THE PIMA INDIANS OF ARIZONA. 409 



water of the Gila Eiver to their fields, and also produced abuiidaut crops. 

 Their women were \ irtuons and industrious ; they spun the native cot- 

 ton into garments, made beautiful baskets of the bark of trees, and were 

 particularly skilled in the manufacture of earthen ware. (Remains of 

 the old canals can be seen to this day, and x>ieces of neatly-painted 

 pottery ware are scattered for miles upon the site of the old city. There 

 are several ruins of ancient buildings here, the best i)reserved one of 

 which is said to have been the residence of King Si'-va-no. This house 

 has been at least four stories high, for even now three stories remain in 

 good preservation, and a i^ortion of the fourth can be seen. The house 

 was built square 5 each story contains five rooms, one in the 

 center, and a room on each of the outer sides of the inner 

 room. This house has been built solidly of clay and cement 5 

 not of adobes, but by successive thick layers of mortar, 



and it was plastered so well that most of the plastering remains to this 

 day, although it must have been exposed to the weather for many years. 

 The roof and the different ceiliugs have long since fallen, and only short 

 pieces of timber remain in the walls to indicate the place where the 

 rafters were inserted. These rafters are of pine wood, and since there 

 is no kind of pine growing now within less than fifty miles of the Casas 

 Grandes, this house must either have been built at a time when pine 

 timber could be procured near the building site, or else the builders 

 must have had facilities to transport heavy logs for long distances. It 

 is certain that the house was built before the Pimas knew the use of 

 iron, for many stone hatchets have been found in the ruins, and the 

 ends of the lintels over doors and w indows show by their hacked ap- 

 pearance that only blunt tools w^ere used. It also appears that the 

 builders were without trowels, for the marks of the fingers of the work- 

 men or women are i^lainly visible both in the plastering and in the 

 walls where the former has fallen off. The rooms were about six feet in 

 height, the doors are very narrow and only four feet high, round holes, 

 about eight inches in diameter, answered for windows. Only one en- 

 trance from the outside was left by the builders, and some of the outer 

 rooms even had no communication with the room in the center. There 

 are no stairs, and it is believed that the Pimas entered the house from 

 above by means of ladders, as the Zuni Indians still do. The walls are 

 l^erfectly perpendicular and all angles square.) 



The empire of King Si'-va-no became so populous after a while that 

 some of its inhabitants found it necessary to emigrate. One of the sons 

 of the king, with numerous followers, went, therefore, to the Salt Eiver 

 Valley, and there established a new empire, which, in course of time, 

 became very prosperous. Indeed, the inhabitants became so wealthy 

 that they wore jewelry and jirecious stones upon their persons, and 

 finally erected a beautiful throne for the use of their monarch. This 

 throne was manufactured entirely of large blue stones, (probably silver 

 or copper ore.) 



