ANTIQUITIES OF ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO.
AREA ENCLOSED BY THE GILA, RIO GRANDE DEL NORTE, AND
COLORADO -- A LAND OF MYSTERY -- WONDERFUL REPORTS AND
ADVENTURES OF MISSIONARIES, SOLDIERS, HUNTERS, MINERS, AND
PIONEERS -- EXPLORATION -- RAILROAD SURVEYS --
CLASSIFICATION OF REMAINS -- MONUMENTS OF THE GILA VALLEY
-- BOULDER-INSCRIPTIONS -- THE CASA GRANDE OF ARIZONA --
EARLY ACCOUNTS AND MODERN EXPLORATION -- ADOBE BUILDINGS
-- VIEW AND PLANS -- MISCELLANEOUS REMAINS, ACEQUIAS, AND
POTTERY -- OTHER RUINS ON THE GILA -- VALLEY OF THE RIO
SALADO -- RIO VERDE -- PUEBLO CREEK -- UPPER GILA --
TRIBUTARIES OF THE COLORADO -- ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS, BILL
WILLIAMS FORK -- RUINED CITIES OF THE COLORADO CHIQUITO --
RIO PUERCO -- LITHODENDRON CREEK -- NAVARRO SPRING -- ZUÑI
VALLEY -- ARCH SPRING -- ZUÑI -- OJO DEL PESCADO --
INSCRIPTION ROCK -- RIO SAN JUAN -- RUINS OF THE CHELLY
AND CHACO CAÑONS -- VALLEY OF THE RIO GRANDE -- PUEBLO
TOWNS, INHABITED AND IN RUINS -- THE MOQUI TOWNS -- THE
SEVEN CITIES OF CÍBOLA -- RÉSUMÉ, COMPARISONS, AND
CONCLUSIONS.
Crossing the boundary line between the northern and southern
republics, and entering the territory of the Pacific United States, I
shall present in the present chapter all that is known of antiquities
in Arizona and New Mexico. An area approximating somewhat the form of
a right-angle triangle, with a base of four hundred miles and a
perpendicular of three hundred, includes all the remains in this
region. The valley of the Rio Gila, with those of its tributary
streams, is the southern boundary, or base, stretching along the
thirty-third parallel of latitude; the Rio Grande del Norte, flowing
southward between the one hundred and sixth and one hundred and
seventh meridians, forms with its valley the eastern limit or
perpendicular; while on the north and west the region is bounded by
the Rio Colorado as a hypothenuse, albeit a very winding one. The
latter river might, however, be straightened, thus improving
materially the geometrical symmetry of my triangle, without
interfering much with ancient remains, as will be seen when the relics
of the Colorado section are described.
* * * * *
The face of the country is made up of fertile valleys, precipitous
cañons, rugged mountains, and desert table-lands, the latter
predominating and constituting a very large portion of the area.
Arizona and New Mexico since first they became known to the outside
world, have always had, as they still have, more or less of the
mysterious connected with them. Here have been located for over three
hundred years the wonderful peoples, marvelous cities, extensive
ruins, mines of untold wealth, unparalleled natural phenomena, savages
of the most bloodthirsty and merciless character, and other marvels,
that from the narratives of adventurers and missionaries have found
their way into romance and history. This was in a certain sense the
last American stronghold of the mysterious as connected with the
aborigines, where the native races yet dispute the progress of a
foreign civilization.
And the wondrous tales of this border land between civilization and
savagism, always exaggerated, had nevertheless much foundation in
fact. The Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and the Moquis of Arizona are a
wonderful people when we consider the wall of savagism which envelopes
them; their towns of many-storied structures are better foundations
than usually exist for travelers' tales of magnificent cities; ruins
are abundant, showing that the pueblo nations were in the past more
numerous, powerful, and cultured, than Europeans have found them; rich
mines are now worked, and yet richer ones are awaiting development;
few greater natural curiosities have been seen in America than the
cañon of the Colorado, with perpendicular sides in some places a mile
in height; and the Apaches are yet on the war-path, making a trip
through the country much more dangerous now than at the time when the
Spaniards first visited it.
Although a large part of these states is still in the possession of
the natives, and no official or scientific commission has made
explorations which were especially directed to its antiquarian
treasures, yet the labors of the priest, hunter, immigrant, Indian
fighter, railroad surveyor, and prospector, have left few valleys,
hills, or cañons, mountain passes or desert plains unvisited. While it
is not probable that all even of the more important ruins have been
seen, or described, we may feel very sure, here as in Yucatan, from
the uniformity of such monuments as have been brought to light, that
no very important developments remain to be made respecting the
character, or type, of the New Mexican remains.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: EXPLORATION OF NEW MEXICO.]
This country was first visited by the Spaniards in the middle of the
sixteenth century. The part known to them as New Mexico, and to which
their efforts as conquistadores and missionaries were particularly
directed, was the valley of the Rio Grande and its tributary streams,
but the whole district was frequently crossed and recrossed by the
padres down to the latter part of the seventeenth century. Reports of
large cities and powerful nations far in the north reached Mexico
through the natives as early as 1530; Cabeza de Vaca, ship-wrecked on
the coast of the Mexican gulf, wandered through the regions south of
and near New Mexico, in 1535-6; roused by the shipwrecked soldier's
tale, Fr Marco de Niza penetrated at least into Arizona from Sinaloa
in 1539, and was followed by Vasquez de Coronado, who reached the
Pueblo towns on the Rio Grande in 1540; Antonio de Espejo followed the
course of the great river northward to the Pueblos in 1583, and in
1598 New Mexico was brought altogether under Spanish rule by Juan de
Oñate. In 1680 the natives threw off the yoke by revolt, but were
again subdued fifteen years later, and the Spaniards retained the
power, though not always without difficulty until 1848, when the
territory came into the possession of the United States. The archives
of the missions are said to have been for the most part destroyed in
the revolt of 1680, and consequently their history previous to that
date is only known in outline; since 1680 the annals are tolerably
clear and complete. The diaries of the Spanish pioneers have been,
most of them, preserved in one form or another, and show that the
authors visited many of the ruins that have attracted the attention of
later explorers, and also that they found many of the towns inhabited
that now exist only as ruins. Their accurate accounts of towns still
standing and inhabited attest, moreover, their general veracity as
explorers.
It is, however, to the explorations undertaken under the authority of
the United States government, for the purpose of surveying a
practicable route for an interoceanic railroad, and also to establish
a boundary line between American and Mexican territory, that we owe
nearly all our accurate descriptions of the ancient monuments of this
group. These exploring parties, as well as the military expeditions
during the war with Mexico, were accompanied by scientific men and
artists, whose observations were made public in their official
reports, together with illustrative plates. They generally followed
the course of the larger rivers, but the ruins discovered by them show
a remarkable similarity one to another, and consequently the reports
of trappers and guides respecting remains of similar type on the
smaller streams, may be generally accepted as worthy of more implicit
confidence than can generally be accorded to such reports.
In this division of Pacific States antiquities, which may be spoken of
as the New Mexican group, we shall find, 1st, the remains of ancient
stone and adobe buildings in all stages of disintegration, from
standing walls with roofs and floors to shapeless heaps of débris or
simple lines of foundation-stones; 2d, anomalous structures of stone
or earth, the purpose of which, either by reason of their advanced
state of ruin or of the slight attention given them by travelers, is
not apparent; 3d, traces of aboriginal agriculture in the shape of
_acequias_ and _zanjas_, or irrigating canals and ditches; 4th,
pottery, always in fragments; 5th, implements and ornaments of stone
and shell, not numerous; and 6th, painted or engraved figures on
cliffs, boulders, and the sides of natural caverns.
[Sidenote: MOUTH OF THE COLORADO.]
About the mouth of the Colorado there are no authentic remains of
aboriginal work dating back beyond the coming of the Spaniards,
although Mr Bartlett found just below the mouth of the Gila traces of
cultivation, which seemed to him, judging from the growth of trees
that covered them, not to be the work of the present tribes in the
vicinity. I find also an absurd newspaper report--and no part of the
Pacific States has been more prolific of such reports than that now
under consideration--of a wonderful ruined city of hewn stone
somewhere about the head of the Gulf of California. This city included
numerous dwellings, circular walls of granite, sculptured
hieroglyphics, and seven great pyramids, not unlike the famous Central
American cities of Palenque and Copan. Some rude figures scratched or
painted on the surface of a boulder, seen by a traveler, have been
proved by experience to be ample foundation for such a rumor.[XI-1]
[Illustration: Boulder-Sculptures on the Gila.]
[Sidenote: ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS OF THE GILA.]
Ascending the Rio Gila eastward from its junction with the Colorado,
for some two hundred miles we find nothing that can be classed with
ancient monuments except natural heaps of large boulders at two
points, the flat sides of which are "covered with rude figures of men,
animals, and other objects of grotesque forms, all pecked in with a
sharp instrument." The accompanying cut shows some of these
boulder-sculptures as they were sketched by Bartlett in 1852. Some of
them seemed of recent origin, while many were much defaced by
exposure, and apparently of great age. The newer carvings in some
cases extend over the older ones, and many are found on the under
side of the rocks, where they must have been executed before they
fell to their present position. The locality of the sculptured rocks
is shown on the map; the first is about fifty miles east of Fort Yuma,
and the second twenty miles west of the big bend of the Gila, both on
the south bank. Two additional incised figures are given in the
following cut from Froebel's sketches, since the author thinks that
Bartlett may have selected his specimens with a view to strengthen his
theory that the figures are not hieroglyphics with a definite
meaning.[XI-2]
[Illustration: Boulder-Sculptures on the Gila.]
Between the Pima villages and the junction of the San Pedro with the
Gila, stands the most famous ruin of the whole region--the Casa
Grande, or Casa de Montezuma, which it is safe to say has been
mentioned by every writer on American antiquity. Coronado during his
trip from Culiacan to the 'seven cities' in 1540, visited a building
called Chichilticale, or 'red house,' which is supposed with much
reason to have been the Casa Grande. The only account of Coronado's
trip which gives any description of the building is that of Castañeda,
who says, "Chichilticale of which so much had been said [probably by
the guides or natives] proved to be a house in ruins and without a
roof; which seemed, however, to have been fortified. It was clear that
this house, built of red earth, was the work of civilized people who
had come from far away." "A house which had long been inhabited by a
people who came from Cíbola. The earth in this country is red. The
house was large; it seemed to have served as a fortress."[XI-3]
Father Kino heard of the ruin while visiting the northern missions of
Sonora in the early part of 1694. He was at first incredulous, but the
information having been confirmed by other reports of the natives, he
visited the Casa Grande later in the same year, and said mass within
its walls. Since Kino was not accompanied at the time by Padre Mange,
his secretary, who usually kept the diary of his expeditions, no
definite account resulted from this first visit.[XI-4]
In 1697, however, Padre Kino revisited the place, in company this time
with Mange, who in his diary of the trip wrote what may be regarded as
the first definite description.[XI-5]
[Sidenote: CASA GRANDE OF THE GILA.]
Padre Jacobo Sedelmair visited the Casa Grande in 1744, but in his
narrative he copies Mange's account. He went further, however, and
discovered other ruins.[XI-6]
[Sidenote: AUTHORITIES ON THE CASA GRANDE.]
Lieut C. M. Bernal seems to have been military commandant in Kino's
expedition, and he also describes the ruin in his report.[XI-7] Padres
Garcés and Font made a journey in 1775-6, under Capt. Anza, to the
Gila and Colorado valleys, and thence to the missions of Alta
California and the Moqui towns. Both mention the ruin in their
diaries, the latter giving quite a full account. I know not if Padre
Font's diary has ever been printed, but I have in my collection an
English manuscript translation from the original in the archives at
Guadalajara,--perhaps the same copy from which Mr Bartlett made the
extracts which he printed in his work.[XI-8] Font's plan is not given
with the translation, but in Beaumont's _Crónica de Mechoacan_, a very
important work never published, of which I have a copy made from the
original for the Mexican Imperial Library of Maximilian, I find a
description of the Casa Grande, which appears to have been quoted
literally from Font's diary, and which also contains the ground plan
of the ruined edifice. I shall notice hereafter its variations from
the plan which I shall copy.[XI-9] A brief account was given in the
_Rudo Ensayo_, written about 1761, and by Velarde in his notice of the
Pimería, written probably toward the close of the eighteenth century;
but neither of these descriptions contained any additional
information, having been made up probably from the preceding.[XI-10]
Finally the Casa Grande has been visited, sketched, and described by
Emory and Johnston, connected with Gen. Kearny's military expedition
to California in 1846; by Bartlett with the Mexican Boundary
Commission in 1852; and by Ross Browne in 1863.[XI-11]
The descriptions of different writers do not differ very materially
one from another, Bartlett's among the later, and Font's of the
earlier accounts being the most complete. From all the authorities I
make up the following description, although the extracts which I have
already given include nearly all that can be said on the subject. The
Casa Grande stands about two miles and a half south of the bank of the
Gila;--that is all the early writers call the distance about a league;
Bartlett and Emory say nothing of the distance, and Ross Browne says
it is half an hour's ride. The Gila valley in this region is a level
bottom of varying width, with nearly perpendicular banks of earth.
Opposite the ruin the bottom is about a mile wide on the southern bank
of the river, and the ruin itself stands on the raised plateau beyond,
surrounded by a thick growth of mesquite with an occasional pitahaya.
The height and nature of the ascent from the bottom to the plateau at
this particular point are not stated; but from the fact that acequias
are reported leading from the river to the buildings, it would seem
that the ascent must be very slight and gradual.
The appearance of the ruins in 1863 is shown in the cut as sketched by
Ross Browne. Other sketches by Bartlett, Emory, and Johnston, agree
very well with the one given, but none of them indicate the presence
of the mesquite forest mentioned in Mr Bartlett's text. The material
of the buildings is adobe,[XI-12] that is, the ordinary mud of the
locality mixed with gravel. Most writers say nothing of its color,
although Bernal in 1697 pronounced it 'white clay,' and Johnston also
says it is white, probably with an admixture of lime, which, as he
states, is abundant in the vicinity. Mr Hutton, a civil engineer well
acquainted with the ruins, assured Mr Simpson that the surrounding
earth is of a reddish color, although by reason of the pebbles the
Casa has a whitish appearance in certain reflections. This matter of
color is of no great importance except to prove the identity of the
building with Castañeda's Chichilticale, which he expressly states to
have been built of red earth.[XI-13] The material instead of being
formed into small rectangular or brick-shaped blocks, as is customary
in all Spanish American countries to this day, seems in this
aboriginal structure to have been molded--perhaps by means of wooden
boxes--and dried where it was to remain in the walls, in blocks of
varying size, but generally four feet long by two feet in width and
thickness. The outer surface of the walls was plastered with the same
material which constituted the blocks, and the inner walls were
hard-finished with a finer composition of the same nature, which in
many parts has retained its smooth and even polished surface. Adobe is
a very durable building-material, so long as a little attention is
given to repairs, but it is really wonderful that the walls of the
Casa Grande have resisted, uncared for, the ravages of time and the
elements for over three hundred years of known age, and of certainly a
century--perhaps much more--of pre-Spanish existence.
[Illustration: Casa Grande of the Gila.]
The buildings that still have upright walls are three in number, and
in the largest of these both the exterior and interior walls are so
nearly perfect as to show accurately not only the original form and
size, but the division of the interior into apartments. Its dimensions
on the ground are fifty feet from north to south, by forty feet from
east to west. The outer wall is about five feet thick at the base,
diminishing slightly towards the top, in a curved line on the
exterior, but perpendicular on the inside.[XI-14] The interior is
divided by partition walls, slightly thinner than the others, into
five apartments, as shown in the accompanying ground plan taken from
Bartlett. Font's plan given by Beaumont agrees with this, except that
additional doors are represented at the points marked with a dot, and
no doorway is indicated at _a_. The three central rooms are each about
eight by fourteen feet, and the others ten by thirty-two feet, as
nearly as may be estimated from Bartlett's plan and the statements of
other writers.[XI-15] The doors in the centre of each façade are three
feet wide and five feet high, and somewhat narrower at the top than at
the bottom, except that on the western front, which is two by seven or
eight feet. There are some small windows, both square and circular in
the outer and inner walls. The following cut shows an elevation of the
side and end, also from Bartlett.[XI-16]
[Illustration: Ground Plan of the Casa Grande.]
[Illustration: Elevations of the Casa Grande.]
Remains of floor timbers show that the main walls were three stories
high, or, as the lower rooms are represented by Font as about ten
English feet high, about thirty feet in height; while the central
portion is eight or ten feet--probably one story--higher. Mr Bartlett
judged from the mass of débris within that the main building had
originally four stories; but as the earliest visitors speak of three
and four stories--some referring to the central, others apparently to
the outer portions--there would seem to be no satisfactory evidence
that the building was over forty feet high, although it is possible
that the outer and inner walls were originally of the same height.
Respecting the arrangement of apartments in the upper stories, there
is of course no means of judging, all the floors having fallen. There
may, however, have been additional partition walls resting on the
floors, and these may have helped to make up the débris noticed by Mr
Bartlett. The floors were evidently supported by round timbers four or
five inches in diameter, inserted in the walls and stretching across
the rooms at regular intervals. The holes where the beams were placed,
and in many cases the ends of the beams themselves are still visible.
At the time of Padre Kino's visit one floor in an adjoining ruin was
still perfect, and was formed by cross-sticks placed upon the round
floor-timbers and covered with a thick cake of mud, or adobe.[XI-17]
No marks of any cutting instrument were noticed by any visitor except
Mr Browne, who says "the ends show very plainly marks of the blunt
instrument with which they were cut--probably a stone hatchet."[XI-18]
The timbers, of cedar, or _sabino_, show by their charred ends that
the interior was ruined by fire; and Johnston found other evidences
that the walls had been exposed to great heat.[XI-19] Nothing seems
more natural than that the building should have been burned by some
band of Apaches. No traces of stairways have been found even by the
earliest visitors; so that the original means of communication with
the upper stories may be reasonably supposed to have been wooden
ladders, still used by the Pueblo natives in buildings not very unlike
what this must originally have been. Mr Bartlett and also Johnston
found and sketched some rude figures painted in red lines on the
smooth wall of one apartment, but which had disappeared at the time of
Mr Browne's visit.
The descriptions of successive explorers show clearly the gradually
increasing effects of time and the elements on this ruin; from
Browne's sketch it would seem that the walls, undermined at the base
by the yearly rains, as is always the case with neglected adobe
structures, must soon fall; although I learned from a band of Arizona
natives who visited San Francisco in 1873 that the Casa was still
standing. When the adobe walls have once fallen, they will require but
one or two seasons to crumble and become reduced to a shapeless mound
of mud and gravel; as has been the case with most of the eleven other
buildings reported here by the first comers, and the existence of
which there is no reason to doubt.
Of the additional casas seen by Kino and others no particular
description was given, save that Font describes one of them as
measuring twenty-six by eighteen feet on the ground. Only two of them
show any remains of standing walls, one on the south-west and the
other on the north-east of the Casa Grande. The standing portions of
the former seemed to indicate a structure similar in plan to the chief
edifice, although much smaller; the latter is of still smaller
dimensions and its remains convey no idea of its original form. "In
every direction," says Mr Bartlett, "as far as the eye can reach, are
seen heaps of ruined edifices, with no portions of their walls
standing," and Mange, Kino, and Font observed also shapeless heaps
covering the plain for a distance of two leagues.
Father Font found "ruins indicating a fence or wall which surrounded
the house and other buildings," mentioning a ruin in the south-west
angle which had divisions and an upper story. This corner structure
may be the same that has been mentioned as standing south-west of the
Casa Grande, and Font very likely mistook the heaps of fallen houses
for the remains of a wall, since no such wall was seen by Kino and
Mange. The dimensions of this supposed wall, four hundred and twenty
feet from north to south, and two hundred and sixty feet from east to
west, were erroneously applied by Arricivita and Humboldt, followed by
others, to the Casa Grande itself, an error which has given a very
exaggerated idea of the size of that edifice.[XI-20]
Traces of acequias are mentioned by all as occurring frequently in the
vicinity, especially in the Gila bottom between the ruins and the Pima
villages. No plan or accurate description of these irrigating works
has been given. Probably they were simple shallow ditches in the
ground, still traceable at some points. Mange describes the main canal
as twenty-seven feet wide, ten feet deep, capable of carrying half the
water of the Gila, and extending from the river for a circuit of three
leagues round the ruins. Considering the general conformation of the
bottom and plateau in this part of the Gila valley, it seems
impossible that a canal ten, or even twenty, feet deep could have
reached the level of the river, or that so grand an acequia should
have escaped the notice of later explorers.
[Sidenote: MISCELLANEOUS REMAINS.]
The miscellaneous remains near the Casa Grande, besides the mounds
formed by fallen houses, the irrigating ditches, and the fragments of
pottery strewn over the adjacent country in the greatest profusion,
are two in number. The first is a circular embankment, three hundred
feet in circumference, situated about six hundred feet north-west from
the chief ruin. Its height and material are not stated, but it is
undoubtedly of the surrounding earth. Johnston considers it a
filled-up well; while Bartlett pronounces the circle a simple corral,
or enclosure for stock, although of course it could not have been
built in aboriginal times for such a purpose. The second monument is
only a few yards north of the circle, and is described by Johnston,
the only one who mentions its existence, as a terrace measuring about
three hundred by two hundred feet and five feet high. Resting on the
terrace is a pyramid only eight feet high, but having a summit
platform seventy-five feet square, affording from the top a broad view
up and down the valley. A more complete survey of this pyramid would
be very desirable, not that there is any reason to question Mr
Johnston's reliability as an explorer, but because, as will be seen,
this mound, if it be not like the rest, formed by fallen adobe walls,
together with the circular embankment, present a marked contrast to
all other monuments of the New Mexican group.[XI-21]
Sedelmair and Velarde speak rather vaguely of a reservoir, or tank,
six leagues southward of the Gila, which was one hundred and ten by
one hundred and sixty-five feet, with walls of adobe 'or of
masonry.'[XI-22]
A few miles further up the river, westward from the Casa Grande, and
on the opposite or northern side Padre Kino's party saw a ruined
edifice, and three men were sent across to examine it. They found some
walls over three feet thick still standing, and other heaps of ruins
in the vicinity showing that a large town had once stood on the site.
Emory found there only a "pile of broken pottery and foundation
stones of the black basalt, making a mound about ten feet"
high.[XI-23] Still farther west, near the Pima villages, Johnston
found another circular enclosure, and also what he calls a mound,
ninety by a hundred and fifty feet, and six feet high, having a low
terrace of sixty by three hundred feet on the eastern side, all
covered with loose basaltic rocks, dirt, and pottery. I consider it
not impossible that this mound was formed by the walls of a building
which assumed a symmetrical shape in falling.[XI-24] Sedelmair speaks
of a group of ruins on the southern bank of the river, twelve leagues
below the Casa Grande; but no later writer mentions such
remains.[XI-25]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: REMAINS IN THE SALADO VALLEY.]
The principal tributary of the Gila from the north is the Rio Salado,
or Salinas, the mouth of which is below the Casa Grande, and into
which, near its mouth, flows the Rio Verde, or San Francisco. The
Spaniards seem not to have ascended these streams; or at least not to
have discovered any ruins in their valleys. The guides, however,
reported to the missionaries the existence of ruins on the Rio Verde,
in the north, similar to those on the Gila.[XI-26] Sedelmair also
discovered in 1744, the ruins of a large edifice and several smaller
ones in the space between the Gila and Salado.[XI-27] Velarde speaks
of ruined buildings of three stories at the junction of the rivers
Salado and Gila, and other remains at the junction of the Salado and
Verde.[XI-28]
A guide reported to Emory a casa in the Salado valley, complete except
the floors and roof, of large dimensions, with glazed walls, and the
imprint of a naked foot in the adobe.[XI-29] One of four stone axes
shown in a cut to be given later, was found in this valley and
sketched by Whipple.[XI-30] The Salado ruins between the Gila and
Verde, on the south bank, about thirty-five miles from the mouth, were
examined by Mr Bartlett. They are built on the plateau beyond the
river bottom, and are exclusively of adobe. They are very numerous,
but consist for the most part of shapeless heaps indicating the
location of buildings and long lines of walls. In only two instances
did portions of standing walls remain; being in one case the ruins of
an adobe building over two hundred feet long and from sixty to eighty
feet wide, facing the cardinal points, and, so far as could be judged
by the débris, three or four stories high; the others were about two
hundred yards distant, and represented a smaller structure. There are
traces of a wall which appears to have surrounded the larger building.
From the top of the principal pile, similar heaps of ruins may be seen
in all directions, including a range of them running north and south
at a distance of about a mile eastward. The latter were not visited,
but were said by the natives to be similar in every respect to the
others. A small circular enclosure, whose dimensions are not given,
was seen among the ruins, and there were also excavations along the
sides of some of the heaps, as if they had furnished the material for
the original structures. In the river bottom irrigating canals are of
frequent occurrence, one of them from twenty to twenty-five feet wide
and four to five feet deep, formed by cutting down the bank of the
plateau, along which it extends for many miles. The whole vicinity of
the ruins, as in the Gila Valley, is strewn with fragments of earthen
ware. These earthen ware fragments are of a very uniform character
throughout the New Mexican region, and will be illustrated in another
part of this chapter.[XI-31]
Trappers and natives report that these remains continue indefinitely
up the valleys of both the Salado and Verde. Mr Leroux, who served as
guide to several of the United States military expeditions, passed up
the Verde valley in 1854 on his way from the Gila to the Colorado
Chiquito, keeping a diary, a part of which has been printed.[XI-32] He
claims to have found the river banks covered in many places with ruins
of stone buildings and broken pottery. The walls were of solid masonry
still standing from ten to twenty feet high in two stories, three feet
thick and from fifty to seventy-five feet long. Except in material the
structures were not unlike the Casa Grande of the Gila, and were
generally situated in the most fertile parts of the valley, surrounded
by traces of acequias; although in one instance the ruins of a town
were ten miles from the nearest water. A complete change of building
material within so short a distance is somewhat extraordinary, but
there is no other reason to doubt the accuracy of this report. These
ruins are not very far from Prescott in the north, and Fort McDowell
in the south, and I regret not having been able to obtain from
officers in the Arizona service the information which they must have
acquired respecting those remains, if they actually exist, during the
past ten or fifteen years.[XI-33]
[Sidenote: PUEBLO CREEK AND THE UPPER GILA.]
Whipple describes some ruins discovered by him in 1854 on Pueblo Creek
and other small streams which form the head waters of the Verde. They
consist of what seem to have been two fortified settlements, and a
third separate fortification. The first was an irregular stone
enclosure on the top of a hill three or four hundred feet high. The
walls were from eight to ten feet high, and the interior was divided
by partition walls five feet thick into different compartments. On the
slopes of the hill were traces of adobe walls with the usual abundance
of broken pottery. The second was located in a fertile spot on a fork
of the Pueblo Creek, and consisted of a mass of stones, six feet thick
and several feet high, forming a square enclosure "five paces in the
clear." The third work is situated about eight miles further west, and
commands what is known as Aztec Pass. It is an enclosure one hundred
feet long, twenty-five feet wide at one end and twenty at the other,
the walls being four feet thick and five feet in height. In the
absence of any definite statement on the subject these northern
fortifications are presumed to be of rough, or unhewn, stones without
mortar.[XI-34]
[Illustration: Typical Plan of Gila Structures.]
[Illustration: Plan of a Gila Structure.]
[Sidenote: LABYRINTH ON THE GILA.]
[Illustration: Plan of Labyrinth on the Gila.]
From the mouth of the San Pedro, which joins the Gila about forty
miles eastward of the Casa Grande, up the Gila valley eastward, ruins
of ancient edifices are frequently found on both banks of the river.
Emory says "wherever the mountains did not impinge too close on the
river and shut out the valley, they were seen in great abundance,
enough, I should think, to indicate a former population of at least
one hundred thousand; and in one place there is a long wide valley,
twenty miles in length, much of which is covered with the ruins of
buildings and broken pottery." The remains consist uniformly of lines
of rough amygdaloid stones rounded by attrition, no one of which
remains upon another, apparently the foundations upon which were
erected adobe walls that have altogether disappeared. The plan of the
buildings as indicated by their foundations was generally rectangular;
many of them were very similar to the modern Spanish dwellings, as
shown in the accompanying cut; but a few were circular or of irregular
form. One of them just below the junction of the Santo Domingo, on an
isolated knoll, was shaped as in the following cut, with faces of from
ten to thirty feet. Besides the traces of what seem to be dwellings,
there were also observed, an enclosure or circular line of stones,
four hundred yards in circumference; a similar circle ninety yards in
circumference with a house in the centre; an estufa with an entrance
at the top; some well-preserved cedar posts; and some inscribed
figures on the cliffs of an arroyo, similar to those lower down the
river, of which cuts have been given. The native Pimas reported to the
Spaniards in early times the existence of a building far up the Gila,
the labyrinthine plan of which they traced on the sand, as shown in
the cut. Emory and Johnston found these traces of aboriginal towns in
at least twelve places on the Gila above the San Pedro, the largest
being at the mouth of a stream flowing from the south-east, probably
the Santo Domingo. I find no mention of ruins on any of the smaller
tributaries of the Gila above the Casa Grande, though it seems very
probable that such ruins may exist, similar to those on the main
stream. A painted stone, a beaver-tooth, and marine shells were the
miscellaneous relics found by Johnston among the ruins, besides the
usual large quantities of broken pottery. Emory speaks of a few
ornaments, principally immense well-turned beads of the size of hens'
eggs, also fragments of agate and obsidian. The latter explorer gives
a plate of rock-hieroglyphics of doubtful antiquity, and Froebel also
sketched certain inscriptions on an isolated rock. Six or eight
perfectly symmetrical and well-turned holes about ten inches deep and
six or eight inches wide at the top were noticed, and supposed to have
served for grinding corn.[XI-35]
Having presented all that is known of antiquities upon the Gila and
its tributaries, I pass to the Colorado, the western and northern
boundary of the New Mexican territory. The banks of the Colorado
Cañon, for the river forms no valley proper, are for the most part
unexplored, and no relics of antiquity are reported by reliable
authorities; indeed, from the peculiar nature of this region, it is
not likely that any ruins ever, will be found in the immediate
vicinity of the river.[XI-36]
On Bill Williams' Fork there is a newspaper report, resting on no
known authority, of walls enclosing an area some eight hundred feet in
circumference, still perfect to the height of six or eight
feet.[XI-37] The only other traces of the former inhabitants found on
this stream are painted cave and cliff pictures or hieroglyphics. Two
caves have their walls and the surrounding rocks thus decorated; they
are about a mile apart, near the junction of the Santa María, and one
of them is near a spring. Many of the inscriptions appear very
ancient, and some were painted on cliffs very difficult of access. The
cut shows a specimen from the sketches made by Möllhausen. The streak
which crosses the cut in the centre, extends to the left beyond the
other figures, and only half its length is shown. This streak is red
with white borders; the other figures are red, purple, and
white.[XI-38]
[Illustration: Rock-Paintings--Bill Williams' Fork.]
[Sidenote: TRIBUTARIES OF THE COLORADO.]
Leaving Bill Williams' Fork, and passing the Pueblo Creek ruins
already described, which are not far distant, I follow the routes of
Sitgreaves, Ives, and Whipple, north-westward to the Colorado
Chiquito, a distance of about one hundred miles, striking the river at
a point a hundred miles above its supposed junction with the main
Colorado. In this region we again find numerous ruined buildings with
the usual scattered pottery, respecting which our knowledge is derived
from the explorers just named. The ruins occur at all prominent
points, both near the river and away from it towards the west, at
intervals of eight or nine miles, the exact location not being
definitely fixed. The material employed here is stone, and some of
the houses were three stories high. A view of one ruin as sketched by
Sitgreaves is shown in the cut. On a rocky eminence were found by
Whipple stone enclosures, apparently for defense. According to Mr
Sitgreaves the houses resembled in every particular, save that no
adobe was used, the inhabited Pueblo towns of New Mexico. His
description, like that of Möllhausen and Whipple, would doubtless be
much more complete and satisfactory, had they not previously seen the
Pueblo towns and other ruins further east. Some of the ruins are far
from water, and Sitgreaves suggests that the lava sand blown from the
neighboring mountains may have filled up the springs which originally
furnished a supply.
[Illustration: Ruin on the Colorado Chiquito.]
[Illustration: Vases from the Colorado Chiquito.]
The cut from Whipple shows two vases found here, restored from
fragments. This is one of the rarest kinds of pottery found in the
region, and is said by Whipple not to be manufactured by any North
American Indians of modern times. It is seldom colored, the
ornamentation being raised or indented, somewhat like that on molded
glassware, and of excellent workmanship. The material is light-colored
and porous, and the vases are not glazed. The ordinary fragments of
earthen ware found on this river will be represented in another part
of this chapter. Some very rude and simple rock-inscriptions were
noticed, and a newspaper writer states that the names of Jesuit
priests who visited the place in the sixteenth century are inscribed
on the rocks. Some additional and not very well-founded reports of
antiquities are given in a note.[XI-39]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: REMAINS ON THE COLORADO CHIQUITO.]
At a bend in the river, about forty miles above the ruins last
mentioned, are the remains of a rectangular stone building, measuring
one hundred and twenty by three hundred and sixty feet, and standing
on an isolated sandstone hill. The walls are mostly fallen, but some
of the standing portions are ten feet thick, and seem to contain
small apartments. Many pine timbers are scattered about in good
preservation, and two posts twelve feet in height still remain
standing.[XI-40]
Some twenty-five miles still farther up the Rio Puerco flows into the
Colorado Chiquito from the north-east, and at the junction of the two
streams Möllhausen noticed some remains which he does not
describe.[XI-41] Twelve miles up the Puerco valley, on the banks of a
small tributary, called Lithodendron Creek, were scattered fragments
of pottery, and remains of stone houses, one of the walls extending
several feet below the present surface of the ground. Still farther up
the Puerco and five miles south of the river, at Navajo Spring,
scattered pottery and arrow-heads are the only remaining trace of an
aboriginal settlement, no walls being visible. On a neighboring hill,
however, was noticed a circular depression in the earth forty paces in
diameter. The cut from Möllhausen represents some of the aboriginal
inscriptions on Puerco River.[XI-42]
[Illustration: Rock-Inscriptions on Rio Puerco.]
[Sidenote: REMAINS ON THE RIO ZUÑI.]
Forty or fifty miles farther south-east, the Colorado Chiquito
receives the waters of the Rio Zuñi, flowing from the north-east in a
course nearly parallel to that of the Puerco. Aboriginal inscriptions
and pictures are found on the sandstone cliffs which border on the
stream wherever a smooth surface is presented, but no buildings occur
for a distance of about fifty miles, until we come to within eight
miles of the Pueblo town of Zuñi, where the table-lands about Arch
Spring are covered with ruins, which were seen, although not
described, by Sitgreaves and Whipple. All the ruins of the Zuñi valley
seem, however, to be of the same nature--stone walls laid in mud
mortar, and in a very dilapidated condition. The cut from Whipple
shows also a sample of the rock-inscriptions about Arch Spring.[XI-43]
Zuñi is a Pueblo town still inhabited, and I shall have something
further to say of it in connection with the Pueblo towns of the Rio
Grande and its tributaries, for the purpose of comparing the inhabited
with the ruined structures.
[Illustration: Rock-Inscriptions at Arch Spring.]
[Illustration: Zuñi Vases.]
Two or three miles south-east of Zuñi, on the south side of the river,
is an elevated level mesa, about a mile in width, bounded on every
side by a precipitous descent of over a thousand feet to the plain
below. The mesa is covered with a growth of cedar, and in one part are
two sandstone pillars of natural formation, which from certain points
of view seem to assume human forms. Among the cedars on the mesa,
"crumbling walls, from two to twelve feet high, were crowded together
in confused heaps over several acres of ground." The walls were
constructed of small sandstone blocks laid in mud mortar, and were
about eighteen inches thick. They seemed, however, to rest on more
ancient ruins, the walls of which were six feet in thickness. At
various points on the winding path, by which only the top can be
reached, there are stone battlements which guard the passage. A
supposed altar was found in a secluded nook near the ruins, consisting
of an oval excavation seven feet long, with a vertical shaft two feet
high at one end, a flat rock, and a complicated arrangement of posts,
cords, feathers, marine shells, beads, and sticks, only to be
understood from a drawing, which I do not reproduce because the whole
altar so-called is so evidently of modern origin and use. These ruins
are commonly called Old Zuñi, and were doubtless inhabited when the
Spaniards first came to the country.[XI-44] The cut from Whipple shows
two vases found at what is called a sacred spring near Zuñi. Of the
first the discoverer says: "the material is a light-colored clay,
tolerably well burnt, and ornamented with lines and figures of a dark
brown or chocolate color. A vast amount of labor has been spent on
decorating the unique lip. A fine borderline has been drawn along the
edge and on both sides of the deep embattled rim. Horned frogs and
tadpoles alternate on the inner surface of the turrets, while one of
the latter is represented on the outside of each. Larger frogs or
toads are portrayed within the body of the vessel." One of these
figures is presented in the cut enlarged. The second vase is five
inches deep, ten inches in diameter at the widest part, and eight
inches at the lips. Both outer and inner surface bear a white glazing,
and there are four projections of unknown use, one on each side. The
decorations are in amber color, and the horned or tufted snakes, shown
above the vase, are said to be almost unique in America.[XI-45]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: OJO DEL PESCADO.]
At and near some springs called Ojo del Pescado, on the head-waters of
this stream, some twelve miles above Zuñi, there are at least four or
five ruined structures, or towns. They are similar in character to the
other ruins. Two of them near the spring have an elliptical shape, as
shown by the lines of foundation-stones, and are from eight hundred to
a thousand feet in circumference. The houses seem to have been built
around the periphery, forming a large interior court. These towns are
so completely in ruins that nothing can be ascertained of the details
of their construction, except their general form, and the fact that
they were built of stones and mud. About a thousand yards down the
river from the springs are ruins covering a space one hundred and
fifty by two hundred yards, and in much better preservation than those
mentioned, though of the same nature. The material was flat stones and
cement, and the walls are standing in places to the height of two
stories. Möllhausen tells us that the roofs and fire-places were still
standing at the time of his visit. Simpson describes a ruin as being
two miles below the spring, and which may possibly be the same last
mentioned. The buildings were originally two stories high and built
continuously about a rectangular area three hundred by four hundred
feet. In the interior of the enclosed court was seen a square estufa,
twelve by eighteen feet, and ten feet high, with the roof still
perfect. The cut shows some of the rock-inscriptions at Ojo del
Pescado.[XI-46]
[Illustration: Rock-Inscriptions--Ojo del Pescado.]
[Sidenote: EL MORO, OR INSCRIPTION ROCK.]
[Illustration: Inscriptions--El Moro.]
[Illustration: Plan of El Moro.]
About eighteen miles south-east of the sources of the Zuñi River, but
belonging as properly in this valley as any other, is a sandstone rock
known as Inscription Rock, or to the Spaniards as El Moro, from its
form. It is between two and three hundred feet high, with steep sides,
which on the north and east are perpendicular, smooth, white, and
covered near the base with both Spanish and native inscriptions.
Specimens of the latter, as copied by Simpson, are shown in the cut.
The former were all copied by the same explorer, but of course have no
connection with the subject of this volume: they date back to 1606,
but make no reference to any town or ruins upon or about the rock. The
ascent to the summit is on the south and is a difficult one. The cut
shows a plan of El Moro made by Möllhausen, the locality of the
inscriptions being at _a_ and _b_. The summit area is divided by a
deep ravine into two parts, on each of which are found ruins of large
edifices. Those on the southern--or, according to Simpson, on the
eastern--division, B of the plan, form a rectangle measuring two
hundred and six by three hundred and seven feet, standing in some
places from six to eight feet high. According to Simpson the walls
agree with the cardinal points, but Whipple states the contrary. The
walls are faced with sandstone blocks six by fourteen inches and from
three to eight inches thick, laid in mud-mortar so as to break joints;
but the bulk of the wall is a rubble of rough stones and mud. Two
ranges of rooms may be traced on the north and west sides, and the
rubbish indicates that there were also some apartments in the interior
court. Two rooms measured each about seven by eight feet. A circular
estufa thirty-one feet in diameter was also noticed, and there were
cedar timbers found in connection with the ruined walls; one piece,
fifteen inches long and four inches in diameter was found still in
place, and bore, according to Whipple, no signs of cutting tools. The
remains across the ravine, A of the plan, are of similar nature and
material, and the north wall stands directly on the brink of a
precipice, being complete to a height of eight feet. There is a spring
furnishing but a small amount of water at the foot of the cliff at
_d_. Fragments of pottery are abundant here as elsewhere.[XI-47]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: RUINS OF CHELLY CAÑON.]
This completes my account of remains on the Colorado Chiquito, and I
pass to the next and last tributary of the Colorado within the
territory covered by this chapter--the San Juan, which flows in an
eastwardly course along the boundary line between Arizona and New
Mexico on the south, and Utah and Colorado on the north. The valley of
the main San Juan has been but very slightly explored, but probably
contains extensive remains, judging from what have been found on some
of its tributaries. Padres Dominguez and Escalante went in 1776 from
Santa Fé north-westward to Utah Lake, and noticed several ruins which
it is impossible to locate, before crossing the Colorado. I shall have
occasion in the following chapter to notice some important ruins
lately discovered on the northern tributaries of the San Juan, in the
southern part of Colorado and Utah.[XI-48]
The two chief tributaries of the San Juan from the south are the
Chelly and Chaco, flowing through deep cañons in the heart of the
Navajo country. On both of these streams, particularly the latter,
very important ruins have been discovered and described by Mr Simpson,
who explored this region in 1849.
The Chelly cañon for a distance of about twenty-five miles is from one
hundred and fifty to nine hundred feet wide, from three hundred to
five hundred feet deep, and its sides are almost perpendicular.
Simpson explored the cañon for eight miles from its mouth, which does
not correspond with the mouth of the river. In a branch cañon of a
character similar to that of the main stream he found several small
habitations formed by building walls of stone and mortar in front of
overhanging rocks. Some four miles up the main cañon he saw on a shelf
fifty feet high and only accessible by means of ladders a small ruin
of stone, much like those on the Chaco yet to be described. Seven
miles from the mouth another ruin was discovered on the north side as
shown in the cut. It was built partly on the bottom of the cañon, and
partly like the one last mentioned, on a shelf fifty feet high with
perpendicular sides. The walls measure forty-five by a hundred and
forty-five feet, are about eighteen feet high in their present state,
and are built of sandstone and mortar, having square openings or
windows. A circular estufa was also found in connection with these
cliff-dwellings. Fragments of pottery were not lacking, and specimens
were sketched by Mr Simpson.[XI-49]
[Illustration: Ruin in the Chelly Cañon.]
Eastward from the Chelly, at a distance of about a hundred miles, is
the Chaco, a parallel tributary of the San Juan, on which are found
ruins perhaps the most remarkable in the New Mexican group. Lieut.
Simpson is the only one who has explored this valley, or at least who
has left a record of his exploration. The ruins are eleven in number,
situated with one exception on the north bank of the stream, within a
distance of twenty-five miles in latitude 36° and longitude 108°.
[Sidenote: RUINS OF THE CHACO.]
[Illustration: Ruins of the Pueblo Pintado.]
[Illustration: Section of Wall--Chaco Ruins.]
The cut shows a general view of the ruin called by the guide Pueblo
Pintado, the first one discovered in coming from the south. The name
of this ruin, like those of the others, is doubtless of modern origin,
being Spanish, and there is little reason to believe that the native
names of some of the others are those originally applied to the
inhabited towns. The material of all the buildings is a fine hard gray
sandstone, to which in some instances exposure to the air has imparted
a reddish hue. The blocks are cut very thin, rarely exceeding three
inches in thickness. They are laid without mortar very carefully, so
as to break joints, and the chinks between the larger blocks are
filled with stone plates, sometimes not over one fourth of an inch
thick. In one instance, the Pueblo Peñasco Blanco, stones of different
thickness are laid, in alternate layers, producing the appearance of a
kind of mosaic work, executed with great care and skill, and forming a
very smooth surface. The backing and filling of the walls are of
irregular and various sized blocks laid in mud, no trace of lime being
discoverable. The wall of the Pueblo Pintado was found by excavation
to extend at least two feet below the surface of the ground. The walls
are between two and three feet thick at the base, but diminish towards
the top by a jog of a few inches on the inside at each successive
story. The walls of the Pueblo Pintado are still standing in some
parts to the height of twenty-five to thirty feet, and are shown by
the marks of floor timbers to have had at least three stories. The
flooring was supported by unhewn beams from six to eleven inches in
diameter--but uniform in the same room--stretching across from wall to
wall as in the Gila ruins. Over these beams were placed smaller
transverse sticks, which in the Pueblo Pintado seem to have been
placed some little distance apart; but in some other ruins where the
flooring remained perfect, the transverse sticks were laid close
together, the chinks were filled with small stones, and the whole
covered with cedar strips, although there was evidence that a coating
of mud or mortar was used in some instances; and there was one room
where the floor was of smooth cedar boards seven inches wide and three
fourths of an inch thick, squarely cut at the sides and ends, and
apparently worn smooth by the friction of flat stones. The beams
generally bore marks of having been cut off by the use of some blunt
instrument. The cut illustrates the manner in which the walls diminish
in thickness from story to story, _a_, _a_, _a_; the position of the
beams, _b_, _b_, _b_; the transverse poles, _c_, _c_, _c_; and the
flooring above, _d_, _d_, _d_.
[Sidenote: RUINS OF THE CHACO CAÑON.]
[Illustration: Ground Plan--Pueblo Hungo Pavie.]
[Illustration: Ground Plan--Pueblo Bonito.]
[Sidenote: THE PUEBLO BONITO.]
The ground plan of the Chaco structures shows three tiers--but in one
case at least four tiers--of apartments built round three sides of a
courtyard, which is generally rectangular, in some cases has curved
corners, and in one building--the Peñasco Blanco--approximates to the
form of a circle. The fourth side of the court is in some ruins open,
and in others enclosed by a wall extending in a curve from one
extremity of the building to the other. The following cuts show the
ground plans of two of the ruins, the Pueblo Hungo Pavie, 'crooked
nose,' and Pueblo Bonito. The circumference of five of these buildings
is respectively eight hundred and seventy-two, seven hundred,
seventeen hundred, thirteen hundred, and thirteen hundred feet; the
number of rooms still traceable on the ground floor of the same
buildings is seventy-two, ninety-nine, one hundred and twelve, one
hundred and twenty-four, and one hundred and thirty-nine. These
apartments are from five feet square to eight by fourteen feet. A room
in the Pueblo Chettro Kettle was seven and a half by fourteen feet,
and ten feet high. The walls were plastered with a red mud, and
several square or rectangular niches of unknown use were noticed. The
supporting beams of the ceiling were two in number, and the transverse
poles were tied at their ends with some wooden fibre, and covered with
a kind of cedar lathing. Ropes hung from the timbers. A room in the
Pueblo Bonito is shown in the cut.
[Illustration: Interior of Room--Pueblo Bonito.]
This room is unplastered, and the sides are constructed in the same
style as the outer walls. The transverse poles are very small, about
an inch in diameter, laid close together, very regular, and resemble
barked willow. It was another room in this ruin which had the smooth
boards in connection with its ceiling.[XI-50]
The doors by which the rooms communicate with each other and with the
courtyard are very small, many of them not exceeding two and a half
feet square. There are no doors whatever in the outer walls, and no
windows except in the upper stories. The larger size of the windows
and of the inner doors indicate that the rooms of the upper stories
were larger than below. In some cases the walls corresponding to the
second or third stories had no windows. In one case lower story
windows were found walled up. The tops, or lintels, of the doors and
windows were in some cases stone slabs, in others small timbers bound
together with withes, and in a few they are reported to have been
formed by overlapping stones very much like the Yucatan arch; a
specimen is shown in the cut.
[Illustration: Arch of Overlapping Stones.]
The highest walls still standing at the time of Simpson's visit had
floor-timbers, or their marks, for four stories, but it is not
impossible that some of the buildings may have had originally five or
six stories. The outer walls were in every case perpendicular to their
full height, showing that the houses were not built in receding
terraces, or stories, on the outside, as is the case with many of the
inhabited Pueblo towns, and with the Casa Grande on the Gila. There
can be no doubt that they were so terraced on the interior or court;
at least in no instance were the inner walls sufficiently high to
indicate a different arrangement, and it is hardly possible that all
the ranges were of the same height, leaving without light most of the
thousand rooms which they would contain if built on such a plan. There
were no traces of stairways or chimneys seen. The whole number of
apartments in the Pueblo Bonito, supposing it to have been built on
the terrace plan, must have been six hundred and forty-one. The cut on
the next page shows a restoration of one of the Chaco ruins, taken
from Mr Baldwin's work, and modeled after a similar one by Mr Kern, a
companion of Simpson, although Mr Kern made an error of one story in
the height. I have no doubt of the general accuracy of this
restoration, and it may be regarded as nearly certain that access to
the upper rooms was gained from the court by means of ladders, each
story forming a platform before the doors of the one next above.
Each ruin has from one to seven circular structures, called estufas in
the inhabited Pueblo towns, sunk in the ground and walled with stone.
Several of these are shown in the two ground plans that have been
given. They occur both in the courtyards and underneath the rooms.
Some were divided into compartments, and one, in the Pueblo Bonito,
was sixty feet in diameter and twelve feet deep, being built in two,
and possibly three, stories.
[Illustration: Restoration of Pueblo Hungo Pavie.]
[Illustration: Pottery--Chaco Cañon.]
Near some of the larger buildings are smaller detached ruins, of which
no particular description is given. In one place there is an
excavation in the side of a cliff, enclosed by a front wall of stone
and mortar. In another locality there is an isolated elliptical
enclosure of stone and mortar, eight by sixteen feet, and divided into
two compartments. Near one of the ruins, in the northern wall of the
cañon, about twelve feet from the base, are three circular holes two
feet in diameter, with smaller ones between them, all in a
horizontal line, with a vertical line of still smaller holes leading
up the cliff to one of the larger ones. Mr Simpson was unable to
explore this singular excavation, and its use is unknown; it may be a
room or fortress excavated from the solid rock. There are also some
hieroglyphics on the face of the cliff under the holes. The quarries
which furnished the stone for some of the buildings were found, but no
description of them is given. Hieroglyphics on boulders were found at
a few points. The pottery found among the Chaco ruins is illustrated
by the cut. Black and red seem to be the only colors employed. The
Chaco cañon, although wider than that of the Chelly, is bounded by
precipitous sides, and the ruins are generally near the base of the
cliff. The Pueblo Pintado is built on a knoll twenty or thirty feet
high, about three hundred yards from the river. The buildings do not
exactly face the cardinal points.[XI-51]
[Sidenote: PUEBLO REMAINS ON THE RIO GRANDE.]
I now come to the last division of the present group, the
perpendicular of our triangle, the Rio Grande del Norte and its
tributaries. This valley, the New Mexico proper of the Spaniards, when
first visited in the sixteenth century, was thickly inhabited by an
agricultural semi-civilized people, dwelling in towns of stone and mud
houses several stories in height. Respecting the number, names, and
exact locality of these towns the early accounts are somewhat vague,
but many of them can be accurately traced by means of an examination
of authorities which would be out of place here. From the first
discovery by Cabeza de Vaca, Marco de Niza, and Francisco Vasquez de
Coronado, the general history of the country is clear; and we still
find the same semi-civilized people living in similar towns under
similar institutions, although they, like the towns in which they
live, are greatly reduced in number. Some of the inhabited Pueblo
towns are known by name, location, and history, to be identical with
those which so excited the admiration of the Spaniards; and there is
every reason to believe that all are so, except a few that may have
been built during the Spanish domination. The inhabited Pueblo towns,
or those inhabited during the nineteenth century, are about twenty in
number, although authors disagree on this point, some calling Pueblos
what others say are merely Mexican towns; but the distinction is not
important for my present purpose.[XI-52] The important fact is, that
the Spaniard found no race of people in New Mexico which has since
become extinct, nor any class of towns or buildings that differed from
the Pueblo towns still inhabited.
Besides the towns still inhabited there are many of precisely the same
materials and architecture, which are in ruins. Such are Pecos,
Quivira, Valverde, San Lázaro, San Marcos, San Cristóbal, Socorro,
Senacu, Abó, Quarra, Rita, Poblazon, old San Felipe, and old Zuñi.
Some of these were abandoned by the natives at a very recent date;
some have ruined Spanish buildings among the aboriginal structures;
some may be historically identified with the towns conquered by the
first European visitors. These facts, together with the absence of any
mention of ruins by the first explorers, and the well-known diminution
of the Pueblos in numbers and power, make it perfectly safe to affirm
that the ruins all belong to the same class, the same people, and
about the same epoch as the inhabited towns. This conclusion is of
some importance since it renders it useless to examine carefully each
ruin, and the documents bearing on its individual history, and enables
the reader to form a perfectly clear idea of all the many structures
by carefully studying a few.
While the Pueblo towns cannot be regarded as objects of great
mystery, as the work of a race that has disappeared, or as a station
of the Aztecs while on their way southward, yet they are properly
treated as antiquities, since they were doubtless built by the native
races before they come in contact with the Spaniards. They occupy the
same position with respect to the subject of this volume as the
remains in Anáhuac, excepting perhaps Cholula and Teotihuacan; or
rather they have the same importance that the city of Tlacopan would
have, had the Spaniards permitted that city to stand in possession of
its native inhabitants.
[Sidenote: PUEBLO TOWNS OF NEW MEXICO.]
An account of the Pueblo buildings has been given in another volume of
this work,[XI-53] and I cannot do better here than to quote from good
authorities a description of the principal towns, both inhabited and
in ruins. Of Taos Mr Abert says, "One of the northern forks of the
Taos river, on issuing from the mountains, forms a delightful nook,
which the Indians early selected as a permanent residence. By gradual
improvement, from year to year, it has finally become one of the most
formidable of the artificial strongholds of New Mexico. On each side
of the little mountain stream is one of those immense 'adobe'
structures, which rises by successive steps until an irregular
pyramidal building, seven stories high, presents an almost impregnable
tower. These, with the church and some few scattering houses, make up
the village. The whole is surrounded by an adobe wall, strengthened in
some places by rough palisades, the different parts so arranged, for
mutual defence, as to have elicited much admiration for the skill of
the untaught engineers." Of the same town Davis says, "It is the best
sample of the ancient mode of building. Here there are two large
houses three hundred or four hundred feet in length, and about one
hundred and fifty feet wide at the base. They are situated upon
opposite sides of a small creek, and in ancient times are said to have
been connected by a bridge. They are five and six stories high, each
story receding from the one below it, and thus forming a structure
terraced from top to bottom. Each story is divided into numerous
little compartments, the outer tiers of rooms being lighted by small
windows in the sides, while those in the interior of the building are
dark, and are principally used as store-rooms.... The only means of
entrance is through a trap-door in the roof, and you ascend, from
story to story, by means of ladders upon the outside, which are drawn
up at night." The same writer gives the following cut of Taos.[XI-54]
[Illustration: Pueblo of Taos.]
The houses of Laguna are "built of stone, roughly laid in mortar, and,
on account of the color of the mortar, with which they are also faced,
they present a dirty yellowish clay aspect. They have windows in the
basement as well as upper stories; selenite, as usual, answers the
purpose of window-lights."[XI-55]
"High on a lofty rock of sandstone ... sits the city of Acoma. On the
northern side of the rock, the rude boreas blasts have heaped up the
sand, so as to form a practical ascent for some distance; the rest of
the way is through solid rock. At one place a singular opening, or
narrow way, is formed between a huge square tower of rock and the
perpendicular face of the cliff. Then the road winds round like a
spiral stair way, and the Indians have, in some way, fixed logs of
wood in the rock, radiating from a vertical axis, like steps.... At
last we reached the top of the rock, which was nearly level, and
contains about sixty acres. Here we saw a large church, and several
continuous blocks of buildings, containing sixty or seventy houses in
each block, (the wall at the side that faced outwards was unbroken,
and had no windows until near the top: the houses were three stories
high). In front each story retreated back as it ascended, so as to
leave a platform along the whole front of the story: these platforms
are guarded by parapet walls about three feet high." Ladders are used
for first and second stories but there are steps in the wall to reach
the roof.[XI-56] Mr Gregg tells us that San Felipe is on "the very
verge of a precipice several hundred feet high," but Simpson states
that "neither it nor Sandia is as purely Indian in the style of its
buildings as the other pueblos."[XI-57]
Santo Domingo "is laid out in streets running perpendicularly to the
Rio Grande. The houses are constructed of _adobes_, (blocks of mud, of
greater or less dimensions, sun-dried;) are two stories in height, the
upper one set retreatingly on the lower, so as to make the superior
covering of the lower answer for a terrace or platform for the upper;
and have roofs which are nearly flat. These roofs are made first of
transverse logs which pitch very slightly outward, and are sustained
at their ends by the side walls of the building; on these, a layer of
slabs or brush is laid; a layer of bark or straw is then laid on
these; and covering the whole is a layer of mud of six or more inches
in thickness. The height of the stories is about eight or nine
feet."[XI-58]