Ex. Doc. No. 41. 127 



APPENDIX No. i: 



New YorKj October 1, 1847, 



Dear Sir: I return you my thanks for the very interesting infor- 

 mation contained in your letter of the 20th of September/' 



It unfortunMely happens that I cannot wait for the arrival of 

 your papers^ or for the publication of the map of the War Depart- 

 ment. My essay makes part of the second volume of the transac- 

 tions of the New York Ethnological Society. The work is now in 

 the pressj completed with the exception of my essayj and the prin- 

 ter presses me for it. The map, which will acco;i:pany it, is prin- 

 cipally intended to show the ori'ginal abodes of the Indian tribes. 

 It will be presented as a sketch, without pretensions to accurate 

 correctness. But ther^ is a consideration, which makes me anxious 

 to obtain every possible information respecting the Rio Gila, and 

 especially its upper waters. 



You may not be aware that a work has lately been recovered and 

 publishedj which contains a full and authentic account of an expe- 

 dition in the year 1540-1542, by order of the viceroy Mindocaj 

 and under the conduct of Va-squez Coronado. It consisted of 350 

 Spaniards and 800 Indians. Setting ofiF from Culiacan, they reached 

 the sources of the Rio Gila, passed across the mountains to the 

 ^10 del Norte, wintered twice in the province now called New 

 Mexico, explored it through its whole length, from north to south, 

 ^lid afterwards, taking a northeast course, crossed the mountains, 

 peached the buffalo plains, through which they wandered a consi- 

 derable distance eastwardly, and as far north as the 40th degree of 

 latitude. Finding no gold, they returned to Mexico. The Span 

 lards did not re-enter the country till the year 1581; and the con 

 q^est of New Mexico was not completed till about the year 1595. 

 ^ The veracity of the narrator, Castenador, who was a volunteer 

 yi the expedition, and who wrote the account twenty years after, is 

 f^lly established by a variety of circumstances, too multiplied to be 

 inserted here. It is sufficient to say, that the Indians of the Rio 

 , ^ila, and of the upper valley of the Rip del Norte, were an agri- 

 cultural people, cultivating maize, beans, pumpkins, and cotton; 

 P^Pending exclusively on agriculture for their subsistence, dwelling 

 in Villages built of mud, (torchis,) mixed with certain balls of har- 

 ^ened matter, and well cemented together. The houses were gener- 

 *^Y four stories high, with no opening "on the first floor, accessible 

 ^^'y by moveable ladders, with top terraces, and an under ground 

 apartment occupied exclusively by the men, and used as esiufas; 



D&R?^^ '®*^^^ S^"^^^ * general outline 



i"« ian-uagej aad a f«v of tke Piiaos. 



Coco Mariko 



