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Show HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 21 mented on the exterior with carved posts, some of which are composed of successive blocks, one upon another. The carvings were the totems or gentile emblems of the ancestry of the householder. In the pueblos of the southwest, architecture in materials of stone found its highest development among the Indians of the United States. So far as we know at present, these houses are communal or gentile dwellings. Usually a group of dwellings, slightly detached or otherwise separated in architecture, constituted the tribal village. In studying these pueblos the gentile divisions and the household divisions into compartments should be carefully described and their names given. At the same time the architectural parts should be described and their names given. In schedule No. 4 many of these items are called for. The Indians also construct council houses and sudatories, i. e., sweat-houses; sometimes, perhaps, the same structure was used for both purposes ; but this is not very probable. In the pueblos the council houses are underground chambers. The women construct menstrual lodges; these . are rude shelters apart from the others. They should be described and their names recorded. The Hon. Lewis H. Morgan, of Rochester, in a statement to the Archaeological Institute of America, enumerates the following items as subjects of investigation among the pueblos of the United States: . 1. To make a careful exploration of the structures in ruins, taking ground plans of them, with elevations and details of the more important structures, and with exact measurements. 2. To procure and bring away specimens of the stones used in these structures; to determine the extent and character of the dressing- i. e., to find whether the stones were dressed, or prepared by fracture simply; whether the angle formed upon the stones is a right angle, and whether the upper and lower sides are parallel. 3. To take apart the masonry to find how it was laid up, and the degree of skill displayed in it. 4. To find how far below the ground surface the walls are laid, and how truly they are vertical 5. To bring away specimens of the mortar for analysis. |
