Part 9

6. He is a special deputy officer of the Liquor Service, a branch designed for the suppression of the liquor traffic among Indians.

7. He is Judge of the Indian Court, with the powers of a magistrate, unless there is an intelligent Indian who may be commissioned so to act. Such are not in the Arizona Desert. If there should be intelligent Indians to act, the Agent has appellate power.

8. He is the Game Warden.

9. He holds hearings, determines heirs, and probates estates.

10. He often makes allotment of lands to Indians and determines values.

11. He is Superintendent of Indian Trade, recommends those persons who seek Governmental license to trade with Indians at designated trading-posts, and is expected to regulate the prices of that trade in accordance with market conditions.

12. Should the Indians have moneys accruing from supervised activities, such as the leasing or sale of lands, or from stock-selling, and so on, the Agent first sets his approval on the leases or sales, and thereafter acts as banker of the money.

13. As banker again, he makes loans to Indians under the Government’s reimbursable plan, whereby an Indian may purchase of the Agent livestock, implements, materials, tools, or seed, with borrowed money, and repay such loans during a period of years.

14. In the Navajo country he guarantees the genuineness of the famous Navajo blanket before it goes to market.

15. He should encourage Indian agriculture, seek to improve their livestock holdings, and generally strengthen their industries.

16. Under an Act of the Legislature of Arizona, he issues marriage licenses as a clerk of the court, and may solemnize marriage.

17. He is to see that all Indian children between the ages of six and eighteen years attend school; to provide and equip properly the schools; and to improve if possible the sanitary and moral conditions of the Indian communities.

18. In some places, and the Moqui Reservation is one, he should police and protect Indian ceremonies, such as the Snake Dance.

19. He has authority to make minor regulations in good judgment for the government of Indian country of his jurisdiction; and in larger measures, if he is informed and possesses a backbone, he usually sways the policy of the Service as it affects his people.

20. The laws of the State do not apply directly to his territory, but serve as guides in those cases not specifically covered by Federal law, and through him as Agent.

21. Every war-time activity was carried out by Indian Agents, from the registration of whites and Indians, the observance of interned aliens, through the good regulations, to bond-selling and the application of the Income Tax.

Have you had enough?

If these are not sufficient in number to be convincing, there are a few others in the two thousand amendments issued since 1904.

A white citizen of no responsibility toward others beyond his obeying the signals of the traffic officer,—the sort who used to quarrel with belated street-cars,—and who aims to be humorous, might say, “This is not the description of a Federal official. This is none other than Pooh Bah!” Exactly so. But the Indians title him “Nahtahni” among the Navajo, “Moungwi” among the Hopi, “Ah-hin-ti” among the Spanish-speaking Pueblos of New Mexico, “Mayoro” among the Mohave, “Ah-tay-ah-pe” among the Sioux, “Ta-ta” among the Apache; to wit: Chief, or Head-man, or Father. He is no less. His rule is quite feudal and absolute.

Seldom is his authority disputed by Indians; but it is challenged and criticized by everyone else on earth, including his superiors, who, after having commissioned him with these powers, live in mortal dread that he will prove the sort of man to make use of them.

The Agent’s financial transactions are subject to audit by designated Governmental auditors, and his other official acts come under the occasional survey of inspectors. But neither of these officials has the power to take charge of affairs, or to give directions within the jurisdiction, without first having had the commissioned Agent suspended from his office.

Now here is a job sufficient in scope to occupy anyone, whatever the quality of mentality brought to bear upon it; and few who find themselves in the position go looking for a clay deposit that they may make brick in their spare time.

Naturally too, he who endeavors to meet these duties as they arise, and is surprised when he makes enemies, is one who will look stupidly for the millennium. By the very nature of things human he must expect to be viewed by some of those ruled among the Indians, by those seeking their favor or trade, by those who wish to play with them, paint them, model them, live with them, beg from them, steal from them—in short, all those who wish to use Indians or their lands and resources, as a Meddlesome Matty.

These were the late Colonel Roosevelt’s words. He took a sincere interest in Indians and their problems as administered by honest Indian Agents, and he vigorously supported such officials without considering them either meddlesome or matties, and he personally respected their regulations when visiting the reserves.

Roosevelt was an exalted Indian Agent. He had no false ideas that the common people are filled with wisdom, that capitalism oozes virtue, that labor is sincere, that poverty is an assurance of honesty. But he did believe that the poor and helpless deserved fair dealing and protection from predatory interests of whatever kind; and that the mute required a fearless voice. It was his judgment that Indian country should be governed very much in line with those suggestions made by Colonel Kit Carson, who swept rebellion out of the Painted Desert and the Moqui cañons in 1863. He who follows Carson’s advices in formulating his policy at an Agency may have trouble with his civil superiors, with politicians, with critics and tourists, and with a whole horde of people in office and out; but he will be respected by the Indians as their Chief, and in a brief time they will give him their confidence. In the end he will have their affection and loyalty.

In a report dated at Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory, August 1865, Carson replied to the questions of a Congressional Committee that sought counsel concerning the future management of the Indian:—

From a long-continued residence among or in the immediate vicinity of Indians, and from a personal observation of their manners, customs, and habits, acquired both in private life and the transaction of official business as an Agent of the Federal Government, I have been convinced that the only rule to be successfully applied for their government is one firm, yet just, consistent and unchangeable.

For the Indian, judging only by the effect of that which appeals to his senses, as brought directly before his observation, regards with contempt a weak and indecisive policy as the result of hesitation, fear, and cowardice, whilst a changeable and capricious one excites his apprehension and distrust. Both of these courses should be carefully avoided.

The rule for the government of Indians should be strong enough to inspire their respect and fear, yet protecting them from both internal dissension and external aggression.

It is true that Carson thought this power should be vested in the military, a view that has changed among the elder statesmen without convincing anyone who knows uneducated and remotely located Indians.

Carson was right. In a brief paragraph he advised against the perfect picture of a civil Indian Service that for years has worked its political capriciousness.

It has seldom been firm; it has been most confused and unjust; it has rarely been consistent; and it is always changing.

More and worse than this—it has at times been cowardly in the face of political and private buccaneering.

Each new administration, having to pay its pressing political debts,—those debts that helped boost it into office,—must deliver the hapless Indian over to a new set of theorizing experimentalists who do not know a moccasin from a sabot. Men too small for the Cabinet, yet who have spent anxious years in log-rolling and who must be paid somehow, offer themselves eagerly to the job of guaranteeing the destiny of nations of aliens. Problems that puzzle the ethnologist and sociologist are approached without alarm, with a crude and vicious confidence, by a politician from Squawk Centre who once crossed an Indian reservation to shoot ducks.

Finding that methods current in doubtful precincts are of no avail in this work, and being forced to do something to make a showing, he proceeds to tear down the work of his predecessor, who had started in the same way but had learned a little during four years of fumbling; and when the whole works are fatuously gumbled, it must be done all over again to reach a point of normalcy, all Indians and their officers of the field marking time until the new Colonel has learned the traditions of the old barracks. Imagine John McGraw signing as pitcher some aspiring village quoit-champion! Conceive of Henry Ford halting his factories until a needy ward-heeler mastered the mysteries of a carburetor!

And the Indian, judging only by the effects of vacillation, springs to the suspicion of chicanery. The many inventions of stupid officials excite his apprehension and distrust. The Indian comprehends very little of first or political causes. When he distrusts his superiors he tends to throw himself on the hungry bosom of sentimentalists. He knows only the Agent on the ground, and too frequently finds in him a reflection of that which someone interested wants Washington to arrange. And no sooner does the Indian find an Agent who will fearlessly represent him, investigate his complaints, support his charges, and fight his just battles, and who will have nothing to do with intrigue, than he expects the removal of that uncompromising and foolish idealist to other scenes.

To-day the Hopi waits for a reasonably just settlement of his range problem, and he has been hoping for seventy-five years. He packed the trail to Santa Fe in 1850 to petition the first Indian Agent of the Americans, with the same evidence he brings patiently to his present one. The Navajo who troubles the Hopi in the west of the Empire, suffers similarly from whites on his eastern lines.

The point is that neither the Indian nor those who best know his actual condition have any direct voice in matters that affect his very existence.

XII

COMMENTS AND COMPLAINTS

The seven Moqui pueblos sent to me a deputation who presented themselves on the sixth day of this month. Their object, as announced, was to ascertain the purposes and views of the Government of the United States toward them. They complained, bitterly, of the depredations of the Navajos.—Report of James S. Calhoun, First Indian Agent at Santa Fe, October 12, 1850

Now the Indians drifted in to greet their new Chief. Although possessed by a great curiosity, they came shyly, diffidently, as is the Indian way. One would suppose that a grand council of braves would have been called to introduce a new Agent with some semblance of formality, a thing that impresses a primitive people. But not so. The old Agent, who was agent no longer, glad that someone else had succeeded to the petty headaches which are worse than the problems, packed his gear and departed. It was up to me to meet the savage in the course of business, and to make what impression I could. There were no individual records to guide one, and first impressions are not infallible; in fact, the most serious mistakes of Agents, things that long affect their gaining the confidence of the people, come about through the necessity of accepting the Indian at his face value—a slipshod method. The census, for example, was a string of names, having little accuracy, that had not been annotated in years.

The prominent men of the several districts were not at all backward in telling me how influential they were. The Navajo came first, and with reason, for they held five-sixths of the range by right of might, and were eager to impress one that they should not be disturbed.

Came Hostin Nez, “Tall Man,” a lean, shrewd genius, who could remember the captivity after Carson’s campaigns. He stood proudly erect, and yet had an ingratiating manner that was part of his profession; for besides dominating a large faction of his people and being the hereditary chief of all the Navajo, he was a Medicine Man of high degree. Came from the north old Billa Chezzi, better known as “Crooked Fingers” because of a crippled hand, who had in him nothing that was sullen or criminal perhaps, but who pictured a bloodthirsty pirate on a desperate mission.

These two represented communities of Navajo, living and roaming north, south, east, and west of the Hopi mesa settlements, and by whom the Hopi have been throttled from the range. There were lesser men, headmen of groups or families. I remember Senegathe, “Wanderer,” with his gray hair blowing in long snaky wisps; and Scar Chin, who resembled a good-natured friar, though a long rip in his face suggested a strenuous past; and Silversmith Jim, and Yellow-Horse, and Bitani, and Whispering Bill, each having something of distinction in his manner or personal eccentricity.

But for the most part, my Navajo business was with Hostin Nez. He was a Judge of the Indian Court, and carried a “pretty paper,” a ragged commission, lithographed in bright colors. We had many a long and dispassionate argument, he rolling cigarettes in pieces of newspaper, which he evidently preferred to the “saddle-blankets” that came in packages, and wiping his lips now and then with a Turkish towel that was draped about his neck—a fashion in neckcloths that he affected. I never knew Hostin Nez to lose patience, and he would return again and again to a point at issue in the hope of gaining advantage—in appearance a Tartar chieftain, in methods a Talleyrand.

“Think of it, Nahtahni,” he said to me, very shortly after our first meeting, “I have never had a wagon. Here I am, an influential man among my people, and all the others have been favored. When the children first went to school, the Agents used to give each father a wagon; but that was years ago, and my children are men, and I never had a wagon.”

Now this was hard lines, for a Navajo who did not possess a wagon was prevented from hauling freight, at that time a most lucrative occupation, and the camp need for a vehicle of some sort was great. The Navajo has to haul wood and water, and must somehow transport his products of wool and hides to the trader. So I promised him a wagon from the next lot received.

This would not be a present. The Indians of the Empire are independent and self-supporting; they do not receive rations, and the Nahtahnis do not make presents of implements or other necessary things. The Indians paid for such issues by laboring on the roads and at other constructive work of the jurisdiction, and were credited at current rates for laborers. The “wagon” meant the issue of a full freighting outfit—everything save the horses, of which the Navajo have a surplus. He would receive a stout farm-type wagon, having top-box, bows, and cover; also harness for four horses, all at Government cost-price, about one half the figure a trader would have quoted it. And at the appointed time he would assemble from ten to twenty of his clan to labor out the bill, his followers helping him as he would in turn help them.

But Hostin Nez sent his son to sign the receipt for the issue. This was Hostin Nez Bega Number 4, indicating that there were other scions numbered one, two, and three, and perhaps even others bearing more fanciful Indian names. A great suspicion dawned on me. The issue-papers for several years back were examined, and lo! old Talleyrand had worked that game many times. He had never received a wagon; but each of his sons had received wagons after the father had made the plea for himself. When they went for freight the Nez outfit comprised a caravan, and at the scales their pay-checks totaled hundreds of dollars. Hostin Nez did not go for freight. He was the main guy, and procured the wagons!

When I taxed the Chief with this, he was not offended. He smiled benignly and repeated:

“But, Citcili” (my younger brother), “I have never had a wagon.”

We let it go at that.

Now Billa Chezzi, chief of the northern steppes, was not so clever. He was a rougher, blustering type of Indian, and lacked finesse. Once I endeavored to make a census of the Navajo, a very difficult thing of accomplishment because of their nomadism. Two enumerators cornered old Billa and insisted that he give up the details of his private life. He named six wives living, and counted forty-seven sons in various parts of the Empire. Then he said he was tired, and getting old anyway, and that his memory did not serve him as once it did. Had he followed the system of Hostin Nez, he would have crowded the Studebaker wagon-works to full capacity.

And came Kewanimptewa, chief of that third and weakest faction of the Oraibi Hopi that had nearly perished in the hills. He was a stolid fellow, not at all like his name, which signifies Chameleon. He gave me the once-over, and then said frankly:—

“Well, you are a little man—a very little man. The last one was a big man—very big man. But—perhaps you will do.”

Hardly had I moved the big desk to a place where I could see the Indians as they came in at the main door, in order that their pleas should not have to filter down through clerks, when the quiet of the summer afternoon was broken by cries of dismay and excited grief. A Navajo came running, weeping, his manner hysterical. He rushed into the office and stammered:—

“Charlie Bega, he dead—kill—Charlie Bega!”

For the moment I thought someone had been murdered; and a second thought did not lessen my dismay, for this man was a miner. His face was streaked where the tears had washed down through the smudges of coal-dust. The reservation has large deposits of soft coal, and fuel for the Government plants is mined by Indians under a skilled white miner. I had been down the mine that week, and had noted its sagging pillars under the pressure of that heavy mesa roof. It flashed through my mind that there had been a tragedy down the drift, and that other miners were either dead or entombed. But the Navajo interpreter quickly explained:—

“His son has just died. Their hogan is down the cañon near the mine, and he came to tell you of it, and he wants a coffin built and a grave dug.”

The doctor came in to confirm this statement, and added:—

“The carpenter makes coffins for the people. The Navajo have a great fear of the dead, and they will not bury when it is possible to have the work done by someone else. We usually send a squad of men to prepare a grave, and the parson conducts a little service. If you say so, I will tell him.”

It was late afternoon, and would soon be twilight.

“You may tell the carpenter,” I said to the interpreter; “we will arrange this funeral for to-morrow morning.”

“Pardon me, sir, but they have queer customs. No member of that family will eat until the body is disposed of; and they must purify themselves by sweat-baths and ceremonies. When one dies close to the Agency, we help them bury at once.”

My first inclination was not to be ruled by such superstition; and then I thought how little four centuries of progress around them and fifty years of American influence had changed the Navajo. Like his Desert, he has remained untouched, unaffected. A hogan that has held the dead is never afterward occupied by the living. Its wood will not be used to make a fire, though they come to freezing.

“Very well,” I said. “Have things made ready to-night.”

And I shall never forget my first Indian funeral. At different times since, and among other tribes and circumstances, I have had more of excitement and not a little anxiety at funerals; but this was my first in the Desert.

The carpenter made a substantial box, much too large I thought; but when the body was placed in it, wrapped in new blankets, decked with silver ornaments, with the dead boy’s saddle, bridle, and quirt at the foot, it was none too large. They could ill afford to part with those blankets and silver things, and especially that saddle. But he must be caparisoned and equipped for his new life in the ghostly land where he would go a-roaming.

A half-dozen of the employees climbed into the wagon that would carry the body to the grave. Among them was a visitor, a noted geologist who has made the Empire his study, and who took his share of labor along with the rest. The minister from the Baptist Mission met us at the gate. The burial ground was a desolate place across the arroyo, in a little hollow of those great drifted dunes, shunned by the Indians and not very inviting to anyone. By the time the grave was ready, it was quite dark and lanterns had been lighted.

“Do you wish a commitment service, sir?” asked the minister. I did not at once understand him, having to learn that the new Agent decides everything, and I had thought he would take his place as the man of prayer without request. He had a short ritual for pagans, and this was one of them. It was solemn and sufficient.

“Dust to dust ...” and the tossing of earth on the box followed. Four of the men began filling in the grave. I had looked around for the relatives of the dead, but as yet none were in evidence, when out of the dusk came two strange Navajo, leading a pony. It was a very good animal as desert mounts go. And the missionary presented to me a serious problem.

“They wish to kill the horse. Will you permit that?”

And there was something in his tone of voice that indicated a hope I would deny something as an innovation. Again I called for an explanation.

“The Navajo always kill a horse at the grave,” said the trader.

“It seems a merciless thing to do—that’s a good pony.”

The missionary brightened. He had little use for pagan customs and longed for an arbitrary decision.

“It is the custom of the people,” said the trader, an honest man who advised me for many days thereafter. “You may not like it, and—you may be strong enough to stop it”—there was doubt in his voice;—“but it is their custom.”

It went against the grain; but there stood the Indians with the animal, silent, waiting. This problem had been presented to many Agents, perhaps.

“If we do not kill it mercifully with a gun, they will only go away and beat it to death with rocks,” said the trader. “It must be done to-night. I have brought a rifle.”

The desert custom of the Navajo won its first round.

The two Indians led the pony to the head of the grave, and, seeming to understand that we had settled it, scuttled away in the shadows. The trader leveled his rifle and shot that very good pony through the brain. It leaped forward convulsively, and plunged down, knee-deep, in the soft earth of the grave. The dead had a mount.

It was black night by this time, and we filed back to the Agency, where I felt better for having the electric lights. There had been something gruesome in the whole proceeding. But it was a custom of the people, as the trader had said, and in other ways I learned from him that it is not wise for a strange Chief at once to take his people by the throat.