The Language of the Piro

In the early part of the seventeenth century the Piro, who have been classed as belonging to the Tanoan linguistic family, consisted of two divisions, one inhabiting the Rio Grande valley from the present town of San Marcial in Socorro county, New Mexico, northward to within about fifty miles of Albuquerque, where the Tigua settlements began; the other division, sometimes called Tom-piros and Salineros, occupying the desert stretch east of the river in the vicinity of the salt lagoons, or salinas, where it bordered the eastern group of Tigua settlements on the south. The western or Rio Grande branch of the Piro was visited in 1540 by members of Coronado’s expedition, in 1580 by Chamuscado, in 1583 by Espejo (who found them occupying ten villages along the river and in others near by), in 1598 by Ofiate, and in 1621-1630 by Fray Alonso Benavides who relates that they were settled in fourteen pueblos along the river.