Q: Could the Colorado delta have been this possible Aztlán site?

A: Well, the Colorado delta is a region that was unstable in many ways. There were a number of different periods in which the Colorado River filled the delta up. Up to that time, the Gulf of California extended all the way to Indio, and in fact, almost to Palm Springs. One can still see the remains of it in the Palms Springs area, and all along the rocks there you can see the shores of the old Gulf of California. But the Colorado River kept dumping its silt into what’s known as the delta region, around Mexicali, and so the Mexicali area is tilted upward and there’s a river that goes through there called the Rio Hardy, H-a-r-d-y, and that river still sometimes at high tide, can move to the north as well as to the south. It would only take a few feet difference for the Gulf of California to actually be able to move back into the Salton Basin, even today. But at several different times, there were earthquakes or other seismic activity in the area, and the delta was depressed, and the Gulf of California re-entered the Basin. And then there were periods in which the delta was raised by the activity of the Colorado River, or even seismic activity, and the Basin was cut off again. Now, you have to remember that the Gulf of California, when it became cut off, the northern part remained saline, so it was not a fresh water lake. Because of the high salinity in the area, even though the recent Salt and Sea gets fresh water from the Colorado River and from irrigation runoff, which maintains it today, it’s still saline. Because of the thousands of years in which it was the Gulf of California. So I think the main feature is the Gulf of California going to the north. Any freshwater lakes in the area would be transient and fairly short-lived, such as the present Salt and Sea, which has only been there since around 1902, as I recall, when the irrigation dykes broke. So I think that the delta is not a good place to envision a major cultural development.
However, in my research for my book Warriors of the Colorado, I did find a reference to pueblo-type ruins in the delta area. Now they have never been found by any archeologists. I only had the documentary reference to these pueblo-type ruins. They were in the area occupied by the Hyaguama people, who were a people living between Yuma and the Cocopa area, which is a little bit farther down the delta. And in that region, which is basically a desert wash-type environment, but with many channels of the Colorado River providing rich growth, so there’s plenty of water underground. But it’s still kind of a desert type environment. In that area, apparently, at one time, there was a pueblo. But as I say, the ruins, apparently, have never been discovered by modern archeologists. There is also an account of an old structure up near the Blythe area. But how old that was, I can’t say from the documentary evidence. However, that may refer, you see, to the Soba, or Sivani people going first to the Colorado River before they turned and went to the east. [It] probably does not indicate a very large pueblo-type population because otherwise, the ruins would have almost certainly been discovered a number of times. A lot of cowboys in the area, you know, Indian cowboys and so on moving cattle all through the delta and so on. So, I think it probably would have been found again, if it were large.
So the delta seems to have emerged barrier around 900 to 1400 A.D. and at that particular time, the Colorado River was deflected to the north. And was flowing into what is now the Salton Basin. Some people call it Lake Cahuilla, during that period of time, although we don’t know that the Cahuilla people, who were necessarily living around at least the southern part of it, but probably up around the northern part. In any event, gradually, as the delta emerged higher, the Colorado River deflected itself, again, towards the Gulf of California, and Lake Cahuilla dried up. Of course it dried somewhat slowly, but if people had moved to the shores to live off of the fish and so on that might have been trapped in there, it is possible that the drying up of the lake would have been a catastrophe that could have caused people to move. On the other hand, the archeology of the region doesn’t, as far as I know, indicate any connections with a Meso-American type people. Of course, we don’t know what the culture of the Aztecas would have been [like] at that particular time.
There are theories on the part of anthropologists, that what’s known as the Numic, or Shoshonean branch of the Uto-Aztecan family, had its hearth, or its origin, development area in southern California, and that the Shoshone and the Paiute and other divisions migrated to the north and northeast from that hearth in southern California. That, of course, would relate to the Hopi, since the Hopi speak a Numic language. Now whether that’s really true or not, I’m not sure, because in the late historic period, we find that the Shoshone, for instance, are--and the Comanche, who are also the same as Shoshone, really--are living as far north as Wyoming, and even across the Canadian border in what is now known as Saskatchewan. And, of course, then down through the whole of Utah and the western Colorado area, as well. So to have gotten all those people migrating all the way up to Saskatchewan from southern California, I find a little bit hard to accept, and I think that mistakes can be made, sometimes, when one theorizes where one particular language family originates.
In any case, it’s likely that there have been a number of movements in the area. And we’re not just yet sure, which directions they traveled.

Q: In what way is Chicomoztoc archetypal of Native American origin stories, the concept of coming from the Earth?

A: There are many origin stories that are found in Meso-America. Among them Maya, for example, and other groups in the Yucatan area, as well as among many people of Central Mexico. They tend to have certain features in common. One of the origin features that’s very important is the concept of seven caves.
Seven caves is often associated with a place known as Nonohualco, which is probably located, originally, in southern Vera Cruz, or in Tabasco province on the Gulf of Mexico. Zoiva is another place that’s very frequently mentioned, especially by the Maya, and Chicomoztoc also appears, very frequently. And it appears that a great many of the peoples who eventually became important in the Valley of Mexico, particularly, wanted to graft onto their genealogies, references to these different places. So that we have to be a little careful. While seven caves, obviously, is something very important, I’m not sure we know where the seven caves would be. Because the concept would be borrowed by many different peoples to assert their ancestry.
An example of this are the Pudapache people of Michoacan, who apparently in one of their chronicles, as recorded by Europeans, referred to being of Chichimec ancestry, or the Chichimecos. And many groups also bring in the Chichimecos. The Telascaltecos bring in the Chichimecos, and so on. But the Pudapache language seems to be closest, if any, to any languages of the Andes. And so it’s very likely that they came by sea along the west coast of Mexico, and entered the Rio del Balsas and up into Michoacan, that way. And so, it’s not too likely that they really are of Chichimec ancestry.
But, nonetheless, some of the people in Michoacan may have been of Chichimec background. Or they chose to borrow this general tradition in the Valley of Mexico and graft it on to their tradition, which otherwise might have become a little bit obscure, having come so far, such a great, great distance in their migrations. So I think Chicomoztoc and seven caves are very important. But we have to be careful about making them essential ingredients of following a specific path. I think they are archetypal references to points that are of importance for all the people of the Valley of Mexico. They’re part of a common kind of racial history.

Q: Could egrets have been in the Sun Valley, in the Phoenix area?

A: Before it got drained, the Gila and the Salt River could well have had basins where there was plant life and so on growing that would have attracted egrets. We have egrets around Davis here, you know. And I think, what we’ve discovered in the last few years is that when you have water being revived in an area, even though it hasn’t been there for awhile, the egrets will come. So, I think that one would have to go into the biological literature on the distribution of egrets and other complicated things that we don’t have the resources to do right now, at least I don’t.
I suspect that the Gila probably had a lot more ponds and lagoons and so on along it, in those days, because the agriculture that the white people have carried on, the mining upstream and everything else, has undoubtedly silted the channel and changed it considerably. It’s undoubtably full of gravel and debris. That didn’t formally exist I would guess. So, I wouldn’t rule it out, the possibility that it would have egrets, too.

Q: Going back to that pueblo that has been alluded to in documentary evidence but has never been found--

A: OK. OK. Let me see if I can find that, specifically. There’s no doubt that the river Yumans shared a number of traits with Hohokoms. The O’odham also shared traits with the Hohokoms. And some people believe that the O’odham culture is a derivative of Hohokom. But Di Peso, an archeologist that worked in the area for many many years, suggests the O’odham were the indigenous people of southern Arizona, that the Hohokoms were intruders from Mexico. According to Di Peso, the early Hohokom culture, up to about a thousand A.D., [who were] a group of immigrants from Mexico, known archeologically as the Hohokom, entered the Pimeria Alta with a recognizably different material culture complex, and took over a number of river valleys, such as the middle Gila and the Salt. They extended their dominion throughout Pimeria Alta. The Hohokom also had colonies up as far as Flagstaff, about the year 1070, and, as I mentioned, their pottery has been found along the Colorado River, and even in the San Fernando Valley, California, where I found some, at Tonga. It was traded that far, so the Hohokom might be worth mentioning, since they did have the ball courts and the extensive irrigation systems and they illustrate the close contact with Mexico.