Casas Grandes

“ Some remains of antiquity are found in the north-western part of the State, lying near the village and creek of the Casas Grandes, between Janos and Galeana. Ruins of large houses, known as "Casas Grandes" in the language of the country, exist in this neighborhood, built of sun-dried bricks, or adobes, and squared timber. They are three stories high with a gallery of wood and stairway from the exterior, with very small rooms and narrow doors in the upper stories but without means of entrance in the lower. ”

“ The whole district of Casas Grandes is further studded with artificial mounds, from which are excavated from time to time large numbers of stone axes, metates or corn-grinders, and earthern vessels of various kinds. These last have a white or reddish ground, with ornamentation in blue, red, brown or black, and are of much better manufacture than the modern pottery of the country. Similar ruins to those of Casas Grandes exist near the Gila, the Salinas, and the Colorado and it is probable that they are all the erections of one people. ”

“ As the trap is columnar, and the columns are horizontal in their direction, the joints of the polygons show along the surface of the ramparts, causing them to look like the work of Cyclopean builders. The Indians and Mexicans of the expedition, deceived by the similarity between these freaks of creation and the results of human workmanship, repeatedly called out, "Casas Grandes! Casas de Montezuma!"
It would seem, indeed, as if the ancient peoples of this country, in order to arrive at the idea of a large architecture, had only to copy the grotesque rock-work of nature. ”

“ Twenty-six miles from Corralitos lay Casas Grandes, a place containing between two and three thousand inhabitants, and a fair type of the collection of ruins, partial ruins, patched ruins, ruins deserted, ruins inhabited, and a few passable adobe houses, that in Northern Mexico is dignified by the denomination, town. The site occupied by it appears to have been a favourite one from early times, some interesting ruins of Aztec buildings still remaining here, and traces of labour that must be referred to an even more remote date, occurring in the neighbourhood. ”

“ A similar ruin, called Casas Grandes, exists in Sonora. The construction is what is called cajon, that is, adobe clay rammed into a box or frame, which is lifted for each successive course as the work advances. In the dry air of that region such walls become extremely hard, and will endure for ages if the foundations are not sapped. [3] Kino paid a second visit to the ruin of Casa Grande in 1697, this time accompanied by Captain Juan Mateo Mange, an officer detailed with his command to escort the padres on their perilous journeys. ”

“ The summit commands a view of the fertile valleys for miles around in every direction. To the west is the valley of the Piedras Verdes River, and to the east the valley of Casas Grandes; and in the plains to the south the snakelike windings of the San Miguel River glitter in the sun. Toward the north the view is immense, and fine mountains form a fitting frame for the landscape all around the horizon. ”

“ There were also good specimens of earthen images in the Ægyptian style, which are to me at least so perfectly uninteresting, that I was at no pains to procure any of them. The country here, for an extent of several leagues, is covered with the ruins of buildings capable of containing a population of at least 20,000 or 30,000 souls. Casas Grandes is, indeed, particularly favourable for maintaining so many inhabitants. Situated by the side of a large river which periodically inundates a great part of the low surrounding lands, the verdure is perpetual. ”

“ The houses of the better class of people, however fragile in construction, stand somewhat back from the street, guarded by ponderous brick walls in order that the theory “every Englishman’s house is his castle” may be literally maintained. ”

“ The third type, the gambrel-roofed house, was at the height of its popularity about the time of the Revolutionary War, and continued in favor until the tide of commercial prosperity sweeping through the land brought in its wake the desire for more pretentious dwellings. Then came into fashion the large, square, wooden mansion, later followed by that of stately brick, excellent examples of both types being still extant. ”

“ Spaciousness without austerity and beauty without ostentation were the fundamental impressions the Big House gave. Its lines, long and horizontal, broken only by lines that were vertical and by the lines of juts and recesses that were always right-angled, were as chaste as those of a monastery. ”

“ The present mansion, remodelled, is to-day a famous landmark. It is considered an excellent example of a colonial home, with its pitched roof, its huge stone chimneys covered with mortar, its dormer windows, and its Georgian porch. One enters through the wide doors into a noble hallway extending entirely through the house, the woodwork showing fine panelling of white pine. The box stairs rise by easy treads to the wide landing, where a colonial window gives light to the apartment. ”

“ The dwelling-houses are universally so constructed as to form an open square in the centre, which constitutes the only yard or court that is attached. The house is divided into a living-room, a store-room, chambers, and stable, these all upon one floor, while the family vehicle blocks up in part the only entrance, which is used in common by horses, ladies, slaves, and gentlemen callers. ”

“ Either course will bring you before a wide low house of yellow brick, with green blinds and white woodwork and English ivy. Directly ahead of you, across the circle of the driveway, the square main section of the house, capped by a tower, rises above a bright portico. To left and right the house throws out long extensions of even height, terminating in wings set endwise to you, like double-faces in the game of dominoes. Your first impression will be one of unusual size, your next of flatly rectangular simplicity. ”

“ True, the homes are better than the sordid hovels which are common to Galicia, but the lives of the people are practically the same. I went into one house, and from the dark, primitive kitchen walked into a sleeping-room with an embrasure-like window which framed one of the most perfect landscapes I ever saw—a picture the like of which few people in England below noble rank can command from their own possessions. ”

“ The castle or manor-house of the baron or lord, into which the thegn’s hall had now developed, was the centre of rural life. Around it lay the home-farm, the lord’s demesne land, cultivated partly by free tenants, partly by the customary labour due from the villeins whose cottages clustered on its border, and whose holdings, with a tract of common pasture and common woodland, made up the remainder of the estate. ”

“ We were told, and I believe truly, that there are more house-proprietors—that is, more people who own the houses they live in—in the population than in any city of the Union; and I was struck by the immense number of dwellings of moderate dimensions, all trim and nice, freshly painted, with flowers in the windows, and little gardens of which we caught glimpses in our early drives through the clean, neat, well-ordered streets. ”

“ The doors are often beautiful in themselves: their panels of true proportions framed in delicately moulded pilasters with a line of glazing to light the tiny hall; frequently a pediment above protects the whole from the dripping of eaves. And before paint was used to mask the wood, the whole structure, played upon by sun and storm, wore to a tone of silver-gray that made a house as familiar to the soil as a lichen-covered rock. The square Georgian mansions came later, with the prosperity of reviving trade after the Revolution. ”

“ Even now, when glimpses of Elizabethan England are few and far between, we are touched by the supreme peace that still broods over land on which the old-time houses, with their thatched roofs or well-worn tiles, their ingle nooks, their dormer windows, their oak rafters and their many gables, tell of a time when the jerry-builder was not and the suburban villa had not yet come into being. ”

“ The Court House, three or four stores, a couple of hotels, and perhaps half a dozen residences, made up the nucleus of the place. Beyond, and on either side, dwellings—some of brick, some of wood—were surrounded by spacious grounds embracing shrubbery, plantations, groves, and gardens. The “Village Church,” a brick edifice hoary with years, and redolent of ecclesiastical traditions, stood at the left of the plank turnpike as one approached the village from the station. A porticoed manor-house, that had a history almost as old, faced it across lawn and shrubbery on the opposite side of the way. ”

“ The lessee of his estates had let them advantageously to four substantial farmers; one of whom occupied the venerable old manor-house. Its quaint wooden gables and ornamental carpentry always arrested the attention of the passer by their venerable appearance.
A bay window, with five lights in two divisions, marked very distinctly the situation of the great hall; a noble apartment used only by the tenant as a vast store-room for the produce of his orchard and his garden. ”

“ The first thing that strikes one about the dwellings is the enormous strength of those that remain. The main idea, in those days, when a man built a house, was to fortify himself and his belongings against attacks from the outside, and every other consideration was secondary to that. That is true not only of the Barons' castles in the country and of their fortified palaces in town,—which were castles, too, for that matter,—but of the dwellings of all classes of people who could afford to live independently, that is, who were not serfs and retainers of the rich. ”

“ The grounds, which might be very pretty with care, are ill-kept and slatternly, strewn with debris, as if everything was left to the easy-going nature of the servants. The main house is of brick, with verandas and galleries all round, and a colonnade of thirteen huge brick and stucco columns, in honor of the thirteen States,—a relic of post-Revolutionary times, when the house was the resort of Southern fashion and romance. ”

“ Instead of the grand palatial mansion, surrounded with miserable negro-cabins, and instead of the wretched hovel inhabited by the poor white, we shall soon see the neat white cottage in the midst of small but flourishing fields, and the interior of that cottage will be adorned not with the bowie-knife and pistol, but with the book-case and every evidence of progressive civilization. ”

“ One type of dwelling, indeed, is found to be more or less prevalent through all the urban aggregation. That is the small four or five-roomed cottage, containing on the ground floor a front parlour, a kitchen, and a scullery built as an addition to the main part [101] of the house; and on the upper floor the bedrooms, the third bedroom in the five-roomed house being built over the scullery. And in such dwelling-places, if anywhere, is concealed the secret of the future of the people of England. ”

“ The dwelling-houses, which were filthy and pestilential in the Marche and the Bourbonnais, were, at least in our neighborhood, stoutly built and healthy, as is proved by a large number of old country houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which are still standing and easily recognizable by their vast tiled roofs, their windows framed with stone cut in the shape of prisms, and their attic windows surmounted by great sheaves of grain moulded in terra cotta. ”

“ The house she inhabits appears not a bit better than any of the others; it is the same dark and decayed mansion. In this narrow gloomy street, and before this wretched tenement, a smart calèche was standing, fitted up with blue silk, and a footman in blue livery was at the door. ”

“ Temples, palaces, bridges, aqueducts, cathedrals, towers of marvelous delicacy and strength, grew to perfection while the common people lived in hovels, and the richest lodged in the most gloomy and contracted quarters. The dwelling-house is a modern institution. It is a curious fact that it has only improved with the social elevation of women. Men were never more brilliant in arms and letters than in the age of Elizabeth, and yet they had no homes. They made themselves thick-walled castles, with slits in the masonry for windows, for defense, and magnificent banquet-halls for pleasure ”

“ Old dwelling-houses are too thick on the ground in England to have any distinction unconnected with famous persons and events; this was no more to the town of D—— in 1908 than it was to us when we left it for the modern four-square house with the pillared portico and stone lions on the lawn, down there near the station. ”

“ In a pueblo as large as that of Mexico, which was the largest found in America, and may possibly have contained thirty thousand inhabitants, there must have been a number of large communal houses of different sizes, from those that were called palaces, because of their size, to those filled by a few families. Degrees of prosperity are shown in barbarous as well as in civilized life in the quarters of the people. Herrera states that the houses of the poorer sort of people were "small, low, and mean," but that, "as small as the houses were, they commonly contained two, four, and six families." ”

“ And now began my search for a house, which I conducted according to my English notions and prepossessions. In the south of France, or in Italy, a man of twenty thousand francs a year [Pg 215] lives in a larger house than a man of an income of as many pounds sterling inhabits in London. In England, a nine months winter, an enormous tax on windows, a duty on bricks, timber, and glass, reduce us to content ourselves with small houses; but in these countries, large rooms, lofty ceilings, wide staircases, are required by the climate, and by no means astonish the minds of those who are used to them. ”