Part 4

Now to describe Acoma itself. It consists of ranges of massive buildings rising in successive tiers from the ground. The second story is set a little back from the first, and the third a little back from the second, so leaving a space in front of each range of buildings for the inhabitants or sentinels to walk about in, in peaceful times, or send down missiles upon the heads of their enemies in time of war. By running up the outer wall of each story, for a few feet higher than this platform, the builders made what is called a parapet in military phrase, meant for the protection of the defenders. There were no doors or windows except in the topmost tier. Acoma, then, was a castle built upon a rock.

It would seem that only birds of the air or creeping things could gain admittance to such a place. Indeed, there was no other way for the inhabitants themselves to enter their dwellings except by climbing up ladders set against the outer walls of the building for the purpose. In this manner one could climb to the first platform, then to the second, but could not get in till he came to the roof, through which he descended by a trap door into his own quarters.

The whole collection of buildings being divided by partition walls into several blocks, each containing sixty or seventy houses, is, practically, the apartment hotel of to-day. The material commonly used was adobe,[3] or bricks dried and hardened in the sun. Such a building could not be set on fire or its walls battered down with any missiles known to its time.

We see then that the Pueblo Indians must have had enemies whom they feared,—enemies at once aggressive, warlike, and probably much more numerous than themselves. How well they were able to meet these conditions, their houses show us to this day.

Living remote from the whites, these people, like those of Old Zuñi, have kept more of their primitive manners, and live more as their fathers did, than those do who inhabit the pueblos of the Rio Grande, where they have been longer in contact with Europeans. Forty years ago they knew only a few Spanish words, which they had learned when Spaniards held their country. In a remarkable manner, the people have kept their own tongue and nationality free from foreign taint. From this fact we are led to think them much the same people that they were long, long ago.

There are other buildings in the country of the Gila, called _Casas Grandes_,[4] or Great Houses, which are quite different from those described in this chapter, but were apparently built for a similar purpose of defence.

FOOTNOTES

[1] SEVEN CITIES. See preceding chapter.

[2] PUEBLO, Spanish for town or village.

[3] ADOBE, Spanish. The same material is much used throughout New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah, and Colorado.

[4] CASAS GRANDES, or Casas Montezumas. Lieut. Emory, U.S.A., thus describes one seen on the Gila: "About the noon halt a large building was seen on the left. It was the remains of a three-story mud house, sixty feet square, and pierced for doors and windows. The walls were four feet thick. The whole interior of the building had been burned out and much defaced." Casa Grande is on a map of 1720; is on the Gila.

FOLK LORE OF THE PUEBLOS.

While professing Christianity, the Pueblo Indians have mostly kept some part of the idolatrous faith of their fathers. Thus the two have become curiously blended in their worship. We often see the crucifix, or pictures of the Virgin hanging on the walls of their dwellings, but neither the coming of the whites, nor the zeal of missionaries could wholly eradicate the deeply grounded foundations of their ancient religion. The little we know about this belief, in its purity, comes to us chiefly in the form of legendary lore, although since the Zuñi have been studied[1] with this object we have a much clearer conception of it than ever before.

By this uncertain light we find it to be a religion of symbols and mysteries, primarily founded upon the wondrous workings of nature for man's needs, and so embodying philosophy growing out of her varied phenomena. Therefore sun, moon, and stars, earth, sky, and sea, and all plants, animals, and men were supposed to bear a certain mystical relation to each other in the plan of the universe. Instead of one all-supreme being, the Zuñi worshipped many gods each of whom was supposed to possess some special attribute or power. Some were higher, some lower down in the scale of power.

The phenomena of nature, being more mysterious, were thought to be more closely related to the higher gods. If there was drought in the land, the priests prayed for rain from the housetops, as the Prophet Elijah did in the wilderness. Each year, in the month of June, they went up to the top of the highest mountain, which they called the "Mother of Rain," to perform some secret ceremony touching the coming harvest. And because rain seldom falls in this country, they made earnest supplication to water, as a beneficent spirit, who ascended and descended the heavens in their sight, and to the sun as the twin deity in whom lay the power of life and death,—to ripen the harvest or wither all living things away into dust.

Like the ancient Egyptians, of whom they constantly remind us, the Zuñi believed animals possessed certain mystic powers, not belonging to man, so investing them with a sacred character. Beasts of prey were supposed to have magic power over other animals, hence the bear stood higher in the Zuñi mythology than the deer or antelope. The Indians call this magic power medicine, but the Zuñi gave it form to his own mind—the substance of a thing unseen—by making a stone image of the particular animal he had chosen for his medicine, which he carried with him to war or the chase as a charm of highest virtue. We call this fetich-worship.

Each pueblo had one or more close, underground cells[2] in which certain mysterious rites, connected, it is believed, with the worship of the people, were solemnized. We are told that, at Pecos, the priests kept watch night and day over a sacred fire, which was never suffered to go out for a single moment, for fear some calamity would instantly happen to the tribe. It is also said that when Pecos was assaulted and sacked by a hostile tribe, the priests kept their charge over the sacred fire while the tumult of battle raged about them. And when, at length, the tribe itself had nearly died out, the survivors took the sacred fire with them to another people, beyond the mountains, where it is kept burning as the symbol of an ever-living faith.

Another legend goes on to say that an enormous serpent was kept in a den in the temple of Pecos to which on certain occasions living men were thrown as a sacrifice. Both legends would seem to point to Pecos as a holy place, from which the priests gave out instruction to the people, as of old they did from the temples of the heathen gods.

The tradition of the origin of the Zuñi, as told by Mr. Cushing, is almost identical with that held by the Mandans of the Upper Missouri. Each says the race sprung from the earth itself, or rather that the first peoples lived in darkness and misery in the bowels of the earth, until at length they were led forth into the light of day by two spirits sent from heaven for their deliverance, as the Zuñi say, or by discovering a way out for themselves, as the Mandans say.[3]

A tradition of the Pimos[4] Indians makes a beautiful goddess the founder of their race. It says that in times long past a woman of matchless beauty resided among the mountains near this place. All the men admired and paid court to her. She received the tributes of their devotion, grain, skins, etc., but gave no favors in return. Her virtue and her determination to remain secluded were equally firm. There came a drought which threatened the world with famine. In their distress the people applied to her, and she gave them corn from her stock, and the supply seemed endless. Her goodness was unbounded. One day as she was lying asleep a drop of rain fell upon her and produced conception. A son was the issue, who was the founder of the race that built these structures.

But Montezuma[5] is the patriarch, or tutelary genius, whom all the Indians of New Mexico look to as their coming deliverer.

One tradition runs that Montezuma was a poor shepherd who tended sheep in the mountains. One day an eagle came to keep him company. After a time the eagle would run before Montezuma, and extend its wings, as if inviting him to seat himself on its back. When at last Montezuma did so, the eagle instantly spread its wings and flew away with him to Mexico where Montezuma founded a great people.

Ever since then the Indians have constantly watched for the second coming of Montezuma, and thenceforth the eagle was held sacred, and has become a symbol among them. He is to come, they say, in the morning, at sunrise, so at that hour people may be seen on the housetops looking earnestly toward the east, while chanting their morning prayers, for like the followers of Mahomet, these people chant hymns upon the housetops. Although beautiful and melodious these chants are described as being inexpressibly sad and mournful.

In person the people are well formed and noble looking. They are honest among themselves, hospitable to strangers, and unlike nomads, are wholly devoted to caring for their crops and flocks. They own many sheep. They raise corn, wheat, barley and fruit. One pueblo raises corn and fruit, another is noted for its pottery, while a third is known for its skill in weaving.

But after all, these Pueblo Indians are only barbarians of a little higher type than common. Whenever we look closely into their habits and manners, we are struck with the resemblances existing among the whole family of native tribes. If we assume them to have known a higher civilization they have degenerated. If we do not so assume, the observation of three centuries shows them to have come to a standstill long, long ago.

* * * * *

PUEBLO CUSTOMS. When the harvest time comes the people abandon their villages in order to go and live among their fields, the better to watch over them while the harvest is being gathered in.

Grain is threshed by first spreading it out upon a dirt floor made as hard as possible, and then letting horses tread it out with their hoofs. It is then winnowed in the wind.

The woman, who is grinding, kneels down before a trough with her stone placed before her in the manner of a laundress's wash-board. Over this stone she rubs another as if scrubbing clothes. The primitive corn-mill is simply a large concave stone into which another stone is made to fit, so as to crush the grain by pressure of the hand.

The unfermented dough is rolled out thin so that after baking it may be put up in rolls, like paper. It is then the color of a hornet's nest, which indeed it resembles. Ovens, for baking, are kept on the housetops.

The processes of spinning and weaving, than which nothing could be more primitive, are thus described by Lieut. Emory, as he saw it done on the Gila, in 1846.

"A woman was seated on the ground under one of the cotton sheds. Her left leg was turned under with the sole of the foot upward. Between her great toe and the next a spindle, about eighteen inches long, with a single fly, was put. Ever and anon she gave it a dexterous twist, and at its end a coarse cotton thread would be drawn out. This was their spinning machine. Led on by this primitive display, I asked for their loom, pointing first to the thread, and then to the blanket girded about the woman's loins. A fellow who was stretched out in the dust, sunning himself, rose lazily up, and untied a bundle which I had supposed to be his bow and arrows. This little package, with four stakes in the ground, was the loom. He stretched his cloth and began the process of weaving."

But these self-taught weavers were behind their brethren of the pueblos, whose loom was of a more improved pattern. One end of the frame of sticks, on which the warp was stretched, would be fastened to the floor, and the other to a rafter overhead. The weaver sat before this frame, rapidly moving the shuttle in her hand to and fro, and so forming the woof.

Pottery was in common use among them as far back as we have any account of the Pueblo Indians. Jars for carrying and holding water were always articles of prime necessity, though baskets of wicker-work were sometimes woven water-tight for the purpose.

* * * * *

PUEBLO GOVERNMENT. Each pueblo is under the control of a head chief, chosen from among the people themselves. When any public business is to be transacted, he collects the principal chiefs in the underground cell, previously mentioned, where the matter that has brought them together is discussed and settled.

The pueblos also have officers, corresponding with the mayor and constables[6] of a city, whose business it is to preserve order. In every pueblo there is also a public crier who shouts from the housetops such things as it may concern the people at large to know.

In some of the pueblos there is an abandoned Spanish mission church of unknown antiquity. The one at Acoma has a tower forty feet high with two bells in it, one of which is lettered "San Pedro, A.D. 1710." The church at Pecos is a picturesque ruin.

FOOTNOTES

[1] ZUÑI HAVE BEEN STUDIED by Mr. F. H. Cushing, who joined the tribe for the purpose.

[2] UNDERGROUND CELLS, Spanish _Estufas_, were circular, without doors or windows, and had a kind of stone table, or altar, in them. One at Taos was surrounded with a stockade, and entered through a trap-door.

[3] THE MANDANS SAY that the roots of a grape-vine, having penetrated into their dark abode, revealed to them the light of the upper world. By means of this vine, half the tribe climbed to the surface. Owing to the weight of an old woman the vine broke, leaving the rest entombed as before.

[4] THE PIMOS live along the Gila, having moved up from the Gulf Coast within fifty years. They are a pastoral and agricultural people.

[5] MONTEZUMA of the traditions is not the Montezuma of Spanish-conquest celebrity.

[6] MAYOR AND CONSTABLE. The first is called an al´cal´de, the second an al´gua´zil.

LAST DAYS OF CHARLES V. AND PHILIP II.

We have here reached the high-water-mark of Spanish advance into territory now embraced within the United States. The moment seems well chosen in which to take a parting look at the two great men of their age, whose talents and energy had builded an empire so vast that, when the master-hand was taken away, it tottered to its fall.

LAST DAYS OF CHARLES V. Charles V. is thought to have hastened his death by the indulgence of so strange a whim, that one is led to doubt the soundness of his intellect.

He chose, now in his lifetime, to have his own funeral obsequies performed. For the purpose he laid himself down in his coffin which the monks then lifted on their shoulders and bore into the church. When the bearers had set the coffin down in front of the altar, the solemn service for the dead was chanted, the Emperor himself joining in all the prayers said for the repose of his soul. In the hush which followed the last office paid to the illustrious dead, all the attending monks passed silently out of the church, leaving Charles to pray alone in his coffin.

"The chamber in the Escurial Palace where Philip II. died is that in which he passed the three last years of his life, nailed by the gout to a sofa. Through a narrow casement, his alcove commanded a view of the high altar of the chapel. In this manner, without rising, without quitting his bed, he assisted every day at the holy sacrifice of the mass. His ministers came to work with him in this little chamber, and they still show the little wooden board which the king made use of when writing, or signing his name, by placing it upon his knees."

TOMBS OF CHARLES AND PHILIP. "At the right and left of the altar, at the height of about fifteen feet, are two large parallel niches hollowed out in the form of a square. The one at the left is the tomb of Charles V., that at the right of Philip II. At the side of Philip II., who is on his knees in the attitude of prayer, are the prince, Don Carlos, and the two queens whom Philip successively espoused, all three also on their knees in prayer. Underneath, one may read in letters of gold:

PHILIP II., KING OF ALL THE SPAINS, OF SICILY, AND OF JERUSALEM, REPOSES IN THIS TOMB, WHICH HE BUILT FOR HIMSELF WHILE LIVING.

"THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. is also represented on his knees in the act of prayer. He too is surrounded by a group of kneeling personages who are identified in the inscription, of which we give only part.

TO CHARLES V., KING OF THE ROMANS, HIGH AND MIGHTY EMPEROR, KING OF JERUSALEM, ARCHDUKE OF AUSTRIA, HIS SON PHILIP.

"All these statues are of gilt bronze, of a grand style and admirable effect. Those of the two sovereigns, above all, with their armorial mantles, are of a severe magnificence."—_Alex. Dumas, the Elder._

SWORD AND GOWN IN CALIFORNIA.

California is the name[1] given in an old Spanish romance to a fabulous island of the sea lying out toward the Indies.

After a time, the Spaniards found out that what they had supposed to be a large island[2] was really a peninsula, so the name presently spread to the mainland.

Cabrillo[3] sailed yet higher up, and others higher still, till the work of tracing the coast as far as Cape Mendocino[4] itself was completed.

Spanish power in the New World received now and here its first serious check, though possibly little was thought of it at the time, in Europe. Like David before Goliath, little England confronted the bully of Europe where least expected, with menace to her great and growing empire of the West.

The greatest seaman of his age, Francis Drake, whose name was the terror of Spaniards everywhere, had passed the Straits of Magellan with one little vessel, into the Great South Sea, which Balboa discovered and claimed for Spain. Stopping at no odds, one day fighting and the next plundering, Drake kept his undaunted way a thousand leagues up the coast. His ship being already full-freighted with the plunder of the ports at which she had called, Drake thought to shorten the way back to England by sailing through the North-east Passage,[5] so outwitting the Spaniards who were keeping vigilant watch against his return southward,—for his men were but a handful against a world of foes, and his ship too precious to be risked in fight. So Drake sailed on into the north. He sailed as far as the Oregon coast, when the weather grew so cold that his men, who were come from tropic heats, began to murmur. Drake was therefore forced to put his ship about and steer south again, along the coast, looking for a harbor as he went, to refit his ship in. Finding this harbor[6] in 38°, the Golden Hind dropped anchor there on the 17th of June, 1579, showing a flag which had never before been seen in that part of the world.

Drake lay quietly at anchor in this port for five weeks. During all this time the natives came in troops to the shore, drawn thither to see the strange bearded white men who spoke in an unknown tongue, and kept the loud thunder hid away in their ship. It is even said that the king of that country took the crown off his own head, and put it on Francis Drake's in token of submission. All this and much else is fully and quaintly set forth in the narrative of Master Fletcher, who was Drake's chaplain on board the Golden Hind.

Before leaving this friendly port, Drake took formal possession of the country by setting up a post, to which a plate of brass was fixed, with Queen Elizabeth's name engraved on it.

The white cliffs of the coast that rose about him, would seem to have recalled to Drake's mind those of Old England, for he gave the name of New Albion to all this great land he had merely coasted. We should not forget that Elizabeth herself afterwards said of such acts that "discovery is of little worth without actual possession."

Having planted this thorn in the side of the Spanish Empire of the West, Drake merrily sailed away for England by way of the Cape of Good Hope.[7]

Spain complained. Elizabeth listened with impatience. When the Spanish ambassador insisted on his master's sole right to navigate the western ocean, the Queen lost her temper. She roundly told Mendoza that "the sea and air are common to all men." Yet the claim itself shows what mighty hold Spain had on the other powers. In eight years the question was fought out in the English Channel with all Europe for spectators. Spain was so sure of victory, that the popular feeling even got into the nursery rhymes of the day. A child is supposed to be saying,

"My brother Don John To England is gone, To kill the Drake, And the queen to take, And the heretics all to destroy."[7]

Drake had perhaps done as much as any man to bring about the issue. He was there in the thick of the fight.[8]

So the spell of Spanish invincibility was broken at last. Spain was no longer mistress of the seas.

Next on her brilliant roll of navigators, comes Juan de Fuca, who (1592) discovered the straits that now bear his name. Spain still wanting a harbor in which the Manila galleons could refit when homeward bound, Sebastian Vizcaino (1602-1603), sometimes called "the Biscayner," entered the haven of San Diego, and that of Monterey,[9] which he then named, as he also did the one lying within Point Reyes, called by him Port San Francisco.[10] Exploration of this coast then ceased for a century and a half.

The real advance into California (1768), like all other Spanish movements on this continent, originated in a half-monkish, half-military plan for the conquest, conversion and civilization of the country. Enough was known of its soil and climate to show how far both exceeded the sterile steppes of New Mexico, where Spanish advance had already reached its farthest limit, and like a stream that meets an obstacle in its path, was turned into another channel. For where plants grow and rivers flow, God has fixed the abodes of men.

This movement began[11] from the missions of Lower California. It was designed to extend the system by which Spain had first conquered, and since ruled, Mexico into the unoccupied and little-known province of Alta, or Upper, California. The viceroy was to furnish soldiers, the president-prelate of the Franciscan order, missionaries.

Thus coast batteries and forts were to be built for the defence of the best harbors, as well as to sustain the missions themselves, so forming a line of military strength along the coast sufficient to repel assault by sea or land, while the mountains behind them would be a barrier between the missions and the wild tribes who lived in the great valleys beyond. One arm was to seize upon and firmly hold the country in its grasp, while the other should gradually bring it into subjection to the Catholic faith. Then, with clerical rule once established, civil order was to come in. Therefore the first essential thing was to build a fort, and the second a church. In this way it was proposed to make rallying-points for civilization of these missions,[12] although the plan founded an oligarchy and nothing else.