RissKLL] PREHISTORIC RUINS 25 



posed that the Casa Grande pueblo was under the control of "Siba" 

 or "Si'van';" indeed it is now frp<iuently designated "Si'van*' Ki" 

 by the Pimas. Fifteen miles southeast of the Casa Grande ruin is 

 the mountain ridge that rises abruptly from the nearly level plains 

 which is known as Ta-a'tCikam or Picaclio mountain. Picacho is an 

 isolated peak south of the mountain. The pass between them, 

 through which the main trail ran from the Pima villages to Tucson, 

 and tlirough which the railroad has been built, was one of the most 

 dreaded portions of the overland trail when the Apaches were "out," 

 as they were most of the time. To the northeast of the mountain is 

 a small pueblo ruin that lies about 15 miles from the river, wliich is 

 apparently the nearest water. It was prol)al)ly occupied during a ])art 

 of the 3'ear only. East of the mountain is a niin called Kis'tcoit 

 Vatclk', Table Tank; on tiie nortii is one known as Mo'-ok' Vatcik', 

 Sharp Tank; and at the foot of Ta-a'tukam, on the west, is A'-alt 

 Vap'tck', Small Tanks. Southwest of the mountain were situated the 

 Pima ■^'illage of Akiitclny and the two pueblo ruins previously men- 

 tioned. There is another small puel)lo ruin a few miles northwest of 

 the site of AkCltcIny, but no others of similar type are known to the 

 writer at any point in Arizona south of Picacho. A personal examina- 

 tion of all the ruins of the southeastern part of the Territory has siiown 

 them to be of a different type from those of the upper and lower 

 Gila and the Salt river valleys. The nuns along the San Pedro, it is 

 true, e.xtend to the soutiiward of the parallel of Picacho, and it is 

 believed to be desirable that some of them be explored. Superfi- 

 cially they resemble the ruins about Solomonsville, where cremation 



Salado. Gila, and Verde has no light shed upon it by their folk-lore tales. Here the statements of the 

 Pimas, which Mr Walker has gathered, are of .special value: and to him I owe the following details: 

 The I'imas claim to have been created where they now reside, and after passing through a disastrous 

 flood — out of which only one man, Cl-ho, was saved — they grew and multiplied on the south bank of 

 the Gila until one of their chiefs. Ci-vA-n'i, built the Casa Grande. They call it to-day ' Ci-vil-nft-qi ' 

 (house of Ci-vi-nO): also 'VjU-qi' (ruin), \ son of Ci-vil-nn settled on lower Salt river, and built 

 the \-iilages near Phoenix and Tempe. .\t the same time a tribe with which they were at war occupied 

 the Kio Verde; to that tribe they ascribe the settlements whose ruins I have \isited, and which they 

 call 'OH^t-gftra-viStqi' (gravelly ruinsi. The Casa Blanca and all the ruins south of the Gila were 

 the abodes of the forefathers of the Pimas. designated by them as "Vl-pl-sef (great-grandparents^, 

 or ■ lIo-ho-q6m' (the extinct ones). (Ci-vd-nft had twenty wives, etc. ['Each of whom wore on her 

 head, tike a headdress, the peculiar half-hood, half-basket contrivance called Ki'-jo.' Papers Archeol, 

 Inst., IV, 403. ]i .\t one time the Casa Grande was beset by enemies, who came from the east in 

 several bodies, and who caused its abandonment: but the settlements at Zacaton. Casa Blanca. etc., 

 still remained, and there is even a tale [' It is even said that the people of Zacaton made war upon their 

 kindred at Casa Blanca and blockaded that settlement by constructing a thorny hedge around it. 

 Through the artifices of the medicine-men the hedge turned into a circle of snakes.' Papers .\rchco!. 

 Inst.. IV. 464] of intertribal war between the Pimas of Zacaton and those of Casa Blanca after the 

 ruin of Casa Grande. Finally, the pueblos fell one after the other, until the Pimas, driven from their 

 homes, and moreover decimated by a fearful plague, became reduce<l to a sniiill tribe. .\ iiortitm of 

 them moved south into Sonora, where they still reside, but the main body remained on the site of their 

 former prosperity. I asked particularly why they did not again build houses with solid walls like 

 those of their ancestors. The reply was that they were too weak in numbers to attempt it, and had 

 accustomed themselves to their present mode of li\ing. But the construction of their winter houses — 

 a regular pueblo roof bent to the ground over a central scalToM— their organization ancl arts, all War 

 testimony to the truth of their sad tale, that f>f a powerful sedentary tribe reduced to distress and 

 deca<ience in architecture long before the advent of the Spanijirds,'' Bandclier in Fifth .Vnn. Rep. 

 Archnol. Inst. .\m., 1883-84, 80, 81. 



