Chapter 6

_Which gives the number of villages which were seen in the country of the terraced houses, and their population._

Before I proceed to speak of the plains, with the cows and settlements and tribes there, it seems to me that it will be well for the reader to know how large the settlements were, where the houses with stories, gathered into villages, were seen, and how great an extent of country they occupied.[494] As I say, Cibola is the first:

Cibola, seven villages.[495] Tusayan, seven villages.[496] The rock of Acuco, one.[497] Tiguex, twelve villages.[498] Tutahaco, eight villages.[499] These villages were below the river.[500] Quirix, seven villages.[501] In the snowy mountains, seven villages.[502] Ximena, three villages.[503] Cicuye, one village.[504] Hemes, seven villages.[505] Aguas Calientes, or Boiling Springs, three villages.[506] Yuqueyunque, in the mountains, six villages.[507] Valladolid, called Braba, one village.[508] Chia, one village.[509]

[494] Only the pueblos of Acoma and Isleta occupy their sixteenth-century sites, all the other villages having shifted their locations after the great revolt of 1680-1692, when the Spaniards granted specific tracts of land, usually a league square, later confirmed to the Indians by Congress under the provisions of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

[495] Zuñi, including the pueblos of Halona, Matsaki, Kiakima, Hawiku, Kyanawe, and two others which have not been identified with certainty.

[496] The Hopi villages, among them being Awatobi (destroyed at the beginning of the eighteenth century), Oraibi, Walpi, Mishongnovi, Shongopovi, and Shupaulovi. The remaining pueblo has not been determined absolutely. Sichomovi and Hano are comparatively modern.

[497] Acoma. See p. 311, note 2.

[498] The Tigua pueblos; see p. 312, note 2.

[499] See p. 314, note 1.

[500] Meaning that the provinces of Tiguex and Tutahaco were those farthest down the valley.

[501] The pueblos of the Queres, or Keresan, family. See p. 327, note 3.

[502] Toward the north, in the direction of Santa Fé.

[503] Ximena itself was Galisteo. The others were "Coquite" and the "Pueblo de los Silos." See p. 356, notes 2 and 3.

[504] Pecos. See p. 355, note 2.

[505] Jemez, including Giusiwá, Amushungkwá, Patoqua, and Astyalakwá. There are many ruins in the vicinity, including those of a large Spanish church at Giusiwá. Evidently some of the Sia villages are here included.

[506] The Jemez villages about the Jemez Hot Springs, above the present Jemez pueblo. Castañeda here duplicates his provinces somewhat, as the Aguas Calientes pueblos were Jemez, Giusiwá being one of the most prominent.

[507] See p. 340, note 1. This group of Tewa villages doubtless included San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Tesuque, Nambe, Pojoaque, and Yukiwingge. Jacona, Cuyamunque, and others were also occupied by the Tewas during this period, no doubt, but these may have been included in Castañeda's province of the Snowy Mountains.

[508] Taos. See p. 340, note 4.

[509] Sia, a Queres pueblo, probably included, with Santa Ana, in his "Quirix" group, above.

In all, there are sixty-six villages.[510] Tiguex appears to be in the centre of the villages. Valladolid is the farthest up the river toward the northeast. The four villages down the river are toward the southeast, because the river turns toward the east.[511] It is 130 leagues--ten more or less--from the farthest point that was seen down the river to the farthest point up the river, and all the settlements are within this region. Including those at a distance, there are sixty-six villages in all, as I have said, and in all of them there may be some 20,000 men, which may be taken to be a fair estimate of the population of the villages.[512] There are no houses or other buildings between one village and another, but where we went it is entirely uninhabited. These people, since they are few, and their manners, government, and habits are so different from all the nations that have been seen and discovered in these western regions, must come from that part of Greater India, the coast of which lies to the west of this country, for they could have come down from that country, crossing the mountain chains and following down the river, settling in what seemed to them the best place. As they multiplied, they have kept on making settlements until they lost the river when it buried itself underground, its course being in the direction of Florida. It [the Rio Grande] comes down from the northeast, where they [Coronado's army] could certainly have found signs of villages. He [Coronado] preferred, however, to follow the reports of the Turk, but it would have been better to cross the mountains where this river rises. I believe they would have found traces of riches and would have reached the lands from which these people started, which from its location is on the edge of Greater India, although the region is neither known nor understood, because from the trend of the coast it appears that the land between Norway and China is very far up. The country from sea to sea is very wide, judging from the location of both coasts, as well as from what Captain Villalobos discovered when he went in search of China by the sea to the west,[513] and from what has been discovered on the North Sea concerning the trend of the coast of Florida toward the Bacallaos, up toward Norway.[514]

[510] Castañeda lists seventy-one, probably having added others without altering the total here given.

[511] The trend of the Rio Grande is really southwestward until after the southern limit of the old Pueblo settlements is passed. Perhaps Castañeda had in mind the southeastward course of the stream farther south "toward Florida," as mentioned later in this paragraph. He is probably here speaking from hearsay, as the exploration downstream was not made by the main body.

[512] This would give a total Pueblo population of about 70,000, whereas it could scarcely have much exceeded Castañeda's estimated number of men alone.

[513] Ruy Lopez de Villalobos sailed from Acapulco, Mexico, in command of four vessels, in 1542, discovered the Caroline and Pelew archipelagos and sighted Caesarea Caroli, believed to be Luzon, of the Philippine group. Later he established a colony on an island which he called Antonio or Saragan. Supplies failing, he despatched three of the vessels to Mexico, but these were wrecked. Forced by hunger to flee to Amboina, Villalobos was imprisoned by the Portuguese. One of his men, escaping, carried the news to Mexico in 1549.

[514] "The Spanish text," remarks Mr. Winship, "fully justifies Castañeda's statement that he was not skilled in the arts of rhetoric and geography."

To return then to the proposition with which I began, I say that the settlements and people already named were all that were seen in a region seventy leagues wide and 130 long, in the settled country along the river Tiguex.[515] In New Spain there are not one but many establishments containing a larger number of people. Silver metals[516] were found in many of their villages, which they use for glazing and painting their earthenware.

[515] Castañeda here contradicts himself, as Pecos, Acoma, and the Zuñi and Tusayan groups of pueblos are not in the valley of the Rio Grande.

[516] Previously called antimony. See p. 355, note 1.