CHAPTER VIII. 

 RUINS IN NORTHERN SONORA AND SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO. 



Before attempting further to explain the facts presented in the preceding chapter, 

 let us consider the ruins of northern Mexico. The little town of Altar (iiltiir'), 132 miles 

 southwest of Tucson as measured by automobile, is the metropolis of the dry north- 

 western corner of Mexico. So long has this site been inhabited that the soil contains a 

 surprising abundance of pottery. The flat adobe roofs of some of the houses are so full 

 of it that one walks on it as on a pavement. Twenty-two miles farther to the southwest 

 the last inhabited place of any size on the Altar River is reached at Caborca. Here, too, 

 indications of ancient occupation abound, and the hills on both sides of the town show a 

 few little walled inclosures for defense. From this point to the Gulf of California there is 

 no village properly speaking, although the distance is over 50 miles. Our visit to the 

 Altar Valley was made at the suggestion of Dr. MacDougal, who had heard and read 

 enough of it to feel sure that it would be a good region in which to test the conclusions 

 reached along the Santa Cruz. After the upper parts of the valley had been seen under 

 the competent guidance of Mr. H. Harrison, of Caborca, a trip was made down the river 

 to the sea in order to test our conclusions. At Cerro Tortuga, near the so-called "Port" 

 of Lobos on the uninhabited shore of the Gulf, we had seen a remarkable group of ancient 

 graves of wholly unknown origin. In the immediate valley of the lower Altar, however, 

 we could hear of no ruins aside from those of a Spanish Mission at Buzani, about 14 miles 

 southwest of Caborca. Except for two or three Mexican cattle ranches, the great plain 

 extending thence for 40 miles to the sea is an uninhabited desert. It seemed likely, never- 

 theless, that if the climate was formerly more propitious than now, the region once con- 

 tained villages. Accordingly we drove down the dry river to the Gulf of CaUfornia. 



At Buzani, in the midst of the monotonous expanse of the modern alluvial flood-plain, 

 we found one Mexican and five or six Papago famihes living with their cattle beside a well 

 about 200 feet deep. They were raising the water in great leather buckets, drawn by 

 horses. The poor beasts had no collars, but were forced to pull with the whole dead weight 

 of the bucket attached to the ponmiels of their tightly girthed saddles. In good years 

 several hundred acres can be cultivated here, but in 1910 we found that nothing had been 

 planted, because of the lack of winter rain. Half a mile to the north, on the low gravelly 

 terrace bounding the silty plain, the old mission church stands in the midst of the ruins 

 of a village. Inside the church Uttle wooden images mark the graves of newly departed 

 Papagos, while an offering of a few cigarettes shows that the modern Indian is still a pagan. 

 Outside the ruined mud edifice pottery, sea-shells, and metate stones of lava cover a space 

 of 30 to 40 acres. Iimnediately around the church numerous heaps still mark the sites of 

 fallen houses; some are almost obUterated and only the church, being well built of adobe 

 bricks, stands firmly. Doubtless the houses date back httle more than a century. The 

 pottery is not the old sort with brown ornaments painted upon it, but consists of 

 coarse, unadorned modern varieties, interiningled with a few bits of cheap ware with a 

 green or yellow glaze. We counted 18 mounds close to the nussion, and estimated the 

 number of dweUings in the adjacent area of recent occupation to be from 40 to 60. Except 

 in one respect, these ruins have no special significance. Doubtless in part they date back 

 to very early times, but the last occupation, in the time of the Mission, can scarcely go back 

 more than 150 years. This leads us to query, " 'Wliy was the Mission ever established here 

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