much. They season it with fat, which they always try to secure when they kill a cow.[1] They empty a large gut and fill it with blood, and carry this around the neck to drink when they are thirsty. When they open the belly of a cow, they squeeze out the chewed grass and drink the juice that remains behind, because they say that this contains the essence of the stomach. They cut the hide open at the back and pull it off at the joints, using a flint as large as a finger, tied in a little stick, with as much ease as if working with a good iron tool. They give it an edge with their own teeth. The quickness with which they do this is something worth seeing and noting.[2]
There are very great numbers of wolves on these plains, which go around with the cows. They have white skins. The deer are pied with white. Their skin is loose, so that when they are killed it can be pulled off with the hand while warm, coming off like pigskin.[3] The rabbits, which are very numerous, are so foolish that those on horseback killed them with their lances. This is when they are mounted among the cows. They fly from a person on foot.
Chapter 8, of Quivira, of where it is and some information about it.
Quivira is to the west of those ravines, in the midst of the country, somewhat nearer the mountains toward the sea, for the country is level as far as Quivira, and there they began to see some mountain chains. The country is well settled. Judging from what was seen on the borders of it, this country is very similar to that of Spain in the varieties of vegetation and fruits. There are plums like those of Castile, grapes, nuts, mulberries, oats, pennyroyal, wild marjoram, and large quantities of flax, but this does not do them any good, because they do not know how to use it.[4] The people are of almost the same sort and appearance as the Teyas. They have villages like those in New Spain. The houses are round, without a wall, and they have one story like a loft, under the roof, where they sleep and keep their belongings. The roofs
- ↑ Pemmican
- ↑ Mota Padilla, cap. xxxii. 2, p. 165; "Habiendo andado cuatro jornadaa por estos llanos, con grandes neblinas, advirtieron los soldados rastro como de picas de lanzas arrastradas por el suelo. y llevados per la curiosidad, le siguieron basta dar con cincuenta gandules, que con sus familias, seguian unas manadas de dichas vacas, y en unos perrillos no corpulentos, cargaban unas varas y pieles, con las que formaban sus tiendas ó toritos, en donde se entraban para resistir el sol ó el agua. Loa indios son de buena estatura, y no se supo si eran haraganes ó tenian pueblos: presumióse los tendrian porque ninguna de las indias llevaba niño pequeño; andaban vestidas con unos faldellines de cuero de venado de la cintura para abajo, y del mismo enero unos capisayos ó vizcainas, con que se cubren: traen unas medias calzas de cuero adobado y sandalisa de cuero crudo; ellos andan desnudos, y cuando mas les aflige el frio, se cubren con cueros adobados; no usan, ni los hombres ni las mujeres, cabello largo, sino trasquilados, y de media cabeza para la frente rapados á navaja; usan por armas las flechas, y con los aesos de las mismas vacas benefician y adoban los cueros: llámanse cíbolos. y tienen mas ímpetu para embestir que los toros, aunque no tanta fortaleza; y en las fiestas reales que se celebraron en la ciudad de México por la jura de nuestro rey D. Luis I, hizo el conde de San Mateo de Valparaiso se llevase una cibola para que se torease, y por solo verìa se despobló Mexico, por hallar lugar en la plaza, que le fué muy útil al tabla jero aquel dia."
- ↑ Compare the Spanish. Omitted by Ternaux.
- ↑ Mr Savage, in the Transactions of the Nebraska Historical Society, vol. i, p. 198, shows how closely the descriptions of Castañeda, Jaramillo, and the others on the expedition, harmonize with the flora and fauna of his State.
