Coronado and La Gran Quivira, r537-r544
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explorations in America, enabling modern students to follow them over mountains, across valleys, through forests and jungles, and across desolate deserts remain unchanged, these physical aspects, so carefully noted, are our only safe guides in following Coronado to Quivira, which was neither mythical nor imaginary. Keep in mind also that there were a thousand horses, five hundred European cows, five thousand rams and ewes, fifteen hundred friendly Indians, and some hundred and fifty Spaniards in the expedition in its early stages. Add to this that it was in the full heat of summer-May, June, July, and August-that they wandered over the plains. After a brief reflection on these facts, it will be evident that the expedition could have made but slow progress at the best. Regardless of the distances given by the accounts and the directions, Bancroft wisely pointed out years ago, more wisely than many have been willing to admit, that "it is to the east and southeast of Santa Fe, to the Indian Territory and Texas of modern maps, that we must look for the scene of Spanish exploration in this century, and there is no need of placing Quivira in the far northeast or beyond the Missouri as many writers are fond of doing." 46 More dogmatically, Pichardo affirms that "Quivira, which Francisco Coronado visited, is on the plains of Cibola, and is actually the province of Texas." 47 But let us not anticipate events. Let us return to the expedition and follow its slow and toilsome journey closely day by day. After the expedition crossed the Pecos, it seems to have turned more to the east. Seventeen days later, according to Coronado, and ten according to Castaneda, they came upon a ranclieria of Indians which they called Querechos, who were camped e;,n the plains and lived in lodges made of tanned buffalo hides. When the Spaniards met them they ran out to gaze upon the strangers without fear. "They go about with the buffalo," declares Coronado, "and eat the meat raw and drink the blood of the cows they kill. They tan the skins with which all these people clothe themselves." Some have said these were Apaches of the plains, or Tonkawas, although others believe they were Comanches. Coronado ques- tioned them about Quivira and the country ahead and they confirmed, in a general way, the news given by El Turco. Through signs, in which they were able ·to converse intelligently without the need of an interpreter, they said there was a very large river "over towards where
46 Bancroft, History of New Mexico and Arizo11a, 62. 47 Hackett, Pichardo's Treatise. II, ix.
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