¡Colores!; 210; Surviving Columbus: "First Encounters"

Tonight, the first encounter between New Mexico's Pueblo Peoples and European cultures. I would call Coronado a savage rather than an explorer, and his run through the southwest as a traveling show of horrors rather than acts of exploration. Next, Uncolores. The first encounter between New Mexico's Pueblo Peoples and European cultures. It came to pass that our ancestors came up from the four worlds below.

Our ancestors emerged in a place called Hanslapinkia. They came to Hanslapinkia and settled there. The twin war gods led them. They scoundered ahead to where they wanted to go. They came to a place where there was steam coming out of the ground. As children growing up, we are told stories. Words are sacred to a child.

We have grandmothers and grandfathers who instructed us, who taught us, who gave us words. They are the elders of our communities, of our villages, of our homes. We grew up with elders always around us. And then one day, it's our turn. And we have children all around us, hungry for words, hungry for stories. But what do we tell them? What do we say to them? Maybe we tell them how the word first came into being. That listening is the very first step toward making that discovery. That everything is connected to a movement, to a life-giving force set in motion by that first breath begun so long ago.

Maybe we point to a piece of landscape, a mountain, a mesa, a river, to a real place on earth. And we tell them how we're connected, how we're rooted to the earth. And then maybe we tell them how a person is always growing, how we are blessed, how we can grow one with our elders by watching them, by learning, and how we can grow by becoming one with their word. Elders tell us, except life, your life, all of it, that despite all the obstacles, celebrate life with joy and happiness,

celebrate that life-giving force, that sacredness, and then give back, give back life by sharing, sharing everything that's been given to you. Elders say, that's the continuum. That's the order of things that we as human beings live by, and it's simple. They say, we've held on to it, because it works. To understand the impact of the Spanish invasion of the Pueblos,

we must look at what Pueblo life was like before the first European contacts. Our high civilization can be traced back for at least 2,000 years. The works of our forefathers can be seen in the magnificent structures at Chaco Canyon, Mesa Verde, Aztec, and hundreds of other locations spread throughout New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. The Pueblo peoples, way back then as now, saw themselves as a part of the Earth, as belonging to the Earth rather than, you know, the Earth belonging to them. They tried their best and every way to blend into the Earth, to blend their lives into the surrounding environment where they lived. It's a very sharp difference from European views, which basically postulated a mastery of the Earth by mankind, and an ownership of the Earth by, you know, Christian peoples who came here from Europe.

We have lived upon this land from days beyond history's records, far beyond any living memory, deep into the time of legend. The story of my people and the story of this place are one single story. No man can think of us without thinking of this place. Pueblo life before contact was mainly spiritual. It was so because the life of the people depended so much on the natural forces. Following the summer solstice, the rain because it went into the kibas to meditate and fast so that it would rain. What makes the public people distinctive is their tenacity, their resiliency, their sheer will to endure as peoples and as free peoples.

On the eve of the first contact with European culture, the Pueblo peoples were a peaceful, highly successful civilization, made up of over 100 Pueblos of 50,000 people speaking eight sovereign languages, a multitude of differing customs, but one common culture. Indeed, Pueblo civilization would remind the Spanish so much of the high Native American cultures of Central Mexico that they would name the territory, New Mexico. Zulu's were living in dispersed areas. They were living at Hariku, the Kachipawa, Matsaka, Kakeima, Pinnawa, and a place called Kwakina. They were living in a fairly dispersed community, fairly living, fairly quietly

because they were still cultivating their fields, hunting a little bit and giving them the most gathering of wild plants and other edible foods from the countryside. If you are Kwakina, it's going to well, no, no. The people who lived at the steaming springs had a giant who led them, who walked ahead of them as their guide, and the people from Hans Lapinkia had the twin wargons as their leaders. The son-father knew that the giant could not be killed so when they brought the weapons to the twin wargons, they pierced him with arrows. But the giant wouldn't die. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey. For many years, Pablo Pippo will hear rumors about white men in the south. But their first contact with European civilization would come at Haouikou at Zuni on an afternoon in May of 1539, less than 50 years after Columbus sailed across the Atlantic. Ironically, the first white man was a black slave from Asimor Morocco, named as the Benekot, who was part of an expedition by Frye-Marco's Denisa. The Zuni treated Asimor like any other spy, blocking him and his followers in a large house outside the public walls. And then one morning in May 1539,

Asimor Niko tried to flee and was killed. According to legend, when the rifts lay over the walls of Kaikima, the black Mexican came and was killed by our ancients, right with a stone stand at Kaikima. Were the Zuni people surprised when they saw Asimor Niko? I think they were surprised, but I don't think they were overwhelmed in the fact that trade routes from the Zuni country expanded all over the West, and we're down into the Pacific, and to the Gulf of Mexico, so that I think news of his arrival or news of somebody else that was in the area was probably known, but I don't think they were surprised, but I think they were what they were surprised at was the fact that he was representing himself as a representative of the white people who were following him.

Who was Esteban Niko? Esteban Niko was a slave. He was a scout for the Far Marcos de Nisa, who had sent him on his head, sent him ahead, to locate and to get information on the seven cities of gold that they were looking for. The first contact between the Zuni's and the Spaniards with the Zuni's hospital, were they friendly? The first encounter was probably pretty dramatic in the fact that the Zuni's had already heard of or knew of the slave rates of Guzman up into the upper ranges of Sonora and Northern Mexico, where he killed practically whole villages of older men and women and took only the young people-faced slaves. And so the information that was available to the Zuni's at the time was probably quite scary, and here comes a black man saying that he's the leader of the head of the white man that were following him who were more powerful than he was. He sent this gourd, this gourd that he had with a painted red, and with red and a white feather,

and ribbons and bells, as part of the power of the paraphernalia that he sent in as an offering, as an indication of his power. And the warch, he probably took the gourd and he dashed it to the ground and said, this is not from our people. The younger war god said, we are now looking for the center place, and there was someone who will not let us pass. They are fighting us, and we are piercing their leader, the giant, with arrows, but he will not die. So I have come up to ask you, son-father, if you might know where his heart is. Son-father said, his heart is in the gourd rattle that he holds in his hand. The gourd is his heart, and if you destroy it, you will kill him, and your way will be cleared. The younger war god stepped forward from the fighting,

and shot the gourd rattle, the giant fell, and all his people ran away. They blew the concho show and made the sound of war. Led by the war gods, the people came and settled. It came and settled in their new homes. They arrived at how we cool. And this is what happened. This is how we settled at how we cool. We are who we are, we are who we are. Estebaniko's death proved to be a tragedy for the public people's as well. When Fry Marko's Denisa heard of what happened, he turned around and sped home without visiting the country he called Sibula. His lack of firsthand knowledge did not prevent him from inventing the tale of the seven cities of gold. Sibula has the appearance of a very beautiful town.

The city is bigger than the city of Mexico, and it is the least of the seven cities. There is much gold and the native straight-in vessels and jewels. Fry Marko's exaggerations and lies quickly ignited Spanish greed for gold. One year later, an expedition led by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado came to Zuni to find the treasure of the seven cities of Sibula. Coronado brought with him 300 Spanish soldiers, almost 1,000 Mexican Indian allies, guns, crossbows, and warhounds. The Zuni heard rumors of the Spaniards coming and sent their women, children, and elders away from the Pueblo. On July 7th, 1540, hundreds of armed warriors stood before the Pueblo, ready to fight. The fight between the Zuni's and the Spaniards

were the Zuni's fighting to defend their land, to defend their village? I don't think that they were necessarily fighting to defend their lands, but I think they were what they were doing was they were more than upset. I read over the fact that the Spaniards had interrupted a very important seven-year event, that was occurring right at that time, and if the Spaniards had arrived four days earlier, four days later, the Pueblo went up had to fight, but the fight was not overland, it was not overposition, but it was over the rights of the spirituality and the religious ceremonies that was being performed at that particular time. As the Spanish conquistadors approached how equal, the Zuni sprinkled a sacred quorum your line before them, and warned them not to cross it. There is a body of pilgrims out, and until they arrive safely back into Zuni, or into whatever village they were returning to, no one else should cross over that line.

When a quorum your line is drawn between you and some visitors, the visitors should not cross over, it would be inhospitable, presumptuous, in the extreme, to cross a quorum your line. The outcome was that the Zuni's lost, and the Spaniards came in, and took off with the food that they needed, that they were badly needed, and then saved for a few days and sent various groups to the west, to the Rio Grande Canyon, and then continued over to the Rio Grande, through Akaman and on to the east. When the Spaniards first saw the village, which was Zibola, such were the curses that they hurled at Fry Marcus, that I pray God may protect him from them. It is a crowded little village, looking as if he had been all crumpled together. Against the peaceful Zuni, European military techniques and weapons resulted in a quick victory,

but the Spanish were bitterly disappointed. The seven cities of Zibola had no gold, no precious jewels. Upon hearing about the arrival of the Spanish, the Pecos people sent two of their most important men, including a war chief whom the world would come to know only as Becotez, the man with a mustache. As an ambassador, Becotez led the Spanish on a tour of the Pueblos, hoping perhaps to show them that the Pueblos lacked the treasures they sought. Becotez was a war chief, or at least a war captain, and in the company of one of his leaders, very likely a Cassichi, they made plans to go out to Zuni to look into the situations themselves. Becotez was able to bring them out to his country to show them the place first, but at the same time, the idea of the Spaniards was that maybe there

was something that they were looking for further east from Zuni. The collapse of the myth of the seven cities of Zibola only made the Spanish ripe for an even bigger lie, the legend of Kivira. Told by a captive, the Spanish had nicknamed the Turk. Kivira was a land where rich lords drifted along a river on gold draped barges and ate from golden plates. Now the Turk accused Becotez of hiding a gold bracelet, which would have proven his claim, and despite being widely acknowledged for his honesty and his fairness, Becotez was slapped into chains and brought here to Bernalillo, which was also Coronado's new camp among the Tiwa Pueblos. Here Becotez and the Pueblo peoples learned about the true nature of their invaders.

Constant Spanish demands for food and the lack of justice for the rape of a Pueblo woman ignited a rebellion among the Tiwa. After the Pueblo of Arinal had been set ablaze, the Pueblo people surrendered of their own accord. As cardinas had been ordered by Coronado not to take them alive, but to make an example of them so that the other natives would fear the Spaniards. He ordered 200 stakes prepared at once to burn them alive. Then when the enemies saw that the Spaniards were binding them and beginning to roast them, about 100 men who were in the tent began to struggle and defend themselves. Our men who were on foot attacked the tent on all sides so that there was great confusion around it, and then the horsemen chased those who escaped. As the country was

level, not a man of them remained alive unless it was some who remained hidden in the village and escaped at night to spread throughout the countryside. The news that the strangers did not respect the peace they had made. Coronado and his men cut a wide swath of terror, intimidation, presumption, and outright fevery, wherever they went throughout the Pueblos, and as a quawai near the town of Bernalillo, a ruin which ironically bears his name, when they were denied what they were asking, food, blankets, and probably women, they responded by torching to, destroying two towns and killing more than 300 men, women, and children. So this kind of experience sent shockwaves throughout the Pueblo world.

The Pueblos of the T-Wav would be abandoned, like so many other Pueblos would be in the future. Their peoples pacified by death, by destruction. Coronado would push on to Candace, only to find that Cuvira was yet another lie, and without gold, Spanish interest would quickly wane, and the expedition would retreat, leaving the Pueblos in relative peace for yet another 50 years. The one word which occurs to me to characterize that contact is shock, profound shock, the shock of knowing that their want secure world was not there as alone anymore, and that there were people who were cruel, greedy, intolerant, who had come among them, and who may come again. Coronado's expedition returned to Mexico without the gold and the wealth

they had so desperately sought, only to confront a Spanish world in the midst of a great moral controversy as to how Native Americans were treated. Many of Coronado's own men were disgusted by the great cruelties that the expedition inflicted on the natives, and their reports resulted in Coronado being charged for his mistreatment of the Indians. While Coronado was eventually exonerated, one of his lieutenants was sentenced to seven years in jail. Coronado never fully regained his honor or his health and died a broken man. I would call Coronado a savage rather than an explorer, and his, you know, run through the Southwest as a traveling show of horrors rather than acts of exploration.

The culture, even after 450 years of content, is still very viable. It's still functioning, as I said earlier, the ceremonies are still going. The ritualistic cycles are still going. The ceremony of dance has been still being performed, and the Catholics have been there on and off since 1540, and various other religious ceremonies have come in and have occupied their various niches in the community, but they have not changed the culture at all. The culture continues to function. The murders, the cruelties inflicted by the Spaniards upon our ancestors can never be forgotten nor forgiven. Still, the Spaniards would make some major contributions to public lifestyle. They brought horses, sheep, cattle, new crops from Mexico and Europe. Indeed, compared to the Mexican and American conquerors still to come, the Spanish were by far

the best. They allowed us to keep our languages, our lands, our traditions. Even after 450 years, the encounter of the Pueblos with White Man's culture continues. The final outcome is still in doubt, but we have a genius, a genius for enduring, for surviving the descendants of Columbus. Going back to the Pueblo, you know, I could sense and feel that tranquility, that calmness that used at one's very powerful one. I think that's what keeps Pueblos surviving as this becoming one with this all-encompassing power, whether it comes from the natural environment,

from Amesa, Iraq, a mountain. There's something that emanates from all that, that just is all consuming. I think once you get in touch with that, once you become centered and can realize and you attempt to understand it and make it a part of you, then I think you can pretty much tackle anything, any obstacle that confronts you because you know whatever is out there is also inside you. With the ways of the White Man entering into our lives, perhaps it will not be long before our people becomes a wondering drive. But that is for our children to decide. We cannot tell them

of the way our people survived, for they would not believe us. We just hope that they too can survive with lies before them.