Matilda Coxe Stevenson

The Sia Matilda Coxe Stevenson

The cosmogony and myths of the Sia point to the present site as their home before resorting to the mesa, which was not, however, their first mesa home; their legends refer to numerous villages on mountain tops in their journeying from the north to the center of the earth. The population of this village was originally very large, but from its situation it became a target during intertribal feuds. A time came, however, when intertribal strife ceased, and the pueblo tribes united their strength to oppose a common foe, an adversary who struck terror to the heart of the Indian, inasmuch as he not only took possession of their villages and homes, but was bent upon uprooting the ancestral religion to plant in its stead the Roman Catholic faith. To avoid this result the Sia fled to the mesa and built a village, but the foe was not to be thus easily baffled and the mesa village was brought under subjection. That these people again struggled for their freedom is evident from the report of Vargas of his visit there in 1692: The pueblo had been destroyed a few years before by Cruzate, but it had not been rebuilt. The troops entered it the next morning. It was situated upon the mesa of Cerro Colorado, and the only approach to it was up the side of the plateau by a steep and rocky road. The only thing of value found there was the bell of the convent, which was ordered to be buried. The Indians had built a new village near the ruins of the old one. When they saw the Spaniards approach they came forth to meet and bid them welcome, carrying crosses in their hands, and the chiefs marching at their heads. In this manner they escorted Vargas and his troops to the plaza, where arches and crosses were erected, and good quarters provided them