FEWKES ] RUINS ON WALNUT CREEK 209 
Oaks and Willows, keeping this mountain on the right, a fairly clear 
trail continues to a deserted ranch, marked by a ruined stone chim- 
ney and a corral, at the head of Burro Creek. Here, at the terminus 
of all wagon roads, among magnificent pines, is a pool of water; 
beyond, the traveler may continue on horseback to the Big Burro 
(pl.94), one of the large canyons of this region. 
Following Bill Williams River westward to its junction with the 
Colorado, no ruins on hilltops were seen by Wheeler’s party, but 
at Yampai Spring, near the former river, the lower side of a high 
shelving rock forms, according to Whipple’s report, a cave the walls 
of which are ‘‘covered”’ with pictographs. 
The former habitations of the Walnut Creek aborigines were doubt- 
less constructed after the manner of jacales, supported by stone or 
adobe foundations, a common feature of most of the ruins herein 
described. Entrance to these inclosures must have been difficult, 
as the doorways no doubt were guarded and many of the pas- 
sages were devious, a defensive measure quite commonly adopted 
in the palisaded houses of the tribes bordering the Colorado River. 
The Indians along this river, mentioned by Don José Cortez in 1799 
as the Cajuenche and the Talliguamays (Quigyuma), erect their huts 
in the form of an encampment, inclosing them with a stockade. 
According to the ,same author, the Cuabajai (Serranos), another 
tribe, built their towns (‘‘rancherias’”’) in the form of great squares, 
each provided with two gates, one at the eastern, the other at the 
western end; here sentinels stood. The dwellings consisted of huts 
constructed of limbs of trees. 
A typical ruin of the Walnut Creek Valley is thus referred to by 
Whipple (op. cit., pt. 1, p. 93): 
Lieutenant Ives and Doctor Kennerly to-day ascended a peak 300 or 400 feet 
high, the lastin the ridge that bounds and overlooks the valley of Pueblo [Walnut] 
Creek, some 3 miles below camp, and found upon the top an irregular fortification of 
stone, the broken walls of which were 8 or 10 feet high. Several apartments could 
be distinctly traced, with crumbling divisions about 5 feet thick. From thence to 
the pueblo, upon the gravelly slopes that lie slightly elevated above the bottom lands 
of the creek, there are, as has before been noted, vast quantities of pottery, and what 
appear to be dim traces of the foundations of adobe walls.'_ It would seem, therefore, 
that in ancient times there existed here a large settlement, and that the inhabitants 
were obliged to defend themselves by strong works against attacks from a powerful 
enemy.” 
No excavation was attempted by the author in the Walnut Creek 
region but his attention was drawn to human bones that had been 
1 An important observation, as most of the dwellings were built on stones which formed their founda- 
tions. The adobe walls and the posts and wattling supporting them have now disappeared, the founda- 
tion stones being all that remain of the buildings—J. W. F. 
2 The “old chief” told Alarcon of great houses of stone inhabited by a warlike race. These people were 
said to live near a mountain and to wear long robes sewed with needles of deer bone. Their fields of 
maize were small.—J. W. F. 
20903°—28 EtTH—12 14 
