THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 311 



They prepare it with the fat which they preserve when they kill a buf- 

 falo. They carry around the neck a great intestine filled with bloody 

 which they drink when thirsty. If they open a buffalo, they squeeze' 

 the masticated grass which is found in the stomach, and drink the juice 

 which runs out; they say that this is the whole substance of the belly.. 

 They open a buffalo at the back, and divide it at the joints, by means 

 of a piece of pebble attached to the end of a stick, with as much facility 

 as if they used a knife of the best steel." 



The present ruins are not the remains of the round houses with roofs 

 of straw, which Castaneda describes as the dwellings of the inhabitants 

 of Quivira, three hundred and twelve years ago; and if they had had 

 in those days instruments to shape and carve these beautiful beams 

 and pillars, and entablatures, they would hardly have used pebbles at 

 the ends of sticks in cutting up the buffaloes which they had killed. 

 Besides, the matates we have found are almost positive proof that the 

 people who once resided here ate as food tortillas made of corn ; whilej, 

 from Castaneda's account, one is obliged to beheve that the inhabitants 

 of the country which he calls Quivira lived entirely upon the flesh of 

 the buffalo, as the Comanches do at the present day. 



Castaneda says likewise that : " The Indians of the country had 

 neither gold or silver, and were not acquainted with the precious 

 metals. The Cacique wore on his breast a plate of copper, which he held 

 in the greatest esteem." 



Many have supposed that the ancient Aztecs built the edifices at 

 Gran Quivira, Abo and Quarra, during their migration from Aztlan 

 •toward Anahuac ; and that the ruins now found in the Navajo country, and 

 the Casas Grandes which are still to be seen along the Gila river, were 

 • built by the same people and at about the same period of time. Cap- 

 tain Johnson, of the first dragoons, visited the ruins of the Gila river in 

 November, 1846 ; from his description of one of the Casa Grande, the 

 largest and best of any he saw, we can discover no point of resemblance 

 between it and these now before us. Captain Johnson says : " After 

 marching six miles, still passing plains which had once been occupied, 

 we saw to our left the Casa de Montezuma. I rode to it, and found 

 the remains of the walls of lour buildings, and the piles of earth show- 

 ing where man}'" others had been. One of the buildings is still quite 

 complete, as a ruin. The others had all crumbled but a few pieces of 

 low, broken wall. The large Casa was fifty feet by forty, and had been 

 four stories hia-h ; but the floors and roof had lono- since been burnt out. 

 The charred ends of the cedar joists were still in the wall. I examined 

 them, and found that they had not been cut with a steel instrument. 

 The joists were round sticks. There were four entrances, north, south, 

 east, and west ; the doors are about four feet by two. The rooms had 

 the same arrangement on each story. There was no sign of a fire- 

 place in the building. The lower story was filled with rubbish ; and 

 above, it was open to the 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 with pebbles, probably containing lime, 

 which abounded on the ground adjacent; and the surface still remained 

 firm, although it was evident they (the walls) had been exposed to great 

 heat from the fire. Some of the rooms did not open to all the rest, but 



