While the Hopi have legends of “The Red City”; Palatkwapi, that was abandoned, and pueblo ruins can be found all across Southeast Arizona, no one knows exactly why this area was abandoned. The fact is that in 1400 this area contained many thriving pueblos that were vibrant with trade and craft production, representing several different local cultures, but by the time Coronado arrived here in 1540 it was all gone. Something happened and the Palatkwapi Pueblos were abandoned, their inhabitants moved on, no doubt many went to the north to live with the Hopi and Zuni as the legends relate, possibly some went to the south or east, but wherever they went, their way of life changed when they left here and the pottery types they had made for hundreds of years ceased to be made.

In prehistoric times Southern Arizona was a crossroads of many different cultures, Andy Ward represents several of them to some extent through his pottery. The cultures represented in Palatkwapi Revival pottery are:

• Salado
• Hohokam
• Mogollon

Salado

Arriving in this area around 1300 from the north, the Salado lived in pueblo compounds, usually of adobe, and are famous for their fine polychrome potteries and weavings. Andy reproduces several varieties of Saladoan wares including Gila, Tonto and Tucson Polychromes.

Hohokam

Hohokam culture began to appear in this area around 100 AD and flourished here until around 1400 when it mysteriously disappeared. They were well known for their irrigation systems that were among the most elaborate in the world at that time. The pottery produced by the Hohokam was usually red on buff or red on brown and often including figures of lizards and birds. In the far Southern Arizona they made a unique type of pottery called Bobocomari Polychrome with red and black designs on white, mica flecked clay.

Mogollon

The Mogollon were some of the original inhabitants of this area and some of the first to produce pottery in the Southwest. The pottery they produced in Southeast Arizona was usually simple red on brown and some red on white, but their geometric designs are striking.

Palatkwapi revival pottery is true in every way to the legacy of these ancient cultures, it is among the most traditional of any southwest pottery being made today. All tools and materials used in the construction of the pottery are exactly like those used in prehistoric times.

Last Saturday I hiked over 9 miles, a good deal of the way with a pack full of clay, to get what I suspect to be Bentonite clay from the Sacaton Wash area of the San Pedro Valley. I have used this clay before years ago, so I know what it’s like, but now I’m going to see how it performs with vegetal paint.



While I was out there, I climbed a small unnamed hill to look around and found a prehistoric shrine, a large pile of rocks with pottery shards associated, one was definitely Hohokam.



I also went to Phoenix this weekend to get the “volcanic ash” that the Thornburgs use for Salado polychromes. So with these two and the volcanic ash from A Mountain I collected a couple of weeks ago, I should have something that works in the next few days.

I have most of this week off so I will be working hard to get this Salado Polychrome dilemma ironed out.

I have started construction of a puddled adobe firing pit, I hate to use the word “kiln” because it has such ugly, unauthentic connotations. This is really no more than a firing pit built above ground to keep me from getting down on my hands and knees and to allow fresh air to enter from below, stay tuned for pictures.

1. An unusual amount of breakage as compared to other types because the pottery would not be as durable.
2. Occasional examples of pottery that was accidentally overfired with all or most of the design fired off.

Neither of which in my experience are true. On that account I think she is wrong about how the black paint is achieved, what she hasn’t taken into account is Bentonite clay’s absorptive properties, as a modern example look at San Ildefonso Polychrome, it is painted with vegetal paint on a Bentonite slip and they don’t have to fire at extremely low temperatures to keep from burning out the design, it is their smudged black ware that is fired at lower temperatures.

Most of the stuff you read (POTTERY AND PIGMENTS IN ARIZONA:
SALADO POLYCHROME) says that it was a kaolin type clay, but I doubt the people that write these things have ever attempted to duplicate Salado pottery. Experience has taught me that in an oxidizing firing the vegetable paint used by the Salado on a kaolin white will burn out leaving you with either gray or nothing at all. The Thornburgs have made some exceptional Salado reproductions, they use a powdered stone (not clay) from north of Phoenix that they believe to be volcanic ash. While this provides outstanding results, it has always bothered me that this type of volcanic ash outcrops are rare to non-existent in southern Arizona, I have a hard time imagining the Salado of this area traveling hundreds of miles to get their slip.



I was reading a book on the life of Maria Martinez a few weeks ago and may have found the answer. It said that the pueblos that use Bentonite Clay use vegetable based paint and those with Kaolin based clay have to use mineral based paint or the vegetable will fire out. Wow, there’s the answer, Bentonite clay is composed of weathered volcanic ash, and volcanic ash is what the Thornburgs have successfully used, there must be something about the porosity of volcanic ash that locks the paint in and doesn’t allow it to be burned out.


I have a couple of ideas I plan to try. One is to mix ground up volcanic ash with my white, kaolin based clay and see how that works. The other is that I know of a clay source about 4 miles from where I’ll be able to drive, on Sacaton Wash in the San Pedro Valley that I believe may be Bentonite clay, I am going to give that a try mixed with my kaolin white.

We spent all day Sunday exploring the area below the pass and all the way up to the western base of Red Mountain and found very little evidence of prehistoric habitation and nothing Saladoan at all.

Still I am convinced it is in the area, the next time I will try farther east in the area from Red Mountain to Comet Springs. Most of the area we were looking in last weekend was rather dry, I think we need a more dependable water supply to support a large pueblo of such a late date

My interest in Chichilticalli goes back over 15 years to my work on the Salado sites in the West Turkey Creek area. It was when I became aware of the large Salado population on the west side of the Chiricahuas that I realized the lost pueblo of Chichilticalli did not need to be as far north as the Penalenos but could easilly exist in that area. Of course it would have to be farther north than Turkey Creek since Coronado’s party crossed the mountains at “Chichilticalli Pass” the day after leaving, and there are no passes across the Chiricahuas in that area. But what about several miles north at Apache Pass?



My friend Amy Campbell and I explored the area below Apache Pass around 1998 and found nothing but some Mogollon sites that were much too old to be Chichilticalli . While leaving the area however we looked at the mountains south of Apache Pass and noticed the extremely red color of the earth there, the maps revealed several alternate routes across the mountains in that area, Bear Springs Pass and Immigrant Pass. Amy and I determined to return at a later date and explore that area.

I moved to Louisiana some time after that and before I returned Amy moved to Colorado. Now I will be hiking across Bear Springs Pass with my 12 year old son to fulfill a dream older than he is.

In my estimation Chichilticalli must be:

• In a location where the earth is extraordinarily red. Southern Arizona has a great deal of red earth, this pueblo would have to be built of exceptionally red earth for it to have been noteworthy.
*Saladoan, given the time period, 1540, that this puddled adobe ruin was roofless but not tumbled down indicates it’s late date of occupation, probably no later than 1500. In this part of Arizona such a late date has to be Saladoan.
• At the foot of a large mountain range and near a pass over the mountains.
• Someplace where a continued North or North-East route would require them to cross over the mountains. Chichilticalli was said to be “where the land turns west”.
• An important trading village. Located on what was probably the main trade route between Mexico and Zuni at a spot where it could controll trade over the mountains, we are probably looking at a very important trading center.
• In a prominent location. Chichilticalli was a major landmark on the trail, mentioned by the Spanish who recorded the trak and probably by the indians guiding them since they talk about “the fame of Chichilticalli”. At the late date this pueblo was inhabited it would not seem unusual to expect Chichilticalli to be on a hilltop or some other defensive location, and therefore visible for many miles down the trail.

Stay tuned…