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Abe Peña's Cíbola Beacon newspaper column

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

Published Friday, March 13, 2009 9:18 AM MDT

"A Brief History of 'Buffalo County'

Some 40,000 years ago, the first humans crossed the Bering Sea from Asia to Alaska and kept moving south all the way to the Andes Mountains of South America. They were named Incas, and thrived in the high mountains of the Andes.

Years later, another group of Asians migrated, and they kept going south to Central America. They were named Mayans. Later, another group migrated and settled in Mexico. They were called Aztecs.

Some 10,000 years later, another group migrated and settled in northwestern New Mexico and eastern Arizona, and we called them Anasazi. Finally came the next to the last migration from Asia, the Navajo, and they settled in the land of the Anasazi who had left Chaco Canyon and founded the 19 pueblos of New Mexcio, generally known as Cíbola, Finally came the Aleuts and Eskimos who inhabited Alaska and thrived in the igloo.

I first saw the name Cíbola in a book at the Australian/American Cultural Center library in Sydney, Australia, and liked it. “The Seven Cities of Cíbola” had a nice ring to it. The meaning comes from buffalo, Cíbolo, and the female Cíbola. But, to keep the record straight, the buffalo never came west of the Rio Grande River. They are a plains animal, and they are most comfortable in the great plains.

The buffalo was the principal source of food to the plains Indians: the Kiowa, Comanche, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes. They did not have beasts of burden, and carried everything on their person or dragged it on a travois.

When the Spanish came to the Americas in the 15th century, they brought the first livestock to the new world. Horses and sheep were the most important. Our Indian friends could now ride their horses and go a long ways, even to waging war with other tribes. They could also carry goods or pull wagons on wheels. The Spanish had also brought the first wheel to the new world."