Making Mud Bricks

• Pueblo Indians were known for their elaborate Pueblos, their word for towns. The Indians built mud houses up to five stories high that stayed cool during the hot summers. They used a mixture of dirt, water, straw, rock and manure before baking mud bricks in the sun.
  
  

Finding Water

• The Indians gathered up their ingredients and slowly added water to their mud until it became thick and muddy. Pueblo Indians typically lived in dry climates in the Southwest and needed to carry in water from local ponds and rivers to create their handmade bricks.
  
  

Mixing the Mud

• The Indians mixed their bricks by stomping in their mud concoctions with their bare feet. Once mixed, they poured the mixture of mud, manure, rock, and straw into molds and created uniform bricks to build their homes and villages. Building an entire town could take thousands of bricks, and the entire community participated.
  
  

Baking the Adobe

• The Pueblos placed their damp bricks in the sunlight and allowed them to bake in the sun for a few hours. They gently removed the bricks and shook them loose from their molds. They laid out their bricks in a separate area and continued to bake them in the sun to thoroughly harden the bricks. Indians didn't just use their mud bricks to create their homes; they also used them to build their own ovens for cooking food.
  
  

Alternative Methods

• Sometimes the Pueblos built stone walls first before completely covering them with their mixture of mud. They then collected logs and twigs to create roofs to protect from the weather and harsh heat. Another coating of fresh mud was smeared over the roof to seal in the makeshift roofs. Pueblos lived in dry climates, and there was an extremely low risk of rain washing away their homes.