On the Border with Crook

by John Gregory Bourke

General Crook not only saw to the condition of the Hualpais, but of their relatives, the Mojaves, on the river, and kept them both in good temper towards the whites; not only this, but more than this—he sent up among the Pi-Utes of Nevada and Southern Utah and explained the situation to them and secured the promise of a contingent of one hundred of their warriors for service against the Apaches, should the latter decline to listen to the propositions of the commissioner sent to treat with them. When hostilities did break out, the Pi-Utes sent down the promised auxiliaries, under their chief, “Captain Tom,” and, like the Hualpais, they rendered faithful service.

What has become of the Pi-Utes I cannot say, but of the Hualpais I am sorry to have to relate that the moment hostilities ended, the Great Father began to ignore and neglect them, until finally their condition became so deplorable that certain fashionable ladies of New York, who were doing a great deal of good unknown to the world at large, sent money to General Crook to be used in keeping them from starving to death.

Liquor is freely given to the women, who have become fearfully demoralized, and I can assert of my own knowledge that five years since several photographers made large sales along the Atlantic and Pacific railroad of the pictures of nude women of this once dreaded band, which had committed no other offence than that of trusting in the faith of the Government of the United States.

In the desolate, romantic country of the Hualpais and their brothers, the Ava-Supais, amid the Cyclopean monoliths which line the cañons of Cataract Creek, the Little Colorado, the Grand Cañon or the Diamond, one may sit and listen, as I have often listened, to the simple tales and myths of a wild, untutored race. There are stories to be heard of the prowess of “Mustamho” and “Matyavela,” of “Pathrax-sapa” and “Pathrax-carrawee,” of the goddess “Cuathenya,” and a multiplicity of deities—animal and human—which have served to beguile the time after the day’s march had ended and night was at hand. All the elements of nature are actual, visible entities for these simple children—the stars are possessed of the same powers as man, all the chief animals have the faculty of speech, and the coyote is the one who is man’s good friend and has brought him the great boon of fire. The gods of the Hualpais are different in name though not in functions or peculiarities from those of the Apaches and Navajos, but are almost identical with those of the Mojaves.

As with the Apaches, so with the Hualpais, the “medicine men” wield an unknown and an immeasurable influence, and claim power over the forces of nature, which is from time to time renewed by rubbing the body against certain sacred stones not far from Beale Springs. The Hualpai medicine men also indulge in a sacred intoxication by breaking up the leaves, twigs, and root of the stramonium or “jimson weed,” and making a beverage which, when drunk, induces an exhilaration, in the course of which the drunkard utters prophecies.

While the colonies along the Atlantic coast were formulating their grievances against the English crown and preparing to throw off all allegiance to the throne of Great Britain, two priests of the Roman Catholic Church were engaged in exploring these desolate wilds, and in making an effort to win the Hualpais and their brothers to Christianity.

Father Escalante started out from Santa Fé, New Mexico, in the year 1776, and travelling northwest through Utah finally reached the Great Salt Lake, which he designated as the Lake of the Timpanagos. This name is perfectly intelligible to those who happen to know of the existence down to the present day of the band of Utes called the Timpanoags[Timpanoags], who inhabit the cañons close to the present city of Salt Lake. Travelling on foot southward, Escalante passed down through Utah and crossed the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, either at what is now known as Lee’s Ferry, or the mouth of the Kanab Wash, or the mouth of the Diamond; thence east through the Moqui and the Zuni villages back to Santa Fé. Escalante expected to be joined near the Grand Cañon by Father Garces, who had travelled from the mission of San Gabriel, near Los Angeles, and crossed the Colorado in the country inhabited by the Mojaves; but, although each performed the part assigned to him, the proposed meeting did not take place.

It is impossible to avoid reference to these matters, which will obtrude themselves upon the mind of any one travelling through Arizona. There is an ever-present suggestion of the past and unknown, that has a fascination all its own for those who yield to it. Thus, at Bowers’ Ranch on the Agua Fria, eighteen miles northeast from Prescott, one sits down to his supper in a room which once formed part of a prehistoric dwelling; and the same thing may be said of Wales Arnold’s, over near Montezuma’s Wells, where many of the stones used in the masonry came from the pueblo ruins close at hand.

Having visited the northern line of his department, General Crook gave all his attention to the question of supplies; everything consumed in the department, at that date, had to be freighted at great expense from San Francisco, first by steamship around Cape San Lucas to the mouth of the Rio Colorado, then up the river in small steamers as far as Ehrenburg and Fort Mojave, and the remainder of the distance—two hundred miles—by heavy teams. To a very considerable extent, these supplies were distributed from post to post by pack-trains, a proceeding which evoked the liveliest remonstrances from the contractors interested in the business of hauling freight, but their complaints availed them nothing. Crook foresaw the demands that the near future would surely make upon his pack-trains, which he could by no surer method keep in the highest discipline and efficiency than by having them constantly on the move from post to post carrying supplies. The mules became hardened, the packers made more skilful in the use of all the “hitches”—the “Diamond” and others—constituting the mysteries of their calling, and the detachments sent along as escorts were constantly learning something new about the country as well as how to care for themselves and animals.

Sixty-two miles from Prescott to the southwest lay the sickly and dismal post of Camp Date creek, on the creek of the same name. Here were congregated about one thousand of the band known as the Apache-Yumas, with a sprinkling of Apache-Mojaves, tribes allied to the Mojaves on the Colorado, and to the Hualpais, but differing from them in disposition, as the Date Creek people were not all anxious for peace, but would now and then send small parties of their young men to raid and steal from the puny settlements like Wickenburg. The culmination of the series was the “Loring” or “Wickenburg” massacre, so-called from the talented young scientist, Loring, a member of the Wheeler surveying expedition, who, with his companions—a stage-load—was brutally murdered not far from Wickenburg; of the party only two escaped, one a woman named Shephard, and the other a man named Kruger, both badly wounded.