NOTES ON THE "TONTO" APACHES. 



BY CHARLES SMART, BREVET CAPTAIN AND ASSISTANT SURGEON U. S, ARMY, 

 FORT M'DOWELL, ARIZONA. 



[A partial vocabulary of the lacguage accompanied the original, which ^vill appear elsewhere. ] 



They form a village or sub-tribe of the people known as Apaches. They 

 call themselves " Coyateros ; " Americans and Mexicans call them " Tontos," 

 applying the name " Coyatero Apaches " to a tribe dwelling in the mountains 

 southeast of this, beyond the Gila river. 



About a year ago, that is previous to the arrival of the United States troops 

 in this part of the Territory of Arizona, these Indians dwelt in the neighbor- 

 hood of what is now the site of Fort McDowell, on the banks of the Verde or 

 San Francisco river, a few miles above its junction with the Salinas, Rio Salado, 

 or Salt river. The Verde at this point runs southward through a valley about 

 twenty miles broad, which is bounded on the east by the Mazatsal range of 

 mountains, and on the west by a chain of hills to which no name has been 

 applied. The bottom lands are very narrow, not more than a half a mile broad 

 at their broadest part. The soil is sandy, but when irrigated is very fertile, 

 yielding large returns of corn, sorghum, beans, melons, &c. Cottonwood trees, 

 willows, and alder, line the banks in great luxuriance, and grape, melon, and 

 hop vines bind the whole, often into an impenetrable thicket. 



From these low lauds, extending outwards and 'gradually rising to the foot- 

 bills of the mountain ranges, is a dry rocky " mesa " very irregular in surface, 

 from the numberless deep " arroyos" which the autumn rains have washed out. 

 The " mesa " is more or less completely covered with sage brush, mesquite, 

 palo verde, and a variety of individuals of the cactus family. Towards the 

 mountains grows the mescal, much used by the Indians as an article of food. 

 During the rainy months, July, August, and September, a light covering of 

 grass spreads over it, but throughout the greater part of the year it is bare 

 and garish — rocky on the ridges, sandy in the arroyos. 



On the Mesa, more especially towards the mountains, deer are occasionally 

 met. Cayotes and rabbits are plentiful, of the latter two kinds — the cotton-tail and 

 Jackson rabbit ; rats, gophers, and other rodents are equally numerous. Of 

 birds, quail exist in great abundance. Here the Indians say they were born 

 and grew up, living upon deer, rabbits, rats, mescal, mesquite beans, cactus 

 fruits, and a variety of nuts gathered on the mountains. They were at constant 

 war with the Piuinos, and made occasional plundering excursions to Sonora, 

 but on the establishment of Fort McDowell they retired to the eastern moun- 

 tains, taking up their abode in the canons to the north and east of the Mazatsal 

 peaks. Of late their rancheria has so often been broken into by scouting parties 

 of the friendly Indians, that they do not seem to have established a permanent 

 settlement. But the permanent differs in nothing from the temporary hut, both 

 being simply a brush shanty, with a hole scooped in its floor by way of bed- 

 room. 



In this sub-tribe, during the time it remained at the fort, I counted a hundred 

 and fifty warriors and forty women and children, but the majority of the women 

 and children, and probably a proportion of the warrioi-s, did not leave the moun- 

 tains. They gave us to understand that there was sickness among the people 

 in the hills. They stated that there were other villages of their people whom 



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