men.

religion, and worship no deity, unless a habit of hailing the rising sun with an ovation may be the remains of the habits of some sun-worshipping tribe. They have many Jewish habits, but do not practise circumcision, and polygamy is practised by some of the more prosperous Marriage is not binding until there is progeny. The women do all the work, the men considering themselves degraded by menial labour, and pass most of their time in horseracing, foot-ball, cards, and gallantry. They have ever been friendly to the alien race which now surrounds them, and boast that they do not know the colour of the white man's blood.* From the general prosperity of the people, and the number of children seen amongst them, there seems every likelihood that the Pimas will escape the general decay and extermination of the Indian race, and that, unless some great calamity befalls them, they may go on for an indefinite period in their present condition.

The Papagos, though living in a desolate country south of the Gila River, to the west of the Sierra Catarina, are an exceedingly industrious people, and physically a very fine race. They have been described as the "Scots" of aboriginal America. The Papagos are only a branch of the Pimas, but after being baptised they took the name of "Vassconia," meaning, in their language, "Christians," but which has now got corrupted into "Papagos." The fruit of the pitakayo, or cactus (Cereus gigantea) furnishes them with a kind of bread and molasses, and they plant in the rainy season, hunt, keep cattle, and labour in the harvest-fields of Sonora. The sheep which the Pueblo Indians now have are probably the descendants of a flock brought to the country 329 years ago by Marco de Niza, a devoted Franciscan friar.

Everything in their villages is conducted methodically, and with rather more than the average wisdom of governments. For instance, every morning, at least in Santa Dominga, the governor sends round as public criers young men clad in a peculiar dress, their brows bound with garlands of wheat, and each armed with a gourd containing small pebbles, to summon the people to labour. The criers, as they dance round in a kind of monotonous gait, rattle the gourd, shake the ladders of the houses (if the door is on the roof), and call out for the people to rouse, for the day has dawned. In like manner the people are summoned to church by the jingling of the church bells, which they seem never weary of ringing. The church services are, in places where there are no priests, a strange mixture of the Roman Catholic service and heathen rites. A song in honour of Montezuma is generally sung, the governor and some of the old men make speeches, and the people lay little images of clay-representing sheep, goats, horses, cows, deer, &c., on the altar. This is an old custom of this people, and means that whatever they have been successful in during the year, either in agriculture or in the chase, should be modelled and brought to church on Christmas (at least) to be laid at the feet of the Great Spirit. Dr. Ten Broeck, who visited the church of Laguna on Christmas Day, relates that he was astonished at hearing music like the warbling of birds issuing from a gallery over the main door of the church, simultaneously with the commencement of the service. The warbling went through the whole house, bounding from side to side, echoing from the very rafters-fine-toned warblings and deep-toned thrilling sounds. He could particularly notice the note of the wood thrush, and the trillings of the canary bird. On working his way into the gallery he found fifteen or twenty young boys lying down on the floor, each with a small basin of water in front of him,

* Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1864, p. 152.

and one or more short reeds perforated and split in a peculiar manner. Placing one end in the water and blowing through the other they imitated most wondrously the notes of different birds, thus forming an orchestra of the most novel character.

On the occasion mentioned the Indians danced in front of the church to the sound of a rude kind of drum, and then after a short time adjourned to the village square, where they continued dancing till dark, after which they separated. On the 26th, 27th, and 28th of December the dancing was continued in the same manner as upon Christmas Day.

In some of the houses are "horrible little Aztec images" made of wood and clay, and decorated with paint and feathers, which they declare are saints; but if so, then they pay little respect to them, as the children play with them in a most irreverent manner. Dances are their favourite amusements, and some of them are of the most whimsical description imaginable. Clowns with painted faces, masks, and something very like the ordinary tricks of such attendants on pantomimes and circuses, are frequent assistants at these amusements. Among the Moquis the women are not allowed to dance, their part being played by young men dressed like girls.

Some of their religious ideas (either held in their entirety or mixed with the Christian religion) we have already mentioned. They believe in the existence of a Great Father, who lives where the sun rises, and a Great Mother who lives where the sun sets. Of their origin they give the following account: "Many years ago their Great Mother brought from her home in the west nine races of men, in the following form: first, the deer race; second, the sand race; third, the water race; fourth, the bear race; fifth, the hare race; sixth, the prairie-wolf race; seventh, the rattlesnake race; eighth, the tobacco race; and ninth, the grass-seed race. Having placed them on the spot where the villages now stand, she transformed them into men, who built the present pueblos, and the distinction of races is still kept up. One will say he is of the sand race, another of the deer race, &c. They are firm believers in metempsychosis, and say that when they die they will resolve into their original forms, and become bears, deer, &c. Shortly after the pueblos were built, the Great Mother came in person, and brought them all the domestic animals they now have."

The sacred fire, Dr. Ten Broeck declares, is still kept burning by the old men among the Moquis, and he was told that they believe great misfortune would befall them if it was allowed to be extinguished. He thinks-but in this I believe he is in error-that the Moquis know nothing of Montezuma. It is whispered among those best acquainted with these Pueblo Indians, that some of the more horrible rites of the old Aztec religion-such as serpent-worship (common among the Aztecs as among many other nations) is still kept up among some of them. I have repeatedly heard-though others declare that it is a myth-that in one village a huge overgrown, fatted serpent-to which human sacrifices are offered-is kept, but I could never gain any exact particulars in reference to it. Their marriage custom is remarkable. Instead of the custom prevalent among all civilised and most savage races, the young lady, when she sees a young man who takes her fancy, informs her father. The father, in his turn, proposes to the sire of the fortunate youth, and the proposal is never rejected. The young man furnishes two pairs of mocassins, two fine blankets, two mattresses, and two sashes used at the feasts; while the bride, for her share, provides abundance of edibles. The marriage is then celebrated by feasting and dancing. Though polygamy is unknown, they can divorce

themselves and marry others if either of the parties becomes dissatisfied-a very necessary law, one would think, after the rather summary method of "natural selection" adopted by the wife! If there are children by such a marriage, after divorce they are taken care of by their respective grandparents or other relatives. They have no kind of intoxicating liquors, and drunkenness is unknown among them. Hospitable to the last degree, in every house which a stranger enters the first act is to set food before him, and nothing can be done until he has eaten.

All through their country are ruins of great fortresses, towers, aqueducts, and other public works, the origin of which is unknown to the present Indians, or only vaguely known by tradition. Some of these houses contained from 100 to 160 rooms.

In Pecos the ruins of a Christian church and a temple to Montezuma stand side by sidethe pagan temple being apparently the oldest of the two-just as the two religions may have for a time flourished alongside of each other. According to Indian tradition, it was built by Montezuma himself, who charged them not to lose heart under the foreign yoke, and never to let the sacred fire burn out in the estufa, for "when the time should come in which the tree should fall, men with pale faces would pour in from the east and overthrow their oppressors, and he himself would return to build up his kingdom; the earth again would become fertile, and the mountains yield abundance of silver and gold." How the Spaniards came and conquered them is, according to them, a partial fulfilment of Montezuma's prophecy, and how the Americans with the pale faces came in their turn and drove out the Mexicans, may be taken as a second part of the fulfilment; the third they are still waiting for. The Pimas themselves state that at one time they used to live in large houses and were a great and powerful nation, but after the destruction of their kingdom they travelled southward, and settled in the valley where they now live, preferring to live in huts, so that they might not become a subject of envy for a future enemy. "He that is low need fear no fall," was the simple maxim of a simple-minded people. So much for tradition-now for fact. The truth is these now ruined towns, houses, and fortresses were all thickly inhabited at and shortly after the time of the conquest of Mexico. Even here the inhuman followers of Pizarro could not allow the Aztecs to remain in peace. In search of gold, hither in 1526 went Don Basconzales, but never returned, his name carved on " El Moro," the inscription rock a few miles to the east of Zuñi, being the only record we have of his ill-fated journey, and the expeditions of Pamphilo Narvaez, Marco de Niza, Francisco Coronado, and others in search of the fabled El Dorado of this arid region, are all matters of quaint old Spanish history. Everywhere they met a bold people, with a civilisation even higher than that of these days, and though in many cases their feeble arms could do little for them against the rapacious mail-clad caballeros of Castile, yet in not a few instances the adventurers returned from these early visits to the Pueblo Indians "with more fear than victuals," as they quaintly expressed the state of their minds and stomachs. There seems little doubt but that these town-building Indians were, as Dr. Bell expresses it, "the skirmish line of the Aztec race, when that race was united and in the plenitude of its power. They came originally from the southern provinces of Mexico, probably in detachments-the restless spirits of semi-civilised tribes, speaking distinct dialects, though more or less united under one central government, and they tried with all the skill brought out from Anahuac and the southern provinces of Mexico to colonise the outlying countries to the northward." first they received the Spanish adventurers as brothers come to help them in their struggle

At

against barbarism and the forces of Nature-superior beings to themselves. But they soon discovered that the unprincipled followers of Narvaez, Niza, or Coronado had but one maxim in religion, one aim in life, and these were to convert to the creed of the conqueror by force and cruelty, and obtain gold at whatever cost. The result was a struggle, long continued in some cases, but in the greater number of instances short and bitter. Soon the Spaniards held undisputed sway everywhere, and up to 1680 they kept the wretched natives in slavery, working in the mines and toiling at labours which decimated the population, and sometimes the broken-hearted Aztec, weary of such a life, even anticipated death by throwing himself over a precipice of the mountain down which he trudged with his load of ore. It is a miserable story, the shame and disgrace of Spain, but one which we can only look at in silence when we contemplate, as we shall by-and-by, the tale of the Tasmanians. At last the down-trodden people, once so free and happy, turned upon their oppressors and swept them from the land, no quarter being given, no mercy ever asked. Some of the Pueblos maintained their liberty, and for ever renounced Christianity, which to them had been only a symbol of cruelty and unrighteousness; most of them were again retaken by the Spaniards, but not until after seven years of hard fighting. The conquerors, after their first vengeance had been satiated on the people who had trampled on the cross and massacred their countrymen, seem at least to have learned from these misfortunes a lesson of greater humanity to the natives. However, though the Pueblo Indians grow poor and die, the grandees and noble caballeros of lordly Spain must grow rich, oro must be brought in, for are not silver pesos and the spread of the cross the only things worth living for? The end is soon told. The Indians grew few and weak, the pueblos became deserted, and the Apaches, then as now hanging round their borders, soon rushed in and did their best to complete the ruin. "The dead tell no tales; but if these ruins could speak, I think they might relate dismal stories of crops yearly destroyed all around them, of cattle run off by thousands, of famished children calling for bread, and of sons and fathers left dead among the mountains." Their dissensions in the south caused the Spaniards to withdraw their troops, and the Pueblo Indians, as well as the Mexicans, found themselves unable to keep the savage at bay. The land soon became desolate the remnant of the people crowded together into the strongest or richest spots and formed the organisations found at the present day, which enable them to keep their enemies, in most cases at least, at arm's length.

CHAPTER VII.

OTHER PRAIRIE TRIBES.

AFTER the remarks which we have made in regard to the prairie tribes generally, and to the Comanches and Apaches as the type of these savage vagabonds, a very few words will suffice to sketch out the chief of the others. The Pueblo Indians are, though their close neighbours, not prairie Indians, either in habits or character-those which follow are essentially