BOOTS IN THE SANDS OF TIME-part 2

Cabeza de Vaca

BOOTS IN SANDS OF TIME (part 2)

by f.g.lopriato y lopez

The marooned party wandered around what was to tbe the Southwestern part of what is now Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, for almost ten years. Sometimes as slaves and sometimes as healers in the primitive system of curing illness in the wild. Today, it would be know as "faith healing." Consisting of the healers' breathing mouthfuls of smoke on the patents affected areas and reciting prayers. Apparently, the placebo effect favored the black member of the group, Estabanico, and he was awarded a feathered gourd rattle which singled him out as a full-fledged "Medicine-Man."

Estanico also learned several tribal dialects during his nine year sojourn, giving the froup VIP proviliges to travel at wiill. and thus making it back to New Spain. (now Mexico.)

The Northernmost outposts of New Spain was Campostella, fifty miles north of Mexico City, in what is today Culiacan. Everything north of that point was wild, uncharted territory and know as "Cibola." Cibolo, with an "o" at the end mean "buffalo" in Spanish. To 15th century Spaniards, the wildest, most vicious, strangest, most dangerous animal in creation. And since the word for land, "Tierra" is feminine noun meaning "land," this unknown territory was called "Cibola." (a female buffalo.) Metaphorically speaking, Cibola means "the wild, untamed land."

The "Fountain of Youth, "El Dorado," etc were all incentives that appealed to the gold lust of, not just Spanish soliders, but of every mercenary and adventurer in the Holy Roman Empire, that could beg, borrow, steal, or flim flam enough money to get to America and cash in on every man's dream of eternal fame and unlimited riches. Now another fable began to make the rounds, that of the Seven Cities of Gold, somewhere in Cibola. The fables cities were were really a marriage of two ancient legends. The Aztec legend of a starnge, bearded race thay came from seven caves in what is now the Four Corners area of the United States, and an old Spanish legend about seven bishops that took their individual wealth and crossed the Atlantic where they founded the seven districts.

If Spain was not planning to invade Cibola, she certainly gazed longingly Northward, as Cortes and Pizzaro vied for the new conquests. Peru had been the feathe rin Spain's war bonnet when Pizzaro took it, but Cortes checkmated him in the taking of Mexico.

For all the wealth Pizzaro has accumulated, his chances of increasing his gains now became limited to Peru itself. The land between Peru and Mexico was already claimed and pillaged, but Cortes looked Northward and dreamed of expanding and finding Cibola. With more riches than he had found in Mexico? Yes! Yes! Yes! A New Mexico!

Coincidentally Spain was massing forces in Mexico, so many that they posed disciplinary problems and coincidentally The Viceroy of Spain made Mexico City the seat of Governement.

When Cabeza de Vaca and his companions refused to return to civilization, their tales of Cibola stoked the Viceroy's fire and he quickly organised an exploratory mission backtracking de Vaca.

The two Spanish survivors refused to return, bu the black Moor slave had no choice. Coronado was leading the main party but before that Estebanico would accompany Fray Marco de Nizza back over the trail that he and de Vaca had blazed. (to be continued.)

Boot Prints in the Sand of Time

Boot Prints in the Sand of Time

by F. G. Lopriato y Lopez

For better or worst, New Mexico's past in firmly rooted in the Italian boot. The deeper one digs into the hard Caliche clay of The Land of Enchantment, the more evidant that indesputible fact becomes...

One has but to scan the pages of history of the Queen Mother City of the state, Albuquerque, to see that the pllars of her community are names such as: Domenici, Mattuecci, Franchini, Schifani, Brunachini, Bonaguidi, Dinelli, Giomi, Del Frati,

lecioni,Pucetti, etc and more Italian family names than we can list here, but the Rozzi's and De Blassis will remember.

Twice in its history Albuquerque has proudly numbered foreign born Italian immigrants as most prevalent in its census. Italians have been second only to Mexican foreign born immigrants in the city.

Why is it that first generation Italians faired so well in New Mexico? All kinds of conjectures have been handled every time that question is asked. From, "because everyone here is an immigrant in their own right" to " the Spanish culture, language, religion and temperament are similar." Youwould be closer to the truth if you choose the latter. The former has no basis in fact or in practice, but that is only part of the story.

First generation Italians didn't come here to colonize and exploit New Mexican society wit the intention of taking everything of value that was not nailed down and returning to their own home ground. No! They came here to be part of the society. To help it grow and to evolve together, improving as the society improved.

Oh Yes! There were many who came to line their own pockets. Some did just that and went back home, but most remained and became the best citizens in their town, county and state. Their children and grandchildren are now achieving national and international fame, Napolaone and Domenici for instance. By not resisting assimillation, Italian immigrants to New Mexico were able to slide into the vacuum created the the change in the state culture of New Mexico. Acting as a bridge bewteen a society that was undergoing transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society to a business society and from a Spanish speaking society to an English speaking society, from one system of education to another, and from one set of state values to another.

Was it Chance? The Will of God? Fate? Destiny? Or the experience of an older way of life that had already overcome similar conditions in the Old World? We'll never know, but one thing for certain is that Italian immigrant to New Mexico, even before the 1880's, rose higher and faster than Italians immigrants who chose Eastern states in which to settle. Italian immigrants to New Mexico may have been aware, but were not personally affected by Anti-Immigrant sentiments of the Nationalists Movement elsewhere that forced many Italians into isolation in "Little Italy's" seeking the aid of criminal organizations that expolited their own people.

You be the judge as we present the story of The Real Architects of New Mexico, in what promises to be last and longest series that the Wopajo Cry has ever undertaken.

The first Europeans, to set foot in what is now the Great American Southwest, were three survivors of the ill-fated Spanish expedition of what is now the State of Florida. What had begun as a sizeable force made up of several nationalities had been rebuffeted by the defending Indians of the peninsula, malaria and hunger which thinned their ranks. After killing their horse and eating the meat, they used the horse hides to fashion boats hoping to escape to Mexico via the Gulf, but the skins had not been allowed to cure enough and the boats sank in mid-sea. Three Spaniards and a black Moorish slave survived. (to be continued.)