28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



populated in the early days of the Conquest. Nevertheless, the 

 wholesale statistics of Las Casas seem to be those of a crusader 

 rather than a historian. 



Bemal Diaz (1916, vol. 5, pp. 56-59) gives a first-hand picture 

 of Naco as it was in 1525. 



At the hour of Mass we went to Naco. At that time it was a good pueblo, 

 but we found it had been deserted that very day, and we took up our quarters 

 in some very large courts where they had beheaded Cristobal de Olid. The 

 pueblo was well provisioned with maize and beans and Chili peppers, and we 

 also found a little salt which was the thing we needed most, and there we settled 

 ourselves with our baggage as though we were going to stay there forever. In 

 this pueblo is the best water we have found in New Spain, and a tree which 

 in the noonday heat, be the sun ever so fierce, appears to refresh the heart 

 with its shade, and there falls from it a sort of very fine dew which comforts 

 the head. At that time this pueblo was thickly peopled and in a good situation, 

 and there was fruit of the Zapotes, both of the red and small kind, and it was 

 in the neighborhood of other pueblos. 



. . . When we arrived at the Pueblo of Naco and had collected maize, beans 

 and peppers, we captured three chieftains in the maizefields and Sandoval coaxed 

 them and gave them beads from Castile, and begged them to go and summon 

 the other caciques and we would do them no harm whatever. They set ofif as 

 they were ordered to do, and two caciques came in, but Sandoval could not 

 induce them to repeople the pueblo, only to bring a little food from time to time ; 

 they did us neither good nor harm, nor we to them, and thus we continued for 

 the first days. . . . When Sandoval saw that the neighboring Indians and natives 

 of Naco did not want to come and settle in the pueblo, although he sent to 

 summon them many times, and that the people of the neighboring pueblos did 

 not come or take any notice of us, he decided to go himself and manage to make 

 them come. We went at once to some pueblos called Girimonga and Aqula, and 

 to three other pueblos near Naco, and all of them came to give fealty to His 

 Majesty. Then we went to Quimistan [Quimistlan in preceding chapter, Quimi- 

 stan on map] and to other pueblos of the Sierra, and they too came in, so that 

 all the Indians of that district submitted, and as nothing was demanded of them 

 beyond what they were inclined to give, their submission did not weigh on them, 

 and in this manner all was pacified as far up as to where Cortes founded the 

 town which is now called Puerto de Caballos. 



Modern Naco is a small village of perhaps a dozen mud-walled 

 and thatched houses on the beautiful little Naco River. Permission 

 to excavate was kindly granted us by the son of the owner, Dr. Paz 

 Barraona, and by Don Santiago Nolasco, the head man of the village. 

 Don Santiago and the other residents of Naco were interested specta- 

 tors or laborers during our work here and the children brought us 

 many fragmentary specimens from the adjacent river banks. The 

 heart of the site is still covered by the small but very dense shade 

 trees mentioned by Bernal Diaz. These shaded our work but made 

 mapping difficult. Noontime siestas spent under great jungle trees 



