Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/496

440 Eagle and hawk feathers adorn the bonnets of warriors. The plumage of the wild turkey, cut to simulate velvet, is extensively used in the same manufacture. These war-bonnets are solemnly blessed by the "medicine-men", and made as much as possible of materials of reputed potency in warding off danger, and in imparting valour and skill to the wearer. It may be surmised that here is a hint as to the "medicine" powers of the turkey.

The bear is foremost in the esteem or fear of this brave people. He is never mentioned except in terms of respect, and always with the prefix of "Ostin" (literally "old man", but a reverential corresponding to the Latin word senator.)

The killing of a grizzly is the signal for a war-dance, in which the "medicine-men" appear in all their glory. The pelt is carried about in a circle, borne first on the shoulders of the slayer, and then upon those of the other warriors.

Strange to say, that peculiar animal, the mule, receives from the Apaches a reverent consideration. Whether this be from fear of a sudden and deadly kick, or for some other reason, cannot be positively asserted. Revered as a god during life, the mule, after death, is ravenously eaten by the savage devotee who so short a time before had referred to it with the same reverential term, "Ostin", applied to bear, snake, and lightning.

A sacred origin is ascribed to the horse. In this all American Indian tribes agree. History tells that the Aztecs were disposed to fall down and worship the horses brought in by Cortez, sprinkling the air with flour of sacrifice, and in every way treating them as gods; so did the Moquis the horses of Don Antonio Espejo in 1580. The Sioux call the horse the "great medicine" (i.e., the sacred) dog. The Cheyennes style it the "great medicine elk". The Apache word is Thlin or Jhliu.

One of the divisions of the great Tinneh race, living under the Arctic circle, to which the Arizona, Navajoes, and Apaches belong, designates itself the Thlin-cha, or