The constant use of kunque by the different Pueblo tribes has been noticed from the first days of European contact. In the relation of Don Antonio de Espejo (1583) we are told that upon the approach of the Spaniards to the town of Zaguato, lying 28 leagues west of Zuñi, "a great multitude of Indians came forth to meete them, and among the rest their Caçiques, with so great demonstration of joy and gladnes, that they cast much meale of Maiz upon the ground for the horses to tread upon."[275]
I am under the impression that the ruins of this village are those near the ranch of Mr. Thomas V. Keam, at Keam's Canyon, Arizona, called by the Navajo "Talla-hogandi," meaning "singing house," in reference to the Spanish mission which formerly existed there. This village is, as I have hitherto shown, the ruin of the early pueblo of Awátubi.
In his poem descriptive of the conquest of New Mexico, entitled "Nueva Mejico," Alcala de Henares, 1610, Villagrá uses the following language:[276]
Passando à Mohoçe, Zibola, y Zuni, Por cuias nobles tierras descubrimos, Una gran tropa de Indios que venia, Con cantidad harina que esparcian, Sobre la gente toda muy apriessa, Y entrando assi en los pueblos las mugeres Dieron en arrojarnos tantá della, Que dimos en tomarles los costales, De donde resultò tener con ellas, Unas carnestolendas bien reñidas.
It is gratifying to observe that the Spanish writer in the remote wilds of America struck upon an important fact in ethnology: that the throwing of "harina" or flour by the people of Tusayan (Mohoçe or Moqui), Cibola, and Zuñi (observe the odd separation of "Zibola" from either Moqui or Zuñi) was identical with the "carnestolendas" of Spain, in which, on Shrove Tuesday, the women and girls cover all the men they meet with flour. The men are not at all backward in returning the compliment, and the streets are at times filled with the farinaceous dust.
"Harina de maiz azul" is used by Mexicans in their religious ceremonies, especially those connected with the water deities.[277] The Peruvians, when they bathed and sacrificed to cure themselves of sickness, "untandose primero con Harina de Maiz, i con otras cosas, con muchas, i diversas ceremonias, i lo mismo hacen en los Baños."[278] The kunque of the Peruvians very closely resembled that of the Zuñi. We read that it was a compound of different-colored maize ground up with sea shells.[279] The Peruvians had a Priapic idol called Hua-can-qui, of which we read: "On offre à cette idole une corbeille ornée de plumes de diverses couleurs et remplie d'herbes odoriférantes; on y met aussi de _la farine de maïs_ que l'on renouvelle tous les mois, et les femmes se lavent la figure avec celle que l'on ôte, en accompagnant cette ablution de plusieurs cérémonies superstitieuses."[280]