Note Back to Main Text — Chapter I · ANCIENT AMERICA.

So far as they have been studied, the pueblo Indians are found to be organized in clans, with descent in the female line, as in the case of the ruder Indians above described. In the event of marriage the young husband goes to live with his wife, and she may turn him out of doors if he deserves it.[91] The ideas of property seem still limited to that of possessory right, Pueblo society. with the ultimate title in the clan, except that portable articles subject to individual ownership have become more numerous. In government the council of sachems reappears with a principal sachem, or cacique, called by the Spaniards "gobernador." There is an organized priesthood, with distinct orders, and a ceremonial more elaborate than those of the ruder Indians. In every pueblo there is to be found at least one "estufa," or council-house, for governmental or religious transactions. Usually there are two or three or more such estufas. In mythology, in what we may call pictography or rudimentary hieroglyphics, as well as in ordinary handicrafts, there is a marked advance beyond the Indians of the lower status of barbarism, after making due allowances for such things as the people of the pueblos have learned from white men.[92]