NO. 1873 PREHISTORIC RUINS IN GILA VALLEY FEWKES 407 



called Pueblo Viejo, to the so-called Gila Crossing; the compounds 

 of the Salt River are strung along this river from near Mesa to the 

 junction of the Salt and Gila, while the Great Houses of the Santa 

 Cruz extend from the old missions at Tubac and Tumacacori, in 

 southern Arizona, past the mission, San Xavier del Bac, to the 

 isolated peak Picacho and the point where this river is lost in the 

 sands of the desert. Mounds marking the former sites of these 

 Great Houses occur on both sides of the rivers mentioned near to or 

 remote from their banks. 



There are evidences that these Casas Grandes were most numerous 

 in regions of the Gila Valley, where at the present day the white 

 population is the densest. 1 In other words, large settlements of 

 Americans now occupy some of the same sites that the aborigines 

 chose for the construction of their compounds. This occupation by 

 a later race has led in some instances, as at Tucson, the oldest white 

 settlement in Arizona, to the almost complete destruction of all evi- 

 dences of these Great Houses of the aborigines. The same is true 

 of the settlements near Phoenix and Mesa, where we note the same 

 reduction in size and rapid disappearance of the ancient mounds. 

 On the other hand, the desert south of the Gila, at Casa Grande, or 

 the plains of the Santa Cruz between Red Rock and the "mouth" 2 

 of the river, show mounds indicative of former Casas Grandes more 

 scattered, smaller in size, and fewer in number. 



It appears that the valley of the Salt River in the neighborhood of 

 Phoenix, Tempe, and Mesa was the most densely populated region of 

 this whole drainage area and apparently contained the oldest settle- 

 ments. These facts may be ascribed to the ease with which the 

 plains in this region could be irrigated as compared with other parts 

 of the valley, or may have been due to the presence of more fertile 

 land in those localities. 



The mounds in the valley above mentioned are known to the 

 Pima Indians as the old houses (vaaki) and are associated with 

 certain chiefs, called civans, whose names vary with localities. The 

 following ruins and corresponding chiefs, recorded by Dr. Frank 

 Russell in his monograph 3 on the Pima Indians, may be mentioned : 



1 In the upper Salt we find several other types of ruins, the most striking of 

 which are the two large cliff dwellings (pi. xxxvm, figs, i, 2) a few miles 

 from Roosevelt Dam. 



a Atcin, Pima word for mouth of the river. 



3 26th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. 



According to the legends published by Dr. Russell the Great Houses were 

 formerly inhabited by the Vulture or Red people, the A'kol, A'pap, and A'puki. 



