American Desert. It bore to them almost the same economic relation that the camel does to the Bedouin, the reindeer to the Laplander. It supplied, with scarcely any labour, a nutritious meat-food, and furnished from its pelt a coat, cloak, and blanket noticeable for warmth, lightness, and elegance, and used by all tribes west of the Rocky Mountains from Alaska to Mexico.
The elk, deer, or antelope might, and did at times, capriciously desert favourite ranges, but the rabbit remained constant to its burrow under the shadow of the sage-brush.
The Rocky Mountain lion occupies a conspicuous place in the religious system of all Indians west of the Missouri.[1]
The Apaches, being less given to pictographic work than other native tribes, are so much the better able to conceal their religious symbolism from profane gaze, but to all the above are assigned positions of honour in so much of their religion as relates to animal worship.
Before going out on hunts for deer, antelope, or elk, it was their custom to resort to sacred caves, in which, with prayer and sacrifices, the "medicine-men" endeavoured to propitiate the animal gods whose progeny they intended to destroy.
An old Navajo chief once explained that when his people made an antelope "drive", one at least of the animals was allowed to escape from the enclosure.
Both Navajoes and Apaches look upon the lion as a hunting-god, and quivers made of its skin are in great demand as a "medicine" for those who are about to pursue elk or deer.
In these hunting sacrifices, offerings are made of baskets,
- ↑ Above the Pueblo of Cochiti, on the Rio Grande, is a ruined town of good size, where are two large stone idols, carved in the semblance of this terrible beast. The inhabitants of the Pueblo below still stain the mouths of these deities with red paint, a souvenir, no doubt, of the good old days when human blood smoked on their altars.
