XO. 8 DESIGNS ON MIMBRES POTTERY — FEWKES 21 



The geographical location of tributaries of four streams of constant 

 water, the Gila, the Rio Grande, the Little Colorado and the San Juan, 

 played an important part in migration. The Mimbres not being con- 

 nected with these rivers or their drainage areas, being in a way isolated, 

 we may expect, a priori, that it.s pottery was little modified by that of 

 these other drainage areas. The Rio Grande river in the latitude of 

 Deming to the Gulf of Mexico is singularly free from tributaries, 

 especially on the right bank, and there are no river routes for inter- 

 change of prehistoric people. Higher up we find pueblos on this 

 river still inlaabited. The Gila river also has few tributaries in its 

 lower course and few ruins away from the river itself. It runs east 

 and west ; its sources and those of the Salt divided into numerous 

 tributaries. In this country of the Upper Gila and Salt we find many 

 ruins of several varieties. There are several northern tributaries where 

 ruins are abundant and in the Upper Gila there are many tributaries 

 and many ruins among the canyons of the sources of this river. 

 Throughout its whole course from source to the Gila Bend there are 

 many ruins. The northern tributaries overflowed their population 

 beyond the Mogollon into the A'^alley of the Little Colorado as far north 

 as the Hopi, Zuni, et alii. This wide north-south distribution of Gila 

 Valley pottery is due to the direction of the flow of the many tribu- 

 taries of these rivers. 



The main tributaries of the San Juan on the left or south bank were 

 also significant in the direction of human migrations. The general 

 trend of migration is south from this river and the ruins are more 

 abundant near the sources and along tributaries. The isolated Mim- 

 bres X^alley migrations had very little eflfect on the potter}^ designs 

 of the aborigines of the San Juan. 



There seems to be a consensus of opinion of the few ethnologists 

 who have considered the Casas Grandes ceramic culture area that it 

 is true puebloan, or that pottery likenesses are sufficient to place both in 

 the same group. If we limit the term " true pueblo " to a type of seden- 

 tary culture ' that developed in the northern part of New Mexico and 

 Arizona and the southern part of Utah and Colorado, the differences 

 are striking. The author believes there are so many features in the 

 culture of the Gila that are dififerent from the pueblo that in strict 

 scientific usage it is better not to classify them in the same type. 



It is believed that the Gila culture spread north over the MogoUon 

 mountains into the Little Colorado valley and even north of that into 



* Practically the so-called " Kiva culture " of the San Juan Valley, whose 

 structural characteristics have been elsewhere pointed out. 



