Part 3

The clear air of Tusayan renders the task of the sun-priest easy; this primitive astronomer has the best of skies for observation. By day the San Francisco peaks, a hundred miles away, stand clearly silhouetted on the horizon; by night the stars are so brilliant that one can distinguish objects by their light.

The Hopi also know much of astronomy, and not only do they have names for the planets and particular stars, but are familiar with many constellations, the Pleiades especially being venerated, as among many primitive peoples. The rising and position of the Pleiades determine the time of some important ceremonies when the "sweet influences" reign. Any fixed star may be used to mark off a period of time by position and progress in the heavens as the sun is used by day. The moon determines the months, but there is no word for "year" or for the longer periods of time. Days are marked by "sleeps," thus today is _pui_ or "now"; the days of the week are two sleeps, three sleeps, etc.; _tabuco_ is "yesterday."

While the larger periods of time are kept with accuracy, so that the time of beginning the ceremonies varies but little from year to year, the Hopi have poor memories for dates. No one knows his age, and many of these villages seem to live within the shifting horizons of yesterday and tomorrow. The priests, however, keep a record of the ceremonies by adding to their _tiponi_, or palladium of their society, a feather for each celebration. At Zuñi a record of the death of priests of the war society is kept by making scratches on the face of a large rock near a shrine, and by this method a Hopi woman keeps count of the days from the child's birth to the natal ceremony. Ask a Hopi when some event happened, and he will say, "_Pai he sat o_," meaning "some time ago, when my father was a boy"; stress on the word means a longer time, and if the event was long beyond the memory of man, the Indian will almost shake his head off with emphasis.

The only notched time-stick is that jealously guarded by the sun priest, and no one knows just how he makes his calculations from it.

As for dinner time, the great sun and "the clock inside" attend to that; _dawa yamu_, _dawa nashab_, and _dawa poki_ stand for "sunrise," "noonday," and "sunset." If the Hopi makes an appointment for a special hour, he points to where the sun will be at that time. The seasons are known to him in a general way as the time of the cold or snow, the coming back of the sun (winter solstice), the time of bean or corn planting, the time of green corn, the time of harvest, etc., but there is a calendar marked by the ceremonies held during each month.

Perhaps these children of the sun are happier in not being slaves of the second as we have become. Our watches, which they call _dawa_, "the sun," have not bound them to the wheel by whose turning we seem to advance. They are satisfied with the grander procession of the heavenly bodies, and their days fade into happy forgetfulness.

An experience of several years ago may here be related in order to show how the clan name of a Hopi is a veritable part of himself and also links him to his clan and the most intimate religious and secular life of the pueblo.

There was a jolly crowd of Hopi under the dense shade of a cottonwood on the Little Colorado River one hot day in July. The mound of earth, strewn with chips of flint and potsherds like a buried city on the Euphrates, had yielded its secrets, and the house walls of the ancient town of Homolobi resembled a huge honeycomb on the bluff.

The Hopi, who had worked like Trojans in laying bare the habitations of their presumptive ancestors, were now assembled to receive their wages in silver dollars, which they expressively call "little white cakes." Around were scattered the various belongings of an Indian camp, among which tin cans were prominent; a wind-break had been constructed of cottonwood boughs; from the tree hung the shells of turtles caught in the river; a quantity of wild tobacco was spread out to dry in the sun, and several crop-eared burros hobbling about on three legs were enjoying an unusually luxuriant pasture of sage-brush.

"Paying off" is surrounded with attractions for all sorts and conditions of men. The Hopi seemed like a lot of children anticipating a holiday, as they sat in a circle around Dr. Fewkes, who was paymaster. This was their first experience, perhaps, with Government "red tape," of whose intricacies they must have had but the faintest idea. There are times when blissful ignorance is to be envied.

The "sub-vouchers" were filled out with the time of service and the amount to be paid, and as the doctor's clerk called out the names, the boys came forward to sign. An Indian sign his name! Curiously enough, every Hopi from the least to the greatest can sign his name, and he does not have to resort to the "X-mark" of our boasted civilization.

Perhaps it would be better to say "draws his name," for when the first Indian grasped the pen in the most unfamiliar way imaginable, he drew the picture of a rabbit, the next drew a tobacco plant, the third a lizard, and so on, until the strangest collection of signatures that ever graced a Government voucher-book was completed.

It must be explained that each Hopi has an everyday name which his fond relatives devised for him during infancy, and a clan name, which shows his blood relationship or family. Nowhere, even in these days of ancestor hunting, is more importance given to family than in Hopiland. If you ask, "Who is this man?" the answer may be, for instance, "Kopeli," his individual name. "But what is he in Walpi?" "He is a _chua_," that is, he belongs to the important Snake clan and his totem signature is a crawling reptile.

It affords great amusement to the Hopi when a person, not acquainted with their customs, asks a man his name; it is also very embarrassing to the man asked, unless there is a third party at hand to volunteer the service, because no Hopi can be prevailed on to speak his own name for fear of the bad consequences following "giving himself away."

III

FOOD AND REARING

Indian legend tells of a time when all was water; then land was made; for a long time the earth was too wet for human beings and at last the earth was dried out by a mighty fire. All these are pretty stories for those who are looking for deluge legends and the effects of blazing comets, but if the Indian account is true, the drying process was carried entirely too far in the Southwest. Water! water! water! The word gains a new significance in this arid region. There is a rippling, cooling, refreshing note in it, a soothing of parched lips and a guaranty against death from thirst. So, all conversation among the people is replete with references to this mainstay of life, and one comes, like them, to discuss the water question with an earnest regard for its problems.

Wherever there is water, almost always will there be found ancient ruins. In modern times the windmill of the settler often stands by the spring which quenched the thirst of the ancient inhabitants of a now crumbling pueblo. The blessings which were invoked in Biblical times upon the man who "digged a well" apply also in this semi-desert, for Syria and Arizona do not differ greatly in climate. The Bedouin with his horses and camels would not be out of place on the sand wastes of our Sahara; nor were the Spanish conquerors on unfamiliar ground when they exchanged the dusty plains and naked sierras of their native land for those of the New World.

The traveler in Spain, northern Africa, or Asia Minor is impressed with the similarity between these countries and our Southwest, so that the name of New Spain, early applied by the Spaniards to all of Mexico, seems very appropriate. Like these countries, too, our Southwest is a land of thirst; the dry air and fervent sun parch the skin and devour every trace of moisture. (One feels as though he were placed under a bell glass exhausted of air undergoing the shriveling process of the apple in the experiment.)

So, before taking a journey, one inquires not so much of the roads and distances, but whether water may be found, for it is often necessary to submit to that most unpleasant of contingencies, a "dry camp." Many parts of Arizona and New Mexico cannot easily be visited except in favorable seasons, because one is told, "it's a hundred miles to water." The Hopi often provide for the long journeys across waterless country by hiding water at points along the route. This wise precaution, which was noticed by the Spanish explorers of the sixteenth century, consists of burying sealed water-jars in the sand, their situation being indicated by "signs." Far from the ancient or modern habitation these jars, uncovered by the wind, are often discovered by riders on the cattle ranges.

Not only must the dusty explorer "haul water," for even the railroads across the semi-desert are provided with tank trains for water service, and the water tanks of the huge locomotive tenders of all trains are of unusual capacity.

Far out on the sandy, sage-brush plains are frequently seen small cairns of stones, called by the knowing ones "Indian water signs," pointing out the direction of water, but the more common signs are the trails made by cattle on which a myriad of tracks in the dust point to water, miles away perhaps, and oftentimes, when the tracks are not fresh, leading to a dried-up pool, surrounded by carcasses or bleaching bones.

The Navaho herdsman or herdswoman is a person with great responsibility, for the sheep and ponies must have water at least every three or four days. When a well-defined thunder-storm passes within twenty or thirty miles of his camp he starts for the path of its influence, knowing that there will be pools of water and quick-springing herbs and grass. This chasing a thunder-storm is novel--and much more satisfactory than chasing a rainbow. Even the wild cattle scent the water and make for it, running like race-horses.

As a matter of fact, the animals of the desert have of necessity become used to doing without water. So far as one can determine, the rats, mice, squirrels, badgers, coyotes, prairie-dogs, skunks, and other denizens of the sand-wastes so rarely get a good drink of water that they seem to have outgrown the need of it. Cattle and horses have also developed such powers of abstinence as might put a camel to shame. There is a belief in the Western country that at least one of the burrows of a prairie-dog town penetrates to water, but whether this be true or not, judging from some of the locations of these queer animal villages the tribe of gophers must contain adepts in abysmal engineering.

One does not live long in the wilds of Arizona without becoming weatherwise and, perhaps, skilled in signs and trails like a frontiersman. The country is so open that the weather for a hundred miles or more can be taken in at a glance and the march of several storms observed at once, even though the sound of wind and thunder be far out of hearing. At Flagstaff, for instance, it is easy to tell when the Hopi are rejoicing in a rain, although it is more than a hundred miles away.

In a country with so little rainfall as Tusayan and in which the soil consists largely of sand with underlying porous rocks, springs are few and their flow scanty. The rivers, also, during most of the year, flow far beneath their sandy beds, which only once in a while are torn by raging torrents. This is one of the many novelties of a country that probably offers more attractions than any land on earth.

Around the springs the life of the Hopi comes to a focus, for here, at all hours of the day, women and girls may be seen filling their canteens, getting them well adjusted in the blankets on their backs for the toilsome climb up the trail. A feeling of admiration tinged with pity arises for these sturdy little women who in the blanket tied across the forehead literally by the sweat of their brows carry half a hundredweight of water up a height of nearly half a thousand feet. _Mang i uh_, "tired?" one asks them. _Okiowa mang i uh_, "Yes, alas, very tired!" they answer, these slaves of the spring.

At the edge of the water in the spring, where nothing can disturb them, are green-painted sticks with dangling feathers. These are offerings to the gods who rule the water element. At none of the frequent ceremonies of the Hopi are the springs forgotten, for a messenger carries prayer-sticks to them and places them in the water. In former times offerings of pottery and other objects were thrown into springs by devout worshippers.

Around the springs are gardens in which onions and other "garden sauce" are grown. When it is possible, a little rill is led from the spring into the gardens. The growing greens lend much to the drear surroundings of the springs, but the plants must be enclosed by a stone wall to keep away marauding burros and goats.

At least one spring at each pueblo is dug out and enlarged, forming a pool at the bottom of an excavation ten feet deep and thirty in diameter, with a graded way leading down to the water. These springs are convenient for watering the thirsty stock, but they are especially used in the ceremonies. During the Flute Dance, for example, they form the theater of an elaborate ceremony in which the priests wade in the spring and blow their flutes in the water.

All the springs have been given descriptive names. At Walpi, there are Dawapa, "sun spring"; Ishba, "wolf spring"; Canelba, "sheep spring"; Kokiungba, "spider spring"; Wipoba, "rush spring"; Kachinapa, "kachina spring," and a number of others, around which cluster many associations dear to the good people of the East Mesa. Like the Hopi, every other human being who fares in the dry Southwest unconsciously becomes a devotee of water worship and eventually finds himself in the grip of the powers of Nature whom the Indians beseech for the fertilizing rain.

Springs are often uncertain quantities in this region. Earthquakes have been known to swallow up springs in one place and to cause them to burst out at another far away. One can readily imagine what a terrible calamity such a phenomenon can be in so dry a country, for the only thing the people can do under such circumstances is to move and to move quickly. It seems probable that some of the many ancient Indian settlements that make the Southwest a ruin-strewn region have been caused by just such fickleness in the water supply.

When modern engineering comes to the aid of the Hopi in storing the occasional vast rushes of water for use throughout the year, a new era will dawn for the Peaceful People. They may then become prosperous farmers and gradually forget the days when they invoked the powers of nature with strange charms and ceremonies.

If the Hopi know well the springs, they are not less perfect in knowledge of plants that are useful to them. One day Kopeli, the former Snake chief, undertook to teach his pupil, Kuktaimu, the lore of the plants growing near the East Mesa. They set out for a flooded cornfield near the wash, and long before they reached it, they could hear the watchers emitting blood-curdling yells to scare away the hated _angwishey_, crows, that from time to time made a dash for the toothsome ears.

It goes without saying that the day was beautiful, for in August thunder-cloud masses often fill the sky with graceful forms, tinted beneath by a rosy glow reflected from the surface of the red plains. The rain had started the vegetation anew and the deep green cornfields showed its benign influences.

Kopeli was communicative, but Kuktaimu, although having been blessed by Saalako with a Hopi name, was weak in the subtleties of Hopi speech and missed many points to which, out of politeness, he responded _Owi_, "yes." Still, the queer-sounding names of the plants and their uses given by Kopeli were duly put down on paper, for which the Hopi have a word which literally means _corn-husk_. On their journey around the cornfields they met various groups of watchers, some reclining beneath the sloping farm shelters of cottonwood boughs, some chatting together or gnawing ears of corn roasted in a little fire. Everyone requested matches and willingly assisted in conferences over plants of which Kopeli might be doubtful. Boys with their bows and arrows tried for shots at crows, and little girls minded the babies. Life in the fields is full of enjoyment to the Hopi, and the children especially delight to spend a day picnicking amidst the rustling corn-leaves.

The plants having been hunted out in the cornfields, Kopeli and Kuktaimu sought higher ground among the rocks below the mesa, where different species of plants grow. At the foot of the gray rocks are found many plants of great medicinal and ceremonial value to the Hopi, according to the Snake priest, who grew enthusiastic over a small silvery specimen with pungent odor. "Very good medicine," he said. At this juncture, when the plant had been carefully placed in the collecting papers, Kopeli made a characteristic gesture by rapidly sliding one of his palms over the other and said _pasha_, "all." The nearness of the evening meal must have been the influence that caused Kopeli to say that the flora of Tusayan had been exhausted in a single day's search, for subsequent journeys about the mesas brought to light many other plants that have place in Hopi botany.

It is surprising to find such a general knowledge of the plants of their country as is met with among the Hopi. No doubt this wonder arises among those who live the artificial life of the cities. The Hopi is a true child of the desert and near to the desert's heart. His surroundings do not furnish clear streams, grassy meadows, and massy trees; there is much that is stern and barren at first glance, and there is a meagerness except in vast outlooks and brilliant coloring. Here Nature is stripped and all her outlines are revealed; the rocks, plains and mountains stand out boldly in the clear air. Still, in all this barrenness there is abundance of animal and vegetal life which has adapted itself to the semi-desert, and if one becomes for the time a Hopi, he may find in odd nooks and corners many things delightful both to the eyes and the understanding.

There are few Hopi who do not know the herbs and simples, and some are familiar with the plants that grow, in the mountains and canyons, hundreds of miles from their villages. Even the children know many of the herbs, and more than once I have successfully asked them for their Indian names. This is not strange, because such things are a part of their education and in this way they are in advance of the majority of their civilized brothers. After a while the idea impresses one that the Hopi depend on the crops of Nature's sowing as much as on the products of their well-tilled fields. Many a time, as the legends tell, the people were kept from famine by the plants of the desert, which, good or bad seasons alike, thrust their gray-green shoots through the dry sands, a reminder of the basis of all flesh.

Perhaps all the Hopi believe that the wild plants are most valuable for healing and religious purposes, for the plants they use in medicine would stock a primitive drug store. Bunches of dried herbs, roots, etc., hang from the ceiling beams of every house, reminding one of the mysterious bundles of "yarbs" in a negro cabin, and, as occasion requires, are made into teas and powders for all sorts of ills.

Hopi doctors have a theory and practice of medicine, just as have their more learned white brethren. Without the remotest acquaintance with the schools dividing the opinions of our medicine-afflicted race, they unconsciously follow a number of the famous teachings. So, if a patient has a prickling sensation in the throat a tea made from the thistle will perform a cure, as "like cures like." The hairy seeds of the clematis will make the hair grow, and the fruit of a prolific creeping plant should be placed in the watermelon hills to insure many melons. The leaves of a plant named for the bat are placed on the head of a restless child to induce it to sleep in the daytime, because that is the time the slothful bat sleeps. It is not often that Hopi children require an application of bat-plant medicine, but even the best of children get fractious sometimes.

Many are the strange uses of plants by the Hopi, and much curious lore has gathered about them. Some of the plants are named for the animals and insects which live upon them, such as "the caterpillar, his corn," "the mole, his corn"; while some, from fancied resemblances, are called "rat's ear," "bat plant," "rattle plant," etc. Two plants growing in company are believed to be related and one is spoken of as the child of the other. Plants are also known as male and female, and each belongs to its special point of the compass. Many are used in the religious ceremonies; those beloved by the gods appear on the prayer-sticks offered to beseech the kind offices of the nature deities.

Strange as it may seem, the Hopi have medicine women as well as medicine men. The best known of these is Saalako, the mother of the Snake priest. She brews the dark medicine for the Snake dance and guards the secret of the antidote for snake bites. The writer once met at the place called "Broad House" a Navaho medicine man. He was a wrinkled, grizzled specimen of humanity mounted on a burro and was hunting for herbs, as was seen by a glance into the pouch which he wore by his side. A little tobacco induced him to dismount and spread out his store of herbs. When shown the writer's collection of plants, he became much interested, no doubt believing that he had found a fellow practitioner. He requested samples of several of the plants, and when they were given him, stored them away in his pouch with every evidence of satisfaction.

The Hopi priests are also very glad to receive any herb coming from far off, especially from the sea-coast, "the land of the far water," as they call it. They treasure such carefully and mix it with sacred smoking tobacco or introduce it into the "charm liquid" which is used in every ceremony to mix the paint for the prayer-sticks and to sprinkle during their strange rites.

An American farmer might be at a loss to recognize a Hopi cornfield when he saw one. In the usually dry stream beds or "washes" he would see low clumps of vegetation, arranged with some regularity over the sand. This is the Hopi cornfield, so planted in order to get the benefit of rains which, falling higher up, may fill the washes, for the summer thunder-storms are very erratic in their favors.

The Hopi farmer sets out to plant, armed only with a dibble which serves as plow, hoe, and cultivator combined. Arriving at the waste of sand which is his unpromising seed-field, he sits down on the ground, digs a hole, and puts in perhaps twenty grains, covering them with the hands. Whether he has any rule like

One for the cutworm, One for the crow, One for luck,

is doubtful, but in the years when cutworms are likely to be plentiful he plants more corn to the hill.

One hill finished, he gets up, moves away about ten feet, sits down, and goes through the same process. He never thins the corn, but leaves the numerous stalks close together for shade and protection from the winds. His care of the field consists merely in hoeing the weeds and keeping a watch on the crows, which he frightens away by demoniac shouts. His scarecrows are also wonders of ingenuity, and many a time one takes them for watchful Indians.