Indians of the Southwest / by Pliny Earle Goddard.

  • Pliny Earle Goddard
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Indians of the Southwest / by Pliny Earle Goddard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    economy of cooperative labor in building houses of such a sort that one roof and one set of outer walls served to shelter many families. Either as a cause or a result, we find a complicated religious system, with orders of priests, councils, and governors to control the people in their joint industries and in warfare, and a system of social grouping consisting of large divisions known as clans. Under such a physical environment, shaped by such social tendencies, there developed in the Southwest a civilization comparable to that of Mexico and Peru, into which in 1540 the Spaniards came, with a knowledge of metals and firearms, bringing with them horses, cattle, and sheep. Later came the Franciscan mission- aries who were intent on breaking down the religious beliefs and practices of native growth entwined into the daily life and social organization of the people and substituting Christianity. The fortunes of war transferred this territory to the United States in 1847. Notwithstanding this long period of contact with European peoples, customs, and religion, we still have in the Southwest many thousands of pure blood natives living in the same localities, in the same sort of houses, by the same means, thinking the same thoughts, and following the same religion they did when found by the Spaniards, and perhaps for many centuries before that time.