Each pueblo has a separate government of its own, consisting, first, of a cacique, or governor, chosen from amongst the men advanced in years -- the sages, in fact. The cacique holds office for life, he presides over the council, and is chosen for his wisdom. His decisions are usually adapted. Secondly, a war captain is selected from amongst the braves, who arranges all campaigns made against an enemy, and through his lieutenant (or master of the horse, as we should call him) has the management of the nahallada, or horse-herd. Thirdly, the fiscal-major and his assistants regulate church matters, repair the churches, &c. The old and experienced men collectively are the law-makers, and elect all officers except the cacique, who is chosen by universal suffrage. The people of the villages do not all speak the same tongue; and they resort to the Spanish language, which they acquire with tolerable facility, as a common medium of communication. The Pueblos form four groups, if classed according to dialects: --

1. Pueblo de Toas, de Picuries, Sandia and Isleta.

2. San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Nambe, Pojuaque, and Tezuque.

3. Cochite, San Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Silla (Zia) and Laguna, Acoma.

4. Jemes.

The people of Zuni speak a fifth dialect. Those of the Moqui pueblos speak the same as that of Jemes. The Spanish missionaries found little difficulty in teaching those natives to read and write; but since the decay of religious establishments throughout Northern Mexico education has been arrested, and now not a single school exists in any of the pueblos.

In religion they are, to outward appearance, devoted Roman Catholics; the few priests who still work amongst them are Frenchmen, and are much respected and beloved. The rites of baptism, marriage, and burial take place in the village church, and they keep the feast-day of their patron saint with great festivities.

The isolated pueblos, which lie at considerable distances from the main valley, are very different in appearance from those simpler one-storied villages which once dotted the banks of the Rio Grande del Norte in very considerable numbers. In these, the distinctive peculiarities of the native fortifications are very striking. Laguna, on the Rio de San Jose, is built on the summit of a limestone cliff, some forty feet high, possessing considerable natural advantages for defence. The houses are mostly of stone plastered over with mud, and two stories high. Neither windows nor doors are to be found on the outer wall of the first story; the second rises a little back from the roof of the first, leaving a ledge in front of it. Ladders are used to mount to this ledge; they are then drawn up, and the rooms are entered either by openings in the roof leading to the ground-floor, or by doors giving entrance from the ledge to the second suite of rooms; the latter alone are used for sleeping. Storerooms occupy the ground-floor.

In 1858 there was a Baptist minister at Laguna; and in one of his reports to the Indian department of the Secretary of the Interior he stated that the amount of real Christianity amongst the Indians is very small; they cling to the religion of their forefathers, and can only be induced to attend the service of the Roman Catholic Church by threats, promises, and even blows, whereas they perform their own religious duties with the utmost regularity. He also joined in the universal eulogium on the honesty and sobriety of the men, and the virtue of the women.

Next article   Next article
Back to main page

adapted from A. W. Bell
"On the Native Races of New Mexico"
1869 (Journal of the Ethnological Society of London)