Mr. Barrows, who has described the game of peon tells of the bird dances of the Coahuillas. These Indians highly regard certain birds. Of all, the eagle is chief. In the eagle dance the dancer wears a breech-clout; his face, body, and limbs are painted in red, black, and white; his [pg 206] dance skirt and dance bonnet are made of eagle feathers. In his dancing and whirling he imitates the circling and movements of the eagle. At times he whirls about the great circle of spectators so rapidly that his feather skirt stands up straight below his arms. The music of this dance is so old that the words are not understood even by the singers.
Mission of Santa Barbara, California. (From Photograph.)
They took possession in 1697 and built a Mission at San Dionisio, in Lower California. By 1745, they had fourteen Missions established, all in what is now Lower California. The Jesuits gave way to the Franciscan [pg 207] monks, and these began in 1769 their first Mission in California proper, at San Diego. One after another was added, until, in 1823, there were twenty-one Franciscan Missions, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. Each mission had a piece of ground fifteen miles square. The center of the Mission was the church, with cloisters where the monks lived. The houses of the Indian converts—which were little huts—were grouped together about the church, arranged in rows. Unmarried men were housed in a separate building or buildings, as were young women also. During the sixty-five years of these Missions about seventy-nine thousand converts were made. Every one at these Missions was busy. The men kept the flocks and herds, sheared the sheep, and cared for the fields and vines. Women cared for the houses and the church. There was spinning, weaving, leather work, and plenty else to be done. Still the Indians were not hard worked, and they ought to have been happy. Their time was regularly planned out for them. At sunrise all rose and went to mass; soon after mass breakfast was ready and sent to the houses in baskets; then every one worked. At noon dinner was sent around again from house to house; then came the afternoon work. After evening mass, there was a supper of sweet gruel. There was a good deal of time left after the services and work were through. The monks allowed the Indians to keep up their native dances [pg 208] and amusements so far as they believed them harmless.
Some persons seem to think that the monks made slaves of the Indians. Rather they considered them children, who needed oversight, direction, and sometimes punishment. However, the Indians were probably better dressed and housed and fed than ever before, and, perhaps, happier. But the Missions are now past. Their twenty-one old churches still stand,—our most interesting historical relics,—but the Indian converts have scattered, and in time they will forget, if they have not already forgotten, that they or their people were ever Mission Indians.
XXXI. The Aztecs.
When the Spaniards reached Mexico, that country was filled with Indians belonging to many different tribes. These differed in language and in customs. Perhaps the most powerful and warlike tribe was that of the Aztecs, who lived in the central high table-land, with a chief city named Tenochtitlan. This city, occupying the same site as the present city of Mexico, was situated upon the shores of, and partly within, the lake of Texcoco. The lake lay in a beautiful valley which was occupied not only by the Aztecs, but also by a number of other tribes related to [pg 209] them in speech. Among these tribes were the Acolhuas, with their chief city of Texcoco, and the Tecpanecans, whose chief city was Tlacopan.
These three tribes spoke about the same language, and, after a great deal of quarreling among themselves, they united in a league or confederacy something like that of the Iroquois. Together, they were so strong that they carried on successful war against their neighbors. When they conquered a tribe, they did not take its land away nor interfere with its government, but compelled the people to pay an annual tribute to the confederacy. At the head of the confederacy was a great war-chief, who was called by the title of the Chief of Men. When Cortez conquered Mexico, the name of this “Chief of Men” was Montezuma.
The Aztecs raised crops of corn, beans, squashes, and chili peppers. Still they got a considerable amount of food from hunting, and they knew how to make snares and traps for capturing animals. Their lake used to be covered with ducks, and to capture these they employed a clever trick. Calabashes are large gourds. The Aztec hunters left calabashes floating at places where ducks were plenty so that the birds should be used to seeing them, and pay no attention to them. When a man wished to catch ducks, he placed a big calabash over his head, and waded cautiously out into the water until it was just deep enough for it to look as if his calabash were floating. Little by little, he moved over toward the swimming [pg 210] ducks, and, when among them, he seized one by the legs and dragged it under water; then another, and another, and so on. Ducks were not the only food taken from the lake. The scum or dirt floating on the water was skimmed off, and pressed into cakes; the eggs of a fly, which were laid in bunches on the rushes, near, or in the water, were gathered and eaten. These eggs are still a favorite food with modern Mexicans.