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Newspaper Page Text
15HBSWW- '"ffNjIMfl" 300 THE INDIAN ADVOCATE Indian Architecture The simple constructions of the tribes N. of Mexico, al though almost exclusively practical in their purpose, serve to illustrate many of-the initial steps in the evolution of architecture; they are hence worthy of careful consider ation by the student of culture history. Various branches of the building arts are treated saparetly under appropriate heads (see Adobe, Cliff-dwellings, Earth-lodge, Fortifications, Pueblos, Tipis, ) but as these topics are there considered main ly in their ethnologic aspects, they will here be brifly trea ted as products of environment and as illustrations of the manner in which beginnings are made and the higher arch itectural forms are evolved. The kind and character of the buildings in a given district or region depend on a number of conditions, namely: (a) The capacity, habits, and char acteristics of the people; (b) the cultural and especially the social status of the particular peoples; (c) the influence of neighboring cultures; (d) the physiography of the district occupied; (e) the resources, animal, vegetal, and mineral, and especially the building materials available within the area; (f ) climate. These in the main are the determining factors in the art development of all peoples in all times, and may be referred to somewhat at length. (1) In these studies it is necessary that the man himself and especially his mental capacities and characteristics should be considered as essential elements of the environ ment, since he is not only the product, as is his culture, of present and past enviroments, but is the primary dynamic factor in all culture development. (2) The culture status of the people the particular stage of their religious, social, technical, and esthetic develop mentgoes far toward determining the character of their buildings. The manner in which social status determines the character of habitations is dwelt on by Morgan (Cont. N. A. Ethnol., IV. 1881), to the apparent exclusion of other criteria. Within the area N. of Mexico the various phases