HISTORY19 - Northwestern Chihuahua and the Rebirth of Casas Grandes Pottery

How I got to this subject for a blog article, needs a little discussion:  I’ve collected contemporary Indian pottery for 35 years, mostly from the southwestern U.S., but a few pieces from northern Mexico.  Along the way, I’ve studied and written about the history of southwestern Native American tribes and their art in various parts of three books on Arizona history.  (See my website at ringbrothershistory.com, under “Bob’s Projects.”)   

The Mexican pottery I’ve collected comes from the village of Mata Ortiz in northwestern Chihuahua, 18 miles south of the prehistoric archaeological site of Casas Grandes (or Paquimé), where extraordinary pottery was produced from about AD 1130-1450.  Since the early 1970s, potters in Mata Ortiz have recreated the Casas Grandes style of pottery in beautiful pottery of their own.  My Mata Ortiz pottery, collected between 1989 and 2012, has been consistently of the finest quality, equal to or superior to fine Native American pottery, and sold at more affordable prices.

Note:  Paquimé means “Big Houses” in the Aztec language - translated to “Casas Grandes” in Spanish.

Casas Grandes pottery was produced in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico.

So, these thoughts led me to explore the history of Casas Grandes pottery, and the region in which it was produced, northwestern part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Prehistoric Casas Grandes is 265 driving miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona, in a wide, fertile valley, along the Casas Grandes River in the eastern foothills of the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains at about 4,800 feet altitude, with the Chihuahuan Desert to the east.

Early History of Northwestern Chihuahua

The first human inhabitants of modern-day Chihuahua were hunter-gatherers around 10,000 BC.  These Paleo Indians hunted large animals, like mammoths and sloths, and lived near rivers, swamps, and marshes that had good fishing, and attracted birds and game animals.  Their small, extended family groups moved from place to place as resources were depleted.

At the start of the Archaic Period (6,000 BC to AD 200), most large game animals died off.  Chihuahua’s native people adapted by supplementing their diet with smaller game and a variety of edible wild plants. 

Late in the Archaic, people began doing their own farming, including beans, squash, and cotton.  Around 2,000 BC, corn was introduced from more advance civilizations of central Mexico.  People made millstones to grind seeds, grains, and nuts.  They eventually learned to make pithouses - brush structures over shallow holes in the ground.  They began to live in small communities.  They also made crude pottery and figurines.

The most significant Archaic Period settlement in northwestern Chihuahua was Cerro Juanaqueña, which developed around 1,000 BC near present day Janos (about 45 miles north of prehistoric Casas Grandes).  This settlement was built on the summit and slopes of a hill, overlooking the floodplain of the Casas Grandes River and its major tributary, the San Pedro River, and employed terraced farming on the sides of the hill.

Between AD 200 and AD 1450, with influence from advanced agrarian civilizations in Mexico, three prehistoric civilizations arose to dominate the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico: the Anasazi (also called Ancestral Pueblo), the Hohokam culture, and the Mogollon culture.  The extent of these civilizations is shown in the figure below, along with important settlement sites. 

Each civilization mastered its environment.  Farming and a more sedentary village life made possible the further development of tools, arts, and crafts, especially pottery.  Each culture was influenced by the others through extensive intermingling, sharing, and trading, but each also had distinctive characteristics.

The Anasazi built communal adobe pueblos and multiroom adobe dwellings in cliff ledges.  The Hohokam used extensive irrigation systems to become the master farmers of the southwest and late in the prehistoric period built large communities with adobe buildings for living, ceremonies, and sports.  

Note the Hohokam settlement of Casa Grande in south-central Arizona.  This settlement is not to be confused with the Mogollon settlement of Casas Grandes in northwestern Chihuahua.

Prehistoric civilizations in the American southwest and northern Mexico.

Late in the prehistoric period, the Mogollon transitioned from deeply excavated pit houses and built above- ground pueblos and cliff dwellings.  The Mogollon are known for weaving clothing and blankets, made from cotton, feathers, and animal fur; feather-decorated baskets; and pottery. 

Because the Mogollon civilization extended far into Mexico, there was considerable trade with other prehistoric peoples of central Mexico and the coast of the Gulf of California. 

Prior to the establishment of Paquimé (see below), the finest Mogollon pottery was produced in the Mimbres region (Mimbres Valley and upper Gila River) of southwestern New Mexico:  black-on-white, decorated with stylized representations of daily life.  Mimbres pottery-making flourished between AD 1000 - 1130.

Mimbres bowl with black-on-white horned toad design, c. AD 1150-1050.

By about AD 1150, the three prehistoric civilizations began to decline. 

The Anasazi people began abandoning their pueblo villages and cliff dwellings, with most of them migrating towards the south. 

The Hohokam people began abandoning their settlements around AD 1300, scattering in small groups.  By AD 1450 the Hohokam culture had largely disappeared. 

The northern Mogollon culture lost its distinct identity.  Some were absorbed by the then well-advanced Anasazi; others abandoned the region and emigrated south.

Potential reasons for the decline include drought, pestilence, famine, plague, nomadic invaders, and internal political issues.  As of today, nobody really knows!  What little we do know about these civilizations has been learned from excavating buried settlements and examining artifacts found there. 

Casas Grandes (Paquimé)

Casas Grande’s rise to prominence occurred while the Anasazi, Hohokam, and Mogollon civilizations north of Casas Grandes were suffering a massive decline and dispersion of their populations.  Some scholars believe that the spectacular rise of Casas Grandes was greatly aided by a series of migrations southward by people from these cultures.

In about AD 1150-1200, people began to congregate into the small village of Casas Grandes, on the west bank of the Casas Grandes River, a small stream which flows northward, then eastward into an inland lake.  A pueblo village, constructed of adobe, began as a cluster of 20 or more house, each with a plaza and enclosing wall, probably sharing a common water system. It is believed that a fire around AD 1340 destroyed Casas Grandes, but the pueblo was rebuilt to emerge as one of the largest and most culturally complex prehistoric settlements in northern Mexico and the southwestern U.S.  Lasting until about AD 1450, Casas Grandes was greatly influenced in economics, culture, and religion during its heyday by civilizations in central Mexico, specifically the Toltecs and Aztecs, and northern Mexico’s Pacific coast.

Casas Grandes archaeological site.

Casas Grandes extended over 370 acres at its peak, around AD 1400, and contained 2,000 rooms, built of adobe, including four-story apartments; the largest building covered nearly a full acre.  The city contained great plazas and public spaces, a complex irrigation and sewage system (Hohokam influence?), ball courts done in the style of the Mesoamerican ball game, community fire pits, a solar observatory, elite burial mounds, a sweat bath, pens to raise turkeys, and a complex in the middle of the city where scarlet macaws from southern Mexico were bred for commercial and ritualistic purposes. 

Macaw pens at Casas Grandes.

Buildings had T-shaped doorways and square colonnades, just like Anasazi settlements.  However, unlike other settlements in the desert southwest, Casas Grandes had no underground kivas for ceremonies.

T-shaped doorway at Casas Grandes.

 Casas Grandes had a booming crafts industry:  distinctive Casas Grandes pottery, shell jewelry, and woven textiles were traded throughout Mexico and the American southwest.  

Casas Grandes was renowned for its Ramos polychrome style on pottery, bowls, and effigies.  This style is defined by a white-to-tan colored paste and surface work, with fine lines in black and red colors.  Striking motifs - often triangular - were combined with other shapes like circles and rectangles, which were rendered in a geometric style in black design.  The artisans of Casas Grandes regularly added life forms, including macaws, snakes, horned toads, and humans to their design, giving many vessels a stunning appearance.

Casas Grandes pot with a geometric design.

Casas Grandes pot with two horned-and-plumed serpents, macaw-head motifs, and birds.

Casas Grandes maintained much stronger ties to central Mexico and Mexico’s Pacific Coast than either the Anasazi or Hohokam cultures.  From the civilizations to the south and west, Casas Grandes traded for copper bells, armlets, and ceremonial axes; beads; the shells of marine mollusks; spindle whorls; ceramic drums; and tropical birds.  

It is believed that the city once supported 2,000-4,000 people.

About 350 settlements of varying size existed within 40 miles of Casas Grandes, but scholars and archaeologists believe that Casas Grandes’ zone of political influence extended only about 20 miles from the city’s center, with perhaps 10,000 people living within its area of control.  The “prehistoric civilizations map” above shows four additional Mogollon settlements - all built in caves or on the side of cliffs - that flourished during the same period as Casas Grandes.

The Casas Grandes culture influenced other prehistoric peoples within a 30,000 square mile area, which encompassed far west Texas, southern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and northern Mexico.

Around AD 1450, Casas Grandes collapsed for reasons that are not clear today.  Some scholars say that Casas Grandes was attacked and defeated by the Opata from northern Sonora, with surviving Casas Grandes inhabitants fleeing northward.  Others think that a warlike Mesoamerican empire called the Tarascans cut trade routes.  Still others believe the city’s inhabitants headed south toward central Mexico and became the Tarahumara and Yaqui people along the way.

In my previous research, mostly on southwestern Native American cultures, but including the Mogollon civilization, there was virtually no mention of Casas Grandes.  Given how important and significant it was, I ask myself, “How can this be?”  Casas Grandes is truly a “lost city.”

Later History of Northwestern Chihuahua

By 1550, a century after the decline of Casas Grandes, northwestern Chihuahua was populated by an indigenous Chihuahuan people called the Sumas.  The Suma Indians were nomadic hunter-gatherers, who practiced little or no farming, but raided their agricultural neighbors, the Opata, to the west in Sonora.

Spanish colonization of Mexico began in 1519-1521 with the conquest of the Aztec Empire in central Mexico and continued steadily northward.  In 1562, Spanish explorer, Francisco de Ibarra, looking for the rumored “seven cities of gold,” became the first European to see the ruins of Casas Grandes. 

Most of the Spanish colonization efforts in Chihuahua occurred south and east of Casas Grandes.  In 1567, the town of Santa Barbara was founded on the southern border of today’s Chihuahua.  Santa Barbara became the launching place for Spanish expeditions northward into New Mexico.  In 1631 a rich vein of silver was discovered at today’s Hidalgo de Parral, just 18 miles northeast of Santa Barbara.  The conquest of the region took nearly 100 years in the face of fierce resistance from the indigenous Concho Indians, but the Spanish persisted to transform the region into a profitable mining center.

The Spanish settlement of Casas Grandes was established in 1661, less than two miles from the ruins of prehistoric Casas Grandes.

Desiring to convert the indigenous peoples to Roman Catholicism, the Spanish built 20 missions in Chihuahua between 1565-1673, including one at the new settlement of Casas Grandes in 1662. Another 33 missions had been added by 1752.

Starting In 1751, Apache Indians from Arizona and New Mexico began raiding into northern Chihuahua.  As the Apaches continually attacked settlements, ranches, and mining camps - gradually assimilating local Indian tribes - the Spaniards were forced to establish a series of presidios (forts) to contain the threat, completing 23 presidios by 1760.  The presidios were largely ineffective, so in the late 1780s, the Spanish changed their approach and offered peace and rations to Apaches who settled at the presidios.  By 1790 most of the Apache bands were at peace - that lasted until the 1830s.

Spanish colonization ended with the Mexican War of Independence from 1810-1821, but Mexico suffered an economic depression and the budget for soldiers to man the presidios and supply rations to Apaches was greatly reduced.  Finally, in 1831, the Mexican government cut off support to the Apaches, who immediately left the presidios and began raiding again - continuing until 1886, when Geronimo, the famous Apache leader, surrendered.

Chihuahua became an official Mexican state in 1824, with a state constitution ratified the following year.

The Mexican-American War in 1846-1848 ended with Mexico ceding vast territories to the U.S., including the future states of California, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Arizona.  The northern boundary of Chihuahua was set at the Gila River in today’s Arizona and New Mexico. 

In the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, with the U.S. looking for land for a southern transcontinental railroad route, Chihuahua lost the Mesilla Valley to New Mexico and a portion of southeastern Arizona - to form the current northern boundary of Chihuahua.

In 1886, Nuevo Casas Grandes was established as a Mormon settlement about five miles northeast of the ruins of prehistoric Casas Grandes.

During the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), Chihuahua was a central battle ground.  Peasant revolutionary leader Francisco “Poncho” Villa fought throughout Chihuahua, demanding that the peasants be apportioned land and be recognized as legitimate participants in Mexican politics. On 9 March 1916, General Villa ordered nearly 100 Mexican members of his revolutionary group to make a cross-border attack from northwestern Chihuahua against Columbus, New Mexico.  Villa carried out the raid because he needed more military equipment and supplies.  They attacked a detachment of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment, burned the town, and seized 100 horses and mules and other military supplies.   

During the balance of the 20^th century and the early 21^st century, northwestern Chihuahua was largely unaffected by the state of Chihuahua’s politics and economic growth.  The population of the state’s capital, Chihuahua City, grew to exceed one million people, and Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande River from El Paso, even bigger with over two-and-a- half million people in the metro area.  Today the primary economic drivers in the state of Chihuahua are assembly plants (called maquiladoras) that produce electronic components, automobile parts, and textile goods. 

Meanwhile, northwestern Chihuahua remained rural, with farming and cattle ranching, and logging in the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountains.  Today, the population of Casas Grandes Municipality, containing the ruins of prehistoric Casas Grandes, is just over 10,000 people.  Nuevo Casas Grandes continued its Mormon heritage and grew to about 60,000 people.  Unfortunately, Northwestern Chihuahua today is affected by drug trafficking and cartel warfare that plague the border Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora.

From 1958-1961, archaeologist Charles Di Peso, from the Amerind foundation, excavated the prehistoric ruins of Casas Grandes, spent additional years analyzing what he found, and in 1974 published his results, essentially waking up the world to the significance of Casas Grandes.  Lots of artifacts were recovered from the ruins, including pottery, jewelry, and religious objects.  In 1998 Casas Grandes was designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site.

Mata Ortiz Pottery

Mata Ortiz pottery is a recreation of Casas Grandes pottery found in and around the archaeological site of prehistoric Casas Grandes (Paquimé).  Named after the modern town of Mata Ortiz, which is near the archeological site, the style was propagated by Juan Quezada Celado. In the 1960s, Quezada learned on his own to recreate this ancient pottery and then went on to update it. By the mid-1970s, Quezada was selling his pottery and teaching family and friends to make it. The pottery was able to penetrate the U.S. markets thanks to efforts by an amateur anthropologist, a business consultant, and Mexican traders. By the 1990s, the pottery was being shown in museums and other cultural institutions and sold in fine galleries. The success of the pottery, which is sold for its aesthetic rather than its utilitarian value, has brought the town of Mata Ortiz out of poverty, with most of its population earning income from the industry, directly or indirectly.

Juan Quezada was born in 1940 in the town of Tutuaca in central Chihuahua, moved to Mata Ortiz as a baby, and grew up with little schooling.  As a child he experimented with painting and as a youngster, he tried boxing.  In the early 1960s, he was a very poor farmer, who also collected firewood and agave cactus in the mountains near the ruins of prehistoric Casas Grandes, where he found pre-Hispanic pots and pot shards and was impressed with their artistic quality.  Inspired by the old Casas Grandes pottery, he began experiments to understand how the pottery was made and then to recreate the style in his pottery.

By 1971 he had perfected high-quality polychrome pottery in the Casas Grandes tradition.  He also created new vessel shapes and modified the traditional painted designs to create a more fluid look.  He painted the entire vessel to give the designs a sense of movement.  At first Quezada gave his pottery to family members and friends, but by the mid-1970s his wares were being sold commercially.   In 1999, Quezada received the prestigious Premio Nacional de Ciencias y Artes award (handcraft and folk-art category) from Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo.

Juan Quezada with one of his Mata Ortiz pots.

The town of Mata Ortiz, a thirty-minute drive south of the Casas Grandes Archaeological Zone, was originally founded as “Pearson” during the late 19^th century, with its economy based on agriculture, timber, cattle and the nearby railroad.  After the Mexican Revolution, the town’s name was changed to “Mata Ortiz” to honor Juan Mata Ortiz, a local hero who fought against the Apaches in the 19^th century.  Rail work ended in the 1960s, when the repair yard was moved to Nuevo Casa Grandes, leading to the town’s decline until the 1980s.

Mata Ortiz was revived due to the pottery-making efforts of Juan Quezada, his family, and friends.  Today, about 300 of the 2,000 inhabitants of the town make a living directly from making ceramics, with about two-thirds of the population having employment indirectly related to the craft, either providing for kilns or offering guest rooms to traders and tourists.  Pottery has allowed residents to provide things like electricity, plumbing, vehicles and more to families.  The movement to create pottery has included women as well as men since its beginning, and today women of all talents and expertise levels are found in the town.

I purchased my Mata Ortiz art pieces (six pots, two small plates, one shallow bowl) from galleries in San Diego, Tucson, and Tubac, and from the Museum of Northern Arizona.  Here are two examples from my collection:

Mata Ortiz pot by Andres Villaba, 9-in D x 8 1/2-in H, purchased in 1989.
(Courtesy of Bob Ring and Pat Wood)

Mata Ortiz pot by Rodrigo Perez, 8 1/2-in D x 11-in H, purchased in 2000.
(Courtesy of Bob Ring and Pat Wood)