Chapter 9
_Of how the army started from Culiacan and the arrival of the general at Cibola, and of the army at Señora and of other things that happened._
The general, as has been said, started to continue his journey from the valley of Culiacan somewhat lightly equipped, taking with him the friars, since none of them wished to stay behind with the army. After they had gone three days, a regular friar who could say mass, named Friar Antonio Victoria, broke his leg, and they brought him back from the camp to have it treated. He stayed with the army after this, which was no slight consolation for all. The general and his force crossed the country without trouble, as they found everything peaceful, because the Indians knew Friar Marcos and some of the others who had been with Melchior Diaz when he went with Juan de Saldibar to investigate. After the general had crossed the inhabited region and came to Chichilticalli, where the wilderness begins, and saw nothing favorable, he could not help feeling somewhat downhearted, for, although the reports were very fine about what was ahead, there was nobody who had seen it except the Indians who went with the negro, and these had already been caught in some lies. Besides all this, he was much affected by seeing that the fame of Chichilticalli was summed up in one tumbledown house without any roof, although it appeared to have been a strong place at some former time when it was inhabited, and it was very plain that it had been built by a civilized and warlike race of strangers who had come from a distance. This building was made of red earth.[352] From here they went on through the wilderness, and in fifteen days came to a river about eight leagues from Cibola which they called Red River,[353] because its waters were muddy and reddish. In this river they found mullets like those of Spain. The first Indians from that country were seen here--two of them, who ran away to give the news. During the night following the next day, about two leagues from the village, some Indians in a safe place yelled so that, although the men were ready for anything, some were so excited that they put their saddles on hind-side before; but these were the new fellows. When the veterans had mounted and ridden round the camp, the Indians fled. None of them could be caught because they knew the country.
[352] Chichilticalli, or the "Red House," was so named by the Aztec Indians on account of its color. It was doubtless situated on or near the Rio Gila, east of the mouth of the San Pedro, probably not far from the present Solomonsville in southern Arizona.
[353] The Zuñi River, within the present Arizona. Its waters are very muddy in springtime, which is the only time of the year that it flows into the Little Colorado.
The next day they entered the settled country in good order, and when they saw the first village, which was Cibola, such were the curses that some hurled at Friar Marcos that I pray God may protect him from them.
It is a little, crowded village,[354] looking as if it had been crumpled all up together. There are haciendas in New Spain which make a better appearance at a distance. It is a village of about two hundred warriors, is three and four stories high, with the houses small and having only a few rooms, and without a courtyard. One yard serves for each section.[355] The people of the whole district had collected here, for there are seven villages in the province, and some of the others are even larger and stronger than Cibola. These folks waited for the army, drawn up by divisions in front of the village. When they refused to have peace on the terms the interpreters extended to them, but appeared defiant, the Santiago[356] was given, and they were at once put to flight. The Spaniards then attacked the village, which was taken with not a little difficulty, since they held the narrow and crooked entrance. During the attack they knocked the general down with a large stone, and would have killed him but for Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas and Hernando de Alvarado, who threw themselves above him and drew him away, receiving the blows of the stones, which were not few. But the first fury of the Spaniards could not be resisted, and in less than an hour they entered the village and captured it. They discovered food there, which was the thing they were most in need of. After this the whole province was at peace.
[354] This was the Zuñi Indian pueblo of Hawikuh, one of their seven villages, from which Coronado wrote to the Viceroy Mendoza, dating his letter "from the province of Cevola, and this city of Granada, the 3d of August, 1540." (See Winship's translation in _Fourteenth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, pp. 552-563.) Hawikuh, or "Granada," was situated about fifteen miles southwest of the present Zuñi, near the Zuñi River, in New Mexico, and its ruins are still to be seen. This was the pueblo in which Estévan doubtless lost his life the year before, and which was viewed from an adjacent height by Fray Marcos. Hawikuh was the seat of a mission established by the Franciscans in 1629; it was abandoned in 1670 after having been raided by the Apaches and its priest killed. The name "Cibola," now and later applied to Hawikuh, is believed to be a Spanish form of _Shiwina_, the Zuñi name for their tribal range. _Cibolo_ later became the term by which the Spaniards of Mexico designated the bison.
[355] The houses were built in terrace fashion, one above the other, the roof of one tier forming a sort of front yard for the tier of houses next above it.
[356] The war cry or "loud invocation addressed to Saint James before engaging in battle with the Infidels."--Captain John Stevens's _Dictionary_.
The army which had stayed with Don Tristan de Arellano started to follow their general, all loaded with provisions, with lances on their shoulders, and all on foot, so as to have the horses loaded. With no slight labor from day to day, they reached a province which Cabeza de Vaca had named Hearts (Corazones), because the people here offered him many hearts of animals.[357] He founded a town here and named it San Hieronimo de los Corazones (Saint Jerome of the Hearts). After it had been started, it was seen that it could not be kept up here, and so it was afterward transferred to a valley which had been called Señora. The Spaniards call it Señora,[358] and so it will be known by this name.
[357] See Cabeza de Vaca's narrative in the present volume. The place was at or near the present Ures, on the Rio Sonora in Sonora, Mexico.
[358] Whence the name of the present state of Sonora.
From here a force went down the river to the seacoast to find the harbor and to find out about the ships. Don Rodrigo Maldonado, who was captain of those who went in search of the ships, did not find them, but he brought back with him an Indian so large and tall that the best man in the army reached only to his chest.[359] It was said that other Indians were even taller on that coast. After the rains ceased the army went on to where the town of Señora was afterward located,[360] because there were provisions in that region, so that they were able to wait there for orders from the general.
[359] Evidently a Seri Indian. The Seri are a wild tribe speaking an independent language and occupying the island of Tiburon and the adjacent Sonora coast of the Gulf of California. They are noted for their stature. For an account of this people, see McGee in _Seventeenth Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, pt. 1 (1898).
[360] Believed to be in the present Sonora valley, where it opens out into a broader plain a number of miles above Ures.
About the middle of the month of October,[361] Captains Melchior Diaz and Juan Gallego came from Cibola, Juan Gallego[362] on his way to New Spain and Melchior Diaz to stay in the new town of Hearts, in command of the men who remained there. He was to go along the coast in search of the ships.
[361] This should be September.
[362] It is not without interest to record here the finding, in 1886, in western Kansas, of a sword-blade, greatly corroded, but still bearing sufficient trace of the name "Juan Gallego" to enable its determination, as well as the inscription "_No me saques sin razon. No me embaines sin honor_." See W. E. Ritchey in _Mail and Breeze_, Topeka, Kansas, July 26, 1902.