112 



Harshberger. — Maize 



reached by ladders. 1 Lieutenant Simpson 2 records an obser- 

 vation, which seems, to support this view. He found, in close 

 proximity to one of the ruins, an excavation in the cliff which 

 had been closed with a front wall of well-laid stone and mortar, 

 thus associating one of the simplest cave-dwellings and a per- 

 fect pueblo building, a fact of no little importance. 



Before leaving the territory of the present United States, 

 it may be well to draw a few conclusions from the facts 

 already presented in this section. The practice of agricul- 

 ture was chiefly limited to the region south of the St. Law- 

 rence and east of the Mississippi. In this region it was far 

 more general, and its results were far more important, than 

 is generally supposed. To the west of the Mississippi, only 

 comparatively small areas were occupied by agricultural 

 tribes, and these lay chiefly in New Mexico and Arizona, and 

 along the Arkansas, Platte and Missouri rivers. The rest of 

 the region was tenanted by non-agricultural tribes. " The 

 practice of agriculture, to a point where it shall prove the 

 main and constant supply of a people, implies a degree of 



1 Mindeleff, Bureau of Ethnology Rep., 1882-S3, 473. The Navajo hut, a bee-hived 

 conical structure, made of turf, etc., in Zufii is ham-pon-ne, from hawe, dried brush, sprigs 

 and leaves, and po-an-ne, a covering or shelter. When the term was formulated, the 

 Zunis were probably acquainted with this form of building. A walled enclosure, he-sho- 

 ta-pon-ne, from he-sho, gum, was round rather than rectangular, and was found in the 

 southwest lava wastes. The lava resembles asphaltum, hence ahe-sho, gum rock. The 

 rectangular hut £was derived from the round by aggregation. The flat and terraced 

 roofs, in all probability, were derived from sloping mesa sites, and this overlapping is 



due to the decrease in the number of available sites on the hill. The name of an upper 

 story, in a pueblo, is osh-ten-u thtan, from osh-ten, a shallow cave or rock shelter, and 

 u-thla-nai-e, placed around, embracing, inclusive. 



2 Simpson, North Americans of Antiquity (Short), 292; Journal Mil. Recon., 34, 131 ; 

 Domenech, Deserts, 1, 199, 379-81,385; Baldwin, Anc. Am., 86, 89; Bancroft, Native 

 Races, i, 652-62; Barber, American Naturalist, xi, 1S77, 591. 



