Part 1 (2/2)

It is not our purpose here to describe the events of this conquest, or rather series of conquests, beginning with the expedition of Francisco Vasquez Coronado in 1540, and ending in the final occupation of New Mexico by Juan de Onate in 1598. For the history of these enterprises, we refer the reader to the attractive and trustworthy work of Mr.

W. W. H. Davis.[27] But the numerous reports and other doc.u.ments concerning the conquest enable us to form an idea of the ethnography and linguistical distribution of the Indians of New Mexico in the sixteenth century. Upon this knowledge alone can a study of the present ethnography and ethnology of New Mexico rest on a solid historical foundation.

There can be no doubt that Cibola is to be looked for in New Mexico. From the vague indications of Fray Marcos, we are at least authorized to place it within the limits of New Mexico or Arizona, and the subsequent expedition of Coronado furnishes more positive information.

Coronado marched--”leaving north slightly to the left”[28]--from Culiacan on. In other words, he marched east of north. Hence it is to be inferred that Cibola lay nearly north of Culiacan in Sinaloa. Juan Jaramillo has left the best itinerary of this expedition. We can easily identify the following localities: Rio Cinaloa, upper course, Rio Yaquimi, and upper course of the Rio Sonora.[29] Thence a mountain chain was crossed called ”Chichiltic-Calli,”[30] or ”Red-house” (a Mexican name), and a large ruined structure of the Indians was found there.

Within the last forty years at least, this ”Red house” has been repeatedly identified with the so-called ”Casas Grandes,”

lying to the south of the Rio Gila in Arizona.[31] It should not be forgotten that from the upper course of the Rio Sonora _two_ groups of Indian pueblos in ruins were within reach of the Spaniards. One of these were the ruins on the Gila, the other lay to the right, across the Sierra Madre, in the present district of Bravos, State of Chihuahua, Mexico. Jaramillo states that Coronado crossed the mountains to the _right_.[32] Now, whether the ”Nexpa,” whose stream the expedition descended for two days, is the Rio Santa Cruz or the Rio San Pedro, their course after they once crossed the Sierra could certainly not have led them to the ”great houses” on the Rio Gila, but much farther east. The query is therefore permitted, whether Coronado did not perhaps descend into Chihuahua, and thence move up due north into South-western New Mexico. In any case,--whether he crossed the Gila and then turned north-eastward, as Jaramillo intimates,[33] or whether he perhaps struck the small ”Rio de las Casas Grandes” in Chihuahua, and then travelled due north to Cibola, according to Pedro de Castaneda,[34]--the lines of march necessarily met the first sedentary Indians living in houses of stone or adobe about the region in which the pueblo of Zuni exists. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if all the writers on New Mexico, from Antonio de Espejo (1584) down to General J. H. Simpson (1871), with very few exceptions, have identified Zuni with Cibola.

There are numerous other indications in favor of this a.s.sumption.

1. Thus Castaneda says: ”Twenty leagues to the north-west, there is another province which contains seven villages.

The inhabitants have the same costumes, the same customs, and the same religion as those of Cibola.”[35] This district is the one called ”Tusayan” by the same author, who places it at twenty-five leagues also; and ”Tucayan” by Jaramillo, ”to the left of Cibola, distant about five days' march.”[36] These seven villages of ”Tusayan” were visited by Pedro de Tobar.

West of them is a broad river, which the Spaniards called ”Rio del Tizon.”[37]

2. Five days' journey from Cibola to the east, says Castaneda, there was a village called ”Acuco,” erected on a rock. ”This village is very strong, because there was but one path leading to it. It rose upon a precipitous rock on all sides, etc.”[38]

Jaramillo mentions, at one or two days' march from Cibola to the east, ”a village in a very strong situation on a precipitous rock; it is called Tutahaco.”[39]

3. According to Jaramillo: ”All the water-courses which we met, whether they were streams or rivers, until that of Cibola, and I even believe one or two journeyings beyond, flow in the direction of the South Sea; further on they take the direction of the Sea of the North.”[40]

4. The village called ”Acuco,” or ”Tutahaco,” lay between Cibola and the streams running to the south-east, ”entering the Sea of the North.”[41]

It results from points 3 and 4, that the region of Cibola lay at all events _west of the present grants to the pueblo of Acoma_. There are watercourses in their north-western corner, and through the western half thereof, which become tributaries to the Rio Grande del Norte. The only settled region, or rather the region containing the remains of large settlements, lying west of the water-shed between the Colorado of the West and the Rio Grande, is much farther north.

It is the so-called San Juan district, where extensive ruins are still found, for the description of which we are indebted to General Simpson, to Messrs. Jackson and Holmes, and to Mr.

Lewis H. Morgan. To reach this region, Coronado had to pa.s.s either between Acoma and Zuni, or between the Zuni and the Moqui towns. In either case he could not have failed to notice one or the other of these pueblos; whereas Nizza, as well as the reports of Coronado's march, particularly insist upon the fact that Cibola lay on the borders of a great uninhabited waste.

Our choice is therefore limited between Zuni and the Moqui towns themselves; for there can be no doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the rock of Acuco or Tutahaco, east of Cibola, with the pueblo of Acoma, whose remarkable situation, on the top of a high, isolated rock, has made it the most conspicuous object in New Mexico for nearly three centuries.[42]

But there can be as little doubt, also, in regard to the ident.i.ty of the Moqui district with the ”Tusayan” of Castaneda and of Jaramillo. When the Moqui region first was made known under that name (”Mohoce,” ”Mohace”) in 1583, by Antonio de Espejo, it lay westward from Cibola ”four journeys of seven leagues each.” One of its pueblos was called ”Aguato” (”Aguatobi”).[43] Fifteen years later (1598), Juan de Onate found the first pueblo of ”Mohoce,” twenty leagues of the first one of ”Juni” (”Zuni”) to the westward.[44]

Besides, the ”Rio del Tizon” was, at an early day, distinctly identified with the Colorado River of the West.[45]

Finally, we must notice here that the text of Hackluyt's version of Espejo's report is in so far incorrect as it leads to the inference that Espejo only admitted Cibola to be a Spanish name for Zuni, therefore making it doubtful whether or not it was the original place (”y la llaman los Espanoles Cibola”). The original text of Espejo's report distinctly says, however, ”a province of six pueblos, called Zuni, and by another name, Cibola,” thus positively identifying the place.[46]

We cannot, therefore, refuse to adopt the views of General Simpson and of Mr. W. W. H. Davis, and to look to the pueblo of Zuni as occupying, if not the actual site, at least one of the sites within the tribal area of the ”Seven cities of Cibola.” Nor can we refuse to identify Tusayan with the Moqui district, and Acuco with Acoma.

This investigation has so far enabled us to locate, at the time of their first discovery, _three_ of the princ.i.p.al pueblos or groups of pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. The pueblo of Acoma appears to have occupied at that time the identical striking position in which it is found to-day. The pueblo of Zuni, while it undoubtedly occupies the ground once claimed by the cl.u.s.ter to which the name of Cibola was given, is but the remaining one of six or seven villages then forming that group, or a recent construction sheltering the remnants of their former occupants. The Moqui towns appear to be the same which the Spaniards found three hundred and forty years ago, though additions from other tribes have, as we shall subsequently establish, modified the character of their dwellers.

But the information to be derived from Coronado's march, on the ethnography of New Mexico, is not confined to the above. While at Cibola, Indians from a tribe or region called ”Cicuye,” which was said to be found far to the east, came to see him. They brought with them buffalo-hides, prepared and manufactured into s.h.i.+elds and ”helmets.” Although the Spaniards had heard of the buffalo before reaching Zuni, the animal itself had not been met with, and accordingly Coronado sent Hernando de Alvarado to Cicuye, and in quest of the ”buffalo country.”[47]

Cicuye is the ”Cicuique” of Juan Jaramillo, and the ”Acuique”

of an anonymous relation of the year 1541: it lay to the east of Acoma, through which the Spaniards pa.s.sed.[48]

Between it and Acoma was the pueblo of ”Tiguex,” at a distance of three days' march, while Cicuye was five days from Tiguex.[49] General Simpson identifies the latter with a point on the Rio Grande del Norte, ”at the foot of the Socorro Mountains,” and then places Cicuye at ”Pecos.”[50] Between Acoma and the Rio Grande there lies the Rio Puerco; and on its banks other authorities, conspicuous among whom is Mr. W. W. H. Davis, have located Tiguex, while Cicuye, according to them, was on the Rio Grande, somewhere near the valley of Guadalupe.[51] Both conclusions have their strong points; but both of them have also their weak sides.

If it took five days of march from Zuni to Acoma, three days more, in a north-easterly direction, would have brought the Spaniards to the Rio Grande, and certainly much beyond the Rio Puerco; and then Pecos could easily be reached in five days.[52]

But we are unable to guess, even, at the length of each journey. From Zuni to Acoma the country was uninhabited; therefore the length of each journey may have been great, because there was nothing to attract the attention of the Spaniards,--nothing to prevent them from hastening their progress in order to reach their point of destination. From Acoma on, the ethnographical character changed. The actual distance to the Rio Grande may be shorter; but pueblos sprung up at small intervals of s.p.a.ce, which necessitated greater caution, and therefore greater delay, in the movements of the advancing party. Still, we have a guide of great efficiency in another branch of information. The pueblo of ”Tiguex,” mentioned as lying three days from Acoma, indicates, seemingly, a settlement of _Tehua_-speaking Indians.

Now, the ”Tehua” idiom is spoken in those pueblos which lie directly north of Santa Fe. San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, Pohuaque, Nambe, and Tesuque. But it is quite apparent that, considering the great distance of Santa Fe from Acoma, the journeys, as indicated in Castaneda, would fall very short of any of the pueblos mentioned.[53]

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