The Native Races (Complete 5 Part Edition). Hubert Howe Bancroft

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СКАЧАТЬ again with the Sierra Madre in the Mexican table-land. Besides these are many detached and intersecting ranges, between which lie arid deserts, lava beds, and a few fertile valleys. From the sterile sandy deserts which cover vast areas of this territory, rise many isolated groups of almost inaccessible peaks, some of which are wooded, thus affording protection and food for man and beast. Two great rivers, the Colorado and the Rio Grande del Norte flow through this region, one on either side, but, except in certain spots, they contribute little to the fertilization of the country. In the more elevated parts the climate is temperate, sometimes in winter severely cold; but on the deserts and plains, with the scorching sun above and the burning sand beneath, the heat is almost insupportable. The scanty herbage, by which the greater part of this region is covered, offers to man but a transient food-supply; hence he must move from place to place or starve. Thus nature, more than elsewhere on our coast, invites to a roving life; and, as on the Arabian deserts, bands of American Bedouins roam over immense tracts seeking what they may devour. Here it is that many a luckless miner and ill-protected traveler pays the penalty of his temerity with his life; here it is, more than elsewhere within the temperate zones of the two Americas, that the natives bid defiance to the encroachments of civilization. Sweeping down upon small settlements and isolated parties, these American Arabs rob, murder, and destroy, then fleeing to their strongholds bid defiance to pursuers. In the midst of all this we find another phenomenon in the semi-civilized towns-people of New Mexico and Arizona; a spontaneous awakening from the ruder phases of savagism.

      The families of this division may be enumerated as follows: The Apaches, under which general name I include all the savage tribes roaming through New Mexico, the north-western portion of Texas, a small part of northern Mexico, and Arizona; the Pueblos, or partially cultivated towns-people of New Mexico and Arizona, with whom I unite, though not town-builders, the non-nomadic Pimas, Maricopas and Pápagos of the lower Gila River; the Lower Californians, who occupy the peninsula; and the Northern Mexicans, which term includes the various nations scattered over the States of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and northern Zacatecas.

      THE APACHES.

To the Apaches, using the term in the signification of a family of this division, no accurate boundaries can be assigned. Owing to their roving proclivities and incessant raids they are led first in one direction and then in another. In general terms they may be said to range about as follows: The Comanches, Jetans, or Nauni, consisting of three tribes, the Comanches proper, the Yamparacks, and Tenawas, inhabiting northern Texas, eastern Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Durango, and portions of south-western New Mexico,636 by language allied to the Shoshone family;637 the Apaches, who call themselves Shis Inday, or 'men of the woods,'638 and whose tribal divisions are the Chiricaguis, Coyoteros, Faraones, Gileños, Lipanes, Llaneros, Mescaleros, Mimbreños, Natages, Pelones, Pinaleños, Tejuas, Tontos and Vaqueros, roaming over New Mexico, Arizona, north-western Texas, Chihuahua and Sonora,639 and who are allied by language to the great Tinneh family;640 the Navajos, or Tenuai, 'men,' as they designate themselves, having linguistic affinities with the Apache nation, with which indeed they are sometimes classed, living in and around the Sierra de los Mimbres;641 the Mojaves, occupying both banks of the Colorado in Mojave Valley; the Hualapais, near the headwaters of Bill Williams Fork; the Yumas, on the east bank of the Colorado, near its junction with the Rio Gila;642 the Cosninos, who like the Hualapais are sometimes included in the Apache nation, ranging through the Mogollon Mountains;643 and the Yampais, between Bill Williams Fork and the Rio Hassayampa.644 Of the multitude of names mentioned by the early Spanish authorities, I only give in addition to the above the Yalchedunes, located on the west bank of the Colorado in about latitude 33° 20´, the Yamajabs, on the east bank of the same river, in about latitude 34°-35°; the Cochees, in the Chiricagui Mountains of Arizona, the Cruzados645 in New Mexico, and finally the Nijoras,646 somewhere about the lower Colorado.647

      The Apache country is probably the most desert of all, alternating between sterile plains and wooded mountains, interspersed with comparatively few rich valleys. The rivers do little to fertilize the soil except in spots; the little moisture that appears is quickly absorbed by the cloudless air and arid plains which stretch out, sometimes a hundred miles in length and breadth, like lakes of sand. In both mountain and desert the fierce, rapacious Apache, inured from childhood to hunger and thirst, and heat and cold, finds safe retreat. It is here, among our western nations, that we first encounter thieving as a profession. No savage is fond of work; indeed, labor and savagism are directly antagonistic, for if the savage continues to labor he can but become civilized. Now the Apache is not as lazy as some of his northern brothers, yet he will not work, or if he does, like the Pueblos who are nothing but partially reclaimed Apaches or Comanches, he forthwith elevates himself, and is no longer an Apache; but being somewhat free from the vice of laziness, though subject in an eminent degree to all other vices of which mankind have any knowledge, he presents the anomaly of uniting activity with barbarism, and for this he must thank his thievish propensities. Leaving others to do the work, he cares not whom, the agriculturists of the river-bottoms or the towns-people of the north, he turns Ishmaelite, pounces upon those near and more remote, and if pursued retreats across the jornadas del muerte, or 'journeys of death' as the Mexican calls them, and finds refuge in the gorges, cañons, and other almost impregnable natural fortresses of the mountains.

      PHYSIQUE OF APACHES.

The disparity in physical appearance between some of these nations, which may be attributed for the most part to diet, is curious. While those who subsist on mixed vegetable and animal food, present a tall, healthy, and muscular development, hardly excelled by the Caucasian race, those that live on animal food, excepting perhaps the Comanches, are small in stature, wrinkled, shriveled, and hideously ugly.648 All the natives of this family, with the exception of the Apaches proper, are tall, well-built, with muscles strongly developed, pleasing features, although at times rather broad faces, high foreheads, large, clear, dark-colored eyes, possessing generally extraordinary powers of vision, black coarse hair and, for a wonder, beards. Taken as a whole, they are the most perfect specimens of physical manhood that we have yet encountered. While some, and particularly females, are PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES. a light copper color, others again approach near to the dark Californian. Women are generally plumper, inclining more to obesity than the men. Some comely girls are spoken of amongst them, but they grow old early.649 In contradistinction to all this the Apaches proper, or Apache nation, as we may call them, are slim, ill developed, but very agile. Their height is about five feet four to five inches; features described as ugly, repulsive, emotionless, flat, and approaching the Mongol cast, while the head is covered with an unkempt mass of coarse, shocky, rusty black hair, not unlike bristles. The women are not at all behind the men in ugliness, and a pleasing face is a rarity. A feature common to the family is remarkably small feet; in connection with which may be mentioned the peculiarity which obtains on the lower Colorado, of having the large toe widely separated from the others, which arises probably from wading in marshy bottoms. All the tribes whose principal subsistence is meat, and more particularly those that eat horse and mule flesh, are said to exhale a peculiar scent, something like the animals themselves when heated.СКАЧАТЬ