Note IV'-17 — Chapter IV · OBSERVATIONS ON NEW SPAIN.[IV'-1]

Whatever the real implication of names bestowed upon actual or alleged branches of the Colorado by the early explorers from whom Pike drew his inspiration, as Escalante 1777, it is not difficult to identify those he uses, even when his text does not agree with his map, as happens in some cases. From the Rio Gila, for which see note19, we will follow his map upward. 1. "Rio Sn. Maria" of the map, not in the text. The name Santa Maria held for many years for the branch of the Colorado now called Bill Williams' fork. This is composed of two main streams, to one of which the name Santa Maria is now usually restricted; the other is called Big Sandy. Bill Williams' fork does not head in Bill Williams' mountain, being cut off from that by the Rio Verde, etc.; its basin lies entirely W. of Aubrey and Chino valleys, and of the Prescott plains. This river drains westward from the Santa Maria, Granite, Juniper, Weaver, and other ranges in Arizona, and falls into the Colorado from the E. at a place called Aubrey City, the site of which was pointed out to me by a native when I navigated the Colorado in 1865, though I saw nothing like a city. 2. There is no mention in the text, nor any sign on the map, of the Colorado Chiquito, otherwise Little Colorado r., though this is a large water-course which, when it runs, drains an extensive area in N. Arizona. This stream heads about the White, Mogollon, and other ranges on or near the confines of New Mexico; receives from the Zuñian mts. its main fork, Rio Puerco of the West; flows N. W. past (E. of) the San Francisco and Bill Williams' peaks, and falls into the Colorado from the S. E., well up in the Grand Cañon of the latter; its own lower courses are terribly cañonous for a great distance, its bed being riven in chasms comparable even with the awful abyss of the Colorado itself. 3. Non-appearance of the Colorado Chiquito affects to some extent the identification of the river called in the text "de los Anamas or Nabajoa" and lettered on the map "Rio Jasquevilla." This is laid down as a large eastern branch of the Colorado which falls in above the Grand Cañon, and on which lived the "Nahjo" (Navajo) and "Cosninas" (Cojnino) Indians, and south of which were the "Indiens Moqui, Independent since 1680," in four villages lettered "Oraybe," "Mosanis," "Songoapt," and "Gualpi"—for, though the Moki legend is set astride of the river itself, it belongs to these four villages S. of the river. The stream in question certainly was meant for the Colorado Chiquito; but most of its ascribed characters are those of Rio San Juan of N. W. New Mexico, N. E. Arizona, and S. E. Utah. The leaning toward the Colorado Chiquito is shown by the location of the Cojnino Indians on this stream, and its passage next N. of the circle of ten peaks lettered "Sierra de los Cosninas"—these indicating the San Francisco, Bill Williams', and other mountains of central Arizona; but identification with the San Juan is possible by the location of the Navajos on its headwaters and of the Mokis further S., as well as by its entrance into the Colorado above the Grand Cañon—for Pike charts the upper end of the cañon as the "Puerto del Bacorelli." Rio San Juan heads in N. W. New Mexico, next W. of the Rio Grande basin, having numerous collateral sources there and in contiguous parts of N. E. Arizona and S. W. Colorado; hence it enters S. E. Utah and runs to the Colorado around the base of Mt. Navajo, thus including in its ramifications adjacent corners of two states and two territories; two of its affluents retain to this day the names Rio de las Animas and Rio Navajo, respectively. Among its larger tributaries may be mentioned Rio Chusco, Chasco, or Chaco, and especially Rio Chelly—the latter being that one the mystery of whose famous Cañon de Chelly was fathomed by Captain J. H. Simpson in 1859. The two strange words which Pike uses in this connection, "Bacorelli" and "Jasquevilla," both treated in the Index, are not the same as Jicarilla, present name of certain mountains in Arizona and of a certain tribe of Indians called in Arizona "Hickory" Apaches. 4. The fact that the Grand Cañon of the Colorado is indicated on Pike's map may be certified in more than one way: (a) He marks below it certain "Indiens Chemequaba," i. e., Chemehuevi, a Shoshonean tribe then as now living in Arizona below the cañon, and thus isolated from their parent stock among Apaches of Athapascan lineage. (b) Pike's term "Cosninas," for certain Indians and mountains, is still an alternative name for the Cosnino, Cojnino, or Cataract Cañon, a side-spur of the Grand Cañon, and still the residence of a curious cave-dwelling tribe called Yavasupai, Havasupi, or Aguazul, who numbered 214 when I visited them in 1881. (c) The trans-continental route via the Arkansaw and Colorado rivers, which Pike suggests as the "best communication from ocean to ocean," need not be supposed to run through the Grand Cañon, but rather to approximate that lately achieved by the Atlantic and Pacific R. R., connecting on the E. with the A., T., and S. F. R. R., on the W. with the So. Cala. R. R. 5. West of the Grand Cañon Pike traces a problematical "Rio de los Panami des surfurcas on ignore l Embouchure," without beginning or end. This suggests Virgin r., whose junction with the Colorado in Nevada was then unknown. 6. Above the Grand Cañon, Pike forks the Colorado distinctly into two main branches, referable of course to the Grand and the Green rivers. 7. The main course of Grand r. is lettered "Rio de los Duimas," for which read Las Animas—but not "Los Anamas or Nabajoa" of Pike's text, already accounted for. This "Duimas" may be taken as intended to represent the whole course of Grand r. and its branches, as the Gunnison, etc. 8. The main course of the "Duimas" or Grand r. is what Pike means by Rio "de los Dolores" of the text, nameless on his map. This is the Dolores r. of present geography, running chiefly in Colorado, but joining the Grand in Utah. Pike forks this; one of these forks is the continuation of the Dolores; the other is present San Miguel r. of Colorado. 9. Green r. is the one lettered "Rio Zanguananos," as the main continuation of the Colorado itself. This is correct, though the singular S-shaped course in which it is laid down is so far out of drawing that the two branches of it which he names are thrown in the wrong direction. These two are the San Rafael and San Xavier of both text and map. The first one of them is present San Rafael r.; and if we take Pike's San Xavier to be the next above on the same side, it corresponds to Price r. We must not seek for any streams higher up the Grand than Price r.; the early Spanish travelers did not get very far in that direction; and Pike sets all these streams considerably S. of Great Salt l., not beyond the latitude he assigns to the head of the Rio Grande. The old Spanish trail from Colorado into Utah passed a certain Sierra La Sal, or Salt mt., which is situated near the confluence of the Green and the Grand; continued across both these rivers a little above their junction, and so on westward between the San Rafael r. and the San Xavier or Price r., into the basin of present Sevier r. and Sevier l. Now Pike sets his "Montaigne de Sel," or Mountain of Salt, close to the main Rio Zanguananos or Green r., and directly against the mouth of his San Rafael. This particular combination could not have been accidental, and seems to show what was really mapped, though so distortedly. As intimated in beginning this note, I have attempted identifications without prejudice to any original implication of the Spanish records, but solely according to what I find in Pike. The early names themselves seem open to the interpretation here offered, and I know from several futile attempts which I made that Pike's geography of the Colorado basin would be hard to square with the facts in any other way. Should the present identifications be acceptable, some hitherto unsurmounted difficulties would prove to have been overcome.