He turned his horse and departed from me, as other friends had done before.
[1] Reprinted from The Coming Empire or Two Thousand Miles in Texas on Horseback, by H. F. McDanield and N. A. Taylor, A. S. Barnes and Company, New York, 1877, pp. 49–73. [↑]
THE LEGEND OF CHEETWAH
By Edith C. Lane
[To me, this legend sounds like some naive excuse invented by the Spanish to account for their great overthrow by the Indians of the Southwest in 1680. Just as likely it is an Indian boast of that overthrow. An observation recorded by the observant Josiah Gregg in 1844 seems to me luminous [[131]]here. Gregg says that, according to tradition, numerous and productive mines were “in operation in New Mexico before the expulsion of the Spaniards in 1680; but that the Indians, seeing that the cupidity of the conquerors had been the cause of their former cruel oppressions, determined to conceal all the mines by filling them up, and obliterating as much as possible every trace of them. This was done so effectually, as is told, that after the second conquest (the Spaniards in the meantime not having turned their attention to mining pursuits for a series of years) succeeding generations were never able to discover them again. Indeed it is now generally credited by the Spanish population, that the Pueblo Indians, up to the present day, are acquainted with the locales of a great number of these wonderful mines, of which they most sedulously preserve the secret. Rumor further asserts that the old men and sages of the Pueblos periodically lecture the youths on this subject, warning them against discovering the mines to the Spaniards, lest the cruelties of the original conquest be renewed towards them, and they be forced to toil and suffer in those mines as in days of yore.”—Gregg, Josiah, Commerce of the Prairies, Philadelphia, 1855, Vol. I, pp. 162–163.—Editor.]
Upon a northwestern peak of Mount Franklin, near El Paso, there stands out against the brilliant blue of a western sky the distinct outline of an Indian’s head. It is plainly visible at almost any hour of the day and is an object of wonder and speculation to the majority of beholders.
According to the legend told me many years ago by an old, old Indian, Cheetwah was the chief of an ancient tribe in New Mexico. He was accustomed to go into old Mexico every few years, and often at the point in the mountains where the Indian head now shows, he with his followers encountered hostile wanderers, whereupon followed battles short but fierce.
Finally, after about two centuries of goings and encounters, Cheetwah came upon a band of another and a strange race, the Spaniards. With much pomposity, they commanded him and his people to surrender to them all their gold and silver and then to be gone. The order so incensed Cheetwah that, climbing to the top of the peak, he sent forth a great call to all the Indians in the spirit world to rally to his assistance and rout the haughty Spaniards forever from their usurped power in Mexico.