Casa Grande Ruin: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 289-318Mindeleff, Cosmos
History
Casa Grande Ruin: Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1891-92, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1896, pages 289-318
Mindeleff, Cosmos
Arizona -- Antiquities; Casa Grande National Monument (Ariz.); Hohokam architecture; Indians of North America -- Arizona
[Footnote 1: 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.]
[Footnote 2: 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.]
Mange also gives some details of construction, and states that in the
immediate vicinity there were remains of twelve other buildings, the
walls half fallen and the roofs burned out.
Following Mange's account there were a number of descriptions of no
special value, and a more useful one written by Padre Font, who in 1775
and 1776 made a journey to Gila and Colorado rivers and beyond. This
description[1] is quite circumstantial and is of especial interest
because it formed the basis of nearly all the accounts written up to the
time when that country came into our possession. According to this
authority--
The house forms an oblong square, facing exactly the four cardinal
points, and round about it there are ruins indicating a fence or
wall which surrounded the house and other buildings. The exterior or
plaza extends north and south 420 feet and east and west 260 feet.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
Font measured the five rooms of the main building, and recorded many
interesting details. It will be noticed that he described a surrounding
wall inclosing a comparatively large area; and nearly all the writers
who published accounts prior to our conquest of the country in 1846
based their descriptions on Font's journal and erroneously applied his
measurement of the supposed circumscribing wall to the Casa Grande
proper.
The conquest of the country by the "Army of the West" attracted
attention anew to the ruin, through the descriptions of Colonel Emory
and Captain Johnston. The expedition passed up the Gila valley, and
Colonel Emory, in his journal, gives a fanciful illustration and a
slight description. The journal of Captain Johnston contained a somewhat
better description and a rough but fairly good sketch. The best
description of that period, however, was that given by John Russell
Bartlett, in his "Personal Narrative," published in 1854.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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