Tlie Field and Its Workers
15
carefully clean all parts of the body of the captive; then they conduct him in a procession to the place of torture, singing some military songs. They bind him securely to a tree, or stake, which they have prepared. The boys then go out and shoot arrows at him, so as to familiarize them- selves in youth with inhumanity and barbarity. When they become tired of this brutal amusement, they follow the warriors, who with arrows, pikes, lances, and knives, slowly take the prisoner's life. Immediately, and before the victim has breathed his last, they all fall upon the wretched victim, open his abdomen, take out his entrails, which they throw into the bushes, cut pieces of flesh from the body, which they keep for other feasts, or send to those who are absent, or eat immediately raw, or roasted, according to the fury or taste that dominates each of them. This infamous scene finished, they begin [to celebrate] the victory, the captains lauding the captor, to whom all the other members of the feast give something of importance, such as horses, rifles, chamois or tanned deer skins, or beautiful buffalo robes. These praises and presents stimulate a powerful desire in the others to emulate [the deeds of the captor] that incites them to refine their cunning and treachery to surprise their enemies and win similar approval." 31 It was for these Indians that the San Saba mission was founded. The attempt to befriend this cruel and fierce nation at the time, when they were being hard pressed by the combined nations of the north and the equally ruthless Comanches, was a serious mistake in the Indian policy of Spanish officials. Morfi fully realizes this fact and vigorously declared that had the Spaniards not befriended the Apaches, the missions founded for the nations of the north would have been successful. He points out that the error had its origin in the action of the citizens of Bejar, who unwittingly made presents to these Indians; that this was followed by proposals to found a mission for them; that this move was interpreted by the nations of the north as an act of hostility, which led them to attack and destroy the Mission of San Saba. But he attributes the root of the evil to no other than Brigadier Rivera. "There is little doubt," he exclaims, "that this was a result of the reforms instituted by Rivera. If the Presidio of Los Tejas had been maintained in good condition and the friendship of the nations of the north had been culti- vated from this post, the Apaches would not have dared to deceive us, nor would we have suffered the many losses we have since deplored for
' 1 Chabot, o;. cit., 18.
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