Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 17

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 Canyon 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. Castanyada, 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 vallee tres-etroite entre des montagues escarpees"], [Footnote: Castenyada Relation, Ternaux-Compans, ix, p.

164.] 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 encompa.s.sing walls of the canyon. This language, literally interpreted, does not describe this canyon, 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. Zunyi, 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 Zunyi 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. a.s.suming 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 canyon was between half a mile and a mile in width near the several pueblos, but the amount of water now pa.s.sing 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

RUINS OF HOUSES OF THE SEDENTARY INDIANS OF THE SAN JUAN RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES--CONTINUED.

About sixty miles north of the pueblos on the Chaco, and in the valley of the Animas River, is a cl.u.s.ter of stone pueblos, very similar to the former. These I visited in 1878. The valley is broad at this point, and for some miles above and below to its mouth. At the time of our visit (July 22) the river was a broad stream, carrying a large volume of water. We followed down the river from the point of its rise in the dividing range, where it was a mere brook, nearly the whole distance through Silverton to Animas City.

The constant accession of mountain streams, and the rapid descent of its bed, soon changed it into a noisy and das.h.i.+ng stream. About twenty miles above Animas City we were compelled to ascend to the top of the bordering mountains to avoid the narrow canyon below, which was impa.s.sable; and in descending from Animas City to visit these pueblos we crossed over to the La Plata Valley, and after pa.s.sing through this valley we recrossed to the Animas Valley to avoid similar canyons also impa.s.sable. The supply of water for irrigation at the pueblo was abundant. [Footnote: The engravings of Figs. 40, 41 and 41a were kindly loaned by Mr. F. W. Putnam of the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Ma.s.s.]

The pueblo of which the ground plan is shown, Fig. 40, is one of four situated within the extent of one mile on the west side of the Animas River in New Mexico, about twelve miles above its mouth.

Besides these four, there are five other smaller ruins of inferior structures within the same area. This pueblo was five or perhaps six stories high, consisting of a main building three hundred and sixty-eight feet long, and two wings two hundred and seventy feet long, measured along the external wall on the right and left sides, and one hundred and ninety-nine feet measured along the inside from the end back to the main building.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 40--Ground plan of Pueblo on Animas River, N.

M.]

A fourth structure crosses from the end of one wing to the end of the other, thus inclosing an open court. It was of the width of one and perhaps two rows of apartments, and slightly convex outward, which enlarged somewhat the size of the court. The main building and the wings were built in the so-called terraced form; that is to say, the first row of apartments in the main building and in each wing on the court side were but one story high. The second row back of these were carried up two stories high, the third row three stories, and so on to the number of five stories for the main building and four for each wing. The external wall rose forty or fifty feet where the structure was five stories high and but ten feet on the court side, including a low parapet wall, where the structure was but one story high. There was no entrance to these great structures in the ground story. After getting admission within the court, they ascended to the roof of the first row of apartments by means of ladders, and in the same way, by ladders, to each successive story. As the second story receded from the first, the third from the second, and so on, each successive story made a great step ten feet high. The apartments were entered through trap-doors in the roof of each story, the descent being by ladders inside. In some places, without doubt, the upper stories were entered by doorways from the roof of the story in front.

The two wings are a ma.s.s of ruins. Pit-holes along the summit show the forms of the rooms, with plain traces of the original walls here and there, and excavations, made by curious settlers, have opened a number of rooms in the ground story of one of the wings. These we entered and measured. Some of the rooms were faced with stone, i.e., we found a stone wall regularly laid up, like the one in the main building, as will elsewhere be shown. Some of the walls in these rooms were of cobblestone and adobe; others were of stone with natural faces and cobblestone intermixed. We saw no wall of adobe brick alone. The fallen walls formed a ma.s.s about twelve feet deep over the site of the wings, being the deepest on the outside and thinning out on the court side.

The ma.s.s of material used in the construction of these edifices was very great and surprises the beholder. It is explained in part by the thickness of the walls. We measured a number of them. They were two feet four inches, two feet six inches, two feet nine inches, three feet, and in rare cases three feet six inches thick. None measured less than two feet.

The main building was originally the best constructed part of the edifice, it may be supposed, because a part of it now remains standing. The walls of the first story, of some part of the second, and, in some places, of a part of the third story, forming the second row of apartments from the outside, are still standing, and rise about twenty five feet from the ground. The measurements of the second row of apartments, as shown in the diagram were from the standing walls, and were made in the second story.

The first or bas.e.m.e.nt story is filled up with the rubbish of the fallen walls, ceilings, and floors, in the second row of apartments named. In some cases they are full above the line of the original ceilings; in others nearly up to them. The main ceiling beams were of yellow cedar from eight to twelve inches in diameter, usually three and four in number, and were placed across the narrow way of the room. Stubs of these beams still remain in the walls parallel with the court. Just above the line of these beams in the other two walls were the ends of a row of poles about four inches in diameter, which pa.s.sed transversely across the cedar beams Stubs of these poles, broken off short at the line of the walls, still remain in place.

Upon these poles were originally thin pieces of split cedar limbs, and then the floor of adobe mortar, four or five inches thick. We thus get the position and height of the floor of the first and second stories, which were about nine feet six inches for the ground story, and nine feet for the second story.

The external wall of the main building has fallen the entire length of the structure. As these ruins are resorted to by the few settlers in the valley as a stone quarry to obtain stone for foundations to their houses and barns, and for stoning up their wells, the loose material is being gradually removed, and when the standing walls are more convenient to take they will be removed also. One farmer told me he thought that one quarter of the accessible material of this and the adjacent stone pueblo had already been removed. It is to be hoped that the number of these settlers inclined to Vandalism will not increase.

A part of the part.i.tion walls which connected the outside wall with the next parallel wall is still standing where the wall last named rises above the second story. They stand out for three or four feet like b.u.t.tresses against the wall, and show that the masonry of the parallel and transverse walls was articulated, that the part.i.tion walls were continuous from front to rear, and that the walls of the several stories rested upon each other. All this is seen by a bare inspection of the walls as they now stand.

The masonry itself is the chief matter of interest in these structures. Every room in the main building was faced with stone on the four sides, having an adobe floor and a wooden ceiling. Each room had, as far as walls now remain to show, two doorways through the walls parallel with the court, and four openings about twelve inches square, two on the side of each doorway, near the ceiling.

These openings were for light and ventilation. In a limited sense it may be said that the stones were dressed, and also that they were laid in courses, but, in the high and strict meaning of these terms, neither is true. The stones used were small and of different sizes.

Sometimes they were nearly square, from six to eight inches on a side; sometimes a foot long by six inches wide. The latter is the size of the stones used at Uxmal and Chichen Itza, according to Norman. In some cases longer and thicker stones were used without any attempt to square the ends. In some instances thin pieces of stone were employed with parallel faces. In all cases the stone was a sandstone, now of a reddish brown color. It is the prevailing stone in the bluffs of the Animas River, and of all the rivers parallel with it running into the San Juan, as far as personal observation enabled me to judge. It is a soft rather than a hard stone, usually of a buff color when first quarried, and some of it has decayed in the using.

The wasted and weatherworn appearance of some of these stones would otherwise indicate a very great age for the structure. With stone of the size used a good face can be formed by simple fracture, and a joint sufficiently close may be made by a few strokes with a stone maul. If finer work was aimed at, it must have been accomplished by rubbing the stones to a face. But this work is sufficiently explained by the former processes. In the row of apartments and stories named, both faces of each wall were of stone, so that all of the apartments were of stone on the inside. They were fair walls, both in masonry and workmans.h.i.+p, and creditable to the builders.

There was an attempt to lay up these walls in courses of uniform thickness, but each course differing from the one above and below it.

The attempt was only partially successful. They did not hesitate to break in upon the regularity of the courses. Some of the standing walls are now sprung; but most of them are straight, and fairly vertical, the adobe mortar being sound and the bond unbroken.

The Indian had a string from time immemorial. With it he could strike a circle, and lay out the four sides of a quadrangular structure with tolerable correctness. It is not too much to a.s.sume that with a string and sinker attached the Village Indian had the plumb-line, and could prove his wall as well as we can. At all events, the eye still proves the general correctness of their work.

The adobe mortar of the Pueblo Indians is something more than mud mortar, although far below a mortar of lime and sand. Adobe is a kind of finely pulverized clay with a bond of considerable strength by mechanical cohesion. In Southern Colorado, in Arizona, and New Mexico, there are immense tracts covered with what is called adobe soil. It varies somewhat in the degree of its excellence. The kind of which they make their pottery has the largest per cent of alumina, and its presence is indicated by the salt weed which grows in this particular soil. This kind also makes the best adobe mortar. The Indians use it freely in laying their walls, as freely as our masons use lime mortar; and although it never acquires the hardness of cement, it disintegrates slowly. The mortar in these walls is still sound, so that it requires some effort of strength to loosen a stone from the wall and remove it. But this adobe mortar is adapted only to the dry climate of Southern Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, where the precipitation is less than five inches per annum. The rains and frosts of a northern climate would speedily destroy it. To the presence of this adobe soil, found in such abundance in the regions named, and to the sandstone of the bluffs, where ma.s.ses are often found in fragments, we must attribute the great progress made by these Indians in house-building.

The exclusive presence of this adobe mortar in all New Mexican structures of the aboriginal period shows that the tribes of New Mexico were then ignorant of a mortar of lime and sand. And here a digression may be allowed to consider whether a cement of this grade was known to the aborigines. Theoretically, the use of a mortar composed of quick-lime and sand, which gives a cement chemically united, would not be expected of the Indian tribes either in North or South America. There is no sufficient proof that they ever produced a cement of this high grade. It requires a kiln, artificially constructed, and a concentrated heat to burn limestone into lime, supposing they had learned that lime could be thus obtained, and some knowledge of the properties of quick-lime before they reached the idea of a true cement. The Spanish writers generally speak of walls of lime and stone, thus implying a mortar of lime and sand. Thus, Bernal Diaz speaks of the great temple in the Pueblo of Mexico as surrounded "with double enclosures built of stone and lime."

[Footnote: The True History of the Conquest of Mexico, Keatinge's Translation, Salem ed., 1803, vol. i, p. 208.] Clavigero remarks that "the houses of lords and people of circ.u.mstances were built of stone and lime." [Footnote: History of Mexico, Cullen's Trans., Phila.

ed., 1817, vol. ii, p. 232.]

Again, "the ignorant Mr. De Pauw denies that the Mexicans had either the knowledge or made use of lime; but it is evident from the testimony of all the historians of Mexico, by tribute rolls, and above all from the ancient buildings still remaining, that all these nations made the same use of lime as all the Europeans do." [Footnote: ib., vol. ii, p. 237.]

In like manner, Herrera, speaking of Zempoala, near Vera Cruz, remarks that the Spaniards, entering the town, found "the houses [were] built of lime and stone;" [Footnote: History of America, Stevens' Trans., London ed., 1725, vol ii, p. 266.] and again, speaking of the houses in Yucatan, he remarks that "at the place where the encounter happened, there were three houses built of lime and stone." [Footnote: ib., p. 112.]

These several statements can hardly be said to prove the fact of the use of a mortar of lime and sand. Mr. John L. Stephens, in speaking of the ruins at Palenque, is more explicit: "The building was constructed of stone, with a mortar of lime and sand, and the whole front was covered with stucco, and painted." [Footnote: Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan, vol. ii, p. 310.]

The back wall of the governor's house at Uxmal is nine feet thick through its length of two hundred and seventy feet. In this wall, by means of crowbars, "the Indians made a hole six and seven feet deep, but throughout the wall was solid and consisted of large stones imbedded in mortar, almost as hard as rock." [Footnote: ib., vol. i, p. 178.]

At the ruins of Zayi, there was one row of ten apartments, two hundred and twenty feet long, called the Casas Cerrada, or closed house, because the core over which the triangular ceiling was constructed had not been removed when the house was abandoned, of which Stephens says, "We found ourselves in apartments finished with the walls and ceilings like the others, but filled up (except so far as they had been emptied by the Indians) with solid ma.s.ses of mortar and stones." [Footnote: Central American, Chiapas and Yucatan, vol.

ii, p. 23.]

Norman, speaking of the ruins of the House of the Cacique at Chichen, remarks, "that the wall is made of large and uniformly square blocks of limestone set in mortar, which appears to be as durable as the stone itself." [Footnote: Rambles in Yucatan, p. 120.]

Elsewhere, speaking of the ruins of Yucatan generally, he observes, "the stones are cut in parallelopipeds of about twelve inches in length and six in breadth, the interstices filled up of the same materials of which the terraces are composed." [Footnote: ib. p. 127]

That these tribes used mortar of some kind in their stone walls cannot be doubted, but these several statements do not prove the use of quick-lime, which is the main question. Mr. Stephens' statement satisfied me until I saw the New Mexican pueblos. These show that a very efficient mortar can be had without the use of lime. The Indians of Mexico and the coast tribes near Vera Cruz plastered their houses externally with gypsum, which made them a brilliant white, and the stucco used upon the inner walls of houses in Chiapas and Yucatan was not unlikely made of gypsum. This mineral is abundant as well as easily treated. From it comes plaster of Paris, and from it may have come in some form the bond which held the mortar together, to the strength of which Mr. Stephens refers.

The neatness and general correctness of the masonry is now best seen in the doorways. In the standing walls of the second story, and of the first, where occasionally uncovered, there are to be seen two doorways in each room, as before stated, running in all cases across the building from the court side toward the external wall, and never in the direction of its length. These doorways measured some three feet two inches in height by two feet six inches in width, and others three feet four inches by two feet seven inches.

The stone used in these doorways are rather smaller than those in other parts of the wall, but prepared in the same manner.

I brought away two of these stones, taken from the standing walls of the main building, as samples of the character of the work with respect to size and dressing. Fig. 41 represents one of them, engraved from a photograph. It measures eight inches in its greatest length by six inches in its greatest width, and it is two and three-quarter inches in thickness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 41.--Stone from doorway.]

The upper and lower faces of the stone are substantially but not exactly, parallel. It also shows one angle, which is substantially, but not exactly a right angle and it was so adjusted that the long edge was on the doorway and short one in the wall of a chamber or apartment, with the right angle at the corner between them. This stone was evidently prepared by fracture, probably with a stone maul, and the regularity of the breakage was doubtless partly due to skill and partly to accident. It shows no marks of the chisel or the drove, or of having been rubbed, and where the square is applied to the sides or angles the rudeness of the stone is perfectly apparent.

Fig. 41a represents a sandstone cut by American skilled workmen in the form of a brick, and it is intended to show by comparison the great difference between the dressed stone of the civilized man and the ruder stone of the mason in the condition of barbarism. The comparison shows that no instruments of exactness were used in the stone work of the pueblo, and that exactness was not attempted. But the accuracy of a practiced eye and hand, such as their methods afforded, was reached, and this was all they attempted. With stones as rude as that shown in the figure, a fair and even respectable stone wall may be laid. The art of architecture in stone is of slow and difficult growth. Stone prepared by fracture with a stone hammer precedes dressed stone, which requires metallic implements. In like manner mud mortar or adobe mortar precedes a mortar of lime and sand.

The Village Indians of America were working their way experimentally, and step by step, in the art of house-building, as all mankind have been obliged to do, each race for itself; and the structures the Village Indians have raised in various parts of America, imperfect as they are by contrast, are highly creditable to their intelligence.

Stone lintels were not used for these doorways, as stones three feet long would have been required. No stones of half that length are to be seen in any of the walls. They had, however, the idea of a stone lintel, for they used them in this structure over the foot-square openings for light and air. We found a stone lintel over an opening eighteen inches wide in a cliff house on the Mancos River. This was so firmly imbedded that we found its removal impossible. They used for a lintel six round cedar cross-pieces, Fig. 42, each about four inches in diameter and now perfectly sound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 42.--Section of Cedar Lintel.]

In some of these doorways we noticed a peculiar feature. On the side toward the external wall, one and sometimes two of these wooden lintels were placed, four and sometimes six inches lower than the remainder, so that on entering from the outside room into the second room, the top of the doorway rose higher as the room was entered. A necessity was experienced to save the head from b.u.mps, and the wonder is that it did not occur to them to raise the doorways to the height of the body. As the doorways were always open, no doors being used, it may well be that larger openings would have created stronger currents of air through the building than they wished. The ends of these lintels were hacked off by stone implements of some kind.

The peculiar arrangement of the doorways tends to show that this great house was divided into sections by the part.i.tion walls extending from the court to the exterior wall; and that the rooms above were connected with those below by means of trap-doors and ladders. If this supposition be well founded, the five rooms on the ground floor; from the court back; communicated with each other by doorways. The four in the second story communicated with each other in the same manner, and with those below through trap-doors in the floors. The three rooms in the third story communicated with each other by doorways, and with those below as before. The same would be true of the two rooms of the fourth story. It seems probable that the connected rooms were occupied by a group of related families.

We afterwards found the same thing nearly exemplified in the present occupied Pueblo of Taos, in New Mexico. We found that the families lived in the second and upper stories, and used the rooms below them for storage and for granaries. Each family had two, four, and six rooms, and those who held the upper rooms held those below.

In the south wing before mentioned, several rooms on the ground floor are still perfect, with the ceilings in place upholding the rubbish above. The openings or trap-doorways of two of these rooms are still perfect, but the ladders are gone. The rooms had been opened, us elsewhere stated, by late explorers. One of these trap-doors measured sixteen by seventeen inches, and the other sixteen inches square. Each was formed in the floor by pieces of wood put together. The work was neatly done. These rooms were smaller than the rooms above. Some were as narrow as four feet six inches, others six feet, showing that one room had been divided into two. The bas.e.m.e.nt rooms were probably occupied for storage exclusively, whence their division. They were dark, except as light entered through the trap-doorway from above.

The structure connecting the wings and bounding the court was evidently a single or double row of apartments. This is shown by the amount of fallen material, which is larger than a wall would require, and from pits or depressions which plainly marked the outline of apartments.