was at last induced to confess that he had lied. Quivira, he still insisted, existed, though it was not as he had described it. From the natives of the plains they learned that there were no settlements toward the east, the direction in which they had been traveling, but that toward the north, another good month's journey distant, there were permanent settlements. The corn which the soldiers had brought from Tiguex was almost gone, while the horses were tired and weak from the constant marching and buffalo chasing, with only grass for food. It was clearly impossible for the whole force to attempt this further journey, with the uncertain prospect of finding native tribes like those they had already seen as the only incentive. The general held a council of his officers and friends, and decided to select 30 of the best equipped horsemen, who should go with him and attempt to verify the new information.
After Coronado had chosen his companions, the rest of the force was sent back to Tiguex, as Castaneda relates. The Indians whom they met on the plains furnished guides, who led the soldiers to the Pueblo settlements by a more direct route than that which the Turk had taken. But the marches were short and slow, so that it was the middle of July before they were again encamped alongside the Rio Grande. So far as is known, nothing of interest happened while they were waiting there for the return of the general.
Coronado and his companion horsemen followed the compass needle for forty-two days after leaving the main force, or, as he writes, "after traveling across these deserts for seventy-seven days in all," they reached the country of Quivira. Here he found some people who lived in permanent settlements and raised a little corn, but whose sustenance came mainly from the buffalo herds, which they hunted at regular seasons, instead of continuously as the plains Indians encountered previously had done.[1]
Twenty-five days were spent among the villages at Quivira, so that Jaramillo, one of the party, doubtless remembered correctly when he said that they were there after the middle of August.[2] There was
- ↑ The Spaniards had already observed two distinct branches of these pure nomads, whom they knew as Querechos and Teyas. Bandelier, in his Final Report, vol. i. p. 179, identified the Querechos with the Apaches of the plains, but later investigation by Mr James Mooney shows that Querecho is an old Comanche name of the Tonicawa of western central Texas (Hodge, Early Navajo and Apache, Am. Anthropologist, Washington,-July, 1895, vol. iii. p. 235). I am unable to find any single tribal group among the Indians whom we know which can he identified with the Teyas, unless, as Mr Hodge has suggested, they may have been the Comanche, who roamed the plains from Yellowstone Park to Durango, Mexico.
- ↑ I am inclined, also, to believe Jaramillo's statement that the day's marches on the journey to Quivira were short ones. But when he writes that the journey occupied "more than thirty days, or almost thirty days" journey, although not long day's marches,"—seguimos nuestro viaje. . . más de treiuta dias ú casi treinta dias do camino, aunque no de jornadas grandes—and again, that they decided to return because it was already nearly the beginning of winter, . . . and lest the winter might prevent the return,"—nos paresció á todos, que pues que hera ya casi la boca del inbierno, porque si me acuerdo bien, jera media y más de Agosto, y por ser pocos para inbernar ali, . . . y porque el invierno no nos cerrase los caminos do nieves y rios quo no nos dexesen pasar (Pacheco y Cardenas, Doc. de Indias, vol. xiv, pp. 312,314)—we experience some of the difficulties which make it hard to analyse the captain's recollections critically and satisfactorily.
