Montazuma's Castle

The first blog-worthy thing we did in Arizona was go to a place called Montezuma’s Castle.  The funny thing is that the castle wasn’t even a castle, and it isn’t related to Montezuma in any way.  I will talk about why it was named that later.

The Native Americans made this place when they settled in Arizona.  Originally they were migratory people who followed the herds of animals. Then for some reason they decided that they were done moving.  When they were migrating they built temporary pit houses instead of things like Montezuma’s Castle. These pit houses were easy to build, so they didn’t have to spend a lot of time on housing.  For any people who missed my post on Chimney Rock in which I talked about pit houses I will explain them again. Pit houses used the most “cutting edge” technology of the time. Their master design makes them cool during the summer and warm during the winter, (whatever winter there is in Arizona). They had a small entrance so larger predators couldn’t eat the inhabitants. There was enough sunlight shining through to work by during the day if they didn’t want to work in the blistering heat. Yes, the pit houses were truly a marvel of engineering. If anyone wants to know how to make a pit house I will include the step by step process below.

1.      Dig big hole

2.      Lay logs on big hole

3.      Cover logs with mud

4.      Enjoy

One of the most important things is the “door”.  The “door” is a hole in the roof that doubles as a chimney.  The Native Americans believed that smoke was beneficial, so climbing through the stuff was a good thing.  It was important to make the hole big enough to climb through but small enough that the heat won’t escape too quickly.

Back to talking about Montezuma’s Castle. It was situated about 50 feet up the cliff in an alcove. In fact it reminded me of balcony house in Mesa Verde.  If you missed that post click here.

I wouldn’t have liked to live in Montezuma’s castle. The windows were tiny, it was all mud which is so 2006, and it was in a cave, so there was awful reception. In addition it was so rural. Those more urban cliff dwellings have more benefits, and it is a shorter drive to work. I don’t know how the natives got suckered into buying this place.  I kind of got side tracked there, but seriously, it looked uncomfortable. The alcove it was in was about 20 feet deep, and since there was only five very small floors there was another dwelling about a quarter mile away. This one wasn’t as well preserved. The first dwelling was only about 10% redone; the other 90% was all original. The second was mostly ruins, probably because it was on a cliff side and not in the cover of an alcove.

It was called Montezuma’s castle by early American settlers who came to this area well after the Native Americans moved out, (more on why they moved later). The settlers assumed that the dwelling was made by Aztecs, hence the name Montezuma.  to find out who Montezuma is click here. They called it a castle because they thought that there was buried treasure, so they dynamited a wall to find a few empty pots and some dried corn. Now to why they moved out. Scientists have had many theories, but the most concrete one yet is, “because they did”. I always hate those answers. The worst “because it does” answers for me are on the five fundamental forces. In the beginning of the year I was always asking why. Why does gravity happen, why does electromagnetism work.  The only answer I have gotten is “because it does”.