48 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



ANCIENT CONDITIONS OF LIFE AMONG THE HOHOKAM. 



Before proceeding to discuss the ruins in detail, one or two points of general importance 

 need emphasis. In the first place, the builders of the villages are not known to have been 

 allied to any tribe of modern Indians. They may possibly have been related to such folk as 

 the Zuni or Moki tribes, but of this we have as yet no decisive proof. Probably they were at 

 most no nearer to them than the primitive Teuton was to the modern Anglo-Saxon, or the 

 ancient Jew to the modern fellah peasant of Palestine. To assume that because the 

 modern Indians follow certain practises the ancient inhabitants also did so, is as fallacious 

 as to assume that because the modern people of Palestine beheve in the seclusion of women 

 the ancient Jews did likewise — or that as the modern Persians are noted for theu- tendency 

 to prevaricate, Xenophon and others were wrong in praising the ancient Persians as speakers 

 of the truth. In so far as the habits and customs of a people are directly determined by 

 physical environment, the ancient inhabitants of .\i'izona must indeed have resembled 

 those of to-day, except in points where a change of cUmate, if such has occurred, would 

 alter the prevalent mode of Ufe. Undoubtedly Arizona has always been relatively dry and 

 agriculture has always been dependent upon irrigation; nevertheless the poverty, famine, 

 pestilence, war, depopulation, and other miseries which adverse changes of clunate seem 

 to occasion may have given rise to a large body of habits and customs widely different 

 from those of earlier times. Thus under favorable climatic conditions peace may have 

 prevailed, whereas a change of chmate may have led the tribes of the driest areas to adopt 

 predatory habits, which in turn compelled the occupiers of the better portions of the land 

 to practise the arts of both defense and offense. Again famine and scanty nutrition due to 

 decrease in the food supply may have fostered plagues and pestilences to such an extent 

 that new customs arose as to the bm-ial of the dead, or as to the abandonment of houses 

 in which people had died. In a score of other ways the habits of the past may have been 

 different from those of the present, even in matters directly controlled by physical environ- 

 ment; in other respects, such as religion, social customs, and political organization, there 

 is still greater room for diversity. 



I emphasize this point because there is a strong tendency to argue that, because the 

 modern Indians have a certain custom, their predecessors must have done hkewise 1,000 

 or 2,000 years ago. If it were proved beyond doubt that physical conditions were then the 

 same as now, this would be more legitimate; but while the matter is open to question, such 

 a method of argument is unscientific. It may, of course, be true that the people of the 

 past were much like those of the present, but in the present state of knowledge it is wrong 

 to use any such assumption as the basis of reasoning. To avoid the danger incident to 

 the association of ideas with words, I shall not use the term Indians or Amerinds in con- 

 nection with the ancient inhabitants, but shall call them Hohokam. "The term Hohokam, 

 'That which has perished,' is used by the Pimas," says Russell,* "to designate the race 

 that occupied the pueblos that are now rounded heaps of ruins in the Salt and Gila river 

 valleys [50 to 100 miles north of Tucson]. However ready the Pimas may have been in 

 the past to claim relationship with the Hohokam or relate tales of the supernatural origin 

 of the pueblos, they now frankly admit that they do not know anything about the matter." 

 The term Hohokam, accordingly, implies nothing as to the origin or relationship of the 

 builders of the ancient villages, and therefore may appropriately be used in a specific 

 sense for the vanished race of southern Arizona and the neighboring arid regions. 



Another point which needs emphasis is that the Hohokam were a distinctly agricultural 

 people. The ruins are located on the edge of the lowest available gravel terrace, just above 

 broad expanses of rich alluvial land. The only exceptions are in alluvial plains so broad 



* F. Russell: The Pima Indians. 26th Ann. Rept. Bureau American Ethnology, Washington, 1908, pp. 23 and 24. 



