[Illustration: Coronado's March Through Puebloland]
At Cíbola, Coronado had his first encounter with the Pueblo world. His
army was six months into the expedition and worn down from crossing a
wilderness. Food was short, his porters (blacks) and Indians were
deserting, horses were dying of exhaustion.
The first sight of Cíbola—the legendary kingdom of the north—dismayed
the Spaniards. They found not a shining city of gold but only mud huts
stacked one atop another and a crowd of armed warriors. This was
Háwikuh, western-most of a cluster of Zuñi towns, now a ruin a few
miles south of the present pueblo of the same name.
Wanting food, Coronado sent forward a party with an interpreter,
friars, and cavalry. This is the moment illustrated by artist Louis S.
Glanzman. The interpreter tells Háwikuh’s war leaders that the
Spaniards have come to claim the country for King and Savior and wish
them no harm. The Indians pay this no attention. An elder draws a line
of sacred corn meal in the sand. The Spaniards hesitate. Arrows fly.
The army storms the village. Soon a dozen Indians lie dead while the
rest flee. The famished soldiers break into the stores. Peace follows
and this pueblo becomes Coronado’s base camp for the next few months.
They climbed the rough Gila Mountains, found relief in high, open
meadows, but then had to scramble over the Natanes Plateau and pitch
down a steep Indian trail into the Black River gorge. On beyond that
they came to a more difficult crossing of the _barranca_, as they called
the canyon, of the White River. The water was so deep they had to build
rafts to get across. Then on through more pines and meadows whose beauty
they scarcely noticed. They were so hungry that at one camp they ate
lush-looking plants—perhaps wild parsnip, perhaps water hemlocks—that
twisted them with cramps; one Spaniard and two blacks perished.
Two days later, amidst bare, rolling hills, they passed the Little
Colorado and started up Zuñi Creek. Knowing that Cíbola and its food
supplies were near, the men wanted to hurry, but Coronado, ever
cautious, sent out scouts under tough Garcia López de Cárdenas, and kept
the main force moving slowly behind. Near midnight, Indians attacked the
reconnoitering group and stampeded some of its horses. Quelling a brief
panic, the invaders swept the Indians aside, but the portent was clear.
The Cíbolans were going to defend their homes.
As the Spaniards emerged from a scattering of junipers onto a flat
plain, they saw, hardly half a mile away, a low spur protruding from a
line of hills. On top of the spur was a city of sorts. Blank tan walls
rose three and, in places, four stories high. Clusters of people on top.
Cornfields and squat houses at the base of the spur. “There are,”
Casteñada wrote in disgust, “haciendas in New Spain which make a better
appearance at a distance.” And he added, “Such were the curses that some
hurled at Fray Marcos that I pray God may protect him from them.”
Points of view. Modern archeologists have discovered data about the
Pueblo (Anasazi) Indians that were unknown to the Spaniards. For one
thing, population in general was declining in the 16th century, but
towns were growing because survivors were congregating in them, perhaps
as a defense against raiding nomads. One major population center was the
six, not seven, pueblos of the area now known as the Zuñi reservation,
then called Cíbola. (No single “city” had that name; that was just
another misunderstanding of Marcos.) The town of Háwikuh lay farthest to
the southwest and hence dominated the ancient trade trails leading from
the entire Pueblo country to Mexico, the Gulf Coast, and those parts of
Southern California bordering on the Pacific. Háwikuh, accordingly—and
all Cíbola—seemed important to the inhabitants of a considerable area, a
notion Marcos had picked up and relayed to his superiors, as we have
seen.
The Spaniards, however, had not come looking for dealers in hides,
feathers, and imported sea shells. In spite of doubts and warnings that
must have troubled them along the way, it was still impossible for them
to adjust in one stunning moment to this thunderclap of reality. They
went on doing what they probably would have done if the army of the
Grand Khan had advanced to meet them. Cavalrymen made sure their saddle
girths were tight, footmen readied their weapons, which had not been
well cared for during the march, and together they moved toward the
Indians, whose leaders drew magic lines of corn-meal on the ground and
blew angrily on conch shell trumpets. With bows and war clubs they
gestured for the invaders to leave. No women or children were in sight,
and the numbers of warriors indicated that the neighboring towns had
sent reinforcements. None seemed awed by the sight of horses.
Dutifully the Spaniards went through the ritual of the _requerimiento_.
Cárdenas, a few cavalrymen, a notary, an interpreter, and two priests
approached the Indians. The interpreter read a proclamation stating that
God’s representative, the Pope, had awarded this part of the world to
the monarchs of Spain. All who submitted to his majesty’s authority and
also accepted Christianity with its promises of salvation would be
embraced as friends. Those who did not would be treated as enemies.
The answer was a shower of arrows that did no harm. Coronado next went
forward, holding out gifts as a sign of peace. Mistaking the offering
for timidity, the Indians rushed forward. The invaders countered with a
charge. Evidently the horses did inspire terror then, for the Indians
broke and fled. Some were downed on the plain, but most gained the town
and climbed onto the flat roofs, where they continued their gestures of
defiance.