The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1926, Page 62

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62

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

been averted by treatment, set in, and before long
he could see only a glimmer of light. Recently he
returned to America for treatment in the hope of
restoring the sight of one eye. F. J. L.

Flashes from Apache Life.

By request I shall give you several flash-light
pictures, as it-were, of Apache Indian life found in
Arizona.

1. We shall first make a visit to an Apache
“tepee” — that is what we call a wigwam out west.
The Apache tepee looks like a large inverted bushel
basket covered with canvas, a little “hole being left
in the inverted bottom to serve as a chimney. The

“Coyote” (H 2), a Seventy-Five-Year-Old Apache.
Teepee in Background.

canvas is tightly stretched over a framework of poles,
brush, and weeds. The Apache women not only
plan the home, but they are also the sole architects,
carpenters, and contractors. .

2. Now let us look into one of these tepees. We
lift up the piece of cloth hanging over the yard-high
entrance. The floor is mother earth. An inviting
fire is blazing in the center of the floor. A pot of
coffee is steaming on the coals. Our eyes soon ad-
just themselves to the dim’ light, and we discern
@ young man and his wife squatting on a mattress
a little distance from the fire. A three-year-old son
soon overcomes his bashfulness and crawls out from
under some blankets under which he has been hiding.

The woman is just’ baking tortillas, a kind of
large, thin pancake made of flour and water. We

_ notice that the kitchen utensils consist mainly of
‘a frying-pan, a few knives, a kettle or two, some

their début into society.

cups, and a coffee-pot. From the framework ofthe
tepee are suspended, in chaotic order, a looking-
glass, a sack of flour, some sugar, meat, shoes,
scissors, stockings, and many other things. If an
impressionist should see such a sight, he might put
it on canvas and entitle it “Housekeeping.” And
yet, in such tepees are to be found couples and
families more contented and happier than in some
of the largest houses in the most exclusive residence
district of St. Louis. True happiness depends on
the heart, and not on the hearth.

3. Let us next interview an Apache medicine-
man. An eagle feather and turquoise beads are his
usual badge of office. He tells us that illness is
caused by evil spirits; that these evil spirits appear
in the form of animals and through them cause
sickness. He must discover which animal caused
the illness. He sings songs, accompanied with the
tom-tom, to placate the evil spirit and drive it out.
If a snake song fails to do the work, a bear song
will perhaps be tried. Such chanting will be kept
up all night, sometimes several nights in succession,
until the patient recovers or dies or has no more
money to pay for further treatments. These medi-
cine-men do not handle any charity cases.

4. The Apaches have a number of strange super-
stitions. They are mortally afraid of the owl.
Families have been known to move camp the very

_next morning after an owl had flown and hooted

over their tepee during the night.

Another superstition is one that would not be
out of place in many white families, and the intro-
duction of which would perhaps prevent much do-
mestic trouble. The Apache husband must under,
no condition ever look upon the face of his mother-
in-law. Failure to observe this rule would most
surely result in blindness for him. He may speak
to her, and she may speak to him; but one of them
must be in hiding.

One of their superstitions is very cruel, so that,
on the very face of it, one can see that it is from the
devil, who is a father of lies and a murderer from
the beginning. This superstition demands that an
infant showing any physical defect at birth must be
done away-with by the mother. ‘The same fate
awaits the weaker of a pair of twins. :

5. The great event of the year in the social and
religious life of the heathen Apaches is the devil
dance, which is also called “coming-out party,” from
the fact that on this occasion one or more girls,
generally at the age of twelve or thirteen, make

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