the mythology of the two tribes became
changed in the course of its natural development along different lines or
through accretion of other peoples since the original segregation. The
Apache story of their creation portrays human beings in their present
form, while in the Navaho genesis myth occurs the remarkable story,
unquestionably aboriginal, of the evolution of the lower animals through
successive underworlds until the present world is reached, then as spirit
people miraculously creating human life.

The beautiful genesis myth of the Apache is complete; it does not reflect
an incipient primitive culture, but one developed by age. The mythology
and ceremonial of the Navaho exhibit unquestioned signs of being composite
in origin. Their ceremonials are perhaps the most elaborate of any Indians
except the Pueblos; indeed the very life of this people so teems with
ceremony as almost to pass comprehension. The Navaho ritual probably
reached its highest phase about the beginning of the nineteenth century.
It would seem impossible for a religion so highly developed as this to
have attained such a stage within a comparatively short time.

Before the early years of the seventeenth century the Spanish chroniclers
give us nothing definite regarding the Apache of what is now Arizona and
New Mexico, but there are numerous accounts of their aggressiveness from
this time onward.

[Illustration: _Tenokai_ - Apache]

_Tenokai_ - Apache

_From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_

Father Francisco Garces, who in 1775-76 journeyed from his mission of San
Xavier del Bac, in southern Arizona, to San Gabriel, California, thence to
the Hopi country, and back to his mission by way of the Colorado and the
Gila rivers, had sufficient knowledge of the Apache to keep well out of
their country, for they had ever been enemies of Garces' peaceful
neophytes, the Papago and the Pima. To the warlike, marauding Apache
Garces gave much thought, drawing up a plan for holding them in subjection
by the establishment of a cordon of presidios. To read his simple plan and
compare the ineffectual efforts of the Americans, who had the Apache
country virtually surrounded by military posts for many years, will
convince one that while Garces held the Apache in justifiable fear, he
little knew the true character of those with whom he was reckoning.

So far as diligent field research reveals