habits as the Culuacanian Tahues. There is much sodomy among them. In the mountain district there is a large population and more settlements. These people have a somewhat different language from the Tahues, although they understand each other. It is called Petlatlan because the houses are made of petates or palm-leaf mats.[1] Houses of this sort are found for more than 240 leagues in this region, to the beginning of the Cibola wilderness. The nature of the country changes here very greatly, because from this point on there are no trees except the pine,[2] nor are there any fruits except a few tunas,[3] mesquites,[4] and pitahayas.[5]
Petlatlan is 20 leagues from Culiacan, and it is 130 leagues from here to the valley of Señora. There are many rivers between the two, with settlements of the same sort of people — for example, Sinoloa, Boyomo, Teocomo, Yaquimi, and other smaller ones. There is also the Corazones or Hearts, which is in our possession, down the valley of Señora.[6] Señora is a river and valley thickly settled by able-bodied people. The women wear petticoats of tanned deerskin, and little san benitos reaching halfway down the body.[7] The chiefs of the villages go upon some little heights they have made for this purpose, like public criers, and there make proclamations for the space of an hour, regulating those things they have to attend to. They have some little huts for shrines, all over the outside of which they stick many arrows, like a hedgehog. They do this when they are eager for war. All about this province toward the mountains there is a large population in separate little provinces containing ten or twelve villages. Seven or eight of them, of which I know the names, are Comupatrico, Mochilagua, Arispa, and the Little Valley.[8] There are others which we did not see.
It is 40 leagues from Señora to the valley of Suya. The town of Saint Jerome (San Hieronimo) was established in this valley, where there was
- ↑ An account of these people is given in the Triumphos, lib. 1, cap. ii, p. 6, Andres Perez de Ribas, S. J. "Estas [casas] hazian, unas de varas de monte hincadasen tierra, eutretexidas, y atadas con vejucos que son vuas ramas como de çarçaparrilla, muy fuertes, y que duran mucho tiẽpo. Las paredes que haziã con essa barazon las afortauan con una torta de barro, para que no las penetrasse el Sol. ni los vientos, cubriendo la casa con madera, y encima tierra, ó barro, con que hazian açotea, y con esso se contentauan. Otros hazian sus casas de petates q es genero de esteraa texidas de caña taxada." Bandelier found the Opata Indians living in houses made with "a slight foundation of cobblestones which supported a framework of posts standing in a thin wall of rough stones and mud, while a slanting roof of yucca or palm leaves covered the whole." — Final Report, pt. i, p. 58.
- ↑ The meaning of this sentence in the Spanish is not wholly clear. Ternaux, p. 156: "Cette manière de bâtir. . . change dans cet endroit probablement, parce qu'il n'y a plus d'arbres sans épines."
- ↑ The Opuntia tuna or prickly pear.
- ↑ Prosopis juliflora.
- ↑ Cereus thurberii.
- ↑ Sonora.
- ↑ Oviedo, Historia, vol. iii, p. 610 (ed. 1853): "Toda esta gente, dende las primeras casas delmahiz, andan los hombres muy deshonestos, sin se cobrir casa alguna de sus personas; é las mugeres muy honestas, con unas sayas de cueros de venados hasta los piés, é con falda que detrás les arrastra alguna cosa, ó abiertas por delante hasta el suelo y enlaçadas con unas correas. É traen debaxo, por donde están abiertas, una mantilla de algodon é otra ençima, é unas gorgueras de algodon, que les cubren todos los pechos."
- ↑ Ternaux, pp. 157-158: "une multitude de tribus à part, réunis en petites nations de sept on huit, dix on douze villages, ce sont: Upatrico, Mochila, Guagarispa, El Vallecillo, et d'antres qui son près des montagnes."
