GENERAL CROOK AND THE APACHES—CROOK’S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND
CHARACTERISTICS—POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE APACHES—THEIR SKILL IN
WAR—FOODS AND MODES OF COOKING—MEDICINE MEN—THEIR POWER AND
INFLUENCE.
When General Crook received orders to go out to Arizona and assume
command of that savage-infested Department, he at once obeyed the order,
and reached his new post of duty without baggage and without fuss.
All the baggage he had would not make as much compass as a Remington
type-writer. The only thing with him which could in any sense be classed
as superfluous was a shotgun, but without this or a rifle he never
travelled anywhere.
He came, as I say, without the slightest pomp or parade, and without any
one in San Francisco, except his immediate superiors, knowing of his
departure, and without a soul in Tucson, not even the driver of the
stage which had carried him and his baggage, knowing of his arrival.
There were no railroads, there were no telegraphs in Arizona, and Crook
was the last man in the world to seek notoriety had they existed. His
whole idea of life was to do each duty well, and to let his work speak
for itself.
He arrived in the morning, went up to the residence of his old friend,
Governor Safford, with whom he lunched, and before sundown every officer
within the limits of what was then called the southern district of
Arizona was under summons to report to him; that is, if the orders had
not reached them they were on the way.
From each he soon extracted all he knew about the country, the lines of
travel, the trails across the various mountains, the fords where any
were required for the streams, the nature of the soil, especially its
products, such as grasses, character of the climate, the condition of
the pack-mules, and all pertaining to them, and every other item of
interest a commander could possibly want to have determined. But in
reply not one word, not one glance, not one hint, as to what he was
going to do or what he would like to do.
This was the point in Crook’s character which made the strongest
impression upon every one coming in contact with him—his ability to
learn all that his informant had to supply, without yielding in return
the slightest suggestion of his own plans and purposes. He refused
himself to no one, no matter how humble, but was possessed of a certain
dignity which repressed any approach to undue familiarity. He was
singularly averse to the least semblance of notoriety, and was as
retiring as a girl. He never consulted with any one; made his own plans
after the most studious deliberation, and kept them to himself with a
taciturnity which at times must have been exasperating to his
subordinates. Although taciturn, reticent, and secretive, moroseness
formed no part of his nature, which was genial and sunny. He took great
delight in conversation, especially in that wherein he did not have to
join if indisposed.
He was always interested in the career and progress of the young
officers under him, and glad to listen to their plans and learn their
aspirations. No man can say that in him the subaltern did not have the
brightest of exemplars, since Crook was a man who never indulged in
stimulant of any kind—not so much as tea or coffee—never used tobacco,
was never heard to employ a profane or obscene word, and was ever and
always an officer to do, and do without pomp or ceremony, all that was
required of him, and much more.
No officer could claim that he was ever ordered to do a duty when the
Department commander was present, which the latter would not in person
lead. No officer of the same rank, at least in our service, issued so
few orders. According to his creed, officers did not need to be devilled
with orders and instructions and memoranda; all that they required was
to obtain an insight into what was desired of them, and there was no
better way to inculcate this than by personal example.
Therefore, whenever there was a trouble of any magnitude under Crook’s
jurisdiction he started at once to the point nearest the skirmish line,
and stayed there so long as the danger existed; but he did it all so
quietly, and with so little parade, that half the time no one would
suspect that there was any hostility threatened until after the whole
matter had blown over or been stamped out, and the General back at his
headquarters.
This aversion to display was carried to an extreme; he never liked to
put on uniform when it could be avoided; never allowed an orderly to
follow him about a post, and in every manner possible manifested a
nature of unusual modesty, and totally devoid of affectation. He had one
great passion—hunting, or better say, hunting and fishing. Often he
would stray away for days with no companion but his dog and the horse or
mule he rode, and remain absent until a full load of game—deer, wild
turkey, quail, or whatever it might happen to be—rewarded his energy and
patience. From this practice he diverged slightly as he grew older,
yielding to the expostulations of his staff, who impressed upon him that
it was nothing but the merest prudence to be accompanied by an Indian
guide, who could in case of necessity break back for the command or the
post according to circumstances.
In personal appearance General Crook was manly and strong; he was a
little over six feet in height, straight as a lance, broad and
square-shouldered, full-chested, and with an elasticity and sinewiness
of limb which betrayed the latent muscular power gained by years of
constant exercise in the hills and mountains of the remoter West.
In his more youthful days, soon after being graduated from the Military
Academy, he was assigned to duty with one of the companies of the Fourth
Infantry, then serving in the Oregon Territory. It was the period of the
gold-mining craze on the Pacific coast, and prices were simply
prohibitory for all the comforts of life. Crook took a mule, a
frying-pan, a bag of salt and one of flour, a rifle and shotgun, and
sallied out into the wilderness. By his energy and skill he kept the
mess fully supplied with every kind of wild meat—venison, quail, duck,
and others—and at the end of the first month, after paying all the
expenses on account of ammunition, was enabled from the funds realized
by selling the surplus meat to miners and others, to declare a dividend
of respectable proportions, to the great delight of his messmates.
His love for hunting and fishing, which received its greatest impetus in
those days of his service in Oregon and Northern California, increased
rather than diminished as the years passed by. He became not only an
exceptionally good shot, but acquired a familiarity with the habits of
wild animals possessed by but few naturalists. Little by little he was
induced to read upon the subject, until the views of the most eminent
ornithologists and naturalists were known to him, and from this followed
in due sequence a development of his taste for taxidermy, which enabled
him to pass many a lonesome hour in the congenial task of preserving and
mounting his constantly increasing collection of birds and pelts.
There were few, if any, of the birds or beasts of the Rocky Mountains
and the country west of them to the waters of the Pacific, which had not
at some time furnished tribute to General Crook’s collection. In the
pursuit of the wilder animals he cared nothing for fatigue, hunger, or
the perils of the cliffs, or those of being seized in the jaws of an
angry bear or mountain lion.
He used to take great, and, in my opinion, reprehensible risks in his
encounters with grizzlies and brown bears, many of whose pelts decorated
his quarters. Many times I can recall in Arizona, Wyoming, and Montana,
where he had left the command, taking with him only one Indian guide as
a companion, and had struck out to one flank or the other, following
some “sign,” until an hour or two later a slender signal smoke warned
the pack-train that he had a prize of bear-meat or venison waiting for
the arrival of the animals which were to carry it back to camp.
Such constant exercise toughened muscle and sinew to the rigidity of
steel and the elasticity of rubber, while association with the natives
enabled him constantly to learn their habits and ideas, and in time to
become almost one of themselves.
If night overtook him at a distance from camp, he would picket his
animal to a bush convenient to the best grass, take out his heavy
hunting-knife and cut down a pile of the smaller branches of the pine,
cedar, or sage-brush, as the case might be, and with them make a couch
upon which, wrapped in his overcoat and saddle-blanket, he would sleep
composedly till the rise of the morning star, when he would light his
fire, broil a slice of venison, give his horse some water, saddle up and
be off to look for the trail of his people.
His senses became highly educated; his keen, blue-gray eyes would detect
in a second and at a wonderful distance the slightest movement across
the horizon; the slightest sound aroused his curiosity, the faintest
odor awakened his suspicions. He noted the smallest depression in the
sand, the least deflection in the twigs or branches; no stone could be
moved from its position in the trail without appealing at once to his
perceptions. He became skilled in the language of “signs” and trails,
and so perfectly conversant with all that is concealed in the great book
of Nature that, in the mountains at least, he might readily take rank as
being fully as much an Indian as the Indian himself.
There never was an officer in our military service so completely in
accord with all the ideas, views, and opinions of the savages whom he
had to fight or control as was General Crook. In time of campaign this
knowledge placed him, as it were, in the secret councils of the enemy;
in time of peace it enabled him all the more completely to appreciate
the doubts and misgivings of the Indians at the outset of a new life,
and to devise plans by which they could all the more readily be brought
to see that civilization was something which all could embrace without
danger of extinction.
But while General Crook was admitted, even by the Indians, to be more of
an Indian than the Indian himself, it must in no wise be understood that
he ever occupied any other relation than that of the older and more
experienced brother who was always ready to hold out a helping hand to
the younger just learning to walk and to climb. Crook never ceased to be
a gentleman. Much as he might live among savages, he never lost the
right to claim for himself the best that civilization and enlightenment
had to bestow. He kept up with the current of thought on the more
important questions of the day, although never a student in the stricter
meaning of the term. His manners were always extremely courteous, and
without a trace of the austerity with which small minds seek to hedge
themselves in from the approach of inferiors or strangers. His voice was
always low, his conversation easy, and his general bearing one of quiet
dignity.
He reminded me more of Daniel Boone than any other character, with this
difference, that Crook, as might be expected, had the advantages of the
better education of his day and generation. But he certainly recalled
Boone in many particulars; there was the same perfect indifference to
peril of any kind, the same coolness, an equal fertility of resources,
the same inner knowledge of the wiles and tricks of the enemy, the same
modesty and disinclination to parade as a hero or a great military
genius, or to obtrude upon public notice the deeds performed in
obedience to the promptings of duty.
Such was Arizona, and such was General George Crook when he was assigned
to the task of freeing her from the yoke of the shrewdest and most
ferocious of all the tribes encountered by the white man within the
present limits of the United States.
A condensed account of the Apaches themselves would seem not to be out
of place at this point, since it will enable the reader all the more
readily to comprehend the exact nature of the operations undertaken
against them, and what difficulties, if any, were to be encountered in
their subjugation and in their elevation to a higher plane of
civilization.
With a stupidity strictly consistent with the whole history of our
contact with the aborigines, the people of the United States have
maintained a bitter and an unrelenting warfare against a people whose
name was unknown to them. The Apache is not the Apache; the name
“Apache” does not occur in the language of the “Tinneh,” by which name,
or some of its variants as “Inde,” “Dinde,” or something similar, our
Indian prefers to designate himself “The Man;” he knows nothing, or did
not know anything until after being put upon the Reservations, of the
new-fangled title “Apache,” which has come down to us from the Mexicans,
who borrowed it from the Maricopas and others, in whose language it
occurs with the signification of “enemy.”
It was through the country of the tribes to the south that the Spaniards
first were brought face to face with the “Tinneh” of Arizona, and it was
from these Maricopas and others that the name was learned of the
desperate fighters who lived in the higher ranges with the deer, the
elk, the bear, and the coyote.
And as the Spaniards have always insisted upon the use of a name which
the Apaches have as persistently repudiated; and as the Americans have
followed blindly in the footsteps of the Castilian, we must accept the
inevitable and describe this tribe under the name of the Apaches of
Arizona, although it is much like invading England by way of Ireland,
and writing of the Anglo-Saxons under the Celtic designation of the
“Sassenach.”
The Apache is the southernmost member of the great Tinneh family, which
stretches across the circumpolar portion of the American Continent, from
the shores of the Pacific to the western line of Hudson’s Bay. In the
frozen habitat of their hyperborean ancestors, the Tinneh, as all
accounts agree, are perfectly good-natured, lively, and not at all hard
to get along with.
But once forced out from the northern limits of the lake region of
British America—the Great Slave, the Great Bear, and others—whether by
over-population, failure of food, or other cause, the Tinneh appears
upon the stage as a conqueror, and as a diplomatist of the first class;
he shows an unusual astuteness even for an Indian, and a daring which
secures for him at once and forever an ascendency over all the tribes
within reach of him. This remark will apply with equal force to the
Rogue Rivers of Oregon, the Umpquas of northern California, the Hoopas
of the same State, and the Navajoes and Apaches of New Mexico, Chihuahua
and Sonora, all of whom are members of this great Tinneh family.
In the Apache the Spaniard, whether as soldier or priest, found a foe
whom no artifice could terrify into submission, whom no eloquence could
wean from the superstitions of his ancestors. Indifferent to the bullets
of the arquebuses in the hands of soldiers in armor clad, serenely
insensible to the arguments of the friars and priests who claimed
spiritual dominion over all other tribes, the naked Apache, with no
weapons save his bow and arrows, lance, war-club, knife and shield,
roamed over a vast empire, the lord of the soil—fiercer than the
fiercest of tigers, wilder than the wild coyote he called his brother.
For years I have collected the data and have contemplated the project of
writing the history of this people, based not only upon the accounts
transmitted to us from the Spaniards and their descendants, the
Mexicans, but upon the Apache’s own story as conserved in his myths and
traditions; but I have lacked both the leisure and the inclination to
put the project into execution. It would require a man with the
even-handed sense of justice possessed by a Guizot, and the keen,
critical, analytical powers of a Gibbon, to deal fairly with a question
in which the ferocity of the savage Red-man has been more than equalled
by the ferocity of the Christian Caucasian; in which the occasional
treachery of the aborigines has found its best excuse in the unvarying
Punic faith of the Caucasian invader; in which promises on each side
have been made only to deceive and to be broken; in which the red hand
of war has rested most heavily upon shrieking mother and wailing babe.
If from this history the Caucasian can extract any cause of
self-laudation I am glad of it: speaking as a censor who has read the
evidence with as much impartiality as could be expected from one who
started in with the sincere conviction that the only good Indian was a
dead Indian, and that the only use to make of him was that of a
fertilizer, and who, from studying the documents in the case, and
listening little by little to the savage’s own story, has arrived at the
conclusion that perhaps Pope Paul III. was right when he solemnly
declared that the natives of the New World had souls and must be treated
as human beings, and admitted to the sacraments when found ready to
receive them, I feel it to be my duty to say that the Apache has found
himself in the very best of company when he committed any atrocity, it
matters not how vile, and that his complete history, if it could be
written by himself, would not be any special cause of self-complacency
to such white men as believe in a just God, who will visit the sins of
parents upon their children even to the third and the fourth generation.
We have become so thoroughly Pecksniffian in our self-laudation, in our
exaltation of our own virtues, that we have become grounded in the error
of imagining that the American savage is more cruel in his war customs
than other nations of the earth have been; this, as I have already
intimated, is a misconception, and statistics, for such as care to dig
them out, will prove that I am right. The Assyrians cut their conquered
foes limb from limb; the Israelites spared neither parent nor child; the
Romans crucified head downward the gladiators who revolted under
Spartacus; even in the civilized England of the past century, the wretch
convicted of treason was executed under circumstances of cruelty which
would have been too much for the nerves of the fiercest of the Apaches
or Sioux. Instances in support of what I here assert crop up all over
the page of history; the trouble is not to discover them, but to keep
them from blinding the memory to matters more pleasant to remember.
Certainly, the American aborigine is not indebted to his pale-faced
brother, no matter of what nation or race he may be, for lessons in
tenderness and humanity.
Premising the few remarks which I will allow myself to make upon this
subject, by stating that the territory over which the Apache roamed a
conqueror, or a bold and scarcely resisted raider, comprehended the
whole of the present Territories of Arizona and New Mexico, one half of
the State of Texas—the half west of San Antonio—and the Mexican states
of Sonora and Chihuahua, with frequent raids which extended as far as
Durango, Jalisco, and even on occasion the environs of Zacatecas, I can
readily make the reader understand that an area greater than that of the
whole German Empire and France combined was laid prostrate under the
heel of a foe as subtle, as swift, as deadly, and as uncertain as the
rattle-snake or the mountain lion whose homes he shared.
From the moment the Castilian landed on the coast of the present Mexican
Republic, there was no such thing thought of as justice for the American
Indian until the authorities of the Church took the matter in hand, and
compelled an outward regard for the rights which even animals have
conceded to them.
Christopher Columbus, whom some very worthy people are thinking of
having elevated to the dignity of a saint, made use of bloodhounds for
running down the inhabitants of Hispaniola.
The expedition of D’Ayllon to the coast of Chicora, now known as South
Carolina, repaid the kind reception accorded by the natives by the
basest treachery; two ship-loads of the unfortunates enticed on board
were carried off to work in the mines of the invaders.
Girolamo Benzoni, one of the earliest authors, describes the very
delightful way the Spaniards had of making slaves of all the savages
they could capture, and branding them with a red-hot iron on the hip or
cheek, so that their new owners could recognize them the more readily.
Cabeza de Vaca and his wretched companions carried no arms, but met with
nothing but an ovation from the simple-minded and grateful natives,
whose ailments they endeavored to cure by prayer and the sign of the
cross.
Yet, Vaca tells us, that as they drew near the settlements of their own
countrymen they found the whole country in a tumult, due to the efforts
the Castilians were making to enslave the populace, and drive them by
fire and sword to the plantations newly established. Humboldt is
authority for the statement that the Apaches resolved upon a war of
extermination upon the Spaniards, when they learned that all their
people taken captive by the king’s forces had been driven off, to die a
lingering death upon the sugar plantations of Cuba or in the mines of
Guanaxuato.
Drawing nearer to our own days, we read the fact set down in the
clearest and coldest black and white, that the state governments of
Sonora and Chihuahua had offered and paid rewards of three hundred
dollars for each scalp of an Apache that should be presented at certain
designated headquarters, and we read without a tremor of horror that
individuals, clad in the human form—men like the Englishman Johnson, or
the Irishman Glanton—entered into contracts with the governor of
Chihuahua to do such bloody work.
Johnson was “a man of honor.” He kept his word faithfully, and invited a
large band of the Apaches in to see him and have a feast at the old
Santa Rita mine in New Mexico—I have been on the spot and seen the exact
site—and while they were eating bread and meat, suddenly opened upon
them with a light fieldpiece loaded to the muzzle with nails, bullets,
and scrap-iron, and filled the court-yard with dead.
Johnson, I say, was “a gentleman,” and abided by the terms of his
contract; but Glanton was a blackguard, and set out to kill anything and
everything in human form, whether Indian or Mexican. His first “victory”
was gained over a band of Apaches with whom he set about arranging a
peace in northern Chihuahua, not far from El Paso. The bleeding scalps
were torn from the heads of the slain, and carried in triumph to the
city of Chihuahua, outside of whose limits the “conquerors” were met by
a procession of the governor, all the leading state dignitaries and the
clergy, and escorted back to the city limits, where—as we are told by
Ruxton, the English officer who travelled across Chihuahua on horse-back
in 1835-1837—the scalps were nailed with frantic joy to the portals of
the grand cathedral, for whose erection the silver mines had been taxed
so outrageously.
Glanton, having had his appetite for blood excited, passed westward
across Arizona until he reached the Colorado River, near where Fort Yuma
now stands. There he attempted to cross to the California or western
bank, but the Yuma Indians, who had learned of his pleasant
eccentricities of killing every one, without distinction of age, sex, or
race, who happened to be out on the trail alone, let Glanton and his
comrades get a few yards into the river, and then opened on them from an
ambush in the reeds and killed the last one.
And then there have been “Pinole Treaties,” in which the Apaches have
been invited to sit down and eat repasts seasoned with the exhilarating
strychnine. So that, take it for all in all, the honors have been easy
so far as treachery, brutality, cruelty, and lust have been concerned.
The one great difference has been that the Apache could not read or
write and hand down to posterity the story of his wrongs as he, and he
alone, knew them.
When the Americans entered the territory occupied or infested by the
Apaches, all accounts agree that the Apaches were friendly. The
statements of Bartlett, the commissioner appointed to run the new
boundary line between the United States and Mexico, are explicit upon
this point. Indeed, one of the principal chiefs of the Apaches was
anxious to aid the new-comers in advancing farther to the south, and in
occupying more of the territory of the Mexicans than was ceded by the
Gadsden purchase. One of Bartlett’s teamsters—a Mexican teamster named
Jesus Vasquez—causelessly and in the coldest blood drew bead upon a
prominent Apache warrior and shot him through the head. The Apaches did
nothing beyond laying the whole matter before the new commissioner,
whose decision they awaited hopefully. Bartlett thought that the sum of
thirty dollars, deducted from the teamster’s pay in monthly instalments,
was about all that the young man’s life was worth. The Apaches failed to
concur in this estimate, and took to the war-path; and, to quote the
words of Bartlett, in less than forty-eight hours had the whole country
for hundreds of miles in every direction on fire, and all the settlers
that were not killed fleeing for their lives to the towns on the Rio
Grande. A better understanding was reached a few years after, through
the exertions of officers of the stamp of Ewell, who were bold in war
but tender in peace, and who obtained great influence over a simple race
which could respect men whose word was not written in sand.
At the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, affairs in Arizona and New
Mexico became greatly tangled. The troops were withdrawn, and the
Apaches got the notion into their heads that the country was to be left
to them and their long-time enemies, the Mexicans, to fight for the
mastery.
Rafael Pumpelly, who at that time was living in Arizona, gives a vivid
but horrifying description of the chaotic condition in which affairs
were left by the sudden withdrawal of the troops, leaving the mines,
which, in each case, were provided with stores or warehouses filled with
goods, a prey to the Apaches who swarmed down from the mountains and the
Mexican bandits who poured in from Sonora.
There was scarcely any choice between them, and occasionally it
happened, when the mining superintendent had an unusual streak of good
luck, that he would have them both to fight at once, as in Pumpelly’s
own case.
Not very long previous to this, Arizona had received a most liberal
contingent of the toughs and scalawags banished from San Francisco by
the efforts of its Vigilance Committee, and until these last had shot
each other to death, or until they had been poisoned by Tucson whiskey
or been killed by the Apaches, Arizona’s chalice was filled to the brim,
and the most mendacious real-estate boomer would have been unable to
recommend her as a suitable place for an investment of capital.
It is among the possibilities that the Apaches could have been kept in a
state of friendliness toward the Americans during these troublous days,
had it not been for one of those accidents which will occur to disturb
the most harmonious relations, and destroy the effect of years of good
work. The Chiricahua Apaches, living close to what is now Fort Bowie,
were especially well behaved, and old-timers have often told me that the
great chief, Cocheis, had the wood contract for supplying the “station”
of the Southern Overland Mail Company at that point with fuel. The
Pinals and the other bands still raided upon the villages of northern
Mexico; in fact, some of the Apaches have made their home in the Sierra
Madre, in Mexico; and until General Crook in person led a small
expedition down there, and pulled the last one of them out, it was
always understood that there was the habitat and the abiding place of a
very respectable contingent—so far as numbers were concerned—of the
tribe.
A party of the Pinal Apaches had engaged in trade with a party of
Mexicans close to Fort Bowie—and it should be understood that there was
both trade and war with the Castilian, and, worst of all, what was
stolen from one Mexican found ready sale to another, the plunder from
Sonora finding its way into the hands of the settlers in Chihuahua, or,
if taken up into our country, selling without trouble to the Mexicans
living along the Rio Grande—and during the trade had drunk more whiskey,
or mescal, than was good for them; that is to say, they had drunk more
than one drop, and had then stolen or led away with them a little boy,
the child of an Irish father and a Mexican mother, whom the Mexicans
demanded back.
The commanding officer, a lieutenant of no great experience, sent for
the brother of Cocheis, and demanded the return of the babe; the reply
was made, and, in the light of years elapsed, the reply is known to have
been truthful, that the Chiricahuas knew nothing of the kidnapped
youngster and therefore could not restore him. The upshot of the affair
was that Cocheis’s brother was killed “while resisting arrest.” In
Broadway, if a man “resist arrest,” he is in danger of having his head
cracked by a policeman’s club; but in the remoter West, he is in great
good luck, sometimes, if he don’t find himself riddled with bullets.
It is an excellent method of impressing an Indian with the dignity of
being arrested; but the cost of the treatment is generally too great to
make it one that can fairly be recommended for continuous use. In the
present instance, Cocheis, who had also been arrested, but had cut his
way out of the back of the tent in which he was confined, went on the
war-path, and for the next ten years made Arizona and New Mexico—at
least the southern half of them—and the northern portions of Sonora and
Chihuahua, about the liveliest places on God’s footstool.
The account, if put down by a Treasury expert, would read something like
this:
DR.
“The United States to Cocheis,
“For one brother, killed ‘while resisting arrest.’”
CR.
“By ten thousand (10,000) men, women, and children killed, wounded, or
tortured to death, scared out of their senses or driven out of the
country, their wagon and pack-trains run off and destroyed, ranchos
ruined, and all industrial development stopped.”
If any man thinks that I am drawing a fancy sketch, let him write to
John H. Marion, Pete Kitchen, or any other old pioneer whose residence
in either Arizona or New Mexico has been sufficiently long to include
the major portion of the time that the whole force of the Apache nation
was in hostilities.
I have said that the exertions of the missionaries of the Roman Catholic
Church, ordinarily so successful with the aborigines of our Continent,
were nugatory with the Apaches of Arizona; I repeat this, at the same
time taking care to say that unremitting effort was maintained to open
up communication with the various bands nearest to the pueblos which,
from the year 1580, or thereabout, had been brought more or less
completely under the sway of the Franciscans.
With some of these pueblos, as at Picuris, the Apaches had intermarried,
and with others still, as at Pecos, they carried on constant trade, and
thus afforded the necessary loop-hole for the entrance of zealous
missionaries. The word of God was preached to them, and in several
instances bands were coaxed to abandon their nomadic and predatory life,
and settle down in permanent villages. The pages of writers, like John
Gilmary Shea, fairly glow with the recital of the deeds of heroism
performed in this work; and it must be admitted that perceptible traces
of it are still to be found among the Navajo branch of the Apache
family, which had acquired the peach and the apricot, the sheep and the
goat, the cow, the donkey and the horse, either from the Franciscans
direct, or else from the pueblo refugees who took shelter with them in
1680 at the time of the Great Rebellion, in which the pueblos of New
Mexico arose _en masse_ and threw off the yoke of Spain and the Church,
all for twelve years of freedom, and the Moquis threw it off forever.
Arizona—the Apache portion of it—remained a sealed book to the friars,
and even the Jesuits, in the full tide of their career as successful
winners of souls, were held at arm’s length.
There is one point in the mental make-up of the Apache especially worthy
of attention, and that is the quickness with which he seizes upon the
salient features of a strategetical combination, and derives from them
all that can possibly be made to inure to his own advantage. For
generations before the invasion by the Castilians—that is to say, by the
handful of Spaniards, and the colony of Tlascaltec natives and
mulattoes, whom Espejo and Onate led into the valley of the Rio Grande
between 1580 and 1590—the Apache had been the unrelenting foe of the
Pueblo tribes; but the moment that the latter determined to throw off
the galling yoke which had been placed upon their necks, the Apache
became their warm friend, and received the fugitives in the recesses of
the mountains, where he could bid defiance to the world. Therefore, we
can always depend upon finding in the records of the settlements in the
Rio Grande valley, and in Sonora and Chihuahua, that every revolt or
attempted revolt, of the Pueblos or sedentary tribes meant a
corresponding increase in the intensity of the hostilities prosecuted by
the Apache nomads.
In the revolts of 1680, as well as those of 1745 and 1750, the Apache
swept the country far to the south. The great revolt of the Pueblos was
the one of 1680, during which they succeeded in driving the governor and
the surviving Spanish colonists from Santa Fé down to the present town
of Juarez (formerly El Paso del Norte), several hundred miles nearer
Mexico. At that place Otermin made a stand, but it was fully twelve
years before the Spanish power was re-established through the efforts of
Vargas and Cruzate. The other two attempts at insurrection failed
miserably, the second being merely a local one among the Papagoes of
Arizona. It may be stated, in round terms, that from the year 1700 until
they were expelled from the territory of Mexico, the exertions of the
representatives of the Spanish power in “New Spain” were mainly in the
direction of reducing the naked Apache, who drove them into a frenzy of
rage and despair by his uniform success.
The Tarahumaris, living in the Sierra Madre south of the present
international boundary, were also for a time a thorn in the side of the
European; but they submitted finally to the instructions of the
missionaries who penetrated into their country, and who, on one occasion
at least, brought them in from the war-path before they had fired a
shot.
The first reference to the Apaches by name is in the account of Espejo’s
expedition—1581—where they will be found described as the “Apichi,” and
from that time down the Spaniards vie with each other in enumerating the
crimes and the atrocities of which these fierce Tinneh have been guilty.
Torquemada grows eloquent and styles them the Pharaohs (“Faraones”) who
have persecuted the chosen people of Israel (meaning the settlers on the
Rio Grande).
Yet all the while that this black cloud hung over the fair face of
nature—raiding, killing, robbing, carrying women and children into
captivity—Jesuit and Franciscan vied with each other in schemes for
getting these savages under their control.
Father Eusebio Kino, of whom I have already spoken, formulated a plan in
or about 1710 for establishing, or re-establishing, a mission in the
villages of the Moquis, from which the Franciscans had been driven in
the great revolt and to which they had never permanently returned.
Questions of ecclesiastical jurisdiction seem to have had something to
do with delaying the execution of the plan, which was really one for the
spiritual and temporal conquest of the Apache, by moving out against him
from all sides, and which would doubtless have met with good results had
not Kino died at the mission of Madalena a few months after. Father
Sotomayor, another Jesuit, one of Kino’s companions, advanced from the
“Pimeria,” or country of the Pimas, in which Tucson has since grown up,
to and across the Salt River on the north, in an unsuccessful attempt to
begin negotiations with the Apaches.
The overthrow of the Spanish power afforded another opportunity to the
Apache to play his cards for all they were worth; and for fully fifty
years he was undisputed master of Northwestern Mexico—the disturbed
condition of public affairs south of the Rio Grande, the war between the
United States and the Mexican Republic, and our own Civil War, being
additional factors in the equation from which the Apache reaped the
fullest possible benefit.
It is difficult to give a fair description of the personal appearance of
the Apaches, because there is no uniform type to which reference can be
made; both in physique and in facial lineaments there seem to be two
distinct classes among them. Many of the tribes are scarcely above
medium size, although they look to be still smaller from their great
girth of chest and width of shoulders. Many others are tall, well-made,
and straight as arrows. There are long-headed men, with fine brows,
aquiline noses, well-chiselled lips and chins, and flashing eyes; and
there are others with the flat occiput, flat nose, open nostrils, thin,
everted lips, and projecting chins.
One general rule may be laid down: the Apache, to whichever type he may
belong, is strongly built, straight, sinewy, well-muscled, extremely
strong in the lower limbs, provided with a round barrel chest, showing
good lung power, keen, intelligent-looking eyes, good head, and a mouth
showing determination, decision, and cruelty. He can be made a firm
friend, but no mercy need be expected from him as an enemy.
He is a good talker, can argue well from his own standpoint, cannot be
hoodwinked by sophistry or plausible stories, keeps his word very
faithfully, and is extremely honest in protecting property or anything
placed under his care. No instance can be adduced of an Apache sentinel
having stolen any of the government or other property he was appointed
to guard. The Chiricahua and other Apache scouts, who were enlisted to
carry on General Crook’s campaign against “Geronimo,” remained for
nearly one week at Fort Bowie, and during that time made numbers of
purchases from the post-trader, Mr. Sydney R. De Long. These were all on
credit, as the scouts were about leaving with the gallant and lamented
Crawford on the expedition which led to his death. Some months after, as
I wished to learn something definite in regard to the honesty of this
much-maligned people, I went to Mr. De Long and asked him to tell me
what percentage of bad debts he had found among the Apaches. He examined
his books, and said slowly: “They have bought seventeen hundred and
eighty dollars’ worth, and they have paid me back every single cent.”
“And what percentage of bad debts do you find among your white
customers?”
A cynical smile and a pitying glance were all the reply vouchsafed.
Around his own camp-fire the Apache is talkative, witty, fond of telling
stories, and indulging in much harmless raillery. He is kind to
children, and I have yet to see the first Indian child struck for any
cause by either parent or relative. The children are well provided with
games of different kinds, and the buckskin doll-babies for the little
girls are often very artistic in make-up. The boys have fiddles, flutes,
and many sorts of diversion. but at a very early age are given bows and
arrows, and amuse themselves as best they can with hunting for birds and
small animals. They have sham-fights, wrestling matches, footraces,
games of shinny and “muskha,” the last really a series of lance-throws
along the ground, teaching the youngster steadiness of aim and keeping
every muscle fully exercised. They learn at a very early age the names
and attributes of all the animals and plants about them; the whole
natural kingdom, in fact, is understood as far as their range of
knowledge in such matters extends. They are inured to great fatigue and
suffering, to deprivation of water, and to going without food for long
periods.
Unlike the Indians of the Plains, east of the Rocky Mountains, they
rarely become good horsemen, trusting rather to their own muscles for
advancing upon or escaping from an enemy in the mountainous and desert
country with which they, the Apaches, are so perfectly familiar. Horses,
mules, and donkeys, when captured, were rarely held longer than the time
when they were needed to be eaten; the Apache preferred the meat of
these animals to that of the cow, sheep, or goat, although all the
last-named were eaten. Pork and fish were objects of the deepest
repugnance to both men and women; within the past twenty years—since the
Apaches have been enrolled as scouts and police at the agencies—this
aversion to bacon at least has been to a great extent overcome; but no
Apache would touch fish until Geronimo and the men with him were
incarcerated at Fort Pickens. Florida, when they were persuaded to eat
the pompano and other delicious fishes to be found in Pensacola Bay.
When we first became apprised of this peculiarity of the Apache
appetite, we derived all the benefit from it that we could in driving
away the small boys who used to hang around our mess-canvas in the hope
of getting a handful of sugar, or a piece of cracker, of which all
hands, young and old, were passionately fond. All we had to do was to
set a can of salmon or lobster in the middle of the canvas, and the
sight of that alone would drive away the bravest Apache boy that ever
lived; he would regard as uncanny the mortals who would eat such vile
stuff. They could not understand what was the meaning of the
red-garmented Mephistophelian figure on the can of devilled ham, and
called that dish “Chidin-bitzi” (ghost meat), because they fancied a
resemblance to their delineations of their gods or spirits or ghosts.
The expertness of the Apache in all that relates to tracking either man
or beast over the rocky heights, or across the interminable sandy wastes
of the region in which he makes his home, has been an occasion of
astonishment to all Caucasians who have had the slightest acquaintance
with him. He will follow through grass, over sand or rock, or through
the chapparal of scrub oak, up and down the flanks of the steepest
ridges, traces so faint that to the keenest-eyed American they do not
appear at all.
Conversely, he is fiendishly dexterous in the skill with which he
conceals his own line of march when a pursuing enemy is to be thrown off
the track. No serpent can surpass him in cunning; he will dodge and
twist and bend in all directions, boxing the compass, doubling like a
fox, scattering his party the moment a piece of rocky ground is reached
over which it would, under the best circumstances, be difficult to
follow. Instead of moving in file, his party will here break into
skirmishing order, covering a broad space and diverging at the most
unexpected moment from the primitive direction, and not perhaps
reuniting for miles. Pursuit is retarded and very frequently baffled.
The pursuers must hold on to the trail, or all is lost. There must be no
guesswork. Following a trail is like being on a ship: so long as one is
on shipboard, he is all right; but if he once go overboard, he is all
wrong. So with a trail: to be a mile away from it is fully as bad as
being fifty, if it be not found again. In the meantime the Apache
raiders, who know full well that the pursuit must slacken for a while,
have reunited at some designated hill, or near some spring or water
“tank,” and are pushing across the high mountains as fast as legs harder
than leather can carry them. If there be squaws with the party, they
carry all plunder on their backs in long, conical baskets of their own
make, unless they have made a haul of ponies, in which case they
sometimes ride, and at all times use the animals to pack.
At the summit of each ridge, concealed behind rocks or trees, a few
picked men, generally not more than two or three, will remain waiting
for the approach of pursuit; when the tired cavalry draw near, and
begin, dismounted, the ascent of the mountain, there are always good
chances for the Apaches to let them have half a dozen well-aimed
shots—just enough to check the onward movement, and compel them to halt
and close up, and, while all this is going on, the Apache rear-guard,
whether in the saddle or on foot, is up and away, as hard to catch as
the timid quail huddling in the mesquite.
Or it may so happen the Apache prefers, for reasons best known to
himself, to await the coming of night, when he will sneak in upon the
herd and stampede it, and set the soldiery on foot, or drive a few
arrows against the sentinels, if he can discern where they may be moving
in the gloom.
All sorts of signals are made for the information of other parties of
Apaches. At times, it is an inscription or pictograph incised in the
smooth bark of a sycamore; at others, a tracing upon a smooth-faced rock
under a ledge which will protect it from the elements; or it may be a
knot tied in the tall sacaton or in the filaments of the yucca; or one
or more stones placed in the crotch of a limb, or a sapling laid against
another tree, or a piece of buckskin carelessly laid over a branch. All
these, placed as agreed upon, afford signals to members of their own
band, and only Apaches or savages with perceptions as keen would detect
their presence.
When information of some important happening is to be communicated to a
distance and at once, and the party is situated upon the summit of a
mountain chain or in other secure position, a fire is lighted of the
cones of the resinous pine, and the smoke is instantaneously making its
way far above the tracery of the foliage. A similar method is employed
when they desire to apprise kinsfolk of the death of relatives; in the
latter case the brush “jacal” of the deceased—the whole village, in
fact—is set on fire and reduced to ashes.
The Apache was a hard foe to subdue, not because he was full of wiles
and tricks and experienced in all that pertains to the art of war, but
because he had so few artificial wants and depended almost absolutely
upon what his great mother—Nature—stood ready to supply. Starting out
upon the war-path, he wore scarcely any clothing save a pair of buckskin
moccasins reaching to mid-thigh and held to the waist by a string of the
same material; a piece of muslin encircling the loins and dangling down
behind about to the calves of the legs, a war-hat of buckskin surmounted
by hawk and eagle plumage, a rifle (the necessary ammunition in belt) or
a bow, with the quiver filled with arrows reputed to be poisonous, a
blanket thrown over the shoulders, a watertight wicker jug to serve as a
canteen, and perhaps a small amount of “jerked” meat, or else of
“pinole” or parched corn-meal.
That is all, excepting his sacred relics and “medicine,” for now is the
time when the Apache is going to risk no failure by neglecting the
precaution needed to get all his ghosts and gods on his side. He will
have sacred cords of buckskin and shells, sacred sashes ornamented with
the figures of the powers invoked to secure him success; possibly, if he
be very opulent, he may have bought from a “medicine man” a sacred
shirt, which differs from the sash merely in being bigger and in having
more figures; and a perfect menagerie of amulets and talismans and
relics of all kinds, medicine arrows, pieces of crystal, petrified wood,
little bags of the sacred meal called “hoddentin,” fragments of wood
which has been struck by lightning, and any and all kinds of trash which
his fancy or his fears have taught him are endowed with power over the
future and the supernatural. Like the Roman he is not content with
paying respect to his own gods; he adopts those of all the enemies who
yield to his power. In many and many an instance I have seen dangling
from the neck, belt or wrist of an Apache warrior the cross, the medals,
the _Agnus Dei_ or the rosary of the Mexican victims whom his rifle or
arrow had deprived of life.
To his captives the Apache was cruel, brutal, merciless; if of full age,
he wasted no time with them, unless on those rare occasions when he
wanted to extract some information about what his pursuers were doing or
contemplated doing, in which case death might be deferred for a few
brief hours. Where the captive was of tender years, unable to get along
without a mother’s care, it was promptly put out of its misery by having
its brains dashed against a convenient rock or tree; but where it
happened that the raiders had secured boys or girls sufficiently old to
withstand the hardships of the new life, they were accepted into the
band and treated as kindly as if Apache to the manner-born.
It was often a matter of interest to me to note the great amount of
real, earnest, affectionate good-will that had grown up between the
Mexican captives and the other members of the tribe; there were not a
few of these captives who, upon finding a chance, made their escape back
to their own people, but in nearly all cases they have admitted to me
that their life among the savages was one of great kindness, after they
had learned enough of the language to understand and be understood.
Many of these captives have risen to positions of influence among the
Apaches. There are men and women like “Severiano,” “Concepcion,”
“Antonio,” “Jesus Maria,” “Victor,” “Francesca,” “Maria,” and others I
could name, who have amassed property and gained influence among the
people who led them into slavery.
A brief account of the more prominent of foods entering into the dietary
of the Apache may not be out of place, as it will serve to emphasize my
remarks concerning his ability to practically snap his fingers at any
attempts to reduce him to starvation by the ordinary methods. The same
remarks, in a minor degree, apply to all our wilder tribes. Our
Government had never been able to starve any of them until it had them
placed on a reservation. The Apache was not so well provided with meat
as he might have been, because the general area of Arizona was so arid
and barren that it could not be classed as a game country; nevertheless,
in the higher elevations of the Sierra Mogollon and the San Francisco,
there were to be found plenty of deer, some elk, and, in places like the
Grand Cañon of the Colorado, the Cañon of the Rio Salado, and others,
there were some Rocky Mountain sheep; down on the plains or deserts,
called in the Spanish idiom “playas” or “beaches,” there were quite
large herds of antelope, and bears were encountered in all the high and
rocky places.
Wild turkeys flock in the timbered ranges, while on the lower levels, in
the thickets of sage-brush and mesquite, quail are numerous enough to
feed Moses and all the Israelites were they to come back to life again.
The jack-rabbit is caught by being “rounded up,” and the field-rat adds
something to the meat supply. The latter used to be caught in a very
peculiar way. The rat burrowed under a mesquite or other bush, and cast
up in a mound all the earth excavated from the spot selected for its
dwelling; and down through this cut or bored five or six entrances, so
that any intruder, such as a snake, would be unable to bar the retreat
of the inmates, who could seek safety through some channel other than
the one seized upon by the invader.
The Apache was perfectly well acquainted with all this, and laid his
plans accordingly. Three or four boys would surround each habitation,
and, while one took station at the main entrance and laid the curved end
of his “rat-stick” across its mouth, the others devoted themselves to
prodding down with their sticks into the other channels. The rats, of
course, seeing one hole undisturbed, would dart up that, and, when each
had reached the opening, he would rest for a moment, with his body just
half out, while he scanned the horizon to see where the enemy was. That
was the supreme moment for both rat and Apache, and, with scarcely any
percentage of errors worth mentioning, the Apache was nearly always
successful. He would quickly and powerfully draw the stick towards him
and break the back of the poor rodent, and in another second have it
dangling from his belt. One gash of the knife would eviscerate the
little animal, and then it was thrown upon a bed of hot coals, which
speedily burned off all the hair and cooked it as well.
The above completed the list of meats of which use was made, unless we
include the horses, cows, oxen, donkeys, sheep, and mules driven off
from Mexicans and Americans, which were all eaten as great delicacies.
Some few of the meats prepared by the Apache cooks are palatable, and I
especially remember their method of baking a deer’s head surrounded and
covered by hot embers. They roast a side of venison to perfection over a
bed of embers, and broil liver and steak in a savory manner; but their
_bonne bouche_, when they can get it, is an unborn fawn, which they
believe to be far more delicious than mule meat.
The mainstay of the Apache larder was always the mescal, or agave—the
American aloe—a species of the so-called century plant. This was cut
down by the squaws and baked in “mescal-pits,” made for all the world
like a clam-bake. There would be first laid down a course of stones,
then one of wet grass, if procurable, then the mescal, then another
covering of grass, and lastly one of earth. All over Arizona old
“mescal-pits” are to be found, as the plant was always cooked as close
as possible to the spot where it was cut, thus saving the women
unnecessary labor.
Three days are required to bake mescal properly, and, when done, it has
a taste very much like that of old-fashioned molasses candy, although
its first effects are those of all the aloe family. The central stalk is
the best portion, as the broad, thorny leaves, although yielding a sweet
mass, are so filled with filament that it is impossible to chew them,
and they must be sucked.
The fruit of the Spanish bayonet, when dried, has a very pleasant taste,
not unlike that of a fig. It can also be eaten in the raw or pulpy
state, but will then, so the Apaches tell me, often bring on fever.
Of the bread made from mesquite beans, as of the use made of the fruit
of the giant cactus, mention has already been made in the beginning of
this work. Sweet acorns are also used freely.
The “nopal,” or Indian fig, supplies a fruit which is very good, and is
much liked by the squaws and children, but it is so covered with a beard
of spines, that until I had seen some of the squaws gathering it, I
could not see how it could be so generally employed as an article of
food. They would take in one hand a small wooden fork made for the
purpose, and with that seize the fruit of the plant; with the other
hand, a brush made of the stiff filaments of the sacaton was passed
rapidly over the spines, knocking them all off much sooner than it has
taken to write this paragraph on the typewriter. It requires no time at
all to fill a basket with them, and either fresh or dried they are good
food.
The seeds of the sunflower are parched and ground up with corn-meal or
mesquite beans to make a rich cake.
There are several varieties of seed-bearing grasses of importance to the
Apache. The squaws show considerable dexterity in collecting these; they
place their conical baskets under the tops of the stalks, draw these
down until they incline over the baskets, and then hit them a rap with a
small stick, which causes all the seed to fall into the receptacle
provided.
In damp, elevated swales the wild potatoes grow plentifully. These are
eaten by both Apaches and Navajoes, who use with them a pinch of clay to
correct acridity. A small black walnut is eaten, and so is a wild
cherry. The wild strawberry is too rare to be noticed in this treatise,
but is known to the Apaches. Corn was planted in small areas by the
Sierra Blanca band whenever undisturbed by the scouting parties of their
enemies. After General Crook had conquered the whole nation and placed
the various bands upon reservations, he insisted upon careful attention
being paid to the planting of either corn or barley, and immense
quantities of each were raised and sold to the United States Government
for the use of its horses and mules. Of this a full description will
follow in due time.
The Apaches have a very strict code of etiquette, as well as morals,
viewed from their own standpoint. It is considered very impolite for a
stranger to ask an Apache his name, and an Apache will never give it,
but will allow the friend at his side to reply for him; the names of the
dead are never referred to, and it is an insult to speak of them by
name. Yet, after a good long while has elapsed, the name of a warrior
killed in battle or distinguished in any way may be conferred upon his
grandchild or some other relative.
No Apache, no matter what his standing may be in society, will speak to
or of his mother-in-law—a courtesy which the old lady reciprocates. One
of the funniest incidents I can remember was seeing a very desperate
Chiricahua Apache, named “Ka-e-tennay,” who was regarded as one of the
boldest and bravest men in the whole nation, trying to avoid running
face to face against his mother-in-law; he hung on to stones, from which
had he fallen he would have been dashed to pieces or certainly broken
several of his limbs. There are times at the Agencies when Indians have
to be counted for rations—even then the rule is not relaxed. The
mother-in-law will take a seat with her son-in-law and the rest of the
family; but a few paces removed, and with her back turned to them all;
references to her are by signs only—she is never mentioned otherwise.
When an Apache young man begins to feel the first promptings of love for
any particular young damsel, he makes known the depth and sincerity of
his affection by presenting the young woman with a calico skirt, cut and
sewed by his own fair fingers. The Apache men are good sewers, and the
Navajo men do all the knitting for their tribe, and the same may be said
of the men of the Zunis.
Only ill-bred Americans or Europeans, who have never had any “raising,”
would think of speaking of the Bear, the Snake, the Lightning or the
Mule, without employing the reverential prefix “Ostin,” meaning “Old
Man,” and equivalent to the Roman title “Senator.” But you can’t teach
politeness to Americans, and the Apache knows it and wastes no time or
vain regrets on the defects of their training.
“You must stop talking about bear,” said a chief to me one night at the
camp-fire, “or we’ll not have a good hunt.”
In the same manner no good will come from talking about owls, whose
hooting, especially if on top of a “jacal,” or in the branches of a tree
under which people are seated or sleeping, means certain death. I have
known of one case where our bravest scouts ran away from a place where
an owl had perched and begun its lugubrious ditty, and at another time
the scouts, as we were about entering the main range of the Sierra
Madre, made a great fuss and would not be pacified until one of the
whites of our command had released a little owl which he had captured.
This same superstition obtained with equal force among the Romans, and,
indeed, there are few if any spots in the world, where the owl has not
been regarded as the messenger of death or misfortune.
When an Apache starts out on the war-path for the first four times, he
will refrain from letting water touch his lips; he will suck it through
a small reed or cane which he carries for the purpose. Similarly, he
will not scratch his head with the naked fingers, but resorts to a small
wooden scratcher carried with the drinking-tube. Traces of these two
superstitions can also be found in other parts of the globe. There are
all kinds of superstitions upon every conceivable kind of subject, but
there are too many of them to be told _in extenso_ in a book treating of
military campaigning.
As might be inferred, the “medicine men” wield an amount of influence
which cannot be understood by civilized people who have not been brought
into intimate relations with the aborigines in a wild state. The study
of the religious life and thought of our savage tribes has always been
to me of the greatest interest and of supreme importance; nothing has
been so neglected by the Americans as an examination into the mental
processes by which an Indian arrives at his conclusions, the omens,
auguries, hopes and fears by which he is controlled and led to one
extreme or the other in all he does, or a study of the leaders who keep
him under control from the cradle to the grave. Certainly, if we are in
earnest in our protestations of a desire to elevate and enlighten the
aborigine—which I for one most sincerely doubt—then we cannot begin too
soon to investigate all that pertains to him mentally as well as
physically. Looking at the subject in the strictest and most completely
practical light, we should save millions of dollars in expenditure, and
many valuable lives, and not be making ourselves a holy show and a
laughing-stock for the rest of the world by massing troops and munitions
of war from the four corners of the country every time an Indian
medicine man or spirit doctor announces that he can raise the dead.
Until we provide something better, the savage will rely upon his own
religious practices to help him through all difficulties, and his
medicine man will be called upon to furnish the singing, drumming and
dancing that may be requisite to cure the sick or avert disease of any
kind.
The “cures” of the medicine men are effected generally by incantations,
the sprinkling of hoddentin or sacred powder, sweat-baths, and at times
by suction of the arm, back or shoulder in which pain may have taken up
its abode. If they fail, as they very often do, then they cast about and
pretty soon have indicated some poor old crone as the maleficent
obstacle to the success of their ministrations, and the miserable bag is
very soon burnt or stoned to death.
The influence quietly exerted upon tribal councils by the women of the
Apache and Navajo tribes has been noted by many observers.
I will curtail my remarks upon the manners and customs of the Apaches at
this point, as there will necessarily be many other allusions to them
before this narrative shall be completed. One thing more is all I care
to say. The endurance of their warriors while on raids was something
which extorted expressions of wonder from all white men who ever had
anything to do with their subjugation. Seventy-five miles a day was
nothing at all unusual for them to march when pursued, their tactics
being to make three or four such marches, in the certainty of being able
to wear out or throw off the track the most energetic and the most
intelligent opponents.
Their vision is so keen that they can discern movements of troops or the
approach of wagon-trains for a distance of thirty miles, and so inured
are they to the torrid heats of the burning sands of Arizona south of
the Gila and Northern Mexico, that they seem to care nothing for
temperatures under which the American soldier droops and dies. The
Apache, as a matter of fact, would strip himself of everything and
travel naked, which the civilized man would not do; but the amount of
clothing retained by the soldiers was too small to be considered a very
important factor.
If necessary, the Apache will go without water for as long a time almost
as a camel. A small stone or a twig inserted in the mouth will cause a
more abundant flow of saliva and assuage his thirst. He travels with
fewer “impedimenta” than any other tribe of men in the world, not even
excepting the Australians, but sometimes he allows himself the luxury or
comfort of a pack of cards, imitated from those of the Mexicans, and
made out of horse-hide, or a set of the small painted sticks with which
to play the game of “Tze-chis,” or, on occasions when an unusually large
number of Apaches happen to be travelling together, some one of the
party will be loaded with the hoops and poles of the “mushka;” for, be
it known, that the Apache, like savages everywhere, and not a few
civilized men, too, for that matter, is so addicted to gambling that he
will play away the little he owns of clothing and all else he possesses
in the world.
Perhaps no instance could afford a better idea of the degree of
ruggedness the Apaches attain than the one coming under my personal
observation in the post hospital of Fort Bowie, in 1886, where one of
our Apache scouts was under treatment for a gunshot wound in the thigh.
The moment Mr. Charles Lummis and myself approached the bedside of the
young man, he asked for a “tobacco-shmoke,” which he received in the
form of a bunch of cigarettes. One of these he placed in his mouth, and,
drawing a match, coolly proceeded to strike a light on his foot, which,
in its horny, callous appearance, closely resembled the back of a mud
tortoise.