178 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



of the old Spanish province of New Mexico. Moreover, it is stated 

 in the reports of the Coronado Expedition, 1543, to have been the 

 largest of the pueblos and to have had the finest estufas. Again, it has 

 played the most prominent part of all pueblos in New Mexico history. 

 It is the pueblo that has the tallest people and those of most comely 

 appearance. Its people are the proudest of the Pueblos and have most 

 nobly preserved their American racial customs against all encroach- 

 ments of foreign firearms, firewater, debauchery, and Mexican and 

 American custom. The history of Taos presents a brilliant pageantry. 

 Its social organization remains as in the days of Coronado. Its 

 religious life is filled with beautiful and true symbolism derived from 

 the gorgeous universe in which the people dwell. The language is 

 smooth and flexible and its study gives one great respect for the 

 superior mentality of the Taos people. 



Tahlaphaiba, " Up at the Red-looking Willows," is what the Taos 

 Indians themselves call Taos. The pueblo is built at a big patch of 

 Sandbar Willow, Salix exigua Nutt.. which extends around and far 

 south from the village. The stems of this species are red, giving a red 

 appearance to the trees ; hence the name. The gall-midges, resembling 

 buds, with which these trees are laden are Rhahdophaga strobiloides 

 Osten-Sacken. The modern town of Taos, earlier called Fernandez 

 de Taos, three miles south of the pueblo, is to the Indians P'axwianu- 

 wa'aga, " Down at the Lake of Night." Pueblo Peak, the sacred dome 

 mountain northeast of the pueblo, is Maxwaluna, " The High One," 

 while far to the west, in the hill region beyond the Rio Grande, stands 

 up a little two-peak mountain, Tuxwat'ahloathutha, " Coyote-Ears 

 Pile." The names of places all about are ancient and fascinating. 



Taos is called in the reports of the Coronado Expedition " Yuraba," 

 " Uraba," and " Braba." This also has been unraveled and Braba is 

 pointed out by the writer for the first time to be for Vraba, /. e., Uraba, 

 and this in turn for Yural)a, which Hodge has already identified as the 

 Pecos name for Taos. 



