THE RUINS OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA. 61 



farmers were completely discouraged. In the absence of records of rainfall, we can not 

 say categorically that crops might not be raised on the terraces at Rincon. We can merely 

 say that nothing of the kind has succeeded in this part of Ai-izona hitherto, and that in 

 April 1910 we found the terraces with no more sign of fresh vegetation than was apparent 

 on the surrounding dry plains. 



The hypothesis may be advanced that the Hohokam here cultivated some special crop, 

 such as wild tobacco or some native plant now unknown, a plant for which dry conditions 

 are especially favorable. No such plant is now known, according to Dr. MacDougal and 

 the other botanists of Tucson. The space covered by the terraces is so large that we can 

 scarcely assume that such a crop would be of sufficient importance to require so gi-eat an 

 expenditure of effort. Moreover, so far as is known, no plant after having once, so to 

 speak, been made a part of man's equipment, has ever escaped from cultivation; accordingly 

 we must pass by this assumption as one for which there is no ground. The cultivation of 

 products such as grapes or fruits would demand irrigation or greater rainfall. 



Apart from the immediate question of the possible climatic significance of the terraces, 

 they are important in another aspect. Manldnd rarely labors except under strong com- 

 pulsion, whether of lumger, desire, fear, ambition, or love. The ancient Hohokam would 

 scarcely have gone to the labor of making the terraces without some good motive. The 

 obvious agricultural character of the structures precludes the idea of any religious signifi- 

 cance, as does the fact that elsewhere such terraces are found closely associated with religious 

 structures from which they are clearly different. The only adequate cause for the terraces 

 would seem to be the nesd of more abundant areas of cultivation or the desire for luxuries 

 such as grapes. Defense apparently had nothing to do with the matter, for there seems to 

 be no fortress near at hand, and the terraces are not in a particularly defensible position, in 

 fact quite the contrary, being at the foot of a mountain side. Accordingly, it seems most 

 probable that the Hohokam of the Rincon Valley found that the land at their disposal was 

 not sufficient for their needs. Therefore, having somehow learned the art of making 

 terraces as practised in other parts of the arid southwest or in Mexico, they built a con- 

 siderable number, partly close to their main village, but chiefly on a slope of especially 

 favorable location. This in itself may seem of small importance, but it is significant as 

 indicating that probably the population was decidedly dense. Had there been an abun- 

 dance of unused irrigable land either in the Rincon valley or in the neighboring regions, 

 the Hohokam would scarcely have gone to the labor of building terraces. 



RUINS IN THE DESERT REGION WEST OF TUCSON. 



Further description of the ruins of the Santa Cruz Valley would add no new types, 

 although it would show more conclusively the surprising number of the ancient villages. 

 Accordingly we shall now turn to other regions in order to indicate how widespread are 

 evidences of an apparently numerous population in the distant past. About 60 miles 

 southwest by west of Tucson, the little Indian oasis of Artesa stands in the midst of an area 

 of thousands of square miles inhabited only by Indians. Nowhere in the whole region is 

 there a perennial brook, and even springs are of the utmost rarity. The white man does 

 not live here, because there is nothing for him to desire. Here and there he has made 

 attempts at mining, but with such poor success that in practically every case work has been 

 abandoned. Even the Indians find life no easy matter. One or two thousand of them 

 cluster here and there in little villages, depending for part of the year upon the water of 

 broad, shallow reservoirs filled by the floods, but compelled in the dry seasons to resort to 

 the mountain valleys and drink from wells dug by the white man's art. As they sit by 

 their smoky fires of desert bushes they talk of the years of drought. In 1903 and 1904, 

 if my Indian informant had the dates correctly, no rain of any value fell from the end 



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