• Slug: BC-CNS-Mudslinging Audio. By Amber Victoria Singer.
• Downloadable audio here. (Note: Some web browsers may not support media download.)
• Runtime: 4:05

The oldest-known commercial building still standing in Phoenix was built in 1885. It’s called the Fry Building, and it’s been home to a number of businesses in the past 138 years. But there’s something else that’s been around for centuries longer. Cronkite reporter Amber Victoria Singer got her hands dirty to find out more.

PKG

[nats of mud being mixed and thrown]

Once a month, while weather allows, volunteers gather at Pueblo Grande museum in Phoenix to throw mud at an over 800-year-old structure. It was built by a civilization culturally related to the and Hohokam [ ho-HAW-come ] people. The structure is called a va’aki. It sits on a tall, human-made mound of dirt. The highest room on the mound is the solstice room. The sun lines up perfectly with its two doors at sunrise during the summer solstice and sunset during the winter solstice. According to a plaque at the site, community leaders would keep track of the solstices to plan havests and ceremonies.

LM: The importance of the mudslinging is to preserve the va’aki… So it’s (an) incredibly strong structure, but the outside of the walls are subject to erosion from the rain.vb

That’s city of Phoenix archaeologist Laurene Montero. She said even though the structure has been standing for centuries, it needs constant upkeep.

So the mudslinging, what we do is go out there and practice stabilization, that would be the more sciency name.

No one is 100% sure what the va’aki’s original purpose was, but Montero has an idea.

LM: The Va’aki, or popularly known as the platform mound, is really the last visible part of the village of Pueblo Grande that you can still see, and it was a spiritual kind of place

Each room in the va’aki is made up of four cracking dirt walls. There’s a space for a doorway, but no roof. There are paths that go from room to room. Some of the walls are pretty high, making a few rooms look like pits in the ground.

Jim Britton has been a mudslinger for 28 years. His white hat, white shirt, white pants and white shoes are spotted with mud.

[nats of mud being mixed]

JB: We mix up the mud in a big mixing bin, it’s a huge one, usually two guys are mixing it up with a hoe, one guy on each end. One pulls it one direction, the other pulls it the other way, to get it into a consistency that can be easily applied to the eroded area of the walls.

The mixture is two parts dirt and one part sand.

JB: And then to that, we’re adding an amendment it’s called. It’s a polyvinyl acrylic polymer that is used to increase the ability of the dirt to stay in place during rain and stuff, so in other words … Our repair work lasts longer by adding that to the dirt and sand.

Britton came up with the idea to add the polymer to the mixture in 2000.

[utility vehicle engine]

After the mixture is created, it’s driven up to the va’aki in a utility vehicle – which looks like a golf cart equipped for offroading.

[mud being brushed off]

JB: Before we can apply the mud to the wall, you have to brush off any loose material that has been eroded.

[water being slung]

JB: And then you wet down the surface.

[mud being thrown]

JB: And then you can take and throw the mud on.

The mudslingers didn’t just make this up. The method was created by the National Parks Service, and it’s used to stabilize other monuments, too. Throwing the mud gives it enough momentum to stick to the walls.

[more mud slinging]

The Pueblo Grande va’aki is one of two in the Valley. There’s another one in Mesa.

JB: And they were the two largest ones that were known along the Salt and Gila River.

Britton said it’s important to keep the structure stable for the next generation.

JB: We’re saving the past for the future. So when your grandkids wanna see how the people lived 800 years ago, they have a place to go to look at.

If you’re interested in preserving history, or just need to get your anger out by throwing mud, you can email pks-dot-pgm-dot-volunteers-at-phoenix-dot-gov.

For Cronkite News in Phoenix, I’m Amber Victoria Singer