Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/214

200 While the reconnoitring operations toward the west were thus discontinued, the eyes of the Spaniards were turned from Zuñi more earnestly toward the east. Coronado had given the people of the Zuñi tribe to understand that they must spread the news of his coming and of his intention to stay in the country as widely as possible. The command was unnecessary, for reports of that kind spread very rapidly among the Indians without any postal system. A certain kind of peaceful intercourse is constantly going on, even between hostile tribes, and news passes from one tribe to another through numerous channels, though distorted in many ways, to great distances. I cite the accounts of Cibola, which were carried to the middle of Sonora. Thus there existed, and still exists, a close bond among the Village Indians, or Pueblos, especially, which connects the far distant Pecos and Moqui with the Opatas, and the most northern Taos with the most southern Piros. Their scattered position among nomadic tribes made them sensible of the need of a connection, and the equal condition of their civilization confirmed the feeling. Neighboring Pueblos often made war upon one another, and would still do so were it not for the whites, but visits were made between the more remote ones for trade and for purposes connected with religion. There are fetishes and incantations which, when they have been discontinued in one pueblo, can only be recovered from some other one, often far distant.

In these and similar ways had the story of the coming of the Spaniards reached Moqui, and their horses had been represented there as man-eating creatures.