Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/178

 sheets, when cooked, are piled in layers and then folded or rolled. Light bread, which is made only at feast times, is baked in adobe ovens outside the house When not in use for this purpose the ovens make convenient kennels for the dogs and play-houses for the children. Neatness is not one of the characteristics of the Zuñians. In the late autumn and winter months the women do little else than make bread, often in fanciful shapes, for the feasts and dances which continually occur. A sweet drink, not at all intoxicating, is made from the sprouted wheat. The men use tobacco, procured from white traders, in the form of cigarettes from corn-husks; but this is a luxury in which the women do not indulge.

"The Pueblo mills are among the most interesting things about the town. These mills, which are fastened to the floor a few feet from the wall, are rectangular in shape, and divided into a number of compartments, each about twenty inches wide and deep, the whole series ranging from five to ten feet in length, according to the number of divisions. The walls are made of sandstone. In each compartment a flat grinding stone is firmly set, inclining at an angle of forty-five degrees These slabs are of different degrees of smoothness, graduated successively from coarse to fine. The squaws, who alone work at the mills, kneel before them and bend over them as a laundress does over the wash-tub, holding in their hands long stones of volcanic lava, which they rub up and down the slanting slabs, stopping at intervals to place the grain between the stones. As the grinding proceeds the grist is passed from one compartment to the next until, in passing through the series, it becomes of the desired fineness. This tedious and laborious method has been practiced without improvement from time immemorial, and in some of the arts the Zuñians have actually retrograded"

The living-rooms are about twelve by eighteen feet and about nine feet high, with plastered walls and an earthen floor, and usually a single window opening for light. To form a durable ceiling round timbers about six inches in diameter are placed three or four feet apart from the outer to the inner wall. Upon these, poles are placed transversely in juxtaposition. A deep covering of adobe mortar is placed upon them, forming the roof terrace in front, and the floor in the apartments above in the receding second story. Water-jars of their own manufacture, of fine workmanship, and holding several gallons, closely woven osier baskets of their own make,