Chapter 18

_Of how the general managed to leave the country in peace so as to go in search of Quivira, where the Turk said there was the most wealth._

During the siege of Tiguex the general decided to go to Cicuye and take the governor with him, in order to give him his liberty and to promise them that he would give Whiskers his liberty and leave him in the village, as soon as he should start for Quivira. He was received peacefully when he reached Cicuye, and entered the village with several soldiers. They received their governor with much joy and gratitude. After looking over the village and speaking with the natives he returned to his army, leaving Cicuye at peace, in the hope of getting back their captain Whiskers.

After the siege was ended, as we have already related, he sent a captain to Chia,[400] a fine village with many people, which had sent to offer its submission. It was four leagues distant to the west of the river.[401] They found it peaceful and gave it four bronze cannon, which were in poor condition, to take care of. Six gentlemen also went to Quirix, a province with seven villages.[402] At the first village, which had about a hundred inhabitants, the natives fled, not daring to wait for our men; but they headed them off by a short cut, riding at full speed, and then they returned to their houses in the village in perfect safety, and then told the other villagers about it and reassured them. In this way the entire region was reassured, little by little, by the time the ice in the river was broken up and it became possible to ford the river and so to continue the journey. The twelve villages of Tiguex, however, were not repopulated at all during the time the army was there, in spite of every promise of security that could possibly be given to them.

[400] The present Sia, a small pueblo on the Rio Jemez. In 1583 Sia was one of a group of five pueblos which Antonio de Espejo called Cunames or Punames. It suffered severely by the Pueblo revolt a century later, and is now reduced to about a hundred people who have great difficulty in gaining a livelihood, owing to lack of water for irrigation.

[401] That is, the Rio Grande.

[402] The "province" occupied by the Queres or Keresan Indians, consisting of the pueblos of Cochiti, San Felipe, and Santo Domingo, of to-day--all on the Rio Grande. Sia and Santa Ana are and were also Queres villages in Coronado's time, but as these were not on the Rio Grande, they may not have been included in Castañeda's group. When Espejo visited the Queres in 1583, they occupied only five pueblos on the Rio Grande; now only the three above mentioned are inhabited.

And when the river, which for almost four months had been frozen over so that they crossed the ice on horseback, had thawed out, orders were given for the start for Quivira,[403] where the Turk said there was some gold and silver, although not so much as in Arche[404] and the Guaes.[405] There were already some in the army who suspected the Turk, because a Spaniard named Servantes, who had charge of him during the siege, solemnly swore that he had seen the Turk talking with the devil in a pitcher of water, and also that while he had him under lock so that no one could speak to him, the Turk had asked him what Christians had been killed by the people at Tiguex. He told him "nobody," and then the Turk answered: "You lie; five Christians are dead, including a captain." And as Cervantes knew that he told the truth, he confessed it so as to find out who had told him about it, and the Turk said he knew it all by himself and that he did not need to have anyone tell him in order to know it. And it was on account of this that he watched him and saw him speaking to the devil in the pitcher, as I have said.

[403] See p. 337, note 1.

[404] Evidently the Harahey of other chroniclers, which has been identified with the Pawnee country of southern Nebraska.

[405] Possibly the Kansa or Kaw tribe, after whom the state of Kansas is named.

While all this was going on, preparations were being made to start from Tiguex. At this time people came from Cibola to see the general, and he charged them to take good care of the Spaniards who were coming from Señora with Don Pedro de Tovar. He gave them letters to give to Don Pedro, informing him what he ought to do and how he should go to find the army, and that he would find letters under the crosses which the army would put up along the way. The army left Tiguex on the fifth of May[406] and returned to Cicuye, which, as I have said, is twenty-five marches, which means leagues, from there, taking Whiskers with them.[407] Arrived there, he gave them their captain, who already went about freely with a guard. The village was very glad to see him, and the people were peaceful and offered food. The governor and Whiskers gave the general a young fellow called Xabe, a native of Quivira, who could give them information about the country. This fellow said that there was gold and silver, but not so much of it as the Turk had said. The Turk, however, continued to declare that it was as he had said. He went as a guide, and thus the army started off from here.

[406] In his letter to the King, dated Tiguex October 20, 1541, Coronado says that he started April 23. See Winship's translation in _Fourteenth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (1896), p. 580.

[407] Cicuye is Pecos, as above mentioned. The direction is north of east and the distance forty miles in an air line, or fifteen Spanish judicial leagues. By rail, which follows almost exactly the old trail, the distance is sixty-five miles, or almost precisely twenty-five leagues.