The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-05-25
APACHE YAQUIS.
CONTINUED from Page /.

few last years the Yaquis have become more dan
gerous and daring, more cunning in their methods
! of attack, and as they are armed with modern
rifles are most serious menace to the progress and
! development of central and northern Sonora
ORIGIN OF THE APACHES
Who, then, are the Yaquis? Back in the DAVIS
when the race known to US as the American In
! dian was the sole owner of the two great CONT
nents of North and South America an immense
| region in what is northwestern Canada was
| possessed by great nation known as the Athabas
can, from whom the territory of Athabasea and the
! great river flowing through it take their names
! One division of this numerous nation are known
| today as Times Defines and may have been so
called in those early days. For some cause I'm
| known to us tribal family, numbering perhaps
| thousand, quarreled with their kinsmen or became
dissatisfied with their lands, separated from their
brothers and went in quest of new hunting grounds
They crossed continent, passing in peace through
the lands of other tribes and cutting passage for
themselves through hostile nations. They arrived
at last, it may be in hundred two hundred wears
in the land now known New Mexico and Arizona
possessed and titled by agricultural and peace
able people, differing in customs manners super
stitions and in origin and language They decided
to settle here. The Zumi, Moki Yumas-call them
what may-contested the right of the Time to
live in their country. The invaders compared to
the established nations. were few in numbers but
they were trained fighters. They were lanky men
of toughened fiber and muscle, the sons of warrior
sires who had fought their way through tribe clan
and nation and willed to their sons and erandsons
their only estate and property, courage, endur-
ance, agility, strategy in and cunning in the
fight. The Times, let us call them by their modern
name the Apaches, woefully outclassed in numbers
by the people upon whose lands they had intruded
we're wise. Fighting in the open. if they lost but
ten in battle and the Zun and Molli lost forty
in the end the Zuni and Moki must win out. The
Apaches took to the mountains. The Zuni had no
stomach for mountain fighting. The Apaches raid
ed their villages, attacked like lions and disap-
peared like birds. They swept the Salt River val
ley clean and where at time there was a seden-
tary population of $4,000 or 10000 there was now
desert. Those of the original owners who escaped
fed to the recesses and dark places of the Grand
canyon or to the inaccessible cliffs where the Span
iards found them and called them 'burrow people,
and where hundreds of years afterward the Ameri-
cans discovered them and christened them "clif
dwellers.'
There are no records on stone or paper to tell
us when these things happened; there is no tradi-
ton to inform when the Times entered the land
when the devastation began. We only know that
when the Spaniards came into Arizona in 1885, the
Casa Grande," the great house of the last of the
early jewellers, a venerable ruln.-
ORIGIN OF THE YAQUL
The Apaches now increased and multiplied. they
spread out and divided into tribes. One division
travelled south and settled along the slopes of the
Bacatale mountains and in the valley of river to
which they gave their name. When this settlement
took place we do not know, we only know that when
Father Marcos de Mia entered Sonora. the first
of white men, in 1889, this tribe of the Apaches
called themselves Yaqui, and possessed the land SO
now you understand why the Standards found
the Yaquis tough customers to deal with and why
the Mexicans after fifty years of intermttant war
have not yet conquered them. The Yaqu claims
descent from the wolf and he has all the qualities
and characteristics of the wolf to make good his
claim.
Centuries of training in starvation, of expos
to burning heats, to thirst, to mountain storms
and to suffering have produced man almost as
hardy as cactus as fertile in defense as swift of
foot and distinctly type of the wilderness and
the desert as his brother, the coyote.
RAVAGES OF THE YAQUIS.
From the earliest Spanish records we learn that
this fierce tribe resisted the intrusion and settle
ment in their country of any foreign race One of
the conditions of treaty made with them by the
early Spaniards permitted the exploitation of the
mineral wealth of the country. Villages were built
and camps established from time to time, but
when the Yaquis broke the peace, these camps and
towns were left desolate.
1t is impossible, for one who has not seen So
nora, to imagine the desolation they have made in
country for which nature has done so much
'INFELIX SONORA"
The name "Infelix" unhappy-given to it by
the early missionary fathers, in sympathy with It's
misfortunes was portentious of its misseries. The
ravages of the Yaquis were everywhere visible a
few wears ago. and in many places, even today. the
marks of their vengeance tell of their ferocity By
small parties and by secret passes of the mountains
they sweep down upon, surprise and attack the
lonely traveller or train of travellers or village,
slaughter the men and carry off the women and
children. Then in their mountain LARS and in the
security of isolation the mothers are separated from
their children and the children Incorporated into
the tribe and in time become Yaqui mothers and
Yaqui warriors This is the secret of the vitality
and perpetuity of the Yaqui tribe If it were not
for this practice of stealing children and incorpor
ating them into the tribal body the Yaquis would
long ago have been annihilated Marcial, Benevi-
dea, Bandalares, prominent Yaqui chiefs. were
child captives and many of their council and war
chiefs are half breeds. And now here is an ex-