BULL. 30] 



CHIRICAHIJA 



283 



Like many other Indians they would 

 never speak their own names nor 

 on any account sjjeak of a dead member 

 of the trilie. Thev tilled the ground a 



LOCO — CHIRICAHUA CHIEF 



Uttle with wooden implements, obtaining 

 corn and melon seeds from the INIexicans. 

 In their clans all were equal. Bands, 

 according to White, were formed of 

 clans, and chiefs were chosen for their 

 ability and courage, although there is 

 evidence that chiefship was sometimes 

 hereditary, as in the case of Cochise, son 

 and successor of Nachi. Chiefs and old 

 men were usually deferred to in council. 

 They used the brain of the deer in dress- 

 ing buckskin. It is said that they charged 

 their arrows with a quick deadly poison, 

 obtained by irritating a rattlesnake with 

 a forked stick, causing it to bite into a 

 deer's liver, which, when saturated with 

 the venom, was allowed to putrefy. They 

 stalked the deer and the antelope l^y 

 covering their heads with the skull of 

 the animal and imitating with their 

 crouching body the movements of one 

 grazing; and it Mas their custom to ap- 

 proach an enemy's camp at night in a 

 similar manner, covering their heads with 

 brush. They signaled war or peace by 

 a great blaze or smoke made by burning 

 cedar boughs or the inflammable spines 

 on the giant cactus. Of their social or- 

 ganization very little is definitely known, 

 and the statements of the two chief au- 

 thorities are widely at variance. Accord- 

 ing to White, the children belong to the 

 gens of the father, while Bourke as- 

 serts that the true clan system prevails. 

 They married usually outside of the gens. 



according to White, and never relatives 

 nearer than a second cousin. A young 

 warrior seeking a wife would first bargain 

 with her parents and then take a Imrse 

 to her dwelling. If she viewed his suit 

 with favor she would feed and water the 

 animal, and, seeing that, he would come 

 and fetch his bride, and after going on a 

 hunt for the honeymoon they would re- 

 turn to his jjeoj^le. When he took two 

 horses to the camp of the bride and killed 

 one of them it signified that her parents 

 had given her over to him without re- 

 gard to her consent. Youth was the 

 (juality most desired in a bride. After 

 she became a mother the hiisband might 

 take a second wife, and some had as many 

 as five, two or more of them often being 

 sisters. ^Married women were usually 

 faithful and terribly jealous, so that sin- 

 gle girls did not care to incur their rage. 

 A woman in confinement went off to a 

 hut by herself, attended by her women 

 relatives. Children received their earli- 

 est names from something particularly 

 noticeable at the time of their birth. As 

 among the Navaho, a man never spoke to 

 his mother-in-law, and treated his wife's 

 fatherwith distant respect; and his broth- 

 ers were never familiar with his wife 

 nor he with her sisters and brothers. 

 Faithless wives were punished by whip- 

 ping and cutting off a portion of the nose, 

 after which they were cast off. Little 



TSHAI-KLOGE— CHIRICAHUA WOMAN 



gii'ls were often purchased or adopted by 

 men who kept them until they were old 

 enough for them to marry. Often girls 

 were married when only 10 or 11 years of 

 age. Children of both sexes had perfect 

 freedom, were not required to obey, and 



