28 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 35 



and only here and there can the symbols be read, they are valuable 

 for comparison and in a limited way show tribal characteristics of art. 



That little is known of the ancient religion may be shown by the 

 character of the offerings in the shrines to which reference has already 

 been made. Cult apparatus is in the highest degree interesting and 

 instructive, and by the very fact of its deposit preserves much con- 

 cerning the culture of the worshipers that would otherwise be lost. 

 Here were deposited offerings in great variety derived from the 

 mineral, vegetal, and animal kingdoms, and fashioned and deco- 

 rated by human art. 



So far as may be ascertained at this time, the deposits in shrines 

 were concretions of strange shapes, crystals, and spheres; in springs, 

 beads and miniature pottery; and in caves, objects in great variety. 

 It may be possible through comparison with cult objects of existing 

 pueblos to interpret this paraphernalia, and as in the religious phe- 

 nomena of the Pueblos of to-day, this apparatus will be found to rep- 

 resent another manifestation of the force of environment in determin- 

 ing the religious beliefs and practices. 



DISTRIBUTION OF THE RUINS 

 I. — The Gila from San Carlos to the Head 



The ancient remains found along the Gila river from its head, 

 northeast of Silver City, to below its junction with the Salt are 

 practically uniform, and the explorations which have been carried 

 on near Phoenix, above the mouth of Salt river, by F. H. Cushing, 

 and on the Gila, at Solomonsville, by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes and the 

 writer, prove conclusively that the inhabitants of this westward 

 flowing river were alike in arts. 



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

 are examples of rivers along whose main valleys the movement and 

 settlement of peoples were but little restricted, a condition tending to 

 produce similarity of culture activities. On the upper waters of the 

 rivers, however, or on the affluents, there is more likely to have been 

 mingling of peoples of different regions or the valley of a contribut- 

 ing stream may have contained only the remains of a single tribe. 



The constructions on the lower Gila were built of adobe, and a 

 typical surviving building of this class is Casa Grande, near Florence, 

 Ariz. Those on the upper Gila, at Solomonsville, in the valley called 

 Pueblo Viejo, 90 miles east of Florence, are of similar structure; 

 they are situated on the level agricultural bottom near Solomonsville. 

 Pueblo architecture is largely influenced, however, by the material and 

 climatic environment. Thus the absence of stone, which is naturally 



