522 THE CORONADO EXPEDITION, 1540-1542 [eth.ann.14 



at a distance from the village. 1 They keep the separate houses where 

 they prepare the food for eating and where they grind the meal, very 

 clean. This is a separate room or closet, where they have a trough with 

 three stones fixed in stiff clay. Three women go iu here, each one hav- 

 ing a stone, with which one of them breaks the corn, the next grinds 

 it, and the third grinds it again-. 2 They take off their shoes, do up 

 their hair, shake their clothes, and cover their heads before they enter 

 the door. A man sits at the door playing on a fife while they grind, mov- 

 ing the stones to the music and singing together. They grind a large 

 quantity at one time, because they make all their bread of meal soaked 

 in warm water, like wafers. They gather a great quantity of brushwood 

 and dry it to use for cooking all through the year. There are no fruits 

 good to eat in the country, except the pine nuts. They have their 

 preachers. Sodomy is not found among them. They do not eat human 

 flesh nor make sacrifices of it. The people are not cruel, for they had 

 Francisco de Ovando in Tiguex about forty days, after he was dead, 

 and when the village was captured, he was found among their dead, whole 

 and without any other wound except the one which killed him, white as 

 snow, without any bad smell. I found out several things about them 

 from one of our Indians, who had been a captive among them for a 

 whole year. I asked him especially for the reason why the young 

 women in that province went entirely naked, however cold it might be, 

 and he told me that the virgins had to go around this way until they 

 took a husband, and that they covered themselves after they had known 

 man. The men here wear little shirts of tanned deerskin and their long 

 robes over this. In all these provinces they have earthenware glazed 

 with antimony and jars of extraordinary labor and workmanship, which 

 were worth seeing. 11 



1 A custom still common at Zuni and other pueblos. Before the introduction of manufactured dyes 

 the Hopi used urine as a mordant. 



2 Mr Owens, iu the Journal of American Ethnology and Archrt'ology. vol. ii, p. 1G3 n., describes theBe 

 mealing troughs : " In every house will be found a trough about 6 feet long, 2 feet wide, ami 8 inches 

 deep, divided into three or more compartments. In the older houses the sides and partitions are mado 

 of stone slabs, but in some of the newer ones they are made of hoards. Within each compartment is 

 a stone (trap rork preferred) about 18 inches long and a foot wide, set in a bed of adobe and inclined 

 at an angle of about 35°. This is not quite in the center of the compartment, but is set about 3 inches 

 nearer the right side than the left, and its higher edge is against the edge of the trough. This con- 

 stitutes the nether stone of the mill. The upper stone is about 14 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 

 varies in thickness according to the fineness of the meal desired. The larger stone is called a mata 

 and the smaller one a mataki. The woman places the corn in the trough, then kneels behind it and 

 grasps the mataki in both hands. This she slides, by a motion from the hack, back and forth over 

 the mata. At intervals she releases her hold with her left hand and with it places ihe material to he 

 ground upon the upper end of the mata. She usually siDgs in time to her grinding motion."* 



There is a more extended account of these troughs in Mindelelf's Pueblo Architecture, in the 

 Eighth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 208. This excellent monograph, with its wealth of illus- 

 trations, is an invaluable introduction to any study of the southwestern village Indians. 



Muta Tadilla, cap. xxxii. 3. p. 159: "tienen las indias sus oocinas con inucho aseo. yen el moler el 

 maiz se diferenciau de las demas poblaciones [;i Tigiies], porque en una piedra mas aspera martajan el 

 maiz, y pasa a la segunda y tercera, de doudo le sacan en polvo como harina; no usan tortillas que son 

 el pan de las indias y lo fabrican con primor, porque en unas ollas ponen a darle al maiz mi coeimi- 

 ento coy una poca de cal. de donde lo Bacan ya con el nombre de mixtamal.*' 



3 Sec W. H. Holmes, Tottery of the Ancient Pueblos, Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth- 

 nology; also his Illustrated Catalogue of a portion of the collections made during the field season of 

 1881, in the Third Annual Report. See p. 519 n., regarding pottery found at Sikyatki. 



