Houses

• The center of Pueblo life is the house itself. These are often large, communal buildings, made with many rooms and stories. For defensive purposes, many houses were built without any exterior windows or doors, but a hole in the flat roof, with ladders on the outside and inside. The construction is wooden beams and branches overlaid with adobe and hard-packed dirt floors. Traditionally the houses are built around an open area with a "kiva," or a sunken, stone-lined chamber for religious rites.
  
  

Pottery

• The Pueblos have a tradition of fine craftsmanship that continues through today. Each pueblo has a distinctive style of pottery for which it is known. For instance, the Acoma pueblo, which sits on top of a 376-foot sandstone cliff, is famous for black and white pottery with fine lines. Iselta, near the Rio Grande, makes pastel pottery, while the Santa Domingo pueblo's pottery features bold geometric designs. Many pueblos also make jewelry, weavings, drums and fine carvings.
  
  

Katchina Images

• Pueblo men carve small images which are highly prized among collectors. They are katchinas, or katsinas, and they represent more than 400 spiritual deities which are worshipped among the Pueblo. They may be used in connection with katchina dances, which are ceremonial dances whose purpose is to invoke a spirit. Such dances are traditionally carried out with masks, and the katchina images will be masked, dressed, painted and feathered just like the dancers are.
  
  

Cliff Dwellings

• Not all pueblos are built into cliffs, but the Hopi tribes in Arizona still follow that practice. Other pueblos have oral traditions that tell how their own people are descended from those who built the original cliff dwellings. The New Mexico ruins of Rito de los Frijoles, for instance, are considered the ancestral home of the Keres Pueblo in the Rio Grande valley. Modern medicine men still make ceremonial trips to the ancestral sites. The finest example of cliff dwellings are at Mesa Verde in Colorado, demonstrating the Pueblo people's determination to protect their families and make permanent homes for themselves.