The peoples of La Junta were called Patarabueyes‚ ox kickers, by the Spanish.
Texas Beyond History, a virtual museum of Texas’ cultural history, offers this image: Enslaved people are loaded into an oxcart. Friends and relatives are trying to stop the outrage by upsetting the oxen, even kicking them. And so an off-the-cuff expression, a pejorative phrase started by soldiers, became a name.
In the case of the Patarabueyes, we know the explanation of the nickname. The explanation is provided in the journal of Diego Perez de Lujan (also spelled Luxan), the official scribe of the Espejo expedition to New Mexico in 1582-1583. In early December, 1582, Lujan wrote in his journal that the expedition traveled four leagues north along the Conchos River “and came to a rancheria of the Patarabueyes. The name Patarabueyes was made up by the soldiers when people from this same Rancheria were taken by Mateo Gonzales, head of Juan de Cubia, captain from the mines of Santa Barbara, because this very nacion that they named Patarabueyes are also called Otomoacos.”
The people of La Junta lived in small communities, and, like the ancient Greeks, they seemed to think of each community as a distinct people — related to others, but distinct. But the Spanish lumped them all under one name.
I would love to know about their beliefs about the world. I’d like to know something of their religion. It’s sad how little we know.
• Source: “Part-Time Farmers: Partarabueyes of La Junta,” Texas Beyond History. This site is wonderful. You can find the article here:
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