![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwriterWhen I originally started plotting Arizona--I mean both last year, when I got down to serious plotting, as well as the notions I've had in my head since I visited Arizona in 1987--I imagined that I would have a character who accompanied Coronado on his famous 1540 expedition there. Now I'm having second thoughts--sort of.
I know this could be tantamount to historical fiction heresy, but I'm finding myself more and more interested in using my explorer character to highlight a much lesser known part of Coronado's entrada into North America. Instead of following Coronado on the main expedition to the non-existent Seven Cities of Cibola, I would have him following one of Coronado's lieutenants, a fellow named Hernando de Alarcon. We don't know a whole lot about Alarcon, but what we do know shows that he was interested not in gold or glory but Christianizing the natives--out of genuine concern for their souls rather than as a means of control--and that when he encountered them he treated them humanely, moreso than even the normal 16th century standards of humanely treating Indians went. He did occasionally deceive them, but generally this was done to protect his men. As historian Bernard de Voto put it, when Alarcon encountered the Indians, it was the first and last time in history that they were sad to see a white man leave.
Alarcon and his men were also the first Europeans to lay eyes on the Colorado River.
He's not as well known because logistics and poor communications meant that he never actually hooked up with Coronado's main force. Instead he carried out a mini-expedition of his own. I know this smaller trek was far less important to Arizona's history, but it's still a tale I'm getting increasingly interested in telling.
At any rate, I got back to work on Arizona today, starting the third section--"The Canal Builders"--of my first / prehistoric chapter. This one will be more ambitious than the preceding two; those took place over the course of one to eight years, while this one will cover several decades in the lives of two Hohokam brothers who live just outside what is now the city of Phoenix, chronicling the massive expansion both of the Hohokam canals and the culture that followed the water.
PROGRESS REPORT
New Words: 800.
Total Words: 31700.
Reason For Stopping: Taking care of our dogs, then getting ready for work.
Book Year: A.D. 742.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was at his post; Nate and Vegas' sister Velvet also made brief appearances to sweep the room.
Exercise: Took Tucker on a half-campus walk a little after midnight. Walked down to campus this afternoon.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage(s): Normally the brothers were just Bear and Wolf. Sometimes fighting, most of the time hunting together. But today they were the Warrior Twins, Ahayuta and Matsilema, children of the Sun-Father and killers of monsters, and they were searching the world for the missing Corn Maidens.
If it just so happened that they needed to look for the Corn Maidens in the shallows of the river where they were helping collect salt for their village, so much the better. That way they could save the world from starvation and still keep their parents from yelling at them for playing when they should have been working.
Darling Du Jour: Though today the boys were actually doing more diving than playing—mostly, they were testing their limits. Judumi was in high spirits, feeling closer to manhood than ever since he was nearly ten, and watching small, cord-like muscles beginning to form on his arms just as his legs had them from running and swimming. Like all children they were confined to the shallows of the wide Salt River, but today the river’s flow was almost gently slow and he wanted to see how far his Bear powers would let him dive. Maybe all the way out to the middle like the adults!
Kwewu wanted to try it too…someday. Today he wasn’t so certain. He and his brother both swam across the Salt—with adults swimming on either side of them—the previous summer. But going underwater was altogether different. The water could be heavy atop them and the currents, even in the slow parts, strong enough to sweep you away if you weren’t careful. He reminded Judumi of these things.
“I know,” Judumi told him, with a shrug his younger brother knew was exaggerated to hide his own nervousness. “But if that’s where the Corn Maidens went, we should go looking there.”
Once Judumi made up his mind to do something, it was a foregone conclusion that Kwewu would follow him. That’s just the way things were with Bear and Wolf.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Michener.
I know this could be tantamount to historical fiction heresy, but I'm finding myself more and more interested in using my explorer character to highlight a much lesser known part of Coronado's entrada into North America. Instead of following Coronado on the main expedition to the non-existent Seven Cities of Cibola, I would have him following one of Coronado's lieutenants, a fellow named Hernando de Alarcon. We don't know a whole lot about Alarcon, but what we do know shows that he was interested not in gold or glory but Christianizing the natives--out of genuine concern for their souls rather than as a means of control--and that when he encountered them he treated them humanely, moreso than even the normal 16th century standards of humanely treating Indians went. He did occasionally deceive them, but generally this was done to protect his men. As historian Bernard de Voto put it, when Alarcon encountered the Indians, it was the first and last time in history that they were sad to see a white man leave.
Alarcon and his men were also the first Europeans to lay eyes on the Colorado River.
He's not as well known because logistics and poor communications meant that he never actually hooked up with Coronado's main force. Instead he carried out a mini-expedition of his own. I know this smaller trek was far less important to Arizona's history, but it's still a tale I'm getting increasingly interested in telling.
At any rate, I got back to work on Arizona today, starting the third section--"The Canal Builders"--of my first / prehistoric chapter. This one will be more ambitious than the preceding two; those took place over the course of one to eight years, while this one will cover several decades in the lives of two Hohokam brothers who live just outside what is now the city of Phoenix, chronicling the massive expansion both of the Hohokam canals and the culture that followed the water.
New Words: 800.
Total Words: 31700.
Reason For Stopping: Taking care of our dogs, then getting ready for work.
Book Year: A.D. 742.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was at his post; Nate and Vegas' sister Velvet also made brief appearances to sweep the room.
Exercise: Took Tucker on a half-campus walk a little after midnight. Walked down to campus this afternoon.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage(s): Normally the brothers were just Bear and Wolf. Sometimes fighting, most of the time hunting together. But today they were the Warrior Twins, Ahayuta and Matsilema, children of the Sun-Father and killers of monsters, and they were searching the world for the missing Corn Maidens.
If it just so happened that they needed to look for the Corn Maidens in the shallows of the river where they were helping collect salt for their village, so much the better. That way they could save the world from starvation and still keep their parents from yelling at them for playing when they should have been working.
Darling Du Jour: Though today the boys were actually doing more diving than playing—mostly, they were testing their limits. Judumi was in high spirits, feeling closer to manhood than ever since he was nearly ten, and watching small, cord-like muscles beginning to form on his arms just as his legs had them from running and swimming. Like all children they were confined to the shallows of the wide Salt River, but today the river’s flow was almost gently slow and he wanted to see how far his Bear powers would let him dive. Maybe all the way out to the middle like the adults!
Kwewu wanted to try it too…someday. Today he wasn’t so certain. He and his brother both swam across the Salt—with adults swimming on either side of them—the previous summer. But going underwater was altogether different. The water could be heavy atop them and the currents, even in the slow parts, strong enough to sweep you away if you weren’t careful. He reminded Judumi of these things.
“I know,” Judumi told him, with a shrug his younger brother knew was exaggerated to hide his own nervousness. “But if that’s where the Corn Maidens went, we should go looking there.”
Once Judumi made up his mind to do something, it was a foregone conclusion that Kwewu would follow him. That’s just the way things were with Bear and Wolf.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Michener.
