On the Trail of a Spanish Pioneer: The Diary and Itinerary of Francisco Garcés (Missionary Priest) in His Travels Through Sonora, Arizona, and California, 1775-1776 (Vol. 2)

              III.
AMERICAN EXPLORERS SERIES.
©n tbe tratl of a Spant1b l)foneer.
VOL. IL
'
•
l{OHAT, CHlll:JI OF THE l-JA''ASUPAl
Phololsraph by G. ,v1iarton Jan1es, 1897
I
ON THE TRAIL OF A SPANISH PIONEER
THE
DIARY AND ITINERARY
OF
FRANCISCO GARCES
(Mt"ssionary P-re·est')
IN HIS TRAVELS THROUGH SONORA,
ARIZONA, AND CALIFORNIA
t775-t776
2-13g.:5
TRANSLATED FROM AN OFFICIAL CONTEMPORANEOUS COPY OF
THE ORIGINAL SPANISH MANUSCRIPT, AND EDITED,
WITH COPIOUS CRITICAL NOTES
BY
ELLIOTT COUES
Edz·tr,.r·of Lew£s and Clark, of Pike, of Henry and Tleompson,
Fowler Jour.nal, Larpe,1tteu1-, etc., etc.
EIG-HTEEN ivlAPS, VIEWS, AND FACSIMILES
IN TWO VOLUMES
VoL. II
NEW YORK
FRANCIS P. HARPER
-
18ft,
Glft;/1 3£
Jqo
V, Z
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI1I.
FR01-r J.\,foJAVE To M0Qur1 Jt:JNE, 1776, • •
PAGE
. 3r3
CHAPTER IX.
}\MON© THE MOQUIS, JULY 2-4, 1776, • . 361
CI-IAPTER X.
FROM MoQUI TO MoJA\'E, JULY, 1776, • • . 392
CHAPTER XI.
FR011 MOJAVE DO'vVN Rro Co:r:.oRADO TO YTJ11A, UP Rio
GILA, AND @VER ·To BAc, JULY 25-SE􀁮􆹔TEMBER 17, 1776,
CHAPTE-R XII.
R:EFLECTlO􀁯􆽓S ON THE, DIARY,
Paint I. Number 0f Nations, etc.,
.F'oiitt 2. Amities and Enmities, . . .
Point 3. Nations lv!ost Ready for C'atechism and Vas-salage,
etc., . . . .
V
•
44r
443
449
454
Vl CONTENTS.
l􀀓􁍅EFLECTJONS ON THE DAIRY-Conlinited.
Point 4. Presidios Necessary, . •
Point 5. Hcl: \V to Subdue the Apache, . !
Poini 6. Communication \Vith Ne,v 11,'lexico and
terey, . . . .
Point 7. On the Reports of Silvestre Velez de
Ian te, etc., . .
.Point 8. On the Equipment of Niissions,
Postscript by the Scholiast, lvliguel Valero Olea,
APPENDIX.
Eusebio Francisco Kino. By Elliott Coues, .
INDEX, • •
•
Mon-
Esca-
•
•
•
• •
..
PAGE
45.5
457
467
469
493
502
522
557
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOL. I.(.
K0HAT, CHIEF OF THE HAVASUPAI,
TH-E HOPI PUEBLO OF 0RA1BI, - .
A NATIVE OF 0RAIBI, . .
OLI? SPANISH CHU.RCH AT ACOMA,
•
•
•
CH,U,RCH AT LAGUNA, • • ..
•
•
THE 0􀂈􈡁A.TE AND LETRADO INSCRIPTIONS AC-CORDING
TO $.JM,PSQN, • . .
THE TRUE LETRADO INSCRiPTION OF 1632,
PRESENT CHURCH AT Zui:lr, • •
A MoKI MAIDEN, • • • • •
A:UTOGR,A:PH OF ESCALANTE, • • •
MAP 0F THE MESA C@UNTRY 0,CCUPIED BY THE
HOPI INDIANS, • • • •• • •
..
Vil
•
. Frontispiece
Facing -page 363
•
"
" 365
. '
,., , ,
" ••
.. . '
"
,, "
Page 391
Facing page 393
•
CIIAP1'ER VIII.
V - 2.
FRO,M MOJAVE TO MOQUI, JUNE, r776.
2./3􀀄􀐀􀀅􀔠
June 4. I ascended along the bank of tl1e river and
went two leagues northwest, arriving at the place ob­served
on my coming in 35° 01'. 1
June 5. I went one league north, and having
crossed the river went down it half a 1ea.gue south.
In the afternoon I traveled three leagues eastnorth­east.
2
1 See back, p. 234, date of Mar. 3, w·here we found this posi­tion
in the immediate vitinity of modern Fort Mojave, but on
the @ther (west) side 0f the river. June 4 is Garces' 104th
day's journey.
• The crossing of the Colorad·o is to be taken at or near Fort
Mojave. Hence Garces starts in Arizona on his tour to the
Moquis,. as memorable as that he has just made to the Tulares
of California, his- being the first such journey ever made by a
white man. His present objective point is the settlement of the
Yavasupai or Suppai Indians, who lived then as they <lo now
1n Cataract canon, \vhere I visited them in June, 1881. In this
and earlier years I travele·d on horseback or by wagon thro.ugh
this whole region in several diferent directions, and am so
familiar with the topography that we shall be able to trail
Garces very closely. His route from Fort Mojave t o Cataract
canon is close:ly coir:i.cident with that traveled in 1858 by Lieu-
3 1 4 SIERRA DE SANTIAGO.
June 6. I ascended the sierra that I called Sierra de
Santiago to tl1e eastnortheast, having traveled a
tenant J. C. Ives, under the guidance of the noble Mojave chief
Iriteba. A glance at Ives' beautiful map will show i t in outline,
and we shall be able to fill in many details. Chapters vii and
viii, pp. 93-112, figs. 26,-36, Qf Ives' admirable Report, may be
pleasantly and profitably read in this connection; it still remains
one of the best descriptio.ns extant of this :region. On p. 8
of App. B Ives gives a tabular itinerary, with distances, etc.,
of his camps 60-73; some of these are identical with those of
Ga.rces. Another notable itinerary to be considered in this
connection is the Report pf E. F. Beale, 35th Congr., 1st Sess.,
Ho. Rep. Ex. Doc. No. 124, half-titled "W􀃗􍝧gon Road from
Fort Defiance to the Colorado River," etc., 8vo, Washington,
1858, pp. 87, map. "Beale's route" is traditional in Arizona;
everybody has heard of it, but few know anything accurately
about it, and '' Beale's springs" (for which see beyoncj) is no\v
its n1ost pointed reminder. l\i1r. Beale came through in Sept.
and Oct., 18s7, , with a 111otley outfit ,vhich included Greeks,
Turks, and ca·mels, besides the men and animals more familiarly
American, passing on and near the 35th parallel, approximately
along the earlier lines of march of Sitgreaves and Whipple; h e
passed on to Fort Tejon in California, and came back through
Arizona in Jan. and Feb., 1858. His report is that of <:1-n en­thusiastic
and energetic explorer, who believed in camels and
was confident he had found the b􀃘􍡳st roμte fer a railroad across
northern Arizona; his narrative is a lively one, but lo@se i n
the joints, and with the serious defect that text and map do
not al,vays agree v;ith each other.; it exh1bits a profusion 0£
original place-nan1es, very few of ,vhic.h have ever come into use,
and on the whole is en.tirely overshadowed b;y the better :work of
Sitgreaves, \Vhipple, and Ives. All the same, the present rail­road
does run nearer Beale's route th·an any single one of the
other explorers' routes; and Beale almost retraced Garces' trail
AGUAGE DE SAN PACIFICO.
league and a half to finish it; and ,vi.th yet a110ther
league and a half did I arrive at the watering-place
that I named (Aguage) de San Pacifico. In the
afternoon I went two leag11es to the southso1.1theast,
and one other eastward.3 Plenty of grass.
from N!ojave as far as Truxton. 's springs (v;hich see, beyond).
So we can confidently follow Gatces into this desert, where
all travel bef'ore th·e railr0ad came through was necessarily
directed from one aguage to another, and the traveler ,vho failed
to find' them was liable tQ perisl1 of thirst.
8 The Sierra de Santiago or St. James range of Garces is that
immediately bordering the Colorado on the east, separating the
great river valley from the Sacrament-0 valley which intervenes,
between this range and the Gerbat range, In my time (1865)
the Sier-ra de Santiago was called the Sacramento ran. ge, from
the name of the Sacramento valler of which it forms most of
the western boundary, But the earliest na.me I know of is the
Black range, of Ives' Report and n1ap, g;iven beca.use tb.e range
to the northward is traversed by Black cafion, through which
the C ,olora.do flows􀃁􌄠 and Blac-k mountains is also the name on
the latest- U. S. Geological Survey maps, though t'he Land Qfice
maps call this range the Blue Ridge mountains, The main
road o:ver the ramge goes through Union pass, ,vhich I have
traversed fi-ve times. It is perfectly easy for light wagons, and
not very dificult for freight trains. Going across the Sacra­mento
valley from Beale's springs (vicinity 'of Kingman, on the
ra.ilroad) the road is due west to Union pass, on the summit
of which the Mojave valley of the Colorado spreads before the
view in a beautiful prospect; the de'scent is rapid to the river
at Hardy, or Hardyv:ille, consisting of a house or tw.Q in the
river bottom; whence it is five' or six miles down rivet to old
F0rt M0jave. Union pass fias been the scene of at least one '
Indian ambuscade and attack upon passing whites; and I have
,
•
OTHERWISE MEADOW CREEK.
lit1-te 7. I traveled four leagues east, and arrived
pain[ul recollections of the atrocious cruelties inflicted upon the
cattle of a wagon train I met near the sun1mit. This pass is
not the one Garces made. Striking easterly fr0m Mojave he
followed an Indian trail now disused, or so little k-nown that no
narne is to be found on the modern maps. But it is notable
as the one by which Beale's expedition crossed the range on
Oct. 15-16, 1857; it is also the one taken Mar. 25, 1858, by Ives,
who calls it Sitgreaves' pass. Why Ives should have done this
I do not kn0w; certainly Sitgrea ves did not use it: see his
map, trail from camp No. 31 to No. 32, showing that Sitgreaves
crossed the range by UniG>n pass, Nov. 5, 1851, a s correctly
delineated on Beale's map. The Aguage de San Pacifico 6£
Garces is present M eado1e1 creek, so named by Ives in his Report
and on his map. This strearnlet has its source in springs on
the eastern slop􀃅􌔬, a-nd flows a short distance t0ward the Sacra­ment<:>
valley. It is illustrated by fig. 26 on p. 93 of Ives' Re­port,
where ,ve -read: "The grazing at the camp in Sitgreaves'
Pass ,vas poor, and the mules ,vere ill prepared for the rough
r0ad before them. A fe,v miles brought us to the base of a
steep and dificult ascent that led to the summit of the Black
mountains. The path was narrow and devious, and attended
with hazar:d to the weak and heavily-loaded beasts. All of the
party had to clamber up on foot, leading their riding animals.
. . A rapid descent l.ed through a ravine to the eastern base
of the range ,ve were crossing. When nearly do.wn the hill the
head of a creek [Meadow] was encountered, and half a mile
from the ·valley the ravine spread out for a few hundred yards,
forming a snug meadow carpeted with good grass, and fringed
on one side with a growth of willows that bordered the stream."
Such is the Aguage de San Pacifico in the Sierra de S;intiago.
first seen of white men by Garces. Ives made Meado,v creek
distant 20½ miles by the trail from Mojave; the latitude 35°
02' 17.6", and the summit of the pass 3652 feet. Later observa-
•
ACROSS Tl-IE SACRAMENTO VALLEY. 317
at the Jaguallapais,4 who had provided mucl1 game
for our refreshment. These people are in the same
tio·ns leave the latitude about the same, but reduce the altitude
t0 about 3000. Garces appears to have gone in the afternoon
.
. \
. s·eme six miles or niore beyond the spring head of Meadow
creek, into the Sacramento valley, thus approaching the present
railr!)ad which, having cross􀃍􌵤d the Colorado between the lower
end of the Black m.ountains and the Needles, foll@ws up Sacra­ment
© ,􀃎􌹡ash i11to the valley, on its way lo Kingman, etc.
As already stated, Beale first made this pass, Oct. 15-16, 1857;
he recrossed it Jan. 24, 1858. He called it John Howell's pass,
and the source of Meadow creek he na,med Murray's spring,
after F-rank Murray, one of his men (Rep., pp. 77, 78).
'- Crossin-g what remained to him of the Sacramento valley,
Garces finds the Hualapai or Walap.ai Indians living ih the vicin­ity
of present King,tnan, seat @f Mojave county. He says the
rancheria was in an ar-roy0 of running water; I have be·en there
several times, without finding any stream, but that may have
been due to seas0n. The watershed is toward the Sacramento
valley. This "arroyo" is Railroad pass, originally indicated
as such by Whipple in 1854, but first so calle.d and mapped by
Ives in March, 1858; the railroad throug.h it later justified the
• •
name. It appears to be that called by Beale Engle's pass,
Oct. 8, 1:857, after Captain Engle, U. S. N.; but Beale's itinerary
is co·nfusing, especia.lly on any attempt to a'djust it to his map.
It is the main defile through the Cerbat range; or, if this range
be considered to end here, it separates the Cerbat range on the
north from the Hualpai mountains 'Or-i the sourh. It is the b-est
watered place for many miles in any direction. The original
and best know.n agiAage hereabouts is Beale's s.prings, for many
years the usuaJ camping place on the main wagon road between
Fort Mojave a.1d Fort Whipple, about 6 miles north-west of
Kingman, and thus ab.0t1t half,vay to Coyote holes, which are
VICINITY OF KINGMAN.
condition as tl1eir enemies the Yabipais Tejua. Tl1ey
conducted themselves vvith 1ne as comported with
the afection tl1at I had shown toward them. I gave
them to understand that I sought to pass on to
tl1e Moqui. I encountered great dificulty in this
tl1rough the opposition of the Jamajabs, who feared
they (Moquis) n1ight kill me; but finally I convinced
further out in the Sacramento valley. Beale's springs are two,
near together, appa:rently those described by him, p. 68 of his
Report, as "strong heads of water," but left unnamed, Oct. 8,
r857. Other watering places within easy reach are Johnson's
springs, a few miles northward, and Railroad or Gentle springs
in the opposite direction, south of the defile; besides others
artificially secure.d of late years. At \vhich of these aguages
Garces actually stopped it is hardly possib1e to. say; most likely
it was not Beale's springs, but Railroad or Gentle springs.
Railroad pass is shown in fig. 28 on p. 95 of Ives' Rep.ort, which
I will quote again: "Leaving Meadow creek and its abundant
pasturage we descended to the [Sacramento] valley. . . The
pas.s by which we were to cross the Cerbat mountains was
apparent as soon as we left the Black range, and lreteba [the
Mojave chief who was guiding Ives], who had joined us early
in the morning, headed directly for it. The pure atmosphere
made it seem close by, and it was disappointing to plod through
the hot sand hour after h.our, and find it appearing as far of
as ever. When the base of the [Cerbat] mountains was at last
reached, it was found that the ascent was scarcely perceptible.
A place more like a canon than an ordinary mountain pass pre­sented
itself, and \Ve penetrated the range for a few miles
through th.e windings of a nearly level avenue. In a pretty ra­vine,
hemmed in by picturesque blufs, our guid􀂓􉌠 pointed out a
good spring of water, with grass enou.gh near by to aford a
􀀌􀱁AILROAD PASS.
them by my insistency. At this rancheria there is an
arroyo with running water, plenty of grass, mucl1
game, and much seed of chia. I spoke to them of
God, of whom I could perceive that they already had
some knowledge; then they all kissed the crucifix, and
made thejr children kiss it too. The·y go dressed in
antelope-skins and some shirts of Moqui; tl1ey have
tolei:able camping place. [This answers all the requirements of
Garces' ., arroyo with running water and plenty of grass"­arroyo
con agua corriente, bastante zacate, etc.] The next day, after
proceeding one ot two miles along the pass, which we called
the Railroad Pass, we e!Tlerged from the Cerbat range, and came
into wh.at was at first supposed to be a broad valley, but which
turned out to be a basirt [Ives' fig. 29, Cerbat Basin}, formed by
the chain we had passed and spurs extendin·g- from it. There
was a low divide on the rim of the basin nearly opposite the east­ern
entrance to the Railroad Pass. [This divide was between the
Huc1,lapai and Peacock mounta:in.s, leading over to Cactus pass,
􀂯􊽴tc.] The altitu<;les ot these opposite edges are about the same.
Lieutenant Whipple, while locating a railroad line. near the 35th
paraUel, had reached a point [Cactus pass} 'a short distanee
east of this divide-, where he str·uck the headwaters [White Clif
creek and Big Sandy wa-sh] of Bill Williams's Fork, at that
time [Jan., 1854) an une·xplored stream. _ Su.pposing that it
would conduct directly to the Colorado, he followed it till it
was too late to return, and was compelled to pui:sU'e a dificult
and circuitous route to its n1outh. He was confident, however,
from a careful $tudy of the country at either end,. that the direct
route from the d-ivide to, the Colorado would be practicable for
a railroad, besides greatly shortening the distance. The obser­vations
of the past two days have demonstrated the accuracy
of his judgment."
320 SIERRA MORENA OR CERBAT RANGE.
belts of Castille, awls, a11d otl1er implements that they
obtain from Moqui. I sa,:v no crops, and so I believe
that they subsist on mezcal and game. I tarried to
rest me for tvvo days [June 8 011ly J.
June 9. I went three leagues and a half northeast
by the foot of a sierra that I named Sierra Morena;􀁈􄠠
􀃉􌤠 Sierra I\1orena is of course the Cerbat range, already sufi­ciently
indicated as the one first so called by Whipple in 185;J.
Morena n1eans blackish or swarthy, and is doubtless Garces'
rendering of what the Indians tqld him was their name for it­very
likely the· same Indian word that later became applied to
the other rang.e-the Black, with ,vhich the Cerbat r1i1ns parallel.
On B·eale's map the name stands " Cerbals," rather in the posi­tion
of the Hualapai than of the Cerbat n1ountains pr-aper.
This word cerbat is said to be the Indian name of the wild
sheep or bighorn, called carnero cimarron in Spanish. This
is a very conspjcuous rang. ·e, culminating in a peak, about 7,000
feet high, called Cherun1's £ro1n an Indian chief whom I knew
in 1881-a venerable whiskey-soaker also called Sherum, Se­ru.
m, or Sru1n. These mctunta.ins are crossed by two roads, both
available for wagons; I have driven twice over the one which
passes through Mineral Park, a mining town which was .flourish­ing
in 1881 under Cherum's pe. a· k; the other road crosses
further south, through places called Stockton, Cerbat, and New
London. Each of these passes is easily appr.oached by the road
coming northwest through Hualapai valley from Hualapa-i
spring (a place on the main wagon road between Mojave and
Prescott or Fort Whipple); and Mineral P-ark il? also reached
by the road which comes due west across Hualapai valley from
Hackberry (a station on the railroad, a couple of miles from
the original mining can1p of Hackberry, near Peacock peak of
the Peacock range). Now Ives says, p. 96, that when he left
HACKBERRY AND OTHER PLACES, 32 I
in the afte"rnoon two and a half, in the same direction.
I halted in a rancheria where they regaled us-the
captain of the rancheria last passed, with an Indian of
his nation, and a Jamajab who accompanied me,
whom said captain assured that no one would do him
harm. There is no water in this rancheria, and in
order (to proeure some) to drink an _Indian woman
went for it two hours before dawn to the sierra, not­withstanding
the weather was very cold.
Railroad pas,s, " Ireteba took· us north, for ten o.r fifteen miles
along the eastern base of the Cerbat ra:nge, to an excellent
grazin,g camp, but where there was on.ly a small spring o·f sul­phurous
water." This i·s Bitter spring @f his map, ,vith camp
mark "63," and Isabel spring of modern maps: I know the spot,
having been there twice. The two roads above noted, re­spectively
fr.om Hualapai spring and from Hackberry, come
together close by Isapel s,pring. Garces says he went to-day
si:x leagues, or about 16 miles, no.rtheast, to a d.ry camp. If he
went on that course, he foltowed precisely the line of the
railroad; up the Hualapai valley; and his mileage sets him in the
vicinity of pi:esent Hualapai.station, on the western flank of the
Peacock range. A dry camp. is always hard to set, and the
whole country thereabouts is usually dry; but I think we have
hi,m pretty closely. The nearest water l know o f to. Hualapai
station is Peacock spring, a few miles in the mountains of this
name; and I think this must be the place to which the squaw
went. for water􀂉􈤠 two hours befqre that cold gray dawn. If so,
the sierra she climbed was not the Cerbat, but the Peacock
range, on the eastern sige of Hualapai valley. The location of
Garces' dry camp. here indicated also fadges well with what we
have next to consider-his Arroyo de San Bernabe.
•
322 ARROYO DE SAN BERN ABE.
f it1w 10. I traveled five leagues east, and arrived at
the Arroyo de San Bernabe, r. which runs in part and
0 The Arroyo de San Bernabe is now called Truxton wash,
and Garces' mileage sets him at or near Truxton spring, on the
railroad. The railroad takes a very crooked course to get here,
first continuing northeast from Hualapais stati9n to flank Pea­cock
mountains on the north, then turning at a right angle
southeast to run down to Hackberry, then · curving around to
the north to run up into Truxton wash nearly to Truxton
spring before it makes more easting. Garces went more
directly through or past Hackberry into the wash. This is
the defile through what are called Cottonwood clifs; these are
simply the northward extension of the Aquarius range, and are
themselves extended unbroken northwestward by the Grand
Wash clifs, bounding the upper part of H ualapai valley on
the east and northeast. The whole extent of clifs is the Aulick
range of Beale (Rep., p. 66, Oet. 6, 1857). Truxton spring is
one of the few place-names we owe to Beale (Rep., p. 79, Jan.
28, 1858); Truxton was one of his inen, but whether the spring
now called Truxton is the one originally so named may be
a question. It is situated on the railroad, three miles west­southwest
of Truxton station, a mife and a half south of Crozier
spring, and about three miles north of Cottonwood spring. To
judge from Ives' n1ap, Truxton spring is the same as that called
Peacock's spring by Ives for one of his men: see his camp­mark
'' 65" (which certainly is not near the position of Peacock
spring of our latest G. L. 0. and U. S. G. S. maps, this being
over 12 miles of, on the other side of Peacock mountains).
The circumstances of Ives' na.ming this spring are these, p. 97:
"Mar. 31. Leaving the Cerbat basin, the course lay towards a
low point in the extension [ Cottonwood clifs] of Aquarius
mountains-another chain almost parallel to the Black and Cer­bat
ranges. The gap much resembles t'he Railroad Pass. After
entering it the trail took a sudden turn to the north, in which
OTHERWISE TRUXTON WASH. 323
in others is dry; in the evening I went one league in
the same -arroyo and direction. I halted in an unin-
.
direc􀂤􊑩ion it continued [compare what is already said in this
note]. .. Ten or twelve miles from [last] c:amp, Mr. Peacock,
who w,as riding in advance, discovered a large spring of clear,
sweet water in a ravine near the road. There were no signs
of the place having been used as a camp, and even Ireteba did
not appear to have known previously of its existence. A Mex­ican
subsequently found a running stream a mile. or two further
on, where the Indians passing this way had been in the habit of
stopping." This identifies Ives' Peacock spr,ing with modern
Truxton spring, without preJudiae to the question whether or
not it is what Beale called by the latter name. Now for the
stream which Garces says "runs in part and in others is dry''
in his Arroyo de San Bernabe. Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves
came westward through this wash or arroyo, first of the moclern
explorers whose trails are of record, and we read in his Rep.
Expl. Zufii and Col. R., 8vo, 1853, p. 14, at qate of Oct. 28,
r85 r: " A party sent out to reconnoitre brought back the grati­fying
intelligence that twelve miles in advance was a small
stream of running water and abundance of go.od grass. A band
of Yampais were found encamped upon it, from wh.om Mr.
Leroux [Antoine, the guide] learned that the numerous trails
we had observed for the last two or three days united and led
to the Mohaves.'' Again, p. 15, Oct. 30: "Tjiis rivulet, which I
have called the Yampai, has its source in three small springs; it
is repeatedly iost in the ground within a distance of half a mile;
after which it disappears entirely. A few willow and cotton­wood
trees grow upon its banks, and green grass was here seen
for the first time since leaving th·e San Francisco mountains."
In this rediscovery, post-dating Garces three-quarters of a cen­tury,
we have the origin of the name Ya;npai creek, lettered
to-day on the G. L. 0. map, and appearing in various forms on
many another map. The word is a bad shape of Yabipai or
OR Y AMP AI CREEK.
habited rancheria in ,vhicl1 n1y companions set fire
to a ,vickiup (xac<U,) in order to ascerta.in if there
vvere any Indians abot1t; but seei11g that none ap­peared
we continued on the same course. At a little
distance a con1pa11ion saw at the foot of a tree two
small boys, vvho were reluctant to sho,:v then1selves,
through fear. \¥ e asked them ,:vhere their father
vvas; they gave us to understand that soon would he
co1ne, as in fact he did, together with his wife, about
ten o'clock of th􀁻􇬠 following day
[June I 1], both showing themselves n1uch pleased.
Presently this Indian begged me for my mule,
in order to bri11g in a buro or large deer 7 which he
had left dead. It is admirable, the reciprocity (cor,.­respl)nd,
enc-ia) vvith wl1ich the gentiles, whenever they
Yavapai, the name of a tribe of Indians with which the reader
is already familiar.
Whipple was never quite so far north as this point; and here
also we can dismiss both Beale and Sitgreaves, but keep com­pany
with Ives, in taking Garces on to his next stati0n-as we
d0 by rail, very comfortably.
1 Buro 6 venad0 grande. Buro or bura is Garces' style for burro,
a word aln1ost English as the name of the little d0nkeys so well
known in the Southwest. The deer here so called is Cariacus
mac-rotis or Otlonto.ca!'lus hemionus, the common mule deer or
black-tailed d@er of the west, the largest of its genus in NG>rth
America, vlith immense ears like a donkey's, whence the name.
It also has a white tail tipped with black, short and slim except
the tuft at the end, like the tail of a mu!e shaven into the shape
the drivers consider stylish.
'
•
IN THE YABIPAIS RANCHERIA. 325
procure arty game, make all participants thereof,
though small may be each share; as I have experi­enced
repeatedly; and on this occasion I witnessed it
in this Indian, for, having cut up the buro or deer, be­fore
packing it he gave one-half to the captain who
was accompanying me, contenting himself with the
other. Both regaled me during the days that I
tarried. This rancheria is of the Yabipais, 8 who only
in name difer from the J aguallapais. The Indian
sent a runner reporting my arrival to his relatives,
four of whom had seen me in past years among the
J alcheaunes; and for this reason he sought with in­sistency
my detention t1ntil they arrived. On the
following day
[June 12'! 13? 14?·] there vvere arriving bands now
of six, now of eight men, he who came at the head of
eac.h one of them making his harangue in my pres­ence,
and the Jaguallapai captain who ,¥as accom­panying
me responding to them on my behalf.
This address of welcome is a cJ.1stom among
them; and at its conclusion each (speaker) turns
to his band., asking them if he has spoken
well and if that which l1e has set forth to
8 The Y avapais or Y am.pais of the previous note: se􀁋􄬠 also
note 11, p. 208. They. were c0mmoμly called Apache Mojaves
in my Arizona days, and have given name to Yavapai county,
Ariz., into which Garces is about to pass fro·m Mojave county .
ADDRESS OF WELCOME.
thetn has suited them. I observed on this occasion
that all tl1ose of the band unanimously responded alike
to their respective captains th.at it was good. Finally
the Jaguallapai captain concluded tl1is ceremony,
saying: '' This padre has a good heart; he is a great
[friend] of our intim,ate friends the Jalchedunes; he
has made us friendly with the Jamajabs; and now he
begs your leave to proceed to the Moquis.'' Re­sponded
all that it was good; that I could pa.ss on,
since I was an Espanol, and those o,f Moqui had
friendship with those of New Mexiao. There had
arrived at this rancl1eria an Ind,ian man and woman
,vho said they were from Moqui. They were well­dressed,
and so genteel (aZifiados) that they ap­peared
rational. 9 Both of them, with another who
arrived on my departure, o.fered themselves to ac­company
me, which they fulfilled in part. Betook
themselves back from here those who had accom­panied
me.
June 15. Having taken leave of the assemblage,
which consisted of about 60 I11dians-there were no
women or children-I set out up the arroyo, north-
» Que parecian de razon. The Spaniards calied themselves gente
de razon, "rational beings," in contradistinction from Indians
-with unconcious irony, for no more unreasonable people have
ever professed civilization and preached Christianity to Indians
since 1492. " Gente de razon " is n1uch as if our colored
brethren sh0uld say, "We'se w'ite folks."
POZOS DE SAN BASILIO.
east and north. I found one rancheria of about 40
souls. We partook of food, and following the same
arroyo came upon some wells which I named (Pozos)
de San Basilio, 10 whereat I met some little girls who
10 Pozos de San Basilio, St. Basil's wells, are Peach springs
of latter-day nomenclature, in a very well known place. Garces
mileage seems a little short; but that he i s at Peach springs is
evident from the courses and distance of his next long lap.
He proeee'ds alon.g the railroad f:rom Truxton station to Peach
Springs station, about ten miles northeast, when.ce it is only four
miles due north to the sprtn,gs themselves, from which the name
of the latter station is derived. The spring nearest the station
is Young's, a mile and a half southeast. The station is notable
as the northernmost point on the railroad, about 35° 31' 30",
and the 0n·e ne.arest the Grand cafion of the Colorado, distant
16 miles in air-line· due north, and not over 20 by the nearly
straight trail. The station and the spring will be found by
name on almost any modern map; on some, the name -is ex­tended
to ·Peach Tree springs; on Ives', the position of the
spr-ings is lettered " New Creek," ,vith camp-mark "6 " (his
latitude about right, longitude a good deal too far east). Peach
springs is so called from the fruit-trees of that name planted
there,, some of which were in evidence when I was on the spot,
June 18 and 19, 181. The situation is at a head of a cafion,
through which the descent is easy enough into the bowels of
the earth, down to the level of the river itself. On June 19,
I ma .de the rounp. trip from the springs to the river in company·
w.ith Lieutenant Carl F. Palfrey of the Corps of Engineers,
U. S. A. The trail was plain, and though the.n unimproved, we·
made the descent on horseback, ,only finding it convenient to,
dismount once or twice at some little jump-of or awk,vard
twist of the pa.th, and noting how- readily a carriage road could
be worked through even the worst places, About halfway down
•.
•,
•
'
.•
,
328 EDITOR1S DESCENT OF PEACH SPRINGS CANON.
came for water with ollas that seemed to me (to be
n1ade) of wood of mulberry (moral) with which this
land abounds, and that are fitted for this purpose by
smearing vvith gum.11 Thereafter I went in various
to the Colorad©, in a sn1all side cafion on the right hand, there
is a spring-the one marked "* Hualpais Spr. 68" on Ives'
map, and indicated ,vithout name on the U. S. G. S. sheet.
This Peach Springs or New Creek canon which we descended
was dry as a bone till it ran into Diamond Creek cafion, nearly
at a right angle; i t is only a collateral cafio.n of the latter. The
junction is about a mile and a half from the main river. Turn­ing
sharp to the left at this point, we followed down Diamond
creek till we stood on tlie brink of the vast current of the
Colorado which rushes through the abyss. The sensation at
the sight was satisfactory; the view was decidedly disappointing
in spect􀂆􈙣cular efect. There is nothing specially inspiring in
blank walls of rock, such as shut out every prospect except
that of a patch of sky directly 0verhead; and this is all that is
visible at the depth of some six thousand feet, where Diamond
creek makes its modest contribution to the mighty flood.
Plate vi of Ives' Report gives an excellent idea of the scenery
at this spot. We spread saddle blankets over some scrawny
bush,es for shelter from the heat, creeping under them to eat
lunch, during ,vhich I noticed some birds I ,vas interested to
find so far belo,v the surface of the earth-a covey of Gambel's
quail (Loplior:tyx gambeli) and a pair of black pe,vits (Sayornis
mgricans). I took a bath in the river, more for the name of the
thing than because I needed it, and was quite willin,g to return
as soon as my companion wished to do so. The round trip
was thus easily made between an early breakfast and a late
supper, and I have never regretted the 32-mile ride.
u An olla is a large water-jar, usually made somewhat spheri­cal
and of porous earth, so that evaporation may keep the water
,
GARCES IN THE WOODS.
directions to another rancheria, where I pas􀁂􄈻;-ed the
night, having traveled during the \¥h,ole day four and
a half leagues.
June 16. In the mor11ing I ,:vent four leagues.
northeast and n.orth, over l1ighlands (en mo11,tes)
clothed with ju11ipers (savinos) and pines; 12 in the
.
eool. Another name of the thing is alcarraza. Such utensils
are in common 1,1se throughout the South\vest. The ollas of
the Indian girls were woven of \Vicker -.vo,rk, like· corp1lent little
ju-gs, with small mouths a.nd no handles, rendered water-tight
with gum. The moral is the. m.ulberty, but there is some mis­ta
,ke about this; Garces simply m,issed a shot in the dark, as
there is no mulberry in these lands. The Mexican mulberry,
Marus celtidifolia, gro\VS in southern Arizona, but is not kno,vn
to occur north of the Gila; it grows sparingly in the Santa
Rita mountains.
u En mantes is not "0n mountains"; I have set "over high­lands/'
which is true of the ground, but " through woods "
wo.uld be as correct a translation. The sa.vinos said are the trees
unive,rsally called " cedars " in Arizona. They are two species
of Juniperus, which used to be cpnfounded under the name of
J. occidenfalis, namely, /. 1-ttahensis and /. monos.permt,, both
common in noTthern Arizona. A third species, /. pachyphlcea,,
the rough- or checkered-bark j uni.per, occurs sparingl.y about
Flagstaf, but really belongs to a more southern flora, and
abounds on the mountains south of the Gila. The principal and
most conspicuous pine of the Colorado plateau is Pin1,s ponde­rosa
scap.ulorum, a species very widespread in the West. On the
lower slopes of the San Francisco mountains grows P. fle"Xil-is,
remarkable for the great size of its cones; while on the same
m9untain P. ari􀁈􄡴tata of large stature grows up to timber line.
These pines ;i.re, of course, exclusive of the pifion, P. edulis,
33o ALONG THE AUBREY CLIFFS.
evening five north, nearly to a sierra of tecl earth. 13
The Indians who were accompanying me said that
,vhich forms extensive forests toward the rim of the great canon,
especially on the first level below the main plateau. An oak
which abounds in the region near and north of the railroad is
the white oak of the Rocky mountains, Quercus gambeU; accom­panied
in some parts of the Colorado plateau by scrubby forms
of Q. undulata.
13 The " sierra of red earth'' is the Aubrey clifs, bounding
the generai chasm of the Grand canon on the east at a varying
distance, some 8 to 16 miles, in that portion of its course
where it is running southward with little westing. The line
of clifs is. nearly north and south. Standing on these heights,
the view ,.,.estward is sublime. The area between the clifs and
the cafion is largely occupied by the ramifications of the Dia­mond
Creek canon system, dividing and subdividing like the
fronds of a fern, and sprea.ding as a whole like a fan, north, east,
and south. It is to he;id this impassabie eafion that Garces
goes easting before he makes his northing. His pos.ition after
his 􀃉􌤠 leagues or 24 miles of s,vinging around is uncertain. His
aguage, he says, was scanty, and tbere is no telling exactly
which one of the several tanks or water holes that there are
on this trail was the one at which he made night. It was some­where
in the vicinity of the Snow spring marked on Ives' map
between his Cedar Forest and Pine Forest camps (marks "*69"
and "*71 "). Some n1aps in.ark Pocomattee springs hereabouts.
His trail, ho,vever, is (definite and fairly well known, through
the hig.hlan.ds more or less thickly ,vooded with junipers and
p1nes, conspicuous o.n nearly all of his route to-day. Barring
the diference at the start from that of Ives-for Ives started
from his Hualpais spring, halfway down the canon leading to
Diamond cre.ek, as above described-Garces' trail coincides pre­cisely;
and with the same diference, it is the trail dotted on
the U. S. G. S. map. In fact, I know of no other way of getting
I
TO A SCANTY AGUAGE. 33 1
the Rio Colorado was near, an.d already ,vere visible
cajones very profound which had the color of the
sierra. The aguage where we slept W<l:S very scanty.
The two Indians and the Indian vvoman who were
aecompanying me divided with me the mezcal they
were carrying for food. On this day the married
from Peach springs into the extraordinary plate for which
Garces is heading, except by an immense detour which would
have taken him to an entirely diferent base of departure for
Cataract cafion. Aubrey clifs form the western edge or jump­ing-
of place of the vast Colorado plateau stretching eastwa.rd
af an average elevation of about 6,000 feet, with isolated eleva­tions
up to about 7iOOO, to the region of the great Bill Williams
and the San Francisco mountains, and northwa,rd to the Grand
canon 1tself. South of the clifs lies Aubrey valley, near Mt.
Floyd and the Pieacho, leading into Chino valley. Franc;ois
Xavier Au,brey, Aubray, or Aubry, \V'ho was through this coun­try
in 1854, was the famous French-Canadian plainsman and
pony express rider, born in 1V1askinonge Dec. 4, 1824, killed in
a fracas at Santa Fe, N. M., Aug. 20, i854, by Major R. H.
Weightman, U. S. A.., who was killed at the battle of Wilson's
Creek, Mo., Aug. 10, 1861. Aubrey City, or Landing, was a
projected settlement on the Colorado at the mouth of Bill
Williams' fork, and Fort Aubrey once stood on the Arkansaw
river in Colorado. A biography of this humble hero will be
found in Tasse's Les Canadiens de l'Ouest, ii,_ 1878, pp. 179-227,
portrait. See also Pike's Travels, ed. 1895, p. 731.
Garces trll,veled a part 9£ yesterday and the whole of to-day
in the present H ualapai Indian r􀂶􋙳servation (Executive Order
of Jan. 4, 1883); and after leaving Peach springs he passed fr.om
Mojave into Yavapai county, on eras-sing tlte meridian of 113 °
:2Q' w.
•
332 ADMIRABLE NOVELTY-UTES NOTED.
Indian cl1anted the wl1ole bendito 14 ,vith little difer­ence
in intonation fron1 that in whicl1 it is chanted in
the missions. I admired this novelty, and presented
11,im ,;vith a string of beads, asking him eagerly (con
git,sto) who had taught it to him. He gave me to
ttnderstand that tl1e Yutas 15 l1is neighbors kne,v it,
1
• The Benedictus, beginning in Spanish " Bendito y alabado
sea," .etc. Benediction is certainly better than ma.lediction, and
I think a mode of treatment like that upon which Garces was
intent .vas prefer.able to such as sometimes resulted from educa­tion
in the language of the whites. Thus, Beale says that in
his time the 11ojaves had learned enough English to salute a
stranger with "God damn my soul eyes! How de do?"
15 The Utas or Utes, of the Shoshonean stock, after whom
the State of Utah \.vas named. They are divided into numerous
bands or subtribes, ,vhose habitat extended over southern Col0-
rado and Utah, and jnto northern Ne,v Mexico and Arizona.
On the upper Rio Grande in New Mexico the Utes came in con­tact
with the pueblo tribes, particularly the Tigua Indians at
·raos and Picuris, of ,vhon1 Garces here 􀂿􋽰peaks. Of the two
viii-ages mentioned Taos is the n1ore important; it is situa:ted on
the Rio de Taos, a tributary of the Rio Grande, about 60 miles
north by east from Santa Fe. Its inhabitants within historic
times hav,e had several conflicts with the Utes, who have left
their impress on the tribe; indeed the Taos people resemble the
Utes more closely than they do their near kindred in Picuris
or in Sandia and Isleta farther southward. Taos was the seat
of the mission of San Geronimo, established in the seventeenth
century; it was also the scene of a rebellion in 1847, which
resulted in the killing of Governor Bent, but the revolt ,vas
quelled a month later and the leaders executed by Col. Sterling
Priee. The In'dians lost 150 killed, the i\merican force 7 killed
•
FESTIVE RANCHERIA NEAR PINE SPRING. 333
for they had heard it many times among the Tiguas;
whereupon he fell to chanting it twice over again.
Ji1,ne 17. I went tvvo leag11es with some windings
through a rough sierra,16 and arrived at the rancheria
of the unmarried Indian wl10 was accompanying me.
I talked with the captai11, who appla.uded my coming,
a.nd soon: dispatched a runner, in order that the
rancherias of tl1e 11ortl1 shot.tld con1e to see me. Men
and women 􀁹􇥮n􀁺􇨠 Q.ti12_ging 111t various little gifts
(rega,litas) of mezcal, ,vith which the, land abounds'.
All were very festive, i:nen and vvomen dancing at
their r>leasure, and applaudi11g lo11d1y what I told
them, that the Castillas-as they call the Espanoles
-,vere driving the Yabipais fron1 the south and keep­ing
them far aloof.17 They dre,v on the· groun· d a
sort of map, explaining to me by this means the na­tions
o.f the vicinity and their directions;, and even
with admiration did they rejoice when 011 their own
m,ap I showed then1 my route, -.ve understanding each
oth·er in this way reciprocally. By_ tl1.is means was
and 45 wounded (some of them, including Capt. Burgwin,
fatally). Toas ,vas the Valladolid and Braba of Coronado's
narrators in 1540. Present population about 400.-F. W. H.
16 Simply continuing on the trail alon.g the Aubrey clifs for
some five miles, to a position which appears by to-morrow's
itinerary to have been two or three miles west of Pine spring.
11 Amarraban a los Yabipais del -Sur para llebMlos mui lexos­a
clause I have sliglltly turned. These-were the Apaches. 􀀁􀄠
334 SPREADING THE GOSPEL.
I enabled to acquire a clear uuderstandin.g of the
situation of all the nations.
The married Indian ,vho came with me, and who
said l1e was from near Moqui, remained here with his
wife to continue his jou.rney to his home through a
level and ,vell-vvatered valley. \i\Tith them I cou1i
have gone to Moqui; but the captain of this rancheria
and all those who had come to see me urged me to
proceed to vie,v their land. Being under obligations
for their servic.es ( a cuyo obsequio ob.ligado) I could not
refuse, and so I determined to go with them whither­soever
they ,vished; the occasion being favorable to
see yet other peoples and discover new regions.
This length of time gave me au opportunity to speak
to them of God and of the things divine, to vvhicl1 they
showed that they gave credence. They all kissed the
crucifix, and l1eld it up toward the sky, passing it thus
from 'hand to hand, even unto the least of them. In
this and other rancherias I had much to announce,
for the halt, the blindi the sick and the weary ones
came to beg me to lay hands upon them and teacn
them somewhat; I gave tl1em some gospel, or the
Magnificat, and thus did I continue in all the 1and of
the Yabipais, even unto my return t0 tl1e J amajabs.
I was at a loss to discover whence arose this good
faith, suficing unto salvation. Here I tarried one
day [18th].
POZ© DE LA ROSA-PINE AND OAK SPRINGS. 335
June 19. I went 011e le.ague east, accompanied by
the captain and three of his rancheria, with another
principal (man) wl10 had a beard, though a slight one,
from the Rio Jabesua.18 Here there was a rancheria,
and before I reached thereto a well of abounding
water, to which, as it was crowned with roses, I gave
the name (Pozo) de la Rosa. 19 Tl1roughout this
region there are many and lofty pines. I \-vent up
thereafter two leagues to the north, 20 and halted in a
rancheria whereat,. being irnportuned by the Indians,
I passed the night.
lu·ne 20. I went five leagues east, two northeast,
and three north, the last four of these over very bad
(mtJrlisima) ground through some cajones the most
profound, though all were well grassed and "'itl1
18 Rio Jabesua = Cataract creek, for ,vhich Garces has been
heading from the start. See on, w·hen we get there.
19
Poz@ de la Rosa, or Rose Well, is Pine spring of present
nomenclature, whi'ch either named itself from the coniferqus
character of the forest or else may be traceable to what Ives
says of his Pine Forest camp, marked "*71 "; p. 103 of his Re­port,
Apr. 10, 1858.
􀁲􇈠 About five miles north of Pine spring is another, now
known as Oak spring. This fits Garces' advance to a nicety,
and each spring se.ems to confirm the identification of the other
here made. Th.ere is a third spring called Aubrey's, about the
s.ame distance west of Oak spring. From his present position
Garces makes a straight break for the " horrible abyss " of the
Hualapai trail by which he enters Cataract canon.
ENTRANCE INTO CATARACT CANON.
plenty of tree-s. I arrived at a rancheria which is on
the Rio J abesua, ,;,hich I 11an1ed (Rio) de San An­tonio;
and in order to reach this place I traversed a
strait (pase· por 'Urn estreclio) which I called the Nt1ebo
Canfran. Tl1is extends about tl1ree quarters ( of a
league) ; on one side is a very lofty clif, and on the
other a horrible abyss ( votade1'0). This dificult road
passed, there presented itself another and a ,;vorse one,
,vhich obliged us to leave, I my mt1le a11d they their
horses, in order that \1/e 111ight climb do,;,n a ladder
of ,vood. 21 All the soil of tl1ese caxones is red; there
21 This ladder ,vas probably not the identical one ,vhich Ives
found on Apr. IJ, 1858; but it ,vas in the identical spot-there
is no other ,vay dov,rn the a,vful chasm which leads from the
6,000-foot level of the plateau to the 4,000-foot bed of Cataract
canon. The trail down this side canon is thus a descent of 2,000
feet into the h0wels of the earth, to the place where the Hava­supais
live now as they did in 1776. Garces' few words on his
" horrible abyss," leading to depths still more profound, may
be amplified by Ives' vivid description of h.is experiences: "Ten
miles conductecl to the head of a ravine, do,vn v,rhich was a well­beaten
Indian trail. There was every prospect, therefore, that
we were approaching a settlement similar to that of the H·ual­pais
on Dian1ond river. The descent was more rapid than the
former had be.en, and in the course of a few miles \Ve had gone
down into the plateau one or two thousand feet, and the blufs
on either side had assun1ed stupendous proportions [see his
fig. 3.4, p. 106]. Still no signs of habitations were visible. The
􀀂􀈱1orn-out and thirsty beasts had begun to flag, when we were
brought to a standstill by a fall a hundred feet deep in the
bottom of the canon. At the brink of the precipice 􀂡􊆷·as at1
BY THE NUEBO CANFRAN. 337
is in thetrt n1ttch 1nezcal; tl1ere are s01ne cows and
horses, 1nost of which are branded, and some have sev­eral
such marks (los nias de estos tienen fierro, y algitnos
overhanging ledge of rocks, fron1 which we could look down
as into a well upon the continuation of the gorge far below.
Tl:ie break reached completely across the ravine, and the side
walls were nearly perpendicular. There was no egress in that
direction, anel it seemed a marvel that a trail should be found
leading to a place where there was nothing to do but to return.
A closer in$pection sho,ved that the trail still continued along
the cafion, traversing horizontally the face of t:he right-hand
bluf. A short di·stance of it seemed as th@ugh a mountain
goat could scarcely keep its footing upon the slight indenta­tion
that appeared like a thread attached to the r0cky wall, but
a trial proved that -the path, though narrow and dizzy, had been
cut with some care into the surface of the clif, and aforded a
foothold level ancl broad enough both for men and animals.
I rode upo,n it first, and the rest oJ the party and the train
followed-one by one-looking very much like insects crawl­ing
upon the side o f a building. We proceeded for tH􀂲􋉡arly a
mile along this singu:lar pathw,ay, which preserved its horizontal
direction. The botton1 of the caiQn had meanwhile been rap,­
idly descending, and there were t,vo or three falls where i t
dropped a hundre.d feet at a time, thus greatly increasing the
depth of the chasm·. The change had taken place so gradually
that I was n@t sensible of it, till glancing down the side of my
mule I found that he ,vas walking within three inches of tl1e
b,rink of a sheet gu)f a thousand feet deep; and o n the other
side, nearly touching my knee, was an almost vertical wall
rising to an enormous altitude. [This is ,vhat Garces merely
calls "a dificult road "!) The sight made my head swim, and
I dismounted and got ahead of the mule, a dificult and delicate
operation which l was thankful to have safely performed. A
•
OR THE HUALAPAI TRAIL.
m;u,clios); I recognized no.ne of tl1em, but of a single
one I doubted wh·ether it \l\1ere not of the mission of
San Ignacio. I asked tl1ese I11clians, as I had done
party of the men became so giddy that they were obliged t.o
,creep upon their hands and knees, being unable to stand or
walk. In some places there was barely room to walk, and a
slight deviation in a step ,vould have precipitated one into the
'frightful abyss. I was a good deal alarmed lest some obstacle
should be encountered that would make it impossible to go
ahead, for it was certainly im,practicable to return. After an
interval of uncomfortable suspense the face of the rock tnade
an angle, and just beyond the turn was a projection from the
main. ,vall with a surface fifteen or twenty feet square that would
aford a foothold. The continuation of the wall was perfectly
vertical, so that the trail could no longer foll0w it, and we
found that the p:ath descended the stee,p face of the clif to the
bottom of the canon. It was a desperate road to traverse, but
located ,vith a good deal of skill-zigzaging do,vn the precipice,
and taking advantage of every cr-evice and fissure that could
aford a footh0ld. It did not take long to discover that no
mule could accomplish this des.cent, and nothing remained hut
,to tttrn back.''
This is the road \vhicl1 Garces calls " another and a worse
one," ,vhere he had to leave his mule for the Indians to take
back and bring around into Cataract cafion by a diferent trail.
But we have not yet come to the ladder part of the story. Ives
·afterward n1ade u p a party to explore the canon further; and
we resume his narrative at the critical point: " At the end of
thirteen miles fro1n the precipice an obstacle presented itself
that· there seemed to be no possibility of overcoming. A stone
slab, reaching from oae side of the canon to the oth·er, termi­nated
the plain which vve were descending. Looking over the
,edge, it appeared that the next level was forty feet below. This
,
•
vVHICH IVES ALSO 1'00K. 339
before in other rancherias, \vhence did they procure
these horses and co,vs.; and they replied, from Moqui,
where there are many ill-gotten cattle and horses. I
time there ,vas no trail al0ng the side blufs, for these were
smooth and perpendicular. A spring of water rose from the
bed of the canon not far above, and trickled over the ledge,
for·ming a pretty cascade. It was supposed tl1at the Indians
must have come to this point merely to procure ,vater, but this
theory was n0t altogether satisfactory, and ,ve sat do.wn upon
the rocks to discuss the matter. Mr. Eglofstein lay down by
the side of the creek, and projecting his head over the ledge
to watch the cascade, discovered a solution of the mystery.
Below the shelving rock, and hidden by it and the face, stood
a crazy-looking ladder, made of rough sticks bound together
with thongs of bark. It \Vas almost perpendicular, and rested
upon a bed of angular stones. The rounds had become rotten
from the incessant flow of ,vater. Mr. Eglofstein, a.nxious to
have the first vie,v of ,vhat ,vas below, scrambled over the ledge
and got his feet upon the upper round. Being a solid weight,
he was to0 much for the insecure fabric, \Vhich commenced
giving way. One side fortunately stood firm, and holding on
to this with a tight grip, he made a precipitate descent. The
other side and aU the rounds broke loose and accompanied hin1
to the bottom in a general crash, efectually cutting of the com­munication.
Leaving us to devise means of getting him back
he ran to the bend to explore. The bottom of the canon had
been reached. He found he \Vas at the edge of a strean1, ten
0r fifte􀂽􋵮n yards wide, fringed \.vitl1 cottonwoods and willows.
The waUs of the canon s:pread out for a short distanc<!, leaving
room for a narrow belt of bottom land, on which \.Vere fields of
corn and a fe,v scattered huts."
Su£h was Garces' plunge into Cataract cafion-Gertainly no
faciUs descensiis Averni-but the most direct access to the
•
340 TO THE HAVASUPAI VILLAGE.
arrived at the place of ottr stopping for tl1e 11ight, and
as I savv the Jabesua Indians vvell supplied with some
pieces of red cloth, I sttspected therefron1 that they
strange people of his Rio J abesua. His Indians then to0k his
anin1als back, and brought them in by an easier trail, n1ore
east,vardly, v.hich follo,vs down another side canon into
Cataract canon at a point a fe,v n1iles above the Havasupai set­tlement.
Lieutenant Ives did not follow 11[.r. Eglofstein; but,
having extricated him from his predicament by hauling him up
the remaining piece of the shattered ladder by means of slings
from the soldiers' n1uskets knotted together, he beat a retreat
i n good order. His subsequent route is nowhere near that of
Garces, till both reach the Moqui villages. In taking leave of
him here I n1ust note that, accurate as his map is for the whole
re,gion he actually explored, it is quite the reverse in all that he
lays do\vn for the c0urse of the Grand canon in the parts he
never saw. This is all hypotl1etical, and far out of the way.
Thus he sends the main Colorado of through s.omething that
appears to correspond to Kanab wash, and brings the Colorado
Chiquito clear ,vestward, approximately in the course of the
Grand canon itself, to join Cataract canon! This error of at
least one whole degree of longitude, as ,ve1l as the wrong con­fluence,
v1as reflected on maps for many yeaJs, till the actual
junction of the Colorado Chiquito with the main stream was
properly detern1ined, about lon'g. I 1 I
O 47' 30".
The Cataract canon system is of great extent; its ramifica­tions,
fissuring the great Colorado plateau in every direction,
and as it were dissecting the surface of the earth, 1nay be traced
to the vicinity of Bill Williams' n1ountain and Mt. Sitgreaves.
The general tren·d of the system is northwest, but tht collateral
fissures run in every direction. This is an efectual barrier to
travel east and ,vest, almost t o the head of the syste1n, across
whieh Beale n1ade his ,vagon road in 1857,. at no point north
CATARACT CANO􀀒􁈠 NOTED FURTHER. 341
mtght be some of the Apacl1es who harass these
provinces, JVIy suspicio11 increased "vhen the wort1en
came, and among them some whiter than is the rt11e
of 35° 30'. The bed of the main canon -sometimes runs water
from near its head down\.vard; but is ordinarily dry almost
down to the Havasupai settlement. When I traversed it,
the bed was as dry as tinder, sandy, rocky, a.nd choked .vith
cactus; only here apd there was some seepage through the
walls, either trickling idly away and soon evaporating, or, if
stronger, c;ollecting in some little rocky tan.k. The scene
change·s as if by magic at the point sai<l, .vhere Cataraet creek
bursts .out of the ground at a beautiful spring, almost immedi­ately
attaining a volun1e of some 5,000 miners' inches, equaling
a ere(;k eight feet wide and four feet deep. The water is of
a deep blue col0r, and so heavily charged with lime that it
forms stalactites wherever it <;lrips, and incrusts everything upon
which i t dries. A k.ihd of maidenhair fern fg-ro,vs here i n pro­fusion,
and some of the delicate fronds seem as if petrifie·d.
The arable land, including that rendered available by artificial
irrigation, is probably. not over 40Q acres; OJ! this little farm
stretched along the creek the Indians rais·ed their corm, beans, ..
melons, squashes, peaches, apricots, and sunflo,ver-seeds. They
lived in brush lodges s.cattered 0ver their secluded demesne, ex­cept
some whom I found occupying· caves in tl1e rocky sides of
the cafion ,vhic;h they had ,valled up, quite like the prehistoric
cJif 􀃄􌑤dwellers. These hermits seen1ed quite content \Vith their
half-underground lot, and only anxious to be let alone. A little
distante below tlre se,t(len1ent, foll€'.l\ving a trail not devoid of all
danger, may be witnes.sed the sp.ectacle to which Cataract canon
owes its name, as the ,vater of the creek falls a \Vay in three
beautiful cascades, with pitches in the aggregate of perhaps 250
feetJ. before disappearing in the unfathoni.able abyss beyond.
My o,vn entrada iuto this caxon was neither so dramatic as
342 EDI'fOR
J
S TRAIL TO THE C􀄢􂈭-'\.NON.
in otl1er I1ations. I11 spite of this I -had no fear-, see­ing
all ,vell content at 111y arrival, and that they em­braced
,vith pleasttre tl1e peace proposed with tl1eir
that of Garces, nor yet so precipitate as lVIr. Eglofstein's-but
it was enough to make n1y head swi1n. I reached the brink o,£
the chasm at an entirely diferent place, son1e :20 miles higher
np; and as this point is not 1narked in any way on any map
T knov,r of, my little-known trail may be worth re<!ording here.
In June, 1881, I ,vas the tnedical officer of aJa expedition to the
Havasupais-or, as they were someti.1nes then called, the Agua
Azul Indians-a name supposecl to be derive.d from the blue
water above n1entioned, but really a ,vrenching into Spanish of
Ya,vasu-pai, ,vhich is the sanie vv0rd as Garces' Jabesua. The
party consisted of a detachment of Co1npany K, 6th Cavalry,
Lieut. H. P. Kingsbury, un<;ler command of Lt.-Col. \1/m. Red­wood
Price; the Lieutenant Palfrey mentioned before; with an
old Arizonian scout, whose name I have forgotten, to show u s
the way.· We went from Fort Verde, on the river of that name,
to Fort Whipple and Prescott, and thence through Willia,mson's
and Chino valleys, in which latter we camped at Roger's ranch,
June 4. Next day we flanked the west base of the Picacho and
followed an Jnd,ian trail to Cullen's well, as it was called, near
the base o.f Mt. Floyd. The proper name of this tin.aja or tank
jg Kerlin's-.so called from Beale's clerk of r8s7-58, F. E. Kerlin,
,vhose name is cut in the rocks·. It is ori the Beale road, but
hard to find, at the head of a ravine, and is not living ,vater.
On the 6th we sought unsuccessfully .for Kisa.ha tank, aod re­turned
to Kerlin's. On the 7th, with a detour east,vard along
tl1e Beale road, and then a turn northward past that other ele­vation
which is 6 1niles due N. of Mt. Floyd and about 7,000 feet
high, we kept on nortl1 with some vvest1ng to what was known
in th0se days as Black tank, but is novv lettered Wagathile tank
on the U. S. G. S. maps. This was a stretch of some 30 miles,
HIS DESCENT THEREINTO. 34􀀃􀌠
inveterate enemies the Jama jabs, the Y t1mas, tl1e Jal­chedunes,
Cocoma.ricopas, and Pi mas Gilefios; a11d also
did I propose to tl1em to cultivate pleasant relations
net halfway to the ranclieria of which \l\le were in €}uest, and the
last water hence to Cataract caiion. Blan.k tank ,vas a nasty
hole in the rocks, containing perhaps 5,000 gallons of dead
water and filth, in \Vhich lurked an enormous number of the re­pulsive
" fishes with legs," o·r axolotls, also called guahoiotes
-a species of Amblystoma. Here ,l\le rested on the 8th, and
next day made a straight break due north, along a din1
Indian tr.ail; over good ground, partly wooded, to a dry
aamp. On the roth a 1narch of 10 miles in the same direc­tion
brought us abruptly to the brink of the precipice-a
sharp-edged jump-of of perhaps a thousand feet. There was.
no side canon h􀃜􍱲re for gradual descent-the firm level ground
gave no hint of the break before us till we were actually upon
the verge, and when the· soldiers lined up to look down an in­voluntary
murmur of astonishment ran through the ranks.
Diswounting and going in single file, each n1an leading his.
horse, we took the dizz.y trail-a narrow footpath, in m<1,ny part&
of whieh a misstep would h.ave been destruction to man or
beast. The way zigzagged at first for some distance, on the­"
switchback" principle by which railroads someti1nes make
grade􀃝􍴠 otherwise impracticable; the face of the precipice was
s.o steep that, as we filed along, those of us a t the head of the
procession looked up to see the ot'her sections Qf the train
almost overhead-certainly a fall of any man there w()uld have
been right on top of us. Then the trail took a lortg lurch to
the left with little descent, hugging the face of the clif, and we·
looked like a row of ants on a ,vall. This brought us at length
t o1 the head of c1. great talus, down which the trail zigzagged­the
incline was too steep for straight descent, probably at an
angle of 45 °. This :etched us into the bed oJ Cataract cafionr
344 GARCES DETAINED PERFORCE.
with tl1e padres and Espafioles vvho would soon c0me
to live on tl1e Ri0 Colorado among those nations.
So pressing ,vas the insistency \Vith vvhich they urged
me to remain i11 this rancheria that, as I found myself
constrained perforce in this place, I had to remain five
days; 22 duri11g ,vhich they waited upon me and re­galed
me vvitl1 flesh of deer a11d of covv, with maize,
beans, quelites, 23 and mezcal, ,.vith all of which were
tl1ey well pro,,ided. They als0 eat a berry of the
perfectly dry; the trail was nearly a mile long, and it took us
an hour to make our creepy way do,vn. The Havasupai chief,
,vho had been advised of our coining, ,vas there to meet us
,vith some of his men, all mount:ed; and he took us up the canon
about five n1iles to a place ,vhere there was a scanty aguage,
not suficing for the wants of the whole party. Next morning
we retraced our steps do,vn the cafi0n and kept on in its bed
till ,ve reached the ,v9nderful blue spring above described and
the rancheria of the Indians-a distance from last night's camp
of about :25 miles, as we had struck the canon some 20 miles
above the living water. On our ,vay down vie were show·n a
side cafion on our right, up wh.ith ,vas a plain trail. This led
to the M0quis, and this is the way by which Garces is about
to leave Cataract canon en route to hi s · ulterior destination.
22 Fμeran tantas las instancias que n1e hicieron en esta Ran­cheria
para que me quedase, que enmedio de ha.llarme violento
en aquel Parage me hube de detener cinco dias, etc. This
detention was until June 25.
23 Qitelite is the Nahuatl word quilitl, meaning gr-ass or sonte
edible herb, "green$," etc. Sime0n's Nahuatl Diet. renders it
legu.me fra.is in F·rench. But exactly what quelites stands for in
the abo-ve text is uncertain.-F. W. H.
..
AMONG TI-fE HAVASUPAIS. 345
jt1niper􀂠􊀠 a tFee which is very abt111da11t i11 these la11ds.
I had n1uch complacency to see tl1at as soon as it was
dawn each married man witl1 l1is \Vife arrd gro,vn sons
wenf forth to till his rnilpas, taki11g the necessary im­plements,
as hatchets, dibbles (coas),24 and hoes, all
of which they procure fro:rn l\tloqui., These people go
decently clothed, and are very fond (muy apasio1'iados)
of any red cloth 0£ Castilla ,vhich comes from New
Mexico. That thete are here (el ser ·aq·u.i) vvomen so
white-I sa,v one who looked like an Espanola-I
attribute to the situation of the place vvherein they
live; for this is so deep 25 that it is ten o'clock in the
day ,vhen the sun begi11s to shin.e. Wl1ithersoever I
have go·ne I have seen no siti1ation more strong and
secure by natu.re. These families do not exceed 34
in number; 26 yet it is tl1e largest ra11cheria that I
have seen a,tn@ng the Yabipais. Close l)y ri1ns the
2
• Coa is the Nahuatl coatl, meaning, among other things, a
species of sh0vel or spade, i. e., this \Vas the typical planting
stick or dibble of the southwestern tribes1_ made of wood with
a shoulder for forcing into the g-round with the foot.-F. _W. H.
25 In r0und numbers, the rancheria is about 2,000 feet below
th:e general level of the plateau,. and a.bottt half of this deptl1
is sheer in some parts of the cai:i@n. The river then drops 2,000
feet more t© reach the Colorad'o. The plateau may be tal<en
at 6,000 feet; the rancheria, at 4,000; the C0Iorado there at 2,000.
26 In 1881, when I \Vas on the spot, the total population by
actual count was 2r4-60 men, 53 ,vo,men, 101 children. In 1858
Ive􀂂􈈠 suppos􀂃􈍤d the census to be about 􀂄􈑯oo.
DEF ARTURE FROM RIO J ABESU A..
Rio Jabes{1a, ,vhich arises in tlle labyrintl1 of caxones
tl1ere are in every directio11; the c.ot1rse it l1ere takes is
to the ,,vestnortl1west and north, and at a little dis­tance
27 it falls into tl1e Rio Colorado. Tl1is is a river
of rnicldling· size l)t1t ,,ery rapid., and the J abesuas
t1tilize it well witl1 n1any dams and ditches.
J11,1ie 2 5. I set forth 28 accompanied by five Indians,
a11d traveled tvvo leagues soutl1 and east, novv o n
l1orseback, now 011 foot, but in both these ways with
great exertion, and halted on the slope of the sierra
at a scanty aguage. In tl1e afternoon I finished the
1nost difict1lt part of it (tl1e ascent)-they cattse
horror, those precipices it preser1ts-and thereafter
tra,1eli11g nortl1 o,1er good grot1nd., with much grass,
'
1
Th·e air-line distance is about 15 n1iles, and the actual dis­tance
not much more, as the creek runs pretty straight, a little
west of north. to the confluence with the Colorado at about
lat. 36° 16'. The tiny Suppai Indian reservation is on and near
lat. 36° 05', long. 112° 47' (Executive Orders of June 8, 18o;
N,
ov. 3, 18o; and lVIar. 31, 1882). The original survey of the
settlement was n1ade for this purpose by Lieutenant C. F. Pal­frey,
Corps of E11gineers, U. S. A., June r 1-13, on the expedi­tion
of 181 which I have alre,ady described in part.
2S Garces starts fron1 the Havasupais to go to the Moqui
Pueblo of Oraibi, in the Province of Tusayan. His air-line
course would be almost due east-a very little south of east.
The air-line distance is about 112 1niles; but no such straight
line is possible, ov,ing to the nature of the ground. Yet his
laps foot up altogether only 41 leagues, or about 107 miles, and
he goes ,vinding about a good deal. Hence it is obvious that
•
.,;.,
APPROACHING THE GRAND CANON. 347
and many junipers, pines, and other trees an1011g
whicl1 I went about three leagues, I arrived at a ran­cheria
which appertai11s to tl1e Jabesua, whitl1er l1ad
come some of this natio11 to gatl1er the fruit of tl1e
juniper. The principal In·dian ofered l1imself to ac­company
me next day.
litne 26. I traveled fot1r leagues southeast, a11d
south, and turning to the east; and halted at the sigl1t
0£ the most profound caxones ·vvhich ever onward con­tinue
(que au1i todavia siguen); a11d witl1in these flow􀁫􆬠
the Rio Colorado. There is seen (vese) a very great
sierra, which in the distance (looks) blue; and tl1ere
.runs from southeast to nortl1vvest a pass open to the
very base, as if tl1e sierra were cut artificially to
give entrance to the Rio Colorado i11to tl1ese lands.
neither his courses nbr his distances can be taken at the foot of
the letter. He lost his compass in the Tulares of California,
and merely guesses at the cardinal points as well as at the
league􀂉􈤠 n1ade. The country over which h.e pas;es is alm.ost as
1nuch. of a hqwling wilderne.ss to-day as it was in 1776 ;- if we
coulcl trace his very footsteps we. should be a·ble to name very
few places. We shall find .him when he strikes the Grand
canon, ana again when he crosses the Colorado Chiquito, but
that is about all. This first day he goes southeast up Cataract
canon to tJ,ie place indicated in note 2\ p. 344, where the old
trail to Moqui takes up a side canon to his left. He seen1s to
finish this side canon and camp at a scanty watering place,
having made somr northing. He is thus on the plateau, be­tween
Cataract Canon on l1is right and the Grand canon on his
left. Approx. position lat. 35° 55', long. 112° 30'.
PUERTO DE BUCARELI.
I 11amed this singt1lar (pass) Puerto de Bucareli,29 and
thot1gh to all appearances ,vould 11ot seem to be very
·􀃛􍬠 Puerto de Bucareli, so named by Garces for the great
viceroy, is the Grand canon of the Colorado itself. It may
seen1 singular to give the name of a " pass" to an utterly im­passable
place; but the in1passability i s for man, not for the
river, which Garces distinctly says passes through his Puerto
de Bucareli. His use of the term "sierra," and reference to
blue distance, have caused s0n1e to misapprehend the Puerto
de Bucareli for a mountain pass, and locate i t of somewhere
northwest of the Colorado. But Garces repeatedly speaks of the
clifs ,vhich vvall in Cataract canon, for example, as "sierras";
while, as for a puerto being a river gorge, compare the name
Puerto de la C0ncepcion for the narrow place through which
the Colorado flows just below Yu1na. The formation in ques­tion
is duly lettered on Font's map, where the legend i s set
against the river itself, ,vith no mountain pass about it. There
are three points in Garces' description which enable us to
identify the puerto ,vith considerable precision: (1) From his
position it bears E. N. E. (2) It runs fron1 S. E. to N. W. (3)
He says beyond that the Colorado Chiquito falls into the Colo­rad.
o Grande above the Puerto de Bucareli. N o,v, if anyone
would like to see the Puerto de Bucareli in all its grandeur, he
has only to leave the railroad at Flagstaf, and drive some 75
miles N. by 'vV. over the wagon road opened of late years to
strike the Grand canon at the point where it dips furthest S.
Here, at Canon spring, is about ,vhere Garces named the puerto.
At Canon spring, on the brink of the great chasm, the general
level of the plateau is about 7,500 feet; \Vhence the face of the
earth drops do,vn 5,000 feet in the course of five or six miles,
and there in the botto1n of the apyss runs the Colorado through
the Puerto de Bucareli, only 2,500 feet above the level of the sea.
South o.f the Grand canon, in Garces' present vicinity, the
most conspicuous landn1ark is the isolated elevation kno,.vn as
DIS<:OVERY OF THE GR.AND CANON NOTED. 349
great the dificulty of reaching thereu11to, I considered
this to be itnpossible in consequence of tl1e dificult
Red Butte, some 7,750 feet high, standing on the plateau 10
miles (air line) from the nearest point on the brink of the
canon. Its former and prQbably earliest nam'e was Mt. Thor­burn,
given by Beale for Lt. C. E. Thorburn, U. S. N., Sept.
15, 1857 (Report, p. 54). The trai'J to Moqui passes a little
north of this li>utte, keeping eastwarcl to Red Horse spring,
w,hich is. on the tourist's ,vagon road a.b.ove. said, some 12 or 15
miles. so;uth of the canon.
Garces is the first white man known to have reached the
Grand cano.n fron1 the west; perhaps he is also the first to view
it at this particular point and give it a specific name, as dis­tinguished
fr0n1 that of the river flowing through the chasm.
In Escalante's writings of about this year it is given the name
of Rio Grande de los Cosninos. But in 1776 this one of the
wondets oi the world had been known to the Spanish for 236
years-since 1540, in which year it was disc@vered by· a detach­ment
o f Coronado's men. The n1ain facts in outline are these:
Coronacio being at Cibola (Zuni) sent Pedro 'de Tobar, Jaan
de Padilla, and about 20 men, to discover Tusayan (l\1oqui);
they heard there of a great river beyond, and so. reported on
their return to Cibola. Thereupon Coronado sent Garcia
Lopez de Cardenas with about 12 n1en to find this river. Th.is
party started on or about August 25, ,vent to Tu-sayah, con­tin-
ued in what direction is not said, and cari1e to the river, after
20 days. Then, says Castaneda, in his Relacion of this expedi­tion,
" llegaron a las barrqncas del rio que puestos a el bado de
ella.s parec-ia al otro bordo que auia nws de tres o quatro leg􀀱􃅡as por
el ayre." This statement has been variously translated.
Ternaux-Compans has: "Jes bards sont tellemetit el eves q.u'ils
croyaient etre a trois ou quatre lieues en l'air." Winship trans­lates:
"they can1e to the banks of the river which seemed to
be more than 3 ox: 4 leagues above the strean1 which flowed be-
•
•
350 'fHE SUBJECT CONTINUED.
caxones whicl1 intervened. From this position said
pass bore eastnortheast. Also were there seen on tl1e
t"veen them." It is pretty rocky old Spanish, but the transla­tion
seems to me to be: "They arrived at the gorges of the
river \Vhich, (to the people who were) standing (puestos, tnascu­line)
on the' expanse thereof, ,vould seem to be more than thre· e
or four leagues \vide in an air-line,'' i. e., through the air, frotn
one side of the chasm to the other. I d0ubt that eveh Spanish
imagination could have made the canon eight or ten miles deep
or "v,p in the ctir." This description,· like the rest of it that i
might quote, of the magnitude and impassability 0£ the ehasm,
fits so many pl-aces alon·g the G.rand canon, that it bas never been
determined, and probably never 'vvill be known, at what point
Cardenas discovered the wonderful abyss. The requisite data
do not exist; in their ctbsence, conjecture has been rife; I can
point to maps on which Cardenas' hypotbeticct.1 trail is loop􀃡􎅤d
up river to the vicinity of Lee's ferry, and others on which it is
dotted do\vn river nearly to Mojave. I beli'eve both these no­tions
to be wild. Cardenas \vas guided to the great river by
1'Ioquis, i. e., he 'vvas on a known trail from Moqui to the canon
-and what more probable than that this trail ,,vas the imme­morial
one on which Garee.s is now being taken? If so, Car­denas
reached the river at about the place Garces now names
Puerto de Bucareli. What next? Nothing forbids us. to be­lieve
that he simply kept on westward. How far? Well, the
narrative sp· eaks o· f a cataract; and this colors the view that Car­denas
kept on into Cataraet cafion along the same Moqui trail by
which Garces has just left that canon; \-vhet1ce he returned to
i1oqui by the same \-vay he \'lent from that {!)lace, "vith no lnop­ing
up or down river. All that ,vc know favors this dictamen,
and nothing that we know is obnoxious thereto; so I hold it en
mi corto entendimiento, salvo otro mejor-as Garces some­where
says about something else. But that is immaterial to
the main point of discovery of the Grand canon by Cardenas
ASTONISHING ROUGHNESS OF THE COUNTRY. 351
north. some smokes, \<vhich my companions said ,vere
those of tl1e Indians wh.om they name· Payucl1es, who
live on the .0tl1er side of the river. I a1n astonished
at the roughness o.f tl1is cou11try, and at the barrier
which nature has fixed therein.
The Indians took do,,vn the beasts to give tl1em
,vater in those caxones, bt1t I did not see any (water)
myself.80 There ,vere avvaiti11g tts l1ere tl1ree farrtilies,
in order to go in our co1npany; becat1se this road was
for them very hazardous, on account of tl1e vvar that
they ,vage ,with the Yabipais 1'ejtta and Napao; 31
in September, 1540; and what is more, the Colorado in that:
situ􀂔􉑴tion was about that time c@rrectly identified ,vith the Rio
del Tizon or Firebrand river of Melchior Diaz.
30 So Garces is at a dry camp. This makes me think he has
not rea,ched Canon spring, the terminus of the modern wagon
road on the plateau. It does. not follow, however, th.at, becau􀂕􉕥e
the In,dians took the beasts down somewhere to water, there­fore
they were at a place ,vhere the river itself was accessible.
The animals probably drank at some spring or waterhole in a
side-canon.
st Ther,e seems to be no question that the "Napao" tribe o{
Garc􀂖􉙳s and the Navajo or Navaho of the prese·nt time are one
and the same. The origin of tl1e name is not known with cer­tainty,
although its de-rivation i's variously explained. Their
own name is Dene. Although classified linguistically as Atha­pasea-
n, the tribe is. con1p0,se.d of many small bodies of Indians
either related by language or be:aring no relationship with the
Athapascan nucleus ,vith which they became .consolidated at one
time 0r ar:iother during several generations, by voluntary adop­tion
or through capture. Their original range extended from .
•
35 2 NAVAJO INDIANS NOTED,
these live i11 a sierra they call Napac,32 whicl1 disparts
(se despre11de) fron1 tl1at of the Puerto de Bucareli and
San Francisco mountains in Arizona on the ,vest to the vicinity
of Jemez pueblo in Ne,v :rviexito on the east, and from the San
Juan mountains on the north to IVIt. San Nlateo or Taylor on
the south. They are now gathered on a reserv.ition comprising
7,68o,oo acres, largely 0f desert land, in northwestern New
Mexico and northeastern Arizona, extending into sout}lern
Utah, of which area only about 8,000 acres are under cultivation.
They are a pastoral people, with about a million and a .quarter
sheep from which they derive considerable income through
the sale of wool and of blankets, in the weaving of which they
are adept. In addition to their sheep they posse_ ss about 250,000
goats, and over 100,000 horses, mules, and burros. Ameng
them are several expert silversmiths, whose art was originally
derived from the l\l!exicans. Their desert range, most of which
is devoid of grass during n1ost of the year, compels constant
shifting from place to place \vith their sheep, and prevents any
considerable part of the population from settling for mor-e than
a brief period in any locality. The Navaho have bec.ome known
tb science through "the note,vorthy researches of Dr. Washing­ton
Matthews, U. S . A., whose work "Navaho Legends" (Bos­ton,
1897) is of high authority. The present population of the
tribe is believed to be about 20,000. Other names applied to
the tribe by various writers are: Apaches de Nabajo<1, Apaches
cje Nab.aju, Apaches de Navaio, Apaches de Navajox (and other
similar forms c_ombined with the name of the cognate Apache),
Nabaho, Nabajo, Nabajoa, Nabajoe, N􀃓􍍢bbeho, N·abijo, Naboja,
Nabojo, Nahjo, Namak:an, Nanaha,v, N-auajo, Nauajoa,
Navago, Navahce, Navajai, Navajhoe, Navajoa, Navajoe, Nava­joo,
Navajoses, Navejo, Navijo, Navijoe, Nevajoes, Novajo,
etc.-F. W. H.
82 Sierra Napac is the San Francisco mountains, apart from
the Grand -canon, running ,vestward, rising into other pe'aks,
SIERRA NAPAC SIGHTED AND NOTED. 353
runs to the west, rising at intervals (a trechos) very
high, and maintaining itself even at this seaso11
snowy. This sierra have I kept continually t0 tl1e
right; 83 and arising therefrom flov.1s tl1e Rio de la
Asumpcion. This day they showed me on th.e road
some tracks that trended northward, and told 1ne that
these were of the Yabipais Tejua, who take that way
their journey to go to see and trade with their friends
the Chemeguaba; th0se who live as already said on
the other side of the Rio Colorado. In the afternoon
,,.,-e set forth all together, an:d l1aving traveled fo11r
leagues southeast we camped for the night in pine
,voods.34
as Kendrick1
S, .$itgreaves', and Bil) Willia1ns', mountains;
Garees has· had these in plain view) on his right, ever sin<se h e
reached Cataract canon, and even before that; and from the
southern slopes of them £1.o.,v the head,vaters of the Rio de la
Asumpcion, i. e., of the Verde or San Francisco river, a branch
o f the Gila system. This id'entifies the Sierra N apac; and no
doubt Napac is merely the scrib·e's error for Napa"G, which
Garces· elsewhere􀂢􊈠 uses, and wl1ich is the same word as Navajo.
When and by ,vhon1 the San Francisco mountains were first so
na1ned, and which of the two emin· ent saints of that name they
were called for, has hitherto elud'ed my observation. I am
under the impression that the name is a very old .one. It is
o,
n]y within recent years that $everal of the peaks have been
distinguished by name,, as Agassiz., Humphreys, .etc.
83 That is to say, in traveling eastward he is n.orth of the Sao
Francisco and Bill Williams' mountains, and so has them on
his right.
54 This camp cannot be 􀂣􊍥et exactly. The nearest named place
•
354 RIO J AQUESILA OR RIO DE SAN PEDRO.
]1,1,ne 27. I traveled foi1r leagues soittheast and
east., passing most of the way through a lowland (un
bajio) toward the sierra of the Puerto de Bucareli; and
\Ve halted near an aguage a t a place where there is a
cave (en un sitio de una cueba).35
June 28. I traveled three and a half le;i.gues on
courses south, s.outheast, and east, and I arrived at the
Rio Jaquesila, and I called it (31 le puse) the Rio de San
Pedro.36 It was rttnning water enough, but very
to where I suppose it to have been is the Red Horse spring
already mentioned.
85 If this cave could be found it would clear up the otherwise
obscure itinerary to-day. I can make nothing of it as it stands.
If Garces continues S. E. and E., he is goi.ng toward the San
Francisco mounta.ins and thus away from his Sierra del Puerto
de Bucareli. This cannot be; for he continues the same course
to-morro,v to the Colorado Chiquito, and could never strike it
in this direction. I believe that he went N. E. and E. He
must make some northing to strike the Colorado Chiquito
where he do.es, in the vicinity of Moencopie wash, in order t0
get into Moqui o·n anything Iil<e the course rre gives u s as his
route beyond.
Sij Rio J aquesila, otherwise Rio de San Pedro, is the C@loi·ado
Chiquito, the only large branch of the Colorado in northern
Arizona. There is no doubt about this; and the text correctly
runs it into the Colorado above the place where Garces named
the Puerto de Bueareli: see also Fopt's map. But how he ever
reached the river on any such courses and in any such distances
as he gives, is another question. It is also uncertain at what
point he struck it; though I give some i:eason (beyond) for
supposing the plaee to have been i n the vicinity of the mouth
•
THIS IS THE COLORADO CHIQUITO. 355
dirty and red, that could not be drunk; but in the
pools of the border o.f the river there was good water.
This river runs to the westnortl1west, and unites with
the Rio Colorado a little before this passes through
the Ptterto de Bucareli. The ·bed of this river, as far
as the c0nflue11ce,. is a trough of solid rock ( un f oso
en pena viva)., very profound and wide about a stone's
throw, and on that account impassable even on foot;
wherefore with mucl1 travail did I ente·r into said bed
of the river, following down a tr0ugl1 not so profound,
Qf Moencopie wash, \vhich joins the Colorado Chiquito from
the N. E. The river is one of the discoveries of 1540, whe.n
Coronado or some of his men first called it Rio del Lino-a
name \vhich, either in the Spanish form or translated Flax river,
it has borne on many maps almost to the present day. I t was
common down to the surveys of the so's, though in my earliest
Arizona days 0f 1865 it had been mostly supplanted by the term
Colorado Chiquifo. As I say elsewhere, the name Colorado or
Red seems tb have b·een first attached to this river in 1604, by
Juan de Ofiate, and been subsequently transferred t o the main
stream; but when the term Colora.do Chiguito or Little Colo­rado
was fir,st applied I do not kno,v. Some have supposed
C0i:onailio's name Rio Vermejo to belong here; it may have been
s.ometimes so used., but its proper and original application was
to Zufii river, a braneh of this one. Garces' term San Pedro I
do not think ever had any vogue for this streap-1; his other
name, Jaquesila, occasionally appears in print, also. in the forms
Jaquevila, Jaquecila, etc. It is fttri-ous to note the similarity of
Jaquesila to. Hah-qua-si-il-la, given _in Whipple's Report as a
Yuman na.me of the Gila. See further regarding the Colorado
Chiquito in Pike, ed. 1895, pp. 730, 731.
356 LITTLE COLORADO RIVER CROSSED.
in tl1e direction eastnortheast.37 In the after11G@11, -
11aving crossed the river, and entering 11pon another
similar cajon, I travelecl eight leagues north -and east,
l1aving· gone somewhat out of the wa,)' tl1rough failing
to find the Indians where we sought them. I arrived
at a rancheria of Yabipais that should have as it
vvere 30 so·11ls; I ,vas received ,vith many civilities,
s-. This see.ms to be \varrant enough for the statemel'lt in the
last note that Garces stru·ck the Little Colorado in the vicinity
of Moehtopie v.•ash,. dificult if not impossible as it may be to
fetch hin1 here by his alleged courses and distances. The river
is co1nparatively open and easy down to this point, \vhere it be­comes
Slldd·enly canonated or boxed up., in such "vay as to be
" intransitabl􀃎􌸠 ·" across its " trough of live rock." The west or
left side ,vhich Garces reaches is more precipitous than the
other; but with 1nuc·h. dificulty he found a "trough not so pro­found,"
i. e., some side canon, by "vhich he gained aecess to the
bed of the strean1, and thus crossed it. These side canons also
- have the genera;) tre.nd northeasterly, as he says. The further
direction, north and then northeast, is quite right for following
up !\1oencopie wash; on and near which, at distances fairly
agreeable ,vith the eight leagues he gives to his Y abipais
rancheria, are inhabited places now kno,vn as Nloencopie, Moa
Ave, and Tuba, in th.e Painted desert, on and near the well­known
Mormon road hence to Lee's ferry. Th.is ,vash, there­fore,
,vould seen1 tb be the " other similar cajon" upon which
he entered, i. e., rese1nbling the one by ,vhich, on the other side
of the river, he descended to the bed of the latter. Furthermore,
if v,e take hi111 up l\lioencopie ,vash ,ve can account for his
otherwise inexplicable meeting ,v.ith his J aquesila river again
(see note 3i),; and also, ,ve can fetcl1 hin1 into Oraibi by a
kno,vn trail, in the direction he indicates.
MOENCOPIE 'vVASrI. 357
for here vvas the India11 who, as said above, had
sung the hym11. The captain of tl1is rancheria,
,vh0 wore the beard very long, was brother of tl1e
J abesua I11dian that accompanied me. There ar­rived
later two India11s from Moqui, dres·sed i n leather
jackets aln1ost as well as ( cueras y poco 1nenos que)
Espafioles,38 and they came to trade with th·ese
Yabipais, and the vvord ,vas sent to a neighboring
rancheria. One of them kissed my hand, and having
presented him vvith a little tobacco and some shells,
he gave them back to me. I called to the other, who
would neither dravv nigh nor kiss the crucifix which
the Yabipais l1anded him for tl1at purpose (para que
to hiziese). These Moqtti I11 .dians ,vent away early
next day, and I ,did not depart until the 1st of July.
July I. I went 011e. league and half eastsoutheast,
and found a river that seemed to me to be the Rio de
San Pedro Jaquesila,39 and on a mesa contiguous
8 Spanish soldiers of some classes wore a sort of leather
jackets called cueras. The Spanish coraza., coracero, cuirass,
cuirassier, Lat. cb.ratia, a brea.stplate originally of leather, and
s·everal other similar ,vords, are all from the Lat. coriaceus,
leathern; cor.iuni, hide, skin, leather.
8
􀀂􀈠 Th􀁨􆠠 apparent clifi.culty of again striking the Colorado
Chiquito on such a course, after six leagues' northing and east­ing,
disappears on considering that Gartes simply comes to a
part of Moencopie wash which was running, and fancied it
might be his San Pedro Jaquesila, of which, of course, he knew
nothing above the place where he crossed it. In str:ictness,
358 M0QUI PASTURES, OR '' MUCA CONCABE/'
tl1ereto a half-rt1ined pueblo. I asked wl1at that was,
a11d they a11svvered 1ne tl1at it l1ad bee11 a pueblo of the
Moqui, and that some crops which were near to a
spri11g of water ,vere theirs, they comi11g to cultivate
tl1em fron1 the same Moqui pueblo [Oraibi] that is to­day
s.o larg·e. The river ru11s little, and it \Vas yel­lowisl1;
havi11g crossed it and ascended some l1ills, I
·e11tered ttpon some very vvide plai11s, vvithout one
thot1gl1 tl1ere is son1e small grass; a11d having
six leagttes in the same directio11 I arrived at
pastures where the Moquis keep their
These pastttres are of difict1lt entrance and
exit; tl1ere are found so111e sca11ty agttages. There
not to !)e discovered fron1 tl1is place any sierra 011
11ortl1 a11d east; 011ly is see11 that vvhich rttns
therefore, his Jaquesila = 11:oencopie wash + Colorado Chi­quito
below their junction; but it is not necessary to insist
this point. See Font's map,_ v,hich traces "R.
entirely N. and W. of Oraybe, a portion of it running S.
(= Moencopie wash) before it turns N. W. (= Colorado Chi­quito)
to join the main Colorado. The wash is
commonly quite dry belo,v, contributing_ no water to the
Colorado; but lrighe·r up. in the vicinity of its sources, it
sometimes. It is possible to identify the half-ruined
the mesa, and the Moqui pastures of which Garces speaks; cer­tainly
the latter are Moencopie, better spelled Moencapi,
curiously styled "Muca concabe" in the text beyond: see
note on p. 393. Frqm this position Garces can 1nake his
into Moqui on a well-known trail southeast, by going the fif­teen
n1iles or so which he next
ARRIVAL AT ORAl􀀎􀹉I. 359
Apacl1eria 40 on the south and soutl1west, \vhereof
already have I made mentio11.
July 2. I went three leagt1es eastsoutheast, and
yet other three east; 41 whereupon I arrived at the
pueblo that the Yabipais call M uca, and this is the
(Pue bl<:>) de Oraibe. 42 Three leagues before 1ny
'° A􀂳􋌀􀂴􋑲ri!1, -􀂵􋔠 "Apacbeland," tb-e ii:tde.fin.ite region in Ari­zona
and New Mexico over which. the Apaches roamed.
u This course ts over a nearly level plain to near its end, the
most consgicuous object being the isolated mesa on Garces'
right, rising to 6,500 feet fron1 the general level of 5,500 to 5,575.
On nearing Qraibi, ,vhen about 5. n1. due W. of that pueblo, the
road rises 250 feet to the level of 6,000 feet, and at this elevation
rounds Oraibi butte, which rises to 6,750; it then sinks again to
the general level, and finally rises abruptly to the butte or mesa
on the edg,e of which is Oraibi, at an altitude of 6,250.
•
2
Oraibi, Oraybe, Oraibe, etc., js the isolated ,vesternmost
one of the seven pueblos Qf the Province of Tusayan, directly o n
the bluf, and very near the end o·f a narrow spu,r of one of the
Moqui mesas, i n lat. 35
° 53' very nearly, about long. 110° 38'.
It stands to-day on lhe identical spot where i t was discovered!
by, a party of Coronado's me,n in the summer of 1540, and is
one of the most obdurately conservative, fixed facts in all the
histQry of Arizona. When it was built is unknQwn; but for •
three centuries and a half it has stood like the rock on which i t
i s intrenched, sturdily resisting the encroachments of eccle-­siastic
and military power. In Garces' time, it had known
the Spanish priest and soldier to its cost for n1ore than 200
years, sometimes entertaining, son1etimes expelling, sometimes,
slaying the intruders; and ,ve shall see what sort of reception its.
traditiQnal policy of independence induced this pueblo to ex­t
􀂶􋙮nd to the new missionary.
,
# •
,
. .
ALREADY IN TROUBLE.
e11trada I 1net a you11g n1a11, to ,vl1om I ofered
.a little tobacco, a11d he vvot1ld have none of it. One
league further on there .c,ame two a.n good horses and
"\Veil dressed; and I apprcaching them as if to take
·them by the l1and, they dre\v away, n1aking sign· s that
I should betake myself back. Spake then on the sub­ject
and in my favor the Y abipais who accompanied
me, bt1t I l<ne,v that tl1ey were encountering opposi­tion,
since ha,,ing· returned to n1e they asked me vvhat
it vas tl1at I ,vas of a mind to do (que era lo que deter­-m
inaba). As \Veil as I could I gave the Moquis to
t1nderstand that if they received me 11ot I would pass
,on to the G11alpes; 43 or if not tl1at, to tl1e Espafioles; 4i
.for I \\1as an Espafi0l. So leaving them all at the very
w.ord, 􀂋􈬵5 I proceeded alone, as already the Yabipais
had told 1ne that I was near the ptteblo.
41 These were the Moquis of the pueblo of Gualpi, Hualpi, or
Walpi, one of the easternmost cluster of three towns, adjoining
·Sichomovi and Hano, the other t\.vo of this group. The dis­tance
of Gualpi from Oraibi is about 25 miles by the trail, E. by
S. The three other Moqui p11eblos of Shipaulovi. Mishon g ­novi,
and Shumopovi, form an intern1ediate group, E. S. E. 0£
·Oraibi and W. S. vV. of Walpi, nearer to the latter than to the
former. An exfended historical a.nd ethnographic note on all
-of these pueblos will be found beyond. pp. 393-402.
"Namely, the Spaniards at Santa Fe.
􀂘􉠠 Y asi dexandolos a to.do.s con la palabra e>i la boca; literally.
·" with the word in the mouth "-so saying, or forthwith. The
,.expression is idiomatic.
CHAPTER IX.
AMONG THE MOQUIS, JULY, 2-4, 1776.
Those \vho had come with me, and they vvere eight,
parted company vvith me (se dividieror1,) henceforth,
and there only followed me an old man and a boy,
with who1n I made my e11trada. In order to sur­mount
the mesa whereon stands the pueblo there is
quite a steep ascent and very narrow pathway. On
the same ascent there ,:vas a sheepfold (corral de ganado
m-enor), of which there "vere kept here about three
atajos.1 The ewes are larger than those of So,nora,
and tl1e black ones have a finer colo,r. Having as­cended
the slope I co1nmenced my journey over the
mesa, and passed throttgl1 some sandy places
(medanos) until I reacl1ed a small spring of vvater vvhicl1
is in fro.nt of the pueblo. In the cafiadas at this place
there are many peachtrees; artd though the soil is
sterile, since no g·rass -g·rows, nor any other tree than
the peaches they have planted, it is well cultivated,
1 An atajo is a mule-train, and Garces uses the word as if
such a train represented a particular number t>f animals; but no
doubt he simply means flock.
DESCRIPTION OF ORAIBI.
and on tl1e very border of the spring of water I saw
son1e garde11s or inclosures containing onions, beans,
and several 0ther kinds of garden-truck which have
evidently cost much labor to ptodute.2 Descending
and ti1r11ing about I suddenly found myself in sight
of the pueblo. There are two or three tun1ble-down
(caydas) l1ouses in 'fr·«nt-m ·rne ent:ra:nce ll1ereof, and
there is seen neit􀂘􉡥er any door nor window. The
street wh1cl1 is enterecl is quite wide, and run􀂙􉤠 straight
fron1 east to ,vest, or frGm ,vest to east, to the exit
fron1 tl1e pueblo, ancl I believe it to be the only one
there is. On one side a11d the other of this are other
cross-streets of the same ,vidth., forming perfect
squares. I saw also two small open places (plazuelas).
'fhe st1rface (piso) is not level, bt1t fir1n. The pueblo
is situated with the lower part tovvard the e.ast, so that
011ly the streets ,vhich rt1n from 11orth to south are
level. The houses are of heights some greater, others
lesser; according to ,;vhat I found they have this ar­rangement:
Fro111 the g.rot1nd (piso) of the street
there rises a wall as it v.,ere of a vara and a half., at
,vhich height is t_he courtyard (pa·tio), which is
mounted by means of a wooden ladder that n1ay be
taken avvay wben they wish. The ladder has no
more rungs than are necessary to ascend to tl1e pati.o;
but botl1 the up-rights (side sticks-paws de las lados)
2 Hortalizas que se conocia have'r costado mucho c.omponer .
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DESCRIPTION OF ORAIBI.
are very tall. On this patio tl1ere are tvvo, or three,
or four-'all of vvhicl1 (numbers) I saw-dwelling­pla
·ces (qitartos), each with its o\rn door, closed witl1
bolts and keys of ,;vood. Of the l1ot1se where there is
poultry, the coop sta11<.is in tlte patio. Against the
wall on the right or left-for tl1ere are eacl1 of these­i$
placed a ladder for asce11ding to the up,per stories
( a Jos q,ltos ). These co11tai11 a large hall that tl1ere is
in the middle, a11d a roon1 at the sides. At the san1e
collateral walls there is anotl1er: ladder to ascend to the
roof, which for all the houses is oi1e '1Vitl1 tl1ose adjoin­ing
in the same square; whicl1 latter is commonly not
very large, owing to tl1e number of streets which in­tersect.
I fo.und, to be 1nore particular, that tl1e
}10uses all present tl1eir reat v,.1alls (s·e dan toda􀂝􉴠 la
espalda), in sucl1 n1anner that no o,ne can see what l1is
11eighbor is doing without goi11g up on tl1e roof. Tl1e
shape of the pueblo is neither perfectly square nor
perfectly· round.
As s·oon as I en· tered therein, a11d ,;ve alighted in
sight of the very many womei1 and children that tl1ere
were on the house-tops, I approached ,vith tl1e i11ten­ti0n
of going up i11to a l1ot1se k11ovv11 to tl1e Yabipai
who accompanied n1e, a11d who l1ad already saluted
from below the proprietor vvl10 stood 011 tl1e roof.
But before I could asce11d she tolcl the Yabipai to
-notify me there was no adn1itt.ance fo,r myself, a11d not
•
364 INI-!OSPITALITY OF THE ORAIBIANS.
even for my bag·gag·e; and that he shot1ld bring up
only his own. 3 Tl1ere11pon I betook me to a corner
that there vvas in tl1e street, \¥here I t1nsaddled, and
the Yabipai took the mule to a sheep-corral. There
vvere coming all day in succession to stare at me men,
,vornen, and children, yet not one of tl1em would come
11ear n1e, even though I ofered them the sea-shells
they prize so l1ig'.l1ly; nevertheless; they kept up ap­pearances
vvell (ponia11, biben, semblante). When the old
Yabipai patted c.01npany with ·me he said to me:'' Re­tnai11
alone here; these people do not ,vant thee; they
are a bad lot." Of tl1e cornstalks ( ol6tes) ¼ that \¥ere
strevvn in the street I gathered some to build 􀂤􊐠 fire;
I struck a light vvith the lens 5 and made a little at6le.
I heard tl1at the Yabip.ais, vvho by this ti1ne had ar­rived-
all those vvho had accompanied me-were
ta'lking in the houses, a11d no doubt they were taking
my part. At eveni11g I saw entering the pueblo the
men who were coming from vvork, and they brottght
their hatchets, dibbles, and hoes. At nightfall tl1ere
a vVhat the inhospitable lady said to the Yabipai is rendered
by Garces thus: "Esta, antes que yo subiera, le di􀁬􆱯o al Yabipai
. , . . que me av1sara para que no entrarse n1 tampoco mis trastes, que
subiese solo los suyos."
• Oi6te is the S.panish form of Nahuatl olo.tl, cornstalk.
5 Con el ente in our copy. But this is a slip of the scribe's pen
for con el lente, witl1 the lens, sc., burning-glass. Both the
Beaumont MS. and the pub. Doc. read lente.
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'' THESE PEOPLE ARE CHICHIMECOS.J' 365
came to me one old 111an to ,vhom I n1ade a present,
and allowed to kiss el Cristo; ,vhen he received tl1e to­bacco
and sl1ells l1e sa.id in Castilla, " Nlay God reward
thee" (Dios te. lo pague). Soon there came a yot1n.g
man to who111 I n1ade the same ofering, and he beg·an
to speak irt Espanol, saying unto me, " Padr€., tl1ese
(people) are chichimecos, 6 ,vho do not wish to be bap-
°ঋ  Chichim-eco. 0r cluchirneca is a N!exican w0rd adapted by the
Spanish ftom the very earliest tii:pes for a. ny w.ilEl ©r hostile In­dian,
as opposed to manso, a tame one; and i'n tin1e, it came to
mean what we do when we speak of a "bully," "bravo," "fire­eater,"
etc. Some of the dicti0naries treat it as the proper
name of a tribe: thus, one to which I have ju§t referred says:
"ChichimeGas, one of the anci·ent races of Americct, of the Mexi­can
family, which at son1e re·mote period came from the north
of the continent and established itself in what is novv Mexico,
and was ultimately exterminated by the Span,ia:rds." The
Teatr0 Americana of J. A. de Villa-Siefior y Sanchez, 1746, i, p.
3, speaks o-f "el lmperio Chichimeco." F. L. Gomara, Hist., 1554,
chap. 214, has a " tierra de Chichitnecq,s," etc. The Relacion de
Castaneda, pJ. i.i, chap. 5, sp:eaking of Cicuye, says that the Pecos
" generalmente llaman estas gentes teyas por gehtes uali:·etes
[valientes] comb dicen los mexicanos cliiclumecars 0 teules "­generally
calle.d the Teyas so because they were valiant, as the
Mexicans say chichimecas or teules. The. French translation of
Ternaux-C,ompa,ns, 1838, p. 178, renders this: "Ils nomment
cette nation Teyas,, ce qui veut dire vaillants, comme les :r-.it:exi­cains
s'·appellant cliichimecas ou braves." The word chich.imeca
is found in the title of Fernando de Alvarado Tez.ozamoc,
Cronica Mexica,na, Historia Chichin1eca por Don Fernando de
Alva Ixtlilxochitl, forming vol. ix of Viscount Kings,borough's
sumptuous Antiquities of 11exico, etc., 1848; and Ixtlilxochitt's
,
366 FRIENDLY YOUNG Z.UNIAN.
tized, and do not believe that thou art a pa:dre; but
I myself believe it, for I have been baptized at Zuni;
all the people of my pueblo are good, and content
with the padre whom we have; ,,ve kno,v that those
,vho are baptized go to heaven. Our padre ,vas also
here 11ot long ago (poco lia), and vvhen he returned to
us he said that these were evil peop·le, t1nwilling to be
baptized, and that with us only was he content. The
padre ,vhom vve have came bttt lately (poco haze) from
Mexico, and the oLd 0ne went to the Villa.1 Also is
History of the Chichimecas also forms vols. 13 and t4 of Ter­nat1x-
Compans' ,vorks, Paris, 1837-41. The fact is,. as Winship
says in his. admirable edition of Castaneda, " the term ,vas ap­plied
to all wild tribes" (14th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p.
524). Chichimeca w.as n.ever a nation, an empire, or a country;
but the Moqu:i were chichimecos, because they wouldn't be bap­tized.
(Compare note \ p. 52.)
1 Santa Fe, N. M. "The old oneJ" whom the friendly Zufiian
n1eans1 ,vas Padre Fray Silvestre Velez de Esca.lante, resident
missionary at Zuni. Escalante is famous for his expedition in
C.olo.rado and Utah, but less is kno,vn of h'is visits to tl1e
Moquis and attempts to subdue their obduracy. Garces came to
Moqui between t\vo of Escalante's entradas there; and very
likely their fresh impressions of Escalante were a factor in
their inh.ospitality to Garces. Garces, beyond, alludes t0 a letter
or rep@rt of E$calante on the subject of the Moquis, ete., dated
Aug. rs, 1775. The best known such report is dated Oct. 28,
1775, being Informe y Diario de la Entrada que en J unio de
1775 hizo en l a Provincia de Moqui. Escalante spent eight days
there in that June, 1775, and tried in vain to go beyond to the
Rio Grande de· los Cosninas-the Grand Canon of the Colorado,
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ESCALA?irTE HEARD FROM. 367
there a padre in Acome, and one in Laguna.8 Tl1ou
from which Garce.s has just c0me to Moqui. His report of 1775
speaks of the seven 1'Ioqui pueblos on three diferent mesas, ,vith
7,494 total population, two-thirds of them at Oraibi alone. We
thus learn that Oraibi then outnumbered all the other Moqui
pueblos togethe-r. Escalante advised heroic, not to say drastic,
measures t0 be taken with this stif-necked generation of gen­tiles,
whom he wished to be subjugated and converted by force .
.
of arms; a presidio t0, b e established there, as well as a mission,
etc. After this Escalante went to Santa Fe, full of his ideas of
a northern route from that capital to Monterey, in undertaking
to carry out which he failed, but made his well-known tour just
mentioned. He and Padre Francisco Atanasio Domingteu,
with a party of eigl1t men, started from Santa Fe July 29, 1776;
his second visit to Moqui was on his return, Nov. 16-20, 1776;
and he was back in Santa Fe Jan. 2, 1777. So we see Garces'
experiences at Moqui sandwiched bet\veen those of Escalante, •
who, at present d·ate of July 2, 1776, had g,one- to Santa Fe, as
the Zunian t.old Garces, to make ready for his long tour.
8 Who were the padres at Acom-a and Laguna respectively in
July, 1776, I have ngt been able to discover. In my search for
them the nearest I can co.me is: At Acoma, Pedro Ignaci@ Pino,
1700; and Tomas Salvador Fernandez, 1782. At Laguna, Juan
Jose Oronz@ ( or Orontaro), ·1760; Jose Palacios., 1782; Jose
Corr􀃷􏝴tl, 1788.
Acoma is a pu􀃸􏡢blo tribe of v,estern central Ne,v Mexico,
fifteen miles so.uth of the Santa Fe Pacific (Atlantic and Pacific)
Railroad. First known to Marcos de Niza in 1539 under the
name Aeus. Their own name is Ac6me, signifying " people
of the white rock." It was first visited by C0ronado's army in
1540 and described, under the name Acuco, as situated on an
almost i.mpregnable pefiol, just as it exists now. It h-as the
distinction of being the only New Mexican pueblo that has not
changed its site since the m,iddle of the sixteehth century. The
ACOMA AND LAGUNA NOTED.
canst con1e to-n1orrovv ,vith t1s; ,ve are three; the road
village has been most prominent in early Spanish history of the
southwest, it having been visited by all the important expedi­tions
into New Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. The inhabitants, who belong to the Kere.san
(Queres) stock, early established a reputati:0n for hostility.
They fought bravely against Zaldivar in 159, but were o:ver­come
after a three days' conflict. They ki1led Fray Lucas Mal­donado,
their missionary, during the Pueblo revolt of August,
168o,. were reconquered with the other Pueblo Indians by Var­gas
in 1692, rebelled again in 1696, but finally subi;nitted.
Present population, about 566. Among the nan1es applied by
various \Vriters td the people and their village are: Abuci0s,
Aeama, Acmaat, .A.-co, Acogiya, A·coman, Acomeses, Acomo,
Acona, Aconia, Acquia, Acu, 1\cuca, A.cuco, Acucu,
Acus, Acux, Aioma, Ak.o-1na, Alcuco, A-quo., Asoma, C0co,
Pefiol, Quebec of the Southwest, Queres Gibraltar, San
Esteban de Acoma (mission nan1e), San Pedro (de Acoma, an­other
mission name), Suco, Vacus, Vsacus, Yacco, Yaco.­F.
W. H.
The proper name of Laguna is Ka-walk', of unknown signifi­cation.
This is a Queres pueblo of 1, t43 inhabitants on San Jose
river and the Santa Fe Pacific Railroad in western central New
Mexico, ab.out fifty miles \Vest of Albuquerque. It is the most
recent of all the pueblos in New Mexico, having been settled
probably not long before 1689 (when the first documentary
mention of the pueblo appears to have been made) by a Zufii
and a Sia family, later joined by some natives of Acoma, San
Felipe, Moki, Sandia, and Jemez. Laguna derived its f>Opular
name from a lake which formerly existed ,vest of the village.
The settlement is gra<dually being abandoned, the inhabitants
preferring to reside the year around at ,vhat were formerly
only summer farming villages. These are: Mesita (Hat-sat-yi),
Paguate (K wi' -st'yi), Santa Ana (Pun-yis' -t'yi), Casa Blanc,!.
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INVITATION TO GO TO ZUNI.
runs whither th.e su11 rises; 9 it is good, a11d has water;
before tnidday sh-all ,ve arrive at the first pueblo, and
therein will the beasts fare ,􀁎􄹥ell, for there is mucl1
grass􀁏􄼠 and setting forth betimes on the next day, in
the whole of that and the night following shalt thou
come unto the rnission. Have no fear of the Apacl1e.s
Nabajai; for they have co1ne down in peace. begging
hatchets, dibbles, and hoes in rett1rn for antelope
skins.. Already are tl1ey in great fear; 10 they say that
(Pur-tyi-tyi'-ya), Paraje (Tsi-mu-na), Encinal (Ha-pun-ti'-ka),
Puertecito (Wa-pu-tyu-tsi-am'-a), and Canada de Cruz (Tsi­a-
ma). Cubero and Sevilleta ,vere also formerly summer vil­lages
(the for:mer occupied jointly by Acomas and Lagunas),
but they were made penal se.ttlements by the Mexican authori­ties
and ultimately became completely Mexicanized.-F. W. H.
• "El camin.o va por donde sale el so.l, etc. So Garces says, but
perhaps misunderstood the Indian, who meant to tell him they
w0uld start neJs:t morning at sunrise. He certainly did not
k,now wper-e Zufii was,. and suppose<!. it to be east,v-ard from
Oraibi: see F<;>nt's map, whereon Zuni is set down nearly east
(a little north) of Oraibi-above I.at. 36° , the position of O.raibi
being marked jast below that parallel. Zufii is nearly S. E.
from Oraibi, a little above lat. 35 ° .
10 The scholiast 1otes in the margin that this fear mi_ght well:
proceed from the stroke lately inflicted upon them by the sol­diers
and settlers of New Mexico, an<!. refers for particulars t o ,
the oficial reports of Governor Mendinueta. The governor
of New Mexico was Senor Don Pedro Firmin ( often called
Fernando) Lara y Mendihueta. The archives of New Mexico,
which I have examined at Santa Fe, during this period include­many
autograph signatures of Viceroy Bucar'eli, all spelled
,\
370 RECENT OPERATIONS AGAINST APACHES.
the Espafioles are vaJia11t, a11d that a long-beard hath
come unto them, saying tl1ai: no longer is there to be
any vvar. All of which is the padre writing to the
Villa."
· I infer from this that fear alone will have restrained
the Apaches; since I have spoken no otherwise in
what I have had to ·say of this n1atter in regard to the
Yumas, refer to that, and also to the reflections in
tl1is Diary.11 I did not enter into tl1is question with
the Indian, nor did I write thereupon to the padre, for
lack of paper, a stock of ,vhich ,-vould be required to
tell him all that goes on in S011ora ,vith the Apaches.
Bucarely. One of them, dated Mexico, Dec. 25, 1776 (Doc.
No. 696, A. F. B.) advises Mendinueta of the arrival there of
El Senor Brigadier Cavallero de Croix, comandante general
nombrado por el Rey de esa Provincia, de las de Senora (sic),
C.inaloa, Ca:Iifornias, Nueva Viscaya, Coahuila y Texas-whose
usu:al autograp.h was " El Cav ,·o De Croix." Colonel or Briga­dier
Mendinueta has been represented by some writers as ruling
in 1759 and 1762; but he s11cceeded Cacllupin in 1767 as gov­ernor
and captain-general of New Mexico, and was the last to
hold the latter title. He retired in 1778, leaving instructions of
date March 14 to hrs successor. Acting Governor Francisco
Trebol Navarro, who was in turn succeeded by Lt. Col. Juan
Bautista de Anza, appointed in June, 1777, and tak;ing ofice
probably in 1778, certainly by Jan., 1779. But what particular
stroke of Governor Mendinueta against hostile Indians, or what
9nes of his numerous reports to Bucareli, the scholiast means,
I have t1ot ascertained.
1
' For the Yuma reference see p. 204; the "re.flexions" are
those given beyond, after the Diary pr6per is concluded.
THE WATCHES OF THE NIGI-IT. 371
I only replied to tl1e Indians that it vvas \vell, and tl1at
I was much pleased to rneet them. 12 I asked for the
captain of tl1e 1\!Ioqui; and he (tl1e Zufiian) spoke to
me thi1s: '' The Cazique does not wish to cotne here;
who knows vvhere he has l1idde11 hi1nself? " I urged
him to say to the persons ,vho were present that I was
a padre of the Espafioles of Sonora, and of other In­dians
like themselves; tl1at I had come throu,gl1 the
rest o.f the nations and had seen their lands; tl1at it
were fitting (sigitie-ro) that they should send me the
children [to be baptized] ; tl1:at I ·came to declare unto
them tl1ings of God. Witl1 that arose the Indian, and
spake in a low voice to those who v'vere near; and
then he asked me if I ,vished to go to sleep in tl1e
house where he 'vvas staying. I did not accept this
ofer, inasmucl1 as it vvas 11ot made by the proprietor
(duen.o). Duri11g the nigl1t, as the people sleep on
the hottsetofrsor-corriaors, there vvas 111uch 11ojse;
some were singi'ng, others played the flute, yet others
conversed lottdly. After awhile a shrill-voiced person
broke forth (i1,1vo de voz -atip􀃌􌱡ada so.lto-se), who i:n a high
key delivered a very long harangue or ser1no11. I
obser,,ed a total silence whilst he preached, and at
the eonclusio11 of l1is discourse the bustle ( b·uJlicio)
lvas resumed. After another vvl1ile a11otl1er l1oarse
12 Encontrarlos: to meet those who were standing about while
he was tat.king with the Znnian.
-
372 NO PRIES'£ WANTED IN ORAIBI .
•
voice bt1rst out a11d 111ade a11 argurne11t, duri11g which
the sa1ne silence ,;vas preserved. Tl1is night I also
noticed various 111e11 passi11g back and forth through
tl1e streets, especially tvvo or three hours before day­break,
j11st as would be tl1e case ( co1no se fuera) i11
large pueblos of Espafioles. I was lying down ,v-hen
n1y friends tl1e Yabipais arrived, ,;vho1n I advised of
the determination I l1ad formed to go to Zuni; to
whicl1 they answered me that they ,vere not goi.ng
with me, and that it ,vould be better tl1at I should re­tt1rn
to the J abes{1a. Tl1ey also a·dded, that the
Moquis would ha\'e none of me (11-0 11ie quer·ia.n). I
then gave the1n some wl1ite sh.ells vvl1erev;rith they
might purchase maiz, and tl1ey told me tl1at not even
at this price (por ella.s) ,,vould the Moquis part ,vith
any, and for that very reason did they not wish to take
them (the shells). I entered into greater concern
vvhen I saw tl1at the tvvo other young men brought me
back the (shells) that I l1ad give11 them on the road;
for from tl1is action I inferred tl1at the (people) of tl1e
ptteblo had caused them to look with suspicion upon
my gifts.1
·
3
la No doubt some old Trojan of a J\1oqui had said to these
young fellows, in substance: " Titneo Danaos et dona ferentes.'·'
They \Vere not hostile; they ,vere simply afraid of the white
man's "medicine," v.rhich included his crucifix, breviary,
rosary, sea-shells, and even his tobacco. Ho"' could they tell
I􀀐􁀠 GREAT PERPLEXITY. 373
July 3. As soon as it \\1as da,vn came the three
young Indians of Zttfii, to vvhom I imparted the new
resolution, that I ,-vould not go to tl1eir pueblo, much
as I desired to do so; and 1 told them my reasons:
since I was to be t1naccompa11ied by any of the Yabi­pais
I could not well retttrn by way of Moqui, of whose
Indians I should l1ave cause to be afraid if I vvere to
return without those companions, and even though
the Zufiians might bring me back to Moqtti they
could not take me 011 to the Y abipais, with vvhom they
had no friendship. It was not unkno,vn to me that
the Yutas were friends of the Espafioles, and likewise
of the Ya·bipais; but this b11.siness14 would require the
with which one of these articles Garces ,vould " hoodoo "
them? They would be wise not to meddle "vith things they
did not understa.nd. Could they ever forget ,vhat their own
sages and soothsayers had told them of the year 1680? Had
they not gods enough of their o,v-n to fear and propitiate with-
04t undertaking strange Spanish deities? The situation was
certainly serio-eomic. Like his master, Garces had n0t where
to .l ay his head; and in all that populou-s pueblo there was no
one to take his hantl, or ofer him a morsel of food-hitn who
had <.ome so far, with such weariness, for his love of them and
desire to save their souls. Our sympathies are with the good
missionary, keeping his lonely vigil on the street corner, a­huJ1gered
an'd an outcast, al@ne in a crowd. But our judgment
sides with the sagacious Moquis. They had the right of it,
from their own point of view, and we cannot blame them.
1•,Negocio-Any idea he might have of going to the Yutas, or
plan to that end.
-
374 IN COMMUNICATION WITH ZUNI.
jot1rney to be prolo11ged, a new relay of beastS. and a
stock of presents for those sa1ne Indians, in all of
,v11ich vvas I lacking; and n1oreover, the need of some
esco.rt vvould arise on certain P'Ortions of the route.
As all tl1e􀁳􇍥e things would have to be procured in Ne,:v
M.exico, I took into c .onsideratio11 many contingen­cies,
especially that of finding tl1e senor governador
with perhaps tl1e same notions as th·e senor coman-·
clante of Monte-Rey, 15 l1olding this entrada to be
pernicious, and by no 1nea11s performed in tl1e s'ervice
of the king, as it had not been expressly ordered by
l1is excellency ( the viceroy). For these reasons I de­termined
to ,;vrite to the. padre ministro of Zufii, even
though I did not know his 11an1e, 16 telling hitn tl1at I
16 Garces did not know Governor Mendinueta, and was a:fraid
of getting into oficial hot water with him, after his experience
at San Gabriel w·ith Rivera y Moncada: note 3 0
, p. 252.
]$ His name v.1 as Fray Mariano Rosate. He was oficially as
padre at Zuni in July, 1776, during the absence of Padre Silves­tre
Vele.z de Esc,alante, who happened just then to be av,ay on
his ,veil-known exploration. Esaalante's whole incu111bency at
Zuni seems to have been 1774-78, with several temporary ab­sences.
It appears from the title-page (obligingly furnished to
n1e by Mr. Frank H. Cushing, l\t[ay 4, r899,) of " El Libra 2°
de las Partidas Baptizadas en esta Mission y Pueblo de N. ssa
[Nuestra Santisi1na] Sei.ora de Guadalupe de Zufii," for such
was the full title of the Zuni mission, that E.scalante was the
1ninistro doctrinero or resident n1issionary "de dicha }.l[is­sion
en el Afio de 1775, dia 8 de Henero." Fron1 this date on,
the baptismal entries, show that h e was continuously there u.ntil
at least the 28th of N ovem her of that year; and again other
/
FIRST ZUNI MISSION NOTED. 375
had arrived at the pt1eblo of Moqt1i, having passed
through the other intermediate nc;ltions, who had re-entries
appear, signed by him, from the 7th of January to the
stb of March, 1776. We give here one of his autographs, in
facsimile. Then on the 3 d of May, 1776, appea·rs for the first
time the name of his successor, or locum tenens, Fray Mariano
Rosate. He was followed by Andres Garcia, 1779-80; and he,
by Manuel Vega and Rafael Benavides, 1788. Dan. 11artinez
was at El Paso and Zuni before 1792.
The first mission among the Zunis was established by Fray
Francisco Letrado (erroneously called " Detrado " by Ladd,
Stoty of New Mexico, p. 116, 1891), evidently in 1629. At this
date Letrado came to New Mexico with Fray Estevan de Perea
and 29 other missionaries., being first assigned to the Jumanos
east of the Rio G.rande, then to tht Zunis, doubtles.s in the sc).me
year; for before 1630 there were two churches among the Zunis,
one at Hawiku (near the present farming village of Ojo Ca­liente),
the other p.robably at Halona on the site of and across
the river (Rio Zufii) from the present Zuni pueblo. Letrado
applied £or permission to establish himself among the Zipias or
CiRia:s, a tribe now known only by name, but saicl tQ be still
traditionally familiar to the Zunis as Tsipia-Kwe. His applica­tion
was denied and Fray Martin de Arvide was sent in his
stead, via Zufii. On Sunday. Feb. 22, 1630 or 1632 (according
to varying authorities), Letrado was n1urdered by the Zunis
while they ,vere being urge.d to attend m<1ss, and five days later
(Feb. 27) Ai,vide met a similar fate, pr0bably at the hands of the
Zunis wh.o follovved him on his w;iy t o the mysterious Zipias.
For the establishment of the first Moqui missions s.ee note 2, p.
395. One of the oldest and 1nost interesting of the cryptograms
now or lately legible on the famous Inscription Rock or El
Mor,ro of New Mexico, 35 miles east of Zufii, is that which
records. the fact of Padre Letrado's death. Quite a bit of
modern history attaches to this ins<s-ription. In a report of
tf. THE LUJAN OF. 1632.''
ceived me \>vith g·reat gusto; but that (the people of)
this pueblo of Oraibe did not so much as ,ivisl1 to look
the Secretary of War, giving certain Reconnoissattces by various
oficers of the U. S. A.rmy, published as Senate Ex:. Doc. No.
64, 31st Congr., rst Sess., 8vo, Washington, 1850, is an invalu­able
paper by Lieut. J. H. Simpson, with numerous plates (pll.
65-74) illustrating in lithographic fac-simile many transcriptions
of these Rock legends, as made by himself and Mr. R. H. Kern,
Sept. 17, 1849. Among these is the one question on pl. 68,
which looks sotnethi􀃧􎝧g like the following-as nearly as type
will reproduce the characters:
sa o
SE p A 23 D M D 1632 £0
to
AC A Beng30 D M DI pe lebad0
LVJAn
This is a sort of cipher to which Lieut. Simpson had no clew,
and he missed i t altogether in translating, on p. 124 of the
book, as follo,vs: " Country of Mexico, in the year r63-2, folio
(some characters not intelligib1e), Bengoso, by order of Father
,Liebado Lugan " ! ! Tl1is is enough to. remind us of the famous
"Bill Stumps his ·mark" in Dickens' Pickwick! Simpson
got " Country of Mexico " by mistaking the " P A23 " for the
word " pais,." and the " D·m
O
" for " del Mexic.o "; then
the apparent " £0 " for " folio " ( this being AO, for Afio); then he
was stumped; then he took "Mt0" for " ma-ndado," ·«order";
and finis·hed with a mi.sprint of the padre's name as a part oJ the
name of the person who inscribed the legend.
The .cipher was explained by Charles F. Lummis, who calls
it "the Lujan of 1632 " in his Strange Corners, New York,
1892.: see his article on the " Stone Auto.graph Album," pp. r70-
1.So, v1here the glyph appears nearly as follows-for it cannot
be exactly reproduced in type:
' .... : . .."
',:•
I
THI<: O.N.\'J'lt ANI.> Ll􀀳􃍔TltADO JNSC'RIPTI'Oi\'S ACC0RD!NG- T0 S1MPSOJ􀀴􃐠
(Con1pare the latter ,vith the llex-t pl,1te)
' •
''
0-- -
<
I • .􀀕􁔠
􀀖􁘢"->
,.J
􀀃􀌮....-
"􀀗􁜠
,
􀀌􀰠
"'
.:lr--
􀀘􁠠
I;:, -
􀀍􀴠 􀀎􀸠 􀀂􀈀􀀃􀌀􀀄􀑴t{
􀀁􀄠 􀀂􀈠
't, 􀀆􀘠 "
Q .., '-; • .c; 􀀂􀉃
C'S 'E;
􀀏􀼠 '<>
􀀐􁀠 .
􀀏􀼭-􀀐􁀠
, • :J 0 •
􀀑􁄠 ., 0 \;􀀃􀌠
􀀒􁈮. 􀀓􁌠 􀀔􁐠
• •
..
•
THE CIPHER DECIPHERED. 377
at me; and that I should esteem it a favor if l1e
would ·send copies of this lette.r to the senor gover-
OG. I!,.
SE p8a A 23 D M D 1632 A0􀀂􀉁
AIA Beng􀄀􀀠 D M te DI p0 Letrado
LvJAn
This stands for " Se pasaron. a 23 de Marzo d.e 1632 aios
a l a benganza de Muerte del padre Letrado. Lujan"; or, in
English-" They passed on March 23,, 1632, t o the avenging of
the death of Father Letrado. Lujan." The then governor of
N.ew Mexic.o ,vas Francisco de la Mora Ceballos, ,vho sent this
expedition to aven.ge the murder; under 1'Iae.str0 de Campo
Tomas de Albizu., and the inscriber, Lujan, ,vas· a soldier on
this expediti0n. Father Letrad0 had come to N ev,r Mexico in
1628 (Lummis, after Vetancurt) or 1629 (Bandelier), and been
first a missionary tQ the J umanos; on the founding of the mis­sion
at Zufii in 1629 he was sent there, only to b.e killed on Feb­ruary
22, 1630 or 1632, as already said. We find the ·facts in
Vetancurt, Cronica de la Provincia, etc., iii, pp. 320, 321, \:vhere
we read.
"Estes [the people of the Zufii pueblo of Aguico = Hawil<u,
one of the Se:ven Cities of Cibola.] se rebelaron el afio de [16-)32
y mataron al venerable padre fray Francisco Letrado, cuya vida:
esta en ·el Men0logio a 22 de Febrero, -y "que1naron la iglesia."
. . And on turning t0 V .;tancurt's Me·nologio Francisca no, pp.
52, 53, ,ve find further as follows, kindly transcribed for us by
Mr. Hodge:
El venerable padre fr-ay Fra-nc;:isco Letra,do, natural de
Talave.ra de l a Reina, hijo de la Santa Provincia de. Castilla,
pas6 ton cleseo de tonvertir a.lmas para Dios a la Provincia det
Sa:ito Evangelio; y viendo qne estaban convertidos' , deci.a que
sa intento principal era buscar q,ue convertir, y asi paso al
Nuevo-Mexic0 el afio de 1628- con los treinta religioscrs q.ue
DE,\TH OF PADRE LETRADO.
nador and to the reverendo padre c11stodio, to ,vhom
I com1nended 111yself witl1 the greatest respect; i11-
fueron a Ja conversion. Entro eh la nueva conversion de los
humanas; bautiz6 a muchos; edific6 iglesia y morada para
religioso; y habiendo oido decir que en Zuni (provinci-a popu­losa)
habia que convertir, pidi6 el pasar a ella, donde junt6 en
cinco puebl0s muchos infieles que catequiz6 y bautiz6. Es­tando
ya instruidos, no le permitia .su fervor dejar de buscar
nuevas conversiones: pidi6 licericia para pasar a los Zipias;
y pareciendole al custodio que seria de mas servicio a Dios que
acabase la obra e1npezada donde estaba, no l e concedi6 la
licencia. Envio al padre fray Martin de Arvide, que pasando
por alli le qued6 el padre Letrado muy envidioso, y le rogaba
le dejase despachar al pre]ado para la per1nuta; pero Dios
nuestr0 Senor, que dispone las cosas segun sus investigables
juicios, permiti6 que se quedase el uno, y se fuese, por la
obediencia, el otro, para darles Ia corona a entrambos. Un
domingo de cuaresma, viendo que tardaban algunos en venir a
misa, sali6 a buscarlos: encontr6 con unos id6latras, y encen­dido
en fervor les en1pez6 a predicar; y viendo se conjuraban a
quitarle la vida, <;:on un Cristo pintado en u'na cruz que traia
al cuello para su defensa, puesto de rodillas y encomendandose
al Sefior, muri6 predicando, flechado. No fue hallad6 su
cuerpo de los soldados cristian0s, porque los ba.rbaros se lo
llevardn, quitandole de la cabeza la piel para sus bailes gen­tilicos.
Deseando tener alguna reliquia, vieron que por el aire
cay6 en n1a11os de los soldados· una cuerda, q