a rebellion later, and part of the people who had settled there were killed, as will be seen in the third part. There are many villages in the neighborhood of this valley. The people are the same as chose in Señora and have the same dress and language, habits, and customs, like all the rest as far as the desert of Ohichilticalli. The women paint their chins and eyes like the Moorish women of Barbary. They are great sodomites. They drink wine made of the pitahaya, which is the fruit of a great thistle which opens like the pomegranate. The wine makes them stupid. They make a great quantity of preserves from the tuna; they preserve it in a large amount of its sap without other honey. They make bread of the mesquite, like cheese, which keeps good for a whole year.[1] There are native melons in this country so large that a person can carry only one of them. They cut these into slices and dry them in the sun. They are good to eat, and taste like figs, and are better than dried meat; they are very good and sweet, keeping for a whole year when prepared in this way.[2]
In this country there were also tame eagles, which the chiefs esteemed to be something fine.[3] No fowls of any sort were seen in any of these villages except in this valley of Suya, where fowls like those of Castile were found. Nobody could find out how they came to be so far inland, the people being all at war with one another. Between Suya and Ohichilticalli there are many sheep and mountain goats with very large bodies and horns. Some Spaniards declare that they have seen flocks of more than a hundred together, which ran so fast that they disappeared very quickly.
At Ohichilticalli the country changes its character again and the spiky vegetation ceases. The reason is that the gulf reaches as far up as this place, and the mountain chain changes its direction at the same time that the coast does. Here they had to cross and pass through the mountains In order to get into the level country.
Chapter 3, of Chichilticalli and the desert, of Cibola, its customs and habits, and of other things.
Chichilticalli is so called because the friars found a house at this place which was formerly inhabited by people who separated from Cibola. It was made of colored or reddish earth.[4] The house was large and appeared to have been a fortress. It must have been destroyed by the people of the district, who are the most barbarous people that have yet been seen. They live in separate cabins and not in settlements. They live by hunt-
- ↑ Bandelier, Final Report, pt. i, p. 111, quotes from the Relaciones of Zárate-Salmeron, of some Arizona Indians: "Tambien tienen para su sustento Mescali que es conserva de raiz de maguey." The strong liqnor is made from the root of the Mexican or American agave.
- ↑ These were doubtless cantaloupes. The southwestern Indians still slice and dry them in a manner similar to that hero described.
- ↑ The Pueblo Indians, particularly the Zuñi and Hopi, keep eagles for their feathers, which are highly prized because of their reputed sacred character.
- ↑ Chichiltic-calli, a red object or house, according to Molina's Vocabulario Mexicano, 1555. Bandelier, Historical Introduction, p. 11, gives references to the ancient and modern descriptions. The location is discussed on page 387 of the present memoir.
