The population is about stationary. The ceremonies of the antelope and snake societies are becoming more and more public. Recent photographs of them show hundreds of white persons, teams and automobiles, and admission is now charged, for the dances and attendant ceremonies are fast becoming commercialized. They have persisted because of the curious life of these people—a people who live, as it were, in a different world. With the extension of education, the allotment system, and the continual effort of Government employees to break down the old and insert the new, the real life of the Pueblos will soon pass away forever. ----- Footnote 42: Vol. I. pages 63–66. CHAPTER XXIII. THE CAREER OF GERONIMO This fighting man was for many years feared and hated. He was not a docile person, and his tribe did not tamely submit to kicks and curses—the treatment meted out to his more gentle red brothers in California and Arizona. They were despised, trodden under foot, cast aside; not so with the Apaches and Geronimo. It required more than two years’ labor on the part of hundreds of our cavalry to catch him, and when he surrendered there were but seventy-four in his band. Now that everything regarding the Indian is being made public, I deem it important that the true history of Geronimo be set forth. In 1905 this chief published the story of his life. His book is a remarkable production, and gives the Indian point of view, which is rare indeed.[43] Mr. Barrett, who wrote the story at Geronimo’s dictation, had much trouble with the War Department. Officers objected to the narrative, and he was compelled to secure permission from President Roosevelt. Even then the War Department advised against publication. The history of the Apaches dates from the time of Coronado, who is supposed to have penetrated their country in 1541–’43 when he marched north in search of the fabled “seven cities of Cibola.” There is no record of the Apaches, or any other Indians for that matter, beginning hostilities against the Spaniards. After Coronado, the Spaniards and the Apaches were at war for three centuries. The Spaniards pursued their usual policy in dealing with these people, and the latter returned an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. Geronimo and his people had abundant cause for their hatred of the Spaniards. It was a different story in Arizona and northern Mexico from that of California and central Mexico. Today the California Indians are paupers, and the gentle Aztecs have long since perished, but the sturdy Apaches remain and live in more or less prosperity on their several reservations. [Illustration: GERONIMO Photographed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, about 1905 ]