The upper opening in the western end of the southern wall is much like that just described. A small fragment of masonry above the lintel remains, and this is within a quarter of an inch of the top of the opening. Above the opening there was a series of rough lintel poles, 3 to 5 inches in diameter, arranged in three tiers with 4 to 6 inches of filling between them. Prints of these sticks are left in the wall and show that some of them were quite crooked. Probably they were of mesquite, obtained from the immediate vicinity. The edges of the openings were finished with flat sticks, like those described, and its bottom was 6 inches to a foot above the floor. The height of the opening was 4 feet 3 inches and its width at the top 2 feet, at the bottom 2 feet 1½ inches.
The opening immediately below the last described is filled with débris to the level of the lintel. Above this, however, there is a series of three tiers of sticks with 6 to 8 inches of masonry between them vertically, sometimes laid side by side, sometimes separated by a foot of masonry. Some of these lintel poles, as well as those of the opening above it, extend 3 feet into the wall, others only a few inches. The lower sides or bottoms of the holes are washed with pink clay, the same material used for surfacing the interior walls. Perhaps this was merely the wetting used to make succeeding courses of clay stick better. This opening is shown in plateLIX.
Near the middle of the northern wall there are two openings, one above the other. The upper opening was finished in the same manner as those already described. But two tiers of poles show above it, though the top is well preserved, and another tier may be buried in the wall. There are indications that the opening was closed by a block about 2 feet thick and flush with the outside. The height of the opening was 4 feet 5 inches, width at top 1 foot 4½ inches, and at the bottom 1 foot 10 inches. It narrows a little from north to south.
The lower opening is so much broken out that little remains to show its character. There is a suggestion that the opening was only 2 feet high, and there were probably three tiers of lintels above the opening, the top of which was 2½ feet below the roof beams, but the evidence is not so clear as in the other instances.
In the middle of the western wall, at a height of 5 feet 8 inches above the first roof level, there is a large, roughly circular opening or window, 14 inches in diameter. This is shown in plateLX. It is smoothly finished, and enlarges, slightly, outward.
As before stated, any conclusions drawn from a study of the Casa Grande itself, and not checked by examination of other similar or analogous ruins, can not be considered as firmly established, yet they have a suggestive value.
From the character of the remains it seems probable that the site of the ruins here designated as the Casa Grande group was occupied a long time, not as a whole, but piecemeal as it were, one part being occupied and abandoned while some other part was being built up, and that this ebb and flow of population through many generations reached its final period in the occupation of the structure here termed the Casa Grande ruin. It is probable that this structure did not exist at the time the site was first occupied, and still more probable that all or nearly all the other sites were abandoned for some time before the structure now called the Casa Grande was erected. It is also probable that after the abandonment of the Casa Grande the ground about it was still worked by its former population, who temporarily occupied, during the horticultural season, farming outlooks located near it.
The methods employed in the construction of the buildings of the Casa Grande were thoroughly aboriginal and characteristically rude in application. A fair degree of adaptability to purpose and environment is seen, indicating that the Casa Grande was one, and not the first, building of a series constructed by the people who erected it and by their ancestors, but the degree of skill exhibited and amount of ingenuity shown in overcoming difficulties do not compare with that found in many northern ruins. As architects, the inhabitants of the Casa Grande did not occupy the first rank among pueblo-builders.
It is probable that the Casa Grande ruin as we see it today shows very nearly the full height of the structure as it stood when it was abandoned. The middle tier of rooms rose to a height of three stories; the others were but two stories high. It is also probable that the building was enlarged after being once completed and occupied. At one time it probably consisted of four rooms on the ground plan, each two stories high. The northern tier, of rooms was added afterward, and probably also the third room in the central tier.
The Casa Grande was undoubtedly built and occupied by a branch of the Pueblo race, or by an allied people. Who these people were it is impossible to determine finally from the examination of one ruin, but all the evidence at hand suggests that they were the ancestors of the present Pima Indians, now found in the vicinity and known to have formerly been a pueblo-building tribe. This conclusion is supported by the Pima traditions, as collected by Mr. Bandelier, who is intimately acquainted with the documentary history of the southwest, and whose knowledge of the Pima traditions is perhaps greater than that of anyone else now living. In his various writings he hints at this connection, and in one place he declares explicitly that the Casa Grande is a Pima structure. None of the internal evidence of the ruin is at variance with this conclusion. On the contrary, the scanty evidence is in accord with the hypothesis that the Casa Grande was erected and occupied by the ancestors of the Pima Indians.
1. Castañeda 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.)
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Archæological Inst. of Amer., 5th Ann. Rep., 1884.
6. Papers Archæol. Inst. of Amer., Amer. ser., iv, Cambridge, 1892, p. 453 et sec.
7. Berlin meeting, 1888; Compte-Rendu, Berlin, 1890, p. 150 et seq.
8. Jour. of Amer. Ethn. and Arch., Cambridge, 1892, vol. ii, page 179 et seq.
9. See pp. 179-261 of this Report, "Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley."
10. A Study of Pueblo Architecture; 8th Ann. Rep. Bur. Eth., 1891, pp. 86, 227, and elsewhere.