430 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. voi,. 55. 



by a ledge of vesicular basalt. On the white ledge the stream has 

 cut 10 feet below the probable bed of the dry channel. Farther down 

 the stream cuts through the detritus to a depth of 12 feet below 

 the bed of the dry channel opposite the great dance pit. (PI. 37.) 

 The gulch is about 20 feet deep at the road crossing near the store 

 at Luna. The stream enters the San Francisco Eiver after its course 

 across the bottom land. Large pines grow in both gulches, but larger 

 and more numerous along the present stream. A pine 113 inches 

 in circumference grows on the bank of the dry channel. The old 

 channel is about 80 feet wide and is now being slowly silted up by 

 aerial agencies. (PL 38.) It had probably cut in 12 to 15 feet. On 

 its bank was dug the great dance pit. (See plan.) The drainage 

 area of the stream is small and the erosion slight, so that the 

 changes here must have taken considerable time. 



The manner of the disposal of the dead among the Pit Dwellers 

 has not been solved. Some years ago the construction of the main 

 irrigating ditch and the consequent removal of gi'eat amounts of 

 earth disturbed a burial accompanied with pottery, which is described 

 by informants as being coarse and black. These relics were not pre- 

 served. Excavations in the summer of 1916 and 191T brought out 

 only the remains of infants, which were buried after the Pueblo 

 fashion with mortuary deposits of pottery. Based on the evident 

 length of inhabitation of the pit village, hundreds of burials would 

 have been expected. No explanation of the absence of burials can 

 be offered at present, unless cremation or some custom such as tree 

 or scaffold burial or other open-air exposure was practiced. 



There is as yet limited data for correlating with the Luna pit 

 ruins, the rooms discovered by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes during Ms 

 important explorations of the ruins of Casa Grande, which were 

 encountered beneath the walls of compound B of Casa Grande group, 

 and appear to antedate these constructions.^ There is some reason 

 to see a similarity between the Pima circular mud-plastered house 

 with accompanying ramada or shed-^ and the Luna pits with adjoin- 

 ing shed. This type is unquestionably southern. 



Concerning the subterranean houses described by Melchior Diaz 

 on his journej'- northwest from the town of Sonora in search of the 

 sea coast, he says : " They came to a province of exceedingly tall and 

 strong men-like giants. They are naked and live in large straw 

 cabins, built underground like smoke houses, with only the straw 

 roof above ground. They enter these at one end and come out at the 

 other. More than a hundred persons, old and young, sleep in one 

 cabin."^ 



» 28th An. Rep. Bur. Amer. Eth., p. 102, pi. 41, 



' See Pima Papago village group, Natural History Building, TJ, S. National Museum. 



» 14th An, Rep. Bur. Amer, Etb., p. 485. 



