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Show 102 SA 4 F are yi . i. . 4 | 4 LEADING FACTS OF NEW MEXICAN THE HISTORY eat, except a fruit they called chacan, that is ground between stones. They showed this food to the Spaniards and they could not eat it. After remaining here two days they determined to go in search of the country where the corn grew. As Cabeza de Vaca says: ‘So we went on our way and traversed the whole country to the South Sea, and our resolution was not shaken by the fear of great starvation, which the Indians said we should suffer (and indeed suffered) during the first seventeen days of travel. All along the river, and in the course of these seventeen days we received plenty of cow hides and did not eat of their famous fruit (chacan), but our food consisted (for each day) of a handful of deer tallow, which for that purpose we always sought to keep, and so endured those seventeen days,’°* at the end of which we crossed the river 1% and marched for seventeen days more.’’ At sunset on a high plain, between two very high mountains, the Spaniards met people who, for one-third of the year, subsisted on powdered straw, of which they also ate, and at the end of their journey they came to a village of permanent houses, with plenty of harvested grain, of which and its meal they gave the Spaniards great quantities; also squashes and beans, and blankets of cotton, all of which the Spaniards gave to their Indian guides ‘‘so that they went home the most contented people upon earth.’’+° From this point the Spaniards traveled “more than a hundred leagues, always meeting permanent houses and a great stock of maize and beans ;’’ they were presented with many deer-skins and blankets of cotton better than those of New Spain. They also received from the Indians plenty of beads made out of the coral found in the South Sea; many good turquoises,’” which they get from the north, and Dorantes was presented with five emeralds,!° Shaped as arrow points, which arrows they use in 103 If this part of the journey had been along the left bank of the Rio Grande, they would have had plenty to eat, as the locality was populated . 104 Not the Rio Grande but some river seventeen days’ journey to the west and southwest from where they left the Rio Grande: undoubtedly some river in the present state of Chihuahua, Mexico. 105 The Journey of Alvar Nufieg Cabeza de Vaca, Bandelier trans., p. 156. 106 The finest turquoises found in New Mexico are those found in Grant county, in the southwestern part of the state. The turquoise mines of that ok have been known to the Indians from time immemorial. Turquoise é cee ae in the Chalchiuitl mountain, near Los Cerrillos, twenty miles fromis thar ithe: was a famous place and one from which 107 Bandelier thinks these may have been malachites. the Many Indians secured fine specimens FIRST SPANISH EXPLORERS 103 As they appeared to be of very good qualtheir feasts and dances. ity the Indians were asked whence they got them, and they said it was from some very high mountains toward the north, where they traded for them with feathers and parrot plumes, and where there were villages with many people and very big houses.*°* In their travels through this section of the country everywhere the Spaniards met with evidences of an advanced degree of civilization. The women were better treated and better dressed than those among They wore cotton skirts, with the tribes they had already visited. half sleeves, and skirts of dressed deer-skin, reaching to the ground, They washed their open in front and confined with leather straps. clothing with a certain soapy root ‘°° and they wore shoes. It was their belief that the Spaniards came from heaven. The negro, Este- van, kept up a constant conversation with them and found out a great many things his companions were desirous of knowing. They left all the tribes through whose country they passed, at peace; they were told that in heaven there was a Great Being whom they called God, who made the sky, the earth and all other things; that He was their master, and they worshiped and obeyed Him and received from Him all good things. It was difficult for the Indians to comprehend the teachings of the Spaniards, but at the rising and going down of the sun, they would open their hands towards the heavens, with loud shoutings, and afterwards draw them down over their bodies. Although the Spaniards spoke six different languages, the people they only they were now with could understand no one of them, and conversed with each other by means of signs. the The Spaniards remained in the village where they obtained S1x over Dorantes gave Indians the Here emeralds three days. hundred hearts of deer, opened, of which they kept on hand a THEY REACH THE SETTLEMENTS; THEY GO TO THE large supply. For this reason, the Spaniards gave to the settle- cITy oF MExIco ment the name of ‘‘ Village of Hearts.’’ **° of malachite have been taken from Grant county, also says that he saw in the possession of a pone New a Mexico. ramen ie pueblo of San Juan, in New Mexico, a plate of malachite, shape 7 ee r, : Grant county has blunt knife, which he said had come from Chihuahua. South boundary line the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. 108 The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico. 109 The Amole-root of the Yucca. 110 Oviedo, Historia, vol. iii, lib. xxxv, cap. ° Vi, D- 610 (ed. 1853): ‘ 6c Fuge |