Page:The Coronado expedition, 1540-1542.djvu/284

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524
THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542
[eth. ann. 14

pulled down, in the yards of which there were many stone balls, as big as 12-quart bowls, which seemed to have been thrown by engines or catapults, which had destroyed the village. AH that I was able to find out about them was that, sixteen years before, some people called Teyas,[1] had come to this country in great numbers and had destroyed these villages. They had besieged Cicuye but had not been able to capture it, because it was strong, and when they left the region, they had made peace with the whole country. It seems as if they must have been a powerful people, and that they must have had engines to knock down the villages. The only thing they could tell about the direction these people came from was by pointing toward the north. They usually call these people Teyas or brave men, just as the Mexicans say chichimecas or braves,[2] for the Teyas whom the army saw were brave. These knew the people in the settlements, and were friendly with them, and they (the Teyas of the plains) went there to spend the winter under the wings of the settlements. The inhabitants do not dare to let them come inside, because they can not trust them. Although they are received as friends, and trade with them, they do not stay in the villages over night, but outside under the wings. The villages are guarded by sentinels with trumpets, who call to one another just as in the fortresses of Spain.

There are seven other villages along this route, toward the snowy mountains, one of which has been half destroyed by the people already referred to. These were under the rule of Cicuye. Cicuye is in a little valley between mountain chains and mountains covered with large pine forests. There is a little stream which contains very good trout and otters, and there are very large bears and good falcons hereabouts.

Chapter 6, which gives the number of villages which were seen in the country of the terraced houses, and their population.

Before I proceed to speak of the plains, with the cows and settlements and tribes there, it seems to me that it will be well for the reader to know how large the settlements were, where the houses with stories, gathered into villages, were seen, and how great an extent of country they occupied.[3] As I say, Cibola is the first:

Cibola, seven villages.
Tusayan, seven villages.
The rock of Acuco, one.


  1. These Indians were seen by Coronado during his Journey across the plains. As Mr Hodge has suggested, they may have been the Comanches, who on many occasions are known to have made inroads on the pueblo of Pecos.
  2. Ternaux's rendering of the uncertain word teules in the Spanish text. Molina, in the Vocabulario Mexicano (1555), fol. 36, has "bravo homre. . . tlauele." Gomara speaks of the chichimecas in the quotation in the footnote on page 529. The term was applied to all wild tribes.
  3. Bandelier. Final Report, pt. i, p.:14; "With the exception of Acoma, there is not a single pueblo standing where it was at the time of Coronado, or even sixty years later, when Juan de Oñate accomplished the peaceable reduction of the New Mexican village Indians." Compare with the discussion in this part of his Final Report, Mr Bandelier's attempt to identify the various clusters of villages, in his Historical Introduction, pp. 22-24.