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Show COMMENTARY ON MARK OF NICE, 1539. 485 they had houses of three stories, and walled about ( were) their pueblos, and that they went clothed and shod with antelope ( skins) and mantles of cotton. My opinion is confirmed by the fundamental fact { el fundatnento grabe) that, the river coming from the northeast with regard to the place where I acquired information thereof, there is agreement of the ten-days' journey to the river cited in the relation above mentioned. Also in the circumstances of the clothing I have grounds { fundamento- for my opinion), of a round hill." This was not Kiakima, as Bandelier once thought, but, as Hodge has shown, it was the Pueblo of Hawiku, Hauicu, or Havico, a mile or so from modern Zufii Hot Springs, or Ojo Caliente. At his coign of vantage, in full view of this southwestern one of the Zuiii pueblos or Cities of Cibola, Friar Marcos erected a stone cairn with a wooden cross atop, took possession in due form of Cibola, Totonteac, Acus, and Marata, named the whole country Nuevo Reyno de San Francisco, and turned back from his great discovery " with much more fright than food " ( con harto mas temor que cotnida), as he pithily says in his Relacion. Such, in briefest outline, are the journey and discovery of Friar Marcos de Niza. There never need have been the slightest question, much less mystery, of the location of the Seven Cities of Cibola, whose identification with the Zunian pueblos has never been entirely lost sight of, though so often disputed or denied, down to the present day. After this exploit the monk made all haste to return to Culiacan by the way he had gone then to Cibola; and by September, 1539, he had duly attested . the report which he made to the proper authorities at the City of Mexico, where he died March 25, 1558. « |