Arizona weekly miner., 1875-05-21
WAR DANCE

One need hardly be gifted with very vivid im.
 agination to fancy himself surrounded by hostile
 Apaches bent on securing trophy in the shape
 Of lock Of his hair while attending one of their
 unearthly orgies such as the denizens of Prescott
 were treated to on Friday evening . week ago.
 Al. Seiber with his forty Scouts in war paint,
 armed with needle guns etc, gave quite au exhi.
 oition on the Plaza, Al. personating a victim in
 one Of the dances and they pursuing him with
 savage yells, almost made the hair stand on end
 with those who had met the red devils on former | occasions enacting similar tragedies under less | pleasing circumstances. It was the first Apache
 frolic we ever attended, but having witnessed
 similar performances among several tribes in Cal | ifornia and elsewhere, and been made target for
 the sportiye Flutes in one of theft entertainments | in Nevada, it recalled memories that were not so fond as one would naturally desire in retro spective glance. We
 1 " Remembered the arrows he shot from his bow | Remembered the friends by his hatehet laid low. | Remembered the wood where in ambush he lay,
 And the scalPs which be tore from people away.
 A flood of recollections rush into the mind at such time and mar any pleasure we nigh, other-
 wise find in witnessing a representation of the manner in which our companions have beer shot down and butchered before our eyes by numbers so great as to render efforts at rescue al' fu tile. These in the service of the United States under perfect dciplne and invaluable allies of the Government Tn fighting the Haulpais and other refractory tribes, but it seems so unnatural for them to have any sympathy with the whites, as against their own kind, who like themselves are satyrs that In glades and in gloomy ding.es dwell, " that we should really, while we feared them, have more respect for them if they remain ed enemies, than it is possible to feel in their character of semi-trators to their own race. It is nice 10 have them pitted against each other, and the system of management that arrays one tribe in hostility to another is the best that has ever been devised in the annals of Indian warfare yet these reflections will arise involuntary, when we see them so eager to go after and kill their natural allies either through fear of the whites, or for the sake of the rations that are issued to them and the privilege of carrying government gun. The conviction forces itself upon us while witnessing their mimic scalp-dance around an imaginary victim, that it would add zest to their enjoyment lift was real hair from the head of some miner, ranchman, teamster or soldier, rath- CT than the old coat or hat that is pressed into service to represent genuine scalp. Seiber has them under apparent perfect control, they evi- dently fear him, and no doubt respect him as much as it is in their nature to reverence any. thing; but it really looks as if he was taking des perate chances. Their estimate of the value of the life of white man is measured by the fear of punishment for destroying it, and were we in Seiber's place we should always try to make it a point to show sthem that it would be to their ad vantage 10 let us live.