78 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



Wliether any more ruins exist at the mouth of this particular valley is not certain, but 

 probably others could be found. The next valley to the west is a small one, yet at its 

 mouth the usual series of ruins is found. I saw two, both of them being groups of small 

 low mounds where a few famiUes had gathered stones to build their little hamlets and 

 utihze the waters during the period of floods. Still farther west lies the valley in which 

 the Indian agency is located. Here small ruins having six or seven houses occur in three 

 places. The Indian traders and the one white sheep-rancher in the neighborhood say that 

 this valley and its neighbor on the east contain other ruins which I did not see. 



Westward from the agency a number of other valleys debouche from the mountains, 

 l3ut I had no time to examine them. In one of these, Indian Creek, 8 miles from the 

 agency, there lives an Indian trader, Dalton by name, who has been in the country many 

 years. Within a mile of his store, either up or down the dry bed of Indian Creek, he states 

 that there are 15 to 20 small ruins of from one to six or eight rooms. Apparently the 

 former population was large compared with that of to-day. Some of the ancient people 

 seem to have left their habitations much earUer than others, the small ruins in the minor 

 valleys having been abandoned long before the large ones m the valleys of greater size, 

 such as Satan's Canyon. In some cases drinking water can now be procured by going a 

 long distance to springs; in other cases one can not see where it was obtained. This, 

 however, may be neglected while we turn our attention to the way in which the people 

 procured a livelihood. 



The people in this part of New Mexico, like the Hohokam of the south, were preemi- 

 nently agricultural, and must have obtained practically their whole living from the soil. 

 That they hved in one place permanently is clear, not only from arguments like those used 

 in connection with earlier ruins, but from the large size of their fort and from the great 

 amount of work which they lavished on its construction. How numerous they were we 

 can not say with certainty, but at the mouth of Satan's Canyon it scarcely seems as if 

 there could have been less than 500 or 600 people. The next valley may have had 20; 

 the next (in which the agency is located) 25, and so on. In a stretch of 16 miles from 

 Satan's Canyon westward past the agency and Dalton's, there must be at least a dozen 

 valleys, and the whole number of people probably mounted well up toward 800 or more. 

 At present the Navajos cultivate as much land as they can, although they do it carelessly 

 because the crops so often fail. In the 16 miles under discussion, there are now only two 

 famihes, according to Mr. Dalton, who raise corn enough actually to support themselves 

 through the entire year. The rest depend upon their flocks and buy corn from outside 

 sources. The whole number of famihes who own cultivable land amounts to only 25, 

 he says, and the total amount of land is only 65 acres, or sufficient to support 33 people 

 according to our Arizona estimate. Mr. Dalton, however, thinks that the number would 

 be less than this, for he says that the famihes who actually carry on cultivation do not 

 raise more than one-tenth enough to support themselves, supposing that they had to 

 depend on what they could raise and not on sheep. Judging from the poor appearance 

 of the crops, and the frequency with which they fail, he is probably not far from right. 



The plateau extending northward from the base of the cliffs where the ruins just de- 

 scribed are located is a desolate region, with no inliabitants save occasional wandering 

 Navajo and one or two traders and sheep-men. It is now absolutely devoid of cultivation ; 

 nevertheless, it has a few ruins, which form the fourth of our five groups. Some of these 

 are small, insignificant mounds, almost invisible, and apparently very old. Human bones 

 and complete skeletons facing the east, and with jars or shallow bowls on their breasts, are 

 often found near them, and it was clearly the custom of the inhabitants to bury their 

 dead close to the villages. This is quite different from the habits of the builders of the 

 larger and apparently later villages, for their burials are rarely found and seem never to be 

 near the villages. Seemingly, as Bandelier long ago pointed out, we have two types of 



