The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It Part 14

Textiles. Excavation brought forth delicate textiles in cotton and yucca fibre, well-woven, and in a remarkable state of preservation--silent testimony to the dry climate, and the fact that the dwellings were so constructed that rain and snow were practically excluded. Basketry and pottery in large quant.i.ties were found, all showing ability in manufacture, also artistic skill, anti-aesthetic conception in the form of the articles and the designs portrayed upon them.

Excavated Relics. Stone hammers and axes, obsidian, flint and other arrow-heads, spear-heads, and knives, mortars and pestles, metates or meal grinders, obsidian and flint drills for making holes through stone or sh.e.l.l, bows and arrows,--the bows of tough wood often brought from afar, and the arrows pointed with chipped flint or obsidian, deftly and securely tied to the shaft with tough and durable strings of sinews; sh.e.l.l beads, pipes, bone awls, punches, needles, etc.; stone fetiches in semblance of animals, the like of which were never seen on land or sea; ornaments of sh.e.l.l, turquoise and onyx, and even a kind of jade; sandals and mats of yucca fibre, and exquisitely delicate feather robes,--these are some of the things that the excavators have found. Corn-cobs, melon rinds and gra.s.s seeds may be added to the list.

Old Cemeteries. Then--most interesting of finds--a number of cemeteries were located, and these were raked and sc.r.a.ped over until every visible secret hidden in their depths was brought into the light of the sun.

Tracing the Indian Races. Now here were numbers of facts to work upon. Then the myths, legends and traditions of the Indians living near by were carefully collected and studied, and light began to dawn in the minds of our archaeologists. The Hopis in Northern Arizona, the Zunis in New Mexico, the Acomas who live on the ma.s.sive cliff twenty miles south of the Santa Fe Railway at Laguna Station, the score of pueblos on the banks of the Rio Grande, even to far-away Taos,--all contributed their share to the elucidation of the mystery. Even the semi-nomadic Navaho had something to say which helped. Cushing found among the Zuni stories galore of their struggles with the fierce and warlike wandering tribes, who constantly hara.s.sed the home-loving people who built their rude villages. Fewkes not only unearthed whole cities of the past, but, gained from the nearby Hopis their traditions, which told in reasonable and intelligible form what was most probably their history. He listened while their old men and women recited the stories and legends of their migration from the south northwards, and how certain families or clans came from this or that direction, building and inhabiting certain now ruined dwellings in ages long past. Others heard similar stories, which they investigated as far as possible, compared with the ruins named, and then recorded, with such discovered facts as helped in the elucidation of the problems involved.

Ancestors of the Pueblo People. All these investigations pointed to one great fact, and that was that the cliff and cave dwellers of the Grand Canyon region and all the contiguous country were none other than the ancestors of the present pueblo people,--those who live in the Hopi villages, the Zuni villages, Acoma, Laguna, Santo Domingo, Isleta, Teseque, Jemez, Taos, San Ildefonso, Zia and the rest.

With this luminous fact before them, a greater study began of these pueblo people, and it was then found that, to this day, they use the same utensils, make the same implements, wear the same ornaments, follow the same burial customs, and generally live the same life that these ancient cliff-dwellers did. The conclusions, therefore, are obvious and inevitable.

The cliff-dwellers were none other than the ancestors of the pueblo people, a little less advanced, doubtless, in the march of civilization, yet already far progressed from the rude civilization of the nomad. They were driven to occupy the inaccessible cliffs by the constant attacks of the warlike nomads.

Sedentary and Home-loving Indians. Thus the cliff dwellings become interesting memorials of the great fight for existence, where one race has striven to the very death with other races, and the weaker have either given way or been swept out of existence. The picture is easy to draw. The country was peopled with these sedentary and home-loving Indians. They had come largely from the south, had settled down, had built their humble villages, tilled their fields and cultivated their crops. The women made baskets and pottery, and the men hunted game, while the women prepared it for food, and gathered seeds, nuts and roots to eke out their not overextensive dietary. Young men and women grew up, felt the dawnings of love and the final awakenings of the great pa.s.sion, and then married, settled down in a house the community helped them to build, and began to work a piece of land selected for them, or at least approved, by the town council. For, even in those early days, there is every evidence that these people had a definite and distinct form of democratic government, to the elected officials of which they yielded an almost perfect reverence and obedience. In due time, happy and healthy children were born to them.

Peaceful and Religious. They were a religious people, were these early dwellers in the land. They built kivas and estufas,--under and above ground ceremonial chambers,--where they regularly and decorously met to worship by dance, recitation of ancient songs, telling of divine leadings and interpositions on their behalf, smoking, singing, prayer, and the observance of other ritual. Thus happy, contented and basking in the favor of Those Above, they dwelt, until suddenly a new and unfavorable element was injected into their hitherto peaceful life. The buffetings of nature they had become accustomed to, and they had kept their bodies healthy so as to resist these a.s.saults, but now human storms were about to burst upon them. Apaches in the south, Comanches and Navahos in the east, Utes and Navahos in the north, Mohaves and Yumas in the west began to encroach upon them. Envious eyes gazed upon their houses and the goods that industry and skill had gathered within. Those who had no food stored when famine swooped upon them, came and begged from those who had. By and by jealousy and envy prompted theft, and then strife began. Strife spread and grew, until war in all its horrors became the normal condition. In self preservation, these peaceable, friendly, hospitable peoples were compelled to be warriors. But their foes were many and crafty, skilful in war, wary in attack and retreat. Their hara.s.sments became more than could be borne, so, in their desperation, the peaceable people retreated to the cliffs and walls of the Canyons, where surprise could be guarded against, where a small supply of water could be reasonably sure, and where, not too far away, when permitted to do so, they might cultivate a small piece of arable land.

Compelled to Wage War. Think of the state of affairs! A state of perpetual siege and watchfulness, of readiness to fight at any moment, of keeping lookouts on the alert day and night, of working in the fields with one hand on the implements of peace and industry, and the other on the implements of war. The night attack, murder, rapine, fire and bloodshed became common experiences, and the discovery of many bodies, the skulls crushed with battleaxes, of skeletons of men slain with the deadly arrow, of bodies twisted by torture and charred by fire, reveal what a reign of terror and dread that epoch must have been in the land of the cliff-dweller.

Houses Became Fortresses. For how many decades or centuries this lasted, we do not know. Somewhat uncertain tradition is all we have to rely upon. But ultimately the pressure became less severe. In some cases, hostilities largely ceased; in others, they became less constant. So the pueblos we find in existence to-day slowly began to arise. One by one, the bands of cliff-dwellers dared to leave their wall fortresses and to build in more congenial places, nearer to their fields and springs or water-courses. But, taught by past experience, they made their homes into fortresses. The houses were ma.s.sed together, largely for protective purposes; there was no means of easy entrance to the bottom story (they were built from two to seven stories high), the only way provided being by a hatchway and ladder from the roof. The rooms of the second story were thrust back a little, so that the roof of the first story formed a kind of courtyard for its inhabitants. Ladders that could easily be removed afforded ingress and egress, and the doorways could be guarded by flat slabs of rock. Numerous loop-holes afforded outlook points, and also opportunity for the shooting of poisoned arrows upon an oncoming foe.

Buildings in Inaccessible Places. In some cases, as that of the Hopi villages, Acoma and old Zuni, the new towns were erected upon almost inaccessible mesas, the steep trails of which could be securely guarded against an army by a handful of hidden men.

Arrival of Spaniards. This was the state of affairs when the Spaniards marched into the country (after the reconnaissance of Fray Marcos), under the leadership of Coronado and his lieutenant, the ensign Tovar. Hence it will be seen that the original discoverers and inhabitants of the Grand Canyon were evidently the ancestors of the present pueblo peoples.

CHAPTER XXIV. El Tovar And Cardenas And The Modern Discovery Of The Grand Canyon

The Spanish Conquistadores. Few romances are more fascinating than the history of the early exploitations of this continent by the Spanish conquistadores. Cortes, Pizarro, Guzman, Narvaez, Coronado are names to conjure with. The wonderful successes of Cortes naturally excited the jealous envy and cupidity of his compeers. In his earlier experiences, Cortes had aroused the anger of Velasquez, Governor of Cuba. Cortes, in one of his many acts of gallantry, had betrayed the sister of Velasquez's mistress. When Velasquez learned the facts, to peremptorily commanded Cortes, who was his subordinate, to marry the unhappy girl. Refusals and imprisonments, threats and anger were the natural consequences, and, while Cortes did ultimately marry her, the enmity thus engendered bore bitter fruit for the husband.

Breach between Cortes and Velasquez. When Cortes made his effective conquests on the mainland and sought to supplant Velasquez, the breach between the two men considerably widened. Both sought, with emba.s.sies, the ear of the King of Spain, Charles V, and while the future conqueror made a deep impression with his reports of conquests to come and treasures already in hand, the Governor's friends were not slow to act. Meanwhile, Cortes had hit upon the bold plan of destroying his ships, and thus compelling his men to march to the subjugation of Mexico. Velasquez was about to dispatch Panfilo de Narvaez with a commission as captain-general to arrest him, and send him in chains to Cuba. The king, however, would not permit this, and Narvaez was sent forth charged to be friendly to Cortes. But this was not to be. Events prevented, and Narvaez finally decided to place Cortes and his whole army under arrest. This was a great undertaking, and required skilful generalship, as well as boldness and skill in execution. Though a gallant warrior, Narvaez was not equal to the task he had set himself, and Cortes, having learned what was before him, turned the tables upon Narvaez and his force by becoming the arrestor instead of the arrested. It requires no great knowledge of human nature to picture the fierce anger of Narvaez and his men. When Cortes eventually released them, it was on condition that he be left alone, and that Narvaez return to Spain. The defeated man, with anger burning his jealous heart to a white heat, did return, and immediately demanded of the king some mission that should allow him to remove the disgrace from his name. To get rid of him, the king sent him to the conquest of what is now Florida.

Expedition to Florida. It was a brave expedition that set forth on a bright day in June, 1527. Five ships and six hundred men made quite a showing, yet the Atlantic Ocean, aided by storms and winds, flouted and routed them, so that it was April of the following year before the main part of the expedition landed at Tampa Bay. Of the total destruction of the party, save Cabeza de Vaca and three or four others, all readers are fairly familiar, as they are likewise of De Vaca's wonderful eight years' journey across the continent.

Arrival at San Miguel. I have thus rapidly traced these events in the early history of the exploration of this continent, for it was the wanderings of Cabeza de Vaca and his final arrival at San Miguel in New Galicia that brought the Ensign Tovar into Arizona, and led to the discovery of the Grand Canyon.

Preliminary Reconnaissance. The Viceroy of New Spain at that time was Antonio de Mendoza, a wise, loyal and fa.r.s.eeing man. He was anxious to checkmate Cortes, and to show that others besides the great, though treacherous conqueror, could make discoveries of new lands, where gold was abundant, and where colonies could be established. Yet he would not be rash. Before sending out a large expedition to conquer the cities and fertile land Cabeza de Vaca had described, it would be wise and cautious to send a cool-headed man, one who was prepared for any hardship, one who had no l.u.s.t for gold in his own soul, yet who could be relied upon to bring back a straight and true story to the viceroy as to whatever he might discover concerning De Vaca's stories. He should be accompanied by Stephen, the negro, who was one of De Vaca's companions; and thus he would be accurately guided to the places that had been described. The man chosen for this important reconnaissance was a devoted Franciscan, Fray Marcos, to whom I have devoted the next chapter of this book. Marcos went, saw, returned and reported, and upon his report the expedition of Coronado was equipped and fitted out.

Coronado's Army. The fervor with which the Spanish gallants joined Coronado's army of exploration is realized when one remembers that three hundred Spaniards as well as eight hundred Indians were gathered together in a few days. Coronado was a Spanish grandee, traveling at the time of De Vaca's arrival as a royal official visitor. In the words of Castaneda he was "a gentleman from Salamanca, who had married a lady in the City of Mexico, the daughter of Alonso de Estrada, the treasurer and at one time governor of Mexico, and the son (most people said) of his Catholic Majesty Don Ferdinand, and many state it as certain." And the same historian later on continues, in his simple and naive way, to tell us about Tovar and many others: "When the Viceroy, Don Antonio de Mendoza, saw what a n.o.ble company had come together, and the spirit and good will with which they had all presented themselves, knowing the worth of these men, he would have liked very well to make every one of them captain of an army; but as the whole number was small he could not do as he would have liked, and so he appointed the captains and officers because it seemed to him that if they were appointed by him, as he was so well obeyed and beloved, n.o.body, would find fault with his arrangements. After everybody had heard who the general was (Coronado), he made Don Pedro de Tovar ensign general, a young gentleman who was the son of Don Fernando de Tovar, the guardian and high steward of the Queen Dona Juana, our demented mistress--may she be in glory."

A Brilliant and Gallant Company. After the naming of their officers, Castaneda regrets that he has "forgotten the names of many good fellows.

It would be well if I could name some of them, so that it might be clearly seen what cause I had for saying that they had on this expedition the most brilliant company ever collected in the Indies to go in search of new lands. But they were unfortunate in having a captain who left in New Spain estates and a pretty wife, a n.o.ble and excellent lady, which were not the least causes for what was to happen."

First Disappointment. Poor Coronado! The reader is thus prepared to throw upon him the blame because similar treasures to those found by Cortes in the land of Montezuma were not found in Arizona and New Mexico. In spite of his having so many fine gentlemen in his official family, Coronado's disappointments and disillusionments began early. As he reached the region where the wilderness began--just past the Pima country--he felt downhearted, "for, although the reports were very fine about what was ahead, there was n.o.body who had seen it except the Indians who went with the negro, and these had already been caught in some lies."

Meeting with Indians. When the expedition first came in contact with the Indians of the desert region, the gallant members of the party must have been a little scared, for, according to Castaneda: "Some Indians... during the night... in a safe place yelled so that, although the men were ready for anything, some were so excited that they put their saddles on hind-side before; but these were the new fellows. When the veterans had mounted and ridden round the camp, the Indians had fled."

Coronado Reaches Zuni. Coronado finally reached Cibola--the mythical--now known to be Zuni, in New Mexico. Here he was not only disappointed because he did not find the great treasure so long antic.i.p.ated, but he was wounded.

Getting into converse with him, the Indians told him of the people who lived round about, and among others, of those who dwelt in the province of Tusayan. And here is what Castaneda tells us about the discovery by Europeans of those whom we now know as the Hopi.

Castaneda's Account of their Experiences in the Canyon. "The General had sent Don Pedro de Tovar to these villages with seventeen hors.e.m.e.n, and three or four foot soldiers..Juan de Padilla, a Franciscan friar, who had been a fighting man in his youth, went with them. When they reached the region, they entered the country so quietly that n.o.body observed them, because there were no settlements or farms between one village and another and the people do not leave the villages except to go to their farms, especially at this time, when they had heard that Cibola had been captured by very fierce people, who traveled on animals who ate people. This information was generally believed by those who had never seen horses, although it was so strange as to cause much wonder. Our men arrived after nightfall and were able to conceal themselves under the edge of the village, where they heard the natives talking in their houses. But in the morning they were discovered, and drew up in regular order, while the natives went out to meet them, with bows and shields, and wooden clubs, drawn up in lines without any confusion. The interpreter was given a chance to speak to them and to give them one warning, for they were very intelligent people, but nevertheless they drew lines and insisted that our men should not go across these lines toward their village. While they were talking some men acted as if they would cross the lines, and one of the natives lost control of himself and struck a horse a blow on the check of the bridle with his club. Friar Juan, fretted by the time that was being wasted in talking with them, said to the captain, 'To tell the truth, I do not know why we came here.' When the men heard this, they gave the Santiago (The Battle Cry of Spain), so suddenly that they ran down many Indians and the others fled to the town in confusion. Some indeed did not have a chance to do this, so quickly did the people in the villages come out with presents, asking for peace. The captain ordered his force to collect, and, as the natives did not do any more harm, he and those who were with him found a place to establish new headquarters near the village. They had dismounted here when the natives came peacefully, saying that they had come to give in the submission of the whole province and that they wanted him to be friends with them and to accept the presents which they gave him. This was some cotton cloth, although not much, because they do not make it in that district. They also gave him some dressed skins and some corn meal, and pine nuts, and corn and birds of the country. Afterward they presented some turquoises, but not many. The people of the whole district came together that day and submitted themselves, and they allowed him to enter their villages freely to visit, buy, sell, and barter with them.

"It is governed like Cibola, by an a.s.sembly of the oldest men. They have their governors and generals. This was where they obtained the information about a large river, and that several days down the river there were some people with very large bodies.

"As Don Pedro de Tovar was not commissioned to go farther, he returned from there, and gave this information to the general, who dispatched Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas with about twelve companions to go to see this river. He was well received when he reached Tusayan and was well entertained by the natives, who gave him guides for his journey. They started from here loaded with provisions, for they had to go through a desert country before reaching the inhabited region, which the Indians said was more than twenty days journey. After they had gone twenty days, they came to the banks of the river, which seemed to be more than three or four leagues above the stream which flowed between them. This country was elevated and full of low, twisted pines, very cold, and lying open toward the north, so that, this being the warm season, no one could live there on account of the cold.

They spent three days on this bank looking for a pa.s.sage down to the river, which looked from above as if the water was six feet across, although the Indians said that it was half a league wide. It was impossible to descend, for after these three days Captain Melgosa and one Juan Galeras and another companion, who were the three lightest and most agile men, made an attempt to go down at the least difficult place, and went down until those who were above were unable to keep sight of them. They returned about four o'clock in the afternoon, not having succeeded in reaching the bottom on account of the great difficulties which they found, because what seemed to be easy from above was not so, but instead very hard and difficult. They said that they had been down about a third of the way and that the river seemed very large from the place that they reached, and that from what they saw the Indians had given the width correctly. Those who stayed above had estimated that some huge rocks on the side of the cliffs seemed to be about as tall as a man, but those who went down swore that when they reached these rocks they were bigger than the great tower of Seville. They did not go farther up the river because they could not get water. Before this they had to go a league or two inland every day late in the evening in order to find water, and the guides said that if they should go four days farther, it would not be possible to go on, because there was no water within three or four days, for when they travel across this region themselves they take with them women loaded with water in gourds, and bury the gourds of water along the way to use when they return, and besides this, they travel in one day what it takes us two days to accomplish.

"This was the Tison (Firebrand) river, much nearer its source than where Melchior Diaz and his company crossed it. These were the same kind of Indians, judging from what was afterward learned. They came back from this point and the expedition did not have any other result. On the way they saw some water falling on a rock and learned from the guides that some bunches of crystals which were hanging there were salt. They went and gathered a quant.i.ty of this and brought it back to Cibola, dividing it among those who were there. They gave the general a written account of what they had seen, because one Pedro de Sotomayor had gone with Don Garcia Lopez as chronicler for the army. The villages of that province remained peaceful, since they were never visited again, nor was any attempt made to find other peoples in that direction."

Place Described by Cardenas Unknown. There has been some attempt on the part of students who are familiar with the country to locate the spot where Cardenas and his men gazed down into the depths of the Canyon of the Colorado River. The long distance travelled, according to Castaneda's narrative, was totally unnecessary to bring the Spaniards to the banks of the river. Twenty days' journey, through a desert region, away from Tusayan in the direction of the Colorado River, would have brought them as far down as Yuma or Mohave. But at these points there is no canyon. It is well known that the Canyon system terminates near the Great Bend, some miles beyond the Grand Wash, hence this could not have been the objective point of the guides of Cardenas.

Dellenbaugh's Opinion. Dellenbaugh, in his "Romance of the Colorado River,"

argues that the Tusayan of Castaneda could not have been the land of the Hopis, for, as he truthfully remarks, "an able-bodied man can easily walk to the brink of the Marble Canyon from there in three or four days." He also says that it has usually been stated, without definite reason, that Cardenas reached the Grand Canyon about opposite Bright Angel River, or near the spot where El Tovar Hotel now stands. I have never heard this statement made by any one who has any knowledge either of Castaneda's narrative, or of the relative locations of the Hopi towns and the Grand Canyon.

Evidently a Hopi Stratagem. The Hopis of to-day, with whom I have talked, insist upon it that Cardenas was taken to the barren and desolate point near the junction of Marble Canyon, the Little Colorado Canyon and the Grand Canyon. Here, the river may be said to come from the northeast and turn toward the south-southwest, and the conditions are not at all like those described by the historian. But if one accepts this modern statement of the Hopis, he is met with the questions: Why make Cardenas travel fifty leagues to see an inaccessible river that could be reached in three or four days? Did Cardenas really travel fifty leagues? I do not know, but I hazard the conjecture that the Hopis gave Cardenas as much wandering about as they could, took him to this terribly bleak and barren spot where even to-day one can scarcely prevail upon a Hopi or Navaho to guide him, in order that he might be discouraged from making further explorations in the neighborhood. The Hopis had no use for explorers or strangers. They had suffered too much from foes, for too many decades, to welcome any one who seemed eager to possess anything of theirs, and, in my judgment, their treatment of Cardenas was a deliberate ruse to get rid of him. They had a trail over which they habitually traveled, that brought them to Huetha-wa-li, the White Rock Mountain,--opposite Ba.s.s Camp,--and on to the Havasupai villages. Several times a year they went to and fro over this trail. It crosses the Little Colorado where it would have been easy to show the Spaniards the Salt Spring, to which Castaneda later refers. There is another point on the river, some miles beyond Ba.s.s Camp, where the Hopis used to visit the Havasupais, and that is just beyond the Great Curve, where the river may be said to flow from the northeast to the southsouthwest. But both at Ba.s.s Camp and at this point, the Havasupais had made trails down to the river, of the existence of which the Hopis may, or may not, have known. So I freely confess that, as yet, I have not settled in my own mind at what point Cardenas and the Spaniards gazed into the depths of the Great Canyon.

Alarcon's Discovery of Colorado River. While the main portion of Coronado's army had been advancing eastward, a sea force sent out to cooperate with Coronado, under Alarcon, had sailed up the Gulf of California, and had entered the Colorado River, thus solving the problem of its exit into the Gulf. To Alarcon, belongs the discovery of the Colorado River, which he named the Buena Guia. He went up the river twice in boats, the second time ascending possibly as high as a hundred miles above the mouth of the Gila.

Finally he entered "between certain very high mountains, through which this river pa.s.seth with a straight channel, and the boats went up against the stream very hardly for want of men to draw the same." He claims to have pa.s.sed above this place undoubtedly one of the lesser canyons of the Colorado found below the Needles, where the Santa Fe Railway crosses the river--and here magicians tried to destroy him and his party by setting magic reeds in the water on both sides. Of course this failed, but Alarcon decided to go no further. Here he erected a very high cross, on which was carved a statement to the effect that he had reached this spot, so that if Coronado's men should find it, they would know he had ascended the river thus far.

Town of San Hieronimo is Established. In the mean time, a small force of seventy or eighty of the weakest and least reliable of the men of Coronado's army was left in September, 1540, at a town which Cabeza de Vaca had named Corazones, or hearts, because the people there fed him on the hearts of animals. Coronado's plan was to establish a town here, which he or his lieutenant in charge of this portion of the army called San Hieronimo de los Corazones. These men and the care of the new settlement were left to Melchior Diaz, with orders to protect the road between Cibola and New Spain, and also to attempt to find some means of communicating with the vessels under Alarcon. Diaz, with twenty-five selected men, started for the seacoast, went to the Gulf, across to the coast, back again up the river, where he found Alarcon's cross, and eventually returned to San Hieronimo, there to meet with death by an accident. Owing to the habit of the Indians at the lower portion of the river of warming themselves in cold weather with a burning stick, Diaz called the river El Rio del Tizon --the River of the Firebrand.

Disaster Comes to the Spaniards. Disappointed at what he had found at Cibola and Tiguex, Coronado now decided to go with his whole army to a place which had been described to him in most glowing terms by an Indian.

He told of a place of fabulous wealth named Quivera, and, says the ancient historian: "He gave such a clear account of what he told, as if it was true and he had seen it, that it seemed plain afterward that the devil was speaking in him." Carried away by these glowing visions of wealth, Coronado sent Tovar back to San Hieronimo. Melchior Diaz was dead, and the little settlement was in an excitement, because one of the soldiers had just been killed by a poisoned arrow, shot by one of the natives. In trying to punish this offence, owing to the folly of the officer sent by Tovar in charge of the primitive force, seventeen more soldiers were killed by poisoned arrows, so that the ensign hastily abandoned the place, and moved with his sadly reduced force forty leagues toward Cibola, into a valley called Suya.

From this point, he ultimately collected the best of his men, and marched on to Tiguex, to find Coronado already gone on his heartbreaking expedition to Quivera.

Coronado Returns to New Spain. After long and fruitless search, Coronado returned to New Spain, a disappointed man, disgraced and discarded. Tovar returned with him, but doubtless later found congenial work in other fields.

CHAPTER XXV. Fray Marcos And Garces, And Their Connection With The Grand Canyon

Hotel and Stations Named for Spanish Priests. At Williams, the gateway to the Canyon, the Santa Fe Railway Company recently has erected a typical Mission style hotel, to which the name of Fray Marcos has been given. Here Canyon visitors who stop off between trains find excellent accommodations.

At Needles, California, on the Colorado River, is another reinforced concrete building, named after another Franciscan priest, Francisco Garces.

Both Fray Marcos and El Garces are managed by Fred Harvey, who also has charge of El Tovar Hotel. The history of this part of the Southwest for the last thirty years cannot be written without mention of this masterful man, who made railway meal service a fine art. In accordance with a policy established some time ago by the Santa Fe Company, the architecture of their station hotels conforms to the Spanish Mission styles, as far as possible, and they are given names of those who are inseparably connected with the romantic history of this region.

Fray Marcos Comes to America. In the chapter "Tovar and the Discovery of the Grand Canyon," brief reference is made to the reconnaissance undertaken by Fray Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan friar, to determine the truth of the reports brought into Culiacan by Cabeza de Vaca. This narrative of Fray Marcos is taken, in the main, from George Parker Winship's introduction to his translation of Castaneda's narrative, published in the fourteenth annual report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology. This friar was born in Nice, then a part of Savoy, and he came to America about the year 1531.

His contemporaries called him a Frenchman, though there is no evidence that he was of French parentage. He was sent as one of the religious to accompany Pizarro on his expedition to Peru, and was present at the trial and execution of the native king, Atahualpa. From Peru, he returned to Central America, and thence he returned on foot to Mexico. He was a man of known bravery and character, and already was appointed to the office of vice-commissary of his order. Thus Mendoza felt no hesitation at charging him with the arduous mission of penetrating to the heart of what are now Arizona and New Mexico, as far as the reported seven cities of Cibola, and bringing back to his superiors a truthful account of what he saw. The father provincial of the order, Fray Antonio de Ciudad Rodrigo, on August 26, 1539, certified to the high esteem in which Fray Marcos was held, and stated that he was skilled in cosmography, and in the arts of the sea, as well as in theology.

Mendoza Instructs Fray Marcos. Mendoza drew up for him a set of instructions as to how he should proceed. These were very explicit as to the good treatment the Indians were to receive at his hands, and required him to make certain scientific observations with due care and thoroughness.

He was to leave letters at stated intervals, and also send back to the viceroy reports of his progress, wherever possible. Coronado escorted him as far as the new town of Culiacan, and on March 7, 1539, accompanied by a lay brother, Onorato, he started on his trip.

Courage of Spaniards. When it is remembered that this journey of several hundreds of miles was on foot,--for the rule of the Franciscans was that all their members should travel afoot save in cases of extreme necessity,-- through a barren, almost waterless desert, roamed over, by warlike Indians, the courage of the man is apparent. Yet he was not remarkable in this. The history of Mexico and of all the Spanish colonies, as well as those of New Mexico (which used to include Arizona), Texas, and California, abounds in the names of men of equal courage and daring. On reaching Petatlan, Brother Onorato fell sick, and Marcos had to leave him behind; thence alone, as far as white men were concerned, he traveled to Cibola. Six Indian interpreters and a large number of natives accompanied and followed him, and Stephen, the negro, went ahead as his guide.

Investigates Regarding Pearl Islands. He reached Vacapa (now known as Matapa), in Central Sonora, two days before Pa.s.sion Sunday, which in 1539 fell on March 23. From this point he sent to the seacoast for some Indians, in order that he might learn from them something about the pearl islands, of which rumors had come to Cabeza de Vara. He remained here until April 6.

Stephen, the Guide, Is Sent Ahead. In the meantime, Stephen had pushed on to the north, leaving on Pa.s.sion Sunday, with orders from Fray Marcos not to go further than fifty or sixty leagues ahead. If he found any signs of a rich and populous country before he had gone that distance, he was not to proceed further, but was to return for Marcos, or remain, and send messengers for him, bearing a white cross the size of the palm of his hand.

If the news was very promising, the cross was to be twice the size, and if the country about which he heard promised to be larger and better than New Spain (as Mexico was then generally known), a cross still larger than this was to be sent back. Castaneda says that Stephen was sent on ahead because he and Marcos did not agree well, the negro not only showing covetousness and the determination to acquire the turquoises of the natives, but also an amorousness that demanded of them their youngest and prettiest women.

Messengers Bring Good News to Marcos. Four days after his departure, messengers sent by Stephen reached Fray Marcos with a very large cross as tall as a man. This, according to the signs established between them, meant wonderful news. One of the messengers told what it was. He it was, indeed, who had given the news to the negro, and he, in turn, had sent the native on to Fray Marcos. This is what Marcos records of the Indian's story: