Chapter 7

Big Jim welcomed us gravely, asking the Chief: "Did you bring my _fermit_?" This permit, a paper granting Big Jim a camping location on Park grounds, having been duly delivered, Jim invited us to share his hewa, but after one look at the surroundings we voted unanimously to camp farther up the stream among the cottonwoods. We chose a level spot near the ruins of an old hewa.

While supper was being prepared an aged squaw tottered into camp and sat down. She wailed and beat her breast and finally was persuaded to tell her troubles. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in this hewa until his death a year or two before. Then the hewa was thrown open to the sky and abandoned, as is their custom. She disliked to mention his name because he might hear it in the spirit world and come back to see what was being said about him.

"Don't you want him to come back?" I asked idly, thinking to tease her. Her look of utter terror was answer enough and shamed me for my thoughtlessness. These Indians have a most exaggerated fear of death. When one dies he and his personal belongings are taken to a wild spot and there either cremated or covered with stones. No white man has ever been permitted to enter this place of the dead. Any hour of the day or night that a white man approaches, an Indian rises apparently from out of the earth and silently waves him away. Until a few years ago the best horse of the dead Indian was strangled and sent into the Happy Hunting Ground with its owner, but with the passing of the older generation this custom has been abandoned.

From a powerful and prosperous tribe of thousands this nation has dwindled down to less than two hundred wretched weaklings. Driven to this canyon fastness from their former dwelling-place by more warlike tribes, they have no coherent account of their wanderings or their ancestors. About all they can tell is that they once lived in cliff dwellings; that other Indians drove them away; and that then Spaniards and grasping whites pushed them nearer and nearer the Canyon until they descended into it, seeking refuge. They are held in low esteem by all other Indian tribes and never marry outside of their own people. Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned about them. This last fragment will pass away within a few years and all trace will be lost. Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures, trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than eighty died in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are invalids. This was almost too much for their superstitious minds. They were for fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death." So they spent hours in dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry gods. They have no favoring gods, only evil spirits which they must outwit or bribe with dances. The Peach Dance which we had gone to see was for the purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months.

After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about. This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a squaw would grow so enthused she would be quite overcome with emotion and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No notice would be taken except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle. The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird experience I ever went through. All I can compare it to is the nightmare I used to have after too much mince pie.

Safely back at our camp with a brisk fire crackling under a pot of coffee, I began to throw off the shivering sensation, and by the time the coffee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all sizes and shapes were brought, some good, some bad, but I bought them all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put the price down to a few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time has no value to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in the world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins. These they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted blankets. How they do love to gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws--anything and everything changes hands under the spell of the magic cards. Even the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When a few pieces of real money are at stake, all is wild excitement. How the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve!

Their hewas are merely shelters of willow, and there is absolutely no privacy about anything. Yet they are neither immoral nor unmoral. The girls all marry very young. At the age of twelve or thirteen the girl is chosen by some brave, who bargains with the father for her. A pony or its value in buckskin will buy almost any father's favorite daughter. But the girl is not forced to go with a lover whom she does not approve. The marriage ceremony is not elaborate; after all preliminaries are disposed of, the would-be bridegroom takes his blanket and moves into the hewa of the girl's people. If two or three moons pass without any quarrels between the young people, they move into a hewa of their own, and thus it is known that they are married. Divorce is just as simple; he merely sends her back to her father. An Indian brave of the Supai tribe can have as many wives as he can buy according to the tribal law. But since there is only about one squaw to every three braves, a man is lucky to have any wife, and divorce is rare. When two or more braves center their affections on one fair damsel, things are likely to happen. But three Indian judges solemnly sit in council and settle the question. Their solution is usually final, although two or three disgruntled braves have journeyed to our home at El Tovar sixty miles away to appeal to White Mountain for aid.

The valley is fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there--dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them being fed.

"Big sing tonight," said one of the squaws squatting by our campfire.

"What is a sing, Dottie?"

"Much sing and dance. Medicine man drive away bad spirit from blind man."

Of course we were present at the "sing," although I would never have called it that. An old half-blind Indian afflicted with granulated eyelids was the victim. The night was chilly, but he was clothed only in a look of resignation. The medicine man had a shot-filled gourd, a bunch of dried herbs, and an unlimited capacity for howling. First of all the patient was given a "sweat bath." He was put into a little teepee made of willows closely covered with burlap. Hot rocks were introduced and a pan of water thrown on them. More rocks and more water went inside until the poor Indian could stand it no longer. He came forth choking and gasping with the perspiration running from him. Buckets of cold water were then dashed over him and the medicine man got busy beating him over the head with the bunch of herbs, keeping up an unearthly screeching. This would last until morning, they said, but my interest flagged just about the time the priest found his second wind, and I retired.

Five beautiful waterfalls are scattered down the valley, and I was most anxious to visit these. For some reason Wattahomigie hung back and we had trouble in persuading him to take us there. He reluctantly accompanied us when he saw we intended to go either with him or without. His attitude was explained when we were well along the trail; some freak of formation has made great sounding boxes of the Canyon, and these gather the noises of the water and the wind and return them again in shrieks of demoniacal laughter, barking of dogs, and sounds of talking and singing. It is startling to say the least, and no amount of explaining would convince Wattahomigie that it is not the revel hall of departed Indian spirits. The sun is lost there at midday, and darkness settles down soon after.

We camped at Mooney Falls that night, so called on account of an adventurous prospector of that name losing his life by falling over the ledge there. It took ten months for his comrades to get equipment together and recover his body, which they buried at the foot of the falls. This place naturally holds no attraction for our Indian friends, and we had literally to push them from under our feet. They almost sat in the campfire, so determined were they to stay near us.

The next day we started to Hilltop, with Big Jim and his squaw with us as an escort of honor. Jim rode serenely along, while Mary trudged after on foot.

"Jim," said the Chief, "how is it that you ride and Mary walks?"

Jim's voice was reproachfully astonished that anyone could be so dense: "Mary, she no got um horse!"

The Indians gathered to see us off. I looked at the faces before me. Even the babies seemed hopeless and helpless. It is a people looking backward down the years with no thought of the morrow.

"Can't you get them to be more hopeful or cheerful? Won't they even try to help themselves?" I asked Wattahomigie in desperation. He sadly shook his head.

"No help," he said; "plenty for today, maybe no tomorrow."

And maybe he's right. Not many more morrows for that doomed tribe.

_Chapter X: WHERE THEY DANCE WITH SNAKES_[2]

A few days after our visit to Supai, Ranger Fisk dropped in.

"Going to the Snake Dance?" he asked me.

"What's a Snake Dance, and where is it?"

"Oh, it's over in the Hopi Reservation, and the crazy redskins hop around with rattlesnakes in their mouths so it'll rain."

"I don't believe _that_. I'm going over and ask Joe about it," I replied, indignant that Charlie would try to tell me anything so improbable.

I returned pretty soon from my visit to Joe, who is Chief of the Hopi Indians. He made his home with the Spencers at the Hopi House, and we were tried and true friends.

"What did he say?" Both the Chief and Ranger Fisk hurled the question at me.

"He said rattlesnakes are their brothers and they carry messages to the rain gods telling them of the need for rain in Hopi land. He didn't want to tell me much about it. White Mountain, let's go. _Please!_"

So we went. But before we started I managed to gather a little more information about the yearly ceremony that is held in the Painted Desert country. Joe told me that the Government at Washington was opposed to their Snake Dance. He told me to bear in mind that water is the very breath of life to the desert dwellers, and that while his people did not like to oppose the agents placed there by the Government they certainly intended to continue their dance.

We loaded the flivver with food and water, since we knew our welcome would be a shade warmer if we did not draw on the meager water supply in the Reservation. We dropped down to Flagstaff, and there on every street corner and in every store and hotel the Hopi Snake Dance was the main subject of conversation. It seemed that everybody was going!

We left the main road there and swung off across the desert for the Hopi villages, built high on rocky mesas overlooking the surrounding country. It was delightful during the morning coolness, but all too soon the sun enveloped us. We met two or three Navajo men on their tough little ponies, but they were sullen and refused to answer my waves to them. While we repaired a puncture, a tiny Navajo girl in her full calico skirt and small velvet basque drove her flock of sheep near and shyly watched us. I offered her an apple and she shied away like a timid deer. But candy was too alluring. She crept closer and closer, and then I got sorry for her and placed it on a rock and turned my back. She lost no time in grabbing the sweet and darting back to her flock.

The road was badly broken up with coulees and dry washes that a heavy rain would turn into embryo Colorados. I found myself hoping that the Snake Dance prayer for rain would not "take" until we were safely back over this road.

Evening found us encamped at the foot of the high mesa upon which was built the Hopi village where the dance would be held this year. Close beside was the water hole that furnished the population with a scant supply. It was a sullen, dripping, seeping spring that had nothing in common with our gushing, singing springs of the Southern mountains. The water was caught in a scooped-out place under the cliff, crudely walled in with stones to keep animals away. Some stray cattle, however, had passed the barrier and perished there, for their bones protruded from the soft earth surrounding the pool. It was not an appetizing sight. Rude steps were cut in the rocky trail leading to the pueblo dwellings above two miles away, from whence came the squaws with big ollas to carry the water. This spring was the gossiping ground for all the female members of the mesa. They met there and laughed and quarreled and slandered others just as we white women do over a bridge table.

I found myself going to sleep with my supper untasted, and leaving White Mountain to tidy up I went to bed with the sand for a mattress and the stars for a roof. Some time in the night I roused sufficiently to be glad that all stray rattlers, bull snakes, and their ilk were securely housed in the kivas being prayed over by the priests. At dawn we awakened to see half a score of naked braves dash by and lose themselves in the blue-shadowed distance. While we had breakfast I spoke of the runners.

"Yes," said the Chief, "they are going out to collect the rattlesnakes."

"Collect the rattlesnakes! Haven't they been garnered into the fold yet?"

"No, today they will be brought from the north, tomorrow from the west, next day from the south, and last from the east." He glanced at me. "Provided, of course, that they don't show up here of their own accord. I _have_ heard that about this time of year every snake within a radius of fifty miles starts automatically for the Snake Dance village."

"Well, _I_ shall sleep in the car tomorrow night and the next night and the next one, too."

"Where will you sleep tonight?"

"I'll not sleep. I intend to sit on top of the machine and see if any snakes do come in by themselves. Not that I'm afraid of snakes," I hastened to add; "but I'd hate to delay any pious-minded reptile conscientiously bent on reaching the scene of his religious duties."

We solved the difficulty by renting a room in one of the pueblo houses.

We followed the two-mile trail up the steep cliff to Walpi and found ourselves in a human aerie. Nobody knows how many centuries have passed since this tribe first made their home where we found them now. Living as they do in the very heart of a barren, arid waste, they control very little land worth taking from them and have therefore been unmolested longer than they otherwise would have been. They invite little attention from tourists except during the yearly ceremonial that we had come to witness. What _is_ this Snake Dance? The most spectacular and weird appeal to the gods of Nature that has ever been heard of!

To gain an understanding of what rain means to these Indians we had only to live in their village the few days preceding the dance. They are compelled to exist on the water from winter's melting snow and the annual summer showers, which they catch in their rude cisterns and water holes. One's admiration for this unconquerable tribe is boundless, as the magnitude of their struggle for existence is comprehended. Choosing the most inaccessible and undesirable region they could find in which to make a determined and successful stand against the Spanish and the hated friars, they have positively subjugated the desert. Its every resource is known and utilized for their benefit. Is there an underground irrigation that moistens the soil, they have searched it out and thrust their seed corn into its fertile depths. The rocks are used to build their houses; the cottonwood branches make ladders and supports for the ceilings; the clay is fashioned into priceless pottery; grasses and fiber from the yucca turn into artistic baskets under their skillful fingers. Every drop of water that escapes from the springs nourishes beans and pumpkins to be stored away for winter use. Practically every plant on the desert is useful to them, either for their own needs or as food for their goats and burros.

We knew and were known by many of the younger members of the tribe who had visited at the Grand Canyon, so we found a warm welcome and ready guides in our stroll around the village.

The Hopi Indians are friendly and pleasant. They always respond to a greeting with a flashing smile and a cheery wave of the hand. This is not the way the sullen Navajos greet strangers. We saw many of that nomad tribe walking around the Hopi village. They were just as curious as we were about this snake dance.

"Do the Navajos believe your dance will make the rain come?" I asked a young Hopi man who was chatting with the Chief.

"Oh, yes. They believe."

"Well, why don't you Hopis make them pay for their share of the rain you bring. It falls on their Reservation." That was a new thought to the Hopi and we left him staring over the desert, evidently pondering. I hope I didn't plant the seed that will lead to a desert warfare!

I watched with fascinated eyes the antics of round, brown babies playing on the three-story housetops. I expected every instant that one would come tumbling off, but nobody else seemed to worry about them. On one housetop an aged Hopi was weaving a woolen dress for his wife. What a strange topsy-turvy land this was--where the men do the weaving and the wives build the houses. For the women do build those houses. They are made from stone brought up from the desert far below, and then they are thickly plastered with a mixture of adobe and water. Many families live in the same pueblo, but there are no openings from one room to another. Each house has its own entrance. There are generally three stories to each pueblo, the second one set back eight or ten feet on the roof of the first, and the third a like distance on the top of the second. This forms a terrace or balcony where many household duties are performed.

I noticed that one pueblo was completely fenced in with head and foot pieces of ornate iron beds! Evidently the Government had at some time supplied each family with a bed and they had all passed into the hands of this enterprising landscape engineer. The houses we peeped into were bare of furniture with the exception of a Singer sewing machine. I venture to say there was one in every home up there. Many family groups were eating meals, all sitting in a circle around the food placed in dishes on the floor. It was difficult to see what they were serving, on account of the swarms of flies that settled on everything around. I saw corn on the ear, and in many places a sort of bean stew. Where there was a baby to be cared for, the oldest woman in the family sat apart and held it while the others ate. One old grandmother called my attention to the child she had on her lap. He was a big-eyed, shrunken mite, strapped flat to his board carrier. The day was broiling hot, but she motioned me to touch his feet. "Sick," she said. His tiny feet were like chunks of ice. It was a plain case of malnutrition, and what could I do to help, in the few days I was to be there?

Many of the school boys and girls from boarding-schools were home for vacation, but they knew little or nothing about the meaning of the different dances and ceremonies that were going on in a dozen underground kivas in the village. One pretty maiden with marvelous masses of gleaming black hair volunteered to help us interview her uncle, an old Snake Priest, about his religion. We found "Uncle" lounging in the sunshine, mending his disreputable moccasins. He was not an encouraging subject as he sat there with only a loin cloth by way of haberdashery. He welcomed us as royally, however, as if he wore a king's robes, and listened courteously while the girl explained our errand.

If there is a more difficult feat in the world than extracting information from a reluctant Indian I have never come across it. We gave up at last, and waited to see what was going to happen.

The exact date of the dance is determined by the Snake Priest, and announced from the housetops nine days before it takes place. The underground "kivas" are filled with the various secret orders, corresponding to our lodges, going through their mystic ceremonies. From the top of the ladder that extends above the kiva opening, a bunch of turkey feathers hung, notifying outsiders that lodge was in session and that no visitors would be welcome.

What candles and a cross mean to good Catholics, feathers mean to a Hopi. Flocks of turkeys are kept in the village for the purpose of making "bahos," or prayer sticks. These little pleas to spirits are found stuck all over the place. If a village is particularly blessed, they have a captive eagle anchored to a roof. And this bird is carefully fed and watered in order that its supply of feathers may not fail.

Days before the dance, the young men are sent out to bring in the snakes. Armed with a little sacred meal, feathers, a long forked stick, and a stout sack, they go perhaps twenty miles from the village. When a snake is located dozing in the sun, he is first sprinkled with the sacred meal. If he coils and shows fight the ever trusty feather is brought into play. He is stroked and soothed with it, and pretty soon he relaxes and starts to crawl away. Quick as a flash he is caught directly behind the head and tucked away in the sack with his other objecting brethren. Every variety of snake encountered is brought in and placed in the sacred kiva.

The legend on which they so firmly base their belief in snake magic is this: