62 



SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS 



VOL. 68 



west. It was the first of the Seven Cities of Cibola to the seen by 

 the Franciscan Fray Marcos de Niza, the first white man to enter 

 what is now New Mexico and Arizona, in 1539, and it was the scene 

 of the murder of Estevanico, the negro guide of Fray Marcos. 

 Coronado, who led the most remarkable expedition that ever entered 

 the domain of the United States, stormed the town in 1540, captured 

 it after almost losing his life in the efifort, and wrote therefrom his 

 celebrated letter to the Viceroy Mendoza on August 3, in which he 

 set forth the progress of his army and described the customs and 



■s'^^^'My- 



Fig. 61. — The ruins of Hawikuh from the east. The summit of the knoll 

 on which the pueblo was situated is sixty feet above the plain. Photograph 

 by E. F. Coffin. 



products of the natives. Hawikuh was visited also by Espejo in 

 1583, by Onate in 1598 and 1604, and by other Spanish explorers. In 

 1629 a Franciscan mission was established there and an adobe chitrch 

 built (fig. 60), but in 1670 the pueblo was raided by the Apache and 

 thenceforth abandoned. 



The ruin of Hawikuh is situated on the summit and slopes of a 

 mesa-like elevation (fig. 61), fifteen miles southwest of the present 

 Zuiii pueljlo : the entire area covered by the settlement approximates 

 fifteen acres. Excavation was commenced in the western side of a 

 great refuse-heap that covers the slopes, consisting of ashes and 



