THE SPANIARD AND THE UTE BY S. LYMAN T Y L E R *
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the custom to begin the documentary study of the history of the present Utah area, and of the Yuta (anglicized Utah) Indians, with the diary of Father Escalante, who, with Dominguez leading the party, entered the Yuta domain and the boundaries of the present state of Utah in 1776. T h e area may have been referred to as early as the 1540's as the land and lake of Copala, the mythical home of the Mexican, or Aztec, Indians. 1 Francisco de Ibarra, governor of Nueva Vizcaya, then on the northern frontier of New Spain (presently Mexico), spent years searching for this Copala in the sixteenth century. 2 Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron mentioned that Indians encountered by Don Juan de Onate (founder of the Spanish province of New Mexico) north of the Colorado River spoke plainly of Copala. 3 Later the present Utah was included in the area known to the Spanish as El Gran Teguayo, a legendary kingdom that rivalled Coronado's fabled Quivira (probably in central Kansas) in its purported wealth and population. 4 T HAS BEEN
* S. Lyman Tyler is die author of several studies on the Yuta Indians and the Rocky Mountain region before and during its exploration by the Spanish. He wishes to express appreciation to the University of Utah and the Social Science Research Council for aid in research in the preparation of this article. Dr. Tyler is presently Director of Libraries at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. 1 S . Lyman Tyler, "The Myth of die Lake of Copala and Land of Teguayo," Utah Historical Quarterly, X X (October, 1952), 313-29. 2 J. Lloyd Mecham, Francisco de Ibarra and Nueva Vizcaya (Durham, North Carolina, 1927), 68-104 passim. 3 Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron, Relaciones de todas las cosas que en el Nueva Mexico se han visto, y sabido, asi por Mar, como por Tierra desde el Ano 1583 hasta el de 1626 por el Padre Fray Geronimo de Zarate Salmeron (Documentos Para la Historia de Mexico, Series 3 [Mexico, 1853-57]), Part IV. Manuscript copy, Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico, Historia, Tomo 2. Microfilm copy, Utah Room, Library of the University of Utah. Translated by C. F. Lummis in The Land of Sunshine, Vols. XI, XII (Los Angeles, 18991900L Herbert E. Bolton, Spanish Exploration in the Southwest (New York, 1916), uses Zarate Salmeron's account for Juan de Onate's exploration of the Colorado River. 4 Alonso de Posadas, "Informe a Su Majestad sobre las tierras de Nuevo Mejico, Quivira y Teguayo," in Cesareo Fernandez Duro, Don Diego de
