Casa Malpaís

When we came back from our windy day attempt to go off-roading in our Ram we saw a sign in the town of Springerville for Casa Malpais. I looked it up on-line and found that it was closed for the winter. Too bad – but wait, the listing said it opened in March, weather permitting. Well Friday was March 1st so I called. Yes, if the “feels like” temperature was above 40 they would have a tour. So I signed us up for the afternoon tour, as mornings have been well below 40.

We started at the Heritage Center in Springerville. After an introductory film featuring Zuni and Hopi elders, a bus took us a few miles outside town to the site.

Happily, Bud and I were the only ones on the tour. That’s our tour guide, Beth leading the way. Besides us there was her son, who was learning how to be a tour guide. It was great, a one to one guide to participant ratio! There are definitely compensations for being out of season.

Beth explained that when excavation started here the archaeologists had built a fairly direct trail up to the ruins, we would be returning that way. But while working they figured out that this was one of the original paths the people who lived here used. It was more winding but less steep.

On one of the lower terraces the people grew crops, including this small bush. This is desert wolfberry. Beth said it doesn’t grow here on its own, the farmers had to have planted it and it doesn’t grow from seed. So these little bushes are centuries old!

This curving wall was built along the first level.

Since this was a trading center and is mostly hidden from the river plains from which travelers would approach, some think the wall was built to help guide visitors to the pueblo.

As we approached the pueblo we passed this petroglyph. This is the one Beth said was a water strider. The rocks it was on were volcanic and porous. They hold water and there might have been standing water near this petroglyph. The sign announced “safe to drink”.

We continued up and came to the Great Kiva.

This is a better view, looking down on it after we left it.

We entered and exited through this passage. Beth explained that this was for the performers, probably holy men. Around the walls you can see benches. Sitting and standing here would be the participants, up to 200 men. They would have come down a ladder from the roof. Many of the participants would have traveled from other villages, as far fewer than that lived in this pueblo.

There were plenty of shards visitors had found here. These were laid out on a flat rock, like the ones at Rattlesnake Point. Beth told us the unglazed fragments were from everyday pottery. She called them their Tupperware. The glazed pieces were from trade or ceremonial pots, the special dishes.

This is the main part of the pueblo. The town of Springerville employed an archeological firm to excavate. They consulted both the Zuni and Hopi people, who live nearby and hold this ancestral home sacred. The Zuni and Hopi representatives asked that excavation be halted after fourteen of the sixty rooms were dug up. Thousands of artifacts were found, and all agreed they had enough information to answer the basic questions of who lived here and how they lived. Many artifacts are in the museum in town. Others are being held for research. The rooms were back-filled, and now the only work done here is stabilization and preservation.

We came to another rock with petroglyphs. See the large figure that is mirrored spirals meeting in a line? An archeoastronomer spent three years at the site and this is one of several solar calendars he found.

These are his pictures back at the museum. On the summer solstice a shadow is cast that follows the line in the spirals when the sun is at its zenith (which by the way, is not at twelve noon for everyone in a time zone).

The whole site is built on the lava outflow of an ancient volcano. The basalt is fissured. At the level of the main pueblo the fissures were plugged to form the floors of the rooms. Large fissures had openings in the plugs so the space below could be accessed for storage, a cool dry basement protected from vermin. This fissure, on the face of the cliff behind the village, had been made into a staircase. Beth said we could go up the stairs if we chose. We did.

The steps were uneven, but certainly sturdy as they have been carrying people for over 700 years.

It was a narrow space. This is Bud descending. These are one of only three such ancient staircases in the southwest. Two of them are at Casa Malpais.

From the top you could get a look at the fissured surface just north of the pueblo.

After we descended the stairs Beth pointed out the tall rock column separated from the cliff. Evidence shows that a young bird, probably eagle or owl, was tethered there. Once it was raised to adulthood the bird was sacrificed for its feathers. There is no evidence of any other animal sacrifice.

As we came down from the rooms we came to another large courtyard. This was thought to be a trading place and perhaps where the women and children gathered while the men were in the Kiva. This had an elaborate opening in its western wall that also served as a solar calendar. One side of the opening would cast a shadow on a prominent rock at sunset on the winter solstice. The other side on a different rock on the summer solstice.

The people who excavated and now preserve this site have great respect and a good relationship with the native peoples nearby. That’s fortunate because Beth was able to correct this sign. Not too many years ago a woman from the Acoma Pueblo came on a tour. The guide was explaining that this point on a lower terrace may have been a lookout as it gave a perfect view of the plains to the west. “No,” she said, “we have this at our Pueblo. It is a shrine to the Sunset God. There should be another place like this on the other side of the ridge, facing east, for the Sunrise God.” And there is.

We’ve been to a lot of ruins, but never before gotten the wealth of information from a guided tour. We loved it and are grateful to Beth and the town of Springerville for making it happen.