692 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



says an eagle they saw perched upon a cactus — which is to-day the design upon 

 the Mexican coat-of-arms — induced them to stop upon that spot and build ttieir 

 capital tTiere. 



It is presumed that New Mexico was settled by detachments from the Toltec 

 and Aztec emigrations, who remained in the country and finally became isolated 

 from their kindred, and at length were gradually surrounded by barbarous tribes, 

 among whom they presented the curious picture of a semi-civilized race, losing, 

 however, none of their thrift and intelligence, while preserving their ancient 

 faith after the lapse of years. 



Their traditions relate to their protection by Montezuma, who according to 

 them taught them to build their terraced dwellings, estufas, and to keep burning 

 the sacred fire?. They called themselves the Children of the Sun, with which 

 luminary Montezuma was held also to be identical. Montezuma, however, is not 

 to be confounded with the king whom Cortez deposed, but was their God, their 

 venerated mythical hero, the kings taking his title. 



During all the changes in the governments of New Mexico the Pueblos have 

 always conducted their own. Their principal officer is a cacique, who is elected 

 for life, to whom all disputes are referred, and whose decisions are ever peaceably 

 accepted. As Prince says " What gives special interest to the pueblo dwellings 

 is that nowhere else on the continent are buildings inhabited precisely as they 

 were when Columbus discovered America. In several instances, as at Taos and 

 in the western pueblos, the people are living in identically the same houses that 

 were then occupied." 



When the Spaniards entered New Mexico there were four different tribes 

 among these Indians, whose language was totally distinct, so that those of one 

 pueblo could not understand the tongue of another, which, perhaps but twenty-five 

 miles away, is belonging to another group ; which is true of those existing to day. 

 The groups at the time of De Vaca were the Teguas, Queres, Piros, and Tanos. 

 The Zuni and Jemez Indians are probably descendants of the Moqui. At the 

 time of the settlement by the Europeans there was in these communities a popu- 

 lation estimated by various writers as from 150,000 to 300,000 souls. One strange 

 thing about the language of these tribes is that with the Teguas the words are 

 principally monosyllabic, among the Ineres dissyllabic, while the others could 

 only express the meaning of the commonest objects by words of astounding 

 length. I quote from Prince this example of the word "earth." "In Queres it 

 is hah-ats, in Tegua nah, in Piros pah-han-nah, in Jemez dock-ah, in Zuni ou-lock- 

 nam-nay." The Tanos to-day are all extinct, but the Indians of the Jemez and 

 Zuni tribes may be added, making five instead of the original four, each preserv- 

 ing its original tongue, and so unlike are they that the different pueblo nation- 

 alities when addressing one another use the Mexican /«/^z> for a common mode 

 of speech. 



To Alvah Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, a Spaniard, belongs the honor of being 

 undoubtedly the first white man to ever step upon New Mexico's territory. His 



