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Updated: August 28, 2024
At the very commencement of the "talk," I saw that we were going to have a difficulty. The Navajoes, particularly the younger warriors, assumed a bullying and exacting attitude that the hunters were not likely to brook; nor would they have submitted to it for a moment but for the peculiar position in which their chief was placed.
There were the Navajoes and Apaches on its west, the Comanche and other Apache bands on the south and east, the Utahs on its north, and various smaller tribes distributed around it.
Ideas of the same sort meet us in stories told by the North American Indians. Thus the Navajoes tell of a certain mythical being called "the Maiden that becomes a Bear," who learned the art of turning herself into a bear from the prairie wolf.
He was compelled often to eat diseased cattle, mouldy flour, rancid bacon, with which he drank large quantities of strong coffee. In a word, he lived a squalid life, unclean and apathetic physically, mentally, and spiritually. This does not mean all Indians a few, like the Navajoes, have retained their native vigor and independence I refer to the typical "agency Indian" of the Northwest.
As soon as this was announced to the Navajoes, twenty men already chosen, no doubt stepped out into the open prairie, and striking their lances into the ground, rested against them their bows, quivers, and shields. We saw no tomahawks, and we knew that every Navajo carries this weapon.
Approaching this point, the road on each side of the barranca suddenly dips, the trails converging downward, and meeting among the ruins. When in view of these, both parties halted and signalled each other across the ravine. After a short parley, it was proposed by the Navajoes that the captives and horses should remain on the top of the hill, each train to be guarded by two men.
Nay, more," continued Seguin, with a look that expressed a hidden meaning, "we could not get far up the Del Norte itself before the Navajoes would be warned of our approach. We have enemies nearer home." "Carrai! that is true," said a hunter, speaking in Spanish.
The Navajoes, who number about 22,000 and are in a fairly primitive state, having few schools or missionaries among them, are thrifty and successful sheep-herders and entirely self-supporting. The value of crops raised by Indians during the last fiscal year is estimated at more than four millions. In a word, the typical red man of to-day is a rancher on a large or small scale.
Among them were El Sol and Garey, Rube, and the bull-fighter Sanchez. Seguin and I were of the number. Most of the trappers, with a few Delaware Indians, completed the complement. The twenty were soon selected; and, stepping out on the open ground, as the Navajoes had done, we piled our rifles in the presence of the enemy. Our captives were then mounted and made ready for starting.
This had become necessary for due protection of the district from our warlike neighbours in the west the Navajoes. They had made several raids upon the river settlements, and carried off goods, cattle, and a number of captives. The force I had made requisition for was obtained; but not the right men, or at least the officers I should have chosen to command it.
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