The Pueblo Indian Meets the White Man
Could there be, in the Southwest, a man or woman who has not heard
something of the Spanish expeditions into the New World during the
sixteenth century? And, narrowing it down, about Coronado’s famed Seven
Cities of Cibola and how they turned out to be six instead of seven poor
little pueblos of stone and mud. They are now reduced to but one called
Zuñi. Marcos de Nisa, a Franciscan friar, had led the little army of
conquerors to nothing here except grief and disappointment in trade for
fabulous stories about gold and silver.
New Mexico was a new country and besides extending the domain of His
Majesty, King Charles, and forcing Christianity on the Indians, there
were many wonders that would stand investigation. Had it not been for an
Indian who was named Bigotes by the Spaniards, the conquerors might
never have reached the Rio Grande during that expedition. Bigotes means
“whiskers” and his appearance must have been a sight to His Majesty’s
soldiers when this half-clad native came strolling into their camp with
a few companions from Pecos far to the east. Unlike most of his kind,
Bigotes wore a long mustache. He had brought buffalo hides to trade to
the Spanish and he persuaded them to visit his country. It was on August
29, 1540, that the little band pushed out under the guidance of Bigotes.
On September 7 of that year they reached the Province of Tiguex, which
was between the present towns of Albuquerque and Bernalillo.
There were twelve Indian villages on the banks of the Rio Grande within
a distance of some fifteen miles or so. The Rio Grande was described by
the Spanish, at that time, as large and mighty in a spacious valley two
leagues wide. Although the valley was broad and fertile, the Spanish
description was certainly an over-estimation. Two leagues equalled five
or six miles. They also said that the river froze so hard that laden
animals and carts could cross over it. Tiguex was the winter camp of the
entire Spanish expedition. It was here that Coronado and his band of
weary and disappointed explorers spent that miserable and
never-to-be-forgotten winter of 1540-1541. Glowing accounts of how
Indians lived were told by the romantic Spanish chroniclers. Still, they
found only a poor simple people living by the soil and a little
hunting—but no gold.
Tiguex was not the only province along the river. There were others
whose people had the same ways and peculiar customs as the people at the
Tiguex villages. One of these provinces was that of Quirex. It has been
determined that this was the district where the Keres language is spoken
today by five very primitive Indian Pueblos. They are Cochiti, Santo
Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. Moved by an indomitable spirit
and determination, a small band of soldiers pushed far north from
Tiguex, past the Keres-speaking villages where another province was
discovered on the upper Rio Grande. It was reported that two very fine
villages were to be seen. According to some students these were in the
vicinity of the present Tewa-speaking village of San Juan. The entire
Indian population moved out at the sight of the Spanish. They retreated
into the mountains where they said they had four very strong villages in
a rough country where it was impossible for the Spanish to follow on
horseback. Had they followed these people they would, no doubt, have
found almost inaccessible Indian trails. Instead, they returned to
Tiguex and left this northern province in peace. Little did the Spanish
realize what extensive villages they might have seen in the rough
mountains mentioned by the Indians.
Indians also spoke of villages on rivers flowing into the Rio Grande.
Could these villages have been on the banks of the Rio Chama or were
they on the Pajarito Plateau? They likely were in the Pajarito region
and could have been the same villages mentioned by the Indians living
near San Juan. But the towns of the Pajarito remained unexplored,
unplundered and unstripped of what little they had. How fortunate were
these people to have escaped the attentions of the Spanish with their
shining armor, pointed lances and firearms. Otherwise, these poor
Indians might have found themselves without adequate clothing and food
for the approaching winter of 1541-1542 as did the Indians at Tiguex.
But the passing of that second uneventful winter by disheartened and
spirit-broken Spanish soldiers ended a chapter which was never to be
forgotten by the other little pueblo dwellers. In the spring of 1542,
the remnants of the Spanish were gathered together and the return to
Mexico was begun. This must have been a day of rejoicing for the Indians
at Tiguex. They had experienced a great deal. Murder, insincerity on the
part of the Spanish, and violation of their living standards were just a
few of their trials.
Life went on in the pueblos. Slowly but surely the Indians reorganized.
Summers and winters passed and the Indians tilled their fields of corn
for two generations before the Spanish came again. This next expedition
up the Rio Grande in 1581 was that of Captain Francisco Sanchez
Chamuscado with nine soldiers. This combined treasure-hunt and
missionary expedition ended in tragedy. Chamuscado died before he
returned to Mexico, and two padres, who accompanied the little party,
were murdered by the Indians at Tiguex. So elated were the Indians with
their success that they drew pictures of the killings.
[Illustration: BANDELIER NAT’L MONUMENT & VICINITY]
Dreams of conquest and fabulous empires caused the launching of still
another expedition into New Mexico in 1583. It was headed by Antonio de
Espejo. Espejo, too, passed northward from the villages of the Province
of Tiguex which had been visited by Coronado some forty years before and
by Chamuscado in 1581. This little handful went north to a place called
Cachiti. This was one of the pueblos of the Keres-speaking group
mentioned by Coronado. People who were peaceful came from other pueblos
and tried to persuade the Spanish to go with them. They told stories of
most of the houses being three stories high. The Spanish named this
place Los Confiados because the people were not disturbed. But where was
Los Confiados? It has never been determined.
It would be a guess to say where these other Indians came from. It has
been suggested that they might have come from villages on the Jemez
River when they heard of the arrival of the Spanish. There is still
another explanation which is also conjectural but possible. These people
could have come from villages in the mountains. Archæologists and
historians are unable to give us the exact extent of the Keres villages
in those days although careful study and research suggest that only
seven remained extant at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Yet, who can
say that towns were not still being occupied back in the hills? On the
forested mesa tops and in the deep water-worn canyons northwest of
Cachiti, the Indian Pueblo known today as Cochiti, are hundreds of
Indian villages now in ruins. They were occupied, hundreds of years ago,
by Indians who were probably speaking the Keres language like the folks
at Cochiti, Santo Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. These people
have told some interesting tales, legends mostly, about how all their
present villages came to be: about their wanderings, about their Gods
and about their troubles with Indians who spoke different languages.
Why was it that Espejo’s chroniclers did not leave us more information
about the town of Los Confiados and its people? Was it not important?
They told us about Zuñi and its Seven Cities, about the Tiguex villages
and Cochiti. Coronado’s little group, some forty years before, had
visited the Province of Hemes, now Jemez, whose people spoke yet another
language, the Towa. And history tells us that Espejo made a two-day
visit to the town of Los Confiados in 1583. This ended his contact with
the Indians at Cochiti and other Keres-speaking villages. Could it be
that Espejo’s soldiers looked back up into those forbidden and forested
hills against a high range of snow-covered mountains northwest of
Cochiti and decided that they had seen enough of the Indian? Or were
they told that they would have to leave their horses behind and go afoot
if they wanted to visit the villages on streams running into the Rio
Grande? The thought of wearing heavy armor might not have been too
fascinating. And if these people were from villages in the mountains,
what was their motive in attempting to lead the Spanish there? Was it a
trap? Did they have some other motive in mind, or was their mission one
of peaceful intent? Archæologists now tell us that it probably has been
centuries since Keres-speaking people lived in these mountains northwest
of Cochiti.
If one had sufficient imaginative ability he might work up a
hypothetical case of what could possibly have taken place during this
February of 1583. To get at the basis of our story and the things to be
talked about hypothesis seems to be our only recourse. Nothing seems
exact when dealing with early New Mexican history, but this hypothesis
could be as correct, possibly, as some of the accounts given by the
Spanish possessed of romanticism. But how close were the explorers to
Hidden Valley, the like of which they would never again be able to see!
They stayed clear of the mountains and kept to the valleys. In all of
their travels and wanderings, the Spanish kept out of the watershed
between the Jemez Mountain Range and the Rio Grande Valley. It is today
known as the Pajarito (little bird) Plateau. The Cañada de Cochiti is
its southern boundary, not far from the pueblo of Cochiti. The Rio
Grande bounds it on the east, the Rio Chama on the north and the Jemez
Mountains on the west. The entire plateau is made up of deposits of soft
volcanic ash, known as tuff, and deposits of black basalt. Geologists
tell us that all this happened an inconceivably long time ago—three
million years, let us say, in geological times known as the Pliocene and
Pleistocene periods.
Today the Pajarito Plateau is a profusion of high potreros (narrow mesas
), and deep canyons cut by streams and arroyos which carry off seasonal
rains. Some of the canyons have sheer vertical cliffs of volcanic ash,
hundreds of feet high in places, and this ash is soft enough to be
carved and hewn into various shapes and forms. The cliffs are even soft
enough for the wind to carve what appear to be statues which stand out
as exceptional works of nature. The mesa tops are beautiful. They are
covered with thick growths of pine and juniper, piñon and scrub oak. A
profusion of flowers dot the landscape during the summer months.
It was the Pajarito Plateau that both Coronado and Espejo failed to
plunder, not because of any lack of desire on their part, perhaps, but
because it was a forbidden land to them and was marked by defying cliff
boundaries which rose to terrific heights. Could one say that the
Spanish did not wonder what these hills possessed when they heard about
villages on streams which ran into the Rio Grande? And no doubt, if
these peaceful people, whom the Spanish followed to Los Confiados, were
of the Keres nation—and they likely were—then they knew every valley,
stream, trail and water hole in the Pajarito country. Espejo dispatched
some of his men to accompany these Indians. Where were they led? Did
they go up into the sandy foothills below the Jemez Mountains and its
finger-like plateaus or did they penetrate almost inaccessible territory
northwest of Cochiti? Or did they march straight north up the almost
inaccessible White Rock Canyon of the Rio Grande? They were gone two
days from the pueblo of Cochiti. Where did they go? Where was this town
of Los Confiados to which Espejo was invited and about which he gave us
no fact?
The Keres-speaking people are possessed with legends of having been
driven from the Pajarito by a race of “dwarfs” at some time in the
remote past. But no one is sure that this race of “dwarfs” was not the
Tewa-speaking people from the northern part of the Pajarito region who
descended into Frijoles Canyon and drove the Keres from their Hidden
Valley long before the Spanish came to America. Nor can one be certain
that Keres people were not still living in Frijoles Canyon with the
Tewas during Coronado’s time in 1540 or even some forty years later
during Espejo’s time. Could one go so far as to suggest that Keres
groups still remembered how their ancestors perhaps had been driven from
their homes by “the little strong people” and that now they could have a
well-earned revenge by directing the attentions of the Spanish toward
the Valley of the Frijoles?
Had Espejo been gullible enough, and had the spirit of adventure been
strong enough; had it been summer and not February, and had these
peaceful Indians been Keres bent on revenge against the Tewas, his
soldiers might have been led northwest up the Cañada de Cochiti. After
an hour or so the trail would have become so difficult that the Indian
method of travel would have been an issue. Horses would have been left
behind and the little party would have ascended to the potrero tops on
foot; over snow-covered precipitous trails; up and down canyon walls and
deep into ancient Keres land.
It would have been no “picnic” even on foot. So rough is the country it
is even doubted that the wily Navaho used these trails as has been so
often suggested. The Keres might have picked a more direct route; up the
banks of the Rio Grande to the mouth of Capulin Canyon, over high
potreros, following a dim rough trail which skirted the Rio Grande for
several miles then north to the mesa bordering Frijoles Canyon. And it
is quite possible that the Spanish could have gone horseback deep into
Keres territory, up Capulin Canyon to La Cueva Pintada, the Painted
Cave. The cave gets its name from the many pictographs on its walls.
Around it are the ruins of many houses built against the cliff at the
top of the talus slope. Some of the Indian legends have it that the
Painted Cave was one of six towns occupied when their ancestors were
driven from the Valley of the Frijoles.
Travel from the Painted Cave on into Keres land probably would have been
on foot. Up the rough Capulin Canyon [** Error: possible line-wrapped
glossary phrase]for an hour’s march, over snow-covered potrero tops,
they would have passed the ruins of innumerable villages. There they
might have rested and drunk the icy water from a running creek during
this cold month of February. And from there they made their way up to
the potrero tops again, winding and twisting, half walking and half
climbing and stopping somewhere, in a cave perhaps, to spend the night.
And then they marched on to the pueblo of the Stone Lions, now bleak and
desolate and worn by time. The pueblo of the Stone Lions, according to
the Cochitenos, was the first village built and occupied by the
Keres-speaking people after they were driven from the Valley of the
Frijoles. The village is known as Yapashi which means “sacred
enclosure.”
Only a half-mile away is the Stone Lions Shrine. Carved out of native
tuff are the life-size images of two mountain lions and around them is
an enclosure—a low wall of blocks of volcanic tuff. It is said that even
the Zuñi Indians made pilgrimages to this shrine because they believed
this to be the entrance to Shipapolima, the underworld from which their
ancestors emerged. It is important even today to the Cochitenos who
visit it frequently and leave bits of their ceremonial paraphernalia.
Moving along slowly, Espejo’s little party would have trudged up the
slopes to the high potrero tops again and then across the steep-walled
Canyon del Alamo. They would have had a long march to Frijoles over
trails known only to Indians. No, this could hardly have happened. The
Spanish might never have survived.
Had these Keres-led Spanish peered into the Frijoles—known to Indians as
Tyuonyi—this Hidden Valley in the New World, they would have seen the
unbelievable. They would have looked into a valley six hundred feet deep
and several hundred feet across. The opposite or north side was a sheer
perpendicular cliff of pinkish rock. There were houses terraced high in
the air, three or four stories at the base of the cliff. There were cave
openings in the cliff, over some of the houses, which led out to open
porches built of poles and brush. Small houses of stone and mud extended
up and down the north wall of the Canyon almost as far as the human eye
could see. People were walking around, microscopic in size because of
the distance, climbing up and down tiny ladders to and from the tops of
their houses. They were clothed in cotton cloth, hides and furs.
In the center of the valley, seemingly equidistant from both sides, was
a huge circular house comprised of many small rooms, one on top of
another, with tiny ladders extending from the ground to the roofs.
Indians were going in and out of small roof openings. Their house was a
veritable fort of primitive style. Four hundred rooms, or more, were
built in the form of a circle. The structure had an opening or hallway
through one side which led to an inner court or plaza. A sentry was
stationed inside the entrance which was a high, thick wall built in the
shape of a semi-circle with a narrow opening. A lone Indian, or maybe
two, with bow and arrow in hand, might have been seen carrying a deer
down a narrow trail. Queer looking creatures were these Indians with
long stringy hair tied down by a band around their foreheads. They wore
moccasins of deer skin on their feet. Kilts covered their thighs. They
could have been a short muscular sort of people much the same as our
modern pueblo dwellers. But they were known as the “pygmies” or “the
little strong people.”
[Illustration: COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO THE PAINTED CAVE]
[Illustration: COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO STONE LIONS OF COCHITI]
Smoke emerged from tiny openings in the roofs. Occasionally an Indian
woman would appear, black hair stringing and her body draped with a
manta of cotton cloth or animal skins. The bark of a dog or the gobble
of a turkey which the Indians had domesticated might have broken the
silence. The waters of the little river far below could be heard rolling
over and onward toward the Rio Grande. The occasional thud of a boulder
was heard as it bumped down stream.
Only one side of the valley was occupied—the north side. The south side
was covered with trees, bare now because winter was here. The south wall
of the Canyon was not as conducive to habitation as the north because it
was worn down at a sharp angle. There were no vertical cliffs from which
to carve out caves and no talus slopes on which to build little houses
of stone and mud. No sun directed its rays toward the south cliff. The
snow lay there all winter and helped cut it down at a sharp angle from
top to bottom. The north side was sunny and dry—a perfect place for
habitation.
There were not many people here during these last years of the sixteenth
century. Great numbers had gone: but where, and why? A few cronies could
have been seen crouching against stone houses at the base of the cliff,
basking in the afternoon sun. A woman or two could have been grinding
corn on flat stone slabs inside a cliff house, keeping time to a weird
monotonous chant sung by old men as they pounded drums. Things were
hanging from the ends of roof poles protruding through the front walls
of houses—perhaps a piece of highly prized venison. House tops were
strewn with corncobs. A weather-beaten corn field had spent itself.
This was the valley known to the Keres as “Tyuonyi.” It was the place
where their people had lived only a few generations before. It was a
valley over which most any group of primitive people would fight and was
a place where the water supply was constant except in times of intense
drought. Tyuonyi is a Keres word which signifies a treaty or contract
and was so-called because of a treaty made with Tewa-speaking people
years before, marking it as the boundary between Keres and Tewa
territory. But who was to occupy Tyuonyi, the Hidden Valley and the most
ideal spot on all the Pajarito Plateau? It seems that the Tewas (the
little strong people) were the ones who occupied it until the very last.
This was perhaps the reason why the Keres became envious and that is why
to this day they retain a feeling of criticism for the Tewa-speaking
people. Legend has it that relations between the two groups in
prehistoric times were normally unfriendly.
No Spanish expedition ever reached Hidden Valley, or at least,
archæologists have never found anything to indicate such a visit. And I
repeat, the Spanish expeditions clung to the low valleys and kept away
from the mountains. Tyuonyi then, is our subject. The Spanish never
visited it and if they ever heard of its extensive settlement by Pueblo
Indians direct mention was never made of it. It was a Hidden Valley in
the New World occupied before recorded history began in America. And
today its ruins are mellowed with age. It has yet to give up all its
secrets about the cliff dweller who hewed three hundred caves from its
north cliff with stone axes and knives, and built over twice as many
small houses at its base. They constructed five community villages on
its floor, and raised corn and beans and squash and pumpkins. And in so
doing, these prehistoric pueblo and cave dwellers, and I might say
historic, too, left in Hidden Valley so much material evidence about the
way they lived that in 1916 the entire area, including some of the
ancient Keres land to the south, was created a National Monument. Later,
a detached section of ancient Tewa territory, a few miles to the north,
was added to the area. It is known today as Bandelier National Monument
and is comprised of some 27,000 acres.
The thousands of interested visitors, who go to Bandelier every year to
prowl through the ruined homes located in the Valley of the Frijoles,
spend an hour or so turning the clock back to Neolithic times when man
had only bone, stone and wood tools with which to work. They relax in
Hidden Valley—and in imagination try to reconstruct the story connected
with these ruins which hold so closely the secrets of the past.