# The Gilded Man (El Dorado)/The Seven Cities

CHAPTER II.
THE SEVEN CITIES.
THE planisphere which Martin Dehaim constructed in the year 1492 for the Portuguese service contained, among other features, an island of Antilia west of the Cape de Verde group, with a note relating that at the time of the conquest of Spain by the Arabs a Portuguese archbishop and a number of Christians had fled to that island and founded seven cities upon it. The story is still more plainly marked on the map of Johannes Ruysch—Universalior Cognifi Orbis Tabula, a.d. 1508. The legend of the seven cities thus appears, like the myth of the Amazons, to have been known in Europe previous to the landing of Columbus. After the successive discoveries of the islands of the West Indian group in the last years of the fifteenth century "Antilia" (ante insula) ceased to designate a proper and special part of the land. The name of Antilles remained, and was applied to the whole chain of islands that separate the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean. The seven cities also passed into complete oblivion till they were brought again into a kind of indefinite recollection about the year 1530 by the expedition of Nuño de Guzman. It is uncertain when, how, or where Guzman heard of the "siete cibdadis" The anonymous author of the "Primua Relation" speaks of them in connection with that ​campaign as if he had already heard the story in Mexico; while other contemporary writers say nothing of them, but mention a large river that emptied into the Southern Sea, which the inhabitants had barred with an iron chain. Neither the seven cities nor the broad river with its barrier chain were found by Cebreros and Alcáraz.
It is proper, therefore, to inquire whether, or to what extent, a story concerning the seven cities existed among the natives of Mexico before the arrival of the Europeans. But such an inquiry should be prefaced by this statement of general fact: Wherever it is possible to follow the development of popular legends in groups of men not acquainted with writing, but who have been taught to transmit these stories by verbal tradition from generation to generation, we are surprised at finding that the legend has been preserved with careful fidelity through centuries, and that any novelty or change which has been introduced into it must always be ascribed to foreign influence. Such influence is not necessarily to be attributed to an extra-continental contact; but where such a contact takes place—and where, as everywhere in America, one group of the human race is suddenly caused to live with another of whom it is so far in advance in established historical foundations and knowledge, and in the means of perpetuating the remembrance of them, as the Europeans of the sixteenth century were then in advance of the American aborigines all over the continent without exception; and where this living in contact is at the same time combined with the exercise of a religious influence by the superior race on the other—then a ​reconstruction of the legends is inevitable. It is expressed first in efforts to adapt the mythology of the inferior people to that of the higher; and as mythology and history are closely interwoven, a partial insinuation of the sagas, stories, and legends of the superior people into those of the others can hardly be avoided.
Great care is therefore necessary to extract the real kernel of the Indian traditions, in Mexico for instance, from the investing shell of the legends of the sixteenth century. The subject has been treated till now not only with little critical care as to this point, but for the most part without any critical sense. Everything has been accepted as pure coin which, since the subjection of the Mexican tribes by Cortes, has been called Indian historical tradition. Only superficial consideration has been given to the time, place, and manner of the origin of the Indian paintings and other documents. It has not been considered, in using them as historical authorities, that the Codex Mendocino, the Codex Vaticanus, and the Codex Telleriano Ramensis were painted by Indians in the middle and second half of the sixteenth century, by order of the Spanish viceroy and Don Martin Enriquez, as illustrations of the local traditions which were collected at the time by a commission in the name of the Crown. No inquiry has been made into the extent to which those paintings agree with the earliest declarations of the natives, which were made and recorded not more than ten years after the institution of Spanish rule. The Church also, as well as the Spanish Government, made earnest efforts a short time after the conquest to collect the historical legends and stories of the ​Indians. About the middle of the sixteenth century a statement was introduced into the publications concerning these traditions, that the Nahuatl tribes of Mexico believed that they had originated out of seven caves. The Codex Mendocino had nothing about this, and it was not composed much before 1549. Later writers made seven tribes out of the seven caves, and finally seven towns or cities. We have already seen that Nuño de Guzman had heard or knew of the story of the seven cities about 1530; and the supposition therefore seems not unauthorized that the seven caves of the Mexican tradition, as they were conceived and represented after the discovery of New Mexico, were an interpolation of the European legend into the Indian recollections of their history.
In 1531 the bishop of San Domingo assumed control of the government in Mexico as president of the Royal Law Court. No further advance of importance was made in the discoveries in the northwest, and the settlement of San Miguel de Culiacan in Sinaloa was held as the extreme post in that direction whence occasional excursions to the north were attempted. In the meantime Nuño de Guzman was removed from the scene and called to answer for his misdemeanors before the Spanish courts. Melchior Diaz commanded in Culiacan as capitan and alcalde mayor, and Diego de Alácraz was at the head of an advanced post which was pushed out between Culiacan and the borders of the present Sonora. Some of the men of this reconnoitring party, when about eighty miles north of Culiacan, met in the last days of March, 1536, a strange spectacle. A man, nearly ​naked, with long tangled hair and beard, accompanied by eleven Indians and a negro, came to them, and spoke to them in Spanish, with warm emotion, expressing great joy that after eight years of wandering he had at last been permitted to meet white men, and Spanish countrymen. He bore the outer traces of great physical suffering, and spoke in so excited a manner that the other Spaniards at first regarded him and listened to him with suspicion. He gave his name as Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, and that of the negro who was with him was Estévanico. Two other Spaniards, Alonzo del Castillo Maldonado and Andrés Dorantes, were a day's journey back, in company with a number of Indians who had followed them from the north.
When the Spaniards had recovered from their surprise, they took the new-comers to Diego de Alcáraz, who immediately sent three of his men with fifty Indians to search for the other Spaniards. His purpose, however, was not so much to deliver his countrymen as to find provisions and gold. For this object he kept back the Indians who had come with Maldonado and Dorantes, removed the latter from them, and finally put the four, including Cabeza de Vaca and the negro, under arrest. The Indians escaped by flight; and the prisoners, after having been abused in various ways, were delivered on May 1st to the commander, Melchior Diaz, at Culiacan, who gave them an honorable reception, and to whom they were permitted to relate the wonderful history of their adventures.
This story of the wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions is indeed a wonder-tale, and is ​hardly matched in thrilling incident by anything of the kind of the sixteenth century. De Vaca has himself written it out in the book "Naufraglos de Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca y Relacion de la Jornada que hizo á la Florida con el Adelantado Pámfilo de Narvaez," which was printed at Valladolid in 1555. Having been composed from recollection and not on the basis of notes of any kind, the book is obscure in its geographical data. Many of the details are erroneously set forth, and the glowing fancies excited by the contemplation of the author's terrible sufferings and privations are in many cases obviously detrimental to historical truth. The substance of the story is true, and gives a vivid picture of the fortunes of Cabeza de Vaca and his companions.
An expedition was organized in 1527 under the command of Pámfilo de Narvaez, the former rival of Cortés, whom he had attacked and captured in 1520 at Cempohual, to explore the peninsula of Florida, concerning the wealth of which extremely vague and therefore exaggerated accounts were in circulation. Five vessels, with six hundred men, left San Lúcar de Barrameda in Spain on June 17th. Cabeza de Vaca was treasurer of the enterprise. Rarely has any campaign of conquest met with such a series of consecutive disasters as befell this unhappy expedition of the "Armada of Pámfilo de Narvaez." One of the vessels went down in a squall during the stay of the fleet at the island of Cuba. The flotilla could not leave Havana till February, 1528, and it was so hindered by storms and head-winds that it did not reach the coast of Florida till Maundy-Thursday of that year. It anchored in a bay on the shore of ​which was an Indian village. The men were landed, and it was decided, against the advice of Cabeza de Vaca, to leave the ships and march inland. The unfortunate march began on May 1, 1528, with three hundred men and forty horses. Amidst great difficulties, without provisions, they went northward through marshy woods and morasses, and across broad rivers, at no very great distance from the seashore. Till the 17th of June they found only a single Indian village (on May 16th). Then some Indians met them from whom they learned that they were near the settlement of Apalache, of which they were in search, concerning the wealth of which fabulous reports had found their way to the Spanish Antilles. They suffered a bitter disappointment when, on June 24th, they came in sight of the desired place. Forty Indian huts constituted the whole village. They were now in northern Florida, on the Suwanee River. At Apalache serious hostilities began with the natives, who daily harassed the weary and famishing Spaniards and killed some of their men. After a halt there of twenty-five days, Narvaez decided to go westward.
It is not necessary to go further into the melancholy details of the march of this expedition. Once in the swamps and bayous that extended along the coast of Alabama, and perhaps Louisiana, no escape was to be hoped for. An attempt to build rafts and sail upon them across the gulf to the Mexican coast resulted in the drowning of a part of the men. The rest, cast back upon the shore ​without food and without water, fell victims to the hostility of the natives, to hunger, and to the winter, which came upon them. Only four survived, viz., Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo Maldonado, Dorantes, and the negro Estévanico. The vessels which had been left in the Bay of Santa Cruz, Florida, went to pieces in the storm, and their crews perished.
The subsequent adventures of the four survivors may be described very briefly. Buffeted from one Indian tribe to another, often cruelly treated, participating in the privations to which their savage masters were exposed by their miserable way of living, they arrived in northwestern Mexico, as we have already seen, in the year 1536.
Two facts are officially and indubitably established: that Cabeza de Vaca and his companions were members of the expedition of Pámfilo de Narvaez, which went from Spain in 1527 to Cuba, and in the following year from Cuba to Florida and there vanished; and that they appeared again in the year 1536, in a naked and almost savage condition, in the company of Indians, in the present state of Sinaloa. It is therefore evident that they had wandered during an interval of eight years across the North American continent from east to west, from the peninsula of Florida to the Gulf of California. It is almost impossible to determine the course they took, or probably took. They remained for a long time with the tribes which periodically inhabited the marshy regions of the Mississippi Delta, and were then conducted westward. The fact is of importance that the tuna, or fruit of the great leaf-cactus (opuntia), constituted a principal food ​resource during the whole time. This indicates that the first year was mostly spent in the southern parts of the present United States; and the description of the country, as well as the fact that the mesquite tree is mentioned, are evidence that they passed through the present State of Texas. Their course was generally westward, and it may be very clearly inferred from that that they at all events crossed the Rio Grande.
At a considerable distance beyond that river they found permanent dwellings, the inhabitants of which planted beans, melons, and maize. In this part of their wanderings they heard of an animal which Cabeza de Vaca called a cow. It has been concluded from this that the wanderers entered New Mexico and saw there the American bison or buffalo. I cannot agree with this opinion. The casas de asiento were much too far west to be identified with the pueblos. The Pimas of southern Sonora, their northern neighbors the Opatas, and several tribes of the Sierra Madre, lived in permanent houses of clay and stone; and if Cabeza de Vaca and his companions had seen the large, many-stoned houses of New Mexico they would not have omitted to describe their remarkable stairlike structure. The dress of the inhabitants of these "permanent dwellings" also agrees rather with the costume of Sonora and Chihuahua than with the recognized dress of the Pueblo Indians. By the word "cow" Cabeza de Vaca probably meant to speak of the hides he saw rather than to describe the animal itself. The untanned hide of the large brown deer (cervus canadensis) is but little smaller than that of a cow; and a description of the ​striking figure of the bison would not have been wanting in the "Naufragios" if Cabeza de Vaca had actually seen the "hump-backed cow," as the older Spanish writers called it. It is possible that he heard of the buffalo and perhaps saw some of the robes, but it is not certain; for, in the verbal explanations which he gave at Madrid in 1547 to the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, he spoke only of "three kinds of deer, one of which was as large as an ox," but said nothing of "cows."
The fact that the Spaniards constantly wandered toward the "setting sun," and that from Texas, and that they did not cross the great waterless plains of that state, excludes the supposition that they entered New Mexico and that the "permanent dwellings" meant the pueblos of the Rio Grande. Further decisive is the declaration that the inhabitants of those permanent houses obtained green stones (turquoise or calcite) in exchange for parrot feathers. There are no species of parrots in New Mexico and Arizona, but the Sierra Madre is the habitat of the large green sittich, the feathers of which I have often seen in the possession of the Pueblo Indians, who had bought them in Sonora. The southern Pimas and the Opatas of Sonora used parrot feathers as decorations in their dances till the middle of the last century; and I have surveyed numerous ruins of the clay and stone houses of the Opatas in the Sierra Madre which, now a solemn, silent wilderness, is covered with lofty pine woods in which the loquacious green sittich flit in the early morning from limb to limb. The Indians of whom Cabeza de Vaca speaks bought the turquoises far in the north, and ​they told of many great houses in which the people there lived. These statements may refer to New Mexico and Arizona; for turquoises are found in the neighborhood of Santa Fé, where they are called "cerillos," as well as not far from Zuñi, and in southern New Mexico, at no great distance from the present Silver City.
With the stories of permanent settlements, of natives clothed in cotton, and of turquoises found in the far north, which Cabeza de Vaca and his companions told their countrymen, were associated speculations concerning great metallic riches in the northern regions. The wanderers brought no definite statements on this subject, nor could they present visible evidence in the shape of mineral specimens of the existence of the metals; but the thirst for the precious metals was quite as intense in the sixteenth century as in the nineteenth, and the credulity of the gold-seekers of that time was not less ready than that of the "prospectors" of to-day. It could, however, have hardly been greater. As soon, therefore, as Melchior Diaz heard the marvellous story of the new-comers, he sent an account of it, not to Guzman, but to Mexico, to Don Antonio de Mendoza, who had arrived there in the year 1554 as the first viceroy of New Spain, and had superseded the provisional government of the bishop of Santo Domingo. Cabeza de Vaca and his companions were invited to Mexico, were well received there, and with the exception of the negro and Maldonado, who remained in Mexico, were sent to Spain. The subsequent fortunes of Cabeza de Vaca are of no further interest in connection with the purpose of this sketch, and we need ​only say that his adventurous career did not terminate with his wanderings in North America, but that other sufferings as great but of different character awaited him in South America and in Spain, and misfortune pursued him till the end of his life.
Stories like those which came to Mexico through Cabeza de Vaca could not fail to direct the attention of the government to the northwest. Nuño de Guzman was succeeded as provisional governor of New Galicia by the licentiate Diego Perez de la Torre, and when he died, in 1538, his place was taken by a young noble of Salamanca, Francisco Vasquez Coronado, who had married the daughter of the former treasurer, Alonzo de Estrada. As royal visitador he had already travelled over a large part of Mexico, and enjoyed in a high degree the confidence of the viceroy. Young and energetic, disposed, according to the fashion of the time, toward a knight's career, he was a most suitable person to direct the further progress of the exploration of the northwest.
The stories of Cabeza de Vaca appear still to have been received with some distrust. Without wholly rejecting them, people hesitated to follow the first impulse, which would prompt them to send an expedition to the north at once. Antonio de Mendoza was a sagacious, quiet, careful statesman, and he preferred to reconnoitre before taking decisive steps. In his reconnoissance he received the assistance of the Church.
Among the Franciscan monks in Mexico was a ​Sardinian brother named Marcus, who, having been born in Nice, was known as Fray Marcos de Nizza. As he figures in history under this designation, I shall continue to call him Fray Marcos. His real name and the date of his birth are still unknown. He came to America in the year 1551 in the service of his order and went to Peru, whence he proceeded with Pedro de Alvarado to Guatemala, and finally to Mexico. He had distinguished himself by Ms intelligence, capacity, and devotion, and was respected by the brethren of his order. Fray Antonio de Cmdad Rodrigo, father provincial in Mexico, proposed in the interest of the mission to detail one or more Franciscan monks on the contemplated reconnoissance. It is not improbable that Fray Marcos voluntarily offered himself for the service. His long experience among the natives especially fitted him for the work; and, whether by his own free will or out of obedience and a sense of duty to his order, he undertook the arduous and dangerous task.
A few historians, among whom are Torquemada and Arricivita, suppose that a preliminary expedition was sent out in 1538, in which, according to some, Fray Marcos did, according to others did not, take part. We have no official reports of such an expedition, and it is possible that these accounts originated in a mistake. The instructions which Don Antonio de Mendoza sent to Fray Marcos, and the receipt of which he acknowledged from New Galicia on November 25, 1538, do not agree with the supposition of such a preliminary reconnoissance. In those instructions the monk is advised to insist upon good treatment of the Indians by the ​Spaniards of Sinaloa, to protect them against every attempt to reduce them to slavery, and to promise them all support and help in the name of the Crown. He was then ordered to proceed into the interior with all possible precautions, carefully to observe land and people, to avoid all personal danger, and should he find himself on the coast of the "Southern Sea" he was to bury written reports at the foot of a tree distinguished by its size, and to cut a cross in the bark of the tree, so that in case a ship was sent along the coast, its crew might know how to identify it by that mark. Finally Estévanico, the negro who had made the perilous journey with Cabeza de Vaca from Florida to the coast of the Pacific Ocean, was assigned to him as leader and attendant j and in case any of the Indians who had come with those men and their companions to Sinaloa could be of use to him, Francisco Vasquez Coronado, the new governor of Culiacan, was instructed to engage them to accompany Fray Marcos and the negro. The negro was to be subordinate to the monk in every point.
The zealous Franciscan left San Miguel de Culiacan on Friday, March 7, 1539. Besides Estévanico and several Indians, a brother of the order, Fray Onorato, accompanied him. Their route was northward, toward the present state of Sonora. The Indians who went with them belonged to the southern branch of the great Pima tribe. They had, as we have already said, followed Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo, ​Maldonado, and Dorantes from central and southern Sonora to Sinaloa, and a part of them had remained there and founded a village on the Rio Petatlan. Probably in this village, certainly on that river, Fray Onorato became so ill that it was necessaiy, after three days' delay, to leave him. The party kept as nearly as possible to the coast of the Pacific Ocean, leaving the villages on the Yaqui to their right. A halt was made at Bacapa, and the monk sent the negro forward, with directions to go fifty or sixty leagues (from 135 to 162 miles) north, and send him from time to time news of whatever he saw and heard. The more favorable the reports the larger should be the cross on the piece of white wood which the negro was to send with each despatch of an Indian messenger.
Bacapa appears on the map that Father Joseph Stöcklein, S. J., published in the Neuen Weltblatt in 1728, which is based on the journey of the famous Jesuit missionary P. Eusebius Kühne (Eusebio Kino), as St. Ludovicus de Bacapa, and is located in Arizona, west of Tucson—Fray Marcos himself gives the distance from the coast as forty leagues, or 108 miles. He arrived there before Easter of 1539. Bacapa could not therefore have lain so far north as Father Kühne's map represents it, but must at farthest have been in the northern part of the southern half of Sonora, near the present Matape. In this case it was probably a Pi ma settlement, as the name denotes. Four days after the negro ​departed the monk received a first message from him through Indians, who brought a cross the height of a man. The Indians told "such wonderful things of his discoveries," Fray Marcos says, "that I would not believe them unless I saw the things myself. . . . The Indian told me that it was thirty days' journey from the place where Estévanico was to the first city of the country, which was called Cibola. . . . He affirmed and maintained that this first province contained seven very large cities which were all subject to one lord. In them were large houses of stone and mortar, the smallest of which were one story high with a terrace, and there were besides two-and three-storied buildings. The chiefs house was of four stories. There were many decorations at the entrance of the principal houses, and turquoises, which were very plentiful in the country. The people of these cities were very well clothed." Notwithstanding these reports, Fray Marcos was in no hurry to go away from Bacapa. He seems not to have placed an absolute trust in the negro, and waited for the return of the Indians who had gone by his command to the coast (of the Gulf of California). They came back bringing with them natives of the seashore. These belonged, no doubt, to the Seris, a wild tribe who still live on the islands of the Gulf of Calif ornia. On the same day men came into Bacapa from the east, Indians whose faces, breasts, and arms were painted. They confirmed the stories that the negro's messengers had brought. Fray Marcos de Nizza hesitated no longer. He started away two days after Easter, following the track of his dark-skinned guide, in search of the "seven cities of Cibola." ​The name of Cibola was thus known away in the interior of Sonora. Whence was it derived? From what Indian language was it borrowed? These are questions with which till recently only my eminent friend F. H. Gushing, and, to a small extent, I myself have been engaged. How far our investigations are of definite value can hardly be determined as yet, for the languages of Sonora are still very little known. They are reduced, if we exclude the Apache idiom, to three large groups. In the south is the Cahita or Yaqui language, which includes the Mayo; in the west the Seri; and in the centre, north, and east the Pima-Opata, which is divided into two principal branches the—Pima and the Joyl-raua or Opata. The Eudeve and Jova appear to be dialects of the Opata. At Bacapa Fray Marcos was among the Pirn as; Estévanico, a few days' journey north, was either among the Pimas, the Seris, or the Opatas, for those three tribes met in the vicinity of Ures. The word Cibola might therefore belong to one of the languages or dialects of northern Sonora and the districts north and northeast of it. Its home need not be sought south of there.
Both the Pima and the Opata languages have names of places which somewhat resemble the word Cibola. East of the little village of Huachinera, at the western foot of the Sierra Madre, the Yaqui River emerges from a dark gorge and turns thence to the northwest, to irrigate the narrow, fertile valley of Baserac and Babispe. At the place where the river leaves the gorge, to turn a little later upon its northern course, lie some ruins of former villages of the Opatas, concerning the fate of which definite ​traditions exist. Not far from the mouth of the gorge is Batesopa; farther west are Baquigopa, then Cobora, and lastly Quitamac. When in April, 1884, I passed through this wilderness with my intelligent guide, Spiridion Lucero, to explore the ruins, exposed to constant danger of our lives from the swarms of Apaches around us, we came, after twice fording the Yaqui, to a rock around which led an extremely perilous, dizzy path, fully a hundred feet above the raging stream. The Opata Indians call this critical spot "Ci-vo-ná-ro-co," or the rock which one goes around. A distant resemblance can be recognized between this name and Cibola, or, as it was sometimes written in the sixteenth century, "Cevola" and "Civona"; and the ruins of Batesopa opposite the dangerous cliff, as well as those of Baquigopa west of it, point to the former existence of villages of considerable extent.
The language of the Pimas is divided into several dialects. Besides the southern and northern Pima, there are the Pápago and the now extinct Sobaypuri dialects. In the idiom of the northern Pimas, the ruins on the southern bank of the Rio Gila in Arizona, generally known as Casa Grande (in distinction from Casas Grandes in Chihuahua), are called "Civano-qi," the house of the Civano. The traditions as I heard them on the spot relate that in the times before the coming of the Spaniards the Pimas lived ​on the banks of the middle Gila, between Riverside and Phenix, in Arizona, in permanent houses, which were grouped into small villages. No common bond connected the different villages, except in those cases where small settlements gathered around a larger neighboring one. Such tribe centers existed at Florence, Casa Grande, Zacaton, and Casa Blanca on the Gila, and at Mesa City and Tempe on the lower Rio Salada. The best known of these is the ruin of Casa Grande.
Thirty days' journey north of Ures carries the pedestrian to the other side of the Gila River. In ten days he can easily reach the present southern boundary of Arizona, and following the course of the little Rio San Pedro, he can in five or six days more be at San Carlos on the Gila. But the old Pima villages around Casa Grande lie a hundred miles in a straight line west of San Carlos, and it would be hard to keep in this straight line, for the mountains south of the Gila as far as Riverside are high, wild, broken, and poorly watered. The estimate of thirty days' journey might therefore possibly fit Casa Grande. The first description of Cibola which Estévanico's Indians gave the monk is, however, more important. It does not apply to the stairlike style of building of the pueblos, but to such architecture as I found at Casa Grande, and everywhere in the ruins on the Gila, Salado, and Rio Verde. The principal building at Casa Grande, still standing, is indeed not of stone, but of coarse adobe; but three stories are still plainly visible, while smaller, one-storied houses are scattered around it. The supposition is therefore not to be absolutely rejected, ​that the accounts concerning Cibola current in Sinaloa were a recollection of the former Pima settlement of Civano-qi, eighty miles northwest of Tucson, on the Gila River, the ruins of which are now known by the name of Casa Grande—the great house.
Settlements of similar architectural character existed in Sonora in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and belonged likewise to the Pima, or, as it was sometimes called, the Névome tribe. The Jesuit missionary Padre Andrés Pérez de Ribas wrote of them in 1645: "Their houses were better and more solidly built than those of the other nations, for the walls consisted of large air-dried brick of clay, with flat roofs and balconies. They built some [of these houses] much larger, and with loop-holes, in order to take refuge in them as in a fortress in case of a hostile attack, and to defend themselves with bows and arrows." The principal building of Casa Grande seems to have been a place of refuge of this kind.
Whilst it appears probable and even certain that these "permanent houses" of the Pimas in Sonora, and not the great communal structures of the New Mexican pueblos, were what Cabeza de Vaca had seen in his wanderings, it is still doubtful to what extent an indefinite recollection of their former settlement of Civano-qi may have made the southern Pimas the originators of the story of Cibola. It is to be remarked, however, that according to the reports which Estévanico sent to the priest, Cibola designated a still existing Indian settlement, and not a ruin, as Casa Grande undoubtedly was at that time. I have taken much pains to ​determine on the spot which of the numerous settlements of the Opatas, Sobaypuris, and Pimas, of which the ruins are still visible, may have been inhabited and relatively prosperous in the sixteenth century, and have found that (except the villages of the southern Pimas already mentioned, which are not, however, in question here) not one of these so-called pueblos corresponds to what is known to us of Cibola. It therefore seems useless to look for Cibola anywhere south of the Rio Gila or on that stream; but only north of it, either in the present Arizona or the present New Mexico, can we expect to find such a clue in language and tradition as shall lead with any certainty to a definite locality.
There is no doubt that the whole extensive region between the course of the Gila in the south, its sources in the east and the present San Carlos in the west, with the northern half of New Mexico and Arizona, was controlled in the sixteenth century by a single linguistic stock—that of what are called the "Apaches." I say controlled, for the Apaches had no fixed abodes then more than they have now, and they roamed through the whole wild chaos of mountains, by their incursions excluding other tribes from the country. Most of their little huts of branches, sometimes plastered with mud, were set up along the streams, but they only stayed in one place so long as no occasion, however frivolous, prompted them to move their camp to some safer or more favorable place. The Apaches therefore furnish nothing to support us in localizing Cibola among them, and I know of no place-name in their language that can be connected with it. Farther ​east, along the course of the Eio Grande in New Mexico, are the pueblos of the Piros; these, too, aside from their distant situation, give no clue. The region, clothed with magnificent fir-trees, between the Gila and the Rio Colorado Chiquito (the Little Colorado) in western Arizona, the noble-mountain landscape of the Sierra Blanca, the wild and precipitous rocks of the Escudilla and Sierra del Dátil, the still sparsely populated huntinggrounds between the Rio Grande and the Rito Quemado were uninhabited, and only the Apaches and their northern relatives, the present Navajos, swept through them from time to time on hunting and predatory expeditions.
An undulating, often bare, highland begins in the northern part of the Escudilla, the average height of which is 6000 feet above the sea. One may wander for days at a time on the mesas, as if in a large garden of low, spreading junipers. At rare intervals a valley cuts through the uniform level, the borders of which sometimes present picturesque rocks of inconsiderable height. This region is bounded on the north by the valley of the western Rio Puerco. In the east it passes through the continental watershed of what is called the "Atlantic and Pacific Divide "into the more broken heights of San Estévan de Acoma to the Cerros Mohinos, not far from the Rio Grande. In the west it flattens out, without losing in height, into the treeless district of the Little Colorado. This desert country, visited by the summer's heat and the winter's cold, situated in New Mexico and on the borders of Arizona, is penetrated by a small river which rises ​in the Atlantic and Pacific Divide, flows generally from east to west, and unites in Arizona with the Rio Puerco. This stream flows at first through a narrow and exceedingly fertile valley. About thirty miles from the borders of Arizona it widens into a sandy and treeless but productive intervale. This intervale, which is hardly fifteen miles long and nowhere more than twelve miles wide, is watered only by the muddy brook. An isolated table-mountain rises on the southeast side over the edge of the intervale to a perpendicular height of 1026 feet above its level. The rocks everywhere hang wall-like over the valley, or swell out at the foot over the river; and only a few dizzy paths lead to the summit. Similar colossal rocks tower upon the north side, far above the rest of the valley's edge. This plain, with the little sand-burdened river that bears its name, is the plain of Zuñi.
I can never forget my first view of this plain from a distance, nor the entrance into it. I had left the provisional station of Bennett's late in the morning, alone, on foot, without arms, to go thirty miles to Zuñi on a strange road through a wholly uninhabited country, which was only occasionally traversed by Navajo Indians. Till four o'clock in the afternoon I passed through the apparently endless plateau, on which the sandy trail was visible only from one juniper bush to another, and seemed to lead around each one. From the few elevations only the next rise could be seen; no mountain ranges enlivened the horizon, for thick clouds covered the sky; it was in February, and a snowstorm might come on at any moment. About four ​o'clock in the afternoon I reached an ascent on the summit of which rested a little light. In the southeast rose gigantic masses of red sandstone menacingly high above the dark-green wood. These were the mesas of Zuñi. The sun broke out of the clouds and its beams in a little while changed the distant colossi into glowing pillars of fire; the sky was then covered again, and instead of the dreaded snow-storm there came on a shower, with distant thunder in the west. Beyond the light pine woods encompassed me; the eatable piñon (Pinus edulis) overshadowed the dwarf forms of the junipers. It began to grow dark, and the frequent thunder-claps were sounding nearer. When I came out of the wood the plain of Zuñi lay before me in a sombre half-light; sand-whirls were driving through it and veiled the lofty mesa; I stood at the foot of the northern table-mountain, which rose sheer a full thousand feet. A flash of lightning ran through the sky and struck the rocks below, and an icy gust brought a shower of hailstones. The lightning flashes were numerously repeated and always struck the same peak—a phenomenon with which the Indians are well acquainted, and which occurs in every thunder-storm. A shower of hail followed without rain, and then it became calm and dark. Distant lightning reminded us of the storm that had passed, but the sky was still clouded and extreme darkness covered the plain. I could not see the way. Then the eastern horizon brightened up with the light of the rising moon without the clouds breaking, and I could perceive the outlines of the rock mass in front of me, in the direction of which ​the village of Zuñi lay. At last the moon came out, and the stars shone in the zenith. A procession of clouds was floating in front of me, over the top of a dark, low hill. That hill was Zuñi, where I afterward spent weeks of instructive research in the house and the company of Mr. Cushing.
The name of Zuñi does not belong to the language of the tribe that bears it, but to the Queres idiom of the valley of the Rio Grande. The pueblo is named "Halona," and the Zuni Indians call themselves "A-shiui." They call the land they occupy "Shmano," a name the analogy of which with Cibola should not be overlooked. It is therefore not strange that the general direction in which Esteévanico went, and in which the monk followed at a regular distance behind him, was north. Unfortunately ​the single report which Fray Marcos, the only scribe in his party, wrote is unsatisfactory, or deficient in geographical data. No conclusions can be drawn from it in respect to the character of the country or to the number of rivers, the volume of water in them or their course. Equally indefinite are his statements concerning the inhabitants. The zealous Franciscan seems to have been animated by only one thought— that of finding the seven cities of Cibola. The farther he advanced, the more he heard of them, and the more definite were the accounts. Besides the Indians of Sonora, probably Pimas, by whom he was accompanied, men of the northern tribes joined him as he proceeded on his journey. It is still, however, possible that he continued entirely within the territory of the Pimas; for the Indians of Bacapa, who belong to the southern Pima tribe, served him everywhere as interpreters. Only short distances separated them from their tribal relatives, who were known under the name of the Pápagos (Pápap Ootam), and then formed the lowest, the most miserable, branch of the great linguistic group. Fray Marcos crossed the southeast corner of the "Papagueréa" and turned toward the northeast, where he successively met the Sobaypuris and, on the Gila, the Ootam (men) or northern Pimas. He was everywhere received in a friendly manner. Estévanico kept sending back the cross signs, as had been agreed upon, and thus fortified the zeal of the enthusiastic monk. The stories of the natives set forth the glories of Cibola in ever more brilliant ​colors. Then he heard names of places suggestive of grandeur: they spoke, for instance, of the "province" of Totonteac; of a "city" of Ahacus, which was one of the seven cities; of a "kingdom" of Hacus in the vicinity of Cibola, and of another "kingdom" called Marata. They told of green stones that adorned the doorposts of the houses of Cibola, of houses several stories high, of skins that came from a large animal of the cow-kind with curly hair. And the negro sent him back not only crosses for his encouragement, but also verbal accounts that confirmed all that the Indians had given the Franciscan to understand by signs and words.
The negro also travelled in company. During his wanderings with Cabeza de Vaca he had obtained a clapper or gourd-rattle, like those which are used by most of the Indian tribes in their religious rites and in working their cures. He carried this with him, and thereby acquired for himself the dignity and fame of a medicine-man. But Estévanico seems to have made an unwise use of the advantage which this prestige gave him. Besides requiring from the natives more provisions than he needed, he sought greedily for precious metals and green stones, and abused the superstitious Indians because they had not enough of them to satisfy his avarice. He seems also to have made requisitions upon the highest and most precious possession of the people, their women. Yet he obtained leaders and guides everywhere, and when Fray Marcos had reached the interior of Arizona, the black was far ahead of him with a numerous retinue. ​All that can be definitely gathered from the scanty ethnographic information which the monk has left is, that even tribes that spoke the same language were separated from one another by uninhabited tracts. When he had crossed the Gila there lay before him a wide, depopulated district which he calls a desert (desierto). This word should be understood, however, not in the sense of a dry, barren region, but simply of a country without inhabitants. On the other side of this land, forsaken or neglected by men, far in the north, lay Cibola. The missionary entered upon the passage of that desert region with a numerous company, and it was midsummer when the Indians of his retinue at last assured him that only a few days' journey separated him from the long-sought spot. Then natives met him who flocked around him trembling and distressed, with all the evidences of great trouble. Their scanty clothing was torn, and they appeared to be starved and exhausted by long flight. They were men who had been with Estévanico, and brought bad news.
The negro had arrived at Cibola a little while before, and had behaved there in his peculiar reckless manner. So much, and no more, was disclosed in the confused expressions which Fray Marcos obtained from his agitated and frightened informants. Some of them had soon perceived that their presence was not welcome to the inhabitants of the place, and had concealed themselves in the vicinity. Others remained with the black. Trustworthy details of what occurred afterward are wanting, for the catastrophe appears to have taken place in the ​interior of the village, or, as the story has it, "the city." The fugitives, who were still in hiding, one day saw a number of persons coming out of the place. They recognized those of their company who had remained behind, as fleeing, and pursued by the people. The negro Estévanico, however, was not among them; the people of Cibola had killed him, notwithstanding his medicine rattle. The fugitives succeeded in escaping, and eventually in finding the hiding-place of their companions. Then they all took to flight, for the people were searching the vicinity for them. They now implored the priest not to make any further effort to approach Cibola. Estévanico had been killed, and the inhabitants were in great excitement. Only rapid flight could deliver them all, for the braves of Cibola were already on their track.
After nearly reaching his aim, having come almost to the threshold of the place so long sought with so much toil and anticipation, Fray Marcos de Nizza could now feel the force of the warning, Back, thou canst serve thy friend no more. Then save thine own life.
The trial was a severe one to Fray Marcos. Yet suddenly and unexpectedly as it had come, he came as quickly to a decision. His object was to reconnoiter; the instructions enjoined him to learn as much as he could, but in doing so to expose himself as little to danger as possible. He questioned the fugitives searchingly concerning what they had seen in Cibola, and they confirmed all that he had previously heard of it. They told him that the ​place where Estévanico was killed was only one of the seven cities of Cibola, and was not the most populous one. The priest concluded from their accounts and expressions that even to go to the place would be attended with great risk to life. He would have to give up his missionary work temporarily, for a martyr's death would under such circumstances be fruitless. Yet it seemed possible to him to steal carefully into the vicinity and cast a glance from some favorable point into the region of his hopes and desires, in order to be satisfied by seeing for himself, even if it were only from a distance, of the truth or untruth of the accounts that had been brought to him. By this method he hoped properly to perform his duty to the Spanish authorities, and at the same time, if he succeeded in executing the attempt without harm, to gain some knowledge of the land and be prepared to carry out the work of conversion if he should return at some later time and with better opportunity.
Attempts have been made in later times to fasten a charge of cowardice upon Fray Marcos because he did not give himself blindly up to death by taking the risk of going among the excited people of Cibola. Catholic missionaries have set examples of heroic devotion in many other places, and have with their blood fertilized the earth, to the securing in later times of rich spiritual harvests to the Church. The reproach is in this case undeserved and unjust. As the instructions of Don Antonio de Mendoza show, the Franciscan's position was ambiguous, and his purpose was rather to prepare than to complete. Obviously nothing was to be gained by a heroic ​sacrifice of his life, while everything, the whole object of his journey, might have been defeated by it. If this object was to be secured, he must before everything else spare his life in order to return to Mexico and make new attempts thence.
The censure is especially unfair in view of the effort which the priest resolved to make before he began his retreat to Mexico. That the attempt to steal up into the vicinity of Cibola was attended with great difficulties and considerable danger is attested by the opposition of the men of his company, otherwise so obedient, when he asked them to assist him. He eventually succeeded in persuading a few to go with him, but the majority held back. The party went upon the precarious way with extreme caution, and at last reached a hill whence they looked down into a valley in which lay several villages, the houses of which were unusually large, of several stories, and apparently built of clay and stone. The village nearest to them was pointed out as the one in which the negro had been killed. It seemed to be "as large as the City of Mexico," and men could be clearly seen in it who appeared to be dressed in cotton. Rejoicing in these discoveries, and at now being able to make a report to the viceroy of what he had observed, Fray Marcos started on his return. He first, however, set up a wooden cross on the spot from which he had seen Cibola. It was intended to be an evidence to the natives of his having been there without their knowledge, and at the same time a notice that he would at some time return.
The retreat during the first few days naturally ​took the character of a carefully guarded flight. But the fugitives soon felt safe, and with less caution, and accordingly greater speed, they went toward the south without meeting any further obstacles. The monk arrived at Culiacan on September 2, 1539, and shortly afterward sent the viceroy the report to which we are indebted for our knowledge of his journey and for the first authentic account of New Mexico.
Few documents of Spanish origin concerning America have been exposed to a sharper and more severe criticism than the "Descubrimiento de las siete Ciudades" of Fray Marcos de Nizza. It has been condemned for defectiveness and superficiality, and charges of exaggeration and untruth have been made against it. A one-sided and inadequate investigation has also caused doubt to be cast upon the declaration that he saw Cibola. The fact has not been without effect in the inquiry that no one has ever succeeded in finding among the Indian tribes of New Mexico a tradition, myth, or story, even in a distorted form, containing a reminiscence of the march, presence, or fate of the negro Estévanico or of the Franciscan. Both, the black and the monk, were prominent figures, well fitted to leave deep traces in the memories of the natives. This total disappearance of all recollections of these two personages has also, perhaps unawares, moved other more meritorious inquirers to look for Cibola in the ruins of long extinct pueblos.
In the year 1880 Frank Hamilton Gushing, commissioned by the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington, went to the pueblo of Zuñi, in order, for ​the first time in the annals of science, to subject a tribe of men who stood on a lower plane of civilization than ours to a thorough study by completely identifying himself temporarily with their condition. The distinguished young student was even more successful than he had hoped to be in accomplishing his difficult and somewhat dangerous task. Through becoming a Zuñi by all the forms of their law he made himself thoroughly acquainted with the past and present of the tribe, and has, by his discovery of the esoteric bond among the Indians for religious purposes, made the most important contribution of recent times to our knowledge of primitive peoples, as well as to the history of polytheism.
In the course of his laborious researches, which occupied him and his devoted wife and prevented their permanent return to civilization till 1884, Mr. Gushing collected a valuable store of historical legends and folk-stories. Most unselfishly he permitted me to draw from his collection, and whatever these sketches contain of linguistic explanations, traditions, customs, and usages from the circle of the Zuñi is of his acquisition; and I more gladly use it because it gives me the opportunity to acknowledge with hearty thanks the eminent merit of their collector.
There are associated with the whole region of Zuñi a mass of tales and household stories of a religious and historical nature and of a more or less contemplative character. Many of these stories, transmitted through the esoteric union with exact fidelity during hundreds of years, reflect the ​influence which the surroundings have imperceptibly exercised in a powerful degree upon human thought and feeling. The treeless, sandy plains, the low heights of the borders covered with junipers, stand in impressive contrast to the few isolated table-mountains which rise perpendicularly here and there like gigantic towers. Many of the tales rest upon historical foundations, and the history is clothed as with the drapery of a wonderful landscape. The high mesa of Zuñi, called in the language of the tribe "To-yo-a-la-na," or Thunder-mountain, is four miles at the northern end, six miles at the southern end, from the pueblo; then it bends around to the east and turns back to the north. The red sandstone rocks rise nearly everywhere perpendicularly from the plain. The summit is a plateau, overgrown with junipers, pinons, and cactus, and with scanty grass. On it are the ruins of six small pueblos. This group of ruins has been christened "Old Zuñi," but erroneously, for the aggregated villages were built after 1680 and deserted about 1705, when the tribe of Zuñi, which had fled to the rocks before the Navajos and from fear of the Spaniards, returned of its own accord to the valley where its pueblo now stands. But several ruins of old towns lie at the foot of the mesa, concerning which very definite historical traditions still exist. "Ma-tza-ki," once an important place, is in the northwest, and "O'aquima" in the south. The rocks there form a niche which is filled to the height of about one hundred and fifty feet with steep, partly barren heaps of débris. Imposing cliffs menacingly overlook these hills, but the rock-wall in the background of the niche rises ​less perpendicularly, although inaccessibly smooth, to the plateau of the summit. At the foot of the hill is permanent water, to which extend the scattered individual fields of the Zuñi Indians.
On the crests of these hills, imbedded as it were in the niche, stand the ruins of "Heshota O'aquima," a former village of the Zuñi. It was a pueblo of moderate importance in 1599, but was wholly deserted after the insurrection of 1680, and fell into ruins. The population may be estimated, from the appearance of the ruins, to have been equal to about half that of Zuñi, which was 1608 in 1880. Difficult to assail, easily defended against an enemy who had no artillery or long-range guns, provided with water and a fertile soil, O'aquima had an exceptionally protected situation. The village could be seen only from the southern, southwestern, and southeastern sides; on every other side it was enclosed and hidden by the rocks.
The Zuñis definitely informed Mr. Gushing, after he had become an adept by initiation into the esoteric fraternity of warriors, that a "black Mexican" had once come to O'aquima and had been hospitably received there. He, however, very soon incurred mortal hatred by his rude behavior toward the women and girls of the pueblo, on account of which the men at last killed him. A short time after that the first white Mexicans, as the Indians call all white men whose mother-tongue is Spanish, came to the country and overcame the natives in war. This tale is of indubitable authenticity, and of evident significance. It proves what I have only intimated above, that Cibola ​sented the present country and tribe of Zuñi It is also of great importance in its bearing upon the truth of the statements of Fray Marcos. The hill from which he, coming from the southwest, looked at Cibola, could have been nowhere but on the southern border of the plain of Zuñi; and it is only from that side that the pueblo of O'aquima can be seen, while it is possible to approach it thence unremarked to within two miles, and to observe everything plainly. There, too, the remains of a wooden cross were visible till a few years ago. It has been supposed that this was the cross which the monk erected; considering the dry atmosphere of the region, the supposition, even if it is not probable, is not to be wholly rejected.
The charge of exaggeration and distortion which has been made against the "Descubrimiento de las siete Ciudades" is based chiefly upon two points — on the comparison of Cibola or O'aquima with the City of Mexico, and on the statement that the people of Cibola were accustomed to adorn their houses with green stones, or turquoises.
Besides the fact that every New Mexican pueblo appears larger and more imposing from a distance than it really is on account of the peculiar structure of its houses, we should bear in mind that the priest's comparison was not with the earlier Indian pueblo of Tenochtitlan that was destroyed by Cortés, or, still less, with the present City of Mexico, but with the new Spanish town as Fray Marcos knew it in the year 1539. It is very doubtful whether it had a thousand inhabitants then, and the houses they lived in were all grouped, for ​the sake of security, in the vicinity of the present Zócalo. The comparison, therefore, instead of being exaggerated, seems to have been fitting and correct. As to the decoration of the doorposts with turquoises, Mr. Gushing has found that a custom formerly prevailed, in Zuñi at least, of decorating the openings in the roof through which the inmates of the house went down into the rooms and chambers with green stones, among which kalaite, or turquoise, carbonate of copper, or malachite, and phosphate of copper, etc., were occasionally introduced. The monk was therefore correctly informed concerning this matter, and repeated truly what had been told him.
Efforts have been made for a long time in vain to localize the names which Fray Marcos heard of what were styled "kingdoms," "provinces," and "cities" in the vicinity of Cibola. Mr. Gushing has succeeded in explaining the names of "Marata" and "Totonteac." Although they are distorted, they both belong to the language of the Zuñi, and denote directions, rather than particular regions. "Abacus," on the other hand, is one of the seven cities Ha-ui-cu or Aguas calientes situated fifteen miles southwest of Zuñi, and deserted since the year 1679. "Hacus," finally, which Fray Marcos called a kingdom in distinction from the others, is a tribe independent of Zuni, that of Acoma, the real name of which is A-co, and which the Zuñi, according to Gushing, call Ha-cu-qua.
The return of the priest, his remarkable experiences, and the stories which he brought from the far north attracted the highest degree of attention ​from the officers and people of Mexico. Nobody doubted the truth of the statements of Fray Marcos. He had not found gold and silver, but he had discovered settled tribes and a fertile country. The notion of great wealth in metals readily associated itself with these two elements, and it was not difficult to obtain help in men and means for the organization of a campaign on a larger scale into those regions. Don Antonio de Mendoza therefore did not hesitate, after the discovery had been made and the way pointed out, to proceed to conquest. For this he found a ready and willing instrument in Francisco Vasquez Coronado.
* ↑ The Bay of Santa Cruz, in the present State of Florida, appears to have been the point where Narvaez landed.
* ↑ This province comprised the undefined northwest of Mexico, while New Biscay included the northeast, on the coast of the Mexican gulf.
* ↑ Mar del Sur, the Pacific Ocean, in distinction from Mar del Norte, the Northern Sea, the name by which the Atlantic Ocean was known in the sixteenth century.
* ↑ Particularly the first syllable, Bac, a corruption of Bat Ki—old house—as it often appears in the names of places in Arizona, e.g., San Xavier del Bac, Tubac, etc.
* ↑ The large former settlement of the Opatas at Casas Grandes, at the western foot of the Sierra Madre in Chihuahua, cannot be considered in connection with this discussion, for it was called "Hue-hueri-gi-ta," and was already deserted in the sixteenth century.
* ↑ The application by the whites of foreign names to Indian tribes is very frequent in America.
* ↑ We may remark further that interchanges of b and v were common with the early Spanish writers, and that Fray Marcos de Nizza was a Piedmontese, who, writing in the Italian style, wrote Ci for the English Chi; thus the similarity between Shiuano and Chivola becomes greater, and the difference limits itself to such a confusion of sounds and such exchanges of letters arising from it as are often and strikingly exemplified in the Indian names of places in New Mexico; for example, in the Tehua language, Ta-ui into Taos; in the Queres, Pa-go or Pa-yo-qo-na into Pecos, Hamish into Jemez, Qo-tyi-ti into Cochiti; the Tigua word Tutli-la-nay into Tuta-Itaco, Saray into Xalay, Na-si-ap into Napeya; the Zuñi names Mu-gua into Moqui, Hacuqua into Acuco. It is therefore not unreasonable to suppose that the name Cibola, as the Italian monk heard and pronounced it, was strikingly similar to the word in the Zuñi language that denotes the Zuñi country; therefore this first linguistic clue suggests that the "seven cities of Cibola" may be sought in the region of Zuñi.
* ↑ They are also known in Sonora as Névomé.
* ↑ As they still did at the beginning of this century.