hough] ANTIQUITIES OF GILA-SALT VALLEYS 19 



Shrines 



There are four classes of shrines of which remains exist in this 

 region. These are caves, springs, rock piles, and stone rings. The 

 caves are receptacles for various offerings thrown in without order 

 or placed in small square areas outlined with low stone walls or 

 ridges of gravel, which the first observers thought the remains of 

 houses. (See p. 52.) The caves were usually quite difficult of access. 



Important springs have received various offerings, as stone heads 

 and miniature pottery. Occasionally during operations for enlarg- 

 ing and cleaning springs many of these objects have been recovered. 

 At Gallo springs, in western Socorro county, N. Mex., hundreds of 

 small facsimiles of pottery vessels were encountered in the marshy 

 border and basin of the spring. In a spring in northwestern So- 

 corro county a carved and painted wooden figure of a serpent was 

 found. This specimen is now in the National Museum. 



Few of the springs in this region have been walled up like those 

 of northeast Arizona, the only example noted being the splendid 

 spring at the Olney ranch, some distance from SolomOnsville on the 

 slope of Mount Graham, which appears to be inclosed and provided 

 with steps. 



The sands of thermal springs especially contain numbers of beads 

 of black, white, gray, red, and blue stone. It has been customary 

 for young people in the neighborhood to visit the hot spring in the 

 canyon of the San Francisco, below Spur ranch, in order to glean 

 beads from the volcanic sand washed out by the water. Quantities 

 of beads have been secured and it is probable 'that in the spongy 

 vegetable mass bulging on the slope below this spring offerings of 

 pottery could be found. 



Shrines contiguous to villages consist of circular piles of small 

 stones and twigs, like the Masauu shrines of the Hopi," and rings of 

 bowlders containing concretions, weatherworn stones, and crystals. 

 Greater numbers of such shrines are found in the Spur Ranch valley 

 than elsewhere, though this may be accounted for by the small erosion 

 there. 



Stone-ring shrines are not immediately connected with pueblo 

 ruins, but occupy the summits of mesas and mountains. In the 

 Tularosa -Apache region examples are found on the Delgar mesa, 

 Apache mountain, and Queens head. The stones used in forming 

 the rings are very large, and the offerings were of pottery, of which 

 great quantities of shards still remain in the rings. On Mount 

 Thomas, Arizona, are other shrines of this description and it is 

 reported that the Zurii and other Pueblos still make offerings on this 

 peak. 



° Fewkes, American Anthropologist, n. s., vin, 353, 1906. 



