USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 51
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There is a transition from the cliff-house to the many-storied com- muna! house. This is the cave pueblo, a village of connected buildings, sometimes more than one story high, built inside of a natural recess or cave. Caves containing ancient habitations are of frequent occurrence, wherever natural features favor the establishment of human abodes under shelter of rocks or in real caverns. These villages with partition walls and roof should not be confounded with cave-dwellings proper, where a man has scooped out grottos by hand for his residence.
The latter belong plainly to the many-storied communal pueblo type
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of architecture. 'They are found in New Mexico in one particular sec- tion, where very friable pumice stone and tufa constitute the rock. This is the region west of Santa Fé, on the west bank of the Rio Grande, and extending front Santa Clara in the north to Cochiti in the south. Every gorge almost of that wild and inaccessible mountain region is more or less lined with caves burrowed out in the friable rock, sometimes two and three tiers superposed with estufas. Some of the latter are hollowed out of the rock also, while others have been dug out in front of the caves.
Lastly, there is the large communal house type, of which the present pueblos are an illustration, although considerable change has taken place in many details since the sixteenth century. It may be said that since the advent of the Europeans the village, consisting of one single house, has fallen into disuse, Taos, and in a certain sense Zuñi, being the ones ap- proximating the class. Of these enormous structures, in comparison with which the largest buildings of Yucatan and southern Mexico vanish out of sight, preserved specimens are found at Pecos, and especially in the Chaca cañon north of the Santa Fe railroad. There is also a one-house pueblo ruin twelve miles west of Cochiti. It is in fair condition, quad- rangular, with a court in the middle, and three stories are still visible.
To assign definite geographic areas to each class of ruins or structures is not possible in every case. The cliff-house and the cave village are bound to geological features, and wherever these are lacking the type need not be looked for. The scattered small house is met with almost every- where; whereas the many-storied pueblo extends only as far south as the thirty-third parallel of latitude. South of this line there are many-storied ruins also, in Arizona, Chihuahua and eastern Sonora, but they all show important modifications.
In regard to the respective age of the prehistoric ruins, only so much appears to be certain, that the small-house type is the oldest, perhaps the primitive form. In the sixteenth century the pueblos all dwell in many- storied structures. Few distinct traditions attach themselves to the small- house villages. and even these point to the fact that the pueblo Indians occupied them before they began to rear large communal buildings. The latter are a combination of dwellings and fortress, a type which sprung up in consequence of greater insecurity of life. As to the cave villages, they are not so ancient as commonly supposed. Those west of Santa Clara were excavated and inhabited by the Tehuas (or, rather, by their ancestors) now occupying the pueblos of Santa Clara and San Juan; and those of the Rito de los Frijoles, north of Cochiti, are the work of the ancestors of the present Queres. But their construction, as well as their abandonment, antedates certainly the first coming of all Spaniards by several centuries. These are to be classed among the prehistoric ruins.
Ancient architecture in the territory of New Mexico displays, there- fore, variations, but they are only in degree, not in kind. Nothing war- rants the assumption that the people who reared the cliff-dwellings, for instance, differed in culture from those who constructed the caves or the large pueblo houses. Local differences are numerous, of course ; but the general character of the remains associated with the ruins is the same. The same symbols decorate the pottery found, not only in New Mexico, but as far south as the twenty-ninth parallel in Sonora and Chihuahua. Badges used today by the pueblo Indians in their religious ceremonies
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INDIAN TRIBES
have been exhumed on the upper Salt river in Arizona. Fetiches like those which the pueblos carry about their bodies were taken from the ruins of Casas Grandes and vicinity. The ancient potterv of New Mexico is usually handsome and better than that manufactured by the pueblos today, but this has not been the result of a general decay in art. Since the Spanish occupation the industry of the Indians has turned into other channels, and they have consequently abandoned or neglected certain lines that were to them less. remunerative.
With the exception of one single find in Arizona, metallic objects antedating the Spanish period have not been found among the ruins of New Mexico and adjacent regions. What is stated of mines worked prior to the sixteenth century is devoid of all foundation. Considerable tur- quoise has been gathered at and around Cerrillos by the Indians from time immemorial, but not through regular mining.
"The villages of Taos, Picuries, Sandia and Isleta," says Rev. A. Jouvenceau, one of the esteemed authorities on New Mexican history, "are inhabited by the Tehua nation. The dialects of the Picuries and Taos Indians differ somewhat from those of Sandia and Isleta; however they can understand each other without much difficulty, as the words are all derived from one common stock. Nambe, Pojuaque, Tezuque, San Ilde- fonso, Santa Clara, and San Juan belong to the Tegua tribe. Their idiom is, to my knowledge, the most difficult of all the pueblo languages ; it contains an exceptionally large number of harsh guttural sounds and many monosyllabic words. Cochiti, San Domingo, San Felipi, Zia, Santa Anna, Laguna and Acoma are the villages of the Queres nation, or, I would rather say, the last two named villages are inhabited by the Queres proper, while the five others belong to the Tanos, who are but a branch of the Queres. A slight divergence of pronunciation may be noticed be- tween the Acomas and the Lagunas, but the dialects spoken by all of these villages are much the same. The inhabitants of Jemez constitute a tribe by themselves, witli a language of their own, which has no analogy what- soever with any of the other pueblo idioms. Piros is the name given to the Indians inhabiting the pueblo of Piros, as also to the remnants of the Pecos, who have all but become extinct, or, as some historians assert, have been annihilated by the incursions of the wild Indians of the plains. The huge ruins of the Pecos village are situated six miles from the station of Glorieta, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad. The Zuñis, living in the pueblo of Zuñi, about 45 miles south of Gallup, New Mexico, constitute a separate stock, with a language, customs and habits peculiarly their own.
"The Moquis, or Hopis of Arizona, must also be classed with the pueblo Indians, as they, too, live in communal villages and follow a similar mode of life, although their language and their superstitious practices are different from those of the other pueblos. The seven Hopi villages are perched on three mesas, or high table-lands, or rather table-rocks. One of the villages on the first mesa is inhabited by a branch of the Tegua tribe, who left their village on the Rio Grande, and took refuge with the Hopis after the rebellion in 1680. The rest of the Hopis, or Moquis, belong to the Shoshonean nation.
"The various idioms of the pueblo tribes are so radically different, one from the other, that conversational intercourse between them is im-
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possible. There is as much radical difference between the various lan- guages of the pueblo tribes of New Mexico as there is between the Gaelic, Hungarian, Russian, Turkish, and German of Europe. However, as they all speak Spanish and understand it more or less fluently, that language is used in the conventional intercourse and in the transaction of business between the different villages.
"The pueblo of Taos is located in the northern part of New Mexico, 80 miles north of Santa Fé, and about 35 miles from the Colorado border. It lies at the foot of the Taos range, a spur of the Rockies, on a beautiful little river called Rio del Pueblo. Its altitude is more than 6,500 feet above the level of the sea. The town of Fernandez de Taos, which is the county seat of Taos County, is only three miles distant from the Indian vil- lage. The population of Taos is about 360; the pueblo consists of two im- mense communal houses, or buildings, erected in two long parallel rows, of five stories each. The form of the buildings is that of a terrace, i. e., each higher story is set well back upon the lower, so that the whole build- ing presents the aspect of 'a flight of giant stairs,' as Chas. F. Lummis puts it.
"In the pueblo there are several estufas, built underground in circular form. Near the village, I would say, on one side of it, stand the ruins of the primitive Catholic church, destroyed by the shells of the American troops, when they, in 1847, besieged the pueblo of Taos, under the com- mand of Governor Bent, and punished the Indians for their rebellion. These ruins show the church to have been a building of very large and substantial proportions.
"The Taos Indians belong to the Tehua tribe, and are a tall, robust, and healthy race of people. They adhere strictly to their old customs, so much so, that school boys, returning home from their vacation, are allowed to wear their American dress only for two weeks, after which time they must don again the traditional blanket, and the rest of their national costume. To these Indians is intrusted the charge of the sacred fire, which is kept burning in one of their estufas, for the purpose, as they say. of helping the Sun during the cold months of winter. The Taos Indians are noted for their agility and lightfootedness; they are the fleet- est runners among the pueblos, which may be owing to the fact that they are great Nimrods. The range of mountains, near their village, is rich in game of every kind.
"The annual celebration of their patronal feast, San Geronimo, on the 30th of September, always attracts a large crowd of visitors, Indians as well as Mexicans, who are anxious to witness their dances, foot-races, and other games. Their farming lands are the best in the Taos valley, and they get an abundant supply of water for irrigating purposes from the beautiful stream which runs though the pueblo. The people of Taos are industrious and self-supporting, but not verv temperate; the proximity to Fernandez affords them many opportunities of indulging sometimes too freely in the use of intoxicating liquors.
"Taos is probably the 'Braba or Yurba' mentioned by Coronado's Chroniclers. On account of their remoteness from the center of the colo- nial government, the Taos Indians, during the time they were under Span- ish rule, always manifested a spirit of independence. At the approach of Don Diego de Vargas, October 6th, 1692, the Indians fled away into the
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mountains, and the conqueror occupied their village without resistance. On October 8th, the Indians returned to the village and submitted to the Spaniards. In 1694 they revolted again, and in July of the same year, de Vargas had to march his troops once more against them. The pueblo, which had been previously abandoned by the Indians, was ransacked by the soldiers, who pursued the enemy right into the heart of their mountain fastnesses. A large number of them perished in the ensuing fight, but the bulk of the Indians escaped, and it was only after the lapse of several years that perfect peace was restored among them. In 1631 the Taos In- dians murdered their missionary, Fray Pedro de Miranda.
"In 1837 the Taos Indians (as related elsewhere) joined with the people of Chimoyo in their uprising against the government of New Mex- ico, which, together with the murder of Governor Bent in 1847, bears tes- timony to the warlike spirit of the Taos Indians. At present, however, they are good, peaceful, and law-abiding people.
"Twenty-five miles south of Taos, crossing a range of mountains, which has not as yet received a geographical name, is situated the small Indian village of Picuries. The pueblo occupies the center of a small valley, the land of which is very fertile and well irrigated by a stream, that empties four miles below, into Penasco creek.
"The Picuries Indians, like the Taos, belong to the Tehua stock or nation. They cultivate the ground, and raise enough grain for a scanty support. Their village, which is small, numbering about a dozen buidings, is of the same architecture as the other pueblos. While the Picuries, in and prior to the days of the conquest, possessed a large and populous village, they are at present reduced to a very small number. They seem to be rather slow and dull of comprehension, and without any ambition of raising themselves above the level of their present shiftless condition.
"The altitude of Picuries is nearly 8,000 feet above the level of the sea. and their valley is hemmed in by chains of mountains. In customs and habits they are like the rest of the pueblos; in religion they profess the Catholic faith. Their church, built in the same style as the other Indian churches, is dedicated to St. Lawrence, the Martyr, and the Ioth of August, the feast of San Lorenzo, is a gala day for the Indians and the Mexicans of the surrounding towns, who come to witness the solemn pueblo celebration.
"When the pueblos rose up in 1680 to shake off the yoke of the Spaniards, the Picuries joined forces with the Taos; they attacked from the north, and contributed not a little towards the defeat of the Spaniards under Otermin. At present only a few individuals occupy the village, which, three centuries ago, was a powerful pueblo, inhabited by more than 1,000 persons."
At this time (1906) there are in New Mexico nineteen pueblos, in- habited hy six different tribes, speaking six radically different languages. The Indian pueblos of the Territory, their population in 1905 and their annual fete days are as follows :
Population.
Fete Day.
Taos, 525 .. Sept. 30
Picuries, 205 .. . Aug. 10
San Juan, 500. . June 24
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
Santa Clara, 300.
Aug. 12
San Ildefonso, 300.
Jan. 23
Pojoaque, 50. Dec. 12
Nambe, 174 ..
Oct. 4
Tesuque, 150.
Nov. 12
Cochiti, 500 ..
June 14
Santo Domingo, 1,000.
Aug. 4
San Filipe, 600.
May . I
Santa Ana, 122
. August
San Dia, 1,000.
July 13
Zia, 100 ..
Aug. 15
Jemez, 500.
Nov. . 12
Isleta, 1,000.
Aug. 28
Laguna, 500
. Sept. 19
Acoma, 400.
.Sept. I
Zuñi, 1,015 ..
November
Following are the names of the six tribes or nations inhabiting these nineteen pueblos or villages: The Tehuas, the Teguas, the Queres or Tanos, the Piros, the Jemez, and the Zuñis.
Most of the 'so-called pueblo Indians of New Mexico are the same in manners, customs and beliefs as they were centuries before the coming of the conquistadores. The pueblo of Laguna, in what is now Valencia county (meaning "Village of the Lake," though the lake has long since become dry), is the youngest of the Queres villages. The Spanish records place the date of settlement in 1699. De Thoma says that the Queres of Cieneguilla, Santo Domingo and Cochiti constructed in the same year (1699) "a new pueblo close to an arroyo, four leagues north of Acoma," and on the fourth day of July of that year swore allegiance and received the name of "San Jose de la Laguna." The date 1699 is undoubtedly too late. Reasonably authentic historical sources and all Indian traditions place the date much earlier.
The first reference to this locality is made by Hernando de Alvarado. In his report to Coronado, his commanding general, he says:
"We set out from Granada (Ojo Caliente, a Zuñi village) on Sunday * the 29th of August, in the year 1540, on the way to Co Co (Acoma). After we had gone two leagues we came to an ancient build- ing, like a fortress, and a league beyond we found another, and yet an- other; a little further on and beyond these we found an ancient city, very large, entirely destroyed, although a large part of the walls were stand- ing, which were six times as tall as a man, the walls well made, of good stone, with gates and gutters like a city in Castile. Half a league or more beyond this we found another ruined city, the walls of which must have been very fine, built of very large granite blocks as high as a man. Here two roads separate, one to Chia (Zia) and the other to Co Co. We took the latter and reached that place, which is one of the strongest places that we have ever seen, because the city is on a very high rock, with such a rough ascent that we repented having gone up to the place. The honses have three or four stories. The people are the same sort as those of the province of Cibola; they have plenty of food, of corn and beans and fowls, like those of New Spain. From here we went to a very good
Catholic Church at Socorro
Indian Church. Pueblo of San Felipe
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INDIAN TRIBES
lake or marsh (Laguna), where there are trees like those of Castile. From here we went to a river, which we named Nuestra Sonora. * In ** * the month of September we sent the cross by a guide to the village in advance, and the next day the people came out from twelve villages, the chief men and people in order, those of one village behind those of an- other, and they approached the tent to the sound of a pipe, and with an old man for spokesman. * *
"The houses are of earth, two stories high. The people have a good appearance, more like laborers than a warlike race. They have a large food supply of corn, beans, melons, and fowls in great plenty. They clothe themselves with cotton and skins of cows and dresses of the feathers of the fowls. Those who have the authority are the old men. We re- garded them as witches, because they say that they go up into the sky and other things of the same sort. In the province there are seven other villages, depopulated and destroyed by those Indians who paint their eyes.
** *
* As your grace may see in this memorandum, there are eighty villages there, of the same sort as I have described, and among them one which is located on some stream. It is divided into twenty divisions, which is something remarkable. The houses have three stories of mud walls, and three others of small wooden boards, and on the outside of the three stories of the mud walls they have three balconies. It seems to us that there were nearly 15,000 persons in this village. * * They worship the sun and water. In some mounds of earth outside of the places where they are buried and in the places where crosses were raised we saw them worship there. They made offerings to these of their powder and feathers, and some left the blankets they had on."
The lake referred to by Alvarado lay a short distance west of the pueblo and was formed by a flow of lava damming up a small stream. "When the Indians came to build the town," writes John M. Gunn of Laguna, in "Records of the Past" for October, 1904, "the beavers were frightened away, but the villagers continued to repair the dam from time to time until the year 1850, when, on account of religious disputes, the people refused to obey the officers or work together in unity. The dam washed away and the lake was drained. The Spaniards named the stream which supplied the lake the Rio del Gallo. *
The great rock of Acoma, on which is built the pueblo of that name, lies about fifteen miles southwest of Laguna. The early Spanish explorers wrote the name variously Co Co, Acuco, Tutuhaco and Hacus. The name of Acuco, the most frequently used, was adopted from the Zuñi pronun- ciation. The native name for the village is Ah-ko, or Stche-ahko, con- tracted from the word Stche-ah-ko-ki, or Stchuk-ko-ki, which means a rude form of ladder, formed by driving sticks into the crevices of a rock.
The Acoma Indians have a tradition that their ancestors once inhab- ited a valley about twelve miles north of the present pueblo, between Mount Taylor and the site of Cubero, and that they moved to their present loca- tion for better protection against the Apaches and Navajos. Their tradi- tion also runs that they once inhabited the region to the west and south.
As has been stated, the authentic history of Acoma and Laguna begins with Coronado's expedition. This great explorer sent Alvarado with a company of twenty men, to explore the country east of Coronado's camp in the Zuñi country. Alvarado started out August 29, 1540, having as a
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HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
guide the war captain of Pecos, who had visited the white strangers at Zuñi. Alvarado was instructed to make the trip within eighty days, but soon after his arrival at the Rio Grande he sent back the report from which extracts have here been made and continued his discoveries.
The apparent submission of the pueblos, the sudden revolt of the Acoma tribe in 1599, and the subsequent destruction of their village and removal of the inhabitants, form subject matter for a part of the general narrative. Quiet lasted for many years after Onate's conquest. In 1650 the pueblo Indians were on the verge of a rebellion. A priest named Juan Ramirez lived in Acoma from 1650 to 1660, probably the last to ad- minister to the spiritual wants of these people until after the de Vargas expedition. During the period of this rebellion the inhabitants of the pueblo of Cieneguilla, a Queres village near Santa Fé, abandoned their town and moved in a body to Laguna. Others soon followed in small bands from the Queres villages of Zia, Santo Domingo and Cochiti. Tra- dition states that the first settlement at Laguna was made about half a mile southwest of the present village. The town was settled by Indians from Acoma and named Kosh-tea, and organized with an independent government. This led to a serious misunderstanding with the people of Acoma, and several battles ensued. The people from the north chose La- guna as the site of their location. regarding Kosh-tea as too exposed a location. The site of Laguna, a sandstone ridge covered with brush, was known as Kush-tit, or Kow-ike, the former meaning dry sticks fit for fire- wood, and the latter being a contraction of the word Kowisho or Kowine- sho, meaning a pond or lake. Kosh-tea was finally abandoned and the inhabitants took up their abode in the new town of Laguna, or Kowike, as they call it.
Upon the outbreak of the Pope rebellion there were in Acoma three Spanish priests-Cristobal Figueroa, Albino Maldonado and Juan Mora. In common with the other Spaniards in the province all were put to death. One account, doubtless based on Indian tradition, states that they were taken to a high point on the edge of the Acoma mesa and compelled to jump to the bottom, a distance of 300 feet. Two are said to have met instant death. The clothing of the third is said to have acted as a para- chute, breaking the force of his fall; and the Indians, believing his escape from death to have been due to divine intervention, gave him his liberty. A second account states that the three priests were tied together, driven through the streets and beaten and stoned until Figueroa, in his despera- tion, infuriated the Indians by the assertion that within three years the Spaniards would return, destroy the pueblo and exterminate its inhab- itants : whereupon the Indians fell upon the three captives and killed them.
During the period between 1680 and 1691 the various pueblos did not live in the harmony that characterized their previous history, and de Var- gas found the reconquest of the pueblos of the Rio Grande comparatively easy. After the valley pueblos were brought under subjection de Vargas started for the western pueblos. The Lagunas, learning of the approach of the expedition, placed all the women and children of the tribe on a high bluff or bench of the Mesa, about three miles north of the town, leaving the old men to guard them. This place is known as Schumits Sin- otes, meaning "white bluff," and the old fortifications are still to be seen there. The Lagunas repulsed the first attack of the Spaniards, but seeing
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INDIAN TRIBES
that resistance would be useless, finally surrendered. Soon after de Vargas secured the services of the cacique, Antonio Coyote, and his war captain, Poncho, as guides for the expedition to Acoma and Zuñi. Arriving at Acoma November 3d, the inhabitants surrendered without a show of resist- ance. Proceeding to Zuñi, de Vargas found that the Indians had fled to the top of Thunder Mountain, from which it was impossible to drive them. The Spaniards surrounded the mountain, a butte about one thousand feet high, determined to starve the Indians into submission. The latter at first ridiculed the attempt, but as time passed and water and provisions grew scarce, a council decided that the priest whose life had been saved should enter into negotiations with the besiegers. He wrote a message to the Spanish commander upon a piece of tanned buckskin, which was thrown to the ground below. Great was the surprise of the besieging party to find the message in their native tongue. Negotiations for surrender were at once opened, and the siege ended. When de Vargas returned to the Rio Grande the former captive priest accompanied him; and several of the Zuñis, who had become greatly attached to the priest, followed as far as Laguna, where they are said to have remained. This story, related by John M. Gunn of Laguna, one of the highest living authorities on Laguna and Acoma history and tradition, is traditionary, but there is his- toric evidence that a priest survived the massacre of August 10, 1680. A Picuries Indian informed the El Paso authorities that he had seen a priest alive in the pueblo of Xongopabi, one of the Moqui villages, in 1682. The fact that de Vargas does not mention the name of this priest nor the inci- dent of the fight at Zuñi need not be taken as conclusive evidence, as of all the early explorers and conquerors he was the most brief in his reports. Upon his return from the Moqui country de Vargas left a memorandum of his expedition on what is known as El Morro, or Inscription Rock, about twenty-four miles east of Zuñi. This rock was found in 1849 by Lieuten- ant Colonel Washington, a commander of American troops. Translated
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