For a Flower Garden (verse)
Peach, Arthur Wallace
384 THE COMMONWEAL August I4, 1929 entations were of the vaguest. Perhaps if Estevan, the pathfinder, had written the Relacion instead of De Vaca, we might be more certain. That the party...
...It was at a town probably slightly south of the Sonora valley that Friar Marcos stopped and sent Estevan ahead...
...The other white man, also a churchman, who started out with the friar became ill and was left at a settlement...
...But though still a slave, Estevan had the advantage over the friars he accompanied in that he was no stranger to the country into which they traveled and he had a prestige that the holy men lacked among the Indians who knew him as a medicine man...
...Estevan sent back a cross as tall as the Indian who staggered under its burden...
...That the party was in what is now Texas is certain at least, and some historians believe that De Vaca, Estevan and their companions were in New Mexico...
...So may it be through summer days And golden hours thereof A symbol by the roads of men Of joy and love...
...The general consensus of opinion seems to be that he sent ahead by messenger his magic gourd, which is described as being decorated with two bells and feathers, one white and one red...
...Even under the urgency of this message, the friar did not immediately set out to join him, but awaited the return of messengers he had dispatched to the coast...
...When he set out again into the wilderness north of New Spain, on the trail that ended for him so abruptly at Hawaikfih, Estevan was still in slavery, not to Dorantes, but to the viceroy of New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza...
...Estevan was to send back by messenger a cross, the size of which would indicate the importance of the territory he was exploring...
...Such is the general substance of the historians' conclusions about the end of Estevan...
...In Castefieda's account of the preliminary expedition of Friar Marcos, this early historian intimates that Estevan's presence as guide proved embarrassing on more scores than one...
...Before Estevan left Friar Marcos, the monk instructed him in the code in which he was to send back estimates of the importance of the country through which he passed...
...The chief of Cibola lodged Estevan outside the pueblo's limits and took away all his belongings, all his turquoises and feathers and bells, and refused him and his party food or water...
...When Friar Marcos reached the continental divide he was met by an Indian bearing the news of Estevan's imprisonment at Hawaikfih...
...a Flower Garden Lord, Who loved the fields and growing things, Who from the flowers drew Lessons that all the centuries Have learned were true, Give to this little garden plot The blessings of the sun, Sweet dews and gentle winds and peace When day is done...
...Finally persuading the terrified Indians to accompany him a little further, to a point where he could overlook the city where Estevan had been taken, Friar Marcos erected there a little pile of stones...
...Then, as the Friar so naively put it, with "more fright than food" he hurried back to Nueva Espafia where his tales were to inspire the expedition of Coronado...
...Only the Indians who brought the word back to Friar Marcos escaped...
...But, imperturbable, Estevan went on...
...It must have been disconcerting to a man who had taken holy orders to have his slave guide hailed as the miracle man of the party...
...There is one story which says that his body was cut into pieces and given the chiefs to satisfy them that the Negro really was dead, but I hope that story is not true...
...It was the expedition of Friar Marcos de Niza, sponsored by the viceroy of New Spain and guided by Estevan, which resulted in the later and betterknown expedition of Coronado...
...Perhaps if Estevan, the pathfinder, had written the Relacion instead of De Vaca, we might be more certain...
...Ahead of him the black man was flying from village to village and leaving each village with a few less turquoises and a few less Indians than it had had theretofore...
...The vastness of the southwestern United States makes one readily forgive De Vaca for his ambiguity, makes one marvel that he ever found his way to New Spain...
...There are minor differences...
...Friar Marcos's report gives no such intimation, but one can readily see why he might have preferred to have the matter die into historical silence...
...He never overtook Estevan...
...The next morning some of the Zufii ancients took Estevan and his Indians out of their lodging and, their attempt to flee being defeated, they were killed...
...He set up a cross and appropriated the country for God and Spain, christening it the Kingdom of Saint Francis as a compliment to his religious order...
...A maze of stories exists about the end which Estevan found awaiting him at Cibila...
...With the return of De Vaca to New Spain, one phase of Estevan's career as explorer was definitely over...
...The chief sent back messengers to demand of Estevan that he return at once, for if he continued his party would have no further chance to return alive...
...ARTHUR WALLACE PEACH...
...It was a code in the tradition of the Church...
...I much prefer the end ascribed to him by an old Zufii tradition which has it that the chiefs took Estevan out into the starlit blackness of a New Mexican night and "gave him a powerful kick that sped him through the air back to the south whence he had come...
...The gourd was presented to the chief of Cibola in the manner which had been the custom of the De Vaca party...
...Castefieda, who visited Cibola the next year, says that the Negro was kept prisoner three days under a severe strain of questioning before he was killed...
...384 THE COMMONWEAL August I4, 1929 entations were of the vaguest...
Vol. 10 • August 1929 • No. 15
