BANCROFT LIBRARY 
 

 THE MOQUIS 
 
 OF 
 
 Co 
 
Bancroft Ubwj 
 
 THE MOQTJIS OF AEIZONA, 
 
 ABi'ief Description of Their Towns, 
 Their M anners and 
 
 i'O.Ml'ILKD FROM LATEST DATA AKD OKIGJKAL NOTES. FOR THK 
 ALT A CALIFOKNIA. 
 
 The country of the Moquis Indians, a nation concerning 
 whose manners and origin, no little discussion has been 
 carried on in the Eastern papers during the past year, is situ 
 ated in the northeastern portion of Arizona Territory, be 
 tween the 100th meridian and the Little Colorado River, from 
 east to west, and the Big and Little Colorado Rivers from 
 north to south. The yawning canons through which these 
 rivers force their way. interpose, except at a few widely sepa 
 rated and scarcely known crossing places, impassable barri 
 ers to the ingress of strangers, who after encountering suc 
 cessfully this obstacle, find themselves confronted by a Des 
 ert, seventy-five miles long, upon which for days the weary 
 traveller may wander without having his eyes gladdened by 
 the sight of a single tree, a blade of grass, or a drop of water. 
 
 To these frowning canons and to this torrid Desert, the Mo 
 quis are indebted for the seclusion which has enabled them to 
 preserve intact customs and modes of life derived from the 
 ancient so-called civilization of the Aztecs, with whom 'their 
 connection may perhaps be established by the recorded fact 
 that in, or about, the year 1536, not much more than a decade 
 and a half after Cortez had overthrown the empire of Monte- 
 zuma, their towns were first visited by Spanish missionaries, 
 representatives of that class of zealous friars who shortly after 
 the discovery of America, overran the continent, preaching 
 to tribes of Indians, now extinct and forgotten, the merits of 
 the Gospel, whose blessed precepts their own countrymen so 
 persistently disregarded. 
 
 Not satisfied with the doctrines, or not relishing the intru 
 sion of the "padres," the Moquis condemned some to death 
 and the survivors to ignominious servitude. The Spanish au 
 thorities by some means becoming apprised of the predica- 
 
merit of the missionaries, speedily organized for their deliver 
 ance an imposing expedition which, under its leader. Coro- 
 nado. slowly made its way to the '-seven cities of Cibola," 
 pictured by Spanish fanaticism as the abode of Satan, and by 
 Spanish cupidity as the casket of untold treasure. The extri 
 cation from a life of misery of one wretched friar may have 
 rewarded the expedition for privations endured, and compen 
 sated for the treasures it failed to find : but with its further 
 movements we have nothing to do, except to mention that 
 upon his return march through the vast regions to the east 
 ward, Coronado is believed by some writers to have been the 
 first European who ever saw the buffalo, the wild cattle of the 
 plains. 
 
 . At long intervals of time, other exploring parties penetra 
 ted these unknown recesses, our own government having had 
 under its patronage, the expeditions of Whipple, Beale, Ives, 
 and v lately Wheeler, all officers of the army or navy, whose 
 published reports are filled with complete and interesting de 
 scriptions of the country. But to the people generally of the 
 United States the Moquis are less known than any other tribe 
 of Indians within our borders, the few Mormons visiting them 
 from Utah, or occasional mining parties passing their towns 
 from the Rio Grande, not being sufficiently numerous to 
 bridge the chasm of isolation intervening between them and 
 ourselves. 
 
 Perched like the castles of German robber-barons, upon the 
 apices of vertical rocky bluffs, the Moqui towns overlook for 
 miles in every direction the surrounding country, rendering 
 it an impossibility for any party whether with hostile or 
 iriendly intent to invade the environs of their settlements 
 without immediate discovery. These bluffs or i; mesas" are 
 impregnable to direct assault, and the subjugation of these 
 people by hostile invasions from the neighboring tribes, sup 
 posing such ever to be made, would be reduced to a precari 
 ous dependence upon a closely drawn siege, provided against 
 in the ample supplies laid by each harvest, in their villages. 
 
 Seven communities, severed from each other and the out 
 side world, acknowledge the name of Moquis, but the two 
 languages spoken are distinct and demand the services of in 
 terpreters when communication is being held among the dif 
 ferent villages. A third dialect degenerating or advancing 
 into a third language, shows how slender a thread of inter 
 course holds this nation together, and adds much to the diffi 
 culty of corresponding with them. 
 
 Tegua, Hualpi arid Moqui , occupy the eastermost 
 
'mesa ;" Oraybe the one farthest to the \vest, while Su-powa- 
 lory, 8u-ino-po\\'3 r . and Mu-shang-nevy are built upon a high 
 bluff about midway oetween the others and a little south of 
 the line connecting them Oraybe makes pretensions to being 
 the principal to\vn ; its general dilapidation and thriftless ap 
 pearance poorly support these claims which may with more 
 justice be conceded to Tegua, Hualpi and Moqui, a descrip 
 tion of which will apply equally well to all the others. These 
 three towns nearly cover the flat summit of a ; mesa" of sand 
 stone, quite 500 feet in vertical height and varying in width 
 from 200 yards to ten feet. Approach is made by climbing a 
 graded way, built up of large blocks of stone, running from 
 summittoba.se. At every turn, assailants would meet with 
 destruction either by rocks thrown from above or arrows 
 thrown by foemen concealed in inaccessible positions. The 
 principal passage-way here described is used generally as an 
 easy road for their animals loaded with fuel or the produce of 
 the field. Numerous trails beaten into the vertical face of the 
 precipice having stone steps in the more difficult places, are 
 used in moving quickly from the villages to the springs and 
 reservoirs below. These springs deserve more than a passing 
 notice. Excavated from % 25 to 30 feet deep, the Moquis have 
 walled them in with ma>onry and skillfully constructed 
 ramps leading b}' a gentle slope to the edge of the water. In 
 each village one spring is reserved for their great herds of 
 black sheep and goats as well as for their '-burros," while the. ., 
 other supplies drinking water to the households. DflfjCTOIt J-< 
 
 The material used in erecting their dwellings and other edi 
 fices is the friable sandstone of their eyrie home ; walls, in 
 general, avcr.-ige no!, more than seven feet in each story, the 
 upper stories receding from the lower until the fourth and 
 last is reach. d and found to include not more than two or 
 three rooms. Flooring is made of cottonwood rafters, cov 
 ered with reeds laid on evenly and plastered two or three 
 inches deep with cement, which likewise coats the walls. In 
 some houses a wash, made from the yellow ochreous earth 
 abundant in the vicinity gives a pleasing tone to the interior. 
 
 Once on top of the me.sa. the traveller follows along trails 
 worn six and eight inches into the sandstone ; boldly pushes 
 his way through a crowd of yelping, vicious, worthless curs, 
 sustains with composure the cynical criticism of patriarchal 
 goats surveying him from sandstone crags or lofty roofs, 
 tramps upon a few lazy chickens, sees scampering before him 
 a horde of dirty, naked children, finds the streets filled with 
 all the garbage and offal of a Hottentot village, inhales all the 
 
[4] 
 
 smells of Cologne and a thousand others Coleridge never knew 
 and finally stands at the foot of a ladder leading to the second 
 floor of one of the buildings. 
 
 The ground floor is the kennel inhabited by the dogs and 
 chickens of the family, and sometimes, though not frequently, 
 used as a store-room for corn, melons and peaches, the staple 
 products of the soil. 
 
 The Moquis receive visitors customarily with urbanity and 
 are not slow to offer a collation to any who may enter their 
 abodes. If the traveller will now employ his eyes judiciously, 
 much may be observed that is very strange and deserving. o f 
 recollection. First, the women who had betaken themselves 
 for refuge to the housetops, regaining confidence, cautiously 
 approach the apartment and resume the routine of domestic 
 labor. 
 
 Far superior to any other nation in Arizona are the Moquis 
 in matters of dress The outer garment of the women con 
 sists of a dark woollen blanket or gown, fastened by a herring 
 bone stitch of yellow embroidery at the right shoulder and 
 extending down half-way between the knees and ankles ; 
 both arms, neck and the upper half of the left breast are ex 
 posed ; a girdle of red worsted confines the waist, while a line 
 of yellow decoration adorns the dress about six inches below 
 the neck and another the same distance above the lower edge. 
 The hair of the young maidens is arranged in three puffs, one 
 at each side and one at the top of the head, giving a pro 
 nounced Mongolian cast to the features. When in grand cos 
 tume, the Moqui belle dons a necklace of blue and white 
 beads and carefully powders her face with fine corn meal. 
 The matrons appear much more sedate than the unmarried 
 women and wear their hair in two bands, one lapping over 
 each ear. The men clothe themselves in trousers and shirts 
 of cotton, moccasins of deer skin and blankets of home manu 
 facture, in which they envelop the person from head to foot. 
 Great care is taken by both sexes in keeping the head clean 
 and their long tresses glossy arid straight. Part of the equip 
 ment of every well regulated Moqui family is a bundle of hair 
 brushes of evenly cut hay with which they make their daily 
 toilet. 
 
 The children, until well advanced in years, roam about in 
 the Garden of Paradise costume, entirely neglected by their 
 parents and consequently are filthy and repulsive. 
 
 While the squaws prepare the daily meal or the refresh 
 ment for the visitors, the latter may curiously scrutinize culi 
 nary matters and the arrangements of the edifice. In one 
 
corner of each room is a small hearth burning a few pieces of 
 cedar wood, brought on the backs of donkeys for a distance of 
 ten or fifteen miles. Over the handful of live coals is fixed a 
 sheet of tin. iron, or stone, now hot enough to serve the pur 
 pose of bread baking. Kneeling down before the hearth, the 
 woman stirs up a thin gruel, already prepared in an earthen 
 ware bowl ; dipping her hand in tne gruel she rapidly sm-eads 
 the mixture over the heated plate of iron, and the bread al 
 most as rapidly bakes. In appearance it might readily be 
 mistaken for tissue paper, like it, being rolled up in cylindri 
 cal bundles and laid aside for future uso. This is the favorite 
 broad of the Moquis ; but another kind is made from their 
 purple corn meal, which when presented for use looks like a 
 blue banana. Moth varieties are sweet, palatable ami nutri 
 tious. 
 
 The dietary of this people is more comprehensive than, that 
 of any other aboriginal nation now living within the borders 
 of our country. In every building may be seen rooms used 
 as pantries and provision closets, where arc kept quantities of 
 red. yellow and blue corn, sometimes hanging on strings, 
 sometimes piled up like cord wood. Water melons, musk 
 melons, cantaloupes, and peaches of large si/e and delicious 
 flavor- all these either dried or fresh or both ; onions, toma 
 toes, chili, beets, beans, acorns, sunflower seeds, and -'mescal" 
 this last obtained by trading with the Apaches. < >f the above, 
 corn and melons are planted in extensive fields ; hundreds 
 and thousands of acres of cultivated land can bo seen at one 
 time. The peach orchards of all the towns are extensive, but 
 those of Oraybe equal all the others united and produce a lar 
 ger and more grateful fruit. The Spanish priests brought the 
 first seeds with them. The tomato, onion, and beet are evi 
 dently of later introduction, and probably have been obtained 
 from Americans. Sunflowers attain an enormous size, the 
 disks of not a few being more than a foot in diameter; the 
 seeds are esteemed a luxury. ''Mescal" is obtained by roast 
 ing the heart and leaves of the American aloe, a plant .that 
 does not grow in the Moqui country, but which furnishes the 
 principal food of the Apaches. Dried mutton, venison, and 
 goats flesh, with an occasional rabbit or hare, comprise the 
 list of meats, while wild honey is sometimes seen as a rare 
 delicacy, preserved ii< earthen jars. 
 
 Meals are served on the cement floor, the men eating first, 
 women and children waiting deferentially until their lords 
 and masters are gorged and then falling to upon the remnants. 
 Beside each guest is placed a roll of tissue bread and in the 
 
center one or two crockery bowls containing a fragrant "olla 
 podrida" of chopped mutton, beans, tomatoes, chili and corn. 
 Knives and forks are unknown, so dirty paws dart quickly 
 from dish to mouth, and fro in mouth to dish until the last 
 fragment of meat has been consumed or satiety compels a re 
 spite. Melons and peaches form the after course. 
 
 Haying satisfied the inner man, there is now an opportunity 
 for looking into the other apartments. In some, buckskin 
 ropes stretched from wall to wall, sustain heavy blankets wo 
 ven in alternate bands of black, white and blue, the dark col 
 ors predominating less generally than the white. Rude wea 
 ving machines may be witnessed in operation any time. On 
 the floor are rugs or mats about seven feet long and as many 
 wide, woven of wool, filled in in some way with the fur of 
 cayotes. wolves, rabbits and hares. These cover in cold 
 weather the entrances and windows, as the Moquis have no 
 doors ; in Summer, these rugs serve as cushions and mattress 
 es. Chimneys are of crockery, and so skillful is their con 
 struction, that it is doubtful if a smoking one can be found in 
 "the seven cities." Crockery is indeed the great manufacture 
 of the Moquis whose dishes are not only neat and durable, 
 but ornamented with identically the same tracings as are de 
 tected upon the broken fragments of earthenware lying in 
 heaps in the "Aztec ruins" of Arizona. 
 
 As might be inferred from the above brief list of comforts 
 possessed by the Moquis, they are a thrifty, frugal and Indus 
 trious people one of the few native tribes which do not im 
 pose all the drudgery of domestic and out-door labor opon the 
 women. With them the men assume the care of the fields and 
 nocks, the women employing their time in cai'ing for their 
 homes, weaving blankets, making pottery, and, in the proper 
 season, drying peaches. Squads of five and six women, young 
 and old, assemble in the orchards, gather the delicious fruit 
 and spread it out to dry in the sun ; thousands of pounds may 
 be collected within a radius of as many yards. 
 
 Every year in the Summer months, detachments of Moquis 
 appear in Prescott, Arizona, the Mormon settlements of lower 
 Utah, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to trade for and buy nec 
 essaries or any clothing they may fancy. Among frontiers 
 men, the impression prevails that to them the wild Apache 
 and Navajo have resorted, when at war with the whites, for 
 powder, shot, and rifles. For this belief good grounds exist 
 the Moqui representing the Chatham-street trader of the na 
 tive American tribes, and disposed to sell all that is most 
 deart o him to secure good bargains. The wilder and nobler 
 
Apache and Na\ajo disdain the effeminate Moqui over whom 
 thoir superiority must be conceded in every manly and bar 
 baric virtue. 
 
 Between Apaches and Mcquis the contrast is striking; the 
 former inured to the privations of nomadic life and darkened 
 by constant exposure to the sun ; the latter enjoying all com 
 forts attainable by a people ignorant of the working of metals 
 but enervated by an almost monastic seclusion and blanched 
 by the protection of cool and lofty houses. The comparative 
 fairness of the Moqui complexion has given rise to frequent 
 remark, undiminished by encountering among them individu 
 als of pure white skins, auburn hair and ruddy cheeks, corres 
 ponding to the Albinos of Equatorial Africa. They say that 
 long ago these Albinos were numerous, but are at present 
 much reduced, probably not over fifty living in the entire na 
 tion. The other Moquis do not intermarry with them and the 
 existence of a mutual contempt may be detected. 
 
 Little is known of the mode of government or religion pre 
 vailing in their villages; the head captains or caciques, called 
 in their language ' ; mung-wee" transact all business, send 
 out the herds to pasture at day dawn, and recall them to the 
 corrals before sun set ; designate the two sentinels who on 
 each '-mesa" keep watch by night and to all appearances have 
 general supervision of the communities. 
 
 A faint flush of religion or superstition tinges their daily life, 
 ushered in each morning by the chanting of choruses and 
 clanging of bells to drive bad spirits away from their harvests 
 and orchards. 
 
 Shrines, containing votive offerings of petrified wood, twigs* 
 and other rubbish have been noticed . but thus far no circum 
 stantial account of their festivals, if any, or the ceremonial 
 observed during their continuance, has been compiled. Like 
 all other Indian nations, their traditions, historical and re 
 ligious, are probabiy vague, incoherent and unsatisfactory. 
 Much might be gleaned by a careful and intelligent study of 
 the tracings upon the huge blocks of soft, friable sandstone 
 lying about their villages ; upon these are carved, not seldom 
 of an enormous size, representations of elk, deer, horses, 
 "burros," chickens, crows, men and women ; J,he artists who 
 aspired to the delineation of the human form divine nor being 
 restrained by any considerations of delicacy in the accomplish 
 ment of their tasks. Many of these tracings are scarcely 
 discernible and bear marks of a great antiquity. 
 
 To the archaBologist and ethnographer this peculiar people 
 
[8] 
 
 of the remote Southwest, must, for a long time to come, furn 
 ish matter for reflection and discussion. Their habitations, 
 manners and customs are to-day practically what they were 
 when Cortez was "Marquis ot Oaxaca," 350 years ago ; and, 
 if from their condition we may assume, as we have a right to 
 do, a similarity in all respects between them and the other 
 nations of Mexico encountered by the first Spanish -adventur 
 ers, we must frame new ideas of the Aztecs whose advanced 
 civilization formed the theme of soldiery report and monkish 
 story ; the gorgeous palaces of Monte/uina fade away and 
 leave us villages of j-qualid stone tenements ; instead of a 
 homogeneous and strongly cemented autonomy, we see a na 
 tion composed of many peoples, distrustful each of the other, 
 indifferent to the maintenance of j,eace at home and impotent 
 to resist aggressions from abroad. Historial inconoclasts have 
 ere this alluded to Monte/uma as a petty Captain, his Capital 
 as a paltry and disorderly jumble of mud huts. The eloquence 
 of Prescott has gilded the achievements of Cortez with the 
 glamour of romance ; but the coming generation may applaud 
 the Spanish commander more for what he tried to do than for 
 what he really won. 
 
 THE MOOUIS. 
 
 On the fourth page of the ALT A to-day may be found a very 
 interesting article upon the Moquis of Arizona; that curious 
 people so different from every ether tribe of natives of the 
 country. It is next to impossible to believe they had the 
 same origin as the Apache and other Indian tribes. If they 
 are relics of the old Aztec races, they must have very essen 
 tially degenerated, or the Spanish accounts of the Aztec na 
 tions, whom they, under Cortez, overcome, were highly col 
 ored. Surely the people who constructed such cities as Palen- 
 que must have been at some time in the far past a race vastly 
 advanced beyond the present state of semi-civilization dis- 
 plaj^ed by the Moquis of the present time. But who knows 
 what the effects of their surroundings, their neighbors, the 
 Apaches and other warlike and brutal tribes, may have been. 
 The article referred to is a very interesting account of this 
 strange people, and was written from personal observation 
 and may be implicitly relied upon.