0U8H1N0] ZUNI HISTORY, 1582-1628. 327 



Zufli) and passed through the country of Cibola, he was not hindered 

 by its people. And when Antonio de Esiie.jo, in 1582, with scarcely 

 more of a company, was on his way toward Tusayan or the Hopi 

 country, in the northwest, he stopped at the central town of Alona 

 (Hillona) and was well received. To this day the marks, said by the 

 Zuiiis to have been made by the "iron bonnets of his tall warriors," are 

 shown on the rafters of one of the low, still used prehistoric rooms 

 facing the great northern court (once the central and main one) of 

 Zuhi, and attest to the hospitality so long ago accorded them there. 



Again, in the autumn of 1598, Juan de Ouate and his more consid- 

 erable force of soldiers and jiriests, after their general tour of formal 

 conquest in the other Pueblo provinces, were met as they approached 

 the Zuiii towns by delegations of singing priests and warriors, and 

 were received with such showers of white prayer-meal on entering that 

 they had to protect themselves from these offerings, as they supposed, 

 of peace. This incident, and that of the ceremonial hunt and feast given 

 them afterward, signifies conclusively the estimation in which, up to 

 that time, the Spaniards had been held by the priestly elders of Zufii- 

 land. Precisely as the returning Ka'kakwe, or mythic-dance drama- 

 tists, personating gods and heroes of the olden time are received twice 

 yearly (before and after the harvest growth and time), so were these 

 soldiers and friars received, not as enemies nor as aliens, but as verita- 

 ble gods or god-men, coming forth at the close of autumn from out the 

 land of day, whence come the ripening breaths of the Frost gods! 



As yet, the Franciscan friars, although sometimes baptizing scores 

 of the Zuiii — much to Iheir gratification, doubtless, as quite appropriate 

 behavior on the part of such beings when friendly, — had not antag- 

 onized their ancient observances or beliefs ; and the warriors who accom- 

 panied them had never, since the first of them had come, and after 

 fighting had laid down their dreadful arms and made peace and left 

 hostages, albeit mortals like themselves, with their forefathers — had 

 never again raised their fearful batons of thunder and fire or their 

 long blades of blue metal like lightning. 



But all this was soon to change. When, nearly a quarter of a cen- 

 tury later still, Fray Alonzo de Benavides became father-custodian 

 of New Mexico, he undertook to establish missions throughout the 

 country. More than twenty missionaries were introduced into the 

 Pueblo provinces by him, and soon afterward Esteban de Perea brought 

 thu-ty more from Spain and old Mexico. Among the latter were Fray 

 Martin de Arvide and Fray Francisco de Letrado. Fray Letrado was 

 assigned to Zuni some time after 1628. By the end of the following 

 year the Indians had built for him at H;'iloua the little Church of the 

 Purification or of the Immaculate Virgin, and at Hawik'uh the church 

 and conventual residence of the Immaculate Conception. 



Fray Francisco was an old man and very zealous. Unquestionably 

 he antagonized the native priests. It is as certain that, at first welcom- 



