Words from Indian languages are subject to very faulty rendering in the older documents. In the first place, sound alone guided the writers, and Indian pronunciation is frequently indistinct in the vowels and variable according to the individual--hence the frequent interchange in the Spanish sources of _a_ and _o_, _o_ and _u_, _e_ and _i_. For many sounds even the alphabets of civilized speech have not adequate phonetic signs. I may refer, as an example, to the Indian name in the Tigua language for the pueblo of Sandia. The Spanish attempt to render it by the word "Napeya" is utterly inadequate, and even by means of the complicated alphabets for writing Indian tongues I would not attempt to record the native term. In endeavoring to identify localities from names given to them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by European authors, this difficulty should always be taken into account. No blame can be attached to the writers for such defects; it should always be remembered that they did not know, still less understand, the idioms they heard. Still less should we be surprised if the same site is sometimes mentioned under various names. Every Pueblo language has its own geographical vocabulary, and when, as sometimes happened, several tribes met in council with the whites, the latter heard and unwittingly recorded several names for one and the same locality, thus apparently increasing the number of villages. Moreover, interpreters were not always at hand, and when they could be had both their competency and their sincerity were open to question. It is not unusual to read in modern works that such and such a source is the reliable one _par excellence_, and the principal basis upon which to establish conclusions. No source, however seemingly insignificant, should be neglected. A brief mention is sometimes very important, as it may be a clue to new data, or may confirm or refute accepted information and thus lead to further investigation. Some documents, of course, are much more explicit than others, but this is no reason why the latter should be neglected. The value of a source may be subject to investigation from a number of points of view, but it is not always possible to obtain the requisite information. Thus the biographies of authors are an important requisite, but how seldom are they obtainable with the necessary detail!