CHAPTER VII

EL MORRO, THE AUTOGRAPH ROCK OF THE CONQUISTADORES

Thirty-five miles eastward from Zuñi (2 hours by automobile, if the roads are dry) is a huge rock mass of pale pink sandstone whose sides rise sheer a couple of hundred feet against a turquoise sky. It stands in the midst of a lonely plain whose wild grasses are nibbled by the passing flocks of wandering Navajos, and so far as I know, there is no nearer human habitation than the little Mormon settlement of Ramah, through which you pass to reach the rock. This cliff has a story to tell of such unique interest that the United States Government has acquired the mesa of which it is a spur for a National Monument. It is known as Inscription Rock, or El Morro (the latter a not uncommon Spanish-American designation for a bold promontory), and was a landmark as early as the sixteenth century for the Spanish expeditions bound between Santa Fe, Acoma and Zuñi. Water, feed, and wood were here available, as they are today, making the foot of the high cliff a good camping place, and here as a matter of fact during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, many a Spanish military party did camp, and having rested themselves and their cattle, went on refreshed to do the errands of their King and Church.

And hither one day in 1849, just after New Mexico had become part of the United States, came Lieut. J. H. Simpson, U. S. A., with some troopers on a military reconnaissance, and discovered that the base of the cliff was a veritable album of those old Conquistadores; bearing not only the names of the Spanish explorers but frequently an accompaniment of date and comment that form important contributory evidence touching the early history of the Southwest. Simpson made copies of a number of the inscriptions, and these were published with translations (not always accurate) in his report to the Secretary of War.[42] Most of those recordings carved in the soft rock with sword or dagger point are still fresh and legible, so little have centuries of dry New Mexico weather worn the clear-cut lettering. If you go to see them, you will be a dry-as-dust indeed if you do not feel an odd sort of thrill as you put your finger tips upon the chiseled autographs of the men who won for Spain an empire and held it dauntlessly. For most of these records are not idle scribblings of the witless, but careful work by people with a purpose, whose names are mentioned in the documents of the time. Here are the names, for instance, of Oñate, the conqueror, and of De Vargas, the re-conqueror, the very flower of the warrior brotherhood. The Rock is a monument such as has no duplicate in the country; and some day when our historians have got the Southwest in proper perspective, and waked up to a realization of the heroism and romance that went into the making of it, El Morro will perhaps be really protected (if its priceless inscriptions survive so long) and not left as it is now to vandal tourists to hack and carve their silly names upon.

It takes knowledge of old Spanish abbreviations to get at the sense of many of the records, but even the casual visitor cannot but be struck by the artistry that characterizes many of the petrographs. One who has Spanish enough to give zest to the quest could easily spend a couple of days, camped at this fascinating spot, spelling out the quaint old notations, peopling again in fancy this ancient camp-ground with the warriors of long ago in helmet and cuirass, their horses housed in leather; and ever with them the Franciscan soldiers of the Cross in gray gown and cord with dangling crucifix. Then there is the enjoyment of the place itself—the sunny solitude, and the glorious, extended views, the long blue line of the Zuñi Mountains, the pale spires of La Puerta de los Gigantes (the Giants’ Gate). Then, if you like, is the climb to the mesa’s summit for yet wider views, and a sight of the ruined old pueblo there, whereof history has naught to tell—only tradition, which says that it was once a Zuñian town.

There is some doubt as to the earliest inscription on the Rock. One questionable writing, unsigned, appears to be 1580. Next in point of antiquity is the undoubted record of Oñate, cut across an earlier Indian petrograph, and reads _literatim_: “Paso por aqi el adelantado don jua de oñate del descubrimiento de la mar del sur a 16 del abril del 1606.” (That is: Passed by here the provincial chief Don Juan de Oñate from the discovery of the South Sea on 16th of April, 1606.) The discovery he records as of the South Sea (i.e., Pacific Ocean) was really of the Gulf of California, for Oñate doubtless believed as most of the world did in his day that California was an island. Oddly enough, though, he made a mistake in the date, which documentary evidence proves to have been 1605 not 1606.

The inscription of De Vargas, the reconqueror, following the Pueblo rebellion of 1680, reads: “Aqui estaba el Genl Dn. Do de Vargas quien conquisto a nuestra santa fe y la real corona todo el nuevo Mexico a su costa año de 1692.” (Here was the General Don Diego de Vargas who conquered to our holy faith and the royal crown all New Mexico, at his own expense, year of 1692.)

Records of especial interest, too, are two of 1629, telling of the passing by of Governor Silva Nieto. One is in rhymed verse[43] and refers to Nieto as the “bearer of the Faith to Zuñi;” that is, he had acted as escort of the first Christian missionaries to pagan Zuñi. A tragic sequel to that inscription is a short one that is so abbreviated that scholars have had a hard tussle with it. The puzzle has been solved, however. You will know this petroglyph by the signature Lujan, a soldier, and the date 1632; and it reads, Englished: “They passed on 23 March 1632 to the avenging of Padre Letrado’s death.” Zuñi did not take kindly to its missionaries and killed them periodically. This Padre Letrado was one of the martyrs—shot to death as he preached, holding out his crucifix to his murderers.[44]

In delicate, almost feminine, characters is a modest inscription that reads, translated: “I am from the hand of Felipe de Avellano, 16 September, soldier.” There is something touching, I think, about that personified periphrase, and I am glad that, in spite of the omission of the year, historians have identified the writer. He was a common soldier of the garrison at Zuñi after the reconquest, and met death there in 1700.

It is unfortunate that this noble and unique monument should be left exposed as it is to vandals. Almost every white visitor thinks it is his duty to scratch his name up alongside the historic ones and there is no guardian to forbid—only an unregarded sign of the Department of the Interior tacked on a nearby tree. A year ago the Department, in response to private representation, promised to put up a fence of protection, and perhaps this has been done; but a fence is a perfectly inadequate measure. If the East possessed one such autograph in stone (of Joliet, or La Salle, or Cartier), as El Morro bears by the half dozen, I wonder if the few hundred a year necessary to support a local guardian would not be forthcoming? When will our nation take seriously the colonial history of the Southwest as just as much its own as that of the Atlantic side of the Continental Divide?

At the shortest, it is a matter of two days to achieve a visit to El Morro from the railway. Gallup is the best stop-off. There an automobile may be hired, and the night spent at Ramah, where accommodations may be had at the trader’s unless you prefer to camp at the Rock itself, which, if you like such adventure and are prepared, is a joyous thing to do.