# Native Tribes of New Mexico

first published in All the Year Round, Series 2, Vol. 1, April 17, 1869
NATIVE TRIBES OF NEW MEXICO.
IN THREE CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.
[We have the opportunity of presenting, in advance of the publication of a book of travels by Dr. W. A. Bell, F.R.G.S., recently engaged on the survey for a Southern Railway to the Pacific Ocean, some very curious and interesting matter.]
Arizona was separated from New Mexico in 1863; it is desirable, however, for the present purpose, to consider both territories as a whole under the old name.
Four distinct races are now encountered by the traveller in New Mexico. These are:
| 1. | The Americans | about | 13,000 |
| 2. | The Mexicans | „ | 75,000 |
| 3. | The Pueblo Indians | „ | 16,000 |
| 4. | The Wild Indians | „ | 23,000 |
| | | | 127,000 |
The semi-civilised native races and their natural enemies require to be treated of separately. The Pueblo, or town Indians, are the most remarkable and important tribe to be found in any part of the United States or Canada; they are, in fact, the only native race whose presence on the soil is not more of a curse than anything else.
Whilst on the plains, whatever belief we had in the nobility of the redskin, or the cruelty of the frontier man, quickly vanished, and we learnt to regard the Indian of the plains as the embodiment of all that was cruel, dastardly, and degrading. We were not long, however, in the Rio Grande valley before we encountered a new race, as different from our old enemies as light from darkness.
I first met a small party of these people on the plain a few miles west of the Pecos; they were neatly dressed in buckskin shirt and breeches, which latter fitted tightly to their legs; they wore moccasins on their feet and a girdle around their waist. Their heads were bare, their hair black, and cut square in front almost to the eyebrows, but gathered up behind into a queue, and bound round with red cord, a narrow band also passed over the hair in front and was fastened underneath. They were short in stature, thickly built, with quiet intelligent faces and large sorrowful eyes. I have never, during my residence in their valley, seen a Pueblo Indian laugh; I do not remember even a smile. They carried no arms that we could discover, but each pushed before him a little hand-cart composed of a body of wicker-work on wooden wheels, filled with grapes, the produce of their vineyards. They were on their way to Las Vegas, and seemed so sure of a good market, that we had to pay ten dollars for a large basket of grapes weighing from fifty to eighty pounds. At Santa Fé I watched these people coming and going, bringing their produce in the morning—peaches, grapes, onions, beans, melons, and hay for sale, then buying what necessaries they wanted, and trudging off in the afternoon quietly and modestly to their country villages. I looked on them with pity, and wondered what they thought of this new state of things, and how they liked the intruders whose presence they bore so meekly. I met Mr. Ward, their agent, who treats them as the kindest father would his children, and often went to his house, where Indian parties from a distance were sure to resort for information and advice. When I left Santa Fé I passed through many of their villages, saw them in their house, visited their fields and vineyards, and watched them as they assembled on their housetops at sunrise to look for the coming of Montezuma from the east.
The semi-civilised Indian of the United States is only to be found in New Mexico and Arizona, south of the thirty-sixth parallel of latitude, nor is there any proof whatever but some vague traditions to show ​that they over came from the north, or that they spread further northward than the Rio Grande valley and the accessible branches of the San Juan river. In these two territories—together, equal in size to France—only five small remnants of this once powerful nation remain at the present time. These are:
1. The Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley; population, 5866.
2. The Indians of Zuñi, situated about latitude 35 deg., longitude 108 deg. 50 min., with a population at present of 1200 souls.
3. The Indians of the seven Moqui pueblos, situated about 150 miles northwest of Zuñi; population, 2500.
4. The Pimas of the Gila valley occupy eight villages, and number 3500.
5. The Papago Indians of the region south of it, which occupy about nineteen villages, and number about 4000 in all.
The Pueblo Indians of the Rio Grande valley were early converted to Christianity by the Spanish missionaries. Each pueblo has its church, built of adobe, and dedicated to its patron saint. The following table was furnished me by Mr. Ward, who made an accurate census of the inhabitants of each village. To this I have added the estimate of Lieut. Whipple, taken from Spanish sources. It may have been a tolerably fair one for the early part of this century, and if so, the decrease in population has been very great.
| Name of Pueblo. | Name of Pueblo. | Patron Saint. | Spanish Statistics. | Mr. Ward's Census, 1866. |
| 1. | De Toas | San Geronimo | 800 | 361 |
| 2. | De Picuries | San Lorenzo | 800 | 122 |
| 3. | San Juan | De los Caballeros | 500 | 385 |
| 4. | Santa Clara | …… | 600 | 144 |
| 5. | San Ildefonso | …… | 500 | 161 |
| 6. | De Pojuaque | Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe | 500 | 29 |
| 7. | Nanibé | San Francisco | 500 | 94 |
| 8. | Tezuque | San Diego | 700 | 101 |
| 9. | Cochité | San Buenaventurâ | 800 | 229 |
| 10. | San Domingo | …… | 800 | 604 |
| 11. | San Felipe | …… | 800 | 427 |
| 12. | Sandia | Los Dolres de | 500 | 197 |
| 13. | Isleta | San Agustin de la | 800 | 786 |
| 14. | Santa Ava | …… | 500 | 298 |
| 15. | Silla (Zia) | Nuestra de la Assumption de | 450 | 103 |
| 16. | Jemes | San Diego de | 450 | 346 |
| 17. | La Laguna | San José de la | 800 | 988 |
| 18. | Acoma | San Estevan de | 1200 | 491 |
| | De Pecos | Nuestra Señora de los Angelos | 135 | |
| | De Belen San Gomas $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Nuestra Señora de Abiquin | 132 122 | |
| | | | 12,389 | 5866 |
| ↑ Population in 1808. The three last-named places are now uninhabited. |||||
Most of the above villages are in the main valley. Others, such as the Pueblos de Toas, Laguna, Acoma, San Domingo, and others, occupy isolated positions on some of the tributary streams. The villages in the Rio Grande valley differ but little from those of the Mexicans, except that the houses are larger and loftier. They are usually of only one story, but each house is able to contain several families; the roofs are flat, and at different corners of the village watch-towers rise above the roofs. In the centre of the chief house in the village, a good-sized room, partly formed by excavation into the earth, is usually to be found. This is the estufa, or place of worship, where the sacred fire was always to be kept burning, and where all religious services used to be held before the Indians became Christians; now it is used in most villages only as a council chamber, but Colonel M'Leod, of Santa Fé, assures me that in some places the sacred fire is still kept burning, and that on one occasion he was permitted to visit an estufa where it still exists. Each pueblo has a separate government of its own, consisting, first, of a cacique, or governor, chosen out of the men advanced in years—the sages, in fact. The cacique holds office for life, he presides over the council, and is chosen for his wisdom. His decisions are usually adopted. Secondly, a war captain is selected from amongst the braves, who arranges all campaigns made against an enemy, and through his lieutenant—or master of the horse, as we should call him—has the management of the nahallada, or horse-herd. Third, the fiscal and his assistants regulate church matters, repair the churches, &c. The old and experienced men collectively are the law-makers, and elect all officers except the cacique, who is chosen by universal suffrage. The people of the villages do not all speak the same tongue, and they resort to the Spanish language, which they speak with tolerable facility as a common medium of communication. The Pueblos form four groups, if classed according to dialects.
1. Pueblo de Toas, de Picuries, Sandia, Isleta.
2. San Juan, Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Nanibé de Pojuaque, Tezuque.
3. Cochité, San Domingo, San Felipe, Santa Ava, Silla (Zia), La Laguna, Acoma.
4. Jemes.
The people of Zuñi speak a fifth dialect. Those of the Moqui pueblos speak the same as that of Jemes. The Spanish missionaries ​found little difficulty in teaching those natives to read and write, but since the decay of religious establishments education has been arrested, and now not a single school exists in any of the pueblos.
In religion they are, to outward appearance, devoted Roman Catholics; the few priests who still work amongst them are Frenchmen, and are much respected and beloved. The rites of baptism, marriage, and burial take place in the village church, and they keep the feast-day of their patron saint with great festivities.
The isolated pueblos, which lie at considerable distances from the main valley, are very different in appearance from those simpler one-storied villages which once dotted the banks of the Rio Grande del Norte in very considerable numbers. In these the distinctive peculiarities of the native fortifications are very striking. Laguna, on the Rio de San José, is built on the summit of a limestone cliff, some forty feet high, possessing considerable natural advantages for defence. The houses are mostly of stone plastered over with mud, and two stories high. Neither windows nor doors are to be found on the outer wall of the first story; the second rises a little back from the roof of the first, leaving a ledge in front of it. Ladders are used to mount to this ledge; they are then drawn up, and the rooms are entered either by openings in the roof leading to the ground-floor, or doors giving entrance from the ledge to the second suite of rooms; the latter story alone is used for sleeping. Store-rooms occupy the ground-floor.
In 1858 there was a Baptist minister at Laguna; in one of his reports to the Indian department of the Secretary of the Interior, he says that the amount of real Christianity amongst the Indians is very small; they cling to the religion of their forefathers, and can only be induced to attend the service of the Roman Catholic Church by threats, promises, and even, blows, whereas they perform their own religious duties with the utmost regularity. He also joins in the universal eulogium on the honesty and sobriety of the men, and the virtue of the women.
Acoma, some twenty miles west of Laguna, is a large and very interesting pueblo. It rests on the summit of a flat mesa, whose perpendicular cliffs rise to a height of from three hundred to four hundred feet above the valley. The houses here are three stories high, built on the usual principle, each successive story being smaller than that on which it rests. Ladders are also used to reach the first ledge. The flat top of the mesa covers about fifty acres of land; it is reached by a steep winding path cut in the rock, and so placed as to be easily defended. It is a very wealthy pueblo; the Indians owe abundance of cattle, and grow large quantities of corn, peaches, pumpkins, and other produce. The houses of San Domingo, Sandria, and others, although only built of one story, have no doors or windows on the outside, but are entered by ladders from the roof.
The ancient pueblo of Toas consists of one compact fortress, formed of terraces seven stories high, and built on a rock overlooking the stream; so strong was it as a place of defence, that, in 1847, when the Mexicans of the village of Toas could no longer defend themselves against the Americans, they betook themselves to the Indian pueblo a few miles distant, and they sustained a protracted siege, yielding at last, but only when provisions had utterly failed. This pueblo, moreover, was never taken by the Spaniards, although it was many times attacked. Venegas, Caronado, and, in fact, all the early Spanish explorers and writers upon New Mexico, describe many seven-storied fortresses now no more, and give many instances of the great bravery shown by the Indians in their defence. Those I have mentioned, however, with the exception of Zuñi and the seven Moqui pueblos, are the only native fortresses which now remain inhabited.
In the valley through which the Zuñi river (a tributary of the Colorado Chiquito) flows, are to be seen orchards—chiefly of peach-trees—vineyards, fine corn plots, and vegetable gardens, producing onions, beans, melons, chili colorado (red pepper), pumpkins, &c. Formerly cotton was cultivated; probably by Indians, further south; but now, I believe, they obtain what stuffs they require from the Mexicans in exchange for farm produce. They do not raise their crops by irrigation, but depend entirely upon the rainfall; hence all their traditions relate more or less to the production of water. Not far from the town is a sacred spring about eight feet in diameter, walled round with stones, of which neither cattle nor man may drink. The animals sacred to water—frogs, tortoises, and snakes—alone must enter the pool. Once a year the cacique and his attendants perform certain religious rites at the spring; it is thoroughly cleared out; water-pots are brought as an offering to the Spirit of Montezuma, and are placed bottom upwards on the top of the wall of stones. Many of these have been removed, but ​some still remain, while the ground around is strewn with fragments of vases which have crumbled into decay from age.
Not far from the present pueblo is a lofty mesa, which rises about a thousand feet perpendicularly from the plain; upon this are many ruins of houses and a sacred altar, constituting all that remains of old Zuñi. The following tradition is related about this place. Long before the first appearance of the white man, a dreadful flood visited the land. Waters gushed forth from the earth, and huge waves rolled in from the west, drowning man and beast; even the wild Apaches and Coyotes did not escape. Then many of the people of Zuñi rushed to the lofty mesa, but many more perished in the waters. Night came, and yet the waters rose higher and higher, until they reached the water-mark still distinctly visible high up on the cliff wall. The great Spirit was very wroth with his people, and must be appeased by a fitting sacrifice. So the son of the cacique and the most beautiful maiden in the tribe were bound and lowered down into the seething flood; then the waves abated, and the remnant of the people were saved. The young man and the maiden were transformed into two lofty pillars of stone, which rise from a natural battlement on one part of the summit. Time has worn these two pillars into four; they are still greatly venerated by the people of Zuñi. After building a town on the lofty mesa, they lived there for many years, but as it was far removed from their fertile bottom-lands, and as no second flood visited their country, they removed to their present abode. When the Spaniards, however, made war against them, they fled for a second time to their ancient stronghold, and, according to their own account, made a fierce resistance, by fortifying the only two approaches by which the summit could be gained, and by hurling huge stones upon their assailants; the enemy, however, was victorious.
Spanish influence was never strong enough at Zuñi to convert the natives to Christianity; they tolerated the presence of a church outside the walls of the pueblo (now a ruin), but they still cling devotedly to their old traditions, and attribute their temporal prosperity, and the comparative immunity of their country from drought, to the steadfast observance of their ancient ceremonies. They believe in the one great Spirit, and in Montezuma his son, who will some day come again to them from the east, and unite all the nations once more under his banner.
Our party found the people of Zuñi to be very honest, but uncommonly sharp traders, so much so that they had the greatest difficulty in buying any sheep from them, although they had flocks in abundance; they parted with their maize and farm produce much more readily, but they understood the value of everything so thoroughly that they always insisted on receiving quid pro quo. They seemed to take great pleasure in keeping tame eagles and turkeys. Albinos are unusually common amongst them, whose complexions are as fair as those of Europeans. Like the other branches of the Pueblo Indians, the women of Zuñi are very chaste, and plurality of wives is not allowed.
Situated to the north-east of the San Francisco Peaks, about twenty miles from the Colorado Chiquito, on the opposite side to the mountains, are grouped, within a radius of seven miles, the seven villages of Moqui. The country is arid and uninviting, much broken and partly formed of steep mesas, partly of volcanic peaks. Upon the very edge of some of these mesas the villages are planted. They are mostly of three stories, built in the form of a square, with a court common to the whole community forming the centre. The first story, or basement, consists of a stone wall fifteen feet high, the top of which forms a landing extending round the whole. A flight of stone steps leads from the first to the second landing, and thence up to the roof. The doors open upon the landing. The houses are three rooms deep; the first being used for eating, cooking, &c.; the others as sleeping apartments; great neatness is observable both in the household arrangements and personal habits of the people. They sit upon skins on the floor, clothe themselves with linen trousers, shirts, and a Navajo blanket thrown across their shoulders. Upon the walls hang bows, arrows, quivers, antlers, blankets, articles of clothing, &c.; vases, flat dishes, and gourds, filled with meal or water, stand usually along one side of the room. In complexion they are rather fair for Indians; although quiet in their manners, they are very light-hearted; honesty, frankness, and hospitality are amongst their good qualities, but they want the manly bearing of the Zuñi Indians, and have, until lately, lived in great fear of their warlike neighbours, the Navajos.
The most interesting features about their villages are the reservoirs which they build to retain the rain water. At the back of the building upon the mesa itself, a good-sized reservoir, some five feet or upwards in depth, and lined throughout with ma​sonry, is usually to be found; a little lower down is a second one, with a pipe leading to it from the former. This lower reservoir is for the animals, the upper one for the people, and for household use. On each side of the tanks, the sloping sides of the mesa are formed into terraces neatly paved with masonry, and surrounded by a raised edge, so as to retain the water brought to them through pipes from the reservoirs. Peach-trees grow upon the terraces, and most of their crops are raised in this way by carefully husbanding the rainfall and using it for irrigation. Many flocks are owned by them, and most of the sheep are black.
Mr. Leroux, who was the first American to visit them (1850), estimated the united population of the seven villages at six thousand seven hundred, the largest containing two thousand four hundred. Since then, however, small-pox has committed terrible ravages among them, and they have also suffered for several seasons from great deficiency of rainfall; so much so that they have been strongly advised to migrate to some more hospitable region. Within the last six years, however, the rains have been pretty abundant, and by latest reports from that out-of-the-way region, they seem to be in a very nourishing condition; Mr. Ward, however, after a careful inspection of the different communities, places the present population at only two thousand five hundred souls.
The next group of semi-civilised Indians—the Pimas of the Rio Gila—differ from those I have already named, in that they inhabit huts instead of houses. In all other respects they are very similar.
After the Rio Gila has emerged from the succession of deep gorges through which it crosses the Pina-leno Cordilleras, it waters a rich and fertile valley forty or fifty miles long, between the mountains and the Gila desert. About twenty miles of this valley is occupied by these people. They devote themselves entirely to agriculture and to the arts of peace, but they are brave in war, and maintain a complete military organisation, for protection against the incursions of their wild neighbours the Apaches. I have often heard it said by western men, that there are only two spots in New Mexico and Arizona in which you can be certain of absolute safety; the one is in the pueblo of Zuñi, the other amongst the Pimas on the Rio Gila. Both these peaceful tribes have been most useful allies of the United States' troops in their expeditions against the Navajos and Apaches; it has indeed, been only through the assistance of the Pima warriors that any success has ever been gained against the latter sons of plunder.
The valley varies in width from two to four miles, and grouped up and down the stream, usually on ground a little above the level of the low-lying bottom-lands, are seen the cone-shaped huts which compose the villages. These huts are easily built, as they only consist of a framework of willow poles stuck in the ground, and arched over to meet in the centre; these are interlaced with others at right angles, and then covered with wheat-straw neatly pinned down all round the sides, which may or may not be daubed over with mud, and is nicely thatched at the top.
Were we to judge only from their dwellings, we should place these people very low down in the list of Indian tribes; but when we examine the means which they adopt for raising their crops; when we see with what labour and skill they have divided off their lands into little patches of about two hundred feet square, and have dug many miles of irrigating canals, each set radiating from the main arteries, or "acequia madre," to supply every patch; then when we look at the pottery, the beautiful baskets woven so closely of willow chips and grass that they are quite impervious to water; the stores of farm produce carefully packed away in well-made storehouses; when we see specimens of native weaving, and perhaps more than all, when we look at the soft intelligent faces of these Indians, we recognise directly the same people to all intents and purposes as we met in the Rio Grande valley.
The most complete list of the population I have been able to discover is that of Mr. G. Bailey, Indian agent for the Pimas and Maricopas, dated 1858. It is as follows:
PIMAS. :
| Name of Village. | Warriors. | Women and Children. | Total. |
| Buen Llano | 132 | 259 | 391 |
| Ormejera, No. 1. | 140 | 503 | 643 |
| Ormejera,„ No. 2. | 37 | 175 | 212 |
| Casa Blanca | 110 | 425 | 535 |
| Chemisez | 102 | 210 | 312 |
| El Juez Farado | 105 | 158 | 263 |
| Arizo del Aqua | 235 | 535 | 770 |
| Aranca | 291 | 700 | 991 |
| | 1152 | 2965 | 4117 |
| MARICOPAS. ||||
| Name of Village. | Warriors. | Women and Children. | Total. |
| El Juez Farado | 116 | 198 | 314 |
| Sacatou | 76 | 128 | 204 |
| | 192 | 326 | 518 |
​The Maricopas, or Co-co-Maricopas, as they are also called, are the remains of a small tribe of Indians which formerly occupied the land about the junction of the Gila and the Colorado; being too few to hold their own amongst the larger tribes of the latter river, they were forced to retire up the Gila, until at last they crossed the Gila desert, and asked the Pimas to allow them to settle with them on their lands. To this request the Pimas consented, and now the only difference to be recognised between them is a moral one. Unchastity in a Pima woman is very rare indeed, but the licentiousness so common amongst the Colorado tribes is still characteristic of the Maricopas.
The Pimas are rather short in stature, darker and less manly in appearance than the Zuñians, and wear, as a rule, less clothes, because they inhabit a much warmer climate. A cotton kilt, or breechcloth, with gaiters and moccasins, is usually the working attire for both sexes, but in the evening the cotton blanket is thrown gracefully over the shoulders, and sometimes fastened with a band round the waist. Besides these simple native garments, they will wear any cast-off clothes which can be obtained from passing travellers; and since intercourse with the outer world has become general, the slow and laborious process of making homespun cloth formerly practised by them has been discontinued. The women are stronger and more robust than the men, probably because they do more work. They grind the corn by a slow process of rubbing it between two stones, the larger of which—the metate—is grooved for that purpose; they hoe the ground, carry most of the burdens, gather mezquite beans from the neighbouring hills, make baskets and pottery, and occasionally weave and spin, in addition to taking care of the children and household matters. The men attend to the acequia madre common to all, gather in the crops, look after the stock, protect the settlements, and do most of the idling.
CHAPTER II.
​Among the Pimas the productions are chiefly maize, wheat, beans, melons, pumpkins, onions, chilli Colorado (red pepper), &c.; they own a small quantity of stock, horned cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, mules, and poultry. They rely, however, for support chiefly upon agricultural productions, milk, and eggs. So much in excess are their productions above their requirements, that they dispose annually of more than a million bushels of grain to the government agents, at from four to six cents a pound, which, in our money, is nearly twopence. They used to grow cotton, but now they find it far easier to buy the few goods they require. Major Emory, of the United States regular army, was, I believe, the first American to visit this people in 1846, when, as Lieutenant Emory, he took charge of a military reconnaissance from Fort Leavenworth to San Diego on the Pacific. He thus describes the scene: " We had no sooner encamped, eight or nine miles from the Pimas villages, than we met a Maricopa Indian looking for his cattle. The frank confident manner in which he approached us was a strange contrast to that of the suspicious Apaches. Some six or eight of the Pimas came up soon after at full speed, to ascertain who we were and what we wanted. They told us that the first trail we had seen along the river was that of their people, sent to watch the movements of their enemies, the Apaches. Their joy was unaffected at seeing that we were Americans and not Apaches, and word to that effect was immediately sent back to the chief. Although the nearest villages were nine miles distant, our camp in three hours was filled with Pimas loaded with corn, beans, honey, and water-melons, so that a brisk trade was opened at once. Their mode of approach was perfectly frank and unsuspicious; many would leave their packs in our camp and be absent for hours, theft seeming to be unknown to them. On reaching the villages we were at once impressed with the beauty, order, and disposition of the arrangements for irrigating and draining the land. Maize, ​wheat, and cotton are the crops raised by this peaceful and intelligent race of people; all had just been gathered in, and the stubbles showed that they had been luxurious. The cotton was picked and stacked for drying on the tops of the sheds. The fields are subdivided by ridges of earth into rectangles of about two hundred by one hundred feet, for the convenience of irrigating. The fences are of sticks, wattled with willow and mezquite, and in this particular are an example of economy in agriculture worthy to be followed by the Mexicans, who never use fences at all.
"In front of each dome-shaped hut is usually a large arbour, on the top of which is piled the cotton in the pod for drying. To us it was a rare sight to be thrown in the midst of a large tribe of what is termed wild Indians, surpassing many of the Christian nations in agriculture, little behind them in useful arts, and immeasurably before them in honesty and virtue. During the whole of yesterday our camp was full of men, women, and children, who sauntered amongst our packs unwatched, and not a single instance of theft was reported.
"I saw a woman seated on the ground under the shade of one of the cotton sheds; her left leg was tucked under her seat, and her foot turned sole upwards; between her big toe and the next was a spindle about eighteen inches long, with a single fly of four or six inches. Ever and anon she gave it a twist in a dexterous manner, and at its end was drawn a coarse cotton thread. This was their spinning jenny. Led on by this primitive display, I asked for their loom, by pointing to the thread and then to the blanket girt about the woman's loins. A fellow stretched in the dust sunning himself, rose up leisurely and untied a bundle which I had supposed to be a bow and arrows. This little package, with four stakes placed in the ground, was the loom. He laid open his cloth, and commenced the process of weaving."
The pottery manufactured by the Pimas varies in colour from red to dark brown; the articles made are limited to those which are absolutely necessary for domestic purposes. They consist of ollas or vases of every size, the largest containing about two pailfuls, the smallest half a pint; jars with small apertures resembling bottles, and basins of different sizes and shapes, from a milkpan to a saucer. All are more or less ornamented, and painted with black lines arranged in geometrical figures.
The basket-work is the most meritorious of all their native arts, for although the baskets are made only of willow twigs or of grass, so closely are they woven that liquids are placed in them as a matter of course, and seldom a drop escapes through the sides. A wicker rim is always fastened at the bottom, by which the larger baskets can be carried on the head like the vases, and the smaller ones can stand securely on the floor. They are of all sizes, and together with the pottery, form the great articles of exchange between this people and other tribes, the Mexicans being about the best customers of all. Their only native weapons are bows and arrows, but they readily adopt all modern appliances either in the shape of fire-arms or implements of agriculture. The United States government has, through its agents, supplied to them a considerable quantity of the latter during the last few years, by which means the annual produce of their farms has been greatly increased. As the ground is soft and friable, hoes, spades, and shovels are more in vogue than ploughs, and when one part of the valley shows signs of exhaustion they give it rest, repair the old acequias which had previously been abandoned, and thus bring a reinvigorated patch of waste land again under cultivation.
Altogether, I may safely say that the present state of these industrious people is very satisfactory. Want is unknown amongst them; they are happy and contented; they are of great assistance to the colonists as well as to the government, for they help to confine the Apaches to their mountain retreats, and they supply the emigrants and troops with large quantities of corn. By the table of population already given, it will be seen that the women and children form a very fair proportion of the population; as for the latter, my friend Colton tells me that the whole valley swarms with them, and that these little monkeys are as full of fun as they can be. All this is encouraging, and leads us to hope that this people may escape the general destruction which, in North America especially, has fallen upon the aboriginal tribes with the advance of the Anglo-Saxon race. That so desirable a consummation should be attained, two things are absolutely necessary:
First, that the government should make their lands by law inalienable.
Secondly, that the high standard of morality which has ever been remarkable amongst the Pimas and their neighbours, the Pueblo Indians, should not be broken down by any close intercourse with white men and their fire-water.
​A word or two now about the Papagos.
The Papago country is large in extent, but for the most part a complete desert. It comprises all the country south of the Rio Gila, which lies between the head of the Gulf of California and that extensive Cordillera of which the Sierra Catarina forms the most westerly range, and extends for some fifty to a hundred miles into Sonora. All over this tract, wherever there happens to be a stream, a spring, or a little marsh amongst the barren rock hills which thrust their peaks above the parched and friable ground, or any spot favourably suited for tank irrigation, there you are very likely to find a little colony of Papagos, living in huts similar in all respects to those of the Pimas. I have been through their desolate country, and visited many of their villages, and I feel convinced that the hard struggle they have ever had with nature to support life in such a region, has done much to develop the energy and manliness of character peculiar to the tribe. As a race, they are the finest specimens of man, physically, I have ever seen; on one occasion I met five of them at a ranch, and not one of the party measured less than six feet two inches. If they were not so very dark in complexion, their features would be pleasing, for they have the steady, intelligent eye, and straightforward manners of their more northern brethren, the Pimas. The most interesting point about them, however, is their mode of life. Like the Jaqui Indians of Southern Sonora, they very willingly leave their homes at certain seasons to gain a livelihood elsewhere. They own flocks and herds in considerable quantities, and they keep large droves of horses, or rather ponies. It is probable that a number of their villages, especially those supplied only by artificial tanks, are uninhabitable, from want of water, for a great part of the year, so that they are obliged to migrate, to support themselves and their stock during the droughts; be that as it may, they have become the greatest traders and the most industrious people to be found in the country. When the time for leaving their little patches of cultivated ground around the villages has arrived, some pack their merchandise, consisting chiefly of baskets and pottery similar to those made by the Pimas, on their ponies, and go down to Sonora to trade with the Mexicans, driving their stock with them to pasture in the comparatively fertile valleys to the southward. Others travel immense distances over the great Sonora Desert to the Gulf of California, and particularly to some salt lakes about a hundred miles west of Altar, where they lay in a stock of salt and seashells, and then return to trade with the Indians on the Colorado, or the Pimas on the Gila; or to sell the salt to the Mexicans on the eastern side of their country. Others, who have no merchandise to sell or ponies to trade with, go to the settlements and ranches from Tucson southward, and willingly hire themselves out as field labourers or miners. They work well for the Americans, and receive usually a dollar a day, which is certainly not bad wages. Then when the time for planting comes round, they all return again to their own homes in the desert.
The Pimas resisted sternly all attempts made by the Jesuits or Franciscans to convert them, and are now so diffident on religious subjects, that they will not discuss them, or give any information respecting their belief; the Papagos, however, probably from the close intercourse which they have so long kept up with the Mexicans, are, to all appearance, most devout Roman Catholics. The cathedral of the tribe is the last relic left of the Papago mission of San Xaviere del Bac, and is situated on the Rio de Santa Cruz.
Intercourse with the Mexicans has also much modified their mode of dress, for the men usually wear wide straw sombreros of home manufacture, moccasins, buckskin gaiters, a breech cloth of cotton, and a snow-white cotton blanket thrown gracefully across the chest. The women wear petticoats, and neither sex seems to affect ornaments or paint. The number of villages scattered throughout the land of the Papagos is about nineteen, and the population of the entire tribe probably reaches four thousand, of which three thousand live north of the Mexican boundary line, and perhaps one thousand south of it. So effectively do the warriors protect their homes that the Apaches never have the courage to penetrate far into their country, although they have quite depopulated the Mexican settlements bordering it on the east.
CHAPTER III.
​Civilised man, although he lives by the destruction of life, animal as well as vegetable, takes care to reproduce by artificial means as much as, if not more than, he destroys; the savage, however, does not always do this, and when he does not, surely this is a proof that he is not destined by Providence permanently to exist.
Most conspicuous amongst the latter class are the Navajos and Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona—the hereditary enemies of the cultivator of the soil, whether he be Aztec, Mexican, or Anglo-Saxon—the savages, by means of whom the whole country has been nearly swept of its inhabitants, and changed from a fertile garden into a barren waste.
The Navajos, until lately, occupied a fine tract of country watered by the Colorado, Chiquito, and San Juan rivers and their tributaries, as well as by some of the western branches of the Rio Grande. They were bounded on the north by the Utah nation, on the south by the Apaches, on the west by the Moqui and Zuñi pueblos, and on the east by the inhabitants of the Rio Grande valley. Although often placed under the head of Apaches, they are in every respect a different and a finer race. They are bold and defiant, with full lustrous eyes, and a sharp, intelligent expression of countenance; they had fixed abodes in their country, around which they raised crops almost rivalling those of the Pimas on the Gila: they carried one art—the weaving of blankets—to a state of perfection which, in closeness of texture and arrangement of colour, is scarcely excelled even by the laboured and costly seraphes of Mexico and South America. I tried at Santa Fé to purchase some, but the prices were so enormous, averaging from seventy to one hundred dollars for choice specimens, that I refrained. For love of plunder and rapine, these Indians have no equals. Their number, twenty years ago, was probably about twelve thousand, and while they left their wives and old men to plant, reap, attend to the stock, and make blankets, the braves spent their lives in traversing the whole country, carrying off the stock of the helpless Mexican farmers, and keeping the entire agricultural and mining population in a constant state of alarm. To give a slight idea of the depredations of these hordes, I may state that between August 1, 1846, and October 1, 1850, there were stolen by them, according to the report of the United States Marshals, no less than twelve thousand eight hundred and eighty-seven mules, seven thousand and fifty horses, thirty-one thousand five hundred and eighty-one horned cattle, and four hundred and fifty-three thousand two hundred and ninety-three head of sheep. The official reports from New Mexico appeared to contain nothing but catalogues of depredations committed by the Navajos, or of similar deeds done by the Apaches; and not only was the valley of the Rio Grande swept over and over again of its stock, but the Pueblo Indians of Zuñi, and many other native towns, barely escaped destruction.
Governor Charles Bent thus spoke of them in 1846: "The Navajos are an industrious, intelligent, and warlike race of Indians, who cultivate the soil, and raise sufficient grain and fruits of various kinds for their own consumption. They are the owners of large herds and flocks of cattle, ​sheep, horses, mules, and asses. It is estimated that the tribe possesses thirty thousand head of horses, mules, and asses. It is not rare for one individual to possess five to ten thousand sheep, or four to five hundred head of other stock. Their horses and sheep are said to be greatly superior to those reared by the Mexicans. A large portion of their stock has been acquired by marauding expeditions against the settlements of this territory. They roam over the country, between the waters of the river San Juan on the north, and those of the Gila on the south. This country is about one hundred and fifty miles wide, consisting of high table mountains, difficult of access, affording them, as yet, effectual protection against their enemies. Water is scarce, and difficult to be found by those not acquainted with the country, affording them another natural safeguard against invasion. Their numbers are variously estimated at from one to two thousand families, or about fourteen thousand souls. The Navajos, so far as I am informed, are the only nation on the continent having intercourse with white men, that are increasing in numbers. They have in their possession many prisoners, men, women, and children, taken from the settlements of this territory, whom they hold and treat as slaves."
Such was their condition in 1846; since then their history has been one long series of misfortunes. As far back as any information can be obtained about them, they have been at war with the Mexicans and white men, the system of reprisals being systematically carried out on both sides. The Mexicans of one settlement would collect together, and make a raid on a marauding band of Navajos, capturing all they could, not only in stock, but in women and children. The Indians would retaliate, not caring particularly whether it was the aggressors or some peaceful neighbours they attacked in return. This being the state of affairs, we find even as early as the autumn of the first year of possession, that General Kearney (United States army), gave orders to Colonel A. W. Doniphan, then in California, to march against the Navajos; and to Governor Bent, advising him that "full permission should be given to the citizens of New Mexico, to march in independent companies against these Indians, for the purpose of making reprisals, and for the recovery of property and prisoners." From this time until 1863 war has been unceasing with this hardy tribe. Their hand has been against every one, and every one's hand has been against them, even the pueblos left their villages and joined the whites against them; and as the enemy had actual property in corn-fields, flocks, and herds, they could not, like their wild neighbours the Apaches, who lived by the chase and marauding only, altogether escape from the hands of the military. It was cruel work, however necessary. I have spoken to many who helped to humble the Navajos. As soon as harvest time approached, they would enter their country year after year; they say that the corn-fields were splendid, but they cut them all down, and fired the district wherever they went, driving off sheep sometimes to the number of seventy thousand in a single raid, and oxen also by thousands. When there were no crops to destroy, and no apparent enemy to be found, or flocks to drive off, the military would encamp at the different springs, and try by this means to destroy the remnant of the stock; but in this, for a long time, they were unsuccessful, for the Navajo sheep, probably from force of habit, could thrive well if only watered once every third or fourth day; and thus it happened that when the troops had guarded a spring long enough, as they supposed, to prove that no Indians or flocks were in that district, and had left to go to another, the Navajos, who were quietly grazing their cattle in the secluded nooks amongst the hills hard by, came down to the spring and refreshed themselves with perfect impunity. Tear after year they boldly held out, and plunder became to them a necessity of existence, for they had no other means of support. At last, however, this never-ceasing hostility reduced the whole tribe to utter destitution, nor did they give up until they were literally starving. In 1863 the first large section of them—I believe about five thousand in number—delivered themselves up to the government. They were removed from their own country, and placed upon a large reservation on the Rio Pecos, and old Fort Sumner, which had been abandoned, was re-established in the centre of the reservation, for the purpose of carrying out the designs of the government towards them. Since then, nearly all the remainder of the tribe have delivered themselves up, and to the number of about seven thousand five hundred have been placed on the reservation. Mr. Ward is of opinion that a very small fraction indeed of this once powerful tribe are now at large in the territory north of the Rio Colorado, and in Utah territory; but since, for years ​before they gave in, the advantage has been on the side of the settlers against the Navajos, he assures me that there are at the present time not less than two thousand captives in the hands of the Mexicans, who, of course, profess to bring them up, and to take care of them as members of their families and households. As regards the present condition of the Indians on the Bosque reservation, I cannot do better than give a quotation from the report of Colonel A. B. Norton (superintendent of Indian affairs in New Mexico), for the year 1866:
"At Fort Sumner they have about two thousand five hundred acres of land under cultivation, mostly in Indian corn, with an admirable system of irrigation. The water, however, is very poor in quality, and wood so scarce, that it has to be hauled from twenty-five to thirty miles to the post, while the mezquite root, the only wood used by them for fuel, must soon give out. Add to this that the Comanches make constant raids upon them, to within a few miles of the fort, and as they are very little able to protect themselves, this adds still more to their discontent. Of the state of health and morals of these Navajos, the hospital reports give a woful account. The tale is not half told, because they have such an aversion to the hospital that but few of those taken sick will ever go there, and so they are fast diminishing in numbers; while the births are many, the deaths are more. Discontent fills every breast of this brave and light-hearted tribe, and a piteous cry comes from all as they think of their own far-off lands, 'Carry me back, carry me back!'"
While the Navajos spread terror and desolation through the north and east of New Mexico, the Apaches followed the same system of plunder in the southern part of the state, and throughout the greater part of Arizona and northern Sonora; with this great difference, that among the former booty was the only object, and they spared life unless resistance were offered; but with the latter, war to the death was, and still is, the undeviating practice. In battle the Navajo never stoops to scalp his fallen enemy, and many acts of true generosity are related of him; but the cowardly Apache creeps upon his victim like a snake in the grass; if he can capture him he invariably tortures him to death, but otherwise he scalps and mutilates him in the most horrible manner, and has never been known to show one trace of humanity or good faith.
Several independent though kindred tribes are rightly classed under the term Apaches; the following table gives their names, the localities in which they are usually encountered, and the probable population of each.
| Names. | Names. | Districts. | Popu­lation. |
| Zicarrilla Apaches | Zicarrilla Apaches | Maxwell's reservation and Toas district | 500 |
| Mescalero Apaches„ | Mescalero Apaches„ | Mountain south of Fort Stanton | 525 |
| Mogollon tribes, comprising the ||||
| Miembres | Apaches… | Miembres Mountains | 400 |
| Coyotero | Apaches„ | Sierra Blanca of Arizona | 700 |
| Pinal | Apaches„ | Pina-leña Cordillera | 2000 |
| Tonto | Apaches„ | Between the Rio Salinas and Verde | 800 |
| Chiracahui | Apaches„ | Chiracahui mountains | 500 |
The first of these tribes is now quite harmless, and as they are too few and cowardly to hold their own against the other tribes, they willingly submit to being fed and taken care of at the expense of the government. The second tribe was formerly a very warlike one, and it is chiefly owing to their ravages that the fertile valley of the Rio Grande, from San Antonio, north of Fort Craig, to La Messilla, a distance of over one hundred miles, is now an uninhabited waste. War, disease, and scarcity of food have of late years so thinned their ranks, that the government succeeded a short time ago, in collecting them together and placing them on the Bosque reservation with the Navajos. As these tribes were sworn enemies, they did not long live together, for on the night of November 3, 1866, the Apaches deserted, and have since that time been committing depredations on the government stock, and murdering and plundering the settlers so far north as Las Vegas and Galistro.
All the Mogollon bands are still at large. They mostly inhabit the vast region formed of lofty table-lands and mountain ranges in which the head waters of the Rio Gila rise; and from these fastnesses, still unexplored, they have for ages been making raids upon their more civilised neighbours on all sides of them.
It is only necessary here to say a few words about the remaining sub-tribes—the Coyoteros, Pinals, and Tontos. Very little is known about themselves, far too much about their ravages. Their numbers are very variously estimated, but the general belief is that they are not numerous. They occupy the centre of the Apache country, and the few attempts as yet made to "clear them out" have resulted in complete failure. The commander at Camp Grant told me that two years ago he made a raid ​into their country, but before he got very far he found enemies gathering around him in such numbers, that his small force of fifty soldiers had to beat a rapid retreat. The favourite field for plunder during the last century has been Northern Sonora. The Apaches seem never to have lived there, but their custom was to descend in bands along the whole length of the Pina-leña and Chiracahui Mountains, which, so to speak, form a bridge two hundred miles long across the Madre Plateau from the mountains north of the Rio Gila to the Sierra Madre of Mexico.
The Spaniards protected their outlying provinces from these hordes, by a complete system of military posts from San Antonio, Texas, to the Pacific. Thus the Spanish miners and Rancheros were protected, and the country became rich in flocks, herds, and productive mines, while the population increased with great rapidity. But as the power of Spain declined, and the central government at the city of Mexico degenerated into a chaos of contending factions, the troops which garrisoned these frontier stations were gradually withdrawn; the grand military system, which had so effectually done its work, was allowed to fall into decay until most of the presidios were relinquished altogether. The Apaches were not long in discovering the weakness of their wealthy neighbours, and year by year their raids became more numerous, and their ravages more destructive. At first the stock of the outlying rancheros fell a prey to the enemy, and, although probably but a small proportion of the vast herds which formerly occupied the rich grazing regions of North-eastern Sonora and Northern Chihuahua were really carried off by the red men, still the rancheros had to fly for their lives, and leave their cattle to their fate. This accounts for the herds of wild cattle and horses which are still to be found in those districts. Then the miners began to be molested, their stock, chiefly mules, driven off, and their peons so terrified that they could not be induced to remain.
When the country districts were cleared, the little towns were next attacked. The Apaches would lie concealed for days, until an opportune moment had arrived for capturing the cattle, and plundering the place. The people at last became so terrified, that if they heard of a band of Apaches fifty miles off, they very frequently left everything and fled. Against such an enemy they were almost powerless, for the mountain fastnesses from which he came lay far away to the north, and anything approaching an open fight was always avoided by him.
This state of things, in fine, going on year after year, has entirely depopulated that country. Its ruin was almost complete before the Treaty of 1854 had finally settled the question of boundary line between Mexico and the United States; but one of the chief stipulations of the treaty was that the latter government should keep the Apaches in their own country, and prevent them from making any more raids into Mexican territory. Although this was promised, it could not be accomplished; for the United States military have, up to the present time, been almost powerless in their attempts either to "wipe out" or to restrain these marauding hordes. They have neither protected their own subjects on their own soil, or sheltered the helpless Mexicans across the border. But the Apaches do not lay waste northern Sonora as they formerly did, chiefly because there is now no one to plunder; all is desolation. Destiny, however, seems to be doing what the government has failed to do; it is destroying the Apache nation. Although very few are yearly killed in fight, and the white man has not as yet penetrated into the heart of their country, still they are dying out fast; already the total population, as far as it can be estimated, is so small as to appear at first to be beneath our notice; but the scalp of many a brave settler will yet be taken before these bloodthirsty savages are crushed.
In the region lying between the Rio Verde, which is about the limit of the Apache country and the Rio Colorado, two tribes, few in number, and of the lowest type of humanity, are met with. These are the Walapais (Hualpais) and the Yampas. The latter chiefly inhabit little strips of marshy land at the bottom of the deep cañons, which debouch upon the Rio Colorado. The valleys of the Colorado from the end of the Black Cañon almost to the head of the Gulf of California, are inhabited by Indian tribes, who occupy an intermediate position between the semi-civilised Pueblo Indians and the wild Apache races.
They have for some time kept peace with the whites, but contact with them appears ​to be rapidly hastening their extinction. I will only add that the Mojanes are the largest tribe, and once numbered ten thousand souls.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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