Introduction

The desert of northern Mexico is not the place one would expect to find extensive remains of tropical birds. However, in northwestern Chihuahua that is exactly what has been found. Charles C. Di Peso and Eduardo Contreras found secure evidence for the raising and breeding of scarlet macaws at Paquimé (also known as Casas Grandes) during their excavations at the site in the late 1950s and early 1960s (Di Peso et al. 1974; Somerville et al. 2010). The presence of large quantities of macaws has long been a point of interest for scholars and lay people alike, and the abundance of scarlet macaws more than 500 kilometers from their natural habitat, along with other long-distance trade items, has been used as evidence for the economic foundations of social inequality at Paquimé. In this chapter, I contextualize the remains of the scarlet macaw, as well as those of the regionally indigenous military macaw, to understand their symbolic roles within the Casas Grandes system beyond their use as a means of subsistence.

Over the past couple of decades Paquimé has become important in discussions of hierarchy in the region of the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest. However many questions remain unanswered. The large quantity of nonlocal items such as marine shells, scarlet macaws, and Salado Polychrome (a nonlocal ceramic type) led Di Peso (1974) to interpret this large regional center as a northern outpost of a Mesoamerican empire. According to Di Peso, Paquimé was settled by Mesoamerican pochteca traders coming north to control resources. Subsequent interpretations have tried to understand Paquimé on its own terms as a local development (see Lekson 1999 for an exception). The exotic trade items still play a role in interpretations of Paquimé, now as prestige goods (Bradley 1993, 1996; Earle 1991; Whalen and Minnis 1996). While most researchers agree Paquimé was complex, the level and specific form of that complexity is still hotly debated (Lekson 1999; Whalen and Minnis 1996, 2001a, 2001b, 2003, 2009; Woosley and Olinger 1993; Van Pool and Leonard 2002). Although ritual is sometimes given as the implicit prime economic mover in discussions of trade at Paquimé (e.g., Spielmann 2002), it is always portrayed as ritual in the most general sense, or ritual writ large. A few studies of mortuary remains (Rakita 2009) and polychrome ceramic designs (Van Pool 2003) have begun to discuss the role of ritual at Paquimé on a smaller and more specific scale; I hope to add to these discussions. In this chapter I explore the ways in which ritual knowledge is mobilized through the use of specific bird species at Paquimé.

Rather than continue the argument of whether or not societies in the US Southwest/Mexican Northwest were hierarchical, egalitarian, or heterarchical, I take the suggestion of Nelson (1995) and Rautman (1998) and ask how these societies were complex. I argue that hierarchy was based on the control of ritual knowledge, and that prestige items only took on value within a certain ritual system. As Brandt (1994:15) notes in her discussion of Southwestern Pueblo societies north of Paquimé, “the fundamental basis for social ranking in Pueblo societies is possession and ownership of ceremonial property, knowledge, and ceremonial participation. In all of the pueblos traditionally, and in most today, these aspects provide the basis for claiming rights and authority and apportioning responsibility.” Using comparisons with the Pueblo Southwest and Mesoamerica, I suggest that the macaws at Paquimé were prestige items, not simply because they were a difficult-to-acquire trade good, but also because they were a form of ceremonial property and the contexts in which they were found suggests they were mobilized as symbols of ritual knowledge.

Paquimé, Northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico

Paquimé is a large, late prehistoric site located along the Río Casas Grandes in Northwest Chihuahua, Mexico (Figure 6.1). This region is home to the Chihuahuan Desert, which lies between the Sierra Madre Occidental to the west, on the border between the states of Sonora and Chihuahua, and the Sierra Madre Oriental to the east. These large mountain ranges block most rain from the west and east coasts, creating a rain shadow (Schmidt and Gerald 1988). As a result, this region is characterized by desert scrub brush, various species of agave, ocotillo, and non-columnar cacti species.

Figure 6.1. Paquimé and the surrounding region of Chihuahua and Sonora, Mexico and Arizona and New Mexico in the United States.

Major excavations of the site took place from 1958 through 1961 and were overseen by Charles C. Di Peso and Eduardo Contreras (Di Peso 1974). The main occupation of Paquimé, known as the Medio period, dates to AD 1200–1350 (Dean and Ravesloot 1993). Work in the surrounding area has shown the Medio period may be pushed earlier to AD 1150 (Whalen and Minnis 2009). The Medio period saw a transition from semisubterranean pithouse structures to aboveground adobe room-block structures, along with changes in ceramics and other artifact categories (Di Peso et. al. 1974; Rakita 2009). Di Peso and Contreras’s excavations revealed that Paquimé was one of the largest late-prehistoric sites in the American Southwest/Mexican Northwest, exhibiting a surprising diversity of public and private architecture (Figure 6.2).

Figure 6.2. Paquimé: rooms discussed in the text.

Di Peso and Contreras exposed roughly two-thirds of the site, focusing on the western portion, including eighteen platform mounds, five large in-ground roasting ovens, a complex internal water system, and over 180 multistory rooms (Di Peso et a. 1974). It is estimated that Paquimé includes a total of more than 1,100 rooms (Whalen, MacWilliams, and Pitezel 2010:546). In addition to the size of Paquimé, the incredible finds in a few of the rooms have captured much attention. For example, in Room 18 in Unit 8 over 50 Gila Polychrome (a nonlocal ceramic design) bowls were found. Next to this room, in Room 15, Unit 8, over 4 million shells, both worked and unworked, were found in the fill and underneath a false wooden floor. In Room 23, Unit 16, ten human skulls were found next to a long-bone cache that included the remains of human as well as various prey animals.

Another unique find includes extensive evidence of aviculture. The skeletal remains of tropical macaws, including both scarlet (Ara macao) and military macaws (Ara militaris), were found buried under plaza floors and room floors, and in features identified as birdcages. These cages were located along a few plaza walls and had two low adobe walls with a distinctive donut-shaped stone in the front for access. The tops were closed by large, flat stones. Many of the bird remains were found in these features. Breeding is suggested by the presence of macaw remains in almost every stage of development, from eggshells to mature adults, as well as the results of isotope analysis (Di Peso et al. 1974:5:531, 8:292–296; Somerville et al. 2010). The specific birds raised at Paquimé include the scarlet macaw and the common turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). The military macaw does not appear to have been bred at Paquimé, as there are no eggshells or nestlings. Instead, the presence of only older birds suggests the military macaws were captured in the wild and brought to the site.

Of particular interest for this discussion is the presence of scarlet and military macaws found buried together. The remains of these birds were, more often than not, found together in prepared burials. Scarlet macaws almost invariably occur in greater numbers than military macaws, both in the bird burials and in the overall population of bird remains at Paquimé. These finds are unusual in the US Southwest/Northwest Mexican region, and have shaped many interpretations of the site (Creel and McKusick 1994).

The scarlet macaw, which is indigenous to tropical habitats at least 500 kilometers to the south of Paquimé (Creel and McKusick 1994; Di Peso et al. 1974:vol. 8), has bright red feathers along its back and chest, with blue and yellow wingtips and tail feathers. The military macaw has bright green feathers along its back and chest with blue wingtips and red tail feathers, along with a red patch immediately above the beak. These birds were not used as a food source but were buried whole in prepared burials, sometimes with grave offerings. Following McKusick (Di Peso et al. 1974, vol. 8:278, 290), I suggest these birds were buried together due to their prominent green and red colors. Interestingly, Di Peso and his colleagues (Di Peso et al. 1974, vol. 8:269) found that turkeys were not used as a food source at Paquimé either. Turkeys were raised for feathers and for use in sacrifices, as over 300 headless burials attest, but there is no indication that these birds were butchered for food (Di Peso et al. 1974:vol. 8). This suggests that birds at Paquimé were valued for ritual rather than subsistence purposes.

The economic focus of many interpretations of Paquimé has led to an interpretation of the scarlet macaws as a trade item to the exclusion of other ideas. These birds are combined with other trade items such as shell and nonlocal ceramics to provide evidence of Paquimés’ position as a trading center, or to argue for hierarchy based on control of prestige goods (Bradley 1993, 1996). I agree that control of these unique and difficult-to-acquire goods contributed to creating and maintaining hierarchy at Paquimé, but I also want to know the nature of the role these colorful birds played in the Paquimé symbolic system. The interment of exotic scarlet macaws and the locally available military macaws together was clearly intentional and systematic. If control of prestigious trade goods was important to maintaining hierarchy at Paquimé, why were the military macaws treated in a manner similar to that of the scarlet macaws?

Along with others, I argue the power to create and maintain a hierarchical position lay in the ability to control and mobilize ritual knowledge (Brandt 1977, 1994; Whiteley 1988, 1998), or as Whiteley (1998:93–94) put it in reference to the Hopi, “secret ritual knowledge serves as the. . .‘currency’ of power. . .[and] both configures the structuring of hierarchy and provides the idiom of political action.” To be effective, this ritual knowledge must be displayed in highly controlled contexts; in other words, it must be displayed in rituals (Weiner 1992).

Although the meaning of particular rituals may be archaeologically elusive, I suggest several broad cosmological principles that structure these rituals, leaving material patterns that can be, and have been, identified in the archaeological record. One of these is the concept of color/directional symbolism, which is a prominent theme to the north and south of Paquimé in both the Pueblo Southwest and in Mesoamerica (DeBoer 2005; Freidel et al. 1993; Miller and Taube 1993; Ortiz 1969; Parsons 1996).

Cosmological Principles and the Creation of Value: Color/Directional Symbolism

Color/directional symbolism is a cosmological principle seen from southern Mesoamerica to the northern US Southwest (and points beyond). The association of color and direction, at the most basic level, refers to the notion that each direction—north, south, east, and west, plus a center above and a center below—is associated with a particular color, plant, animal, and deity. The same group of colors—red, blue or green or blue/green, yellow, black, white, and a mix of all colors—is used in all Mesoamerican and Southwest cultures (Cushing 1979; Ortiz 1969; Parsons 1996; Schaafsma and Taube 2006; Voth 1905). However, the combinations of colors and directions vary in each culture (Table 6.1).

Along with the association of color and direction, each set is often associated with a one or more particular plants and animals (Table 6.1). This plant could be a tree, agricultural crop, or some other symbolically and functionally important plant, or (often) a combination of multiple plants. The animals associated with each color and direction are usually a predator and a prey animal. The plants and animals have features that are usually related to the season that corresponded to the direction. For example, Cushing (1979:186–187) notes for the Zuni that the clan groups of the crane, grouse, and evergreen are associated with white, north, and winter. He notes that the grouse turns white in the winter and the evergreen stays as green in winter as it does in summer, which are important features for their association with the winter season. Among all Pueblo groups, the animals and plants associated with the colors and directions are also the animals or plants that represent different clan groups. Thus, different clans, each associated with an animal and plant, were also associated with particular seasons and directions. These seasonal associations, in turn, regulated which groups were responsible for different types of work in different seasons (planting versus harvesting, hunting, etc.). Although this notion of color/directional symbolism is a common principle among almost every Pueblo group, there is great variability in the details among the different Pueblo societies.

From Cushing (1979) to Parsons (1996) to Ortiz (1969), ethnographers in the Pueblo Southwest have discussed the importance of these color and direction associations. Ethnographers have also demonstrated how color and direction associations are not just abstract cosmological ideas; they organize village layout, social groups, and resource distribution (Cushing 1979:185–186; Ortiz 1969:35; Parsons 1996:366; Stevenson 1894).

In his ethnographic study at the Keresan pueblo of Santo Domingo, Leslie White (1935:41) notes that houses in the pueblo are divided into five groups according to the important directions: the four cardinal directions and the middle. The ten war-priest assistants (Gowatcanyi) are grouped into five pairs, also named according to the five directions, and each takes turns herding the pueblo horses. When a pair of men need help caring for the horses, they enlist help from people with houses in the same directional category. So if the Gowatcanyi from the north are herding and they need additional help, they enlist people who live in the part of the pueblo that is associated with north (White 1935:41).

Ford (1980) gives another example in his discussion of the environmental necessities for growing different colors of corn. The different colors of corn require diverse microenvironments (Ford 1980). This, in turn, ensures the survival of at least one crop. Thus ritual needs and subsistence practices were inextricably intertwined.

Color/directional symbolism is also present among the Aztecs and the Maya of central and southern Mexico. The five-part division (four quadrants plus the center) of the Aztec world is repeated at many levels (Ashmore 1991; Miller and Taube 1993; Van Zantwijk 1981). One clear example of the association of each direction with a specific color, flora, and fauna comes from the Codex Fejervary-Mayer. Not only do we see the color/directional scheme laid out in this piece, we also see that the scarlet macaw is an important deity. This system is mapped geographically across the regions conquered by the Aztec, and tribute brought into the Aztec capital city is organized by this directional scheme (Carrasco 2000). Here again, we see how color/directional symbolism is not just an intangible esoteric idea, but shapes society in many ways.

Color/directional symbolism is not a religious superstructure (Marx 1976), but, within the regions of Mesoamerica and the US Southwest, gives structure to social groups, subsistence practices, labor, and the distribution of goods. With the Tewa example we see how this principle structures everyday life, and with the Aztec example we see how this idea of color/directional symbolism can structure the tribute system of an entire empire. I argue that this cosmological structure was evident in northern Mexico as well.

Color Sets within Color/Directional Symbolism

Within the larger schema of color/directional symbolism, there are often sets of colors that are associated with each other. These sets of colors are often used as markers of social identity. A good example of color sets and their relation to social organization can be seen at the Tewa pueblo of San Juan, as discussed by Ortiz (1969), who notes that in the Tewa community of San Juan the moiety organization is related to the seasons, with leadership alternating between the winter and summer moieties. Each moiety is also associated with a specific set of colors (winter with red and white, and summer with yellow, green, and black). Thus color sets identify particular moieties in this case.

Color sets and associations can be seen in the regalia worn at Pueblo dances and other rituals, such as masks, headdresses, and various forms of jewelry. Ortiz (1969:74–75) describes the masks worn by the Towa é (a group of officials who act as intermediaries between the “Made People” and the rest of the pueblo population) in preparation for the Turtle dance. In describing how the Towa é act as a check on the power of the “Made People” (a politically powerful group responsible for all ritual activity), Ortiz describes their duties before the Turtle dance. A Towa é from each moiety (summer and winter) visits the kiva during preparations and disciplines the dancers as they practice for the ritual. The Towa é from the winter moiety wears a mask decorated with red and white paint, and the Towa é from the summer moiety wears a mask decorated with yellow and black paint. As noted above, these colors are associated with the different moieties. This is not to say that Paquimé had a clear moiety system as San Juan pueblo did, but rather to demonstrate how colors and color sets can be used as markers of social groups. The materialization of these group markers is identifiable by archaeologists if we take a contextual approach.

Macaws at Paquimé

The evidence for aviculture at Paquimé provides evidence for the central role of color/directional symbolism. The fact that the two most common species of macaw were repeatedly buried together is important and requires further examination. The prepared burials of scarlet macaws and turkeys made up 71 percent of the bird remains at Paquimé (Figure 6.3), with scarlet macaws making up 35 percent of the avian fauna (Di Peso et al. 1974, vol. 8:273). There were a total of 403 individual macaws found that could be identified to species. Of these, 322 were scarlet macaws and 81 were military macaws. A subset of these remains was found whole in prepared burials. There were 136 prepared bird burials that contained macaws, for a total of 293 macaws found in prepared burials (including both single and multiple burials). There were 81 multiple-bird burials that contained a total of 192 military and scarlet macaws found together (see Table 6.2). The overwhelming majority of these bird remains were found in Plaza 3-12 (Figure 6.4).

Figure 6.3. Percentages and frequencies of avian remains found at Paquimé.

Figure 6.4. Distribution of macaw burials within the main room block at Paquimé.

Most of the birdcages described earlier were located along the south wall in Plaza 3-12, where the bulk of the macaw remains were found. Plaza 3-12 was clearly a locus of scarlet macaw breeding, given the remains of macaws in all stages of development from eggshells to nestlings, to mature birds found in the cages and under the plaza floor (Di Peso et al. 1974, vol. 8; Minnis 1988; Minnis et al. 1993; Somerville et al. 2010).

Although the most of the macaw remains were found in plaza 3–12 (67 percent of macaws in prepared burials) (Figure 6.2), macaw burials were also found in a few other locations around the site. One large room (Room 19-8) contained an unusual concentration. Room 19-8 had forty-three (12 percent of the macaws in prepared burials) macaws, thirty-four of which were scarlet macaws, seven were military macaws, and two could not be typed to species. Out of the forty-three birds in this room, thirty-four were found in one group burial, and seven (five scarlet and two military) macaws were found with a human burial. There were very few human individuals found with birds; the case in Room 19-8 is unusual. There are only two other cases of humans buried with birds; in one case the individual was buried with a turkey, and in another case the individual was buried with two turkeys and two scarlet macaws. One bird burial (BB/8) in plaza 3-12 was found with 252 shell beads (catalog numbers CG/5509 and CG/5510). This burial included two scarlet macaws and one military macaw.

Both military and scarlet macaws were found in single burials, burials with multiples of the same species, and burials with both species. However, the overwhelming majority of both scarlet and military macaws were buried together in burials that contained at least one of each species (Table 6.2).

A chi-square test confirms that the distribution of the two species of macaw burials was not random (Table 6.2). With two degrees of freedom, the chi-square value is 82.85, (p < 0.0001). A Cramer’s V test of 0.531 suggests an extremely strong relationship between the military and scarlet macaws found at Paquimé.

Ceramic Hand Drums: Additional Associations of Red and Green

In addition to the scarlet and military macaws, there is evidence for the intentional association of the colors red and green at Paquimé. In Unit 13, at the center of the site, excavators found a large number of ceramic hand drums. Twenty-two of these vessels had red and green paint around the base (Figure 6.5). These vessels have a wine-glass shape with perforations around the top edge for attaching, presumably, a skin of some sort across the top (Figure 6.5).

Figure 6.5. Base design and profile shape of ceramic hand drums from Paquimé.

Most of the ceramic hand drums were concentrated in a few rooms in Unit 13. Within the ceramic assemblage of Paquimé, these vessels are unique not only for their form but also for their restricted distribution. They are found only in burial contexts, and only in eight rooms at the site, with concentrations of these vessels in Rooms 3-13 and 9-13. Unit 13 also contained an unusually high number of human burials. In addition to containing ten ceramic hand drums, Room 3-13 (see Figure 6.2) also had one of the most elaborate burials at Paquimé, Burial 44-13. Human Burial 44-13 was what the original excavators called a “tomb burial” (Di Peso et al. 1974:vol. 8). Tomb burials were large burial pits that often (but not always) had multiple individuals and a large number of grave goods. Only a few burials were constructed in such a way. The distribution of these hand drums therefore was restricted not only spatially to a few rooms, but also contextually to mortuary contexts.

All of the ceramic hand drums found were broken. Given the state of the vessels and the context, it is possible these vessels were intentionally broken, an interpretation suggested by the distribution of pieces from a single vessel across multiple, noncontiguous rooms. For example, sherds from one vessel (catalog number CG/8531) were found in Plazas 2-13 and 3-13, as well as Rooms 6-13, 1-13, and 3-13 (Di Peso et al. 1974, vol. 5:596). The distribution of vessel pieces may have happened during mortuary rituals.

Along with the burials of the two macaw species with their prominent red and green plumage, we also see a restricted distribution of the red and green ceramic hand drums. In particular, the ceramic hand drums are associated with mortuary contexts, and most likely mortuary rituals. These drums were then broken and distributed across multiple burial contexts.

Discussion/Conclusions

Discussions of color symbolism in the prehistoric cultures of the US Southwest are becoming more common (DeBoer 2005). The importance of color and direction has long been noted in Mesoamerica (Ashmore 1991; Freidel et al. 1993; Taube 1998, 2005), but discussions of how this idea would manifest in material that is archaeologically recoverable are elusive. By re-contextualizing the macaw remains at Paquimé, we see that their importance as a trade item stems from their place within a larger symbolic system. The contextual analysis of the macaw burials at Paquimé highlights the previously ignored presence of military macaws, thus complicating the notion that it was only the scarlet macaws that conferred prestige on those who had access to them. The association of red and green is seen at Paquimé in the association of scarlet and military macaws and in paint designs on ceramic hand drums. These associations suggest that, like cultures to the north and south in the American Southwest and Mesoamerica, color/directional symbolism was operative at Paquimé, and gives some insight into the nature of the prestige bestowed by these goods.

The prestige gained from mobilizing these items in ritual contexts may have come in part from the value of the scarlet macaw as a long-distance trade item. However, the context of these items shows repeated associations of red and green across different media, suggesting the scarlet macaw was folded into a local system of meaning. These items may have taken on significance mainly in reference to each other, or the red and green in combination. This suggests that red and green were part of a ritual complex that bestowed rank on those who were able to use these symbols and display their knowledge in rituals associated with both human and avian mortuary practices.

The limited distribution of both the birds and the ceramic hand drum suggest that access to these items was restricted (see also Minnis et al. 1993). There was clearly a limited group of people allowed to mobilize the red and green colors together, and therefore a limited number of people who could demonstrate their ritual knowledge in this particular way by linking themselves to the deities and/or powers associated with these colors.

Suggesting scarlet and military macaws had ritual importance due to their color is not new. McKusick (Di Peso et al. 1974, vol. 8:278, 290) suggested this in her faunal reports on the Paquimé excavations. However, in Di Peso’s own discussions in the same volume, and in others over the years, this interpretation has gotten lost, given its presumed subsidiary importance to the economic value of the birds.

The contextual approach used here adds another dimension to the use of animals in prehistory. The context of the use of birds in this case shows a symbolic element that is lost when researchers focus only on economic factors such as long-distance trade. In addition to looking for quantitative patterns, I suggest that to gain a significant understanding of this site and by extension, its relationship to the surrounding area, we need to take a qualitative look at the context of this variation. Many interpretations of Paquimé discuss or mention the scarlet macaws, but few even mention the military macaws, most likely because of their small numbers and perceived local availability. A strictly quantitative analysis misses the importance of the military macaw, while a contextual qualitative analysis not only brings the military macaws back into the picture but provides further insight into the significance of the scarlet macaw. Both kinds of analysis are necessary to understand the role animals played in prehistoric societies. Evidence for color associations in avian remains along with other media such as the ceramic hand drums points to the mobilization of ritual knowledge in highly restricted contexts associated with human and avian burials. If ritual is the idiom of political action, then the association of red and green can be seen as a particular dialect within the ritual language of Paquimé. Ritual knowledge was an important source of power in prehistory. This power was at times mobilized through the use of animals beyond their use as a means of subsistence.