Page:The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542.djvu/275

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
winship]
TRANSLATION OF CASTAÑEDA
517

ing. The rest of the country is all wilderness, covered with pine forests. There are great quantities of the pine nuts. The pines are two or three times as high as a man before they send out branches. There is a sort of oak with sweet acorns, of which they make cakes like sugar plums with dried coriander seeds. It is very sweet, like sugar. Watercress grows in many springs, and there are rosebushes, and pennyroyal, and wild marjoram.

There are barbels and picones,[1] like those of Spain, in the rivers of this wilderness. Gray lions and leopards were seen.[2] The country rises continually from the beginning of the wilderness until Cibola is reached, which is 85 leagues, going north. From Culiacan to the edge of the wilderness the route had kept the north on the left hand.

Cibola[3]is seven villages. The largest is called Maçaque.[4] The houses are ordinarily three or four stories high, but in Maçaque there are houses with four and seven stories. These people are very intelligent. They cover their privy parts and all the immodest parts with cloths made like a sort of table napkin, with fringed edges and a tassel at each corner, which they tie over the hips. They wear long robes of feathers and of the skins of hares, and cotton blankets.[5] The women wear blankets, which they tie or knot over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm out. These serve to cover the body. They wear a neat well-shaped outer garment of skin. They gather their hair over the two ears, making a frame which looks like an old-fashioned headdress.[6]


  1. Ternaux (p. 162) succeeded no better than I have in the attempt to identify this fish.
  2. Ternaux, p. 162: "A l'entrée du pays inliabité on rencontre une espèce do lion de couleur fauve." Compare the Spanish text. These were evidently the mountain lion and the wild cat.
  3. Albert S. Gatschet, in his Zwölf Sprachen, p. 106, says that this word is now to be found only in the dialect of the pueblo of Isleta, under the form sibúlodá, buffalo.
  4. Matsaki, the ruins of which are at the northwestern base of Thunder mountain. See Bandelier's Final Report, pt. i. p. 133, and Hodge, First Discovered City of Cibola.
  5. The mantles of rabbit hair are still worn at Moki, but those of turkey plumes are out of use altogether. See Bandelier's Final Report, pt. i, pp. 37 and 158. They used also the fiber of the yucca and agave for making clothes.
  6. J. G. Owens, Hopi Natal Ceremonies, in Journal of American Archæeology and Ethnology, vol. ii, p. 165 n., says: "The dress of the Hopi [Moki, or Tusayan] women consists of a black blanket about 31/2 feet square, folded around the body from the left side. It passes under the left arm and over the right shoulder, being sewed together on the right side, except a hole about 3 inches long near the upper end through which the arm is thrust. This is belted in at the waist by a sash about 3 inches wide. Sometimes, though not frequently, a shirt is worn under this garment, and a piece of muslin, tied together by two adjacent corners, is usually near by, to be thrown over the shoulders. Most of the women have moccasins, which they put on at certain times."

    Gomara, ccxiii, describes the natives of Sibola: "Hazen con todo esso unas mantillas de pieles de conejos, y liehres, y de venados, que algodon muy poco alcançan: calçan çapatos de cuero, y de inuierno unas como betas hasta las rodillas. Las mugeres van vestídas de Metl hasta en pies, andau ceñidas, trençan los cabellos, y rodeanselos ala cabeça por sobre las orejas. La tierra es arenosa, y de poco fruto, creo q por pereza dellos, pues donde siembran, llena mayz, frisoles, calabaças, y frutas, y aun se crian en ella gallipauos, que no se hazen en todos cabos."

    In his Relacion de Viaje, p. 173, Espejo says of Zuñi: "en esta provincia se visten algunos de los naturales, de mantas de algodon y cueros de las vacas, y de gamuzas aderezadas; y las mantas de algo. don las traen puestas al uso mexicano, eceto que debajo de partes vergonzosas traen unos pañes de algodon pintados, y algunos dellos traen camisas, y las mugeres traen naguas de algodon y muchas dellas bordadas con hilo de colores, y encima una manta como la traen los indios mexicanos, y atada con un paño de manos como toballa labrada, y se lo atan por la cintura con bus borlas, y las naguas son que sirven de faldas de camisa á raiz de las carnes, y esto cada una lo trae con la mas ventaja que puede; y todos, asi hombres como mujeres. andan calzados con zapatos y betas, las suelas de cuero