nce, during my captivity, I became
quite reconciled to the absence of salt, and for months after my return
to the whites did not feel any desire to use it. So strong is the force
of habit.

It had been announced that during the annual religious ceremonies soon
to commence, we would have the pleasure of entertaining a band of "club"
Apaches, who would participate in the festivities, and preparations of
the most elaborate character were made for their reception and
entertainment.

Of all my experience in the character of a captive, these were, perhaps,
the most shocking. Never shall I forget the terrible ordeal of that
bloody week, when human gore ran like water, and it seemed a miracle
that such a band of fiends were not swept off the face of the earth!

CHAPTER XXII.

FEASTS, FASTS, AND FACTS.

This chapter is to be a faithful description of mystery, hocus-pocus,
_vou-doo_, and Indian superstition, concrete and abstract. The entire
ceremonial of Indian worship has for its groundwork the basest and most
groveling superstition. All events in any way out of the ordinary run of
human affairs are directly traced to the Good or Evil Spirit.

If their affairs are in any way confused, or do their war parties come
to grief, the misfortune is laid at the door of O-kee-hee-de (the Evil
Spirit), and when fortune smiles upon them, and bountiful harvests,
game, scalps, and victories are theirs, it is directly attributable to
the influence of the Great Spirit.

An infant's knowledge begins by the inculcation of this proposition, and
during its lifetime, existence is enjoyable or the reverse, according as
the Good or Evil Spirit smiles on him. In this fact is displayed the
resemblance between a savage _fetich_ and the ideal Christian religion.
It is the distinction that exists between the bud and full-blown
flower,--a wild, barbarous groping after the perfected civilized idea.
The Indian has his ideas of a heaven and a purgatory, but they are
carnal and material. As he lives in this world, so he proposes to exist
in the world hereafter. The happy hunting grounds are merely a
repetition of his present life, only in those blissful elysian fields a
Good Spirit wills that game shall always be in abundance, and hunting
facilities inexhaustible. Contrary to the faith that obtains among
Christians, the Indian maintains that the Good Spirit inhabits the
realms of the Evil Spirit, while his opposite, the Evil One, haunts the
do