Chapter XI: Antiquities of Arizona and New Mexico (2)

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.]

[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.

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.

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.

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]

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]

"On my visit to the pueblo of Tesuque we entered a large square, around which the dwellings are erected close together, so as to present outwardly an unbroken line of wall to the height of three stories. Viewed from the inner square it presents the appearance of a succession of terraces with doors and windows opening upon them.... This general description is applicable to all the Pueblo villages, however they may differ in size, position, and nature of the ground--some being on bluffs, some on mesas, and most of those in the valley of the Rio Grande on level ground."[XI-59]

Zuñi, "like Santo Domingo, is built terrace-shaped--each story, of which there are generally three, being smaller, laterally, so that one story answers in part for the platform of the one above it. It, however, is far more compact than Santo Domingo--its streets being narrow, and in places presenting the appearance of tunnels, or covered ways, on account of the houses extending at these places over them. The houses are generally built of stone, plastered with mud,"--has an adobe Catholic church.[XI-60]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: THE MOQUI TOWNS.]

The seven Moqui towns in Arizona, situated in an isolated mountainous region about midway between the Colorado Chiquito and the Chelly cañon, in latitude 35° 50´, and longitude 110° 30´, are very similar to the Pueblo towns of the Rio Grande. They were probably visited by the earliest Spanish explorers, and have a claim to as great an antiquity as any in the whole region. Lieut. Ives visited the Moquis in 1858, and his description is the best extant; from it I quote as follows: "I discovered with a spy-glass two of the Moqui towns, eight or ten miles distant, upon the summit of a high bluff overhanging the opposite side of the valley. They were built close to the edge of the precipice.... The outlines of the closely-packed structures looked in the distance like the towers and battlements of a castle." "The face of the bluff, upon the summit of which the town was perched, was cut up and irregular. We were led through a passage that wound among some low hillocks of sand and rock that extended half-way to the top.... A small plateau, in the centre of which was a circular reservoir, fifty feet in diameter, lined with masonry, and filled with pure cold water. The basin was fed from a pipe connecting with some source of supply upon the summit of the mesa.... Continuing to ascend we came to another reservoir, smaller, but of more elaborate construction and finish.... Between the two the face of the bluff had been ingeniously converted into terraces. These were faced with neat masonry, and contained gardens, each surrounded with a raised edge so as to retain water upon the surface. Pipes from the reservoirs permitted them at any time to be irrigated. Peach trees were growing upon the terraces and in the hollows below. A long flight of stone steps, with sharp turns that could easily be defended, was built into the face of the precipice, and led from the upper reservoir to the foot of the town." "The town is nearly square, and surrounded by a stone wall fifteen feet high, the top of which forms a landing extending around the whole. Flights of stone steps led from the first to a second landing, upon which the doors of the house open." "The room was fifteen feet by ten; the walls were made of adobes; the partitions of substantial beams; the floor laid with clay. In one corner were a fireplace and chimney. Everything was clean and tidy. Skins, bows and arrows, quivers, antlers, blankets, articles of clothing and ornament, were hanging from the walls or arranged upon shelves. Vases, flat dishes, and gourds filled with meal or water were standing along one side of the room. At the other end was a trough divided into compartments, in each of which was a sloping stone slab two or three feet square for grinding corn upon. In a recess of an inner room was piled a goodly store of corn in the ear."

"We learned that there were seven towns; that the name of that which we were visiting was Mooshahneh. A second smaller town was half a mile distant; two miles westward was a third.... Five or six miles to the north-east a bluff was pointed out as the location of three others, and we were informed that the last of the seven, Oraybe, was still further distant, on the trail towards the great river." "Each pueblo is built around a rectangular court, in which we suppose are the springs that furnish the supply to the reservoirs. The exterior walls, which are of stone, have no openings, and would have to be scaled or battered down before access could be gained to the interior. The successive stories are set back, one behind the other. The lower rooms are reached through trap-doors from the first landing. The houses are three rooms deep, and open upon the interior court." "He led the way to the east of the bluff on which Oraybe stands. Eight or nine miles brought the train to an angle formed by two faces of the precipice. At the foot was a reservoir, and a broad road winding up the steep ascent. On either side the bluffs were cut into terraces, and laid out into gardens similar to those seen at Mooshahneh, and, like them, irrigated from an upper reservoir. The whole reflected great credit upon Moquis ingenuity and skill in the department of engineering. The walls of the terraces and reservoirs were of partially dressed stone, well and strongly built, and the irrigating pipes conveniently arranged. The little gardens were neatly laid out."[XI-61]

* * * * *

Thus we see that a universal peculiarity of the Pueblo towns is that the lower stories are entered by ladders by way of the roof. Their location varies from the low valley to the elevated mesa and precipitous cliff; their height from one to seven stories, two stories and one terrace being a common form. Most of them recede in successive terraces at each story from the outside, but Tesuque, and perhaps a few others, are terraced from the interior court. The building material is sometimes adobe, but generally stone plastered with mud. The exact construction of the walls is nowhere stated, but they are presumably built of roughly squared blocks of the stone most accessible, laid in mud. With each town is connected an estufa, or public council-chamber and place of worship. This is in some cases partly subterranean, and its walls are covered with rude paintings in bright colors.[XI-62]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: PUEBLO OF PECOS.]

Of the ruined Pueblo towns no extended description is necessary, since they present no contrasts with those still inhabited which have been described. Pecos was formerly one of the most important, and was still inhabited in the early part of the present century. The cut copied from Emory for Mr Baldwin's work, represents a portion of the ruins, which include Spanish and aboriginal structures, both of adobe. Emory noticed large well-hewn timbers. Davis says the ruins of the village cover two or three hundred yards, and include large blocks of stone, square and oblong, weighing over a ton, with marks of having been laid in mortar. Hughes speaks of the traces of a stone wall eight feet high, which once surrounded this Pueblo town. Kit Carson told Mr Meline that he found the town still inhabited in 1826. It was here that in former times was kept burning the everlasting fire which formed part of the religious rites in honor of their deity, or, according to the modern account, of Montezuma. There is no evidence, however, that the aborigines in ancient times had any deity, or monarch of that name; it is quite certain that they did not hear of the Aztec monarch Montezuma many centuries before he began to reign; just possible that they did hear of his fame a few years before the Spaniards came to New Mexico; but altogether probable that they first heard the name of Montezuma, of the Aztec people, and of their former migration southward, from the Spaniards themselves, or their native companions.[XI-63]

With the Quivira located by Thomas Gage and other early writers and map-makers, "on the most Western part of America just over against Tartary," as with the great city of Quivira which Francisco Vasquez de Coronado sought and has been popularly supposed to have found, I have at present nothing to do. It should be noted, however, that the latter Quivira was not one of the Pueblo towns of the Rio Grande, but a town of wigwams on the plains in the far north-east. The ruined town of Quivira or Gran Quivira, east of the Rio Grande, entirely distinct from that of Coronado, includes, like Pecos, a Spanish church among its ruins. The buildings are of hewn stone and of great extent. Gregg speaks of an aqueduct leading to the mountains eight or ten miles distant, the nearest water. This town was very likely, like many others, ruined at the revolt of 1680. Abó, Quarra, Laguna, and the rest, present no new features. There are, moreover, on the Puerco River--a tributary of the Rio Grande, and not that of the Colorado Chiquito already mentioned--many traces of Pueblo buildings which have no definite names.[XI-64]

[Sidenote: SEVEN CITIES OF CÍBOLA.]

The cut shows some rock-inscriptions copied by Froebel in the valley of the Rio Grande. In the Sierra de los Mimbres, towards the source of the Gila, are some old copper mines, and connected with them an adobe fort with round towers at the corners, but I do not know that these works have ever been considered of aboriginal origin. In a newspaper I find the remarkable statement that "from the volcanic cones of the Cerrillos was furnished, a great part, if not all, the Chalchiuite, so much worn for ornament, and so highly prized by the ancient Mexicans.... The ancient excavations made in search of it are now distinctly visible, and seem to have been carried to the depth of two hundred feet or more."[XI-65]

The ruins of Old Zuñi have already been described, and there is no reason to doubt that both these and the other remains on the Zuñi River, represent towns that were inhabited when the Spaniards first came northward. Indeed it is almost certain that they, together with the Pueblo town of Zuñi, represent Coronado's famous 'seven cities' of Cíbola. Most writers have so decided, as Gallatin, Squier, Whipple, Turner, Kern, and Simpson.[XI-66] The course and distance of Coronado's march from the Gila agrees more exactly with Zuñi than with any other town; the location of the 'seven cities' within four leagues together, in a very narrow valley between steep banks, as also their position with respect to the Rio del Lino, Colorado Chiquito, correspond very well with the Zuñi ruins; Coronado's Granada, on a high bluff, with a "narrow winding way," was quite probably Old Zuñi; Cíbola is said to have been the first town reached in coming across the desert from the south-west, and the last left in returning; the positions of Tusayan, a province of seven villages, five days' journey north-west from Cíbola, and of Acuco, five days eastward, agree very well with the location of the Moqui towns and of Acoma with respect to Zuñi. Finally we have Espejo's statement that he visited the province of Zuñi, twenty-five leagues west of Acoma; that it was called Zuñi by the natives and Cíbola by the Spaniards; that Coronado had been there; and that he found there not only crosses and other emblems of Christianity, but three Christians even. Coronado left three men at Cíbola, and their statements to Espejo respecting the identity of Cíbola and Zuñi, must be regarded as conclusive.[XI-67]

[Sidenote: GENERAL RÉSUMÉ.]

New Mexican antiquities, divided as at the beginning of the chapter into six classes, may be briefly considered, en résumé, as follows: 1st. "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." This first class of remains has received most attention in the preceding pages, and little need be said in addition. It has been noted that adobe is the material used almost exclusively in the Gila and other southern valleys, as in Chihuahua, while further north stone is preferred. The most important fact to be noted is that all the ruins, without exception, are precisely identical in plan, architecture, and material with the Pueblo towns now inhabited or known to have been inhabited since the coming of the Spaniards. Many of them, particularly those of the Chaco cañon, may have been much grander structures and have displayed a higher degree of art than the modern towns, but they all belong to the same class of buildings.

2d. "Anomalous structures of stone or earth, the purpose of which, either by reason of their advanced state of ruin, or of the comparatively slight attention given them by travelers, is not apparent." Such remains, which have been described as far as possible wherever they have appeared, are: I. Fortifications, like the stone enclosures on the Pueblo Creek and head-waters of the Rio Verde; and the battlements guarding the path of ascent to Old Zuñi. Many of the ruined towns were, moreover, effectually fortified by the natural position in which they were built. II. Mound-like structures and elevations. These include the low terraced pyramid reported on the Gila near the Casa Grande, and another of like nature on the north side of the river; the shapeless heaps of earth and stones in the Gila and Salinas valleys, most of which are doubtless the remains of fallen walls, but some of which may possibly have a different origin and design; and some small heaps of loose stones on the Gila at the mouth of the Santo Domingo. It is noticeable that no burial mounds, of so common occurrence in many parts of America, have been found here; and no pyramids or mounds presumably connected in any way with religious rites, indeed, nothing of the nature of temples or altars, save the estufas still in common use. III. Excavations. These are, a reservoir with stone walls measuring forty by sixty yards, reported by the early writers near the Casa Grande on the Gila; a circular depression forty paces in diameter on the north bank of the Gila, and a similar one at Navajo Spring near the Rio Puerco of the West; a triangular depression at the mouth of the Santo Domingo; quarries of sandstone near some of the Chaco ruins, and pits in the Salinas, whence the earth for building is supposed to have been taken; and the circular holes that penetrate the cañon walls of the Chaco. IV. Enclosures for various or unknown purposes. Such is the circular enclosure a hundred yards in circumference near the Casa Grande, and another north of the river; the structure indefinitely reported as a labyrinth up the Gila from the Casa Grande; a small round enclosure on the Salado; an elliptical enclosure of stone and mortar, eight by sixteen feet, and divided into two compartments, in the Chaco cañon; and the large and irregular lines of foundation-stones in the Gila Valley above the San Pedro. It will be observed that there is very little of the mysterious connected with these remains of the second class, and a great part of that little would probably disappear as a result of a more careful exploration.

3d. "Traces of aboriginal agriculture, in the shape of acequias and zanjas, or irrigating canals and ditches." Such remains have been noticed in connection with many of the ruins, particularly in the south, and require no further remarks. So far as described, they are nothing but simple ditches dug in the surface of the ground, of varying depth and length. The earlier reports of canals with walled sides are very probably unfounded.

4th. "Implements and ornaments." These are not numerous, include no articles of any metal whatever, and do not differ materially from articles now in use among the Pueblo Indians. Such relics have been found scattered among the débris of the fallen walls, and not taken from regular excavations; consequently no absolute proof exists that they are the work of the builders, though there can be little room for doubt on that point. The wandering tribes that have occupied the country in modern times are much more likely to have sought for and carried away relics of the original inhabitants, than to have deposited among the ruins articles made by the modern Pueblo Indians. A detailed account of each relic would be useless, but among the articles that have been found are included,--I. Implements of stone. Metates, or corn-grinders, generally broken, were found at various points on the Gila, Salado, and among the ruins near Pecos. Stone axes, are shown in the cut from Whipple, of which No. 4 was found on the Salado, where implements called hoes, and a stone pestle, are also reported. A stone axe was also found on the Colorado Chiquito. Arrow-heads of obsidian were picked up at Old Zuñi, on the Colorado Chiquito, on the Rio Puerco of the west, and at Inscription Rock; of carnelian on the Colorado Chiquito; of agate and jasper on the Rio Puerco; and of quartz near Pecos and on Pueblo Creek. Ross Browne heard of bone awls having been dug up at the Casa Grande. II. Ornaments. Sea-shells were found at the Casa Grande, on the north bank of the Gila, and in the Salado valley; also on the Gila, a bead of blue marble finely turned, an inch and a quarter long; and another bead of the size of a hen's egg; also a painted stone not described, and a beaver's tooth. Several green stones, like amethysts, were found on the Salado; fragments of quartz crystal at the Casa Grande; of agate and obsidian among the Gila mines; and of obsidian on Pueblo Creek. Clay balls from the size of bullets to grape-shot, many of them stuck together, are reported on doubtful authority.[XI-68]

5th. Pottery, the most abundant class of relics, found strewn over the ground in the vicinity of every ruin in this group. It is always in fragments, no whole article of undoubted antiquity having ever been found. This is natural enough, perhaps, since only the surface has been examined, and the roaming tribes of Indians would not be likely to leave anything of use or value; excavation may in the future bring to light whole specimens. But although the absence of whole vessels is not strange, the presence of fragments in so great abundance is very remarkable, since no such tendency to their accumulation is noticed about the inhabited Pueblo towns. It would seem as if the inhabitants, forced to abandon their houses in haste, had deliberately broken all their very large stock of earthen ware, either to prevent its falling into the hands of enemies, or from some superstitious custom. The fragments are very like one to another in all parts of the New Mexican region, and in quality and ornamentation nearly identical with the ware still manufactured and used by the Pueblos. It has been noticed, however, that the older pottery is superior generally in material and workmanship to the modern; and also in the southern valleys it is found painted on the inside as well as outside, contrary as is said to the present usage. Very few fragments show anything like glazing. The painted ornamentation consists in most instances of stripes or angular, more rarely of curved, lines, in black, white, and red. Painted representations of any definite objects, animate or inanimate, are of very rare occurrence. Some specimens are, however, not painted, but decorated with considerable skill by means of raised or indented figures. I have given cuts of many specimens, and the thirty-five figures on the next page from different localities will suffice to explain the nature and uniformity of New Mexican pottery.[XI-69]

6th. "Painted or engraved figures on cliffs, boulders, and the sides of natural caverns." These figures have been mentioned whenever they occurred, and some of them illustrated. There are additional paintings in a rocky pass between Albuquerque and Laguna, mentioned and copied by Möllhausen, and both paintings and sculptures in Texas at Sierra Waco, thirty miles east of El Paso, and at Rocky Dell Creek, in lat. 35°, 30´, long. 102°, 30´.[XI-70] In another volume of this work,[XI-71] something has been said of hieroglyphic development, of the different classes of picture-records, and their respective value. The New Mexican rock-inscriptions and paintings, such of them as are not mere idle sketches executed without purpose by the natives to while away the time, belong to the lower classes of representative and symbolic picture-writing, and are utterly inadequate to preserve any definite record far beyond the generation that executed them. Most of them had a meaning to the artist and his tribe at the time they were made; it is safe to suppose that no living being to-day can interpret their meaning, and that they never will be understood. The similar figures painted on the walls of modern estufas,[XI-72] the natives will not, probably cannot, explain. Mr Froebel, in opposition to Mr Bartlett's theory that the figures are meaningless, very justly says: "Many circumstances tend to disprove that these characters were originally nothing but the results of an early attempt at art. In the first place, the similarity of the style, in localities a thousand miles apart, and its extreme peculiarity, preclude every idea of an accidental similarity. One cannot imagine how the same recurring figures should have been used over and over again, unless they had a conventional character, and were intended to express something."[XI-73]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: CONCLUSIONS.]

I conclude this division of my work by a few general remarks, embodying such conclusions respecting the New Mexican ruins as may be drawn from the ruins themselves, without reference to the mass of speculation, tradition, and so-called history, that has confused the whole subject since first the missionary padres visited and wrote of this region, and sought diligently, and of course successfully, for traditions respecting the Asiatic origin of the Americans, and the southern migration of the Aztecs from the mysterious regions of the Californias to Anáhuac. These conclusions are not lengthy or numerous, and apply with equal force to the Casas Grandes of Chihuahua, outside of the geographical limits of this chapter.

1. The ruined structures offer but little internal evidence of their age. There is not even the slight aid of forest growth found in nearly all other parts of America. The different buildings show very different degrees of dilapidation it is true, but to what extent in each case the ravages of time have been assisted by the roaming Apaches and other savages, it is impossible to decide. The Casas Grandes of Chihuahua are much more dilapidated than the similar Casa Grande of the Gila; but, although both are built of mud, a slight difference in the quality of the mud employed, with the more abundant rains of Chihuahua, would account for the better condition of the Gila remains, and prevent us from assigning necessarily a greater antiquity to those of Chihuahua. It is known as a historical fact that the southern buildings were not only in ruins at the coming of the Spaniards in the middle of the sixteenth century, but had been so long in that condition that the native knowledge respecting them had passed into the state of a tradition and a superstition. Certainly not less than a century would suffice for this. Of the northern ruins very many are known to have been inhabited and flourishing towns when the Spaniards came. That any were at that time in ruins is not proven, though possible.

2. The material relics of the New Mexican group bear no resemblance whatever to either Nahua or Maya relics in the south. It has been constantly stated and repeated by most writers, that all American aboriginal monuments, the works of the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi, the ruins of New Mexico and Arizona, the Casas Grandes of Chihuahua, the Edificios of Zacatecas, the pyramids of Anáhuac and the central plateaux, Mitla, Palenque, the cities of Yucatan, and finally Copan, all belong evidently to one class and present one type; that all are such as might reasonably be attributed to the same people in different periods of their civilization. It is even customary for travelers and writers to speak without hesitation of Aztec ruins and relics in Arizona, as if there were no longer any doubt on the subject. So far as the New Mexican link in the chain is concerned, I most emphatically deny the resemblance, on grounds which the reader of the preceding pages already fully understands. I can hardly conceive of structures reared by human hands differing more essentially than the two classes in question. In the common use of adobes for building-material; in the plain walls rising to a height of several stories; in the terrace structure, absence of doors in the lower story, and the entrance by ladders; in the absence of arched ceilings of overlapping blocks, of all pyramidal structures, of sculptured blocks, of all architectural decorations, of idols, temples, and every trace of buildings evidently designed for religious rites, of burial mounds and human remains; and in the character of the rock-inscriptions and miscellaneous relics, not to go farther into details, the New Mexican monuments present no analogies to any of the southern remains. I do not mean to express a decided opinion that the Aztecs were not, some hundreds or thousands of centuries ago, or even at a somewhat less remote period, identical with the natives of New Mexico, for I have great faith in the power of time and environment to work unlimited changes in any people; I simply claim that it is a manifest absurdity to suppose that the monuments described were the work of the Aztecs during a migration southward, since the eleventh century, or of any people nearly allied in blood and institutions to the Aztecs as they were found in Anáhuac.

3. Not only do the ruins of this group bear no resemblance to those of the south, but they represent in all respects buildings like those still inhabited by the Pueblo tribes and the Moquis, and do not differ more among themselves than do the dwellings of the peoples mentioned. Every one of them may be most reasonably regarded as the work of the direct ancestors of the present inhabitants of the Pueblo towns, who did not differ to any great extent in civilization or institutions from their descendants, though they may very likely have been vastly superior to them in power and wealth. Consequently there is not a single relic in the whole region that requires the agency of any extinct race of people, or any other nations--using the word in a somewhat wider signification than has sometimes been given to it in the preceding volumes--than those now living in the country. Not only do the remains not point in themselves to any extinct race, but if there were any traditional or other evidence indicating the past agency of such a race, it would be impossible to reconcile the traditional with the monumental evidence except by the supposition that the Pueblos are a foreign people who took possession of the abandoned dwellings of another race, whose institutions they imitated to the best of their ability; but I do not know that such a theory has ever been advanced. I am aware that this conclusion is sadly at variance with the newspaper reports in constant circulation, of marvelous cities, the remnants of an advanced but extinct civilization, discovered by some trapper, miner, or exploring expedition. I am also aware of the probability that many ruins in addition to those I have been able to describe, have been found by military officials, government explorers, and private individuals during the past ten years; and I hope that the appearance of this volume may cause the publication of much additional information on the subject,--but that any of the newly discovered monuments differ in type from those previously known, there is much reason to doubt. Very many of the newspaper accounts referred to relate to discoveries made by Lieut. Wheeler's exploring party during the past two or three years. Lieut. Wheeler informs me that the reports, so far as they refer to the remains of an extinct people, are without foundation, and that his observations have led him to a conclusion practically the same as my own respecting the builders of the ruined Pueblo towns.

[Sidenote: THE ANCIENT PUEBLO TOWNS.]

4. It follows that New Mexico, Arizona, and northern Chihuahua were once inhabited by agricultural semi-civilized tribes, not differing more among themselves than do the Pueblo tribes of the present time; the most fertile valleys of the region were cultivated by them, and were dotted by fine town-dwellings of stone and adobe, occupied in common by many families, similar but superior to the present Pueblo towns. At least a century, probably much longer, before the Spaniards made their appearance, the decline of this numerous and powerful people began, and it has continued uninterruptedly down to the present time, until only a mere remnant in the Rio Grande and Moqui towns is left. Before the Spaniards came all the southern towns, on the Gila and its tributaries, had been abandoned; since that time the decline of the northern nations, which the Spaniards found in a tolerably flourishing condition, is a matter of history. The reason of the decline this is hardly the place to consider, but it is doubtless to the inroads of outside warlike and predatory tribes like the Apaches that we must look for the chief cause. It is not impossible that natural changes in the surface of the region, such as the drying-up of springs, streams, or lakes, may have also contributed to the same effect. These changes, however, if such took place, were probably gradual in their operation; for the location of the ruins in what are still in most cases among the most fertile valleys, either in the vicinity of water, or at least of a dried-up stream, and their absence in every instance in the absolutely desert tracts, show pretty conclusively that the towns were not destroyed suddenly by any natural convulsion which radically changed the face of the country. It is not difficult to imagine how the agricultural Pueblo communities, weakened perhaps at first by some international strife which forced them to neglect the tillage of their land, and hard pressed by more than usually persistent inroads from bands of Apaches who plundered their crops and destroyed their irrigation-works, visited perchance by pestilence, or by earthquakes sent by some irate deity to dry up their springs, were forced year by year to yield their fair fields to the drifting sands, to abandon their southern homes and unite their forces with kindred northern tribes; till at last came the crowning blow of a foreign invasion, which has well nigh extinguished an aboriginal culture more interesting and admirable, if not in all respects more advanced, than any other in North America.

FOOTNOTES:

[XI-1] _Cal., Past, Pres. and Future_, p. 145.

[XI-2] _Bartlett's Pers. Nar._, vol. ii., pp. 195, 206; _Froebel_, _Aus Amer._, tom. ii., p. 468; _Id._, _Cent. Amer._, pp. 519-24; _Emory's Reconnoissance_, pp. 82, 89-91, with plate.

[XI-3] _Castañeda_, in _Ternaux-Compans_, _Voy._, série i., tom. ix., pp. 40-1, 161-2. Two other accounts of the trip were written--one by Juan Jaramillo, which may be found in the same volume of Ternaux-Compans' work; and the second by Coronado himself, an Italian translation of which appeared in _Ramusio_, _Navigationi_, tom. iii., fol. 359, et seq., and an English translation in _Hakluyt's Voy._, vol. iii., p. 373, et seq. For an abstract of the trip and discussion about the location of the route, see _Gallatin_, in _Amer. Ethno. Soc., Transact._, vol. ii.; _Squier_, in _American Review_ for November, 1848; _Whipple, et al._, in _Pac. R. R. Repts_, vol. iii.; and _Simpson_, in _Smithsonian Rept._, 1859, p. 309, et seq. The last is the best article on the subject, and is accompanied by a map. All the accounts mention the fact that the expedition passed through Chichilticale, but only the one quoted describes the building.

[XI-4] "Lo apuntó en embrion por no haber ido yo á este descubrimento." _Mange_, in _Doc. Hist. Mex._, série iv., tom. i., pp. 259, 253, 362-4.

[XI-5] In _Doc. Hist. Mex._, série iv., tom. i., pp. 282-3. Mange's description is as follows:--'One of them is a large edifice, the principal room in the centre being four stories high, and those adjoining it on its four sides, three stories; with walls two varas thick, of strong _argamasa y barro_ [that is, the material of which adobes are made] so smooth on the inside that they resemble planed boards, and so polished that they shine like Puebla pottery. The corners of the windows, which are square, are very straight and without supports or crosspieces of wood, as if made with a mold; the doors are the same, though, narrow, and by this it is known to be the work of Indians; it is 36 paces long by 21 wide, and is well built. At the distance of an arquebuse-shot are seen twelve other buildings half fallen, also with thick walls; and all the roofs burned out except one low room, which has round beams apparently of cedar, or sabino, small and smooth, and over them _otates_ (reeds) of equal size, and a layer of hard mud and mortar, forming a very curious roof or floor. In the vicinity are seen many other ruins and stories, and heaps of rubbish which cover the ground for two leagues; with much broken pottery, plates, and _ollas_ of fine clay painted in various colors and resembling the Guadalajara pottery of New Spain; hence it is inferred that the city was very large and the work of a civilized people under a government. This is verified by a canal which runs from the river over the plain, encircling the settlement, which is in the centre, three leagues in circumference, ten varas wide and four deep, carrying perhaps half the river, and thus serving as a defensive ditch as well as to supply water for the houses and to irrigate the surrounding fields.'

[XI-6] _Sedelmair_, _Relacion_, in _Doc. Hist. Mex._, série iii., tom. iv., p. 847. Orozco y Berra, _Geografía_, pp. 108-10, takes this description from Sedelmair's MS. in the Mexican archives, as being written by one who was 'almost the discoverer,' but it is a literal copy of Mange's diary. Mange's diary, so far as it relates to the Casa Grande, is translated in _Schoolcraft's Arch._, vol. iii., p. 301; and _Bartlett's Pers. Nar._, vol. ii., pp. 281-2.

[XI-7] 'Y vimos toda la vivienda del edificio que es muy grande de quatro altos, cuadradas las paredes y muy gruesas como de dos varas de ancho del dicho barro blanco, y aunque estos jentiles lo han quemado distintas veces, se ven los quatro altos, con buenas salas, aposentos y ventanas curiosamente embarradas por dentro y fuera de manera que están las paredes encaladas y lisas con un barro algo colorado, las puertas muy parejas. Tambien hay inmediatas por fuera once casas algo menores fabricadas con la propia curiosidad de la grande y altas ... y en largo distrito se ve mucha losa quebrada y pintada; tambien se vé una sequia maestra de diez varas de ancho y quatro de alto, y un bordo muy grueso hecho de la misma tierra que va á la casa por un llano.' _Bernal_, in _Doc. Hist. Mex._, série iii., tom. iv., p. 804.