Note IV'-20 — Chapter IV · OBSERVATIONS ON NEW SPAIN.[IV'-1]

This is the main fork or largest branch of the Rio Grande. As already remarked, note23, p. 632, Pike maps it too high up; for it runs entirely E. of the mountains (Sacramento, Guadalupe, White, etc.), W. of which he traces it, and its mouth is 346 m. by the channel of the Rio Grande below the site of Presidio del Norte, in lat. 29° 40´ N., long. 101° 20´ W. The length of the river is supposed to be between 700 and 800 m. The Pecos heads in the mountains immediately W. of Santa Fé—on the E. side of the Santa Fé range and W. side of Las Vegas range, among such peaks as the Truchas, Cone, Baldy, Lake, etc., there flowing due S. before it bears off to the left. It receives numerous small tributaries, both above and below the point where it passes by the cañon, old pueblo, and modern town of Pecos. The name is derived from the old pueblo, which was situated on one of those tributaries in the mountains, some 25 m. S. E. of Santa Fé. The Pecos have for many years been currently reported to have been among the straitest sect of the Montezuman faith, and the belief is general that they were those who longest guarded the holy fire in their estufas and looked to the east for the advent of their paraclete. This is a traditional taradiddle which has no foundation in fact. Not that Montezuma Ilhuicamina and Montezuma Xocoyotzin were not real historical persons; nor that the latter, Montezuma II., was not euhemerized and apotheosized; simply, that the Pecos people never worshiped him. The myth recrudesced during the old Santa Fé trade, and was found in full swing on our peaceable conquest of New Mexico in 1846. Pecos is corrupted from the (Tañoan) Jemez word Paquiu, applied later than the aboriginal name Tshiquite, rendered Cicuique in old Sp. chronicles. Pecos "was in 1540 the largest Indian village or pueblo in New Mexico, containing a population of about 2,000 souls, which formed an independent tribe speaking the same language as the Indians of Jemez. In 1680 the Pecos rebelled with the others, but surrendered peaceably to Vargas in 1692, and thereafter remained loyal to Spain," Cent. Cyclop. Names, s. v. "What with the massacres of the second conquest, and the inroads of the Comanches, they gradually dwindled away, till they found themselves reduced to about a dozen, comprising all ages and sexes; and it was only a few years ago that they abandoned the home of their fathers and joined the Pueblo of Jemez," Gregg, Comm. Pra., I., 1844, p. 271. The pueblo was desolate and in ruins when our Army of the West came by in 1846: see Lieut. Emory's report, Ex. Doc. 41, 30th Congr., 1st Sess., pub. 1848, p. 30, with plate facing it; also, a different view, on the plate facing p. 447 of Lieut. Abert's report in the same volume. The latter says, p. 446: "In the afternoon [Sept. 26th, 1846] I went out on the hills to see the ancient cathedral of Pecos. The old building and the town around it are fast crumbling away under the hand of time. The old church is built in the same style as that of San Miguel; the ends of the rafters are carved in imitation of a scroll; the ground plan of the edifice is that of a cross. It is situated on a hill not far from the winding course of the river. High ridges of mountains appear to converge until they almost meet behind the town, and through a little gap one catches sight of a magnificent range of distant peaks that seem to mingle with the sky." Abert was told that the surviving remnant went to live with the Zuñis; but Gregg's statement is no doubt correct, especially as Emory says, l. c., that "they abandoned the place and joined a tribe of the original race over the mountains, about 60 miles south." The modern small village of Pecos grew up close by the original site, which was abandoned in 1840.