They Went And Gathered A
Quantity Of This And Brought It Back To Cibola, Dividing It Among Those Who
Were There.
They gave the general a written account of what they had seen,
because one Pedro de Sotomayor had gone with Don Garcia Lopez as chronicler
for the army.
The villages of that province remained peaceful, since they
were never visited again, nor was any attempt made to find other peoples in
that direction."
Place Described by Cardenas Unknown. There has been some attempt on the
part of students who are familiar with the country to locate the spot where
Cardenas and his men gazed down into the depths of the Canyon of the
Colorado River. The long distance travelled, according to Castaneda's
narrative, was totally unnecessary to bring the Spaniards to the banks of
the river. Twenty days' journey, through a desert region, away from Tusayan
in the direction of the Colorado River, would have brought them as far down
as Yuma or Mohave. But at these points there is no canyon. It is well known
that the Canyon system terminates near the Great Bend, some miles beyond
the Grand Wash, hence this could not have been the objective point of the
guides of Cardenas.
Dellenbaugh's Opinion. Dellenbaugh, in his "Romance of the Colorado River,"
argues that the Tusayan of Castaneda could not have been the land of the
Hopis, for, as he truthfully remarks, "an able-bodied man can easily walk
to the brink of the Marble Canyon from there in three or four days." He
also says that it has usually been stated, without definite reason, that
Cardenas reached the Grand Canyon about opposite Bright Angel River, or
near the spot where El Tovar Hotel now stands. I have never heard this
statement made by any one who has any knowledge either of Castaneda's
narrative, or of the relative locations of the Hopi towns and the Grand
Canyon.
Evidently a Hopi Stratagem. The Hopis of to-day, with whom I have talked,
insist upon it that Cardenas was taken to the barren and desolate point
near the junction of Marble Canyon, the Little Colorado Canyon and the
Grand Canyon. Here, the river may be said to come from the northeast and
turn toward the south-southwest, and the conditions are not at all like
those described by the historian. But if one accepts this modern statement
of the Hopis, he is met with the questions: Why make Cardenas travel fifty
leagues to see an inaccessible river that could be reached in three or four
days? Did Cardenas really travel fifty leagues? I do not know, but I hazard
the conjecture that the Hopis gave Cardenas as much wandering about as they
could, took him to this terribly bleak and barren spot where even to-day
one can scarcely prevail upon a Hopi or Navaho to guide him, in order that
he might be discouraged from making further explorations in the
neighborhood. The Hopis had no use for explorers or strangers.
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