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128 Indians. About the middle of the sixteenth century a statement was introduced into the publications concerning these traditions, that the Nahuatl tribes of Mexico believed that they had originated out of seven caves. The Codex Mendocino had nothing about this, and it was not composed much before 1549. Later writers made seven tribes out of the seven caves, and finally seven towns or cities. We have already seen that Nuño de Guzman had heard or knew of the story of the seven cities about 1530; and the supposition therefore seems not unauthorized that the seven caves of the Mexican tradition, as they were conceived and represented after the discovery of New Mexico, were an interpolation of the European legend into the Indian recollections of their history.

In 1531 the bishop of San Domingo assumed control of the government in Mexico as president of the Royal Law Court. No further advance of importance was made in the discoveries in the northwest, and the settlement of San Miguel de Culiacan in Sinaloa was held as the extreme post in that direction whence occasional excursions to the north were attempted. In the meantime Nuño de Guzman was removed from the scene and called to answer for his misdemeanors before the Spanish courts. Melchior Diaz commanded in Culiacan as capitan and alcalde mayor, and Diego de Alácraz was at the head of an advanced post which was pushed out between Culiacan and the borders of the present Sonora. Some of the men of this reconnoitring party, when about eighty miles north of Culiacan, met in the last days of March, 1536, a strange spectacle. A man, nearly