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Show 272 WESTERN WILDS. Among the Arizona Indians there are no strong tribal organiza-tions, and no men of much influence. The hostile parties are not made up from any one clique or small settlement, nor do the members join at the command of a chief; but some ambitious leader sends word that he will start on a raict, and invites the braves of the vicin-ity to join. It is therefore impossible to govern the tribes through the chiefs in the manner practiced east of the IWky Mountains. To all these remarks the Navajoes constitute an encouraging ex-ception. They are the original Romans of New Mexico. Spanish accounts say that at the Conquest a branch of the ancient Mexican Indians, disdaining to submit, took refuge in the hidden valleys and on the inaccessible plateaus of the Sierra Madre ; there. they joined a wild tribe of the Athabascan stock, and from the union of the two sprang the present Navajoes. Kindred, on the Athabascan side, of the Shoshonees, Comanches, Apaches and Arapahoes, they have all the bravery and best qualities of the wild tribes, while from the old Aztec or Toltec blood they inherit a peculiar civilization, fair habits of in-dustry and thrift, and something like a spirit of progress. For two hundred years they carried on almost perpetual war with the Span-iards ; then a sort of peace was patched up and continued till the Americans got control of the country, and established agencies. Then war followed, of course. It lasted seven years, and did not end till General W. H. Carleton, in 1863-' 64, had destroyed all their or-chards and corn- fields, killed their sheep and goats, and literally starved them out. Barboncito, their great chief, a born diplomat, succeeded in 1868 in making a very advantageous treaty with General Sherman; and since then the tribe has slowly built up again. Before the war they numbered 12,000, and it is claimed they owned over a million sheep and goats, and at least 30,000 horses. Even now there are few adults in the tribe who do not own one or more horses each. Ganado Mncho (" Big Herd"), a prominent chief, owns four hundred. In 1870 they began farming under direction of the agent, but so far it has not been much of an improvement on their own system. In 1871 they planted extensively, and had a young orchard growing finely, when, on the night of May 31st. a storm of sleet killed every tree. The seeds furnished by the department were utterly unsuited to this altitude, and they have returned to their old system. The country appears to get dryer year by year. It is a pity they could not be transferred en masse to the Indian Territory. They work in iron, wool and leather; but to no great extent, ex- |
