As many as one thousand years ago in the
Southwest, the Hopi and Zuni tribes of North America were building with
adobe-sun-baked brick plastered with mud. Their homes looked remarkably like
modern apartment houses. Some were four stories high and contained quarters for
perhaps a thousand people, along with storerooms for grain and other goods.
These buildings were usually put up against cliffs, both to make construction
easier and for defense against enemies. They were really villages in themselves,
as later Spanish explorers must have realized since they called them "pueblos",
which is Spanish for town. The people of the pueblos
raise what are called "the tree sisters" —corn, beans, and squash. They made
excellent pottery and wove marvelous baskets, some so fine that they could hold
water. The Southwest has always been a dry country, with water scarce. The Hopi
and Zuni brought water. The Hopi and Zuni brought water from streams to their
fields and gardens through irrigation developed elaborate ceremonies and
religious rituals to bring rain. The way of life of
less-settled groups was simpler and more strongly influenced by nature. Small
tribes such as the Shoshone and Ute wandered the dry and mountainous lands
between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. They gathered seeds and
hunted small animals such as rabbits and snakes in the Far North the ancestors
of today’s Inuit hunted seals, walruses, and the great whales. They lived right
on the frozen seas in shelters called igloos built of blocks of packed snow.
When summer came, they fished for salmon and hunted the lordly caribou.
The Cheyenne, Pawnee, and Sioux tribes, known as the
Plains Indians, lived on the grasslands between the Rocky Mountains and the
Mississippi River. They hunted the bison, commonly called the buffalo. Its meat
was the chief food of these tribes, and its hide was used to make their clothing
and the covering of their tents and tepees. It can be inferred from the passage that the dwelling of the Hopi and
Zuni were______.
A. very small
B. highly advanced
C. conveniently located
D. extremely fragile