Coronado and La G,·an Qttivira, 1537-1544
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They were now in Quivira at last. Instead of the stone houses and the gold and wealth Coronado had been led to expect, he found nothing but unattractive straw and buffalo hide huts. Let him describe the land and the people of Quivira in his own words. "The people are as uncivil- ized as all those I have seen and passed on the way to this place. They have neither cloth nor cotton to weave it out of. They only have the hides from the buffalo they kill, ,vhich they tan. Their settlements are along a good sized river. They eat the meat raw like the Querechos and the Teyas and are enemies of each other, although they are all of the same sort. Those of Quivira surpass the others in the [kind] of houses they have and in that they plant corn." He explained that the province received him peacefully but that he found only twenty-five pueblos, all of straw huts, in spite of the fact that he had been led to believe that in two months he could not hope to see it all. Describing the natives of this region he says : "The people are large of stature. Some Indians whom I had measured were ten spans high. The women are well pro- portioned and their features are more like those of Moorish [women] than Indians." Of metals he found only a piece of copper, which one of the chiefs wore proudly around the neck. This he sent to the viceroy. Each pueblo spoke a different tongue or dialect. The land, he declared, was the best suited to cultivate all the products of Spain he had ever seen. It was both rich and black and well watered by numerous small streams. Jaramillo agrees with Coronado, but again remarks the country is level with no hills or mountains, watered by beautiful rivulets.6! To argue or maintain that Coronado reached Nebraska, Missouri, or Kansas in the face of the consistent and careful description of the country over which he traveled, is to ignore the facts of the original accounts. He could. not have traveled much beyond present Hemphill County without encountering rivers and mountains that could not have escaped his notice, and which the various members of the expedition would ha\'e undoubtedly mentioned in their different accounts. An impartial exami- nation of the facts will force us to admit that the Kingdom of Quivira was on the banks of Wolf Creek, the Canadian River and its tribu- taries, where Coronado counted as many as twenty-five settlements during his visit. 63 For four or five days Coronado and his men continued along the 62 Coronado to the King, October 20, 1 54 I, in op. cit., III, 366-367; Jaramillo, Ibid., XIV, 314-315. 63 Donoghue, "Coronado, Oiiate, and Quivira," MS. copy in possession of the writer.
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