Cosmos Mindeleff - Casa Grande Ruin
C >>
Cosmos Mindeleff >> Casa Grande Ruin
* * * * *
CASA GRANDE RUIN
BY
COSMOS MINDELEFF
* * * * *
CONTENTS
Introduction 295
Location and character 295
History and literature 295
Description 298
The Casa Grande group 298
Casa Grande ruin 306
State of preservation 306
Dimensions 307
Detailed description 309
Openings 314
Conclusions 318
ILLUSTRATIONS
Plate LI. Map of Casa Grande group 298
LII. Ground plan of Casa Grande ruin 302
LIII. General view of Casa Grande ruin 305
LIV. Standing wall near Casa Grande 307
LV. Western front of Casa Grande ruin 309
LVI. Interior wall of Casa Grande ruin 310
LVII. Blocked opening in western wall 312
LVIII. Square opening in southern room 314
LIX. Remains of lintel 317
LX. Circular opening in northern room 319
Fig. 328. Map of large mound 301
329. Map of hollow mound 304
330. Elevations of walls, middle room 315
* * * * *
CASA GRANDE RUIN
By Cosmos Mindeleff
* * * * *
INTRODUCTION.
LOCATION AND CHARACTER.
The Casa Grande ruin, situated near Gila river, in southern Arizona, is
perhaps the best known specimen of aboriginal architecture in the United
States, and no treatise on American antiquities is complete without a
more or less extended description of it. Its literature, which extends
over two centuries, is voluminous, but of little value to the practical
scientific worker, since hardly two descriptions can be found which
agree. The variations in size of the ruin given by various authors is
astonishing, ranging from 1,500 square feet to nearly 5 acres or about
200,000 square feet in area. These extreme variations are doubtless due
to difference of judgment as to what portion of the area covered by
remains of walls should be assigned to the Casa Grande proper, for this
structure is but a portion of a large group of ruins.
So far as known to the writer no accurate plan of the Casa Grande ruin
proper has hitherto been made, although plans have been published; and
very few data concerning the group of which it forms a part are
available. It would seem, therefore, that a brief report presenting
accurate plans and careful descriptions may be of value, even though
no pretention to exhaustive treatment is made.
HISTORY AND LITERATURE.
The earlier writers on the Casa Grande generally state that it was in
ruins at the time of the first Spanish invasion of the country, in 1540,
and quote in support of this assertion Castaneda's description of a ruin
encountered on the march.[1] Castaneda remarks that, "The structure
was in ruins and without a roof." Elsewhere he says that the name
"Chichilticale" was given to the place where they stopped because the
monks found in the vicinity a house which had been inhabited by a people
who came from Cibola. He surmises that the ruin was formerly a fortress,
destroyed long before by the barbarous tribes which they found in the
country. His description of these tribes seems to apply to the Apache.
[Footnote 1: Castaneda in Ternaux-Compans. Voyage de Cibola. French
text, p. 1, pp. 41, 161-162. (The original text--Spanish--is in the
Lenox Library; no English translation has yet been published.)]
The geographic data furnished by Castaneda and the other chroniclers of
Coronado's expedition is very scanty, and the exact route followed has
not yet been determined and probably never will be. So far as these data
go, however, they are against the assumption that the Chichilticale of
Castaneda is the Casa Grande of today. Mr. A. F. Bandelier, whose
studies of the documentary history of the southwest are well known,
inclines to the opinion that the vicinity of Old Camp Grant, on the Rio
San Pedro, Arizona, more nearly fill the descriptions. Be this as it
may, however, the work of Castaneda was lost to sight, and it is not
until more than a century later that the authentic history of the ruin
commences.
In 1694 the Jesuit Father Kino heard of the ruin, and later in the same
year visited it and said mass within its walls. His secretary and usual
companion on his missionary journeys, Mange by name, was not with him on
this occasion, but in 1697 another visit was paid to the ruin and the
description recorded by Mange[1] in his diary heads the long list of
accounts extending down to the present time.[2] Mange describes the ruin
as consisting of--
A large edifice, the principal room in the center being four stories
high, and those adjoining it on its four sides three stories, with
walls 2 varas thick, of strong argamaso y baro (adobe) so smooth on
the inside that they resemble planed boards, and so polished that
they shine like Puebla pottery.
[Footnote 1: An English translation is given by H. H. Bancroft,
Works, iv, p. 622, note. Also by Bartlett, Personal Narrative, 1854,
vol. ii, pp. 281-282; another was published by Schoolcraft, Hist.
Cond. and Pros. of Am. Ind., vol. iii, 1853, p. 301.]
[Footnote 2: Quite an extensive list is given by Bancroft
(op. cit., pp. 622-625, notes), and by Bandelier in Papers Arch.
Inst. of Amer., American series, i, p. 11, note.]
Mange also gives some details of construction, and states that in the
immediate vicinity there were remains of twelve other buildings, the
walls half fallen and the roofs burned out.
Following Mange's account there were a number of descriptions of no
special value, and a more useful one written by Padre Font, who in 1775
and 1776 made a journey to Gila and Colorado rivers and beyond. This
description[1] is quite circumstantial and is of especial interest
because it formed the basis of nearly all the accounts written up to the
time when that country came into our possession. According to this
authority--
The house forms an oblong square, facing exactly the four cardinal
points, and round about it there are ruins indicating a fence or
wall which surrounded the house and other buildings. The exterior or
plaza extends north and south 420 feet and east and west 260 feet.
[Footnote 1: A number of copies of Font's Journal are known.
Bancroft gives a partial translation in op. cit., p. 623, note, as
does also Bartlett (op. cit., pp. 278-280); and a French translation
is given by Ternaux Compans, ix, Voyages de Cibola, appendix.]
Font measured the five rooms of the main building, and recorded many
interesting details. It will be noticed that he described a surrounding
wall inclosing a comparatively large area; and nearly all the writers
who published accounts prior to our conquest of the country in 1846
based their descriptions on Font's journal and erroneously applied his
measurement of the supposed circumscribing wall to the Casa Grande
proper.
The conquest of the country by the "Army of the West" attracted
attention anew to the ruin, through the descriptions of Colonel Emory
and Captain Johnston. The expedition passed up the Gila valley, and
Colonel Emory, in his journal, gives a fanciful illustration and a
slight description. The journal of Captain Johnston contained a somewhat
better description and a rough but fairly good sketch. The best
description of that period, however, was that given by John Russell
Bartlett, in his "Personal Narrative," published in 1854.
Bartlett observed that the ruin consists of three buildings, "all
included within an area of 150 yards." He described these buildings and
gave ground plans of two of them and elevations of the principal
structure. He also gave a translation of a portion of Font's journal, as
well as the previous description of Mange. He surmised that the central
room of the main building, and perhaps the whole structure, was used for
the storage of corn.
Bartlett's account held place for nearly thirty years as the main
reliance of compilers, and it forms today one of the most circumstantial
and comprehensive descriptions extant. Other descriptions appeared at
intervals of a few years, some compiled from Bartlett and Font, others
based on personal observation, but none of them containing anything new,
until the account of Mr. A. F. Bandelier, published some ten years
ago,[1] is reached.
[Footnote 1: Archaeological Inst. of Amer., 5th Ann. Rep., 1884.]
Mr. Bandelier described the large group, of which the Casa Grande forms
a part, and gave its dimensions as 400 meters (1,300 feet) north and
south by 200 meters (650 feet) east and west. He also described and gave
measurements of the Casa Grande proper and discusses its place in the
field of aboriginal architecture. In a later publication[1] he discussed
the ruin at somewhat greater length, and presented also a rough sketch
plan of the group and ground plans of the Casa Grande and of the mound
north of it. He gave a short history of the ruin and quite an extended
account of the Pima traditions concerning it. He considered the Casa
Grande a stronghold or fortress, a place of last resort, the
counterpart, functionally, of the blockhouse of the early settlers of
eastern United States.
[Footnote 1: Papers Archaeol. Inst. of Amer., Amer. ser., iv,
Cambridge, 1892, p. 453 et sec.]
In 1888 Mr. F. H. Cushing presented to the Congres International des
Americanistes[1] some "Preliminary notes" on his work as director of the
Hemenway southwestern archeological expedition. Mr. Cushing did not
describe the Casa Grande, but merely alluded to it as a surviving
example of the temple, or principal structure, which occurred in
conjunction with nearly all the settlements studied. As Mr. Cushing's
work was devoted, however, to the investigation of remains analogous to,
if not identical with, the Casa Grande, his report forms a valuable
contribution to the literature of this subject, and although not
everyone can accept the broad inferences and generalizations drawn by
Mr. Cushing--of which he was able, unfortunately, to present only a mere
statement--the report should be consulted by every student of
southwestern archeology.
[Footnote 1: Berlin meeting, 1888; Compte-Rendu, Berlin, 1890,
p. 150 et seq.]
The latest contribution to the literature of the Casa Grande is a report
by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes,[1] also of the Hemenway expedition, under the
title "On the present condition of a ruin in Arizona called Casa
Grande." Two magnificent illustrations are presented, engravings from
photographs, showing general views of the ruin, as well as a number of
views depicting details, and the ground plan presented at the end of the
report is the best so far published. It is unfortunate that this author
was not able to give more time to the study of the ruin; yet his report
is a valuable contribution to our knowledge concerning the Casa Grande.
[Footnote 1: Jour. of Amer. Ethn. and Arch., Cambridge, 1892, vol.
ii, page 179 et seq.]
DESCRIPTION.
THE CASA GRANDE GROUP.
The Casa Grande has been variously placed at from 2 leagues to 2 miles
south of Gila river. The writer has never traversed the distance from
the ruin to the river, but the ruin is about a mile from Walker ranch,
which is well known in that neighborhood, and about half a mile from the
river. This question, however, is not of much importance, as the ruin is
easily found by anyone looking for it, being located directly on one of
the stage routes from Casa Grande station, on the Southern Pacific
railroad, to Florence, Arizona, and about 9 miles below, or west of, the
latter place.
The name Casa Grande has been usually applied to a single structure
standing near the southwestern corner of a large area covered by mounds
and other debris, but some writers have applied it to the southwestern
portion of the area and even to the whole area. The latter seems the
proper application of the term, but to avoid confusion, where both the
settlement as a whole and that portion which has formed the theme of so
many writers are referred to, the settlement will be designated as the
Casa Grande group, and the single structure with standing walls as the
Casa Grande ruin.
Probably no two investigators would assign the same limits to the area
covered by the group, as the margins of this area merge imperceptibly
into the surrounding country. The accompanying map (plate LI) shows this
area as interpreted by the writer. The surface covered by well defined
remains, as there shown, extends about 1,800 feet north and south and
1,500 feet east and west, or a total area of about 65 acres.
[Illustration: Pl. LI: Map of Casa Grande Group.]
The Casa Grande ruin, as the term is here used, occupies a position near
the southwestern corner of the group, and it will be noticed that its
size is insignificant as compared with that of the entire group, or even
with the large structure in the north-central part of it. The division
of the group into northern and southern portions, which has been made by
some writers, is clearly shown on the map; but this division is more
apparent than real. The contour interval on the map is one foot--a
sufficiently small interval to show the surface configuration closely
and to bring out some of its peculiarities. Depressions are shown by
dotted contours. It will be noticed that while most of the mounds which
mark the sites of former structures rise but 10 feet or less above the
surrounding level, the profiles vary considerably, some being much more
smoothed off and rounded than others, the former being shown on the map
by even, "flowing" contours, while the latter are more irregular; and it
will be further noticed that the irregularity reaches its maximum in the
vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin proper, where the ground surface was
more recently formed, from the fall of walls that were standing within
the historical period.
External appearance is a very unsafe criterion of age, although in some
cases, like the present, it affords a fair basis for hypothesis as to
comparative age; but even in this case, where the various portions of
the group have presumably been affected alike by climatic and other
influences, such hypothesis, while perhaps interesting, must be used
with the greatest caution. Within a few miles of this place the writer
has seen the remains of a modern adobe house whose maximum age could not
exceed a decade or two, yet which presented an appearance of antiquity
quite as great as that of the wall remains east and southeast of the
Casa Grande ruin.
The application of the hypothesis to the map brings out some interesting
results. In the first place, it may be seen that in the lowest mounds,
such as those in the northwestern corner of the sheet, on the southern
margin, and southwest of the well-marked mound on the eastern margin,
the contours are more flowing and the slopes more gentle than in others.
This suggests that these smoothed mounds are older than the others, and,
further, that their present height is not so great as their former
height; and again, under this hypothesis, it suggests that the remains
do not belong to one period, but that the interval which elapsed between
the abandonment of the structures whose sites are marked by the low
mounds and the most recent abandonment was long. In other words, this
group, under the hypothesis, affords another illustration of a fact
constantly impressed on the student of southwestern village remains,
that each village site marks but an epoch in the history of the tribe
occupying it--a period during which there was constant, incessant
change, new bands or minor divisions of the tribe appearing on the
scene, other divisions leaving the parent village for other sites, and
the ebb and flow continuing until at some period in its history the
population of a village sometimes became so reduced that the remainder,
as a matter of precaution, or for some trifling reason, abandoned it en
masse. This phase of pueblo life, more prominent in the olden days than
at present, but still extant, has not received the prominence it
deserves in the study of southwestern remains. Its effects can be seen
in almost every ruin; not all the villages of a group, nor even all the
parts of a village, were inhabited at the same time, and estimates of
population based on the number of ruins within a given region, and even
those based on the size of a given ruin, must be materially revised. As
this subject has been elsewhere[1] discussed, it can be dismissed here
with the statement that the Casa Grande group seems to have formed no
exception to the general rule, but that its population changed from time
to time, and that the extent of the remains is no criterion of the
former population.
[Footnote 1: See pp. 179-261 of this Report, "Aboriginal Remains in
Verde Valley."]
It will be noticed that in some of the mounds, noticeably those in the
immediate vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin, the surface is very
irregular. In this instance the irregularity indicates a recent
formation of surface; for at this point many walls now marked only by
mounds were standing within the historical period. External contour is
of course a product of erosion, yet similarity of contour does not
necessarily indicate either equal erosion or equal antiquity. Surface
erosion does not become a prominent factor until after the walls have
fallen, and one wall may easily last for a century or two centuries
longer than another similarly situated. The surface erosion of a
standing wall of grout, such as these under discussion, is very slight;
photographs of the Casa Grande ruin, extending over a period of sixteen
years, and made from practically the same point of view, show that the
skyline or silhouette remained essentially unchanged during that period,
every little knob and projection remaining the same. It is through
sapping or undermining at the ground surface that walls are destroyed.
An inspection of the illustrations accompanying this paper will show
what is meant by sapping: the external walls are cut away at the ground
surface to a depth varying from a few inches to nearly 2 feet. After a
rain the ground, and that portion of the walls at present below its
surface, retains moisture much longer than the part of the walls which
stands clear; the moisture rises by capillary attraction a foot or two
above the ground surface, rendering the walls at this level softer than
elsewhere, and as this portion is more exposed to the flying sand which
the wind sweeps over the ground it is here that erosion attains its
maximum. The wall is gradually cut away at and just above the ground
surface until finally the base becomes too small to support it and it
falls en masse. Then and not till then surface erosion becomes an
important factor and the profile of the mass becomes finally rounded.
But it will be readily seen that a slight difference of texture, or
thickness, or exposure, or some trifling difference too minute for
observation, might easily add many decades to the apparent age of a
mound. The walls once fallen, however, the rounding or smoothing of the
mounds would probably proceed at an equal rate throughout the group, and
study of the profile gives a fairly good estimate as to the comparative
age of the mounds. On this basis the most ancient mounds are those
specified above, while the most recent are those in the immediate
vicinity of the Casa Grande ruin. This estimate accords well with the
limited historical data and with the Pima traditions, which recount that
the Casa Grande ruin was the last inhabited village in this vicinity.
[Illustration: Fig. 328.--Map of large mound.]
Probably intermediate in time between the Casa Grande ruin and the
rounded mounds described above should be placed the large structure
occupying the northern-central part of the map. This mound is deserving
of more than a passing notice. It consists of two mounds, each four or
five times the size of the Casa Grande ruin, resting on a flat-topped
pedestal or terrace about 5 feet above the general level. The summits of
these mounds, which are nearly flat, are some 13 feet above this level.
The sides of the mounds slope very sharply, and have suffered somewhat
from erosion, being cut by deep gullies, as shown in figure 328, which
is an enlargement from the map. It has been stated that these structures
were mounds, pure and simple, used for sacrifice or worship, resembling
somewhat the well-known pyramid of Cholula; but there is no doubt that
they are the remains of house-structures, for a careful examination of
the surface on the slopes, reveals the ends of regular walls. The height
is not exceptional, the mound on the east being less than 3 feet lower,
while the one on the southeast lacks less than 4 feet of its height. The
characteristic feature, however, and one difficult to explain, except on
the hypothesis stated, is the sharp slope of the sides. It will be
noticed that the raised base or terrace on which the mounds are located
is not perfectly flat, but on the contrary has a raised rim. This rim
seems quite inconsistent with the theory which has been advanced that
the terrace was built up solidly as a terrace or base, as in that case
it would seem natural that the slope from the base of the mounds to the
edge of the terrace would be continuous.
There is an abundance of room between the crest of the rim and the base
of the terrace for a row of single rooms, inclosing a court within which
the main structures stood, or such a court may have been covered, wholly
or partly with clusters of rooms, single storied outside, but rising in
the center, in two main clusters, three or more stories high. Such an
agglomeration of rooms might under certain conditions produce the result
seen here, although a circumscribing heavy wall, occupying the position
of the crest of the rim and inclosing two main clusters each rising
three or more stories, might also produce this result. The difficulty
with the latter hypothesis is, however, that under it we should expect
to find a greater depression between the base of the mounds and the edge
of the terrace. The most reasonable hypothesis, therefore, is that the
space between the base of the mounds and the edge of the terrace was
occupied by rooms of one story. This would also help to explain the
steepness of the slopes of the mounds themselves. The walls of the
structures they represent, being protected by the adjacent low walls of
the one-story rooms, would not suffer appreciably by undermining at the
ground level, and if the central room or rooms of each cluster were
higher than the surrounding rooms, as is the case in the Casa Grande
ruin, the exterior walls, being usually heavier than the inner walls,
would be the last to succumb, the clusters would be filled up by the
disintegration of the inner walls, and not until the spaces between the
low one-story walls surrounding the central cluster were nearly filled
up would the pronounced disintegration of the outer walls of the
structures commence. At that period the walls were probably covered and
protected by debris dropping from above, and possibly the profile of the
mounds was already established, being only slightly modified by surface
erosion since.
[Illustration: Pl. LII: Ground Plan of Casa Grande Ruin.]
About the center of the eastern side of the terrace, and also on the
western side, the water which falls on the surface of the structure is
discharged through rather pronounced depressions at these points. These
depressions are not the work of running water, though doubtless
emphasized by that agency, but represent low or open spaces in the
original structure, probably passageways or gateways. Furthermore,
before or inside each gateway there is a slightly depressed area, just
where we would expect to find it under our hypothesis, and showing that
the process of filling in is not yet completed. If the structure were to
remain undisturbed for some decades longer these spaces would doubtless
be filled up from material washed from the mounds, giving eventually a
continuous slope from the base of the mounds to the edge of the terrace.
On the eastern margin of the map and in the southeastern corner two
small and sharply defined mounds, differing in character from any others
of the group, are represented. That shown on the eastern margin rises
about 6 feet and the other about 10 feet above the surrounding level,
and both stand out alone, no other remains occurring within a hundred
yards in any direction. These mounds seem a thing apart from the other
remains in the group; and it is probable that they represent the latest
period in the occupancy of this site, or possibly a period subsequent to
its final abandonment as a place of residence. Analogous remains occur
in conjunction with some large ruins in the north, and there they
represent single rooms, parts of the original structure kept in a fair
state of preservation by occasional repairs while the remainder of the
village was going to ruin, and used as farming outlooks long after the
site was abandoned as a place of residence. As these farming outlooks
have been discussed at some length in another paper[1] it is not
necessary here to enlarge upon their function and the important part
they play in Pueblo architecture. If the high mounds in question mark,
as supposed, the sites of farming outlooks such as those which are found
in the north, they indicate that the occupancy of the region in which
they occur was continued after the abandonment of the Casa Grande
structure by the people who built it or by people of similar habits and
customs.