The lances of the fighting men were planted upright in the ground in front of the entrance to the calli. These light lances, made of flexible reed, sixteen or eighteen feet long, and armed at one end with a long grooved iron, forged by the Indians themselves, are the most redoubtable weapons of the Apaches.
The liveliest joy seemed to animate the atepelt. In some callis the women were spinning the wool of their flocks with their spindles; in others they wove those zarapés, so renowned for their fineness and the perfection of the work, at looms of primitive simplicity.
The young people of the tribe, assembled in the centre of the atepelt,—a large open space,—were playing at milt (an Indian word signifying "arrow") a singular game, to which the Indians are greatly addicted.
The players trace a large circle on the ground, into which they step, arranging themselves in two opposite rows. The leader of one row, holding a ball filled with air in the right hand, the leader of the other in the left, they throw their balls backwards with a motion which brings them in front again. The left leg is then lifted, the ball caught and hurled at the opposite player, whose body it must touch, under penalty of losing a point. A thousand extravagant contortions ensue on the part of the latter, in order to avoid the ball: he stoops, he rises, bends himself backwards or forwards, jumps up where he stands, or bounds to one side. If the ball quits the ring, the first player loses two points and runs after it; if, on the contrary, the second is struck, he must seize the ball and throw it back at his opponent, whom it must hit, or he loses a point. The next in order, at the opposite side of the ring, begins the game again; and so on, till the close of the sport.
One can understand what shouts of laughter arise from the grotesque attitudes into which the players fall as the game goes on.
Other Indians of riper age, were gravely playing with curious packs of cards, made of squares of hide, coarsely painted with figures of different animals.
In a calli larger and better painted than the other huts of the atepelt—the dwelling of the sachem, or principal chief, whose lances, ornamented at the foot with pieces of skin-dyed red, were the distinguishing badge of power—three men, crouched round the embers of a fire, were, talking, heedless of the uproar without. They were the Tigercat, the Zopilote, and the amantzin, or the sorcerer of the tribe.
The Zopilote was a half-breed, who had taken refuge with the Apaches long ago, and been adopted by them. This man, every way worthy of the name he bore, was a wretch whose cold and malignant cruelty revolted the very Indians, who are themselves not delicate in matters of this kind. The Tigercat had made this ferocious miscreant, who was devoted to him, prime-minister of his vengeance, and the docile instrument of his will. His latest wife, to whom he had been married a year, had given birth to a boy that morning—hence the rejoicings of the Indians; and he had come to take the orders of the Tigercat—the great chief of the tribe—with respect to the ceremonies usual on the like occasions.
The Zopilote left the calli, to which he speedily returned, followed by his wives and all his friends, one of whom held the infant in his arms. The Tigercat, placing himself between the Zopilote and the amantzin at the head of the party, led them towards the Rio Grande del Norte.
The procession halted on the bank of the river; the amantzin took a little water in the hollow of his hand, and threw it into the air, muttering a prayer to the Master of the life of men. He next proceeded to the great medicine; that is, the newborn child, wrapped in his woollen swaddling bands, was five times plunged into the waters of the river, while the amantzin repeated, in a loud voice: