“The training of the Pueblo Indians for life in a civilized environment must be slow. Their inherited habits and customs are exceedingly rigid and their prejudices are stubborn. The educated or progressive Indians among them have now a very hard road to travel. They need not only moral support, but sometimes actual physical protection. The superintendents should be encouraged tactfully but firmly to break up the personal despotism which often rules the villages, to protect the right of the individual to personal liberty, to insist upon the gradual adaptation of the pueblo life to its new environment. The Pueblos are now in a transition stage. They cannot pass through it without some bitter feelings and some hard experiences. They need the consistent, sympathetic, courageous leadership of their guardians, in whose good intentions they are beginning to trust.”

In closing the chapter on the desert Indians I desire to suggest that the older Pueblos be permitted to continue their weaving and pottery-making in their own way. It is perfectly proper to train the young in our arts, but the superb native arts of the old Indians should be encouraged. With the death of these old people, the art will deteriorate and disappear. I mention this particularly for the reason that several well-meaning, but misguided persons sent one or two representatives to Zuni and attempted to instruct the women in the manufacture of pottery. They even persuaded them to glaze the pottery and to make tiles. The movement, if continued on a large scale, would result in ruining an art which is fast disappearing.

The population is about stationary. The ceremonies of the antelope and snake societies are becoming more and more public. Recent photographs of them show hundreds of white persons, teams and automobiles, and admission is now charged, for the dances and attendant ceremonies are fast becoming commercialized. They have persisted because of the curious life of these people—a people who live, as it were, in a different world. With the extension of education, the allotment system, and the continual effort of Government employees to break down the old and insert the new, the real life of the Pueblos will soon pass away forever.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE CAREER OF GERONIMO

This fighting man was for many years feared and hated. He was not a docile person, and his tribe did not tamely submit to kicks and curses—the treatment meted out to his more gentle red brothers in California and Arizona. They were despised, trodden under foot, cast aside; not so with the Apaches and Geronimo. It required more than two years’ labor on the part of hundreds of our cavalry to catch him, and when he surrendered there were but seventy-four in his band.

Now that everything regarding the Indian is being made public, I deem it important that the true history of Geronimo be set forth.

In 1905 this chief published the story of his life. His book is a remarkable production, and gives the Indian point of view, which is rare indeed.[[43]]

Mr. Barrett, who wrote the story at Geronimo’s dictation, had much trouble with the War Department. Officers objected to the narrative, and he was compelled to secure permission from President Roosevelt. Even then the War Department advised against publication.

The history of the Apaches dates from the time of Coronado, who is supposed to have penetrated their country in 1541–’43 when he marched north in search of the fabled “seven cities of Cibola.” There is no record of the Apaches, or any other Indians for that matter, beginning hostilities against the Spaniards. After Coronado, the Spaniards and the Apaches were at war for three centuries. The Spaniards pursued their usual policy in dealing with these people, and the latter returned an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Geronimo and his people had abundant cause for their hatred of the Spaniards. It was a different story in Arizona and northern Mexico from that of California and central Mexico. Today the California Indians are paupers, and the gentle Aztecs have long since perished, but the sturdy Apaches remain and live in more or less prosperity on their several reservations.