The Jaguar, on reaching the cross roads, found the cart smashed, and most of its defenders lying dead on the ground. Singular to say, they had all been scalped. Tranquil, Quoniam, Carmela, and Lanzi had disappeared. What terrible drama could have been performed at this spot?
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE ATEPETL.
Texas is intersected by two lines of continuous forests, which run from the north, near the sources of the Rio Trinidad to the Arkansas river. These forests are called the "Cross Timbers;" behind them commence the immense prairies of Apacheria, on which countless herds of buffaloes and wild horses wander about at liberty.
In the centre of a narrow valley, enclosed on three sides by the denuded and serrated crests of the mountains—and on the banks of the Rio Sabina, a little above its confluence with the Vermejo, where it still flows wide and transparent between undulating banks, bordered by clumps of cotton-wood trees and dwarf palms—an Indian village was deliciously scattered among the trees. The latter formed a dense dome of foliage over the callis, which they sheltered from the hot beams of the southern sun, and protected from the cold gusts which at times descend from the mountains in the winter season. This village was a winter atepetl of the Comanche Indians, belonging to the Antelope tribe. We will describe in a few words this village, where several important scenes connected with our narrative will take place.
Although, built to the fancy of the Redskins, the callis affected a certain regularity of construction, as they all converged on a common point, which formed a species of grand square in the heart of the village. In the centre of this square could be seen a large unhooped barrel, deeply buried in the ground, and covered with lichens and stonecrop. It was the "ark of the first man." It was here that the war stake was planted before the great medicine lodge; and here, under grave circumstances, the Sachems lit the council fire, and smoked the sacred calumet ordinarily placed before the entrance of the calli of the chief Sachem, and supported on two forked sticks, as it must never touch the ground.
The Indian callis are generally constructed in a spherical shape, built on piles covered with mud, over which buffalo hides sewn together, and displaying numerous pictures of animals painted in vermilion, are thrown. On a scaffolding standing in front of the calli, Indian corn, forage for the horses, and the winter provisions of each inhabitant were stored. At intervals could be seen tall poles, from which waved, at the slightest breath of air, blankets, harness, and fragments of stuffs of every description, the homage raised by the superstitious Redskins to the Master of Life, a species of ex voto torn from them by their fears, and named the "Medicine of Hope."
The village, excepting on the side turned to the Sabina river, was surrounded by a strong palisade about fifteen feet high, made of enormous trunks of trees, fastened together with strips of bark and wooden cramp hooks. At about five or, six hundred yards from the atepetl was the cemetery, the exhalations from which, by disagreeably affecting the traveller's sense of smell, advised him that he was approaching an Indian tribe. The natives of America, like most of those in Polynesia, have a very singular mode of burial. As a general rule, they do not inter their dead, but suspend them between earth and sky. After wrapping them carefully in blankets and buffalo robes, they place them on platforms supported on four poles some fifty feet high, and leave them exposed to the rain and sun to decompose gradually. The birds of prey incessantly hover over these strange tombs, uttering shrill and discordant cries, while making a disgusting meal on the putrefying flesh.
Two months after the battle of the Cerro Pardo, on the day when we resume our narrative, and about an hour before sunset, on a delicious afternoon of September,—which the Indians call the Moon of the Wild Oats—several riders, mounted on fiery mustangs, harnessed in the desert fashion, that is to say, painted of several colours, and adorned with plumes and bells, were following, while conversing together rather eagerly, a winding path, which runs for several leagues along the winding course of the Rio Sabina, and terminates at the winter atepetl of the Antelope Comanches, which we described at the beginning of this chapter.