Connecticut western news., 1880-03-31
THE APACHE SQUAWS.
How an Indian Woman Cured her Hus-
 band of Brutality.

There was an Apache brave who had a number of wives, and was ill the habit of beating them, both from an evil temper and also as an amusement. Now it hap pened that he had just taken another wife, who was not only young and hand some, but very strong. When I say strong, as applied to one of their women, it requires some explanation. The girls, like the boys among them, are brought up the best way they know how to make them vigorous and capable of bearing any amount of fatigue and enduring any hardships. They are made to tear the lptsxs,sse bouehs from trees and break sticks for the purpose of making the arms strong. Some of the boughs of trees they break off, it would seem to a white man, would almost require the strength of grizzly bear to break. The wife speak of had never been beaten until one day when the Indian, her husband
 being in ill-humor, struck her several severe blows. She seemed somewhat surprised, but turned to him perfectly cool and said, "Ah, you are joking to- day. You don't mean that in earnest, of course?" "Yes, do, said the Indian.
 "What, said she, "do you say you were in earnest, really?" "Yes," said he, "and I'm going to show you I am." He just lifted his arm to strike her, when, quicker than I can tell it, she seized him by both ears and the hair, threw him on the ground as one would child, and with her hands raising his head, beat it upon the hard ground until he, almost senseless, begged her for his life. She at length relented, but that Indian never beat a wife again, and his other wives were rejoiced in heart at his just punish ment. Women belonging to the white civilized races could scarcely realize the hardihood and physical vigor of the Apache women. I recollect something that happened one day under my own observation which will illustrate this bet ter than anything I can tell. A young Apache friend of mine had killed some game, and three or four of us went to help him eat it and have a feast. He had q very handsome young wife, to whom he had been married about a year.
 Of course she cooked and prepared the food for us, and, when it was ready, we all sat down and ate as much as we could, for it was very good. connot tell ex- actly the time we were eating and talk ing, but it was not less than half an hour and not more than an hour. When we were about done, the young wife came along, dressed up in her finest clothing and ornaments, and seemed so much pleased and happy about something that we could not avoid noticing it, and her husband particularly. He asked what it was that made her look so gay and hap py. She laughed and said, "No matter what it was, and for some time refused any explanation but at length her hus- band, becoming irritated at her silence, she told him, if he must know, he would find out by walking down to the spring in the thicket. We all went down, and there, on a bed of moss, wrapped up in the finest skins, was beautiful new born child, dressed in the softest deer skin, and it even had it's face painted. Its mother had certainly not been gone from us an hour, and when she returned was as lively, strong and blooming as il nothing unusual had happened.