dians who were probab
ly spe Click here to Email Jason
aking
the Keres l
anguage like the folks at Cochiti, Santo Domingo,
San Felipe, Santa Ana and Sia. These people have
told some interesting tales, legends mostly, about how all
their present villages came to be: about their wanderings,
about their Gods and about their troubles with Indians who
spoke different languages.
Why was it that Espejos chroniclers did not leave us
more information about the town of Los Confiados and its
people? Was it not important? They told us about Zuni and
its Seven Cities, about the Tiguex villages and Cochiti. Coronados
little group, some forty years before, had visited the
Province of Hemes, now Jemez, whose people spoke yet another
language, the Towa. And history tells us that Espejo
made a two-day visit to the town of Los Confiados in 1583.
This ended his contact with the Indians at Cochiti and other
Keres-speaking villages. Could it be that Espejos soldiers
looked back up into those forbidden and forested hills
against a high range of snow-covered mountains northwest
of Cochiti and decided that they had seen enough of the
Indian? Or were they told that they would have to leave
their horses behind and go afoot if they wanted to visit the
villages on streams running into the Rio Grande? The
thought of wearing heavy, armor might not have been too
fascinating. And if these people were from villages in the
mounta