Chapter XI: Antiquities of Arizona and New Mexico (1)

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.

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[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]

[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]

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.

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]

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]

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[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]

[Sidenote: 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]

[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.

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]

[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.

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]

[Sidenote: EL MORO, OR INSCRIPTION ROCK.]

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]

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.]