All the villages are characterized by a certain industrial monopoly.  In one of them, for instance, the pottery for all the Pueblos is manufactured; in others, like the Moqui villages, all the people are employed in the making of finely woven goats’ hair blankets, in which occupation many are great experts.  Although a large number are engaged in the sale of blankets and Indian goods in the southwestern part of the Union, in the gold diggings of California, in Mormon settlements, in the small railroad stations of Arizona, the average Pueblo Indian prefers a settled life.  He is domestic in his habits, and loves his family, his cattle, his farm and his neighbors as dearly as does his pale-faced brothers.  And has he not good cause to rejoice and be contented with his lot?  Has he not a faithful and charming wife?  There are some pretty girls of perfect contour among the Pueblo Indians, especially in the Tigua villages.  Are not his gleeful children, who are enjoying a romp on the huge sand hills, obedient and reverential in his presence?  The impudent spirit of young America has not yet exerted its baneful influence here.

How scrupulously clean are the households!  The good housewives of the Netherlands do not excel the Pueblo squaws in cleanliness.  Floors are always carefully swept; all along the walls of the spacious rooms seats and couches are covered with finely variegated rugs; the walls are tastefully decorated with pictures and mirrors, and the large cupboards are filled with luxurious fruits, meats, pastry and jellies.  Thousands of white bread-winners in the large cities would envy these Indians if they could behold their comparative affluence and their obviously contented state.  Nor do they obtain all this without fatiguing toil.  The land is barren and dry, which compels them to induce irrigation through long canals from far away streams, and the men are never afraid of work.

The Pueblo pottery of to-day differs but little from that of the Sixteenth Century.  In the pottery villages the work is done mostly by men, who sit on the broad, shaded platform and shape their immense vessels in imitation of human beings and every imaginable animal shape.  The grotesquely shaped mouth is generally intended for the opening, through which the water, soup or milk is poured.

The squaws are assuming more and more the occupations of the modern housewife, though they still grind their corn in the stone troughs used hundreds of years ago, and they still bake their bread in thin layers on hot, glowing stones.  Dressmakers and tailors still go a-begging among the Pueblo people, and no attention whatever is paid to Parisian dictators of fashion.  The good Pueblo squaw cuts, fits, and sews all the clothing for the family, which used to be composed mostly of leather.  Her husband’s wardrobe consists now of a few multi-colored shirts, a pair or two of leather pantaloons, with silver buttons, mocassins and a shoulder blanket.