THE NEW MEXICAN PUEBLOS.
Residence in a pueblo is not without a charm for single persons in
winter. It is, indeed, rather smoky and damp than warm in the
many-storied houses, the inner rooms of which, where the sunshine never
penetrates, are used only for storerooms. The outside rooms now possess
the luxury of real windows, with panes of mica or gypsum, of which a
number are fixed together in a wooden sash. These gypsum windows are of
Spanish introduction; in their primitive condition the Pueblo Indians
were acquainted only with holes for air and light. The fireplace of
adobe or stone warms the long room in which large and small, in sweet
innocence, eat and talk and sleep. This fireplace is one of the original
possessions of the Indians, which they had before the time of the
Spaniards. If it is stormy without, the fire will be smoking within, and
staying there becomes unendurable. Yet winter is to me a very pleasant
season to be in the pueblos. Everybody is at home then, and conversation
is lively; and the men gather at night and often sit till daybreak,
smoking their cornstalk cigarettes and talking of the old times. This is
the season when the treasury of their legends and household tales is
opened to those who gain the confidence of these simple men; it is also
the favorite season for their public dances. A week rarely passes that
the drum is not heard sounding some noon, with the shrill notes of the
long reed-pipe, and the rhythmical minor song of the exclusively male
chorus. The dancers come marching into the plaza in pairs, a man and a
woman, the former always with bare chest and shoulders, and the latter
“modestly” half-clothed. All are elaborately painted, often disfigured
in the most fearful manner with rainbow-colored stripes on their faces
and bodies. They wear, according to the occasion, rude colored masks, or
feather ornaments only, or animals’ heads, or colored head-dresses of
wood. And thus they dance and sing and drum and play till the sun sets,
even though the weather be freezing or stormy. They return dripping with
perspiration to the house, and place themselves right before the blazing
fire unclothed. Colds, coughs, and catarrhs follow, but the next week
they go again to the laborious ball, for it is a matter of duty, and,
then, the new colds they catch are supposed to drive away the old
ones--_Similia similibus curantur_.
I once attended between the 22d of February and the 8th of March four
different dances in Zuñi amongst the descendants of those Indians of
Cibola whom Coronado visited. Yet the chroniclers of his campaign have
not a word to say of these festivals and ceremonies which are so curious
to the whites. The silence is easily accounted for. The dances, which
are now as many curious survivals of a condition that formerly extended
over all America, were then customary among all the Indians of all
Mexico, as they now are in the pueblos alone, and were therefore well
known to the Spaniards. The historians were less likely to describe
local differences in costume, songs, or dance-figures, because they, or
at least Casteñeda and Jaramillo, did not write their accounts for a
number of years after the occurrence of the events. It is also probable
that the erection of the Spanish quarters in the Valley of Zuñi
indisposed its people from performing their dances, the meaning of which
is wholly symbolical, and which have in their eyes the significance of a
religious act. The “cachinas” in the pueblos of the Rio Grande are for
the most part strictly private; entrance into these not always decent
ceremonies is permitted only to the initiated, and under vows of
complete secrecy. I am convinced that, although neither Coronado nor
Casteñeda and Jaramillo mention the dances, they were still zealously
performed in the winter of 1540-41 in the seven pueblos of Zuñi; not
participated in by the people as a whole, but that the secret
fraternities of the priests, the medicine-men, the soldiers and hunters,
each fraternity by itself, performed its festive dances and invocations
in its smoke-filled _estufa_, before the altars on which stood the
colored images of the sun-father, “Ya-to-kia-Tâtschu”; the mother,
“Yao-na-kia Isita”; the divine hero-brothers, “Mai-tza-la-ima” and
“Ahuiuta”; and the terrible god “Achi-a-lâ-topâ.”
The picture which this life in the plain of Zuñi afforded was a peculiar
one. Over the white covering of snow projected the pueblos of Matzaqui,
Halona, and Pinana like little hills of clay, with thin clouds of smoke
rising from them. Villages were visible at once from the southern edge
of the basin, and at the foot of the colossal mesa, which stood up
clear red out of the snow-field, could be seen the niche in which
Oa-quima was concealed. There lived the Spaniards, going about in rusty
helmets, battered cuirasses, ragged doublets, and worn-out boots, but
with good weapons, amongst the Indians, who wrapped themselves in thick
coverings made of rabbit-skins. There were heard the neighing of horses,
the bleating of sheep, and every morning the sound of the mass bells and
the songs of the church, together with the call of the crier, announcing
his day’s duties to every one in the village. While in the other pueblos
the monotony of life was interrupted only by the dances, Oa-quima was
turned into a miniature Babel, for there could be heard there at the
same time Spanish, Latin, the Zuñi language, the Mexican Nahuatl, and
the sonorous Pima and Yaqui. Conversation could not be very lively, and
mistakes were frequent but innocent. In consequence of this, and of the
cold, everything went on quietly.
The information which the Spaniards obtained concerning the regions
still unknown to them was necessarily not very definite, and the names
of places were unavoidably incorrectly understood by them, and
erroneously recorded. An example is afforded by the word “Marata,” than
which no other occurs more frequently in the chronicles of Coronado’s
campaigns. Fray Marcos says of it only, that southeast of Zuñi was a
group of pueblos called Marata, which had been brought to the verge of
ruin by constant wars with the Zuñi. Mr. Cushing has learned that
“Ma-tyà-ta” in the Zuñi language means the south, or rather a region in
the south, in the vicinity of the salt lake or “Carrizo.” Large,
well-preserved ruins still exist there. Melchior Diaz says of it that
in his time the Zuñi Indians drew their supply of salt thence, as they
do now, but he says nothing of the pueblo. The statement of Fray Marcos,
therefore, rests on a mistake so far as it refers to a previous
destruction of the village on the Carrizo. The Zuñi declare besides that
that village belonged to a branch of their tribe.
A similar instance is found in the name “Totonteac,” which is likewise
mentioned by Fray Marcos, and later by Melchior Diaz. By it a group of
pueblos was meant, situated west or northwest of Zuñi, the description
of which exactly fits the Moqui villages.[80] Coronado heard of this
tribe in the summer of 1540, but under the name of “Tusayan.” He
immediately sent Pedro de Tobar thither, with about twenty men and one
priest. The distance (five days’ journey) and the direction (northwest)
are correctly given by Jaramillo. A brief conflict took place, probably
at the now deserted pueblo of Ahuâ-tu, after which the Moquis
immediately surrendered. There were seven villages, of which two are now
deserted, but fugitives of the Tehua tribe have formed a new settlement,
which bears their name. Tobar heard a large river spoken of among the
Moquis as situated in the west, the other side of a desert, at whose
mouth lived a tribe the men of which were of unusual stature. He
considered it his duty to return immediately to Zuñi in order to
communicate this story to Coronado. Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas started
with only twelve men to go and search for this river. He was hospitably
received by the Moquis, who supplied him with guides and provisions, and
after twenty days’ journey through a perfectly desolate region, he came
to the vicinity of the stream he was seeking.
I say purposely near and in sight of it, but not on its shore, for “its
banks were so high that they seemed to be raised three or four leagues
into the air. The country is covered with little stunted fir-trees, is
exposed to the north, and is so cold that although it was summer we
could hardly bear it. The Spaniards followed these mountains for three
days in the hope of finding a passage down to the river, which,
appearing from above not more than a fathom in width, had, according to
the Indians, a breadth of half a league. But it was impossible. Two or
three days later they believed they had found a place where the descent
seemed easier, and Captain Melgosa, Juan Galera, and a soldier ...
determined to make the effort. They went so far that they were lost from
sight. Toward four o’clock in the afternoon they returned.” They had
been obliged to give up the attempt after they had climbed down about a
third of the depth; but the river appeared very large to them, and “some
rocks, which seemed from above to be hardly the size of a man, really
exceeded in height the tower of the Cathedral of Seville.” Finding that
the banks of the river were destitute of water, the Spaniards gave up
further efforts in that direction. They returned to Zuñi, and neither
the Moqui nor the countries farther west of there were visited again by
them while Coronado and his men continued in New Mexico.
In this description of Casteñeda’s it is easy to recognize the upper
course of the great Rio Colorado. The Spaniards also explicitly declare
that it was the Rio del Tizon, by which name Melchior Diaz designated
the Colorado.
In the course of less than six months the Spanish reconnoitring corps
had thus three times touched the largest river of western America, had
explored its shores with tolerable accuracy for a considerable length of
its course, and had also travelled in two directions through parts of
Arizona, which have only in a very recent time again attracted
attention. Coronado had even followed the New Mexican boundary northward
through two thirds of the length of the territory, and the documents
relative to his campaign give correct accounts of the Gila River, and
excellent descriptions of the Sierra Blanca region and the Little
Colorado. Diaz had crossed southwestern Arizona. Alarcon had, besides,
explored and correctly described the mouth and the lower course of the
Rio Colorado. Lastly, Cárdenas had traversed the whole of Arizona from
east to west. The accomplishment of such enterprises with small means
deserves admiration; and when we consider that official reports were
made of these matters by eye-witnesses--reports the great accuracy of
which as regards the country and people only more recent researches have
made it possible to demonstrate--we cannot refuse to pay these men, so
long decried as “Spanish adventurers,” “cruel freebooters,” etc., all
honor for their achievements. The Spanish government also deserves high
praise for the carefulness and far-sightedness with which it permitted
such enterprises, and preserved the written records of them.
While the reconnoitring operations toward the west were thus
discontinued, the eyes of the Spaniards were turned from Zuñi more
earnestly toward the east. Coronado had given the people of the Zuñi
tribe to understand that they must spread the news of his coming and of
his intention to stay in the country as widely as possible. The command
was unnecessary, for reports of that kind spread very rapidly among the
Indians without any postal system. A certain kind of peaceful
intercourse is constantly going on, even between hostile tribes, and
news passes from one tribe to another through numerous channels, though
distorted in many ways, to great distances. I cite the accounts of
Cibola, which were carried to the middle of Sonora. Thus there existed,
and still exists, a close bond among the Village Indians, or Pueblos,
especially, which connects the far distant Pecos and Moqui with the
Opatas, and the most northern Taos with the most southern Piros. Their
scattered position among nomadic tribes made them sensible of the need
of a connection, and the equal condition of their civilization confirmed
the feeling. Neighboring Pueblos often made war upon one another, and
would still do so were it not for the whites, but visits were made
between the more remote ones for trade and for purposes connected with
religion. There are fetishes and incantations which, when they have been
discontinued in one pueblo, can only be recovered from some other one,
often far distant.
In these and similar ways had the story of the coming of the Spaniards
reached Moqui, and their horses had been represented there as man-eating
creatures. There came also to Zuñi Indians from the extreme east of the
Pueblo region, from a village called Cicuyé. This village was situated
“seventy leagues toward the east.” The arrival of Coronado was already
known there. The men brought buffalo robes with them, and invited the
Spanish commander to visit their place, presenting him with skins and
shields and “helmets” of buffalo leather.[81] With the reports from
Cibola, the Spaniards had also received in the south accounts of the
existence of “wild cows,” confirming what Cabeza de Vaca had previously
related. The Indians of the shores of the extreme lower Colorado had
likewise told Alarcon of these animals. Now the Spaniards were in
contact with people whose home was near the buffalo, and who hunted
it.[82] A very welcome occasion was thus presented to them for making
themselves acquainted with these new animal forms, and an excellent
opportunity to advance with good leaders farther into the interior.
Coronado therefore sent Hernando de Alvarado with twenty men to go with
the people of Cicuyé on their return to their home, and to report to the
chief in command in eighty days concerning what he had seen and done.
The main corps remained in the meanwhile at Zuñi, whither Alvarado was
to return after completing his tour. His campaign took place in August,
1540.
The word “Cicuyé” is “Tshi-quité,” the aboriginal name of the Pecos
Indians. I will here mention that Casteñeda says that Pecos is the last
village to the east, and that the great plains are only thirty leagues,
or eighty miles, distant from it. I have already shown in my earlier
work, “A Visit to the Aboriginal Ruins in the Valley of the Rio
Pecos,”[83] that Cicuyé is identical with Pecos. It is not necessary to
repeat the demonstration here.
Alvarado and his company reached the first village in five days. It was
built on a rock, and was called “Acuco.” This is the “Ha-cu-qua” of the
Zuñi, the pueblo of Acoma, so famous for its situation. Casteñeda very
appropriately describes it as being upon “a perpendicular rock ... so
high that a bullet could hardly reach the top”; but with less accuracy
he speaks of a “stairway” of three hundred steps hewn in the rock as
being the only way to the highest story. Acoma is indeed situated on a
rock, the shape of which resembles that of a spider. The walls of the
rock fall perpendicularly down for nearly three hundred feet, while four
winding paths lead to the pueblo, none of which has been cut out by
human hands. Slight improvements in the shape of implanted posts and
notches for the hands and feet have been made in a very few places. At
the summit is the pueblo, with its great church of adobe and stone, and
the churchyard, the soil of which has all been brought up on the backs
of the inhabitants. Not a foot of other loose ground can be found on the
gigantic cliff; the ten houses stand on the bare rock, whence the view
down into the yawning depth is awful. The six hundred inhabitants draw
their supply of water the year round from the accumulations of rain and
snow in two deep natural cisterns. The cultivated fields are fourteen
miles away.
I hope I may be pardoned if I repeat here a few impressions which were
deeply marked upon me during a long sojourn in Acoma, and in words which
I have already published in “A Letter from Acoma” in the German journal
_Das Ausland_ (1884, No. XIII.). These impressions have been renewed on
two visits to the place, when the same feelings were daily awakened.
“When the visitor stands upon the rocks which immediately surround the
water-pool, he looks down from them into the valley upon the great mesas
that surround them, and beyond these upon the massive pyramid of Mount
Taylor, or the Sierra de San Matéo.... As evening approaches the shadows
lie deep upon the ground, and as they climb up the rock-walls, as cliff
after cliff is swallowed up in darkness, his heart is oppressed with the
feeling that all intercourse with the outer world is henceforth cut off.
This feeling has crept upon me every evening at sunset; for escape from
Acoma in the night would be impossible to any one who had not lived
there a long time. When the last ray of the sun has taken leave of the
lofty sierra, one feels absolutely alone, forsaken, helplessly floating
in the darkness of night. But this feeling soon passes away; for a
clear, although monotonous, singing sounds from the pueblo, fires blaze
on the roofs, and when one has returned to the houses laughing voices
greet him, and joyous groups are moving around and above him. The
oppressive feeling of desertion changes into one of pleasure in being
the plain guest of a simple people.”
The population of Acoma has not changed much in three hundred and forty
years, for Casteñeda speaks of two hundred braves. The people prepared
to defend themselves against the Spaniards, but no battle took place,
the fear of the horses inducing a speedy peace. It seems, however, that
Alvarado did not stay in Acoma, and he was quite right in not trusting
to the peaceful disposition of the people, for once on the rock the same
fate might easily have met him that, fifty-eight years later, overtook
the _Maestro de Campo_ Zaldivar and his men at that place. Three days’
journey from Acoma brought him to Tiguex, where he met a friendly
reception. Tiguex (pronounced Tiguesh), according to Casteñeda, was a
group of twelve smaller pueblos situated on a large river, in a valley
about two leagues, or five miles, wide. From that place Alvarado sent a
messenger to Coronado with the advice to remove his winter quarters
there.
Tiguex has been looked for at various places in New Mexico: on the
eastern Rio Puerco, at the site of the present Santa Fé, and at other
points. I have marked as the situation of this pueblo group the banks of
the Rio Grande near Bernalillo, or rather between Algodones and
Albuquerque. The very name points thither, for the Tiguas Indians call
themselves Tiguex, and they formerly lived in a chain of larger and
smaller pueblos along the Rio Grande. They were divided into two groups:
a northern group, of which I know of twelve ruins between the “Mesa del
Cangelon” in the north and “Los Corrales” in the south, and of which the
present pueblo of Sandía is the only one left; and a southern branch now
concentrated at the large village of Isleta, but which was still, about
1630, scattered in several small places. I have no doubt that the Tiguex
of Coronado denotes the northern group of the Tiguas, for it lay north
of Acoma and on a large river. This river east of Zuñi could only have
been the Rio Grande del Norte, for the Puerco is in that latitude in
parts of its course filled up with sand, and in other parts reduced to
an insignificant, muddy rill. An expression of Casteñeda’s, likewise
applying to Cicuyé-Pecos, is decisive on this point. “Tiguex,” he says,
“is the middle point,” and “from Cibola to Cicuyé, which is the last
village, we count seventy leagues.” The villages of Tiguex were not,
like Zuñi and Acoma, built of stone and mortar, but of adobe; and that
is also the structure of the pueblos the ruins of which I have examined
around Bernalillo. I mention still another piece of documentary
evidence, although it is derived from an account written at a later
period. At Tiguex Coronado stormed and destroyed a pueblo--the only case
of the destruction of a village in New Mexico during his campaign. In
the year 1583 the “Tiguas” told Antonio de Espejo, on his arrival among
them, that his countrymen on their first coming had burnt one of their
towns in the vicinity of the present Bernalillo. This fixes the locality
of Tiguex, as I have attempted to show in an earlier publication, beyond
all doubt.
Five days’ journey brought Alvarado from the Rio Grande to Cicuyé, where
a friendly reception was also given him. Of this village Casteñeda
writes: “The village of Cicuyé can furnish about five hundred men of
war.... It is built on a rock, and the middle is occupied by an open
place in which are the estufas. The houses are four stories high, with
terrace roofs, all of the same height, on which one can go around the
whole village without stepping into a street. The first two stories have
passages resembling balconies, on which one can go round the whole
village, and where he can be under shelter. The houses have no doors
below; one goes up to the balconies which are within the village by
means of a ladder. All the doors open upon the balcony, which serves the
purpose of a street. The village is surrounded on the outside by a low
stone wall. There is also a spring there, which could be diverted....
Cicuyé lies in a narrow valley, in the midst of fir-clad mountains. A
small river, in which very fine trout are caught, flows through the
valley. Very large otters, bears, and good falcons are found there.”
It is not necessary to compare this description with that of the Valley
of Pecos and the present ruins of the former pueblo. Casteñeda describes
this pueblo so well and truly that when, after completing the
measurement of the ruins in September, 1880, I restored the plans and
afterward wrote them out, I perceived with astonishment that they
exactly repeated the picture which the Spanish soldier had sketched
three hundred years before. He was but little wrong even in his estimate
of the population of Pecos-Cicuyé. Five hundred warriors represent among
the Village Indians eighteen hundred inhabitants of all ages and both
sexes. In the year 1630 Pecos contained “over a thousand souls,” in
1689 about two thousand. The latter number might easily, according to
the plans, have been accommodated within the village, for it was the
largest pueblo that New Mexico contained in the sixteenth century, or
afterward.
The tribe of Pecos has not yet died out. When the inhabitants in 1840,
reduced by a hundred years’ hostilities with the Comanches and by
illness to five families, fled to their tribe-relatives at Jemez, their
immediate extinction was considered inevitable. Instead of that they
have increased, and numbered twenty-eight persons in 1885. They live
with their kindred, and participate equally with them in the
governmental affairs of Jemez. They also speak the same language.
Alvarado was received by the Pecos with drums and flutes. The native
flute might rather be called a clarinet, for it has a mouth of painted
gourd-shell, and is blown from the end and not from the side. Many
cotton cloths and turquoises were presented to him. Such a reception
indicated that the Pecos Indians were somewhat doubtful concerning the
human origin of their guest. He also met here a strange Indian who lived
with the Pecos,[84] and whom the Spaniards called a “Turk” on account of
his appearance. He was a native of the Mississippi Valley, and belonged
to one of the tribes of that region. He informed the Spaniards that
gold-bearing and thickly populated districts lay toward the east. Such
information was extremely welcome; he was taken as a guide for the visit
to the buffalo herds of the plains that was to be made in pursuance of
Coronado’s directions; but this was not continued long, for Alvarado
hastened back, in order to communicate to his commander what he regarded
as important news. He returned speedily to Tiguex or Bernalillo, where
Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas had in the meantime arrived, Coronado having
despatched him to prepare quarters for the whole army, which was to
spend the rest of the winter there.
“The Turk” (_el Turco_) was to play so important a part henceforth in
the fortunes of Coronado’s expedition, that I think it right to give the
charge of deliberate deception which the Spaniards have made against him
a closer examination. The charge has perhaps some foundation. The Indian
was unquestionably a native of the plains, and had been carried to Pecos
by war or the incidents of hunting expeditions. It was a custom among
the Pueblo Indians (and it ceased only a few years ago) to make at least
one expedition a year to these plains for the purpose of providing
themselves with buffalo meat, and more particularly with buffalo skins,
which they used in armor, for shoes, and for many other of their needs.
The plains were not constantly inhabited; even the Apaches, who
regularly roamed through a part of them, did not live there, for they
are without water, and are a long distance from it, and the buffaloes
resort to them only at certain seasons. As the tribes of the southwest
made their regular hunts on the plains, those of the east likewise
resorted to them, from Kansas, Arkansas, and the present Indian
Territory, in similar expeditions, and they met. Trade or war was the
result; often both; and thus these deserts were the market in which the
novelties of either half of the North American continent were exchanged.
“The Turk” there fell into the hands of the Pecos Indians, and they did
not kill him. He tried now to make the Spaniards understand whence he
had come, and what was the character of the country there, and as his
language was not sufficient for the purpose, he was obliged to employ
gestures. Conversation in this way was very inconvenient, and mistakes
were inevitable. He is said to have told the Spaniards of houses like
those of the pueblos, but larger. If he did this, he intentionally
falsified, as the result showed. But while the Spaniards were thinking
of houses, he may have had something quite different in his mind, and
may have mentioned the pueblos only for comparison. He spoke, they said,
of gold. Did he know what gold was? I am satisfied that he did not know
the difference between gold, yellow mica, bright pyrites, and copper
pyrites, of which there is much in the Mississippi Valley. That he
should prefer his native land, where vegetation was apparently more
luxuriant than in New Mexico, and where animal life was consequently
more abundant, to the more barren southwest was natural, and so it was,
too, that he should extol it to the Spaniards, for he had reason to
suppose that he might possibly, with the aid of these strangers, be
restored to his people. It is also probable that “the Turk” eventually
ally led the Spaniards wofully astray, but this, too, was possibly as
much the result of mistakes as of wilful deception on his part; for it
was not possible to reach an adequate mutual understanding under the
circumstances.
Alvarado’s return to Tiguex was marked by an event that places that
officer’s character in a most unfavorable light. To provide quarters for
his few men he forced the evacuation of a whole pueblo, and would not
permit the inhabitants to take away anything but their clothing. The
pueblo cannot have been of great size, for those communities were
generally not large previous to the advent of the Spaniards. The
villages were smaller but more numerous than they have been since; for
the Franciscan monks combined them into larger settlements, both for
purposes of defence, and in order to attach the Indians more closely to
the churches and to the schools connected with them. It may be readily
conceived that the forced occupation of this pueblo created an
unpleasant feeling in the whole region of the present Bernalillo. It was
the introduction to subsequent difficulties and dangerous contentions.
Coronado had in the meantime gone away from Zuñi with a small number of
his men, leaving the larger number behind under the command of Arellano,
who was to follow him after twenty days to the Rio Grande. The route he
took led him to that river, about thirty miles south of Bernalillo, in
the vicinity of the present Isleta. He recognized that the people there
belonged to the same tribe as those of Tiguex. Their houses were
likewise of adobe. Casteñeda calls this region “Tutahaco,” while
Jaramillo applies that name to Acoma. The latter is right to the extent
that the name is “Tutahaio,” a corruption of the word “Tuthea-uây,” by
which the Tiguas call the rocks of Acoma. As the Spaniards came from
there the name of the place was confounded with that of Isleta. The
Spaniards asked for the latter, and the Indians gave the name of the
other place, a confusion such as I have often encountered among the
natives.
Casteñeda mentions eight villages in the vicinity of Isleta, but adds
that they were situated “down the river.” The ruins of hardly more than
four are to be seen between Albuquerque and Los Lunas, nine miles south
of Isleta. The statements of Jaramillo, who gives the Tiguas of the Rio
Grande fifteen villages in twenty leagues, or fifty-four miles, are on
the other hand correct. It is forty-six miles from Algodones to Los
Lunas, and fifteen or sixteen Tigua villages were inhabited in the year
1627. The four or five villages farther south, which Casteñeda counts
besides these, were those of the Piros. They began in the vicinity of
Tomé and Los Lentes, and extended to San Marcial and Fort Craig.
Casteñeda was acquainted only with the most northern of them, for there
were fourteen in all.
Marching up the Rio Grande to Tiguex, Coronado arrived there when the
quarrels among his subordinates had just broken out. He found that his
men had “the Turk” with them, and were rejoicing over the pretended
information which he gave them. This Indian’s conduct became more
suspicious, and he appears to have harbored a resentment against the
people of Pecos. He complained that they were keeping a golden arm-band
of his. The knave had never had such a thing, or it may have been a
copper ring; but the Spaniards understood it to be gold, and Alvarado
went to Pecos to recover it for him. When he was assured there that “the
Turk” had never worn an ornament of the kind, he seized the cacique and
another chief of the place by treacherous means, and carried them
prisoners to the Tiguas. The Tiguas were very angry at this act, for,
the two tribes not being adjacent, peace prevailed between them and the
Pecos.
Since Cortés had in 1520 made a prisoner of the “war captain” (_capitan
de la guerra_) of the Mexican tribe, whom later historical description
transformed into the monarch Montezuma, the Spaniards had tried many
times to secure other similar hostages. They had forgotten, or rather
had never comprehended, that the importance of a chief among the Indians
is very relative, and in no way comparable with the significance which
the head of the state in a civilized commonwealth possesses. The fall of
a valiant leader may decide the issue of a battle, but the capture by
craft of the same chief in time of peace is of no greater moment than a
similar treachery exercised upon a common Indian. Offices are never
hereditary among these Indians, but are and were always elective. Only
in the case of a leader in the mystic service, a medicine-man, or
shaman, being taken away, or of one of those whose function it is to
work for the good of the tribe by mortification or sacrifice, would that
tribe be moved to offer a ransom for his recovery. For while an
administrative officer, even a warrior, can be easily replaced, the
importance of the other one lies in his knowledge of the secret arts; if
he is lost, the connecting link with the beings of a higher order is
removed, and the pueblo is, according to its own striking expression,
“made an orphan.” The successor of the medicine-man is elected only in
cases when he is taken away by sudden death; otherwise the candidate is
carefully selected and slowly trained by the incumbent, and cannot enter
upon the practice of his act till one or more years after the death of
his predecessor. At the present time the functionary whose duty it is to
suffer on all occasions for the good of the pueblo is called the
“cacique,” or, by the Zuñis, “Châcui Môsona.”
Coronado not only supported the attempt of his officers, but proceeded
to still further and more offensive acts of violence. He required the
Tiguas to furnish a considerable quantity of cotton goods for his
soldiers. They certainly were in great need of covering, for it was
bitterly cold, and snow-falls were frequent, but the manner in which the
articles were demanded and obtained deserves the severest reprobation.
The pueblos on both sides of the river were ravaged and plundered, and
outrages were committed against the women. The Tiguas would not endure
this long; the whole tribe rose against the strangers and seized some of
their horses. Coronado was obliged to take the field against them, even
before his main force could join him. A bloody war arose, that lasted
fifteen days, in which the Spaniards lost several officers and a number
of men. Two pueblos were captured after a long siege, the taking of the
first of which was followed by an atrocious massacre of prisoners.
Coronado and his company behaved on this occasion with a cruelty that
fixes an indelible stain on their memory, and which demanded in
requital in later days the sacrifice of innocent persons. The Tiguas did
not submit, but fled to the mountains, and notwithstanding Coronado’s
efforts to pacify them and recover their confidence, did not return to
the Rio Grande so long as the Spaniards remained in the country.
It is true that this was the only instance during the whole continuance
of the expedition in New Mexico in which the Spaniards behaved
barbarously and cruelly, but their treatment of the Tiguas is not easier
to explain on that account. I can find no ground of excuse for it; and
the behavior of Coronado is in so complete contradiction with his
previous and subsequent course that I cannot easily understand it,
unless it be that necessity drove him to the first summary measures, and
the severe cold (the Rio Grande was frozen) and the scarcity of
provisions then provoked his soldiers to wild excesses. Yet single
events occurred during the war with the Tiguas that indicated that
cruelties were perpetrated in cold blood. First among them was the
slaughter of the prisoners who surrendered in the first pueblo. Let it
be said in behalf of Coronado that he was not privy to this atrocity,
which was ordered by Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas, at the time in command in
his stead. He was in quarters, and had just received the army which had
come from Zuñi under Arellano, when the blood-stained conqueror
returned. “It was snowing heavily, and the weather was bad for two
months,” says Casteñeda. Intense cold and a few heavy snow-storms occur
every winter on the Rio Grande, but I have never known of continued
severe weather there of so long duration. The first months of the year
1541 were unusually cold in New Mexico, for it is said that one could
cross the Rio Grande on the ice during four months. I very much doubt
the correctness of the statement as to the length of time.
Coronado did not hesitate, however, to extend the exploration of the
country even while the hostilities against the Tiguas were still in full
progress. He was impelled to it, not only by the desire to become
acquainted with the region, but also by the fear of a general rising of
all the natives, which would have been fatal for him and his company.
The Pecos had first to be pacified, and with that object he went to the
pueblo and gave up to the people, who met him with demonstrations of a
peaceful character, their captured officers. By this measure the former
friendly relation was restored. After his return to the Rio Grande, he
formed connections with a village called “Cia,” situated four leagues,
or eleven miles, west of the river; and six Spaniards visited and
quieted the Indians of “Quirix,” a group of seven pueblos joining the
Tiguas on the north and partly scattered along the great river. Cia,
properly Tzia, is not more than twenty miles in a straight line from the
Rio Grande. Still nearer, and situated on the same branch (the Rio de
Jemez), was the pueblo of Santa Ana (Tâ-ma-ya). The same language is
spoken in both, and they are in frequent communication. They belong to
the numerous group of the “Queres,” with which the Quirix of Coronado
are identical.
It is easy to identify the eight pueblos which Casteñeda mentions.
Following the eastern shore of the Rio Grande, we meet first
“Oâ-tish-tye” (San Felipe, now, and since 1630, on the west side) and
“Gui-pu-i” (Santo Domingo, now called “Tihua,” and formerly situated a
mile northeast). On the western shore lies, six miles north of Santo
Domingo, “Oô-tyi-ti” (Cachiti). On the Jemez River, six miles from San
Felipe, stands “Tâ-ma-ya” (Santa Ana), and farther up Tzia, or Cia. The
other three villages may be sought for in the vicinity of Cia, where
their ruins are still standing.
Cia is now going down into decay, after having been, till 1688, one of
the largest Indian villages in New Mexico. Its inhabitants speak a
dialect of the Queres tongue, somewhat like that of Acoma. All the
pueblos of the Queres formed, and still form, like the other groups,
autonomous communities. The common language does not prevent hostilities
between neighboring villages, but should an enemy from without threaten
one of them, it has the right to call the others to its aid, and in that
case the war-chief of the threatened village, the “Tzyâ-u-yu-qiu,” or
_capitan de la guerra_, takes the chief command. The Queres held a
passive attitude toward the Spaniards until the insurrection of 1680, in
which they were very active.
I have followed Casteñeda’s statements exclusively in these last
researches. Jaramillo says that Cia, Uraba, and Ciquique were situated
on the same river, a stream which flowed into the Rio Grande from the
northwest. This river is undoubtedly the Jemez. He goes on to speak of
the “Rio Cicuique” as another stream, situated northeast of the former
one, and seven days’ journey distant from it. He is, as he concedes,
very confused in his narrative, and is therefore not to be relied upon
on these points. Mota-Padilla calls Cicuyé “Coquite.” Herrera copies
Jaramillo. Only Casteñeda is clear and consistent, and his statements
agree perfectly with the country and with the relics left by its former
inhabitants.
Coronado, with an energy to which due recognition cannot be refused,
notwithstanding the outrages that attended his proceedings at
Bernalillo, thus in a short time brought Central New Mexico within the
compass of his knowledge, and obtained the first correct information of
the Village Indians of six linguistic stocks; but his attention was
still chiefly directed toward the east, of the great wealth of which
“the Turk” continued to talk to him and the Spaniards. What he had so
far seen of New Mexico did not appear sufficiently favorable for him to
be satisfied to devote himself to its settlement. The Valley of the Rio
Grande is, indeed, not very inviting in winter, especially in so severe
a winter as that of 1540-41 seems to have been. The clearer the sunshine
and the deeper the blue of the arch of the sky, the more dreary in their
barrenness are the dunes that border alternately both sides of the
river, and the more welcome is the sight of the black mesas and of the
peaks of volcanic stone which in groups and singly interrupt the
monotonous profile. Still more gloomy is the waterless plateau which
extends from the eastern edge of the river valley to the foot of the
Sierra de Sandía, and farther south to the Sierra de Manzano and the
Puerto de Abó--a gray flat, twenty miles wide and fifty miles long from
north to south, without brook, spring, or pond. The Sandía Mountain
towers over it like a gigantic wall, with awful clefts and cliffs
rising perpendicularly 5000 feet above the river. The chain of the
Manzano, less steep but treeless, is still 2000 feet higher. The river
valley itself, seldom more than two miles wide, passes in summer like a
green band among the dunes, which are then tinged with green, but in
winter the fields are barren and the trees are leafless, and stand on
the heights like white skeletons on a vast, bare waste.
When it is stormy on the Rio Grande, the dark-blue sky and the dazzling
light vanish, the clouds sink low down to the foot of the high mountain
range, and it is gloomy, cold, and oppressive. Sand whirls chase one
another along the stream, break up and dash whistling upon the gravel
hills. Dust and sand add to the darkness of the atmosphere, and one is
relieved to see the snow begin to fall thick and then thicker, while the
roaring of the wind is lulled to a mournful sigh. When the snow has
ceased and the clouds have disappeared from the slopes of the mountain,
a thin white sheet covers the ground, which at night glows in the
starlight with phosphorescence. The snow does not stay long, for the
sandy ground soon absorbs all moisture.
This sandy soil in the Valley of the Rio Grande is fruitful,
extraordinarily productive. When it can be watered it rewards, and that
always bountifully, even the feeble efforts which Indian agriculture
puts forth. No doubt the Spaniards were not specially attracted by the
view of an agriculture which did not, with more labor and in a more
difficult because colder climate, afford them all the products of the
tropical climate they had left, and into which they would have to
introduce the grains and fruits of the temperate zone. Cattle and sheep
raising might have appeared more promising to them, but a long time
would have to pass before they could establish those industries and a
safe, accessible market could be built up for their stock. This could
certainly not be expected in the first generation, while every one
wanted first of all to be rich himself.
Only productive mining could be profitable in a short time, but the
Spaniards, who lacked neither desire for the metals nor practical skill
in discovering them, did not suffer themselves to be misled by the
traces, universally present, of malachite and carbonate of copper. They
indeed recognized the existence of silver ore in the rocks, but shrewdly
doubted as to the paying quality of the mineral. The Indians did not
possess, nor were they acquainted with, gold, silver, copper, or iron.
Green stones, kalaite[85] and malachite,[86] colored flints and
obsidian, gypsum for whitewashing, iron-ochre for painting pots, faces,
and feathers, were their mineral treasures. Coronado soon perceived that
New Mexico was a poor country, which could not be developed in the
immediate future, a land fit only for commonplace work and minor
industries. The Spaniards had not made the long, dangerous journey from
the sunny south for such a purpose as that. To compensate them for their
pains they must find more.
The representations of “the Turk,” on the contrary, sounded very
differently. He talked of a river two leagues wide containing fish as
large as a horse, on which canoes sailed with forty rowers, their bows
richly adorned with gold. He declared that the vessels in that country
were made of silver and gold. With keen craftiness he had watched the
Spaniards, and had discovered that they esteemed gold more than copper,
and had learned to appreciate the difference between the two metals even
in weight. Gold, he intimated, was abundant at “Arche” or “Arahei,” but
“Quivira” was the place to which he would take the Spaniards before all
others, and where he promised them the precious metal in profusion.
The Rio Grande Valley was quiet, and Coronado set about beginning the
march to Quivira. The whole army followed him, while Pedro de Tobar was
in the meantime to come up with reinforcements from Sonora; for written
orders had been left for him with the Indians of Zuñi to follow
Coronado, guiding himself by the wooden crosses which he would erect
from time to time. The Spaniards left Bernalillo May 5th, and entered
Pecos on the 9th. The tribe received and entertained them gladly.
I have in the preceding pages referred to six linguistic stocks with
which Coronado had so far come in contact in New Mexico. Only five of
them have been named to this point, viz., those of Zuñi, Tigua, Piro,
Pecos or Jemez, and Queres. The sixth is never designated with a name,
but is inferred from the scanty account of the route from Bernalillo to
Pecos.
This route is not hard to follow. Coronado could reach Pecos from the
Rio Grande only by going up that river to the vicinity of San Felipe,
and then turning in toward the pueblo of “Tunque.” There Alvarado had
probably already come in contact with the Queres. In passing the Cañon
del Infierno, the Spaniards would have become acquainted with Chilili,
Tajique, Manzano, and with the remarkable salt basin beyond, of which
they say nothing, and they would, moreover, be near the buffaloes,
without touching Pecos. They also probably went by the “Paso de Tijeras”
(the Scissors Pass) to San Pedro, where they found the pueblo of
“Pä-qu”; from San Pedro to “Golden” (Real de San Francisco), where the
pueblo of “Kaapô” (El Tuerto) stood, already almost deserted; and then
past the pueblo of “Hî-shi” (_Pueblo largo_), south of Galisteó, to the
Pecos Valley. They thereby avoided all the northern villages; and
Casteñeda says, “They count seven other villages between this route and
the Snowy Mountains (la Sierra Nevada).”
The Sierra Nevada is that wild, picturesque mountain system south of
Santa Fé which parts into the three groups: the “Sierra del Real de
Dolores,” the Sierra de San Francisco, and the Sierra de San Pedro. They
lie east of the Sandía Mountain and parallel to it. These grand masses
are often covered with snow early in the fall. The Sierra de Santa Fé,
which contains the highest peak in New Mexico, is covered with snow
nearly the whole year, and towers majestically over the other side of
the basin of Galisteó. The seven pueblos which Casteñeda mentions were
“Pânt-hâm-ba” (San Cristobal), “Tage-unge” or “Glisteó” (Galisteó),
“I-pe-re” (San Lázaro), “Yâtzé” (San Marcos), “Tzigu-má” (la Ciénega),
“Cuâ-câ” (Arroyo Hondo), and “Cuâ-po-oge” (Santa Fé). Their inhabitants
belonged to the tribe of the “Tanos,” which spoke the “Tehua” language,
and they thus formed the sixth linguistic and ethnographic district
with which Coronado had become acquainted in May, 1541. To them belonged
also the pueblos of “San Pedro,” of “El Tuerto,” the “Pueblo largo”
(which the Apaches had destroyed five or six years before), and the
villages south of “Tejon” (“Ojâna,” “Quipâna”) and “Tunque.” All these
are to-day deserted and destroyed.
Pecos was the headquarters of the Spaniards for a little while. Quivira
appears to have been known there, for the people gave them a young
Indian whom they called “Xabe,” who was a native of Quivira. He said
that gold and silver indeed occurred at his home, but not in such
quantities as “the Turk” had pretended. Toward the middle of the month
of May, 1541, Coronado started for Quivira and its supposed wealth of
gold. The young Indian, “Xabe,” shared with “the Turk” the function of
guide.
Till then the Spaniards had had to endure only the dangers and
hindrances offered by mountains. Now they encountered difficulties of
another kind such as they had not before met on the American continent.
They were to enter upon the boundless plains, the endless uniformity of
which, fatiguing to body and mind alike, slowly and surely unnerved and
finally crushed them. For, uncertain as was their aim, still more
uncertain was the end. While till this time the expedition had borne a
character of fascinating boldness, the stamp of useless adventure, of
wanton risk, is plainly impressed on the march to Quivira.