Of the Little Colorado Garces said: “The bed of this river as far as the confluence is a trough of solid rock, very profound, and wide about a stone’s throw.” That this was an accurate statement the view on page 95 amply proves. Indeed, the accuracy of most of these early Spaniards, as to topography, direction, etc., is extraordinary. As a rule where they are apparently wrong it is ourselves who are mistaken, and if we fully understand their meaning we find them to be correct. Garces found his way down to the Little Colorado by means of a side canyon and got out again on the other side in the same way. Finally, on July 2nd, he arrived at the pueblo of Oraibi, his objective point, and when he and his tired mule had climbed up on the mesa which bears the town, the women and children lined the housetops to get a glimpse of the singular stranger.
Spaniards were something of a novelty, though by no means unheard of, just as even I was something of a novelty when I visited Oraibi one hundred years after the Padre Garces, because the Oraibis never encouraged white visitors.[[8]] The first missions were established among the Moki in 1629, when Benavides was custodian of the Rio Grande district, and included Zuñi and Moki in his field. Three padres were then installed at Awatuwi, one of the towns, on the mesa east of what is now called the “East” Mesa. Four were at work amongst the various towns at the time of the Pueblo uprising in 1680, and as one began his labours at Oraibi as early as 1650, a priest was not an unknown object to the older people. All the missionaries having been killed in 1680, and Awatuwi, where a fresh installation was made, having been annihilated in 1700 by the Moki, for three-quarters of a century they had seen few if any Spaniards. Therefore the women and children were full of curiosity. Padre Escalante had been here from Zuñi the year before, looking over the situation with a view to bringing all the Moki once more within the fold. At that time Escalante also tried to go on to what he called the Rio de los Cosninos, the Colorado, but he was unable to accomplish his purpose. Had he once had a view of the Grand Canyon it would undoubtedly have saved him a good many miles of weary travel in his northern entrada of this same year that Garces reached Oraibi.
[8] A year or two after my visit, James Stevenson, of the Bureau of Ethnology, was driven away from Oraibi. Thomas Keam and he then went there with a force of Navajos and compelled the surrender of the chiefs who had been most obnoxious. They took them to Ream’s Canyon and confined them on bread and water till they apologised.
The Canyon of the Little Colorado.
Photograph by C. BARTHELMESS.
Garces was not permitted to enter the house where his Yabipai guide intended to stop, and he therefore made his way to a corner formed by a jutting wall, and there unsaddled his faithful mule, which the Yabipai took to a sheep corral. The padre remained in his corner, gathering a few scattered corn-stalks from the street, with which he made a fire and cooked a little atole. All day long the people came in succession to stare at him. I can testify to the sullen unfriendliness of the Oraibi, and I have seen few places I have left with greater pleasure than that I felt when, in 1885, I rode away from this town. Garces was not able to make a favourable impression, and after, considering the feasibility of going on to Zuñi, and deciding against it, he thought he would visit the other towns with a hope of being better received, but a few yells from some herders sent him back to his Yabipai guide and several friendly Zuñis at Oraibi, where he occupied his corner again. In the morning he perceived a multitude approaching, some bedecked with paint and feathers, and when four of these came forward and ordered him to leave he held up his crucifix and assured them of his desire to do good to them. They made wry faces and cried “No, no,” so that he called for his mule and departed, smiling upon them as he went. He returned by the same route. It was the 4th of July when Garces was expelled by the Oraibis, a declaration of independence on their part which they have maintained down to the present day. That other Declaration of Independence was made on this same day on the far Atlantic coast. The Colonies were engaged in their battle for freedom, but no sound of that strife then reached New Mexico, yet its portent was great for that region where, three-quarters of a century later, the flag of the Great Republic should float triumphant over all, Garces reached the Colorado once more on July 25th, his arduous journey absolutely fruitless so far as missionary work was concerned. He arrived at his mission of Bac September 17, 1776.
A Court in Wolpi, Arizona.
Drawing by F.S. DELLENBAUGH.