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Show THE FIRST SPANISH EXPLORERS 97 who had left the Spaniards the day before and the villagers were robbed of everything they had. The marauders, however, told them that the Spaniards were children of the sun, with the power of life and death in their hands. They advised the Indians to take the Spaniards where the population was numerous and that the Spaniards must not be offended in any way. The following day the Spaniards resumed their march through a very well inhabited country, and at the expiration of three days, came to a village to the people of whom the Indians related wonderful stories about the Here they were made numerous presents, one to DoSpaniards. rantes being a copper bell, with a human face engraved upon it.%” 97 Hodge, F. W., Spanish Explorers in the Southern United States, p. 95: ‘‘Among the articles given us, Andrés Dorantes received a hawk-bell of copper, thick and large, figured with a face, which the natives had shown, greatly prizing it. They told him they had received it from others, their neighbors; we asked them whence the others had received it, and they said it had been brought from the northern direction, where there was much copper, which was highly esteemed. ’’ ) Mr. Hodge, Ibid, note p. 97, in reference to a subsequent inquiry made of the Indians as to where they obtained the copper bell, says: ‘‘The allusion is probably to Mexico rather than to a northern country, as previously asserted by the Indians.’’ Upon what authority, contained in the Narrative, or elsewhere, Mr. Hodge feels called upon to suggest ‘‘Mexico’’ as the place where the bell came from, I can not imagine, particularly when it is well known that most extensive deposits of native copper are found in Grant and Sierra counties, New Mexico; that lead is found in Socorro county, and copper also; that in all the mountain ranges on either side of the valley of the Rio Grande, from the Organ mountains, in Dofia Ana county, as far north as the Colorado line, are found silver, copper, and lead. When the Indians told the Spaniards that in the place whence the hawk-bell had come ‘‘were buried many plates of the same material,’’ they undoubtedly intended to convey the idea, using the word ‘“buried,’’ that there were deposits of copper in sheets, such as have been taken out in New Mexico in many localities, but particularly in Grant county. I have seen ‘ ‘plates’’ of native copper taken from the deposits in that county ‘“buried’? as the Indians said, which were two and three feet in length, half an inch in thickness and twelve to fifteen inches in width, and all comparatively near the surface. Yet, in their efforts to keep Cabeza de Vaca and his comPanions out of New Mexico, some historians have been willing to ignore all these well-known facts, and like Mr. Hodge, in the face of the statement de- liberately made that the copper bell came from the north, say that probably the Indians meant to say from the south — Mexico. , Again, it must be remembered that there is preserved to us the record of the Journey of Coronado in 1541, and that while on his search for Quivira, after he had Crossed the Pecos river, in New Mexico, and at some point in eastern New -°X1CO or northwestern Texas, at least thirty days’ journey im a southerly direction from the point where Coronado crossed the Arkansas, and at a time Prior to the date when the army under Arellano was ordered back to Tiguex, Coronado Sent Rodrigo Maldonado on an exploring expedition, and the latter In a Journey of four days reached a deep ravine or canyon in the bottom of Which he found a village that Cabeza de Vaca had visited and whose inhabitants |