Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction

Documentary History of the Rio
Grande Pueblos
by Adolph
Francis Alphonse

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Pueblos
of New Mexico; I. Bibliographic Introduction, by Adolph Francis
Alphonse Bandelier
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Title: Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos of New Mexico;
I. Bibliographic Introduction Papers of the School of American
Archaeology, No. 13
Author: Adolph Francis Alphonse Bandelier

Release Date: September 4, 2007 [eBook #22510]
Language: English
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Archaeological Institute of America
Papers of the School of American Archaeology
Number Thirteen
DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS OF
NEW MEXICO
I. BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION
by
ADOLPH F. BANDELIER
1910

DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS OF
NEW MEXICO
BY ADOLPH F. BANDELIER

I.--BIBLIOGRAPHIC INTRODUCTION
Seventeen years have elapsed since I was in the territory in which the
events in the early history of the Rio Grande Pueblos transpired, and
twenty-nine years since I first entered the field of research among those
Pueblos under the auspices of the Archæological Institute of America. I
am now called upon by the Institute to do for the Indians of the Rio
Grande villages what I did nearly two decades ago for the Zuñi tribe,
namely, to record their documentary history.
I shall follow the method employed by me in the case of the
documentary history of Zuñi, by giving the events with strict adherence
to documentary sources, so far as may be possible, and shall employ
the correlated information of other branches only when absolutely
indispensable to the elucidation of the documentary material.
The geographical features of the region to be treated are too well
known to require mention. Neither can folklore and tradition,
notwithstanding their decisive importance in a great many cases, be
touched upon except when alluded to in the sources themselves. I am
fully aware, as I stated in presenting the history of the Zuñi tribe, that a
history based exclusively on documents, whether printed or written,
must necessarily be imperfect because it is not impartial, since it
summarizes the views of those who saw and understood but one side of
the question, and judged it only from their own standpoint. This defect
cannot be remedied, as it underlies the very nature of the task, and the
greater therefore is the necessity of carefully studying the folklore of
the Indians in order to check and complete as well as to correct the
picture presented by people acquainted with the art of writing.
In this Introduction I forego the employment of quotations, reserving
such for the main work. Quotations and footnotes are not, as it has been
imagined, a mere display of erudition--they are a duty towards the
source from which they are taken, and a duty to its author; moreover,
they are a duty towards the reader, who as far as possible should be
placed in a position himself to judge the value and nature of the
information presented, and, finally, they are a necessary indication of
the extent of the author's responsibility. If the sources are given clearly

and circumstantially, yet happen to be wrong, the author is exonerated
from blame for resting upon their authority, provided, as it not
infrequently happens, he has no way of correcting them by means of
other information.
In entering the field of documentary research the first task is to become
thoroughly acquainted with the languages in which the documents are
recorded. To be able to read cursorily a language in its present form is
not sufficient. Spanish, for example, has changed comparatively less
than German since the sixteenth century, yet there are locutions as well
as words found in early documents pertaining to America that have
fallen into disuse and hence are not commonly understood.
Provincialisms abound, hence the history of the author and the
environment in which he was reared should be taken into account, for
sometimes there are phrases that are unintelligible without a knowledge
of the writer's early surroundings. Translations as a rule should be
consulted only with allowance, for to the best of them the Italian saying
"Traduttore, tradittore" is applicable. With the greatest sincerity and
honesty on the part of the translator, he is liable to an