THE LIBRARY OF
THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
GIFT
of
Lucille W. HollingNew Mexico Made Easy
with, words of modern syllables
"*Written by
Holling Clancy Holling
with, pictures penned by sameCopyrighted
Rockwell F. Clancy Company 1923
Published by
Rockwell F. Clancy Company
CHICAGOTrain of Thought
Baggage Car... .Explanation, or The Whyness of This All
Touring Car...................................... I
The Extensive Tour of Cabeza de Vaca
Chair-Car........................................ II
Concerning Pueblo Indians
Live Freight..................................... Ill
Fray Marcos and the Shining Seven Heavy Freight.................................... IV
The Quests of CoronadoNew Mexico Made Easy
Flat Car......................................... V
Three Good Friars and One Espejo
Construction Car................................. VI
Onate
Wrecking Car.....................................VII
Popay’s Rebellion of 1680
Non-Stop Car.....................................VIII
Re-Conquest By De Vargas
Pullman.......................................... IX
The Mere Passing of a Century 1700-1800
Day-Coach........................................ X
From the Last of Spain to the First of Uncle Sam
Local-Interest Car............................... XI
The Santa Fe Trail
Snoozing Coach.....(A Brief Summary of Events, Etc.)
Observation...................................... XII
Concerning the New Mexico of Today
Note to Passengers: On the front platform of the Baggage Car a map is posted which may help you to get your bearings.The above shows the Artist making his IllustrationsPublisher’s Note
In the following pages the author has at times dealt lightly with his theme. !While reading, however, please bear in mind that the characters, important events and dates are historical facts as obtained from authentic records.
If the reader wishes to make a more detailed study of the subject matter herein contained, we would advise his noting the list of books contained in the bibliography on the back of the last page.Dedication
TO you brave men, Indians, Spaniards and Americans who lived and died in this book, we pay tribute.
No one realizes more fully than we the hardships, privations and tragedies of your lives. And tho we have painted you with crooked noses and penned you for provocation of laughter, remember, there was no malice in the ink that sopped from the brush and spattered from the pen.
We have merely tried to bring you out of the past and put you into the present so that others, who do not dabble in musty books of forgotten ages, may know you anew.
If, however, you hold our words against us, but string your bow, whet your sword, and hold your axe ready in patience.
As time runs, our life is but a burro's hoof-print in quicksand. And too soon for us and soon enough for you, we’ll be spurring our mustang into that canyon from which there is no return trail..............ADIOS.Map of New Mexico showing principal places touched on in our narrative.Explanation or The Whyness of This-All
WE, the author and artist, once went to New Mexico. This was our first trip to the state. We went on business, mostly, but liked to look at nice scenery also. We shall go again if living at the time.
We were born somewhere east of Chicago and had never gazed at a cow as far west as Kansas. We had seen a cactus only in a museum case, consequently had never handled one. And New Mexico was as new to us as a kimono to a wild-cat. But we had to go to New Mexico, so we became interested, and asked our friends questions about who lived there first, who took over the business, and was it still paying the taxes. We bored our friends till each one resembled a cross-section of cheese, but these friends being also average inhabitants of the Near-East, about as much light was thrown on the subject as a fire-fly throws on a bill-board. So we headed for the nearest library.
The only book in the card-catalogue that looked like a lamp in a dark cellar, was out. So we took the next best things. Among whom was the “Seven-Hundred and Sixty-Seventh Scientific Treatise on the Sacredness of Certain Snakes to Certain Sedentary Indians," laid out in joints by Doctor C. M. Crawl: and “What We Found at the Ruins of Zug,” by O. Whydoo I dig Graves, eminent ethnologist, brilliantly illumined with six views of somebody’s skull. After this one the visiting physicianNew Mexico Made Easy
prescribed pretty little pink pills each morning before bedtime to overcome nervousness.
When we got to New Mexico we stayed there for several months. We learned that the best way to handle cactus was to let it alone. We learned that the indians were not after the flaxen tresses beneath the derby. And other things so interesting that when we got back we took time off from manufacturing collapsible collar-buttons to dope out the following harrangue for feller-tourists who wish to go to the state.
We realize that New Mexico can’t be assimilated by radio, and reading doesn’t help much; that one must wear New Mexico like a porous-plaster to really get the benefit of what’s inside. But we hope that a trial bottle of the following, taken at intervals while riding on a train, will do much to relieve that tired, monotonous feeling peculiar to travelers while crossing Kansas, un-scientifically known as Imus-dambordus-thaymakum.I.
The Extensive Tour of Cabeza de üaca
IN the beginning there was a guy who ran a banana-stand somewhere in Italy. One day he got a hunch that the world was round like a golf ball—so he left his banana-stand for the cop on the corner to look after, and ran to tell the Queen of Spain all about his big idea. She, being a charity worker and prominent in society, told him he was an interesting character and gave him her diamond-studded back comb. And he hocked the comb and bought three fishing-tubs, proved his golf ball idea, and died in prison.
Later on a fellow called Cortez sauntered over from
Spain and started all later trouble in Mexico by settling there.
And then the King of Spain, hearing golden reports from his generals of this New World as regarded Florida, gathered to his bosom one Pamphilo de Narvaez, said to be a man of nerve and many kopeks; and the fifth Emperor Charlie gave him permission to outfit himself with ships and fellow-sufferers, and see if he could get killed in the fern-bogs of Florida trying to levy an income-tax on the natives. So Narvaez kissed the imperial foot, drew his money out of the banks and bought five boats. And, having inveigled 600 humans and a flock of horses to invite seasickness on the bound-
ing billows, he waved his cast-iron mitten to Emperor Chas, on the dock, and steered for the Land of Flowers.
Now, Florida in those days wasn’t bounded on the north by Georgia, nor was Palm Beach entered on the atlas as a prominent station for spending cash.
No—although it began where it is now, it took in all the states flocking at present on the Gulf, swallowed the small morsel of Texas whole, and came to restHew do they look, William?
somewhere in Arizona, making quite a piece of real estate, y’understand.
As to levying an income-tax, it was then the custom to leave the tax to the natives, and carry off the income in sacks. Of course from all reports there would be a large number of sacks, for the counting of which they needed a treasurer. And the name of this prominent bird was Cabeza de Vaca.
When they anchored at Florida, it was immediately noticed that the native committee of welcome wore a scarcity of costly raiment, and later it was found that the incomes were restricted to squash, beans, spuds, etc. So Narvaez took these on general principles which, for some reason, left the natives peeved. Then they told him that farther inland was a country of many punkins and much gold in the local banks. At which promise he left the ships to meet him later up the coast, and waddled into the woods.
There must have been a fluke somewhere because, later on, Mr. Narvaez & Co. broke through the scenery on the shore muchly worn and looking hungry, and with the treasurer languishing from apathy. Moreover, the natives spent pleasant afternoons roosting in trees and holding archery contests while Narvaez supplied all targets and prizes. The Spaniards tried to whistle for the fleet, but the ships never showed a sail. So, being bored with a diet of horse and pointed remarks by the Indians, they built five boats from adjacent shrubbery and departed, only to be wrecked a few weeks later, and absolutely no insurance. Moreover, of the many men who went to Florida only Mr. de Vaca and three others returned.
These did not make a direct voyage with roadmaps. No, they took nine years to tour the landscape on foot, and saw plenty of scenery along the way. More scenery, in fact, than food. On this trip they learned to relish uncooked cactus, grasshopper-ham, and grubs, and they always slept
Too thin!with the mouth open in hopes of accidental contributions of mosquitoes and gnats. For years afterward they had chronic hair-lining-of-the stmach, due to too-rapid eating of dog without proper mastication.New Mexico Made Easy
the hoe and how to apply it in coaxing little vegetables out of the ground. He discourses at length on the real eats those persons set out for his famished insides.
"Imagine,” says he, "Just imagine roaming for eight years in a land so scarce of food that you begin to bury bones like an Airedale when you can get 'em to bury. And then, when you’ve learned the best way to crack rocks with your molars, you blow into a precinct where they eat food as a regular thing!”
When the four had filled in the creases of their flat stomachs, they took time off from eating and looked about. And, verily, the village appeared to be flourishing under the reigning govt. A permanent stream wandered down Main Street, so that the Water Dept. had nothing to worry about. The Governor wore genuine cotton pants, made of fibre brought up from the south, and pants were a curiosity to these babes from the woods who had wandered so far. The War Chief sported a gold bracelet on his shin, and the maidens were adorned with silver and turquoises. Altogether a town to remember.
When they had viewed everything from the city hall to the dog catcher’s palace they stumped on down to Mexico City, arriving there around nine summers from their docking at Florida. And the old ladies begged them to lecture in Sunday School on their travels!II
Concerning Pueblo Indians
NOW these Indians that Cabeza met were, are and ever will be interesting specimens. In the old days, nobody knows when or why, a large band of them came out of the north and wandered southward. This period of wandering covered hundreds of years, because they didn’t do it all at once, like a bee heading for home. They wandered and settled, like a flock of newspapers being blown across a park. And, as sometimes a few of the newspapers congregate around a tree or bench and settle there, just so a few bands broke away from the main parade and came to rest in the Rio Grande and adjacent valleys, where they built their cities or “pueblos” and still dwell at the present writing.
The others kept going south till they came to an eagle sitting on a cactus. And, handing it to him for being such a tough bird, they took his photograph for their state seal, and settled on an island in a lake nearby. This burg came to be known later as Mexico City.
Concerning the Pueblo Indians, they can be seen- today much as they were when Cabeza took his overland tour. They live in their terraced towns or pueblos made of adobe bricks. The manner of making an adobe brick is simple in theory, but no job for a bank clerk. Adobe is mud; pure clayey soil and water mixed on the spot with straw added for strength, and the whole kneaded into a thick mortar. This is shoveled into a wooden form about 18x8x4 inches in size, packed down, the form jerked upward, and the brick left to bake in the sun. When well-baked on each side in the sun-
shine of New Mexico, an adobe brick is a self-respecting, hard-boiled individual. And when laid with his brothers with a bond of the same mud between them, makes a wall against which it is useless to butt one’sNew Mexico Made Easy
head. When set, the walls of a room are plastered inside and out with a finer mixture of adobe, giving a texture that would make a manufacturer of oatmeal wall-paper dizzy with envy. Its surface has a certain softness that absorbs light as a spongs drinks water, and because of its plastic qualities before drying, there are no harsh lines in an adobe building. When the Spaniards came they used the same material, and the Mexican "casa” or house of today is an Indian pueblo in miniature.
The ceilings are of pine beams, often projecting from the outer walls like the muzzles of old cannon. These are overlaid in the other direction with a close-set layer of aspen poles from the mountains, this covered with reeds or straw, then seven inches of wet adobe which is left to set, after which loose earth is thrown on and the rainproof roof is finished. The bottom walls of Taos Pueblo, the best example of terraced pueblo today, are six or more feet thick, the roofs and upright beams heavy in comparison because there are seven storeys to the building, and the families on the ground floor are not anxious to have those of the top come into the parlor via the ceiling. There are no elevator-boys in an apartment house of this kind, as you climb from level to level by means of pole ladders on the outside. And if you wish to be left to yourself, you merely pull up your ladder and do not bother with locks.
As for cloth, these Indians traded for cotton from the south, which they wove. Wool blankets were not known till the Spaniards brought sheep. Of course the uses of the horse, cow, goat and burro, such common animals about a modern pueblo, were also unknown till the Con-quistadores came. Before iron, they made their cutlery of obsidian, a hard volcanic rock like black glass, which chips into flakes with keen edges.
Cabeza de Vaca found the art of irrigation well known. Corn, the staff of life of the Indians from antiquity, was and is ground into finq meal by stones, and the bread baked in out-door ovens of a shape like the conical beehive or an eskimo igloo. The chase, too, figured prominently, and deer, bear, elk and bison contributed to theConcerning Pueblo Indians
icebox. Dad One-Eye, sneaking home from a very late lodge-meeting, could always find a cold snack in the pantry set out in beautifully designed pots. Pottery is today one of the main articles of trade among the pueblos, each tribe varying its designs so that two pieces are never the same. The size, shape and material also varies. Thus Santa Clara and San Juan pueblos specialize in black, shiny jars, some of which are four feet high. San Ilde-fonso scrapes the shiny surface of its ware in beautiful patterns. Santo Domingo and the Hopis make wonderful bowls and jars with painted designs. The ruins of ancient towns, of which there are a great number near Santa Fe, are sprinkled with bright bits of old glaze-work, the art of which the modern Indian has lost. Baskets are woven, also. And those examples of Hopi work which are dyed with vegetable dyes are pieces of real art.
The tribe is divided into clans, each clan holding its secret meetings in its underground circular hall, (called Estufa, or Kiva,) and presided over by its medicine-men and priests. When a boy is born he takes the mother’s clan, not the father’s. Each year the pueblo elects a governor, the ex-governor retiring to the Council of Elders which sits on all cases.
Christianity came with the Franciscan Fathers, and each town has its church, and a patron Saint for whom it has a fiesta, or feast-day every year, and to whom it prays. However, the ancient spirits of sun, fire, earth and water still live in the cosmos of the Indian mind, and to see a corn-dance at a pueblo, and watch the expressions ofNew Mexico Made Easy
the old men as they squat about the man with the tomtom and chant to the water spirits for rain upon the crops, is to be carried back a thousand years. The romance of the Indian is not a tale-all-told down in New Mexico, and to those who wish to read and see, it is a serial film still showing.Ill
Fray Marcos and the Shining Seven
BEFORE Cabeza de Vaca returned to “New Spain,” (as Mexico was first called on the map,) the head of the Royal Audience then governing was a guy named Nuno Guzman. This Guzman had a valet titled Tejos (Tay-joss) whose dad had been in the feather-trading business up in New Mexico.
“And twice,” said Tejos one day, reminiscing, “I accompanied him to a certain province where we obtained for our feathers, silver, gold, and many turquoises.”
At the mention of these articles Guzman stopped teasing the parrot, hitched his chair around, and called for more. So Tejos, while watering the cactus, continued:
“There are seven cities in that region, called Cibola. The people there wear white robes studded with turquoises as blue as the far mountains at dawn.”
At this Guzman hove a sigh like a foundry bellows in action.
“They eat the tongues of humming birds from bowls of silver, with topaz spoons—”
Here Guzman moaned like a cow in the Chicago Stock Yards homesick for the country clover fields.
“While the houses shimmer with the gold plates upon them as brightly at night as the sun at noon, and the streets—” but Guzman, with a howl, jumped into the air; ordered out 400 Spaniards and 20,000 Indians; leaped on his horse, and sought the Seven Cities.
There was something wrong with the compass he took, because he returned, the expedition a fizzle, to New Spain. But as he neared his district he heard rumors that Cortez had come back from a visit to the old country, clothed by the King with new titles and tinsel. And Guzman, who had never voted for Cortez at any polls, thought better of going home, took a nice suburban house and settled down a few hundred miles from the other political party.
Meantime Tejos had passed to his spirit home, and the Seven Cities and their gold would have passed from ken,New Mexico Made Easy
but that Cabeza and his three buddies breezed in from their hike at this time. They told their tales to Mendoza, the new Viceroy under the party of Cortez. And he, having made Vasquez de Coronado governor of Guzman’s old province, spilled the golden note to that ambitious gentleman.
Now Coronado was getting his shaving-kit ready for a tour of New Spain when he heard of this wonderful land flowing with healthy ilk and money. Promptly canceling his Pullman reservations, he took horse for his new domains, carrying the negro Steve along.
At length a proposition was made to two Friars, Marcos de Nizza and one Honoratus, to explore that fabled country with Steve as guide, and bring back evidence whether or no someone had fibbed regarding the matter of treasure. So accordingly, on March seventh, 1539, they set out for New Mexico and the Shining Seven.
Now, Steve had ideas on religion that didn’t suit the Friars. So Marcos sent him ahead to pave the way, and they arranged on a set of signals, i. e., to wit, and vis: If Steve found less gold than would buy a mule, he should send back a very little cross of wood. If enough to purchase an army, etc., a medium-sized cross: But if there was enough to trade for a kingdom including the king, a good-sized cross.
Steve was a jolly good feller, and knew the lingo, having lived among the Indians for long. Furthermore, the lad had a way with the ladies that was positively irresistible! So, after admiring certain young woman, soto voice, he inquired, also soto voice, concerning the Seven Cities. And did they wear sandals of gold in that town, really! And how were the auto roads thence,
etc., etc., etc. In return theFray Marcos and the Shining Seven
maidens remarked, soto voice, how white his teeth were for his face. And yes, it was true, they wore golden boots up there in those towns. And also turquoise rings in their noses—and O, girls! Wouldn’t Steve look purty with one in his! So that Steve got all excited and sent back to Marcos half the men of the town with crosses as large and heavy as he could make them.
One morning Marcos and Honoratus were taking the air on a rock when, behold, over the hills came running a veritable lumberyard.
“Ah-ha! Honoratus, this sign denotes much goodly metal up front!” says Marcos, and straightway packed his trunk for parts unknown but brightly promising.
When they had trotted along, they found accommodations better than anticipated. Evidently Steve had quite the traveling-man’s instinct for kidding the population of a town, for everyone turned out in a massive committee of welcome, and they had speeches by the leading men of the village, and the eats were a-la-carted in on wheelbarrows. In short, a good time was had by all, and after the nut-course the natives gave toasts, wherein they exclaimed on the beauty and grace of their guests, and gave them concrete ideas of the wealth they were headed for.
Not only were the garbage-cans of these Seven Cities constructed of pure gold, they said, but the streets were paved with it! So solidly, in fact, that when a pup wished to bury his pet bone he had to go out beyond the suburbs before he found a dirt road.
At these things the Friars moistened their dry lips with trembling tongues, and could hardly sleep for thinking of such tales. And in the morning they were provided with an escort from that town to the next, where, with Steve gone before them, the ova-
tion this time would have _ turned ordinary men inside-	Come otl..
out with satisfaction. The	ht (7° se^en־׳־New Mexico Made Easy
negro was doing a thriving business at jollying the population. And “after all,” thought the Friars, “Steve isn’t such a bad sort!”
Things progressed rapidly from better to best. The hot sun, the blistering desert, the prickly cactus—all were mere trifles in this hike for the Cities of Cibola. Each town turned out more hospitably than the last, and there were fights among the chiefs as to who would loan them his house first. As they neared the goal, the people of one burg wanted to travel with them en masse and get in on the spoils they were sure would belong to the white men when they struck Cibola, for Steve had ascribed wondrous powers to these two. But Marcos lined them up, took only thirty of the most prominent and healthy business men, and soothed the tears of those who had to stay home.
Twelve days from this village they spied an Indian sprinting for dear life, and making a wailing noise several flights above high C. His tale of woe was that Steve had departed this world by violent means along with all his Indian escort except this one. It seems that they had reached the walls of the first city, and Steve had sent a messenger to the governor with a gew-gaw strung with tinkly bells. Evidently this was the wrong cue. He should have inquired first about the governor’s taste for music before sending in the bells. Because the governor, instead of flinging wide the portals to fall on Steve’s neck with joy, flung ’em wide to let out a few dozen fighting-men who fell on Steve’s neck, and broke it. And the rest were spitted with arrows till you couldn’t tell ’em from porcupines.
At this the thirty prominent men, more or less related to the fallen escort, wept copiously. They even grew dubious about their ability to go forward. The jury retired and brought in a verdict which sentenced them back to the old home town on the spot, nevermore to roam. But Fray Marcos was made of sterner stuff, so he says, and he wasn’t going back without a peep at the fair city he had come so far to find. He climbed a hill overlooking it, and piled up a heap of stones, and sighed.
“For the city,” he says in his written report, “Was theFray Marcos and the Shining Seven
smallest one of the seven, yet was it more goodly than the City of Mexico, in size. And the streets and all the buildings did glitter in the sun’s¡ light, they were so covered with gold!”
When he climbed down and went back, the towns didn’t call out the brass band to welcome him as before. They didn’t provide banquets for him, either, and not so much as one daisy was strewn in the path of his tired feet. And nobody fought anybody else because he slept out in the haymow. But he had had one glimpse of the promised land, and was out looking for a Moses to lead his people to it. Coronado proved to reach qualifications and to him Marcos poured honeyed words. And Coronado needed cash right then, so he listened with all valves wide open.IV.
The Quests of Coronado
Coronado was a man of imagination. And what Marcos reported would have made an oyster crawl out of its shell and bark.
"Brother,” said Coronado when the other had paused for breath. “You should have been a reporter. You’ve found the burgs of many berries that Guzman didn’t guzzle. I make you general of the Franciscans I shall take with me to preach docility to the Injuns while I swipe their gilded calves. An’
now here’s my post-card album of Noo-York to amuse yourself with, while I go out and rouse the snoozing army to a standing one.”
So saying, the brave man went to the front porch and asked for volunteers who didn’t hate the sight of gold, to come forward. So many men of noble birth but lean wallets crowded about the rail that they knocked the flower-pots off the veranda and stepped on the cat. There was such a panic that Coronado had to beat it out the back door and call in Viceroy Mendoza from the palace bar-room to save the varnish of the front hall. And the poor Viceroy had a hard time apportioning offices, because he knew that if one among them was slighted he was liable to tell his dad, and Mendoza might lose his job, or head, or some such trivial thing. So he made it an army of officers, and let it go at that. And on New Year’s day, 1540, the 300 Spaniards and 800 Indians were ready.
There was much tooting of horns and funking of timbrels, because this was quite the last word from Paris in the matter of armies. The horses had been shampooed by the leading barbers, and their feet all manicured. TheThe Quests of Coronado
hardware stores had run out of tin dishpans, so much new armor had been manufactured by the local plumbers on the spur of the moment. Coronado had his stenographer, (who was also handy with the thimble,) sew his other silk shirt into a banner. And, with the new coal-scuttle on his head scoured with eipery cloth, and the washboiler gird about his diaphragm secured with a burglar-proof lock the herd of gleaming horsemen set out Seven Cityward. Mendoza went with them as far as he could. But as there was a scarcity of porters, and as each man had to carry his own mattress on his spinal column, Mendoza’s enthusiasm congealed and he went back home to play with the canary.
Coronado left the bulk of his army somewhere in Sonora, now a Mexican province, and headed for Cibola. En route he visited a place called Casa Grande, or the Big House, concerning which he had heard great tales. But when he got there most of the tenants must have been visiting Mother in the country, they weren’t at home, and the janitor hadn’t kept the windows washed.
At Cibola, (which is now the pueblo of Zuni,) he was disappointed and hurt. There was not only a scarcity of good hard coin of the realm, (ah, Marcos had lied!) but the streets weren’t paved with golden cobbles. And the pups of the place could even bury a whole horse in the parlor as far as that metal impeded excavation. Moreover, ever since sending Steve to look for his ancestors, the people of the place had been having a preparedness campaign. Even the school-boys had gathered rocks from the pastures and stored them in heaps on the edge of town, ready to heave them over when the rest of the black men should arrive. And when they turned out to be white, it didn’t matter a bit. That is what hurt Coronado. It was a big rock that hurt him. It had a long way to fall, the town being on a cliff, and it made his helmet ring like the cowbells when they call the cattle home across the sands of Dee. And when the chimes had stopped ringing and he woke up, it was in the governor’s spare bedroom, for the town was taken. That’s what comes of having an army of officers.
After canvassing the country, Coronado penned a postcard to Mendoza:New Mexico Made Easy
“Dear Dozie,” it ran. “Have met the enemy and they are ours, but don’t let that excite you into hopping the next taxi and coming up here. They are bad boys and throw stones. I told them not to let curfew ring tonight, but they played Melody in Q. on my bean. My bank examiners have done nothing since coming here but watch dog-fights, and my new set of burglar tools is excess baggage. There isn’t any alfalfa for the horses, and they have prickly heat of the esophagus from eating too much cactus. One of ’em ate so many rocks yesterday that when he went for a walk on the desert, he sank out of sight in the sand. Water is so scarce the plumbers all died a thousand years ago, and if a guy drinks over two cups a day he’s put in the hoos-gow for hoarding. No, don’t come up here.
Dryly yours, C.”
Then he wrote another card sending for the remainder of the army back in Sonora, and while waiting for it let one of the boys, Pedro de Tobar by name, go out among the plains and mountains to search again for gold.
Tobar returned to Coronado with various souvenirs, but not enough gold to plate a tin spoon. He reported that the Indians referred him to a large river in the north where they dug gold along with the potatoes, so Coronado sent another guy, Lopez de Cardenas, to gather the coin and see how far this river was navigable.
Cardenas said they didn’t raise potatoes in that river basin. He said that it might be navigable, providing one had an elevator with extensive cables to let the ship down to the water. “For that crack where the river flows,” he explained, “Is so very deep, that even to contemplate it gives me a sinking sensation!” And that was the beginning of railway pamphlets describing the Grand Canon.
Meanwhile from the pueblo of Cicuye (old Pecos) had come a chief wearing a moustache. “Bigotes” they called him, and he came with an invite to the men of the tin shirts to visit his country. As an inducement, he said that the municipal zoos were well-stocked with bison, and posted with signs which read “Do not feed these animals, let them feed you!” So Coronado called one HernandoThe Quests of Coronado
d’Alvarado away from a dog-fight, and sent him to investigate.
On the way A1 climbed the cliffs of Acuco, (Acoma) and gazed at the view, then drifted up the Rio Grande to Tiguex (a little north of Bernalillo) where he sent this message back to the boss:
“Dear ’Nado: This site is a beautiful sight. Just the spot for winter quarters. Better investigate.”
In five more days he was smoking the weed with Bigotes in Cicuye, that man’s home town. Al wrote again:
“Dear ’Nado: It’s the cricket’s ribs. A mighty metropolis of four-storey apartments built around a village square. Capable of putting 500 warriors into the draft. Great eats. Am having a nice time. Sincerely.”
While wearing out Bigotes’s divan, A1 got acquainted with an Indian servant who haled from the region toward Florida. The servant was shooing the flies out of the window with a feather-duster when they started a conversation.
“What you doin’ here so far from momma?” says Al.
“Fortunes of war, y’know,” says this bird.
“Quite a jolly little hamlet here, what?” says Al.
“Whatta you mean—jolly?” says the other.
“O, lotta business, good eats, an’ plenty of chink in circulation,” replies Al. “Don’t you think so?”
“Say, bo,” says the red-man, pointing his duster Al’s way, “This burg’s the bunk. You don’t know what a well-heeled community looks like, you don’t! An’ as for eats, say—look here! In th’ country I come from—” and he spun a story of wealth that made Fray Marcos’ harangue look like a lone bird-seed in a bin of oats.
About 3 a. m. Al is patting this real-estate booster on the spine and laughing at all his small jokes.
“You remind me of a boy I knew in High School back in old Madrid,” says Al. “He was a Turk, and almost as good-looking as you are. D’you mind if I call you ‘The Turk׳ for short? Your other name gives me tongue-cramps.”
“Not a bit,” says the second party, and they link arms and sing “Sweet Adeline” in the public square. When theNew Mexico Made Easy
poor dogs of the town stop howling it is sunrise on the mountains, and the Turk takes his friend to the country to see the bisons. Then A1 remarks:
"I wish you’d go back with me, old man—I’m sure the boss would like to hear the story of your early life in Quivira.” So they beat it for Tiguex, and find Cardenas there ahead of Coronado, preparing billits for the men by kicking the Indians out of their nice warm houses.
Coronado now left the bulk of the army at Cibola, with instructions to one Arelano to bring it along later. And taking only his hardest-boiled men, set out to explore another town, Tutahaco (near Isleta Pueblo). It was a dry, hot march, and everyone blamed everyone else for everything, and everyone got mad, what with the breastplates forming ovens in which they were well-baked, and fleas getting under tin-covered parts that they couldn’t scratch, and all. But at Tiguex the juicy stories of the Turk about his gilded Quivira soothed the sun-burns, and along came Arelano with the rest of the boys, and they had a pleasant evening all around.
Next morning it was snowing, and the army was cold. It went out on its own hook and took shirts from the backs of Tiguex citizens. The resulting war lasted 51 days, and, while the Spaniards won, the Indians passed a resolution that they didn’t love the Spaniards, and would never love ’em, so help them Hanna’s husband! Coronado wrote another postal to Mendoza:
“Dear Dozie,” it trotted, “We have met some more of the enemy and they are still ourn. But that don’t mean nothing, as they fight worse than ever. However, there’s a lad here from another state, Quivira by name. (The state is named Quivira, that is.) He says the
This burg is quite the bugs ear? aint it?The Quests of Coronado
farmers raise more crops up there, and they have so much gold they build the bridges of it, as it doesn't rust in the water. Wonderful tales, Dozie! I’m going up to see about gathering a few of these archetectural wonders.”
When it had stopped snowing, and Sia, Cochiti, and Santo Domingo had been warned that there was no king but the King of Spain and Coronado was his prophet, the army started after the Turk. At Cicuye they got grub, and chased a few bisons for fun. Then they chased the Turk for the gold of his father's native land, but the fun soon wore off. The horses wore their feet away up to the knees, but the Turk still kept going like a fire-bug in a marsh. His one tune was “Farther, just a little farther!” At last Coronado asked rather pointedly, “Where is this gilded precinct? We’re about tired out!” and the Turk started his old melody, “Farther, just a little—,” but Al stepped in and stopped the crank.
“Tell me,” says Al, giving him a dead-fish-eye glance, “Tell me—have you been stringin’ me?”
“I cannot tell a lie,” says the Turk sadly, “I have fibbed to you with my little tongue. The people of Cicuye wanted me to vamp you out of the country. You are now nearing Wichita, Kansas. If you keep on you will eventually reach Chicago—,” but Al at this point lit on his neck and he died of great scarcity of breath, and the caravan wandered back.
While Coronado had been hunting his second fairy-land, one Barrio Nuevo had branched out from Tiguex, and made a trip to Taos Pueblo. He says that it was a double structure, one on each side of a river, and that theNew Mexico Made Easy
people raised much food. The pueblo is situated today just about as Nuevo found it. When he went back to Tiguex, however, the Indians there were doing things to the army, and it wasn’t until papa Coronado returned that they were made to be good again. Coronado had another travel project that he was thinking of putting up to the army, for he was a specialist in hunting for gold bugs that turned out to be grasshoppers. But he believed in mediums and the wee-gee board, and this was bad for his project.
It seems that when he was a young man back at home, a fortune-teller had told him that he would conquer a new land, but that he would lose it and die by a fall. All his life Coronado was looking for that fall, and at last he got it. For, while galloping around one holiday at Tiguex, trying to stick his spear into a dough-nut hung to a tree, the girths of his saddle
ciX ----------parted company, and he bit the
dust. He wasn’t hurt much, but
.. he just knew he was going to die —Tslp' •—the wee-gee board had said so back in Spain! So he wrote another post-card:
“Dear Dozie,” it crawled/Tm
I going to cash in. I’m sorry I couldn’t find any gold, but, on the level, all those stories were bunk. Marcos was a liar, all Injuns are liars, but the Turk was worst of ’em all. There’s no more gold here than there’s fur on a lima bean, and I’m lonesome, and I’m coming home. If I should die—would you cry, Dozie?”
The histories relate that Dozie did cry, but it was because Coronado didn’t die. As a gold-seeker he was classed as a fizzle, and when he returned, even the barber treated him coldly. The girls giggled behind his tin-plated back, and, all in all, he felt that he was a has-been.
But the pueblos gave a relieved sigh, raised a pile of rocks in memory of the dance they had when he left, and rested in peace for forty years.V.
Three Good Friars—and One Espejo
HREE FRIARS, after the forty years, set ׳out to do a good job in New Mexico. Since the rubber-tired tales of their imaginative brother Marcos had punctured, and Coronado had spilled the soup, they determined that the field was open
for honest men to go in, give the natives peace of soul and a chance in the world to come, and return with a true report of conditions. This was the first expedition of its kind to be set on foot in the new province, and these three men deserve a front seat in the memories of those who are interested in New Mexican history. But, as often happens to the best of causes, they didn’t get far.
The pueblos had too good a memory. They remembered how much food they had donated to Marcos, and the loss of their brothers and sons when the charms of Steve slipped a cog. They also recollected how Coronado’s men had swiped their shirts in the middle of a cold snap, and kicked them out of their homes with the toes of cast-iron boots and shoes, made in Spain. And, the old men reasoned, if those white men had done ’em dirt, why not these three?
The friars started out in June of 1581 with a few soldiers. But when the Indians saw them coming in the haze of evening, they knocked the ashes out of their pipes, said at the start that they had nothing to give away, and as they’d been cared for by their little wooden gods for centuries, they had no inclination to try the new religion over on their pianos.
When the soldiers heard this they said “excuse me,׳’ (because they also heard a grindstone doing fast work out back of the woodshed,) and decamped, leaving the three good men alone. And one by one these “received the martyr’s crown,” as one history puts it—and for this we shed a tear. But the Indians weren’t going to be fooled this time.
When the soldiers returned without the Friars, the Franciscans in Mexico began to fear. These became activeNew Mexico Made Easy
in behalf of their three brothers with the result that in 1582 an expedition, led and financed by one Antonio de Espejo, accompanied by a Franciscan, set out to learn their fate.
All they found were three graves. But Espejo, having accomplished the purpose of the journey, deemed the opportunity to explore too good to lose. So he took an inventory of the country and returned with a concrete idea of just what the place contained and what it did not. There were no gilt-edged fairy-tales in his write-up— but he brought rich specimens of gold and silver ore. And when the Spaniards caught on to the idea that the way to get gold was not to swipe it from somebody else, but to expectorate upon the palms, grab a pick-axe and tackle mother earth with a strangle hold, there were plenty of fellows in Mexico who were not ashamed to dig for a living, and were anxious to colonize the new country.
As no man, however, was allowed to do these things ’’,unauthorized” by the King of Spain, the bird in the imperial bird-cage that could make the most racket usually had the door opened for him. And the sweetest singer in rhis particular consignment of canaries was Don Juan de Onate.Pl
Onate
ORATE was the home-loving, uncle-loves-to-sit-and-watch-the-children kind of fowl. He liked to see a man tie himself to a female anchor, build a house, and go to raising Poland Chinas and Plymouth Rocks in a piano-box in the back yard. He loved to hear the bawl of babes and the burp of pups as he came home from the office—so long as he could skin out and get away from the racket when a certain pitch had been reached. So, having been red-taped by the powers that was, he gathered 130 families into 83 wagons and carts, 270 bachelors on the hoof, and told the hired-man to walk behind the tails of 7000 items of live stock and keep ’em moving. Also he took along 10 Friars and a few church-bells arranged artistically on the vertebrae of burros. And, as he viewed his caravan, his dish-pan breast-protector was dented from the inside outward with paternal pride.
There was not so much gala glitter when Onate kissed his aluminum thumb to the old home town in 1595 as had gleamed for Coronado on a similar occasion. Of course, a few horns tried to toot, but these were drowned out by the lowing of cattle and the highing of asses. And, with a farewell cackle of crated hens, the outfit melted into the hills.
Onate loved the sounds of travel his circus stirred up. The clink of king-bolts in the wagons, the chucking of the huge wheels in the ruts; the furry tinkles of goat-bells, the clatter of split hooves on rocks; and the orange dust of the desert rolling in cloud-masses from under the thousands of churning feet, making the sage smoke as from a great fire. And Onate would ride on ahead to a high knoll and watch his caravan.New Mexwo Made Easy
like a string of bugs drifting by below him, and he would cast his eyes to the far blues and purples of mountain ridges, and sigh to his horse with satisfaction. Again, he loved the evenings about the camp, with the fires little copper sparks in the blue-black of night’s chimney, and the stars winking back out of the sky’s rafters above, ana the clatter of cooking pots and a crying of children. This crying of children was a great thing. It was the manifestation of life, human life in its primitive stages, life in its great struggle for existence. And Onate would lie on his back and smile, for he was a human being and loved life. That is, he smiled for the first two weeks. After that he lay on one ear and put a mattress over the other and didn’t smile. And then, for he was a human being and loved rest, he picked out 60 of his bachelors and rode on so far ahead that when the caravan crawled up one side of a mountain Onate and his fellow-sufferers were sliding down the other.
Three years from starting they "received the submission” of seven provinces, or Cochiti and adjacent pueblos, at Santo Domingo. And when the babies and burros began to arrive, they all went together and settled at Capa Pueblos, or where the village of Chamita now sits watching the Chalma River spill into the lap of the Rio Grande. Here, the Indians were soon working with the Spaniards on an irrigation project, while each married man was busy mixing mud for the bricks of the new home. The Friars took the bells off the burros, turned the burros out to feed, and built a church. With this as headquarters for the Holy Faith, missionaries were assigned their places at various pueblos.
Onate, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, viewed the church, where already birds were building in the belfry, the new homes with babies sprawling about the door, the raw ditches with the water looking the new corn-fields over. This was the first real attempt to colonize and settle the country, and it was a success. The conquest of New Mexico was complete, and Onate had done it. So he hung his helmet on the horn of his saddle, removed his breast-plate to preserve it from the dent, and swelled his diaphragm with paternal pride. This home-building business was quite the thing, it was. What more could a manOnate
ask than to hear the cackle of hens from the kitchen; the grunt of pigs from the pantry; the soft slur of the Spanish tongue as the females of the house wagged it over the bread oven in the back yard; the tlnk-tink of little bells as goats led the sheep over the sage-covered mesa on one side of town; and the louder tunk-tunk and a sigh of bellows as the anvils contributed to the support of swords till they were beaten into plow-shares. Ah, that was it! Beat the battle ׳ax into a hoe, and the breast-plates into baking tins! Onate inhaled deep breaths of the sage-laden ozone and sighed again. Ah, sweet domesticity!
And yet, after six years of home sweet home, the thing got on the old boy’s nerves again. His war-horse was pining away in the stable. He needed exercise, he did. So one evening Onate took the dove’s nest out of his helmet, emptied the bread-dough out of his stomach-guard, and made the blacksmith hammer over-time on a plow so he could get his sword back again. And next morning, with those bachelors who had tired of mending their own socks, he sneaked out on his horse and sought clear air and the silence of desert places. He wrote his autograph on Inscription Rock, where we may read if we took Spanish in High School. And then, tracing the Colorado, made for the Gulf of California.DU.
Popay’s Rebellion of 1680
THE settlements Onate left behind grew and prospered for 80 years. Mining was established as an industry, and the mountains were made to give up their gold. Today we can trace evidences of their operations in Arroyo Hondo, and north of Taos. Christianization of the natives was carried on relentlessly, and the males who didn’t bow to the new god were shipped away to the mines, their wives and children made servants in the houses of the Spaniards. At this there was a growing distrust and hatred of the new people, and each new outrage on their freedom only fanned this indignation of the Indians.
Onate had placed the capital of New Mexico at Santa
Fe, and it had held many governors since he left. To all appearances they ruled with an iron will, because the Indians revolted five times, but were unsuccessful in each revolt. But at last an Indian popped up by the name of Popay. And had the Spaniards been blessed with a sight of the future, they would have called it a dark day when he was born at San Juan Pueblo, and sung chants of gloom. -
For Popay was a man like this: He not only had a permanent rush of brains to the head, but he was able to manufacture what he invented, at the same time keeping the other guy from swiping his patent. In other words, he had ideas and carried ’em through. He lived most of the time at Taos Pueblos, where he swished a bright feather as a medicine-man, and shook a tantalizing ankle at the dances. He traveled quite a deal for a pueblo Indian, and was such a jolly good fellow that every tribe round about gave him comp, tickets to their most secret sociables. After a time Popay had notes in shorthand of each clan of these tribes, and the methods of their different rituals. And as a diplomat, Bismark was a biscuit-cutter in comparison.
The Spanish first bumped their noses on his diplomatic fist in 1675. At San Ildefonso, the Friar in charge hadPopay’s Rebellion of 1680
numerous troubles. He was afflicted with the itch, dyspepsia, an international assembly of all the boils, and he just couldn’t sleep nights. Of course it was indigestion, and Lidia E. Plinkam’s Vegetable Compound would have given him complete release. But he never read the magazines, and blamed it on the witch
craft of the Injuns. He went out and had 'em tried, hanged one for each of his four ills, and sold thirty-odd into slavery on general principles.
Popay couldn’t bring back the four. And though he could have explained to the Friar that all witchcraft was the bunk, being a magician himself, he didn’t.
But he selected a day when the governor at Santa Fe was playing solitaire, and hove in sight with a posse of strong males
bearing small gifts of dead chickens and defunct eggs. The governor said afterwards that Popay brought ransoms —well, anyway the prisoners went back with their big brother, and the governor buried the ransoms in the ash-pile as being null and void.
Now, along toward 1680, Popay had quite a notebookful concerning goat-riding rituals of all the secret societies. And he sent invites to the High Mogul of each lodge, saying that there would be a grand convention in the biggest Kiva at Taos on a certain black night, and all were urged to attend. The underground hall was well-filled. And after the orchestra of deer-hide drums had overtured way over, and the longest eater had finished the banquet, Popay rose and announced that they were honored in having with them that evening two spirits from the other side of the Styx, who would bring them messages from the Outer Void.
As a medium Popay could deliver barks from a departed dog, or smoke from a dead cigar. He could also work the wee-gee board. Ectoplasm, however, was his main point, as he had run up against phosphorus in his various travels, a thing nobody else had seen demonstrated.New Mexico Made Easy
He now held his breath till he was green about the gills; got the proper vibrations and went into a trance; swooned; and flopped down on the hidden latch of a trap door in the darkest corner. Two spirits immediately descended, as luminous as a radium-painted keyhole in a dark cellar, and raised the back-hairs of every individual there. To prove that they were the real thing they gave a sample of each secret dance of the tribes. And as each deligate recognized his favorite brand, he blinked both eyes and his jaw fell, for the charm had worked. After such positive proof the spirits could do anything with the audience, and they did it.
“The men of tin-shins and hard fists are hated of the gods,” bellow the two firelit wraiths. “The gods command you to band the tribes together and give these guys the grand bounce on August 28th, the rise of the new moon. You must do a good job and clean house, as the gods are offended with this new god the long-gowns have brought into our country. We have spoke,” say the spirits. And, the phosphorus being nearly rubbed off by this time, they melt into the outer world.
Popay then wakes up and faintly says “Where am I ?” and the medicine-men begin jabbering about the Message, and what the spirits had done. And Popay has to excuse himself, he’s so exhausted with the terrific vibrations and goes out behind a barn to laugh.
So the pueblos get ready the stone meat-choppers and spill sacred meal on their ears, etc., and all is secret. But it leaks out 18 days before the time set, and a Friar beats it to Santa Fe to spill the news. Then Popay flops into another trance, rings his gods on the phone, and gets orders to strike on the spot. So he rouses all the pueblos to heated action.
It was such clockwork that it seemed to have been timed by wireless from Georgia. The Indians descended in such numbers it was difficult to place the decimal point and they disturbed the peace and sleep of the Spaniards to such an extent that most of these woke up on another horizon. Marching on Santa Fe, they gave Governor Ottermin a red and a white cross to choose from, but he guessed the wrong hand, and the war-drums thundered.Papay’s Rebellion of 1680
He tried to fire the two cannon of the army, but they backfired and killed a cow across the street. And when the smoke rolled away, the scenery was considerably chewed up.
Ottermin guessed wrong again when his men asked what to do with the 47 prisoners they had tied up in the struggle. He said to execute the whole bunch while the others looked on from a safe distance, as he thought it would scare ’em away, but it didn’t. There was a very hot time in that old town that night, because the battle hymn of the Indians was “Give us liberty or give us death,” and when Ottermin had a chance to take a census of his standing army, he found most of it lying down. What’s more, the local pulmotors couldn’t bring back the drowning, and Ottermin had mislaid the article that told “what to do for a man when shocked by other than electricity.” So he sadly sang “How can I leave thee,” and hoofed it for El Paso.
Popay and his gang spent a pleasant evening burning up everything Spanish, and with nobody around to prosecute them for arson. The old gods must have been delighted with the job. Things went fine from then on until the pueblos got to quarreling over who’d get what, and then there were scraps. Which rupture was a signal to the Apaches, always lingering on the outskirts of the pueblos waiting for a chance to bite, to step in and grab the bone. This they did, and got several.VIIl.
Re-Conquest by De Vargas
AFTER the hub-bub in 1680, nearly all the work that Onate did had to be done over again. And the interest on the work that Popay had done was appreciated only by the Apaches. After twelve years many of the pueblos had “To let”
signs on their chimneys, and even the dog had gone to the neighbors.
Such was the condition of Cochiti and Santo Domingo Pueblos when Don Diego de Vargas went back to Santa Fe to see what could be salvaged. He found the town full of Indians, so he shut off the water-supply. And they, when the hose wouldn’t work to water the posie beds, called up the Water Works and said, “What’s the matter?” and the Water Works replied “De Vargas” and hung up. So the natives surrendered, and their chief, who was tired of the rotten ways and very means committees of the Apaches, took the visiting gentleman around to the other pueblos. These, also bored with the Apache tax collectors, voted peace. So that at the end of 1692 peace had been smoked on and declared.
But DeVargas didn’t think the declaration loud enough, and he went back to Mexico after more soldiers. The Viceroy said he could have more when they returned from the bull fight but De Vargas, being an impatient man, grabbed what he could get, i. e., to wit and vis: 100 men, and with 800 new colonists and more pigs and chickens he again headed for Santa Fe, re-entering that city on December 16th under the same banner Onate had used to scare the live stock, and there was much rejoicing; that is, the Spaniards rejoiced.
His kindly treatment of the Indians was taken for cowardice. And when he asked the Tanos group (which was keeping house in the old Palace of the Governors) to go home so that he could use the buildings for his vteary men, they said “kiss my foot,” or words to that effect. And there's where the Indians made the wrong guess. For if De Vargas had been called a lady with a lily-heart before,Re-Conquest By De Vargas
he was so tough now that he trimmed his goatee with a buzz-saw, and when he looked at a rock it cracked. In detail, he grabbed 70 leading men and put them to sleep without using gas, and sold 400 women and children as scrub ladies and elevator-boys. It so shocked the other Indians to find that they had missed De V’s number by a wide mile, that they skidded to the top of the Black Mesa, a huge, dark hill near San Ildefonso, to get out of his way. That is, some of 'em did. There were others of a wiser nature—Sia, Santa Ana, San
Filipe—who addressed him as Dear Sir, patted him on the back with a feather, and escaped punishment.
For this they eventually got a black eye from the others, but that was better than a black coffin from De Vargas.
In June he went up to Taos to teach them Who’s Who in New Mexico, but they’d seen him coming afar off, and went to chase little rabbits among the mountains behind the pueblo. De Vargas knew that it was a large mountain so he sat on the bridge till midnight wait-
ing for them to come finish their supper before it got all cold, but they weren’t hungry. His army was, though, and it went into the pantry and took everything in sight and retired to Santa Fe—and the Taosonians had to chase little rabbits till the corn grew up again.
Back at the Black Mesa he hit the Tanos and the Tewas till they began the “Twinkle, twinkle” verse, and counted the stars in their crown. And then it was really proved what a tough guy he was. To keep their good will he gave back all their women and children that he had donated to the Spanish! And now the Spaniards, left without anyone to work their farms and do the washing, began to mope in despair and to cuss him to all parts of the compass.
In 1696 the Spaniards had an extensive famine. The only thing they raised that year was their hands to their aching heads. Of course, De Vargas was to blame for it.New Mexico Made Easy
They lived on cow-hooves and soup-of-saddle-leather, and they cussed him after every mouthful. Till he got so bored he went up and had more trouble with Taos, did drastic things to Picuris, chased the James into their hills, and tried to chop down the rock that Acoma stands on. The rock being all of solid stone, and the cliffs too high up to mount without an elevator, he shot four citizens he’d found on the ground floor to show his spite, and went back. He was now so thoroughly worked up that he began to quarrel with—but that isn’t interesting.IX.
The ttlere Passing of a Century 1700 - !800
FROM the end of the De Vargas government to the eighteenth century there wasn’t much trouble in New Mexico. The Indians had had enough, all except the Navahos and Apaches, who broke out in various spots like a continual recurrence of the measles. As to the Spaniards, all the trouble I find in looking up this dope is the horribly long list of governor’s names. They string out over the pages like a lingering death. The register begins with a nice short name like "Gaspar de Sandoval Zerda Sivla y Mendoza”—all in one mouthful, and after that you get mental strangulation!X
From the Last of Spain to the First of Uncle Sam
IN 1805 a census was taken of everything but the dog and burro, and it was found that New Mexico as a territory of Spain contained 20,626 Spaniards and 8,172 Pueblo Indians, which doesn’t include the then wild tribes such as Apaches and Navahos.
In 1806 much excitement occurred in the belief that the U. S. planned an invasion of the place, because a U. S. officer was found building a toy fort on the banks of a New Mexican river. You see, the French had just sold Louisiana to Uncle Sam, and when he put it into his hip pocket, the pocket bulged. There was so much bulge that he got suspicious of a gold brick inside, so he sent Lewis and Clark Co. to see whether the Missouri had anything more in it than mud, and Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery Pike to find where the Mississippi took that mud away to. The President warned this bird before starting to be careful when crossing that river, because the weight of his name might sink him. But the Secretary of Game and Fish said in that case he’d be right at home because of the last part of it being “Pike”—and can you feature this? They laughed at a joke like that back in them days!
Well, Pike found that the mud eventually got spilled into the deep blue sea, and went to Washington and reported same to the govt. Then he was sent back again to chase the Red and Arkansas Rivers to their lairs, at the same time to hand a rubber dolly to the Comanche Injuns to keep ’em from spoiling their complexions with war-paint. Also, he was told to be polite to the Spaniards if he should meet any, and say “how’s yer mother’s health,” etc., because it wasFrom Spain to Uncle Sam
understood that there were some Spaniards down in that direction, nobody knew just where, in a county they called New Mexico.
Mr. Pike wrote a nice long essay on what he done and saw. Among the latter were prairie-dogs, and when he dug into a hole he found a rattle-snake, a prairie-owl, and a prairie-dog all dead together. Thinking they died of old age down there, he says “Aint that cute?” and writes that snakes, owls and dogs live peaceably in one hole. (What really happened was that the snake was dining on young prairie-pups when papa dog came home and found his dear children on the down-grade, so he bit the snake back of the ear and the snake bit him at the same time, and they both died. Then the owl, seeking a haven of rest from Pike, and finding murder having been did, gives one squawk and turns up her toes. Yet there are still people who think Pike’s story a scientific fact.)
Among the things he done was not to bust on Pike's Peak. He says it measured 18,581 feet of elevation. As it has since been yard-sticked at 14,147, his mountain must have sunk lately. But the worst mistake he made was to get mixed as to location and build a stick-and-mud fort on Spain’s back lot.
Now no nation is going to watch another build a playhouse back of its ash-heap and then stand back and say “Ain’t that purty!” and clap its little hands in glee. So we find an armed Spanish escort visiting Mr. Pike.
“You’ve took our mud to make pies in," says the escort.
“Nay, children, I think I’m on my father’s farm,” says Pike.
“Think again,” says the escort, and adds “Tell that to the Governor at Santa Fe!”
So he did, and was shown the utmost hospitality while there. He spills much ink about the good food the people put out for his army’s consumption, and gives the first accurate report to reach the U. S. on the way people lived in New Mexico.
In 1821 Mexico grew tired of saying “Mamma” to Spain, withdrew her skirts from the maternal door-sill, and set up house-keeping for herself. At this time she owned Texas, but Texas was a long way off, and nobodyNew Mexico Made Easy
lived there. So Mexico said that anyone who cared to, could go up or come down and settle. They came down all right—and in a few summers thousands of Americans were tilling the fertile soil. Then somehow trouble began between the Texans and their landlord, with the result that in 1836 the former had declared their intentions of running the apartment themselves, and fired the janitor. In 1845 this community hitched up with the U. S.
But after everything was settled as regarded the Texans, Mexico didn't agree with the U. S. about the Texas boundary. In the ensuing squabble much hot air and some gun-powder was burned. And a General by name Kearney took a tour into New Mexico without losing anything except portions of his pants on the cactus, and in August, 1846, told the governor at Santa Fe that he, the governor, was out of a job. Then selecting a guy called Bent as the new chauffeur, he ran up the Stars and Stripes on the municipal flag-stick, and New Mexico was a new acre on Uncle Sam’s farm.XI
The Santa Fe Trail
DO you remember a book of tales that gave you a thrill of mingled horror and pleasure in every paragraph? The blood-curdling tales of painted savages on the war path and white men waiting behind canvas-covered wagons in breathless suspense awaiting the attack?
There they go now—mere blurs in the cold grey of dawn, drawing in closer, ever closer, toward the white huddle of prairie schooners. The sage is alive with them! And yet we cannot see to aim! Horrible!
Now the spine is like a rubber hose with shuddering fear as the dread war-hoop swallows the desert silence with one hideous gulp, and the veil
of morning mist is ripped to shreds with the hurtling shafts of whining arrows! There is a drum of hoofs— our animals have stampeded! There is the sob of an arrow-head plopping into solid flesh, and the long-drawn wail of someone behind us who has found death un-sweet! And still we cannot see the devils, we cannot see to aim!, Horrible, horrible!
Hours, and the sounds of carnage all about us as we cringe behind the wagon-wheel! Smells of cloth burned with powder, the air a pudding of powder smoke! And now a
demon flashes by, a giant in fringed buckskin, Kit Car-son himself, his long knife dancing in rythmic plunges hither and yon! See, Charles, those strips of black hair at his belt, clotted with a red disc of flesh at one end—yes, Charles, those are scalps; reeking, rank Red-skin scalps! Don’t you wish, Charles, that you had never left Papa’s farm in Connecticut? And still we cannot find anything to aim at! Oh, horrible, most awfully horrible!—But hor< ribly thrilling, most awfully thrilling— **********New Mexico Made Easy
Who hasn’t curled up in the big chair and perused with hair-elevating interest the tales of the old Santa Fe Trail? Quite a few, at that, never heard of it. And to these few, if you happen to be one of ’em, we’re writing.
The Santa Fe Trail, as it its name signifies, had a lot to do with Santa Fe. And Santa Fe had a lot to do with the trail, being at one end of it. Some grocery-boy, in the beginning, went down from St. Louis with a crate of toilet soap, and came back with enough coin to buy the village hall. That started a panic, and all men who had failed in business sold the clock and bought bundles of jewelry at the five-and-ten. Then loading it onto the family mule, they wandered over to Santa Fe. In no time at all, the way thither was beaded with pack-animals loaded to the gills and later on someone who hated walking made tracks with a wagon, and then the prairie-schooner became the approved mode of travel.
At first, the Trail wound through the mountains to Taos. Here the trader would begin disposing of his wares, and wander toward Santa Fe, peddling tin pans and cast-iron spoons along the Rio Grande en route.
At length, however, the Trail was changed, and, going farther to the South, cut through the ranges at Glorietta Pass and made Santa Fe the goal.
The sage smoked every day with the dust-clouds of caravans crawling like caterpillars over the hills. Soon all runaway boys, convicts and jilted
lovers in the East were hitting the trail for Santa Fe, the City of Perpetual Sunshine and the Heart of Romance, the Mecca of Travelers and the End of all Trails.
Today, the same houses that served as inns for the tired travelers may still be seen in the old town. And when one sits on a bench in the Plaza or public square of the city, one realizes that here was the end of a long, long trail for hundreds of hardy adventurers of old. And, endowed with average imagination, one can hear the chuck-The Santa Fe Trail
ing of hub on axle as heavy wheels rumble in the distance. There is a spitting of bull-whips on furred hides, and a groan of hickory ox-bows in basswood yoke-sockets as sullen brutes lunge forward. There is also a shouting, a joyful yelling, and songs sung with all valves wide open as tired drivers urge on their trains toward the “Dancing ground of the Sun.”
And now the Plaza is lined with canvas-covered wagons as a harbor crowded with full-rigged ships; burros, mules and horses sagging and
mostly out of sight under bolts of ginghams and calicos; placideyed oxen in the yoke munching the dinners they swallowed hours past; and men—men in top-hats and checkerboard waist-coats— men in fringed buckskins—men in anything at all, bickering, selling, buying. For commerce of the Great Plains was here gath-
ered in one big pool, back in the old days of the Trail.
The Indians sitting along the way viewed the huge ox-trains at first with awe, until some feather-beaned youth from Pittsburgh took a pot-shot at a venerable buck—and didn’t miss. From then on every importer of self-starting harmonicas earned every peso he slid into the blue jeans. The records of that period are medical reports filled with the names of nervous wrecks. They couldn’t sleep nights for fear that when they woke up, they’d never again need patent lotions for ailments of the scalp. It was a prosperous time for writers of dime-novels who loved to make a bloody Red-skin bite the dust in each paragraph. But, take it from us, more molars made in Maryland were clinched in a death grip of Mother Earth than the historians care to mention.
Then in due time the locomotives of the East got beyond the tea-kettle stage, ran on all-iron rails, and climbed the hills without being helped with a windlass. They moved westward, ever westward, adding improvements along the way. Until the progress of the railroad culmin׳ ated in that miracle of engineering achievement, the Santa Fe Railway, which winds over the plains and mountains־New Mexico Made Easy
where in other days the splayed hoof of the yoked ox churned up the silt of ages on its journey to the City of Holy Faith. It was a slow job at first, but the people back of the project had a Vision, an Ideal that they followed until the Santa Fe Railroad was a completed thing. And today the same energy, the same Vision, the same Ideal that characterized the original builders is exemplified in those who have “carried on.”
Now-a-days the members of the Average American Family can board the train at Chicago and end up at the Pacific Coast with less trouble than Cousin Charley of Ohio could visit Grandma in New York back in the Fifties. The Pullmans are veritable palaces of ease, while as for food, the Fred Harvey eating houses at convenient intervals along the way see that you are satisfied. And if poor Cabeza de Vaca could take the trip to New Mexico today, lean his tired head with its eight-year shock of fur against the green plush, and gaze out of the window at the landscape flying by faster than any bird, he would most surely sigh a deep sigh of satisfaction and exclaim, “Well now, ain’t this nice?”A Brief Summary of Events Touched
On in the Preceding Pages
NARVAEZ started out to get rich in Florida, but miscalculated, and only four of his retinue returned to tell the tale. These hiked for nine years and were written up in all the papers, Cabeza de Vaca and the negro Steve being the principal heroes.
Having been over a lot of country, Steve qualifies as guide to Fray Marcos de Nizza and pal Honoratus, and the three set out in search of a nest of seven golden eggs. Steve expires, but the nest does not.
Marcos describes the eggs to a gallant tree-climber, one Coronado, who gets all the kids from school and goes into the woods. The nest turns out to be mud, and the contents only crockery nest-eggs. Gloom. Some of the boys find a steep creek-bank called the Grand Canon. Others of the party find other interesting relics. One, Al, gets acquainted with a country swain, the Turk, and Coronado follows him to his father’s farm where there are more gold eggs. But it’s only another fib. More gloom. Coronado returns absolutely eggless, and the girls are all disappointed. So is Coronado.
Three good Friars try to do the Injuns a good turn, but they remember the time when Coronado pulled their ears. Espejo, a reporter, seeks truth and returns with facts.
Onate does the back-to-the-land stunt, and starts a few towns going, sets Santa Fe on her feet, and retires in peace.
But Popay, a wise Injun, does not like the new neighbors, and sixty years after Onate the local banks are all closed.
However, De Vargas puts his foot in a number of things but meanwhile turns the kettle right side up again, and peace reigns drop by drop for a hundred years.
Lieutenant Pike discovers a peak and does not bust. He also discovers Santa Fe, and says so. In due time, New Mexico becomes an annex to the U. S. A.
In the development of the territory, the Santa Fe Trail plays an important part.
And everyone lived happily ever after.Xll.
Concerning the Tleu? ttlexico of Today
THERE is a book on the market, writ by one holding sway over many diaphragms and systems of tear-ducts, in which the pen wiggles thus:
“I rode in a train from Chicago to San Francisco. And tho I kept my eyes peeled for the painted savage of my boy-hood imagination, the only real Indian I saw who wasn’t decked out as a lure for tourists was a poor fellow in ragged pantaloons hoeing onions in a rich man’s garden.”
Now, the man who waggled that quill evidently didn’t get off in New Mexico longer than to watch the station dog catching his second flea. He didn’t hire a long-eared cross between a Brazilian sloth and a rolling stone that gathers much clover, and canter at a walk off toward Taos, or Zuni, or Santo Domingo and kindred towns along the Rio Grande. Otherwise his eye would have been peeled for him, and much light let into vacant windows.
If he had done so he could have seen the daily life of real Indians, and not college graduates decked out in garments from bankrupt museums doing “Custer’s Last Stand” with ex-plumbers mounted on discouraged fire horses. But the real Indians can’t be approached at sixty miles per in a locomotive, oggled and snap-shotted in fifteen minutes, and be expected to perform, the little household duties naturally. They must be stalked on their own ground, with caution and common sense and a feeling of brotherhood. For they are human beings and have all the peculiarities of such when it comes to being looked at by aliens.
True, our noble and elevated civilization is being tacked on to them and screwed into them, and in a very few more years there won’t be . anything of their own left. Happily, a few artists found those at Taos,Concerning the New Mexico of Today
and the tide of iron bedsteads and tin roofs may be stemmed for awhile. And tho we have seen Taos Indians shoot a good game of pool on the plaza, we’ve seen the same beings approach a jack rabbit with a feathered arrow in a manner and mein worthy of their grandsires before anti-aircraft guns were invented. Also, we once tried to photograph close-uply a venerable herder of goats along the Rio at Santa Domingo, and nearly got a club neatly back of the ear for casting spells and evil medicine with our “devils-eye.” (This was in 1922 A. D., four years afterNew Mexico Made Easy
the World War and in the Jazz Age. And he wasn’t directed so to do by a man with a megaphone, either.)
The pueblo youth has been our study for a year. We have eaten, drunk, slept, talked, sung and hunted with him, and have found him good from most points of our view. Cooper said a lot of nice things about the noble Red-Man, and now we know that Cooper wasn’t so far off in what he said. The Indian lad has pride in his race, and a dignity of bearing. He hates with a will, but he also loves. Not only friends, fathers and mothers, perhaps selected aunts and divers uncles of means—not alone these, but maidens. We are not eaves-droppers, but we do not like to interrupt interesting tete-a-tetes on fallen logs in glorious sun-dappled canyons, by riding hastily away on our horse. On the other hand, we have been enabled to relinquish drab ideas from novels and too-hectic ideals from plays and things, and to reclaim ideals of boyhood concerning the Red-Man and his sweetheart.
(In one instance the sweetheart was rare. We have seen certain roses as rare, wild roses growing in secluded wildernesses. In fact, we felt rather lonely with our two arms
about only a horse’s neck.)
When in contact with the Indian of the high mesas, a positive leaning toward the Egyptian can be felt. In his daily life he reminds us repeatedly of Egypt. We have never been to Egypt, yet the reminder is there. Certain poses are as if cut bodily from the columns at Karnak. The topography of the country is Theban.
And to bring home the delusion more nicely, there is a little hawk which could easily be mistaken for part of the hieroglyphics.
Recently we ate with a pueblo family. We sat on the black adobe floor worn almost to a glaze by moccasin-soles. Among us, in the center, a shallow basket of delightful design cradled a cascade of breads. Flat round breads of corn meal baked on hot rocks. Tortillas, these were. Then huge, puff-ballish loaves of a whiteness. These from wheat flour baked in the eskimo-igloo affairs out front. And weConcerning the New Mexico of Today
had goat’s milk in painted mugs. And bowls of chili. And green peppers and thin plates of venizen haunch, and squash, and beans. And now I ask you. If you had gone most of a sun-scorched day over desert with no water— would you elevate the nose at this menu? Yet some still speak of “Poor, Starving Lo.”—Visit New Mexico.
On the same trip we encountered a Buffalo Bill, booted, spurred, mat-bearded and sombreroed, wearing a buckskin shirt whose fringe had known bacon grease, and belted to the extent of a very he-gun and a capable she-knife. With difficulty we refrained from asking the name of his show. And as he shared our water, we gleaned the news, that he was a man—plainsman, real man, a he-man, and in no wise a show man, neither did he tote a gat to help out pictorial composition. Right then he was after a swiper of horse-flesh. Right then we were glad that we had paid good honest pesos for ours. And long after he lumped over the bluff we rubbed our eyes over these things weird and wonderful. And we marveled that one could buy the latest number of Vogue at a drugstore in town, get on a horse’s spinal structure, and read said number among types that Kit Carson pow-wowed with. As we write, we can scarcely believe things ourselves, but we have photographs which do not fib to give us courage to go on.
The Mexican peon makes a very good friend. We have several. They have a saying which goes “Poco tiempo, Menana, Menana,” which means “Ina little while, tomorrow, tomorrow.” And they turn the crank and sing it whenever it is hinted that the gate needs a new hinge, or the house a new coat of adobe-plaster. And why bother to put the harness under shelter after taking it from a horse? It only gets rained on, and snowed on, and sunbaked if one leaves it where it falls, and if it does break --what matter? One but uses a little haywire gleaned from the shrubbery and, pronto! It is all bueno again—and a pair of teeth that would discourage an able dentist gleams at you from Adam’s original soup-strainer.
Genial fellows they are, and most of them smile. The women of the older generation (which generation becomes older at the age of twenty) are sober as cider, but the girls are composed of chili, beans and giggles. We haveNew Mexico Made Easy
seen some young boys who would make a sculptor tear his hair and howl for a trunkful of clay and a readymade armature. All in all, we do not side with Mrs. Wallace (who wrote certain pueblo papers some years back) that all of them are cut from the same piece of dirty black shawl.
They manage to keep from starvation, and many of the women are good cooks, particularly of frijoles (beans.)! Those who possess orchards do a bit of drying and preserving in the fall. And as to the social instincts among the Mexicans—ye little mud god with the stick tail! If wagging the tongue is any gauge as to social heights, there are good female orators going to waste down there. They actually talk breathing in! Whoever said the Spanish language was stinted? Well, if it is, the peon woman of New Mexico can surely say things, unravel them and
say them in another color faster than a domestic science graduate can beat an egg. Yea, verily, tho tractors and sewing machines are fast appearing in the state, talking is still practiced, and a large share of it is still done by hand.
As to the fauna of the place, we have seen bear tracks, and bear on the hoof (the hoofs turned upward in death, however), and puma tracks, (ditto the parentheses.) We have hob-nobbed with the fox, the coyote, the squirrel, the jackass rabbitt. We have heard a rattler sing like a thrush in the moonlight, and have rocked him to sleep a few feet from our blankets. But when all is said and done, we think that for comedy, for pathos, for everything mean or praiseworthy, the burro comes in at the head of the bill. Whoever named the jackass a beast of burden surely knew what he lisped. Only a jackass would stand up under the treatment we have seen given him. And we hope that whoever chisels New Mexican history for the final and lasting time, will erect a cast-steel donkey,Concerning the New Mexico of Today
galvanized and shellacked to keep it from rust down through the ages.
******
To those of the “See Europe First” variety who can’t bear to look at a mountain because it isn’t old and advertised, the Rockies must appear raw and untrammeled at first sight. But if these persons who must have the perfume of age to make the nostril quiver with delight could spend some time in and about Santa Fe, they could develop noses as sensitive as a rabbit’s.
To begin with, Santa Fe, oldest child of America, is not of the mushroom variety. When the Pilgrims gave a name to a good breed of hens by landing on a rock to avoid wetting the feet, the young Spanish newly-weds of Santa Fe were remodeling the funny old-fashioned garage that Grandpa built. And at that, the dear old boy had chosen as its site a dirt mound—the sun-parlor
of an exclusive Indian family at the time King Tut cut his first molar on papa Tut’s Chariot wheel. Before the contractors threw up Stonehenge; aye, e’re Cairo ever saw a camel, mother Used-Broom of Santa Fe was getting daughter Yellow Corn ready for finishing-school over in Pecos by prying father No-Teeth-To-Speak-Of loose from his last tanned deer-skin. And father No-Teeth grumbled at the needless expenses of a frivolous generation, and swore by the sun that he didn’t know what the world was coming to!
He didn’t know that it was coming to Santa Fe. He couldn’t see into the far future to the day when the old home town would be a Mecca for artists, poets, scientists and men of affairs who craved the right environment in which to create. I doubt if even Onate, in his most vision-misted moments could have visualized the To-Come in the city he had revived after centuries of decay. Surely Mrs. Wallace, tho sensitive to much of the beauty of hill and sky, bemoaned the fact that there was no dew, no mosquitoes, an even temperature, a golden sun and clear,New Mexico Made Easy
dry air; and that the inhabitants of Santa Fe lived in mud huts and were comfortable, and did not wail for Mid-Victorian sentimental twaddle. She mentioned a certain Mexican sitting on his door-sill wrapped in impenetrable thought and a ragged native blanket, and said with pity in her pen that he was as happy in folds of said blanket as if it were Nero’s smoking jacket, or Romulus’s bath robe, or something. She couldn’t know, of course, that today said mean raiment might mean silver plunks at the Santa Fe shops. Nor that solid pillars of eastern society were giving the brass what-nots to the janitor and using up costly cars on mountain roads seeking those same ragged native blankets. Neither could she dream, in that attitude of homesickness for refinement, that out of the same mud and in the same manner of using it should be built one of America’s finest, surely one of America’s most distinctive museums of art. Nor that the primitive lines of the pueblo structure were to be the basis for the now-famous Santa Fe architecture.
For Santa Fe has its own style of buildings. It isn’t English, Dutch, Italian, bungalowlian or Scandinavian. It’s the soft tone of the pueblo, (an architecture old when Moses stranded in the bull-rushes) with the after-note of the Franciscan Mission. Welded together they form a perfect and pleasing harmony.
For those who do not wish to loiter in the city, automobiles are waiting to take you to a number of interesting places. Perhaps you might care to visit the Canyon de los Frijoles, with its cave dwellings still bearing the smoke-soot and hearth-ash of countless centuries past. Or perhaps you would like to see the sites of villages known by Coronado and his men when spur and helmet reflected the sun for Spain. Or, if of a more penetrating nature, caring for more subtle effects at leisure, you may procure a horse and go wandering.
As you brave the clear blue of the sky, you notice how cool it is, even for summer, and with the sky-line, strung peak to peak, vibrating as tho it were a taut wire plucked by a giant thumb. A breeze from sleeping snows brings to your nostrils a tang of pine and sage, the guardians of crag and mesa. There is the creak of solid saddle-leather, and at the soft throb of hoof-beats shy, tiny lizzardsConcerning the New Mexico of Today
scuttle their long metalic tails thru the cactus, while whole towns of prairie-dogs go undulating over red-earthed clearings to sit like totem-poles set up at the doors of hogans. You smile, and take deep draughts of the thin air, and swing your brain along the far blue stretches of unbelievable hills. And you loosen rein and ride—ride for the sheer joy of being alive and a part of those limitless plains and far-flung ridges.
There is a fleck of white against a purple mountain— the canvas top of a prairie-schooner. You thot those were things of the past. A column of cloud topping a nearer ridge lures your eye, and there goes a pack-train of burros—a string of fat beads being continually shunted along by a wide-hatted individual on a tireless pony. Wherever did you get the idea that they did it only in pictures?
On and on, until that long drowsy moment before evening, when the world takes a last long look before winking shut its eye. The soft purr of sounds—a castanet of quadruple hooves in the distance, the faint babble of returning goat-herds. There is a murmur of liquid laughter, and a creaking of well-wheels from an orchard-cluster of white plum blossoms. A veteran horse and a methodical cow come treading their long purple shadows into the golden trail, while a magpie side-wheels up the air with his black rudder strung far behind.
and now----------------
The leaking sun spills from his copper bowl Into the silver saucer of the moon,
Mists of green amber that the swooning world May not die of light-thirst............
Ah, it is good to live!
Ah, it is good to live and know
Soft laughter and the smell of willow smoke
When, all alone,
Night nets you with his stars! , .־•bibliography
On the early history of New Mexico:
“The Journey of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca.” Translated by Fanny Bandelier.
“Historical Sketches of New Mexico.”
By Bradford.
“Early Explorations of New Mexico.”
By H. W. Haynes.
“The Gilded Man.”
By A. F. Bandelier.
“Commerce of the Prairies.”
By Josia Gregg.
On the Pueblo Indians:
“The Delight Makers.”
By A. F. Bandelier.
“The Land of the Pueblos.”
Papers by Susan Wallace.
“Tay-Tay’s Tales.”
Indian folk tales collected by Elizabeth W. De Huff.
On New Mexico in General:
“New Mexico, Land of the Delight Makers.”
George Wharton James.
(This last book everyone should read before visiting the South-West. Historical fact, the romance of the Indian, the life of the Mexican, all are set forth in a fascinating manner by1 one who knows his subject well.
The library at Santa Fe contains books covering every subject of interest to the tourist. Papers published by the archeological and research societies from time to time may be obtained.)