winship] TRANSLATION OF CASTANEDA 485 



turned out to be entirely false, because the kingdoms that he had told 

 about had not been found, nor the populous cities, uor the wealth of 

 gold, nor the precious stones which he had reported, nor the fine clothes, 

 nor other things that had been proclaimed from the pulpits. When 

 this had been announced, those who were to remain were selected and 

 the rest loaded their provisions and set off in good order about the mid- 

 dle of September on the way to Cibola, following their general. 



Don Tristan de Arellano stayed in this new town with the weakest 

 men, and from this time on there was nothing but mutinies and strife, 

 because after the army had gone Captain Melchior Diaz took 25 of the 

 most efficient men, leaving in his place one Diego de Alcaraz, a man 

 unfitted to have people under his command. He took guides and went 

 toward the north and west in search of the seacoast. After going 

 about 150 leagues, they came to a province of exceedingly tall and strong 

 men — like giants. They are naked and live in large straw cabins built 

 underground like smoke houses, with only the straw roof above ground. 

 They enter these at one end and come out at the other. More than a 

 hundred persons, old and young, sleep in one cabin.' When they carry 

 anything, they can take a load of more than three or four hundredweight 

 on their heads. Once when our men wished to fetch a log for the fire, 

 and six men were unable to carry it, one of these Indians is reported to 

 have come and raised it in his arms, put it on his head alone, and car- 

 ried it very easily.'- They eat bread cooked in the ashes, as big as the 

 large two-pound loaves of Castile. On account of the great cold, they 

 carry a firebrand (tison) in the hand when they go from one place to 

 another, with which they warm the other hand and the body as well, 

 and in this way they keep shifting it every now and then. 3 On this 

 account the large river which is in that country was called Rio 

 del Tison (Firebrand river). It is a very great river and is more than 

 2 leagues wide at its mouth; here it is half a league across. Here the 



•Bandelier, in his Final Report, vol. i, p. 108, suggests the following from the, Relacion of Padre Sedel- 

 mair, S. J., 1746, which he quotes from the manuscript : "Sua rancherias, porgrandes degentioque sean, 

 se reduces ;i una <i doscasas, con techodeterrado y zacate. armadas sobre nmchos honours por pilares 

 con viguelos de unos a otros, y bajas, tan capacee que caben en cada una masde oien personas, con tres 

 divisiones, la primera una enramada del tamanode lacasay baja para dormir en el verano, luego la 

 segunda division como, sala, y la tercera como alcoba, donde por el abngo nieten losviejos yviejae, 

 rauehaehitos y muchachitas, escepto los punas quo viven entre olios, que cada faniilia tieue su choza 

 aparte." These won- evidently the ancestors of the Yunian Indians of Arizona. 



-Fletcher, in The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, p. 131, (ed. 1854) tells a similar story of 

 some Indians whom Drake visited on the coast of California : '' Yet are the men commonly so strong 

 of body, that that which '2 or 3 of our men could hardly beare, one of them would take vpon his 

 backe. and without grudging, carrie it easily away, vp hill and dowue hill an English mile together." 

 Mnta 1'adilla. cap. xxxii, p. 158, describes an attempt to catch one of these Indians: "Quiso el 

 eapitan [Melchior Diaz] remitir a un iudio, porque el virey viese su corpulencia y hallando a un man- 

 cebo, trataron de apresarlo; mas hizo tal resistencia, que entre qnatro espanoles no pudieron amar- 

 rarlo, y daba tales gritos, que los obligaron :i dejarlo, por no indisponer los aninios de aquellos 

 radios." 



^Father Sedelmair, in his Relacion, mentions this custom of the Indians, (See Bandolier, Final 

 Report, vol. i, p. 108) : "Su frazada en tiempo de frio es un tizon encendido que aplzcandole a la boca 

 del estomago caminan por las maiianas, y calentandoya el sol como a. las echo tirau lostizones. que por 

 muchos que hayan tirado por los caminos, pueden ser gums de los caminantes ; deeuerteque todos 

 estos i ios pueden llarmarse rios del Tizon, uonibre que alguuas mapas ponen a uno solo. ' 



