SUMMARY
We may characterize the Hohokam as follows: They were a prehistoric agricultural people of southern Arizona who may have been the descendants of the western branch of the ancient food-gathering people of the Cochise [Culture]. They made an amazing adjustment to an unfavorable environment through the use of an extensive canal system. They lived in one-room houses of wattle-and-daub construction with depressed floors and covered side passages or vestibules. Some big houses built during the earliest period may have sheltered more than one family or they may have been ceremonial structures. There were large courts where it is thought that a ball game similar to that of the Maya was played.
Pottery was made by the paddle-and-anvil technique and fired in an [oxidizing atmosphere]. Undecorated plain ware was mostly buff, although ranging in shade from gray to brown. Decorated pottery usually had designs in red paint on a buff background. In an early period there was a rare polychrome ware which had red and yellow designs on a gray background. Figurines were also made of clay.
Stone work was well developed. Stone vessels, often with fine carving, were widely made. Well carved palettes are a distinctive [trait] of the [culture]. Mosaic plaques or mirrors, made of pyrites crystals, believed to have been imported from the south, were often used as funeral offerings.
Shell was widely used in the manufacture of ornaments, particularly bracelets. It was usually ornamented by carving, but in a few cases an etching technique was employed. Weaving was apparently well developed, but only a few specimens have been preserved, so our information on this point is scanty.
Disposal of the dead was by cremation. Funerary offerings were burned with the body, and included pottery, figurines, palettes and pyrites mirrors. Ashes, calcined bones, and offerings were gathered together after the cremation and buried. Burial was at first in trenches, later in pits or urns.
About 1300 A. D., Pueblo people moved into the Hohokam country and for the next hundred years the two groups lived together. There was some amalgamation of the two cultures, but in most important respects they remained distinct in spite of the closeness of the association. About 1400 A. D. the newcomers moved away. We have no clear information as to just what happened to the Hohokam after that time, but it is possible that they may have remained in the same general vicinity and have been the forerunners of the Pima and Papago Indians who occupied that territory at the time of the arrival of the Spaniards.
CHAPTER V
THE MOGOLLON [CULTURE]
GENERAL REMARKS
Writing about the Mogollon [Culture] is rather like dealing with a time bomb. It is impossible to ignore it, but one has the uncomfortable feeling that whatever one does about it is likely to be wrong. In the relatively few years which have elapsed since it was first suggested that it was a separate entity[89] and not just a regional variation of the Basketmaker-Pueblo pattern, there have come to be many theories.[102] Many archaeologists are convinced that it must be given the status of a [basic culture] comparable to that given to the Anasazi and the Hohokam,[50][84] but there are some who feel that it should be regarded as a variant of the Anasazi, and others who consider it the result of an early fusion of Anasazi and Hohokam.[99] Unfortunately, too few sites have been excavated to evaluate fully all the conflicting theories. It has been said that “The Mogollon appears to be an illegitimate whose paternity is still under scrutiny.”[1]