According to John Sorenson, the famous historian Fr. Diego Duran arrived in New Spain in 1542, only twenty-one years after the Conquest. Duran lived amidst Indians and had access to many native manuscripts. He read reams of Spanish reports of visits and administration. From these he synthesized a history of the Aztecs which was completed in 1581.
Duran notes that in preparation for war, Motecuzoma ordered surrounding cities to furnish stores of food and "sleeping mats ('petates') to make tents ('tiendas') and houses ('casas') of those mats ('esterase') in which they would dwell [while] in the field." When they didn't stay in the towns, they pitched their tents and shelters made with mats ('tiendas y casas de petates') in spots arranged by the advance party."
A number of types of field military shelters are distinguished here, and several of them were labelled 'tiendas," tents, by the Spaniards:
1. "casas pajizas," houses of straw;
2. "chozas," huts, sometimes of unspecified material but suitable for leaders to occupy;
3. "jacales" (from Nahuatl xahcalli) huts; the material utilized is not clear, for at least some were collapsible and movable; some leaders occupied these; mats were probably the usual material. It is unclear how these differed from "chozas," perhaps the latter were made from materials such as brush scrounged in the field;
4. "tiendas," tents; of unspecified material but perhaps of (ixtle or henequen?) cloth, given the normal Spanish sense of "tiendas"; some were good enough to house leaders;
5. "casas de petates," houses of mats; the cheap, light readily portable mats could be combined with, say, spears, to make a simple "tent" for ordinary soldiers, or anybody in an emergency;
6. "cuarteles," quarters, barracks; these may refer to commandeered housing in communities along the road, or they might have been collapsible multi-person shelters.
[John L. Sorenson, "Viva Zapato! Hurray for the Shoe! in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6, Num. 1, pp. 332-335] [See the commentary on 2 Nephi 5:7; Mosiah 2:6; Mosiah 18:34; Alma 2:20; Alma 46:31]
"The Hill Cumorah Geographical Setting New York"
According to David Palmer, a more traditional belief concerning the hill Cumorah among Latter-day Saints is that it refers to the hill near present-day Palmyra and Manchester, New York, where the plates from which the Prophet Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon were found. B. H. Roberts writes the following:
Encouraged by this repetition of the vision of the previous night, and strengthened by the assurances of his father that the visitation was of God, Joseph repaired that same day to the hill he had seen in vision, the place where the sacred record was concealed, some two miles distant from the Smith home. The hill is about four miles south of the town of Palmyra, in Wayne county. It stands on the east side of the Canandaigua road, and is the most conspicuous land mark in all that section of New York. In the Book of Mormon the hill is known as Ramah, and Cumorah, referred to more frequently, however, by the latter name. Approaching Cumorah from the north, you are confronted by the bold fact of the hill, which rise quite abruptly from the common level of the surrounding country; and as the east and west slopes of the hill, as viewed form the north, are about equal and regular, it looks from a distance as if it might be a huge conical shaped mound. Ascending its steep north side to the summit dispels the illusion, for one finds that he has but climbed the abrupt north end of a ridge of hill having its greatest extent from north to south, and which from its very narrow summit broadens and slopes gently to the southward until it sinks to the level of the common country. The east side of the hill is now ploughed, but the west side is untouched by the husbandman; and about two or three hundred yards from the north end there is on the west side a small, scattered grove of young trees, with here and there a decaying stump of a large tree to bear witness that the hill was once covered with a heavy growth of timber. Unquestionably Cumorah is the most distinct land mark in all that section of country, the highest hill, and the most commanding in what I should describe as an extensive plain sloping northward, filled with numerous irregular hills, but which in the main have their greatest extent, like Cumorah, from north to south; and which, also like Cumorah, are generally highest at the north end. [B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ,Vol. 1, pp. 75-76]
In 1928 the Church purchased the western New York hill land in 1935 erected a monument recognizing the visit of the angel Moroni. A visitors' center was later built at the base of the hill. Each summer since 1937, the Church has staged the Cumorah pageant at this site. Entitled America's Witness for Christ, it depicts important events from Book of Mormon history. This annual pageant has reinforced the common assumption that Moroni buried the plates of Mormon in the same hill where his father had buried the other plates, thus equating this New York hill with the Book of Mormon Cumorah. Because the New York site does not readily fit the Book of Mormon description of Book of Mormon geography, some Latter-day Saints have looked for other possible explanations and locations, including Mesoamerica. [David A. Palmer, "Cumorah" in Daniel H. Ludlow, S. Kent Brown, and John W. Welch selection eds., To All the World: The Book of Mormon Articles from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, F.A.R.M.S., p. 82]
Mormon 6:4 The Hill Cumorah (Geographical Setting--New York) [[Illustration]]: The north end of the hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New York, as it appeared in 1904 in this single view from an Underwood and Underwood stereo view. Courtesy Rare Books and Manuscripts, Brigham Young University. [David A. Palmer, "Cumorah" in Daniel H. Ludlow, S. Kent Brown, and John W. Welch selection eds., To All the World: The Book of Mormon Articles from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, F.A.R.M.S., p. 81]