IN SEARCH OF CORONADO'S "PROVINCE OF QUIVIRA" 



By WALDO R. WEDEL 

 Assistant Curator, Division of Archeology, U. S. National Museum 



In the summer of 1541 the buffalo plains stretching hundreds of 

 miles northeastward from Pecos were traversed for the first time by 

 white men. Behind Coronado and his Conquistadores lay the dis- 

 illusionments of the Seven Cities of Cibola; ahead, the fabled riches 

 of Quivira. By the end of summer this dream, too, had faded. 

 Instead of a great and wealthy kingdom, the Spaniards found them- 

 selves in a land dotted with grass-house villages whose simple peace- 

 ful inhabitants supported themselves by hunting and by cultivation 

 of maize, beans, and melons. The land was "very fat and black," but 

 of gold and silver there was none. In spite of the disappointing results 

 of this and subsequent adventures, a belief in the riches of Quivira 

 lingered in the Spanish mind. As late as 1696, soldiers in pursuit of 

 fugitive puebloan groups at El Cuartelejo on the western plains found 

 them in possession of copper and tin said to have been obtained by 

 journeys eastward to the wealthy and civilized province of Quivira. 

 The exact location of the province remained indefinite, but the name 

 gradually shifted westward until it came to rest in eastern New 

 Mexico. It is now generally believed that the natives of Quivira were 

 the Wichita Indians ; the province, as of Coronado's time, has been 

 variously located from Oklahoma northward. Since 1927 the presence 

 of large village sites of apparent protohistoric age near the great 

 bend of the Arkansas River in central Kansas has led local historians 

 to renew their claims that here lay Coronado's Quivira. Archeological 

 verification, however, has been lacking. 



Several promising sites occur along Cow Creek and Little River 

 in Rice County, and to the east. Four of these have each a large 

 depressed circle with mounded center. Locally termed "council 

 circles," one which was partly excavated by the United States Na- 

 tional Museum in 1940 included curved basins (fig. 71, right) 

 with postholes, fireplaces, burnt roofing clay, refuse, and in one case, 

 disarticulated human bones. Purpose of the structures indicated is 

 unknown. Otherwise, there was no certain evidence of house sites, 

 but numerous large storage pits and refuse mounds argue for a rela- 

 tively permanent occupation. Charred corn and wild fruit pits, along 

 with quantities of bison, antelope, and other bones show that sub- 



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