256 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



are very excellent good houses of three or four or five lofts high, wherein are good 

 lodgings and fair chambers, with ladders instead of stairs ; and certain cellars under 

 the ground, very good and paved, which are made for winter ; they are in a man- 

 mer like stoves, and the ladders which they have for their houses are all in a 

 manner movable and portable ; which are taken away and set down when they 

 please, and they are made of two pieces of wood with their steps as our be."' This 

 relation was written under a feeling of disappointment, as the object of the expedi- 

 tion Avas plunder, which they failed to obtain. Other explorations followed from 

 time to time. Among these may be named that of Fernando Alarcon, Avho in 1542 

 ascended the Colorado River to the establishments of the Village Indians in that 

 region; and that of Antonio de Espejo, who in 1583 led an expedition to the Rio 

 Grande, and visited a large number of Indian villages upon that river and its 

 tributaries. In the relation of this expedition several important statements are 

 made, from which the following are selected : " Here were houses of four stories 

 in height. * * * Their garments were of cotton and deer skins, and the attire, 

 both of men and woman Avas after the manner of Indians of Mexico. * * * Both 

 men and women wore shoes and boots, with good soles of neat's leather [probably 

 of buffalo raw hide, Avith Avhich the Indians of the Missouri now bottom their moc- 

 casins], a thing never seen in any other part of the Indies. * * * There are 

 caciques who govern the people like the caciques of Mexico." Finally he speaks 

 of their " good capacity, Avherein they exceed those of Mexico and Peru."- The 

 late Prof. W. "W. Turner collected and translated the several Spanish documents 

 relative to the several expeditions of Coronado, Alarcon, Ruiz, and Espejo, from 

 which the above extracts Avere taken ; and also appended a very interesting report 

 upon the Indian nations of Ncav Mexico, made by Don Jose Cortez in 1799. 



The Spanish missionaries enjoyed the best facilities for becoming intimately 

 acquainted Avith the institutions and domestic history of these nations. As early 

 as 1600, they had established a chain of missions, eleven in number, from the Gulf 

 of California and the Colorado, to the Rio Grande, and claimed eight thousand 

 converts. Their relations and correspondence, if they could be collected, AA'ould 

 probably furnish much valuable information concerning the Village Indians of that 

 epoch. These several expeditions, and missionary establishments show conclusively 

 that long anterior to the discovery of America, Ncav Mexico was occupied by 

 Village Indians in a condition of partial civilization ; and, also, that the stage of 

 progress they had reached corresponded substantially Avith that in AA'hich the Village 

 Indians of Mexico and Central and South America were found. The differences 

 Avere much less than is generally supposed. 



Within the last twenty years a number of military and scientific reconnoissances 

 through NoAv Mexico, and AvestAvard to the Colorado and the Pacific, have been 

 made by United States authority. Amongst these may be mentioned that of 

 Lieut.-Col. W. II. Emory, in 1846-1847 ; that of Lieutenant, noAV General J. II. 



' Explorations, &c. for a rvailroad Route to the Pacific, VII., Rep. ou lad. Tribes, p. IjOO. 

 =" II). p. 114-126. 



