[1] Las siete cuevas: in Nahuatl Chicomoztoc, from chicome, seven, and oztoc, cave. Alonzo de Molina, Vocabulario Mexicano, 1571, parte iia. pp. 20 and 78. Fray Juan de Tobar, Codice Ramirez, p. 18.
[2] Fray Diego Durán, Historia de las Yndias de Nueva-España, é Islas de Tierra Firme, cap. i. p. 8; Codex Vaticanus, Kingsborough, vols. i., ii., vi.; Anales de Cuauhtitlan: Anales del Museo Nacional de México, tom. i. entrega 7, p. 7 of 2d vol., but incorporated in the first. "I acatl ipan quizque Chicomoztoc in Chichimeca omitoa moternuh in imitoloca."
[3] Historia de los Indios de la Nueva-España, in Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de México, by J. G. Icazbalceta, vol. i. p. 7.
[4] Segunda Relacion Anónima de la Jornada de Nuño de Guzman, in Coleccion de Documentos, etc., vol. ii. p. 303.
[5] The early literature on this subject will only be fully known when the remarkable collection called Libro de Oro shall have been published by Señor Icazbalceta, its meritorious owner. This valuable collection of manuscripts dates from the sixteenth century, and contains, besides a number of official reports on local matters of Mexico and districts pertaining to it, the chronicles of the tezcucan Juan Bautista Pomar, a copy of Motolinia, and a number of MSS. written between 1529 and 1547 at the instance of the much-abused Bishop Zumárraga. These MSS. contain the results of the earliest investigations on Mexican history and tradition.
The natives of Mexico appear to have had no knowledge, nay, not even the most dim recollection, of the fauna of South-western North America. While their so-called calendar, in the graphic tokens used to designate each one of the twenty days of their conventional "month," contains the forms of all the larger quadrupeds roaming over Mexico and Central America, the tapir excepted, we look in vain for the coyote, the bear, the mountain-sheep, and the buffalo.
[6] Popol Vuh, part iii. cap. iv. p. 216, cap. vi. pp. 226, 228, cap. viii. p. 238, etc.
[7] Hernando Cortés, Carta Quarta, dated Temixtitan, 15 October, 1524, Vedia i. p. 102. Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, Historia General y Natural de las Indias, lib. xxxiii. cap. xxxvi. vol. iii. p. 447, lib. xxxiv. cap. viii. p. 576, Madrid, 1853. The information was derived from Gonzalo de Sandoval. See Antonio de Herrera, Historia General de los Hechos de los Castellanos en las Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Oceano, dec. iii. lib. iii. cap. xvii. p. 106, edition of 1726.
[8] Relacion de las Ceremonias y Ritos, Poblacion y Gobierno de los Indios de la Provincia de Mechuacan, p. 113, from the Coleccion de Documentos para la Historia de la España. Tercera Relacion Anónima de la Jornada de Nuño de Guzman, Coleccion de Documentos, Icazbalceta, ii. pp. 443, 449, 451. Matias de la Mota Padilla, Historia de la Nueva-Galicia, published 1870, cap. iii. p. 27. Oviedo, lib. vi. cap. xxxiii. vol. i. pp. 222, 223.
[9] Quarta Relacion Anónima de la Jornada de Nuño de Guzman, Coleccion de Documentos, Icazbalceta, ii. p. 475. Oviedo, lib. vi. cap. xxxiii. vol. i. p. 223.
[10] In 1527, Herrera, dec. iv. lib. ii. cap. iv. pp. 26, 27.
[11] He was treasurer of Narvaez' expedition, and subsequently, upon his return, or rather in 1541, became adelantado of Paraguay.
[12] He wrote all from memory. The title of his work is Naufragios de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, y Relacion de la Jornada que hizo á la Florida. It was first printed in 1555, at Valladolid. My references are to the reprint in Vedia's Historiadores Primitivos de Indias, vol. i.
[13] Cabeza de Vaca, Naufragios, etc., cap. xxxvii. p. 548, xxxiv. p. 545. According to Herrera, dec. vi. lib. i. cap. vii. p. 11 and cap. viii. p. 11, it might be either 1536 or 1534, "el año pasado de 1534." Oviedo, lib. xxxv. cap. vi. p. 614, intimates as much as 1538. Fray Antonio Tello, Historia de la Nueva-Galicia, fragment preserved in Coleccion de Documentos, Icazbalceta, ii. cap. xii. p. 358, says "habían llegado ese año de treinta y tres á aquellas tierras," 1533.
[14] Cabeza de Vaca, cap. xxxi. pp. 542, 543.
[15] Id., p. 543.
[16] He was a native of Savoy, Italy, and was with Sebastian de Belalcazar during the latter's conquest of Quito. Juan de Velasco, Histoire du royaume de Quito, French translation by Ternaux-Compans, Introd. p. viii. He wrote the following books: Conquista de la Provincia del Quito: Ritos y Ceremonias de los Indios; Las dos Lineas de los Incas y de los Scyris en las Provincias del Perú y del Quito; Cartas Informativas de lo Obrado en las Provincias del Perú y del Cuzco. These manuscripts may still exist. According to Fray Augustin de Vetancurt (Menologio Franciscano, ed. of 1871, pp. 117, 118, 119), he was born at Nizza, and in 1531 came to America, being in Peru in 1532. Thence he went to Nicaragua and Mexico. He was provincial from 1540 to 1543, and died at Mexico, March 25, 1558.
[17] Fray Marcos Nizza, Descubrimiento de las Siete Ciudades, p. 329.
[18] Nizza, p. 332. Herrera, dec. vi. lib. vii. cap. vii. p. 156.
[19] In Documentos para la Historia de Méjico, 1856, 4 série, vol. i. p. 327. The diary has not even a title. Mentioned by Father Jacob Sedelmair, S. J., Relacion que hizo ... Misionero de Tubatama, in Documentos para la Historia de Méjico, 3a série, vol. ii. pp. 846, 848, 857, 859.
[20] On the map of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, in Der neue Weltbott, by P. Joseph Stöcklein, vol. i. 2d edition, 1728, there appears St. Ludov. de Bacapa. The diary of Mange, p. 327, is explicit.
[21] Manuel Orozco y Berra, Geografía de las Lenguas y Carta Etnográfica de México, part iii. cap. xxiii. pp. 345-353, etc. Francisco Pimentel, Cuadro Descriptivo y Comparativo de las Lenguas Indígenas de México, 1865, vol. ii. pp. 91, 92-116.
[22] The fact that he became the guide of Coronado, and led him to Cibola, indicates that Fray Marcos crossed the Gila, since otherwise the Spaniards would have traversed the Sierra Madre, and entered New Mexico from Chihuahua. It is true that the general direction of Coronado's march from Culiacan was from south to north, inclining to the east.
[23] The attest of D. Antonio de Mendoza, concerning Nizza's report, bears the date, Mexico, 2 Sept., 1539. Consequently, Fray Marcos had returned previously. See Relation du Voyage de Cibola, Ternaux-Compans, Appendix, p. 282.
[24] This word is said to be now found only in the dialect of the pueblo of Isleta, south of Santa Fé, under the form sibúlodá, buffalo. Albert S. Gatschet, Zwölf Sprachen aus dem Südwesten Nord Amerika's, Weimar, 1876, p. 106.
[25] Herrera, Descripcion de las Indias, cap. ix. p. 17, says that Mexico has 4,000 vecinos. This was in 1610, about.
[26] Lewis H. Morgan, On the Ruins of a Stone Pueblo on the Animas River, in 12th Annual Report of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology, etc., 1880, p. 550.
[27] The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico, Doylestown, Pa., 1869.
[28] Pedro de Castañeda y Nagera, Relation du Voyage de Cibola, translation of Ternaux-Compans, Paris, 1838, part ii. cap. iii. p. 163.
[29] Juan Jaramillo, Relation du Voyage fait à la Nouvelle-Terre sous les Ordres du Général Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in Voyage de Cibola, Append. vi. pp. 365, 366, 367.
[30] Castañeda, i. cap. ix. pp. 40, 41, ii. cap. iii. p. 162. The word is composed of chichiltic, a red object, and calli, house. Molina, ii. pp. 11, 19.
[31] General Simpson locates the "Casas Grandes" on the Gila, in lat. 33° 4' 21" and lon. 111° 45' Greenwich. Coronado's March, p. 326.
[32] Relation, etc., p. 365. "Nous souffrîmes quelques fatigues, jusqu'à ce que nous eussions atteint une chaîne de montagnes dont j'avais entendu parler à la Nouvelle-Espagne, à plus de trois-cents lieues de là. Nous donnâmes à l'endroit où nous passâmes le nom de Chichiltic-Calli, parce que nous avions su par des Indiens que nous laissions derrière nous, qu'ils l'appelaient ainsi," etc. Id. "On nous dit qu'elle se nommait Chichiltic-Calli. Après avoir franchi ces montagnes." ...
[33] Jaramillo, Relation, etc., p. 367. Simpson, p. 325. For descriptions of the "Casas Grandes," I refer to Castañeda, i. cap. ix. pp. 40, 41, ii. cap. iii. pp. 161, 162, to be compared with Mateo Mange, Documentos para la Historia de México, série 4, vol. i. cap. v. p. 282, describing Father Kino's visit there in 1697, cap. x. pp. 362, 363. Cristóbal Martin Bernal, Francisco de Acuña, Eusebio Francisco Kino, etc., Relacion, in Documentos, 3 série, vol. ii. p. 884; this bears date, 4 Dec., 1697. Fray Tomás Ignacio Lizazoin, Informe sobre las Provincias de Sonora y Nueva-Vizcaya, Documentos, 3 série, ii. p. 698. Segundo Media, Rudo Ensayo Tentativo de una Prevencional Descripcion de la Provincia de Sonora, sus Terminos y Confines, written by a Jesuit about 1761 or 1762, and published by Buckingham Smith at S. Augustine in 1863, cap. ii. sec. 3, p. 18. Padre Font, in Relation de Cibola, Append, vii. pp. 383-386. Of more recent descriptions, I enumerate Lieut. W. H. Emory, Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, etc., Executive Documents, 41, pp. 80, 81; Capt. A. R. Johnston, Journal, etc., id. pp. 582, 584, 596, 597; John R. Bartlett, Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents, etc., vol. ii. cap. xxxii. pp. 265-280. While we can easily identify the "Casas Grandes," seen in 1846-47 and 1852, with those described in 1697, 1761, and 1775, in regard to the earliest description of "Chichilticalli," we are inclined to agree with Mr. L. H. Morgan, Seven Cities of Cibola, that "there is no ruin on the Gila at the present time that answers the above description."
[34] Relation de Cibola, part ii. cap. iii. p. 163, and especially part iii. cap. ix. p. 243. "On fit d'abord cent dix lieues vers l'ouest, en partant de Mexico; Ton se dirigea ensuite vers le nord-est pendant cent lieues; puis pendant six cent cinquante vers le nord, et l'on n'était encore arrive qu'aux ravins des bisons. De sorte qu'après avoir fait plus de huit cent cinquante lieues, on n'était pas en définitive à plus de quatre cents de Mexico."
The "Casas Grandes" in Chihuahua are on the river of the same name, north-west of the city of Chihuahua, and nearly south of János. I have been unable as yet to ascertain when they first came to notice. According to Antonio de Oca Sarmiento, Letter to the General Francisco de Gorraez Beaumont, dated 22 Sept., 1667, in Mandamiento del Señor Virey, Marques de Mancora, sobre las Doctrinas de Casas Grandes, que estaban en las Yumas, Jurisdiccion de San Felipe del Parral, in Documentos, 4 série, vol. iii. p. 231, etc., the Padre Pedro de Aparicio died there, and the General Francisco de Gorraez Beaumont, 1 Letter, 25 Oct., 1667, p. 234, adds: "Que en este puesto de las Casas Grandes era parimo de minéria y segun tradicion antigua y ruinas que se veian que decian ser del tiempo de Moctezuma." A very good description of the ruins has been given by José Agustin Escudero, Noticias Estadísticas del Estado de Chihuahua, Mexico, 1834, cap. viii. pp. 234, 235, who visited them in 1819. Finally, Mr. J. R. Bartlett, Personal Narrative, etc., vol. ii. cap. xxxv., has furnished excellent descriptions and plates.
It is hardly possible to determine if these ruins would better correspond to "Chichilticalli" than those on the Gila. The fact that the former presented, in 1819, the appearance of one solitary building, whereas the latter, in 1697, composed a group of eleven, is noteworthy, but far from being a critical point.
[35] Relation, etc, ii. cap. iii. p. 165.
[36] Relation, etc., p. 370.
[37] Castañeda, i. cap. xi. pp. 58, 63, 64.
[38] Relation, i. cap. xii., pp. 69, 70; ii. cap. iii. p. 166.
[39] Relation, p. 370. Castañeda, i. cap. xiii. p. 76.
[40] Relation, p. 370.
[41] Jaramillo, pp. 370 and 371.
[42] Acoma is always described with particular care by the older Spanish authors. Antonio de Espejo, Carta, 23 April, 1584, in Documentos Inéditos del Archivo de Indias, vol. xv. p. 179: "Y hallamos un pueblo que se llama, Acoma, donde nos pareció, habria mas de seis mil ánimas, el cual está asentado sobre una peña alta que tiene mas de cincuenta estados en alto," etc. Juan de Oñate, Discurso de las Jornadas que hizo el Campo de Su Magestad desde la Nueva-España á la Provincia de la Nueva-México, Documentos Inéditos, vol. xvi. pp. 268, 270: "A quatro de Diciembre [1598?], lo mataron en Acoma, los Indios de aquella fortaleza, que es la mejor en sitio de toda la cristiandad ..." "dieron el primer asalto al Peñol de Acóma ..." Obediencia y Vassalaje á Su Magestad por los Indios del Pueblo de Acóma, Documentos Inéditos, xvi. p. 127: "Al pié de una peña muy grande sobre la qual en lo alto délla está fundado y poblado el Pueblo que llaman de Acóma, ..." dated 27 October, 1598. Fray Agustin de Vetancurt, Crónica de la Provincia del Santo Evangélio de México, trat. iii. cap. vi. p. 319. "Al Oriente del Pueblo de Zia está el Peñol de Acoma, que tiene una legua en Circuito de treinta Estados de alto." Menologio Franciscano, p. 247. Both references are taken from the edition of 1871. Furthermore, in the anonymous Relacion del Suceso de la Jornada que Francisco Vazquez hizo en el Descubrimiento de Cibola, año de 1531 (should be 1541), in vol. xiv. of the Documentos del Archivo de Indias, we find Acuco (east of Cibola), "el cual ellos llaman en su lengua Acuco, y el padre Márcos le llamaba Hacús:" now Hacús forcibly recalls the proper name of Acoma, which by the Qq'uêres Indians, to whose stock its inhabitants belong, is called "Âgo."
[43] Carta, 23 April, 1584, Documentos Inéditos, vol. xv. p. 182.
[44] Discurso de las Jornadas, etc., Documentos Inéditos, vol. xvi. p. 274. Obediencia y Vassallaje á Su Magestad por los Indios del Pueblo de San Joan Baptista, id. vol. xv. p. 115. That the "Mohoces" were the Moqui is evidenced by Padre Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron, Relacion de todas las Provincias que en el Nuevo-México se han visto y sabido así por Mar como por Tierra, desde el Año de 1538, hasta el Año de 1626. Documentos para la Historia de México, série 3, vol. i. p. 30.
[45] Castañeda, i. cap. x. pp. 49, 50. Melchor Diaz reached the Rio del Tizon, starting from Culhuacan and Sonora. This river emptied into the Gulf of California, and he found there traces of Fernando de Alarcon. The latter went up the Rio Colorado, and learned many details about Cibola from Indians living along the river. Relation de la Navigation et de la Découverte faite par le Capitaine Fernando Alarcon, Voyage de Cibola, Ternaux-Compans, Append, iv. cap. i. p. 302: "Nous y trouvâmes un très grand fleuve dont le courant était si rapide, qu'à peine pouvions nous nous y maintenir," cap. v. pp. 324-326; cap. vi. p. 331. Herrera, dec. vi. lib. ix. cap. xi. p. 212. Fray Juan de Torquemada, Monarchia Indiana, lib. v. cap. xi. p. 609, ed. of 1723. While Alarcon was endeavoring to meet Coronado by sailing or boating up the Colorado from its mouth, the latter sent Garci-Lopez de Cardenas to explore a river which the Indians of "Tusayan" had mentioned to Pedro de Tobar; and he reached this river after twenty days' march. It is described as follows by Castañeda (i. cap. xi. p. 62): "After these twenty days' marching, they indeed reached this river, whose shores are so high that they thought themselves at least three or four leagues up in the air. The country is covered with low and crippled pines; it is exposed to the north, and the cold is so severe that, although it was summer, it could hardly be supported. The Spaniards for three days marched along these mountains, hoping to find a place where they could reach the river, which, from above, appeared to be about one fathom in width, while the Indians said it was wider than one-half league; but it was found to be impossible," etc. This is a fair picture of the cañons of the Colorado River of the West, the only one emptying into the head of the Gulf of California; and Castañeda adds (p. 65): "This river was the del Tizon."
[46] Carta, Documentos Inéditos, vol. xv. p. 180: "Una provincia, que son seis pueblos, que la provincia llaman Zuñi, y por otro nombre Cibola. Richard Hackluyt, The Third and last Volume of the Voyages, Navigations, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation." El Viaie que hizo Antonio de Espeio en el Año de ochenta y tres, pp. 457-464, has "dieron con una Provincia, que se nombra en lengua de los naturales Zuny, y la llaman los Españoles Cibola, ay en ella cantidad de Indios ..."
[47] Castañeda, i. cap. xii. pp. 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73.
[48] Jaramillo, pp. 370, 371. Castañeda, p. 69.
[49] Castañeda, p. 71.
[50] Coronado's March, pp. 333-336.
[51] The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico, cap. xxiv. p. 185, note I; cap. xxv. p. 198, note I; also p. 199. I attach particular importance to the opinions of Mr. Davis. He visited New Mexico at a time when it was still "undeveloped," and his writings on the country show thorough knowledge, and much documentary information. It is to be regretted that he fails absolutely to mention his sources in any satisfactory manner, a defect which might deprive his valuable book of much of its unquestionable reliability and importance. The attentive student, however, finds, after going seriously through the mass of material still on hand, that Mr. Davis has been so painstaking and honest, that he is very much inclined to forgive the lack of citations.
[52] From Bernalillo or Sandia, the easiest way, and the one which Alvarado, by Coronado's order, must certainly have taken, is south of Galisteo. This would have led him to Pecos, either by the Cañon de San Cristóbal or, as I presume, to the lower valley, and thence up the river to the Pueblo. Castañeda (ii. cap. v. p. 176) speaks of abandoned villages along the route. There is a ruin at the place called "Pueblo," one at San José, and another at Kingman; all along the line of the "Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad." I presume, therefore, that he took this route. At all events, he went south of the Tanos, else he would have struck the villages called later San Lázaro and San Cristóbal, both then occupied.
[53] The belief has been expressed to me at Santa Fé, by authority which I have learned to respect, that on the site of the present city there stood the old town of Tiguex. This belief has been strengthened by the popular tale, that the old adobe house, of two low stories, adjoining the ancient chapel of San Miguel, was an ancient Indian home. Personal inspection has, however, satisfied me of the fact that this building, while certainly very old, is certainly not one of an Indian "pueblo." It forms a rectangle: Met. 20.71' from east to west, and 4.80' from north to south. Its front has five doors, and the upper story as many windows. It is entirely of adobe, and may indeed have been an Indian house, but built after their old plan, when Santa Fé had already been founded. There is no notice of any pueblo on this site. Besides, documentary evidence regarding the establishment of Santa Fé absolutely ignores the existence of any Indian settlement at that place in 1598. Juan de Oñate, Discurso de las Jornadas que hizo el Capitan de Su Magestad desde la Nueva-España á la Provincia de la Nuevo-Mexico, in Coleccion de Documentos del Archivo de Indias, vol. xvi. pp. 263-266. Obediencia y Vasallaje á Su Magestad por los Indios de San Joan Baptista. Id., Sept 9, 1598, pp. 115, 116: "Al Padre Fray Cristóbal de Salazar, la Provincia de los Tepúas (Tehuas) con los pueblos de Triapé, Triáque el de Sant Yldefonso y Santa Clara, y este pueblo de Sant Joan Batista y el de Sant Gabriele el de Troomaxiaquino, Xiomato, Axol, Comitría, Quiotracó, y mas, la Cibdad de Sant Francisco de los Españoles, que al presente se Edifican."
[54] Obediencia y Vasallaje á Su Magestad por los Indios de Santo-Domingo. Id., p. 102. July 7, 1598. Obediencia, etc., de S. Joan Baptista, pp. 112, 115, "los Chiguas ó Tiguas."
[55] Apuntamientos que sobre el Terreno hizo el Padre José Amando Niel, Documentos para la Historia de México, 3a série, vol. i. pp. 98, 99: "Estan pobladas junto á la sierra de Puruai que toma el nombre del principal pueblo que se llama así, y orilla del gran rio." There were then three pueblos: San-Pedro, "rio abajo de Puruai;" Santiago, "rio arriba." Puaray was destroyed and in ruins in 1711. It was here that Father Augustin Ruiz was killed in 1581. Fray Gerónimo de Zarate Salmeron, Relacion, etc., p. 10. Fray Agustin de Vetancurt, Menologio Franciscano, pp. 412, 413. Jean Blaeu, Douzième livre de la Géographie Blaviane, Amsterdam, 1667, p. 62, calls the Tiguas "Tebas," and says they had "quinze bourgades." Vetancurt, Menologio, but principally Crónica de la provincia del Santo Evangelio de México, gives the Tiguas, before 1680, the following stations and pueblos: Isleta, Alameda, Puray, and Sandia, pp. 310-313.
[56] Relacion, etc., p. 10.
[57] A. S. Gatschet, Zwölf Sprachen aus dem Südwesten Nord-Amerika's, Weímar, 1876, p. 41.
[58] Castañeda, i. cap. xix. p. 116.
[59] Simpson, Coronadó's March, pp. 336.
[60] Castañeda, i. cap. xiii. p. 76.
[61] Spanish Conquest, cap. xxiii. p. 180, note 5, p. 181, note 6.
[62] Castañeda, p. 76.
[63] Isleta is probably a modern pueblo, that is one erected since 1598 and previous to 1680, and I shall treat it as such till I am better informed. The description by Vetancurt ("Crónica," etc., trat. iii. cap. v. pp. 310 and 311, as in the year 1680) is characteristic: "Fórmase un rio de la nieve que se derrite, que con el rio Norte cercan un campo de cinco leguas ... Es el paso para las provincias de Acoma, Zunias, Moqui ..." In a straight line, the distance from Bernalillo is about twenty-five miles.
[64] p. 76. "Le général remonta ensuite la rivière, et visita toute la province jusqu'à ce qu'il fut arrivé à Tiguex."
[65] p. 76. "Ils apprirent qu'en descendant la rivière ils trouveraient encore d'autres villages."
[66] Castañeda, ii. cap. iv. p. 168.
[67] Cap. vi. p. 182, part ii. In looking at the map, it will be seen that Bernalillo is, indeed, a central point. Along the Rio Grande it is almost at equal distances from Taos at the north, and Socorro at the south, whereas it is little further (in an east-westerly line) from Bernalillo to Zuñi, than from Bernalillo to the plains. The accuracy of Castañeda becomes more and more wonderful, the closer his narrative is studied and compared with the country itself. His distance exceeds the bee-line regularly almost by one-third; a very natural fact, since he computes the lengths from the routes taken.
[68] These facts are taken from the following passages of Castañeda: i. cap. xviii., ii. cap. vi., Quéres; i. cap. xxii, ii. cap. vi., Hemes and Aguas Calientes; ii. cap. iv., Acha; i. cap. xxii., ii. cap. vi., Braba; i. cap. xviii., Cia; ii. cap. v., Ximera; and i. cap. xxii., ii. cap. vi., Yuque-Yunque, perhaps Cuyamunque.
[69] Santo Domingo, Cochiti, San Felipe, Santa-Ana, and Cia are the Quéres pueblos near the Rio Grande still remaining. They all then existed in 1598. Obediencia, etc., á S. Joan Baptista, p. 113.
[70] The Jemez or Emmes, in 1598, contained nine "pueblos," or rather places of habitation. Obediencia, etc., de Santo Domingo, p. 102. Niel, p. 99, mentions five.
[71] Castañeda, i. cap. xxii. It is unmistakable. Compare Simpson, Coronado's March, p. 339. Vetancurt, Crónica, etc., p. 319. "Este es el último pueblo hácia el norte." Jean Blaeu, Géographie, etc., p. 62.
[72] This is equally definite. Castañeda, ii. cap. v. p. 177. "Between Cicuyé and the province of Quirix, there exists a small very well fortified village which the Spaniards have named Ximera, and another one which appears to have been very large." This shows that the Spaniards went from Pecos by the San Cristóbal cañon.
[73] To-day Tezuque, Nambé, Santa Clara, San Juan, San Ildefonso, Pojuaque, and, besides, Cuyamunque in ruins.
[74] The Piros were totally dispersed during the intertribal wars of 1680-89. Niel, p. 104. Senecu, near Mesilla, is a Piros pueblo, founded by Fray Antonio de Arteaga in 1630. Fray Balthasar de Medina, Chrónica de la Provincia de S. Diego de México de Religiosos Descalzos de N. S. P. S. Francisco de la Nueva-España, México, 1682, lib. iv. cap. vii. fol. 168. Vetancurt, Crónica, p. 309. It is therefore a Spanish "colony," and not an original pueblo.
[75] Castañeda, i. cap. ix., ii. cap. iii. iv. p. 183, vii. p. 188. Fray Marcos de Niza, pp. 274-276, Jaramillo, pp. 368, 369.
[76] Antonio Espejo, Viaje, etc. Vetancurt, Crónica, etc., pp. 302, 303.
[77] Vetancurt, Crónica, etc., trat. iii. cap. iv. pp. 302, 303-305, cap. vi. pp. 324, 325.
[78] Espejo, Viaje, etc.
[79] Coronado's March, pp. 336-339. Don José Cortes, Memorias sobre las Provincias del Norte de Nueva-España, 1799. MSS. of the library of Congress, fol. 87.
[80] Coronado, Letter of Oct. 20, 1541, p. 354. Castañeda, ii. cap. viii. p. 194, Jaramillo, pp. 376, 377.
[81] He went from Santa Fé N.E. and E.N.E., and struck the "Escansaques:" might they have been the "Kansas?" Gerónimo de Zarate Salmeron, Relacion, etc., pp. 26, 27.
[82] Zarate Salmeron, p. 29.
[83] I append a valuable description of these ruins from the Surveyor-General's office at Santa Fé, communicated to me by Mr. D. J. Miller. (See p. 30.)
[84] This is made probable through the statement of Father José Amando Niel (p. 108), to the effect that the Yutas warred against the Pananas and the Jumanas. The latter were about Socorro, therefore the Yutas must have descended east to below Pecos. Their arrival east of the Sierra Madre is placed, through the reports of the Pecos, about 1530. Castañeda, ii. cap. v., p. 178.
[85] Obediencia, etc., de S. Joan Baptista, p. 113, "todos los Apaches desde la Sierra Nevada hacía la parte del Norte y Poniento," p. 114; speaking of the Jemez, "y mas, todos los Apaches y cocoyes de sus sierras y comarcas."
[86] In a subsequent paper, I hope to continue this "Historical Introduction," in the shape of a discussion of the various expeditions into New Mexico, and from it to other points north-west and north-east, up to the year 1605.
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II. A VISIT TO THE ABORIGINAL RUINS IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIO PECOS. |
A VISIT TO THE ABORIGINAL RUINS IN THE
VALLEY OF THE RIO PECOS.
About thirty miles to the south-east of the city of Santa Fé, and in the western sections of the district of San Miguel (New Mexico), the upper course of the Rio Pecos traverses a broad valley, extending in width from east to west about six or eight miles, and in length from north-west to south-east from twenty to twenty-five. Its boundaries are,—on the north and north-east, the Sierra de Santa Fé, and the Sierra de Santa Bárbara, or rather their southern spurs; on the west a high mesa or table land, extending nearly parallel to the river until opposite or south of the peak of Bernal; on the east, the Sierra de Tecolote. The altitude of this valley is on an average not less than six thousand three hundred feet,[87] while the mesa on the right bank of the river rises abruptly to nearly two thousand feet higher; the Tecolote chain is certainly not much lower, if any; and the summits of the high Sierras in the north rise to over ten thousand feet at least.[88]p. 38
The Rio Pecos (which empties into the Rio Grande fully five degrees more to the south, in the State of Texas) hugs, in the upper part of the valley, closely to the mountains of Tecolote, and thence runs almost directly north and south. The high mesa opposite, known as the Mesa de Pecos, sweeps around in huge semicircles, but in a general direction from north-west to south-east. The upper part of the valley, therefore, forms a triangle, whose apex, at the south, would be near San José: whereas its base-line at the north might be indicated as from the Plaza de Pecos to Baughl's Sidings; or rather from the Rio Pecos, east of the town, to the foot of the mesa on the west, a length of over six miles. Nearly in the centre of this triangle, two miles west of the river, and one and a half miles from Baughl's, there rises a narrow, semicircular cliff or mesilla, over the bed of a stream known as the Arroyo de Pecos.[89] The southern end of this tabular cliff (its highest point as well as its most sunny slope) is covered with very extensive ruins, representing, as I shall hereafter explain, three distinct kinds of occupation of the place by man. These ruins are known under the name of the Old Pueblo of Pecos.
The tourist who, in order to reach Santa Fé from the north, takes the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad at La Junta, Colorado,—fascinated as he becomes by the beauty as well as by the novelty of the landscape, while running parallel with the great Sierra Madre, after he has traversed the Ratonis at daybreak,—enters a still more weird country in the afternoon. The Rio Pecos is crossed just beyond Bernal, and thence on he speeds towards the west and north: to the left, the towering Mesa de Pecos, darkp. 39 pines clambering up its steep sides; to the right, the broad valley, scooped out, so to say, between the mesa and the Tecolote ridge. It is dotted with green patches and black clusters of cedar and pine shooting out of the red and rocky soil. Scarcely a house is visible, for the casitas of adobe and wood nestle mostly in sheltered nooks. Beyond Baughl's, the ruins first strike his view; the red walls of the church stand boldly out on the barren mesilla; and to the north of it there are two low brown ridges, the remnants of the Indian houses. The bleak summits of the high northern chain seem to rise in height as he advances; even the distant Trout mountains (Sierra de la Trucha) loom up solemnly towards the head-waters of the Pecos. About Glorieta the vale disappears, and through the shaggy crests of the Cañon del Apache, which overlooks the track in awful proximity, he sallies out upon the central plain of northern New Mexico, six thousand eight hundred feet above the sea-level. To the south-west the picturesque Sandia mountains;[90] to the west, far off, the Heights of Jemez and the Sierra del Valle, bound the level and apparently barren table-land. An hour more of fearfully rapid transit with astonishing curves, and, at sunset, he lands at La Villa Real de Santa-Fé.
Starting back from Santa Fé towards Pecos on a dry, sandy wagon-road, we lose sight of the table-land and its environing mountain-chain, when turning into the ridges east of Manzanares. Vegetation, which has been remarkably stunted until now, improves in appearance. However rocky the slopes are, tall pines grow on them sparsely: the Encina appears inp. 40 thickets; Opuntia arborescens bristles dangerously as a large shrub; mammillary cactuses hide in the sand; even an occasional patch of Indian corn is found in the valleys. It is stunted in growth,[91] flowering as late as the last days of the month of August, and poorly cultivated. The few adobe buildings are mostly recent. Over a high granitic ridge, grown over with piñon (all the trees inclined towards the north-east by the fierce winds that blow along its summit), and from which the Sierra de Sandia for the last time appears, we plunge into a deep valley, emptying into the Cañoncito, and thence follow the railroad track again through a deep gorge and pleasant bottom, overgrown with pines and cedars, past Glorieta to Baughl's.[92] It required all the skill and firmness of my friend and companion, Mr. J. D. C. Thurston, of the Indian Bureau at Santa Fé, to pilot our vehicle over the steep and rocky ledges. From Baughl's, where I took quarters at the temporary boarding-house of Mrs. Root (to whose kindness and motherly solicitude I owe a tribute of sincere gratitude), a good road leads to the east and south-east along the Arroyo de Pecos. In a direct line the distance p. 41 to the ruins is but a mile and a half; but after nearing the banks of the stream (which there are grassy levels), one is kept at a distance from it by deep parallel gulches. So we have to follow the arroyo downwards, keeping about a quarter of a mile to the west of it, till, south of the old church itself, the road at last crosses the wide and gravelly bed, in which a fillet of clear water is running. Then we ascend a gradual slope of sandy and micaceous soil, thinly covered by tufts of grama; a wide, circular depression strikes our eye; beyond it flat mounds of scarcely 0.50 m.—20 in.—elevation are covered extensively with scattered and broken stones. Further on distinct foundations appear, rectangles enclosed by, or founded originally upon, thick walls of stone, sunk into the ground and much worn,—sometimes divided into small compartments, again forming large enclosures. To the south a conspicuous, though small, mound is visible. Immediately before us, due north, are distinct though broken walls of stones; and above them, on a broad terrace of red earth, completely shutting off the mesilla or tabulated cliff, on which the Indian houses stand, there arises the massive former Catholic temple of Pecos.