Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/210

196 up clear red out of the snow-field, could be seen the niche in which Oa-quima was concealed. There lived the Spaniards, going about in rusty helmets, battered cuirasses, ragged doublets, and worn-out boots, but with good weapons, amongst the Indians, who wrapped themselves in thick coverings made of rabbit-skins. There were heard the neighing of horses, the bleating of sheep, and every morning the sound of the mass bells and the songs of the church, together with the call of the crier, announcing his day's duties to every one in the village. While in the other pueblos the monotony of life was interrupted only by the dances, Oa-quima was turned into a miniature Babel, for there could be heard there at the same time Spanish, Latin, the Zuñi language, the Mexican Nahuatl, and the sonorous Pima and Yaqui. Conversation could not be very lively, and mistakes were frequent but innocent. In consequence of this, and of the cold, everything went on quietly.

The information which the Spaniards obtained concerning the regions still unknown to them was necessarily not very definite, and the names of places were unavoidably incorrectly understood by them, and erroneously recorded. An example is afforded by the word "Marata," than which no other occurs more frequently in the chronicles of Coronado's campaigns. Fray Marcos says of it only, that southeast of Zuñi was a group of pueblos called Marata, which had been brought to the verge of ruin by constant wars with the Zuni. Mr. Gushing has learned that "Matyà-ta" in the Zuñi language means the south, or rather a region in the south, in the vicinity of the salt lake or "Carrizo." Large, well-preserved ruins