r sense of form was patent
in their architecture, and their family life, government, and religion
were highly organized. They were worshippers of the sun. Each pueblo and
outlying village was a political unit.

Let us first consider those national monuments which touch intimately
the Spanish occupation.

GRAN QUIVIRA NATIONAL MONUMENT

Eighty miles southeast of Albuquerque, in the hollow of towering desert
ranges, lies the arid country which Indian tradition calls the Accursed
Lakes. Here, at the points of a large triangle, sprawl the ruins of
three once flourishing pueblo cities, Abo, Cuaray, and Tabira. Once,
says tradition, streams flowed into lakes inhabited by great fish, and
the valleys bloomed; it was an unfaithful wife who brought down the
curse of God.

When the Spaniards came these cities were at the flood-tide of
prosperity. Their combined population was large. Tabira was chosen as
the site of the mission whose priests should trudge the long desert
trails and minister to all.

Undoubtedly, it was one of the most important of the early Spanish
missions. The greater of the two churches was built of limestone, its
outer walls six feet thick. It was a hundred and forty feet long and
forty-eight feet wide. The present height of the walls is twenty-five
feet.

The ancient community building adjoining the church, the main pueblo of
Tabira, has the outlines which are common to the prehistoric pueblos of
the entire southwest and persist in general features in modern Indian
architecture. The rooms are twelve to fifteen feet square, with ceilings
eight or ten feet high. Doors connect the rooms, and the stories, of
which there are three, are connected by ladders through trapdoors. It
probably held a population of fifteen hundred. The pueblo has well stood
the rack of time; the lesser buildings outside it have been reduced to
mounds.

The people who built and inhabited these cities of the Accursed Lakes
were of the now extinct Piro stock. The towns were discovered in 1581 by
Francisco Banchez de Chamuscado. The first priest assigned to the field
was Fray Francisco de San Miguel, this in 1598. The mission of Tabira
was founded by Francisco de Acevedo about 1628. The smaller church was
built then; the great church was built in 1644, but was never fully
finished. Between 1670 and 1675 all three native cities and their
Spanish churches were wiped out by Apaches.

Charles F. Lummis, from whom some of these histori