[36]Strictly speaking Laguna is the mother pueblo in a family of seven, the other half dozen being summer or farming villages scattered about within a radius of a few miles, so established to be near certain fertile lands. Some of these, as Pojuate, are picturesque enough to warrant a visit, if there is time. The population of all 7 is estimated at about 1500.
[37]For a lively account of this authentic bit of history, the reader is referred to the chapter “A Saint in Court” in Mr. C. F. Lummis’s “Some Strange Corners of our Country.”
[38]Gallup is also a principal shipping point for Navajo blankets. Travelers interested in this aboriginal handiwork will here find large stocks to select from at the traders’ stores.
[39]In the southwestern corner of Colorado. Here are hundreds of prehistoric dwellings built in the cañon walls representing probably the finest and best preserved architecture of the unknown vanished races that once peopled our Southwest. Government archaeologists, who have a particularly warm regard for the Mesa Verde, have been making careful excavations and restorations here for years, and have mapped out a program that will consume many more. The so-called Sun Temple, excavated in 1915, apparently a communal edifice for the performance of religious dramas, is the only one of its kind so far brought to light in the United States. (See “Sun Temple of Mesa Verde National Park,” by J. W. Fewkes. 1916, Gov’t Printing office.) A public camp for tourists is maintained near the ruins during the summer months, the high elevation (8500 feet) rendering snow likely at other seasons. The nearest railway station is Mancos, Col., on the D. & R. G., whence an auto-stage runs to the Park camp.
[40]The most famous is the Shálako which occurs annually about December 1, largely a night ceremony of great impressiveness. The central figures are giant effigies representing divinities, whose motive power is a Zuñi man hidden within each. They enter from the plain at dusk, and to the plain return the next morning, after a night of dancing and feasting by the people.
[41]For some of the adventures of this famous couple, see F. H. Cushing’s, “Zuñi Folk Tales.”
[42]Reports of the Secretary of War, Senate Ex. Doc. 64, First Session 31st Congress, 1850. A more illuminating account of the Rock is given by Mr. Chas. F. Lummis in “Some Strange Corners of Our Country.” An able supplement to this is a paper by H. L. Broomall and H. E. Hoopes in Proceedings of Delaware County Institute of Science, Vol. I, No. 1, Media, Pa.
[43]There were poets among the Conquistadores. A printed source relied upon by historians for authentic particulars of Oñate’s tour of conquest is a rhymed chronicle by one of his lieutenants, Don Gaspar de Villagrán. I believe New Mexico is the only one of our States that can seriously quote an epic poem in confirmation of its history. This New Mexican Homer, as H. H. Bancroft calls him, printed his book in 1610 at Alcalá. A reprint, published in Mexico a few years ago, may be consulted in public libraries. The original is one of the rarest of Americana.
[44]The Spaniards, whose avenging expedition Lujan’s cutting upon El Morro records, never found Letrado’s body, the Zuñis having made way with it. Earnestly desiring some relic of the martyred friar, the soldiers were rewarded by seeing in the air a cord which descended into their hands, and this was divided among them. So says Vetancurt, old chronicler of Franciscan martyrdom in New Mexico.
[45]Pronounced not as though it rhymed with jelly, but chay (or less correctly shay) rhyming with hay. The word is a Spanish way of recording the cañon’s Navajo name Tse-yi, meaning “among the cliffs.”