# Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines/Chapter 7

Table of Contents
CHAPTER VII.
RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
The finest structures of the Village Indians in New Mexico, and northward of its present boundary line, are found on the San Juan and its tributaries, unoccupied and in ruins. Even the regions in which they are principally situated are not now occupied by this class of Indians, but are roamed over by wild tribes of the Apaches and the Utes. The most conspicuous cluster of these ruined and deserted pueblos are in the canon or valley of the Rio Chaco, which stream is an affluent of the San Juan, a tributary of the Colorado. Similar ruins of stone pueblos are also found in the valley of the Animas River, and also in the region of the Ute Mountain in Southwestern Colorado. Ruins of clusters of small single houses built of cobble-stone and adobe mortar, and of large pueblos of the same material, are to be seen in the La Plata Valley, and in the Montezuma Valley, west of the Mancos River. On the Mancos River are a large number of cliff houses of stone, and also round towers of stone, ot which the uses are not at present known. Cliff houses are also found on the Dolores River. Other ruins are found in the cañon of the Rio de Chelly.
The supposition is reasonable that the Village Indians north of Mexico had attained their highest culture and development where these stone structures are found. They are similar in style and plan to the present occupied pueblos in New Mexico, but superior in construction, as stone is superior to adobe or to cobble-stone and adobe mortar. They are also equal, if not superior, in size and in the extent of their accommodations, to any Indian pueblos ever constructed in North America. This fact gives additional interest to these ruins, which are here to be considered. ​Two separate explorations and reports upon the Chaco ruins have been made. The first was by Lieut. J. H. Simpson, who examined them in 1849 and first brought them to notice, and the second was a re-examination by William H. Jackson in 1877. He was connected with Prof. F. V. Hayden's Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, and his report is in that of Professor Hayden, published in 1878, p. 411.
The cañon of the Chaco, which commences about one hundred and ten miles northwest from Santo Domingo, on the Rio Grande, is quite remarkable. It has enough of the characteristics of the cañon to justify, the application of this peculiar term But it differs from the great cañons in the lowness of the bordering walls and in the great breadth of the space between. Neither Simpson nor Jackson describe the cañon or valley with as much particularity as could be desired, but Mr. Jackson has furnished a map. Fig. 29, showing the course of the stream with the walls of the canon shaded in, and with the breaks or gullies through these walls reduced to a scale. This shows that the level plain between the encompassing walls ranges from half a mile to a mile in places. The walls of the cañon are composed of friable sandstone, and are usually vertical. Their height is not given with precision. The engraving also shows the outline forms and comparative size of the several structures, with specimens of three varieties of masonry used in the walls. No. 2 shows an alternation of courses of stone from four to six inches thick and from eight to twelve inches long, with intervening courses of several thin stones. The same alternation of courses reappears in the pueblos in ruins on the Animas River, about sixty miles north. The cañon commences very much like the McElmo Cañon in Southwestern Colorado, whose vertical walls are at first about three feet high, with a level space between from three hundred to five hundred feet in width; its walls rising slowly as you descend. Without a present running stream, and bordered with open prairie land, it makes a novel appearance to the eye. Lieutenant Simpson remarks that after leaving the pueblo Pintado, which is above the commencement of the cañon, "two miles over a slightly rolling country, our general course still being to the northwest, brought us to the commencement of the Cañon de Chaco, its width here being about two hundred yards. Friable sandstone rocks, massive above, ​stratified below, constitute its enclosing walls." And Mr. Jackson, who entered it from the same point, remarks that "two miles from the river we descended into the canon of the Chaco. It is here only about fifty feet in depth, with vertical walls of yellowish gray sandstone." At a point twelve miles down, at the Pueblo Una Vida, he remarks that "the cañon is here about five hundred yards wide, and is perfectly level from one side to the other." Farther down the walls of the cañon rise about a hundred feet, as appears in the restorations of the Pueblo Bonito and of the Pueblo of Hungo Pa vie. Whether the canon is accessible or not from the table-land above over against the several pueblos, by means of the arroyos which break through the walls and enter the cañon, does not appear from these reports; but it seems probable, Mr. Jackson says, that near the Pueblo Bonito he ascended to the top of the bluff by means of a stairway partly cut in the face of the rock.
Lieutenant Simpson, in his report, has furnished ground plans of five of these structures with measurements. Mr. Jackson has furnished eleven ground plans with measurements, two of which are without the canon. They agree substantially, but we shall follow Mr. Jackson, as his are the most complete. The following engravings, with two or three exceptions, are taken from his report. The remainder are from Lieutenant Simpson's report.
"In the outer face of the buildings there are no signs of mortar, the intervals between the beds being chinked with stones of the minutest thinness. The filling and backing are done in rubble masonry, the mortar presenting no indications of the presence of lime. The thickness of the main wall at base is within an inch or two of three feet; higher up, it is less, diminishing every story by retreating jogs on the inside, from bottom to top. Its elevation at its present highest point is between twenty-five and thirty feet, the series of floor beams indicating that there must have been originally three stories. The ground plan, including the court, in exterior development is about 403 feet. On the ground-floor, exclusive of the out-buildings, are fifty-four apartments, some of them as small as five feet square, and the largest about twelve by six feet. These rooms communicate with each other by very small doors, some of them as contracted as two and a half by two and a half feet; and in the case of the inner suite, the doors communicating with the interior court are as small as three and a half by two feet. The principal rooms, or those most in use, were, on account of their having large doors and windows, most probably those of the second story. The system of flooring seems to have been large transverse unhewn beams, six inches in diameter, laid transversely from wall to wall, and then a number of smaller ones, about three inches in diameter, laid longitudinally upon them. What was placed upon these does not appear, but most probably it was brush, bark, or slabs, covered with a layer of mud-mortar. The beams show no signs of the saw or axe; on the contrary, they appear to have been hacked off by means of some very imperfect instrument. On the west face of the structure, the windows, which are only in the second story, are three feet two inches by two feet two inches. On the north side they are only in the second and third stories, and are as small as fourteen by fourteen inches. At different points about the premises were three circular apartments sunk in the ground, the walls being of masonry. These apartments ​the Pueblo Indians called estufas, or places where the people held their political and religious meetings."
Twelve miles down the cañon from the Pueblo Pintado, are the ruins of the Pueblo Wegé-gi, Fig. 30. The main building is two hundred and twenty-four feet, and the length of each wing is one hundred and twenty feet, measured on the outside, but which would include the depth of the main building. It is remarkably symmetrical. The rooms, Mr. Jackson says, are small, the largest being eight by fourteen feet, and the smallest eight feet square, and the estufas are each thirty feet in diameter. It is built like the last pueblo "of small tabular pieces of sandstone, arranged with beautiful effect of regularity and finish." ​The Pueblo of Una Vida, Fig. 31, seems to have been in process of construction, and designed, when completed, to have been one of the largest in the valley. The main building is two hundred and fifty feet in length, and the wing two hundred feet. It requires for its completion a considerable extension of the main building, and the addition of another wing. If this supposition is tenable, it serves to show that these great houses were of slow construction, by the process of addition and extension from time to time, with the increase of the people in numbers. Upon this theory of construction, the first row of the main building on the court side would first be completed one story high, and covered with a flat roof; after which, by adding one parallel wall with partition walls at intervals, as many more apartments would be obtained; and by a third and fourth parallel wall, with partitions, twice as many more. The second row was carried up two stories, the third three, and the fourth four; the successive stories receding from the court side in the form of great steps or terraces, one above the other. The wings would be commenced and completed in the same manner. Further than this, it seems evident, from the present condition of the structure, that the main building was to be considerably extended, with a second wing like the first to fill out the original design and produce a symmetrical edifice. If these inferences are warranted, the interesting conclusion is reached that these Indian architects commenced their great houses upon a definite plan, which was to be realized in its completeness after years and perhaps generations had passed away. Like the pueblo last named, it is built of tabular pieces of sandstone, and is two miles and a half lower down in the cañon.
To complete the representation of the architectural design of these "great houses of stone," the annexed elevation is given, Fig. 32. It is a restoration of the Pueblo of Hungo Pavie, made by Mr. Kern, who accompanied General Simpson as draughtsman, and copied from his engraving. The walls of the canon are seen in the background of engraving. We may recognize in this edifice, as it seems to the author, a very satisfactory reproduction of the so-called palaces of Montezuma, which, like this, were constructed on three sides of a court which opened on a street or causeway, and in the terraced form. From the light which this architecture throws upon that of the Aztecs, which was cotemporary, it appears extremely probable that these famous palaces, considered as exclusive residences of an Indian potentate, are purely fictitious; and that, on the contrary, they were neither more nor less than great communal or joint-tenement houses of the aboriginal American model, and with common Indians crowding all their apartments. From what is now known of the necessary constitution of society among the Village Indians, it scarcely admits of a doubt that the great house in which he lived was occupied on equal terms by many other families in common with his own, all the individuals of which were joint proprietors of the establishment which their own hands had constructed.
Two miles further down, and upon the north side of the canon, near the bluff, are the ruins of the Pueblo of Chettro Kettle, or the Rain Pueblo, Fig. 33. The main building and the wings face the court, from which alone they are entered, and from which the several stories recede outward. Including the court, this great edifice has an exterior development of one thousand three hundred feet. The exterior wall of the main building measures four hundred and fifty-two feet in length, and the longest of the wings two hundred and twenty feet. These measurements are according to General Simpson.
From these measurements some impression may be formed of the ​extent of the accommodations such an edifice would afford, especially in Indian life, where a married pair and their children are found in a smaller space than one of these apartments supplied. The plan shows one hundred and seventy-five apartments in the ground story; one hundred and thirty-four in the second; one hundred and thirteen in the third; sixty in the fourth, and twenty-four in the fifth—making an aggregate of five hundred and six apartments. It is not probable that the several stories were carried up symmetrically, which would involve a diminution of some of the rooms in the upper stories. This pueblo is constructed of the same materials as those before named. "The circular estufas, Lieutenant Simpson remarks, "of which there are six in number, have a greater depth than any we have seen, and differ from them also in exhibiting more stories, one of them certainly showing two, and possibly three, the lowest one appearing to be almost covered up with débris."
Immediately under the walls of the cañon, and about a quarter of a mile below the last pueblo, are the ruins of the still greater Pueblo Bonito, Fig. 35. This edifice is, in some respects, the most interesting of the series as well as the best preserved in certain portions Its exterior development, including the court, is one thousand three hundred feet. Its corners are rounded, and the east wing, now the most ruinous part of the structure, appears to have had row upon row of apartments added, until nearly one-third of the area of the court was covered "Its present elevation," General Simpson observes, "shows that it had at least four stories of apartments. The number of rooms on the ground floor is one hundred and thirty-nine. In this enumeration, however, are not included the apartments which are not distinguishable in the eastern portion of the pueblo, and which would swell the number to about two hundred. There, then, having been at least four stories of rooms * * * there must be a reduction * * * of one range of rooms for every story after the first, which would increase the number to six hundred and forty-one." No single edifice of equal accommodations, it may be here repeated, has ever been found in any part of North America. It would accommodate three thousand Indians
One of the best of its rooms is shown in the engraving. Fig. 36. It will compare, not unfavorably, with any of equal size to be found at Palenque or Uxmal, although, from the want of a vaulted ceiling, not equal in artistic design. The nice mechanical adjustment of the masonry and the finish of the ceiling are highly creditable to the taste and skill of the builders. "It is walled up," says Simpson, "with alternate beds of large and small stones, the regularity of the combination producing a. very pleasant effect. The ceiling of this room is also more tasteful than any we have seen, the transverse beams being smaller and more numerous, and the longitudinal pieces, which rest upon them, only about an inch in diameter, and beautifully regular. These latter have somewhat the appearance of barked willow. The room has a doorway at each end, and one at the side, each of them leading ​into adjacent apartments. The light is let in by a window two feet by eight inches on the north side."
Mr. Jackson's study of the ruins enabled him to produce a restoration, which is given in his report, and of whose plate Fig. 37 is a copy. It is an interesting work, considered as a restoration, which can only claim to be an approximation. It will be noticed that three passage-ways were left open into the court, although the ground plan shows but one. In the Yucatan edifices, as the House of the Nuns at Uxmal, there is usually an arched gateway through the center of the building facing the court. The court was also open at each of the four angles, which, however, might have been protected by palisades in time of danger. The walls of the canon are seen in the background of the engraving.
Two miles below the Pueblo del Arroyo are the ruins of the Pueblo of Peñasca Blanca, Fig. 39. "This is the largest pueblo in plan we have seen," Lieutenant Simpson remarks, "and differs from others in the arrangement of the stones composing its walls. The walls of the other pueblos were all of one uniform character in the several beds composing it; but in this there is a regular alternation of large and small stones, which are about one foot in length and one-half a foot in thickness, form but a single bed, and then, alternating with these, are three or four beds of very small stones, each about an inch in thickness. The general plan of the structure also differs from the others in approximating the form of the circle. The number of the rooms at present discoverable upon the first floor is one hundred and twelve; and the existing walls show that there have been at least three stories of apartments. The number of circular estufas we counted was seven."
"In point of size," Mr. Jackson remarks, "the rooms of this ruin will average larger than in most of the others; the twenty-eight rooms, as they appear on the outer circumference, average twenty feet in length from wail to wall inside. The smallest, which are only ten feet wide, are at the two ​ends. The width of the rooms of each tier appears to have been constant throughout the length of the whole ruin. The dimensions given in these drawings are, in nearly every case, of those apartments which constitute the second story, as it is in those that there is the least obscuration of the walls.
"In most of the ruins the first floor is almost entirely filled up with débris, but when the ruins can be followed they show that this floor is generally divided into much smaller apartments, two or three occurring sometimes in place of each one above them. The eastern half of the ellipse, as above said, consists of a single continuous line of small apartments, with a uniform width of thirteen feet inside and an average length of twenty feet. By a curious coincidence the same number of rooms are in this row as in the outer tier of the main building. The walls of the central portion for a distance of about two hundred feet are in fair preservation, standing in places six to eight feet in height, the dividing walls showing apertures leading from one room to another. They are built of stones uniform in size, averaging six by nine by three and a half inches. Mortar was used between the stones instead of the small plates of stone. At both ends, for a distance of some two hundred feet from the point of juncture with the main building, the walls are entirely leveled, but enough remains to show the dimensions of each apartment. Twenty yards from the south end of the building are the ruins of a great circular room fifty feet in diameter, with some portions of its interior wall in such preservation that its character is readily discernible."
This great ruin, with two others of smaller size, shown in Fig. 38 as No. 8 and No. 9, of which the first is one hundred and thirty-five feet long and one hundred feet deep, and the other seventy-eight by sixty-three feet, both of stone, complete the list of ruins in the canon. The pueblo of Pintado, is, however, at the upper end, and without the canon, and the Pueblo Alto, not yet described, is not in the canon, but on the bluff. It is a remarkable display of ancient edifices; the most remarkable in New Mexico. With the bordering walls of the cañon, rising vertically, in places, one hundred feet high, it presented long vistas in either direction, with natural and inclosing walls. Shut in from all view of the table lands at the summit of these walls, this valley, at the time its great houses were occupied, must have presented a very striking picture of human life as it existed in the Middle Period of Barbarism. The greater part of the valley must have been covered with garden beds, from which the people derived their principal support, as the mesa lands without the canon were too dry for cultivation. It no doubt presented an interesting picture of industrious and contented life, with a corresponding advancement in the arts of this period. There is still some uncertainty concerning the time when these pueblos were last occupied, and the fate of their inhabitants. There are a number of circumstances tending to show that they were the "Seven Cities of Cibola," against which the expedition of Coronado was directed in 1540-1542. There are seven pueblos in ruins in the cañon, without reckoning Nos. 8 and 9, the smallest in the valley. Some of the facts which point to these pueblos as the Towns of Cibola may here be noted.
In his Relation to the Viceroy, which is dated from the province of Cibola, August 3, 1540, Coronado describes his conquest and intimates his disappointment in the following language: "It remaineth now to certify" your Honor of the seven cities, and of
the kingdoms and provinces whereof the Father Provincial made report unto your Lordship. And, to be brief, I can assure your Honor he said the truth in nothing that he reported, but all was quite contrary, saving only the names of the cities, and great houses of stone; for although they be not ​wrought with turqueses, nor with lime, nor bricks, yet they are very excellent good houses, of three, or four, or five lofts high, wherein are good lodgings and fair chambers, with ladders instead of stairs, and certain cellars under the ground, very good and paved, which are made for winter,—they are in manner like stoves; and the ladders which they have for their houses are in a manner moveable and portable, which are taken away and set down when they please; and they are made of two pieces of wood, with their steps, as ours be. The seven cities are seven small towns, all made with these kind of houses that I speak of; and they stand all within four leagues together, and they are all called the Kingdom of Cibola, and every one of them have their particular name, and none of them is called Cibola, but all together they are called Cibola. And this town, which I call a city, I have named Granada, as well because it is somewhat like unto it, as also in remembrance of 3'our Lordship. In this town where I now remain there may be some two hundred houses, all compassed with walls; and, I think, that, with the rest of the houses which are not so walled, they may be together five hundred. There is another town near this, which is one of the seven, and it is somewhat bigger than this, and another of the same bigness that this is of, and the four are somewhat less; and I send them all painted unto your Lordship with the voyage. And the parchment wherein the picture is was found here with other parchments. The people of this town seem unto me of a reasonable stature, and witty, yet they seem not to be such as they should be, of that judgment and wit to build these houses in such sort as they are. * * * They travel eight days' journey unto certain plains lying towards the North Sea. In this country there are certain skins, well dressed; and they dress them and paint them where they kill their oxen [buffalo]; for so they say themselves."
On the fourth day after the capture of Cibola, Coronado further says: "They set in order all their goods and substance, their women and children, and fled to the hills, leaving their towns as it were abandoned, wherein remained very few of them."
It will be observed that the phrases "great houses of stone," and "good houses of three, or four, or five lofts high," not only describe the ​pueblo on the Chaco in apt language, but there are no other pueblos in New Mexico, exclusively of stone, of which we have knowledge, except those of the Mokis, in the Cañon de Chelly, on the Animas River, and elsewhere in Southwestern Colorado. There is an apparent difficulty in the narrative, in the reference made to the number of houses; but it is evident, I think, that Coronado meant apartments or sections, treating each great house as a block of houses, and expressing a doubt of their "judgment and wit to build these houses in such sort as they are." If any doubt remained, it is entirely removed by the fact that all the pueblo houses in New Mexico, whether occupied or in ruins, are great edifices constructed like these on the communal principle, and that two hundred such houses grouped in one town were an utter impossibility.
Jaramillo, who wrote his Relation some time after the return of the expedition, remarks, "that all the water-courses that we fell in with, whether brook or river, as far as that of Cibola, and I believe for one or two days' journey beyond, flow in the direction of the South Sea [the Pacific]; farther on they take the direction of the North Sea [the Atlantic]." This tends to show that Cibola was situated on a tributary of the Colorado, which gathers all the waters of New Mexico west of the Rio Grande and north of the Gila, and also that it was situated quite near the dividing ridge. It is but ten miles from the Cañon de Torrejon, on the Puerco, a tributary of the Rio Grande,' to the commencement of the Rio de Chaco, an affluent of the San Juan, and but twenty-three miles to the Pueblo Pintado. In this respect the sites of the ruins on the Chaco are in close agreement with the description of the situations of the towns of Cibola. Castañeda, after speaking of the seven villages, and the character of the houses, remarks that "the valley is very narrow, between precipitous mountains" ["C'est une vallée très-étroite entre des montagues escarpées"], which, in the light of Coronado's declaration, that "the country is all plain, and on no side mountains," may perhaps have reference to the encompassing walls of the canon. This language, literally interpreted, does not describe this cañon, neither is there any valley in New Mexico, occupied by pueblos, which answers this description. ​Upon the evidence contained in these several narratives, and with our present knowledge of New Mexico, the sites of the seven towns of Cibola cannot be determined with certainty. It is a question of probabilities; and those which seem the strongest in favor of the ruins on the Chaco are the following: Firstly, they are superior, architecturally, to any pueblos in New Mexico, now existing or in ruins, and agree in number and in proximity to each other, with the towns of Cibola as described Secondly, they are upon an affluent of the San Juan, and within "one or two days' journey" of the waters which flow into the Gulf of Mexico; in other words, they are near the summit of the watershed of the two oceans, where Jaramillo distinctly states Cibola was situated. Thirdly, they are within eight days of the buffalo ranges, the nearest of which are upon the northeastern confines of New Mexico. Cibola was said to be thus situated. Moreover, the name Cibola implies the buffalo country. We are also told by Friar Marcos that the Indians south of the Gila trafficked with the Cibolans for ox-hides, which he found them wearing. Zuñi, the only known place, showing a probability that it was one of the seven towns, is too far distant from the buffalo ranges to answer to this portion of the narrative. Lastly, the evidence, collectively, favors a far northern as well as far eastern position for Cibola. The people of Cibola knew nothing of either ocean. This could hardly have been true of the people of Zuñi with respect to the Pacific, or at least the Gulf of California. Coronado himself was in doubt as to which sea was nearest, and seems to have been conscious of the widening of the continent upon both sides of him. Assuming that the pueblos on the Chaco were inhabited in 1540, they were the finest structures then in New Mexico. Coronado captured all the villages on the Rio Grande, and probably sent a detachment to the Moki Pueblos, and remained two years in the country. It seems impossible, therefore, that he should have failed to find the pueblos on the Chaco; and they answer his description better than any other pueblos in New Mexico. With respect to the manner of constructing these houses, it was probably done, as elsewhere remarked, from time to time, and from generation to generation. Like a feudal castle, each house was a growth by additions from small beginnings, made as exigencies required. When one of these ​houses, after attaining a sufficient size, became overcrowded with inhabitants, it is probable that a strong colony, like the swarm from the parent hive, moved out, and commenced a new house, above or below, in the same valley. This would be repeated, as the people prospered, until several pueblos grew up within an extent of twelve or fifteen miles, as in the valley of the Chaco. When the capabilities of the valley were becoming overtaxed for their joint subsistence, the colonists would seek more distant homes. At the period of the highest prosperity of these pueblos, the valley of the Chaco must have possessed remarkable advantages for subsistence The plain between the walls of the canon was between half a mile and a mile in width near the several pueblos, but the amount of water now passing through it is small. In July, according to Lieutenant Simpson, the running stream was eight feet wide and a foot and a half deep at one of the pueblos; while Mr. Jackson found no running water and the valley entirely dry in the month of May, with the exception of pools of water in places and a reservoir of pure water in the rocks at the top of the bluff. The condition of the region is shown by these two statements. During the rainy season in the summer, which is also the season of the growing crops, there is an abundance of water; while in the dry season it is confined to springs, pools, and reservoirs. From the number of pueblos in the valley, indicating a population of several thousand, the gardens within it must have yielded a large amount of subsistence; the climate being favorable to its growth and ripening.
* ↑ Lieutenant Simpson's Report, p. 77.
* ↑ Hayden's Report, p. 436.
* ↑ Ib., p. 437.
* ↑ Ib., p. 448,
* ↑ Simpson's Report, p. 76.
* ↑ Jackson's Report, p. 433.
* ↑ Jackson's Report, p. 434.
* ↑ Lieutenant Simpson's Report, p. 63.
* ↑ Simpson's Report, p. 81
* ↑ Simpson's Report, p. 81.
* ↑ Simpson's Report, p. 64.
* ↑ Hayden's Tenth Annual Report, 1878, p. 446.
* ↑ Hakluyt, vol. iii, p. 377.
* ↑ Ib., vol. iii, p. 379.
* ↑ Coll. H. Ternaux-Compans, vol. ix, p. 370.
* ↑ Castañeda Relation, Ternaux-Compans, ix, p. 164.