Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/269

Rh been reduced to crumbling walls. No running water is to be found anywhere near, but f our large artificial pools afford enough water for drinking purposes. This is the ruin which the old Jumano Indian of Socorro in the last century described as the former mission of Quivira, and which consequently now bears the name of "la gran Quivira."

The old man was right. In the year 1630 Fray Francesco Letrado undertook the conversion of the Jumanos after an earlier effort had failed. But instead of going directly among the Indians, he established himself in a pueblo of the Piros, and had them build a church for the use both of the people there and of the inhabitants of the surrounding country. This pueblo was called the "Tey-paná" in the Piro language, and was the present Gran Quivira, while the ruins of the little church are those of the smaller temple. The place was the most eastern mission in New Mexico, and was called la mision de los Jumanos. At the same time with the Jumanos, the Quiviras were visited by the priests; and a number of members were gradually associated from all these tribes with the people of the village, and thus the building of a' new church became necessary. This was the newer, larger ruin, and the structure was never quite completed. The Apaches pressed so closely upon the remote and isolated village that the mission to the Jumanos was abandoned in 1679. A few surviving members of the Piros who once dwelt there still live in Jemez, but the Jumanos and Quiviras have died away.

The history of the mission, too, was lost in the eighteenth century, although it could be clearly