Lastly, I would mention one more cluster of ruins, which, although they lie south of the boundary-line of the United States, belong without doubt to the same class as those I have been considering; these are the Casas Grandes and Casa de Janos, situated on the Rio Casas Grandes, which flows northward into the Laguna de Guzman in north-western Chihuahua. The former, according to the historian Clavegero, is similar in every respect to the ruined fortresses of New Mexico, consisting of three floors, with a terrace above them, and without any entrance to the ground-floor. The doors led into the buildings on the second floor, so that scaling-ladders were necessary. A canal, says Dr. Wislizenus, conveyed water from a spring to this place. A watch-tower, probably Casa Janos, stands two leagues to the south-west of it, commanding a wide extent of country; and along the stream are many mounds in which have been found earthen vessels, painted white, blue, and violet, also weapons of stone, but none of iron. The following particulars are from Bartlett's personal narrative : --

"The ruins of Casas Grandes face the cardinal points" and consist of fallen and erect walls, the latter varying in height from five to thirty feet, projecting above the heaps of ruins which have crumbled to decay. Were the height estimated from the foundations, it would be much greater, particularly of those of the centre part of the building, where the fallen walls and rubbish form a mound twenty feet above the ground; if, therefore, the highest walls now standing have their foundations on the lowest level, their probable height was from forty to fifty feet. I conclude that the outer portions of the building were the lowest, about one story high, while the central ones, judging from the height of the walls now standing, and the accumulation of rubbish, were probably from three to six stories.

Every portion of the building is made of adobe, which differs from that now made by the Mexicans in that the blocks are very much larger, being fourteen or sixteen inches long, twelve inches wide, and three or four thick; the others are usually twenty-two inches in thickness, and three feet or more in length. Gravel was mixed with these large adobes, which greatly increased their hardness, but no straw was used. The building-consists of three masses, united by walls, of probably but one story, forming perhaps only court-yards; they are now weather-beaten down to long lines of mounds.

"The entire edifice extends from north to south 800 feet, and from east to west 250. The general character is very similar to Casas Grandes near the Pima villages and the ruins on the Salinas. Not a fragment of wood remains; many doorways are to be seen, but the lintels have gone, and the top has in most cases crumbled away and fallen in.

"Some of the apartments arranged along the main walls are twenty feet by ten, and connected by doorways, with a small enclosure or pen in one corner, between three and four feet high. Besides these there are many other exceedingly narrow apartments, too contracted for dwelling-places or sleeping-rooms, with connecting doorways, and into which the light was admitted by circular apertures in the upper part of the wall. There are also large halls ; and some enclosures within the walls are so extensive that they could never have been covered with a roof. The lesser ranges of buildings which surrounded the principal one may have been occupied by the people at large, whose property was deposited within the great building for safe keeping. Although there appears to be less order in the tout ensemble of this great collection of buildings than in those further north, the number of small apartments, the several stages or stories, the inner courts, and some of the minor details resemble in many respects the large edifices of the semicivilized Indians of New Mexico."

The builders showed much sagacity in their choice of so fine a region for agricultural purposes. There is none equal to it from the lowlands of Texas, near San Antonio, to the fertile valleys of California, near Los Angelos; and, with the exception of the Rio Grande, there is not one valley equal in size to that of the Casas Grandes, between those of Eastern Texas and the Colorado of the west. The water of the Rio Casas Grandes, unlike that of the Rio Grande, Pecos, and Colorado, is clear, sweet, and sparkling. Not more than one hunnred yards distance is another ruin, about fifteen feet square. Garcia Conde says that these edifices were known to have had three stories and a roof, with steps outside, probably of wood. Healos repeats the story of the Aztec emigration, and states that this was the third stopping-place of that people on their way from the north to the city of Mexico.

I met with no Indian ruins in Sonora, nor have I heard of any other similar ones either there or in Chihuahua.

Next article   Next article
Back to main page

adapted from A. W. Bell
"On the Native Races of New Mexico"
1869 (Journal of the Ethnological Society of London)