[CHAPTER XII.]
THE REDSKINS.
We must now return to the Far West.
On the banks of the Rio Grande del Norte, about ten leagues' distance from the presidio of San Lucar stood the atepelt, or temporary village, of Des Venados.
The atepelt, a simple camp, like most of the Indian villages, consisted of about a hundred callis, or huts, irregularly grouped near each other.
Each calli was built of about a dozen stakes driven into the ground, four or five feet high at the sides, and six or seven in the centre, with an aperture towards the east, for the master of the calli to throw water in the direction of the rising sun—a ceremony by which the Indians conjure the Wacondah to befriend their families during the course of the day just breaking.
These callis were covered with bison hides sewn together, with a hole in the centre to admit the exit of the smoke of the fires kindled in the interior,—fires which equal in number the wives of the owner, each wife having a right to a fire of her own.
The hides which formed the outer walls were carefully dressed, and painted of divers colours; the painting, by its extravagance, enlivening the aspect of the atepelt.