Mormon Settlement in Arizona: A Record of Peaceful Conquest of the DesertMcClintock, James H.
History
Mormon Settlement in Arizona: A Record of Peaceful Conquest of the Desert
McClintock, James H.
Arizona -- History -- To 1950; Latter Day Saints -- Arizona -- History
The missionaries left with the Hopi returned the same winter. They had
not been treated quite as badly as Father Garces, but there had been a
division among the tribes, started by the priesthood. There was very good
prophecy, however, by the Indians, to the effect that the Mormons would
settle in the country to the southward and that their route of travel
would be by way of the Little Colorado.
It might be well to insert, at this point, a condensation of the Welsh
legend, though affecting, especially, the Zuni, a pueblo-dwelling tribe,
living to the eastward of the Hopi and with little ethnologic connection.
The following was written by Llewellyn Harris (himself of Welsh
extraction), who was a Mormon missionary visitor to the Zuni in January,
1878, and is reprinted without endorsement:
"They say that, before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, the Zuni
Indians lived in Mexico. Some of them still claim to be the descendants
of Montezuma. At the time of the conquest they fled to Arizona and
settled there. They were at one time a very powerful tribe, as the ruins
all over that part of the country testify. They have always been
considered a very industrious people. The fact that they have, at one
time, been in a state of civilization far in advance of what they are at
present, is established beyond a doubt. Before the Catholic religion was
introduced to them, they worshipped the sun. At present they are nearly
all Catholics. A few of them have been baptized into our Church by
Brothers Ammon M. Tenney and R.H. Smith, and nearly all the tribe say
they are going to be baptized.
"They have a great many words in the language like the Welsh, and with
the same meaning. Their tradition says that over 300 years before the
conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards, some white men landed in Mexico and
told the Indians that they had come from the regions beyond the sea to
the east. They say that from these white men came the ancient kings of
Mexico, from whom Montezuma descended.
"These white men were known to the Indians of Mexico by the name of
Cambaraga; and are still remembered so in the traditions of Zuni Indians.
In time those white people became mixed with Indians, until scarcely a
relic of them remained. A few traditions of the Mexican Indians and a few
Welsh words among the Zunis, Navajos and Moquis are all that can be found
of that people now.
"I have the history of the ancient Britons, which speaks of Prince Madoc,
who was the son of Owen Guynedd, King of Wales, having sailed from Wales
in the year 1160, with three ships. He returned in the year 1163, saying
he had found a beautiful country, across the western sea. He left Wales
again in the year 1164, with fifteen ships and 3000 men. He was never
again heard of."
Indians Await Their Prophets
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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