  A long time ago, before the white people came to live here, the cochiti Indians used to live in houses made by hollowing deep holes into the north side of the deep caÑons. They built their houses to face the south, because it was warmer in winter when the fierce north wind came over the mountains to see what damage he could do. Instead of finding houses to go into, he could only blow against the mountains. The little boys used to climb down the sides of the cliffs from their homes, and play in the warm sunshine with their tame foxes and make them jump for dried meat. Sometimes they took their bows and arrows and went out to hunt wild turkeys in the arroyos, or deep gullies around their homes. At night the foxes found a warm place in some house that had been deserted, perhaps because the opening had grown too large and the sand had drifted in, or perhaps because it was not sheltered enough from the snow in winter. The boys would climb to their own houses. SOMETIMES THEY WENT OUT TO HUNT WILD TURKEYS. SOMETIMES THEY WENT OUT TO HUNT WILD TURKEYS. In those days, the men and boys had to watch from high places to warn the people of the approach of any of their enemies, because the navajo and apache Indians troubled the pueblo Indians a great deal in olden times. As long as the watchers could see no enemy, the women used to carry water from the river—which was quite far away—gather wood and till little patches of ground, but as soon as the enemy came down upon them, they looked for water in wells dug into the rock to hold the rain when it fell. This water was always saved for cases of this kind. |
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