ack malpais, through which the totem
signatures have been pecked, showing the light stone beneath, and thus
rendering them very conspicuous. Among these pictographs many familiar
forms are recognizable, among them being the crane or blue heron,
bears' and badgers' paws, turtles, snakes, antelopes, earth symbols,
spirals, and meanders.

Among these many totems there was an unusual pictograph in the form of
the figure 8, above which was a bear's paw accompanied by a human
figure so common in southwestern rock etchings. A square figure with
interior parallel squares extending to the center is also found, as
elsewhere, in cliff-dweller pictography.

[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XCV

CLIFF HOUSE, MONTEZUMA WELL]

CLIFF HOUSES OF THE RED-ROCKS

After the road from old Camp Verde to Flagstaff passes a deserted
cabin at Beaver Head, it winds up a steep hill of lava or malpais to
the top of the Mogollones. If, instead of ascending this hill, one
turns to the left, taking an obscure road across the river bed,
which is full of rough lava blocks, and in June, when I traveled its
course, was without water, he soon finds himself penetrating a rugged
country with bright-red cliffs on his right (plate XCVIII). Continuing
through great parks and plains he finally descends to the well-wooded
valley of Oak creek, an affluent of Rio Verde. Here he finds evidences
of aboriginal occupancy on all sides--ruins of buildings, fortified
hilltops, pictographs, and irrigating ditches--testifying that there
was at one time a considerable population in this valley. The fields
of the ancient inhabitants have now given place to many excellent
ranches, one of the most flourishing of which is not far from a lofty
butte of red rock called the Court-house, which from its great size is
a conspicuous object for miles around. In many of these canyons there
are evidences of a former population, but the country is as yet almost
unexplored; there are many difficult places to pass, yet once near the
base of the rocks a way can be picked from the mouth of one canyon to
another. It does not take long to discover that this now uninhabited
region contains, like that along the Verde and its tributaries, many
ancient dwellings, for there is scarcely a single canyon leading into
these red cliffs in which evidences of former human habitations are
not found in the form of ruins. There is little doubt that these
unfre