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On the ridges south of Hishi human figures stand. They are scattered, watching and spying attentively. They are videttes, outposts, placed to scan the plains and the slopes of the mountains, lest some enemy sneak up and pounce upon the defenceless village. For at the time of which we are speaking the Tanos, or Hishi, are not only defenceless, but singularly unsuspecting and heedless of danger.
But it is not those who are most eager that are most considered; it seems that the bulk of the food thrown into the air is showering down upon a row of houses on whose terraces stands a group of men, women, and children who seem no part of the inhabitants of Hishi, manifesting this not so much in dress as from their distant and timid deportment.
Seldom do we meet with a stone hammer, whereas grinding-slabs and grinders are frequent, though for the most part scattered and broken. The spot is well selected for an abode of sedentary Indians. An extensive view opens toward the east, north, and south. We see in the east the mountains above Santa Fé, in the south the ranges at whose foot lie the ruins of Hishi.
It contained, as the ruins attest, nearly fifteen hundred people of the Tanos tribe. Its name was Hishi. The name is well known to-day to the remnants of the Tanos, for they have piously preserved the recollections of their former abodes. Hishi is not on a beautiful site. It lies in a wide ditch rather than in a valley.
No view opens from it, and sombre mountains loom up in close proximity both to the north and west. In the rear of the village, the soil rises gradually to a low series of ridges, from the top of which, at some distance from Hishi, the eye ranges far off toward the plains and the basin of the salt lakes. These ridges are convenient posts of observation.
Every woman or girl bears on her head a basket of willows or yucca filled with corn-cakes, yucca preserve, and other delicacies, products of the vegetable kingdom. It is a procession of baskets filing through Hishi, solemn and sober, and in the main extremely monotonous.
Spectators below turn over to them what has fallen to their share, others place what they have secured with the little hoard the strangers are accumulating. For these people, so poorly clad and looking so needy, must be strangers in the village of Hishi.
That the strangers are village Indians can easily be seen. It is proved by the cut of the hair, and by the rags which still protect their bodies from absolute nakedness. But the tongue they speak is different from that spoken by the people of Hishi. To us, however, it is not new. We have heard that dialect before. It is the Queres language, the language of the Rito.
They are the fugitives from the Rito, the little band whom the Tanos of Hishi have kindly received and charitably supported until a few months since, when they allowed them to go and build a new home. They came hither led on by Hayoue, who is now their maseua; for each tribe, however small, must have one.
Scouts placed there can descry the approach of hostile Apaches. The latter roam up and down the plains, following the immense herds of buffalo, and prey upon the village Indians whenever the latter present any opportunity for a successful surprise. The buffalo himself not infrequently comes to graze within a short distance of Hishi. South of the present ruins lies the buffalo spring.
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