The name of Cibola was thus known away in the interior of Sonora. Whence was it derived? From what Indian language was it borrowed? These are questions with which till recently only my eminent friend F. H. Gushing, and, to a small extent, I myself have been engaged. How far our investigations are of definite value can hardly be determined as yet, for the languages of Sonora are still very little known. They are reduced, if we exclude the Apache idiom, to three large groups. In the south is the Cahita or Yaqui language, which includes the Mayo; in the west the Seri; and in the centre, north, and east the Pima-Opata, which is divided into two principal branches the—Pima and the Joyl-raua or Opata. The Eudeve and Jova appear to be dialects of the Opata. At Bacapa Fray Marcos was among the Pirn as; Estévanico, a few days' journey north, was either among the Pimas, the Seris, or the Opatas, for those three tribes met in the vicinity of Ures. The word Cibola might therefore belong to one of the languages or dialects of northern Sonora and the districts north and northeast of it. Its home need not be sought south of there.
Both the Pima and the Opata languages have names of places which somewhat resemble the word Cibola. East of the little village of Huachinera, at the western foot of the Sierra Madre, the Yaqui River emerges from a dark gorge and turns thence to the northwest, to irrigate the narrow, fertile valley of Baserac and Babispe. At the place where the river leaves the gorge, to turn a little later upon its northern course, lie some ruins of former villages of the Opatas, concerning the fate of which definite
