Itinerery

Coronado left the Valley of Hearts on or around May 31 (arrived on May 26, rested 4 days) and travelled the 80 leagues to Chichilticalli in 20 days, that means he averaged about 13.8 miles per day on this stretch. They rested for 2 days at Chichilticalli and began to cross the great despoblado on June 23, they crossed the Rio San Juan on Saint John’s Day June 24 and arrived at Cibola on July 7. On this last leg they made better time even though the terrain was rougher, 15.8 miles per day.

• Arrive Valley of Hearts: May 26
• rested 4 days
• Depart Valley of Hearts: May 31
• Arrive Chichilticalli: June 20
• rested 2 days
• Depart Chichilticalli: June 23
• Crossed San Juan: San Juan Day (June 24)
• Arrive Cibola: July 7

• Culiacan to Chichilticalli – 220 leagues
• Chichilticalli to Cibola – 70 leagues
• Culiacan to Cibola – 350 leagues
• Culiacan to Hearts – 150 leagues
• Corozones to Cibola –  150 leagues
• Chichilticalli to Hearts – 80 leagues
• Chichilticalli to Cibola – 70 leagues
• Chichilticalli to Culiacon – 230 leagues

Juan Jaramillo

The trip between the Valley of Hearts and Chichilticalli doesn’t get much description except by Jaramillo who wrote twenty years later and can be proved to be wrong in several points, which brings into question everything else. Yet he did travel with Coronado’s advance party. Let’s first get an overview of his route.

About two days were spent in this village of the Hearts. (He is wrong here, Coronado, who wrote his just days afterword tells us they spent 4 days in the Hearts)… We went on from here, passing through a sort of gateway, to another valley very near this stream, which opens off from this same stream, which is called Señora… There are mountains on both sides of them, which are not very fertile. From here we went along near this said stream, crossing it where it makes a bend, to another Indian settlement called Ispa… From here we went through deserted country for about four days to another river, which we heard called Nexpa, where some poor Indians came out to see the general, with presents of little value, with some stalks of roasted maguey and pitahayas. We went down this stream two days, and then left the stream, going toward the right to the foot of the mountain chain in two days’ journey, where we heard news of what is called Chichiltic Calli. Crossing the mountains, we came to a deep and reedy river, where we found water and forage for the horses. From this river back at Nexpa, as I have said, it seems to me that the direction was nearly northeast. From here, I believe that we went in the same direction for three days to a river which we called Saint John (San Juan), because we reached it on his day.

Jaramillo, writing 20 years after the expedition, is probably correct in the general features of the land and their order, but he is wrong in the number of days in two places just within this short passage and his directions of travel are easily shown to be wrong in later parts of the trip where travel was between known points on today’s map. So however descriptive this may seem we need to take his days and directions of travel with a few grains of salt.

In the previous post I established that they were following a trail that, at this point, was well established, it had already been traveled by Cabeza de Vaca, Marcos de Niza and Melchor Diaz. This trail led to the headwaters of the Yaqui River, topping out somewhere south of the San Bernadino Ranch. It’s interesting to note that Jaramillo mentions only one river being followed between Hearts and Ispa, but Casteneda mentions another Suya, which I believe corresponds to the highly populated region mentioned by Diaz, it is this Suya Valley that I believe to be a tributary of the Upper Yaqui, probably the Bavispe. According to Jaramillo’s account, Ispa is the last village along this valley before making the four day crossing to the Nexpa, they arrived at Ispa by crossing the river “where it makes a bend”. There is no doubt that the village of Ispa is at or near the headwaters of whatever stream they were following, what a coincidence then that the Bavise River makes a huge bend at it’s most northern extent so that anybody following this stream north along its eastern bank would have to cross at the bend to continue north. This would put it somewhere in the general vicinity of Fronteras Sonora. If they had followed the Sonora River, as is often assumed, they would have followed it until it petered out or ceased being a stream (especially in June when they followed it), but Jaramillo does not record following it to its terminus but instead crossing it where it makes a bend, obviously it was still a stream at this point but was no longer traveling in the direction they were going. Only the tributaries of the Yaqui would provide this scenario, the Rio Bavispe, the Rio Fronteras and the Rio Cajon Bonito all turn back on themselves in this region.

From Ispa they traveled four days in a nameless direction over unidentifiable country, although we can assume that the general direction would remain towards that of Cibola. In figuring out where they went from here we need to look for the north flowing stream they followed after these four days. From the most northern extent of the Yaqui drainage near Fronteras Sonora there are three valleys they could have walked to in four days travel, the Sulphur Springs Valley, the San Simon Valley or the Animas Valley. The Sulphur Springs Valley does not have a north flowing stream, or at least not one that would contain any water in June. The San Simon Valley has a good stream and the Animas does in places, so either of these are possible. I favor the San Simon because it has a more reliable stream, was used historically as a north-south corridor and is a more direct route between the Bavispe and the Gila. One thing to remember about cross country travel in these days is that the route does not always follow the most logical route as would plot it today. Travel was very direct and oriented towards water supplies, it was often more economical to go over a mountain then spend days going around and they needed a water supply every so often. So while a modern road might take off from Tombstone Arizona and head across Government Draw Pass towards Elfrida Arizona in a straight line, looking at historical records shows us that although Government Draw Pass is the most direct route between the San Pedro and Sulpher Springs Valleys, parties generally favored Middlemarch Pass or South Pass for their dependable water supplies. With this fact in mind, think of Coronado’s expedition traveling from the area of Fronteras Sonora to near Rodeo New Mexico where the San Simon River begins, they probably didn’t follow the flat valley bottom as the modern highway does, but the edge of the Chiricahuas or Peloncillo Mountains where there would be springs.

After following the Nexpa north for two days they would have reached the village where Marcos de Niza stayed before crossing the lesser despoblado, (De Niza tells us it is four days from this village to the next settlement which must be Chichilticalli), if the San Simon RIver is the Nexpa as I surmise then this village is likely in the area of San Simon Cienega which has a long history of habitation. From here they leave this stream to travel to the right for two days to the foot of the mountain chain. There isn’t much description of this next stretch either but we can surmise that it was fairly bleak for two reasons. There is a pattern to the land of Northern Sonora and Southern Arizona, traveling from south to north almost anyplace in this area you would follow south flowing streams until you could follow them no more, then you would cross the plains at the crest of this unnamed divide and reach a north flowing stream of the Gila watershed, continuing north to the Gila the land would lose elevation crossing a rather bleak desert in the days before reaching the Gila where the high mountains would begin and have to be crossed to reach Zuni. That pattern would be the same if you followed the Sonora crossing to the San Pedro River or followed the Bavispe crossing to the San Simon River or any other combination you could come up with. What I am saying is first, that Jaramillos general pattern rings true and could fit in many places, and second that these final days before reaching the Gila (San Juan) would be dry and grass would be scarce no matter where you put it. The other reason we know that grass and water were scarce on this stretch is that once crossing the mountains he mentions that they found grass and water for the horses, the only time he mentions such a thing, it was noteworthy because they had just made a long crossing without adequate grass and water. This was possibly the reason that the indians in the last village (San Simon Cienega) wanted Marcos de Niza to rest up before leaving from there, because there was a long, waterless stretch ahead.

Jaramillo next mentions Chichilticalli in such a passing way that it appears we are supposed to know what he is talking about “to the foot of the mountain chain in two days’ journey, where we heard news of what is called Chichiltic Calli”, the reason, I believe, is that he had given other details in the beginning of his account, where he wrote the following.

He went with the said horsemen to explore the route and prepare the way for those who were to follow. He pursued this direction, though with some twisting, until we crossed a mountain chain, where they knew about New Spain, more than 300 leagues distant. To this pass we gave the name of Chichilte Calli, because we learned that this was what it was called, from some Indians whom we left behind.

Here, at the beginning of his narrative he defines Chichilticalli as a mountain pass, so when he mentions later that they went to the foot of the mountains where they heard news of Chichilticalli or as the Flints translated it, “we went to the right to the foot of the mountains in two days of journey, where we had knowledge that it was called Chichiltiecally” which makes even more sense. He was not talking about a ruin here, he is talking about the mountains and more specifically the pass through those mountains. The other point to take away from this is that Coronado did not camp here, on this southwest side of the mountains as is sometimes assumed, where Jaramillo first mentions the name Chichilticalli, they camped on the other side of the mountains where, according to Jaramillo, “Crossing the mountains, we came to a deep and reedy river, where we found water and forage for the horses”. If Chichilticalli were the name of the whole mountain chain, then it would be accurate for Coronado to report that he “rested for two days at Chichilticale” if they stopped in a valley on the other (northeast side) of this mountain chain, at this deep and reedy river or according to the Flints “deep, high-banked arroyo” where there was the all important grass and water for the horses.

Here again I need to point out two more of Jaramillos mistakes. He tells us that it is two days from the Nexpa to the foot of the mountains, then tells us they crosses the mountains but doesn’t tell us how long it took in total, but definitely leads us to think it may be two days travel from Nexpa to Chichilticalli, while Marcos de Niza, writing without the burden of twenty years of forgetfulness, tells us that it is four days from Nexpa to Chichilticalli. Then Jaramillo tells us that from the deep and reedy river (Chichilticalli camp) they traveled three days to a river they called the San Juan because they crossed it on his day. Yet Coronado and Casteneda tell us that Chichilticalli is on the border of the great depoblado and that it is fifteen days across the despoblado to Cibola, we know that they reached Cibola on July 7 and entered the great despoblado on Saint John’s Eve, so they must have left Chichilticalli on June 23rd and traveled one day between there and the San Juan River.

So this brings us up to Chichilticalli in Jaramillo’s narrative, but what do the other chroniclers say of this part of the journey?

Francisco Vázquez de Coronado

Coronado covers this journey with much less detail and much less error. He writes.

I set out from the Hearts and kept near the seacoast as well as I could judge, but in fact I found myself continually farther off, so that when I reached Chichilticale I found that I was fifteen days’ journey distant from the sea, although the father provincial had said that it was only 5 leagues distant and that he had seen it. We all became very distrustful, and felt great anxiety and dismay to see that everything was the reverse of what he had told Your Lordship. The Indians of Chichilticale say that when they go to the sea for fish, or for anything else that they need, they go across the country, and that it takes them ten days; and this information which I have received from the Indians appears to me to be true. The sea turns toward the west directly opposite the Hearts for 10 or 12 leagues, where I learned that the ships of Your Lordship had been seen, which had gone in search of the port of Chichilticale, which the father said was on the thirty-fifth degree… I rested for two days at Chichilticale, and there was good reason for staying longer, because we found that the horses were becoming so tired; but there was no chance to rest longer, because the food was giving out. I entered the borders of the wilderness region on Saint John’s eve, and, for a change from our past labors, we found no grass during the first days, but a worse way through mountains and more dangerous passages than we had experienced previously. The horses were so tired that they were not equal to it, so that in this last desert we lost more horses than before; and some Indian allies and a Spaniard called Spinosa, besides two negroes, died from eating some herbs because the food had given out.

The first statement is only partially true, he did intend to stay near the seacoast, they had thought that the coast was much closer to their route, but he followed the same route as that laid out beforehand by Estiban, Marcos de Niza and Diaz, so he was not actively trying to stay near the seacoast as he implies here.

However lacking this is in any details that would allow someone to follow his route, there are a few important details to note. The first is that he rested here for two days because the horses were becoming tired out, this associates the Chichilticalli campsite with the deep and reedy river on the other side of Chichilticalli Pass that Jaramillo tells us had grass and water for the horses. The second is that the great despoblado appears from this account to begin immediately following Chichilticalli, which they entered on Saint John’s Eve or June 23rd. The third piece of information here is that the despoblado is rugged, mountainous country for he says “we found no grass during the first days, but a worse way through mountains and more dangerous passages than we had experienced previously”. Finally there are indians living at or near Chichilticalli, as he mentions the “indians of Chichilticalli”.

Pedro Casteneda

Casteneda does not cross with Coronado’s advanced company as does Jaramillo, but travels with the main army several months later. However he does compile a lot of information into his account about the advanced party. He says.

The general and his force crossed the country without trouble, as they found everything peaceful, because the Indians knew Friar Marcos and some of the others who had been with Melchior Diaz when he went with Juan de Saldivar to investigate. After the general had crossed the inhabited region and came to Chichilticalli, where the wilderness begins, and saw nothing favorable, he could not help feeling somewhat downhearted, for, although the reports were very fine about what there was ahead, there was nobody who had seen it except the Indians who went with the negro, and these had already been caught in some lies. Besides all this, he was much affected by seeing that the fame of Chichilticalli was summed up in one tumble-down house without any roof, although it appeared to have been a strong place at some former time when it was inhabited, and it was very plain that it had been built by a civilized and warlike race of strangers who had come from a distance. This building was made of red earth. From here they went on through the wilderness, and in fifteen days came to a river about eight leagues from Cibola, which they called Red River, because its waters were muddy and reddish. In this river they found mullets like those of Spain. The first Indians from that country were seen here — two of them, who ran away to give the news.

This verifies my earlier assertion that they followed the same route established by others as “the Indians knew Friar Marcos and some of the others who had been with Melchior Diaz”. This also establishes that the wilderness (great despoblado) is immediately adjacent to Chichilticalli when he reports “Chichilticalli, where the wilderness begins”.

This is the first report we have of a ruin being located at Chichilticalli, Jaramillo associates that name with pass and mountain range while Coronado uses it without any explanation, Casteneda now tells us that a ruin is located here. We can also surmise that this soldier, who know something about fortifications, is right when he tells us that “it appeared to have been a strong place at some former time”, Chichilticalli ruin is no doubt located in a strategic location and not on flat land such as that seen at Kuykendall Ruin, 76 Ranch and some other suspected Chichilticali locations.

Next Casteneda tells of how the army, the group he traveled with, made the trip.

To relate how the army that was on its way to Cibola got on… they continued their march until they reached Chichilticalli. The men in the advance guard saw a flock of sheep one day after leaving this place. I myself saw and followed them. They had extremely large bodies and longwool; their horns were very thick and large, and when they run they throw back their heads and put their horns on the ridge of their back. They are used to the rough country, so that we could not catch them and had to leave them. Three days after we entered the wilderness we found a horn on the bank of a river that flows in the bottom of a very steep, deep gully, which the general had noticed and left there for his army to see, for it was six feet long and as thick at the base as a man’s thigh.

Very little information here except that the country around Chichilticalli is quite rugged and one day out from there they saw a herd of Bighorn Sheep which are usually only seen in very rough, mountainous country. The horn they saw is an interesting side note, it is believed by many to be the tusk of a long extinct mammoth, which also gives us another glimpse of the country they were traveling through because it was “on the bank of a river that flows in the bottom of a very steep, deep gully”.

Later in Casteneda’s report he goes into more detail about the Chichilticalli area, he writes.

Between Suya and Chichilticalli there are many sheep & mountain goats with very large bodies and horns. Some Spaniards declare that they have seen flocks of more than a hundred together, which ran so fast that they disappeared very quickly. At Chichilticalli the country changes its character again and the spiky vegetation ceases. The reason is that the gulf reaches as far up as this place, and the mountain chain changes its direction at the same time that the coast does. Here they had to cross and pass through the mountains in order to get into the level country. Chichilticalli is so called because the friars found a house at this place which was formerly inhabited by people who separated from Cibola. It was made of colored or reddish earth. The house was large and appeared to have been a fortress. It must have been destroyed by the people of the district, who are the most barbarous people that have yet been seen. They live in separate cabins and not in settlements. They live by hunting. The rest of the country is all wilderness, covered with pine forests. There are great quantities of the pine nuts. The pines are two or three times as high as a man before they send out branches. There is a sort of oak with sweet acorns, of which they make cakes like sugar plums with dried coriander seeds. It is very sweet, like sugar. Watercress grows in many springs, and there are rosebushes, and penny-royal, and wild marjoram. There are barbels and picones, like those of Spain, in the river of this wilderness. Gray lions and leopards were seen. The country rises continually from the beginning of the wilderness until Cibola is reached, which is 85 leagues, going north. From Culiacan to the edge of the wilderness the route had kept the north on the left hand.

Assuming that the Valley of Suya is the Bavispe Valley, it would make sense that they would see mountain Sheep between there and Chichilticalli near the Gila, the goats in question are probably Pronghorn Antelope naturally occurred in the grasslands of these high deserts and often formed vast herds of hundreds of animals. When Casteneda says the country changes character at Chichilticalli he is talking not about the Chichilticalli Mountains that they had to cross to get there, but referring to the vast (30 leagues wide) mountainous region that we have shown makes up the first part of this wilderness. Beyond these mountains lies the high plains of the Colorado Plateau, thus at Chichilticalli, the spiky vegetation (cactus, mesquite, etc) ceases as they leave the low desert behind. Here he again makes reference to the defensive position of the Chichilticalli ruins, “the house… appeared to have been a fortress”. He then describes the indians of Chichilticalli and seems to give a fairly accurate depiction of the Apaches. he next seems to indicate that Chichilticalli is not just adjacent to the mountainous high country, but completely surrounded by high country, perhaps in a mountain valley by saying that “The rest of the country is all wilderness, covered with pine forests”. Then he describes the White Mountains pretty accurately, describing the pinyon pines, ponderosa pines, the oaks and other vegetation and even mountain lions. He also says that the country rises continually from the beginning of the wilderness until Cibola, this ties in with other descriptions of this area indicating that rough mountains are crossed from the beginning of this wilderness for 30 leagues, it also indicates that the San Juan River at the beginning of this wilderness is the Gila, because only from there could the country rise continually. Finally, his directions are bad, as are Jaramillo’s. No doubt after twenty years their memories of directions of travel had been obscured because there is no possible way they could keep the north on the left hand from Culiacan, if that were the case they would have traveled across the middle of the Sierra Madre and Cibola would be located in the middle of the plains.

Melchor Diaz

The account of Melchor Diaz tells us a little about Chichilticalli’s position too, he writes.

I have given Your Lordship an account of what happened to me along the way; and seeing that it is impossible to cross the uninhabited region which stretches from hero to Cibola, on account of the heavy snows and the cold, I will give Your Lordship an account of what I have learned about Cibola… which I have ascertained by asking many persons who have been there fifteen and twenty years; and I have secured this in many different ways, taking some Indians together and others separately, and on comparison they all seem to agree in what they say. After crossing this large wilderness, there are seven places… There is a great abundance of wild goats, of the color of bay horses; there are many of these here where I am, and although I have asked the Indians if those are like these, they tell me no… I have not been able to learn more than what I have related, although, as I have said, I have had with me Indians who have lived there fifteen and twenty years.

Casteneda told us that the place Diaz stopped to wait out the snow was Chichilticalli, he said “They started and went as far as Chichilticalli, which is where the wilderness begins, 220 leagues from Culiacan, & there they turned back, not finding anything important”. So Chichilticalli is as far as he could go before the snow stopped him, which once again establishes that it is located near the Gila, near the White Mountains.

Matias de la Mota-Padilla

One other account exists with information about Chichilticalli. Matias de la Mota-Padilla lived in Guadalajara in the 1700s and wrote an account of the Coronado expedition based on now lost manuscripts. He said concerning Chichilticalli.

They went through a narrow defile (portezuela) which was named Chi-ehiltic-calli (which means l red house/ “because there was a house there plastered on the outside with red earth, called almagre). There they found fir-trees with fir-cones full of good meat. On the top of a rock lay skulls of rams with large horns, and some said they had seen three or four of these sheep, which were very swift-footed

I find this particular, rarely quoted, piece of information intriguing especially when compared with the Flint’s translation of Jaramillo’s deep and reedy river as a “deep, high-banked arroyo”. Looking at these two accounts together gives me a whole new impression of what Chichilticalli is, it seems to be more than just a pass, it seems to be more than just a ruin, it seems to be a way through the mountains that passes through a narrow opening that leads to a grassy valley on the other side. In this pass exists a ruin in a defensive location, maybe it’s a cliff dwelling.

Rundown

Let’s rundown what we know about Chichilticalli from the above information.

• It is a pass through some mountains south of the Gila
• It is one to two days travel south of the Gila
• It is very close, possible surrounded on several sides, by high mountains with pine forests
• There is a pueblo ruin there, either in or very near the pass, made of red earth. Red soil has to be found in abundance very nearby.
• There is an expanse of low desert for probably two days of travel towards the southwest of these mountains

Not many places fit this description, certainly none of the current Chichilticalli candidates.

In my next post I will look at some of the possible locations for Chichilticalli.

To be continued…

Each pot is carefully crafted in the ancient tradition, no expense is spared to create a piece of artwork as timelessly beautiful as those that inspired it. Each pot produced requires hours of work collecting and processing raw materials, forming and smoothing the vessel, then decorating and finally firing.

Raw Materials

All of the materials in our pottery comes directly from the earth of Southern Arizona, clay and minerals are carefully selected and dug from various locations. Next the clay is soaked and purified while minerals are ground by hand on a metate and refined to a smooth powder to make authentic paint.

Forming

When the clay is the right consistency a small “pancake” is patted out and pushed into a “puki”, the form that will hold the bottom of the pot while the vessel is being formed. The sides of the vessel are formed by adding coils of clay and smoothing them together, then the walls are thinned and strengthened by either scraping or paddling depending on the pottery tradition being reproduced.

Decorating

A wide variety of minerals are used in decorating the pottery such as Hematite, Manganese, Chrisacola, Limonite, red, white, brown and buff clay slips, as well as mesquite sap and mesquite bean syrup. These are applied to the surface of the unfired pottery using soft cotton cloth and yucca leaf brushes. The clay slips are then polished using smooth river cobbles

Firing

When the pottery is finished and fully dried, it is stacked in a pit in the ground, then covered by broken pottery to protect it during the firing and fired using mesquite wood. This firing process results in pottery with a unique look and feel that can’t be achieved with kiln firing.

While the Hopi have legends of “The Red City”; Palatkwapi, that was abandoned, and pueblo ruins can be found all across Southeast Arizona, no one knows exactly why this area was abandoned. The fact is that in 1400 this area contained many thriving pueblos that were vibrant with trade and craft production, representing several different local cultures, but by the time Coronado arrived here in 1540 it was all gone. Something happened and the Palatkwapi Pueblos were abandoned, their inhabitants moved on, no doubt many went to the north to live with the Hopi and Zuni as the legends relate, possibly some went to the south or east, but wherever they went, their way of life changed when they left here and the pottery types they had made for hundreds of years ceased to be made.

In prehistoric times Southern Arizona was a crossroads of many different cultures, Andy Ward represents several of them to some extent through his pottery. The cultures represented in Palatkwapi Revival pottery are:

• Salado
• Hohokam
• Mogollon

Salado

Arriving in this area around 1300 from the north, the Salado lived in pueblo compounds, usually of adobe, and are famous for their fine polychrome potteries and weavings. Andy reproduces several varieties of Saladoan wares including Gila, Tonto and Tucson Polychromes.

Hohokam

Hohokam culture began to appear in this area around 100 AD and flourished here until around 1400 when it mysteriously disappeared. They were well known for their irrigation systems that were among the most elaborate in the world at that time. The pottery produced by the Hohokam was usually red on buff or red on brown and often including figures of lizards and birds. In the far Southern Arizona they made a unique type of pottery called Bobocomari Polychrome with red and black designs on white, mica flecked clay.

Mogollon

The Mogollon were some of the original inhabitants of this area and some of the first to produce pottery in the Southwest. The pottery they produced in Southeast Arizona was usually simple red on brown and some red on white, but their geometric designs are striking.

Palatkwapi revival pottery is true in every way to the legacy of these ancient cultures, it is among the most traditional of any southwest pottery being made today. All tools and materials used in the construction of the pottery are exactly like those used in prehistoric times.

Inspired by these ancient vessels and shards, Andy Ward set out to recreate this lost art form in the traditional way. While still in High School Andy began to experiment with native clays and minerals he found, forming pots by hand in the traditional coil and scrape method and firing out of doors with mesquite wood. By the time he was 21 Andy was winning awards for the pottery he was painstakingly making in the same fashion as the prehistoric pueblos. As time went by he continued to refine his art, studying the ancient shards, searching out and testing new clays and experimenting with different techniques, always staying true to the traditions of the ancients and whenever he got stuck, always returning to the shards for answers. “The materials are out there” Andy says indicating the broad expanse of desert near his home, “if there is some pottery type I can’t duplicate exactly right, I just look harder, at the shards for clues and around the desert for materials”. He has hiked literally hundreds of miles around Southeast Arizona in search of clues and materials to assist him in recreating prehistoric pottery types native to Southeast Arizona.

Palatkwapi revival pottery is built on the legacy of the prehistoric pueblo potters of Southern Arizona, no piece is an exact reproduction of a prehistoric piece but are inspired by them, the design elements come from the ancient potteries and the materials and technologies are exactly the same. All materials used are collected by hand from the local landscape, some clays are carried out miles from remote locations and many hours are spent in processing clay, grinding minerals and making paint before any pots are formed. The final product is a beautiful, one of a kind piece of art just like the ancient vessels seen in museums.

While everyone likes to point out that Coronado was following established trade routes, it is not mentioned often enough who chose the route. The route Coronado followed was the same as that traversed by Fray Marcos de Niza the year before, and to a large extent, the same as that followed by Cabeza de Vaca. So by studying the accounts of these two journeys we can get a better understanding of Coronado’s path.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca

I don’t even pretend to be a Cabeza de Vaca scholar, nor would I want to be, his journey is the only one I know of that is documented worse than Coronado’s. It seems like there are as many proposed routes for Cabeza de Vaca as there are scholars who have studied his journal. But it doesn’t make a lot of difference for our purposes which route he took, I am going to use logic, and not waypoints to make my point here. For the record, the proposed route for Cabeza de Vaca that I favor most is that set forth in the book We Came Naked and Barefoot, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested.

Whether Cabeza de Vaca travelled west through southern New Mexico or northern Chihuahua, makes little difference, he was searching for the people who had corn, he could not have failed to have noticed the Opata of the Bavispe River. His narrative says thus.

After two days were past we determined to go in search of maize, and not to follow the road to the cows, since the latter carried us to the north, which meant a very great circuit, as we held it always certain that by going towards sunset we should reach the goal of our wishes. So we went on our way and traversed the whole country to the South Sea, and our resolution was not shaken by the fear of great starvation, which the Indians said we should suffer (and indeed suffered.) during the first seventeen days of travel. All along the river, and in the course of these seventeen days we received plenty of cowhides, and did not eat of their famous fruit (cha- can), but our food consisted (for each day) of a handful of deer-tallow, which for that purpose we always sought to keep, and so endured these seventeen days, at the end of which we crossed the river and marched for seventeen days more.

At sunset, on a plain between very high mountains, we met people who, for one-third of the year, eat but powdered straw, and as we went by just at that time, had to eat it also, until, at the end of that journey we found some permanent houses, with plenty of harvested maize, of which and of its meal they gave us great quantities, also squashes and beans, and blankets of cotton, with all of which we loaded those who had conducted us thither, so that they went home the most contented people upon earth. We gave God our Lord many thanks for having taken us where there was plenty to eat.

After crossing from the Rio Grande in a westerly direction for 17 days, there is little doubt that this first permanent village with corn, squash, beans and cotton blankets were the Opata. It is very unlikely that they could have passed through southern Arizona to the headwaters of the Rio Sonora, just north of Opata country without learning of the Opata’s presence nearby and going to them. If then this village where Cabeza de Vaca found corn was an Opata village, then it follows that they travelled south along the Rio Bavispe on the next part of their journey, not overland to the Rio Sonora through largely uninhabited country, for he next says.

Among the houses there were several made of earth, and others of cane matting; and from here we travelled more than a hundred leagues, always meeting permanent houses and a great stock of maize and beans, and they gave us many deer (-hides?) and blankets of cotton better than those of New Spain. They also gave us plenty of beads made out of the coral found in the South Sea; many good turquoises, which they get from the north; they-finally gave us all they had; and Dorantes they presented with five emeralds, shaped as arrow-points, which arrows they use in their feasts and dances. As they appeared to be of very good quality, I asked whence they got them from, and they said it was from some very high mountains toward the north, where they traded for them with feather-bushes and parrot- plumes, and they said also that there were villages with many people and very big houses.

So after reaching the Opata, they traveled more than 100 leagues among similar people (Eudeve, Tehuima, Jova), which would no doubt bring them south along one of the tributaries of the upper Yaqui and out of our area of interest. One other item of interest in the above quotation is the mention of the villages with many people and very big houses in some very high mountains to the north, this is the first mention of Cibola and no doubt was the report that got the conquistadors excited as they believed there would be other rich empires to conquer in the new world like those of Mexico and Peru.

Marcos de Niza

Next Marcos de Niza was sent to verify the story. How would he find his way? He brought along Estiban, the black african who had accompanied Cabeza de Vaca across the continent. Estiban guided De Niza back along the same path they had followed up through the Opata villages they had come through three years earlier. From the most northerly Opata village Estiban was familiar with they no doubt had natives guide them along the route towards Zuni. De Niza’s account is actually no easier to follow than is Cabeza de Vaca’s or any of those from Coronado’s expedition, but we can gain some insights.

The Truth Will Set You Free

Much has been written about De Niza’s dishonesty in reporting the facts, from 1540 down to our time this man has been maligned, it is my opinion though that he is a guilty of no more than being overly enthusiastic and was the scapegoat for the conquistadors overinflated expectations. If you read his Relación, there are no outlandish claims there of cities constructed of gold, they are described of being made of mud and stone, it is reasonable to assume that De Niza may have exaggerated some things in his zeal, but there is no evidence of outright falsehoods. William K. Hartmann does an excellent job of pointing out how De Niza was held accountable for things he did not say in the article Pathfinder for Coronado – Reevaluating the Mysterious Journey of Marcos de Niza. I did want to say something about motive though. De Niza had no motive to lie about what he saw and did on his journey north, any lies in this area would be found out when the conquistadors arrived and for that reason alone it doesn’t make sense. Furthermore he was a priest who took his religion seriously, in those days, before our modern era of cynicism, people took religion quite seriously and often lived in fear of divine retribution. So let us examine the account of Marcos de Niza under the assumption that he was telling the truth.

Marcos’s Path

Marcos now follows Estiban back the way he had come down 3 years previous, he writes.

And so I traveled that day, the second day of Easter, and two other days, traveling the same jornadas as had Estevan, at the end of which I reached the people who had given him information of the seven cities and of the country farther away, the which told me that from there it was thirty jornadas to the city of Cíbola, which is the first of the seven, and I had the account not only from one, but from many…

It sounds like he travels into the land of a different people than he had been traveling through, these people are the ones Cabeza de Vaca had first learned of Cibola from in the first place, the people of the corn, the Opata. From here he learns it is thirty “jornadas” (days journey) to Cibola. It is stated in several places that it is 15 days from the edge of the great despablado (wilderness), also the approximate location of Chichilticalli, to Cibola, therefore he is roughly 15 days south of Chichilticalli at this point, probably somewhere in the upper Yaqui River drainage. He next write.

Next day I continued my journey… I reached another settlement where I was very well received by its people, who tried to touch my robe, and they informed me of the land which was my destination, as particularly as I had been told before, and they told me how people from that village had gone four or five jornadas with Estevan Dorantes. Here I came upon a large cross erected by Estevan to indicate that the news of the good country always increases, and he left word for me to hurry on and that he would await me at the end of the next despoblado. Here I erected two crosses and took possession, in compliance with instructions, because it appeared to me that this was a better land than that which I had passed, and so it was proper to perform there the acts of possession. And after this manner I continued for five days, always finding well populated settlements where I was received with great hospitality and receptions and where I found many turquoises and cowhides, and the same report of the country. They all spoke to me of Cíbola and that province as people who knew that I was going in search of it and they told me how Estevan had preceded me.

It seems as though he has now traveled no more than six days of the fifteen to Chichiliticalli, all through a populated region, as no doubt the Bavispe/Upper Yaqui River Valley would have been. He speaks of how good this land was, as he traveled north he was moving out of the low desert and into Upper Sonoran life zones which were more suited to agriculture in his eyes. Also notice here that Estiban, by way of messengers is promising to wait for him at Chichilticalli, that is, at the end of the next despablado. Marcos lists two despablados between this point and Cibola, one of four days right before Chichilticalli, and the great despablado of fifteen days right after.

Here I received messengers from Estevan, who told me on his part that he had already entered the last despoblado, and was very happy, because he was going more assured of the grandeur of the country; and he sent to me to tell me that, since he separated from me, he had never caught the Indians in any lie, and that until there (i.e., up to that time) everything had been found as they said it would be, and so he anticipated finding the rest.

Here Marcos receives messengers telling him that Estiban has continued on without waiting at Chichilticalli as he had promised. It’s a bit ironic that he next launches into an explanation of how honest the indians are and that they have not lied about anything, when Estiban has just broken his word he gave to Marcos to wait for him.

Here in this valley, as in the other towns I passed, I placed crosses and performed the acts of possession that were proper, conforming to the instructions. The natives of this villa asked me to rest myself with them for three or four days, because there was the despoblado four jornadas from there, and from the beginning of it until arriving at Cíbola made fifteen long days of travel; and they wished to prepare food and to dress themselves properly for it. And they told me that more than three hundred men had gone from there with Estevan, the black, to accompany him and carry his food, and many wished also to go with me, to serve me and because they expected to return rich men. I acknowledged the favor and told them to prepare quickly, because with my desire to see Cíbola, each day seemed to me a year.

It seems as though there were a number of days of travel left out of this account. From the time he was told it was thirty days to Cibola only six days of travel have been accounted for, yet we now are told that Cibola is only nineteen days away. So I am assuming that Marcos was sloppy here and left out his uneventful travels through the remaining Opata villages. At any rate he now appears to have reached the last village before Chichilticalli, this village has long been assumed to be in the area of Tres Alamos on the San Pedro River, but if he traveled up the Bavispe then continued north, then the valley he mentions here relates to the valley of the river called “Nexpa” in Jarmillo’s narrative, and this village would be along the San Simon River, somewhere in the vicinity of San Simon, Arizona (this is based on information in Jarmillo’s narrative that I will discuss in a later article). It makes sense that they would ask him to stay here before going on. This would be the place where the trail left the river valley and traveled east across more deserted country with little water and shade, he would be making this trip the first week of May, which would be hot, dry and difficult. The night after leaving this village may have had to be a dry camp before reaching the Burro Mountains on the second day where there would be springs.

The other thing this account tells us (or at least suggests), is that Jarmillo was wrong in some of his dates, he does say at one point “it is so long since we went there that I may be wrong in some days, though not in the rest”, it is my contention that it was so long since they went there, around twenty years passed between the time he made the trip and wrote about it. Marcos de Niza wrote this shortly after his trip so I tend to believe him over Jaramillo, Marcos says it is four days from the Nexpa to the great despablado, while Jaramillo says it is two days to the foot of the mountains, an unidentified amount of time to cross the mountains and three more days to the San Juan River where the wilderness begins, making a minimum of five or six days where the more believable number is four. One could make the point that they were traveling at different rates, but they both say that the great despablado was fifteen days across, so I have to assume that the rate of travel had to be similar.

The forgotten traveler - Melchior Diaz

Estiban and Marcos de Niza were not the only ones to see Chichilticalli before Coronado’s party arrived, it is sometimes left out that Melchior Diaz was sent ahead to verify Marcos de Niza’s account ahead of Coronado’s expedition. And although we only get his account in a secondhand fashion, still what we can learn from this tells us a lot about the location of Chichilticalli. On November 17, 1539 Melchior Diaz with a contingent of fifteen men traveled north to follow in Marcos de Niza’s footsteps, no doubt guided by some indians who had accompanied the friar. The following is from a letter from Viceroy Mendoza to the King.

Some days ago I wrote to Your Majesty that I had ordered Melchior Diaz, who was in the town of San Miguel de Culuacan, to take some horsemen and see if the account given by the father, Friar Marcos, agreed with what he could discover. He set out from Culuacan with fifteen horsemen, the 17th of November last. The 20th of this present March I received a letter from him, which he sent me by Juan de Zaldyvar and three other horsemen. In this he says that after he left Culuacan and crossed the river of Petatlan he was everywhere very well received by the Indians… They say that they suffered from hunger in many places, because it had been a bad year. After going 100 leagues from Culuacan, he began to find the country cold, with severe frosts, and the farther he went on the colder it became, until he reached a point where some Indians whom he had with him were frozen, and two Spaniards were in great danger. Seeing this, he decided not to go any farther until the winter was over, and to send back, by those whom I mentioned, an account of what he had learned concerning Cibola and the country beyond, which is as follows, taken literally from his letter:

“I have given Your Lordship an account of what happened to me along the way; and seeing that it is impossible to cross the uninhabited region which stretches from here to Cibola, on account of the heavy snows and the cold, I will give Your Lordship an account of what I have learned about Cibola…”

Melchior Diaz says that the people whom he found along the way do not have any settlements at all, except in one valley which is 150 leagues from Culuacan, which is well settled and has houses with lofts, and that there are many people along the way, but that they are not good for anything except to make them Christians, as if this was of small account.

Diaz doesn’t refer to Chichilticalli by name (neither does Marcos for that matter), but we know he was there, in fact he spent some time there. We know this from his account because he tells us that the “uninhabited region stretches from here to Cibola”, meaning that he wrote this letter from the edge of the great despablado which other accounts make clear is the location of Chichilticalli. He was stopped in his northern progress towards Cibola by cold and snow, this corresponds to other accounts that shows that the great despablado was a mountainous region. It was here, on the edge of the wilderness, near the high mountains that he spent time waiting until winter was over and collecting information about Cibola to send back. The narrative of Casteneda, which we will discuss in more depth later, gives us another clue as to where Diaz overwintered.

…he left orders for Captain Melchior Diaz and Juan de Saldivar to start off with a dozen good men from Culiacan and verify what Friar Marcos had seen and heard. They started and went as far as Chichilticalli, which is where the wilderness begins, 220 leagues from Culiacan, and there they turned back, not finding anything important.

So both the clues in Diaz’s account and Casteneda’s account point to Chichilticalli as the place where Diaz spent the winter of 1539/1540.

Diaz’s distances

Very few distances are given in any accounts related to the Coronado expedition so we have to get excited about any measurements we can get. Diaz tells us that the well settled region along the route was 150 leagues from Culiacan, if we subtract that figure from the 220 leagues that Casteneda tells us is the distance from Chichilticalli to Culiacan we can determine that this populous region is 70 leagues south of Chichilticalli or 241.6 miles which taking the Bavispe puts us right in the heart of Opata country somewhere south of Nacozari Sonora. An area that is consistent with Diaz’s description as being cold in the winter (Nacozari is at an elevation of over 3,400 feet). If we trace the route backwards from some other popular Chichilticalli candidates down the Sonora River we come to the following elevations.

76 Ranch – 3,200 feet
Kuykendall Ruin – 2,500 feet

This populated area probably also corresponds to the area described by Marcos as “it appeared to me that this was a better land than that which I had passed” and the area described by Cabeza de Vaca as “we travelled more than a hundred leagues, always meeting permanent houses and a great stock of maize and beans, and they gave us many deer hides and blankets of cotton better than those of New Spain.” Diaz describes some of their houses as “houses with lofts”, I assume he is describing permanent houses of stone or adobe which would correspond to Cabeza de Vaca’s description of the houses in the same region “Among the houses there were several made of earth”.

Summary

There are as many good reasons to consider the upper reaches of the Yaqui River as the route the Coronado expedition used to travel north as there are to consider the Sonora River, yet many people attempting to plot Coronado’s route across Arizona and New Mexico start with a faulty assumption and begin at the US Mexican border near Palominas Arizona. I believe they entered what is today the United States near the San Bernardino Ranch if far southeast Arizona because:

• Cabeza de Vaca left the Rio Grande heading west looking for corn, which led him to the Opata along the upper Yaqui.
• Estiban led Marcos de Niza back along the same route
• The pattern of landmarks fits numerous details in the narratives
• The Yaqui is higher in elevation than the Sonora and would therefore provide the cold freezing weather Diaz describes.
• This higher elevation inspired Marcos de Niza to comment on how much better this land was when he moved out of the low desert.

All the information we have points to Chichilticalli being on the edge of the wilderness, not just some uninhabited area between Apache Pass and the Gila River, but a cold mountainous wilderness consistent with the White Mountains. (More on this to come in the next installment)

To be continued…

A Bit About Kuykendall Ruins

I strongly doubt that the Kuykendall Ruins are Chichilticalli, and nobody would like it to be true more than I. I was among the first (as far as I know) to suggest that Chichilticalli may have been Kuykendall or some other of the ruins in the West Turkey Creek area, suggesting this as early as 1990. I was also among the first to suggest Coronado’s route from the San Pedro across Government Draw and over Apache Pass. There were blog posts on this site as early as 2004 when I was actively searching the area around Apache and Bear Springs Passes for signs of Coronado’s expedition. There are a number of reasons I am skeptical about Kuykendall, but this article is about my theory so I won’t go into detail here, the main reason is the sheer number of artifacts. Simply compare the artifacts found at the Jimmy Owens site with those found at Kuykendall, it is my opinion that when Chichilticalli is actually found it will make Blanco Canyon look like a second rate lithic scatter in comparison.

Coronado’s Trail – A Bad Premise

Over the years there have been a lot of really weird and hard to believe ideas about Coronado’s route, placing Chichilticalli everywhere from Casa Grande to Pleasant Valley to the San Bernardino Valley. Most of these have made a couple of the same big mistakes. The first is that they assume the “Señora” Valley of Coronado’s route is the Sonora Valley of today. The second is that they build on each others mistakes, for example Udall built on Haury who built on Bolton’s work. When what really needs to happen is to throw out all previous assumptions and start fresh.

The Rarely Considered “Eastern Route”

I intend to suggest, through this series of articles, that Coronado followed a more eastern route than is commonly considered. That Coronado followed an ancient trade-route between Mesoamerica and the Northern Pueblos, a trade-route that took a more practical and direct route through the heart of Opata country and north to Zuni along the Rio Yaqui. There are many good reasons to examine this route which I will explore in future articles here. When this route is compared to the narratives of Jaramillo and others it fits as good in some places and better in others, than the more westerly, Sonora Valley route.

This trail, which had probably been in use for generations led through a recently (past 100 year) abandoned country, the heart of the Mogollon/Salado homeland, and past a famed pueblo. This great trading pueblo which had controlled the trade route for who knows how long, was still famed when Coronado passed through and was still a good stopping place along the path. Hopi legends speak of a famed “Red House” in the south from which some of their clans originated called Palatkwapi, could the red house of Hopi lore be the same as the “famed” red house of Chichilticalli?

The Route

The route I suggest would approach what is now the United States along the Rio Bavispe, then cross into the United States and follow either the San Simon River or Animas Creek north before crossing the Burro Mountains and traveling north to the Gila River. This would put Chichilticalli somewhere in the vicinity of the Burro Mountains west of Silver City New Mexico. To support this theory I will reference the writings of Cabeza de Vaca, Fray Marcos de Niza, Melchior Diaz, Pedro Castañeda, Juan Jaramillo and Coronado himself, along with documentation on historic and prehistoric trails in the area.

To be continued.

I don’t begrudge them their success, and I definitely have to hand it to Spencer MacCallum and whoever else is responsible for marketing them. I just don’t understand how they can be more famous or popular than Acoma or Hopi pottery, it just doesn’t make sense to me.


(Puki, n : a shallow vessel used to shape a pottery vessel)



Yet a puki can be very limiting, you are limited to the size and shape of bowls you already have, and the number of pots made at one time is limited by the number of pukis available. Certainly the prehistoric potters of this area did not always use pukis, that is obvious from the number of corrugated pots found at Mogollon and Anazazi sites. The corrugation goes all the way to the bottom of the pot indicating that at least at first no puki was used. yet if you look at the Gila Shoulders and straight sided bowls of the Hohokam made around the same time, there is little doubt they were using pukis. Given this evidence, I believe that the puki was a Hohokam invention, it’s interesting that the Hohokam technique of paddle and anvil appeared to decline in later years of prehistory while the puki spread throughout the Southwest.


I am currently doing experiments to find ways of constructing vessels without the use of a puki. It should be very liberating.



Work on the firing pit continues, the wet weather last week set me back a bit.

Last Saturday I hiked over 9 miles, a good deal of the way with a pack full of clay, to get what I suspect to be Bentonite clay from the Sacaton Wash area of the San Pedro Valley. I have used this clay before years ago, so I know what it’s like, but now I’m going to see how it performs with vegetal paint.



While I was out there, I climbed a small unnamed hill to look around and found a prehistoric shrine, a large pile of rocks with pottery shards associated, one was definitely Hohokam.



I also went to Phoenix this weekend to get the “volcanic ash” that the Thornburgs use for Salado polychromes. So with these two and the volcanic ash from A Mountain I collected a couple of weeks ago, I should have something that works in the next few days.

I have most of this week off so I will be working hard to get this Salado Polychrome dilemma ironed out.

I have started construction of a puddled adobe firing pit, I hate to use the word “kiln” because it has such ugly, unauthentic connotations. This is really no more than a firing pit built above ground to keep me from getting down on my hands and knees and to allow fresh air to enter from below, stay tuned for pictures.