Aardbargain Guide

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

TO

STUDIES AMONG THE SEDENTARY INDIANS

OF

 

This introduction, written by A. F. Bandelier, is taken from the Papers of the Archaeological Institute of America, and was originally published in 1881. 

The earliest knowledge of the existence of the sedentary Indians in New Mexico and Arizona reached Europe by way of Mexico proper; but it is very doubtful whether or not the aborigines of Mexico had any positive information to impart about countries lying north of the present State of Querétaro. The tribes to the north were, in the language of the valley-confederates, "Chichimecas,"—a word yet undefined, but apparently synonymous, in the conceptions of the "Nahuatl"-speaking natives, with fierce savagery, and ultimately adopted by them as a warlike title.

Indistinct notions, indeed, of an original residence, during some very remote period of time, at the distant north, have been found among nearly all the tribes of Mexico which speak the Nahuatl language. These notions even assume the form of tradition in the tale of the Seven Caves, whence the Mexicans and the Tezcucans, as well as the Tlaxcaltecans, are said to have emigrated to Mexico. Perhaps the earliest mention of this tradition may be found in the writings of Fray Toribio de Paredes, surnamed Motolinia. It dates back to 1540 a.d. But it is not to be overlooked that ten years previously, in 1530, the story of the Seven Cities, which was the form in which the first report concerning New Mexico and its sedentary Indians came to the Spaniards, had already been told to Nuño Beltran de Guzman in Sinaloa. The parallelism between the two stories is striking, although we are not authorized to infer that the so-called seven cities gave rise to what appeared as an aboriginal myth of as many caves.

The tale of the Seven Caves, as the original home of the Mexicans and their kindred, prevailed to such an extent that, as early as 1562, in a collection of picture-sheets executed in aboriginal style, the so-called "Codex Vaticanus," "Chicomoztoc," and the migrations thence, were graphically represented. All the important Indian writers of Mexico between 1560 and 1600, such as Duráro, Camargo, Tezozomoc, and Ixtlilxochitl, refer to it as an ancient legend, and they locate the site of the story, furthermore, very distinctly in New Mexico. Even the "Popol-Vuh," in its earliest account of the Quiché tribe of Guatemala, mentions "Tulan-Zuiva, the seven caves or seven ravines."

While it is impossible as yet to determine whether or not this legend exercised any direct influence on the extension of Spanish power into Northern Mexico, another myth, well known to eastern continents from a remote period, became directly instrumental in the discovery of New Mexico. This is the tale of the Amazons.

About 1524 a.d., Cortes was informed by one of his officers (then on an expedition about Michhuacan) that towards the north there existed a region called Ciguatan ("Cihuatlan"—place of women), near to which was an island inhabited by warlike females exclusively. The usual exaggerations about metallic wealth were added to this report; and when, in 1529, Nuño de Guzman governed Mexico he set out northwards, first to conquer the sedentary Indians of Michhuacan, and then to search for the gold and jewels of the Amazons. It was while on this foray that he heard of the Seven Cities in connection with Ciguatan. This latter place was reached; and, while the fancies concerning it were speedily dispelled by reality, those concerning the Seven Cities flitted further north. Guzman overran, laid waste, and finally colonized Sinaloa. He sent parties into Sonora; but, after his recall, slow colonization superseded military forays on a large scale, at least for a few years.

During this time, Pamfilo de Narvaez had undertaken the colonization of Florida. His scheme failed, and cost him his life. Of the few survivors of his expedition, four only remained in the American continent, wandering to and fro among the tribes of the south-west. After nine years of untold hardships, these four men finally reached Sonora, having traversed the continent, from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of the Pacific. The name of the leader and subsequent chronicler of their adventures was Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca.

It is not possible to follow and to trace, geographically, the erratic course of Cabeza de Vaca with any degree of certainty. His own tale, however authentic, is so confused that it becomes utterly impossible to establish any details of location. We only know that, in the year a.d. 1536, he and his associates finally met with their own countrymen about Culiacan.

They reported that, when their shiftings had cast them far to the west of the sinister coast of what was then called "Florida," settlements of Indians were reached which presented a high degree of culture. These settlements they described as having a character of permanence, but we look in vain for any accurate description of the buildings, or of the material of which they were composed. For such a report of important settlements in the north, the mind of the Spanish conquerors in Mexico was, as we have already intimated, well prepared.

During their stay among the nondescript tribes of South-western North America, Cabeza de Vaca and his companions had tried to scatter the seeds of Christianity,—at least, they claimed to have done so. The monks of the order of St. Francis then represented the "working church" in Mexico. One of their number, Fray Marcos de Nizza, who had joined Pedro de Alvarado upon his return from his adventurous tour to Quito in Ecuador, and who was well versed in Indian lore, at once entered upon a voyage of discovery, determining to go much farther north than any previous expedition from the colonies in Sinaloa. He took as his companion the negro Estevanico, who had been with Cabeza de Vaca on his marvelous journey.

Leaving San Miguel de Culiacan on the 7th of March, 1539, and traversing Petatlan, Father Marcos reached Vacapa. If we compare his statements about this place with those contained in the diary of Mateo Mange, who went there with Father Kino in 1701, we are tempted to locate it in Southern Arizona, somewhat west from Tucson, in the "Piméria alta," at a place now inhabited by the Pima Indians, whose language is also called "Cora" and "Nevome." Vacapa was then "a reasonable settlement" of Indians. Thence he travelled in a northerly direction, probably parallel to the coast at some distance from it. It is impossible to trace his route with any degree of certainty: we cannot even determine whether he crossed the Gila at all; since he does not mention any considerable river in his report, and fails to give even the direction in which he travelled, beyond stating at the outset that he went northward. Still we may suppose, from other testimony on the subject, that he went beyond the Rio Gila, and finally he came in sight of a great Indian pueblo, "more considerable than Mexico,"—the houses of stone and several stories high. The negro Estevanico had been killed at this pueblo previous to the arrival of Fray Marcos, so the latter only gazed at it from a safe distance, and then hastily retired to Culiacan. While the date of his departure is known, we are in the dark concerning the date of his return, except that it occurred sometime previous to the 2d of September, 1539.

To this great pueblo, "more considerable than Mexico," Fray Marcos was induced to give the name of Cibola. The comparison with Mexico shows a lively imagination; still, we must reflect that in 1539 Mexico was not a large town, and the startling appearance of the many-storied pueblo-houses should also be taken into account.

With the report about Cibola came the news that the said pueblo was only one of seven, and the "Seven Cities of Cibola" became the next object of Spanish conquest.

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 Oñate in 1598. For the history of these enterprises, we refer the reader to the attractive and trustworthy work of Mr. W. W. H. Davis. But the numerous reports and other documents 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"—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. Thence a mountain chain was crossed called "Chichiltic-Calli," 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. 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. 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, 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 Castañeda,—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 Zuñi 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 Zuñi with Cibola.

There are numerous other indications in favor of this assumption.

1. Thus Castañeda 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." 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." 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."

2. Five days' journey from Cibola to the east, says Castañeda, 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." 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."

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."

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

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 pass either between Acoma and Zuñi, or between the Zuñi 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 Zuñi and the Moqui towns themselves; for there can be no doubt as to the identity 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.

But there can be as little doubt, also, in regard to the identity of the Moqui district with the "Tusayan" of Castañeda 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"). Fifteen years later (1598), Juan de Oñate found the first pueblo of "Mohóce," twenty leagues of the first one of "Juñi" ("Zuñi") to the westward. Besides, the "Rio del Tizon" was, at an early day, distinctly identified with the Colorado River of the West.

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 Zuñi, therefore making it doubtful whether or not it was the original place ("y la llaman los Españoles Cibola"). The original text of Espejo's report distinctly says, however, "a province of six pueblos, called Zuñi, and by another name, Cibola," thus positively identifying the place.

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 Zuñi 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 principal 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 Zuñi, while it undoubtedly occupies the ground once claimed by the cluster 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 "Cicuyé," which was said to be found far to the east, came to see him. They brought with them buffalo-hides, prepared and manufactured into shields and "helmets." Although the Spaniards had heard of the buffalo before reaching Zuñi, the animal itself had not been met with, and accordingly Coronado sent Hernando de Alvarado to Cicuyé, and in quest of the "buffalo country."

Cicuyé 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 passed. Between it and Acoma was the pueblo of "Tiguex," at a distance of three days' march, while Cicuyé was five days from Tiguex. General Simpson identifies the latter with a point on the Rio Grande del Norte, "at the foot of the Socorro Mountains," and then places Cicuyé at "Pecos." 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 Cicuyé, according to them, was on the Rio Grande, somewhere near the valley of Guadalupe. Both conclusions have their strong points; but both of them have also their weak sides.

If it took five days of march from Zuñi to Acoma, three days more, in a northeasterly 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.

But we are unable to guess, even, at the length of each journey. From Zuñi 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 space, 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 Fé. San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Clara, Pohuaque, Nambé, and Tesuque. But it is quite apparent that, considering the great distance of Santa Fé from Acoma, the journeys, as indicated in Castañeda, would fall very short of any of the pueblos mentioned.

The Tehua, like all the tribes along the Rio Grande, suffered vicissitudes and consequent displacements; and it might be advanced that one or the other of the Tehua villages, formerly known as Tiguex, might now be destroyed.

Fortunately, we need not resort to such hypotheses. It appears, from documentary evidence of the year 1598, that there was, distinct from the Tehua or Tegua, a tribe of "Chiguas," or "Tiguas;" and, from the notes of Father Juan Amando Niel (written between 1703 and 1710), it results that their settlements were near Bernalillo, on the Rio Grande; there being at that time three villages, the most northern of which was Santiago, the central one Puaray, near Bernalillo, and the most southern one San Pedro. The distance between the first two pueblos, according to Fray Zarate Salmeron, in 1626, was about one and a half leagues, or five and a half English miles. Tiguex, therefore, must be located on or near the site of Bernalillo. The "Rio Tiguex" of Castañeda is the Rio Grande del Norte, and the Indians of Tiguex belonged to the stock of the "Tanos" language, now spoken still by a few Indians at Galisteo, and by the inhabitants of the pueblos of Sandia and Isleta. Even the direction in which the Spaniards moved from Acoma—that is, to the north-east—perfectly agrees with that in which Bernalillo lies, whereas the mouth of the Rio Puerco, below which General Simpson locates Tiguex, lies southeast of the pueblo of Acoma.

Having thus, as we believe, satisfactorily located Tiguex, it is easy to locate Cicuyé. It can be nothing else than Pecos, whose aboriginal Indian name, in the Jemez language, is "Âgin," whereas Pecos is the "Paego" of the Qq'uêres idiom. There is no other Indian pueblo answering to its description and geographical location as given by the chroniclers of Coronado. The fact that "when the army quitted Cicuyé to go to Quivira, we entered the mountains, which it was necessary to cross to reach the plains, and on the fourth day we arrived at a great river, very deep, which passes also near Cicuyé," does not at all militate against it. The easiest passage, and the most accessible one from Pecos eastward, leads directly to the slopes between the Rio Gallinas and the Rio Pecos; and either of these two streams could be, and had to be, met with very near to the confluence of both. For other proof, and very conclusive too, I refer to my detailed description of the Ruins of the Pueblo de Pecos.

I repeat, it is not to our purpose to describe the "faits et gestes" of Coronado and of his men, but only to discuss the results of his march for the Ethnography of New Mexico. I even exclude Ethnology in as far as it does not include language. The distribution of tribes and stocks of tribes designated by idioms, as Coronado revealed it in 1540 to 1543, is to be the final result of the discussion. Therefore, I leave the acts of the Spaniards aside everywhere, when they are not essential to the object, and do not even follow a strict chronological sequence.

After Alvarado had left Cibola for Tiguex, Coronado himself followed him; and, "taking the road to Tiguex," he crossed a range of mountains where snow impeded his march,—and during which march he and his men were once two and a half days without water,—until finally he reached a pueblo called "Tutahaco." General Simpson has not paid any attention to this place. Mr. Davis places it near Laguna. This author has forgotten that Tutahaco was further from Zuñi than Tiguex itself, since it took Coronado more than eleven days to reach it. This could not have been the case, had he passed north of Acoma; he must consequently have passed south of it, and, while originally following the trail to Tiguex, deviated in a direction from N.E. to E.S.E., crossing the mountains, and then finally struck the "Tiguex" pueblos, but in their southern limits, on the Rio Grande about "Isleta." Castañeda is very positive in regard to the fact that "Tutahaco" was on the same river as "Tiguex," and that from the former Coronado ascended the stream to the latter. This river was the Rio Grande; and, consequently, "Tutahaco" was south of "Puaray" or Bernalillo. There, he heard of other pueblos further south still. "Tutahaco" was "four leagues to the south of Tiguex."

When Coronado reached "Tiguex" at last, it thereafter became the centre of his operations. Castañeda very justly remarks: "Tiguex is the central point;" and a glance at the map, substituting Bernalillo for it, will at once satisfy the reader of the accuracy of this statement.

From Tiguex, an expedition was sent along the Rio Grande and west of it. It discovered in succession: Quirix on the river, with seven villages; Hemes with seven villages; Aguas Calientes, three; Acha to the north-east; and, furthest in a northeasterly direction, Braba. Four leagues west of the river, Cia was met with; and, between Quirix and Cicuyé, Ximera. Further north of Quirix, Yuque-Yunque was found on the Rio Grande. An officer was also dispatched to the south beyond Tutahaco, and he indeed discovered "four villages" at a great distance from the latter, and beyond these a place where the Rio Grande "disappeared in the ground, like the Guadiana in Estremadura."

Through our identifications of "Tiguex" with Bernalillo, of "Cicuyé" with Pecos, and "Tutahaco" with near Isleta, it becomes now extremely easy to locate all these pueblos in the most satisfactory manner. "Quirix" is the Queres district Santo-Domingo, Cochití, etc. "Hemes" and "Aguas Calientes," together form the Jemez and San Diego clusters of pueblos, "Acha" is Picuries, "Braba," Taos. The pueblo of "Ximera" between Pecos and Queres is the Tanos pueblo of San Cristóbal. "Yuque-Yunque" are the Tehuas, north of Santa Fé, and the four villages on the Rio Grande far south of Isleta, naturally are found in the now deserted towns of the "Piros" near Socorro, the most southerly and the least known of the linguistical stocks of sedentary Indians in New Mexico.

In sending the officers mentioned along the Rio Grande, as far south as Mesilla probably, Coronado explored the territory beyond the range of the pueblos, and he thus secured information also concerning the roaming tribes. It is essential that I should touch these here also, because the subsequent history of the village Indians cannot be understood without connection with their savage surroundings. I might as well state here, that west of the Rio Grande and south of Zuñi, the entire south-west corner of New Mexico, appears to have been uninhabited in 1540. Stray hunting parties may have visited it, though there was hardly any inducement, since the buffalo was found east of the Rio Grande only, as far as New Mexico is concerned.

The country visited along the Rio Grande, as far as Mesilla, appears not to have given any occasion for its explorers, to mention any wild tribes as its occupants. Still we know that, east of Socorro and south-east, not forty years after Coronado, the "Jumanas" Indians claimed the Eastern portions of Valencia and Socorro counties; the regions of Abo, Quarac, and Gran Quivira. These savages, also called "Rayados" ("Striated" from their custom of painting or cutting their faces and breasts for the sake of ornament), were reduced to villages in 1629 only, by the Franciscans; and the ruins which are now called Gran Quivira date from that time. Dona Ana county was (from later reports which I shall discuss in a subsequent paper), roamed over, towards the Rio Grande, by equally savage hordes, to which Antonio de Espejo and others give the name of "Tobosas." It is, of course, impossible to assign boundaries to the Ranges of such tribes.

Very distinct ethnographic information, however, is given by Coronado himself, as well as by Castañeda and by Jaramillo, in regard to north-eastern New Mexico. This information was secured in the year 1542, during his adventurous expedition in search of Quivira.

In regard to the route followed by him, I can but, in a general way, heartily accept the conclusions of General Simpson. If, in some details, we may have some doubts yet, I gladly bow to his superior knowledge of the country and to his experience of travelling in the plains, in the latter of which I am totally deficient. Coronado started from Pecos, he crossed, probably, the Tecolote chain, threw a bridge over the Rio Gallinas, and then moved on to the northeast at an unknown distance. Although not as yet satisfied that he reached as far north-east as General Simpson states, and believing that he moved more in a circle (as men wandering astray in the plains are apt to do), there is no doubt but that he went far into the "Indian territory," and that Quivira—which, by the way, is plainly described as an agglomeration of Indian "lodges" inhabited, not by sedentary Indians of the pueblo type, but by a tribe exactly similar in culture to the corn-raising aborigines of the Mississippi valley—was situated at all events somewhere between the Indian territory and the State of Nebraska. This is plainly confirmed by the reports of Juan de Oñate's fruitless search of Quivira in 1599, and principally by the statements of the Indians of Quivira themselves, when they visited that governor at Santa Fé thereafter. They told him that the direct route to Quivira was by the pueblo of Taos.

The Quivira of Coronado and of Oñate has therefore not the slightest connection,—and never had, with the Gran Quivira of this day, situated east of Alamillo, near the boundaries of Socorro and Lincoln Counties, New Mexico, and the ruins there; which ruins are those of a Franciscan mission founded after 1629, around whose church a village of "Jumanas" and probably "Piros" Indians had been established under direction of the fathers.

The reports of Coronado, and others, reveal to us the east and north-east of New Mexico as the "Buffalo Country," and consequently as inhabited or roamed over by hunting savages. Of these, two tribes were the immediate neighbors of the Pueblos,—the "Teyas" to the north-east, and the "Querechos" more to the east, south of the former probably. The Ranges intermingled, and both tribes were at war with each other. The "Teyas" were possibly Yutas, as these occupied the region latterly held by the Comanches. About the "Querechos" I have, as yet, and at this distance from all documentary evidence, not a trace of information.

On the ethnographical map accompanying this sketch, I have indicated the Apaches as occupying North-western New Mexico. In this locality they were found by Juan de Oñate in 1598-99.

Coronado's homeward march offering no new points of interest, I shall, in conclusion, briefly survey the Ethnography of New Mexico, as it is sketched on the map, and as established by the preceding investigation of the years 1540-43.

We find the sedentary Indians of New Mexico agglomerated in the following clusters:—

1. Between the frontier of Arizona and the Rio Grande, from west to east: Zuñi, Acoma, with possibly Laguna.

2. Along the Rio Grande, from north to south, between "Sangre de Cristo" and Mesilla: Taos, Picuries, Tehua, Queres, Tiguas (branch of the Tanos), Piros.

3. West of the Rio Grande valley: Jemez, including San Diego and Cia.

4. East of the Rio Grande: Tanos, Pecos.

Around these "pueblos," then, ranged the following wild tribes.

1. In the north-west: Apaches.

2. In the north-east: Teyas.

3. North-east and east: Querechos.

4. South-east and south: Jumanas, Tobosas.

The south-west of the territory appears to have been completely uninhabited, and also devoid of the buffalo. The innumerable herds of this quadruped roamed over the plains occupying the eastern third of New Mexico and extending into Texas.

The Moqui of Arizona, clearly identified with Coronado's "Tusayan" are not noticed on the map, of course.

If now we compare these localities in 1540 with the present sites of the pueblos of New Mexico, it is self-evident that the Zuñi, Acoma, Tiguas, Queres, Jemez, Tehua, and Taos still occupy (Acoma excepted), if not the identical houses, at least the same tribal grounds. The Piros have removed to the frontier of Mexico, the Pecos are extinct as a tribe; of the Tanos and Picuries, a few remain on their ancient soil. Their fate is not a matter of conjecture, but of historical record.

While this discussion has proved, we believe, the truthfulness and reliability of the chroniclers of Coronado's expedition, and their great importance for the history of American aborigines, it establishes at the same time the superior advantages of New Mexico as a field for archeological and ethnological study. It is the only region on the whole continent where the highest type of culture attained by its aborigines—the village community in stone or adobe buildings—has been preserved on the respective territories of the tribes. These tribes have shrunk, the purity of their stock has been affected, their customs and beliefs encroached upon by civilization. Still enough is left to make of New Mexico the objective point of serious, practical archeologists; for, besides the living pueblo Indians, besides the numerous ruins of their past, the very history of the changes they have undergone is partly in existence, and begins three hundred and forty years ago, with Coronado's adventurous march.

Ad. F. Bandelier.

Santa Fé, N. M., Sept. 19, 1880.

The Amazons of New Mexico..?

"While it is impossible as yet to determine whether or not this legend exercised any direct influence on the extension of Spanish power into Northern Mexico, another myth, well known to eastern continents from a remote period, became directly instrumental in the discovery of New Mexico. This is the tale of the Amazons."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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