Finding the Worth While in the SouthwestSaunders, Charles Francis
History
Finding the Worth While in the Southwest
Saunders, Charles Francis
Southwest, New -- Description and travel
[21]Pronounced _bair-na-lee´yo_. It is a diminutive of Bernal, and the
place was so named because settled by descendants of Bernal Diaz, a
soldier of Cortés and contemporary chronicler of the conquest of
Mexico. It was at Bernalillo that De Vargas died, in 1704.
[22]Including a score or so descended from the Pecos tribe who moved to
Jemes in 1838 from Pecos Pueblo. This now deserted pueblo (whose
ruins have lately been systematically excavated and whose fine old
Mission church, visible from the Santa Fe transcontinental trains,
has undergone some careful restoration) may be reached by conveyance
from the Valley Ranch near Glorieta station on the Santa Fe. In
Coronado’s time Pecos was the most populous town in the country. It
is called Cicuyé by the old chroniclers.
[23]The nearest railway station to these lakes is Estancia on the New
Mexican Central.
[24]Harrington, “The Ethno-geography of the Tewa Indians.”
[25]Papers of the School of American Archaeology, No. 35.
[26]Popular tradition persistently associates gold-hoarding with the
Franciscan Missionaries throughout the Southwest, ignoring the fact
that the members of the Seraphic Order were pledged to poverty, and
had small interest in any wealth except the unsearchable riches of
Christ, to share which with their humble Indian charges was their
sole mission in the wilderness. As for the New Mexico Indians, they
knew nothing of any mineral more precious than turquoise.
[27]Paul A. F. Walter, “The Cities That Died of Fear.”
[28]Apropos of these ruined Missions, it is interesting to know that the
construction was undoubtedly the work of women—house-building being
one of the immemorial duties and cherished privileges of Pueblo
womankind.
[29]Paul A. P. Walter, “The Cities That Died of Fear.”
[30]The Manzano range reaches an elevation of 10,600 feet here.
[31]The formation is that known throughout New Mexico as a _mesa_
(Spanish for _table_). Such flat-topped hills—high or low—have been
brought into being by the washing away in ancient times of the
surrounding earth.
[32]New Mexico rural roads are in a certain Mark Tapleyian sense ideal
for motorists. Traversing unfenced plains, as they often do, if they
develop bad spots the motorist turns aside and has little difficulty
in scouting out a detour. After a rain, however, they are gummy and
slippery in adobe country until the sun hardens the clay, which it
does rather quickly.
[33]Some of the Acomas in despair, threw themselves from the cliffs and
so died rather than surrender. A stirring account of the storming of
Acoma will be found in “The Spanish Pioneers,” by Chas. F. Lummis.
[34]Remarkable for its light weight and ornamentation with
conventionalized leaf forms, birds, etc. Unfortunately the education
of the young Indians in Government schools is causing a decline at
all the pueblos in this purely American art.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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