Historical
The recorded history of the inhabitants of the Mimbres is brief. One of the earliest descriptions of the valley, in English, is found in Bartlett's "Personal Narrative," published in 1854. In his account of a trip to the copper mines at the present Santa Rita, Bartlett records seeing a herd of about twenty black-tailed deer, turkeys and other game birds, antelopes, bears, and fine trout in the streams. He says very little, however, about antiquities, although he passed through a region where there are still several mounds indicating ruins. Bartlett writes (op. cit., vol. 1, p. 218):
On April 29, hearing that there were traces of an ancient Indian settlement about half a mile distant, Dr. Webb went over to examine it, while we were getting ready to move. He found a good deal of broken pottery, all of fine texture. Some of it bore traces of red, black, and brown colors. He also found a stone mortar about eight inches in diameter. I have since understood that this was the seat of one of the earliest Spanish missions; but it was abandoned more than a century ago, and no traces remain but a few heaps of crumbling adobes, which mark the site of its dwellings.
This ruin was situated near the Rio Grande, twenty-three miles from Mule Spring, on the road to the Mimbres. Bartlett does not tell us how he learned that this was an early mission site, but from the pottery it is evident that it was an "ancient Indian settlement."
After having examined the configuration of the country through which Bartlett passed, and having compared it with statements in his description, the present writer thinks that Bartlett camped on May 1, 1853, near the Oldtown ruin and that the place then bore the name Pachetehu. This camp was nineteen [eighteen?] miles from Cow Spring and thirteen miles from the copper mines.
Bartlett records that he found, near his camp, "several old Indian encampments with their wigwams standing and about them fragments of pottery." Although not very definite, these references might apply either to the Oldtown ruin and some others a few miles up the river, or to more modern Apache dwellings.
Mr. F. S. Dellenbaugh claims that Coronado, in 1540, passed through the valley of the Mimbres on his way to Cibola, and that this place was somewhere in this region, instead of at Zuñi, as taught by Bandelier and others. The present writer recognizes that the question of the route of Coronado is one for historical experts to answer, but believes that new facts regarding the ruins in the Mimbres may have a bearing upon this question and are desirable. While it can no longer be said in opposition to Dellenbaugh's theory that there are no ruins in the valley between Deming and the Mexican border, we have not yet been able to discover whether the ruins here described were or were not inhabited in 1540.
The fragmentary notice of the ruins in the Upper Mimbres and Silver City region by Bandelier is one of the best thus far published, although he denies the existence of ruins now known in the great stretch of desert from Deming to the Mexican boundary. Regarding the ruins on the Upper Mimbres, Bandelier writes:[4]
Toward this center of drainage the aboriginal villages on the Rio Mimbres have gravitated as far south nearly as the flow of water is now permanent. They are very abundant on both sides of the stream, wherever the high overhanging plateaux have left any habitable and tillable space; they do not seem to extend east as far as Cook's Range, but have penetrated into the Sierra Mimbres farther north, as far as twenty miles from the river eastward.... The total number of ruins scattered as far north as Hincks' Ranch on a stretch of about thirty miles along the Mimbres in the valley proper, I estimate at about sixty.... I have not seen a village whose population I should estimate at over one hundred, and the majority contained ten. They were built of rubble in mud or adobe mortar, the walls usually thin, with overwings, and a fireplace in the corner, formed by a recess bulging out of a wall. Toward the lower end of the permanent water course, the ruins are said to be somewhat extensive.
Professor U. Francis Duff, in an article on the "Ruins of the Mimbres Valley,"[5] adds a number of new sites to those mentioned above and contributes important additions to our knowledge of the prehistoric culture of the valley.
Dr. Walter Hough, who compiled from Bandelier and Duff, and made use of unpublished information furnished by Professor De Lashmutt and others, enumerates twenty-seven ruins in the Silver City and Mimbres region to which he assigns the numbers 147–174. Many more ruins[6] might have been included in this list, but it is not the author's purpose, at this time, to mention individual pueblo sites but rather to call attention to the evidences of ruins in the Lower Mimbres Valley as an introduction to the study of pottery there collected. The ruin from which the majority of the bowls here considered were obtained does not appear to have been mentioned by Bandelier, Duff, or Hough.
The last-mentioned author makes the following reference to figures on the pottery from the Mimbres region: "The decoration is mainly geometric. From the Mimbres he [Professor De Lashmutt] has seen a realistic design resembling a grasshopper, and from Fort Bayard another representing a four-legged creature. Mrs. Owen has a specimen from Fort Bayard bearing what is described as a 'fish design.'"[7] Dr. Hough likewise points out that
pottery from some sites [ruins] is also different from that of any other [Pueblo] region and is affiliated, in some respects, with that of the Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua which lies in the low foot-hills of Sierra Madre. This is especially true in reference to fragments of yellow ware found here [the Florida Mountains] which in both form and color of decoration is manifestly like that of Casas Grandes.[8]
The latest and thus far the most important contribution to our knowledge of the prehistoric people of the Mimbres we owe to Mr. C. L. Webster, who has published several articles on the antiquities of the Upper Mimbres, in "The Archæological Bulletin." He has made known several new village sites along the valley and has mentioned, for the first time, details regarding Mimbres ruins and the objects found in them. Practically nothing has thus far been recorded on the antiquities of the region immediately about Deming, nor of those south of that important railroad center to the Mexican border.
In an article on "Some Burial Customs Practiced by the Ancient People of the Southwest,"[9] Mr. Webster describes and figures a human burial on the Lower Mimbres not far from the "Military Post," situated near Oldtown. It was found in the plain some distance from any indications of prehistoric settlement. He says:
Mr. Webster shows that the Mimbres aborigines did not always bury their dead in a contracted or seated posture. He speaks also of intramural or house burials in the valley of Rio Sapillo, a tributary of the Upper Gila, not far from the source of the Mimbres. In this region he dug down in one of the central rooms of a ruin about three feet below the surface, where he says (p. 73):
Near the bottom of this excavation hard red clay was encountered, which on opening up proved to contain the well-preserved skeleton of an adult person which had been placed at length on its back with arms at its side. Over the face of this one [human burial] had been placed a rather large shallow dish, through the bottom of which a hole about the size of a five cent piece, or a little larger, had been carefully drilled. This hole was so located as to occupy a position between the eyes when placed over the face. This body was resting on a bed of red clay like that which had covered it. Near the first body was a second body which had been buried in exactly the same way, and had a similar perforated dish over its face. Under this first or upper tier of bodies a second tier of bodies was discovered which had been buried exactly the same way as the upper tier—each one resting separate and alone, though near together, each one tightly enveloped in stiff red clay.
All the vessels placed over the faces showed the action of fire, and it was plain to be seen they had once been used in cooking.... The method practised here was to first spread down a layer of red plastic clay, then lay the body upon it, place the perforated dish over the face and finally plaster all with a covering of the same clay. This same method was followed in every case observed.