"Females are not permitted to dance; their places are taken by young men who dress in imitation of the women. All the dancers wear masks made of peeled willow twigs nicely woven together; males have theirs dyed brown, and supposed females bright yellow.
"The vice of drunkenness and crime of murder are not known among this people.
"They are kind, warm-hearted, and hospitable. They believe that their great father, Montezuma, lives where the sun rises."
Mr. Cozzens studied their manners and customs, and endeavored to learn something of the history of this singular race. He says that it is asserted by the people of the other pueblos "that they are descendants of the Aztecs, though with Welsh blood in their veins."
That they have occupied their present location for a long time may be inferred from the fact that their feet have worn down the path in the rock between the several villages to the depth of some inches.
The Mohaves, who are on the Colorado River Reservation, Arizona, are a small, isolated tribe, not more than perhaps a thousand all told. They are different from all other Indians. The women are tall, cleanly, and less servile than most Indian women. Their language is peculiar, and has Welsh words in it. The more recent reports of the United States Government agents contain complaints against the vile traders who are leading this once sober and respectable tribe into all sorts of vice, drunkenness, immorality, loathsome diseases, and crimes. White men, with their boasted civilization and virtues, drag the Indians to the brink of ruin, and then crowd them over as vile and disgusting creatures.
The perfidious and barbarous massacre of General Canby, Rev. Eleazer Thomas, and others, by that savage band called the Modocs, brought them into an unenviable notoriety; but, while passing, it is worthy of query how they came by a name so much like that of Madoc.