Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 24

"The House of the Nuns," says Mr. Stephens, "is quadrangular, with a court yard in the center. It stands on the highest of three terraces.

The lowest is three feet high and twenty feet wide; the second, twelve feet high and forty-five feet wide; and the third, four feet high and five feet wide, extending the whole length of the front of the building. The front [building] is two hundred and seventy-nine feet long, and above the cornice, from one end to the other, is ornamented with sculpture. In the centre is a gateway ten feet eight inches wide, spanned by the triangular arch, and leading to the courtyard. On each side of this gateway are four doorways with wooden lintels opening to apartments averaging twenty four feet long, ten feet wide, seventeen feet high to the top of the arch, but having no connection with each other. The building that forms the right or eastern side of the quadrangle measures one hundred and fifty-eight feet long; that on the left is one hundred and seventy-three feet long, and the range opposite, or at the end of the quadrangle measures two hundred and sixty-four feet. These three ranges have no doorways outside but the exterior of each is a dead wall, and above the cornice all are ornamented with the same rich and elaborate sculptures." [Footnote: Incidents of travel in Yucatan, i, 299.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 53.--Ground plan of the House of the Nuns.]

Altogether, these four structures contain seventy-six apartments, which vary in size from twenty to thirty feet long, and from ten to twelve feet wide. There are twenty single apartments, and twenty five pairs of apartments, half of which, as in the Governor's House, are dark, except as they are lighted from the doorways connecting with the rooms in front. In the fifth structure, not described, there are six pairs of similar apartments. In the building on the right there are six rooms connecting with each other, one of which, the frost room, is shown in Fig. 54. This number of connecting rooms is so unusual in Yucatan architecture as to attract attention. Each of the four edifices would accommodate from six hundred to one thousand persons, after the fas.h.i.+on of Village Indians.

In this view of the interior of a room in the House of the Nuns, Fig.

54, which was taken from Stephens' work, is shown the form of the triangular ceiling common in all the edifices in Yucatan and Chiapas.

It is a triangular arch above the line of the exterior cornice, without a keystone, and with the faces of the stones beveled, and forming a perfect vault over each apartment. But it has this peculiarity, that a s.p.a.ce a foot or more wide in the center is carried up vertically about two feet, and covered with a cap of stone, so that the side walls which form the vaulted ceiling do not come together so as to rest against each other. The mechanical principle is the same as in the New Mexican arch, but is here applied in a more extended and more difficult scale. It is the most remarkable feature in this architecture, mechanically considered. When we come to know that this vaulted ceiling was constructed over a core of solid masonry within the chamber, afterwards removed--which was the fact--it will be seen that these Indian masons and architects were still feeling their way experimentally to a scientific knowledge of the art of arts. A projecting cornice or median entablature is seen above the doorway on the exterior face of the wall, which balances somewhat the interior inward projection of the ceiling as it rises, and, since the wall is carried up flush with the cornice, the down-weight of the super-inc.u.mbent ma.s.s sustained the masonry. The room shown is thirty-three feet long, thirteen wide, and twenty-three feet high to the cap-stone, and the room communicating with it is of the same width, and nine feet long. The apartments back of these are of corresponding size. [Footnote: Incidents of Travel, etc., i, 308.]

There were originally lintels of hard sapote wood over the doorways, upon the decay of which a portion of the masonry has fallen. Those over the doorways through the part.i.tion walls are found in place.

The proof of the comparatively modern date of these structures is conclusive from these facts alone.

It will be observed that there are six single apartments in the building on the right of the "House of Nuns" which have no connection with the remaining rooms of the building, and that the others are in pairs, a back room connecting with the one in front, and neither with any others. It seems to show very plainly, in the plan of the house itself, that it was designed to be occupied by distinct groups composed of related families, each group a large household by itself. If the communal principle in living existed in fact among them, its expression in the interior arrangement of the house, and in this form, might have been expected. This striking and significant feature runs through all the structures, in these areas, of which ground-plans have been obtained.

The triangular ceiling, in effect is an attempt to extend the lintel in sections across the vault of a chamber in the place of joists, and, so far as the writer is aware, the only attempt ever made by any barbarous people to form a ceiling of stone over ordinary residence rooms. In a wall and ceiling formed in this manner, and carried up several feet above the apex of the triangular arch, there would be no lateral thrust outward of the masonry.

It should be stated that there are neither fire-place, chimneys, nor windows in any of these houses; neither have any been found, so far as the writer is aware, in any ancient structure in Yucatan or Central America. Fires were not needed for warmth; but since they were for cooking, it shows very plainly that no cooking was done within these houses. A presumption at once arises that their inmates prepared their food in the open court, or on the middle terrace, by household groups, making a common stock of their provisions, and dividing from the earthen cauldron, like the Iroquois. The communistic character of these houses is shown by their great size, and by the separation of the rooms, generally in pairs, having no connection with the remainder of the house. Each pair of rooms would accommodate several married pairs with their children; and so would each single apartment, according to the mode of life of the Village Indians. Moreover, communism in living appears to have been a law of man's condition both in the Lower and in the Middle Status of barbarism. Among the Iroquois, one regular meal each day was all their mode of life permitted; hunger being allayed by hominy kept constantly prepared, or such other food as their domestic resources allowed. It is not probable that the Aborigines of Yucatan were able to superadd either a regular breakfast or a supper. These belong to the more highly developed house-keeping of the monogamian family in civilization.

Another custom, usual in the Lower Status of barbarism, seems to have been continued in the Middle Status; namely, of the men eating first and by themselves, and the women and children afterwards.

Without a knowledge of tables or of chairs, the dinner was of necessity a solitary affair between the person and his earthen bowl or platter. The time, however, for the dinner was the same to all the men, and afterwards to the women and children. Herrera, in his summary of the habits of the people of Yucatan, drops the remark incidentally, that at their festivals the women "did eat apart from the men." This is precisely what would have been expected had nothing been said on the subject. [Footnote: History of America, iv, 175.]

There are some proofs bearing directly upon the question of the ancient practice of communism in these Uxmal houses. They are found in the present usages of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, the descendants of the builders of these houses, which they may reasonably be supposed to have derived from their ancestors. At Nohcacab, a short distance east of the ruins of Uxmal, there was a settlement of Maya Indians, whose communism in living was accidentally discovered by Mr. Stephens, when among them to employ laborers. He remarks as follows: "Their community consists of a hundred labradores or working men; their lands are held in common, and the products are shared by all. Their food is prepared at one hut, and every family sends for its portion; which explains a singular spectacle we had seen on our arrival [in 1841], a procession of women and children, each carrying an earthen bowl containing a quant.i.ty of smoking hot broth, all coming down the same road, and dispersing among different huts.... From our ignorance of the language, and the number of other and more pressing matters claiming our attention, we could not learn all the details of their internal economy but it seemed to approximate that improved state of a.s.sociation which is sometimes heard of among us; and as thus has existed for an unknown length of time, and can no longer be considered experimental, Owen and Fourier might perhaps take lessons from them with advantage.... I never before regretted so much my ignorance of the Maya language." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel, etc., ii, 14.]

A hundred working men indicate a total of five hundred persons who were then depending for their daily food upon a single fire, and a single cooking-house, the provisions being supplied from common stores, and divided from the kettle. It is not unlikely a truthful picture of the mode of life in the House of the Nuns, and in the Governor's House at the period of European discovery. Each group practising communism, for convenience and for economy, may have included all the inmates of a single house, or its occupants may have subdivided into lesser groups; but the presumption is in favor of the larger. Evidence has elsewhere been adduced of the existence of the organization into gentes among the Mayas, with descent in the male line, from which it may be inferred that the occupation of these houses was on the basis of gentile kins.h.i.+p among the families in each, the fathers and their children belonging to the same gens, and the wives and mothers to other gentes. All the facts seem to indicate that communism in living was practiced among the Village Indians in general upon a scale then unknown in other parts of the world, because they alone represented the culture and mode of life of the Middle Status of barbarism. The dinner of Montezuma, before considered, is an ill.u.s.tration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 55.--Ground Plan of Zayi.]

Near Uxmal are the interesting ruins of Zayi, which present a new feature in Yucatan house architecture. Upon a low eminence are three independent structures, the second within and above the first or lowest, and the third within and above the second, presenting the appearance, in the distance, of a single quadrangular edifice in three receding stories. But each stands on a separate terrace, and is built against the one within, which rises above it, except the inner one, a single edifice occupying the summit. The outer quadrangle stands on the lowest terrace. The measurements of the several buildings are indicated on the plan. Together they contain eighty-seven apartments, a.s.suming the parts in ruins to have corresponded with the parts preserved. The rooms, as usual, are either single or in pairs. An external staircase upon the front and rear sides interrupts the buildings on these sides from the lower terrace to the upper. The dots in the apertures indicate columns, which are found in this and several other structures. In case of attack, the outer quadrangle was not defensible; but its inhabitants could retire to the second terrace above, and defend their fortress at the head of the staircases, which were the only avenues of approach except by scaling the outer quadrangle, a very improbable undertaking.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 56.--Cross-section through one apartment.]

Attention has been called to this pueblo, which would accommodate two thousand or more persons, for a special reason. It seems to furnish conclusive proof of the manner in which these great edifices were erected in order to construct the peculiar triangular stone ceiling, which is the striking characteristic of this architecture.

To understand the problem, the annexed cross-section of a single room will afford some aid by showing the relations of the walls to the chamber and its ceiling. The chamber, with its vaulted ceiling, was constructed over a solid core of masonry, laid simultaneously with the walls, which was removed after the latter had seasoned and settled. It tends to show that with small stones of the size used, about a foot long and six inches thick, the triangular ceiling as it projected toward the center in rising, required the interior support of a core to insure the possibility of construction by their methods.

Once put together over such a core and carried up several feet above the top of the arch, the down weight of the superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s would articulate and hold the masonry together. It shows further that the essential feature of the arch is wanting in this contrivance.

The proof of this a.s.sertion is found in the actual presence of the unremoved core in one of these edifices in all of its apartments.

Mr. Stephens found every room of the back building on the second terrace filled with masonry from bottom to top, left precisely as it was when the building was finished. He remarks that "the north half of the second range has a curious and unaccountable feature. It is called the Casa Cerrada, or 'closed house,' having ten doorways, all of which are blocked up on the inside with stone and mortar.... In front of several were piles of stones which they [his workmen] had worked out from the doorways, and under the lintels were holes through which we were able to crawl inside; and here we found ourselves in apartments finished with walls and ceilings like all the others, but filled up, except so far as they had been emptied by the Indians, with solid ma.s.ses of mortar and stone. There were ten of these apartments in all, two hundred and twenty feet long and ten feet deep, which thus being filled up made the whole building a solid ma.s.s; and the strangest feature was that the filling up of the apartments must have been simultaneous with the erection of the buildings; for, as the filling in rose above the tops of the doorways, the men who performed it never could have entered to their work through the doors. It must have been done as the walls were built, and the ceiling must have closed over a solid ma.s.s." [Incidents of Travel, etc., ii, 22.]

It does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Stephens that the masonry within each room was a core, without which a vaulted chamber in this form could not have been constructed with their knowledge of the art of building. It shows the rudeness of their mechanical resources as well as the real condition of the art among them, but at the same time increases our appreciation of their originality, ingenuity, and industry. They were working their way upward experimentally in architecture, as all other peoples have done, having richly earned the right to point with pride to these structures as extraordinary memorials of the progress they had made.

An important conclusion follows, namely, that this "closed house"

was the last, in the order of time, erected in this pueblo, and had not been emptied of its core and brought into use when the Spanish irruption forced the people to abandon this pueblo. It would fix the period of its construction at or after A. D. 1520, thus settling the question of its modern date and removing one of the delusions concerning the antiquity of the ruins in Yucatan and Central America.

This structure is as much decayed as any other in Yucatan. There are many other structures even better preserved than this.

A brief reference to Palenque will conclude this notice, but without dealing with the facts as fully as they deserve. There are four or five pyramidal elevations at this pueblo quite similar in plan and general situation with those at Uxmal. One is much the largest, and the structures upon it are called the "Palace." It has generally been regarded as the paragon of American Indian architecture. As a palace implies a potentate for its occupation, a character who never existed and could not exist under their inst.i.tutions, it has been a means of self-deception with respect to the condition of the Aborigines which ought to be permanently discarded. Several distinct buildings are here grouped upon one elevated terrace, and are more or less connected. Altogether they are two hundred and twenty-eight feet long, front and rear, and one hundred and eighty feet deep, occupying not only the four sides of a quadrangle, but the greater part of what originally was, in all probability, an open court. The use of the interior court for additional structures shows a decadence of architecture and of ethnic life in the people, because it implies an unwillingness to raise a new pyramidal site to gain accommodations for an increased number of people. Thus to appropriate the original court so essential for light and air as well as room, and which is such a striking feature in the general plan of the architecture of the Village Indians, was a departure from the principles of this architecture. Nearly all the edifices in Yucatan and Central America agree in one particular, namely, in being constructed with three parallel walls with part.i.tion walls at intervals, giving two rows of apartments under one roof, usually, if not invariably, flat. Where several are grouped together on the same platform, as at Palenque, they are severally under independent roofs, and the s.p.a.ces between, called courts, are simply open lanes or pa.s.sageways between the structures. An inspection of the ground plan of the Palenque ruins in the folio volume of Dupaix, or in the work of Mr. Stephens, will be apt to mislead unless this feature of the architecture is kept in mind. There are in reality seven or eight distinct edifices crowded together upon the summit level of the platform. Mr. Stephens speaks of it as one structure. "The building,"

he remarks, "was constructed of stone, and the whole front was covered with stucco and painted.... The doorways have no doors, nor are there the remains of any.... The tops of the doorways were all broken. They had evidently been square, and over every one were large niches in the wall on each side, in which the lintels had been laid. These lintels had all fallen, and the stones above formed broken natural arches." [Footnote: Central America, &c., ii, 310-312.]

The interior walls in two rooms shown by engravings were plastered over. Architecturally, Palenque is inferior to the House of the Nuns; but it is more ornamental. It also has one peculiar feature not generally found in the Yucatan structures, namely, a corridor about nine feet wide, supposed to have run around the greater part of the exterior on the four sides. The exterior walls of these corridors rest on a series of piers, and the central or next parallel wall is unbroken, except by one doorway on each of three sides and two in the fourth, thus forming a narrow promenade. One of the interior buildings consists of two such corridors, but wider, on opposite sides of a central longitudinal wall. All the rooms in the several edifices are large. In one of the open s.p.a.ces is a tower about thirty feet square, rising three stories. The Palenque structures are quite remarkable, standing upon an artificial eminence about forty feet high, and large enough to accommodate three thousand people living in the fas.h.i.+on of Village Indians.

The plan of these houses, as well as of those in Yucatan, seems to show that they were designed to be occupied by groups of persons composed of a number of families, whose private boundaries were fixed by solid part.i.tion walls. They are exactly adapted to this mode of occupation, and this special adaptation, so plainly impressed upon all this architecture, leads irresistibly to the conclusion that they were occupied on the communal principle, and were, consequently, neither more nor less than joint-tenement houses, of a model which may be called, distinctively, that of the American aborigines. None of these edifices are as large as those on the Rio Chaco, nor does either of them possess equal accommodations with the Pueblo Bonito, which possessed six hundred and forty rooms.

[Footnote: Lieutenant Simpson's Report, Senate Ex. Doc., 1st Sess., 31st Congress, 1850, p. 81.]

But in this warm climate, and with the raised terraces used as gathering places, more persons could manage to live in equal s.p.a.ces.

Each structure, or group of structures, thus elevated, was a fortress.

They prove the insecurity in which the people lived; for the labor involved in constructing these platform elevations, in part, at least, artificial, would never have been undertaken without a powerful motive. One of the chief blessings of civilization is the security which a higher organization of society gives to the people, under the protection of which they are able as cultivators to occupy broad areas of land. In the Middle Status of barbarism they were compelled to live generally in villages, which were fortified in various ways; and each village, we must suppose, was an independent, self-governing community, except as several kindred in descent, and speaking the same dialect or dialects of the same language, confederated for mutual protection. An impression has been propagated that Palenque and other pueblos in these regions were surrounded by dense populations living in cheaply constructed tenements. Having a.s.signed the structures found, and which undoubtedly were all that ever existed, to Indian kings or potentates, the question might well be asked, if such palaces were provided for the rulers of the land, what has become of the residences of the people? Mr. Stephens has given direct countenance to this preposterous suggestion. [Footnote: Central America, &c., ii, 235.]

In his valuable works he has shown a disposition to feed the flames of fancy with respect to these ruins. After describing the "palace,"

so called, at Palenque, and remarking that "the whole extent of ground covered by those [ruins] as yet known, as appears by the plan, is not larger than our Park or Battery" [in New York], he proceeds: "It is proper to add, however, that considering the s.p.a.ce now occupied by the ruins as the site of palaces, temples, and public buildings, and supposing the houses of the inhabitants to have been, like those of the Egyptians and the present race of Indians, of frail and perishable materials as at Memphis and Thebes, to have disappeared altogether, the city may have covered an immense extent." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel, Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, ii, p. 355 ff.] This is a clear case of suggestio falsi by Mr. Stephens, who is usually so careful and reliable and, even here, so guarded in his language. He had fallen into the mistake of regarding these remains as a city in ruins, instead of a small Indian pueblo in ruins. But he had furnished a general ground plan of all the ruins found of the Palenque pueblo, which made it plain that four or five structures upon pyramidal platforms at some distance from each other, with the whole s.p.a.ce over which they were scattered about equal to the Battery, made a poor show for a city. The most credulous reader would readily perceive that it was a misnomer to call them the ruins of a city; wherefore the suggestions of Mr. Stephens, that "considering the s.p.a.ce now occupied by the ruins as the site of palaces, temples, and public buildings, and supposing the houses of the inhabitants made ... of frail and perishable materials to have disappeared ... the city may have covered an immense extent." That Mr. Stephens himself considered or supposed either to be true may have been the case, but it seems hardly supposable, and in either event he is responsible for the false coloring thus put upon those ruins, and the deceptive inferences drawn from them.

These structures are highly creditable to the intelligence of their builders, and can be made to reveal the manner of their use and the actual progress they had made in the arts of life; but they never can be rationally explained while such wild views are entertained concerning them. Until the actual character and signification of these ruins are made known, such opinions may be expected to prevail concerning them. They spring from the a.s.sumed existence of a state of society far enough advanced to develop potentates and privileged cla.s.ses, with power to enforce labor from the people for personal objects. There is no evidence whatever in support of such an a.s.sumption. It is quite probable that small numbers belonging to every pueblo lived a portion of the year in the forests in temporary habitations, engaged in cultivation, or in hunting and fis.h.i.+ng; but enough is known from the brief accounts of the early explorers to show us that the body of the inhabitants of Yucatan and Central America were gathered in pueblos or villages. Moreover, they were animated by the same spirit as the Cibolans in what related to personal independence. Rather than live in subjection to Spanish taskmasters, the very Indians who erected these houses with so much labor, as Coronado states of the Cibolans, "Set in order all their goods and substance, their women and children, and fled to the hills, leaving their towns, as it were, abandoned," [Footnote: Herrera, History of America, iii, 346, cf. 348.] preferring a return to a lower stage of barbarism rather than a loss of personal freedom. In 1524 Cortex sent an officer "to reduce the people of Chiapas, who had revolted, which that commander effectually performed, for, when they could resist no longer, these desperate wretches cast themselves with their wives and children headlong from precipices, so that not above two thousand of them remained, whose offspring inhabit that province at this time." The inhabitants of Palenque may have been included in this description. [Footnote: ib., iv, 169.]

The profiles of the Palenque Indians, copied by Stephens from representations in plaster in different parts of the several structures, show that they were flat-heads, like the Chinook Indians of the Columbia River; their foreheads having been flattened by artificial compression. Herrera, speaking generally of the inhabitants of Yucatan, remarks, "that they flattened their heads and foreheads." [Footnote: ib., iv, 169.] Whether it was a general practice does not appear, aside from the Palenque monuments, and the off-hand statement of Herrera.

Another important question still remains, namely, whether or not the Indians of Yucatan and Central America had reached the first stage of scientific architecture, the use of the post and lintel of stone as a principle of construction in stone masonry. The Egyptians used the post and lintel, whence their architecture has been characterized as the horizontal. The Greeks did not get beyond this, although they brought in the three orders of architecture. The round and the pointed arch, used as principles of construction, with all they gave to architecture, were beyond even the Greeks. Speaking of the Governor's House, Mr. Stephens remarks, that "the doors are all gone, and the wooden lintels over them have fallen." [Footnote: Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, i, 175.]

"In some of the inner apartments, the lintels were still in place over the doorways, and some were lying on the floor, sound and solid, which latter condition was no doubt owing to their being more sheltered than those over the outer doorway." [Footnote: ib., p. 178.]

The same is true of the House of the Nuns, and of a number of other structures figured and described in Mr. Stephens' works. But lintels of stone are found in some houses. Thus, of one of the buildings at Kabah, he says: "The lintels over the doors are of stone." [Footnote: ib., i, 398.]

In this case there was a stone column in the middle of the doorway, and the lintel was in two sections. Norman, speaking of the ruins at Chichen Itza, remarks that the "doorways are nearly a square of about seven feet, somewhat resembling the Egyptian; the sides of which are formed of large blocks of hewn stone. In some instances the lintels are of the same material." [Footnote: Rambles in Yucatan, p. 128.]

They used sapote wood usually for lintels, a wood remarkable for its solidity and durability. It may safely be said that the lintel of wood was the rule in Yucatan, and not the exception. While they understood the use of the stone lintel, which alone was capable of affording a durable structure, its common and ordinary use was beyond their ability. The use of stone of the size required, overmatched their ability in stone masonry, as a rule. It cannot, therefore, be said that the post and lintel of stone became a principle of construction in their architecture. As the Mayas, who constructed these edifices, were in the Middle Status of barbarism, it was not to have been expected that their architecture would reach the scientific stage.

American aboriginal history and ethnology have been perverted, and even caricatured in various ways, and, among others, by a false terminology, which of itself is able to vitiate the truth. When we have learned to subst.i.tute Indian confederacy for Indian kingdom; Teuchtli, or head war-chief, sachem, and chief, for king, prince, and lord; Indian villages in the place of "great cities"; communal houses for "palaces," and democratic for monarchic inst.i.tutions; together with a number of similar subst.i.tutions of appropriate for deceptive and improper terms, the Indian of the past and present will be presented understandingly, and placed in his true position in the scale of human advancement. While the Aryan family has lost neatly all traces of its experiences anterior to the closing period of barbarism, the Indian family, in its different branches, offered for our investigation not only the state of savagery, but also that of both the opening and of the middle period of barbarism in full and ample development. The American aborigines had enjoyed a continuous and undisturbed progress upon a great continent, through two ethnical periods, and the latter part of a previous period, on a remarkable scale. If the opportunity had been wisely improved, a rational knowledge of the experience of our own ancestors, while in the same status, might have been gained through a study of these progressive conditions. Beside this, before a science of ethnology applied to the American aborigines can come into existence, the misconceptions, and erroneous interpretations which now enc.u.mber the original memorials must be removed. Unless this can in some way be effectually accomplished, this science can never be established among us.

Our ethnography was initiated for us by European investigators, and corrupted in its foundation from a misconception of the facts. The few Americans who have taken up the subject have generally followed in the same track, and intensified the original errors of interpretation until romance has swept the field. Whether it is possible to commence anew, and retrieve what has been lost, I cannot pretend to determine. It is worth the effort.

Finally, with respect to the condition and structures of the Village Indians of Yucatan and Central America, the following conclusions maybe stated as reasonable from the facts presented:

[Transcriber's Note: Lengthy footnote relocated to chapter end.]

First: That the Family among them was too weak an organization to face alone the struggle of life, and therefore sheltered itself in large households, composed probably of related families.

Second: That they were probably organized in gentes, and, as a consequence, were broken up into independent tribes, with confederacies here and there for mutual protection; and that their inst.i.tutions were essentially democratic.

Third: That from the plan and interior arrangement of these houses the practice of communism in living in households may be inferred.

Fourth: That the people were Village Indians in the Middle Status of barbarism; living in a single joint-tenement house or in several such houses grouped together, and forming one pueblo.

Fifth: That hospitality and communism in living were laws of their condition, which found expression in the form of the houses, which were adapted to communism in living in large households.

Sixth: That all there ever was of Uxmal, Palenque, Copan, and other pueblos in these areas, building for building, and stone for stone, are there now in ruins.

Seventh: That nothing herein stated is inconsistent with the supposition that some of these structures were devoted to religious uses.

Finally: That a common principle runs through all this architecture, from the Columbia River and the Saint Lawrence, to the Isthmus of Panama, namely, that of adaptation to communism in living.