l tell you. Traders explain the wonderful way news has of
traveling from tribe to tribe by the laconic expression, "moccasin
telegram."

Whether or not the infection of revolt spread by "moccasin telegram"
from Canada to Mexico, the storm broke, and broke with frightful
violence over the Southwest. The immediate cause was religious
interference. All pueblo people have secret lodges held in underground
_estufas_ or _kivas_. To these ceremonies no white man however favored
is ever admitted. White men know as little of the rites practiced in
these lodges by the pueblo people as when Coronado came in 1540. To the
Spanish governors and priests, the thing was anathema--abomination of
witchcraft and sorcery and secrecy that risked the eternal damnation of
converts' souls. There was a garrison of only 250 men at the Palace;
yet already the church boasted fifty friars, from eleven to seventeen
missions, and converts by the thousands. But the souls of the holy
_padres_ were sorely tried by these _estufa_ rites, "_platicas de
noche_," "night conversations"--the priests called them. Well might all
New Spain have been disturbed by these "night conversations." The
subject bound under fearful oath of secrecy was nothing more nor less
than the total extermination of every white man, woman and child north
of the Rio Grande.

Some unwise governor--Trevino, I think it was--had issued an edict in
1675 forbidding the pueblos to hold their secret lodges in the
_estufas_. By way of enforcing his edict, he had forty-seven of the wise
men or Indian priests (he called them "sorcerers") imprisoned; hanged
three in the jail yard of the Palace as a warning, and after severe
whipping and enforced fasts, sent the other forty-four home. Picture the
situation to yourself! The wise men or governors of the pueblos are
always old men elected out of respect for their superior wisdom, men
used to having their slightest word implicitly obeyed. Whipped, shamed,
disgraced, they dispersed from the Palace, down the Rio Grande to
Isleta, west to the city on the impregnable rocks of Acoma, north to
that whole group of pueblo cities from Jemez to Santa Fe and Pecos and
Taos. What do you think they did? Fill up the underground _estufas_ and
hang their heads in shame among men? Then, you don't know the Indian!
You may break his neck; but you can't bend it. The very first thing they
did was to gather their young warriors in the _estufas_. Picture that
scene to yours