, as a people, 
and have been for generations, devout fol¬ 
lowers of the Catholic Church. This fact 
has not, however, in any way seriously 
affected their primitive religion or crowded 
out one of their pagan ceremonies. They 
are a positive argument that a people can 
be loyal followers of two religious creeds at 
one and the same time. 
In the valley of the Rio Grande we find 
many small villages. The buildings are 
usually one story in height, and, from their 
location in the valley, lack the picturesque 
features of Walpi and Acoma. Here, dif¬ 
fering from Hopiland, and like Zuni and 
Acoma, farming is by irrigation. Com¬ 
pared to the Hopi, it is princely. Com¬ 
pared to the white man’s farming, theirs 
is petty. Prehistoric irrigation by the 
dwellers in this region was probably of the 
simplest order—small ditches drawn from 
the stream, the water dipped in earthen jars 
and carried out to the crops. This form of 
irrigation necessarily meant that very lim¬ 
ited areas could be cultivated. Slight evi¬ 
dence is seen which would lead us to believe 
that Indians of prehistoric time used other 
system than this in irrigating their fields. 
In the valley of the Gila, even where the 
ditches were miles in length and carried a 
considerable volume of water, it is probable 
that the actual application of water was 
made by carrying it in jars rather than by 
flooding. To look at the cultivated portion 
of the Rio Grande valley from a slight 
elevation, it is a field of grain and other 
crops divided into squares of slightly dif¬ 
ferent shades of green, reminding one of 
a patchwork - quilt carried wholly in one 
color. Their principal crop is wheat. 
This they care for in the simplest way: 
when ripe, they harvest it with a hand 
sickle, and the gleaned crop is gathered 
at the threshing ground, which is simply a 
plot smoothed and enclosed with a rough 
fence. At the time of threshing, the 
horses belonging to the family are turned 
into the enclosure and driven around in a 
circle until the grain is threshed from the 
straw. Then with forks they separate the 
straw and chaff from the grain, sift it in a 
large box-sieve with a perforated bottom 
made of rawhide, and then, for the final 
cleaning, take it to the small streams or 
canals and wash it. In this washing the 
grain is taken in large coarse baskets, car¬ 
ried down to the water and stirred about in 
the basket, the chaff and lighter matter 
floating away with the current. The clean 
grain is then spread out on cloths to 
dry. This drying must be finished the 
day of washing, and to hurry it the grain 
is taken in baskets, held high in the air and 
let sift slowly to the ground. This is re¬ 
peated time after time until it is thor¬ 
oughly dried. For daily use, such as is 
wanted they grind on the hand mealing- 
stone or metate. 
Here, too, among these villages we see 
the church religion blended with the primi¬ 
tive one. Generation after generation of 
patient padres have worked and laid down 
their lives, many in their own red blood at 
the hands of those whose souls they thought 
to save. The Indian cannot yet see how 
or why his soul should be lost. To-day, 
when we talk to an old man of the village 
of religion he will tell us, with certainty, 
that he believes in the true God of the 
priests. “Yes, I know you believe in the 
true God, but the story of that God is all 
written in the big Book. I want to talk 
with you of your own God, Poseyamo, who 
lived once on earth and who went long ago 
to the South.” His face lights as if he, 
himself, was already entering the eternal 
paradise of his fathers. “Do you.know 
Poseyamo? Tell me about him, and tell 
me, will he soon come back to care for his 
children? The signal fire burns at the 
old shrine on the one night of each seven. 
It has burned thus many lifetimes to show 
him that we are faithful and that we wait. 
Tell him to come soon or I will not be here 
to see him.” And so it is; that which their 
forefathers accepted for policy’s sake they 
have grown, in a measure, to take for grant¬ 
ed, but cling to the old with but slightly 
shaken faith. They plant their crops as 
of old, by the star which governs each 
special growth. The Navajo plants his 
corn by the Pleiads, but the Pueblo farmer 
