Over 50 Hohokam villages had large, earthen platform mounds at the center of the villages. The mound, made from clean desert soil, served as a platform for ceremonial dances and religious rituals. At Snaketown, the mound is about 50 feet across and only 3 feet high. The game was a microcosm of the cosmos which symbolized spiritual beings trying to make the world more harmonious for humans. Players were not allowed to throw or kick the ball. The game was played with a rubbery ball which players tried to knock through rings on the walls with their hips, knees, or elbows.
There were two basic sizes of ball courts: one which was about 50 by 80 feet and one which was about 110 by 200 feet. Similar to the ball courts found in Mexico, the ball courts have floors excavated about 20 inches below the desert floor with soil piled up on either side. One of the interesting features of Hohokam towns is the ball court. During this time, Snaketown grew to cover nearly 400 acres. During this time, the Hohokam houses became much larger and many artifacts became “mass produced”. Like other agricultural people, the Hohokam used astronomy to be able to tell the coming of the seasons and thus to plant at the right times.Īt about 600 CE the contact between the Hohokam and the civilizations of Mexico intensified. In some of the upper rooms, there are openings which are aligned to show the positions of the sun (solstices) and there are other openings to record lunar cycles. Some of the structures, such as those at Casa Grande, rise to a height of four stories. The Hohokam built some of their houses using adobe which is formed by piling up stiff mud by hand. Vertical posts were then placed in the bottom of the pit to support slanting side poles which were covered with clay. In the Hohokam towns, such as Snaketown, most of the dwellings were built by digging a shallow pit about a foot below the surface of the desert. The Hohokam towns and villages were often constructed at regular intervals along their main canals. They also traded with adjacent Southwestern civilizations, such as the Hohokam and Mogollon. The Hohokam traded with the Indian nations of California as well as with those in Mexico. The Hohokam wove their cotton into textiles which were often used as a trade item. Hohokam agriculture included corn, beans, squash, agave, cotton, and tobacco. These well-designed irrigation systems allowed the Hohokam to produce two harvests each year. In the Salt River Valley, the area currently occupied by the city of Phoenix, the Hohokam constructed more than 500 miles of fairly complex canal systems. These large canals fed hundreds of small ditches that brought water to thousands of acres of croplands. In order to prevent water loss through seepage, the Hohokam plastered the sides of the canals. These hand-dug canals were often ten feet deep and up to fifty feet wide.
In the Hohokam communities of Casa Grande and Pueblo de los Muertos, irrigation systems brought water to the agricultural fields from the river which was six miles away. About 425 BCE these Indians, the ancestors of today’s O’odham nations who are often called Hohokam by archaeologists, began construction of the city of Skoaquik which means the “place of snakes.” Archaeologists call this place Snaketown.įor more than 12 centuries the Hohokam prospered peacefully in the Arizona desert. More than 2,500 years ago, American Indians brought agricultural prosperity to the Arizona desert with the construction of complex irrigation systems.
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