winship] CORONADO TO MENDOZA, AUGUST 3, 1540 561 



traveling' on foot many days, making- our way over bills and rough 

 mountains, besides other labors which I refrain from mentioning. Nor 

 do I think of stopping until my death, if it serves His Majesty or Your 

 Lordship to have it so. 



Three days after I captured this city, some of the Indians who lived 

 here came to offer to make peace. They brought me some turquoises 

 and poor mantles, and I received them in His Majesty's name with as 

 good a speech as I could, making them understand the purpose of my 

 coming to this country, which is, in the name of His Majesty and by 

 the commands of Your Lordship, that they and all others in this prov- 

 ince should become Christians and should know the true God for 

 their Lord, and His Majesty for their king and earthly lord. After 

 this they returned to their houses and suddenly, the next day, they 

 packed up their goods and property, their women and children, and fled 

 to the hills, leaving their towns deserted, with only some few remaining 

 in them. Seeing this, I went to the town which I said was larger than 

 this, eight or ten days later, when I had recovered from my wounds. I 

 found a few of them there, whom I told that they ought not to feel any 

 fear, and I asked them to summon their lord to me. By what I can 

 find out or observe, however, none of these towns have any, since I 

 have not seen any principal house by which any superiority over others 

 could be shown. 1 Afterward, an old man, who said he was their 

 lord, came with a mantle made of many pieces, with whom I argued 

 as long as he stayed with me. He said that he would come to see me 

 with the rest of the chiefs of the country, three days later, in order to 

 arrange the relations which should exist between us. He did so, and 

 they brought me some little ragged mantles and some turquoises. I 

 said that they ought to come down from their strongholds and return 

 to their houses with their wives and children, and that they should 

 beTcome Christians, and recognize His Majesty as their king and lord. 

 But they still remain in their strongholds, with their wives and all 

 their property. I commanded them to have a cloth painted for me, 

 with all the animals that they know in that country, and although they 

 are poor painters, they quickly painted two for me, one of the animals 

 and the other of the birds and fishes. They say that they will bring 

 their children so that our priests may instruct them, and that they 

 desire to know our law. They declare that it was foretold among them 

 more than fifty years ago that a people such as we are should come, 

 and the direction they should come from, and that the whole country 

 would be conquered. So far as I can find out, the water is what these 

 Indians worship, because they say that it makes the corn grow and 

 sustains their life, and that the only other reason they know is because 

 their ancestors did so. 2 I have tried in every way to find out from the 

 natives of these settlements whether they know of any other peoples 



•As clear a description of the form of tribal government among the Pueblo Indians as is anywhere 

 to be found is in Bandolier's story, The Delight Makers. Mr Bandelier has been most successful in 

 his effort to picture the actions and spirit of Indian life. 



2 Dr J. Walter Fewkes has conclusively shown that the snake dance, probably the moat dramatic 

 of Indian ceremonials, is essentially a prayer for rain. Coming as it does just as the natural rainy 

 eeason approaches, the prayer is almost invariably answered. 

 14 ETH 36 



