El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1919-06-07

/ Ders," SO common in Fl Paso. The
/ exact expression used by the friar Is
/ -'avra plana-" 'Plana" is from th'
/ Latin root as the English word plaiI
! and the two words are equivalent q
/ each other. Hence II was a plain, {
prairie, a flat, a wide, an open valley
to which the friar referred and no
3 the name Of a particular valley anC
2 il is evident he was travelling over
open. fiat and not mountainous cOun-
try. as he would be up either the So
nora or Naqui river basin There were
no Papagoes at that time. The word
/ ~Papago' means baptized" and the
Z PapaEoes are simply Pima Indians
Z baptized and received into the
church and this did not occur till az
] ter 1890.
Texas Means Welcome.
It IS not true that the name Texas
I is derived from the -Tiguex or Te-
Cos Indians Of New Mexico When
the first Spanish missionaries entered
southeast Texas from Queretaro
about 100. they were greeted by the
first Indians they met with Texas
. shas), which those missionaries said
meant "Welcomei Welcomed We'll
conner From this circumstance came
the name Of this great common
wealth. the missionaries calling the
region the country Of the Texas OF
II Il
Serafica De tOdOs los COiegiOs de la
Propaganda Eide de QueretarO. by
Friar Isidro Felix EspinOsa, Vol 1.
1746. also in the collection Of the
present Writer.l
1t is not true that Cabeza de Vaca,
Dorantes and Maldonado ever en-
tered what is now Arizona There is
not a patricia OF evidence to prove
it Moreover. II these three Span
iards and the negro EsteTanico did
enter Arizona and discover il, why
give the credit to the latter, who was
slave and a servant Of one Of them.
ana not to the leader Of the party.
Cabeza de Vaca2 Estevanico did
enter Arizona with Friar Marcos Of
Mia in 1889, but he did not discover
Arizona nor did his three Spanish
companions. The credit for that dis
covery belongs indisputably TO Friar
Juan de Is Asuncion. who entered
Arizona, as far as the ella river. in
1888. a year before the negro did The
journal Of this explorer is lost and
we know OF il only from the writings
OF contempOraneOus explorers and
writers
(See .HIstoria Eclesiastica" In
diana, by Friar Geronimo de Men
dietas also in the collection Of the
writer.)
Difference In Distance.
Another error. worth noting be-
cause OF its frequency, even among
other Americans, is Mr. Miiler's com
putatiOn Of distances. He speaks Of
30 leagues or 90 miles, 30 leagues or
l20 miles, etc Whenever the word
league occurs ma Spanish or Mexican
document IL means, OF course, a Span
ish league. and a Spanish league is
not and has never been three English
miles but two and six tenth English
miles. so that all Mr. Miller's distances
are about Is percent too large for that
reason alone
Bancroft, ". II. H Davis. the first Z.
S attorney for New Mexico, in his
The Spanish Conquest OF New Mex
icO," Read and others assert that
E'riar Marcos OF MIA Travelled along
and parallel to the coast Of the Gulf
Of California. entering Arizona some
where south OF the AjO mines, and
this is the majority opinion, while
Lieut. Whipple, OF the Bartlett
boundary expedition, and Bandelier,
the leading authority on the early
Spanish history Of the southwest, be-
lieve ne Travelled up the Sonora river
valley. Mr. Miller is the first and
only writer to say he entered through
the YaQui river basin by way OF the
sulphur Spring valley, and he seems
70 think this was so because the In
dians had turquOises and turquoise
mines have been found in Cochise
county. TurQuOises are found in many
parts Of New Mexico and eastern Ari-
IONA Even the ants mine them Ex-
anime any large ant hill in those re-
gions and bits Of turquoise viii be
found. Turquoise was used as a cir
culaung medium in the country be-
tween New Mexico and Mexico City
before ana in the time Of COrtes
Hence Marcos Of Mia may have
entered Arizona by way OF Columbus,
New Mexico, or even FL Paso, because
the turquoise filtered through those
points as well as through Cochise
county.
The Valley Of Hearts.
Cabeza de Faca relates that, near
the end Of their peregrinauOns, they
reached an Indian village where the
Indians fed them on deer hearts and
that they, the Spaniards, for that rea-
son. called the region II Vale de les
Corazones, The valley OF Hearts
Some writer's have thought TO Identity
this village as the present Indian vii
lege OF sonora on the west side OF the
upper Sonora river valley and there
has been accordingly a persistent et-
fort to force the Marcos Of Mia eZ-
petition through this village, al
though the gUod friar nowhere men
tons It We may, however, without
doing violence to the text, take the
Worus TO mean literally what they
say, not town or village Of hearts, but
Valley Of Hearts, somewhere in which
this village was situated.
This valley the present writer be-
Heves, is the Sonora river valley; Il
can not be any other. But. the par
deer hearts must have been in the
lower reaches Of this valley, because
Cabeza de Naca says Il was the last
Indian village they saw before they
met the Spaniards who took them 70
san Miguel de Culiacan- The writer
believes this village was Pitic. now
Hermosilo, Sonora because the
water in the Sonora river sinks be-
low HermOsillo and IL IS extremely
unlikely there were any villages be-
low that point for that reason.
Indians do not put their villages
where the water Is not permanent
This Is also the opinion OF Bandelier
map OF Father Font OF 1777 shows no
villages below Pitic On the other
hand, Il would have been Impossible
to 90 in any direction from any up
river village and not encounter an
other village All the river valleys
in northeastern Sonora were popu-
lated Many Of these Indian villages
became missions and have since be-
come modern towns and ruins OF
others are found all over that section.
One in particular on the Rio BOnito
must have had a population OF up
wards Of 10000. Judging from the
size Of the area covered by the ruins
now visible.
Eucnpa or Bncnpn.
TIE friar in his narrative mentions
a village which he says the Indians
called Vacapa or Bacapa. On a map
OF Sonora made in 1898 by Father
kino. the great Jesuit missionary,
and OF which the writer has a copy