Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/208

] through, so that the Pimas fought on foot. Without the advantage of surprise the ardor of the latter soon cooled, and being of divided opinion as to the advisability of pursuit, they permitted the enemy to escape with a loss of but 6. Then this by no means inconsiderable body of warriors marched bravely home again. Further accounts of more sanguinary struggles are given in The Narrative, in the present paper, page 38.

Three Pima women known to Sikaʽtcu went out on the mesa to gather cactus fruit. Another woman was asked to accompany them, but at first she refused to go because she had had a bed dream. After the others had started she set out to follow them and ran into a trap set for them at the hills south of the villages, The four captives were forced to walk naked before their enemies. Two were soon killed by the wayside. That night two Apaches were detailed to watch the other two women, These men relaxed their vigilance toward morning, whereupon the captives gathered all the bows and arrows of the party and threw them over the cliff. They also tried to strangle their captors and partially succeeded. They then made their escape. One of these brave women is yet living.

It was customary for the Pimas to attack the Apaches at night or at the earliest dawn. This required careful scouting during the preceding day in order to locate the position of the enemy, who were always at least equally alert and wary, without betraying their own presence.

On one of their raids toward the east a war party came upon a young Apache and his wife in the Sierra Tortilla. The man escaped, but the woman, named Hitalu’ĭ, was captured and brought to the villages, where she was questioned through Lâ’lâlĭ, an Apache woman who had been captured in childhood. The chief asked about the attack that had recently been made upon a party of Pimas at Ta-a’tû-kam. She replied, "I shall tell you the truth about that. I shall never take my life to my people again. I am here to my death." She was soon led to the open ground east of the Double buttes, where a death dance was held with the captive in the center of a group of old women, for it was not dangerous for them to touch the Apache. Outside the old women the other members of the community danced until at length the victim was killed by an old man who stepped upon her throat. The body was tied to a pole in an upright position and left as a warning to Apache prowlers.

These raids were not infrequent, but they could hope to reap no better reward for their efforts than revenge for past injuries, whereas the Apaches were spurred on to constantly renewed attacks for the sake of the plunder that they might secure. Thus the feral pauper preyed upon the sedentary toiler, but paid dearly in blood for his occasional prize of grain or live stock. The effect upon the two tribes