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Updated: May 11, 2025
Had the two tribes been on friendly terms, it might have been different; but there existed a breach between them already, and if the Queres chose to still further widen it, the Tehuas felt ready for any emergency. It was resolved to prepare for war at once, to call to arms the entire male population, send ahead the necessary spies, and thus prepared, to wait.
These ruins, inside as well as outside the northern walls of the cañon of the Rito, bear testimony to the tradition still current among the Queres Indians of New Mexico that the Rito, or Tyuonyi, was once inhabited by people of their kind, nay, even of their own stock. But the time when those people wooed and wed, lived and died, in that secluded vale is past long, long ago.
To abandon the groves, in which they felt comparatively safe in presence of the foe, would have been reckless; so the Queres remained during the whole day, while the Tehuas kept guard over them, observing their movements from the cover of the timber on the mesa. As night set in, the Hishtanyi Chayan ordered a slow, noiseless retreat down the Cañada toward the Rio Grande.
The men in women's garb were busy breaking twigs and branches, or cutting them off with stone implements. At the sight of strangers, they suspended work and stared. Hayoue laid aside his bow and quiver, and extended his right hand, calling out, "Queres Tyuonyi!" No answer came.
Shortly after their arrival among the group of warriors where the war-chief had taken his position, runners came from the south with news that they had detected several Queres in full war-paint creeping northward from the brink of the Rito. These runners were at once ordered back, with strict injunctions to the scouts not to impede the enemy's movements, but to suffer them to advance.
The plan was to allow the Queres to come up undisturbed as far as the north side of the Cañada. As the men from the Rito advanced, the Tehua scouts were to close in from the rear and follow them cautiously, until the enemies were all gathered on the desired spot, with the woods to their left and rugged, barren cliffs and peaks to their right.
He reflected, and Zashue had overlooked this important point, that, in case the Tehuas notified the Tanos of recent occurrences, they would not fail to boast of their signal triumph, and to represent the defeat of the Queres as akin to complete destruction. Therefore in what light could he and his brother appear to the people of Hashyuko than as fugitives from a tribe well nigh exterminated?
Warding off a blow aimed at his skull, with his shield he pushed it into the face of the new assailant with sufficient force to cause the man to stagger. Then he shouted a few words to his own men, turned around, and rushed back to his tree, where he fell down at full length, exhausted and bleeding. The other Queres, two in number, followed his example, and the Tehuas did not pursue.
Dismal anticipations and dread apprehension filled the hearts of every one. At the time when the tribal council of the Queres was holding the stormy session which we have described in the preceding chapter, quite a different scene was taking place at the home of the wife of Tyope.
Thus the Tigua Indians of Taos and Picuris are separated from their southern relatives on the Rio Grande by two distinct linguistic groups, the Tehuas and the Queres; the Jemez and the Pecos were divided from each other by the Queres and the Tanos.
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