The Pueblo Indians were peaceful peoples who rarely attacked other peoples. But often they did need to fight to protect themselves from Apache, Navajo, and other groups who raided their villages to steal the stores of corn the Pueblo people worked so hard to grow.
To keep these invaders out of their homes, they built the entrances to their living areas in the roofs of their pueblos. The entrances were reached by climbing a ladder.
If an enemy tried to get inside a pueblo, the inhabitants could merely kick the ladder, a strategy that protected their homes and injured the intruder at the same time.
