Winning The New World. III.

Missions

to the

Heathen

•BY-

L. C. BARNES, D. D.

Published

American Baptist Home Mission Society 23 East 26th Street : : (Madison Square) New York

University of California • Berkeley

Winning The New World. III.

omissions to the Heathen

BY

L. C. BARNES, D.D.

PUBLISHED BY

American Baptist Home Mission Society"

23 East 26th Street (Madison Square) New York

Seven Enterprises Combined

OUR denomination is to be congratulated on its way of conducting its general work for Winning The New World. Other communions in a number of cases, have entirely distinct Societies and Boards for carrying on the various enterprises enumerated below. We have but one organization, one office, and one set of officers for all these.

1. Founding Christianity in New Regions: We are

now helping churches in the new, swiftly crystalizing West to sustain there about one thousand missionaries. An investi- tigation just completed in one state by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America (thirty-two denomina- tions) finds more than one hundred towns there without any regular religious work, either Protestant or Catholic.

2. Christian Education of Africans: One-seventh of our fellow citizens who are only one-seventh as far as Anglo- Saxons from completely pagan ancestors.

3. Christianizing Heathen Indians: Many bands of American savages (at least thirty in the United States) are still untouched by any form of Christianity after four hundred years of spoliation by whites, and one hundred years of missions to heathen afar.

4. Conversion of Lathi Americans : Great masses just out from under four hundred years of Spanish misrule are now incorporated with us. According to Roman Cath- olic authority they were never yet Christianized.

5. Gospel Americanizing of Foreigners : They are gaining on us faster than ever, and now mostly from non- evangelized classes in Europe — Jews Greeks, Latins,— non-Christian Asiatics, too, scores of thousands.

6. Chapel Building for Mission Churches: They are helpless without buildings and are unable to build with- out help.

7. Salvation of Congested Cities : In co-operation with the local forces of Christ, which are hard bestead, almost overwhelmed by the prodigious developments cf our day.

HE following is not an account of the work, among the heathen, which is now being conducted by the Ameri- can Baptist Home Mission Society, it is but a single instance selected

because it is one of the more recent

and least well known.

US

We have 1 1 missionaries to the American heathen (not counting our missionaries to Chinese and Japanese heathen in America) wording among 14 Indian tribes. There are 1,038 communicants in our "Blanket Indian' Churches, recently rescued from pagan darkness. In the Indian churches of somewhat longer establishment there are 3,21 1 members. Even these have been brought out of paganism more recently than many of the churches in Burma and other parts of East India. They are largely self-supporting. In the nature of the case, it is our high privilege and a necessity for a time yet to provide some missionary superintendence and Christian education. Indian University at Muskogee, Oklahoma, is our chief institution of learning among them.

Recent investigation shows that after four hundred years of spoliation by white men in America and one hundred years of missions to heathen afar there are yet some forty tribes and bands in the United States without Christian work among them of any denomina- tion. Arrangements are now being made to reach these. As Baptists We must not fail to take our share of the new work among the heathen whose plight cries to high heaven in the ears of every child of God who has any sense of justice, to say nothing of Christ-like brotherhood, in "this glorious land of ours" — OURS ?

Missionaries to the Heathen

By Lemuel Call Barnes, D.D.

I. A PAGAN LAND

[T is at the heart of the great central plateau of the continent, ranging from five to seven thousand feet above sea level, not counting ranges and peaks running three to four thousand feet farther heavenward. On this lofty platform the highest development of pre-Columbian life took place within the present territory of the United States. Ages before the Genoese started on his crazy sail for India, people inhabited this plateau who were at least semi-civilized. There are indications that the country was less arid at that time and that it was inhabited by many more people tht.~ than now, as well as by people farther advanced. Charred ears of corn embedded in lava along with implements of civiliza- tion suggest that possibly volcanic disturbances changed the face of nature, nearly obliterating the trace of man.

Even yet, however, the Indians who in their primitive state are most nearly civilized live on this plateau, possibly the rem- nants of the ancient population. Our Woman's Home Mission Society has a mission among the most remote and uncontamin- ated of the Pueblo or town-making Indians, the Hopi of north- eastern Arizona. It is in every sense of the word a pagan land, a land of villages as the whole plateau once was. The Hopi Reservation is entirely surrounded by the Navaho Reservation in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. The latter Reservation is about the size of Connecticut and New Jersey ccmbined. It is the largest of the Indian Reservations.

Every perennial spring and brook is precious in this country. Even wells are marked on Government maps. Every wayfarer must be careful to reach water for a camping place, if possible. The missionary must carry a large canteen of water on his journeys for the sake of long stretches where none can be found, even of the alkaline variety, which is probably the only kind he can bring from his home. But wherever there is water will be found human habitations, the larger the oasis the greater the

population. In the foot hills of the great ranges there are places of perpetual verdure and beauty. Yet even there, as in the valley of the Nile, if one lifts his eyes he looks out upon arid wastes not far away. In the Navaho country, however, they are not absolute wastes. There is pasturage, at least at seasons of the year, over nearly all the land. If water were more abundant there would be less hope of keeping white men from seizing this first and last stronghold of the brown men in our country.

II. HEATHEN PEOPLE

The Navahos were pioneers in our country long before the Spaniards or the English or the French. They came down like other tribes of the Athabascan race from the direction of Alaska, bringing with them a tradition that their forefathers had crossed a narrow sea. Some think that the happy marriage of one of the Indians with a Chinaman not far from where these words are written is but the coming together again of long separated members of the human family.

The Government has made but one attempt to relocate the Navahos, and soon abandoned that. Their present reservation is the region in which the Spaniards found them in the sixteenth century. The Navaho pioneers had become old settlers genera- tions before the Pilgrims landed. For centuries they were great marauders, living largely by depredations on the agricultural Pueblo Indians, and later on Mexicans and other Americans. But they somewhat rapidly advanced from savagery to bar- barism. On account of their self-defense and independence many Pueblos and members of other tribes joined them for the sake of greater safety from savages both red and white. Hence they acquired some of the advantages which commonly go with amalgamation of races, as notably in case of the Anglo-Saxon- Keltic-Danish-Norman, etc., in England, and of the unnum- bered races in the United States. It is commonly believed that the Navahos first obtained sheep by raiding and that they learned the art of weaving from the Pueblos. The raising and care of sheep has become the chief occupation of the men, and the weaving of blankets the chief occupation of women. Next to sheep, horses are the great possession and means of trade. There is considerable agriculture, however, by means of prim- itive irrigation ditches. Corn is the principal crop. Beans, melons and peaches stand next in favor. The only other oc- cupation attracting much attention is silversmithing. By means

NAVAHO CHIEF KITON

of crude appliances Mexican and United States coins are trans- formed into bracelets, spoons, brooches and buckles. Men and women both are fond of wearing belts adorned with as many large silver disks as possible. Bridles also are decorated with silver. Their silver work in addition to being moulded is en- graved.

The varied industries of the Navahos mean hard work, of which they are not afraid. In this they are exceptional among native races. They cheerfully hire themselves out to white men, and according to all accounts do as good work as other laboring men. Every home has its simple hand loom, where

MOTHER AND CHILD WEAVING THE FAMOUS NAVAHO BLANKETS

the women patiently toil, having prepared and dyed the wool, working out the striking patterns of the famous Navaho blankets. As a "steamer rug" is a shawl, so, per contra, a "Navaho blanket" is a rug. It is commonly too stiff for comfortable wear. The men and the women all wear blankets; but almost invariably they are factory made, one Navaho blanket selling for enough to buy two or three factory blankets. The trousers of the man and gowns of the women also are products of factory looms. But feet are mostly clad in moccasins. Men as well as women wear their hair long. The men tie it out of the way with a coronal fillet of some gay fabric. The hair on the chin they dispense with. We found by the trail one of their "tin razors," for extracting instead of cutting the beard.

The Navaho house is called a hogan. Some are building cabins of logs, pressed adobe and stone. But most live in a domical hut of rough frame-work covered top and sides with earth. The two openings are a doorway and a smoke-hole.

A NAVAHO HOGAN

The fire is built on the earthen floor. In one instance I saw a hood and smoke pipe over the fire, made of tin cans. There is no room for tables, chairs or bedstead. Other utensils are few and simple. Some native pottery is in use. They frequently have a summer hogan, which is an airy booth, either detached or serving as a vestibule of the winter hogan.

The Navahos are heathen in the original sense of the word; they are heath-men. Their calling as shepherds in an arid country requires them to move from place to place. They camp for the time in the most convenient region. They may or may not live near their cornfields. Land is owned in common, but occupation and improvements give a sort of title. Their nomadic life is one of the supreme difficulties in the way of their uplift by school, mission or home improvement. For instance, last winter, a mission located near one of their most permanent and thickly inhabited neighborhoods had but two families in residence. They are in the patriarchal stage of development, their customs illuminating the story of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is a long way from Abraham's tent to the city of David. If we can help to shorten it, we shall be working with God in his process of human evolution.

The Navahos are further advanced in some vital respects than were the biblical patriarchs. In the matter of monogamy, concubinage and social purity, they are in advance, not only

of most aborgines, but also of the most resplendent days of the Old Testament. Many Indian tribes are literally rotting with native and imported vice. The worst diseases, I am informed by Government physicians, are unknown among the Navahos, except near the sooty iron trail of the white man. Navaho

women are not in any respect the^slaves of men. They do not do all the work, as in many tribes. But with their blanket weaving they are industrially the equals of the men. In domestic economy, too, they are equals or better. The control of the household is mainly in their hands. One of the oddest customs concerns a mother-in-law. What is a matter of superficial joking with white people is a deep-seated reality with Navahos. Mother-in-law and son-in-law must never see each other. If they do, blindness or some other blight is sure to befall. It is everybody's duty to give sharp warning if danger of a meet- ing arises. Even after reading of this in good authorities I could hardly believe that the custom still rigidly prevails. I found out for myself. A company of Indians was assembled in our mission hall while I preached to them through the inter- preter. With the exception of one or two young bucks, they were behaving with great decorum, when all of a sudden there were exclamations and a tremendous hubbub. I could not imagine the cause till I was told that a mother-in-law of one of my auditors approached the door. Instantly many shouted to warn the imperiled parties. The man within pulled a hat over his eyes, while she retreated. To avoid this constant menace a man sometimes marries the widowed mother of his prospective wife before marrying her. Then they are both his wives and there is no mother-in-law.

Their superstitions are complicated and rank. By them not only is progressive beauty of character rendered impossible, but life itself is often imperiled. Their medicine man is both doctor and priest. Their method of attempting to cure the sick is by weird incantations. These "sings" as they are popularly named in English gather a crowd together and last throughout the night. According to all accounts they must be demoralizing to both physical and mental well being. "Sometimes pertaining to a single rite there are two hundred songs or more which may not be sung at other rites.*' "One error made in singing a song may be fatal to the efficiency of a ceremony; in some cases the error of a single syllable works an irreparable injury."

When the sick person is sufficiently wealthy or influential the wild revel lasts for days. Dr. Mathews, the leading student and authority as to Navaho customs, describes their great med- icine dance of nine days. On the last night a great fire is built in the center of a corral and eleven ceremonial dances are per- formed throughout the night. The following is his description of one of them:

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"After an interval of three-quarters of an hour, the dance of the great plumed arrow, the potent healing ceremony of the night, began. There were but two performers .... Each bore in his hand one of the great plumed arrows. While they were making the usual circuits around the fire, the patient was placed sitting on a buffalo robe in front of the orchestra. They halted before the patient; each dancer seized his arrow between his thumb and forefinger about eight inches from the tip, held the arrow up to view, giving a coyote-like yelp, as if to say, 'So far will I swallow it,' and then appeared to thrust the arrow slowly

11

and painfully down his throat as far as indicated. While the arrows seemed still to be stuck in their throats, they danced a chasse, right and left, with short, shuffling steps. Then they withdrew the arrows, and held them up to view as before, with triumphant yelps, as if to say, 'So far have I swallowed it.' Sympathizers in the audience yelped in response. The next thing to be done was to apply the arrows. One of the dancers advanced to the patient, and to the soles of the feet of the latter he pressed the magic weapon with its point to the right, and again with its point to the left. In a similar manner he treated the knees, hands, abdomen, back, shoulders, crown and mouth in the order named, giving three coyote-like yelps after each application."

Another of the dances is like the performance of magicians who apparently make a plant grow before your eyes. In an- other dance, nearly naked Indians race after and prod them- selves and each other with flaming firebrands. These medicine dances are the religious services of the people. Is there any need for missionaries of sane religion and sanitary healing?

III. HEROIC MISSIONARIES

It requires nothing less than the spirit of Christ to faithfully work for these heathen people in such a pagan land. It re- quires also strength of character and resourcefulness little short of genius to carry a whole Christian civilization into such an aboriginal wilderness. Away from all the appliances, conveni- ences and fellowship of life which even the remotest village pastor has learned to depend upon, working alone here beyond the frontier, one expects to find some burly minister of the bush- whacker type as the only kind who could confront the savage conditions.

After a long day's narrow-gauge ride through a nearly un- inhabited country over the continental divide, then half a day on a "mixed train," the only train — alighting at Farmington, New Mexico, the farthest southwestern outpost of the dare- devil Denver' & Rio Grande system, one is surprised that he does not see his expected missionary. Perhaps there has been a hitch in the carrying of the message by the bi-weekly horse- back mail. When the knot of frontiersmen has been looked over and hope is abandoned, a delicate looking gentleman, who might appropriately be the occupant of the chair of belles-lettres

12

in Boston or Cambridge, modestly presents himself. Perhaps the hesitancy has been caused by some disillusionment on his part, too.

Soon the Field Secretary and Lee I. Thayer, missionary to the Navahos, are on congenial terms, jogging along under the white canvas cover of the missionary wagon behind "Peter" and

REV. LEE I. TRAYER AND HIS WIFE. TWO OF THE HEROIC MISSIONARIES

"Lizzie." Our Navaho horses are several degrees larger than the Society's ponies in Porto Rico. Still they are small loco- motives for the long trek through desert sands and deep, un- bridged arroyos. At the end of the first afternoon, having forded the San Juan River twice, with water into the wagon box, in order to visit a Methodist mission (no necessity for

13

sprinkling), we reach the edge of things including supper and lodging at a frontier Mormon cabin. While the horses rest we walk in the dark to a Presbyterian mission, some say a mile and a half, some say two and a half, and some say four miles, and back. No wonder that we miss the road and that Indian schoolboy scouts are sent out to find us, for the hospitable mis- sionary ladies have heard of our coming and have kept a supper waiting for us. Their cheerful lantern makes the way back brighter.

At dawn we ford the San Juan again, leaving the last traces of civilization and plunging into the riverless, treeless, house- less reservation. One butte after another rising above the horizon guides our way. But all day long Ship Rock is in sight, as well as more distant mountains. During the forenoon it looms like a vast pile of Gothic architecture, but late in the afternoon when only the upper peaks are visible, they look so like two sails of a ship on the horizon that you fairly expect to detect them pitching with the motion of their invisible hull.

What communings by the way concerning nature and man, concerning scripture and science, concerning thought, both oldest and latest. At noon, by one of the infrequent springs, our gentle thinker quickly prepares a piping hot luncheon out of abundant equipment in the unobtrusive box attached to the dashboard — so attached that when removed it leaves no mark or mar, but when in place and the cover turned back it is a lunch table in just the right relation to the wagon seat. He did it.

Here in a small way emerges what later appears in a large way in everything about the mission station and the mission methods — common sense (so uncommon) to the degree of ir- resistible manual efficiency combined with a scholar's interest in language, learning, and in all the ethereal realms of life, to- gether with intense missionary zeal and longing for the redemp- tion of the heathen nation into the midst of whose habitation he has thrown himself. At one juncture a plumber was brought from the nearest town, two days' journey each way, who looked the situation over and gave verdict that the job to be done was impossible. After four days more in getting this expert back to the cover of a tool-house and bill-heads, our missionary himself did the complicated, impossible plumbing!

To create the possibility and the platform for his work of preaching, teaching, writing, counselling and doctoring, our mis-

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CHILDREN OF Ol'R MISSION SCHOOI

sionary has had to do tree-felling, logging, stone-laying, car- pentering, joining, roofing, plastering, painting, paper-hanging, teaming, farming, blacksmithing, cabinet-making, shoemaking and even plumbing, to say nothing of bookkeeping and no end of Yankee invention. With all this to do he learned the language in his first two years so as to preach in Navaho at both services the first Sunday of his third year. With some promis- ing inquirers already, there is every reason to expect that we may have a Navaho church in much less time than it took to gather our first church in Burma or in some of the American Indian tribes where we now have most flourishing churches. Denison University — he is a Buckeye of course — and Rochester Seminary, ought to be proud to turn out (not in the sense in which David Brainerd was "turned out" of Yale) even one man in a thousand who can go into a physical and spiritual desert and do the kind of work which Lee I. Thayer is doing at Two Gray Hills.

Long after dark with its December chill on this high plateau, we reached the mission station built of adobe and logs. What a glowing spot it is amid the cold and darkness of Navaho- land.

At this point one is introduced to a large part of the secret of the brave work at Two Gray Hills. It is a cheerful, refined,

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YA7.-YAH, NAVAHO CIK

thoroughly practical and intensely sympathetic home life. In other words it is Mrs. Lee I. Thayer. First of all the home is radiant with domestic affection, next it is aglow with missionary activity. In the forenoon ten little Indian children are taught the English language and are given elementary instruction through that medium. Mrs. Thayer learned the art of teaching in a State which a few years ago was ranked by an expert as foremost in that art, Indiana. Before the day is done Mr. Thayer gives these little Indians a Bible lesson aided by picture charts which he has ingeniously put together to tell the whole

16

biblical story. Then he talks to them awhile in their mother tongue. He is making his own dictionary and grammar of Navaho speech, using an up-to-date card catalogue system. Only, dear city friend, instead of buying his appliances at some library fixture store, he makes them with his own hands.

During the day there will be a number of Indian visitors, especially to the mill room. Indian corn is the staple article of food in Navaho- land. The custom of the country is for women and children to grind by rubbing it between two stones. Our missionary has installed large coffee-milis, two of them, of the simple kind used in retail grocery stores. It is a great boon to the natives to bring corn in their blankets and run it through these wonderful machines. Hence there is grinding nearly all day long.

When the boarding school was to be established the mis- sionary built a log addition, an "L" to the adobe house. It has a partition half way to the ceiling. On one side of this partition, in their three beds sleep the nine little Indian girls, on the other side of it sleep Mr. and Mrs. Thayer so as to be right at hand in case of need. If you could look into the homes (?) from which these children have been brought you could better imagine the constant care which their physical and spiritual civilization entails upon the missionaries.

The visiting Secretary had the whole of the main house to himself and slept so well in its comfortable guest room that he was not awakened even by a gunshot fired in the cellar. The marauder was instantly dispatched and sweetly, it ought to be added, for it was a "pole cat." One large room, the best in the house, next to the school room and the chapel, is a social room for the Indians. Its front door is never locked day or night.

When Sunday comes, Indians gather from near and far, five miles being not far and fifteen miles not too far. In the fore- noon they have an illustrated Bible story. Then comes a lunch of crackers and coffee made too simple to be a bid for attend- ance. After that is another service at which the personal gospel message is pressed. The day I was there the most progressive farmer in the region stayed after the second service for a long talk with the missionary about starting on the Jesus Road.

The missionaries are giving themselves to these heathen with an abandon which, if fully understood, would be almost ap-

17

palling not only to our church members who are living carefully sheltered lives but even to those who have life in its roughest forms. An Indian mother brought her daugh*. r, Asian Yazza, with a fatal disease to a hut half mile from the mission house that Mrs. Thayer might minister to her for days. When the end came, the child was put outside to die according to Navaho custom. Otherwise native superstition would have required the hut to be torn down. In the morning word was sent to Mrs. Thayer. Mr. Thayer had been obliged to go to town, four days away, on a missionary errand. Could there be Christian burial? The Indians do not make even rude coffins nor do they dig graves. So our missionary's wife, naturally as far from doing such things as any lady who reads these lines, manages somehow with saw and hammer to make a casket, line it with white cloth, then with scant assistance from the mother, digs a grave in the hard soil. These are the easier parts of the self-imposed task. Our little missionary lady takes the corpse of the thirteen-year-old child in her arms and brings it the long half mile, including a necessary descent into a deep arroyo and the steep climb out of it, to the mission house. When with prayer she has given the child Christian burial her own hands must fill the grave. Does one remember much that was more astounding in the heroism of early missionaries to the heathen anywhere? On a question like that, perhaps I have some right to make intelligent answer. I freely say, "No, not anywhere."

The Chicago Baptist Training School for missionary workers as well as Rochester Theological Seminary has a right to glory in the Two Gray Hills Mission. Mrs. Thayer was Ida Black- well at the school in 1901. One of the many good things to the credit of the Baptist Young People's Union of America is that the acquaintance of Mr. Thayer and Miss Blackwell be- gan, at one of its annual conventions, to which they were both delegates the year it was held in Milwaukee.

Before knowing the story of Astan Yazza — not one word of which did I ever hear from Mrs. Thayer — I said, "You ought to have another worker here for the sake of company when Mr. Thayer is away or in case of serious illness or other emergency." What was the answer to this? Remember that it comes from a dainty little lady who has been given unmistak- able reason to fear some of the Indians, and whose nearest

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NAVAHO MOTHER AND CHILD

white neighbor lives four miles away, with no other nearer than twenty miles, and after these two, no more short of forty miles. Remember that it is forty miles to a doctor and that it is seventy miles to a town, a telephone, a telegraph office or a railroad. Such desolate and difficult miles, too! What would you say to the suggestion of company in such a, situation? This

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is what she said: "We ought to enlarge the school and be raising up some boys as well as girls to make Christian homes by and by. If we can do that I shall be delighted to have another worker; but merely for the sake of company it is not necessary."

I want to leave it to the men and women of our churches to say whether or not such workers shall be reinforced. It seems to me, however, that it might be well to take our dearest loved ones by the hand before we say and then to say it on our knees in the presence of Him who gave His life for us.

Seventy miles with macadam roads and automobiles is not far, but with no roads, deep sands, deeper arroyos, a white canvas wagon and Indian ponies, it is a long way. When we came out we brought Carrie, the oldest pupil, the first day's journey to see the kind doctor at Tohatchie, the Government Indian School, which is under the charge of Mr. Ross, a good Baptist brother. The second day we discovered that even in New Mexico, when seven thousand feet above the sea, Decem- ber is not as pleasant as May. A driving snow storm met us at the outset. A number of wagon trails, all more or less faint, cross near Tohatchie. They were fast obscured by snow, while mountains, buttes and all other waymarks were blotted out. It drove so sharply, head on, that our ponies veered and the ques- tion arose whether they and we could weather it and come to port. The thoughtful missionary had provided the tenderfoot with arctic overshoes, an extra pair of trousers, and a thick woolen muffler. Two suits of underclothing, gloves and socks, together with newspapers under the heavy overcoat, a thick Navaho blanket and a tarpaulin lap-robe, with a lighted lantern at our feet, kept us from getting too cold to talk of things human and divine. No chilblains followed on the tender feet nor other result more serious than a four weeks' bronchial cold which in no way interfered with scheduled work. For once, just once, the whole experience was to be coveted.

But the next day, as the missionary started back over that frozen desert road, his wagon loaded down with supplies for the distant mission station, I stood and watched the white wagon as long as it could be seen, with a lump in my throat not caused by the cold. As I write the mist comes back to my eyes at the thought of such heroism as I was beholding in those tender souls

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who live month after month for Christ's sake and the sake of the stolid barbarians at Two Gray Hills. The two gray hills are hidden behind two bright summits of Ghristlike devotion.

IV. IS IT WORTH WHILE

Is it worth while to make such sacrifices? The great and the final answer is that Christ gave his life for the unworthy. An- other is that our overwhelming white race in the United States is under peculiar obligations to the remnants of the red race. The Navahos are the largest unbroken tribe left. Though almost in the path of early Roman Catholic missions, they never

GAMBLING THE PREVALENT VICE OF THE NAVAHOS

have been even nominally Christianized. They are less demor- alized by vicious whites than are other tribes. They are heathen pure and simple. They have sturdy hearts which make them at the same time harder to reach and better worth reaching than most aborigines.

F. M. Pruddens says: "Altogether they are among the most interesting of the aborigines who live in the old fashion, hold to the old deities, and maintain a degree of self-respect and independence in the face of the blighting influences of civili- zation which is noteworthy and admirable."

The Navahos are almost free from intemperance. May prohibition on the Reservation be ever in force. Gambling has

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TYPICAL NAVAHO YOUNG MAN

been one of their besetting sins, so much so that teachers have felt obliged to take away Sunday-school picture cards from children because they used them for gambling. Love for the hazard, however, was so deep in the blood and breeding of the little ones that they managed it with pebbles. Mr. Wm. T. Shelton, the Indian Agent in the Northern part of the Reserva- tion, is earnestly endeavoring to dissuade the Navahos from this vice. He has the satisfaction of seeing great improvement.

In the matter of trustworthiness, these Indians stand high. A man who for fifteen years has been trading first and last with

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all the tribes west of the Mississippi, tells me that of them all, as men with whom to deal, the Navahos are the most satisfactory. "If they promise to bring you a hundred sound sheep at a given time, a full hundred will be there on the dot and every one of them sound. But," he added, "the next minute they will let you turn around and pick out another hundred for yourself with- out any warning as to the unsoundness of the lot.*' Taken all in all, so far as I can -learn from reading considerable printed testimony as well as from conversation with close observers of many sorts, these heath-men rank with the best quality of heathen.

In 1869 the Government gave the Navahos a few thousand sheep and goats. Since then the people have provided for them- selves. When, not long ago, there was a season of unusual drought and consequent suffering it was proposed to give them Government aid. A committee of chiefs requested the Govern- ment not to do this lest Navahos become like so many other

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Indians, paupers. "The noble red man" of tradition is not altogether a myth, as you can readily see if you become ac- quainted with the history, the character, and the living faces of the Navahos.

Besides ourselves four denominations — Christian Reform, Presbyterian, Methodists North and South — and two inde- pendent missions, are working at eleven stations for the 20,000 (one Government worker among them says 30,000) Navahos. The entire Reserve has been divided up among these missions and the responsibility laid on them for the evangelization of the tribe in this generation. The field of our own mission is some forty miles square. Our missionary is now preaching in the Navaho language and hopes soon to cover the whole field in systematic visitation. Certainly we may expect that very soon every Navaho for whom we as Baptists are held responsible may have the gospel intelligibly presented to him and be lov- ingly urged to enter the Jesus Road, which leads to the Father's House.

A FORWARD MOVE

/N order to get closer to a larger number of the rising generation of ^favahos, Mr. and Mrs. Thayer are non> stationed at Keams Canon, Ariz., near to a Government School. This also enables the missionary to have an oversight of the Hopi churches not far au>ay. The noble women who have created the Hopi mission have long been pleading for an ordained missionary.

THE NIGHT & CAY PHESS. N. V.

Hollinger Corp. PH8.5