Indians of the Stone Houses 
175 
plants by the corn star, or the wheat, or the 
star of the melons, on the day when the 
cacique gives out the word that the stars 
say that planting should be done. Only 
the cacique and one other man knows the 
potent day of each star, and he, the reader 
of the stars, is kept secret from the tribe. 
One may not read their movements and 
tell the secrets in any but matters of great 
tribal importance. 
Taos is, if anything, more conservative 
than the others, and is delightfully primi¬ 
tive, and the blood of its people excep¬ 
tionally pure. Tribal laws stand firm 
against intermarriage with blood not their 
own, and the same tribal laws forbid all 
white man’s garments. The youth can go 
to the village to our schools and learn the 
white man’s ways and cunning in order to 
be better fitted to cope with encroaching 
neighbors, but when he returns to take up 
tribal life he must leave outside the village 
gates his dressy school uniform and wrap 
himself in a blanket of the tribe. 
Taos is built where the mountain forests 
come down to meet the plains. A beau¬ 
tiful, and to them sacred, stream flows 
down through the forest’s cool shadows and 
passes through the heart of this village. At 
its forested bank, above the village, the 
women get the water for home use, and on 
its banks below are gathered groups of 
matrons and maidens washing the clothing 
of the family, for these are a cleanly peo¬ 
ple. The forest above the village is, in 
a measure, like the stream, a sacred one, 
and is jealously guarded by the men of 
the tribe, and in its great depths are held 
many of the old-time rites, rites never seen 
by any except members of the order or 
tribe. 
Spring, Summer, Autumn, or white- 
robed Winter, this wonderful old forest is 
a master creation, and the like can be seen 
nowhere else. You, who say there is noth¬ 
ing old in our country, turn your eyes for 
one year from Europe and go to the land of 
an ancient yet primitive civilization. The 
trails are rarely travelled, and you will go 
again. 
— 
MB .* *t' : ' 
..ppppp teatfMHte) 
: A.AA A'..::" AT Yva A 
■ ■.-.br*' '■ 
7 A''-as a 
i:."i 
1 
mBFjY ‘ , AIa ll '■ " £ A V A , Igt V Ah, aV' 
: a % ■ 
bfl ** / s, 4. ' ** * - f ^ ^ f ' % 
I ■■■ ■■ 'm \ A : . ... A . : .■ b -A .: ... ; 
■ . , .v . ■ ■ -A"'- 
. 
■ .. ':i. . ;; A' A.'.w ' 7 I . 
: , ■' , 7 A.'...■ : ■ ' 
; A;' : ■ ■ ... .... ' ' ■ ■ ■ ■ . ■ .- . A- ■. .. 
.. am*---.. • ■■ -*r?~v a^a 
i 
M fiA A 1 i 
A"; 
ifMR 
■■■■ 
A ' 1 
1 ■ I 11 n'lb 
. 
Wi ft « 7 Wi i il K li I 
From a photograph, copyright iQOj, by E. S. Curtis. 
When evening comes cn. 
