Chapter 13

_Of how the general went toward Tutahaco with a few men and left the army with Don Tristan, who took it to Tiguex._

Everything already related had happened when Don Tristan de Arellano reached Cibola from Señora. Soon after he arrived, the general, who had received notice of a province containing eight villages, took thirty of the men who were most fully rested and went to see it, going from there directly to Tiguex with the skilled guides who conducted him. He left orders for Don Tristan de Arellano to proceed to Tiguex by the direct road, after the men had rested twenty days. On this journey, between one day when they left the camping place and mid-day of the third day, when they saw some snow-covered mountains, toward which they went in search of water, neither the Spaniards nor the horses nor the servants drank anything. They were able to stand it because of the severe cold, although with great difficulty. In eight days they reached Tutahaco,[384] where they learned that there were other towns down the river. These people were peaceful. The villages are terraced, like those at Tiguex, and of the same style. The general went up the river from here, visiting the whole province, until he reached Tiguex, where he found Hernando de Alvarado and the Turk. He felt no slight joy at such good news, because the Turk said that in his country there was a river in the level country which was two leagues wide, in which there were fishes as big as horses, and large numbers of very big canoes, with more than twenty rowers on a side, and that they carried sails, and that their lords sat on the poop under awnings, and on the prow they had a great golden eagle. He said also that the lord of that country took his afternoon nap under a great tree on which were hung a great number of little gold bells, which put him to sleep as they swung in the air. He said also that everyone had their ordinary dishes made of wrought plate, and the jugs and bowls were of gold. He called gold _acochis_. For the present he was believed, on account of the ease with which he told it and because they showed him metal ornaments and he recognized them and said they were not gold, and he knew gold and silver very well and did not care anything about other metals.[385]

[384] This name has always been a problem to students of the expedition, and various attempts have been made to determine its application. Jaramillo, one of Coronado's captains, applies the name to Acoma, and indeed its final syllables are the same as the native name of Acoma. In the heading to Chapter 11 Castañeda erroneously makes Tutahaco synonymous with Tusayan. The description indicates that the Tigua village of Isleta and others in its vicinity on the Rio Grande in the sixteenth century were intended.

[385] This Eldorado is seemingly a combination of falsehood and misinterpretation. The Turk's only means of communication were signs; and we shall see later on that he deliberately deceived the Spaniards for the purpose of leading them astray. The name _acochis_ here given is an aid in the identification of the mysterious province of Quivira. See p. 337, note 1.

The general sent Hernando de Alvarado back to Cicuye to demand some gold bracelets which this Turk said they had taken from him at the time they captured him. Alvarado went, and was received as a friend at the village, and when he demanded the bracelets they said they knew nothing at all about them, saying the Turk was deceiving him and was lying. Captain Alvarado, seeing that there were no other means, got the captain Whiskers and the governor to come to his tent, and when they had come he put them in chains. The villagers prepared to fight, and let fly their arrows, denouncing Hernando de Alvarado, and saying that he was a man who had no respect for peace and friendship. Hernando de Alvarado started back to Tiguex, where the general kept them prisoners more than six months. This began the want of confidence in the word of the Spaniards whenever there was talk of peace from this time on, as will be seen by what happened afterward.