of themselves; namely, that the Pecos Indians were the bravest and the
most warlike of the pueblos, and that in every encounter they were
always victorious.[145]
Historical data, founded upon positive written records, begin for Pecos
towards the fall of the year 1540, when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado,
then at Zuni or Cibola, sent the Captain Hernando de Alvarado with
twenty men to visit a village called "Cicuye."[146] Indians from that
village, "situated seventy leagues towards the east"[147] from Zuni, had
visited the latter town, and offered to the Spanish leader "tanned
hides, shields, and helmets." The hides were buffalo-robes, for the
woolly hair was still on them.[148] Alvarado reached Cicuye, passing, as
I have elsewhere stated, through Acoma and Bernalillo. I have already
identified Cicuye with Pecos. Besides the proofs already given, a few
descriptive abstracts from the report of Castaneda will add to the
strength of the evidence:--
(p. 71.) "Five days' journeys further, Alvarado reached Cicuye, a
well-fortified village, whose houses are four stories high."
(p. 176.) "It is built on the summit of a rock. It forms a great square,
in the centre of which are the _estufas_." (Compare general description
and diagrams.)
(p. 177) "The village is surrounded besides by a stone wall of rather
low height. There is a spring which might be cut off."
In regard to the wall, I refer to the plans and descriptions; as for the
spring, it trickles out beneath a massive ledge of rocks on the west
side of the arroyo, nearly opposite to the field. Its water, slightly
alkaline, is still limpid and cool, and a great source of comfort. The
sketch upon the next page will give an idea of its appearance.
[Illustration: Spring]
There is no trace of work about it. At sunset of the 3d of September,
Mr. Bennet and I saw a herd of many hundred sheep and goats driven to
this spring by Mexicans for water, although the creek still had a fillet
of clear water running, and the pond in the old field was filled nearly
to its brim; they still preferred the old source.
Finally, it must be borne in mind, that the name of Pecos, in the
language of its former inhabitants and of those of Jemez, is "Aqiu," and
that, in an anonymous report of the expedition of Coronado from the year
1541, Cicuye is spelt Acuique.[149]
Castaneda gives some few details concerning the mode of life and the
customs of the inhabitants. Aside from those which I have already
mentioned, he notices the ladders (p. 176); that at night the
inhabitants kept watch on the walls, the guard calling each other by
means of "trumpets" (p. 179); that the unmarried females went naked
until their marriage (p. 177); that the pueblo could muster 500 warriors
(p. 176); and finally, that it was situated in a narrow valley in the
midst of mountains covered with pines, and traversed by a small river
where excellent trout is caught; very large otters, bears, and good
hawks are found there (p. 179). The inhabitants received Alvarado with
the sound of "drums and flutes, similar to fifes, which they use often."
They presented to him a great quantity of cloth and turquoises, which
are common in this province (p. 72). I must here add that the turquoise
mines of "Serrillos" are, in a direct line, only about twenty miles
nearly west of Pecos, in a country between the former pueblos of the
Tanos and those of the Tehuas. I have seen splendid specimens of the
mineral from that locality, and Mr. Thurston found and I have sent on a
perforated bead of bluish color which he picked up among the rubbish of
the house _B_.
When, in 1543, Coronado left Nuevo Mexico with his whole army to return
to Mexico, two ecclesiastics remained there,--Fray Juan de Padilla, who
was subsequently killed by the Indians near Gran Quivira,[150] and a lay
brother called Luis, who took up his abode at Pecos. Before Coronado
left Bernalillo ("Tiguex"), he sent to brother Luis the remainder of the
sheep. He was then of good cheer, but still expected to be killed some
day by the old men of the tribe, who hated him, although the people were
friendly to him in general.[151] Nothing was afterward heard of him.
Thus Pecos was the first "mission" in New Mexico; perhaps, also, the
first place where domestic quadrupeds became introduced.
Forty years elapse before we again hear of Pecos. The unfortunate
father, Augustin Ruiz, who, in 1581, attempted to convert the pueblos,
did not reach further north than Puaray, where the Tiguas killed him,
with his two companions.[152] But Antonio de Espejo, who, with fourteen
soldiers, explored New Mexico in 1582 and 1583, visited Pecos. There can
be no doubt but that the pueblos of the "Hubates"--two journeyings of
six leagues to the east of the "Quires"--are the Pecos and the "Tamos,"
the Tanos.[153] Espejo is very liberal in his estimates: he gives to the
"Hubates" five towns with 25,000 inhabitants, and to the "Tamos" even
40,000 souls. He says they had cotton cloth; he also says there was much
good pine and cedar in their country, and that their houses were four
and five stories high. His visit to the pueblo was of very short
duration.
In 1590, Gaspar Castano de la Sosa, "being then Lieutenant-Governor and
Captain-General of the kingdom of New Leon," made a raid into New
Mexico. It is possible that the pueblo which he came to on the 11th
January, 1591, may have been Pecos.[154]
The "Spanish conquest of New Mexico" proper took place in the years 1597
and 1598, under Don Juan de Onate. He met with little opposition, and
his conquest amounted to little else than a military occupation,
followed by the foundation of Santa Fe. On the 25th of July, 1598, he
went to "the great pueblo of Pecos,"[155] and on the 9th of September,
1598, in the "principal _estufa_" of the pueblo of San Juan, the Pecos
pledged fidelity to the crown of Spain. On the same occasion, Fray
Francisco de San Miguel became the first regular priest of the
pueblo.[156] Here terminates the second period of the second epoch; and
the last one begins where the history of the Pecos tribe, whatever is
left of it, becomes almost exclusively documentary.[157]
Before, however, leaving this period, I must recall here two facts
elicited by the reports of the forays and travels above mentioned. One
is, that the Pecos Indians, however warlike they may have been towards
outsiders, still were of an orderly, gentle disposition in every-day
intercourse. This is a natural consequence of their organization and
degree of development. The other and more important one is, that Pecos
was the most easterly pueblo in existence in 1540, and that even at that
time it was quite alone.
Castaneda says (p. 188): "In order to understand how the country is
inhabited in the centre of the mountains, we must remember that from
Chichilticah, where they begin, there are eighty leagues; thence to
Cicuye, which is the last village, they reckon seventy leagues, and
thirty from Cicuye to the beginning of the plains."
Juan Jaramillo, another eye-witness of "Coronado's march," intimates a
similar fact.[158]
In regard to Pecos being "quite alone," Castaneda is positive; so is
Juan de Onate, who received and registered its submission. It is true,
however, that Castaneda mentions a small pueblo as subject to Cicuye,
which pueblo, however, he says was half destroyed at his time. He
locates it "between the road and the Sierra Nevada."[159] This may have
been the small ruin noticed near Kingman.
These facts are very interesting in their bearings upon the older ruins
of Pecos. It goes far towards furnishing additional proof that they were
indeed abandoned and decayed already in 1540. In regard to building _B_,
it is ignored in the reports, _A_, with its vast court and its
_estufas_, claiming exclusive attention. Still there is no room left for
doubt that _B_ was occupied during this period. But it is evident, from
the statements of the eye-witnesses, that _A_ was the principal abode of
the Pecos tribe in 1540 and afterwards.
THE DOCUMENTARY PERIOD,
commencing in 1598, and running up to the present time. Here we should
be entitled to find, of course, ample and detailed documentary evidence.
Two unfortunate occurrences, however, have contributed to destroy the
records of the territory of New Mexico.
In the month of August, 1680, when the pueblo Indians rose in successful
revolt against the Spanish rule, and captured the "villa" of Santa Fe,
they brought the archives, ecclesiastical and civil, into the plaza, and
made a bonfire of the entire pile. This was an act of barbarous warfare.
But few papers escaped the general destruction; these were saved by
Governor Don Antonio de Otermin, and sent to El Paso del Norte, where
they are still supposed to remain. We are, therefore, as far as the
period of 1598-1680 is concerned, almost exclusively reduced to general
works like the "Teatro Mexicano" of Fray Augustin de Vetancurt, and to
the collections of documents published at Mexico and at Madrid. That,
nevertheless, some documents were saved, and subsequently carried back
to Santa Fe, is proved by the fact that Mr. Louis Felsenthal, of this
city, has recovered one, a copy of which it is hoped will appear in the
Journal of the Institute in time.
Subsequent to the return of the Spaniards, the archives of Santa Fe
were kept in good order by its administrators, the last revision thereof
being made by Governor Donaciano Vigil. In 1870, however, the man who
then acted as Governor of the Territory, although otherwise of
irreproachable character, permitted an act of vandalism almost without
its parallel. The archives had accumulated in the palace to a vast
extent: the original good order in which they were kept had been totally
neglected during and since the war of secession; there was not even a
custodian for them. So the head of the executive of this territory
suffered its archives to be sold as waste paper, even sometimes used as
kindling in the offices. Of the entire carefully nursed documentary
treasures, the accumulation of 190 years, the Hon. Samuel Ellison, of
this city (notwithstanding his feeble health), has been able to register
about fifty bundles (_legajos_), whereas wagon-loads were scattered or
sold for wrapping.
Many of the intelligent inhabitants attempted to save what they could,
and there are some who succeeded to a limited extent; but of what yet
remained in the palace, reduced to a sufficiently small bulk as not to
be "in the way" any longer, even the valuable journals of Otermin and
Vargas were considerably reduced through further decay.
This has been, in times of profound peace and in the nineteenth century,
the fate of the archives of New Mexico.
Ever since, the legislature of the territory has been, in fact, utterly
neglectful of its public documents. Each and every reminder in the shape
of a petition has been disregarded, and only Governor L. Wallace has at
last succeeded in having them overhauled. Hon. W. G. Ritch effected
their removal to a suitable place, and it is to the acts of these
gentlemen, and to the labor of love of Mr. Ellison, that we owe the
preservation of what now remains.
What little documentary evidence has, therefore, been left at my
disposal, contains, as might be supposed, meagre information concerning
the pueblo of Pecos. The older church annals I have not been able to
find, for those at the Plaza de Pecos date back only to 1862. Whither
they have gone I am unable to tell, except that they are not at Santa
Fe.
About the year 1628, through the action of Fray Francisco de
Apodaca,[160] then Commissary-General of the Franciscan order in Mexico,
religious life in this territory obtained a new impulse. Until then the
work performed had been almost exclusively missionary work; the priests
had (and still have) enormous districts to visit. Thus: that of the
first priest of Pecos embraced from N. to S. a country of over 60 miles
long, and 30 to 50 wide from E. to W. However, after Fray Geronimo de
Zarate Salmeron had addressed to his superior at Mexico his remarkable
report in the year 1626,[161] a new life began. It is therefore after
1629 that the large church at Pecos was erected, but I am as yet unable
to give the exact dates. This church and the "convent" were both built
by Indians, whom the fathers had taught to square timbers, to ornament
them with simple friezes and scroll-work, and to make adobe in the
manner now practised, namely, mixing straw with the clay and moulding it
in boxes. They were also taught to grow wheat and oats, and their flocks
increased. In addition to being a horticultural people they became
herders, and the pueblo was prosperous. Its church was renowned as the
finest in New Mexico.[162] Whereas Santa Fe, in 1667, had but 250
inhabitants,[163] Pecos, as late as 1680, sheltered 2,000 Indians.[164]
Still, during this very time of comparative prosperity, a storm was
brewing in New Mexico, from whose effects its sedentary Indians never
recovered. This was the great rebellion of 1680. The Indians of Pecos
claim to have remained neutral during that bloody massacre, and I am
inclined to believe their statements. Nevertheless, it is a positive
fact that, on the 10th of August of the aforesaid year, their priest,
Fray Fernando de Velasco, was murdered and their church sacked.[165] By
whom, then, was it done? The reply is intimated by the place where the
great bell was found, and by the events intervening between 1680 and
1692, when Diego de Vargas recaptured Santa Fe. It will be remembered
that the bell was left on the slope of the high mesa towards the S.W.,
in the rocky and desolate gorge descending towards the pueblo San
Cristobal, the old home of the Tanos tribe.[166] Father Jose Amanda Niel
writes, about twenty-five or thirty years after the rebellion, that the
Tanos secured the greatest part of the booty, among which were bells
(_campanas_).[167] That this bell was not carried to the high _mesa_ by
the Pecos I believe I have proved; its proximity to the Tanos village,
and its actual position in the _canada_ leading towards the latter,
shows that it was either to be carried down to it or carried up from it.
If it is (as current report has it) the bell of Pecos, then it was a
trophy which the Tanos secured when they, on the 10th of August, 1680,
committed the atrocities at the pueblo of Pecos; and this would make it
extremely probable, also, that the slaughter of Father Velasco was
accompanied by that partial destruction of the buildings _A_ and B_,_
which I have described, and which appears to have been partly repaired
by means of material taken from the church, and of adobe containing
wheat-straw. This is rendered more likely by the events subsequent to
the driving out of the Spaniards, and it does not appear that the Pecos
Indians took any part even in their expulsion.
After the victorious aborigines had returned from their pursuit of
Otermin, dissensions arose among them, and intertribal warfare, in
conformity with their pristine condition, set in. The Pecos, aided by
the Queres, made a violent onslaught on the Tanos, compelling them to
abandon San Cristobal and San Lazaro.[168] This looks very much like an
act of retaliation. During that time the Spaniards were not idle. In
1682, Governor Otermin penetrated as far as Cochiti,[169] but appears to
have taken no notice of Pecos. In 1689, however, Don Domingo Gironza
Petroz de Cruzate made a successful raid into New Mexico, in which raid
the warriors of Pecos assisted him against the other tribes. In reward
of their services he, on the 25th of September, 1689, after his return
to El Paso del Norte, executed there the document a copy of which is
hereto appended, and for which I am indebted to the kindness of my
friend David J. Miller, Esq., chief clerk of the Surveyor General's
Office at Santa Fe. It is a grant to the tribe of Pecos of all the lands
one league north, south, east, and west from their pueblo ("una legua en
cuadro"), therefore four square leagues, or 18,763-33/100 acres, to be
therefore their joint and common property. When, therefore, in the
afternoon of the 17th of October, 1692, Diego de Vargas Zapata, having
recaptured Santa Fe from the Tanos who then held its ruins,[170] moved
upon Pecos, he was received by the whole tribe with demonstrations of
joy,[171] and the "capitan de la guerra" of the pueblo afterwards
assisted him in subduing a second outbreak in 1694.[172]
The result for the pueblos of the great revolt in New Mexico was a
gradual diminution in the numbers of their inhabitants. It was the
beginning of decline. The Tanos had been in some places nearly
exterminated, and all the others more or less weakened.[173] The distant
Moqui, far off in Arizona, were the sole gainers by the occurrence,
receiving accessions from fugitives of New Mexico.[174] But it would be
incorrect to attribute this weakening of the pueblos during that time to
the warfare with the Spaniards, or to the latter's retaliatory measures
after final triumph. Vargas was energetic in action, but not cruel. A
few of those who had committed peculiar atrocities were executed, but
the remnants of the pueblos were reestablished in their franchises and
privileges as autonomous communities. It is the intertribal warfare,
which commenced again as soon as the aborigines were left to themselves,
and drouth accompanying the bitter and bloody feuds, which destroyed the
pueblos of the Rio Grande Valley.[175] The Pecos, isolated and therefore
less exposed, suffered proportionately less; still, their time was come
also, though in a different way.[176]
I have already stated that, in the beginning of the eighteenth century,
the Utes introduced near the pueblo of Taos another branch of the great
Shoshone stock,--the _Comanches_. This tribe soon expelled the
Apaches,[177] who had not been exceedingly troublesome to the pueblos,
and, a vigorous northern stock, became that fearful scourge of all the
surrounding settlements, which they have continued to be for 150 years.
Their efforts were mainly directed against the pueblo of Pecos, as the
most south-easterly village exposed to their attacks. On one occasion
the Comanches slaughtered all the "young men" of Pecos but one,--a blow
from which the tribe never recovered. Thus, when the Indians of the Rio
Grande rose in arms against the Mexicans in 1837, as has been so ably
described by Mr. D. J. Miller,[178] the Pecos did not take any part, for
there were only eighteen adults left, huddled together in the northern
wing of the huge building _A_, and watching the sacred embers in the
face of slow, inevitable destruction.
Then, in the following year, 1838, an event took place which, simple and
natural as it is, still illustrates forcibly the powerful link which the
bond of language creates between distant Indian communities. The pueblos
of Pecos and Jemez had been almost without intercourse for centuries;
but in the year 1838, says Mariano Ruiz, the principal men of Jemez
appeared in person on the site of Pecos and held a talk with its
occupants. They had heard of the weakness of their brethren, of their
forlorn condition, and now came to offer them a new home within the
walls of their own pueblo. The Pecos took the proposal under
consideration, but were loth to leave the home where they had lived for
so many centuries. In the following year "mountain fever" broke out
among them, and only five adults remained alive. These, by joint
indentures, sold the majority of the lands granted to them in 1689 by
Cruzate.[179] Another portion was left to Ruiz as "son of the tribe." In
1840 these five men, named respectively Antonio (_gobernador_, and still
living at Jemez), Gregorio, Goya, Juan Domingo, and Francisco, appeared
before Don Manuel Armijo, then Mexican governor of the territory, and
declared to him their intention to abandon their home and to seek refuge
among their kindred at Jemez. Soon after, the _gobernador_, the _capitan
de la guerra_ and the _cacique_ of Jemez, with several other Indians of
that tribe, appeared at Pecos. The sacred embers disappeared, tradition
being, according to the Hon. W. G. Ritch, Secretary of the Territory,
that they were returned to Montezuma.[180] The remnants of the tribe
moved on with their chattels, and guided by their friends, to Jemez,
where, in a few months, I hope to visit "the last of the Pecos."
MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS.
About the mythology of the Pecos Indians, aside from the Montezuma story
and the sacred embers, the tale of the _Great Snake_ ("la vivora
grande") appears to be widely circulated. It is positively asserted[181]
that the Pecos adored, and the Jemez and Taos still adore, an enormous
rattlesnake, which they keep alive in some inaccessible and hidden
mountain recess. It is even dimly hinted at that human sacrifices might
be associated with this already sufficiently hideous cult. I give these
facts as they were given to me, and shall not believe them until I am
compelled. It has always been the natural tendency in everything which
(like the idolatrous practices still existing among the pueblos, of
which there is no doubt) we do not positively know, to make bad look
worse and good better than it actually is. The prospect of securing a
knowledge of it is, however, not very good. The Indians themselves
appear to deny it, and are generally very reticent about their
aboriginal beliefs.
I have previously mentioned that Ruiz had been called upon by the
Indians of Pecos to do his duty by attending to the sacred fire for one
year, and that he refused. The reason for his refusal appears to have
been that there was a belief to the effect that any one who had ever
attended to the embers would, if he left the tribe, die without fail,
and he did not wish to expose himself to such a fate.
About the social organization of the Pecos Indians, it has not been
possible, of course, to ascertain anything as yet. That they lived on
the communal plan is plainly shown by the construction of their houses.
That they were originally, at least, organized into clans or _gentes_,
can be inferred; but here I must remark that it may be difficult to
trace those clusters among the Rio Grande pueblos, on account of their
weakness in numbers, and of the intermixture of the Tehua, Tanos, and
Queres stocks resulting from the convulsion of 1680. It may be possible,
however, to find them at Jemez. They exist at Laguna and among the
Moquis, according to Mr. Morgan, and I do not doubt but that Mr.
Cushing, who is so thoroughly studying the Zuni Indians, has by this
time settled the question for that tribe. One fact, however, I consider
to be ascertained; namely, that there were neither castes nor classes
among the pueblos, therefore not at Pecos. At the head of their communal
government were the usual three officers,--the _gobernador_, the
_capitan de la guerra_, and the _cacique_. I am not quite clear yet as
to the proper functions of each, except that the first two are both
warriors ("ambos son guerreros," Ruiz); that the _capitan_ has also the
supervision of the lands of the tribe; and that the _cacique_ is more or
less a religious functionary. Mr. D. J. Miller states that the latter
very seldom leaves the pueblo. It was therefore an unusual act when the
_cacique_ of Jemez came to Pecos in 1840, and I presume it was brought
about through his connection with the holy fire. I asked Sr. Ruiz very
distinctly as to whether these three officers were elective or not, and
he promptly affirmed that they were ("son elegidos por el pueblo"). I
then inquired if the sons succeeded to the fathers in office, and his
reply was that there was no objection to their being elected thereto if
they were qualified ("si son buenos"). This disposes of the question of
heredity in office, rank, and title, and it is almost identical with the
customs found by Alonzo de Zuevita among the Indians of Mexico in the
middle of the sixteenth century. How the presumable "gentes" of the
Pecos might have localized for dwelling in the great communal houses I
am, of course, unable to conjecture.