The aim of our good and lamented friend in writing this book was to place before the public, in novelistic garb, an account of the life and activities of the Pueblo Indians before the coming of white men.

The information on which it is based was the result of his personal observations during many years of study among the sedentary tribes of New Mexico and in Spanish archives pertaining thereto in connection with his researches for the Archaeological Institute of America.

He spent months in continuous study at the Tehua pueblo of San Juan and the Queres pueblo of Cochiti, and the regard in which he was held by the simple folk of those and other native villages was sincerely affectionate.

Bandelier's labors in his chosen field were commenced at a time when a battle with hardship was a part of the daily routine, and his method of performing the tasks before him was of the kind that produced important results often at the expense of great suffering, which on more than one occasion almost shut out his life.
Because not understood, _The Delight Makers_ was not received at first with enthusiastic favor.

It seemed unlike the great student of technical problems deliberately to write a book the layman might read with interest and profit; but his object once comprehended, the volume was received in the spirit in which the venture was initiated and for a long while search for a copy has often been in vain.
Bandelier has come unto his own.