The name “Chichiltic-calli” is derived from the Nahuatl language of Central Mexico, and means literally “red house.” It therefore probably came from the Indians who went with Fray Marcos on his first journey, among whom were some who spoke the Nahuatl language. The word has now disappeared as the name of a place. The position of Chichiltic-calli is thus an object of careful search, the more so because the determination of its location will afford an important aid in the identification of Cibola.
General Simpson and several writers following him have expressed the opinion that the ruins of “Casa Grande,” which the Pimas call Civano-qi, on the southern bank of the Gila River and about eighty-five miles northwest of Tucson in Arizona, represent Chichiltic-calli. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan has very pertinently objected to this supposition that no single ruin on the Rio Gila corresponds with the description which Coronado’s contemporaries have left us of the “red house.” At the risk of anticipating the course of historical events, I shall examine this question more closely.
Casteñeda says definitely that Chichiltic-calli was 220 leagues, or about 550 English miles, north or northeast of Culiacan, and 80 leagues, or 216 miles, south or southwest of Cibola. The distance and direction point to southeastern Arizona, near the western line of New Mexico, and not to the region of Casa Grande, which is situated rather west of north from Culiacan. Although the measurements as well as the statements of direction of the itineraries of the sixteenth century cannot be implicitly relied upon, still the fact that the companions of Coronado--Casteñeda, Diaz, and Juan Jaramillo--agree in respect to the direction is important. Of still more decisive significance are the descriptions of the country, the account of the building at Chichiltic-calli, and the itinerary itself.
Melchior Diaz, who first saw the “red house,” does not mention the ruins. Juan Jaramillo, without speaking of the building, mentions a chain of mountains that was called Chichiltic-calli. Casteñeda, on the other hand, is very circumstantial. He says first, explicitly, that the unpopulated region begins there, and that “the land ceases to be covered with thorny trees and the aspect of the country changes. The Gulf [of California] terminates there, the coast turns, the mountains follow the same direction, and one has to climb over them to get into the plains again.... The soil of this region is red.... The rest of the country is uninhabited, and is covered with forests of fir, the fruits of which tree are found in abundance.... There is a kind of oak there, the acorns of which ... are as sweet as sugar. Watercresses are found in the springs, rosebushes, _pulegium_, and marjoram.” In the vicinity he saw flocks of wild sheep, very large, with long horns and long hair. Finally, he describes the inhabitants as belonging to the wildest tribe which they had met in that country. They dwelt in isolated huts and lived solely by hunting. The ruin was roofless, extensive, and had been built of red earth.