winship] MARATA, ACUS, AND TOTONTEAC 357 



Friar Marcos started on the second day following- Pascua Florida, or 

 Easter, which came on April 6, 1539. He expected to find Estevan 

 waiting at the village where he had first heard about the cities. A 

 second cross, as big as the first, had been received from the negro, and 

 the messengers who brought this gave a fuller and much more specific 

 account of the cities, agreeing in every respect with what had previ- 

 ously been related. When the friar reached the village where the 

 negro had obtained the first information about the cities, he secured 

 many new details. He was told that it was thirty days' journey from 

 this village to the city of Cibola, which was the first of the seven. Not 

 one person alone, but many, described the houses very particularly and 

 showed him the way in which they were built, just as the messengers 

 had done. Besides these seven cities, he learned that there were 

 other kingdoms, called Marata, Acus, and Totonteac. The linguistic 

 students, and especially Mr Frank Hamilton Gushing, have identified 

 the first of these with Matyata or Makyata, a cluster of pueblos about 

 the salt lakes southeast of Zuiii, which were in ruins when Alvarado 

 saw them in 1540, although they appeared to have been despoiled not 

 very long before. Acus is the Acoma pueblo and Totonteac was in all 

 probability the province of Tusayan, northwestward from Zuiii. The 

 friar asked these people why they went so far away from their homes, 

 and was told that they went to get turquoises and cow skins, besides 

 other valuable things, of all of which he saw a considerable store in 

 the village. 



Friar Marcos tried to find out how these Indians bartered for the 

 things they brought from the northern country, but all he could under- 

 stand was that '' with the sweat and service of their persons they went 

 to the first city, which is called Cibola, and that they labored there by 

 digging the earth and other services, and that for what they did they 

 received turquoises and the skins of cows, such as those people had." 

 We now know, whatever Friar Marcos may have thought, that they 

 doubtless obtained their turquoises by digging them out of the rocky 

 ground in which they are still found in New Mexico, and this may 

 easily have seemed to them perspiring labor. It is not clear just how 

 they obtained the buffalo skins, although it was doubtless by barter. 

 The friar noticed fine turquoises suspended in the ears and noses of 

 many of the people whom he saw, 1 and he was again informed that 

 the principal doorways of Cibola were ceremonially ornamented with 

 designs made of these stones. Mr dishing has since learned, through 

 tradition, that this was their custom. The dress of these people of 

 Cibola, including the belts of turquoises about the waist, as it was 

 described to the friar, seemed to him to resemble that of the Bohe- 

 mians, or gypsies. The cow skins, some of which were given to him, 

 were tanned and finished so well that he thought it was evident that 

 they had been prepared by men who were skilled in this work. 



1 In lieu of turquoises the Piuia and Maricopa today frequently wear small beaded rings pendent 

 from the ears and septum 



