material which they contain, although
my researches have been far from exhaustive, owing to lack of support in
my work. These documents, commonly called "Diligencias Matrimoniales,"
are the results of official investigations into the status of persons
desiring to marry. From their nature these investigations always cover a
considerable period, sometimes more than a generation, and frequently
disclose historical facts that otherwise might remain unknown. These
church papers also, though not frequently, include fragments of
correspondence and copies of edicts and decrees that deserve attention.

The destruction of the archives and of writings of all kinds in New
Mexico during the Indian revolt of 1680 and in succeeding years has left
the documentary history of the province during the seventeenth century
almost a blank. Publications are very few in number. There is no doubt
that the archives of Spain and even those of Mexico will yet reveal a
number of sources as yet unknown; but in the meantime, until these
treasures are brought to light, we must remain more or less in the dark
as to the conditions and the details of events prior to 1692. A number
of letters emanating from Franciscan sources have been published lately
in Mexico by Luis Garcia y Pimentel, and these throw sidelights on New
Mexico as it was in the seventeenth century that are not without value.
In the manuscripts from the archives at Santa Fe that survived the
Pueblo revolt, now chiefly in the Library of Congress at Washington,
occasional references to events anterior to the uprising may be found;
and the church books of El Paso del Norte (Juarez) contain some few data
that should not be neglected.

In 1602 there was published at Rome, under the title of _Relacion del
Descubrimiento del Nuevo Mexico_, a small booklet by the Dean of
Santiago, Father Montoya, which purports to give a letter from Onate on
his occupancy of New Mexico and journey to the Colorado river of the
West, thus covering the period between 1597 and 1605. It is preceded by
a notice of Espejo's exploration, but it is entirely too brief to afford
much information. The little book is exceedingly rare; but three copies
of it exist in the United States, so far as I am aware.

Of greater importance are the notices, of about the same period,
preserved by Fray Juan de Torquemada in the first volume of his
_Monarchia Indiana_ (1615). In this work we find the first mention of
some Pueblo fetishes,