Chapter 22
_Of how the general returned from Quivira and of other expeditions toward the North._
After Don Tristan de Arellano reached Tiguex, about the middle of July, in the year '42,[430] he had provisions collected for the coming winter. Captain Francisco de Barrionuevo was sent up the river toward the north with several men. He saw two provinces, one of which was called Hemes[431] and had seven villages, and the other Yuqueyunque.[432] The inhabitants of Hemes came out peaceably and furnished provisions. At Yuqueyunque the whole nation left two very fine villages which they had on either side of the river entirely vacant, and went into the mountains, where they had four very strong villages in a rough country, where it was impossible for horses to go.[433] In the two villages there was a great deal of food and some very beautiful glazed earthenware with many figures and different shapes.[434] Here they also found many bowls full of a carefully selected shining metal with which they glazed the earthenware. This shows that mines of silver would be found in that country if they should hunt for them.
[430] As usual Castañeda gives a date a year later than the actual one.
[431] The pueblos occupied by the Jemez people. Only one of these now exists; this is on the Rio Jemez, a western tributary of the Rio Grande, which enters the latter stream above Bernalillo, New Mexico. See p. 359, note 2.
[432] This was Yukiwingge, on the site of the present small village of Chamita, at the mouth of the Rio Chama, opposite San Juan pueblo. The other one of the two villages was doubtless San Juan. Both of these were occupied by Tewa Indians. At Yukiwingge was established, in 1598, by Juan de Oñate, the colonizer of New Mexico, the settlement of San Gabriel de los Españoles, which was occupied until the spring of 1605, when the seat of the provincial government was moved to Santa Fé, founded for the purpose in that year. See p. 359, note 4.
[433] These may have been the pueblos, now in ruins, in and north of the Pajarito Park, one of which, called Puye, gives evidence of occupancy in post-Spanish times.
[434] It is not known definitely whether actually glazed pottery or merely the black, highly polished earthenware characteristic of the Tewa Indians of the neighborhood is here meant. The ancient Pueblos manufactured a ware with decoration in what appears to be a salt glaze. Specimens of this have been gathered in the Pajarito Park, at Zuñi, among the Hopi of Arizona, and from ancient ruins around Acoma, but the art seems to have been lost. There is abundant evidence that this form of decoration was prehistoric. The finding of the "shining metal" (called antimony in Pt. 2, chap. 4) would seem to indicate that the polished rather than the glazed ware was here meant.
There was a large and powerful river, I mean village, which was called Braba, twenty leagues farther up the river, which our men called Valladolid.[435] The river flowed through the middle of it. The natives crossed it by wooden bridges, made of very long, large, squared pines. At this village they saw the largest and finest hot rooms or estufas that there were in the entire country, for they had a dozen pillars, each one of which was twice as large around as one could reach and twice as tall as a man. Hernando de Alvarado visited this village when he discovered Cicuye. The country is very high and very cold.[436] The river is deep and very swift, without any ford. Captain Barrionuevo returned from here, leaving the province at peace.
[435] This was the pueblo of Taos, which stood near the site of the present village of the same name, on both sides of the little stream (Taos River). The present Taos has 425 inhabitants. The swift and deep river without the ford, here referred to, must have been the Rio Grande in the neighborhood of Taos, rather than the Rio de Taos, which is insignificant except in seasons of freshet. Castañeda was evidently not one of Barrionuevo's party.
[436] The altitude of Taos is 6983 feet; of Taos Peak, 13,145 feet.
Another captain went down the river in search of the settlements which the people at Tutahaco had said were several days distant from there. This captain went down eighty leagues and found four large villages which he left at peace.[437] He proceeded until he found that the river sank into the earth, like the Guadiana in Estremadura.[438] He did not go on to where the Indians said that it came out much larger, because his commission did not extend for more than eighty leagues' march. After this captain got back, as the time had arrived which the captain had set for his return from Quivira, and as he had not come back, Don Tristan selected forty companions and, leaving the army to Francisco de Barrionuevo, he started with them in search of the general. When he reached Cicuye the people came out of the village to fight, which detained him there four days, while he punished them, which he did by firing some volleys into the village. These killed several men, so that they did not come out against the army, since two of their principal men had been killed on the first day. Just then word was brought that the general was coming, and so Don Tristan had to stay there on this account also, to keep the road open. Everybody welcomed the general on his arrival, with great joy. The Indian Xabe, who was the young fellow who had been given to the general at Cicuye when he started off in search of Quivira, was with Don Tristan de Arellano and when he learned that the general was coming he acted as if he was greatly pleased, and said, "Now when the general comes, you will see that there are gold and silver in Quivira, although not so much as the Turk said." When the general arrived, and Xabe saw that they had not found anything, he was sad and silent, and kept declaring that there was some. He made many believe that it was so, because the general had not dared to enter into the country on account of its being thickly settled and his force not very strong, and that he had returned to lead his army there after the rains, because it had begun to rain there already, as it was early in August when he left. It took him forty days to return, travelling lightly equipped. The Turk had said when they left Tiguex that they ought not to load the horses with too much provisions, which would tire them so that they could not afterward carry the gold and silver, from which it is very evident that he was deceiving them.
[437] Seemingly the Piros villages on the Rio Grande south of Isleta. They are now extinct, having been finally abandoned during the revolt in 1680, the inhabitants fleeing with Governor Otermin to El Paso. Senecu and Socorro (taking their names from former villages) were afterward established below El Paso, where the few survivors of the Piros, almost entirely Mexicanized, still reside.
[438] This rendering, doubtless correct, is due to Ternaux. The Guadiana, however, reappears above ground some time before it begins to mark the boundary of the Spanish province of Estremadura. The Castañeda family had its seat in quite the other end of the peninsula. (Winship.)
The general reached Cicuye with his force and at once set off for Tiguex, leaving the village more quiet, for they had met him peaceably and had talked with him. When he reached Tiguex, he made his plans to pass the winter there, so as to return with the whole army, because it was said that he brought information regarding large settlements and very large rivers, and that the country was very much like that of Spain in the fruits and vegetation and seasons. They were not ready to believe that there was no gold there, but instead had suspicions that there was some farther back in the country, because, although this was denied, they knew what the thing was and had a name for it among themselves--_acochis_.[439] With this we end this first part, and now we will give an account of the provinces.
[439] See p. 337, note 1.
SECOND PART
_Which treats of the high villages and provinces and of their habits and customs, as collected by Pedro de Castañeda, native of the city of Najara._
_Laus Deo_
It does not seem to me that the reader will be satisfied with having seen and understood what I have already related about the expedition, although that has made it easy to see the difference between the report which told about vast treasures, and the places where nothing like this was either found or known. It is to be noted that in place of settlements great deserts were found, and instead of populous cities villages of 200 inhabitants and only 800 or 1000 people in the largest. I do not know whether this will furnish grounds for pondering and considering the uncertainty of this life. To please these, I wish to give a detailed account of all the inhabited region seen and discovered by this expedition, and some of their ceremonies and habits, in accordance with what we came to know about them, and the limits within which each province falls, so that hereafter it may be possible to understand in what direction Florida lies and in what direction Greater India; and this land of New Spain is part of the mainland with Peru, and with greater India or China as well, there not being any strait between to separate them. On the other hand, the country is so wide that there is room for these vast deserts which lie between the two seas, for the coast of the North sea beyond Florida stretches toward the Bacallaos[440] and then turns toward Norway, while that of the South sea turns toward the west, making another bend down toward the south almost like a bow and stretches away toward India, leaving room for the lands that border on the mountains on both sides to stretch out in such a way as to have between them these great plains which are full of cattle and many other animals of different sorts, since they are not inhabited, as I will relate farther on. There is every sort of game and fowl there, but no snakes, for they are free from these. I will leave the account of the return of the army to New Spain until I have shown what slight occasion there was for this. We will begin our account with the city of Culiacan, and point out the differences between the one country and the other, on account of which one ought to be settled by Spaniards and the other not. It should be the reverse, however, with Christians, since there are intelligent men in one, and in the other wild animals and worse than beasts.
[440] The Newfoundland region.