It was in the sunny, lengthened days of early March that the Antiquary,
the Journalist, the star boarder, and the Grumbler undertook their
long-projected trip to the Sacramento Mountains, there to visit the
Government Reservation, nestled in the sheltered Mescalero Valley, which
gives its name.
Well equipped with camping conveniences, the four Koshares set forth on
their journey of one hundred and twenty-five miles.
It was their intention to "make haste slowly," and nothing could better
have suited the leisurely pair of Mexican horses, and the equally
easy-going Mexican driver, who, with his team, had been hired for the
expedition. The first night of their journey was passed beneath the open
sky, with the rounded moon riding clear and fair above them, and the
desert of sand and sage-brush all about them. On the second, they lodged
at the solitary dwelling of a ranchman, whose nearest neighbor was
thirty-five miles distant.
At the journey's end, they were cordially received by Lieutenant
Stottler, Government Agent at the Mescalero Reservation, and throughout
their visit were treated by him with a kindly hospitality and a genial
courtesy beyond praise.
Of the Apache, now transformed by the iron hand of civilization from a
blood-thirsty savage to a passably decent and partially self-supporting
member of the republic, it has been aptly said that Nature has given him
"the ear of the cat, the cunning of the fox, and the ferocious courage
and brutishness of the gray wolf."
The whole vast realm of his native ranges, desert though they seem, are
known to teem with ever-present supplies for his savage menu.
There are found fat prairie mice, plump angle-worms, gray meat of
rattlesnake and lizard, and of leathery bronco,--all easy-coming "grist
for that 'unpernickety' mill," his hungry stomach.
Is he minded for a vegetable diet, for him the mescal lavishly grows;
and the bean of mesquite, reduced to meal, makes him palatable cakes.
Fruit of Spanish bayonet dried in the sun, and said thus to resemble
dates, is at hand for his dessert; and of mountain acorns alone he may
make an excellent and nutritious meal.
From the primeval years this belligerent savage is said to have
especially harried that dismal waste in New Mexico known as _Jornado del
Muerta_, "Journey of Death."
This awful desert is declared to be literally "the battle-ground of the
elements." In the winter it is made fearful by raging storms of wind and
snow, in which frozen men and animals leave their bodies, as carrion
prey, to the hungry mountain wolf. In later times it is "the skulking
place of unscrupulous outlaws, and many a murdered traveller makes good
the name it bears."
It is thus finely depicted by a modern traveller: "Near the southern
boundary of New Mexico stretches a shadeless, waterless plateau, nearly
one hundred miles long, and from five to thirty miles wide, resembling
the steppes of northern Asia. Geologists tell us this is the oldest
country on the earth, except, perhaps, the backbone of Central Africa;
at least, the one which has longest been exposed to the influence of
agents now in action. The grass is low and mossy, with a wasted look;
the shrubs are soap-weed and bony cactus; the very stones are like the
scoria of a furnace. It is sought by no flight of bird; no bee or fly
buzzes on the empty air; and, save the lizard and horned frog, there is
no breath of living thing. One might fancy that this dreary waste had
served its time, had been worn out, unpeopled, and forgotten."
In the (not long past) day of his power and might, to steal and murder,
under the show of friendship; to beat out the brains of unsuspecting
men; to carry off to captivity, worse than death, the women and larger
children, was, with the Apache, merely a question of opportunity.
In the Apache war--ending in October, 1880, and lasting but a year and a
half,--it is estimated that more than four hundred white persons were
scalped and tortured to death with devilish ingenuity.
The details of Indian fighting are everywhere much the same; but in
strategy and cruelty that of the Apache surpasses all the sons of men.
Victorio, the chief who led the war with his band, was surrounded at
last, and captured, and killed in the mountains of Mexico.
With the death of Victorio (whose only son, Washington, was shot in the
fall of 1879, leaving no one to succeed him) the cause was lost.
His wife, we are told, after Victorio's death, cut off her hair, in the
old Greek fashion, and buried it,--an offering to the spirit of this
fallen chief, to whom (devil though he was) she was devoted.
It is told of Rafael, one of Victorio's band, that when maddened by
_tiswin_ (an intoxicant made by the Indian from corn), he fatally
stabbed his wife, and, after her death, overcome with penitence,
sacrificed all his beads and most of his clothes to the "dear departed,"
cut his and his children's hair short, and sheared the manes and tails
of his horses. These manifestations of anguish over, he went up into a
high hill, and howled with uplifted hands.
Women are regarded by the Apaches as an incumbrance. They are of so
little account that they are not even given a name. Mothers _mourn_ at
their birth.
The Indians occupying a reservation of seven hundred square miles in
southern New Mexico, and numbering, at the present writing, about four
hundred and fifty souls, are typical Apaches, and closely related by
blood to the other Apaches of Arizona and New Mexico. They exhibit the
usual race characteristics,--of ignorance, stubbornness, superstition,
cruelty, laziness, and treachery.
In December, 1894, Lieutenant Stottler first assumed the charge of these
Indians. In spite of the fact that for many years a generous government
had supplied them annually with rations, clothing, working implements,
etc., they were then living in _tepees_, or brush shelters, on the side
hills; clad in breech-clout and blanket, wearing paint, and long hair,
and thanklessly receiving their rations of beef, flour, coffee, sugar,
salt, soap, and baking-powder. A few of them condescended to raise corn
and oats; but acres of tillable land on the reservation were still
unused.
"They were," says Lieutenant Stottler, in an able and interesting
report, "not only contented with this order of things, but desirous and
determined to prolong it indefinitely."
Fifty per cent of their children were in school, but the parents were
wholly opposed to their education. Among them were twenty strong,
broad-shouldered Indian adults, educated at the expense of thousands of
dollars, yet still running about the reservation in breech-clout and
blanket, wilder than any uneducated Indian on it.
The girls were held from school, and at ten and twelve years of age were
traded for ponies, into a bondage worse than any known slavery.
Fourteen Indian policemen are allowed the agent. Their especial duty is
to see that the herd of beef cattle for their own eating is properly
cared for. The police, each had a cabin to live in; but each, in scorn
of this civilized innovation, had carefully planted alongside of his
cabin a _tepee_ to sleep in. To get these policemen into civilized
clothing, under threat of duress, and to order all _tepees_ away from
their cabins, was the agent's first move. Next, it was decided that all
children five years old and upwards _must_ be placed in school at the
beginning of the school year, whether the parents were willing or not.
Every Indian man was ordered to select a piece of land, and put in his
posts. To break up the influence of chiefs or bands, who, claiming the
whole country, deterred the people from work, by threats, appears to
have been up-hill work; "but now," says the agent (in 1897), "there are
no chiefs, and 'work or starve' is the policy." Formerly, government
supplies of clothing, wagons, harness, and utensils, as soon as issued,
had been packed on burros and sold for a mere song to settlers about the
reservation. This abuse was promptly stopped, as also was the making of
_tiswin_.
This native drink, made from Indian corn, is said to be more maddening
in its effect than any other known intoxicant; Indians brutalized by
_tiswin_ fought, as do our own drunkards, and often wounded or killed
each other. For corn to make this detestable beverage, an Indian would
trade away the last article in his possession.
It was proclaimed by the agent that the maker of this poison would be
imprisoned for six months, at hard labor, in the guard-house. This
stopped its manufacture, and there are no longer drunken Indians at the
reservation. Occasionally they still get liquor at Las Cruces, when sent
there for freight.
All supplies are hauled from the railroad over-land. The distance is one
hundred and ten miles; about one hundred thousand pounds are annually
brought in this way to the reservation, and without harm or loss. Much
of the Indian's savagery lies (like Samson's strength) in his hair; to
his long, matted tresses he clings tenaciously. As a beginning,
Lieutenant Stottler induced one old fellow--a policeman--with the
reward of a five-dollar gold piece to cut his precious locks. Thus
metamorphosed, he became "the cynosure of all eyes." His squaw made life
a burden to him; and thus badgered, he, in turn, pestered the agent to
get the entire police force to cut theirs.
It was long before the general consent to part with these cherished
tresses could be won; and it became necessary to put some of the Indians
in the guard-house to accomplish this reform. Finally, orders were asked
from Washington, and received, compelling submission to the shearing.
When the Indians saw the Washington order, they all gave in, with the
exception of a last man, who had to be "thumped into it." Their hair
well cut, a raid was made on breech-clout and blanket. Now they all
appear in civilized clothing. This seems to have been the turning-point
in their wildness.
"Now," says the agent, "they come and ask for scissors and comb to cut
their hair, and volunteer the information that they were 'fools to
oppose it.'"
About half a dozen of these Indians were found by Lieutenant Stottler
with two wives; since none others were permitted, this matrimonial
indulgence, polygamy, is, consequently, dying a natural death at
Mescalero. It is found hard to control the ancient practice of dropping
a wife and taking up another without the troublesome formality of a
divorce, which has practically the same result as polygamy. In spite of
the slip-shodness of the marriage-tie among the Indians, "they are,"
says the Lieutenant, "about as badly henpecked as it is possible to
imagine. Not by the wife, however; but by that ever dreaded being, her
mother." He gives in his paper a most amusing account of the relation
between the son-in-law and this much-maligned treasure of our higher
civilization. "Just why it is," he says, "no Indian has ever been able
to explain to me, but an Indian cannot look at his mother-in-law.
"If she enters his _tepee_, he leaves; if he enters and she is within,
he flees at once. He cannot stay in her august presence. If his wife and
he quarrel, his mother-in-law puts in an appearance, and manages his
affairs during his enforced absence so long as she pleases. Perhaps she
takes his wife to her own _tepee_, where he dare not follow. In this
dilemma, he either comes to terms, or the situation constitutes a
divorce.
"Does the agent wish a child brought to school, or a head of a family to
take land, and try to farm it, the mother-in-law, if hostile (and she
usually is), appears on the scene. Then the head of the family hunts the
woods for refuge.
"The sight of several stalwart bucks hiding behind doors, barrels, and
trees, because a dried-up, wizened squaw heaves in sight, is a spectacle
that would be ludicrous, were it not for its far-reaching results. As an
Indian may take, in succession, many wives, who still stand to his
credit, the agent has, practically, many mothers-in-law to contend with.
Consequently, these family magnets have been officially informed that
the guard-house awaits any of them who may be found maliciously
interfering with the families of their children.
"Hard labor added to this sentence, it is hoped, may at length have the
effect of breaking up this absurd superstition."
By this account it may be seen that "one of the most far-fetched notions
that ever entered into the minds of men" is found domesticated among the
Mexican aborigines. It is asserted, as a chronological fact, that the
Mexican Pueblos "invented the mother-in-law joke gray ages before it
dawned upon our modern civilization."
The lamented Cushing, in his account of the "restful, patriarchal,
long-lonely world" of his research, tells us that he found the
mother-in-law a too pronounced factor in the Zuni family circle; and, as
we know, in our own higher civilization the mother-in-law, held in
good-natured reprobation, serves to point many a harmless jest.
White enthusiasts--with whom the "wrongs of the Indian" are a standing
grievance--but imperfectly realize the difficulty of taming these
savages, getting them well off the warpath, and making them cleanly and
self-supporting. It may, therefore, be well to present the side shown us
by the agent in his able paper of statistical facts.
"The Apache tribe," he tells us, "has one hundred and sixteen children
at school,--nineteen at Fort Lewis, Colorado, and ninety-seven at the
reservation boarding-school. Each child has one-half day in class and
one-half day of industrial work. The girls take their turns in the
laundry, sewing-room, and kitchen, and at dormitory work. The boys do
the heavy work in the kitchen and laundry, chop the wood, and till the
farm under the charge of the industrial teacher. All the vegetables for
their use are raised on the farm, and the surplus sold.
"The aim of the school is to teach the rising generation of Apaches how
to make a living with the resources of the reservation, and, in time, to
become self-supporting.
"To this end useful rather than fancy trades are taught. Boys are
detailed with the blacksmith and carpenter, to learn the use of common
tools. To do away with the inborn contempt of the aboriginal male for
the women of his tribe, boys and girls at the reservation are not only
trained to study, recite, and sit at meals with girls, but a weekly
'sociable' is held for the scholars.
"On such nights they have games and civilized dances. Every boy is
required formally to approach and request, 'Will you dance this dance
with me?' and to offer his partner his arm when the reel, quadrille,
etc., is finished, and escorting her to her seat, leave her with a
polite 'thank you.'"
In the agent's report for the years 1896-97, "this year," he says, "the
Indian boys raised twenty-five thousand pounds beets, twenty thousand
pounds cabbage, one thousand pounds cauliflower, five hundred pounds
turnips, one thousand four hundred pounds celery, five hundred pounds
radishes, one thousand four hundred pounds of onions, nineteen thousand
pounds of pumpkins and squash, four hundred pounds of peas, nine hundred
and sixty pounds of corn, six thousand five hundred pounds of potatoes,
besides cucumbers, pie-plant, and asparagus.
"The school has a pen of swine, a flock of chickens, and a fine herd of
milch cows; and all the hay and fodder for them and the horses are
raised on the farm. Oats and corn are purchased from the Indians, who,
in 1895, raised one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
"The adult Indians," he adds, "cut this year one hundred and sixty cords
of wood for the school, for which I paid them two dollars and fifty
cents per cord. In the winter of 1896 the industry of blanket-making was
introduced into the reservation. Navajo blanket-makers were employed to
teach to the Mescalero women their incomparable method of carding,
spinning, and dyeing wool, and weaving blankets. Twenty of the
Mescaleros," boasts the agent, "can to-day make as good blankets as the
Navajos themselves.
"The reservation is mountainous, and one of the finest sheep ranges in
the country. Government has allowed five thousand sheep for general
distribution at the reservation, and in addition, five hundred head for
the school; where a room is now set aside for the looms of the older
girls, who will, in their turn, become instructors in this useful art.
This puts into their hands another opportunity to become
self-supporting."
The visitors from Mesilla Valley were kindly admitted behind the scenes
at the reservation, to make acquaintance with its people, both old and
young; and were highly interested and entertained by the picturesqueness
of the Indian character.
The Grumbler had brought his camera along. He was a skilled amateur
photographer, and had offered his services in that capacity to the
little party.
To bring his household under the focus of that apparatus was no easy
task for the courteous agent. An Indian is nothing if not a believer in
witches. In his aboriginal mode of life witch-hunting and
witch-punishing are among his gravest occupations. He pursues them with
a vigorous hand, and with a superstitious zeal equal to that of the most
persistent white man in the palmiest days of Salem witch-hunting and
witch-burning. The Mescaleros, to a soul, are believers in witchcraft.
The camera, as might be seen from its effect, was plainly bewitched.
They would have none of it.
The school children, having no choice, must needs range themselves in
scared, sullen rows, and be "took" under compulsion.
Suspiciously eying the operator, they sullenly took their prescribed
pose, and heedless of the immemorial request, "Now look pleasant," went
sourly through the terrible ordeal.
Some of the older girls, pleased with the novelty, submitted more
cheerfully; but the younger pupils, looking askance at the white men,
covered their faces, so far as was possible, with hair, or hands, and
were thus providentially carried safely through this process of
bewitchment.
Some of the schoolboys had fine, intelligent faces; of others, the
Grumbler subsequently observed that "they were the kind that grow up and
scalp white settlers."
A curious young squaw, from the opened slit of her _tepee_, watched the
approach of the party with their bedevilled machine. Her position was
excellent; but no sooner had the operator arranged his camera for a snap
shot at this picturesque subject, than, with a scared yell, the woman
bounded out of range, closing behind her the aperture--her front door.
The result was merely an uninteresting view of an Indian _tepee_, which
is like nothing more than a mammoth ant-hill, minus the symmetry and
nice perpendicular of that more intelligently fashioned structure.
Two incorrigible squaws in "durance vile" for making _tiswin_, as they
sullenly served their sentence of hard labor at the reservation
woodpile, looked defiantly up from their task of chopping fuel, and
scowled viciously at the witch machine and its abettors.
They, however, succeeded in getting a fairly good picture of these
hideous-faced beings, as "withered and wild" as the uncanny sisters who
brewed "hell broth" before the appalled Macbeth, beneath the midnight
moon, on Hampton Heath.
A mild-eyed Indian woman, whose peaceful occupation was to scrub the
reservation floors, kindly submitted to the bother of being put into a
picture, along with the insignia of her office,--a scrubbing-pail.
Not so "Hot Stuff," a highly picturesque squaw, claiming the proud
distinction due to the "oldest inhabitant." This "contrairy" female,
impervious to moral suasion, was finally induced to pose before the
terrible "witch-thing" by the threat of having her rations withheld
until her consent to be "taken" was obtained. Scared and reluctant, she
was at last photographed; but required Lieutenant Stottler to protect
her with his arm through the perils of this unfamiliar ordeal. This he
good-naturedly did, and is immortalized along with this aged squaw.
After an interesting visit of two nights and a day at the reservation,
the Koshare turned their faces towards Mesilla Valley, where, after two
uneventful days, they arrived in safety, full of the novelties
encountered, charmed with the courteous and gentlemanly agent, but
wearied with the long ride, and heartily glad to return to white
civilization.