2,26 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 5° 



when they went to war with the Apaches, even after the coming of 

 the whites. 1 



The relation of the builders of the rooms, revealed by the exca- 

 vations, to modern pueblos is shown in the designs and general 

 character of the pottery, stone implements, shell ornaments, and 

 ceremonial objects. Although the materials used in construction of 

 the walls are identical with those adopted by the builders of the 

 Great Houses of Chihuahua, the pottery, with the exception of the 

 bird-faced vase, of the two localities is quite different. In the 

 Chihuahua Casas Grandes the grouping of the buildings into com- 

 pounds is not evident; house burials are common to both localities. 2 



There is no foundation for an almost universally accepted state- 

 ment 3 that a people of superior culture inhabited the Gila Valley, or 

 that Casa Grande was built in very ancient times. The people of 

 the Casas Grandes were not very distant relations of the Aztecs and 

 their kindred, but there is no evidence that Casa Grande was one 

 of the "stations" of the early migration of this people. 



From the advent of Europeans, at the close of the 17th century, 

 to the present time, Pimas residing in the neighborhood of Casa 

 Grande have told their legends of it to visitors. Naturally many of 

 the present generation of Indians have declared their ignorance of 

 the makers of the Great House, for only a few, rapidly diminishing 

 in numbers, know the old legends. One or two of the oldest men 

 and women relate stories of the inhabitants of Casa Grande, its 

 chief, and his daughters. The author has collected several of the 

 more important of these legends from an old Pima named "Thin 



1 Similar reed cigarettes are employed by the Hopis in their ceremonies. 

 Thin Leather claimed that he had in his youth smoked similar reed cigarettes 

 when he went on a war party; that they were kept in a bag and were not 

 used in rain ceremonies. Sala, the best Pima potter, who spent some time at 

 Casa Grande during the author's work there, in order to get new inspiration 

 in her art, said she had seen hoes or planting sticks similar to those found 

 in the ruin, used by the Kwahadt. 



2 It is stated that the River people (Pimas), Desert people (Papagos), 

 Kwahadt, and Rabbit Eaters are all the same stock, called Ootam (people), 

 the ancients who built the Great Houses. Pima legends tell of the southern 

 migration of the so-called Rabbit Eaters, an offspring of the Pimas, into 

 Mexico in early times. The southern migration of the Rabbit Eaters may 

 have given rise to the story of the relation of the inhabitants of the Gila to 

 the ancient Aztecs. 



8 This theory occurs in many writings of the 16th and 17th centuries, from 

 the time of Ortega, Kino's biographer, or earlier, and undoubtedly accounts 

 for the name, Casa de Moctezuma, applied to Casa Grande. 



