418 NOTES ON THE " TONTO " APACHES. 



tbey expected to arrive at the fort for the purpose of making peace, and that 

 together they numbered about two thousand (2,000.) 



Their average height is about five feet four or five inches. Thej are slimly 

 built, and possess but little muscular development, yet they are very agile, 

 climbing the mountains with great rapidity, and running on more level ground 

 for many miles without any semblance of fatigue. The skin is of a light brown- 

 ish red color, so fair in many instances as to lead to the probably correct sup- 

 position that Spanish blood has been mixed with the Indian stock. The features 

 present nothing peculiar. They have generally the traits well marked of the 

 American Indian ; some, however, have a full round face and Chinese cast of 

 countenance. The head is covered with a mass of rusty black hair, cut off in 

 front on a level with the eye-brows, and permitted to gi-ow a little longer behind, 

 but never reaching the shoulders ; occasionally the hair is worn quite short, round 

 head cut. The beard, when any does grow, is dragged out hair by hair, by 

 means of an elongated piece of tin, formed into a forceps by being bent lengthwise 

 on itself, and which is usually carried suspended from the neck by a thong of buck- 

 skin. 



They practice no such disfigui'ement as flattening the head, but among the 

 women were observed a few who had had the cartilaginous portion of the nose 

 cut off, thereby spoiling their good looks, for it was noticeable that only those 

 who had any pretensions to beauty had been so mutilated. 



A scrofulous taint affects their system ; this was more distinctly manifested 

 among the children ; but of the adults many were suffering from strumous 

 ojihthalmia or its consequences. 



The dysentery, which at the time was severe on the troops stationed at the 

 fort, did not exempt the Indians from its attacks. One died from this disease 

 during their stay here, and many were said to be sick in the mountains. 



With one exception they were not painted. The paint in the exceptional 

 case was of a grayish white color, and laid on in lines, narrow, closely set, and 

 wavy, transverse and parallel, covering the face, chest, and back. Their dress 

 consists of the breech-cloth and a pair of buckskin moccasins. The latter have 

 a stout hard sole, which curves upwards a little in front of the toes; poorer speci- 

 mens only cover the ankles, but others are so long that when drawn up they encase 

 the thighs. This, with a leather bracelet on one wrist and a bow and quiver 

 of arrows, forms the general outfit. But others are more completely equipped, 

 wearing a buckskin thi'own over one shoulder and fastened in the opposite arm- 

 pit, and perhaps possessing a waist-belt of leather and an old sheath-knife, the 

 product probably of some Sonora enterprise. 



Some of them carried a straight stick about five feet long, curved into a hook 

 at one end, like the handle of a walking-stick. This they call kish-ish-ai, and 

 use it in hooking* down the fruit leguara and in tearing up the earth when 

 breaking into a rat or rabbit hole. They possessed also about half a dozen 

 lances, formed of a long knife or bayonet socketed into the end of a long pole. 

 The bow is a stout piece of tough wood obtained from a tree stated by those 

 who have seen it to bear some resemblance to the mulberry. It is about five 

 feet long, strengthened at points by a wrapping of sinew. It is straight along 

 the greater part of its length, but curves lightly towards its extremities, which 

 are joined by a sinew string stranded and rolled into a perfect round. Their 

 arrows from notch to point are three feet long. They are formed of a cane 

 which grows in the mountains in the neighborhood of springs and water-courses. 

 For a distance of six or seven inches from the notch the cane is winged with 

 four strips of feather, held in place by threads of sinew. Into the hollow of its 

 other extremity is inserted a slender piece of stiff wood, which is colored, as if 

 with the blood of some animal, and which bears on its free end an elongated 

 triangular piece of quartz, flint, or rarely iron. This arrow-head is sharp at the 

 point and slightly serrated along the margin. In some the slender cylinder of 



