cupied
during the season of cultivation and are known as rancherias. So one
great tribe had its central pueblo and its outlying rancherias.
Sometimes the rancherias were occupied from year to year, especially in
time of peace, but usually they were occupied only during seasons of
cultivation. Such groups of ruins and pueblos with accessory rancherias
are still inhabited, and have been described as found throughout the
Plateau Province except far to the north beyond the Uinta Mountains. A
great pueblo once existed in the Uinta Valley on the south side of the
mountains. This is the most northern pueblo which has yet been
discovered. But the pueblo-building tribes extended beyond the area
drained by the Colorado. On the west there was a pueblo in the Great
Basin at the site now occupied by Salt Lake City, and several more to
the southward, all on waters flowing into the desert. On the east such
pueblos were found among mountains at the headwaters of the Arkansas,
Platte, and Canadian rivers. The entire area drained by the Rio Grande
del Norte was occupied by pueblo tribes, and a number are still
inhabited. To the south they extended far beyond the territory of the
United States, and the so-called Aztec cities were rather superior
pueblos of this character. The known pueblo tribes of the United States
belong to several different linguistic stocks. They are far from being
one homogeneous people, for they have not only different languages but
different religions and worship different gods. These pueblo peoples are
in a higher grade of culture than most Indian tribes of the United
States. This is exhibited in the slight superiority of their arts,
especially in their architecture. It is also noticeable in their
mythology and religion. Their gods, the heroes of their myths, are more
often personifications of the powers and phenomena of nature, and their
religious ceremonies are more elaborate, and their cult societies are
highly organized. As they had begun to domesticate animals and to
cultivate the soil, so as to obtain a part of their subsistence by
agriculture, they had almost accomplished the ascent from savagery to
barbarism when first discovered by the invading European. All the
Indians of North America were in this state of transition, but the
pueblo tribes had more nearly reached the higher goal.

The great number of ruins found throughout the land has often been
interpreted as evidence of a much larger pueblo populatio