Indian Tribes Of The Southwest

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Indian

of the Southwest

By MRS. WHITE MOUNTAIN SMITH

Author of Hop* Girl and I Mamed <s Ranger

Dlustrated by GEORGE L. COLLINS

\

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY
55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

ROBERT M. MC BRIDE & COMPANY
4 WEST SIXTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK

MARTINUS NIJHOFF
9 LANGE VOORHOUT, THE HAGUE

THE MARUZEN COMPANY
TOKYO, OSAKA, KYOTO, SENDAI

COPYRIGHT 1933 BY THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES
OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY

PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA BY STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

To my father
William G. Brown

Foreword

ENG before -the invasion of the Spanish or the
later intrusion of the Anglo-Saxon race into the
Southwest, the Indians had a civilization, developed
by them, together with an enduring religion which
met their every need. Arts far beyond those we
strive to teach them were theirs. They wove wild
cotton into garments ; willows and grasses they con-
verted into baskets and sandals; from, clay they
formed their household vessels, and from native
stones ornaments with which to decorate them-
selves, their priests, and their altars. Religion was
so ingrained in the Indian of the Southwest that he
gave it up only when life ended. He prayed con-
tinuously to the Powers for protection, for health,
for rain, for every need. The Red Gods ruled at all
times.

Centuries have passed since the coming of the
white race. Indian tribes, as tribes, in most places
have vanished from their homes and hunting fields.
Only in the Southwest has the Indian clung
staunchly to the ways of his forefathers, keeping
his ancient faiths, although compelled to accept,
at least outwardly, strange gods.

Deeply interested in the Indians of the South-
west, a party of four college girls spent an entire

IV INDIANTRIBES

summer traveling by automobile from Reservation
to Reservation under the guidance of the writer.
The pleasant experiences of these trips inspired
this little book.

Dances and ceremonies are here described ex-
actly as they occurred, and the guide's explanations
accompanying them are the result of more than a
decade of friendly intercourse and observation.

The party at all times met with courtesy and hos-
pitality. These homes of America's own children
were open to us, not as members of a conquering
race, but as personal friends. Indians acknowledge
no superiority in their conquerors. They have great
dignity and self-respect, and the object of this book
is to bring them to the reader as an interesting race
worth knowing at close quarters.

For actual dates and statistics used in this work
the author has consulted Goddard's Indians of the
Southwest, Coolidge's The Navajo, Parish's His-
tory of Arizona, and government documents such
as Survey of Conditions of the Indians of the
United States. For intimate facts about certain
tribes she is indebted to L. H. McSparron, Canyon
de Chelly trader, and long a friend of the Navajos ;
and to Mrs. Nancy Graham Pinkley, trusted friend
of the Pimas.

DAMA MARGARET SMITH

HOLBROOK, ARIZONA
February 18, 1933

Table of Contents

PAGE

ACOMA THE SKY CITY .... 1

APACHE INDIANS 16

HAVASUPAIS AND HUALAPAIS . . 34

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS .... 39

NAVAJO INDIANS 56

RIOGRANDEPUEBLOS . . . . 80

SALT RIVER INDIANS .... 103

TAGS PUEBLO 112

ZUNI PUEBLO

INDEX

Acoma the Sky City

Location: Northern New Mexico, sixteen miles south of highway U.S. 66.
Railway: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel Acoma at Laguna, New Mexico.
Population: 600. Religion: Mixture of Catholic and native. Arts: Pottery-
making. Industries: Farming and stock-raising.

ROMANCE and history have combined to make the
pueblo town of ancient Acoma most fascinating.
Perched on its earthly "Rock of Ages/' this city
claims to be the oldest continuously occupied Indian
village in the Southwest. However, Oraibi, Hopi
town, disputes this.

Acoma is not to be regarded lightly, as the Span-
iards learned to their chagrin. In 1540, when the
great Coronado came into this land, he found the
old town dozing on top of its rock like a sleepy cat
napping in the sun. Like a contented cat it re-
sponded to his overtures and purred softly. A few
years later, with arched back and unsheathed claws
it tore to fragments a pillaging horde of soldiers it
had lured into the dusky houses, and for two cen-
turies war drum and death cry resounded from its

2 INDIAN TRIBES

flinty summit. At times this cry muffled the noise
of Spanish muskets ; at other times it mingled with
the sound of Mission bells and softly chanted Ave
Marias. More than one Spanish Padre drenched its
stony ground with martyr blood. Once a tyrant
priest, after years of lording it over the patient in-
habitants, was taken at moonrise and tossed head-
long over the edge of the 350-foot precipice upon
which the village stands. It was useless; others
came to take the place of those disposed of, and
today the gaunt, grim old Mission stares relent-
lessly across the purple-shadowed plain, the victor.
The Catholic Church has won by compromise. Al-
though the choir loft resounds to the soft guttural
notes of the Indian choir, in the hearts of the
singers burns bright the fire of loyalty to their own
red gods.

At Hotel Acoma, twenty miles distant, we dined
early, served by light-footed, low-voiced Acoma
girls, who, finding their village homes too dull after
years of schooling away from the desert, had come
to the railroad town to earn a few dollars. It was
not so lonely here.

Our guide suggested that we drive to the base of
the unoccupied Enchanted Mesa, camp among the
junipers, and see the moonlight, the starlight, and
the sunrise on that mystic spot. The Acoma girls
looked troubled and said it was not well to sleep
near that big rock, for spirits of the Gone-Away

ACOMA THE SKY CITY . 3

People hovered about there when the sun went
down. Nevertheless, an hour before sunset we
turned from highway U.S. 66 and passed into the
evening silence of the desert. We met flocks of
sheep, their grazing ended for the day, being driven
into their folds, and a few belated Indians with
wagonloads of wood for the railway villages.

The wide red plain swept softly away on each
side of the road to meet serried mountains looming
darkly against the rose-and-gold sunset sky. Tow-
ering castles, skyscrapers, and Coney Island struc-
tures rose thickly from the flat valley, giving the
impression of a ruined* city. It was not a desert
land, but a sage-covered plain, dotted with juniper
and golden with the blossoms of the rabbit brush.

Suddenly we confronted a huge rock mountain.
So abruptly it rose from its juniper carpet and so
softly its pinkish tones blended into the coming sun-
set that it seemed a mirage hanging in midair.

"What is that?"

"Katzimo, the Enchanted Mesa," our guide re-
plied. "That's where we'll camp tonight. Doesn't
it look ghostly?"

It really did seem spooky, but she drove the car
into a sheltered cove at the base of the great cliff
and there we built a campfire to ward off the eve-
ning chill and make the place seem less lonely.

To the west a high wooded peak loomed above
us, and suddenly a beacon fire burned brightly on

4 INDIAN TRIBES

its summit. We could but guess at its meaning.
Perhaps some faithful Indian priest was commu-
nicating with his gods, keeping a lone vigil through
the night. Tomorrow was to be a Dance Day at
Acoma, and hour after hour the faithful beacon
burned, sparks flying upward as fuel was added.
The Spaniards called this big rock "Mesa En-
cantada." Charles Lummis, who lived for many
happy years in Acoma, has given us the story in
Mesa, Canyon, and Pueblo. It was once the home
of a busy, happy tribe of Indians, he says, and on
its sunny top they built their homes, carrying the
timbers and rocks and mud from the plain below,
To the fertile valley not far distant they came in
the daytime and planted and cultivated and har-
vested, returning at night to their secure stronghold
above us. The rock is 430 feet high and the top
contains forty or fifty acres. Perhaps six hundred
Indians lived on it. They were safe there, and
when they needed other food than their corn and
beans they killed the antelope and wild turkeys,
which were plentiful in the neighborhood. Clothing
was made of buckskin, rabbitskins, and feathers.
Turkeys were caught and tamed to furnish prayer
feathers, and young eagles were tied to the house-
tops and plucked on special occasions. There was
no Mission on top of the rock, but the people danced
and feasted and made prayersticks to place in shel-
tered crevices, where we find them today.

ACOMA THE SKY CITY 5

There was only one way to reach the top of
Katzimo. A great slab had broken off and lay, at
that long-ago time, leaned against the rock, making
a pathway halfway up its side. Above the slab
hand- and toe-holds were chipped out of the face
of the cliff, and up this perilous pathway the In-
dians brought their supplies, slung on their backs.

One summer in harvest time all the people came
down to work in the fields. Only three women
stayed on the rock top. And that day a great storm
and flood came. Water undermined the big path-
way slab and it fell far into the plain, shaking the
earth with its fall. When the sun shone again, the
people crept out and looked at the beaten earth.
Their fields were washed away and they went sadly
toward their home. But the stairway was gone for-
ever. They could not reach the top and the poor
women above could not come down to join their
families. Day after day the three came to the edge
of the cliff and shouted that their water was almost
gone, that the food would not last much longer. At
last one demented creature threw herself from the
high rock and died at the feet of her people. Then,
when the other women came no more to the edge
and the Indians knew they were dead, they went
away from the sad place and built other homes on
the high rock four miles away. They never come to
the big rock when the sun is not shining, for then
they hear their women calling for help.

INDIAN TRIBES

With morning we moved on to the present village
of Acoma, perched on a neighboring mesa almost
as inaccessible as the Enchanted Mesa. First dis-
covered in 1540 by Coronado and coveted for king
and country, it has been conquered and lost, time
and again. Since 1700 the Acomas have not been
at war, but they have yielded nothing of their tribal
rites and beliefs. Indians they were and Indians
they remain, defiant and unashamed.

We were close under the cliffs of Acoma before
any signs of life were visible, so cleverly do the
human habitations blend with the native rock. At
the base of the mesa, wind and time have carved
themselves an art gallery. Punch and Judy figures
are surrounded by stately church spires and beauti-
ful towers. Springs seep from the rock, and wild-
gourd vines run riot over the sandstone figures.

Although at first there seems to be no path to the
top, there are in reality three: an old burro trail
built by one of the early priests; Wild Horse Trail;
and the steep winding trail used in the daily coming
and going of the village folk. This last follows a
crack in the cliff and at places leads over rocks set
in to form steps. Other portions of the path are
mere holes pecked in the smooth surface for finger-
and toe-holds. During a rainstorm, water pours
down this natural ditch in such volume that it
washes everything before it. We were all breath-
less and shaken before we reached the top of the

ACOMA THE SKY CITY 7

trail, and one girl said she preferred to live up there
henceforth rather than brave the downward pas-
sage. But while we peered back down the way
we had come, a handsome young Indian literally
bounded up the trail with a newly dressed sheep
across his shoulders, and following him came a
pretty girl with a beautiful pottery bowl filled with
water balanced on her head. They scarcely touched
the rock as they came up, and put us to shame. The
sheep was to furnish food for dance visitors, and
the water came from a special spring, used only for
ceremonial purposes.

Acoma was the usual pueblo town, terraced and
compact, stark against the sky, picturesque, with
ladders reaching from terrace to terrace, and here
and there, chained to a roof top, a screaming, fight-
ing eagle, newly caught and not yet reconciled to
its loss of liberty.

The homes are grouped into three blocks, with a
single back, solid except for small openings re-
sembling portholes. But the fronts show three tiers,
the second being set back twenty or thirty feet on
the roof of the first, and the third in turn using the
roof of the second row for a front yard. Little al-
coves and balconies break the plainness and add
romance.

Red blankets and gala-day shawls were shaken
from the terraces and hung across the balconies to
air ; jerked meat swayed in dark red strips on wires

8 INDIAN TRIBES

stretched from house to house, and bread-baking
was going on in various households. The Acoma
menu is the regulation Pueblo Indian corn and
beans, melons, pumpkins, red peppers, mutton and
beef, and either wheat bread or corn bread from
meal ground on old-time metates. Acoma trades
with neighboring villages and secures plenty of
grapes, peaches, and apples. On this morning of
the dance, the trail was kept hot by runners bring-
ing supplies to the village so that the visiting multi-
tude could be well fed.

The housewives were entirely too busy to bother
about our small group, and we wandered across a
narrow bridge of rock joining two sections of the
mesa and watched girls getting the day's supply of
water from a big reservoir in the rocks. This nat-
ural storage place for rain water and melted snow
furnishes all the water necessary for the village,
and the spring at the foot of the mesa is visited only
for ritual purposes. The girls came racing down to
the waterhole carrying big native jars in their arms.
Each swung her jar, dripping full, to the top of her
sleek black head and went striding along without
touching the burden with her hands.

We walked along the narrow alleys and then
went sightseeing on the boulevard. One of our girls
aimed her kodak at a crowd of small warriors play-
ing "Indian" with bows and arrows. There was a
rattle of shrill invective from an unseen mother and

ACOMA THE SKY CITY 9

every youngster scuttled to shelter. Immediately a
dignified old man reached the scene. He wore light
cotton trousers reaching halfway between knee and
ankle, a cotton shirt, its tail outside, no socks, red-
dish sheepskin moccasins, and lots of shell and tur-
quoise jewelry. His hair was cut square, even with
his shoulders, and a purple silk handkerchief was
bound around his head. His face was a mass of
wrinkles, but his big black eyes had lost none of
their keenness. Sensing that our guide was respon-
sible for the entire company, he extended his hand
and greeted her graciously in English. He said we
were welcome to visit the village but that before we
took pictures there was a fee of five dollars to be
paid ! Questioned as to where this five dollars would
go, he said that he was the governor and collected
the money for the benefit of the entire population.
After some argument we compromised by giving
him two dollars and buying some pottery from his
wife, who had drawn near with her wares. We
never stopped to ask how the pottery money would
be divided!

Pottery-making is the only real art practiced by
the Acoma people. The clay in that region is very
good, and the bowls and big water jars they make
are sought by other villages for daily use. The
pottery when finished is a cream white, and the
decorations are large and colorful.

Clay is pounded, sifted, soaked, and kneaded until

10 INDIAN TRIBES

it is a smooth, compact mass. After it is of the
proper consistency, it is rolled into slender cylinders,
with which, round after round, the bowl is built up
to the desired height. A smooth stone models the
outside, and interior surfaces are smoothed by con-
tinual stroking with the potter's hand, the fingers
being dipped into water every few minutes to keep
the clay workable.

The completed vessel is set in the sun to dry,
then rubbed to a glossy smoothness by polishing it
with a small stone. A dressing of white clay wash
is next applied, and the polishing is done all over
again; the bowl is then ready to be painted. Mixing
her mineral paint in a hollowed rock, the artist
chews a bit of yucca leaf into the semblance of a
brush and by freehand drawing she then applies
patterns representing birds, snakes, turtles, and
conventional flowers, clouds, and mountains. Fir-
ing is now done by placing the vessels upside down
on a level rock and covering the heap with dry sheep
manure as fuel. This burns slowly and keeps an
even heat for many hours.

For the dance the women had donned their best
native clothes, and they made beautiful pictures in
their short, full skirts, embroidered and reaching to
the knee, where they met the wrap-around white
leggings so dear to the hearts of pueblo women.
Full blouses with long sleeves were tucked inside
their skirt bands, and some of them wore hand-

ACOMA THE SKY CITY 11

woven sashes of red and white. Quantities of na-
tive jewelry made of shell, coral, turquoise, and
silver adorned each woman, and over the entire
ensemble a light silk or wool shawl of some gay
color was worn. Many of the younger girls, home
from school, had bobbed hair, but each older woman
pulled hers back in a big knot on the back of her
head.

The Mission and its churchyard held special in-
terest for our party. We knew from Willa Gather's
Death Comes for the Archbishop how the Indians
had been forced to bring those great stones and
heavy beams up the steep trail, breaking their
hearts and their spirits in the service of an unknown
god. The big church has walls ten feet thick and
sixty or seventy feet high. Inside the cloisters it
was still and cool, and we wandered on through
into the desolate graveyard.

At the edge of the cliff a wall sixty feet high has
been built, and the space within it has been covered
with earth from the plains below. This was brought
up the steep cliff on the backs of Indians, as was the
earth for an adjoining plot which at one time was
a flourishing orchard and garden. The dead of
centuries sleep in that high cemetery. Scattered over
the graveyard are broken bowls, once filled with
food for the spirit's journey to an unknown world
pagan burial in priestly realm !

With a stone in his hand a stalwart Indian

12 INDIAN TRIBES

pounded the big Mission bell, calling all the faithful
to worship. They flocked into the dim old church
and celebrated Mass. Either they were good actors
or the solemn old chapel cast its spell upon them,
for no more devout or reverent worshipers could
have been desired.

When the service was ended, the flock went out
and formed in line. Armed with antique muskets,
two important-looking Indians stepped out and led
the procession. Saint Stephen, patron saint of Aco-
ma, was on his annual outing. Four men carried
the weatherbeaten image, its wooden hands raised
in perpetual blessing. The Mission bell clanged,
guns roared, and the people shouted as the image
was carried from house to house and finally de-
posited in a bower of cottonwood and juniper
boughs.

All day long the Indians visited the saint, bring
ing gifts of fruit and food. Two Acomas guarded
the shrine and kept inquisitive whites from coming
too near and hungry pigs from eating the offerings.
Each devout visitor would approach, kneel in front
of the figure, deposit his or her offering, and make
way for the next comer.

At noon the dancers appeared. We could not tell
whether they came from the kivas, which are built
right into the cluster of houses, or whether each
dancer came from his or her own home.

They wore wreaths of juniper about arms and

ACOMA THE SKY CITY 13

inkles. The men dancers, bare to the waist, were
painted in zigzag lines with white and red paint;
from the waist an embroidered kilt hung to the
knees and was fastened with the native woven sash
of red and white. Parrot feathers were tied to the
bands around the hair, and each carried a bunch of
parrot feathers and a rattle made of a gourd filled
with pebbles. They kept time to the beat of the
drum in a slow, dragging shuffle.

The women, dressed in their short, full skirts
and white deerskin leggings and moccasins, danced
two and two. They had loosened their long, glossy
hair and it streamed down over their gay shawls
almost to their knees. Their only paint was a bright
red spot on each high cheekbone, and they like-
wise carried parrot feathers and jumper boughs.
Wooden crowns, cut in fanciful designs and painted
with symbols of sun, moon, and clouds, rested
lightly on their heads and added to the colorful
pageant. They never lifted their eyes from the
ground but kept step with the drumbeats, their de-
mure, nun-like faces half-hidden by their flowing
feair.

The dance continued throughout the afternoon,
visitors passing carefully between the lines to place
their offerings in front of the wooden saint. When
the assorted gifts reached a certain height, the two
guardians laid aside their guns and let the good
Saint Stephen shift for himself while they dis-

14 INDIAN TRIBES

tributed the food among the visitors from other
villages.

Seeing us standing in the background and mak-
ing no effort to share in the plunder, the old gov-
ernor who had sold us the village secured a long
string of red chili peppers and two golden musk-
melons and presented them to us. Such articles as
crisp loaves of bread, ears of green corn, and the
smaller round melons were tossed into the air and
the spectators scrambled for them. Needless to say
no Navajo came from the scrimmage empty-
handed. Whatever they secured they carried to
the sidelines, where the patient Navajo women,
nursing the babies, proudly received the offering
and tucked it out of sight under voluminous skirts,
while the providers went back for more.

At sunset the dancers broke step and crowded to
the little shrine, where they dropped on their knees
in silence for a minute or so. Rising, they headed
the procession back to the church, while the bell
clanged and guns roared. Saint Stephen, patron of
Acoma, was placed in his dusky niche in the old
Mission wall and would go abroad no more until
the next fiesta in his honor.

All of the Rio Grande Indians have a weird mix-
ture of Catholic faith and tribal rites, which seem
to work well together. In Acoma each clan or so-
ciety has its own kiva, built in among the dwellings
and showing its purpose only by the high ladder ex-

ACOMA THE SKY CITY 15

tending from its top opening, for it is entered only
from above; here are kept the clan fetish and the
dance masks, dresses, and drums. But marriages
are performed in the old Mission, babies are bap-
tized there, and the dead are laid to rest in the con-
secrated ground of the churchyard. Just how many
tribal ceremonies are secretly held in the kivas to
offset the white man's worship it is hard to say.

Here in Acoma girls choose their own husbands,
making the necessary advances. If the boy's mother
is willing, the young people go to the Padre, return-
ing after the ceremony to the home of the girl,
where they add another room to the mother's house
or re-plaster one that has been deserted and set up
housekeeping.

The Padre at Acoma told us that several rooms
in the three clumps of houses had been deserted and
completely sealed up on account of accidents of cer-
tain kinds of death which had occurred within them.
A wise man was this good Father, laboring here on
the mesa of Acoma. "We must not expect too much
of them/' he said mildly; "after all they are just
children." He had walked with us to the top of the
trail and now smiled gently at two plump women
squabbling over which should earn the money of-
fered for carrying our pottery, melons, and peppers
down the trail to the car. They compromised by
both loping down the trail we found so fearsome !,

Apache Indians

Location: Northern and central Arizona, central New Mexico. Railway: Santa
Fe. Accommodations: Hotel Holbrook or Commercial Hotel at Holbroofc; Hotel
at *McNary (20 miles) ; government schools at White River Agency. Popula-
tion: 6,000 (Mescalero and Jicarella in New Mexico; White Mountain, San
Carlos, Chiricaliua in Arizona). Arts: Basket-making, fine beadwork. Indus-
tries: Lumbering, cattle-raising, farming.

DARK and sinister are the pages of history which
record the activities of the Apaches. Apaches
were first mentioned by Onate in 1598 as being on
the plains of New Mexico. After the middle of the
sixteenth century they seemed to be everywhere in
Arizona and New Mexico where a white man
wanted to settle. Natural enemies of the Pueblo
Indians when the Spaniards first came, even today
they are feared and hated by many Indians and
whites, who have not forgotten how they killed
freighters, plundered and burned wagon trains, and
murdered miners and settlers until within the last
fifty years. Subdued by General Miles in 1886 and

16

APACHE INDIANS 17

scattered from Florida to Alabama, they were re-
turned to Oklahoma as prisoners of war. They now
occupy four widely scattered reservations in Ari-
zona and New Mexico, a broken and defeated race.

We were well on our way toward the White
Mountains and the home of that group of Apaches
before members of our caravan knew just where
we were going.

"Apaches ! You don't mean you are taking us into
the Apache Reservation?" gasped our New York
girl. "Why, they kill people, don't they?"

Our guide just laughed and drove resolutely on
into the heart of the mountains. She insisted that
the Apaches were not only a peaceful people but a
disheartened, spiritless race, making little progress
toward independence or education. She said not all
the fault in the long warfare lay with the Apaches.
They had been robbed and mistreated by Mexicans
and Americans alike until they felt it was quite a
noble deed to kill such enemies,

At one time, before the United States owned this
part of the country, an Englishman had managed a
big mine near the border. Apaches were always rob-
bing his supply trains and committing depredations
that annoyed him immensely. He planned a grand
revenge. He prepared a big feast and invited all
the Apaches in the country to it. Cattle were butch-
ered, sheep killed, beans and corn cooked ; and while
six or eight hundred Indian men, women, and chil-

18 INDIAN TRIBES

dren sat feasting, his men opened fire upon them
with concealed cannon, killing hundreds. One likes
to remember that the Apaches eventually killed the
piurderers.

After the Civil War Arizona complained so
loudly to the government about the conduct of its
red children that General Crook was sent out to
chastise them. Eight years later he resigned, thor-
oughly wearied in mind and body by his unsuccess-
ful efforts. He expressed himself in no uncertain
words: "I have come into contact with practically
every Indian tribe within the United States/ 7 he re-
ported to the War Department, "but we have never
seen the equal of these Apaches. They are abso-
lutely indefatigable and never seeni to tire. They
live on food that we would starve on. When they
go into camp they leave guards seven or eight miles
out. They will travel a hundred miles a day over the
wildest country imaginable. A million men cannot
take them!"-

But they were eventually taken, and the leaders
with their families were marched away into various
parts of the South, where many lived out their
years and died pining for their own rugged country.
Geronimo, the most wily and treacherous of the
chiefs, made plea after plea to be allowed to return.
Once, with the help of outsiders, he escaped from
his prison, only to be recaptured and returned to
confinement, where he died in 1906.

APACHEINDIANS 19

After the war leaders were eliminated, the
Apache people were placed on reservations too
widely separated for them to meet and plot. They
are still occupying these reservations.

The White Mountain Reservation, which we vis-
ited, seventy-five miles south of Holbrook, was
reached over a fine state highway that intersected
U.S. 60 near McNary and passed directly through
the small agency town of Fort Apache. The reser-
vation is rich in natural beauty. Tall yellow pines
clothe the towering mountains, and a swift, clear
river waters the valley and breaks into waterfalls
over the red sandstone cliffs.

The Apache people are among the handsomest of
their color. Yet they live in rude tepees, called
wickiups, made of tall saplings or poles set closely
together in a circle perhaps ten or twelve feet across
and brought to a peak. The huts are about fifteen
feet high and are built in clusters. Over the poles
mud is packed, and boards or bits of tin or burlap
are fastened to the side most exposed to rain and
wind. A small entrance is left on the eastern side.
There are no windows, and the smoke from the fire
built in the center of the dirt floor goes out at the
top where the poles cross. Usually the earth inside
the shelter is scooped out to the depth of a foot or
two, where the unwary visitor is likely to fall head-
long when he steps into the dark place. There is no
furniture. Sheepskins serve as beds, and the house-

20 INDIAN TRIBES

wife gets along with a coffee pot and a pan or
two.

The small farms and gardens supply plenty of
beans and corn and peppers, and also pumpkins and
melons. This food is cured and put away for winter
use. During the last few years good cattle have
been furnished by the government and the Apaches
are going in for stock-raising. They have had sheep
and goats since they stole those which the Pueblo
Indians first obtained from the Spaniards.

The men are tall, portly Indians, with large,
wide-open eyes and pleasant, intelligent faces. They
dress very much in American style, most of them
having their hair cut short and covered by a wide-
brimmed Stetson hat. The women, however, are
more conservative. They cling to long, full-gath-
ered skirts, ruffled and braided, and a short, full
blouse, much like the dressing-sacque of the '90's.
The neck is high, the sleeves are long and full, and
the blouse hangs outside the skirt. Their hair is
worn long and hanging down the back, usually
tied at the neck with a bright string. Native beaded
moccasins, or, more often, "store" shoes, cover their
feet. The Apache women are most modest and
gentle. They smile shyly, but seldom enter into a
conversation with strangers.

The children wear clothing similar to that of
white children, and seem to notice little difference
between their own race and white visitors.

APACHE INDIANS 21

An Apache mother-in-law, like the Navajo, is
just plain unlucky as far as sons-in-law are con-
cerned. After an Apache marries a girl he takes
her to his people to live and from that day on he
must not look at his wife's mother. Should he ac-
cidentally face her, they must both go through va-
rious ceremonies to avert blindness or other ills
which are sure to follow the meeting.

Marriages are arranged by the older people after
the young folks signify their interest in each other,
but a girl is seldom compelled to marry someone to
whom she objects. Should he die, the widow cuts
her hair and blackens her face, female relatives
wail at sunset for two months, and at the end of a
year the widow is supposed to marry her husband's
brother, at whose hut she has been staying. This,
regardless of how many wives he already has. Not
so long ago an Apache might have half a dozen
wives, as he was free to have as many as he could
support. He usually did not take a second wife until
after the birth of a child to his first one.

In the event of a death in the wickiup, the men
of the family take care of the burial. The body is
wrapped in its best blanket, the most prized posses-
sions of the dead person being wrapped along with
the body, and it is carried to a high hill. Rocks are
heaped high on the grave to protect it from wild
animals, and a bundle is placed on the grave,, con-
taining a few beans, some meal, and some ground

22 INDIAN TRIBES

coffee, or whatever food is in the house at the time.
The dead Indian has a long journey to make, and
must have food for his trip. Now and then a horse
or dog is killed as a companion, but that custom is
gradually dying out. A grave is never revisited and
the name of a dead companion is never mentioned.

Healing dances are held for the sick, or to avert
some misfortune. The drum in such cases must be
made of a buffalo skin, and the moccasins of the
patient are used as drum sticks. More noise than
music is made with the shoulder bones of the deer
or antelope, which are rubbed with a notched stick,
to scare away the evil spirits.

From the number of Navajos wandering around
a brush inclosure and the wagonloads of Apaches
arriving on the scene, we believed a healing dance
was in progress. This seemed to be a good place to
camp, and with the aid of a quiet young Apache
schoolboy we made camp. Our guide at length made
friends with him and he told us the dance was for
the young girls and not a healing dance at all.

A ceremony held for girls when they reach wom-
anhood has always been of great importance among
the Apaches. While other rites and beliefs have
been allowed to disappear, this coming-out party is
never neglected. Their girls must be protected from
evil spirits ; they must remember to be modest and
chaste, and to be industrious and faithful to their
marriage vows. In fact there is little unfaithful-

A PA CHE INDIANS 23

ness among Apache women, for the wronged hus-
band may slice off a portion of his defaulting
partner's nose and turn her out of his house as a
warning to other light women.

Like the Navajo Womanhood Dance, this young
girls' ceremony is a social event. Other dances and
ceremonies are held at the same time, as Uncle
Sam has decreed that there must not be too many
such gatherings in the course of a year, for dance
days interfere with planting corn and with caring
for the flocks and looking after the cattle.

Our guide tried to get some advance information
from the silent lad assisting in pitching the tent and
gathering the wood for us, but the Sphinx would
have been as loquacious as he. He accepted the food
we offered, and he said that he played in the band
at the Riverside School in California; but let the
dance be mentioned and he suddenly developed an
entire deafness. We gave up trying to converse
with the lad and wandered around to see for our-
selves what was going on.

Indians were camped all about us. Stern, tall
Navajos loafed magnificently while their dutiful
wives carried wood and water and put mutton to
simmer over the fire. Hopis and Zufiis chattered
and laughed, comparing their wampum jewelry and
trading back and forth. One fat Zuni busily
sketched the red cliff among the green trees and
added a few bold strokes to indicate the sparkling

24 INDIAN TRIBES

river at its base. We stood admiring the result
until our guide arrived and introduced us. 'This is
Teddy Weakie, the Zuni artist/ 5 she said, "and his
work is exhibited in famous galleries around the
world/ 3 He gave the sketch to our guide and gra-
ciously signed it for her. They discussed the "Sha-
lako" and the "Rain Dance/' which the Zunis had
traveled to Hopiland to give the previous autumn.
It was the first time in twenty years the dance had
been presented, and all the Indians believe it was
the direct cause of the terrible blizzard which cov-
ered their world with snow a yard deep and killed
their flocks and cattle. "No more will the Zunis
give that dance!" Teddy declared as we moved on
about the encampment.

Gambling was rampant, for Apaches are great
gamblers. They played with cards, but we could
not get the hang of the thing, and they waved us on
if we stood too long watching. Teddy said they
thought we brought bad luck to them.

Out of nowhere a really beautiful young woman
appeared beside our guide and waited patiently to
be noticed. "Why, Violet I" and white hands and
slim brown ones met in warm friendship. There
were hurried questions about husband and babies,
and we followed the girl to her home among the
pines. She and her husband, a rock-worker, had
spent the previous summer building a house and
keeping it tidy for our guide. Now her husband was

APACHE INDIANS 25

dressing native stone for a government house, and
Violet and her babies lived there while he worked.

Our hostess brought wooden boxes for us to sit
on. She was perhaps twenty, tall and slender. Her
hair was brushed into shimmering smoothness and
tied close at the back of her neck with a bit of red
calico, the long strands swinging the length of her
full calico blouse. Her skirt, made of blue calico
trimmed with white braid, was freshly washed and
ironed. She wore low, canvas tennis shoes. Several
rings and bracelets from a ten-cent store adorned
her beautifully shaped hands. I think she had the
largest, softest brown eyes and the most beautiful
smile I've ever seen. She seemed quite fond of our
guide and kept touching her as they talked. Her
three babies were presented. The little girl, about
five, was shy and crept away and hid, but the three-
year-old brother leaned against us and fingered our
purses and our kodak. The poor baby was the only
crippled Indian baby we saw in the entire summer.
He was plump and brown, but there was no
strength in his little spine, and his head fell help-
lessly unless supported by his mother's hand.

"Violet makes the most beautiful baskets/' said
our guide. "You girls want some. This is the place
to get them/'

The girl brought her baskets and we agreed that
they were beautiful. The masterpiece was what she
called a "burden basket." It was a deep basket,

26 INDIAN TRIBES

wide at the top, large enough to hold perhaps half a
bushel, and its closely woven white strands were
checkered with a soft red band now and then. The
bottom was covered with white buckskin reaching
perhaps two inches up the outside of the basket, and
then out into fringe which hung gracefully from the
lifted basket. The top was bound with buckskin,
also fringed, and the head band was a wide strip
of this same soft material. At one time every
Apache woman owned more than one of these car-
rying baskets, but of late years the baskets are rare
and seldom sold. Other baskets were the wide,
rather flat plaques, just turned enough at the edge
to keep corn or fruit from rolling off. These were
smoothly, closely woven of yucca fiber, in star pat-
terns or squash-blossom designs, artistically worked
with black fiber. This, Violet said, was the outside
of the seed pod of the "devil's claw," the one used
by the Hopis in their beautiful work.

Perhaps the most interesting things we bought
were water jars, really baskets. In shape like the
old Grecian urns, these utensils are thickly smeared
inside and out with pinon gum, boiled and thinned
to the proper degree. Through this translucent cov-
ering the weave of the basket shows plainly. Two
woven handles serve as lugs for the carrying rope.
Just such water bottles have served the Apache
tribe since they were first known.

Quaint little Apache carrying-boards, beaded and

APACHE INDIANS 27

fringed over the woven frame, were among her
baskets. These were exactly like the ones used by
Apache mothers every day, and peeping under the
hoods we discovered babies made of rags, with
painted faces. Violet said she sold all of these she
could make to a little store on the reservation.

She brought from another hiding-place bags
made of white buckskin and skillfully beaded. Her
designs were original and Indian; no red roses
bloomed on her pocketbooks, and there were no
American flags waving over their white sides. Con-
ventional clouds and pine trees and her own native
objects decorated them.

Basket-making and beadwork are the only native
arts the Apache women have developed. The men
seem to have entirely neglected artistic develop-
ment. In fact the men we saw all seemed to be help-
less, hopeless, moping specimens, sunk in bitter
recollections of lost, glorious days. The young men
wore slouched hats and white men's clothes, which
sat but ill upon their muscular bodies. We came to
the conclusion that the Apache as he is now is a
caged animal, his wild tricks forgotten and no tame
ones learned to replace them.

Some writers say the Apaches weave blankets.
Our guide made diligent inquiry time and again of
old women and young, and could not learn of even
one Apache woman who weaves. It was suggested
that perhaps Navajo women married to Apaches

28 INDIAN TRIBES

continue to weave blankets, but even a Navajo
weaver was not located in Apacheland.

"Violet," said our guide, "did your sister go to
the hospital when her baby was born?"

The Apache girl looked around in an apprehen-
sive manner, and spoke quite low.

"Yes, and it is well she did. She had two babies,
and that, you know, is very bad. The older people
wanted to let them die, because everyone knows the
last twin born is a devil child and must die. But
the hospital people just laugh and think the babies
are nice. They are still there because they do not
know which one was born last and my sister is
afraid to take either out. I guess they will have to
live in the Mission all their lives/'

She referred to the Lutheran Mission for orphan
children, built for just such cases. The Apache
tribe shares with the Hopi and Navajo the deepest
fear and abhorrence of twin or crippled children.

Twilight fades quickly in Arizona, and sounds of
a chant came to us before our camp supper was
eaten and things tidied up. Violet had promised to
take us with her to the dance and tell us what we
could not understand. Our guide warned us not to
let our curiosity get the better of our manners, and
so we were careful about the questions we asked.

It seemed that the singing we heard was a sort
of warming-up, as it was just a group of men sing-
ing through their noses while a circle of men,

APACHE INDIANS 29

women, and children held hands and moved round
and round in a dragging shuffle. We watched them
a while and even joined the circle. But the cere-
monial tepee standing high and stark among the
trees proved too interesting, and we made our way
through the crowd until we could look inside of it.
It was quite a large shelter, trimmed with oak
branches and pine boughs. Straw covered the floor,
threatening to bring disaster if the fire in the center
should get out of bounds. Violet said this fire would
burn for four days and must not go out or the girls
concerned in the ceremony would have nothing but
ill luck all their lives.

Two mummified medicine men sat there, entirely
engrossed in their music, chanting away like phono-
graphs. Each had a rattle of goat or deer hoofs in
his left hand and with his right grasped a long
decorated wand stuck firmly in the ground. Their
chant was not unlike that of the Navajos and the
Hopis, but somehow it did not carry that weird un-
dertone which all Navajo songs have.

This big tepee is built at dawn, and certain very
secret ceremonies are connected with the process.
At one time it was supposed to house the young
girls during the entire four days, but of late years
they are permitted to go back to their parents' te-
pees between acts. While we watched, four girls
came into the structure as silently and as gracefully
as young does. Their spectacular clinging dresses

50 INDIAN TRIBES

were made of doeskin, yellowed and softened by
years of careful usage. How many girls, we won-
dered, during past years, had slipped into just such
tepees wearing those identical garments? How
many restless feet, now dust, had tapped the earth
to that centuries-old chant ?

The dresses had short fringed skirts, short
fringed blouses, with deep yoke-length fringe at
the neck. The high moccasins were beautifully
beaded and seemed moulded to the slender feet and
legs. In the long, glossy hair of each girl eagle
feathers had been tied, and one girl held a bunch
of eagle feathers in her nervous hand.

It was growing dark in the big tepee, but we kept
our places, and soon the ceremony began. On each
of four deerskins, pegged to the dirt floor, knelt
an Apache girl. They were very serious and intent,
as they knelt, their slim little backs straight, their
arms close to their sides, and their palms turned up
and outward like praying temple girls. Fitful light
from the fire shone upon their tense faces as they
lifted them toward the heavens. Now and then
four old women would enter and drive stakes in the
earth around the fire. The little girls swayed and
nodded with weariness, but their posture never
changed. One stake for each song, Violet said ; but
how anybody could tell where one song ended and
another began we couldn't guess.

When our own muscles were aching with syni-

APACHE INDIANS 31

pathy, one girl rose and with head thrown back and
hands still imploring danced back and forth, and up
and down her deerskin. It was the most graceful
movement one could dream of, and thoughts of
what such a setting and such a dance would mean if
it could be brought to a modern theater stage kept
intruding. When the wish was repeated to our
guide, she thrust out impatient hands as if to push
the vision away. "Never ! This is Indian!"

The little girl finished her dance and drooped
silently into her former position. Without any vis-
ible signal the girl farthest away rose and danced
her brief moment. There was no sound except the
slow never-changing chant and the tinkle of the
beaded fringe one girl wore as she glided back and
forth. When the last girl had danced, the old
women broke into a moaning wail that carried all
the trouble and sorrow of their tribe in its throb-
bing notes. It went on and on, chanting medicine
men, stakes marking the songs and forming a clos-
ing circle; little girls in their trance-like dance; old
women sobbing a death-like wail; flickering fire-
light; and the same thing over again. At dawn
the girls, drugged with weariness, slipped out of the
tepee and almost staggered to their own homes for
the remainder of the day. They must eat no salt
during this four-day ceremony and must not
scratch themselves with their fingernails. Why?
Violet did not know. They just mustn't!

32 INDIAN TRIBES

That day we drove deep into the White Moun-
tains and rested and roamed among the graceful
white birches and rugged firs. Flowers of every
shade and odor carpeted the mossy woodland, and
squirrels and birds kept the dusky depths alive with
sound and movement. A rushing, scolding little
river tore its way through the forest, and we seemed
a thousand miles away from last night's scene. The
same ceremony would continue in the big tepee for
three more nights, but Violet had whispered that
the "Crown Dance/' which white people call the
"Devil Dance/ 3 would be staged also, and we re-
turned to our camp in time to see and hear all we
could of that.

Although the Devil Dance is commonly supposed
to be a part of the Girls 7 Ceremony, it has abso-
lutely nothing to do with it. It is held at the same
time, while the crowd is there, because the agent
does not permit many such annual get-togethers.
Many, many years ago this was a very special
dance, held only when war was imminent or where
a sickness had struck the tribe. Now it seems to be
given on general principles.

The six or seven men who took part in this affair
were startling creatures. Their bodies were bare
with the exception of a loin cloth, but their skins
were painted white and on the white background
were painted fantastic figures, big polka dots and
zigzag lines and triangles, making the men look

APACHE INDIANS 33

lopsided and grotesque. They carried wands and
juniper branches and wore magnificent masks,
gaudy and glaring in color and design, no two alike.
Their faces were either painted black or covered
smoothly with black cloth. From the darkness out-
side the firelight they came with animal-like shrieks
and cries, leaping into the air and landing with
arms and knees akimbo. They then formed in line
and passed by the priests, who sprinkled each one
with sacred pollen from the tule or cat-tail The
cries had changed to hoots of an owl by this time,
the hoot owl being a sacred bird to Apaches, though
feared and hated by other Indians.

When all had been anointed with pollen, they
began to dance about the fire. It was a dance of
wooden men, jerky and mechanical, stiff- jointed
and yet devilishly graceful ; the thing was lewd, and
still there was not one movement or gesture that
was offensive. One just felt the underlying ob-
scenity of the entire dance. For half an hour the
demon dancers leaped and hooted in the firelight,
then darted away into the darkness.

We shook ourselves free from the spell and went
silently back to the ceremonial tepee. There the
nun-like maidens knelt on their white deerskins,
their innocent faces turned upward, their heavy
eyes filled with dreams and visions.

And that was the picture we carried away from
the land of the Apache.

SrSr^v. f'^^'^^ -r-\^!?'~''<!i~1 f rn

&%*

, HAVASUPAV HUT ijotuT OF UM es, STICKS AND EARTH v ;2Urt?

Havasupai and Hualapai Indians

THERE is no comparison between the Havasupai
Indians and the orderly, prosperous, and happy
Pueblos we had visited on our Indian journey. Of
neither camp-dwelling nor Pueblo stock, the Hava-
supai have been compelled by circumstances to live
on less than a section of land in the narrow bottom
of a little sheltered canyon leading from the main
gorge of the Grand Canyon, while the Hualapai or
Walapi Indians occupy a great rolling country near
the California state line. At one time the two were
united, but difficulties with other Indians and inner
strife parted them.

HAVASUPAI

Location: Cataract Canyon, 54 miles from Grand Canyon National Park Head-
quarters. Railway: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel El Tovar or Bright
Angel Cottages. Population: 203. Arts and industries: Baskttry; farming and
road work,

The 'Supais are rather large, corpulent Indians,
with broad, rather stupid faces, and long, tangled
hair falling in disorder around their shoulders, and

34

HAVASUPAIS AND HUALAPAIS 35

are untidy in their dress. When the children are
returned from non-reservation schools they make
an effort for a time to maintain general cleanliness,
but the struggle is too uneven and soon they too
have reverted to the ordinary dirt hewas and the
tribal untidiness.

'Supai children are sent to school at Truxton
Canyon, the home of the Hualapais.

From Grand Canyon we drove thirty-six miles
through desert and sage land and some timbered
country to Hilltop, where we left the car and loaded
our necessary belongings on pack horses. Fourteen
miles of startling trails, steep and fearsome in
places, wide and enjoyable in others, led to a camp-
ing spot near the government buildings at the foot
of the canyon trail. Here we found five white people
living the superintendent's family of four, and
a white man teacher.

Our camp attracted sellers of baskets, and really
beautiful work was brought to us by those primitive
basket-makers. The banks of the rushing little
stream provide an abundance of willows. The
wands are gathered at the proper season, split, and
colored with juice from other plants. While the
work progresses the thin strips are buried in wet
sand to keep them pliable.

Many of the baskets are shallow bowls, with no
trimming other than a conventional pattern of black
running around near the top. Others in graceful

36 INDIAN TRIBES

vase-like shapes with decorations of black and a
brownish red are almost as fine as Apache work.
'Supai work always looks as if turned wrong-side
out, and is easily identified. Water jars and small-
necked bottles are woven of the willow and plas-
tered inside and out with pinon pitch to make them
waterproof. Cooking vessels are of this willow,
lined with clay and tempered to resist heat.

The Havasupais raise plenty of vegetables, corn
and beans, pumpkins and melons, and the tribe
owns perhaps a hundred head of beef cattle.

Figs, peaches, apricots, and apples grow plenti-
fully in their small valley and are dried for winter
use. When the crops are being gathered the old
and helpless people down in the Canyon look after
the children who attend the little one-room school,
while the able-bodied Indians move to a winter vil-
lage three miles from El Tovar. The men are given
what work there is in the National Park; others
work on ranches.

The Havasupais have healing dances similar to
the Navajo ceremony and indulge freely in sweat-
baths. This sweatbath, which they take about once
a week, would appear to a white person tp be
something of an ordeal. The small adobe structure
used is scarcely larger than the outside ovens we
had observed along the way. There is no opening
in the top, and the doorway is so small the bather
must creep in on all fours. Rocks are heated in a

HAVASUPAIS AND HUALAPAIS 37

fire and placed inside the house. Then water is
thrown on them, and the bather enters, dropping- a
blanket tightly over the door. He stays inside until
he is dripping with perspiration and then comes out
for a breath of air, while cold water is tossed on
him by helpful neighbors; in he goes for another
sweat, and then out for a final dash of cold water
to close the pores. The old men attribute their long
life to this weekly steaming rite.

Until not many years ago the 'Supai dead were
cremated, and all their personal possessions burned
on the funeral pyre. The eldest son took charge of
the father's funeral. Now, at the insistence of the
superintendent, bodies are buried, and nothing that
can be used by the survivors is destroyed.

HUALAPAI

Location: Northwestern Arizona on U.S. 66 to Colorado River. Railway: Santa
Fc. Accommodations; Camp grounds and cabins at Valentine, Arizona. Popu-
lation: 437. Arts and industries: Basketry and beadwork; farming and stock-
raising.

The Hualapai Reservation, containing almost
750,000 acres, including rough and mountainous
territory, with some timbered land and a great deal
of desert, was set aside fdr them in recognition of
their fine services with the white army against
Geronirno and his marauders.

Houses are not important, it seems, since they
are so carelessly thrown together. Four supporting
posts are put up tentwise, and a fifth is stretched
along the top. Smaller poles are leaned against this

38 INDIAN TRIBES

roof pole and brush and willows woven amoqg them.
Earth piled around the base keeps out wind and
water, and, in winter, dirt is piled almost to the
top to keep out rain and cold. The floor is of dirt,
and there is no furniture. Cooking is done over a
wood fire in the center of the floor. Trachoma, pel-
lagra, and tuberculosis are present in 50 per cent
of these homes.

The women wear full-gathered calico dresses
sweeping the earth, and their shawls are made of
four big red or blue cotton handkerchiefs sewed
together and hung down their backs.

Beautiful baskets, similar to Apache work, were
being made in almost every miserable hut, and with
a few choice specimens we retreated to the home
of the agent. He said these Indians seemed indiffer-
ent to education, cleanliness, and religion, and have
few tribal dances or ceremonies of their own.

Only one old rite is religiously observed. Once a
year there is a community burning of food and
clothing in commemoration of their dead. That
ceremony corresponds to our Memorial Day.

Hopi Snake Dancers

Location: Northern Arizona, 75 miles north of highway U.S. 66, Railway:
Santa Fe. Accommodations: Commercial or Holbrook Hotel at Holbrook, or
La Pasada at Winslow. Population: 3,000. Arts and industries: Pottery,
basketry, weaving, silverwork; farming and stock-raising.

WHO has not heard of the Hopi Snake Dance?
It is mentioned with bated breath in the East.
In planning our proposed Indian journey we
scarcely hoped to see this much-discussed spectacle,
but, as our guide said, one has not seen the Hopis
at their best unless one has visited them at Snake
Dance time.

Leaving highway U.S. 66 at Holbrook, Arizona,
we turned due north and followed a typical Indian
Service road, through sand and cactus, jumper and
sagebrush, and a beautiful section of the Painted
Desert with its hills and valleys of colored clays
and sands.

39

40 INDIAN TRIBES

Soon after we turned north we began to pass
Navajo hogans, each with its door open toward the
east, and flocks of milk-white sheep and goats
guarded by their small herders. Sometimes shaggy-
haired boys would come to the car and accept the
candy we offered, but the little girls were quite shy
and with a flutter of full bright skirts would flee
to the protection of a bush and peep out at us. Ugly
cur dogs with every flock bravely chased us away
from their charges.

We passed an old trading-post, Indian Wells,
with its solid stone building, lighted only by small
windows high up, and protected with iron bars.
Volcanic formations dotted the landscape, and after
miles of such country we dropped into Kearn's
Canyon, with its hospital, its mess hall, clubhouse,
schools, and stores, the logical place for tourists
to stop when they visit the Hopis.

For twelve miles we followed the high mesa west
to Polacca, a little town at the foot of the First
Mesa, upon which are the three towns best known
to white people Hano, Sichomovi, and, at the ex-
treme end of the stone ledge, Old Walpi, gallant
veteran of many a siege. From the road below we
could see the houses perched on top of the rocks,
but even with the windows to betray them the)
looked like a part of the natural fortress, so clev-
erly are they built in.

This mesa, together with the other two, lying

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 41

seven and twenty miles, respectively, farther west,
were chosen as an asylum by the Hopis after they
had been harassed by warlike tribes and driven
from former homes in valley and plain, as attested
by ruined homes left in their wake. The Hopi In-
dians have never been fighters, they have not lived
by pillage and war, but century after century they
have tilled their small fields, raised the wild cotton,
woven it into clothing for their households, shaped
earthen vessels for daily use, and asked nothing- of
gods or man except enough rain for their crops.

Coronado, hearing of these Hopi towns, after
"his conquest of Zuni, sent Captain de Tovar with a
dozen soldiers to visit them and annex them to his
long list of villages taken for the king of Spain.
De Tovar found them just as they are today. He
visited the village of Oraibi, which recent tree-ring
readings show to have been occupied since 1370.
They were planting their colored corn, grinding it
on mealing stones, cooking it on hot rocks; they
were shaping and painting and burning pottery,
just as they do today. Don Diego tells us that they
were holding their famous Snake Dance then, and
time has not materially changed their mode of life.

They hated and killed the white priests sent there
to teach them a strange religion two hundred years
ago ; and since it seems to rile the government offi-
cials at Washington for priests to get killed nowa-
days, they just ignore the Padres as much as

42 INDIAN TRIBES

possible. The missionaries live at the foot of each
mesa and do good work teaching sanitation and
sewing and helping to care for the old and sick In-
dians, but, religiously speaking, they have not reg-
istered as yet with the Hopis. The Hopi Indians
are frank nature-worshipers.

At Polacca the Hopi trader, Tom Pavatea, joined
us and welcomed our guide warmly. He wore a
red velvet shirt trimmed with silver buttons, ordi-
nary trousers, brown deerskin moccasins, and a red
silk handkerchief about his bobbed hair. Perhaps
fifty years old, he loomed tall and straight, and his
large brown eyes were full of fun. He settled him-
self in the front seat beside our guide and dropped
into conversation with her about various Hopi fam-
ilies, joint charges of Pavatea and his white friend.

"One old woman you know is buried there," he
said, pointing to a newly turned mound in the native
graveyard at the foot of the trail. The one he indi-
cated had a gaudy footstool on top of it. Our guide
had given the stool to the old woman so she would
not have to sit on the floor, and it was so dear to
her that the relatives had placed it on her grave so
she could take it with her on her journey. Other
graves were marked by favorite utensils or by worn
"cornsticks," with which the owners tilled their
fields during their lifetime.

A Hopi is buried in an upright position, chin on
knees, and sewed securely into one of his best blan-

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 43

kets. Food is placed on the grave for four days,
and at the end of that time the bowl is broken, as
the spirit will not hover around any longer. Hopi
men bury their dead during the hours of darkness,
after the body has been prepared by the female
relatives. The face is painted with corn meal, and
a bunch of eagle feathers is tied to the hair, after
which the blanket is sewed around the still form
and it is placed in a corner while the mourners
address it. They upbraid the dead person for go-
ing away, and explain that they have always tried
to be kind and loving. After this the father or
an uncle carries the body to the graveyard and
buries it.

Bodies of little children under the age of seven
or eight are not placed in the ground but are hidden
away among the rocks at the edge of the mesa.
Their souls stay near the mother until another child
is born and that child's body is occupied by the soul
of the dead baby. Mothers often put pinches of
food about the house for the little spirit to feed
upon while waiting for another body to occupy.

Leaving the graveyard we crawled up the steep,
winding road that leads to the top of the mesa.
Halfway up we passed a number of scraggy peach
trees growing in the sand. Tom left the car and
secured a handful of peaches for us, and although
they were very small their flavor was delicious.
These trees are descendants of the seedlings set out

44 INDIAN TRIBES

by priests almost three hundred years ago. Bushels
of fruit are dried and stored each season for fu-
ture use.

Many years ago there was a prolonged drought
in Hopiland and the Indians suffered from lack of
food. Since that time each family is required to
keep a three years' supply of corn and dried peaches
in the little hidden corn room built into every house.
About every two weeks this corn, which is piled
in orderly rows, assorted according to color, is
carried up and spread on the roof for the sun to
sweeten it. The peaches in sacks share the sunning
and airing.

The Hopi people are short, plump Indians,
friendly and smiling. The men wear cotton trou-
sers, light shirts, moccasins made of red sheepskin
or of deerskin, and their hair is usually cut in a
square bang hanging to their shoulders and bound
with a bright-colored ribbon or handkerchief. On
the Second and Third Mesas the men have not cut
their hair but wear it in big knots at the napes of
their necks.

The women of the First and Second Mesas have
succumbed to the shapeless calico wrapper for
everyday work. The commonplace garment is re-
lieved, however, by being tied around the waist with
the handwoven red and white sash which husbands
weave in their spare hours. Usually the women
are barefoot, and their little, short feet have de-

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 45

veloped such thick soles of skin that the sharp rocks
do not bother them. On gala days out come the
native dresses of blue wool, woven by the men folk
and embroidered with red. This dress leaves a
brown arm and shoulder bare, and is tied with the
red and white sash. The petticoats of all these
pueblo Indians are arranged so as to extend a few
inches below the dark dress and display the lace
with which they are trimmed. A married woman
wears her hair in two clubs, one over each shoulder,
with bangs hanging to her eyes. The school girls
come home with fashionable bobs which speedily
grow into long tresses, and are arranged on wicker
frames to make the romantic-looking squash-blos-
soms when the girl decides to take a husband.

Here, as well as in most Pueblo villages, the girl
selects her life partner and he becomes a member
of her mother's household. After she makes up her
mind which boy she wants, she takes a woven
plaque heaped with meal of her own grinding, or
piki she has made, and presents it to the lad's
mother. The mother, in turn, if she approves, re-
turns the plaque filled with a gift and the marriage
arrangements go on; but if she does not care to
have her son marry the girl she simply returns the
original plaque with the food undisturbed. That
ends the matter. An engaged couple announce the
event by sitting in an open doorway while the girl
combs her lover's hair. For this purpose she uses

46 INDIAN TRIBES

the short end of the grass-stem broom. Since the
Hopis are closely supervised by government officials
and missionaries, they usually are married accord-
ing to white man's law, but in addition a Hopi wed-
ding follows.

The bridegroom makes a pair of moccasins for
his bride and weaves two robes for her, one large
and one small. The large one is embroidered by the
men working in the kiva and serves on only two
occasions when her first child is christened, and
as a shroud when she dies. The other is her best
cloak as long as it lasts.

The wedding ceremony consists of hairwash-
ings in yucca-root water and eating marriage mush
from a wedding basket. The mush is sprinkled with
pollen from blue corn, and first the bride dips in,
then the groom. What is left is scrambled for,
much as is our bride's bouquet. During the first
year of married life the young wife is supposed to
grind two thousand pounds of corn meal on the
stone metates for her mother-in-law to compensate
her for the loss of her son. Young wives invite
their friends in and have a grinding-bee.

Divorce is not common, but is very simple. The
girl puts her erring husband's belongings outside
the door and he has to go back to hi v s mother's house
or to the kiva of his society with the other bache-
lors.

One of the most colorful ceremonies among the

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 47

Hopis is the christening- of a child. On the twenti-
eth day of the baby's life, up to which time the sun
is not supposed to have shone upon it, the little one
is washed in yucca-root water by its father's mother
and well rubbed with corn meal and pollen.
Wrapped firmly on its cradle board, it is then car-
ried to the edge of the mesa, accompanied by friends
and relatives. The young mother in her bridal robe
leads the procession, carrying an ear of corn in her
hand. At the edge of the mesa the priest holds the
baby so that the first ray of sun will shine in its tiny
face, and touching it with the ear of corn, names
it Sunshine, or maybe White Cloud, or Whirlwind,
or whatever object of nature attracts his attention.
The friends, in turn, touch the baby with the corn
and give it the names they favor. So a little child
may have twenty names.

When the last name is bestowed the group go
back to the baby's home and feast upon the food
prepared. The main dish is mutton, roasted or
stewed with corn and beans. Rich cornmeal pud-
dings, filled with peach-seed kernels and bits of
mutton fat, baked in cornhusks, are always to be
found at such a feast. In season, green corn and
beans, tomatoes, fruit, and melons are served.
While the guests eat they make wishes for the baby
and each one gives presents of corn or cornmeal.
Piki bread in gay colors surrounds the feasters.
Piki bread was being made by the Hopis in 1540

48 INDIAN TRIBES

and the process so interested the Spanish Fathers
that they wrote a description of its making. Time
has not materially changed the method. Colored
corn is dried in the sun and shelled. Then the grain
is broken in the coarse metate, passed on to the
finer stone for thorough pounding, and then into
a stone bin, where it is completely pulverized. Then
it is placed in a big earthen mixing - bowl and
thinned to a batter with water. In the meantime a
big stone two feet long and a foot wide has been
heating over a wood fire. The top of this baking
stone, rubbed to satin smoothness, is greased with
mutton tallow. When it is smoking hot the baker
dips her fingers into the batter and with one swift
sweep spreads a layer entirely over the hot surface,
where it cooks almost instantly. With another swift
jerk she removes the thin sheet from the stone and
then smears another across it. The first sheet is
folded twice lengthwise and rolled into a cylinder
about the size of an ear of corn. For hours the
baker crouches over the hot stone making piki
bread, without which no Hopi dance or ceremony
would be complete.

In Hopiland there are three mesas, and each mesa
has three villages. While they all speak the same
language and have the same customs and religion,
or lack of it, the craft of each mesa remains the
particular property of that mesa. When a First
Mesa girl marries and goes to live on another mesa,

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 49

she does not continue her pottery-making, but takes
up the art of the people among whom she lives.

The mesa of Walpi, meaning "Place of the Gap/'
is a rocky ledge five hundred feet high, perhaps half
a mile long, and two or three hundred feet wide.
At the top of the trail is the Tewa village of Hano,
to which in 1700 the Tewas came at the request of
the Hopis and settled to guard the trail against
Apaches, Navajos, and Piutes. Tewas are fighters
and they have kept faith with their hosts. Halfway
down the present road is a wedge-shaped rock
known as Tally Rock, and here, engraved in
straight rows of small lines, is the record of the
hostile Indians killed as they tried to reach the vil-
lage to kidnap and steal. About one hundred and
eighty marks can be counted. The Tewas are very
proud of this record.

The Tewas are very fine potters, and there is
rivalry between them and the Hopi women of the
other two villages as to which tribe produces the
finer pottery. Nampeyo, a fine old Tewa woman,
still living, although blind and almost helpless, was
the one who revived the ancient art of pottery-
making among the Hopi Indians. In 1897 she
began to collect bits of prehistoric pottery from
neighboring ruins and to study the designs and
texture of the clay. Gathering the blue clay from
among the ledges around Hano, she finally devel-
oped a strong firm clay that withstands hard usage.

SO INDIAN TRIBES

Now, thirty-five years later, she cannot see to paint
the pottery, but her sensitive old hands still shape it
and polish it ready for others to decorate. And
around her all day long she hears the clay being
beaten and pounded and vessels being rubbed ready
for painting, and smells the smoke from the firing.

Hopi pottery is a soft, glowing cream color, with
reddish-brown decorations, and is not coarse and
brittle like so much of the pottery of the South-
west. The clay is worked into a smooth, tough
mixture before being shaped, then tempered in the
sun, and baked for hours in a slow, sheep-manure
fire. The designs are conventional clouds and moun-
tains, water, and snakes, and almost all of them
carry a suggestion of the Thundcrbird. Sale of
pottery brings the First Mesa women many dollars
yearly.

On the Second Mesa coiled baskets are made,
Yucca leaves are gathered at different times of the
year, in order to secure a variety of colors; devil's
claw pods, which are black, are soaked and peeled ;
and sometimes vegetable and mineral dyes are used
to provide bright colors for the work. The founda-
tion of the coil consists of perhaps a dozen or more
coarse grass stems, around which the yucca fiber is
woven. Flat plaques and baskets are made to hold
fruit, piki, and green corn. Deeper baskets serve
as storage vessels, and all are beautiful and sub-
stantial examples of Indian baskets.

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 51

On the Third Mesa the women weave wicker
plaques and baskets, and while these are much
cheaper, they are not as popular as the coiled ones.
The dyes used are store dyes, and light and sun
fade them. These wicker baskets are made from
split willow twigs. Butterfly and Thunderbird
designs are popular. Some very beautiful large
baskets are produced, which serve well for waste-
baskets.

Without doubt the Hopi Indians are the most
versatile tribe of the Southwest Among their arts
and crafts they include practically every article
made by other Indians. The men weave beautiful
rugs and sashes, and do gay wool embroidery equal
to the famed peasant embroidery of Europe. They
knit wool into stockings and weave it into robes
and dresses for their wives. They spin and weave
cotton. Their silverwork, while not so profuse as
that of the Navajos, surpasses it in design and
finish.

From cottonwood roots they carve Kachina dolls,
delicate featured, and with hands and feet beauti-
fully sculptured. These little images represent the
various kindly gods of their legends and are given
to the Hopi children much as we give dolls to our
little ones. The dolls are painted, and usually have
fanciful head dresses of turkey or eagle feathers.

Hopi artists have won renown in New York and
elsewhere with their native paintings of dancers

52 INDIAN TRIBES

and village scenes. There is little in the field of
Indian art that the Hopi people cannot imitate well.

The Kachina dolls are the means of teaching the
little ones the various religious legends of the tribe,
and there is scarcely a summer day that a dance is
not in progress in some one of the nine villages.
These masked figures are great overgrown dolls
dressed to represent the kindly spirits, and they
chant and dance hour after hour for the entertain-
ment of their unseen deities.

The women are never permitted to mask, but they
can be seen romping through a basket dance or
taking part in the spectacular Butterfly Dance,
which is one of the most colorful of their cere-
monies.

Little boys imitate their elders and gravely go
through all the measures of the hunting dances. It
is a treat to see them prance and charge, elude and
lock horns in the Buffalo Dance. While one small
member thumps a drum, they beat the hard earth
with restless twinkling feet, until the moment when
the fatal arrow reaches the heart of the buffalo.
The wounded buffalo paws dust into the air, then
rolls over on its side, and the magic is gone, while
half a dozen or so small Indian boys dart to shelter.

In the underground kivas or clubrooms of the
various societies much work is done to keep the
moon, sun, and stars friendly to the Hopi activities.
About the middle of August, the thump of the drum

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 53

and the sound of solemn chanting tell the visitor
that Snake ceremonies are in progress. The Snake
Dance, occurring yearly in some one of the villages,
has been so widely advertised by scientists, rail-
ways, and tourist bureaus that it needs little de-
scription. The Hopi Mesas are overrun with white
crowds when Snake Dance time draws near.

Snakes of all kinds are collected for four days,
and after that five days of ceremonies are held over
them in the underground kivas. Visitors are warned
to stay at a discreet distance from the kiva by a
rabbit skin, a bunch of corn, or some eagle feathers
hung to a rung of the ladder protruding from the
kiva roof. But chanting and drumming come from
the kiva at all hours of the day and night. The
snakes are washed and rolled in sacred sand-paint-
ings and entertained generally until sunset of the
ninth day. Then comes the public dance, the only
one outsiders are permitted to witness.

In a cottonwood bower the snakes are secreted,
tied securely in a leather bag. We entered the plaza
just in time to see the snakes being deposited, and
we lost no time in securing seats on a housetop far
above wandering reptiles. In exchange for a silver
dollar each visitor was assigned a seat on the edge
of a housetop. Although we entreated our guide to
seek safety with us, she elected to remain near the
kiva with Pavatea. Surrounding the rocky ground
where the dance would be held were hundreds of

54 INDIAN TRIBES

Navajos, Zunis, and white tourists, and a group of
Havasupai Indians on their way to trade with the
Navajos.

From the Snake Kiva came a solemn figure gro-
tesquely painted with black and white stripes, and
he whirled a greased string through the air until
it moaned like a lost soul. This was the wind before
the storm, so Pavatea explained. Soon about twenty
almost naked figures, Antelope Clan Dancers, came;
they lined up in front of the kiva and began a chant
and shuffle dance.

After about ten minutes the real Snake Dancers
appeared. They entered the plaza at a dogtrot and
raced around in front of the kiva, each one stamp-
ing heavily on the board in front of the snake bower
to inform the underground gods they were there to
honor them. After each one had passed the en-
trance and been showered with sacred meal, they
formed in line, and the first snake was handed out
from the kiva to a Snake Priest Holding it firmly
between his lips, he began his slow progress around
the ring, an Antelope Dancer shuffling beside him
with an arm thrown across the Snake Dancer's
shoulders. The snake wriggled and stuck out its
forked tongue, but the Antelope Priest stroked it
and soothed it with a bunch of feathers he held in
his hand. When the circle was complete the dancer
gave a quick, sidewise jerk and landed the snake in
the plaza. Snakes and yet more snakes appeared,

HOPI SNAKE DANCERS 55

perhaps half of them being wicked-looking rattlers
that hissed and threatened to strike but were kept
in check by the feather wand. Many of them when
dropped to the ground wriggled among the spec-
tators and caused small panics.

When all the snakes had been honored, they were
dropped inside a circle made of sacred meal and the
women of the society poured more meal on them.
The dancers grasped as many snakes as they could
hold in both hands and went to the four points
of the compass with them. They had no trouble
getting the right of way as they passed through the
crowd, taking their squirming brothers to the floor
of the desert far below, where they were turned
loose to carry the news to underground gods that
another Dance was over.

As soon as the snakes were removed the Navajo
visitors made a wild rush for the scattered meal
and carefully collected what they could to carry
away with them. They believe that this meal will
bring them good luck and plenty of corn if sprin-
kled on their small fields.

The Snake Priests returned and removed the
paint and grease from their bodies. But before they
did this, they lined up and drank a mixture prof-
fered by the head Snake Priest. After that they
rushed to the edge of the mesa and standing in a
row proceeded to be very sick indeed until they
were relieved of the drink.

Navajo Indians

Location: South of San Juan River to Santa Fe Railroad, from New Mexico

NAVAJOS! What visions are evoked by the
name ! Wide reaches of sagebrush plains with
straight-backed riders in velvet shirts, bright head-
bands, and silver jewelry, lashing their wiry ponies
across the foreground; flocks of sheep and goats,
hundreds of them, each flock herded by a small
Indian maid, her brilliant skirts making a splash of
color as vivid as a bluebird's wing, as she darts
behind a juniper and peers out at white intruders ;
brown earthen hogans, before which the mother
weaves her barbaric rug. And hovering over all of
Navajo Land, whether it be in Cany on 'de Chelly,

56

NAVAJO INDIANS 57

stronghold of the famous tribe, or high on the
windswept mountains, the pungent spicy smell of
juniper smoke from fires smoldering in the center
of each hogan floor.

Navajos ! Greatest of all Indian tribes greatest
in number, greatest in story and song, greatest in
the beautiful wares that pour ceaselessly from their
land for the white trade, and greatest in their un-
bending resistance to encroaching white habits and
teachings.

They number forty-five thousand, and they have
more than nine million acres of land of their own.
Yet they have overflowed the landscape, and are to
be seen anywhere north of U.S. 66, from Albu-
querque on the east to the Colorado River on the
west. Colorado and Utah furnish homes for them
above the Arizona and New Mexico line, and they
have drifted down into Zuni country, where their
homes are to be seen almost at the front gate of
that ancient City of Cibola.

They have millions of sheep and goats and hun-
dreds of ponies, and it takes five acres of such land
as a generous government has bestowed upon them
to feed one animal ! Their very lives depend upon
their flocks. They eat the flesh, fresh when killed,
or cut into strips and dried in the high, keen air of
the desert ; the babies drink the rich, warm milk of
the goats, wool makes the blankets from which they
derive half a million dollars each year, and the sur-

INDIAN TRIBES

plus wool is sold to their local trader for flour and
coffee and sugar and for wide Stetson hats and
bright silk kerchiefs. Skins of the animals provide
the beds which are spread on the dirt floor of the
hogan at night and rolled into a bundle during the
day. Tanned hides become moccasins. Even the
bones are formed into ornaments and implements.
Wherever one finds a Navajo family, there also are
the flocks.

Horses and Navajos are inseparable. Gleefully
laying hold on the equine importations of the Span-
iards, the American Arab has come into his own.
Men, women, and children astride the small desert
ponies ride about their daily affairs, the men usually
lashing their mounts and singing a falsetto song as
they go.

Little is known definitely of the early history of
the Navajos. It is believed that their ancestors came
over the frozen northern wastes by way of Bering
Strait, and that at one time Navajos and Apaches
belonged to the same tribe and were parted by some
inward strife. At any rate the first actual mention
we have of them is in 1539 or 1540, when Pedro de
Tobar marched from Zuni to the present Hopi vil-
lages and reported passing through the land of the
Navajo Indians. On the other hand, Parish, Ari-
zona historian, states that they were unknown until
the seventeenth century when Fray Alonso Bena-
vides spoke of them as Great Seed-Sowers.

NAVAJO INDIANS 59

The Navajos themselves may tell us where they
came from:

"In the beginning all men lived in the center of
the earth. One day a Navajo accidentally touched
the top of the cave and heard a hollow sound, which
awakened the curiosity of the Indians and started
them digging through the ground. After digging
for some time they found they were getting near
the top, so they sent a raccoon up to reconnoiter.
He failed to make any progress, so they pulled him
down again and sent up an earthworm, who reached
the top and looked around. He discovered four
great swans at the four cardinal points, each with
an arrow under a wing. Each swan shot him with
the arrow. The worm was frightened and retreated
down the hole with the arrows sticking from his
body, and they so widened the hole that the Navajos
could come up through it. At that time there was
neither moon, stars, nor sun. It was determined
that these were necessary for the convenience of
the Navajos, so their great medicine men proceeded
to make them. When the sun was completed, they
held it in the air and blew their breath against it
until it was pushed up into the sky and there it

remains."

For everything under the sun the Navajo has an
explanation, similarly manufactured, and more
than likely a chant and dance to fit the subject. He
is the most superstitious mortal on the face of the

OU INDIAN TRIBES

earth, unless it be his black brother in darkest
Africa. Some of the Navajo superstitions are
funny, while others are really pathetic. Their rules
regarding food are interesting:

"During the Eagle Chant, the participants must
not eat eggs, turkey, chicken, or the flesh of any
bird or fowl/'

"Duck or bear meat must never be tasted/'

"Food being cooked in a skillet or kettle must
not be stirred with a knife/'

"If a knife is thrust point first into a melon or
other food, the food must not be eaten, as it carries
with it the curse of lightning stroke/'

"During the month of July beef cooked with corn
may not be eaten, as the two foods will quarrel in
digestion."

The Navajos are mortally afraid of death or a
dead body. That fact, perhaps more than any other,
has retarded the development of permanent dwell-
ings in their country. It is common to see deserted
hogans all over the Reservation, the door fastened
shut and a jagged hole knocked in either the north
or the east of the structure. This indicates that
Death entered the hogan, and from then on it is a
"Chindi-hogan" or devil house. Whenever possible
the dying are carried outside, to save the hogan.

For two or three hundred years the Navajos
roamed the Southwest, preying on more peaceful
tribes. They stole the women and the corn and the

NAVAJO INDIANS 61

sheep from the pueblo folk. They made raids into
Mexican territory and returned richer with horses
and women. They were the tyrants of the New
World. This continued far into the eighteenth cen-
tury, and long after the United States owned the
country and tried to protect its citizens raids and
massacres followed each other in rapid succession.
After various treaties were made and broken, in
1863 Kit Carson drove them into the Canyon de
Chelly retreat and starved them into submission.
They were deported into New Mexico and held in
captivity while poor food, homesickness, and a
raw, damp climate killed them by hundreds. At last
the older men begged so humbly to be allowed to
return to their own home, pledging themselves to
control the hot-blooded young warriors, that they
were allowed to come back to their desert home, to
the ruins of their peach orchards, where the bones
of their slaughtered flocks bleached in the sun. The
government restocked their grazing lands with four
sheep for each Navajo, and once again the Navajos
rode and sang over the sage-sweet plains and
breathed the thin, pine-tanged air of their own land
with its Rainbow Bridge and the great red sand-
stone gorges of the Canyon de Chelly and Canyon
del Muerto, and the beautiful weird formations
breaking into serried fragments against the blue
horizon. From that day to this they have been good
Indians, although very much alive!

62 INDIAN TRIBES

The Navajo religion can be summed up in one
word: pantheism. He gives divinity to all the
mighty manifestations of nature. The storm carries
a Great Spirit, as does the raging torrent sweeping
down the gulches in his mountainside. The bliz-
zards, the lightning, the high wind, the sand that
colors the whirlwind twisting into the sky, each and
all are inhabited by deities.

However, the spirits are mostly evil ones which
must be placated. The medicine men of the tribe
grow fat by saving their scared followers from
evil spirits. The use of charms is almost unlimited.
To be safe from witches a dried bear-gall is carried
constantly next to the skin. Various diseases are
cured by eagle feathers, antelope toes, crane bills,
and such articles.

Their religion is expressed in ceremonies we call
dances. Various rites are practiced, but there is no
bloodshed, except in the case of death. One such
instance is given :

At Thunderbird Ranch, Canyon de Chelly, the
trader keeps a guest hogan for the comfort of
Navajos passing the night in that vicinity. Three
or four distant Navajos had come in to trade and as
it had grown late they were spending the night in
the hogan. While they cooked their coffee for sup-
per a rather prominent medicine man rode up and
entered the place. They shared their coffee and
bread with him and went on with their talk. He

NAVAJO INDIANS 63

stretched out in the shadows when he had eaten,
and soon, to their abject terror, they saw he was
dead. The doorway of that hogan was probably
much enlarged as the entire bunch sought to leave
at once. They went for the trader and the neigh-
boring government doctor who pronounced death
due to heart trouble, and it was only because the
trader stayed beside the body until morning that
the other Navajos did not burn the hogan with its
dead occupant. At dawn he heard a commotion and
went out to find that the poor horse belonging to
the dead man was being killed with an ax. Because
it brought the sick man to the hogan the Indians
held it more or less responsible for his death and
therefore sent it along to carry its dead master's
soul to whatever place he would find in the next
world. There was no peace for the trader until the
hogan was torn down and the wood piled in the
wood lot. And no matter how cold a Navajo is, or
how scarce wood becomes, that certain stack of
wood is never touched. This same trader told me
he was at one time stuck in the mud with his auto-
mobile. His Indian passenger was as much a
stranger in that neighborhood as was he, but when
he was directed to bring a certain log lying near by
and put it under the car he refused, saying it was
"chindi." No food cooked over wood from a death
hogan would be eaten by a Navajo, not even to
stave off starvation.

64 INDIAN TRIBES

One of the most interesting of healing ceremonies
is that in which sand-painting is utilized. At Na~
ah-tee Canyon, fifty miles north of Holbrook, such
a painting was made. The trader had given our
guide notice of the "sing," and the last day of the
ceremony found our car parked at the trading-post.
As we lunched the trader told us the reason for the
ceremony.

Two Navajos, a man and his wife, past middle
age, were herding their sheep near by when a
summer storm broke over the valley. While they
sought shelter together under a pinon tree, light-
ning struck, killing the woman. Blood from her
severed arm splashed over the frightened husband.
He left there very hurriedly, and since no Indian
would approach the body it fell to the trader to bury
her. Soon he heard rumors of a "sing" and learned
that the husband was sure lightning devils were
after him and he must have this protecting cere-
mony before another thunder storm or he too
would be killed.

With the trader as sponsor for us we entered the
ceremonial hogan. At the entrance the men turned
to the right of the structure, the women to the left,
and seated themselves. We had been warned we
must not leave while a song was being sung. At
the rear a space on the floor perhaps three feet
square was covered with smooth white sand. Two
young helpers were carrying out the orders of the

NAVAJO INDIANS 65

medicine man, who had numerous little dirty sacks
of sand and with a few guttural words poured
certain colors in the palm of first one helper, then
the other. They squatted and shaped human figures
on the white background. Beautifully done, finished
in every detail, the picture lay glimmering in the
light which came through the smoke hole in the
roof. When it was completed to the last white
feather in the head dress of the main figure, the
patient was made to undress and seat himself in
the midst of the painting, where he sat like a graven
image while a long wailing song was sung. At its
end he rose and destroyed the painting with his
feet. At the close of the ceremony he was presumed
to be immune to bolts from the blue.

Different ailments require different chants, and
there are at least a hundred assorted ceremonies
from which to select. If relief is not obtained from
the first one chosen, an assortment of half a dozen
chants may be required before the right one is
stumbled upon. For the simpler chants the medicine
man demands, and of course obtains, two or three
sheep and a velvet shirt. The more elaborate, long-
drawn-out ones, such as the Mountain Chant and
the Fire Dance, run into hundreds of dollars before
the nine days required are past.

It was late when the chant was ended, and we
chose to make camp there for the night. After
supper the trader's wife came and asked our guide

66 INDIAN TRIBES

to go with her to a hogan near by, where a Navajo
woman was giving birth to a child. It was morning
before they returned. We had full details of the
night as we prepared coffee and bacon for our
guide,

"Gee, that was awful! If a woman can escape
infection and death after such a confinement as
that, all this talk about sanitation is a lot of hooey!
This woman was quite old to have a child, and had
been in labor for hours. She was suspended by a
rope fastened to the ceiling and under her arms.
Her bed was a heap of dirt with a sheepskin on it,
and she was facing the east. An old withered crone
sat at the door, shaking a gourd and singing the
same weird plaint over and over. Goodness only
knows what it was, but I think it was ' Bubble,
bubble, toil and trouble !' But there was no water to
bubble. When the baby was born the old crone
grabbed it and rubbed it well with ashes and then
dipped it into cold water to make it brave. Then
she put it with its head to the fire and began to
sprinkle ashes over our patient. You should have
seen us give her the bum's rush and shove her out
of the hogan/ 3

We were all excited about the baby, and later in
the day, led and protected by the trader's wife, we
sallied down, carrying gifts to the mother just as
did the Three Wise Men out of the East. Canned
milk and Campbell's soup took the place of precious

NAVAJO INDIANS 67

scents and spices, however. We found the poor
mother propped back in her harness, and around
her tortured body was a tight belt under which
great bunches of juniper branches were wedged.
This, we were told, was to hasten recovery and
insure more children. The wee baby had been
strapped to its carrying-board and tightly bound
with rawhide strings to keep it from slipping when
it was necessary to hang the board in a tree or carry
it slung against the side of a horse as the mother
rode about her duties. Its padding on the board was
of finely shredded inner bark from a cedar tree.
And that's what it means to be born in Navajo land.

Back at the trading-post a group of Navajos,
men and women, awaited the trader's wife, who is
herself Navajo. They talked in their own tongue,
and as she found opportunity she translated for
our benefit:

"An old woman died across the hill. They want
me to haul her down somewhere and bury her.
Where they live it is rocky and there is no place to
cover her up. I won't use my car because if I put
her in it they will never ride in it again, and the
truck is what we haul goods for the store in and
they would never buy any groceries hauled in the
truck after a dead person had been in it."

Another long conversation, and they moved into
the store with us at their heels. Here the best
Pendleton blanket was bought, and a string of

68 INDIAN TRIBES

beads in "pawn" was redeemed to place on the dead
woman's neck. They were her own beads on which
the trader had loaned her money, keeping the beads
for security until she could weave a rug or sell
some sheep and redeem her property. Now she
could never buy them back and it was the duty of
her daughter to get them for her.

Our guide had a brilliant thought: "Mattie, tell
them I'll haul her to the burying-place, that is, if
you'll stick close to me, I do want to see a Navajo
funeral."

This was repeated to the Navajos and they eyed
the white woman with a sort of amazed wonder.
Why should any person in her senses off er to touch
a dead body? But we went, taking a carload of
them with us. They were quite willing to ride with
us before the funeral, but not after !

Going over the hill, at a typical summer camp
we found a few Navajos looking very uncom-
fortable while a young woman leaned over the dead
figure holding tightly to one hand. Tears were
streaming down her cheeks, but there was no aud-
ible sound of grief. The dead woman was her
mother. When we came to her side and the trader's
wife spoke to her in her own language, she pointed
to a new velvet blouse and a pile of yellow ruffled
skirts which she wanted put on the body. Jewelry
was placed on the dead woman's arms and neck,
and she was wrapped closely in the new blanket

NAVAJO INDIANS 69

bought for that purpose. Then we white women
carried her to the car and put her in the back seat,
while the daughter hung on to the hand. We won-
dered why this was done and the trader's wife told
us that they had to hold on to her while she was
above ground or she would think she was not being
treated with respect and her ghost would stay
around and bother them. We carried the body to
a spot on the desert where the trader had dug a
grave, and there we buried it.

And that's what it means to die in Navajo land.

Perhaps the rarest and most costly dance given
by the Navajos is the Fire Dance. This is never
held until "the thunder sleeps/' or after all danger
of thunder storms is past. Our guide had wit-
nessed one such dance and beside one of our desert
camps far up in Navajo land she told us about it:

A young mother with three sick babies under
five years of age left them sleeping in her log ho-
gan and walked three miles to the hogan of her
mother to, obtain food for them. She fastened the
door from the outside so that the children could
not wake and crawl outside where a cold wind was
blowing. When she returned with a brother the
hogan was a smoldering heap of ashes, and she
fought free from her brother's restraining hands
and rushed into the ashes searching for the bodies
of her babies. She was badly burned and the
wounds would not heal Her clan decided upon a

70 INDIAN TRIBES

Fire Dance to cure the burns and bring her poor
grief-sodden brain back to normal

Inside a great corral of pmon boughs woven
into a tight fence the huge bonfire was built. Nine
days were spent in various ceremonies, and the last
night ended the dance in a blaze of glory. From a
fire inside the Medicine Hogan coal was carried
for lighting the big pile, after which the mother
was assisted to a place very near it. The medicine
man touched her head, her poor burned hands and
feet, her ears and lips, with a bough of juniper,
which he immediately cast upon the fire. At the
same instant at least a dozen naked Navajos ap-
peared, completely smeared with a soapy white
clay, even their hair being plastered with the mix-
ture. Each man carried a long bundle of finely
shredded cedar bark They raced madly around the
inclosure, leaping and shrieking, coming nearer and
nearer the fire, until at the same moment every
actor lighted his torch in the flames. Then came
the wildest, maddest performance of all. They
lashed one another over their bare bodies with the
flaming faggots. At times they whipped themselves
with the burning brands, and as the torch burned
too low to hold longer it was flung upon the hard
earth and the dancer darted away into the dark-
ness, followed by the jeering taunts of his hardier
companions. Wheia the end of the torch landed it
was instantly covered with a fighting mob of Nava-

NAVAJO INDIANS 71

jos, each seeking to obtain a shred of the scorched
cedar to place in his hogan to safeguard it from
fire or to use in the treatment of burns, which are
all too many, what with open fires and full-blowing
calico skirts. When the last torch burned low the
dance was ended.

"Did the poor mother get well? Tell us more
about it. You surely know more than you've told."

"Well, when a white man who speaks Navajo
went to the father and told him his hogan and his
babies were burned, he dropped his head on the
friendly shoulder and stood trembling for several
minutes, while slow, painful tears flowed down his
cheeks. He turned away without a word and walked
the seven miles to the site of his hogan. By that
time missionaries had recovered the tiny seared
bodies and buried them. The father returned to the
trading-post and bought small overalls, three pairs
of little shoes, a pink and white baby blanket with
frivolous bunnies on it, and some candy, and again
went silently away. He placed these things on the
heaped-up earth over his dearest treasures. He had
been cutting cedar posts for a white man in order
to buy winter clothes for the babies, and he bought
them after all. I never heard again of the mother.
I don't know whether the dance cured her or not"

Navajo children are welcomed and loved by their
parents. They are given the closest care and train-
ing until they are seven or eight years old, when

72 INDIAN TRIBES

they are taken away and placed in government
schools. Perhaps they do not see their homeland
or relatives for eight years, but just as soon as they
return they drop the white enamel and revert to
their own language and mode of life with lightning-
like speed. They seem merely to endure the en-
forced schooling with a haughty indifference and
to delight in forgetting it as soon as possible.

When within reach of the agent young Navajos
are compelled to be married and divorced according
to the white man's law. But there are thousands of
them who go serenely about their own Navajo mode
of life, are born, marry, die, and are buried, with-
out ever having heard of Holy Church.

Children of the hogan belong to the mother, as
they carry her clan name and inherit through her.
At thirteen a Navajo girl is presumed to have
reached the marriageable age and is presented at
a "Squaw Dance/ 3 or what we really should know
as the old "War Dance." Here the young girls
appear in their best finery and choose their dancing
partners, while the matrons sit on the sideline, en-
couraging but not permitted to join the dancing.
Here many a romance starts. After a boy and a
girl have indicated their interest in one another,
her mother's brother or uncle goes to visit the boy's
people and the wedding-gift is arranged. Members
of the same clan may not marry. Usually the groom
brings several nice horses and perhaps some jewelry

NAVAJO INDIANS 73

to the girl's family as a gift. But she is not really
bought and sold except when some old man of im-
portance in the tribe desires a certain pretty young
girl; then he pays well for her, either in protection
from sickness and evil spirits or in good silver
jewelry, horses, and sheep. The lot of such a young
girl married to a sickly old scoundrel is not a happy
one. About all she can hope for is that he'll die
soon; and her seeond choice of a husband is en-
tirely her own business.

Navajo weddings are social events. There is
much feasting and visiting around the girl's ho-
gan, and on the night of the wedding the Arbuckle
coffee flows freely and mutton after mutton is con-
sumed, while the old men make a lot of rude jests.
The girl has been concealed under a blanket beside
her mother on the women's side of the hogan. She
is called forth at length and seated beside the
groom. Meanwhile the marriage mush has been
prepared and it is now served in a woven "wedding
basket" made by the Piute tribe. The bride's father
or uncle sprinkles a circle of sacred blue meal and
pollen around the edge of the mush and makes a
cross of it over the mush. This has nothing to do
with the Christian religion but indicates the four
cardinal points. The basket of mush is placed be-
tween the young folks and the boy is handed a
gourd of water. He pours water over the girl's
hands, and she does the same service for him. They

74 INDIAN TRIBES

then begin to take small pinches of the mush from
various places in the basket. After a few dips by
the wedding couple the basket is turned over to the
young guests and they scramble merrily for it as
we do for wedding souvenirs.

For many hours the young folks must sit re-
spectfully and listen to advice from the old men.
They tell the young folks how to manage their
flocks, how to run their hogan properly, how to
grow corn and beans, how to train their children,
and how to save money; also how to be kind and
good to one another. When the old fellows run out
of coffee and conversation and fall to nodding, the
wedding couple can make their getaway and go to
their own hogan, which has been built near by. But
the young man must never come face to face with
his mother-in-law, or dire ill luck will descend upon
him. He probably does not consider this a very
great hardship, however !

Mutton is, of course, the piece de resistance in
the Navajo larder. It is stewed and roasted and
barbecued and fried, likewise jerked and dried.
Bread is either of wheat flour, baking powder, and
water, fried in mutton grease, or else of home-
grown and -ground cornmeal made into johnny-
cakes and baked on hot stones. If there is any money
or credit to be had, Arbuckle's coffee is the drink
served. Canned tomatoes are a prime treat. Corn,
beans, red peppers, and pumpkins are raised by al-

NAVAJO INDIANS 75

most every family, and in the Canyon de Chelly
country plenty of peaches are raised and dried.
These are traded far and wide.

The kitchen utensils consist of a smoked kettle
or two, a frying pan, and a sooty coffee pot, with
perhaps two or three tin cups. There is no furni-
ture, since the housewife must carry all her equip-
ment on one or two small ponies when she moves
after her flock. Water is scarce, and the sheep must
continually be moving in search of food and drink.

Of all the Indian dress in the Southwest, that
of the Navajo is the most interesting. Against the
drab landscape the Navajo squaw makes a splash
of breath-taking splendor. The outstanding char-
acteristic of a Navajo woman is slimness and tall-
ness, together with dignity of carriage. While there
is none of the spontaneous, white- toothed, flashing
smile of the Pueblo Indian on the Navajo face, there
is an arresting quality of seriousness and dignity
that is almost sad in its still intentness. None of the
cheery wave and greeting called to the white passer-
by, merely a watchful gaze that never softens in the
presence of a stranger of the white race he despises.
This is not from sullenness on the part of the Nav-
ajo, but rather from a profound reserve founded
on self-respect and dignity.

A Navajo woman's dress consists of a soft vel-
veteen shirt, high-necked, long-sleeved, basque
style, hip length. Silver, coral, and turquoise neck-

76 INDIAN TRIBES

laces hang on her bosom, and a silver belt at her
waist adds a barbaric note. Rings and bracelets set
with turquoise are plentiful Her hair is pulled
back in a smooth cap and wound into a great knot
at the back of her head. Yarn winds around this
knot and holds it firm. If she is young and comely
a colored celluloid comb set with glass jewels may
emphasize the blackness of her hair. Her skirt is
of bright-colored cotton, and very full. It has a
deep ruffle trimmed with a contrasting color and
sways gracefully against her ankles as she walks
along. She may have on three or four of these full
skirts at one time. Her feet, the envy and despair
of white women, so small and slender are they, peep
in and out from the floating skirts, clad in soft red
deerskin moccasins, fastened at the side with tur-
quoise-set silver buttons. Neither hat, coat, nor
gloves are worn, but a gay and flaunting Pendleton
blanket, gypsy-colored, warm and soft, which she
wraps about her shoulders when the winds are cold.
The customary dress for the Navajo man com-
prises American overalls, velvet shirt, red-colored
moccasins, plenty of silver trimmings, and a wide
high-crowned hat sitting grotesquely on top of his
mass of clubbed hair no, not grotesque at all, be-
cause even the hat partakes of the dignity and
aloofness of its wearer. A Navajo mounted on his
wiry pony, its bridle brave with silver conchos of
his own making, and a red and black and gray

NAVAJO INDIANS 77

saddle blanket his wife has woven, bright against
the dark horse, makes a picture long to be remem-
bered, as he lopes along the trail, singing in a far-
away treble monotone to himself. Perhaps he sings
to keep away evil spirits ; perhaps he is composing
a sonnet about his ability as a silversmith ; or per-
haps after all he sings merely because he is young
and not hungry and the sun warms him as he rides.

While camped at Canyon de Chelly we heard a
lonely lament, a Navajo song, drifting up from the
depth below, where the singer, lifting his head,
poured forth his soul in sound. Cozy McSparron,
owner of Thunderbird Post, listened and when the
singer was still he repeated the doleful song.

"What is it all about?" asked one of the girls.

Cozy smiled, and interpreted:

"Once I was young. My mustache was black.

I was young and had a black mustache.

My mustache is now gray.

I am old and my mustache is gray.

Once I was young, and my mustache was black !"

Navajos are best known for the beautiful blan-
kets rugs we call them which they send out into
the white world by the thousands. This is a typical
Navajo art. The rug is genuine, from the minute
the wool-bearing lamb is born until the finished rug
is carried to the trader to exchange for food and
clothing ! The wool is clipped from the sheep's back,
picked over, washed in desert pools with pounded

78 INDIAN TRIBES

yucca root for soap, then dried and bleached by
spreading it on sagebushes. Carded by hand, spun
on a homemade spindle, the wool is then dyed,
sometimes with the age-old dyes made from roots,
herbs, and minerals, sometimes with Diamond dyes
purchased at the trader's. But the white, the gray,
the brown, and the black are natural colors, coming
from sheep of those colors.

The loom is a crude, homemade thing, slung to
the top of the hogan ceiling in bad weather and
anchored to a handy juniper in the summer time.
There is no pattern other than that lying in the
mind of the weaver. Navajo rugs are too well
known to need description here. From this work
comes practically two-thirds of the livelihood of
45,000 Navajo Indians.

Silverwork is the sphere of the men. They beat
and pound Mexican coins, or bar silver obtained
through the trader, into ornaments, beautiful in
their chaste simplicity and crudeness. Native tur-
quoises add the needed gleams of color.

And we, the noble white race, who have stolen
the birthright of the American Indians, cannot let
such an opportunity as this slip by. Therefore, con-
cerns in Denver, in New Mexico, in Texas, and
even in New York, set themselves with their perfect
machinery to duplicate this Navajo silver art and
from a people already made destitute by us steal
this last means of support

NAVAJO INDIANS 79

As we drove back to white civilization, passing
here a humble hogan, the mother weaving and
watching her children herd the sheep, there a man
driving his ponies to a waterhole known only to his
own people, still other hogans with the old men
dreaming in the sun, and the feeble grandmothers
winding the bright-colored yarn they can no longer
see to weave into patterns, we rejoiced in the un-
breakable spirit of the Navajo race. They have kept
the ways of their fathers in spite of a conquering
white man !

Rio Grande Pueblos

SCATTERED up and down the Rio Grande Valley
are numerous interesting pueblos Tesuque,
San Ildef onso, Santa Clara, San Domingo, Santa
Ana, Zia, Jamez, Isletta, and Old Laguna each
with a distinctive charm and interest for the In-
dian-lover. While an entire chapter could be devoted
to each village, we found time for only a short stop
with each group and that, we learned, is the usual
program of Southwest visitors.

TESUQUE

Location: Nine miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Railway: Santa Fe
Population: ISO. Arts; Pottery, making toy drums.

With historic old Santa Fe as our starting-place
we drove nine miles north to Tesuque. Tesuque
means "Place of the Red Willows." Because it is
so close to Santa Fe it is overrun with visitors, and
easy money is earned by catering to their demand
for cheap souvenirs. We passed by the doorways
filled with toy drums and poorly made pottery, and

80

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 81

refused to buy. One old lady, with sly twinkling
eyes, beckoned us into her home and brought to
light some truly beautiful bowls, nicely shaped and
decorated with sun shields and rainbows. These we
were glad to buy. We paused at the doorway of a
white-washed house and the young girl within
asked us to enter. She was admiring and rocking
her first baby as it lay in its native cradle, suspended
from the ceiling beams by two handwoven sashes.
The girl's house was a picture of color and cleanli-
ness. Gleaming whitewash covered every portion
of the walls and ceiling, and on the hard clay floor
Navajo rugs were spread. The beds were built-up
ledges of adobe covered with brightly colored
blankets, which served as seats during the day.
White curtains hung at the small windows and a
green plant was on a ledge. The corner fireplace
held a few coals, over which a pot of stew sim-
mered. One end of the low ceiling dripped strings
of red peppers and bunches of colored corn strung
on braided shucks. A crucifix and some pictures of
the Holy Family told us this girl was of the Catholic
faith.

She wore a pink-and-white checked gingham
dress, made with full gathered skirt and blouse, and
a white apron was tied around her waist. Her only
concession to Indian dress was her footgear, the
little white moccasins and high leggings worn by
so many Pueblo women.

82 INDIAN TRIBES

Leaving her neat little home, we strolled around
the village and found the men getting ready for the
Eagle Dance, which is their prayer for rain, be-
lieved by them to be far more effective than the
Hopi Snake Dance. We settled ourselves under a
cottonwood tree and watched the antics of the chil-
dren while waiting for the dance to begin.

An intelligent-looking young Indian came and
offered us some turquoise and shell necklaces. He
joined our group and in answer to a question gave
us the legend of the Eagle:

"Centuries ago the Tesuque Indians were all sick
of a plague brought on because no rain fell to wash
the evil spirits from the air they breathed. They
prayed for relief and the Great Spirit sent the
Eagle, who flew over our village here and with his
wings made a great wind and blew the rain clouds
together. Then the Thunderbird shot his lightning
arrows into the clouds and the rain fell through the
holes made by the arrows and washed all the sick-
ness away. So the Eagle is honored by this dance
and reminded that we depend upon him to keep the
rain falling for us."

And thus it is with the Southwest Indians. Every
thought and wish and prayer and dance revolves
around the never- forgotten need of rain.

Into the dusty plaza with its gaunt old Mission
built along Spanish lines the chanters and the drum-
mers came. Following them were the dancers, just

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 83

two of them. Their nude bodies were painted yellow
and daubed thickly with eagle down. A close-fitting
cap of yellow cotton cloth coming to a long peak in
front of each nose simulated an eagle's beak. On
each outstretched arm was bound a length of raw-
hide and to this rawhide were sewed eagle wing
feathers.

The chanters began to moan and from the drum
came a low rumbling sound like thunder, which
grew louder and louder. The men squatted facing
each other, and then rose slowly on tiptoe and stood
swaying back and forth, waving their arms in a
flying movement. They dipped and swayed and
touched the ground with the tips of their wing
feathers, never making an ungraceful motion and
keeping always the tempo of the drum. When we
left the plaza they had fallen to their knees and were
resting with folded wings.

SAN ILDEFONSO

Location: Thirty miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and highway U.S. 66.
Railway: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel LaFonda, at Santa Fe. Population:
200. ^ Arts and industries: Pottery, paintings, embroidery, silvcrwork; small
farming.

San Ildefonso would be in a poor way were its
inhabitants dependent upon farming the land given
to them by a generous government. Of their 30,000
acres only 160 are irrigated and fit for cultivation.
Their entire farming products are worth only about
$4,000 a year, or $20 a year for each family less
than is spent for food in one week by a white f am-

84 INDIAN TRIBES

ily. Fortunately, however, their pottery is so beau-
tiful and so famous that single families, where both
husband and wife work together, make two or three
thousand dollars a year from the sale of their
wares.

This is the only pueblo we visited where men
were working on pottery. Here we found them
busily decorating the vessels moulded and polished
by the womenfolk. Most famous of all Rio Grande
potters, Maria Martinez lives in the pueblo of San
Ildefonso. Other women are making swift strides
toward sharing her fame, and to see the name of
Nellie Martinez or Santanna scratched on the bot-
tom of a smooth, glossy black vessel or shimmering
chocolate-colored bowl is to know that you are
holding a masterpiece.

The government, recognizing the importance of
this industry, has hired Maria to teach her art to
other Indian women, and for this instruction she
receives one dollar an hour. The pottery is made of
smooth red clay and just as other clay vessels are
made, but the beauty of this particular pottery lies
in the grace of its outline, its smooth gleaming pol-
ish, and its beautiful black or chocolate color. This
black is obtained by baking the vessel for a certain
number of hours, then smudging the fire, and let-
ting the clay absorb the smoke. To make the finish
glossy the burned vessel is next rubbed vigorously
with a polishing-stone. Some of the most unique

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 85

bowls and vases are decorated with designs of dull
black against the shiny black.

We moved away from the pottery-makers and
inspected the plaza. There was a big cottonwood
tree, the veteran of many years of storm and
drought, in the center of the plot, and it was giv-
ing shelter to round, naked babies wearing only
strings of beads, happy and healthy as they rolled
in the dust with the dogs or followed our girls
around waiting for candy. In the shade, uncon-
scious of the movements around him, a young In-
dian worked with water colors at his easel. He
graciously smiled and showed us his work, explain-
ing the meaning of the costumes worn by the dance
figures on his paper. We learned later that this
young artist exhibits his pictures of native dances
in the great art galleries of New York and Paris
and earns a big salary illustrating Indian books.

His sister, following the sketches he makes for
her, embroiders old Indian designs on draperies,
curtains, pillows, and even dress materials, and
finds a ready market for the work. We watched
her as she made the designs with bright-colored
yarn. Her work was stretched tight in a frame,
where bold, striking designs were swiftly outlined,
making a barbaric border on monkscloth drapery.
These hangings, she said, were for a mountain
home built by New Yorkers,

The big 1 , rambling Catholic church in the plaza

86 INDIAN TRIBES

told us without asking that these Indians have a
judicious mixture of creed and nature for their re-
ligion. We were told that on the second of each
November a solemn Feast of the Dead is celebrated,
and before every visitor are set bread and coffee.
This is done in every Rio Grande pueblo.

SANTA CLARA

Location: About thirty miles from Santa Fe, New Mexico, off U.S. 64, in the
Rio Grande Valley. Railway: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel LaFonda, at
Santa Fe. Population: 250. Arts and industries': Black pottery, silverwork,
drum-making, water colors; farming and peddling.

So closely are Santa Clara and San Ildefonso
related in their customs and industries that we
probably should have passed by Santa Clara had
we not seen Indians from other villages hastening
there to see the Rainbow Dance. Our guide prom-
ised that it would be a colorful affair, and we fol-
lowed the crowd.

Santa Clara men are not short and stout as are
the other Pueblo Indians. Slender and tall, with
hair parted and braided, they resemble Apaches and
Navajos. This can be accounted for when one re-
members that the Santa Claras intermarried with
those tribes and with the Utes. Even the expres-
sions of these Indians are different, their faces
being thoughtful and unsmiling. Women wear full
calico dresses, white aprons, and over their heads
the inevitable shawl in turquoise or cerise. On this
dance day some of the old native woolen dresses
and doeskin leggings made their appearance.

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 87

The afternoon was hot and sultry, and in the
plaza where the dance was to be held the shade of
the few cottonwoods was well patronized. Behind
the hill thundercap clouds piled up, and there was
not a breath of air. Housewives deserted their pot-
tery-making and dragged chairs to the shade, where
they made themselves as comfortable as possible,
with their fat, comatose babies on their laps.

When the dancers appeared we were surprised
to see that half of them were women, wearing the
old Pueblo dress tied around the waist with the
hand-woven red and white sash. White and red
Hopi ceremonial blankets fell from their shoulders,
in the center of the back of which was fastened a
bright-colored plaque made of parrot feathers and
edged with brilliant feathers in rainbow shades.
Their feet were incased in the white moccasins and
high leggings, and their cheeks were painted a
bright red. In their hands they carried juniper
branches and bunches of parrot feathers.

Their men partners were bare except for breech-
cloths, and their bodies were painted black, resem-
bling dark storm clouds. White stripes ran around
their bodies. Around their waists, ankles, and wrists
they wore a deep fringe made of varicolored yarn,
with little tinkling bells tied to the yarn. Their long
flowing hair was confined at the back of the neck,
with a fan-shaped bunch of parrot feathers fas-
tened there. Over their heads they held rainbow-

88 INDIAN TRIBES

shaped frames made of willow strips painted in
bright colors.

The women danced with downcast eyes, taking
short, modest steps, one foot firm on the hard
ground while the other came up and landed with a
dull thump at each beat of the drum. The men, how-
ever, took intricate steps, leaping through their
rainbow circles as if they were jumping rope, and
as they reached the end of the plaza they held the
willows high over their heads and shuffled back to
the starting-place, where they lowered the circle
and jumped through it down the length of the plaza
again. Sometimes they hopped backward through
the rainbow, never losing step with the music.

This, too, was a prayer for rain, and a Santa
Clara woman assured us it had never yet failed to
produce rain. She was correct for the time being,
since big, warm drops splattered down upon us as
we left the dance and turned back toward San
Domingo.

SAN DOMINGO

Location: Eighteen miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico, three miles off U.S. 85
Railway: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel LaFonda, at Santa Fe. Popula-
tion: 700. Arts and industries: Pottery, turquoise and shell jewelry:' farming
selling curios. J ' K>

On flat bottom lands near the Rio Grande River
is the ancient village of San Domingo. Too many
white visitors have imposed on these Indians for
them to greet tourists cordially. No kodaks are
permitted, and when one of our girls made a sketch

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 89

on her notebook it was confiscated and destroyed
while the Cacique, or village priest, glared at her
fiercely.

When our guide learned of the incident she of-
fered elaborate apologies, together with a gift of
cigarettes, and the old fellow relaxed his vigilance.
He even unbent sufficiently to conduct our party
about the village. We were anxious to see the
jewelry-makers at work, and he took us into the
home of his son, where we saw shells being broken
into bits, rubbed between coarse rocks, then between
finer ones, until they were the proper thinness, then
drilled with the primitive native drill and strung on
stout cord. A rock with a groove carved in it was
placed on the workbench and the artisan took hold
of each end of the string upon which the shells
were strung. Grasping the ends firmly, he turned
the shells around and around in the groove until the
corners were worn off and they were round and
uniform.

Bits of blue-green mineral, the turquoise from
age-old Indian mines, were stuck with sealing-wax
on the ends of sticks and held against an emery
wheel turned by hand until they were smooth and
polished. Holes were then bored through them and
they were distributed among the shell disks in a
finished necklace. It sometimes takes a hundred
shell disks to measure an inch after they are strung.
One black bead of obsidian was strung with the

90 INDIAN TRIBES

shell to ward off ill luck to the wearer of the
necklace.

We witnessed the wedding of a returned school
boy and girl, and they faithfully went through the
Catholic ceremony. Our old Cacique told us in-
vitations were out for the native ceremony, which
would be carried through to the last detail before
the marriage would be recognized by the Indians
themselves.

SANTA ANA

Location: Northwest of U.S. 66, near Bernalillo, New Mexico. Railway: Santa
Fe. Population: 200. Arts and industries: Pottery, painting on buckskin, drum-
making; farming and fruit-raising.

Leaving the highway U.S. 66 at Bernalillo, we
turned north and followed the bed of the. little
stream, now dry, for a few miles. We saw patches
of corn and pumpkins scattered over the landscape,
showing that the Indians know their underground
moisture. The Santa Ana Indians have to find
planting-places away from their village on account
of the alkaline soil near the Jamez River.

We crossed the Jamez River, mostly sand bars at
this season, with the banks so incrusted with alkali
that they looked like snowdrifts, and climbed the
hill to the old Mission, built centuries ago by op-
timistic Spanish priests. The village was almost
deserted, as all the able-bodied Indians were away
tending their crops ten or fifteen miles distant. An
old man sunning himself in the plaza rose and

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 91

walked about the little pueblo with us. It was not
prosperous-looking, and we asked him why the In-
dians did not move their homes to the region of
their fields. He made horrified gestures and said
their fathers had built the pueblo long before white
men came and it could not be left while their dead
were in the plot adjoining the Mission. He showed
us row upon row of mounds there, unmarked, but
he said that at the Feast of the Dead each woman
places food upon the graves belonging to her house.
Each one knows her own, it seems. He told us that
if one of the Indians died while down at the fields,
all work ceased and the entire tribe came slowly
back to the old pueblo to place the dead Indian in
the graveyard.

This old man had a little curio shop, in which
we found very poor pottery, since the clay here is
not suitable. Beautiful paintings on buckskin were
displayed, also some nice sketches of native dancers
done in water colors. We bought several of these
and added two small Indian drums to our already
glutted collection. Even the drums carried the
thought of rain; they were painted a sky blue, with
white rain clouds around each end,

ZIA

Location; Six miles from Santa Ana, north of highway U.S. 66. Railway: Santa
Fe to Bernalillo, New Mexico. Population: 100. Arts: Beautiful pottery, paint-
ing on buckskin.

Glossy, smooth, graceful pottery, comparable to
the finest Italian work, caught our eye all along the

92 INDIAN TRIBES

Southwest route. It was so different from the other
pottery we saw. Beautifully shaped, boldly painted
with symbolic designs, and so firm and tough it
gave a musical ring when struck lightly, it excited
our admiration. We wanted to see where it was
made and the women making it.

Six miles from Santa Ana we came upon this
pitifully small pueblo, with its crumbling, deserted
houses and its general air of decay. At one time
these people were a happy, prosperous tribe, but
punishment fell heavily upon them for their part in
the Rebellion, and in 1683 Petriz de Cruzat, pro-
vincial governor for Spain, marched against their
village, killed 600 of the inhabitants, took about a
hundred prisoners, and ransacked the village. From
this destruction they have never recovered.

Met at the doorways by housewives, we were in-
vited into their poor dwellings and given the best
the houses afforded. They brought us platters of
peaches and grapes to eat while we watched them
at their work. They wore the customary full cotton
dresses tied with the sash around the waist, and
most of them were barefooted. Their uncut hair
was gathered in a loose knot behind the neck. As
they moved from house to house or to the ovens
where the pottery was baking, they covered them-
selves with shawls for protection against the sun
and the sand, which a strong wind blew into every
corner of the village.

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 93

The men wore cotton shirts and light cotton
breeches reaching only a little way below the knee.
They wore homemade moccasins, and their tangled
hair hung on their shoulders, being tied away from
the eyes with faded silk or cotton bands.

While we stood with one of the women watching
her fire her pottery, a haughty old man stalked up
and eyed us thoroughly. He accepted a smoke and
after questioning us went away and left us to our
own devices. He was the war priest, holding his
office for life and having the power to name his
successor when he felt himself nearing his end.

We noticed that the Zia potters pounded up frag-
ments of broken pottery with their clay before they
put it to soak. They explained that the bits they
used were found in the prehistoric ruins twenty
miles away against the Jamez Mountains. Two or
three times a year all the women journey there and
search for broken shards with which to temper their
modern jars, and to study the figures on the pots
they find. Sometimes entire jars are uncovered by
the wind and rain, and new vessels are made ex-
actly like the finds, which are perhaps a thousand
years old.

A jar is started by taking a ball of clay and shap-
ing it by pressure against the bottom of a gourd.
Then spiral after spiral is added until the desired
shape is reached. The Zia bowls are usually rather
large and are shaped like ollas. After being hard-

94 INDIAN TRIBES

ened in the sun, they are painted with a white "slip,"
and decorated by means of a yucca leaf. Baked in
a coal fire for hours, the vessel comes out a pinkish
cream color with brown designs and is fit to grace
the finest home in the land.

JAMEZ

Location: North of U.S. 66, twenty-five miles from Bernalillo, New Mexico.
Railway: Santa Fe. Population: 500. Industries: Farming, fruit-raising.

It was evening when we reached Jamez, snuggled
close to the mountain range of that name, and as
we made camp the sounds of a contented village
came to us. Homecoming menfolk were returning
from vineyards and fields, driving burros loaded
with wood and food before them. Little children
rushed out to meet them and were given places on
the shoulders of fathers or big brothers. It seemed
to be a happy village, and we thought sorrowfully
of the Zias on their barren hill a few miles away.

Two half-grown boys came to our camp loaded
with roasting ears and fruit. The boys squatted
and visited with us, never taking their eyes from
our gasoline stove. They asked no questions, but
our guide, seeing their interest, explained the whole
thing to them and showed them how to pump air
into the generator to make the gasoline burn. Not
long after they left, the village Cacique arrived,
followed by his advisers, demanding to be shown
the stove that burned air. It was late before we
had a chance to cook anything on the magic stove.

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 95

Our guide was offered various trades for the stove,
but firmly declined on account of the damage the
uninitiated Indians might do to themselves.

Jamez is well watered from sweet, cool mountain
streams following the canyons down to their valley.
Vineyards and fields and orchards stretch in pleas-
ing pattern away from the village.

Franciscan Fathers, clad in their straight brown
robes, rope girdles, and barefoot sandals, add a
touch of the Old World to the scene. They work
in the fields with their Indian friends, help about
the vineyards, and receive a sort of tithing in the
way of. wheat, strings of chili peppers, corn, and
dried fruit. Once the government sent a college-
trained farmer to the Jamez Indians to teach them
how to farm ! He didn't stay long, just long enough
to find out that his scientific knowledge was a total
loss compared to the things the Jamez knew about
the land their fathers had tilled for centuries.

Preparations were going on for the Bull of Jamez
Festival. As this sounded intriguing, we remained
to see what we thought would be a bull fight. And
what a bull! Around noon, on the day following
our arrival, we saw a gathering of the populace
near the church and took our stand with them.
From the valley below came a strange animal. His
frame was made of willow saplings. His skin was
of black muslin, his head a sheepskin, and his long
lolling tongue a red stocking stuffed with sand. His

96 INDIANTRIBES

legs and tail seemed not to belong to the rest of his
body and refused to work according to the laws of
nature; the motive power was a Jamez Indian in
dancing costume, walking on hands and feet and
carrying the frame on his back.

In the meantime the Catholic priest had accom-
panied the image of Santa Maria of the Angels to
a place of honor in the center of the plaza. Then
the good man went serenely about other important
business, ignoring the pagan dance held in the
Saint's honor. Inquiry brought the information
that when the Pecos Indians abandoned their own
village in 1838 and came to live at Jamez, they
brought this wooden image, called Porcingula, with
them. To do honor to her as well as to the Pecos
inhabitants this annual fiesta is held.

When the bull reached the center of the plaza he
was set upon by children, who poked him with sharp
sticks, pulled his tail, and tried to feed him green
corn. He charged them and sent them shrieking
and scuttling to their mothers.

Then a group of young men appeared. Their
faces and hands whitewashed, false whiskers
adorning their faces, in long-tailed black coats,
American trousers, shoes, and hats, they were gro-
tesque mimics of white men. They formed into line
and sang American songs, not the most modest ones
at that, danced the most suggestive of white dances,
and in every way mimicked the white race which

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 97

considers itself so superior to its red brothers. One
young man, using a mail-order catalogue, read a
long declaration of friendship, giving the most side-
splitting imitation of a Yankee orator we had ever
heard. When they tired of that sport they went
nosing into every house, playing tricks on the
women, and dragging one fat old man out into the
plaza, where they fired blank cartridges at him to
make him dance according to the best Wild West
picture mode.

The women brought food to the plaza and the
boys and men feasted. The bull at length lumbered
over to the table, upset it, food and all, then dis-
appeared into the Valley of Jamez; and the Feast
of the Bull was ended.

It seemed this horseplay was merely the setting
for the real dance, the Corn Dance, a beautiful
prayer for rain. The Turquoise and Squash Clans
were in charge of the dance, the Turquoise people
painted a brilliant blue, while the Squash Clan's
dancers were yellow.

They advanced to an altar erected near the
wooden saint and surrounded by a sand-painting.
Ears of corn covered with eagle feathers were on
the altar, and the dancers made soapsuds of yucca
root and sprinkled the altar and the corn. After
that the ears of corn were taken to the springs in
the valley and deposited, while other dancers de-
stroyed the sand-painting and the altar.

98 INDIAN TRIBES

ISLETTA

Location: Twelve miles south of Albuquerque and U.S. 66. Railway: Santa Fe.
Accommodations: Hotel Alvarado, Albuquerque. Population: 1,000. Religion:
Catholic afld native. Arts and industries: Pottery; farming.

So close to the crawling Rio Grande River is
Isletta that the green cottonwoods shelter the little
pueblo and seem trying to help it escape the notice
of the thousands dashing along U.S. 66 as they
drive from coast to coast. The brown adobe houses
nestle among the trees, and from every protruding
rafter hang strings of red peppers. The houses are
clean and tidy, with white-washed walls and hard
mud floors. The floors are dropped a foot or two
below the level of the threshold to keep out drafts
and also to prevent the creeping babies from escap-
ing while their mothers are busy with household
tasks. Built-in ledges against the walls serve as
beds at night and as couches during the day.

In the large plaza is the square old Mission with
its dignified, thick walls, the picture somewhat
spoiled by two added turrets of later date. Quite
close to it is the Indian church, the built-up estuf a
requiring several steps to reach the roof, whence
a ladder leads, down into its dusky depths. No white
visitor need apply for admission there. From the
services in the Mission, the Indian medicine men
retire to their estuf a and hold communion with their
native gods, whom they consider much more re-
liable than the white man's Great Spirit.

Isletta has a ghost of which the Indians are very

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 99

proud. It is the only ghost we encountered along
the way. This one inhabits the old Mission and
is the uneasy spirit of a Padre murdered three hun-
dred years ago by the Tesuque Indians, who trans-
ported his body at night to the Isletta Mission
seventy miles from their village, where they buried
him in the nave. About every twenty years or so
the restless priest was in the habit of lifting the
earth above his burial place and appearing on top
of the floor. When first this occurred they buried
him anew and sealed the cracks with Mobe mud.
Twenty years later they found him reposing on
the surface again. At last they secured two-inch
planks and nailed him down securely, so they
thought. But the Cacique took us into the quaint
old church and showed us that the boards over his
grave were warping and pushing the nails right out
of the timbers ! Our guide suggested in a matter-
of-fact tone that there was more than likely a hot
spring or gas pocket under the church causing the
mischief. We were indignantly hurried out. That
ghost is not to be laid by scientific methods.

Pottery offered here by the women was very poor.
In fact it broke when lifted from the hands of the
seller. It so poorly represents real Southwest pot-
tery that one hates to see it being sold.

Little children born at Isletta receive lots of at-
tention. For eight days, regardless of weather con-
ditions, the father of a newborn child must keep a

100 INDIAN TRIBES

fire burning in the corner fireplace in his home.
Should he fall asleep and permit the fire to burn
out he must rush to the home of the Cacique and
secure a coal with which to rekindle it. This birth
fire is kindled by means of a fire drill or flint and
steel. When a godmother has been chosen for the
baby she fasts for four days, not even tasting water,
and during that fast she has visions about the baby's
entire life and receives instructions as to what name
she is to give. This information comes from The
Trues good spirits.

OLD LACUNA

Location: Halfway between Albuquerque and Gallup, New Mexico, on U.S. 66.
Railway: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel Acoma, at New Laguna, New
Mexico. Population: 200. Arts and industries: Pottery, drum-making; farming,
trucking.

Highway U.S. 66 winds its way exactly through
the center of Old Laguna, with its adobe houses
decorated with red peppers and its big Mission dom-
inating the landscape.

The inhabitants were friendly and gracious, and
anxious to sell their pottery, which we found infe-
rior in both quality and design. Two-headed birds,
small ash trays, match-holders, and candlesticks
are produced in quantities, and the young girls sit
beside the highway and offer their wares to the
tourists.

Laguna Indians are rather tall, dignified folk,
Americanized both in dress and in their homes.
Sewing-machines, wood ranges, and iron bedsteads

RIO GRANDE PUEBLOS 101

were in practically every home we visited. In one
room the women were reducing dried chili peppers
to powder, which the men would peddle in neigh-
boring towns. The dry pods were put in stone me-
tates and pounded with a heavy stone until they
were reduced to red dust. The room was so filled
with the dust and the pungent odor that we could
not tarry long, and the women laughed at our
sneezes and streaming eyes. They themselves
seemed impervious to the sting of the pepper.

We sought out the governor of the village and
asked permission to visit the interior of the Mis-
sion on its rocky lookout. This is not the original
Spanish Mission, whch was destroyed in the Rebel-
lion, but one built by Franciscans in the eighteenth
century. It is made of roughly dressed stone, quite
unique in a land of adobe. Surrounding it is the
Indian graveyard with dozens of mounds, scattered
over with broken food bowls and cotton strings
adorned with eagle feathers. Catholics they may
be, these Rio Grande Indians, but they evidently
think that if one religion is good, two are better,
and so cling to both.

The main room inside the church is very narrow
and at least a hundred feet long. The altar, like
all Indian altars, glowed with primitive color and
statues. Some very old and interesting Indian paint-
ings on elkskin adorned the walls.

The governor showed us where the coveted paint-

102 INDIAN TRIBES

ing of St. Joseph once hung-, until, as he explained
with a great deal of venom, it was stolen from them
by the Acomas. We asked the innkeeper at the
Acoma Hotel about the painting and he said it was
given by Friar Ramirez in 1629 to the Acoma
Indians when they finished the great Mission on
top of the Acoma Rock. The Acomas always had
plenty of rain, and the Lagunas decided the picture
was the cause of their good luck. They sent a dele-
gation to borrow it, but met with a refusal. At
night the visitors took the picture and carried it to
Laguna, where rain began to fall, and continued
to be plentiful. Acoma demanded the return of
their treasure; Laguna refused; and the matter
was settled by a court order which compelled the
Lagunas to deliver St. Joseph to the Acomas, where
it now hangs in its original home and each spring
is carried around their fields to insure plenty of
moisture for their crops another method of ob-
taining rain in a desert land!

Salt River Indians

OUR summer among the Indian tribes in north-
ern New Mexico and Arizona was drawing
to a close. Our guide, thinking we should see as
many reservations as possible, proposed that we
leave U.S. 66 at Ashfork and take the southern
route, which would carry us by way of Casa Grande
ruins and through the Salt River Valley Reserva-
tions.

PIMA

Location: Along Gila River, on State Highway 87, near Sacaton, Arizona.
Railway: Southern Pacific. Population: 4,388. Arts and industries: Pottery,
basketry; wood-cutting, farming, cotton-raising.

Clustered around the huge adobe structure
known as Casa Grande Ruins, the Pimas live today
as they did centuries ago when the Spanish fathers
first heard Mass in the ruined interior of that build-
ing. Some authorities even claim that the ancestors
of the Pimas built that prehistoric watch tower used

103

104 INDIAN TRIBES

by the Ho-ho-kum, the "Gone Away People." Eight
hundred years have passed since the building was
constructed and irrigation canals were dug in that
vicinity, but today the Pimas live much as those
vanished people must have lived. They till their
fields, getting their water from irrigation canals
maintained by their own labors until the govern-
ment came to their aid. They make their pottery
and baskets, live on the fruits of their labor, and
are gentle, friendly Indians. They have adopted
the dress and religion of their white friends, and
are trying to improve their homes and furnish them
as white homes are furnished.

On our journey from Phoenix we passed clusters
of their huts grouped together in villages. Usually
a little church and its accompanying cemetery could
be seen close by. Parking our car at such a village,
we asked permission to enter one of the homes. A
large, pleasant- faced woman, speaking English in
a soft, slow drawl, invited us to her mother's house,
where she said we could see a basket being made.

The house itself was worth the visit It was per-
haps twenty feet long and fifteen wide, and it was
a framework of ocotillo ribs standing on end close
together, held in place by crosswise cottonwood
poles wired here and there to keep them firm. At
each corner a forked mesquite post supported
squared timbers, and a post in the center of the
room held another square rafter in place. Lighter

SALT RIVER INDIANS 105

poles covered with fine brush formed the roof, and
a layer of dirt kept the interior cool. The floor was
of hard-beaten earth, and the furniture consisted
of two battered iron beds, a few benches, and an
iron stove, on which bubbled boiling beans in an
earthen pot.

The inside and outside of the pole framework
was thickly daubed with 'dobe mud, and the interior
was dark and cool. We sat under the brush shelter,
called a ramada, in front of the house. Four up-
right forked posts supported cross poles forming a
roof, and small brush was piled on top, making a
dense shade, under which the basket weaver sat
and worked.

Pima baskets have long been justly famous for
their beauty of shape and design. This middle-aged
woman laid aside the coarse basket sieve upon
which she was working, and began a fine plaque.
Her materials consisted of a bundle of cat-tail
rushes split into strips lengthwise, a roll of willow
splints, and a smaller roll of the outside covering
of the black devilVclaw pods. She explained that
the cat-tails were gathered in June and split while
green so that the cut edges curl together, making
each strip look like a round stalk. The willows are
cut when they turn green in the spring, and after
the outside bark is removed the white growth is
split into perhaps twenty thin splints and rolled up
until needed. The devilVclaw pods are gathered in

106 INDIAN TRIBES

the fall when they are ripe and have turned black
They are pressed closely together, perhaps a bundle
two or three feet around, and this is hung by one
of the sharp claws to the rafters until needed. Then
the required number of pods are soaked in water
for a day or so and buried in wet earth until mellow.
The black outside is stripped off and each pod fur-
nishes eight or ten six-inch-long strips. In late
years the plant has grown scarce and now each
thrifty basketmaker raises her own supply of
devil's claw.

With a length of this black material, she fash-
ioned the center of the basket, wrapping it closely
together with another black fragment. Gradually
she added one and then another cat-tail padding
coil, until she had a circle perhaps two inches across.
Taking a strip of the willow she held it firmly be-
tween her strong, white teeth and with a stout,
sharp knife followed the length of the willow to
where it was held taut in her left hand. This
scraping sized the material, in other words, scraped
the willow down to a uniform size and thickness
and removed roughness.

With a short steel awl, the weaver made a hole
in the preceding coil, and with expert fingers
pushed the willow through the opening. This she
drew smoothly and tightly against the previous
stitch, and when the place for the black figure was
reached, a strand of the black devil's claw was sub-

SALT RIVER INDIANS 107

stituted. The design made on the plaque was a
small crossed pattern, and she explained that it
represented coyote tracks on the desert. From a
government publication, a history of the Pinia
people, by Russell, she had copied many pictured
designs of old baskets, the meanings long since lost.
Our guide asked her where she had obtained the
book, and she said her father had bought it for her
many years ago and they read it to learn what they
should know about their own people. One of the
most interesting baskets we saw bore a copy of the
maze graven on an inside wall of the Casa Grande
Ruin, always an object of wonder to modern In-
dians. A figure representing Ho-ho-kurn was shown
entering the maze.

In a house near by we next watched an old
woman making mesquite flour. Beans from the
mesquite tree are gathered and stored until they
are needed. A portion of these were placed in a
metate and with a stone pestle the old woman
pounded them into fine flour, which she sifted
through a coarse basket to remove shells. In a
cloth sack she placed a portion of the flour, sprinkled
it well with water, and added another layer of flour.
This operation was repeated until the sack was full.
It was hung to a ceiling rafter for use as needed.
Sometimes slices of such a flour cake are cut off
and fried like mush. Sometimes it is used to thicken
the gravy in a stew, and at other times it is eaten

108 INDIAN TRIBES

raw. It has a sweet, nutty taste. Very little food
is purchased by the Pima people, as their fields yield
all sorts of grain and vegetables. They also have
chickens and cattle, and as a rule coffee and sugar
are about the only articles of food they purchase.
By sale of their baskets and the pottery they make,
money is obtained for their modest wants. Pimas
pride themselves on their civilization, and their
adoption of white dress and religion.

MARICOPA

Location: Along Salt River among the Pimas. Population: 394. Religion:
Catholic, Mormon, and Protestant. Arts and industries: Basketry, pottery;
farming, cattle-raising, and wood-cutting.

Our Pima friend offered to accompany us to the
home of a Maricopa woman who was engaged in
making pottery. As the home was just across a
wheat field and over a canal, we left our car and
walked. The wheat was ready to harvest and the
Pima woman said it would be cut and threshed very
soon. Threshing would be done by piling the wheat
on a hard surface and driving the horses over and
over it until the grains were beaten free of the
straw. Then the kernels would be gathered in big
flat baskets and tossed up and down, while the wind
blew the chaff away.

We were introduced to the Maricopa woman, who
was not as friendly and talkative as our Pima friend.
We found that the Maricopa people are more shy
and reserved in their dealings with strangers.

SALT RIVER INDIANS 109

The Maricopa home was similar to the Pima
house we had just left. We settled ourselves tinder
the ramada where our hostess was working. An
interesting object was a three-pronged post sunk
into the ground, supporting a huge earthen olla
filled with water. The pot was swathed in burlap
and now and then a drop of moisture fell down on
the pepper plants at the base of the post. Water is
too scarce to waste even one drop !

The potter's clay had been brought from a dis-
tant hillside and dried in the sun. She had pounded
it into powder, sifted it to remove pebbles and
hard lumps, and soaked it in water. It was now in
the form of lumps of tough gray mud. Taking one
of these she shaped the bottom of a vessel by using
a gourd mold. Another lump of clay was rolled into
spirals and added round by round to the shaped
base. With a short, curved, wooden paddle the potter
spanked the clay into shape on the outside, holding
a smooth stone against the inside to keep it smooth
and in place. Now and then a half -finished vessel
was set in the sun to stiffen a bit while the potter
worked on another. When a new start was made,
the old edge was wet by running moist fingers along
the top, and more coils were added until the thing
was complete. These wet bowls were now set in
the sun, and yesterday's bowls were brought in to
receive a slip or coating of red ochre applied by
dipping the fingertips into the mixture and spread-

110 INDIAN TRIBES

ing it over the surface. While this dried a bit, a
shallow pit was dug and a wood fire kindled. The
pots were put in and left to fire. Bowls burned the
day before were given their decorations with a
black dye made from boiling mesquite gum in an
earthen vessel until it looked like ink. Geometrical
figures and conventional designs were put on by
free-hand drawing and the vessels then heated again
for a short time. When the burning is complete,
the pottery is a shiny, dark red base with black
decorations, and is beautiful if somewhat brittle.

Maricopas have accepted the dress and religion
of the whites, and differ little from their Pima
neighbors. They, however, have never learned the
Pima language and are more reserved and subdued
in their manner.

PAPAGO

Location: Valley of Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona, near Tucson. Rail-
way: Southern Pacific. Population: 6,000. Religion: Catholic, Protestant, Mor-
mon. Arts and industries: Basket-making, pottery; farming, stock-raising.

Nine miles south of Tucson old San Xavier Mis-
sion, where mass was first said in 1697, is still
serving the Papago Indians. The same good father
Kino who laid the foundation for the Mission and
strove to save their souls brought horses, chickens,
and cattle to the Papago Indians, and that was the
beginning of stock-raising in Arizona.

The old Mission has been attacked more than
once by Apaches, and the sacred images have been

SALT RIVER INDIANS 111

mutilated and carried away, but several of them
were recovered by their devout worshipers and are
enthroned again in their niches.

After hearing the story of the Mission from the
Father in charge, we walked with him to the village
half a mile away. The houses were quite similar to
those of the Pimas and Maricopas. The Papagoes
themselves are tall, well- formed Indians, their dark
skin testifying to their outdoor occupations In a
land where the temperature reaches 120 degrees in
summer time. They dress like whites, and live as
nearly as possible like whites. They cultivate their
fields, herd their cattle, asking nothing from the
government except schooling for their children and
water development for their industries. As long
as they observe the rules of the Catholic church,
the resident Father at the little village near the
Mission fails to see any harm in their annual fiesta
with its pagan dances and games, dating back to
a period before the coming of white men.

We purchased a few baskets, made of white
yucca fiber, secured an olla, which we planned to
plant atop a three-pronged post on an eastern lawn
somewhere, and continued our westward journey.

Taos Pueblo

Location: On highway U.S. 64, 100 miles north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Rail-
way: Santa Fe. Accommodations: Hotel LaFonda, Santa Fe. Religion: Catholic
and native. Arts and industries: Some oil-painting and water-color artists;
farming, stock-raising; selling curios made by other Indians; posing for artists
and guiding sightseers.

SITUATED at the foot of a beautiful snow-capped
mountain, Taos, with its terraced pueblo
houses, is one of the most interesting of Indian
homes. Add to that the fact that for many years
Kit Carson lived there with his beloved Josephine
and now sleeps in the shadow of the old town, and
it is no wonder that artists and writers flock to the
picturesque spot. The highway leading to Taos, the
old trail made by Kit Carson and his followers, is
known as the "Highway of the Immortals/'

From Hotel LaFonda at Santa Fe a stage leaves
each morning for Taos, and we followed closely in
its wake as it led us into the heart of the southern
Rockies, losing their tops in the clouds which hung

112

TAGS PUEBLO 113

over them until the sun, winning a victory, banished
them and poured its warm light over the fertile
valleys and bathed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains
with an almost unearthly glow.

We passed beside Indian villages where the na-
tives were making pottery or cultivating their little
gardens, or baking bread in the outside oven beside
every door. Mexican ranches sprinkled the green
valley, and more than one dude ranch made its pres-
ence known by the parties of smartly clad riders
emerging from an elaborate corral.

Our guide pointed out a bleak-looking chapel
standing at one side of the plaza in one little town.
This is the place of worship of that hysterical band
of Mexican "Penitentes" who during Lent prac-
tice flagellation, sometimes dying from the ordeal.
Members of this sect are lashed to crosses and left
hanging for hours, and are not always brought back
to life after the ceremony ends.

A little farther along the way is a sacred cave
from which gushes a hot spring. This cave was
for generations the scene of many mysterious Taos
ceremonies, and it is only in recent years that white
people have obtained possession of it and turned it
into a fashionable healing resort.

There are really three villages called Taos, the
first being properly Rancho de Taos, with its great
white-walled Mission, built in 1700, and surrounded
by fertile little farms. There is an interesting story

114 INDIAN TRIBES

told of the Padre who ruled over the Rancho. This
old rascal, known as Padre Martinez, found it very
pleasant to have charge of the Mission with its soft
living and its good-looking Mexican and Indian
women. He revised the rules of the Catholic church,
declaring that priests should have wives and fami-
lies and that fasting was not essential to holiness.
Of course he was excommunicated, and he then
started a church of his own. But before that oc-
curred he induced some Taos Indians to rebel
against the American Governor Bent, and murder
him and his officers. All seven of the poor ignorant
Indians, condemned to hang for this crime, appealed
to the Padre to save them. This he agreed to do if
they would deed their fertile farms to him. Once
these were recorded in his name, he went hunting
and forgot all about the Indians. After they were
quite dead he returned and took possession- of their
property.

The second Taos, Taos proper, or Don Fernando
de Taos, is the modern art colony which has grown
up around the old Spanish settlement of Kit Car-
son's time and is internationally known as a center
for writers and artists. Kit Carson's old home, just
off one of the busy streets, has been converted into
a museum and is filled with objects pertaining to
his life and occupation.

Two miles on is the third Taos, Taos Pueblo,
built so long before the coming of white men that

TAGS PUEBLO 115

Coronado could get no information from its oldest
inhabitants as to its age.

Watered by a clear, murmuring brook, wild roses,
clematis, and sunflowers bordered our road, which
led past cultivated fields dotted with Indians at
work. Small plots of corn and wheat lay on each
side of the road, and the stream has been diverted
to irrigate the growing crops. Tall, straight, intel-
ligent Indian men, bare to the waist, with white
sheets or blankets draped about their hips, seriously
regarded us, then turned again to their labors. The
hair of each was parted in the middle and confined
in two braids, each wrapped with red cloth. Those
not working in the water wore beaded moccasins,
similar to those of the northern plains Indians, but
we learned these had been made by Apaches and
traded by them for fruit and corn. When we waved,
there was a dignified wave in return, but no flash-
ing smile or cheery greeting.

Farther up the road we came upon a scene which
might have been taken from the pages of the Old
Testament. Here the hard earth had been swept
clean inside a corral and paved with bundles of
wheat. Around and around the inclosure, two half-
grown girls were driving a dozen rebellious goats,
their small, shining hoofs threshing the grain. The
girls were bareheaded and laughed at the plaintive
baas of the goats. Their blouses were bright red,
and the full, short skirts they wore just reached

116 INDIAN TRIBES

their knees. They wore no stockings or shoes, but
when we stopped the car to watch them they
snatched their blue shawls from the fence and
draped them over their faces. They thought we
intended to take pictures of them.

We found ourselves at the base of a 13,000- foot
mountain which makes a magnificent background
for the theatrical-looking Taos Pueblo. There are
two major structures in the pueblo, one of four
terraces and the other of five. On the housetops,
quiet figures, wrapped from head to heel in white
blankets, looked like Arabs turning toward Mecca.
Other brightly blanketed figures of women moved
back and forth across the plaza, dipping ollas into
the clear stream, or carrying loaves of bread from
the ovens to their homes in the pueblo.

While we stood silently drinking in the scene, a
courteous Indian approached us and asked us to
register in a book which he kept in his house. We
did this and also deposited a dollar each with him,
the village fee for the privilege of taking some
pictures. For another dollar we engaged him to
show us about the town, as we wanted to see all we
could and did not wish to intrude anywhere.

The young man called his wife and mother to
meet us, and they in turn invited us to look over
their stock of Indian curios, none made by the Taos
Indians but all bought from other tribes to sell to
tourists. The only thing they manufacture is a

TAGS PUEBLO 117

beaded rabbitVfoot doll, similar to those made by
the Zunis.

The most beautiful colored corn, tied in bunches
of perhaps six or eight shades ranging from yellow
to deepest purple, hung from every ceiling, and
hundreds of bunches are carried away each year by
visitors. This corn is grown in Taos fields, as are
the small gourds which they dry and paint to re-
semble chickens, pigs, goats, and other funny ani-
mals, and string for hanging around fireplaces.
Yards and yards of shining red peppers adorned
every home, adding a spicy smell to the Indian
cedar and the mutton odors. Pottery from every
tribe, silverwork, blankets, and baskets were dis-
played for sale.

The women wore short, full skirts and blouses,
and many of them had aprons tied about their
waists. Blankets fell from their heads and almost
concealed their figures. Most of them wore Amer-
ican shoes, but a few of the younger girls had the
white deerskin moccasins and wrap-around leg-
gings, the favorite Indian footgear.

Their food consists of wheat bread and corn
bread, meat stews, and plenty of vegetables and
fruit. Fruit, drying on housetops, seemed to con-
sist of grapes, plums, and peaches.

Having seen the intimate manner in which other
Pueblo Indians lived, we thought it strange that
each family has its own private apartment in the

118 INDIAN TRIBES

pile of adobe. Perhaps three or four rooms make
up an apartment, and each apartment opens on its
own private terrace. There are no doors inside
leading from one apartment to another.

The Indian guide with us said they make adobe
by burning straw to ashes, then mixing it with
water and clay, and shaping bricks from the mix-
ture. Most of the hard work of building is done by
the men, but the plastering inside and out is done
by the women. The outside plaster is adobe thinned,
applied by handfuls, and smoothed until the 'dobe
bricks are hidden. Inside plaster is gypsum and is
renewed about twice a year. The rooms inside were
almost bare, a few low stools or plain chairs being
the only furniture, except where a sewing machine
or phonograph occupied the place of honor. We saw
a few iron beds, but our guide said the people slept
mostly on blankets and goatskins on the floor. Cor-
ner fireplaces were used for cooking, and the out-
side ovens took care of the bread-baking.

When Coronado visited Taos in 1540 he de-
scribed a very large circular kiva which required
twelve big cedar poles to support its roof. We asked
the Indian about this and he led us toward what
he declared was that ancient kiva. It is still in use
and was very much occupied that day by humming,
chanting priests, "Delight Makers," and we were
not allowed to approach closely. Outwardly there
has been little change in the pueblo since the coming

TAGS PUEBLO 119

of the white man. Once a young couple returned
from years of schooling away from their native
town, and after being married by the Catholic priest
proceeded to remodel their apartment. A big, clear
glass window was placed in the front wall, and the
sash painted an uncompromising New England
green. The village fathers were horrified, then
imperious! The young couple were compelled to
remove that affronting window, wall up the open-
ing, and get along with the original peephole. Our
guide pointed to the walled-up window with a great
deal of native pride.

A group of older men rule the pueblo, and their
word is law. Men are permitted to wear hats while
working in the field but must not enter their homes
with them on, and they must wrap themselves in
white blankets or sheets when around the pueblo.
This adds a touch of the Orient to the scene as the
men move about in their burnoose-like garments.

Indians of all tribes were arriving at the pueblo,
and sightseeing cars full of white tourists were
coming in. It was the Fiesta Day of San Geronimo,
patron saint of the village, the Indian said.

For days in the underground kivas the priests
had been holding secret ceremonies, and today was
the public appearance of the ''Delight Makers/ 7
Before the sun set and they took their departure we
thought a more suitable name could have been
found for these clowns.

120 INDIAN TRIBES

When the sun was about three hours high the
Indians hurried from the old Mission, carrying a
wooden image of their saint. He was taken to the
center of the plaza and placed on an elevated stand
trimmed with willow boughs. From this vantage-
point he could observe all the activities in the plaza.

The sport began with a race between the young
men of the two big apartment houses. The almost
naked boys, moving as swiftly and gracefully as
race horses, bounded over the plaza and crossed the
home line. The winning side claimed as their re-
ward a huge amount of food hurled at them by the
women folk. None of it was wasted, as the ever-
present and hungry Navajos salvaged what the
others neglected.

From the big kiva a dozen or more painted, half-
naked priests appeared, holding willow boughs high
over their heads. They swayed gracefully back and
forth several times across the plaza, singing to
themselves and their gods a sort of humming re-
frain. As they retired, the village swarmed with a
mob of howling, leaping clowns, wearing only daubs
of paint and breechcloths. They shrieked and yelped
and made themselves generally obnoxious an opin-
ion evidently shared with us by a small warrior
who chanced to catch their leader's eye. This tiny
brave, clad in gay purple pantaloons, darted to cover
like a chicken pursued by a hawk but was overtaken
and carried shrieking with terror to the rippling

TAGS PUEBLO 121

stream and dumped in the middle of it. His anxious
mother, who had fluttered along after the clowns,
fished him out and disappeared with him into the
bowels of the pueblo where doubtless she dried both
his tears and his clothes.

The clowns darted up ladders and into houses,
and giggles and shouts came out. They brought
their hands full of food from the houses and tried
to cram it into their mouths as they danced. Sud-
denly one would pause and make motions as though
he felt very sick. Then the entire group would sur-
round him and all join in being sick. They tore the
white blankets from the shoulders of the men and
took aprons and shawls from women, but for some
reason they did not molest the grim Navajos.

They surrounded two Apaches offering beaded
belts and bands for sale and robbed them of their
wares. The clowns grabbed fruit from Indian ped-
dlers, and after biting into a peach or an apple
tossed it back to its owner. A big melon was
smashed over the head of a white visitor, who re-
tired very much insulted. This pleased the tormen-
tors and they redoubled their efforts to be amusing
and original. The only time they were quiet was
when the priests came from the kiva with their wil-
low boughs and danced back and forth in the plaza.

Toward sunset they turned their attention to the
greased pole erected in the plaza and hung with the
carcass of a sheep, bunches of fruit, loaves of bread,

122 INDIAN TRIBES

and other food. There was much slipping down and
landing in the face of the next Indian before the
first bunch of food was reached and the pole
lowered. When the food was secured by the enter-
tainers, they leaped out of sight, yelping and moan-
ing as they went We were glad to see the last of
them, as they had circled near us more than once
and only the presence of our Taos guide had pro-
tected us from their antics.

It was sunset now, and over the high mountains
the red shadows fell on the village. Smoke rose
from a hundred chimneys, and the women came
and went from the stream, carrying water for
household needs. Placing a full olla of water on
the top of her head, a woman would mount the
successive ladders gracefully and enter her own
doorway without touching her hand to the vessel.

High on top of one of the pueblos a figure
wrapped to his eyes in a white robe appeared and
faced the plaza. As he intoned a message to the
people we almost believed ourselves to be in the
land of Mohammed where the faithful are called
to prayer. But as the mournful voice rose and sank
our friend explained that a hoop dance would be
held in the plaza by the light of a fire as soon as
the dancers were ready.

Our guide asked us if we would eat with his
mother, and we gladly accepted the offer. She had
a table and chairs and she spread a clean red and

TAOS PUEBLO 123

white checked cloth for us. Thick slices of squash
baked in the outside oven, plenty of crusty bread,
and a mutton stew made a substantial meal that
we enjoyed. For dessert she placed a big bowl of
grapes and peaches in front of us.

When we had eaten, it was time to go to the
plaza, where a fire was blazing cheerfully, its heat
not unwelcome, as the air cools rapidly when the
sun is down.

Women hastened to the scene to encourage their
particular entrants in the dance. Little fellows not
more than five or six years old strolled into the
circle, holding their gayly decorated hoops, and try-
ing to appear indifferent to the cheers of the white
observers. They wore no clothing except short little
aprons and a few parrot feathers in their black
hair. Several half -grown boys and two middle-aged
men completed the dancing group, and as the drum
sounded its first faint beat they shifted into a
smooth, gliding step that was never broken during
the entire dance. Down to the end of the line they
moved, holding their bright hoops above their
heads, and as they turned to come back each
lowered the circlet, about as large as a barrel hoop,
over first one shoulder and then the other; down
over the hips it moved and up came one leg through
it, then down, all to the drum's beat, and the other
leg passed through. Then back up again over the
body and high into the air each hoop rose as the

124 INDIAN TRIBES

line reached the end of the plaza. The women
laughed and cheered, and the beat of the drum
quickened. One by one the men and boys left the
line, until only the two small boys, almost babies,
remained slipping through their hoops, doing in-
tricate side steps and never missing a beat of the
drum. As the drummer ended the contest with a
decided whack on his drum, coins showered upon
the small dancers, who immediately forgot their
dignity and scrambled on all fours in search of
them.

A kindly faced Padre had taken his place beside
us and during the dance we heard him chuckling
softly to himself and urging this or that dancer to
greater efforts. We asked him what progress had
been made toward Christianizing the Indians, and
he answered, as do all sincere missionaries, that
while they acknowledge the Church in marriage and
burial customs, attend Mass, and try to repeat
songs and prayers, they are pagan at heart, and
remain so to their dying day. Even the most de-
vout of them mix their own native rites with those
of the Catholic Church.

"But they are dear, good children/' he said,
softly, as we left him surrounded by his charges.

Zuni

Location: Fifty-four miles southwest of Gallup, New Mexico. Railway: Santa
Fe. Accommodations: None nearer than El Navajo Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico.
Population: 3,000. Arts and industries: Silverwork, beadwork, pottery; farming.

ZUNI, most historic of all the pueblos of the
Southwest, lies fifty-four miles south of U.S.
66. We left the highway at Gallup, New Mexico,
and drove over an excellent dirt road leading up-
ward toward the hills through miles of sagebrush
and sunflowers to a country of big pines and pinons.
Tucked away, here and there, in sheltered nooks are
the dull brown hive-shaped hogans of the Navajos,
who have drifted over from their own reservation.
One doubtless would miss many of these secluded
homes were it not for the blackness of each open
door looking faithfully toward the east. Flocks of
stolid sheep and playful goats feed near by, and
often the Navajo mother with a wee baby in her
arms and another tugging at her long skirts watches
the sheep as they graze.

125

126 INDIAN TRIBES

Navajos like to prowl over the Zuni country, for
Zunis are always dancing and feasting and Navajos
are fond of eating. Moreover, the sweet pifion
nuts grow plentifully in this region and make good
winter food.

One place in Zuniland, however, the Navajos
shun. This is sacred "Corn Mountain," home of
the Zuni gods, and an altogether alarming spot to
the Navajos. This great volcanic hill looms close
to the present village of Zuni, and is the home of
their various native deities. It was the refuge of
the frightened Indians when they were first driven
from their homes by the Spaniards, and it was here
they hid their women and children when they feared
vengeance for their part in the great uprising of
1680. The mountain top is covered with sacred
shrines and prayer-stick repositories. Halfway up
the side two giant figures, carved by erosion, rep-
resent the god and goddess of childless couples, and
many feather prayers are deposited at the base of
the statues. Today, incongruous and regrettable,
a modern air beacon stands on the very top of this
historic spot.

Between Corn Mountain and the village are the
sweet-smelling alfalfa fields, with brown-skinned
farmers tossing and turning the hay in the sun as
they call to one another in merry tones. They waved
as we passed by, gracious and smiling, as are most
Pueblo Indians.

Z UNI PUEBLO 127

This valley has been irrigated by the government,
and here are grown the beans, peppers, tomatoes,
melons, and pumpkins which add so greatly to the
winter supplies of the Zunis.

The village itself surmounts a hill, and one thinks
of the other pueblo villages already visited. They
are alike and yet so different, each holding its own
particular fascination. Zuni houses are terraced,
rising three stories high, but not in such an orderly
array as those at ancient Acoma; Zuni is pictur-
esque, but not as magnificent as Taos; Zuni houses
are built attached to one another, but not in the
same compact mass as those at Old Walpi. Here
at Zuni there was plenty of space, and the dwell-
ings have sprawled all over the hill and into the
level land below. Built of adobe and stone, with
quaint stone steps leading to higher stories, the
houses are beautiful in a mellow, restful way,
though modern builders have enlarged the small
mica windows and replaced them with many-paned
glass, painting the frames a harsh blue, one sees
as he stands on a rooftop and looks down into the
busy courts, across the plaza, and into the roofless
old Mission with its bleak graveyard. Beyond that,
the ovens cluster on the riverbank, where their
smoke will not annoy the villagers, and on across
the river the flat is covered with corrals made of
cedar logs set upright in the red earth.

The Zuni houses belong to the women, but the

128 INDIAN TRIBES

heavy construction work with rock, adobe, and
rafters is done by the men. The finishing touches
are provided by the women, including smoothing
the mud floor, plastering the inside with whitewash,
and covering the outside with brown adobe plaster.
These homes are charming. Each family has one
large room, with two or sometimes three outside
entrances, and this one room serves for everything
connected with their daily life. Here they work
and eat and sleep, having no furniture other than
rolled-up sheepskins and blankets, on which they
sit in the daytime and sleep at night. Cooking is
done at the corner fireplace found in every home.
Food is served in one big bowl, and everyone dips
in and selects his food with his fingers. Meat stews
and corn bread are staple foods.

Grinding-stones are present in every home, and
the corn is rubbed between stones just as it was
four hundred years ago when Zuni was first sighted
by explorers.

The good Fray Marcos, with a few friendly In-
dians and a trusty Negro servant, was roaming
around the New World when Zuni was discovered.
Estavanico, the Negro, was sent forward to re-
connoiter and report. He reached the first village
and was denied admittance, but trusting to his color
to bear out his contention that he was a powerful
medicine man, he forced his way inside and by his
actions brought a speedy death to himself and his

ZUNI PUEBLO 129

companions. Only one Indian escaped to report to
Fray Marcos. The priest climbed a high hill, prob-
ably Corn Mountain, where he could look down
upon the villages. There they lay, the rays of late
afternoon sun gilding each roof with a layer of
gold. What dreams and visions must have come to
the holy man, judging from the reports he sent to
the king of Spain! He had discovered the Seven
Cities of Cibola.

Seven hundred years before that time, seven
bishops of old Spain had fled before the Moors and
sailed away into the Sea of Darkness. They had
taken their friends and relatives with them, and
somewhere in the mystic sea they had found land.
Here they had settled and founded the Seven Cities,
which were reputed to be of pure gold.

A few miles from the present Zuni village lies
a ruined pueblo. This pile of crumbling adobe is
all that remains of the friar's mad vision. Spain
may have forgotten what it did to Zuni, but the
present-day Indians have not lost one detail of the
legend dealing with the killing of the Negro. And
to this day Mexicans, despised descendants of the
Spanish invaders, are driven away from the village
dances by the Indians.

Zuni Indians are of typical Pueblo stock. They
are short and stout and smiling. Their wide, intel-
ligent eyes are gracious and friendly, and their
perfect white teeth flash in laughter. In dress the

130 INDIAN TRIBES

men have adopted white cotton trousers slit up the
sides so they can be easily rolled up while they work
in the irrigated fields. Their shirts are of calico and
hang with the tail outside the trousers. The hair
is cut in a square bob over the forehead and ears
and tied in a club behind the neck. Around their
heads, keeping the hair from their eyes, they wear
a bright, twisted band of silk. Reddish-brown deer-
skin moccasins cover their feet. In cold weather a
heavy blanket is wrapped about their shoulders.

The women wear rather short, full cotton skirts
and full gathered blouses. A spotless white apron
lavishly trimmed with lace or embroidery is usually
tied around the waist. Gayly flowered shawls cover
their heads and fall to their hips. Their long hair
is pinned in a knot on the back of the head, the
older women letting theirs hang in two clubs, one
over each shoulder. Their moccasins are made of
white buckskin and reach to their knees.

Little girls are dressed like their mothers, but
the small boys run around the village with only a
short cotton shirt on each plump little body.

Four hundred years ago when Coronado, spurred
on by Fray Marcos' accounts of the wealth of the
Zunis, drew rein before their village, with three
hundred mounted soldiers and six hundred Indians,
he drove before him herds of sheep and hogs and
extra horses. Thus, into the Southwest, came these
domestic animals.

Z UNI PUEBLO 131

It must have been a strange sight when that cav-
alcade drew up in front of the adobe town. On one
side were the weary soldiers on their worn-out
horses. Their armor was rusted and soiled. At
their head was Coronado, brave in his suit of gold
armor donned for this auspicious occasion. Facing
them, terrified but determined, stood the Zunis,
guarding their homes. It was their first sight of
horses.

The flower of the Spanish Army opposed the
Stone Age men! Coronado sent a peaceful mes-
senger. The Indians replied by drawing a line of
sacred corn meal over which they forbade the in-
vaders to cross. When the Spaniards advanced they
were met by a shower of arrows. The horses dashed
forward, and the Indians fled to their houses. Dur-
ing the fight Coronado was struck by a stone and
lay unconscious while the battle raged. Before
morning the Indians retreated to their sacred
mountain and the Spaniards found themselves in
possession of a tumbledown mud town, utterly
lacking in wealth of any kind. So ended the con-
quest of the Seven Cities of Cibola, like so many
modern conquests, dust and ashes in the grasp of
the conqueror.

Today, in the village with which they replaced
the one destroyed by years of warfare with Spanish
soldiers and priests, life goes on as it did centuries
ago. The women climb to sacred Corn Mountain

132 INDIAN TRIBES

and bring back clay to be shaped into pottery. They
grind this coarse gray clay between rocks and soak
it until it is a stiff gray mixture, not unlike model-
ing clay. Taking a handful, they roll it between
their palms until spirals the size of a pencil are
formed. Then, with the bottom of a gourd as a
foundation, the potter shapes the big water jars,
ollas, by coiling the spirals round and round and
smoothing the edges together by stroking with a
smooth stone. When the big jar is half-finished it is
set aside to harden a bit, before being completed.
The potter explains that the weight of the wet clay
would push the bowl out of shape were it all done
at once. While the big bowl tempers, the potter may
shape half a dozen smaller ones for sale to tourists.
These usually hold about a quart and are merely
round bowls with mud frogs modeled by hand and
stuck one on each side to serve as handles. When
the vessels are all shaped they are either set to dry
in the sun or dried out in one of the hive-shaped
ovens, which serve a double purpose, drying the
pottery prior to the firing, and baking the round,
crusty loaves of bread for which Zufii is famous.

When the bowls are sufficiently cured, they are
painted, Zufii decorations are bold, startling de-
signs, utterly lacking the delicate artistic touches
given by the Hopi women. Frogs of a startling
greenness appear on many of them, and ducks with
visible hearts float over their surface. One of the

ZUNI PUEBLO 133

favorite designs is the deer, and this animal always
has horns and a heart almost as large as the deer
itself. The conventional designs are those of moun-
tain and cloud, now and then of squash-blossom as
well. Firing is done by covering the pottery with
sheep manure and burning it for several hours. The
designs are painted on, and while the old potters
used native herbs and minerals, modern Zunis re-
sort to dyes.

Zuni pottery is brittle, and while striking in ap-
pearance, being white with colored designs, it is not
durable. The clay of the Zuni region does not
harden like the Acoma or the Hopi clay, and Zuni
pottery must be handled very carefully in shipping.
It is inexpensive, and furnishes a livelihood for
many Zuni families.

The women are always smiling and happy as
they sit shaping the pottery or making the little
beaded dolls with the rabbitVfeet foundations.
Several times a year there is a grand rabbit hunt
The animals are herded into a low open space and
killed with clubs, with curved throwing-sticks not
unlike boomerangs, and with arrows from the
bows of small Zuni nimrods. After a rabbit hunt
nobody goes hungry at Zuni. The skins are cured
and are used for many things, one of the most in-
teresting being the loose gloves made for the
women and used in spreading plaster and white-
wash on their houses. .The feet of the rabbits are

134 INDIAN TRIBES

cut off and cured. The top of each is now padded
and covered with white cloth, and then colored
beads are sewed on it, black for the hair, white for
the face, with black eyes, nose, and mouth; also a
shirt of some gay color, and trousers, usually of a
different color, are added The toes of the unfor-
tunate bunny disclose the origin of the doll. Thou-
sands of these little dolls are made and sold yearly.
They are used for lucky charms, for curtain pulls,
and for lamp-cord tassels. Zuni women earn per-
haps fifteen cents a day at making them.

When the fields are covered with snow the men
are not idle. They are skillful silversmiths. While
they learned this art from the Navajos, they have
surpassed them in finished workmanship. Zuni sil-
ver jewelry is made of the same material the Nava-
jos use and with the same crude tools. Navajo
designs are used, and the turquoise is polished and
set in the same manner, but there is a lightness of
touch when the design is put on, a smoothness of
finish, a fanciful placing of the blue stones, that
tells a native jewelry-lover that a Zuni and not a
Navajo shaped the article. Something of the joy-
ousness of the craftsman goes into the Zuni work,
just as the stern unbending Navajo spirit imbues
the silver he shapes.

There is a workbench in almost every Zuni home,
and there one can see the silversmith hammering
and heating and tempering the silver as he makes a

ZUNI PUEBLO 135

ring or a bracelet. More than likely his next-door
neighbor has brought his work, and sits gossiping
while he polishes turquoise. A chunk of the raw
gem is stuck on the end of a stick by means of
common red sealing-wax and pressed against a
small emery wheel turned by hand. This grinds the
stone into shape and smooths it ready to be set in
the silver ornament.

We watched the potters at work and, tiring of
that, visited the women as they beaded the dolls.
Wandering outside into the plaza and on down to
the riverbank, we stopped where a young girl was
preparing one of the ovens to receive her fiat tray
of bread. A fire had been built inside the 'dobe oven,
and the sticks had burned to coals. With a board
nailed to a paling she raked the coals outside, where
they lay smoldering and smoking. Down to the
water's edge she went and came back with an olla
full of water balanced on top of her head. She
lowered it beside the oven and dipped a mop of
pinon boughs into the water. With this she swabbed
the inside of the hot oven until it was filled with
steam and the floor was free from ashes. The bread
was made of white flour, and she placed each loaf
directly on the stone floor. This was a "dance day"
and lots of bread would be needed, she said.

"How long will it take to bake?"

"When the sun reach this mark, it done/ 5 she
said, placing a brown finger on a groove in a stone

136 INDIAN TRIBES

near by. "Would you want some of my bread?"
We would, so we seated ourselves and waited for
the sun to make its journey. By our guide's Elgin
it was exactly thirty minutes reaching the mark,
and the girl was back at the oven within two min-
utes after the sun was there. Out came the loaves,
crusty and well-baked, and we sat there munching
them while the girl visited with us. She had learned
to make the bread at school. Yes, the schools were
all right. Their school was all right because a Zuni
girl taught in it and she knew how to tell the In-
dians things so they could understand.

We all laughed together as a small warrior about
four years old came around the corner. He was
following his nose to the hot bread, and that small
nose wiggled just like a rabbit's as he approached.
"My brother," the Zuni girl said, and gave him a
generous portion of hot bread. She made no com-
ment on his lack of clothes. In winter time, our
guide said, children play near the hot ovens to warm
themselves between games.

A little girl slipped shyly up to us and took the
candy we offered. She went into an adjoining house,
and soon there was such a wail of woe our guide
was afraid she had been punished for consorting
with strangers. She went to the door and knocked,
wanting to explain that the fault was entirely ours.
A handsome young man opened the door and in-
vited her to enter. He was laughing.

Z UNI PUEBLO 137

"I heard the baby cry. Was it because I gave
her candy?"

"Oh, no. She cries to put on her new dress for
you to see," the young father explained. "Already
her mother have say yes."

The howls subsided and soon the child appeared;
tears still glistened on her baby cheeks, but pride
overcame such minor details. She wore a quaint
little dress of white embroidery, trimmed profusely
with turquoise buttons. Her silky black hair shone
with the vigorous brushing it had received, and she
came smiling into the arms of our guide, who could
not resist her charms. The little one clutched a
gaudy beaded rabbit's foot in her hand, and this
she bestowed upon her admirer.

The father stood near while we were playing
with the baby, and our guide asked him if he had
gone to school at Phoenix. The man said he had
been sent to California, to the big school at River-
side, both he and his wife. He liked the school life,
but they were glad to be back in their own village.
He studied farming at school, he said, and many
of the things he learned there helped him here in
his fields, since the government had made it possible
for them to have water for irrigation. But he didn't
believe the Hopis or the Navajos would get much
good from their schooling. There were no watered
fields where they had to live.

We walked together to the ruined Mission. The

138 INDIAN TRIBES

talk turned to religion, and the man said that the
Zunis had stayed with their old beliefs and cere-
monies. "A few go to the Catholic Church and a
very few say they are Christians, but mostly we
believe in the gods of our fathers/' he said. Many
priests have lived and worked in the, village of
Zuni, but there is little to show for their labor.
The gaunt old Mission has fallen into ruins, the
roof is gone, and the walls have begun to crumble.
Many beautifully carved beams remain exposed to
the rains and snows, and only the weatherbeaten
cross in the center of the graveyard refuses to con-
cede defeat.

The churchyard is walled with 'dobe brick, and
divided by a walk through the center. The earth
on each side is littered with bits of human bones and
broken pottery. So many generations of Zunis have
been buried there that the earth has been turned
again and again in making place for the newer
dead. Among the Zunis, like the Hopis and Apaches,
it is the men who carry out the final duties toward
the dead. The men are placed on the south side of
the graveyard and the women on the north, the
heads all toward the east. The souls are supposed
to go within four days' time to the sacred lake about
sixty miles away, and for the journey food is placed
in bowls upon each new grave; on the fourth day
the bowl is broken. After the four days have passed
the family of the dead Zufii purify themselves and

ZUNI PUEBLO 139

their house. The personal property of the dead, all
that was not buried with him, is burned on the river
bank. Each Zuni has a personal fetish, given at the
time he is taken into a society; sometimes this is an
ear of corn covered with eagle feathers. Whatever
it is, it is always carried with him and placed in
the grave at his burial This personal fetish aids
and protects the soul on its journey into the un-
known Land of Death. No Zuni will drink water
from the sacred lake, supposed home of Zuni souls.
Marriage with the Zunis means that when a
young girl has reached the marriageable age she
looks at the available husbands in the village, talks
the matter over with her mother, and then goes
after her man. She takes presents of food and
pottery to his home, and if his mother approves,
presents are made in return. Once selected, there is
not much a helpless Zuni can do except marry the
girl, which he does by having his head washed in
yucca suds by his future mother-in-law, while his
mother performs the same service for the girl.
Then they eat the marriage mush out of the usual
marriage basket, and the wedding is over. For a
while the shy bridegroom visits his new wife on the
sly, but soon he moves into her home and works
for her folks. For a year, or until her first baby is
born, the young wife takes presents of food and pot-
tery to the boy's mother. This is to repay her for
the loss of her son's labor. The Zuni husbands and

140 INDIAN TRIBES

wives are noted for their faithfulness to the mar-
riage tie, but if there is any trouble the wife just
turns her unsatisfactory husband outside and he
must go back to his own people. And if the wife is
unruly the husband leaves her house and goes back
to his mother.

More real happiness and content is found in the
Zuni village than is usual among Indians. This is
because they do not have to undergo the hardships
suffered by the Navajos through lack of water and
food and fuel. The government has provided irri-
gation for the Zuni fields, crops are always good,
and their storehouses are always filled; wood is
plentiful, and a good state highway passes through
their village, so that white people come and go all
the year, buying their silver, their pottery, and their
rabbit's-f oot dolls. So they are a happy people, and,
as such, their calendar is full of dances.

Every season brings feast days and dances.
These are always open to visitors, except Mexicans,
who are permitted to witness only the Doll Dance.
This doll is a carved wooden figure clothed in faded
finery and exhibited once a year while gayly dressed
figures dance and visitors place coins in the doll's
lap and gifts of bread and fruit at her feet. This
dance is an odd mixture of Catholic rite and
heathen custom.

Perhaps the best known of Zuni ceremonies is
the Shalako, which is a new-house blessing cere-

ZUNI PUEBLO 141

mony and occurs early in December of each year.
The exact date is set by the priest, and for eight
days no fires are lighted and various personal sac-
rifices are made. This interesting dance is for the
purpose of bringing all good things to the new
house and to give thanks for the past year's blessings.

When it is time for the Shalako to be announced,
ten masked clowns called "newekwe" go through
the village shouting the news. Then the tempo of
the easy-going village life is quickened. Houses are
cleaned and replastered inside and out. The plazas
are swept and garnished. Food is prepared for
hundreds of expected visitors, baking and stewing
and grinding going on from daylight until dark.
Women go from house to house carrying pans of
food, and hundreds of uncooked loaves are borne
to the ovens to be returned fragrant and brown and
inviting. The corn, pulled from the stalks and
hauled in, husk and all, is stripped and stored out
of the way, while children and old women carry
the discarded shucks to the corrals and store them.

This dance starts at sunset. First comes the God
of the Little Fire, a half-naked, painted figure, with
a great winged mask covering his face and resting
on his shoulders. He carries a smoldering torch and
is led about the village by a priest in ceremonial
garb. They plant feather-stick prayers at certain
points. Not far behind the two, a frolicking band
of clowns, also masked, leap and caper and chant.

142 INDIAN TRIBES

At dusk the Shalako arrive. These are indeed
startling figures. They are huge Punch and Judy
creatures, at least eight feet high. The head of each
is an immense painted mask with grotesque eyes
and mouth, and the nose is a long wooden bill which
opens and shuts with a vicious snap and at the same
time emits a shrill whistling. The whole thing is
mounted on a frame and draped in long decorated
robes, while a Zuni walks along under the robes
and carries the masked figure by the stick going
up into the mask. An impressive head dress of
eagle feathers waves in the night breeze as these
big bird-like creatures move along. For each new
house in the village there is a Shalako, and if the
householder has been particularly fortunate during
the year there are two such gods.

With a chanting choir of masked Indians these
mystic figures move toward the first house to be
blessed. There they separate, each with its ac-
companying choir. At the threshold of the new
house, the huge figure awkwardly kneels outside
while the priests chant and sprinkle sacred meal.
Prayer-sticks are placed at the door, and then the
Shalako enters and ties a feather bahoo or prayer-
stick to the central ceiling beam. This is the good-
luck emblem, the horseshoe, of that household, and
it must remain as long as the house stands.

Now that the work is done, the feasting begins.
First the gods are fed, then the older people, then

ZUNI PUEBLO 143

the men, and after that the women, in case there is
anything left. All the good things of Zuniland are
fed to the visitors. For two or three hours feasting
holds the attention of all, but as midnight ap-
proaches the real ceremonial dance begins. A prim-
itive altar has been erected in the main room of the
new house, and a group of men sit there and chant
to the music of drums and gourd rattles.

In and out of the houses move the dancers. One
group will come in at one door and the other retreat
through another, the measure of the dance never
breaking. A spare squad takes the floor now and
then so that the masks may be removed and the
dancers fed between sessions. The same coffee cups
are used all night long, passing from Shalako to
priest, on to old Zuni Indians, thence to Navajo
men, and handed by them after being emptied, to
their meek wives who sit silently in the background.
These cups are not washed during the feast The
big dish of stew progresses in much the same man-
ner as do the coffee cups, being refilled when the
the contents vanish.

The dancing and feasting lasts all night, with
now and then a Shalako growing playful and join-
ing the dance with a few awkward galloping meas-
ures while his bill snaps wickedly at some onlooker.

As day breaks, cold and pink, in the eastern sky,
the Shalako gather in the plaza and take their de-
parture. Covered with sacred meal and watched by

144 INDIAN TRIBES

the entire population, they wend their way toward
the rising sun.

The dance is ended, and the white visitors return
to the trading-posts and the government school,
where they are fed and given a cot for a few hours'
sleep, for there is no hotel at Zufii, and one must
depend upon camping or the hospitality of the
traders, which is usually overtaxed.

Ind

ex

Acorna, 1-15, 102; history, 1, 6
Apache Indians, 16-33; division
of tribe, 16

Basket-making : Apache, 16, 25,
26-27; Havasupai, 34, 35-36;
Hopi, 39, 50-51; Hualapai, 37,
38 ; Maricopa, 108 ; Papago,
110, 111; Pima, 103, 105-107

Beadwork: Apache, fine, 22;
Havasupai, 34; Hopi, 39;
Hualapai, 37; Zuni, 125, 133

Burials: Acoma, 11; Apache, 21;
Havasupai, 37; Hopi, 42, 43,
50, 51; Navajo, 63, 67, 68, 69;
Santa Ana, 90; Zufii, 138, 139

Canyon de Chelly, 56-61
Carson, Kit, 61, 112, 114
Casa Grande Ruins, 103
"Chindi-hogan," 60
Chiricahua, 16

Christening 1 ceremony, 46-47
Cibola, Seven Cities of, 57, 131
Corn Mountain, 126, 129, 131

Dances : Acoma, 12-14 ; Apache,

22, 23, 28-33; Buffalo Dance,
52; Butterfly Dance, 52; Corn
Dance, 97; Crown Dance, 32;
Devil Dance, 32, 33; Eagle
Dance, 82; Fire Dance, 65, 69-
70 ; Havasupai, 36 ; healing, 22 ;
Hopi Snake Dance, 39, 41, 52,
53-55, 82; Jamez, 95; Navajo,

23, 65, 69, 70, 72; Rain Dance,

24, 88 ; Rainbow Dance, 86-88 ;
religious, 62, 64, 65, 69, 70;

Santa Clara, 86-88; Squaw

Dance, 72; Taos, 119, 120, 121,

123; Tesuque, 82
Dress: Acoma, 10, 11; Apache,

20, 25, 27; Havasupai, 34, 35;

Hopi, 44, 45; Hualapai, 38;

Laguna, 100; Navajo, 74, 75,

76; Salt River Indians, 110;

Santa Clara, 86; Taos, 115,

117; Tesuque, 81; Zuni, 129,

130

Drums, toy, 52, 80, 86, 90, 100
Dwellings, 19, 21, 37-38, 98, 109,

111, 117-118, 126, 127-128

Enchanted Mesa, 2, 4, 6

Feast of the Bull, 95-97
Feast of the Dead, 86
Food, 6, 20, 36, 44, 47-48, 57, 60,
74, 90, 117, 123, 127, 135

Geronimo, 18, 37

Hano, 40, 49

Havasupai Indians, 34-37

Hopi Indians, 39-55 ; history, 39,

41 ; see Dances, Hopi Snake
Hualapai Indians, 37-38
Hualapai Reservation, 37

Isletta, 98-100

Jamez, 94-97

Jewelry-making, 88, 89-90
Jicarella, 16

Kachina dolls, 51-52

145

146

INDIAN TRIBES

Laguna Indians, 100-102
Luinmis, Charles, 45

McSparron, L. H., iv, 77
Maricopa Indians, 108-110
Marriage customs, IS, 21, 45, 46,

72, 73, 74, 90, 139
Martinez, Maria, 84
Martinez, Nellie, 84
Mescalero, 16
Miles, General, 16

Nampeyo, 49

Navajo Indians, 56-79

Navajo Reservation, 57

Oraibi, 1, 41

Papago Indians, 110-111

Pavatea, Tom, 42, 53, 54

Piki bread, 47-48

Pima Indians, 102-108

Pinkley, Mrs. Nancy Graham, iv

Polacca, 42

Population, 1, 16, 34, 37, 39, 56,
80, 83, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 98,
100, 103, 108, 125

Pottery: Acoma, 1, 9; Hopi, 49-
50; Isletta, 98, 99; Maricopa,
108-110; Old Laguna, 100; Pa-
pago, 110; Pima, 103, 104; San
Domingo, 88, 91 ; San Ildefonso,
83, 84-85 ; Santa Ana, 90 ; Santa
Clara, 86; Tesuque, 80, 81;
Zia, 91, 93-94; Zuni, 132-133;
see Nampeyo, and Maria Mar-
tinez

Rabbit's-foot dolls, Zuni, 133-
134; see Kachina dolls

Religion: Acoma, 1, 11, 12; Hopi,
42; Laguna, 101; Navajo, 62,
64, 65, 69, 70; Papago, 111;
Rio Grande Pueblos, 14, 98;
Salt River Indians, 110; Taos
124; Zuni, 138

Rio Grande Pueblos, 86-102

Saint Joseph, painting- of, 101, 102

Saint Stephen's Day, 12-14

Salt River Indians, 103-111;
Maricopa, 1 08-110; Papago,
110-111; Pima, 103-108

San Domingo, 88-90

San Ildefonso, 83-86, 90

Sand-painting, Hopi, 53; Jamez,
97; Navajo ceremony, 6465

Santa Ana, 90-91

Santa Clara, 86-88

Santanna, pottery mark, 84

Shalako, Zuiii ceremony, 24, 140-
144

Sheep, 57, 58, 75, 78

Sichomovi, 40, 50

Silverwork: Hopi, 39, 51; Nava-
jo, 56, 78

Sweatbaths, 36-37

Taos, 112-124

Tesuque, 80-83

Twins, Apache suj>erstition, 28

Walpi, 40, 49, 127

Weakie, Teddy, Zuni artist, 24

Weaving: Apache, 27-28; Hopi,

39, 51 ; Navajo, 56, 77, 78
Wickiups, Apache, 19, 21

Zia, 91-92
Zuni, 125-144

1 24 268