The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, July 1923 - April, 1924 Page: 297
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Southwestern Historical Quarterly and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Texas State Historical Association.
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The Expedition of Pdnfilo de Narvdez
and returned, leaving their loads. These the Christians carried on
their backs and went, by that river upward, all the rest of that day.
At night they met some Indians who took them to eight or nine
ranchos, which were in a rugged spot among thorns. They found
the Indians weeping from devotion. They received them reverently,
as in other places, as has been told, and gave them to eat of what
they had. The next morning the Indians came who had left
the Christians on the trail (for they had heard of the other In-
dians) and came to rob them and so retrieve their losses. They
took what they could, which was little, and told them the way
they must treat the Christians.
The next day they departed from there and spent that night on
the road, and the day following they went to many ranchos, where
they were received as usual and their companions ransacked the
houses and took what they could and went back.
In this manner they went by the skirt of the mountain eighty
leagues, a little more or less, entering through the land inland,
straight to the north. There they met, at the foot of the mountain,
four ranchos of another nation and tongue, who said they were
there from more inland, and that they went by that road to their
home. There they gave the Christians a rattle of brass,1' and cer-
"1Naufrdgios says that next day after receiving the copper rattle, they
crossed a mountain seven leagues long, the stones of which were iron
slags and at night came to many dwellings on the banks of a "beautiful
river," where they gave them small bags of margaritas and alquifol,
with which they paint their faces, and many beads and robes of cow skins.
These people ate tunas and piiones. Here Cabeza de Vaca performed a
surgical operation, removing an arrow head from the region of an Indian's
heart. The Indian recovered, which naturally added greatly to their repu-
tation as healers, since these tribesmen sent the arrow head "more inland"
as a visual demonstration of the powers and prowess of these new
curanderos.
After leaving this people they traveled among "So many different
tribes and languages that nobody's memory can recall them all," and
the number of their companions became so great that they could no longer
control them. These were hunters, and killed hares and deer in sufficient
quantities for the three or four thousand people who now accompanied
them. With these they crossed "a big river coming from the north" [Rio
Sabinas] and traversed about thirty leagues of plains. They then met
"a number of people from afar," who came to meet them on the trail,
who guided them for more than fifty leagues through a desert of very
rugged mountains, so arid that there was no game, and they suffered
much, in consequence, from want of food. Finally they forded "a very
big river" [Rio Grande again], with its water reaching to their chests;
and these same Indians led them to a plain beyond the chain of moun-297
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 27, July 1923 - April, 1924, periodical, 1924; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101086/m1/303/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.