This man said that he had visited Cibola, which was a month’s journey distant. There was a good trail by which one might easily reach that country in forty days. The man said he had gone there merely to see the place, since it was quite a curiosity, with its houses three and four stories high, filled with people. Around the houses there was a wall half as high again as a man, having windows on each side. The inhabitants used the usual Indian weapons—bows and arrows, clubs, maces, and shields. They wore mantles and ox hides, which were painted. They had a single ruler, who wore a long shirt with a girdle, and various mantles over this. The women wore long white cloaks which completely covered them. There were always many Indians waiting about the door of their ruler, ready in case he should wish for anything. They also wore many blue stones which they dug out of a rock—the turquoises of the other narratives. They had but one wife, and when they died all their effects were buried with them. When [p405] their rulers ate, many men waited about the tables. They ate with napkins, and had baths—a natural inference from any attempt to describe the stuffy underground rooms, the estufas or kivas of the Pueblos.
[Illustration: LIII. Wytfliet’s Kingdoms of Quivira, Anian and Tolm, 1597]
Alarcon continued to question the Indian, and learned that the lord of Cibola had a dog like one which accompanied the Spaniards, and that when dinner was served, the lord of Cibola had four plates like those used by the Spaniards, except that they were green. He obtained these at the same time that he got the dog, with some other things, from a black man who wore a beard, whom the people of Cibola killed. A few days later, Alarcon obtained more details concerning the death of the negro “who wore certain things on his legs and arms which rattled.” When asked about gold and silver, the Indians said that they had some metal of the same color as the bells which the Spaniards showed them. This was not made nor found in their country, but came “from a certain mountain where an old woman dwelt.” The old woman was called Guatuzaca. One of Alarcon’s informants told him about people who lived farther away than Cibola, in houses made of painted mantles or skins during the summer, and who passed the winter in houses made of wood two or three stories high. The Indian was asked about the leather shields, and in reply described a very great beast like an ox, but more than a hand longer, with broad feet, legs as big as a man’s thigh, a head 7 hands long, and the forehead 3 spans across. The eyes of the beast were larger than one’s fist, and the horns as long as a man’s leg, “out of which grew sharp points an handful long, and the forefeet and hindfeet about seven handfuls big.” The tail was large and bushy. To show how tall the animal was, the Indian stretched his arms above his head. In a note to his translation of this description, Hakluyt suggests, “This might be the crooke backed oxe of Quivira.” Although the height and the horns are clearly those of a buck deer, the rest of the description is a very good account of the bison.