Audio
Purpose to the Great House
Transcript
[Jacob Butler] Well what we know about Casa Grande is that it in our oral traditions it’s known as a Vah Ki. And Vah Ki to me is a play on words cause one of those root words in there, Vah is water. And Ki in O-odham is house. So to me that’s a water house. A lot of these raised mounds and ball courts and these places like the Casa Grande ruins they’re all situated right next to water systems. ...water ways. And I think this one, the Gila River’s less than a mile away.
The interesting thing about the Casa Grande ruins is a lot of the windows align with different times of the year. There’s a lot of people believe, and I kind a lean towards this too, is that they were using that area to mark certain times to plant, certain times to harvest. Significant times of the year will be found based on where the sun aligned with some of those windows. And so in that respect I think it’s similar to the Pueblo Grande ruins, which also had some of those same windows that align with some of the same times of the year.
Description
Jacob Butler of the Salt River-Pima-Maricopa Indian Community shares a few stories about the Great House.
Duration
59 seconds
Credit
NPS, movie outtakes, thanks to volunteer editor Jenise Cook
Date Created
05/09/2016
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