Origin of the Apache Indians

ORIGIN OF THE APACHE INDIANS

In the beginning, the world was covered with darkness. There was no sun, no day. The perpetual night had no moon or stars.

There were, however, all manner of beasts and birds. Among the beasts were many hideous, nameless monsters, as well as dragons, lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, beavers, rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, and all manner of creeping things such as lizards and serpents. Mankind could not prosper under such conditions, for the beasts and serpents destroyed all human offspring.

All creatures had the power of speech and were gifted with reason.

There were two tribes of creatures: the birds or the feathered tribe and the beasts.[Pg 4] The former were organized under their chief, the eagle.

These tribes often held councils, and the birds wanted light admitted. This the beasts repeatedly refused to do. Finally the birds made war against the beasts.

The beasts were armed with clubs, but the eagle had taught his tribe to use bows and arrows. The serpents were so wise that they could not all be killed. One took refuge in a perpendicular cliff of a mountain in Arizona, and his eye (changed into a brilliant stone) may be seen in that rock to this day. The bears, when killed, would each be changed into several other bears, so that the more bears the feathered tribe killed, the more there were. The dragon could not be killed, either, for he was covered with four coats of horny scales, and the arrows would not penetrate these. One of the most hideous, vile monsters (nameless) was proof against arrows, so the eagle flew high up in the air with a round, white[Pg 5] stone, and let it fall on this monster's head, killing him instantly. This was such a good service that the stone was called sacred. (A symbol of this stone is used in the tribal game of Kah. They fought for many days, but at last the birds won the victory.

After this war was over, although some evil beasts remained, the birds were able to control the councils, and light was admitted. Then mankind could live and prosper. The eagle was chief in this good fight: therefore, his feathers were worn by man as emblems of wisdom, justice, and power.

Among the few human beings that were yet alive was a woman who had been blessed with many children, but these had always been destroyed by the beasts. If by any means she succeeded in eluding the others, the dragon, who was very wise and very evil, would come himself and eat her babes.

After many years a son of the rainstorm[Pg 6] was born to her and she dug for him a deep cave. The entrance to this cave she closed and over the spot built a camp fire. This concealed the babe's hiding place and kept him warm. Every day she would remove the fire and descend into the cave, where the child's bed was, to nurse him; then she would return and rebuild the camp fire.

Frequently the dragon would come and question her, but she would say, "I have no more children; you have eaten all of them."

When the child was larger he would not always stay in the cave, for he sometimes wanted to run and play. Once the dragon saw his tracks. Now this perplexed and enraged the old dragon, for he could not find the hiding place of the boy; but he said that he would destroy the mother if she did not reveal the child's hiding place. The poor mother was very much troubled; she could not give up her child, but she knew the power and cunning of the dragon, therefore she lived in constant fear.

[Pg 7]

Soon after this the boy said that he wished to go hunting. The mother would not give her consent. She told him of the dragon, the wolves, and the serpents; but he said, "To-morrow I go."

At the boy's request his uncle (who was the only man then living) made a little bow and some arrows for him, and the two went hunting the next day. They trailed the deer far up the mountain and finally the boy killed a buck. His uncle showed him how to dress the deer and broil the meat. They broiled two hind quarters, one for the child and one for his uncle. When the meat was done they placed it on some bushes to cool. Just then the huge form of the dragon appeared. The child was not afraid, but his uncle was so dumb with fright that he did not speak or move.

The dragon took the boy's parcel of meat and went aside with it. He placed the meat on another bush and seated himself beside it. Then he said, "This is the child I have[Pg 8]been seeking. Boy, you are nice and fat, so when I have eaten this venison I shall eat you." The boy said, "No, you shall not eat me, and you shall not eat that meat." So he walked over to where the dragon sat and took the meat back to his own seat. The dragon said, "I like your courage, but you are foolish; what do you think you could do?" "Well," said the boy, "I can do enough to protect myself, as you may find out." Then the dragon took the meat again, and then the boy retook it. Four times in all the dragon took the meat, and after the fourth time the boy replaced the meat he said, "Dragon, will you fight me?" The dragon said, "Yes, in whatever way you like." The boy said, "I will stand one hundred paces distant from you and you may have four shots at me with your bow and arrows, provided that you will then exchange places with me and give me four shots." "Good," said the dragon. "Stand up."

Then the dragon took his bow, which was made of a large pine tree. He took four arrows from his quiver; they were made of young pine tree saplings, and each arrow was twenty feet in length. He took deliberate aim, but just as the arrow left the bow the boy made a peculiar sound and leaped into the air. Immediately the arrow was shivered into a thousand splinters, and the boy was seen standing on the top of a bright rainbow over the spot where the dragon's aim had been directed. Soon the rainbow was gone and the boy was standing on the ground again. Four times this was repeated, then the boy said, "Dragon, stand here; it is my time to shoot." The dragon said, "All right; your little arrows cannot pierce my first coat of horn, and I have three other coats—shoot away." The boy shot an arrow, striking the dragon just over the heart, and one coat of the great horny scales fell to the ground. The next shot another coat, and then another, and the dragon's heart was[Pg 10] exposed. Then the dragon trembled, but could not move. Before the fourth arrow was shot the boy said, "Uncle, you are dumb with fear; you have not moved; come here or the dragon will fall on you." His uncle ran toward him. Then he sped the fourth arrow with true aim, and it pierced the dragon's heart. With a tremendous roar the dragon rolled down the mountain side—down four precipices into a cañon below.

Immediately storm clouds swept the mountains, lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and the rain poured. When the rainstorm had passed, far down in the cañon below, they could see fragments of the huge body of the dragon lying among the rocks, and the bones of this dragon may still be found there.

This boy's name was Apache. Usen taught him how to prepare herbs for [Pg 11]medicine, how to hunt, and how to fight. He was the first chief of the Indians and wore the eagle's feathers as the sign of justice, wisdom, and power. To him, and to his people, as they were created, Usen gave homes in the land of the west.

The Sacred Origin of Native American Smoking

The Sacred Origin of Native American Smoking

Smoking is, of course, originally an American custom, and with the Indians of North America possesses a sacred origin. Says an authority upon the barbarian use of tobacco:

"Of the sacred origin of tobacco the Indian has no doubt, although scarcely two tribes exactly agree in the details of the way in which the invaluable boon was conferred on man. In substance, however, the legend is the same with all. Ages ago, at the time when spirits considered the world yet good enough for their occasional residence, a very great and powerful spirit lay down by the side of his fire to sleep in the forest. While so lying, his arch-enemy came that way, and thought it would be a good chance for mischief; so, gently approaching the sleeper, he rolled him over toward the fire, till his head rested among the glowing embers, and his hair was set ablaze. The roaring of the fire in his ears roused the good spirit, and, leaping to his feet, he rushed in a fright through the forest, and as he did so the wind caught his singed hair as it flew off, and, carrying it away, sowed it broadcast over the earth, into which it sank and took root, and grew up tobacco.

"If anything exceeds the savage's belief in tobacco, it is that which attaches to his pipe. In life it is his dearest companion, and in death is inseparable; for 
whatever else may be forgotten at his funeral obsequies, his pipe is laid in the grave with him to solace him on his journey to the 'happy hunting-ground.' 'The first pipe' is among the most sacred of their traditions; as well it may be, when it is sincerely believed that no other than the Great Spirit himself was the original smoker.

"Many years ago the Great Spirit called all his people together, and, standing on the precipice of the Red Pipe-stone Rock, he broke a piece from the wall, and, kneading it in his hands, made a huge pipe, which he smoked over them, and to the north, south, east, and west. He told them that this stone was red, that it was their flesh, that of it they might make their pipes of peace; but it belonged equally to all; and the war-club and the scalping-knife must not be raised on this ground. And he smoked his pipe and talked to them till the last whiff, and then his head disappeared in a cloud; and immediately the whole surface of the rock for several miles was melted and glazed. Two great ovens were opened beneath, and two women (guardian spirits of the place) entered them in a blaze of fire; and they are heard there yet, and answer to the invocation of the priests, or medicine-men, who consult them on their visits to this sacred place.

"The 'sacred place' here mentioned is the site of the world-renowned 'Pipe-stone Quarry.' From this place has the North American Indian ever obtained material for his pipe, and from no other spot. Catlin asserts that in every tribe he has visited (numbering about forty, and extending over thousands of miles of country) the pipes have all been made of this red pipe-stone. Clarke, the great American traveller, relates that in his intercourse with many tribes who as yet had had but little intercourse with the whites he {learned that almost every adult had made the pilgrimage to the sacred rock and drawn from thence his pipe-stone. So peculiar is this 'quarry' that Catlin has been at the pains to describe it very fully and graphically, and from his account the following is taken:

"'Our approach to it was from the east, and the ascent, for the distance of fifty miles, over a continued succession of slopes and terraces, almost imperceptibly rising one above another, that seemed to lift us to a great height. There is not a tree or bush to be seen from the highest summit of the ridge, though the eye may range east and west, almost to a boundless extent, over a surface covered with a short grass, that is green at one's feet, and about him, but changing to blue in distance, like nothing but the blue and vastness of the ocean.

"'On the very top of this mound or ridge we found the far-famed quarry or fountain of the Red Pipe, which is truly an anomaly in nature. The principal and most striking feature of this place is a perpendicular wall of close-grained, compact quartz, of twenty-five and thirty feet in elevation, running nearly north and south, with its face to the west, exhibiting a front of nearly two miles in length, when it disappears at both ends, by running under the prairie, which becomes there a little more elevated, and probably covers it for many miles, both to the north and south. The depression of the brow of the ridge at this place has been caused by the wash of a little stream, produced by several springs at the top, a little back from the wall, which has gradually carried away the superincumbent earth, and having bared the wall for the distance of two miles, is now left to glide for some distance over a perfectly level surface of quartz rock; and then to leap from the top of the wall into a deep basin below, {}and thence seek its course to the Missouri, forming the extreme source of a noted and powerful tributary, called the "Big Sioux."

"'At the base of this wall there is a level prairie, of half a mile in width, running parallel to it, in any, and in all parts of which, the Indians procure the red stone for their pipes, by digging through the soil and several slaty layers of the red stone to the depth of four or five feet. From the very numerous marks of ancient and modern diggings or excavations, it would appear that this place has been for many centuries resorted to for the red stone; and from the great number of graves and remains of ancient fortifications in the vicinity, it would seem, as well as from their actual traditions, that the Indian tribes have long held this place in high superstitious estimation; and also that it has been the resort of different tribes, who have made their regular pilgrimages here to renew their pipes.'

"As far as may be gathered from the various and slightly conflicting accounts of Indian smoking observances, it would seem that to every tribe, or, if it be an extensive one, to every detachment of a tribe, belongs a potent instrument known as 'medicine pipe-stem.' It is nothing more than a tobacco-pipe, splendidly adorned with savage trappings, yet it is regarded as a sacred thing to be used only on the most solemn occasions, or in the transaction of such important business as among us could only be concluded by the sanction of a Cabinet Council, and affixing the royal signature."

Origin of the Maya and Aztec Tribes

Origin of the Maya  and Aztec Tribes.

Mayan Origins with the god Itzamna

The Mayas did not claim to be autochthones. The Maya legends of their origins referred to their arrival by the sea from the East, in remote times, under the leadership of Itzamna, their hero-god, and also to a less numerous, immigration from the west, from Mexico, which was connected with the history of another hero-god, Kukul Càn.

The first of these appears to be wholly mythical, and but a repetition of the story found among so many American tribes, that their ancestors came from the distant Orient. I have elsewhere explained this to be but a solar or light myth.

The second tradition of the Maya origins deserves more attention from the historian, as it is supported by some of their chronicles and by the testimony of several ]of the most intelligent nativs of the period of the conquest, which I present on a later page of this volume.

It cannot be denied that the Mayas, the Kiches and the Cakchiquels, in their most venerable traditions, claimed to have migrated from the north or west, from some part of the present country of Mexico.

These traditions receive additional importance from the presence on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, on the waters of the river Panuco, north of Vera Cruz, of a prominent branch of the Maya family, the Huastecs. The idea suggests itself that these were the rearguard of a great migration of the Maya family from the north toward the south.

Support is given to this by their dialect, which is most closely akin to that of the Tzendals of Tabasco, the nearest Maya race to the south of them, and also by very ancient traditions of the Aztecs.

It is noteworthy that these two partially civilized races, the Mayas and the Aztecs, though differing radically in language, had legends of their origins which claimed a community of origin in some indefinitely remote past. We find these on the Maya side narrated [in the sacred book of the Kiches, the Popol Vuh, in the Cakchiquel Records of Tecpan Atitlan, and in various pure Maya sources which I bring forward in this volume. The Aztec traditions refer to the Huastecs, and a brief analysis of them will not be out of place.

At a very remote period the Mexicans, under their leader Mecitl, from whom they took their name, arrived in boats at the mouth of the river Panuco, at the place called Panotlan, which name means “where one arrives by sea.” With them were the Olmecs under their leader Olmecatl, the Huastecs, under their leader Huastecatl, the Mixtecs and others. They journeyed together and in friendship southward, down the coast, quite to the volcanoes of Guatemala, thence to Tamoanchan, which is described as the terrestialparadise, and afterwards, some of them at least, northward and eastward, toward the shores of the Gulf.

On this journey the intoxicating beverage made from the maguey, called octli by the Aztecs, cii by the Mayas, and pulque by the Spaniards, was invented by a woman whose name was Mayauel, in which we can scarcely err in recognizing the ]national appellation Maya. Furthermore, the invention is closely related to the history of the Huastecs. Their leader, alone of all the chieftains, drank to excess, and in his drunkenness threw aside his garments and displayed his nakedness. When he grew sober, fear and shame impelled him to collect all those who spoke his language, and leaving the other tribes, he returned to the neighborhood of Panuco and settled there permanently.

The annals of the Aztecs contain frequent allusions to the Huastecs. The most important contest between the two nations took place in the reign of Montezuma the First (1440-1464). The attack was made by the Aztecs, for the alleged reason that the Huastecs had robbed and killed Aztec merchants on their way to the great fairs in Guatemala. The Huastecs are described as numerous, dwelling in walled towns, possessing quantities of maize, beans, feathers and precious stones, and painting their faces. They were sig]nally defeated by the troops of Montezuma, but not reduced to vassalage.

At the time of the Conquest the province of the Huastecs was densely peopled; “none more so under the sun,” remarks the Augustinian friar Nicolas de Witte, who visited it in 1543; but even then he found it almost deserted and covered with ruins, for, a few years previous, the Spaniards had acted towards its natives with customary treachery and cruelty. They had invited all the chiefs to a conference, had enticed them into a large wooden building, and then set fire to it and burned them alive. When this merciless act became known the Huastecs deserted their villages and scattered among the forests and mountains.

These traditions go to show that the belief among the Aztecs was that the tribes of the Maya family came originally from the north or northeast, and were at some remote period closely connected with their own ancestors.