2. In the way of new facts we must expect the phænomena of stone architecture, as manifested in the ruins of ancient buildings.
3. In the way of inference we must guard against over-valuing the import of them. They are not upon light grounds to be considered as the measures of a civilization so different from that of the tribes hitherto enumerated, as to suggest the machinery of either unnecessary migrations, or unascertained degradations or annihilations of race.
The difference between the great interior basin of California, and the valleys of the rivers Gila and Colorado, with their feeders, is that of a desert and the oases that lie within it. The tribes that inhabit the former are under some of the most unfavourable conditions for sustenance in the world. Some of them, such as those to the east and north, are known to be the more miserable members of the Paduca class. Those of the west are probably extensions of the imperfectly known tribes of the coast, and their analogues in the way of physical influences are to be sought for in Australia rather than in America.
It is not surprising that the water-system of two considerable rivers should furnish strong elements of contrast to those which exist in what is either a table-land or a basin, according as the attention of the investigators is struck by its elevation above the sea, or by its depressions forming salt-lakes—Dead Seas in the way of ethnology. Nor yet is it surprising that such contrasts should have full justice done them in description. Ruins in stone, too, in districts where the most we expect is the embankment or tumulus, strike even the cautious observer with surprise; and fragments of art, however imperfect, create wonder when they represent an industry different from what is found amongst the existing populations of their locality. Whatever may be the exaggeration as to particular descriptions, however, the ethnological deduction is well summed up in the following extract. In describing the tribes of the Gila, the Colorado, and of New Mexico, Gallatin writes, "At the time of the conquest of Mexico, by Cortes, there was northwardly, at the distance of 800 or 1,000 miles, a collection of Indian tribes, in a state of civilization, intermediary between that of the Mexicans and the social state of any of the other aborigines."[146]
What was the civilization? what the tribes? It is best to express both these facts in as general a way as possible. The Casas Grandes represent the first. The Pimos Indians the second.
The Casa Grande, or Great House.—On the south bank of the Gila, in the midst of a large and beautiful plain, are the ruins of what was called by its discoverers, Fathers Garcias and Font,[147] the Casa Grande, a building 445 feet in length, and 270 feet in breadth, with three stories and a terrace; the walls being built of clay, and a wall interrupted with towers investing the principal edifice.
Fig. 13.
Later descriptions of Casas Grandes, by eye-witnesses, are those of Lieutenant Emory and Captain Johnston. That of the latter, of one on the River Gila, is as follows:—
"Still passing plains which had once been occupied,[148] we saw to our left the 'Casa de Montezuma.' I rode to it, and found the remains of the walls of four buildings, and the piles of earth showing where many others had been. One of the buildings was still quite complete, as a ruin; the others had all crumbled, but a few pieces of broken wall remaining. The large casa was fifty feet by forty, and had been four stories high; but the floors and roof had long since been burnt out. The charred ends of the cedar joists were still in the wall. I examined them and found they had not been cut with a steel instrument. The joists were round sticks about two feet in diameter. There were four entrances—north, south, east, and west,—the doors about four feet by two; the rooms as below, and had the same arrangement in each story. There was no sign of a fire-place in the building. The lower story was filled with rubbish, and above it was the open sky. The walls were four feet thick at the bottom, and had a curved inclination inwards to the top. The house was built of a sort of white earth and pebbles, probably containing lime, which abounded on the ground adjacent. The walls had been smoothed outside, and plastered inside; and the surface still remained firm, although it was evident it had been exposed to great heat from the fire. Some of the rooms did not open to all the rest, but had a hole a foot in diameter to look through; in other places were smaller holes. About two hundred yards from this building was a mound, in a circle one hundred yards around the mound. The centre was a hollow, twenty-five yards in diameter, with two ramps or slopes going down to its bottom. It was probably a well, now partly filled up. A similar one was seen near Mount Dallas.