Weekly journal-miner., 1911-03-15
INSPIRING PAPER IN
 PREHISTORIC RUINS
(From Sundays Daily.)

ing over the whole region from north |, ern Mexico to the rugged arms of tn,
 Grand Canyon reaching back into Utal , and Colorado, were more due to loca
 conditions and surroundings than {, an actual great difference in the ract and development of the people. The
 men of the. large valleys very natur ], ally used the easily-gotten adobe in l stead of stones that would have to be
 brought some distance, and in the hills where stone was ready in suitable
 chinking and small spots of wall.
 People who live every day of their lives in a first-hand comrade-ship with Nature use the things nearest to hand with which to make themselves safe and comfortable If the cliffs of the | mountain sides and canyons had in
 them caves in which to shelter. with | perhaps need to build only a small
 wall in the mouth to keep out wild beasts and human hunters, then the people became cave dwellers pure and | simple; though their brothers only a
 canyeD ar two away might have to | build up a regular cliff pueblo to get l the needed shelter; and another group
 of families might find a cliff of stone | so soft that 1t was easier to dig out | room after room as tey chose, like | those villages on the lower Verde where several hundred rooms have
 been eXcavated in soft yellowish
 stone that extends in great cliffs along the river.
 So in the farming, those groups that gathered m the large valleys needed
 ditches and canals and from their larg
 CT store of food seeds could increase and build up permanent villages and pueblos, while their poor relations
 would have to seek out spots in the country subject to floods in rainy sea son and plant their scantier crops in the track of the first rain-as many
 of the Navajos and Hopis do today. And these poor relations would of necessity be rovers, building only small and temporary houses, or staying only
 as long in some cave as food seeds could be gathered over the region
 roundabout. Naturally when they went away there would not be many
 plements left to mark the camp for a
 poorer family would not have much to
 leave after a short stay.
 The character of the pottery in the various ruins over the whole region is
 determined largely by the clay found near enough to hand for practical use.
 Doubtless the prehistoric pottery
 makers did trade colored earth and Pima andt Maricopa women of today
 tand as has been done to some extent by most tribes9 but it would not ba possible to. carry the clay for general use a very great distance, or to trans port the finished jars in great quan- tity.
 fine clay would be the maker of such beautiful vessels as were found in the graveyards of the lost Hopi village of Sikiyatki might down along the Col orado river produce jars no better than those of the present day Mohaves, for one clay lies in the high, clean hills and Is almost kaolin, while the other has much alkali and coarse material with it to make it brittle and hard to shape or polish.
 Similarly too the decoration was extent; the coarse jars offered a poor surface for artistic work and were given only tracery of lines in black or red paint, mineral colors probably. out or rock or clay near at hand. Quite naturally the smooth, cream-white sur face of the finest vessels, or their rich burned red, would at once teach and inspire the pottery maker to become a decorative artist also. Ana on such surface there would be constant temp tation to experiment with all sorts of paint stuffs, colored earth and the juices Of plants, and everything which chance had shown would make a stain
 Over all the ruins there is much like ness in the make and quality of the out of one common need, while the dishes for ceremonial and finer use take on more of individual character
 It is clear too that all of these pe-o- pies, no matter what differences of life and habits circumstances imposed upon them, believed after some fashion that death. is not the end of every thing. but that there is some part Of human being that goes somewhere else and has needs upon the journey. We would have q very imperfect idea of the work of sthe prehistoric Ari- zonans in pottery and ornaments if it were not for the fact that they buried with their dead such things as they thought would be of use or pleasure to the departed spirit.
 Whether the body was wholly or partly reduced to ashes or laid in some cleft in the cliffs, or buried in some abandoned cliff-room under heaps of debris or put into an eXcavated grave. | food in jars or bags, seeds, wafer in i jars. and various beads and ornaments. ! were placed with the body and left ! there for the use of the one gone on. | In the large cliff and pueblo villages | these things of the dead are more nu- | merous and elaborate; there will be sizes, and many beads and shell Orna- l ments. bat hardly grave in the small 1 est valley is so poor that it will not l yield some bits of broken pottery and | a bead or two.
 There is a very interesting likeness in the shell ornaments and beads found | throughout the Southwest; certain well | known varieties of sea shells from the Pacific Coast have evidently been wide | ly distributed by barter and the forms | of nse have perhaps been dictated by 1 the natural shape of the she'll brace | lets, ear ornaments, and pendants. be ing made of large bivalVes and beads | and strings from smaller shapes. The small turquoise pendants I have also | found, singly or in groups. in graves | over all the region. and the general I shape E of. these ornaments and of the ! bits of worked jasper and slate stones | does not greatly vary
 The ruin of the Casa Grande near Florence is the largest monument of | prehistoric occupation left to southern | Arizona and many speculations have been indulged in to its age and the character of people who built it. Taken i by itself, with the wide traces of can als and fields which surround it and | reach out to lesser ruin-mounds in the | Salt River valley, 1t seems a true riddle of the sphinx, but seen after the villages of the Hopi and Zuni peo- pie in northern Arizona and western New Mexico. the conclusion of recent students that it is the work of a sim liar people, probably the ancestors of | our living pueblo dwellers seems most reasonable and natural.
 Far in the northeastern part of l Arizona. the toughest and widest and least-known country within her bord- CTS. where huge cliffs of dark, burn ed-loolIing rock wall the deep and all but impossible canyons and the plains are blown over with drifting sand like | the dunes of the sea till a wagon track may be plotted out in an hour and the springs and water holes buried un- der drift, is series of the most remarkable cliff dwellings that have haa IicraxraTsaA a