Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins o | Page 4

Messrs. Jackson and Holmes, and to Mr. Lewis H. Morgan. To reach this region, Coronado had to pass either between Acoma and Zu?i, or between the Zu?i and the Moqui towns. In either case he could not have failed to notice one or the other of these pueblos; whereas Nizza, as well as the reports of Coronado's march, particularly insist upon the fact that Cibola lay on the borders of a great uninhabited waste.
Our choice is therefore limited between Zu?i and the Moqui towns themselves; for there can be no doubt as to the identity of the rock of Acuco or Tutahaco, east of Cibola, with the pueblo of Acoma, whose remarkable situation, on the top of a high, isolated rock, has made it the most conspicuous object in New Mexico for nearly three centuries.[42]
But there can be as little doubt, also, in regard to the identity of the Moqui district with the "Tusayan" of Casta?eda and of Jaramillo. When the Moqui region first was made known under that name ("Mohoce," "Mohace") in 1583, by Antonio de Espejo, it lay westward from Cibola "four journeys of seven leagues each." One of its pueblos was called "Aguato" ("Aguatobi").[43] Fifteen years later (1598), Juan de O?ate found the first pueblo of "Mohóce," twenty leagues of the first one of "Ju?i" ("Zu?i") to the westward.[44] Besides, the "Rio del Tizon" was, at an early day, distinctly identified with the Colorado River of the West.[45]
Finally, we must notice here that the text of Hackluyt's version of Espejo's report is in so far incorrect as it leads to the inference that Espejo only admitted Cibola to be a Spanish name for Zu?i, therefore making it doubtful whether or not it was the original place ("y la llaman los Espa?oles Cibola"). The original text of Espejo's report distinctly says, however, "a province of six pueblos, called Zu?i, and by another name, Cibola," thus positively identifying the place.[46]
We cannot, therefore, refuse to adopt the views of General Simpson and of Mr. W. W. H. Davis, and to look to the pueblo of Zu?i as occupying, if not the actual site, at least one of the sites within the tribal area of the "Seven cities of Cibola." Nor can we refuse to identify Tusayan with the Moqui district, and Acuco with Acoma.
This investigation has so far enabled us to locate, at the time of their first discovery, three of the principal pueblos or groups of pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona. The pueblo of Acoma appears to have occupied at that time the identical striking position in which it is found to-day. The pueblo of Zu?i, while it undoubtedly occupies the ground once claimed by the cluster to which the name of Cibola was given, is but the remaining one of six or seven villages then forming that group, or a recent construction sheltering the remnants of their former occupants. The Moqui towns appear to be the same which the Spaniards found three hundred and forty years ago, though additions from other tribes have, as we shall subsequently establish, modified the character of their dwellers.
But the information to be derived from Coronado's march, on the ethnography of New Mexico, is not confined to the above. While at Cibola, Indians from a tribe or region called "Cicuyé," which was said to be found far to the east, came to see him. They brought with them buffalo-hides, prepared and manufactured into shields and "helmets." Although the Spaniards had heard of the buffalo before reaching Zu?i, the animal itself had not been met with, and accordingly Coronado sent Hernando de Alvarado to Cicuyé, and in quest of the "buffalo country."[47]
Cicuyé is the "Cicuique" of Juan Jaramillo, and the "Acuique" of an anonymous relation of the year 1541: it lay to the east of Acoma, through which the Spaniards passed.[48] Between it and Acoma was the pueblo of "Tiguex," at a distance of three days' march, while Cicuyé was five days from Tiguex.[49] General Simpson identifies the latter with a point on the Rio Grande del Norte, "at the foot of the Socorro Mountains," and then places Cicuyé at "Pecos."[50] Between Acoma and the Rio Grande there lies the Rio Puerco; and on its banks other authorities, conspicuous among whom is Mr. W. W. H. Davis, have located Tiguex, while Cicuyé, according to them, was on the Rio Grande, somewhere near the valley of Guadalupe.[51] Both conclusions have their strong points; but both of them have also their weak sides.
If it took five days of march from Zu?i to Acoma, three days more, in a north-easterly direction, would have brought the Spaniards to the Rio Grande, and certainly much beyond the Rio Puerco; and then Pecos could easily be reached in five days.[52]
But we are unable to guess, even, at the length