The Indians 
 
 ^ 
 The Terraced Houses 
 
 Charles Francis Saunders 
 
A Snake Priest of Walpi in dance attire. 
 
 (Copyright by A. C. Vroman.) 
 
The Indians of the 
 Terraced Houses 
 
 Charles Francis Saunders 
 
 With numerous illustrations from photographs mainly by 
 C. F. and E. H. Saunders 
 
 " These people, since they are few, and their manners, govern 
 ment, and habits are so different from all the nations that have been 
 seen and discovered in these western regions, must have come from 
 that part of Greater India, the coast of which lies to the west of 
 this country." The Narrative of Castaneda, Coronado s 
 Chronicler, 1540-42. 
 
 G. P. Putnam s Sons 
 
 New York and London 
 
 be fmfcfcerbocfoer press 
 
 1912 
 
e f. AC, 
 
 COPYRIGHT, i 
 
 CHARLES FRA^CfS SAUNDERS 
 
 ftnicfeerbocher 
 
So 
 
 THE EVER-PRESENT MEMORY OF 
 MY WIFE 
 
 THE INSPIRATION OF OUR JOURNEYINGS AND STUDIES AMONG THE 
 
 PUEBLO PEOPLE WHOM SHE LOVED THIS VOLUME 
 
 IS LOVINGLY INSCRIBED 
 
 H69O92 
 
Introductory 
 
 But the Author would LiKe to Have It Read 
 
 WHEN we decided on our way to Cali 
 fornia, a few years ago, to stop off 
 for a week in New Mexico s quaint 
 old capital, we had, in common with most Ameri 
 cans, as little interest in Indians as in South Sea 
 Islanders, and as little knowledge of them. 
 
 To be sure, we remembered in a general way 
 from our school-books that the Indian had been 
 a troublesome thorn in the flesh of our push 
 ing pioneers; and that the Government now has 
 him systematically in hand under an Indian pol 
 icy operated from Washington, often with great 
 injustice to the red man, we also thought we 
 knew from Ramona and one or two less popular 
 romances. 
 
 Furthermore, we were aware that there are in 
 the land Indian schools wherein the aboriginal 
 youth are drilled in the white man s better way, to 
 
vi INTRODUCTORY 
 
 the great comfort of the philanthropic taxpayer, 
 and the credit of the Government, if we were to 
 believe the pieces in the magazines and family 
 newspaper, especially at Commencement time. 
 
 That there was any other sort of Indian, how 
 ever, than the warpath-treading, scalp-raising 
 stock of the novels and the Wild West shows, we 
 did not know. We did not know that, in our 
 South -West, there dwells a very different type of 
 Indians the Pueblos who, even at the time of 
 the discovery of America, were experienced stone- 
 house builders and town-dwellers, devotees of 
 peace and order, with a fairly well developed 
 civilisation of their own; who were then, and still 
 are, industrious, self-governing agriculturists, and 
 who have never been at war with the United 
 States. It was a revelation to us when we learned 
 that more than a score of these settled, picturesque 
 Pueblo communities still exist in northern New 
 Mexico and Arizona, striving to live on in their 
 ancient way as well as our Government will let 
 them. 
 
 Our state of ignorance at that time, I have 
 reason to believe, is still shared by the major part 
 of our fellow-citizens; and it is in the hope of 
 
INTRODUCTORY vii 
 
 directing more general attention to what our 
 country possesses in that remarkable aboriginal 
 remnant the Indians of the Terraced Houses, 
 as an old Spanish chronicler called them that 
 this book has been written. 
 
 With the hope goes the earnest prayer that 
 something will be sympathetically done by the 
 people of our great Republic to arrest the dis 
 integration and sure extinction of these little 
 Pueblo republics an extinction towards which 
 the present well-intended but misdirected govern 
 mental interference is inevitably tending. What 
 John Fiske, in his preface to The Discovery of 
 America, states of one section of the Pueblos 
 the Hopis is true of them all: 
 
 Some extremely ancient types of society [says this 
 American historian], still preserved on this continent 
 in something like purity, are among the most instruc 
 tive monuments of the past that can now be found in 
 the world. Such a type is that of the Moquis of 
 north-eastern Arizona. I have heard a rumour . . . 
 that there are persons who wish the United States 
 Government to interfere with this peaceful and self- 
 respecting people, break up their pueblo life, scatter 
 them in farmsteads, and otherwise compel them, 
 against their own wishes, to change their habits and 
 
vin 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 customs. If such a cruel and stupid thing were ever 
 to be done, we might justly be said to have equalled 
 or surpassed the folly of the Spaniards who used to 
 make bonfires of Mexican hieroglyphics. 
 
 That very " cruel and stupid thing" is now being 
 done and more, doubtless, is contemplated. If 
 any steps to stop it are to be taken, they need to 
 be taken quickly; for the native arts and customs 
 of the Pueblos and their individuality as a people 
 have suffered more in the last decade or two of 
 Washington than during the whole three centuries 
 of Spanish domination; and as a body going down 
 hill goes the faster the nearer it gets to the bot 
 tom, so the Pueblo deterioration hastens with each 
 returning year. 
 
 I know no more direct way to enlist an interest 
 in these unique citizens of the United States than 
 to start at the beginning and tell what awakened 
 
 ours. 
 
 C. F. S. 
 
 PASADENA, CALIFORNIA. 
 
AcKnowledgment 
 
 The author is indebted to the editors of The 
 International Studio, Sunset Magazine, and The 
 Pacific Monthly, for their courteous permission to 
 reproduce in this work, parts of certain articles 
 which he contributed to those periodicals. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 OF OUR FIRST SIGHT OF THE PUEBLO INDIAN; 
 OF TESUQUE AND HOW WE TOOK A PHOTO 
 GRAPH THERE .:....! 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 OF ACOMA, PUEBLO OF THE SKY; HOW EDWARD 
 HUNT FOUND US LODGINGS THERE; AND OF 
 THE FIESTA OF SAN ESTEBAN . . .14 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OF WHAT BEFELL US UNDER THE ROCK OF ACOMA, 
 
 AND HOW WE TURNED CLIFF DWELLERS . 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OF THE PUEBLOS OF THE RAILROAD SIDE, LAGUNA 
 AND ISLETA, AND HOW MANUEL CARPIO SANG 
 IN THE SUN 43 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 OF THE THREE PUEBLOS OF THE JEMEZ RIVER 
 VALLEY, AND SOMEWHAT OF JOHN PAUL, THE 
 COWHEAD . . . . . . . 53 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 OF OTHER PUEBLOS OF THE UPPER RIO GRANDE, 
 AND HOW SANTIAGO QUINTANA TRAVELLED 
 FOR SHELLS ....... 69 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 OF CERTAIN PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE . .84 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 OF TAGS AND THE WAY THITHER ... 97 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 OF THE FIESTA OF SAN GERONIMO AT TAOS, AND 
 
 THE DELIGHT MAKERS . . . . 1 05 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 OF PICURIS IN THE COUNTRY OF THE PENITENTES, 
 AND HOW FRANCISCO DURAN s MOTHER COULD 
 NOT FORGET 112 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 OF ANCIENT ZUNI, AND HOW THE CONQUISTA- 
 
 DORES CAME TO DISCOVER IT . .125 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 OF ZUNI IN THE RAIN, AND OF ZUNI DICK . 130 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OF HOUSEKEEPING IN ZUNI, AND HOW ZUNI DICK 
 
 HELPED US TO BUY MEAT . . . .137 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 OF SA-WI-ETSI-TSITA, HOW SHE MADE US JARSJ 
 
 AND SOMEWHAT OF ZUNI BABIES . . .142 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 OF A ZUNI GRINDING SONG, AND OF PRAYER 
 
 PLUMES 148 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 OF THE NIGHT DANCE OF THE SHALAKO GODS 153 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 OF THE EIGHT PUEBLOS OF MOQUI, AND THE 
 
 WAY THITHER . . . . . .167 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 OF THE LIFE IN MOQUI ; AND A HINT OF ITS 
 
 LATTER-DAY TROUBLES 1 82 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 OF HOTAVILA, THE EIGHTH PUEBLO OF MOQUI, 
 
 AND HOW IT LOOKED BLACKLY AT US . IQ2 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 OF WALPI, AND THE SNAKE DANCE THERE . 2O3 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 OF THE ARTS OF THE PUEBLOS, ESPECIALLY THE 
 
 CERAMIC . 220 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 OF THE NATIVE GOVERNMENT OF THE PUEBLOS, 
 
 AND THEIR POLITICAL STATUS UNDER OURS . 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 OF THE NATIVE RELIGION OF THE PUEBLOS . 240 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 OF WHAT THE UNITED STATES POSSESSES IN THE 
 PUEBLO INDIAN BEING A BRIEF SUMMING 
 
 UP . . . . . . . . 247 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 OF WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT IS DOING WITH THE 
 
 PUEBLO 253 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 OF THE FUTURE OF THE PUEBLO, IF HE HAS ANY 272 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 A TABLE OF APPROXIMATE POPULATION OF EACH 
 
 PUEBLO IN 1910 . . . . . 277 
 
 GLOSSARY AND PRONUNCIATION OF SPANISH- 
 AMERICAN AND INDIAN TERMS . . . 282 
 
 A PARTIAL PUEBLO BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . 285 
 
 INDEX . ... . . . 291 
 
Illustrations 
 
 PACK 
 
 A Snake Priest of Walpi in dance attire 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 Tesuque plaza and church, on a feast day. The 
 crowd is watching a ceremonial dance . . 6 
 
 A street in Acoma . . . . .14 
 
 Spanish church, forty years in building, Acoma. 
 All the material was brought up on Indians 
 backs, from the plain 350 feet below . . 20 
 
 The tombe* beater, Acoma. Fiesta of San 
 Esteban ....... 26 
 
 The melon sellers, Acoma, on San Esteban day . 28 
 Women dancers, Acoma. Fiesta of San Esteban 30 
 
 Great Rock of Acoma from the north-east. 
 Sky-line of Acoma pueblo at right of middle 
 notch 38 
 
 Acoma from the church belfry, looking towards 
 the Enchanted Mesa, seen in the middle 
 distance 42 
 
 Pottery seller, Isleta . . . 46 
 
 The estufa, pueblo of Isleta .... 50 
 
 Saline flats of the Jemez River at Santa Ana 
 pueblo, which lies unseen under the mesa. The 
 
 XV 
 
xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 pueblo farms are ten miles distant across 
 a desert over which the crops are hauled each, 
 autumn to the home pueblo . . . . 58 
 
 Ysidro, Governor of Sia, in native attire . . 60 
 
 Eagle cage on housetop, Jemez. Eagles are kept 
 in captivity for the sake of the feathers for 
 ceremonial use ...... 68 
 
 A Pueblo woman bearing water home from the 
 well. Open-air ovens in background . . 72 
 
 A Tesuque mother and baby. The child is 
 asleep in the cradle swinging by cords from 
 beams in the ceiling . . . . .86 
 
 San Juan woman in her doorway. Note the 
 boot-like moccasins, worn in certain pueblos . 94 
 
 North pueblo, Taos. The governor stands on the 
 uppermost roof making an announcement to 
 the people 98 
 
 South pueblo of Taos, early morning . .102 
 
 Fiesta of San Geronimo, Taos. The crowd is 
 gathered to watch the foot-races. . . .106 
 
 Raising the greased pole, Taos. Fiesta of San 
 Geronimo .... . . . 108 
 
 A Taos Indian and Mexicans on the way to a 
 fiesta . . . . . . .no 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 
 
 Towa-yalleni, Zuni s sacred mountain, in the 
 snow ....... 130 
 
 Women burning pottery, Zufii . . .142 
 
 A Zuni man knitting his wife s leggings. The 
 men also run the sewing-machine, when a 
 household owns one . . . . .146 
 
 Si na-he (Zufii Dick) making beads, Zuni. The 
 loom at his back holds an unfinished blanket 
 on which his wife was at work before the pho 
 tograph was taken. She got out of the way, 
 being afraid of the camera . . . .152 
 
 The Zufii shrine He -patina, believed by the 
 Zunis to be the centre of the earth, which in 
 their view is flat . . . . .164 
 
 Shipau luvi, Moqui, acropolis-like on a hilltop 
 overlooking the Painted Desert . . .168 
 
 Chief Snake Priest of Walpi, hoeing his corn two 
 or three days after the Snake Dance. Note 
 how short the stalks are, yet they are full 
 grown. The man is but five feet high . .170 
 
 A Hopi potter preparing to fire pottery bowls. 
 Her home is on the distant mesa top, but she 
 has come down here because a nearby corral 
 affords abundant fuel of dried sheep manure . 1 82 
 
 A corner of a pueblo of the Second Mesa, 
 Moqui ....... 186 
 
xviii ILL USTRA TIONS 
 
 A blanket weaver. Second Hopi Mesa. Among 
 the Hopis, the men are the weavers the 
 reverse of the Navajo custom . . .,190 
 
 A Beau Brummel of H6tavila. . . .198 
 
 Walpi, like a mediaeval fortress, on the edge 
 of the Painted Desert ..... 202 
 
 Mealing stones on which Pueblo women grind 
 their corn ....... 206 
 
 Snake Rock, Walpi. " Boy-afraid-of-the- 
 Camera" and his grandmother . . .210 
 
 Nampeyo of Tewa moulding a water-jar. No 
 wheel is ever used by Pueblo potters . m . 220 
 
 A collection of Moqui ware very distinct from 
 all other Pueblo pottery both in form and 
 decoration ...... 224 
 
 Water-jar of San Ildefonso and Cochiti with 
 bird decorations symbolical of lightness. . 224 
 
 Zuni ware, a feature of which is the frequent 
 use of animal forms in the designs deer, frogs, 
 butterflies, etc. The jar decorated in curves 
 and lines, depicts, as explained by the potter 
 who made it for the author, a pueblo (blocks 
 against which rest poles with cross-pieces 
 representing ladders) and rain (vertical lines) 
 descending from clouds (arches) above. . 226 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS xix 
 
 Black lustrous ware of Santa Clara and San 
 Juan. The only ornamentation used is a slight 
 moulding, as along the bulging edge of the 
 double-necked jar in the foreground. . . 226 
 
 Water- jars of Acoma. The prevalent designs 
 are suggested by flower and leaf forms. The 
 older potters often introduced figures of birds, 
 as in the upper right-hand jar, symbolising 
 lightness ....... 228 
 
 Water- jars of Santo Domingo. This ware 
 is distinguished by an especial grace of 
 shape and a remarkable scheme of decoration 
 in triangles, circles, and other geometric 
 forms ....... 228 
 
 A basket maker of Mishong -novi, Moqui . 230 
 
 A cupid of Shimo povi. The very small children 
 go unattired in summer in Moqui . . 238 
 
 Husking corn on a Zuni housetop. Flush times 
 for the burros .... . 248 
 
 A man of Taos, in native dress. Sheets are worn 
 in lieu of blankets in warm weather . . 254 
 
 A little mother of the pueblo. It is a duty of 
 the little Pueblo girls to attend their baby 
 brothers and sisters, when the parents are 
 busy ....... 260 
 
xx ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Piki-bread maker, Sichumovi. The bread is 
 baked on a flat, griddle-like stone over a 
 small fire . . . . . . 264 
 
 Pueblo women baking wheaten bread at the 
 outdoor ovens ...... 266 
 
 A little maid of Taos in native attire . .268 
 Map At End 
 
The Indians of the Terraced Houses 
 
The Indians of the 
 Terraced Houses 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 Of Our First Sig Kt of the Pueblo Indian, of 
 
 Tesuque and How "We TooK a 
 
 PKotograpK There. 
 
 IT was November, 1902, and Sylvia and I were 
 sitting at our first breakfast in Santa Fe, when 
 we saw an ancient waggon, drawn by two 
 burros, coming up the street. With that joy 
 which every traveller knows at each fresh incident 
 of a long-planned trip into new territory, we were 
 smiling at the novel sight of the odd little draft 
 animals with their great flapping ears, their nod 
 ding white noses, their obvious disinclination 
 to go faster than at a snail s pace, when we were 
 
 ^Pronounced Te-soo -ka. 
 
 i 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 attracted by the remarkable nature of the load 
 which the old waggon bore pottery of various 
 colours, shapes, and sizes, bundles of gaily-dyed 
 horsehair whips, squat drums stained yellow and 
 red, and other articles which our untrained eyes 
 failed to catalogue. Suddenly, from the other 
 side of the cart, appeared the driver an Indian, 
 bareheaded save for a red fillet binding his black 
 hair, which was cut short at the sides and caught 
 up behind in a club wrapped with red yarn. A 
 bright red blanket, drawn closely about his body, 
 reached to his ankles. His feet were encased in 
 beaded moccasins. 
 
 Our waiter, an English wanderer repairing his 
 broken fortunes in this most un-English of Ameri 
 can capitals, flicked his napkin from one arm to 
 the other and patronisingly observed : 
 
 " Hindians from Tesuque, sir, come into town to 
 sell their pottery and such like, sir. " 
 
 After breakfast we fared forth, guide-book in 
 hand, to view the conventional sights of the quaint 
 old city; but there kept lingering in the minds of 
 both of us the memory of that gleam of colour 
 in a grey land a touch of the poetic in the driver s 
 way of carrying himself, his primitive stock in 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 trade, and his Oriental donkeys that gave a certain 
 Old World quality to the whole affair. 
 
 Finally we paused before the cathedral and gazed 
 so intently at its abbreviated towers that two Mex 
 icans, sunning themselves against an adobe wall, 
 nudged each other and remarked one to the other : 
 
 "Ah, these American heretics! Well may they 
 admire! What so beautiful a holy church have 
 they in their country?" 
 
 But they were deceived in our thoughts, for we 
 saw not the church. 
 
 Sylvia said: "What did he mean by Tesuque 
 Indians?" 
 
 "I was thinking of that myself," I replied. "I 
 have heard of Choctaws and Comanches and the 
 Last of the Mohicans; but Tesuque is a new sort 
 to me. We must find out. " 
 
 The hotel clerk was appealed to, but he had not 
 been long in the Territory and there were some 
 points about the Tesuques, he observed, that he 
 had not learned. 
 
 "But why not go out and see them for your 
 selves?" he said. "You can do them in an 
 afternoon with a two-horse rig. " 
 
 So it transpired that, immediately after lunch- 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 eon, we were in a backboard with two tough 
 little broncos to draw us, on our way to spend a 
 couple of hours at the Tesuque pueblo. 
 
 It was a nine-mile drive thither, and as we 
 travelled, we learned incidentally from our driver 
 that Tesuque is a small community of Indians 
 descended from those strange people known as the 
 ancient Cliff Dwellers; that each community has 
 an especial name of its own, like Tesuque for this 
 one, but that all have the same methods of life 
 and are known, generally speaking, as Pueblo 
 Indians, because they live in pueblos. 
 
 " Pueblo, you know/ he explained, "is the 
 Mexican way of saying town. All these sort of 
 Injuns live in towns built to stay of rock and 
 adobe. They do say some date back to Columbus s 
 time and further. They re sure old, all right, and 
 a good job of building. " 
 
 The road was typical of New Mexico now hard- 
 baked adobe, now sand; now crossing dry arroyos, 
 now climbing water- worn hillsides, where small 
 pinon trees and cedars made a scrubby growth, 
 up to glorious views of majestic mountains, wide 
 plateaus, and valleys with strange Spanish and 
 Indian names, but never a sign of life. 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 At last we came to a little valley with running 
 water, following which for a couple of miles, we 
 crossed at a ford into a narrow lane fringed with 
 peach trees and wild plums and, in a few minutes, 
 were in our first pueblo. 
 
 We had never looked upon the like before, and, 
 had we not felt competent to account for every 
 minute of time since we left our home in the East, 
 we should have been tempted to think that we 
 had somehow been diverted into a trip to Syria. 
 Our vehicle had stopped in a large, open plaza, 
 facing upon the four sides of which was a solid 
 square of adobe houses, excepting that, on one 
 side, the white fagade of a church edifice broke the 
 regular line of dwellings. Some of the houses 
 were one-storied in height and some two; but in 
 the latter case, the second story was set back so as 
 to make a terraced effect, the roof of the front 
 room of the first story serving as a front yard to 
 the second-story rooms. 
 
 Ladders were reared against many of the houses, 
 affording means of reaching the second-story dwell 
 ings, and people were going up and down busily. 
 
 Here and there, upon the topmost roof, erect 
 or leaning against a chimney, were motionless 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 Indian men, enveloped in scarlet blankets, which 
 they drew about them so as to cover the entire 
 head, leaving only the eyes visible, and making, 
 more than any hat, a complete protection from the 
 shrewd November wind, which was now blowing 
 across the valley from the snow-fields of the high 
 Sangre de Cristo Range. Aside from these statue- 
 like watchers, however, the village was full of 
 activity. Some Indian men, who had driven in 
 behind us in a farm waggon, were busy unhitching 
 their team; an old man, sitting in the sun by his 
 open door, was mending a broken moccasin; a 
 bevy of young girls, chatting and laughing, came 
 across the plaza, each bearing upon her head a 
 pottery jar filled with water from the creek, and, 
 separating, went each to her individual home. 
 One climbed the ladder to the second-story rooms 
 as lightly and gracefully as though the fragile 
 vessel on her head, with its twenty pounds of 
 water, were a feather weight. Women were mov 
 ing in and out of the houses on domestic errands 
 of one kind and another, not the least interesting 
 of which to us was the tending of great mud ovens 
 in the plaza, and on the housetops, in which 
 wheaten bread was baking. 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 The attire of both women and men was strangely 
 different from anything we had ever seen and as 
 distinct in its way as the national attire of Nor 
 wegian peasants or of people of the Orient not 
 that it was like any of those, however. The dis 
 tinctive feature of the- men s attire, when the blan 
 ket was removed, was a loose, cotton shirt, worn 
 outside the trousers, which, in many cases, were 
 short, wide, and flapping. The women s dress was 
 made of a dark, woollen stuff, neatly belted at the 
 waist. It came only a little below the knees, 
 the lower part of the legs being swathed in buck 
 skin, which formed an appendage to their moccasins. 
 A sort of coloured cape of light material hung 
 from the neck down the back. The women s 
 hair was invariably banged low across the fore 
 head and, like the men s, tied with red yarn into a 
 club at the back. 
 
 Our vague thought of all red men and women 
 being lazy savages, unat tired save as to odds and 
 ends from missionary boxes, and subsisting upon 
 Government rations, underwent rapid revision as 
 we looked on at this busy scene. Everybody 
 appeared as though dressed for the stage. 
 
 "Have they fixed up because they knew we 
 
8 OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 were coming? " we asked the driver with a touch of 
 the national egotism. 
 
 "Gosh, no!" he replied. " Fixed up nothing. 
 This is the way these Pueblo Injuns always dress 
 the women in particular. They seem to think 
 their short skirts and buckskin leggins has the 
 Paris fashions plumb skinned. There s lots of 
 missionaries and Government school teachers and 
 the like that has spent good money tryin to get 
 them into sensible calico dresses with red and 
 yeller patterns to sort of catch the eye; but they 
 could n t make it stick. The women are great 
 stay-at-home bodies and that makes em set in 
 their ways. The men go about more among white 
 folks and some of em are bein shamed into 
 overalls and jumpers; even a hat goes with a good 
 many of em now. But, Lord! it s slow changing 
 these Injuns ways. They have good money to 
 spend, too; but it seems that, when it comes to 
 doing anything with em, it s a case of manana, 
 just as it is with the Mexican Dagos nothin* 
 doing to-day, come to-morrow, says they." 
 
 Somehow, we failed to rise in spirit to this pro 
 gressive point of view. This slow life, busy 
 enough as it appeared over necessary things, 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 looked rather pleasant to us fresh from the world of 
 skyscrapers, department stores, and automobiles. 
 Suddenly the quiet of the scene was broken upon 
 by the monotonous beating of a hollow-voiced 
 drum. It came from a point behind the buildings, 
 grew rapidly louder, and almost before we could 
 draw our astonished breath, there emerged into 
 the plaza from an alley among the buildings a 
 group of the most startling figures that our eyes 
 had ever beheld. There were some twenty -five 
 or thirty of them, inching along in single file with a 
 curious sort of dance-step, one bringing up the 
 rear with the drum, a primitive affair made from 
 a hollowed log, upon which he pounded without 
 cessation. Some were men and some women. 
 Save for a sort of kilt about the loins, the men were 
 naked, their red bodies smeared with black and 
 vermilion paint. Jingling shells and rattles hung 
 from their knees and wrists and about their necks, 
 and corn husks were twisted fantastically in their 
 streaming hair and about their ankles. The 
 women were dressed in gay attire, each cheek 
 painted with a bright red spot, while upon their 
 heads were fastened grotesquely -patterned tablets 
 of wood that stood upright. 
 
io OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 A look of intense seriousness was in the faces of 
 the dancers. Not a glance was cast our way ; our 
 existence was apparently ignored. Inch by inch, 
 into the centre of the plaza, the strange dance 
 moved; and now, in rhythm with the untiring 
 drum, there arose from the throats of the dancers 
 a solemn musical chant in unison, the same phrase 
 repeated over and over again; yet, in a way, it was 
 fascinating to us. We had never heard Indian 
 music before, but we knew instinctively that this 
 was the real aboriginal thing. There could be noth 
 ing else like it in the heavens or under the earth. 
 
 Separating into two lines, facing each other, the 
 dancers footed it sideways up and down the middle 
 space of the plaza, to the unceasing accompani 
 ment of the music and certain movements of the 
 arms performed in precise unison. All the while 
 the busy life of the pueblo continued almost 
 without interruption, as little attention being paid 
 to the dance as though it were an every- day 
 occurrence. 
 
 An Indian who was strolling by was accosted 
 in Spanish by our driver, who offered him a 
 cigarette and inquired the -meaning of it all. Then 
 he informed us: 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO u 
 
 "These are a bunch of visiting Injuns from 
 Cochiti pueblo, about forty miles west of here, run 
 over to dance the corn dance with these folks 
 this afternoon. We are in luck to catch em at it. 
 They have lots of these little private fiestas among 
 themselves, that nobody else knows about. " 
 
 At that time we were in the typical tourist class, 
 understanding neither Indians nor New Mexico. 
 Therefore, with the anticipation of rehearsing this 
 scene to friends on the Atlantic seaboard, who 
 would never in the world believe us, unless we had 
 ocular demonstrations to submit, we drew the ko 
 dak from its case. The driver glanced at it. 
 
 " Them things and Injuns don t mix, " he warned 
 us. 
 
 "But they can never see what we are doing at 
 this distance," we replied the dance by this 
 time was the length of the plaza away from us. 
 
 "Besides," remarked Sylvia, "I ll throw the 
 end of my wrap over the camera and they can t 
 know," and with a click the shot was taken. 
 
 Nothing, we thought, could have been more 
 unobserved and quietly done. 
 
 "Oh, how wonderful! Shall I take another?" 
 asked Sylvia, intent upon the kaleidoscopic picture 
 
12 OUR FIRST PUEBLO 
 
 in the finder and snapping again. "What s the 
 matter? Is the dance over?" 
 
 As if the tiny click had been carried by magic 
 across the wide space and sounded in each dancer s 
 ear above all the chanting, the music had ceased 
 suddenly and the performers had broken into 
 disorder. Everybody was looking looking, too, 
 anything but agreeably towards us; and, to our 
 dismay, across the plaza there came running, with 
 whoops that made the chills run down our backs, 
 two of the fantastic dancers with painted faces 
 more like demons than men. An unintelligible 
 uproar of pagan speech rose from their lips as they 
 pressed their faces close to ours. 
 
 Sylvia had a logical mind. It was she who had 
 insisted upon taking the picture, and it was plain 
 to her that now she was to be scalped for it. There 
 was, however, a possibility that her companions 
 might avoid a like fate if she surrendered the 
 offending machine; and, snatching the camera 
 from beneath the cloak, she thrust it tremblingly 
 into the arms of the more ferocious-looking of the 
 savages and, with blanched lips, cried : 
 
 "Here, take it all!" 
 
 The Indian looked at it gravely, and at her. 
 
OUR FIRST PUEBLO 13 
 
 With every movement of his body the corn husks 
 in his hair rustled mysteriously and the rattles at 
 his knees clinked gruesomely. He spoke several 
 sentences in his outlandish tongue, which did not 
 help to quiet our palpitating hearts. Then, to our 
 astonishment, he smiled good-humouredly and 
 said in perfect English : 
 
 "We do not like pictures taken here, and you 
 will please not do it again; but if you want them 
 badly, please see the Governor. Perhaps, for five 
 dollars, he will let you photograph." 
 
 Down the plaza the drum began its monotonous 
 note again, the dancers lined up, and the chant 
 arose once more. Our two interviewers took up 
 the refrain and departed to join the rest. 
 
 "Them bucks is Carlisle fellows," grinned the 
 driver. "They had you pretty well scared; but 
 you got off easy. I once seen em run a spear 
 plumb through a camera." 
 
 "Five dollars the idea!" said Sylvia absently; 
 "and I do believe I took both those pictures on one 
 film! Is n t it too bad?" 
 
Chapter II 
 
 Of Acoma, Pueblo of tHe SKy ; How Edward Hunt 
 
 Fo\nd Us Lodgings TKere; and of tHe Fiesta of 
 
 San Esteban. 
 
 THE most poetic of all New Mexico pueblos, 
 in point of situation, is Acoma, J a veri 
 table city of the sky, built upon the flat, 
 seventy-acre summit of a huge rock with per 
 pendicular sides, thrust up some three hundred 
 and fifty feet out of the midst of a sandy soli 
 tude of plain. Beyond the plain and encircling 
 it is a rim of mountains, touched morning and 
 evening with the mysterious colours of the desert ; 
 and if there is a world beyond the mountains, it 
 is not evident to Acoma. 
 
 To reach this village of the upper air, one leaves 
 the train at Laguna, where also is an Indian pueblo. 
 Close by are a few homes of white people with 
 whom arrangements can be made for transporta- 
 
 1 Pronounced Ah co-ma. 
 
 14 
 
if s 
 
 i 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 15 
 
 tion to Acoma, which lies fifteen miles to the south. 
 Most tourists who take the trip are, after the man 
 ner of their kind, in haste about getting home, and 
 pare the time down to one day ; but a week is none 
 too much to devote to the sights of this miniature 
 wonderland which has been described as "the 
 Garden of the Gods multiplied by ten plus a 
 human interest" and to experience the spirit of 
 its simple life and its primitive people. There is, 
 however, no accommodation available except that 
 offered by Indian homes, and, as few travellers 
 care for that sort of adventure, it is advisable for 
 intending sojourners to take their own blankets 
 and provisions, and if it be in the season when 
 rain is likely, a tent. 
 
 The road from Laguna is through a characteris 
 tic northern New Mexico landscape, dotted with 
 pinon and cedar and black lava blocks, around and 
 among which, in summer, an ocean of sunflowers 
 flows and ebbs ; and near and far rise red and purple 
 mountains fantastically cut and gashed by the 
 weather of ancient times into titanic, battlemented 
 fortresses, towers, domes, and pinnacles. 
 
 As the road enters the valley of Acoma, our eyes 
 are greeted with the sight of that famous table- 
 
1 6 A COMA AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 rock of the South- West the Enchanted Mesa 
 lifting its cylindrical block against the turquoise 
 sky. Four miles beyond towers the rock of Acoma, 
 similar in form, but somewhat less lofty. A few 
 cattle and sheep are grazing on the wild growths 
 of the plain and an Indian on pony-back, his 
 shock of jet black hair bound about with a scarlet 
 fillet and his white, cotton trousers flapping in the 
 breeze, lopes by on some errand toward the hills. 
 A snatch of the barbaric melody which he sings 
 drifts back to us as he disappears around the sand 
 hills, and we realise that it is happiness to be an 
 Indian in a real Indian country. 
 
 Why the Enchanted Mesa is enchanted, I have 
 never heard explained. The term is a translation 
 of the name given to it by the first Spaniards, who 
 called it "La Mesa Encantada." The Indians 
 say "Katzimo. " A tragic interest attaches to it 
 because of the tradition of the Acomas that their 
 own town, a long time before the coming of the 
 white man, was located on its flat top, which was 
 accessible by only one trail. One day, when most 
 of the inhabitants were busy in their fields out in 
 the plain^ a storm destroyed this approach and it 
 was necessary for the people to establish a new 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 17 
 
 home for themselves, which they did upon the 
 present rocky site. Of course, the hard-fact 
 scientist has fallen afoul of this legend, and some 
 years ago a Princeton professor thought to give 
 it a scientific burial. After a brief visit to the top, 
 accomplished only after several days labour, he 
 saw nothing which would pass in New Jersey for 
 the remains of a prehistoric settlement, and said 
 so in print. This nettled the archaeologists of the 
 South- West, and an expedition was fitted out for 
 the scaling of the rock by Dr. F. W. Hodge of the 
 Smithsonian Institution at Washington, who dis 
 covered abundant evidence of a human habita 
 tion at some very distant time. Under the title 
 "Katzimo the Enchanted," there is an interesting 
 popular account of this visit in the Land of Sun 
 shine Magazine for November, 1897. The curious 
 traveller, desirous of following in the footsteps of 
 these venturesome climbers, will not find it possible 
 unassisted to approach nearer than within some 
 thirty or forty feet of the summit of the Mesa; 
 but arrangements may be made at Laguna for an 
 outfit of ladders and ropes by which the top may 
 be reached by hard scrambling. 
 
 One needs to be close under the cliffs of Acoma 
 
1 8 A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 before any sign of the village is visible, as the 
 houses are of the same colour as the rock upon 
 which they stand and so far above the plain that, 
 as old Castaneda, the chronicler of Coronado s 
 expedition in 1540, records, "it was a very good 
 musket that could throw a ball as high." The 
 huge mesa is of soft brown rock, worn by the sand 
 which the wind of ages has hurled against it. This, 
 acting as a natural sand-blast, has cut the rock into 
 many a grotesque shape, squat columns and airy 
 minarets, caverns and ogres dens, and strange 
 forms with features like those of fabled creatures 
 of old romance. The fine sand of the plains, piled 
 up by these wind-storms of the past, has finally 
 created two or three giants pathways up and 
 around the cliffs on one side. By one of these, 
 animals are enabled to attain the summit, though 
 it is not possible for vehicles to do so. Human 
 beings usually reach the town by means of one of 
 two steep stairways of rock, carved out and built 
 up through two of the crevasses of the mesa s side. 
 To one unaccustomed to climbing, it certainly is a 
 dizzy sight the first look up this dark and winding 
 flight of aboriginal steps. Yet the ascent is not 
 difficult, having been made safe and easy by 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 19 
 
 cutting hand holes in the soft sandstone at ticklish 
 places, and the Indians ascend and descend non 
 chalantly, bearing back-bowing burdens. 
 
 It was up one of these trails that Brother Juan 
 Ramirez, the apostle to the Acomas, unheralded 
 and alone, made his missionary way one day in 
 1629. Before reaching the top, he was greeted 
 with flying arrows, shot at him by a group of 
 Indians gathered on the cliff above; for the 
 Acomas had by that outlived their love for white 
 men. Simultaneously with the arrows, the story 
 goes, a little girl accidentally fell over the edge of 
 the cliff and lit, unseen by the Indians, on a 
 sheltered ledge within reach of the Brother s hand. 
 He picked her up unhurt, and, when he appeared a 
 little later holding in his arms the smiling child 
 whom the Indians thought dashed to pieces by 
 that time at the foot of the precipice, their opinion 
 of him went rapidly to a premium, and he was 
 received as a great medicine man. The story is 
 recounted by Lummis in his fascinating book, The 
 Spanish Pioneers; and readers who would enjoy a 
 stirring recital of one of the most heroic assaults 
 in history, will find, in the same volume, an account 
 of the storming of Acoma in 1599 by seventy Span- 
 
20 A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 iards. The rock, manned by four hundred Indian 
 warriors, was considered as impregnable as Gibral 
 tar now is, but the Spanish took it, though every 
 man of them, who was not killed, was wounded. 
 
 Like all the New Mexico pueblos excepting 
 Zufii, Acoma is a cure of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, and is endowed with a patron saint 
 Stephen. To the average sightseer the most in 
 teresting time to visit the old town is on the 
 occasion of this Saint s feast the Fiesta de San 
 Esteban, which occurs annually on September 2d. 
 Sylvia and I engaged a Laguna Indian to drive us 
 over on the day before, and when our team of little 
 grey ponies, their ancient harness held thriftily 
 together with baling wire, landed us at the foot 
 of the Acoma cliffs, we were greeted by Edward 
 Hunt, a large, good-humoured Acoma Indian, who 
 had picked up a Quakerish name, a fair knowledge 
 of English, and American ways enough to make 
 him think that a trader s store at the foot of 
 Acoma would be an agreeable and profitable 
 vehicle in which to make the journey of life. To 
 him we unfolded our plan of spending a few days 
 in the village, and asked if he could help us to rent 
 a house up in the pueblo. 
 
I 
 
 C/5 
 
 I i- 
 
 <fi 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 21 
 
 No, he thought no one had any, and smiled 
 genially; and then, seeing our disappointment 
 perhaps, he turned more hopeful and added : 
 
 "Well, you eat your lunch, and I guess I have to 
 go with you peoples pretty soon up the mesa and 
 look around. You wait awhile. Pretty soon I 
 come again. " 
 
 With that he disappeared into the recesses of his 
 little adobe half store, half dwelling. 
 
 We ate our luncheon, and knowing something 
 from experience of the leisurely ways of the red 
 brother, we did not hurry through it. Then a 
 bit of siesta, and so into the store to look about for 
 Edward. Through a door he was discovered in 
 the next room in the midst of his family, chang 
 ing his shirt. He smiled at us benignantly and 
 remarked : 
 
 " You wait. Pretty soon I come. " 
 
 We waited twenty-five minutes by the watch. 
 
 At the end of that time, he came out and 
 glanced leisurely around the store, picked up a 
 large grey sombrero adorned with a magnificent 
 hat-band, set it carefully on his raven locks, viewed 
 himself in a square inch or two of mirror that hung 
 behind the door, took one more last look slowly 
 
22 A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 around the store, went into the next room, chatted 
 with his wife, patted one of the children on the 
 head, and then, stepping forth into the sunshine, 
 observed, as though we had been keeping him 
 waiting : 
 
 "You ready? Let sgo." 
 
 Two hours had been thus consumed in getting 
 Edward under way, but three more went into the 
 maw of time before our lodging was found. The 
 way of our aboriginal house-hunt was this: 
 
 First, Edward had to pause at the top of the 
 trail, light a cigarette, and pass the time of day 
 with a knot of his cronies who were sunning ihem- 
 selves at the brink of the broad rock where, three 
 centuries agone, their assembled ancestors spat 
 defiance at the King of Spain. Then, when pro 
 gress was resumed and we were really within the 
 pueblo, friendly faces would peer out of sundry 
 doorways and the sociable Edward, leaving us to 
 sit on the steps and distribute candy to the children 
 who were trooping after us with murmurs of 
 "gooties, " would disappear within a house, where 
 we would descry him smoking more cigarettes and 
 passing more time of day. Emerging after a 
 while, he would smile his kind, indulgent smile, 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 23 
 
 and remark, as though communicating the best 
 news in the world : 
 
 "Well, he say, No " (" he " being the woman of 
 the house). "Mebbe better luck some other 
 houses, I don* know. Let s go!" 
 
 And so to another house and another, all to no 
 purpose; for it seemed that, because of the fiesta 
 on the morrow, the hospitality of Acoma was 
 taxed to the physical limit for the accommodation 
 of friends, who took precedence over the white 
 strangers. It looked as though we should have to 
 roll up in our blankets on the rock. 
 
 At last we had exhausted the town and stood 
 on the outskirts overlooking the ancient Spanish 
 church with its two-century-old balcony. Ed 
 ward s roving eyes settled upon it as a last hope, 
 and he observed insinuatingly: 
 
 "Well, what you say that porch way up on 
 the church? That s pretty good place, no? 
 Mebbe the Governor he let you have that porch. 
 What you say?" 
 
 We could hardly believe we were not dreaming. 
 To have offered us for our very own a balcony 
 overlooking all Acoma, the Enchanted Mesa, and 
 the; sunrise a balcony with an ancient, hand- 
 
24 A COMA AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 carved, wooden railing around it, as Sylvia had 
 observed the balcony of one of the most famous 
 churches in the New World, famous because 
 every stick and adobe brick in it had been carried 
 up the dizzy trails bit by bit from the plain three 
 hundred feet below, on Indians* weary backs, and 
 because the church had been as long a-building 
 as the children of Israel were in getting out of the 
 wilderness it was like a fairy tale to us and, of 
 course, we said "Yes." 
 
 "Let us go!" said Edward. 
 
 And so to the Governor s. There we all sat 
 gravely down as to the discussion of an inter 
 national modus vivendi and, after rolling a cigarette 
 apiece, the Governor and Edward launched out 
 upon a pourparler, which came with the shadows 
 of evening to this happy conclusion, as interpreted 
 to us by Edward : 
 
 "The Governor he say church belong to all tho 
 people; but you say what you worth to sleep there 
 two or three days and he be satisfied. What you 
 say?" 
 
 We parried this by asking Edward what he 
 thought was right, and it was finally arranged 
 that we should pay fifty cents to the Governoi 4 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 25 
 
 for the rent, fifty cents to a friend of Edward s 
 who had a burro and would bring up our bundles 
 of blankets, provisions, and two cots, and fifty 
 cents to the Governor s niece to bring us water 
 every morning in an Indian jar balanced on her 
 head, as one sees in pictures. 
 
 We were awakened at dawn the next morning 
 by the hollow voice of the tombe or official drum 
 and the stentorian tones of the public crier as he 
 walked up one street and down another, announc 
 ing the exercises of the day at least, we assumed 
 this to be the purport of his words, which were in 
 the native tongue and by the time the sun had 
 risen, all Acoma was astir. Blankets and beds 
 were being shaken out from the upper roofs, where 
 many had slept the night before, Syrian fashion, 
 under the glowing stars; fires were sending up their 
 smoke straight into the delicious air of the New 
 Mexico morning ; girls, with water jars poised upon 
 their heads, climbed ladders to the upper terraces 
 and disappeared into various houses. Into our 
 own airy balcony came the Governor s niece and, 
 silently setting down a brimming tinaja in one 
 corner, as silently departed. Certain fragrances 
 that rose from beneath us indicated that the padre, 
 
26 A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 whose apartments were immediately under our 
 balcony, and who had arrived sometime during the 
 watches of the night, was prefacing his spiritual 
 labours with a substantial breakfast. We met him 
 later in the morning a rotund little Spanish man, 
 jovially disposed by nature, but that day sallow 
 and hollow-eyed, having, it seems, supped on 
 canned caviare and suffered a colic during the 
 night. 
 
 "But it was a sick padre, my friends," he said 
 sadly with a kindly shake of our hands, "that was 
 beneath you last night that detest* caviare 
 bah!" 
 
 The first order of the day at these Pueblo 
 fiestas of the saints is always the mass in the 
 church; this apparently atones in advance for the 
 pagan features which make up the bulk of the day s 
 doings. It was a picturesque throng that assem 
 bled before the church that sunny September 
 morning, and upon which we looked down from 
 our balcony such a sight, indeed, as one would 
 hardly think possible in these United States. On 
 every hand, mingling with the Indians, were 
 swarthy Mexicans, their wives and children decked 
 out in wondrous effects of green, yellow, white, 
 
The tombe beater, Acoma. Fiesta of San Esteban. 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 27 
 
 and red. The Acomas were in divers sorts of 
 raiment : there were the rich progressives in broad- 
 brimmed sombreros, set squarely on their heads, 
 which, with their plain faces, gave them somewhat 
 of a Quaker appearance. To a man, this group 
 wore clean, boiled shirts, black trousers, open, 
 black waistcoats without a coat, and uncompro 
 misingly stiff new brogans encasing their feet. 
 Their bright new bandas wound about their heads 
 were the only visible remnants of the distinctive 
 Pueblo dress, and these were apparent only when 
 the men eased their heads by carrying their hats 
 in their 4 hands. In contrast to this group, were 
 the hat less rich conservatives, resist ers of the 
 American invasion, clad in shirts that hung out 
 side flapping white trousers, with ample red 
 garters with tassels wound about their knees. For 
 the most part, too, they were enveloped in blankets 
 of striking designs, wherein, like as not, a baby 
 was carried, while the wife, arrayed in short 
 Pueblo skirt, gorgeous leg moccasins, silver neck 
 lace, and silver bracelets, followed close behind. 
 Mingling with these folk in gala attire were many 
 of the poorer sort, clad in their every-day overalls, 
 and such scraps of clothing, American and Pueblo, 
 
28 A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 as their poverty might vouchsafe them. But 
 everyone who could afford it had a new banda 
 about his head. 
 
 Among the crowd, too, were wolfish-looking 
 Navajos, draped in gay blankets of their own 
 weaving, thus displayed for sale, and, though 
 hereditary enemies of the Pueblos, come to barter 
 and pick up such loaves and fishes as the day 
 might vouchsafe them. And here, too, were In 
 dians from far Isleta, Pueblo farmer folk with 
 baskets of fruit for sale. There were loose clusters 
 of sweet Mission grapes, pears, and persimmon- 
 like plums, and luscious peaches that reminded us 
 of the white October peaches of the East; and 
 there were long yellow muskmelons and little 
 round watermelons the size of one s head. Very 
 gifts of the gods were these fruits to dwellers in 
 that sunburnt dewless plain of Acoma, and none 
 remained unsold. 
 
 After all that would, had been drummed to 
 church, the services there came to a close. Then, 
 thronging out into the sunlight, the people formed 
 in procession, the image of Saint Stephen in their 
 midst, with mushroom halo and wooden hands 
 raised in blessing, and marched about the village 
 
The melon sellers, Acoma, on San Esteban day. 
 
A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 29 
 
 to the accompaniment of clanging bells from the 
 belfry, the firing of muskets to keep off the devil, 
 and the solemn chanting of a hundred reverent 
 voices. So to a rustic shrine of corn plants and 
 leafy cottonwood branches which had been erected 
 for the occasion. Here deposited, Saint Stephen 
 received that day, with two old Indians sitting at 
 the doorway of the shrine to keep off errant swine 
 and other godless interlopers. Hither for hours 
 the devout came bringing baskets heaped high 
 with thank-offerings, which were tendered on 
 bended knee and left lying at his feet melons, 
 peaches, and corn, chili peppers and candles and 
 brown loaves of fresh bread. The Saint would 
 have none go hungry on his day, and at frequent 
 intervals basketfuls were handed out to the multi 
 tude or thrown high into the air to be scrambled for. 
 To the visitors the main event was the Indian 
 dance. Long before Fray Juan Ramirez came to 
 Acoma, the people held festivals of prayer offered 
 paganwise to the Powers Above for the gift of 
 rain and festivals of thanksgiving for harvests 
 vouchsafed. The heart of Acoma is still warm to 
 its old love, and the Church indulges it in such 
 of the immemorial practices as are innocent of 
 
30 A COM A AND ITS FIESTA 
 
 offence against decent living. So no feast day is 
 complete without its dance in ancient costume. 
 Shortly after noon, the dull thumping of a 
 tombe was heard from an unseen quarter, and 
 streaming down from the upper stories of certain 
 houses came the dancers, who formed in two lines, 
 and, to the chanting of a choir of Indian men, 
 moved in step, an inch at a time, toward the 
 Saint s booth. The men dancers were stripped to 
 the waist, their faces and bodies painted in fantas 
 tic fashion, while from neck and shoulders, waist 
 and ankles, depended all sorts of tinkling and gay 
 ornaments. Twigs of live spruce were thrust in 
 their head-dresses, wristlets, and arm-bands, and in 
 their hands were rattles made of gourds with 
 pebbles within. There was no sign of levity, for 
 this was a religious rite hallowed to the tribe by 
 ancestral usage and doubtless more real to them 
 than those morning services in the church. The 
 women dancers had sweet, shy faces, and their 
 eyes were modestly downcast. Their costumes 
 were very brilliant in colour and had the special 
 distinction of a curious head-dress, consisting of a 
 large painted board set upright and cut into shapes 
 of symbolic significance. 
 
Women dancers, Acoma. Fiesta of San Esteban. 
 
A CO MA AND ITS FIESTA 31 
 
 All the hot, September afternoon the dancers 
 kept step to the choiring, until the sun sank low 
 in the heavens. Then, suddenly the singing 
 ceased and the dancers, breaking ranks, crowded 
 about the Saint s booth and knelt for a moment in 
 silent adoration before his image. The booth was 
 then stripped of its green ; the image was brought 
 out; the faithful, candles in hand, again formed 
 in procession, and amid the ringing of the church 
 bells and the firing of guns as in the morning, the 
 precious relic was borne back to its niche in the old 
 church, and the feast of Saint Stephen was over. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 Of wHat Befell Us vinder tKe RocK of Acoma, and 
 How We Turned Cliff Dwellers. 
 
 IN quest of SL new experience, we took a hint from 
 a band of Navajos who had encamped among 
 some rocks islanded in the plain a quarter of a 
 mile or so from the foot of the Acoma cliffs, and 
 when they struck camp on the night of the fiesta, 
 we moved down. To watch our goods for us 
 during absences from our camp and to bring us 
 water, the redoubtable Edward secured us the 
 services, at the stipend of a dollar a day, of one 
 Carlitos, an Acoma man who was admittedly 
 ignorant of English but held to be very honest. 
 Night had fallen when Carlitos, having brought 
 down our last bundle from the pueblo, bade us 
 adios. The moon, shining amid cloud drift, re 
 vealed far out on the plain the outlines of the 
 Bedouin cavalcade of departing Navajos cantering 
 into the desert, and gave us fitful light as we 
 
 32 
 
UNDER A COMA S ROCK 33 
 
 spread our blankets and set our sky-roofed house 
 in order. We had a small alcohol lamp, which we 
 lighted to boil water for a cannikin of tea, and 
 opening a tin of sardines and a box of crackers, we 
 prepared to discuss a bit of supper before turning 
 in. 
 
 Suddenly the quiet was disrupted by a blood- 
 chilling yell, which rose from behind a gigantic 
 rock close by. The can-opener dropped from my 
 nerveless fingers, and Sylvia s face blanched. Then 
 another scream, nearer and, if possible, more 
 demoniac, and before we could form a connected 
 theory as to what the fearful outcry meant, there 
 staggered into a strip of moonlight before us a 
 Navajo crazy with whiskey. He was too blind 
 drunk to see us and plunged stumbling past us 
 down to the edge of some rocks, where we dimly 
 made out the figure of an Indian woman, gaunt and 
 black, holding two ponies. Stopping the reeling 
 man, she succeeded in steering him to one of the 
 horses and got him into the saddle. Then, mount 
 ing the other herself, the two rode off at a mad run, 
 side by side, he still whooping devilishly at inter 
 vals, and she silently steadying him with one 
 hand, until, to our intense relief, the night swal- 
 
34 UNDER A COMA S ROCK 
 
 lowed them up. It was our first experience of the 
 wretched aftermath of many Indian fiestas, when 
 whiskey is apt to be smuggled in by boot-leggers. 
 
 But there was more to come. Hardly had the 
 crazy yelling died away in the distance, when we 
 heard the clatter of hoofs, and where the woman 
 had been, three horsemen now were reining in their 
 broncos. They, too, we could see, were Navajos, 
 and to our discomfort were looking intently our 
 way. They hallooed something we did not under 
 stand, and then two, dismounting, walked rather 
 unsteadily towards us. Stepping close to us, they 
 evilly surveyed our little tenderfoot camp, with 
 its cots and alcohol lamp and all, and muttered 
 something among themselves in their pagan 
 jargon. 
 
 Though our hearts thumped unmercifully, I am 
 inclined to think we outwardly bore ourselves 
 tranquilly. I know Sylvia, arranging crackers on 
 a tin plate, was as composed as Werther s Char 
 lotte spreading bread and butter. 
 
 Then the less drunk of the two growled out 
 something that sounded like "Navajo John." 
 
 "Well, Navajo John, " said I, putting up a bold 
 front, "what do you want?" 
 
UNDER A COMA S ROCK 35 
 
 "Navajo John?" he repeated, interrogatively 
 this time, I noticed, and making an ugly drunken 
 lunge forward with a heavy emphasis on the 
 John. 
 
 "He means," said Sylvia, "are the Navajes 
 gone. Oh, do tell him that they are!" 
 
 I did, in English, in Spanish, and in an attempt 
 at the sign language, pointing out the direction 
 they had taken. 
 
 By this time, however, the red brethren were 
 more interested in us and our camp than in pur 
 suing their departed company. The light of the 
 alcohol lamp attracted their bleary gaze and had 
 to be maundered over between them, one of them 
 skeptically thrusting his finger into the tenuous 
 flame before believing in the power of its heat. 
 They fingered our soft down quilts with a kind of 
 awe, and they tripped over the hidden leg of one 
 of the cots, and that had then to be looked criti 
 cally into. Thinking to hasten their departure, 
 Sylvia plied them with soda-crackers, and if it had 
 not been for the third man with the horses, who 
 now began hallooing to them out of the inter 
 mittent moonlight, they would have probably 
 spent the night with us. As it was, they yielded 
 
3 6 UNDER A COMA S ROCK 
 
 at last to their comrade s importuning, and 
 motioning for soda-crackers for him, they at last 
 made off. 
 
 "And now, " said I, as the trio galloped away, 
 "we 11 do what the Pueblos have had to do from 
 the dawn of time, because of these pestiferous 
 Navajos; we 11 turn cliff dwellers. " 
 
 While there had still been daylight, I had 
 noticed high up in the face of a cliff near us, which 
 was a spur of the Acoma Mesa, a shallow cave, 
 half hidden behind a great boulder. A sand dune 
 had formed below it and drifted gradually upward 
 till its summit flowed into the cave and rendered 
 the latter easily accessible. One camping there 
 would have a wide outlook over the plain and at 
 the same time be remote from the pathway of 
 travel to and from Acoma. Thither with small 
 labour we quickly transported our blankets, our 
 cots, and ourselves, leaving other things to be 
 looked after by Carlitos when he should arrive in 
 the morning; and settling down behind our bul 
 wark boulder, we sought sleep. It was a troublous 
 night, however; for although no more Navajos 
 came in the flesh to disturb us, our excited fancies 
 persisted in filling the rocky space with their 
 
UNDER A COMA S ROCK 37 
 
 skulking forms and the echoes of their fiendish 
 yells ; and when the stars faded in the white dawn, 
 our eyes were still unshut. 
 
 We had, however, unwittingly stumbled upon 
 the most enjoyable way of "doing" Acoma. An 
 ancient church balcony, though enclosed by a 
 genuine antique hand-carved rail, and with the 
 Governor s niece to serve you with water in a 
 decorated Indian jar, is undeniably romantic; but 
 it is, strictly speaking, more of a stage property 
 than a permanent apartment for light housekeep 
 ing. It is, besides, very public. But camping as 
 we now did, with Carlitos on guard by day and 
 our cliff chamber to sleep in by night (for the 
 disturbing spectres did not come again), we had 
 all the privacy we wanted, could mount the trail 
 to the village whenever we so desired, and at the 
 same time saw some phases of the happy life of 
 the Land of the Terraced Houses which otherwise 
 we should have missed. 
 
 Now, for the first time, we came to know the 
 spell of the Enchanted Mesa, silhouetted against 
 the sky four miles away and melting from colour 
 to colour in the changing lights of the day s pro 
 gress now clothed in indescribable tones of pink, 
 
38 UNDER A COMA S ROCK 
 
 of red, and of yellow, and again, when storm clouds 
 hovered over it, paling to an unearthly white. 
 The changes were often in the twinkling of an eye. 
 We would avert our faces for a moment, and when 
 we looked again, a new glory dwelt there. Most 
 enchanting was the Mesa when invested in the 
 delicate hues of dawn, those evanescent tints 
 which, born of the sun, cannot look on their lord 
 and live prophets of his coming who perish in his 
 ineffable presence. Every morning as we looked 
 towards the flushing east from our gate in the 
 cliff, our hearts sang an involuntary jubilate, and 
 we could not wonder that the Pueblos regard the 
 sun as the house of the Divine. Sun-worship 
 seems one of the most natural of religions and it is 
 no credit to our "advanced" civilisation that we 
 have ceased to pray at every dawn and to marvel 
 at the fresh miracle of the sunrise. 
 
 With the dawn, too, the birds which shared our 
 cliff with us, waked, and after divers sleepy chirp 
 ings, flew abroad to the business of their day; 
 certain nervous little animals in grey coats, that 
 we knew not, peered out from behind stones and 
 rocks and scampered away in the sands, and 
 Brother Coyote, far out on the flowery plain, 
 

UNDER A COMA S ROCK 39 
 
 yelped his matin notes just as he did in the youth 
 of the world when he and the Pueblo folk spoke 
 one tongue. 
 
 With the risen sun, Acoma men, singly or in 
 pairs, afoot or ahorseback, would come by on 
 their leisurely way to the corn-fields in the plain. 
 Often, as they went, their joy in the morning 
 would find vent in songs, quaint, aboriginal 
 melodies pitched high, almost like Swiss yodels, 
 one strain repeated over and over. Descending 
 to our Navajo rocks for breakfast, we would find 
 Carlitos sitting by the bucket of fresh water which 
 he had just brought, enjoying his matutinal 
 cigarette. Carlitos stock of English, as has been 
 stated, was negligible. In fact, it consisted, so 
 far as we could ascertain, of "Hello!" picked up 
 from the courteous diction of the frontier white 
 population, and "Yes," which complaisant mono 
 syllable we found he was prone to use so indis 
 criminately as to be a pitfall to English-speaking 
 inquirers who did not know his ways. Like most 
 New Mexican Pueblos, however, he knew Spanish, 
 and it was thus we communicated with him. And 
 so we would say to Carlitos, seated by the bucket, 
 "Buenos dias," and he would smilingly reply, 
 
40 UNDER A COMA S ROCK 
 
 "Buenos dias, " and the intercourse of the day was 
 pleasantly begun. 
 
 Our camp was a feature that attracted all 
 passers-by, and there was none who did not call 
 on us. Our first visitors were two old men in 
 flapping cotton pantaloons and moccasins. They 
 were en route for wood and rabbits, for one bore 
 an axe on his shoulder and the other had a bow 
 and a quiver full of arrows slung at his back. They 
 shook hands all around and, without further 
 formality, sank on their haunches like Orientals; 
 then, rolling a cigarette apiece, they proceeded to 
 gossip with Carlitos in the soft tones which the 
 Pueblo religion teaches that the gods commend 
 not only in women but in men also. After a 
 decent length of time, they rose to go, when their 
 keen eyes spied one of Sylvia s water-colour draw 
 ings, representing a street in Acoma. They caught 
 it up eagerly, and hung over it for a long time, 
 oh-ing and ah-ing, tracing the lines of the houses 
 with their pointing fingers, disputing together ap 
 parently about certain features which were not 
 clear to them; and ending up with a laugh all 
 around, they departed in high good humour. 
 When we sought to learn from Carlitos what the 
 
UNDER A COMA S ROCK 41 
 
 turmoil all meant, he mildly observed that they 
 thought the picture "mucho bueno. " The pictures, 
 indeed, were a drawing card with all our visitors, 
 but even more astonishing than pictures was a 
 nickel-plated collapsible cup, the fame of whose 
 magical way of appearing and disappearing spread 
 abroad. Perhaps it will be incorporated in Acoma 
 traditions and some twenty-fifth century folk- 
 lorist will think he has found in the story of it 
 another moon eclipse- or sun-myth. 
 
 It was interesting to us to note in all our Indian 
 callers what we afterwards found to be character 
 istic of unspoiled Pueblos that they never begged 
 and never lounged. If Carlitos was absent, they 
 would sit awhile in dignified silence, as though to 
 be companionable, then say "adios" and move on 
 about their business; but there was no suggestion 
 of the loafer s attitude while they stayed. They 
 were prodigal of time, but did not kill it. If we 
 offered them anything to eat or drink, as we gener 
 ally did, they would receive it gravely and either 
 consume it on the spot or stow it away in their 
 clothing. Some things we found were not to their 
 liking; but salty things, such as bacon or salt- 
 crackers, they found very tasty, and above all did 
 
42 UNDER A COMA S ROCK 
 
 sweets appeal to them candy or sugar or a bit of 
 preserve. A half-emptied tin of sweetened con 
 densed milk, which we handed to a couple of 
 women one day, seemed a special treat. One 
 marked with her ringer on the can what would be 
 half the contents, and after drinking to the line, 
 handed the remainder to her companion to finish. 
 This act illustrated another point we found 
 characteristic of Indian nature the practice of 
 sharing with one another. Even our half-shot 
 Navajos had done that with their soda-crackers. 
 Small Indian adventures these, you will say, but 
 they served to endear to us these gentle Pueblos, 
 whose childlike ways seem in keeping with the 
 present era of peace that has settled on our Indian 
 country; and when our Laguna boy came to take 
 us back to the railroad, we felt a little as though 
 we were leaving home. 
 
- " W 
 
 mm 
 -jil 
 
Chapter IV 
 
 Of the Pueblos of tKe Railroad Side, Laguna and 
 
 Isleta, and How Manuel Carpio Sang 
 
 in tKe Sun. 
 
 YOU will find them both rather prosy after 
 Acoma; but if you want a -glimpse of 
 Pueblo life at a minimum of exertion to 
 yourself, you may have it at either Laguna or 
 Isleta. These are both stations on the Santa Fe 
 Railway, and the traveller has but to step from 
 the train and walk a few rods to be within either 
 pueblo. 
 
 If you know a bit of Spanish, you will remember 
 that laguna means a lagoon or lake, and you 
 wonder at such a name for this village, founded 
 on a rock-bound knoll, with not even a duck pond 
 in the surrounding plain. It seems, however, that 
 in olden times, there was really a marshy lake 
 there, due originally to the constriction of the 
 channel of the neighbouring little Rio de San Jos6 
 
 43 
 
44 LACUNA AND ISLET A 
 
 by a lava-flow, supplemented by the work of 
 beavers, which industriously dammed the nar 
 rows. The river waters, thus held back, spread 
 out in the form of a lagoon, and hither about the 
 end of the seventeenth century came certain 
 pioneering Pueblos from various villages in the 
 neighbourhood of Santa Fe and set up a new pueblo 
 which was called and is still called in the Laguna 
 tongue Kow-ike, meaning, they say, a lake. This 
 unmusical name did not suit the Spanish, who, 
 when they visited the pueblo to exact its oath of 
 vassalage to his Catholic Caesarian Majesty, the 
 King of Spain, redubbed it, "San Jose de la 
 Laguna." The proximity of humanity was not 
 agreeable to the beavers which, in the course of 
 time, levanted and left their dams to the Pueblos 
 to maintain. As the latter liked the lake, they 
 accepted the legacy of the beavers and kept up the 
 dams for several generations. About half a cen 
 tury ago, however, internal dissension developed 
 in the community, and while the disputing con 
 tinued, the communal work was neglected. When 
 peace returned, the lake was gone for ever 
 vanished through breaches unrepaired. 
 
 Laguna enjoys the distinction of being the first 
 
LACUNA AND ISLET A 
 
 45 
 
 pueblo to have had a white teacher appointed to it 
 by the United States Government. That was in 
 1871, and this pueblo has ever since been pretty 
 much under the thumb of the white educationists. 
 A white man, Robert G. Marmon, was even 
 elected governor of the pueblo at one time, and 
 under the irreverent hand of American domination, 
 one old-time custom after another has been swept 
 into the ash-bin. Whatever essential good, if any, 
 may have accrued to Laguna from all this, it 
 cannot be said that it has helped Laguna s man 
 ners, if the experience of Sylvia and myself is any 
 criterion; for in no other pueblo were we so 
 thoroughly given the cold shoulder as here, and 
 we visited it several times. Sour looks and 
 turned backs were the features of our reception at 
 most houses, instead of the smile and hospitable 
 "entra" which the average Pueblo extends to a 
 visitor. 
 
 "Oh, yes, we ve spoiled them both with ill- 
 considered philanthropy and continually dumping 
 impertinent tourists on them from the railroad 
 here to pester them out of their lives," remarked 
 an artist whom we encountered at the outskirts 
 of the village, at work under a big umbrella; for 
 
46 LACUNA AND ISLETA 
 
 Laguna, with its rambling, hilly streets and skyey 
 vistas, is full of picturesque bits for the folk of the 
 brush; "if I were king for a day, I r d have a tight 
 stockade built about every pueblo and put St. 
 Peter at the gate to keep out all school teachers 
 and missionaries whatsoever, and every tourist 
 who had not passed a previous examination in 
 good manners." 1 
 
 To Isleta the railway pays the especial compli 
 ment of there stopping even its transcontinental 
 limited trains, and travellers are thus afforded a 
 leisurely look at the pueblo and an opportunity to 
 buy pottery and fruit from the picturesque Isleta 
 girls, who, at train time, flock about the station 
 platform with their commodities. The Isletenos 
 are enterprising traffickers and, in a small way, 
 commercial travellers. Not depending on the 
 
 1 Besides their main pueblo of Laguna, these Indians main 
 tain half a dozen farming villages in the neighbourhood, viz. : 
 Seama, Pahuate, Paraje, Mesita, Casa Blanca, and Santana, 
 established to enable the people to be near certain tracts of 
 cultivated land. The jurisdiction of the governor and council 
 at Laguna extends over all these outlying villages, the in 
 habitants of which consider the mother pueblo their official 
 home and repair thither, from time to time, for the joint celebra 
 tion of native religious ceremonies. I am indebted to John M. 
 Gunn of Laguna for several facts as to the pueblo and its history, 
 given in this chapter. 
 
Pottery seller, Isleta. 
 
LACUNA AND ISLETA 47 
 
 buyers that come to them, they quite regularly 
 make up bundles of the small pottery knickknack- 
 ery which tourists love, and boarding the train, 
 travel up to Albuquerque where the chances of 
 sale are more numerous than at Isleta. Isleta 
 pottery, by the way, is only good enough for 
 tourists. The clay of the neighbourhood is not of 
 the kind that makes first-class ware, and so, for 
 their own use, the Isletas buy the jars of Acoma. 
 In a land of poco tiempo, like New Mexico, there 
 are more appropriate methods of travel than by 
 train, and if you are at Albuquerque and have a 
 day and six or seven dollars to spare, you will be 
 doing the sensible thing by getting a team, put 
 ting a luncheon in your pocket, and driving the 
 dozen miles or so to the pueblo. Do not have a 
 driver ; there is no danger of missing the way, and 
 I never knew a hired driver yet that did not spoil 
 a trip he is always in such haste to get it over. 
 The road is a broad highway skirting the wide 
 waters of the Rio Grande, and is one of the most 
 picturesque in all the South- West, particularly in 
 the late autumn, when the great cottonwoods, 
 in their yellow glory, are lifted against the blue 
 sky like gold on turquoise. 
 
48 LAGUNA AND ISLETA 
 
 So, one morning, through the delicious October 
 sunshine did Sylvia and I fare to Isleta, traversing 
 a typical New Mexico farming country, where 
 drying chili-peppers streaked the landscape with 
 scarlet, and ragged shepherds tended bands of 
 sheep. Now and again we jogged through quaint 
 adobe villages, mellowed by time s kindly touch 
 and embowered in trees and shrubbery ; and where, 
 about the store porches, groups of Mexicans were 
 lounging picturesquely in the genial sunshine and, 
 perhaps, thinking a bit of what they should do on 
 the morrow ; for that day was too good to waste in 
 work. Other travellers passed us on the way to 
 Albuquerque, and men driving burros laden with 
 boxes of country produce touched their hats to 
 us and wished us Buenos dias. Once a Mexican 
 wedding party filed past us a string of buggies, 
 farm waggons, and other nondescript vehicles. In 
 the lead were the bride and groom in a buggy to 
 themselves, she looking seriously into a bouquet 
 in her hand and he silently regarding the road 
 between the horse s ears, while the end of the pro 
 cession was brought up by an open spring waggon, 
 in which the orchestra a violin, a flute, and a 
 guitar sat in chairs and weightily smoked cigar- 
 
LAGUNA AND ISLETA 49 
 
 ritos. It was a taciturn company altogether, and 
 we wondered if there had been a hitch in the pro 
 ceedings or if it was the fashion with Mexican 
 weddings to begin thus solemnly. 
 
 It was the time of the corn harvest and we found 
 Isleta literally buried under the drying ears of 
 many colours, spread out to sun upon the roofs, 
 and in the little plazitas before the houses, each 
 plazita with a neat pathway to the door, left in 
 the midst of the corn. We asked a woman looking 
 out from a doorway for permission to photograph 
 her yard full of corn, and she nodded acquiescence, 
 backing into the shadow of the room. As we 
 wanted her also in the picture, we invited her into 
 the light; but she still held back. American-like, 
 I thought she wanted to be paid. 
 
 " Diez centavos," said I, holding out a dime. 
 
 "No quiero," from the darkness. 
 
 "Dos reales," I bid up, showing a quarter. 
 
 "I no wish," repeated the darkness. 
 
 Then Sylvia stepped into the doorway and, 
 taking a seat that was hospitably proffered, 
 explained carefully our desire to make the picture 
 complete with an Isleta figure. Then the truth 
 came out. The woman, it seems, did not live in 
 
50 LACUNA AND ISLET A 
 
 that house; she was only a visitor and it was not 
 right for her to have her picture taken in another 
 woman s house. By and by, the other woman 
 would come home and maybe she would let us 
 photograph her in the door; for it was her own 
 house and that would be proper. 
 
 "But me, no," concluded the woman in a tone 
 that showed further parley hopeless. 
 
 On its architectural side, Isleta differs markedly 
 from the conventional pueblo, being built liberally 
 over a wide space, with great trees in and around 
 it, and the houses, as a rule, are of but one story 
 instead of being terraced. They are neat and 
 comfortable homes, furnished more or less on the 
 American plan, with bedsteads, tables, and chairs, 
 and now and then a chest of drawers. In most, 
 however, an Indian flavour is preserved by Navajo 
 rugs spread upon the floors or folded as mattresses 
 upon benches extending along the whitewashed 
 walls. The Isletenos are a thrifty community 
 and everything about their pueblo betokens it. 
 Proud and independent, they are, nevertheless, 
 not averse to American innovations of a certain 
 sort, when convinced of their suitability to Isleta, 
 and they know as much as you and I about mow- 
 
LACUNA AND ISLET A 51 
 
 ing-machines, for instance, and baling alfalfa. Like 
 all Pueblos, they work literally night and day 
 when the crops demand it ; when nothing is pressing 
 they have abundant leisure and know how to 
 enjoy it. 
 
 This explains our finding old Manuel Carpio 
 seated in his American chair in the sunshine of his 
 plazita, singing an aboriginal ditty at midday. 
 His corn was all in the house; his melons were 
 sliced and drying on the roof or jacketed in yucca 
 strips and swinging from the rafters indoors to 
 keep till winter; his chili -peppers were sunning in a 
 vivid row above the door; and had not his wife, at 
 that very moment, four fat sacks of wheat safe in 
 the little black storeroom where her wafer-bread 
 stones were set? There was something to sing 
 about; why should he not sing? Seeing us looking 
 through his bit of wicket gate, he beckoned us 
 within, called to his wife to fetch two more chairs, 
 and proceeded to find out, as well as our lame 
 Spanish would let him, where we came from, 
 where we were going, and how much Sylvia 
 would take for the fur boa which she wore about 
 her shoulders and which was evidently very 
 lovely in the eyes of both Manuel and his 
 
52 LACUNA AND ISLETA 
 
 spouse, for their eyes glistened as they handed 
 it from one to the other, stroking it longingly. 
 
 We shall always think of Isleta as a very honest 
 place; for, on leaving the Carpio home, Sylvia 
 forgot the boa, and before she had discovered the 
 loss, behold Martini ta running laughingly down 
 the street after us, holding out the coveted article 
 in her hand. Her Pueblo nature had merely seen 
 a great joke in what another might have seized 
 as an opportunity for theft of a coveted treasure. I 
 
 1 Isleta has been given a special place in literature through the 
 delightful stories of Charles F. Lummis, who spent some years 
 as an inhabitant of the village and had unusual opportunities to 
 become acquainted with the inner life of this most interesting 
 people. With unusual sympathy he has given expression to this 
 life in several of his books notably A New Mexico David, and 
 Pueblo Indian Folk Stories. 
 
Chapter V 
 
 Of the THree Pvieblos of tKe Jemez River Valley, 
 and SomewHat of JoHn Pavil, tKe CowHead 
 
 IT was a little after seven on a frosty October 
 morning when the Overland deposited me at 
 Bernalillo and I looked into the welcoming 
 Spanish face of Juan Pablo Cabeza de Vaca, who 
 was there in response to my telegram sent the day 
 before. Nearby stood his team of two natty 
 little mares and an open buggy. Juan Pablo 
 himself was attired in his Sunday best and wore a 
 new, wide-brimmed sombrero with a wonderful 
 hat-band. He was about to make ten dollars 
 or possibly fifteen, and the occasion warranted 
 some outlay for personal adornment. 
 
 "Little cold weather this morning, " he observed 
 affably, as we climbed into the buggy. "You 
 want to Jemez 1 no?" 
 
 I answered : Yes, by way of Santa Ana and Sia. 
 
 1 Pronounced Ha -mess. 
 
 53 
 
54 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 "Bueno," he replied, pulling on his gauntlets 
 and picking up the lines. "Let s go!" 
 
 Trotting jauntily through the wide, leisurely 
 streets of the picturesque old county town, where 
 no one was yet stirring, past the court-house, and 
 down the shady lane behind the padre s, we came 
 out upon a bleak little bridge that here spans the 
 treacherous current of the Rio Grande. Crossing 
 upon this and climbing a steep grade, we topped a 
 broad mesa, sunburnt and wind-swept. There 
 before us, mile upon mile, stretched white, desert 
 sands, and far on the north horizon Cabezon 
 lifted his dim, round head by the Rio Puerco ol the 
 Navajos. 
 
 Somewhere at our backs along the willow- 
 fringed river, not far from where we had crossed, 
 Coronado s army, three hundred and seventy 
 years ago, spent their first New Mexico winter, 
 quartering themselves in an Indian pueblo, from 
 which the inhabitants were obliged to turn out and 
 double up with their friends in an adjoining village. 
 According to the Spanish chronicles, there were 
 at that time a dozen pueblos in that vicinity, the 
 largest being known as Tiguex. The result of an 
 idle army of adventurers wintering in their midst 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 55 
 
 was what the reader of American history will know 
 without being told first rapine and ravishment 
 by the whites, then retaliation by the outraged 
 Pueblos, and finally a wholesale slaughter of In 
 dians to teach the rest a lesson. 
 
 Coronado s lieutenant, Alvarado, the first white 
 man to see the Tiguex country, which this October 
 morning I looked down upon, described the region 
 as a broad plain by the river, "sown with corn 
 plants" a description measurably apt to-day, as 
 Juan Pablo showed me. Pointing with his whip 
 up-stream, where the river came flowing out of the 
 east through yellowing willows and cotton woods, 
 as between ribbons of gold, he said, 
 
 "You see some corn stalks? That is Ranchitos 
 de Sant Ana the little ranches of Santa Ana, you 
 say. The Sant Ana Indians they have a summer 
 pueblo there along the river, and raise everything 
 they eat, because the old pueblo land back in the 
 desert where we go, no good for crops. They haul 
 everything back to the old pueblo to eat up in 
 winter time; then, in the spring, move down again 
 at the river and raise some more. Pretty soon we 
 see people hauling corn for old pueblo. After- 
 while come winter" and Juan Pablo shivered 
 
56 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 dramatically "and everybody from Ranchitos 
 go to old pueblo for stay. Lots of work that 
 makes, no? but what else can they do? Old 
 pueblo good for stay in. Ranchitos good for 
 crops. You see?" 
 
 As we passed over the next hill and down into a 
 huge basin in the sand-dunes, waterless as Sahara, 
 Juan Pablo s prediction was realised and we over 
 hauled a train of laden Studebaker waggons at 
 which teams of scrawny Indian ponies were tugging, 
 urged on by the cracking whips of half a dozen 
 picturesque Pueblos in flapping shirts and red 
 bandas, plunging afoot through the sand alongside. 
 There was a joke in the situation somewhere, and 
 Juan Pablo and the Indians bandied it about 
 among them with good-humoured laughter, until 
 we left them in the rear. As the talk was an 
 unintelligible mixture of Indian and Mexican, I 
 could only guess how funny it was; but doubtless 
 it was only a bit of the elemental joy of childhood, 
 which the Pueblo Indian never outgrows. 
 
 In an hour our wheels were crunching over the 
 broad flats of the Jemez River at Santa Ana, where 
 the white alkali fringed the river sides like a snow 
 fall. Fording the thread of a stream, we mounted 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 57 
 
 the hill past the picturesque Spanish church, and 
 halted in the deserted pueblo. Doors were pad 
 locked, windows boarded up, and the silence was so 
 oppressive that even the barking of the mongrel 
 dogs, which are the sentinels and scavengers of 
 every live Indian village, would have been wel 
 come. 
 
 "Everybody away at Ranchitos, like I said," 
 observed Juan Pablo. You like to walk around ? 
 
 When I returned from an uneventful pasear, 
 Juan Pablo had found a gossip an old Indian who, 
 it seems, was the village caretaker in the absence 
 of the population. He appeared anything but 
 easy with our presence there, even the solace of a 
 gift of tobacco failing to quiet him, and when, as 
 we were starting away, I opened my kodak to take 
 a picture of the village estufa, his suspicions were 
 thoroughly awakened. He put his finger hesitat 
 ingly on the camera and, leaning into the buggy, 
 asked in excited Spanish what we were doing. 
 
 "Brujeando," replied Juan Pablo calmly. 
 
 The poor Indian leaped back as if he were shot, 
 and flinging his arms up, cried, with fear depicted 
 on every line of his countenance : 
 
 " Vamos, vamos, vamos I" 
 
58 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 "What s it all mean?" I asked of Juan Pablo, 
 as we drove off. "What did you tell him?" 
 
 The descendant of the Cowhead grinned. 
 
 "He want to know what you do with that 
 machine. I told him you going to make witches 
 in the pueblo. He thought I was tell the truth 
 and was scare . Then he say get out !" 
 
 Which was to be expected; for belief in witch 
 craft is as active an influence among Pueblo In 
 dians to-day as it was among our own respected 
 forbears two or three centuries ago. 
 
 That the Santa Anas should shut up their pueblo 
 every spring and summer, as a millionaire closes 
 his city house, transport themselves, bag and 
 baggage, to their farming village by the river, and 
 every autumn haul their gathered crops laboriously 
 across ten miles of sandy, sun-scorched desert to 
 the pueblo again, is a striking illustration of the 
 love of home ingrained in the Indian nature. To 
 the Yankee mind, the obvious dictate of common- 
 sense would be to quit the worn-out desert land, 
 and settle permanently by the river, where soil is 
 tillable and water abundant. That would mean, 
 however, the severance of old associations, sacred 
 and personal, which bind their spirits mightily to 
 
II 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 59 
 
 the crumbling old pueblo where the desert voices 
 call. Of course, the Pueblo, under stress, does 
 leave his dead- the South -West is marked with 
 ruined terraced towns, which attest his rovings 
 long centuries since ; but adverse circumstance has 
 not yet been strong enough to make the people 
 of Santa Ana abandon the spot where their fathers 
 lived, died, and are buried. Thither they return 
 not only with the winter frosts, but on occasions 
 throughout the summer to bury their dead, and 
 to render thanksgiving and praise to the gods of 
 their destinies. 
 
 From Santa Ana it is six miles or so of desert 
 travelling to Sia, perched upon a Moqui-like 
 promontory jutting out above the Jemez River. 
 This is the most pathetic of all the pueblos, for it 
 knows it is fighting extinction. The ground upon 
 which it stands is a barren hill strewn with dark, 
 round stones of malpais, and before it and below, 
 extends the broad Jemez wash, winding mile after 
 mile, leprous white with alkali, among the dunes of 
 the desert. Far away on the north-eastern horizon 
 stretches the long chain of the Jemez Mountains 
 with their romance of the Cliff Dwellers buried 
 cities, and ancient shrines of a vanished people. 
 
60 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 Once among the finest and most populous of all 
 the pueblos, according to the chronicles of the 
 Conquistador es, who set it down as Chia, Sia is now 
 desolate, its population dwindled through wars 
 and epidemics to a bare hundred, its buildings in 
 partial ruin, and its light all but gone out. As we 
 drove in, the Governor, a fine-looking man in 
 orthodox Pueblo costume flapping, white, cotton 
 trousers and cotton shirt, worn blouse-like outside 
 of them, his head encircled with a red banda and 
 without a hat, his feet encased in home-made 
 moccasins came down to meet us and shook 
 hands hospitably. Most of the dwellings are 
 tenantless and, to the casual visitor, the place 
 seems hopelessly lifeless and uninteresting. Yet 
 here in moribund Sia a Government ethnologist, 
 not long ago, spent a year with the richest results, 
 enabling her to write one of the most illuminating 
 and readable scientific reports extant upon any of 
 the Pueblo communities. * 
 
 Apart from the pueblo at the foot of the mesa, 
 stands a small American building with a flagstaff 
 before it, betokening a schoolhouse. Government 
 Indian teachers, in my experience, are rather curt 
 
 1 The Sia, by Matilda Coxe Stevenson. 
 
Ysidro, Governor of Sia, in native attire. 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 61 
 
 towards self-invited visitors; but the one at Sia, to 
 my surprise, proved to be a real lady, who extended 
 me, stranger that I was, as cordial a welcome as 
 any Pueblo ever offered me, and that is the best 
 praise I know. Moreover, she possessed unusual 
 qualification, by virtue of sympathy with Pueblo 
 Indian nature, to teach this sensitive people. 
 
 " But it is sad business teaching here at Sia," she 
 remarked, "and watching the dying of a race. 
 They are so reduced in numbers, it is no longer 
 possible for them to keep up their institutions and 
 their healthfulness in the way their traditions re 
 quire them to do ; yet they would rather die out 
 as Sias than amalgamate with another pueblo. 
 The Santa Ana people would like them to go 
 over there, which would seem a sensible course, 
 strengthening both peoples ; but the Sias cannot 
 bring themselves to the surrender. It shows a 
 fine spirit, I think, and I cannot help honouring 
 them for it, suicidal as it is. At evening, as I sit 
 here on my porch, looking up at the pueblo there, 
 I often watch the old men walk along to that point 
 jutting into the river, and there they stand for the 
 longest time, looking pathetically out over the 
 desert and up and down the river, until the dark- 
 
62 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 ness shuts down on them. I always wonder what 
 their thoughts are : whether it is despair brooding 
 over a prosperous past for Sia was a great pueblo 
 once or hope in some promised saviour of their 
 people, whose coming may any time gladden their 
 eyes. But I am afraid it is only despair/ 
 
 The sun was near its setting as our brisk little 
 team splashed through the swift waters of the 
 upper Jemez River, seven miles beyond Sia, and 
 bore us into Jemez Pueblo, a homelike village 
 with a picturesque setting of mountains at its back 
 and a pleasant green valley dropping away before 
 it. The peaceful evening scene was typical Pueblo. 
 The smoke from indoor fires, where the evening 
 meals were preparing, rose straight from scores of 
 chimneys into the sweet, still air; fathers and 
 grandfathers sat at their doorways, nursing little 
 red babies as tenderly as ever women did, for to 
 the masculine Indian heart nothing is more pre 
 cious than the dimpled flesh of childhood; girls, 
 bearing water- jars upon their heads, pattered into 
 the pueblo from the river, and glad burros, dis 
 charged of their burdens, tripped it lightly into 
 their corrals. In the street before many houses 
 men were chopping wood, while from open doors 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 63 
 
 came the pleasant hum of the metate and the 
 fragrance of grinding corn; and through all rippled 
 the soft laughter of romping children, mingled, 
 now and then, with a scrap of song from some 
 grown-up s lips. 
 
 Jemez enjoys the blessing of a bountiful water 
 supply, which issues from the canons at its back. 
 Fruit orchards and vineyards extend down to the 
 river side, so that the menus of Jemez are as varied 
 as Isleta s, and in good years there is a surplus of 
 agricultural products to sell. To the tourist, a 
 picturesque feature of the pueblo is an establish 
 ment of Franciscan Brothers, set up here for the 
 conversion of the Indians, both Pueblo and Navajo, 
 in that corner of New Mexico. The Brothers, 
 clad in their brown gowns and cowls and wearing 
 the white cord of the order around their waists, 
 work in the fields and about the mission buildings, 
 and help us to picture that early day of the Spanish 
 occupancy which was for the avowed purpose of 
 seeing "that the Indians should become Christians 
 and know the true God for their Lord and His 
 Majesty the King of Spain for their earthly 
 sovereign." In return for their spiritual offices, 
 the Brothers collect from the Indians a tax in kind 
 
64 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 that is, chili, wheat, corn, etc. which is readily 
 converted into money at the trader s. 
 
 The trader, who has a room or two at the dis 
 posal of travellers, was eloquent to me in his esti 
 mation of his red clientele. He said that, in the 
 thirty years he had lived in the neighbourhood, 
 he had never heard of a man being killed in Jemez 
 pueblo, a record not likely to be equalled in any 
 American town of the same size, he thought. 
 
 "Of course," he remarked, "they have their 
 spats; but they talk it out, make up, and forget 
 about it. When it comes to farming, they are just 
 natural-born farmers and irrigators. There was a 
 government farmer here, paid to teach them; but 
 he could n t tell them much that would stick. And 
 when it comes to work in irrigating land, no white 
 man can stand up with them. The Indians just 
 take off all their clothes, except a breech-clout, and 
 wade right in. There is nothing about water that 
 buffaloes them and they don t want no dinky hoe, 
 neither. Why, bless you! you can t get a hoe 
 too big for them. There was an old scoop shovel 
 that I had here, lying about the place, which was 
 just naturally rusting away, and one of them In 
 dians come in one day and asked me if I would n t 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 65 
 
 let him have it. I said: Why, what in thunder 
 do you want of that?* Why, he says, it s 
 ueno for hoe. Why, you know, the thing was 
 nearly three feet across and I could n t see how he 
 could lift it; but he could and, next thing I knew, 
 he d made a peach of a hoe out of it. 
 
 "Religious? Well, they don t mind belongin 
 to the Catholic Church. You see, the Catholics 
 don t particularly interfere with their native 
 religion, which is the only religion that really goes 
 down with them, and they never let up on that. 
 All through the year, they have their own religious 
 dances. There is one that comes in January that 
 would pay you to come out to see. It is a dance 
 of animals buffaloes, antelopes, and turkeys. 
 They call it Los Reyes that s Spanish for 
 Kings. There is a story that once some dancers, 
 way back, turned into animals, and these Jemez 
 folks think that they are liable to come home every 
 year; so they go out at the time of this dance early 
 in the morning, before sunrise, and after watching 
 a. bit on the mesa back of the pueblo, they come 
 down to the plaza and dance all day. Every 
 morning there s something doing out on that 
 mesa, I think; because the Indian priests go up 
 
 5 
 
66 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 there and what goes on we white folks don t know ; 
 but it has something to do with their religion. 
 The Presbyterians started a mission here once and 
 they sure worked hard for several years; but all it 
 netted them was one convert. He was a black 
 smith here was n t no good, anyhow, and finally 
 stole a man s gun and got arrested, and then the 
 Presbyterians excommunicated him. After that, 
 they decided to let Jemez go to Hades its own way. 
 
 "Drinking? Well, of course they do some 
 drinking; but it is mostly their own wine. They 
 have lots of vineyards around here and make wine 
 and barrel it up, and as long as it lasts, of course, 
 they drink it. But I don t know as it harms them 
 much. It certainly is n t as bad as sulphuric acid 
 whiskey that they would get from the bootleggers. 
 The big fiesta that they have on the twelfth of 
 November, which is their Saint s Day, is very apt 
 to wind up in a jollification when they all get 
 drunk, and I suppose it would be better if they 
 did n t ; but I don t know how it is going to be 
 stopped. That is a big show you ought to see it : 
 all sorts here, Navajos, Apaches, Mexicans, and 
 Indians from other pueblos. " 
 
 Shortly after supper, the trader closed up his 
 
JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 67 
 
 store and he and I adjourned to his living room to 
 enjoy the warmth of an open wood fire. There 
 we were joined by an itinerant chili buyer who had 
 been over at the Brothers house negotiating for 
 their stock of chili. 
 
 "They re sports all right, " he said, as he bit off 
 the end of a cigar and stretched out his feet toward 
 the grateful warmth. "They don t stand on no 
 two-and-a-half cents a string like some folks I 
 know" (with a wink at me and a jerk of his head 
 toward the imperturbable trader), "and they 
 always set out a bottle of wine. " 
 
 "You bet these Pueblo Indians ain t half a 
 bad lot," said the trader, as though he had not 
 heard. "I say they re one o the best assets that 
 this country has. They re hard workers by night 
 just the same as by day, when the moon s right an 
 the crops need it; and then, when they can be 
 spared from the pueblo, lots of em go up to 
 Colorado and work in the fields there at wages. I 
 sometimes think they just naturally like to work, 
 the way they joke and laugh about it when a white 
 man d just swear and sweat sulphur; but, say, 
 they sure are funny to trade with. You know, 
 it s Indian nature to be close-mouthed. If you 
 
68 JEMEZ VALLEY PUEBLOS 
 
 want to get any information out of an Indian, it s 
 no use asking him straight questions like you 
 would a white man. He just plumb shuts up. 
 And it s the same way when he comes to trade 
 with you. You got to let him tell what he has to 
 tell when he s ready. Just for instance one 
 come into the store to-day and asked for a spool o 
 thread. I knew it was n t no use to ask him what 
 kind of thread he wanted; so I guessed black fifty 
 and set it out. He shook his head and said he 
 wanted big thread. So I guessed again and put 
 out black number eight. No bueno, he said and 
 handed it back. Blanco, he says, meaning white. 
 So I handed him out a spool o white thread and 
 that stuck. You see, that took up about five 
 minutes of my time and his; but it was interestin 
 and time s nothing to an Indian. " 
 
.5 3 
 
 ". *rt 
 
 - 
 
Chapter VI 
 
 Of OtHer Pueblos of tKe Upper Rio Grande, and 
 How Santiago Quintana Travelled for Shells. 
 
 WITHIN a distance of about fifty miles 
 east of Albuquerque, along the Rio 
 Grande, is a chain of four pueblos, 
 three of which are plainly visible from the train 
 and contribute their quota to the entertainment 
 of the car window traveller. 
 
 The first of these is Sandia, in the shadow of the 
 Sierra de Sandia, beyond which, near Cerrillos, are 
 the ancient turquoise mines of the Pueblos. Sandia 
 is a moribund little place whose present population 
 is only about seventy-five and half its houses are 
 tumbledown or transformed into corrals and store 
 rooms. It presents little interest to the casual 
 visitor, but is rather important in its own estima 
 tion at the time of the autumn harvests, when it 
 enjoys a brief heyday of prosperity through the 
 selling of corn and alfalfa to itinerant Mexican 
 buyers who frequent the pueblo at that time. 
 
 69 
 
70 SANDIA TO COCHITI 
 
 After the Pueblo revolt against the Spanish rule 
 in 1680, the Sandians for some reason so the old 
 men say vacated their pueblo and moved to 
 Moqui. A half century later, they returned to the 
 old home, whether on account of the aridity of 
 Moqui or because the voices of the past irresistibly 
 called them, the historians do not say. However, 
 they did not prosper ; and ill-fortune, in the Pueblo 
 philosophy, means that the spell of witchcraft is 
 on you. So Sandia settled down to witch-baiting 
 so earnestly and so successfully that, to-day, there 
 are not only no witches there, but almost nobody 
 else. 
 
 The next in order of this chain of pueblos is San 
 Felipe on the opposite bank of the Rio Grande. 
 You may, if you choose, drop off the train at a 
 flag station within two or three miles of the pueblo 
 and walk to the river, taking your chances of being 
 ferried across by a team or pillioned behind some 
 passing horseman. For myself, I found it more 
 agreeable to leave the train at Bernalillo and 
 engage Juan Pablo to drive me ten miles up the 
 pleasant valley of the Rio Grande, through its 
 rustling "corn plants" and its whispering willows. 
 
 After an hour of this, our proximity to the 
 
SANDIA TO COCHITI 71 
 
 pueblo was indicated by our meeting Indians, 
 sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, some 
 times in Studebaker waggons, on their way to the 
 trader s tienda beneath the shady cottonwoods at 
 Algodones. One old man in his bright red banda 
 and clubbed chongo, his old-fashioned, flapping, 
 cotton pantaloons and moccasins, was such a good 
 picture of the ancient Pueblo type that we bar 
 gained with him for his retrato. He was at first 
 reluctant to consent; but when some of his 
 brethren from the pueblo, travelling the same road, 
 were out of sight behind a bend in the highway, he 
 courageously agreed to accept a quarter and stand 
 for the picture, but was manifestly nervous until 
 the operation was over, lest some one else should 
 appear and catch him posing. 
 
 No one greeted us in San Felipe, as we drove 
 past the old Spanish church with its twin towers 
 and neatly- walled campo santo in front; for, being 
 harvest time, most of the men of the pueblo were 
 away in their fields, gathering their crops, and the 
 streets were all but deserted. There was a mur 
 mur of childish voices from the little school where 
 the tired, anxious-faced teacher was endeavouring 
 to drill her very cheerful little charges in the 
 
72 SANDIA TO COCHITI 
 
 rudiments of American education; and there was 
 Rosario Sanchez, the village policeman, walking 
 importantly about the pueblo, peering into sus 
 picious corners for the purpose of discovering and 
 rounding up such truants as were disposed to bolt 
 the paths of knowledge. Now and then a girl 
 passed by from the river, with her water-jar 
 dripping on her head, and shyly kept in the shade 
 as much as possible, so that any designs that the 
 stranger might have upon her with the camera 
 should be frustrated. An old man with one baby 
 in the blanket at his back and another tagging 
 alongside crossed the sunny plaza singing an 
 Indian song doubtless an expression of the joy 
 in his heart, but doubtless also with the ulterior 
 view of instructing the little fellow at his side in 
 some traditional melody of his people. In the 
 sunshine before one of the houses, a shell-bead 
 maker was rubbing upon a whetstone the bits of 
 shell which he had broken up into small sizes and 
 which, after being thus ground into proper shape, 
 would be bored and made suitable for stringing 
 with his primitive pump-drill that hung by the 
 doorway. On some of the housetops women were 
 spreading out ears of corn and round, fat melons 
 
A Pueblo woman bearing water home from the well. Open-air ovens 
 in background. 
 
SAND I A TO COCHITI 73 
 
 to dry in the hot sunshine, and upon the outer 
 walls of almost every house hung brilliant strings 
 of chili. 
 
 "A nice pueblo, this, " I said to a man who came 
 out of a doorway. 
 
 "Nice?" he replied, puzzled. "Nice? Quien 
 sabe nice*?" 
 
 Then I said: "Bueno pueblo," and he said: 
 " Oh, bueno, si, " and laughed as though it were a 
 great joke that "nice" should mean "bueno. " 
 
 It was all a quiet, homelike scene and the people 
 themselves were so evidently in full enjoyment of 
 life that the sight would certainly have been a 
 surprise to some concerned philanthropists three 
 thousand miles off, who are anxious to change all 
 aboriginal ways and to instil into the Pueblo mind 
 the principles of the "higher life," ignorant or 
 unobservant of the fact that these red brethren of 
 ours have already chosen the simple path of a wis 
 dom that is marked with pleasantness and peace. 
 
 When the sun was straight overhead, marking 
 high noon, I looked about for Juan Pablo, and 
 found him comfortably seated in one of the houses 
 upon a low stool and partaking of a hearty lunch 
 spread upon the floor. There were frijoles, tor- 
 
74 SAND I A TO COCHITI 
 
 tillas, a fried egg or two, and a cup of black coffee, 
 while in the three-cornered fireplace, there were 
 warming more frijoles and coffee and tortillas of 
 which a pleasant-faced matron smilingly invited 
 me to partake without charge. From the rafters 
 overhead hung a score of watermelons, each 
 snugly harnessed in strips of soap weed, tied at the 
 bottom into a neat bow like a necktie. There 
 they would hang well into the winter and would 
 be an item of refreshment in the wintry menu of 
 dried things. 
 
 As we ate, it seemed a fitting opportunity to 
 obtain enlightenment on a point in New Mexico 
 cookery that had never been clear in my mind, so 
 I said to Juan Pablo as he dreamily sipped his 
 black coffee: 
 
 "What is an enchilada?" 
 
 "It is something you make of bread and meat, 
 chop up with chili, and all cook together. " 
 
 "Do you have tamales in New Mexico?" I 
 continued. 
 
 "For sure," he replied with a joyful smile. 
 
 "How are they made?" 
 
 "Well, senor, they re made of some bread and 
 chop meat, an chili cook together." 
 
SANDIA TO COCHITI 75 
 
 "In California we have tamales," I said; "but 
 we use corn-meal not bread and wrap all up in 
 a corn-husk before cooking. You don t do that 
 with your tamales?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, we wrap all that in the corn-husk and 
 we use corn -meal, too." 
 
 "Then how about the enchilada? Is that 
 wrapped in a corn-husk?" 
 
 "Si, senor, that wrap in the corn-husk." 
 
 "Well," said I, "what is the difference, then, 
 between the enchilada and the tamale?" 
 
 "Well, senor, it is thees way: enchilada and 
 tamale very much alike; but they re a leetle 
 different, too, senor. " 
 
 Then Juan Pablo, his luncheon finished, took a 
 square piece of corn-husk from his pocket and 
 reflectively scraped a little tobacco upon it, which, 
 with deft fingers, he twirled into a cigarrito. 
 
 "Leetle warm weather to-day, senor, no?" he 
 observed, looking through the doorway into the 
 sun. 
 
 Another ten miles to the east, built upon flat 
 bottom lands of the Rio Grande, is Santo Do 
 mingo. Among all the pueblos this is the only one 
 that we had heard spoken of as showing inhos- 
 
76 SANDIA TO COCHITI 
 
 pitality towards white visitors. This attitude, so 
 far as it is a fact, is due probably to the deep- 
 rooted aversion of these people to having their 
 pictures taken, and picture- taking is a white man s 
 habit. Even artists with the brush, whose guile 
 less presence in freakish clothing beneath white 
 umbrellas is tolerated and even enjoyed in other 
 pueblos because of their aboriginal love of colour 
 even artists have been denied the privilege of 
 painting in the streets of Santo Domingo and have 
 been summarily escorted without the walls. As 
 for the man with a camera he is a very child of 
 the devil to these primitive folk, and if he attempts 
 to operate his infernal machine there, he is apt to 
 have it smashed and himself ejected. Such being 
 Santo Domingo s views upon American art, Sylvia 
 and I decided that it would be best to bow to them ; 
 so paint-box and camera were left behind when we 
 drove over to the pueblo. 
 
 Whether or not our manifestly free hands and 
 air of conscious innocence had a mollifying in 
 fluence, I cannot say ; but, in point of hospitality, 
 we certainly had nothing to complain of. It was 
 the day after the Feast of the Dead, which is a 
 fiesta in all Roman Catholic pueblos, held annually 
 
SANDIA TO COCHITI 77 
 
 on the second of November; and in every home we 
 entered, coffee, meat, and bread were set before 
 us and we were expected, for the nonce, to make 
 that home ours. At one house a watermelon was 
 presented to us as we rose to go and water 
 melons, you must know, are among the choicest 
 of earth s fruits to the Indian, not to be lightly 
 parted with. 1 
 
 It is not only in its antagonism to cameras and 
 brushes that Santo Domingo s conservatism is 
 manifested. The encroachments of the American 
 school-teacher are even more distasteful, though 
 less easily dealt with. The resistance to white 
 education had led, at the time of our visit, to the 
 abandonment of the local day-school within the 
 pueblo; but the result of this has merely been 
 the transference of the children to the Govern 
 ment s big boarding-school at Santa Fe. Much 
 as the pueblo authorities deplore this, they can- 
 
 1 Frederick Starr in his delightful volume for young people, 
 American Indians, notes a similar cordi ality of welcome at Santo 
 Domingo. "The old governor of the pueblo," he says, "rode 
 out to meet us and learn who we were and what we wanted. On 
 explaining that we were strangers who only wished to see the 
 town, we were taken directly to his house on the town square. 
 His old wife hastened to put before us cakes and coffee. After 
 we had eaten, we were given full permission to look around. " 
 
78 SAND I A TO COCHITI 
 
 not help themselves, for the arm of the United 
 States Indian Bureau is longer than the longest 
 in Santo Domingo. 
 
 In the matter of dress, too, the Santo Domin- 
 gans conservative taste is manifested; for they 
 still cling tenaciously to many of the old fashions 
 which, under the influence of contact with the 
 whites, are fast disappearing from most of the 
 other pueblos. Especially is this noticeable in 
 the attire of the women, who are often beautiful of 
 countenance, and, as a class, are finely developed 
 physically, and who still wear the quaint, sleeve 
 less mania, or garment of one piece, which leaves 
 one shoulder bare and reaches a little below the 
 knee. The fashion is precisely what Castaneda, 
 writing of Coronado s expedition in 1540, has 
 recorded : l The women wear blankets which they 
 tie or knot over the left shoulder, leaving the right 
 arm out." 
 
 Another feature of Santo Domingo, which is to 
 be credited to the conservatism of its guiding 
 spirits, is the sustained Indian quality of its 
 ceremonial dances. August 4th is the date of the 
 principal public fiesta of the year, and it ranks in 
 beauty and in general interest with the religious 
 
SAND I A TO COCHITI 79 
 
 ceremonies of Moqui, Zufii, and Taos. The ac 
 cessibility of Santo Domingo from Santa Fe and 
 Albuquerque draws to this fiesta great crowds of 
 Americans, Mexicans, and Indians of various 
 kinds, who make a scene as picturesque in its way 
 as the dance itself. 
 
 The fourth of the pueblos with which this 
 chapter deals is Cochiti. It is a small place now, 
 ten miles or so up the river from Santo Domingo 
 and far out of sight from the railroad. It has 
 become so much Mexicanised that if you were to 
 drop into it without knowing where you were, you 
 would not be likely to take it for a pueblo at all, 
 but, rather, for an ordinary Mexican town. The 
 houses, one-story structures, are scattered about 
 without much system, and very close to the en 
 trance of the pueblo is a hideous one of frame, 
 painted blue with a red roof the handiwork, we 
 were told, of a Carlisle student. Any pueblo that 
 tolerates within it a house like that is condemned 
 out of its own mouth. 
 
 The Cochiti Indians, what is left of them, are 
 very hospitable and seem disposed to let the wave 
 of Americanism wash over and engulf them without 
 much protest on their part. The girls and women 
 
8o SAND I A TO COCHITI 
 
 are quite as likely to be found dressed in calico 
 skirts and shirt-waists as in their native costume 
 and have abandoned very largely the beautiful 
 tinajas of their people for store buckets and lard 
 pails in which they lug water from the river, by 
 the hand, American- wise. They appear, on the 
 whole, rather spiritless. They will even allow you 
 to take their pictures without bargaining and are 
 grateful for ten cents, if you care to give it to 
 them, for the privilege. 
 
 But even in Cochiti, the protest against Ameri 
 canism is not entirely dead. There is Santiago 
 Quintana, for instance. Santiago is a mucho rabio, 
 who, in the councils of his people, stands vigor 
 ously for the old order. We found him a lively 
 old man, in flapping trousers and buckskin moc 
 casins, and a discontented Mexican, whom we 
 encountered loitering about the pueblo, informed 
 us that things would be much easier for outsiders 
 when Santiago was once dead and buried ; that he 
 was a stubborn old fool. He seemed to us, how 
 ever, just a kindly old Pueblo, who loved the 
 ways of his fathers and wanted to see them main 
 tained as the gods of Cochiti had directed. His 
 eyes sparkled when we told him that we were from 
 
SAND I A TO COCHITI 81 
 
 California, and he plunged vivaciously into an ac 
 count of a trip which, as a young man, he made 
 thither in quest of the great water where the shells 
 are cast up, which every true Pueblo prizes as the 
 white man prizes pearls. He travelled all the way 
 on foot, driving a pack burro before him, across 
 deserts and over mountains, with leisurely stops 
 by the way, and three moons had waxed and 
 waned by the time he caught sight of the Pacific. 
 Old as he was he looked to be seventy that 
 marvellous journey was to him as if it had ended 
 but yesterday. He was as familiar with the names 
 of San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, 
 and San Luis Obispo as we were; and of the 
 picturesque old pastoral life of California, which 
 exists now only in books, Santiago knew infinitely 
 more than we ever shall, for he was for two years a 
 part of it. As he could stick to a horse s back like a 
 Navajo, he found occupation as vaguer o on some of 
 the big Spanish ranches which, half a century ago, 
 were still untouched by the real-estate agent and 
 the subdivider, and he must have laid by money, 
 for his return was not afoot but on horse-back. 
 
 "And Cochiti looked finer to you than ever 
 when you got back, did it not?" we asked senti- 
 
82 SANDIA TO COCHITI 
 
 mentally. " There s no place equal to Cochiti, 
 is there?" 
 
 "Yes, there is," he answered unexpectedly, 
 " California much better, bonito campo, mucho 
 trigo t fruto t sandia, ah, sandia!" (beautiful county, 
 much wheat, fruit, and watermelons, ah, the 
 watermelons!). "But here in Cochiti are all my 
 people, my cousins, my brothers, my friends, 
 my children these are all in Cochiti and here 
 my fathers lived ; so Santiago Quintana he lives in 
 Cochiti." 
 
 If you are ever at Cochiti, it will be worth your 
 while to make a trip into the magnificent moun 
 tain region north of the pueblo lands where numer 
 ous ancient remains, attesting the romantic past 
 of the Cochiti community, are to be found such 
 as the sculptured mountain lions of the Potrero de 
 las Vacas, the rock paintings of La Cueva Pintada, 
 and the marvellous ruins of the Cave City on the 
 Rito de los Frijoles. Perhaps Santiago will guide 
 
 1 This region, now under Governmental care, is more expedi- 
 tiously reached by automobile from Santa Fe, if you like travelling 
 to ruins by such conveyance. The Institute of Archaeology of 
 that city has been active for some years past in uncovering and, 
 to some degree, restoring the remains of this ancient city in 
 the Frijoles Canon, one of the most complete and interesting 
 ruins of the South- West. 
 
SAND I A TO COCHITI 83 
 
 you, or, if not, Natividad Arquero or another; but 
 go, and when you return you will never again talk 
 of America s lack of ancient ruins or of a past with 
 out human interest. This region, rich beyond 
 words in natural beauty and in archaeological 
 interest, was first made known to the world by 
 that sterling ethnologist, Adolph F. Bandelier, 
 who made Cochiti his home for years, and whose 
 romance, The Delight Makers, embodies in the 
 form of fiction a wealth of information about 
 Pueblo Indians and their ancestors of the cliff 
 dwellings. 
 
Chapter VII 
 
 Of Certain Pueblos near Santa Fe 
 
 THE tourist in Santa Fe who has a few spare 
 days upon his hands may entertain him 
 self very pleasantly by hiring a team, or an 
 automobile if he prefers it, and visiting the half 
 dozen Indian pueblos which are within easy reach 
 of New Mexico s ancient capital. 
 
 Nearest is Tesuque, of which some mention has 
 already been made, but which will increase in 
 interest with acquaintance. It is an unobserving 
 traveller who does not see something new upon 
 each succeeding visit to an Indian town; for the 
 Pueblo does not wear his heart upon his sleeve and 
 by no means shows at first meeting all that he is. 
 
 The proximity of Tesuque to Santa Fe nine 
 miles has not been altogether good for Tesuque. 
 The constant contact with traders and tourists 
 has developed a decidedly commercial quality in 
 this people, and they are paying much more at- 
 
 8 4 
 
PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 85 
 
 tention to the manufacture of indifferent curios 
 for an undiscriminating tourist trade than to any 
 serious prosecution of their native arts. Neverthe 
 less, it is interesting to watch the moulding of such 
 things as the imitation American pipes and tipsy 
 vases, wobbly match-trays, and those hideous 
 monstrosities, the rain gods, which are in every 
 curio store in the South-West; and to see the 
 returned scholars labouring at the bead-work 
 which has been taught them in the Government 
 school as a suitable and remunerative vocation 
 for Pueblo artists. Such occupations are carried 
 on in the common living-room of the family, while 
 the hum of the metate fills the house with its dull 
 monotone, and the slumbering baby, strapped 
 securely on his padded board cradle, suspended by 
 thongs from rafters in the ceiling, swings slowly 
 back and forth. 
 
 At Tesuque, more than at any other pueblo, we 
 found our presence mainly tolerable in proportion 
 to our willingness to spend money, and we got 
 more than one ugly look when we declined to pay 
 two prices for the indifferent wares that were 
 plentifully set before us. Yet it was not so at all 
 houses in many we found still the simple, uncal- 
 
86 PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 
 
 culating hospitality of the unspoiled Indian, as at 
 the home of Juanita Chinana. Her kind eyes 
 took note of us as we sat at luncheon on a log in 
 the shade of her man s corral, and she brought 
 from her house two chairs for us to sit on, while 
 her son pulled down a flake of alfalfa for our 
 Dobbin. He looked surprised at the silver coin 
 which we tendered him he was still too unso 
 phisticated to expect payment for ministering to 
 the wants of the stranger even though uninvited 
 within the gates. 
 
 The date of Tesuque s annual public fiesta, 
 November I2th, is one of Santa Fe s gala days, and 
 the road thence to the pueblo is crowded that 
 morning with carriages, farm waggons, bicycles, 
 horses, and automobiles, carrying visitors to the 
 festivities. The character of this Indian dance 
 differs in different years, but is always interesting, 
 and, with the preceding mass and church proces 
 sion, consumes the greater part of a day. Sitting 
 on a housetop looking down on the great plaza at 
 the dancers in their beautiful, barbaric costumes 
 and kaleidoscopic colour, and on the encircling 
 spectators, most of whom are Mexicans in more or 
 less gay attire, we seem to be looking at a foreign 
 
A Tesuque mother and baby. The child is asleep in the cradle 
 swinging by cords from beams in the ceiling. 
 
PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 87 
 
 scene, so unlike is it to what we associate with our 
 United States. The intoxication at Tesuque on 
 these occasions is often a distressing concomitant 
 of the novel beauty of the ceremonies, and at the 
 time of our last visit, many of the Indian spectators 
 were maudlin drunk before noon. The dancers 
 themselves, however, were entirely sober and 
 seemingly suitably impressed with the solemnity 
 of the religious rite in which they were engaged; 
 but it seems the debauch with them was simply 
 postponed. When the shadows drew long across 
 the plaza, and the dancers finally disappeared into 
 their ceremonial chamber, we asked an Indian 
 standing near us if there was anything more to 
 come. 
 
 "No," he replied ingenuously, "nothing more 
 now except to get drunk. " 
 
 About ten miles from Tesuque, beneath the 
 shoulder of the snow-capped -Santa Fe "Baldy, " 
 is nestled the pretty little pueblo of Nambe. Time 
 was when there was a good deal doing at Nambe, 
 which, like Sandia, had an evil reputation in the 
 matter of witches; but those strenuous days are 
 now past and the little place is very much Mexi- 
 canised and down at the heel, and its atmosphere 
 
88 PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 
 
 is rather melancholy. Nevertheless, the old Pueblo 
 spirit is still there and on their annual fiesta, 
 which takes place on October 4th, they render their 
 public dance with a half dozen participants, just 
 as joyously as though there were as many hundred. 
 
 The country all about this pueblo is thickly 
 settled by Mexicans whose lands are close up to 
 the pueblo walls, and it will probably not be long 
 before Nambe will become as thoroughly swallowed 
 up by these neighbours of Spanish blood as the 
 extinct pueblo of Pojuaque, l five miles farther 
 down the Nambe River. Pojuaque, when its 
 population had dwindled to ten, decided to quit ; 
 and two or three years ago, the little remnant 
 moved to Nambe, and now the looker-on in 
 Pojuaque sees nothing to indicate that it ever was 
 an Indian pueblo. 
 
 If you are travelling by carriage and that is 
 the ideal plan of travel among the pueblos you 
 will find Pojuaque a convenient stopping-place for 
 the night; and if you do stop there, you might do 
 worse than lodge at Senora Bouquet s, whose long, 
 rambling establishment, part residence, part store, 
 and part stable, is set there by the road. The 
 
 1 Pronounced Po-hwa ka. 
 
PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 89 
 
 Senora is the Spanish widow of a French husband 
 "Old Man" Bouquet of fragrant memory. You 
 will remember him if you have ever read Thomas 
 A. Janvier s story, Santa Fes Partner. There is a 
 famous well, embowered like a shrine among trees, 
 just across the road from the house, and you must 
 compliment the Senora upon the deliciousness of 
 its waters; for there is no finer in New Mexico. 
 You will enjoy a stroll through her garden of fruit 
 trees, too a thousand of them, she will tell you, 
 which she herself planted with her own hands 
 when she came to Pojuaque, a bride ah, how 
 many years ago, quien sabe? and now many are 
 grown so big she cannot put her arm around 
 them. 
 
 From Pojuaque a few miles through a lonely, 
 sun-scorched plain, un tilled and untillable, gashed 
 and ditched by a thousand dry arroyos and bar 
 rancas, and you come again to the Rio Grande 
 and the pueblo of San Ildefonso, with its liberal 
 plaza, an ancient cot ton wood in the midst. The pic- 
 turesqueness of the pueblo has suffered in the last 
 year or two by the erection of a barn-like Roman 
 Catholic edifice within it, replacing the historic 
 church of adobe, which, dating from the time of the 
 
9 o PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 
 
 early Spaniards, had become unsafe. 1 Looking 
 down upon the pueblo is a huge, flat-topped moun 
 tain of black lava the Mesa Huerfana, as the 
 Mexicans call it, that is, "The Orphan." Upon 
 its summit San Ildefonso sought refuge when, 
 after the bloody Pueblo uprising in 1680, the 
 avenging army of De Vargas appeared on the 
 other side of the Rio Grande. The siege of the 
 Black Mesa lasted nine months off and on, accord 
 ing to Lummis, the beleaguered Indians resisting 
 four assaults upon their Gibraltar-like fortress; 
 but Spaniards, in those days, were of a mettle 
 hard to conquer and the San Ildefonsans were 
 finally brought to knee. They had gone up free 
 men of the plain, but they came down vassals of 
 the Spanish King. The San Ildefonso which we 
 know to-day, at the foot of that black mount of 
 humiliation, is not the original pueblo; that stood 
 across the river. 
 
 As at Nambe, the Mexican invasion of San 
 Ildefonso has begun and is, little by little, en 
 croaching upon the distinctive Pueblo features of 
 
 1 In that ancient church, it is stated by Bandelier, Jean rArche"- 
 veque, who betrayed the French explorer La Salle to his death, 
 was married in 1719 to a Spanish lady. 
 
PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 91 
 
 the place. The Indians are very hospitably dis 
 posed to white visitors, kindly and good-humoured, 
 and our memory of their home by the great river 
 is full of the joyous laughter of children, which 
 even the dull tasks of the Government day school 
 at the town s edge have not quenched. 
 
 "Yes," sighed the schoolmistress in charge at 
 the time of one of our visits an elderly New Eng- 
 landish spinster upon whom the responsibility of 
 her lively pupils lay very heavy "that s one 
 trouble with them they are too happy. If they 
 only realised their real condition in life, there would 
 be some hope of their improving. " 
 
 Eight miles up the river from San Ildefonso is 
 the Americo-Mexican village of Espanola, where 
 you may put up your tired team and rent a room 
 from Shorty. Shorty, the Boniface of Espanola, 
 is a spectacled gentleman of middle age and five 
 feet three, stouter than is safe to be, red-visaged, 
 and during our acquaintance with him, never 
 known to be separated from a half-chewed cigar 
 gripped in the corner of his mouth. He keeps a 
 saloon for the bibulous, while " Mamma" ministers 
 to the pangs of the hungry by running in the rear 
 of the premises a dining-room of an excellence far 
 
92 PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 
 
 above what the surroundings would lead one to 
 expect. Here at Espanola you are within easy 
 reach of the wonderful cliff of Puye, with its 
 ancient cavate dwellings and its buried pueblo; 
 and you are not far from Chamita, the site of the 
 first Spanish settlement in all New Mexico; nor 
 from Abiquiu of the Penitentes; nor from Sanc- 
 tuario, famous for miracles. Near at hand, too, 
 are the Indian pueblos of Santa Clara and San 
 Juan, as well as San Ildefonso, which has just 
 been mentioned. 
 
 Santa Clara, indeed, is within after-supper 
 walking distance, and there is no pleasanter time 
 of day than day s close to visit the place. The 
 pueblo is on a sandy dune, a mile or two south of 
 Espanola, overlooking the Rio Grande, which 
 here winds its muddy course through sunny, green 
 bottom lands before disappearing around the 
 Black Mesa of San Ildefonso, to be swallowed up 
 in the wild gorge of the Pena Blanca Canon above 
 Cochiti. Beyond the river, the jagged peaks of 
 the Sangre de Cristo Sierra lift themselves against 
 the sky the Truchas, the Santa Fe "Baldy, " and 
 the cratered Peak of the Lakes, exceeding 12,000 
 feet and often snow-clad even in summer. Bande- 
 
PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 93 
 
 Her, in one of his New Mexico papers, vividly 
 describes the beauty of this scene. 
 
 If one stands in the evening [he writes], when the 
 sun is setting and the shadows are already cast over 
 the valleys, on the swell above the church of Santa 
 Clara, he will see the snow-peaks glowing for a little 
 while in fiery red. The crags of the Truchas blaze 
 like flowing ore. An Alpine lustre is displayed, less 
 soft in colours than that of the central mountains of 
 Europe, but much more intense and longer lasting. 
 The mountains stand out ghostly pale as soon as the 
 last glow is extinguished, and a white shroud appears 
 to rest upon the landscape. 
 
 One is not long in Santa Clara before noticing 
 that many of these Indians are taller and more 
 slender in build than the short, stocky Pueblos of 
 the south. Their hair, too, is worn differently, 
 being parted in the middle and braided at the 
 sides. This difference in look has been attributed 
 to a probable mixture in past times with their 
 nomadic neighbours, the Utes, the Apaches, and 
 the Navajos. 
 
 The Santa Clara women have made a substantial 
 reputation for themselves as makers of a peculiar, 
 shiny black pottery, the best of it very beautifully 
 fashioned; for, being without decoration, its at- 
 
94 PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 
 
 tractiveness must necessarily depend largely upon 
 form. The clay of the region naturally burns 
 red, but the potters long ago found that, by 
 smudging the fire at a certain stage in the opera 
 tion, the black smoke is absorbed by the clay and 
 results in a permanent black. Our interest in 
 pottery at the time of our first visit to Santa Clara 
 several years ago developed an unexpected evi 
 dence of the innate honesty of the old type of 
 Pueblo nature. We had bought some specimens 
 of black ware from old Piedad, and noticing on a 
 shelf some newly moulded forms, still unburned 
 and showing the reddish nature of the raw material, 
 we offered to buy one. She shook her head vigor 
 ously, and when we persisted in wanting it, she 
 turned her distressed old face towards a young 
 man whose short hair, indifferent manner, and 
 recumbent attitude betokened the Government 
 scholar, and said something to him in the native 
 tongue. Interpreted, it meant that he should tell 
 us that such ware would not hold water and it was 
 not right to sell pottery until fired; for it would 
 melt away and what then would we have for our 
 money? It was only after she was made to under 
 stand clearly that we knew this and would not 
 
. 
 
 San Juan woman in her doorway. Note the boot-like 
 moccasins, worn in certain pueblos. 
 
PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 95 
 
 subject the pottery in any way to the action of 
 water, that she consented, though still reluctantly, 
 to let us bear away a piece. 
 
 San Juan, also on the banks of the Rio Grande, 
 but north of Espanola eight miles, was the town 
 that gave to the Pueblos their most famous leader, 
 Pope. He was the organiser of that one unani 
 mous and, therefore, successful revolt of the 
 Pueblos against Spanish rule, which occurred in 
 1680 and resulted in their killing or driving every 
 Spaniard from the Pueblo country, and keeping 
 them out for twelve years. San Juan is in the 
 midst of a rather populous Mexican community, 
 as populosity goes in New Mexico, and a well- 
 travelled public highway runs through the pueblo 
 lands. On it John Barleycorn travels all too 
 frequently and San Juan s morals, as well as 
 Santa Clara s, are not bettered by the fact, if the 
 school-teacher s gloomy report to us as to the 
 prevalence of inebriety there is correct. The day 
 we spent at San Juan, however, every one was 
 sober and reasonably happy. Old men sat in the 
 sun at their doors, mending tattered moccasins, 
 and, now and then, one reminiscently sang a scrap 
 of song as he sewed ; women busily came and went, 
 
96 PUEBLOS NEAR SANTA FE 
 
 preparing the street ovens for the wheat-bread 
 baking; and pleasant-faced girls with glistening 
 black Una j as of water on their heads, as at Santa 
 Clara, the gourd dippers clinking against the 
 rims, filed in from the well. Farm waggons 
 loaded with corn or with wood, and now and then 
 a slaughtered sheep on top, creaked in from the 
 country, and children played about everywhere. 
 It may have been here that one toddler stumbled 
 over a log and, hurting itself, fell to crying. A 
 returned student, who had been sullenly sitting 
 in the shade watching us, jumped to his feet with 
 every sense alert, and gathering up the little fellow, 
 soothed it as a woman would. 
 
 " If the Pueblos are ever to be saved as Pueblos, " 
 murmured Sylvia, "it will be a little child that 
 will keep them." 
 
Chapter VIII 
 
 Of Taos and tKe Way THitKer. 
 
 THOUGH you are a native-born American 
 and though you may have travelled from 
 Maine to Florida and from New York to 
 California, and though you may have encircled 
 the entire globe a time or two, I wonder if you have 
 ever heard of the Taos 1 country. The chances 
 are that you have not; yet it is one of the most 
 delightful regions of our delightful country. 
 
 Not the least interesting part of a visit to Taos, 
 lapped in the heart of the Southern Rockies, one 
 hundred miles north of Santa Fe, is the getting 
 there. The nearest railroad is the Denver & Rio 
 Grande s Santa Fe branch, which binds Colorado s 
 capital to New Mexico s. You leave this line at a 
 choice of stations, Servilleta being as good as any, 
 having first written or telegraphed the livery at 
 Taos to meet you with a team; for the little way- 
 1 Pronounced Towss. 
 
 9 97 
 
98 TAOS PUEBLO 
 
 station in the wilderness has no accommodations for 
 travellers. A drive of thirty glorious miles is now 
 before you, across a sunny, open mesa country, 
 rimmed about with magnificent mountains, which 
 the declining sun touches with fascinating colours 
 pink and red and wine, amethyst and violet and 
 purple. Half-way on your journey and without 
 warning, the highway runs out to the brink of a 
 narrow, precipitous gorge, and six hundred feet 
 below you, the current of the Rio Grande plunges 
 and roars. Down it, into the depths, your team 
 picks its way gingerly by a road cut out of the 
 perpendicular canon sides to meet the river and to 
 cross it. There is a little riverside stopping-place 
 down there where you may break your journey, if 
 you wish; then, climbing out of the gorge by the 
 canon of the Arroyo Hondo, where a hurrying 
 stream of clear mountain water flashes and bounds 
 down among rocks, you are again upon the wide 
 plain. Before you is the ineffable splendour of the 
 Rockies, their sides all splashed, if it be autumn, 
 with the orange and gold of the aspen groves, and 
 yonder, at the mountains foot where one canon, 
 the Glorieta, more noble than the rest, pours a 
 flood of crystal water out into the plain, lies Taos. 
 
TAOS PUEBLO 99 
 
 Speaking of Taos one must discriminate; for 
 there are three of it. First in point of size, there 
 is Fernandez de Taos, a Mexican village with its 
 adobe houses and gardens half -hidden behind adobe 
 walls, its picturesque lanes and its shady plaza, its 
 shops with their signs in Spanish and its Spanish 
 newspaper, its memories of Kit Carson, and its 
 summer colony of Eastern artists, who find the 
 place as foreign of atmosphere as Egypt is; then 
 there is Ranches de Taos, into which the first 
 village merges in one direction; and, lastly, there 
 is Taos pueblo, which lies a couple of miles beyond 
 the village in another. Of the three, the oldest is 
 the pueblo, the most northern of all pueblos and, 
 in old times, the most exposed to harassment from 
 the Comanches and other predatory tribes of the 
 buffalo plains. So hard, indeed, did those savages 
 press the Taos Pueblos, some after scalps and some 
 after horses, that the Taos people, to save them 
 selves from extermination, offered grants of their 
 fertile and well- watered lands to Mexican immi 
 grants to help keep the marauders in check. So 
 the Mexican settlements came to be and Taos 
 pueblo remains on the map. 
 
 The last mile of the road to the pueblo is a shady 
 
ioo TAOS PUEBLO 
 
 lane banked high with wild roses, wild plum trees, 
 and clambering clematis. Off to one side a line of 
 willows marks the course of a stream, and out 
 of the tangle of bushy growths comes the music of 
 hidden waters rippling over stones. Openings, 
 here and there in the wild hedge, reveal little fields 
 of wheat and tasselled corn, fringed about with 
 masses of purple asters, yellow sunflowers, and 
 bigelovia, and here groups of bareheaded Taos 
 Indian men are at work, their blankets wrapped 
 about their waists and falling to their knees, 
 resembling skirts. This sort of attiring, combined 
 with a fashion of wearing the hair parted in the 
 middle, the divisions braided and hanging down in 
 long side-locks in front of each shoulder, gives the 
 men a remarkably feminine look. They are a 
 tall, athletic-looking lot, as a class, however, and 
 thoroughly masculine, though the Pueblo gentle 
 ness shows in their faces. 
 
 All this while we see nothing of any Indian 
 village, but now a turn in the road brings us into 
 the open and there, ahead of us, through trees, we 
 catch sight of some outdoor threshing floors 
 where horses, driven around and around by 
 Indians, are treading out the grain, like the un- 
 
TAOS PUEBLO .- A . . ,.ipj. 
 
 muzzled oxen of Scripture, and beyond rise the 
 two great pyramids that constitute Taos pueblo. 
 Between them flows a broad, never-failing stream, 
 issuing in transparent purity out of the Glorieta 
 Canon at the pueblo s back. It is a poetic situa 
 tion, and in the morning, when the smoke of a 
 hundred hearth-fires rises into the crisp air, or at 
 evening, when the mountains that look protect- 
 ingly down on the peaceful village glow in the 
 sunset like altars alight, the sight is an unforget 
 table one. To the scientifically inclined, Taos is 
 fascinating as an architectural study, being, among 
 contemporary pueblos, the most perfect specimen 
 of the terraced style of house-building, the stories 
 of one pyramid numbering five and of the other 
 seven. These structures are, indeed, not com 
 munal residences in the sense of their being common 
 to all, but rather are aboriginal apartment houses. 
 Each family has its suite of two or three rooms 
 opening out on its terrace, and maintains its own 
 individual privacy of life, as though living in a 
 separate structure. 
 
 The governing powers in Taos have very old- 
 fashioned views as to conduct, and it is law here 
 that all the men, whatever they may do when 
 
102 TAOS PUEBLO 
 
 working outside, shall, within the pueblo, go with 
 out hats and shall enter no house without their 
 blankets on. Perhaps it is this edict which has 
 given rise to the prevalent fashion among men in 
 summer weather of wrapping themselves in white 
 sheets ; for woollen blankets would at that season be 
 uncomfortably warm during the daytime. White, 
 however, is a favourite among colours and blankets 
 of white flannel or wool are cherished possessions. 
 In its way, Taos is quite progressive. The hum 
 of the sewing-machine is heard from many an open 
 door. McCormick harvesters reap the wheat that, 
 not long ago, was pulled by hand. Studebaker 
 waggons and sturdy horses have largely supplanted 
 the burro, and the postmaster at Fernandez de 
 Taos will tell you that Taos pueblo trades by 
 mail with the Cheyennes and Utes beyond the 
 mountains. Yet, when Pablito Antonito went a 
 step farther in progressiveness and, as an American 
 citizen, appealed to the county court for redress 
 in a dispute with a fellow Indian of Taos, he 
 became disgraced in the eyes of the pueblo for 
 carrying his quarrel outside. So, too, when Mar- 
 quitos and Felipa, fresh returned from Carlisle 
 or it may have been Grand Junction or Riverside, 
 
7. 
 
TAOS PUEBLO 103 
 
 married and put a big American window, sash 
 and all, in their front room, public sentiment made 
 matters so warm for them that they had to remove 
 it and restore the little old peep-hole which 
 conservative Taos believes in. You may see the 
 very window yet, where the walling-up of the 
 enlargement is still plain. There is progress and 
 progress. 
 
 While no Pueblo Indians, as a tribe, have ever 
 been at war with the United States, Taos has the 
 distinction of having been pretty close to it. There 
 has always been a certain masterful quality in the 
 make-up of the Taos Indians, which has made 
 them prone to be on hand when a fight was in 
 progress. Pope of San Juan, who headed the red 
 rebellion of 1680, was a resident of Taos for some 
 time before he launched the trouble, and undoubt 
 edly had strong counselling there. In the turbu 
 lent decade or two prior to the Mexican War and 
 the gathering of New Mexico into the fold of the 
 United States, the co-operation of Taos Indians 
 was often asked and obtained by the New Mexi 
 cans in the carrying out of their plots. One of the 
 New Mexico governors, under the pre- American 
 regime, was a Taos man, Jose Gonzalez (1837-8), 
 
io 4 TAOS PUEBLO 
 
 and the first American governor, Bent, was 
 murdered in cold blood as the result of a conspiracy 
 of revolutionary Mexicans, aided by Taos Indians. 
 Mute testimony to the avenging of this atrocity 
 is the ruin of the old Catholic church in Taos, 
 battered down in the attack on the pueblo by 
 American troops seeking the murderers. All this 
 Taos obstreperousness, however, was individual 
 work. It is so contrary to what we know of the 
 Pueblo mildness of character when even half- 
 decently treated that one is inclined to believe that, 
 at Taos, as at Santa Clara, there has been some 
 admixture of Plains Indian blood, Comanche or 
 Apache, and that it crops out now and again in the 
 love of a fight. 
 
Chapter IX 
 
 Of the Fiesta of San Geronimo at Taos, and the 
 Delight Makers. 
 
 ""IT 7 ANT to buy some greps, senora, no ? " 
 \ /\ / " uena sandia, treinte centavos!" 
 
 ?Y " Duraznos, mucho barato I 11 
 " Compra melones, compadre? Melones mitcho 
 uenos!" 
 
 You might think it market day in some town 
 of Old Mexico, but you are still under the 
 Stars and Stripes and it is only the Fiesta of 
 San Geronimo at Taos. The edges of the great 
 plaza in front of the north pueblo are jammed with 
 waggons, loaded with grapes, apples, peaches, 
 melons, Indian pottery, and blankets, the virtues 
 of which are set forth in Spanish or crippled Eng 
 lish, according to the nationality of inquiring 
 buyers. Between the waggons and the grand 
 promenade before the houses is a line of gaudily 
 decorated booths of lemonade- and sweetmeat- 
 
 105 
 
io6 THE FIESTA AT TAOS 
 
 vjendors and of fakirs of various sorts of catch 
 penny trinkets. It is only nine in the morning, 
 yet, outside, the terraced houses are lined from 
 base to apex with crowds of spectators, waiting 
 for the ceremonies that are to come off no one 
 knows just when, but "poco tiempo", and mean 
 time is not the sunshine pleasant to the soul, and 
 the moving picture of the foreign-looking crowd 
 entertainment enough? Every moment brings 
 new arrivals, ahorseback and afoot, in farm 
 waggons and in buggies. Though Americans are 
 the dominant race in the land there is but a 
 sprinkling of them in the vast throng, but gathered 
 from a wide radius ranchers, school-teachers, 
 store-keepers, invalids, an artist or two, seeking 
 diversion in this half-barbaric fiesta as city folk 
 visit a play. Mexicans are most in evidence, the 
 elderly men and women in sober black, the girls in 
 bright-hued silks and calicos, the fit of which cuts 
 little figure, the colour being the thing; and the 
 Pueblo women are only a shade less gay in their 
 showy upper garments and silver necklaces. Taos 
 men, blanketed or sheeted to the eyes, stalk about 
 in the crowd or stand watching the photograph 
 man, with his little nickel cannon, make retratos 
 
THE FIESTA AT TAOS 107 
 
 of foolish Mexicanos and Mexicanas in their gala 
 finery. Here is a Pueblo family from Picuris, the 
 man s unhatted head picturesquely crowned with a 
 chaplet of quivering aspen leaves; here is another 
 from far San Ildefonso, with a load of pottery jars 
 to sell ; there are a couple of phlegmatic Apaches in 
 sombreros with long feathers stuck in the band, and 
 in their ears silver earrings set with turquoise, 
 their hands holding beaded belts and beaded 
 moccasins for whoever will to buy ; and over yonder 
 is an alert-eyed Navajo, carrying upon his arm 
 blankets which, however much he may asseverate 
 that they are his squaw s own weaving, have 
 probably been entrusted to him by some crafty 
 white trader to sell to the gullible tourist at two or 
 three prices. 
 
 All this while the church bell is clanging at 
 intervals, and worshippers in relays crowd into the 
 church and crowd out again ; but it is not so much 
 this as the aboriginal features of the fiesta that 
 interest the lookers-on from the housetops. These 
 features are threefold : There is a short dance of 
 blanketed Indian men bearing upright branches 
 of quivering aspen, facing each other in two lines 
 and yelping from time to time like coyotes. Then 
 
io8 THE FIESTA AT TAOS 
 
 there is a hotly contested foot-race between the 
 young men of the two pyramids, the participants 
 naked, except for a kilt of some kind about the 
 loins, and with feathers emblems of flight in 
 the hair, down the arms, and encircling the ankles. 
 Finally there are the antics of a group of clowns, 
 chiffonetti or "delight makers," as Bandelier calls 
 them. 
 
 Their faces and naked bodies smeared with 
 paint, and their hair entwined with rustling corn- 
 husks, these buffoons come suddenly bounding and 
 yelping into the plaza and set the crowd into an 
 uproar of laughter with their horseplay, which 
 continues off and on for hours. Nothing is safe 
 from their irreverent touch. They steal peaches 
 from a waggon and, starting to eat, spit them out 
 with a wry face as if bitter; they swarm up a 
 ladder to a housetop and into a room, whence 
 screams and laughter announce some prank, and 
 in a moment they reappear, one bearing a water 
 melon. Descending to the plaza, the thief stands 
 the melon on his head and the others line up before 
 him and dance and chant in mockery of some 
 ceremony. Taken with a sudden thought, they 
 all sit down in a circle on the ground, and leaning 
 
THE FIESTA AT TAOS 109 
 
 forward, seem intent on some wonder in their midst. 
 This, of course, excites the curiosity of the crowd, 
 who draw near only to be blinded with showers of 
 dust which the rogues throw over their shoulders. 
 Then they rise, put their heads plottingly together, 
 looking, from time to time, into the crowd. 
 Suddenly they advance, grab a man from it, and 
 lifting his struggling form, carry him in triumph 
 up and down the plaza, meantime blowing horns 
 which they have gotten somewhere. Then they 
 drop the fellow and there follows a series of im 
 promptu contortions, stoopings and twistings and 
 leapings, tooting horns backward between their 
 legs, climbing upon one another s shoulders, until 
 their ingenuity seems at its limit, and they stand 
 meditating, finger to forehead. Then another 
 whispered consultation, and separating, they wan 
 der off amid the crowd. All at once there is a 
 shout, followed by a childish scream of terror. 
 A little boy in fiesta attire of new purple trousers 
 has met the eye of one of the clowns, who swoops 
 the frightened urchin from the ground and, swing 
 ing him under his arm, marches off with him 
 towards the river, followed by the other chiffonetti, 
 sounding blasts upon their horns. Arrived at the 
 
I io THE FIESTA AT T A OS 
 
 stream, the little kicking form is dropped into the 
 water, whence the boy is fished out by his observ 
 ant mother and piloted home to be dried off, while 
 the buffoons, grunting and wagging their rascally 
 heads, trudge back to the plaza. The climax of 
 their sports is the climbing of a greased pole at the 
 top of which sundry prizes melons, cakes, a 
 whole sheep, and so on are slung. These secured, 
 the clowns fade away to their estufa, and quite 
 undramatically the fiesta comes to a close. 
 
 Among the fiestas of the New Mexico Pueblo 
 Indians there is none that the traveller is more 
 often urged to attend than this of San Geronimo, 
 held annually on September 3Oth. As an Indian 
 ceremony, it is rather disappointing, though a 
 short dance at sunset the evening before, in 
 which, as on the fiesta day, the participants bear 
 branches of quivering aspens, is very striking, 
 with its background of the evening shadows and 
 the sunset light glorifying the orange and yellow 
 foliage of the shaken branches. But the inter 
 est of the San Geronimo day is mainly in the pic 
 turesque crowd which assembles in the old pueblo, 
 the largest gathering, probably, that ever attends 
 any of the South- Western Indian dances. This is 
 
THE FIESTA AT TAOS in 
 
 due in part to the added attraction of a Mexi 
 can fiesta of several days duration during the 
 same week, held at Fernandez de Taos, which 
 draws several thousand visitors from all over 
 North-Eastern New Mexico and Southern Colo 
 rado Mexicans, whites, and Indians of several 
 tribes. 
 
Chapter X 
 
 Of Picwfs in tHe Country of tKe Penitentes, and 
 
 How Francisco Dxiran s MotHer 
 
 Covilcl not Forget. 
 
 WHEN you are through with Taos, you 
 will do well to return to the railroad 
 by way of Picuris pueblo that is, pro 
 vided you are sound of heart and lungs ; for Picuris 
 lies eight thousand feet above the sea, encompassed 
 by mountains which must be crossed at an altitude 
 of ten thousand. This is a superb trip in itself, 
 though a rough one, and you need for it a stout 
 team and an experienced driver. 
 
 "The team f s all right," said the livery man, as 
 he came to see us off and patted the two fat horses, 
 big enough for Brobdingnag, "and Ballard s all 
 right; he 11 deliver the goods. " 
 
 Ballard, the driver, a serious-faced, square- 
 jawed youth, made no response to this encomium, 
 except to say, "So long," as he gathered up the 
 
 112 
 
THE PICUR1S COUNTRY 113 
 
 lines and drove us off into the glorious New 
 Mexican sunshine of the clear October morning. 
 
 For several miles the road traversed a valley 
 country, crossed now and again by little brooks of 
 sparkling water, fresh sprung from the high moun 
 tains at our backs. On every hand were apple 
 orchards where the reddening fruit glowed cheer 
 fully beside some low, rambling ranch-house, look 
 ing to Eastern eyes less like a home than a fortress, 
 with barred gates and a high adobe wall joining the 
 house to the corrals and outbuildings, the whole 
 forming a square about an enclosed courtyard. 
 And then, without warning, ranches and green 
 pastures were as a tale that is told and we were 
 winding upward through wild ravines, beneath 
 huge, scattering, forest trees, and climbing, climb 
 ing, climbing the "U. S. hill," the steepest and 
 about the poorest apology for a highway in New 
 Mexico. Never any too good, it was now at its 
 worst from the unrepaired effects of the summer 
 rains, and in many places the original road was 
 washed entirely away, leaving only a wrack of 
 rocks and gullies behind it. At such spots Ballard 
 would alight, prospect for a promising way around, 
 and then our team would blaze a new road through 
 
ii 4 y THE PICURIS COUNTRY 
 
 brush and boulders until the old one was picked up 
 again. And all the time we were climbing mile 
 upon mile as up the side of a steep-pitched roof. 
 
 We now saw the reason for the Brobdingnagian 
 horses. They flinched at nothing; took arroyos 
 and boulders with composure, and when the steep 
 mountain steepened more sharply, leaned but hard 
 er into their collars. Nevertheless, at approach 
 ing two miles above sea-level, even Brobdingnagian 
 breath comes short, and as the summit ridge grew 
 nearer, Ballard would call a halt every fewliundred 
 feet, jam down the brake, and let the horses blow. 
 Though the acclivity sometimes seemed nearly 
 forty-five degrees, so that the team clung like a 
 fly to a wall and Sylvia and I fully expected to see 
 the unblocked wheels, when the brake was released, 
 fly backward and carry us all over the cliff, the 
 strength and temper of the horses were always 
 equal to the resumption of pulling without the 
 loss of an inch. 
 
 "Cussedest proposition in the South- West," 
 remarked Ballard with simple fervour, when, the 
 top at last reached, he lit a cigarette and looked 
 backward down the mountain. 
 
 Once over the divide, however, the beauty of 
 
THE PICURIS COUNTRY 115 
 
 the scene was inexpressible, as we bowled along 
 across open, natural parks, their grassy expanses 
 brightened with wild bloom, and set in the midst 
 of magnificent, coniferous forests, whose inter 
 spaces were golden with the heavenly sunlight. 
 Now and then the road descended into some little, 
 sequestered valley where running waters made the 
 raising of wheat and chili possible, and here was 
 always the conventional Mexican village of adobe, 
 clustered about a Catholic church with its cross- 
 surmounted steeple and bell. On the outskirts of 
 these hamlets, often in the wildest, loneliest spots, 
 would be a rude wooden cross planted near the 
 roadside in a heap of stones, and again on the 
 summit of some hill whose sides were a mass of 
 flinty stones and thorny cactus clumps, there 
 would stand a taller cross. 
 
 "They are set up by the Penitentes," Ballard 
 said, in reply to our question. "The Penitentes 
 are a sort of Catholics who believe if they turn out 
 in Lent stripped to the waist and walk barefooted 
 over sharp stones, with loads of cactus packed on 
 their bare backs, and whip themselves at the same 
 time with whips knotted with bits of sharp iron 
 till the blood runs off their bodies like rain, it 11 
 
n6 THE PICURIS COUNTRY 
 
 make up for the sins they have committed during 
 the year. Gosh! it ought to; for I m here to 
 tell you cactus hurts, to say nothing of the whips 
 and the stones. None of that society for me, 
 unless I could be an honorary member. " 
 
 "Are these Indians who do this?" 
 
 "Not on your life," Ballard replied, "they ve 
 too much sense. No, it s these greaser Mexicans. 
 Now, those hills you see with a big cross on top, 
 they call them places Calvary, out of the Bible, and, 
 7 on Good Friday, they always hold some special 
 doings in such places, and time has been and not 
 long ago, either when one of the bunch more 
 fanatic than the rest would have himself crucified 
 there. But the Church won t stand for that, and 
 they have had to cut it out, though I would n t 
 swear it is n t yet done on the quiet. These little 
 crosses near the road are where funerals have 
 stopped on the way to the graveyard. Descansos 
 they call them that means rest and whenever a 
 pious Penitente comes along, he is supposed to say 
 a prayer and chuck a stone or two on the pile at 
 the foot of the cross to help his cousin out of 
 purgatory; for pretty much all Mexicans are 
 
THE PICURIS COUNTRY 117 
 
 "And how does all this affect their morals?" 
 we asked, our thoughts still on the penitential 
 stripes. "Do they try to be good for the ensu 
 ing year so as to weaken the next dose of self- 
 torture?" 
 
 "No, it works just the other way. They d 
 rather play the devil for eleven months in the year 
 any time, if they re sure they can wipe off the 
 score with packing cactus for a week or two. Why, 
 I ve known a man to cut himself all up within an 
 inch of his life, so he had to go to a hospital to get 
 made over; and when he got out, he was as bad as 
 ever again. Worse, in fact. It s human nature, 
 if you believe in the cure. Oh, they re a hard 
 outfit, all right!" 
 
 And so into Penasco with its one rambling 
 street, and, at the end of it, Senor Smith s veran- 
 dahed adobe home, with flowers blooming about its 
 posts, and a big room placed at our disposal, with 
 two soft beds and windows open to all outdoors, 
 and a pretty Mexican maiden who, as she with 
 drew after filling the pitchers, said in the pleasant 
 Spanish way, "You are in your own home; please 
 let us know if there is anything you want. " 
 
 Two miles from this Penitente village of Penasco 
 
n8 THE PICURIS COUNTRY 
 
 and you are on the rim of a fertile valley through 
 which the little Rio Pueblo winds its beneficent 
 way between fields of corn and apple orchards and 
 thickets of wild plum to join the Rio Grande, and 
 by its banks Indian women kneel to wash their 
 clothing and their wheat. On a slight eminence 
 in the midst of the valley is the pueblo of Picuris, 
 a mile and a half above the sea, yet high mountains 
 look down upon it, their rounded summits, that 
 early October morning when we first saw them, 
 crowned with fields of snow above aspen belts of 
 gold. 
 
 Time was, if tradition is to be trusted, when 
 Picuris boasted its four thousand fighting men; 
 but pestilence swept off much of the population at 
 a breath, and the spirit of emigration took away 
 others; so that the Picuris of to-day harbours a 
 bare two hundred souls to keep alive the ways of 
 the red fathers of the pueblo. Mexican squatters 
 dwell on the lands by the river and a Penitente 
 morada, or meeting place, is established in the very 
 shadow of the ancient Spanish church where San 
 Lorenzo keeps watch and ward over his diminished 
 flock. 
 
 "Yes, they re pretty fair Catholics," said the 
 
THE PICURIS COUNTRY 119 
 
 bachelor school-teacher, who left his breakfast 
 dishes to welcome us a rare proceeding for a Gov 
 ernment servant in the Indian country ; " that is, 
 they go to the priest to marry them and send for him 
 to bury them, if he comes within twenty-four hours, 
 else the dead man is blanketed and buried anyhow. 
 Certain corn-lands by the river are set aside to pay 
 for the priest s fees, which he gets in a lump for the 
 year s services. But, all the same, the old Indian 
 faith is the one they live by and is zealously kept 
 alive. There is a lot goes on in the old under 
 ground estufas up there, and at ancient shrines in 
 the hills that no white man knows of. It was 
 only the other day one of the Indian men came to 
 me and asked permission for his boy to be absent 
 from school for four days. What for? I asked. 
 That is not for you to know, he answered. It 
 sounds like a saucy speech to a representative of 
 the United States Government, but he did not 
 mean it so, and I knew very well it was some 
 religious rite that was to be performed, school or 
 no school; so I said, All right. The boy was 
 back at his desk in four days, and I said, Como 
 sta, Pablito? and he said, Bueno, and so the 
 matter ended; but that scholar knew something 
 
120 THE PICURIS COUNTRY 
 
 I did n t and never will nor any other white 
 man." 
 
 To the student of antiquarian tastes, Picuris has 
 a special interest, by reason of certain old ruins 
 there which stand, cheek by jowl, with the more 
 modern dwellings that form the main part of the 
 pueblo. One of these ruins is the so-called Scalp 
 House, in which hang scalps taken from conquered 
 enemies of a former generation, perhaps by some 
 of those four thousand fighting men aforemen 
 tioned. Less gruesome is the Casa Vieja or the 
 "old house," an example of the mud architecture 
 of the pre-Spanish pueblo. One of the first 
 things the Pueblos learned from Spain was the 
 making of brick. Before that, where stone was 
 not used, they built up walls by making a mud 
 base, and when this was dry, piling more on top, 
 and so on. This method the Casa Vieja plainly 
 shows. 
 
 Picuris seemed deserted of natives until we in 
 nocently drew out the camera. Then, apparently 
 from the earth before us, sprang an old man the 
 war-captain, it turned out in tight trousers with 
 wide flaps down the side, who put his veto upon 
 our photographic intent. The schoolmaster ar- 
 
THE PICURIS COUNTRY 121 
 
 gued with him in Spanish and we in English ; but 
 he was adamant against the taking of pictures in 
 the pueblo, unless we paid five dollars. As we 
 could see nothing in the place worth that sum 
 of money, we shut up the camera. This was an 
 evident disappointment to him, as he had undoubt 
 edly calculated upon us as a source of revenue. 
 The Mayor of Chicago, it seems, had once been to 
 Picuris and paid that sum for the privilege, and 
 why should not we? So the school-teacher ex 
 plained. Whether from the hope that we might 
 yet relent or from a suspicion that, if left to our 
 selves, we would do as we pleased, the man stuck 
 to us closer than a brother while we walked about. 
 Upon other subjects than the camera, however, he 
 was more complaisant and even became communi 
 cative upon matters pertaining to the present life 
 of the pueblo. He was no friend of the American 
 education, which, in his view, was pernicious to 
 Pueblo morals. 
 
 "The young people," he remarked, "are not 
 what they were. We cannot trust them any more, 
 as we used to, nor teach them the secret things of 
 our people; so they re ignorant of a great many 
 things that it would be good for them to know. 
 
122 THE PICURIS COUNTRY 
 
 And then the whiskey every young man in 
 Picuris nowadays gets drunk whenever he has a 
 chance. That is very bad, mucho malo!" 
 
 Pleasant faces looked out at us from doorways 
 where crooning voices told of babies being put to 
 sleep, and the hospitable salutation " entra" en 
 couraged us to enter more than one habitation 
 and sit with the family awhile. There was the 
 usual interest in where we had come from and 
 where we were going, and was it hot in California, 
 and did many people live there. A peculiar kind 
 of pottery is made here of glistening, micaceous 
 clay, which is serviceable for cooking vessels; and 
 what with buying some of this and distributing 
 candy liberally among the children, our popularity 
 in the pueblo waxed so much that I am not sure 
 but a bid of a dollar to our truculent capitan de 
 guerra might at last have secured us permission to 
 photograph the Casa Vieja. But our dignity for 
 bade our reopening negotiations and he of the 
 flapping trousers made no overture; so Picuris 
 remained for us unphotographed save from the 
 outlying hill. 
 
 As we walked towards our carriage to return to 
 Penasco, we heard a cry behind us, and turning, 
 
THE PICURIS COUNTRY 123 
 
 saw an old Pueblo woman and a young man 
 running towards us. The woman was gesticu 
 lating violently, and when she was close to us, 
 addressed us rapidly in Spanish. 
 
 "My son!" we interpreted her wailing. "Do 
 you know Francisquito in California? I am so 
 very sad here," placing her hands upon her 
 breast. Then, throwing up her hands, she moaned, 
 "Oh, my son, my son! For many years, now, 
 nothing from my son!" 
 
 There was more we could not understand, and 
 we turned for an explanation to the young man, 
 who then spoke to us in English. 
 
 "This woman, she is my mother, and she has a 
 boy, my brother, and his name is Francisco Duran. 
 A long time ago he left Picuris and went to Califor 
 nia where you come from, where the ocean is. 
 That was many years ago and he has never come 
 back and he has never written to say if he is well. 
 When you go back to California, my mother says, 
 you see if you cannot find him where he is, and, 
 when you see him, you tell him to send word to his 
 mother in Picuris how he is. She is very sad in her 
 heart about him, and she wants to know. You 
 will do this?" 
 
124 THE PICURIS COUNTRY 
 
 So, in red breasts as in white, dwells the uni 
 versal mother-heart, which never forgets, but 
 yearns unceasingly for the child whom the world 
 has rapt from her sight. 
 
Chapter XI 
 
 Of .Ancient Zvini, and Ko\v tKe Conquistadores 
 Came to Discover It. 
 
 WITH Zuni and its picturesque life, the 
 general reader is probably more par 
 ticularly acquainted than with any of 
 the other pueblos, and this because of the writings of 
 the poet-ethnologist, Frank H. Gushing, who for a 
 time made a Pueblo Indian of himself and dwelt, 
 some thirty years ago, in this terraced town. 
 Though inevitably undergoing modernisation, it is 
 still a place of unique interest, the largest of all the 
 pueblos and, perhaps, the most tenacious of the 
 ancient way. 
 
 Zuni was the first of the Pueblo communities to 
 be seen by Old World eyes, and those eyes were a 
 negro s one Estevanico s. The way of it was this : 
 In 1536, there unexpectedly appeared in the 
 Spanish settlements of Mexico, out of the northern 
 wilderness, three Spaniards and this negro, the 
 
 125 
 
126 SPAIN DISCOVERS ZUNI 
 
 sole survivors of Narvaez s expedition of discov 
 ery and conquest which, eight years before, had 
 landed in Florida and later perished miserably of 
 swamps and Indians all but these four, who had 
 worked their painful way across the entire south 
 ern border of what is now the United States. Their 
 tale excited the gold-hunting Spanish in Mexico 
 to the desire of exploring that more northern 
 country; but as the wanderers had come out of it 
 empty-handed, it was thought prudent by the 
 Spanish viceroy in Mexico, before fitting out an 
 expedition, to despatch a small reconnoitring 
 party to ascertain in advance if an expedition 
 were worth while. 
 
 This reconnaissance, which was made in 1539, 
 was placed in charge of a Franciscan friar, known 
 to history as Fray Marcos de Niza. His compan 
 ions were another Franciscan Brother (who, how 
 ever, soon became ill and had to be left behind), 
 several Mexican Indians, and the negro, Estevanico 
 aforesaid, as guide. After a little, the negro was 
 sent on before, with orders to make report, from 
 time to time, by Indians of what he found. These 
 reports proved very glowing and contained, among 
 other matter, the assertion that a month s journey 
 
SPAIN DISCOVERS ZUNI 127 
 
 ahead was a province called Cibola, containing 
 seven large cities, all subject to one lord. In them 
 were houses of one, two, and three stories, built 
 terrace-like, and the chief s residence was of four 
 stories ; there were many decorations on the houses ; 
 the people were well-clothed ; and there was wealth 
 of turquoise. 
 
 Thus encouraged, the friar pushed on, accom 
 panied by his Indians, all footing it across the 
 midsummer desert of what, in our day, is South- 
 Eastern Arizona. Now and again an Indian run 
 ner brought back word from Estevanico of his 
 safe progress until, at last, Fray Marcos was within 
 an easy journey of Cibola s seven cities. Then a 
 great blow befell. Fugitive Indians of Estevani 
 co s escort on a sudden appeared with news of the 
 negro s arrival in Cibola and of his murder there. 
 The African, it seems, left so long to his own de 
 vices, had grown arrogant, and upon reaching 
 Cibola, although hospitably received, had set 
 about mistreating the women. This infuriated 
 the men of the pueblo, who incontinently repaid 
 the outrage with death 1 ; for, as Coronado 
 
 1 How thoroughly the negro s offence aroused the Pueblo men 
 is indicated by Coronado s statement in a letter sent a year later 
 
128 SPAIN DISCOVERS ZUNI 
 
 records, "their women the Indians love better 
 than themselves. * 
 
 Under these circumstances, the place being in 
 a fever of resentment, prudent Brother Marcos 
 decided that, if he was to deliver a report of his 
 findings to the viceroy, he had best stay out of 
 Cibola. Nevertheless, if he might not enter the 
 towns of his quest, he did, like Moses on Nebo s 
 peak, get at least a glimpse of the Promised Land 
 from a hilltop overlooking the great plain in which 
 the villages lay. On that height, he tells us, he 
 planted a wooden cross, symbol of the faith that 
 was some day to be preached there, and then, 
 descending, beat his retreat towards Mexico, carry 
 ing such stories of settled towns and fertile valleys 
 that the Spanish adventurers, when they heard 
 the tale, felt sure of the presence there of gold and 
 other treasure. 
 
 from Cibola to the Viceroy Mendoza, to the effect that, although 
 he had been in the pueblo some time, he had not been permitted 
 to see any of the women, whom the men kept under guard from 
 the strangers. This letter, "given from the Province of Cevola 
 and this city of Granada [Coronado s new christening of the 
 pueblo in which he was quartered], the 3d of August, 1540, by 
 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who kisses the hand of his most 
 illustrious lordship, the Viceroy," gives a very graphic and read 
 able account of Pueblo life as the first Spaniards found it. It 
 will be found in Winship s Coronado. 
 
SPAIN DISCOVERS ZUNI 129 
 
 So was the ground cleared for the memorable 
 expedition of Coronado, which set out from Mexico 
 the next year (1540) and resulted in the discovery 
 of all the Pueblo towns, which, at that time, num 
 bered upwards of three score. The Cibola of Fray 
 Marcos was what we now know as Zuni r ; but the 
 seven little cities of that early day are now but 
 rubbish heaps, of interest only to the archaeologist 
 and the curio hunter. The present pueblo, ancient 
 as it looks, is post-Coronadian, a consolidation of 
 the original seven, but its human life is essentially 
 unchanged from what that knightly servant of the 
 Spanish King observed and recorded. 
 
 1 For an interesting account of the identification of Zuni with 
 the sixteenth -century mystery of the "Seven Cities of Cibola," 
 see Bandelier s "Cibola" in The Gilded Man. 
 
Chapter XII 
 
 Of Zuni in tKe Rain, and of Zuni DicK. 
 
 THOUGH the sun shines upon New Mexico 
 three hundred days on an average out of 
 the three hundred and sixty-five, it was 
 raining on the October evening when we arrived 
 at Zuni. The next morning, the rain still de 
 scending, we decided it would be more comfortable 
 out in the real thing than in our adobe room, where 
 from a variety of leaks in the roof an intermittent 
 drip fell emphatically upon the floor, unless inter 
 cepted by some part of our bodies. So, clad in 
 rubber, we went forth to investigate the old pueblo. 
 There was a streak of light in the west, where the 
 sky bent down to Arizona, but in the east, Towa- 
 Yalleni Mountain of the Sacred Corn was still 
 wrapped in mists, out of which diverse winds blew 
 shrewdly one, colder than its predecessor, now 
 and again turning the rain to short-lived spits of 
 snow. The tortuous little streets were gummy, 
 
 130 
 
WE MEET ZUNI DICK 131 
 
 as only adobe can be on a wet day, and deserted 
 of life. Even the pigs, dogs, and burros were 
 hidden away under lee walls, and the turkeys 
 lurked disconsolate in the covered alleys. But 
 human Zurii was as gay as though the sun shone. 
 Its good humour was but increased by the wet, 
 which meant the showered blessings of the gods, 
 filling the springs and making the earth fruitful. 
 
 A dusky face beneath a crown of glossy black 
 hair, filleted about with a bright magenta head 
 band, looked out at us from a half -opened door 
 way, and the smiling Zuni man said : 
 
 You happy ? Where you go ? " 
 
 We stopped and smiled back. 
 
 "I, Zuni Dick," continued the Zuni. "You no 
 hully? 1 You come in my houses. " 
 
 The door was hospitably opened; one puppy 
 was lifted by the nape of its mangy neck and 
 deposited outdoors, while another was shunted 
 under the table, and we were invited to sit down 
 in the household s two cherished American chairs. 
 It was a typical Zuni interior, with clean, white 
 washed walls and a beamed ceiling of unhewn logs. 
 
 1 The Zuni language has no sound of r, which the Zuni tongue, 
 like the Chinese, pronounces as an /. 
 
I 3 2 WE MEET ZUNI DICK 
 
 At one end of the great room were the mealing 
 stones a half-dozen square slabs of malpais, 
 dipped to the floor at an angle of forty -five degrees 
 and boxed about with stone. At one of them a 
 young girl knelt, and with a smaller stone was 
 rubbing corn up and down, as on a washboard, and 
 crushing it to meal. The air was fragrant with the 
 sweetness of the bruised grain and musical with 
 the hum of the stones in contact. About the 
 room at the base of the walls ran a low bench of 
 whitewashed adobe, which served as a seat as well 
 as a shelf for the blankets that, by night, were 
 spread on the floor for beds. Tacked to the wall, 
 beside a bundle of gourd rattles and a leather 
 pouch for sacred meal, was a row of coloured 
 covers of magazines and weeklies whose publishers 
 little suspected the extent of their circulation. A 
 row of water-jars with decorations in red and black 
 gave a bright touch to their corner, and a gaily- 
 coloured blanket, still in the loom, flamed out 
 from one of the walls. A triangular fireplace, 
 built into the corner near the door, was aglow with 
 a leaping fire of juniper wood set on end, while in 
 a pot cocked against the blazing sticks, roasting 
 pifion nuts were being stirred by Dick s wife, who 
 
WE MEET ZUNI DICK 133 
 
 with a deft toss of her head as we entered had 
 caused her long hair to fall modestly over her face 
 to veil it. It was a scene in our twentieth-century 
 America not essentially different from scenes with 
 which the old Conquistador es of three centuries 
 ago were familiar. Zuni is conservative. 
 
 "I all a time busy," remarked Dick compla 
 cently, as he rubbed bits of turquoise beads upon a 
 flat stone in his lap to make them smooth. Then, 
 as he prattled on, we gathered that he was local 
 policeman, by the grace of the Indian agent at 
 Black Rock, and wore a blue coat with brass 
 buttons and a Kossuth hat with gold cord. The 
 duties of this office consisted principally in con 
 voying to the Government school truant little 
 Zufiis who, preferring sunshine and freedom to 
 paleface knowledge, vanished from sight when the 
 school-bell rang. It was a busy life, this, of round- 
 ing-up these luckless young savages, involving not 
 only exercise of leg but nimble argument with 
 conspiring matrons, who wanted to keep their 
 progeny uncontaminated by influences which made 
 for bad manners and for skepticism regarding the 
 red gods of their fathers. Saturday and Sunday, 
 however, were holidays, and Dick was then free 
 
i 3 4 WE MEET ZUNI DICK 
 
 to follow his own devices one of which was to 
 cultivate the acquaintance of white visitors to 
 Zuni, and let them into such of its mysteries as he 
 thought suitable for white folk to know. 
 
 Perhaps, then, he could take us where we could 
 watch a Zuni silversmith at work? We wanted to 
 see a Zuni man make a bracelet. 
 
 "Ye-es," he said indulgently, "I show you. 
 When you want to go, you come to my houses. " 
 
 When we came out of Dick s "houses, " the 
 clouds had parted and the sun was shining glori 
 ously in the blessed blue. Doors stood open that 
 had been shut against the rain; men were ascir 
 catching donkeys to ride, on one errand or another ; 
 the turkeys and the pigs and laughing children 
 were abroad again. A bright-faced woman was 
 patiently leading a blind man to a warm corner, 
 where he might bask in the sun while she went to 
 the town well to fill her jar, the gourd dipper 
 clinking within it as she walked. 
 
 The silversmith was a young man with the face 
 of an angel and huge turquoise earrings. His 
 shop was set up in the one room of his house, for, 
 excepting Nick, the storekeeper, who wears white 
 man s clothes and a hat, and was once strung up 
 
WE MEET ZUNI DICK 135 
 
 for a witch, and lives out of his shop, no Zuni man 
 divorces business and home. 
 
 "You want im make HI closses like ol time?" 
 asked Dick, to whose Zuni heart the characteristic 
 double-barred crosses of his people were very dear, 
 "or necklace of beads with piece of moon on end, 
 or you want im blacelet with pictu put on?" 
 
 We explained that what we desired was a brace 
 let with ornaments stamped on it. 
 
 "You want im make blacelet," pursued Dick. 
 "You give im money dolla half-dolla 7 
 dunno you know. Fully quick he make blacelet 
 you see you give im all same money again 
 you take blacelet." 
 
 We understood enough of this to realise that it 
 was needful to supply the craftsman with the raw 
 material at the outset; so we produced a Mexican 
 silver half-dollar and taking two proffered chairs 
 sat down to abide the issue. 
 
 Said Dick: "You stay and see no be aflaid 
 all same home good-by, " and departed. 
 
 The silversmith blew up the fire in a little forge 
 which stood against the wall, and into a small 
 crucible which he picked from the ashes of a 
 previous fire, he dropped our coin to its melting. 
 
i 3 6 WE MEET ZUNI DICK 
 
 Then he poured the puddle of molten metal into 
 an oblong depression of the forge hearth and the 
 result was a short pig of silver. This he placed 
 upon an anvil and hammered patiently, heating 
 and reheating it as it cooled, until it had become a 
 flat, narrow strip of bruised and blackened silver, 
 which, bent into a circle until the two ends all but 
 touched, would fit the wrist. (Unlike the bracelet 
 of civilisation, the Indian bracelet has a gap in its 
 circle, through which the wrist is passed.) The 
 blank surface was then ready for decoration. Our 
 smith took from a basket a handful of small iron 
 punches, each of which bore at its tip a die of 
 different design from its fellows dots, variously 
 arranged, combinations of slashes, crescents, stars, 
 and what-not. With these he composed an 
 elaborate ornamentation, punching it upon the 
 silver with hammer taps. Finally, the bracelet 
 was dipped in boiling water in which a lump or 
 two of a cleansing white earth, gathered in the 
 neighbouring hills, had been dissolved, and was 
 handed to us unsoiled and fresh as from the mint. 
 We paid another half-dollar for the work and the 
 negotiation was completed. 
 
CKapter XIII 
 
 Of Hoviseheeping in Zvirii, and How Zvini DicK 
 Helped Us to Dvy Meat. 
 
 A T Zuni temporary sojourners have the 
 / % choice of three ways of existence. The 
 2 "\. Government school may take you to 
 board, but as it is not a boarding-house, that is 
 not to be counted on. Almost any Indian family 
 would harbour you the Zunis not yet having 
 been civilised out of the primitive virtue of hospi 
 tality but unless the ways of civilised life rest as 
 lightly upon you as they did upon Gushing, you 
 would not stomach that. The third way is to hire 
 a room (the missionary may accommodate you) 
 and board yourself. We did that and prospered. 
 The Indian trader will provide most of the neces 
 saries of life at rates as a rule not exceeding one or 
 two hundred per cent, over the prices of civilisation 
 he must live and some luxuries may be had 
 from Gallup, forty -five miles away, when a team 
 
 137 
 
138 OUR ZUNI HOUSEKEEPING 
 
 comes thence. Fresh meat is to be had of the 
 Indians, as also eggs. As two sparrows in Biblical 
 times were sold for a farthing, so it is the unwritten 
 law of Zufii that three eggs sell for a nickel. Thus 
 forewarned and provided with a borrowed egg 
 which, held up, should make known our need, for 
 we talked no Zufii and few Zufiis speak English, 
 we had no trouble. 
 
 The quest of meat proved a more serious matter, 
 and we decided to call on Dick for assistance. He 
 was not at home when we knocked at his door, 
 but his wife smilingly gave us seats, made some 
 matter-of-fact remark in Zufii, and went on dyeing 
 wool. We sat expectant for three quarters of an 
 hour; then, our Caucasian impatience getting the 
 better of us and the sun being low, we said good- 
 by and left. Two corners away we found Dick 
 passing the time of day with a neighbour. 
 
 "You want sheep meat or cow?" he asked. 
 
 If sheep meat was not goat, we should like that, 
 we thought. 
 
 Dick meditated, then said : 
 
 "You come mebbe some Zufii man he have 
 cow meat / dunno we see." 
 
 We filed across the great plaza, through a black, 
 
OUR ZUNI HOUSEKEEPING 139 
 
 covered passage into the little north plaza, 
 clamorous with dogs all atongue at our intrusion, 
 then zigzag by one lane and another till we were 
 lost. The evening fires were gleaming in the 
 houses, and through doors ajar we could hear the 
 pleasant voices of the inmates gathered about 
 their suppers. It occurred to us then that, though 
 we had been three days in Zuni, we had not heard 
 a cross word spoken by man or woman, or seen 
 a child harshly treated. After a stay of seven 
 weeks, we could say the same. The gods of Zuni 
 have no ear for rough speakers. 
 
 Dick knocked at a door and we all entered. A 
 murmur of welcome greeted us, and an elderly 
 Zuni man alertly came forward and shook hands. 
 In the dim twilight we could distinguish seven or 
 eight people in the room, collected about a lit 
 tle cook-stove in the centre. Our host set three 
 stools for us. 
 
 "Long time ago, same as Melican sit-down 
 chai s, " explained Dick. 
 
 A few minutes* decorous silence and then all the 
 Zunis joined in a leisurely conversation; now and 
 then a cigarette was lighted and enjoyed, and 
 there was an occasional musical laugh at some 
 
140 OUR ZUNI HOUSEKEEPING 
 
 witticism of Dick s, who seemed to be a humourist. 
 Through a window we saw the moon beginning to 
 flood the street with radiance and so far as we 
 could judge the meat was as far from us as ever. 
 By and by, three cups and a pot of coffee, a pan of 
 meat, and a basket of bread were placed on the 
 floor in front of us. 
 
 "You eat, " said Dick, "it no cost you nossing. " 
 
 Then more talk, and finally our host went to an 
 inner room and reappeared with a foreleg of beef, 
 which he deposited upon the floor. 
 
 "You want im meat," said Dick, "you take." 
 
 "How much for fifty cents?" we asked. 
 
 "I dunno, " said Dick; "you got scales? Mebbe 
 you weigh some." 
 
 We explained that we did not carry a butchering 
 outfit in our pockets, and they must cut off fifty 
 cents worth. Whereupon a saw and an axe were 
 brought, and with these and the assistance of 
 most assembled, a piece was hacked off and placed 
 in our hands au naturel. 
 
 We tendered our benefactor half a dollar. He 
 glanced at it and said something in Zuiii. We 
 looked appealingly at Dick. 
 
 "He say seventy -five cents." 
 
OUR ZUNI HOUSEKEEPING 141 
 
 "But we ordered only fifty cents worth." 
 
 Another outburst of Zuni, and then Dick 
 observed, as though shedding new light upon the 
 subject : 
 
 "He say seventy-five cents." 
 
 "But we only ordered fifty cents worth. Tell 
 him to throw in a soup-bone and we will give sixty 
 cents." 
 
 And on this basis the negotiation was concluded 
 with a handshake all around. 
 
Chapter XIV 
 
 Of Sa-wi-etsi-tsita, How She Made Us Jars, 
 and SomewHat of Zuni Babies. 
 
 DEEP in a hillside at the foot of the pueblo 
 is the great well of Zuni. Here sometimes 
 we would sit of a morning to watch the 
 fashion in water- jars. The Zuni water-carriers 
 are invariably women or girls, and Rebecca at her 
 well was not a fairer sight, we fancied, than some 
 of those Indian maidens in their picturesque 
 pueblo dress. Here all day they came and went, 
 singly or in couples, pausing for a moment s gossip 
 in the cool cavern of the shady well before setting 
 their brimming jars upon their heads. Then, 
 erect as arrows and without touching hand again 
 to their burdens, they mounted the broad stairway 
 and climbed the hill to home. 
 
 The making of pottery is to the Zufiis what 
 blanket-weaving is to the Navajos. It is their 
 characteristic industry. The material used is a 
 
 142 
 
ZUNI POTTERY-MAKING 143 
 
 bluish clay, which is obtained from the summit of 
 Towa-Yalleni, several miles distant, and brought 
 laboriously home slung in a blanket upon the 
 potter s back. The clay is powdered on a stone 
 metate to the fineness of meal, mixed with water, 
 and kneaded until the mess resembles blue corn- 
 mush. The building-up of the jar is done entirely 
 by hand, excepting the base, which is moulded upon 
 the bottom of an old pot. There is a concavity in 
 the bottom which just fits the head of the carrier 
 and helps hold it steady there. Upon this base, coil 
 upon coil of the plastic mud is built up, the creases 
 of conjunction being smoothed away with a bit of 
 gourd. The jar is then set aside to dry thoroughly. 
 One day we saw one in this unfinished stage in 
 Sa-wi-etsi-tsita s house and asked her if she would 
 let us watch her decorate it, to which she consent 
 ing, we came with candy for the babies and spent 
 an afternoon. The colours used in decoration are 
 made from minerals found in the hills about Zufii, 
 and are white, red, and a brown that is almost 
 black. Sa-wi-etsi-tsita is an artist and feels the 
 inspiration of appreciative visitors, her face glow 
 ing with content and the joy of creation as she 
 works. She sits flat upon the floor, and after 
 
I 4 4 ZU NI POTTERY-MAKING 
 
 covering the jar with a coating of white, and 
 polishing it with a smooth stone until the surface 
 shines, she lays on the figures of the decoration 
 with a sliver of yucca leaf, shredded at the end to 
 make a brush of it. Out of the storehouse of her 
 memory the design grows without an error, and is 
 balanced in all its parts as perfectly as though the 
 jar had first been measured and sectioned off for it 
 with rule and compass. The design may be purely 
 geometrical, symbolic perhaps of clouds and rain; 
 or it may be of conventionalised leaves and flowers; 
 or it may be and her Zuni soul loves this above 
 all representative of swimming ducks and of deer 
 with visible hearts; but whatever the design, once 
 started it is worked out on certain conventional 
 lines which have come to her by tradition and can 
 not be arbitrarily varied. Sa-wi-etsi-tsita made sev 
 eral pieces of pottery for us during our stay at Zuni, 
 and of one the pattern was so exceedingly plain, in 
 severe lines of brown on white, that we asked her 
 not to do that for us again but always to put in some 
 red decoration, too. Our American ignorance dis 
 appointed her, for did we not know what every 
 Zuni knows, that that design never permits red? 
 The final stage of pottery-making is the firing, 
 
ZUNI POTTERY-MAKING 145 
 
 and when this is reached, the entire female portion 
 of the household is agog. The decorated jar is 
 carefully borne into the street, a place protected 
 from wind and travel is chosen, and the jar is set 
 mouth down upon a circle of small stones or scrap 
 iron. Then a cylinder of dry sheep-manure chips 
 is built up around the jar. Kindling of cedar 
 shreds is laid within, together with a sheep shank 
 or head (why, quien sabe? Sa-wi-etsi-tsita only 
 knows it makes the fire burn better) , and the whole 
 is fired. Little by little the flame spreads and 
 fattens upon the unpromising fuel, and, through 
 the open chinks of the chips, one may see the pot 
 brightening in the intense heat, as safe as Daniel 
 in his fiery furnace. When the fuel is consumed, 
 the jar is carefully lifted out and set aside to cool, 
 when it is ready for service. 
 
 Woman s invasion of man s time-honoured voca 
 tions has not yet reached Zufii. There the old- 
 fashioned partition of life s labours between male 
 and female is as it was in the days of the ancients. 
 Men plant the corn and harvest it; the women 
 grind it and make the bread. 1 Men tend the 
 
 1 "They make the best corncakes I have ever seen anywhere, " 
 writes Coronado from Zufii in 1540, "and this is what everybody 
 
146 ZUNI POTTERY-MAKING 
 
 sheep and cattle and go rabbit hunting ; the women 
 cook the meat. The women are the potters and 
 blanket-weavers ; the men are the silversmiths, and 
 do the knitting and moccasin-making and most of 
 the sewing on the American machines, which many 
 households possess. The men build the houses ; the 
 women plaster them and build the ovens, and bit 
 terly disappointed would they be if they should not 
 be allowed to put these finishing touches to houses 
 to be consecrated at Shalako time by the pres 
 ence of the Tall Gods and their attendant maskers. 
 As to the babies, everybody has a care of them. 
 Their lives are one round of pleasant happenings. 
 When they are not sleeping, they are eating, and 
 when they are doing neither of these, they are 
 taking the air so runs their infant world away. 
 To the little girls and the grandfathers falls the 
 lion s share of nursing the little folk; but it is no 
 unusual sight to see smiling middle-aged or young 
 fathers striding along about their business, with a 
 baby in a blanket swung upon their backs. The 
 men cannot bear to hear a child cry, and we have 
 
 ordinarily eats. They have the very best arrangement and 
 machinery for grinding that ever was seen. " And the fashion 
 in corncakes is still as it was in Coronado s time. 
 
A Zuni man knitting his wife s leggings. The men also run the 
 sewing-machine, when a household owns one. 
 
ZUNI POTTERY-MAKING 147 
 
 seen them stop their work to pick up a fretting 
 baby and take it out for a walk. How the babies 
 got on the back was as much of a puzzle to us, 
 until we saw the deed done, as was the apple in 
 the dumpling to the old philosopher. The man 
 humped himself as for leap-frog, swung the de 
 lighted infant so that it lit lightly on its stomach 
 upon the broad of his back, its arms and legs 
 spread out like a swimming frog s, and then the 
 blanket was caught under and around the child so 
 as to hold it as in a sack. 
 
 In Zuni, the baby is never in the way of all the 
 blessings of the gods it is the most desired and the 
 most cherished. High up on the Mountain of 
 the Sacred Corn is a double spire of rock, which 
 according to Zuni folk-lore represents the meta 
 morphosed bodies of two children sacrificed in 
 ancient days to save Zuni from a flood. Dick 
 pointed them out to us one day. 
 
 "Zuni man and woman," he remarked, "they 
 get mallied. Bimeby, no have any chillen. They 
 solly. They come to mountain, climb way up- 
 put on player plumes way up. Then next year 
 mebbe have chillen, and all happy. " 
 
CKapter XV 
 
 Of a Zuni Grinding Song, and of Prayer Plumes. 
 
 ONE afternoon a knock came at our door 
 and there stood Dick. 
 You no busy ? " he inquired. You 
 want listen em sing song? You come with me. " 
 So we went. It was the week before the great 
 annual festival of the Shalako gods, and Zuni was 
 all preparation for the joyous feast. For weeks, 
 by waggon and burro back, the corn had been 
 coming in from the distant fields, and housetops 
 and yards were piled high with the rustling harvest. 
 Women and old men were sitting in the sun, 
 stripping the husks from the ears, which were of a 
 score of colours red, yellow, blue, white, black, 
 magenta, orange, lilac, pink, and tossing them 
 into kaleidoscopic piles. There would be no hun 
 ger in Zuni this year, for the harvest was abound 
 ing and even the burros shared in the general good 
 humour, feeding and fattening knee-deep in corn- 
 husks. 
 
 148 
 
A GRINDING SONG 149 
 
 We ascended a ladder at the sun priest s house 
 and, crossing a number of roofs, came to a door 
 from which the sound of a drum issued. The 
 small room, dimly lighted by three windows under 
 the roof, was thronged. Two mustachioed Nava- 
 jos were bartering silver trinkets with a little, soft- 
 voiced Zufii man behind the door; a cluster of 
 women were cooking at the fire, and through the 
 door others came and went bearing baskets heaped 
 high with meal or corn. In a dusky corner was a 
 choir of eight young men, singing to the accompani 
 ment of a primitive drum a large jar with a skin 
 stretched tightly over its mouth. Across the 
 room, where from one of the windows the light fell 
 upon them, were five or six young women grinding 
 corn upon as many mealing stones, their lithe 
 bodies rising and descending in unison and keeping 
 time with the music of the men. As one would 
 tire, her place would be taken by another in the 
 room. So the grinding never ceased and would 
 not till the sun set. The faces of the grinders were 
 half hidden by the veil of hair that hung down 
 before them; but their dress of many colours, their 
 brown arms encircled at the wrists with silver 
 bracelets, the flash of shell or silver necklaces 
 
1 50 A GRINDING SONG 
 
 swinging as they knelt over the mealing bins, 
 made an animated scene. 
 
 As for the music, it, too, never flagged. The air 
 changed from time to time; one singer or another 
 might pause to puff a cigarette or drink from a 
 gourd of water, but the stream of the music 
 suffered no stoppage. It was a Zufii grinding 
 song a song of thanksgiving, it might be, or an 
 invocation for rain and good crops the words 
 of which had come down from father to son for 
 generations. Sometimes the singers turned rever 
 ent faces upward; sometimes they lifted their 
 hands as in supplication; never was there a sign 
 that they held the performance as otherwise than 
 of the most solemn import. Indeed, the vim, the 
 precision, the religious fervour which these eight 
 serious men put into the music, made us feel that 
 we were in a household of faith, where the depend 
 ence of humanity was realised and the daily gifts 
 of God to men were received not as matters of 
 course but with thankfulness of heart. 
 
 It was heathendom s testimony to the power 
 and goodness of God, and we felt humbled as we 
 stepped into the air. We passed one of the Govern 
 ment teachers on the way to her Christian home. 
 
A GRINDING SONG 151 
 
 "Hello," she remarked, "been visiting the 
 savages? Find em pretty dirty, don t you?" 
 
 Zuni s prayers are breathed to little bunches of 
 feathers, set in the earth, or deposited by certain 
 sacred springs, which are peep-holes of the gods to 
 keep watchful eyes on Zuni, or laid in the recesses 
 of certain stone shrines of the valleys and the hills, 
 one of which, on the great plain just outside of the 
 pueblo, marks the spot known in Zuni geography 
 as the centre of the earth. We used sometimes to 
 see men walking silently from one house to another, 
 carrying in their blankets wooden boxes with 
 sliding lids, of which one projecting end was carved 
 in the terraced shape that symbolises to Zuni the 
 rain-cloud. One day in Dick s house, we saw one 
 of these boxes open, out of which our dusky 
 friend was solemnly taking feathers of various 
 kinds turkeys , hawks , and bluebirds and 
 making them up into prayer plumes, according to a 
 strict ritual fastening them with cotton string to 
 short, painted sticks, and laying them in a cere 
 monial basket by his side. 
 
 "By and by, do you say prayers to them?" we 
 asked. 
 
 Dick nodded. 
 
152 A GRINDING SONG 
 
 "What do you pray for?" 
 
 "Oh, lots of lain to fill up wells and make plenty 
 co n for Zufii man and white man, too, so ev y- 
 body all happy; and lots chillen for ev ybody; 
 and plenty HI sheep and goat and HI cow" a 
 kindly prayer, we thought, which in its inclusive- 
 ness put us to shame, who had not always been so 
 mindful of those not of our own household. 
 
 Later in the day we saw Dick and four of his 
 clan, their red blankets wrapped about them, and 
 the tips of prayer plumes peeping from the folds, 
 wending their way in single file, with grave, down 
 cast eyes, out to the plain where Zufii s sacred 
 places are; and a little prayer was born in our 
 hearts that the God whom these children of His 
 ignorantly worshipped would incline His ear to 
 their prayer, now and for evermore. 
 

 $ 
 
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Chapter XVI 
 
 Of the Nig Ht Dance of tKe SHalaKo Gods. 
 
 THE Shalako festival of Zurii, which occurs 
 every year near the end of November, is a 
 remarkable sacred drama, enacted in the 
 open for the double purpose of invoking the divine 
 blessing upon certain newly-built houses, and of 
 rendering to the gods of Zuni thanks for the har 
 vests of the year. The exact date of the coming 
 of the Shalako is fixed each year by some occult 
 formula of the Zuni priests, and while the ap 
 pointed day is generally known several weeks in 
 advance, the official publication of it is not made 
 until the eighth evening before the event. The 
 immediate effect of this announcement, which is 
 given out by ten masked buffoons in the principal 
 plazas, is to quicken the easy-going life of the old 
 pueblo into a bustle of industry. The labour on 
 the new houses, which has dragged along half 
 heartedly for weeks, receives a fresh impetus, the 
 
 153 
 
154 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 women putting on the mud plaster with rabbit- 
 skin mittens as the men lay down the roofs. 
 Daily from outlying farming villages of the Zunis, 
 country waggons arrive laden with corn in the 
 husk, beans in the pod, and little round water 
 melons all white within, or piled high with trunks 
 and branches of pinon and cedar, wherewith to set 
 the Shalako hearths ablazing. 
 
 On the housetops and in the sunny doorways the 
 huskers go merrily on with their husking, cluttering 
 the narrow streets with the rustling sheaths, 
 which crones, too old for heavier labour, gather up 
 in blankets and carry off to be burned. From the 
 ceilings of nearly every house are swinging the 
 fresh carcasses of sheep or goats or cattle the wet 
 skins tacked out on the floor to dry and every 
 where as you thread the tortuous alleys of the 
 town, the air is sweetened with the fragrance of 
 fresh-milled corn as the women grind, kneeling 
 at the mealing stones, their voices the while lifted 
 in weird, minor songs, keeping time with the 
 movement of their bodies. 
 
 At the little adobe store which Nick conducts in 
 the heart of Zufii, the ordinarily sluggish pulse of 
 trade leaps to fever temperature in the last days 
 
DANCE OF THE SIIALAKO 155 
 
 before Shalako. Men, women, and children crowd 
 in front of the counter behind which Nick, his 
 placid full-moon of a face surmounted with a flat- 
 crowned, broad-brimmed hat, set well down over 
 his ears, dispenses sugar and coffee, leather gaunt 
 lets, checked calico, and scarlet blankets, in trade 
 for pinon nuts, sheepskins, silver bracelets, hens 
 eggs, and wheat. Nomad Navajos from Gallup 
 and beyond arrive on tough little ponies, in 
 companies of three and four, bedecked with silver 
 necklaces, belts, and bangles, which they are ever 
 ready to barter away to trafficking Zunis. Then 
 one evening, as the sun drops to the Arizona line, a 
 bugle sounds upon the plain and a troop of United 
 States cavalry, in command of a pleasant-faced 
 lieutenant, rides quietly in and pitches its tents 
 just without the village. 
 
 Shalako being a night ceremony, we might as 
 well have left our camera at home. To be sure, 
 we had hopes of snapping the God of the Little 
 Fire, avant-courier of the Shalako, as he came in 
 from the plain just before sundown on the eventful 
 day, but Five-Cent Marmon, the teniente, wise in 
 the ways of the white man, divined the intent and 
 enjoined us beforehand. 
 
1 5 6 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 "Man," said he, with an eye upon a suspicious 
 bulge of one of my coat pockets, "you take 
 pictu ?" 
 
 We assented. 
 
 "You no take pictu till Shalako gone," he 
 dissented. "You sabe ? I say so. " 
 
 So the God of the Little Fire, carrying in one 
 hand a smouldering torch of twisted cedar bark, 
 his bare, painted body spotted with many-coloured 
 sparkles, and his head eclipsed within a hemi 
 spherical mask, also dotted, that rested like a starry 
 dome upon his slender shoulders, came and went 
 unpictured, as becomes a god. 
 
 Before him walked a Zufii priest in ceremonial 
 dress, a great, white buckskin slung across his 
 shoulders, a bunch of rabbits depending from his 
 belt, and bearing reverently before him a basket of 
 prayer plumes, upon which his downcast gaze 
 rested. It was our old friend Dick in apotheosis. 
 The two made the tour of the village, planting the 
 prayer plumes at certain appointed places, and 
 followed by a group of dancers who impersonated 
 gods of the Zufii pantheon and wore wonderful 
 masks, presenting an ensemble of superb colour as 
 they danced and chanted. 
 
DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 157 
 
 The sight of these strange beings, more like 
 denizens of another world than of this, put us in a 
 fever of expectation, and we impatiently awaited 
 the darkness under whose cover the Giant Gods 
 should arrive. 
 
 As the twilight deepened to dusk, slowly moving 
 groups upon the plain could be dimly seen ap 
 proaching Zuni from the southern hills, stopping 
 on the farther side of the river that flows past the 
 pueblo. Five-Cent Marmon, wrapped to the eyes 
 in his blanket, strode by us. 
 
 "Shalako come," he observed, in a burst of 
 friendliness. 
 
 But not till darkness had completely settled 
 down we, meanwhile, shivering on the bank 
 and anathematising Indian deliberation did the 
 groups finally cross the stream. Then they 
 paused in a hollow of the bank, the Shalakos kneel 
 ing while the attendants gave the finishing touches 
 to their make-up. 
 
 In Zuni mythology, the Shalako Gods are the 
 couriers of the divine rain-makers, stationed at 
 each quarter of the compass, which in Zuni cos 
 mography has six points North, South, East, 
 West, Zenith, and Nadir. So gigantic in stature 
 
1 58 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 are the Shalakos that they must be represented 
 in effigy -astonishing creatures, ten feet or so in 
 height, with staring, painted eyes, horns for ears, a 
 horizontal, wooden snout that opens and shuts 
 with a snap, and a head-dress, like an open fan, 
 of upright eagle or turkey feathers. From the 
 figure s waist, which is at the height of a man s 
 head, swings a huge hoopskirt of heavy, white 
 cotton of native weaving, ornamented in colour 
 around the bottom with the inverted pyramids 
 that symbolise rain-clouds. Completely hidden 
 within this is the effigy s motive power, a Zufii 
 man, whose moccasined feet are seen below the 
 skirts. He carries the effigy by means of a pole, 
 lodged in a pocket of his belt. As the Shalako 
 moves teetering along like a superannuated 
 dandy it utters at times a shrill whistle and snaps 
 the jaws of its snout with nerve-racking violence. 
 It was now pitch dark, a thin layer of snow 
 flaked the ground, and the wintry wind, blowing up 
 from the icy river, chilled the marrow of our bones. 
 Now and again the Shalakos would make as though 
 to resume their progress, only to settle down once 
 more to an interminable wait. Finally, the few 
 white spectators, who, with ourselves, were watch- 
 
DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 159 
 
 ing developments, grew tired, and at seven o clock 
 decided to go indoors somewhere and get warm. 
 As for us, some experience with red human nature 
 had taught us that when the Caucasian s patience 
 with Indian ways has all leaked out, something 
 is apt to happen. So we decided to remain a 
 little longer, and wrapping our blankets closer 
 about us, we shrank into the corner of an old corral 
 a few rods off, that shielded us from the wind, and 
 waited and waited and waited. By and by, 
 we shifted our positions, and again waited. 
 
 And now there is a stir among the Shalakos, and 
 we see the grotesque heads and shoulders rise from 
 the ground into distinct outline against the starlit 
 sky, far above the level of the crowd of Zufii 
 attendants. With a commingled, wheezy whistl 
 ing and snapping of snouts, the Giant Gods sway 
 into single file; suddenly there bursts in unison 
 from a hundred throats a majestic chorus, a 
 simple minor theme repeated over and over, fas 
 cinating and soul-compelling in the darkness; and 
 the weird procession is off upon its march about 
 the village. 
 
 We rush beside it, breathless and excited, and 
 fall into step. 
 
160 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 As the notes of the solemn chorus penetrate into 
 the dwellings, the doors are thrown open, emitting 
 the light of a multitude of glowing hearths, and the 
 people throng out upon the housetops and on the 
 streets, watching the coming of the long-expected 
 divinities. Many from the houses hurry out and 
 swell the procession, which stops at each new 
 dwelling where the ceremony of blessing is to be 
 performed, and there leaves a Shalako. Kneeling 
 before the open doorway, the gigantic god waits 
 while, to the chanting of the chorus and the contin 
 ual sprinkling of sacred meal, the priests plant in 
 front of the steps the prayer-laden bunches of 
 feathers which constitute the vehicles of the Zunis 
 invocation to the powers above. Then, stooping, 
 the great effigy passes in. We follow and find a 
 seat to our great content near the fireplace, where 
 a cedar log is crackling. 
 
 It is to a feast of fat things that every visitor to 
 a Zufii house comes on the night of the Shalako 
 a feast that is the full-blown flower of Zufii culinary 
 art. There is, for instance, meat-stew mutton or 
 beef or rabbit even a tasty mess of mountain rat, 
 garnished with onions and chili peppers; there is 
 blue wafer-bread of corn and grey wafer-bread of 
 
DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 161 
 
 beans; there are wheaten loaves and frijoles, 
 roasted pifion nuts and watermelons, none the 
 worse to aboriginal taste if they are frosted; and 
 there is coffee flowing free as milk in Canaan. For 
 two or three hours the feasting is kept up, until 
 about midnight the ceremonial dances begin. 
 Beside the primitive altar which is erected in 
 the room, there sits a choir of men, who supply 
 the music, which is entirely vocal, except for the 
 accompaniment of gourd rattles and a hollow- 
 voiced drum, made, in the orthodox Zuni way, of 
 a huge earthen jar. 
 
 The spectators throng the walls of the long room 
 or crowd the doors and windows that open from 
 the inner apartments of the house a motley 
 lot, interesting indeed, under the flaring lights. 
 Predominant, of course, are the Zufiis, some in the 
 picturesque costume of their fathers from head 
 band to moccasins ; others in the nondescript attire 
 that the trader sells them grey sombreros, blue 
 overalls, suspenders, and clumsy brogans. There 
 is, too, a sprinkling of other Pueblo people, from 
 Acoma and Laguna or even the distant Hopi 
 mesas. Of Navajos, traditionary enemies of Zuni, 
 yet never debarred from the hospitalities of Shal- 
 
 XX 
 
162 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 ako, there are many their gaunt-visaged women 
 with roly-poly, uncomplaining babies by their 
 sides, strapped in queer little rockerless cradles f 
 either asleep or blinking at the unaccustomed 
 lights. A few whites are looking on, too, but they 
 soon tire employes of the Government agency 
 and schools, a surprised tourist or two, lured 
 hither perhaps by a railroad advertisement, and an 
 occasional hard-faced trooper of the lieutenant s 
 squad. Only Mexicans, of all the world, are for 
 bidden to view the Shalako, and no word of 
 Spanish is permitted to be spoken during the 
 ceremonies. The dancers come and go in bands, 
 each with its leader one set appearing from the 
 outer darkness as another departs into it. 
 
 Hour after hour until dawn streaks the sky 
 beyond the eastern mesa, the singing and the 
 dancing go zealously on, and lest any of the 
 spectators should so far forget the proprieties of a 
 religious occasion, certain of the dancers carry a 
 yucca switch, sharper than birch, which they lay 
 lustily upon the shoulders of any tired wight who 
 nods. Now and then the Shalako takes the floor, 
 its head almost touching the ceiling, and after a 
 few conventional rounds, breaks into a brisk run 
 
DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 163 
 
 that seems aimed to annihilate some frightened 
 onlooker in the front row, but with surprising 
 dexterity the huge figure whirls about in the nick of 
 time and drops again into the customary shuffle. 
 Now and again there is a pause in the music and 
 the dancers, perspiring at every pore, retire to be 
 replaced by a fresh band, arriving from another 
 house. 
 
 Each set of dancers is differently attired, and 
 in their songs and accoutring represent diverse 
 features of the complex Zuni mythology, that only 
 the initiated may comprehend. But whatever it 
 may mean on its esoteric side, to the uninitiated 
 the spectacle appeals as a thing of marvellous 
 beauty, growing more beautiful as the night wears 
 on. The intense earnestness of the dancers, 
 trained in their movements to act as one man ; the 
 fineness of many of the faces, that for the time 
 being are lighted with the glow of a god-like 
 enthusiasm ; the litheness and grace of the more or 
 less nude figures, painted in harmonious hues, and 
 adorned with tinkling ornaments of shell and 
 turquoise and silver, and the native loveliness of 
 the furry skins of wildcat or fox ; the music of the 
 voices sounding in unison, now fierce and fortis- 
 
164 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 simo, now tender and low, now tempered with 
 almost organ-like majesty, ever varying with the 
 sense of the legendary words that proceed from the 
 lips of dancers and choir all this, enacted by men 
 who render it as a free service to the Omnipotence 
 that rules their lives, is as different from the work 
 of players acting for pay as light is from darkness. 
 
 The beauty of the make-up of these dancers is a 
 revelation to one who thinks of Indian art as a 
 hodge-podge of crudities in form, and of glaring 
 colours of anything so it be red and yellow ! As 
 a matter of fact, the Indians as a race have a true 
 artistic sense, the phenomena of nature serving as 
 their most frequent models ; and the harmony and 
 balance of colour evidenced in the shifting scenes 
 of the Shalako dancers are a delight to the most 
 cultivated eye an exhibition, indeed, that would 
 do credit to any metropolitan stage with the 
 added fact that it is no make-believe but the real 
 thing. 
 
 The last song had been sung, the last dance had 
 been danced, and the Giant Gods, showered with 
 sacred meal from the surging crowd, filed slowly 
 away under the risen sun, towards the gullied mesa 
 out of which the night before they had appeared. 
 
DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 165 
 
 Our sleepy eyes followed the strange procession of 
 swaying figures until it reached the foothills where, 
 breaking into a run, it passed from view to re 
 appear in a year, bringing to Zurii renewed assur 
 ance that the gods of the harvest and the rain do 
 not forget. Over at the troopers camp the round 
 up for departure was on and the Government 
 mules were lending their patient backs once more 
 to the pack-saddles; the visiting Navajos were 
 bunching together and striking into the north 
 trail that led off to the hogans of their people; the 
 Zuni folk were vanishing into their houses for a 
 nap ; and the dance of the Shalako was over. 
 
 As we strolled back to our own quarters to pack 
 up for home, we marvelled at the indifference of 
 our countrymen to this beautiful religious cere 
 mony of a race who antedate us as Americans. 
 People travel far to attend the Passion Play, or 
 metropolitan representations of the Nibelungen 
 Cycle, or Shakespearean revivals to see, indeed, 
 any sort of dramatic make-believe, if it be well 
 enough staged ; but this sacred service of the Zunis 
 to their gods, which is no play, though performed 
 with dramatic fervour and with a magnificent 
 setting that symbolises the living things of their 
 
166 DANCE OF THE SHALAKO 
 
 faith to this service of life only an occasional, 
 stray traveller comes, or an ethnological student 
 now and then and some nomad Indians. 
 
 The shadow of Five- Cent Marmon fell across 
 our threshold as we sat thinking it over. 
 
 "You take pictu now?" he observed; "all light, 
 you take pictu . I say so. Shalako gone." 
 
 But the teniente was outwitted. Though we had 
 obeyed his orders and pocketed the camera, we 
 had none the less secured the picture of Shalako, 
 impressed indelibly upon the enduring film of 
 memory. 
 
Chapter XVII 
 
 Of the Eight Pueblos of Moqvai, and tKe Way 
 TKitHer. 
 
 THE Moquis ? What are they to the Hopis ? 
 Oh yes, I know, the Snake Dance. Some 
 body told me of that. And Maria went 
 to a lecture about it once. Not real rattlesnakes? 
 Oh awful ! But their fangs must be taken out first 
 of course. And we sewed for them one winter 
 in our King s Daughters, and sent them a box of 
 nice flannel shirts, poor things. Oh, not for the 
 snakes, you ridiculous thing, for the people ! Yes, 
 I really know a great deal about them. How dread 
 ful for them to live way out in Arizona ! And now 
 do tell me about the cotillion last night; I heard, " 
 etc. 
 
 "The Moquis? Where have I heard of them? 
 They re Dakota Indians, are n t they? Arizona? 
 Oh, yes, that s so, I remember. A fellow wanted 
 me once to take a trip to see them, when we were 
 
 167 
 
168 MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 on our way to California. He said they beat the 
 band for picturesqueness and all that but Great 
 Scott ! it takes two days by waggon across a desert 
 to get to them and carry your own booze. So I 
 said: Not on your life, my boy this train suits 
 me! You go, if you want to, and tell me the 
 features when we meet again. I have n t heard 
 of him since, so maybe he got scalped. Anyhow, 
 it seemed a fool trip to me. How s the fishing at 
 Catalina nowadays? " 
 
 This is what you get when you try to interest 
 the average citizen of the United States in the 
 case of the eight pueblos of Moqui. Shall I gain 
 any more attention by writing it out on paper? 
 Perhaps not. Nevertheless I shall try. At least 
 I shall not be interrupted till I am through with 
 the story I have to tell. 
 
 Northward a hundred miles or so from the rail 
 road, beyond the muddy flow of the Rio Colorado 
 Chiquito, beyond the mirages and sand-storms, 
 the unutterable droughts, and the summer cloud 
 bursts of the Painted Desert of Arizona, are the 
 eight pueblos known collectively as Moqui and 
 individually by names of such rare difficulty to 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 TI 
 M 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 169 
 
 pronounce that I shall disturb you with them as 
 little as possible. This Moqui is the region which 
 the ancient Conquistador es called the Province of 
 Tusayan. Coronado, resting on his arms after 
 the conquest of Zuni in 1540, heard of it and sent 
 one of his lieutenants with half a dozen musketeers 
 up from Zuni to ascertain what it was like. This 
 lieutenant s name was Pedro de Tobar, or Tovar, 
 and he enjoys a twentieth-century fame, having a 
 great hotel named for him a hundred miles from 
 Moqui on the rim of the Grand Canon of the 
 Colorado in Arizona. 
 
 Little cities of stone, built fortress-like upon the 
 apexes and dizzy edges of four lofty, rocky promon 
 tories that jut out into the desert, and housing a 
 population of some two thousand Pueblo Indians, 
 the pueblos of Moqui have a sublime outlook, 
 without parallel in America or probably in the 
 world, upon desert, sky, and distant mountains. 
 Silence and sunlight by day, starlight and silence 
 by night, and always the desert s own peculiar 
 mystery, envelope this land of Moqui, where no 
 man except he be an American office-holder can 
 live for a day without being sensible of his individ 
 ual insignificance in the make-up of the universe, 
 
170 MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 Hither, long centuries ago, came the ancestors 
 of the present dwellers in Moqui, after movings 
 whose course is fairly well marked to this day by 
 ruins of prehistoric towns scattered along the 
 valley of the Little Colorado, in the canons of the 
 White Mountains of Arizona, and among the Mo- 
 gollones. There is every reason to believe that 
 they came seeking in this desert fastness an asylum 
 from war and the depredations of their enemies. 
 For the Lord of Life, it seems, had implanted in 
 the hearts of these red children of His, not a spirit 
 of unrest, rapine, and war qualities which our 
 superior civilisation invariably associates with the 
 unreconstructed red man, but the love of peace, 
 of home, and of tilling the ground. Indeed, they 
 called themselves, and still do, Hopi, meaning 
 "the Peaceful"; and because their settled abodes 
 and ordered lives of industry as agriculturists and 
 artsmen enabled them to gather to themselves 
 property which excited the cupidity of warlike 
 nomads of the South-West, such as the Utes, the 
 
 1 They are also quite generally called Moquis (or Mokis) ; 
 but this is really a term of contempt, as Dago for an Italian or 
 Mick for an Irishman. In this book the word " Moqui" is used 
 in its geographic sense, meaning the locality in which the Hopis 
 live. 
 
Chief Snake Priest of Walpi, hoeing his corn two or three days 
 after the Snake Dance. Note how short the stalks are, yet 
 they are full grown. The man is but five feet high. 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 171 
 
 Apaches, and the Navajos, their fields and terraced 
 towns would appear to have been the object of 
 attack and spoliation by these enemies. Then, to 
 escape the ceaseless harrying of marauders, came 
 the flight of the Hopis to the desert, taking to them 
 selves the barren waste as an ally and establishing 
 themselves where the hardship of getting at them 
 would minimise the liability to invasion. 
 
 So the pueblos of Moqui came to be no man 
 can say when, but certainly before the coming of 
 the sixteenth-century Spaniards; and to reach 
 them across the long, sun-scorched, waterless 
 leagues was, in old Spanish parlance, literally una 
 Jornada de muerte a journey of death. Here in 
 Moqui, the Hopis planted their corn of many 
 colours and set up altars and shrines that stand to 
 this present day ; and with invocations and thanks 
 giving to the red gods that had brought their 
 fathers up from the darkness of the underworld to 
 this world of light, they wrestled unceasingly with 
 the desert for a living and won. 
 
 In a land where the annual rainfall is but a few 
 inches, and that confined principally to two sum 
 mer months, and where the sandy ground, shifting 
 continually before the wind, is almost as unstable 
 
1 72 MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 as the waves of the sea, this untutored race has 
 scored over adverse nature a victory which wins 
 the admiration of every serious-minded person, 
 scientist or layman, who visits Moqui. The Hopis 
 have searched out every spot in the desert within 
 a score of miles, where moisture lingers long enough 
 to mature a crop of corn or beans or melons, and 
 industriously cultivate it and protect it from 
 burial by shifting sands from seed-time to harvest. 
 Of the desert s resources practically nothing es 
 capes them. Of its rocks and stones they have 
 fashioned implements and built stable towns; of 
 the fibres of its plants and the skins of its animals 
 they have made clothing; of its clay they have 
 moulded serviceable and beautiful pottery; of its 
 grasses they have woven baskets of superior weave 
 and design; upon its bitter shrubs they pasture 
 their flocks; certain saponaceous roots provide 
 them with soap, and many herbs contribute to 
 their vegetable dieting. In fact, their knowledge 
 of the desert plant life is little short of marvellous. 
 Out of one hundred and fifty known species of 
 plants growing wild in Moqui a white farmer 
 would call them all weeds the Hopis have found 
 use, it is said, for about a hundred and forty. From 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 173 
 
 the Spaniards, who sought to Christianise them, 
 but whose iron rule only succeeded in driving these 
 Quakerly-disposed Indians to such desperation 
 that they finally threw the priests over the cliffs 
 and demolished the church, taking its beams for 
 roofing their own pagan fanes from the Span 
 iards they got enrichment of their lot in the shape 
 of horses, burros, sheep, iron implements, and 
 peach trees. The peach orchards are to-day a 
 special feature in the environs of every Hopi town, 
 the deep green of the foliage, billowing the yellow 
 sands, being visible to the traveller as he ap 
 proaches long before the town itself is distinguish 
 able from the rock upon which it is founded. 
 
 The nearest railroad to Moqui is the Santa Fe s 
 transcontinental line, and the pueblos lie seventy- 
 five to a hundred miles north of it. To them are 
 four principal waggon routes, and unless you are 
 used to desert travel, whichever one you take, 
 you will likely wish you had chosen another; for, 
 at the best, the trip is a hard one. You may, first 
 of all, set out for Moqui from Canon Diablo, a 
 flag-station where a lone trading-post has been 
 established for many years; amply capable, how 
 ever, of fitting you out in thorough style. This 
 
174 MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 way is the shortest to Oraibi, the westernmost 
 pueblo. Then there is the route from Winslow. 
 This Arizona town has the advantage of superior 
 hotel accommodations; so from there you may 
 count upon starting well-fed. The third route, 
 that from Holbrook, a smaller place thirty-three 
 miles east of Winslow, is a direct one to Walpi. 
 Lastly, there is the Gallup route, the longest of all, 
 taking from three to three and a half days as 
 against two days by either of the other roads. It 
 it, however, the pleasantest from the standpoint 
 of comfort and general interest, with a minimum 
 of desert to cross and a good deal of pine forest to 
 traverse. The latter is very lovely, especially in 
 the autumn, when the resplendent foliage of small 
 oaks scattered through the pines fills the wood 
 lands with a glory of bright colour. 
 
 The Gallup road also crosses a considerable part 
 of the great Navajo Reservation, affording the 
 traveller a good opportunity to observe this 
 remarkable tribe at close range. Both the Hol 
 brook and Gallup routes present one important 
 advantage over the other two in that their starting 
 point is north of the Little Colorado River, the 
 fording of which is thus avoided. This is an im- 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 175 
 
 portant consideration as, in time of rains, the river 
 is not infrequently flooded and impassable for 
 days. As both Canon Diablo and Winslow lie 
 south of the Little Colorado, this possibility of the 
 risen river s causing delay is to be reckoned with 
 from those points. 
 
 It was with the view of including the world- 
 famous Snake Dance at Walpi that we timed our 
 expedition to the Hopi mesas in August. One of 
 the few things we did know about the trip before 
 hand and this was confirmed by experience 
 was that, even in August, we should not encounter 
 any overwhelming heat. Everything else, how 
 ever, which the midsummer elements could fur 
 nish, we had in liberal doses including wind and 
 cloudbursts, radiant sunshine by day and delicious 
 nights for slumber. 
 
 We decided upon the Gallup route. We are 
 not of the robust type of travellers, and previous 
 experience with desert and Indians had taught us 
 our physical limitations. We accordingly made 
 careful provision in advance for a first-class team 
 and competent driver, as well as for as many 
 comforts as could be packed under the seats. On 
 two nights of the journey we knew that lodging ac- 
 
1 7 6 MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 commodations could be had; but one other night 
 must be spent in the open ; while, as to Moqui, we 
 knew not how we should be housed and fed there. 
 So we included in our impedimenta two folding 
 cots; two down quilts folded lengthwise and 
 turned up a few inches at the side and bottom and 
 pinned there with safety-pins, making sleeping- 
 bags, using them by day for cushions in the car 
 riage; a telescope satchel, containing needful 
 changes of clothing; and a box of such provisions 
 delicacies and the finer grade of necessaries 
 as we should not likely find in Indian traders 
 stocks. Furthermore, to relieve the minds of 
 anxious friends, we carried a vial of permanga 
 nate of potash crystals, for use in case of getting 
 bitten at the Snake Dance a very, very remote 
 contingency. 
 
 Though one may travel forty miles without 
 sight of a white face, there are no dangers on a 
 trip of this kind any greater than would be met 
 with in motoring from New York to Boston. The 
 stock bugaboos of the tenderfoot, such as venom 
 ous snakes, Indians on the war-path, and "bad 
 men" of the shilling shocker type, are negligible 
 factors. Our frontier West develops in its men, 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 177 
 
 along with some picturesque vices, a broadness of 
 dealing, combined with a certain chivalry where 
 women are concerned, that makes it the safest 
 of regions for travellers who mind their own busi 
 ness, and if these do not put on airs and become 
 condescending or instructive, they will be always 
 in the hands of their friends. At the lonely post 
 of the white trader or in the Navajo hogan, they 
 are welcome without charge to such board and 
 lodging as the place affords. As one hospitable 
 Arizonian put it to us: "Your coin don t pass 
 here, brother; it s hard enough to have to travel 
 this country without paying out money." 
 
 Nevertheless, it was somewhat of a strain on our 
 faith when we applied at the livery stable at 
 Gallup for the team we had arranged for some 
 weeks in advance, to be told apologetically by the 
 proprietor that the experienced man whom he had 
 counted on to drive us had sprained his arm, and 
 he would have to put us in charge of his only other 
 driver, a seventeen-year-old boy, who had never 
 been thirty miles from home. 
 
 "But he ll pick up the way all right," he 
 continued comfortingly ; you see, you travel most 
 of the time over the Navajo Reservation and Bob 
 
178 MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 talks Navajo with a regular Parisian accent. Why, 
 when he talks, I m here to tell you it just makes 
 the squaws weep, he does it so good: so, if there s 
 ever any doubt about the road, he can ask an 
 Indian, and it s just the same as if he knew the 
 road himself. Accommodating? Yes, sir, you 
 bet; he 11 play ball all right, He d better; his 
 job depends on it. He s over to Fort Defiance to 
 day with a party. That s on your road, and he 
 starts back in the morning. So, if you re ready 
 to hit the trail to-morrow, I 11 drive you out and 
 we 11 meet him fifteen or twenty miles out ; then 
 he 11 turn in with you, and I will bring his bunch 
 of people on into Gallup. He 11 deliver the goods, 
 all right don t you worry." 
 
 As there was no alternative, we did not worry, 
 though there seemed some cause for solicitude in 
 being put in the care of a stripling on a two hundred 
 and fifty mile trip through a wilderness that was as 
 unknown to him as to ourselves; and the next 
 morning found us early on the road. 
 
 Bob, when we met him, proved to be a tall 
 youth with a serious countenance, an olive com 
 plexion, and calf-like eyes. He wore a hat with 
 the crown pinched up into an elevated peak, blue 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 179 
 
 jumper and overalls, and long-legged, yellow boots. 
 He listened without comment as his employer 
 delivered him his orders. 
 
 "This lady and gentleman are going up to the 
 Moqui country and will be gone three or four 
 weeks. You are to take them. Here s twenty 
 dollars for the expenses of the team, and if you 
 need any more, ask the gentleman for it. If you 
 kill one of the horses, buy another, and if you need 
 to pay any cash down, he 11 give you a bunch of 
 money. And here s your war-bag" (holding up to 
 view a small telescope some eighteen inches long) . 
 "Your mother packed it for you. There s a 
 couple o pair o socks and a bunch of cigarette 
 papers in it ; that will keep you for a month. Now, 
 you get aboard here, and adios everybody." 
 
 So, without more formality, the transfer of Bob 
 was effected, and we drove off over a pifion ridge 
 and down into a wide, solitary waste of sagebrush, 
 where all the world was as new and fresh to us as 
 to our first parents when they stepped forth into 
 the great world without Eden. 
 
 It was through a country of wild beauty that 
 three days trip. Every day our Jehu lost the 
 way; but, through the goodness of Providence that 
 
1 8o MOQUI PUEBLOS 
 
 watches over infants, found it again; every day 
 were hard thunder-showers of an hour or two, 
 succeeded by a radiant glory of clearing; and every 
 day there were such bursts of sunshine out of a 
 turquoise sky, where huge, cumulus clouds gath 
 ered and moved in stately procession, as only the 
 South- West knows. Wild flowers bloomed on every 
 hand tangles of yellow sunflowers and forests of 
 purple cleome, sometimes as high as the horses 
 heads; and always ahead of us long, flat-topped 
 mesas, bathed in soft tones of pink and mauve and 
 amethyst, stretched themselves into the plain, 
 beckoning us on. Hills of mystery, they seemed 
 like the ramparts of some heavenly city let down 
 into this world of sense, awakening in us, far from 
 all things, the hope of all things. No wonder the 
 old Conquistador es kept striving towards them! 
 There is that in the alluring, warm-toned, canon- 
 gashed steeps that makes the presence of a pot of 
 gold there or a pocket of precious stones seem the 
 most natural thing in the world. Of human life, 
 there were only occasional Navajos, men and 
 women, always ahorseback and often driving 
 before them great bands of sheep. Bob never 
 missed the opportunity of intimate conversation 
 
MOQUI PUEBLOS 181 
 
 with them to assure himself of the road and the 
 location of water for his team. For ourselves, we 
 had in the carriage two canteens fresh-filled every 
 morning. And, by and by, we came out of this 
 semi-desert upon pure desert and caught our first 
 sight of Moqui the pueblo of Walpi, perched 
 upon a lofty, outstretched promontory, silhouetted 
 against a streak of light in the western sky, the 
 long streamers of the rain descending waveringly 
 out of black clouds upon the town. 
 
Chapter XVIII 
 
 Of the Life in Moqui ; and a Hint of its Latter 
 Day Trembles. 
 
 A" the foot of Walpi s steep is a scattering of 
 houses the Government school, the field 
 matron s, the doctor s, and a few that 
 Indians dwell in. In one a Hopi trader keeps a 
 little store. To Americans his name is Tom, and 
 him we had been instructed to find and consult as 
 to our lodging while in Moqui. As we drew up 
 before the store, an Indian came briskly forth to 
 greet us, a small man with a pleasant smile, jet 
 black hair cut square at the neck, and a clean, 
 white shirt that bellied picturesquely in the breeze. 
 No, he was not Tom, he was Tom s bruzzer n 
 law, Percy, and yes, he sought mebbe he knew 
 about some house if we wanted to hire one till after 
 Snake Dance; mebbe his sister Mary, Snake 
 Priest s wife, she would hire hers, it was just 
 bow-shot away, and she would go up to the 
 mesa and stay ; he would spoke to her. 
 
 182 
 
X ,"- 
 
 A Hopi potter preparing to fire pottery bowls. Her home is 
 on the distant mesa top, but she has come down here 
 because a nearby corral affords abundant fuel of dried 
 sheep manure. 
 
LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 183 
 
 And so it came to pass that, in the course of an 
 hour, we found ourselves, for a consideration of a 
 dollar and a half a week, sole tenants of a tight- 
 roofed, one-roomed, stone house with a little, 
 walled front-yard, and a glorious view eastward 
 across the yellow desert to pink and purple moun 
 tains. Here and there, amid the sands, were 
 green patches of growing corn, beans, and melons, 
 and far away in the sunshine an Indian was riding, 
 warbling a Hopi yodel as he rode. An old man, 
 naked to his breech clout this August day, was 
 singing, too, and driving two dun pack-burros 
 afield, to whose sober coats a touch of vivacity 
 was given by red saddle-blankets. Children were 
 tumbling and romping in the dunes, where wild 
 flowers bloomed, and the air was sweet with the 
 music of their laughter. The natural life of the 
 Pueblo is happy and gay in his sunlit land. I want 
 to tell you this before the Government has civilised 
 the joy of his native life out of him. 
 
 All Moqui, like omnia Gallia, is divided geo 
 graphically into three parts three finger-like me 
 sas which extend out into the Painted Desert, the 
 tips approximately ten miles each from the other. 
 Upon the eastern or First Mesa, stand three of the 
 
1 84 LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 
 
 pueblos in a line Walpi, Sichomovi, and Tewa, 
 so close together that they really are like one long, 
 rambling village. Nevertheless, they preserve 
 their respective individualities even to the extent 
 of one employing a radically different language 
 from the others. The Second or Middle Mesa is 
 forked at the tip and upon it are three more 
 villages. On one prong of the fork are perched 
 Mishong-novi and the acropolis-like Shipau-lovi, 
 while on the other prong is Shimopovi. I wish 
 the names were less formidable-looking in print, 
 but they are not unmusical from Hopi lips. The 
 Third Mesa was, until recently, the site of but one 
 pueblo Oraibi, the largest of all in Moqui ; but a 
 new one, Hotavila, now shares the Mesa with it. 
 Then there is a farming colony of Oraibians, known 
 as Moenkopi, twenty-five miles or so to the west 
 ward ; but it is not customarily reckoned a separate 
 entity from Oraibi. 
 
 In all eight villages, life is much the same, though 
 the influence of white contact is more marked in 
 some than in others. Perhaps Oraibi and Walpi 
 have been most affected by this Shimopovi the 
 least so, and our visit to this conservative place 
 was delightful in proportion; for conservatism 
 
LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 185 
 
 means having a mind of your own and sticking to 
 it, and that makes people interesting. Shimopovi 
 internally is full of quaint bits and corners dis 
 tracting to an artist, and at the time of our visit, 
 the streets were clean and neat, and the village 
 was the home of as peaceful and happy a primitive 
 life as one could desire to see. It is, of course, the 
 happiness of the unprogressive and condemnable 
 accordingly, you will say; but then is there not 
 apostolic authority for abiding in the same calling 
 wherein one is called, and for being, in whatsoever 
 state one is, therein content? All doors opened 
 to us in Shimopovi and a smile of welcome was on 
 every face. In one home, a mother with a tiny 
 baby extends it for our inspection, looking at it 
 meantime with unspeakable depths of mother love 
 in her eyes, as she pats the little, round cheeks. 
 In another home a family, seated on the floor at 
 dinner, bids us enter and eat stewed mutton and 
 piki bread with them, and receives our apologetic 
 declination with pleasant merriment. Farther on, 
 three old women, their wrinkled faces tender with 
 grandmotherly kindliness, sit weaving the peculiar 
 basketry for which the Second Mesa is famous a 
 weave known nowhere else on this continent, 
 
186 LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 
 
 though practised by certain tribes of Northern 
 Africa. Each of the old women is dressed in a 
 single garment of close- woven, dark-blue cloth, the 
 typical squaw dress of Moqui, comfortable and 
 convenient and involving none of the continual 
 care which their sisters over at Walpi are beginning 
 to learn under white direction goes with sundry 
 curious pieces of underwear. 
 
 The voices of the old dames are as soft as music ; 
 they motion us to be seated, supplying us with the 
 two stools that their little room affords, and then 
 go pleasantly on with their gossip in the still, 
 sunny afternoon. We are welcome to stay as long 
 as we wish, and, when we leave, a smiling Shimo- 
 povi au revoir is chorused to us. 
 
 Chief among Pueblos, the Hopis appear to have 
 been deemed especially needful of an all-round 
 educational uplift, and during the last decade or 
 two, they have certainly had an old-fashioned, 
 allopathic dose of it. What with day schools, 
 reservation boarding-schools, and non-reservation 
 boarding-schools, all having their turn at train 
 ing the Hopi young idea what with professional 
 farmers, field matrons, resident agents to cut Hopi 
 hair, and what-not the reconstruction of Moqui 
 
A corner of a pueblo of the Second Mesa, Moqui. 
 
LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 187 
 
 has been going on at a pace that would be found 
 humorous in some aspects, if it did not spell the 
 speedy death, as a distinctive class, of this "little 
 people of peace. " 
 
 The picturesque and healthful costume of old 
 Moqui is being replaced by American ugliness. 
 Overalls, suspenders, ragged coats, and more 
 ragged trousers, clumsy store shoes, hats with 
 hang-dog brims that the wind delights to whirl off, 
 are now everyday features of men s attire where, 
 but a few years ago, the loose, cotton blouse and 
 wide, flapping, cotton pantaloons, deerskin mocca 
 sins that fit the rocky trail with the sureness of the 
 foot itself, and the blanket that is hat, coat, and 
 gloves in one, were the general vogue. As for the 
 women, the sensible, native- woven " squaw-dress * 
 of one woollen garment, free at the throat, neat- 
 belted and short-skirted, is being systematically 
 replaced by slovenly shirt-waists, bedraggled long 
 skirts, and conventional undergarments of the 
 white woman a style of attire which is well 
 enough in a land where the Troy Laundry has an 
 agency at every corner, but rather out of key in 
 the yellow dust of an unpaved Arizona desert, with 
 forty miles between water-holes. Open fireplaces, 
 
188 LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 
 
 which have always been an important means of 
 ventilation in the pueblo rooms, are being closed 
 up and American cook-stoves are being everywhere 
 set up, making the houses unhealthy and tubercu 
 losis-breeding, and encouraging the introduction 
 of American forms of food and cooking, distinctly 
 unwholesome to a people always accustomed to a 
 plain diet, cooked in a radically different way. The 
 people, furthermore, are discouraged from living 
 in their own towns on the breeze-swept mesas, and 
 the Government has erected a number of houses 
 for them at the mesa-foot in the sands of the 
 desert ( !) . A row of these, which we visited at 
 Oraibi, had a pathetic interest in the fact that 
 every family inhabiting them had from one to 
 many members sick. The good sense of the Hopis 
 is shown by the fact that, whenever possible, they 
 rent such houses to white people and go back to 
 the old towns on the heights. Last but not least 
 potent in the reconstruction of Hopi life, is the 
 allotting agent, whose business is to apportion to 
 each Indian a stated amount of land in severalty, 
 and so break up the communal owning of land an 
 unobjectionable feature of Pueblo life, as ingrained 
 in the people as its opposite is ingrained in 
 
LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 189 
 
 us. x When he gets through, there will probably be 
 a considerable portion of the present reservation of 
 Moqui for sale; but any white man ought to be 
 ashamed to be caught owning the land of a race 
 who have gained their title to it by such hard- 
 earned conquest of its resources. 
 
 Worse than all this, the touch of aggressive 
 white domination is bringing about a deterioration 
 of the Hopi spirit the old, old story that ever 
 attends Caucasian meddling in the native life of 
 so-called " inferior" races the inoculation of a 
 fine, contented, wholesome people with the virus 
 of "civilised" vice, unrest, and disease. The 
 practical result is that the Hopis are developing 
 into a body of parasites instead of perpetuating 
 the sturdy independence of a people whom all 
 travellers, even as late as ten years ago, spoke of 
 with enthusiasm. At Oraibi, particularly, the 
 evidences of white influence are simply sickening. 
 Any one who doubts it has only to go and see for 
 
 1 Unlike the lands of the New Mexico Pueblos, which were, 
 all or in part, Spanish grants subsequently confirmed to the 
 Indians by United States patents, the Moqui land is a Govern 
 ment Reservation, existing by executive order, and accordingly 
 liable to division, alienation, or whatever else Congress may 
 dictate. 
 
LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 
 
 himself. Seeing is a better basis for correct infor 
 mation than reading Government reports. 
 
 From the first appearance of the Government 
 teachers among them, the Hopi counsellors recog 
 nised the "white peril," and the people protested 
 against it. Why should they, with an ancient 
 culture of their own, sufficient to their condition 
 and hallowed to them by a thousand memories and 
 traditions, give it up for the way of the white man 
 with his record of broken promises and duplicity? 
 Asking nothing whatever from our Government 
 and willing to work and pay for all they need, what 
 do they want with a white education for their red 
 children? They know things enough already of 
 real worth to put their teachers to shame ; but they 
 do not attempt to force their Indian codes upon 
 the whites even had they the power, they would 
 not be so impertinent. Why, then, should they be 
 white- jacketed? But the benighted views of this 
 handful of Quaker Indians, of course, had no 
 standing as against the progressive policies of an 
 enlightened Great Republic with a hungry family 
 of place-hunters and land-seekers to be cared for 
 out of the public providing. So at the present 
 time, most of the Hopis have given up the fight and 
 
- 
 
 A blanket weaver. Second Hopi Mesa. Among the Hopis, the 
 men are the weavers the reverse of the Navajo custom. 
 
LIFE TO-DAY IN MOQUI 191 
 
 have resigned themselves to what seems to be the 
 inevitable. 
 
 Not all of them, however. There is the case of 
 Hotavila the eighth pueblo of Moqui, four years 
 old this year of grace 1911 a little bit of an 
 Indian village whose less than a hundred families 
 have dared to try to live independently of the 
 dictation of our Government in their internal 
 affairs, even as our own fathers aforetime resented 
 the interference of certain over-sea kings in mat 
 ters too intimate. But this is matter for another 
 chapter. 
 
Chapter XIX 
 
 Of Hotavila, tKe EigHtH Pxxeblo of Moqvii, and 
 How it LooKed BlacKly at vis. 
 
 READING your evening paper, some five 
 years ago, in your smoking- jacket and 
 slippers, you may have noticed a despatch 
 of half a dozen lines your Eastern journal would 
 hardly have spared it more space about a Hopi 
 uprising in Arizona, and the soldiers from Fort 
 Wingate being sent to quell it. That is what 
 soldiers are for, out West, so you probably forgot 
 all about the incident as quickly as read, and 
 turned to the more important matter of the 
 divorce scandal elaborately reported on the same 
 page. 
 
 The uprising was not against this Government, 
 but was a family revolution among the Hopi of 
 Oraibi pueblo whom the Government s educational 
 policy had divided into two factions. One party, 
 popularly known as the "Friendlies," feeling it 
 
 192 
 
HOT A VILA 193 
 
 useless to contend against the power of Wash 
 ington, was for accepting the Government s 
 plans in toto and grafter-like, getting anything 
 else it could for itself out of the United States. 
 The other faction, called the "Hostiles," was for 
 entire independence of the United States Govern 
 ment, wanting no favours and unwilling to accept 
 any, asking only the reasonable privilege of con 
 tinuing undisturbed the mode of life their fore 
 fathers had found good. 
 
 The crisis came on September 7, 1906. At 
 that time the population of Oraibi was in round 
 numbers one thousand persons, and about half 
 the families were enrolled in each faction. When 
 the break came, each party tried to oust the other 
 from the pueblo, not with weapons or military 
 tactics, but by the homely, old way of pushing 
 and pulling, catch-as-catch-can. The "Hostiles" 
 were worsted and, without disputing the issue, 
 proceeded five miles along the high wedge of land 
 on which Oraibi stands, to Hotavila Spring, 
 where, in the succeeding months, they built for 
 themselves a new pueblo . This body of separatists , 
 standing for the principle of Hopi-land for the 
 Hopis, were looked upon by the Indian Bureau 
 13 
 
194 
 
 HOT A VILA 
 
 as disturbers of the public peace and promoters 
 of trouble and the more determined among them 
 were either put to hard labour for several months 
 on the public roads of Arizona, or jailed for periods 
 varying from a few months to three years. J 
 
 Here, then, was something new in pueblos, and 
 we felt a keen interest to see this little cradle of 
 liberty. Oraibi was prehistoric in 1540; the vil 
 lages of the First and Second Mesas, too, run well 
 back in the centuries and look it; but here is a 
 chance to see a pueblo only just out of its long 
 clothes. But, when we announced our intention 
 of making the trip thither, our host the trader, 
 an Americanised gentleman of Spanish descent, 
 married to a California Indian, lifted his arms in 
 wonderment, and his half -consumed cigarette 
 fell from his paralysed lips. He was a rotund, 
 merry man, and spoke with such intensity that 
 the perspiration stood out in beads on his face. 
 
 "Hombre!" he cried, "and take the lady! Why s 
 the reason you go there? It s just a wilderness, 
 
 1 Since the foregoing was written, a few families of the "Hostile 
 party, who eventually consented to send their children to school 
 and otherwise submit themselves to the Government s regula 
 tions, have established a little village of their own, called Bacabi 
 about five miles north-east of Oraibi. 
 
HOT A VILA 195 
 
 and the road there, my dear sir it is desert, 
 desert, desert, and a very devil of a hill, deep 
 to the hub in sand and then more desert, and 
 what then? Nothing, my dear sir, you would 
 not see better right here at Oraibi. Oh, yes, they 
 are an all right kind of people, and independent 
 as any Americans that ever were. Why, my 
 dear sir, let me tell, when they want to do trading 
 do you suppose they come to my store where the 
 other Oraibis trade? No, my dear sir, you bet! 
 They go right by with their burros and straight 
 on seventy miles across the desert to Winslow, 
 seventy miles, mind you, and seventy back! 
 What do you know about that now, my dear sir, 
 for spirit and in an Indian, too! Madre de Dios, 
 it *s money out of my pocket and I like a silver 
 peso as well as the next man; but say they re 
 the stuff. 
 
 "That s why you want to see them? Well, 
 of course, that s different. Oh, you can t miss 
 the road, my dear sir. It runs between two hills 
 like, and you could n t get off it if you tried. 
 If you must spend a quarter, I 11 send a Moqui 
 runner along to start you right; but it s just giving 
 the money away, my dear sir, just giving it away." 
 
I 9 6 HOT A VILA 
 
 And he shook his head bitterly at the thought of 
 such American waste. 
 
 We had travelled enough to be skeptical of 
 the road that cannot be missed ; so we bespoke the 
 Moqui runner for sunrise the next morning, and 
 when we got him, we raised his wages and kept 
 him all the way to Hotavila and back again. 
 Never was money better invested; for the road, 
 so called, was, in many places, hardly more than 
 a faint waggon-track in the sand, with many di 
 vergencies to corn lands and melon patches; and, 
 moreover, the new pueblo was, by its position, 
 so cleverly hidden from the direction of our ap 
 proach to it that we had no hint of its existence 
 until we were immediately upon it, clinging like 
 a swallow s nest to the mesa edge, overlooking 
 the Painted Desert. 
 
 If this little adobe town were a ruin like a bit 
 of ancient Rome, if it had behind it some heroic 
 legend as of another Horatius filled with the love 
 of country defending with his life the birthright 
 of a people now long dead and buried, I suppose 
 it would not be considered sentimental to do 
 reverence to the spot, or unpatriotic to sympathise 
 with its people s stand for liberty. But, being 
 
HOT A VILA 197 
 
 only an Indian village on a hot, hot hillside in 
 twentieth-century Arizona, the case is essentially 
 different, is it not? 
 
 For almost the first time in a long acquaintance 
 with Pueblos, we found ourselves distinctly unwel 
 come visitors. Frightened women gathered their 
 children into the houses at the sight of our white 
 faces; a few men, with averted looks, strode 
 past us on their way to cultivate their crops of 
 beans, corn, and melons, which we had seen 
 growing on the mesa; others watched us suspi 
 ciously from the shadow of doorways and street 
 corners. It goes against the grain, however, 
 with the Pueblo Indian to be inhospitable; he is 
 by nature a sociable, happy-hearted being, and 
 though tenacious of his own ways, he likes to make 
 strangers welcome in his home. So, as the day 
 wore on, and we neither attempted to kidnap 
 children nor to open negotiations for a day school, 
 the atmosphere cleared. We had shells and candy, 
 coloured magazine pictures and tobacco, and as 
 we were neither insistent nor aggressive nor flip 
 pant, and remained contentedly in the streets 
 while closed doors confronted us, smiles by degrees 
 took the place of scowls and considerable interest 
 
I 9 8 HOT A VILA 
 
 centred in us as bearers of such delectable pre 
 sents and probable buyers of the flat baskets 
 in the making of which the Third Mesa women 
 have long been specialists. So, after all, we had 
 a happy day at Hotavila, and drove off, at last, 
 with many pleasant memories. 
 
 But we could not forget the black looks of the 
 first hour or two, and, stopping shortly afterwards 
 at the pleasant home of the Government Field 
 Matron below Oraibi, we asked to know something 
 further concerning the relations of the whites to 
 the separation of the two factions at Oraibi. She 
 was glad of our interest a sweet -faced woman, 
 dwelling in the neatest and cleanest of houses, 
 which, if an Indian were to be moved by ex 
 ample, would surely have been an irreproachable 
 object-lesson of American household ideals. She 
 offered us comfortable rocking-chairs and brought 
 a pitcher of cool water, and as we sat on the shady 
 porch with the pleasant rustle of cottonwood 
 leaves in our ears, and looking up at the grey, 
 old pueblo on its sunny heights far above us ? 
 she answered our questions in her soft -toned voice. 
 
 "I certainly am glad you got over to Hotavila. 
 They are nice people over there. In fact, all 
 
3P 
 
 J*.; 
 
 A *;, 
 
 .- 
 
 A Beau Brummel of Hotaville. 
 
HOT A VILA 199 
 
 these Indians are nice. I am very fond of them. 
 I was really sorry when they had to separate. 
 But, after all, it was better. You see those people 
 over at Hotavila are very obstinate and won t 
 let us do a thing for them. They keep saying 
 that they do not want any help; but really, you 
 know, they ought to have it. The Commissioner 
 says it is due to the Indian children to have the 
 same chance as the white children have; and I 
 think the Government ought to make the people 
 take what is best for them. You see, they don t 
 like the white people at all, though I can t see 
 why, when we want to uplift them and do the best 
 for their own welfare. 
 
 "The great trouble came after the separation, 
 when the troops were sent over to make the children 
 go to school. The Hostiles, as they call them, had 
 just been put out of the old village, which had 
 always been their home, and had started in to live 
 at this new place, and they had not more than got 
 it under way when it was decided by the Washing 
 ton authorities to send some of the men to prison 
 and put most of the rest to hard labour on the 
 roads over beyond Ream s Canon, because of 
 their rebelliousness. That left hardly anybody 
 
200 HOT A VILA 
 
 but women and children in the new village, and 
 it was hard enough times for them to get along, 
 with winter coming on soon; but, about that 
 time, as the women would not put the children 
 to school, as, of course, they should have done, 
 the troops were sent to bring them by force. I 
 had to go and help the soldiers, as I knew all 
 the people, and it was about as disagreeable a 
 piece of work as ever I had to do. The mothers 
 were perfectly frantic. They hid the babies and 
 children in inside rooms and under flour sacks and 
 beneath beds, and shook their fists in my face, 
 actually, and told me they had thought I was 
 their friend, but that I was nothing but a traitor, 
 and held on to the children until the soldiers 
 had to pull them away. Of course, poor things, 
 they did not know where they were going, and 
 they certainly do love their children. It did seem 
 too bad." 
 
 There was a soft cry in the house. The Field 
 Matron excused herself and went in. Presently 
 she came out holding in her arms a beautiful 
 baby of, perhaps, a year old. The tiny arms 
 clasped her neck, the little head, with its loose 
 curls, lay on her shoulder in satisfied content. 
 
HOT A VILA 201 
 
 One motherly arm held him firmly, and with the 
 other she stroked the child s head, as she said: 
 
 "Must you go? Well, come again before you 
 leave these parts. It is real pleasant to see some 
 new white faces now and then." 
 
 We understood better now the black looks at 
 Hotavila. 
 
 The white visitor to Moqui is quite at liberty, 
 if he so desire, to drive his panting team up the 
 interminable, sandy hill to Hotavila, and walk 
 about the neat streets of this little pueblo of 
 independence, the last stand of conservative 
 Moqui, still looking off upon the immemorial 
 mystery of the Painted Desert out of which, ages 
 ago, the fathers of the Hopis came; but he must 
 not be surprised if he meets with sullen looks from 
 barred doorways and if women hide their babies 
 away as he passes. And it is a trip well worth 
 the taking; for here at Hotavila, and only less 
 so at the neighbouring pueblo of Shimopovi, 
 its close second in conservativeness, one sees the 
 best of Hopi life to-day. The peaceful, happy 
 simplicity of their ancient way of living, poor 
 in material advantages though it be, makes a 
 remarkable contrast to the conditions at some of 
 
202 HOT A VILA 
 
 the other villages where Government influence 
 has undisputed sway as, for instance, in the 
 Government s "model settlement" under the 
 Oraibi cliffs, where the unrest, sickness, aimlessness 
 of purpose, and general misery which were pain 
 fully apparent among its people when the writer 
 visited it, were more suggestive of the slums of a 
 great city than anything that seemed possible in 
 the sweet air and under the turquoise sky of 
 Arizona. 
 
CKapter XX 
 
 Of Wulpi, and the SnuKe Dance TKere. 
 
 WERE it not for the annual Snake Dance 
 of the Hopis, it is probable that few 
 travellers except those of the fireside 
 would have any knowledge of these people. As 
 it is, the Snake Dance has been so industriously 
 written up and talked over that it has become a 
 magnet which, every August, draws more or less of 
 a crowd of tourists and holiday-makers across 
 the desert sands to witness this most entrancing 
 and most dramatic half -hour entertainment that 
 America has to offer. I use the word "enter 
 tainment" hesitatingly, knowing that is all it is to 
 the average white onlooker ; but it should be borne 
 in mind that, to the Indian, it is a solemn and 
 religious rite the public denouement of a nine- 
 days secretly-conducted intercession for the divine 
 favour. It is in the snake element that the 
 attraction centres; for there are countless other 
 
 203 
 
204 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 public dances in Moqui which, to the casual visi 
 tor, would be even more picturesque and pleas 
 ing as spectacles than this ; but hardly any white 
 person sees them. 
 
 There is reason to believe that, at one time, 
 Snake Ceremonies were a part of the religious rites 
 among all the pueblos; but, at this date, the ob 
 servance is confined to five or six of the Hopi 
 towns. It is an annual ceremony, but all villages 
 do not hold it the same year. The most elaborate 
 presentations are at Walpi and Oraibi, occurring 
 on alternate years at Walpi on the uneven years, 
 
 1911, 1913, etc., and at Oraibi on the even years, 
 
 1912, 1914, etc. The specific day of the month 
 varies, being determined afresh each year by some 
 secret sacerdotal formula that keeps the white 
 man guessing until the priests descend to their 
 underground rites in the kivas or council rooms, 
 which always begin nine days before the public 
 dance with the serpents. The railroad company 
 arranges to be posted as to this at the earliest pos 
 sible moment, and to its agents one should apply 
 for information respecting the exact date of the 
 dance, which one may be reasonably certain 
 will not be earlier than August tenth nor later than 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 205 
 
 August twenty-fifth. It takes place just before 
 sundown and consumes about thirty-five minutes. 
 
 So little interest has the generality of our people 
 in the native home-life of our Indians that most 
 visitors time their attendance to the one day on 
 which the dance occurs, or, at most, from the 
 evening before until the morning after. For 
 Sylvia and myself, however, interesting as most 
 ceremonies at the pueblos proved to be, an even 
 greater interest attached to the domestic side of 
 their life; and, keeping ourselves as much in the 
 background as possible, we liked to watch the 
 village activities as the preparations for the great 
 events were carried busily forward. 
 
 There are, for instance, the moulding and burning 
 of pottery knickknacks cups and little pitchers, 
 ash trays and shaving mugs later to be set 
 alluringly in the house windows to catch the visi 
 tors eyes; for Moqui has already acquired the 
 traders trick of manufacturing down 10 the 
 buyers taste and has been quick to learn that, 
 among the tourists whom curiosity brings to them, 
 there are comparatively few who care enough and 
 know enough to buy the beautiful native art -ware 
 that conforms to Hopi ideas, when they can get 
 
206 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 for a picayune some useless gimcrack made in poor 
 imitation of the white man s utensil. To such 
 Philistine sense is it not " pretty good for Indian 
 work"? Then, there is a house-cleaning indus 
 triously going on in every home the sprinkling 
 of the floors with the precious water from the 
 desert well and the vigorous brooming and brush 
 ing with little grass whisks. The babies of the 
 household, in the meantime, are sent forth in the 
 sunshine on the willing backs of larger sisters to 
 be out of the way. Old men, sitting in sunny 
 doorways, are mending cloaks of mottled rabbit- 
 skin and sewing up worn moccasins; young men 
 (the few that are visible, for many are in the 
 kivas) are killing and skinning sheep and pegging 
 the skins out on the rocks to dry, laughing and 
 joking together the while; girls are grinding meal 
 within doors in an atmosphere fragrant with 
 crushed grain, and their mothers are making wafer- 
 bread and green corn pudding; other women are 
 plastering anew the fronts of their homes a 
 cherished privilege of Pueblo women everywhere; 
 burros come clattering along the rocks, laden with 
 fire-wood from the mesa or corn from far-away 
 fields, and women with water- jars slung on their 
 
Mealing stones on which Pueblo women grind their corn. 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 207 
 
 backs pass and repass with noiseless tread on 
 the deeply worn trail that leads to the mesa 
 water-holes. 
 
 At the open door of a house we paused to look 
 in at two stout women cutting up the meat of a 
 recently killed sheep. Their hair had lately been 
 washed in yucca suds and was clubbed up in a 
 picturesque topknot that stood upright and bobbed 
 above the forehead. One of them looked at us 
 and said something in her native tongue. 
 
 "What does she say?" we asked of a young girl 
 with her hair done up in the squash blossoms 
 that we had often seen in photographs, and whom 
 we suspected of understanding English. 
 
 "She say she glad to see you. Take seat and 
 sit down." 
 
 Entering, we discovered another young woman 
 seated upon a sheepskin spread on the adobe 
 floor and surrounded by small pieces of unburned 
 pottery upon which she was painting designs 
 with a strip of yucca leaf. Her hair hung down in 
 strings and her countenance lacked the welcome 
 of the others. Her pottery was poor and on 
 American models roosters and pigs mostly. 
 
 "Is she your sister?" we asked of the smiling 
 
208 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 Squash Blossoms, who was preparing to take her 
 position at the mealing stones to resume the 
 grinding which our entrance had interrupted. 
 She nodded brightly. 
 
 "Why doesn t she wear the pretty squash 
 blossoms of old times?" we asked reprovingly. 
 "We think the squash blossoms a pretty way 
 for young women to wear their hair." 
 
 "Because she married and must n t wear them 
 no more," said Squash Blossoms shyly, her smile 
 breaking bounds into a giggle. Then she said 
 something in Hopi evidently a translation of 
 our little sermon and all the women laughed 
 merrily. And so we learned that squash blossoms 
 stand for maidenhood in Hopi symbolism. 1 
 
 As we rose to go, we noticed a male figure, clad 
 in white man s attire, prone upon the floor. 
 It slowly turned towards us, revealing the face of 
 a young man chewing a straw. He raised his 
 arms, stretched them, and, thrusting them under 
 his head for a pillow, stared impudently at us. 
 
 1 This way of wearing the hair would seem to have been the 
 fashion in former times at other pueblos, also. Thus an old 
 Spanish chronicler, describing Zufii customs in Coronado s time, 
 says: "The women wear their hair gathered about the ears 
 
 like little wheels." 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 209 
 
 Without rising and without preamble, he proceeded 
 to catechise us. 
 
 "Where you come from? California, eh? 
 Whereabouts California? You come Snake 
 Dance? How long you came? * et cetera und 
 so wetter. 
 
 "You have been to school, haven t you?" 
 we observed, when his ideas had run out. 
 
 "Sure," he replied with a yawn. 
 
 "Did you study at Carlisle?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Where then?" 
 
 "Grand Junction, Colorado." 
 
 We pointed to the rooster and pig pottery. 
 "Who taught her to do that?" 
 
 "Do what?" he asked. 
 
 "To make those miserable forms of animals." 
 
 "Her brain, I guess," he said sullenly. 
 
 "You tell her not to do that, but to make the 
 beautiful bowls and jars that the old people al 
 ways used to make. It is not good to make those 
 pigs and roosters. That is not Indian work- 
 it is just copying Americans." 
 
 The young man yawned again and muttered 
 evilly, " You don t have to buy them." 
 14 
 
210 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 With which Parthian shot, he turned over on 
 his face. 
 
 We could not but note that this youth, gratui 
 tously endowed by our Government with the 
 education which is expected to make him an up 
 lifting influence among his benighted people," 
 was the only idle figure in the busy home, and his 
 was the only voice that was unresponsive to our 
 parting " Good-bye. " 
 
 In all Moqui there is no more picturesque 
 setting for a Snake Dance than the little plaza 
 at Walpi. A wall of terraced houses shuts 
 in one entire side and part of another. The 
 south side is dominated by a towering rock, 
 spread out at the summit like a great, petrified 
 mushroom. Along the eastern edge, where there 
 is an uninterrupted view across the desert for scores 
 of miles, it is but a step into eternity a sheer drop 
 down the face of a perpendicular cliff to waiting 
 rocks thirty or forty feet below. There is no bar 
 rier of any sort along this dizzy edge, and the 
 fact that spectators at the dance do not back off 
 it, and Hopi children, at other times, do not roll 
 over it, witnesses doubtless to the red gods con 
 tinued care of Moqui and of Moqui s friends. 
 
Snake Rock, Walpi. " Boy-af raid-of-the-Camera " 
 and his grandmother. 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 211 
 
 Now and again, as we rambled about Walpi 
 in the days preceding the dance, the solemn, 
 chorused chant of priests would flow up from the 
 underground kivas near the plaza and hold us 
 spellbound. Down there were the snakes, and 
 great was our curiosity to descend to them. We 
 asked Percy if that were possible of accomplish 
 ment; but that astute son of peace would not 
 encourage us. Yes, people had been down 
 people from Washington to see that everysing 
 was being done all ri , and Mr. Curtis, the picture 
 man, he had been down, yes; but it cost very 
 much money seventy dollar , he sought. Of 
 course, we might spoke to some Snake people; 
 but maybe we no want to pay seventy dollar ? 
 
 We certainly did not and, upon second thought, 
 we did not feel easy, anyhow, to attempt, from 
 motives of mere curiosity, to force ourselves 
 into the midst of a religious ceremonial the par 
 ticipants in which plainly did not want our 
 presence. A quiet request, however, did gain us 
 admittance to a kiva where, in the dim under 
 ground, illumined only by the daylight coming 
 through a door in the roof, some dancers were 
 engaged in making up for the dance, painting 
 
212 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 their cotton kilts with lightning symbols, string 
 ing bracelets and necklaces of shells, colour 
 ing their bodies, and tying feathers in their hair. 
 No children preparing for a party could be more 
 garrulous but in whispers always or more vain, 
 as, each ornamentation finished, its wearer showed 
 it off admiringly to a neighbour and, lighting 
 a cigarette, rested awhile before beginning on 
 another. 
 
 The day of the Snake Dance is ushered in by an 
 early-morning foot-race of young men, starting 
 at certain traditional points out on the plain and 
 ending within the pueblo. As the sunrise tints 
 the desert mesa with red, the windows and roofs 
 of the houses and the rim of the mesa on which 
 the pueblo stands are crowded with eager spec 
 tators, their eyes all turned toward the north. 
 Every rocky cape and promontory that offers 
 an advantageous view is pre-empted by Indians 
 who, silhouetted picturesquely against the blue, 
 are gazing intently toward one distant spot in 
 the desert. Suddenly hands are shot up here 
 and there and then a shout from the housetops. 
 The runners are in sight mere specks of brown 
 on the yellow plain a scattering band of fifteen 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 213 
 
 or twenty with one lithe fellow already well in 
 the lead. In and out, over and around sand 
 dunes and rocks, he runs like an antelope, now 
 plunging at full speed down an arroyo, then leaping 
 up its precipitous sides beyond slowly here, 
 but still running, the rest surging after him 
 pelted by corn stalks and melon vines, thrown 
 by laughing boys and girls, gaily dressed and 
 painted, and jingling with bells, awaiting the 
 runners among the rocks. The other racers 
 prove bad seconds all except one who, by her 
 culean spurts, manages to get close to the leader s 
 heels for a few minutes ; but the pace is too much 
 for him and he drops back just as the whole pack, 
 now close to the foot of the mesa, is lost to view 
 under the cliffs. 
 
 The crowd of spectators run along the dizzy 
 mesa edge, towards the south point where the trails 
 from the foot come up, in order to catch first 
 sight of the winner as he emerges from the rocks 
 below. There are some minutes of suspense, then 
 a cheer from an excited American with a flutter 
 ing, red necktie, and the nude runner, glisten 
 ing with perspiration, his head thrown back, 
 and his long black hair borne splendidly on the 
 
214 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 breeze, leaps up into the level sunbeams. The 
 crowd falls back; there is the click of kodaks; 
 dogs bark and yelp; and Hopi throats split the 
 air with shouts of appreciation as the tense figure 
 bounds through the covered passageway that is 
 Walpi s southern portal, flashes by the kivas 
 of the Antelope and Snake people, and disappears 
 within an open door. The rest of the racers 
 follow at intervals of a few minutes, the crowd 
 breaks up, and everybody goes home to breakfast. 
 It is a busy day in Moqui this of the Snake 
 Dance. All the morning the rock-ribbed streets 
 resound to the clatter of hoofs and the shuffle of 
 human feet. Navajos come riding in on their 
 tough little ponies, keen to trade their blankets 
 and silver trinkets for American dollars and rent 
 their horses for trips on the trail. Hopis from 
 other villages, some from distant Moenkopi, have 
 urged their tired teams, drawing laden, creaking 
 waggons, with canvas tops, up the steep road 
 cut in the mesa s side, and are hobnobbing with 
 old friends. White visitors stroll about, snapping 
 kodaks in people s faces, inspecting Hopi home 
 life, chaffering for pottery, sampling piki bread 
 and other Indian cookeries, and outspokenly 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 215 
 
 marvelling at the squash blossoms of Hopi maiden 
 hood. Some of the ladies have even bargained 
 with a native hairdresser to do their hair in that 
 engaging fashion and are admired accordingly. 
 The children of the pueblo are in a high state of 
 excitement, and are decked out in gala attire, 
 ranging all the way from orthodox little squaw 
 dresses of native weave to flour sacks and Unite.d 
 States flags. Besides Hopi delicacies principally 
 dripping slices of melon they are recipients of 
 candy from such experienced white visitors as ( > 
 know the value of sweetmeats to reach the In 
 dian heart. Brother Sim, the photographer and 
 ex-priest from Gallup, who carries an enormous 
 camera, and whose rotund countenance wears an 
 all-embracing smile, has brought two or three 
 buckets of candy in his outfit and, like a mid 
 summer Santa Claus, throws handfuls of it high 
 in the air for the children to scramble for he 
 meantime photographing the scrimmage. 
 
 As the afternoon shadows lengthen, the air of 
 expectancy thickens, and the visitors begin to 
 congregate about the plaza and pick out their 
 seats a preference being noticeably shown by 
 many for the roofs and upper stories; for rattle- 
 
216 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 snakes, like elephants, are poor climbers. Pro 
 fessional photographers and moving-picture men 
 take their places, and a yellow-clad squad of 
 United States troopers, who arrived and camped 
 on the plain last night, stroll in in a blas6 way, 
 carbines on shoulder and toothbrushes in their 
 hatbands, and come to a stand about the Snake 
 Rock. By five o clock the outskirts of the lit 
 tle plaza are packed with expectant humanity. 
 The housetops are a rainbow of colour: Pueblo 
 women, in bright, fiesta attire; girls from Indian 
 schools in new-starched calicos and hats of the 
 latest Flagstaff style ; Navajos in brown velveteen 
 shirts and red head-bands ; a contingent of Ameri 
 can ladies with their escorts in corduroy and 
 khaki, and, here and there, a girl of the Golden 
 West type, in spurred riding-boots, flaming ban 
 danna neckerchief, and Texas sombrero, jammed 
 down on the back of her head. About the plaza, 
 besides Indians of various sorts, are cow-men with 
 long love-locks curling about their ears, cartridge 
 belts around their waists, and glittering spurs 
 clinking at their high heels. There are helmet ed 
 tourists from England, New York, Australia, 
 and Denmark, and there are enthusiastic young 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 217 
 
 Easterners on a vacation, roughing it under 
 weather-beaten sombreros and marvellous hat 
 bands and various sorts of Navajo adornments 
 bracelets, silver rings, and wrist-guards. A dash 
 of returned Hopi students in dinky hats, some even 
 with cameras, and a sprinkling of Government 
 officials and teachers from territorial Indian 
 schools help to round out as picturesque and 
 motley an assembly as the traveller often runs 
 across in America. 
 
 Who can do justice in words to the Snake Dance 
 itself? The silent, swinging entrance of the 
 priests in single file, decked in a remarkable har 
 mony of sombre tones, from the copper-coloured 
 tuft of feathers in their hair to the tawny, fringed 
 moccasins, relieved only by a few lines and zig 
 zags of white lightning painted on the semi-nude 
 bodies and on the kilts; their rapid striding four 
 times around the plaza and stamping with resound 
 ing foot blows upon the plank that symbolises 
 Shipapu, the entrance to the underground world; 
 the humming chant of the Antelope priests, ac 
 companied by rattles, that never ceases before 
 the leafy prison of the snakes; the mouthing and 
 lightning-like handling of the writhing serpents 
 
2i8 THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 
 
 by the successive trios of celebrants; the tossing 
 of the reptiles into a squirming pile within the 
 mystic circle of scattered meal outlined for them 
 at the foot of the Dance Rock; and the final 
 act of the priests, snatching up the snakes by the 
 handful and fleeing with them, some to the north, 
 some to the west, some to the south, and some to 
 the east, down the precipitous trails to the open 
 desert, there dropping them to carry the people s 
 supplications for rain to the gods of the waters 
 all this without pause in the movement, makes 
 an unflagging crescendo of dramatic action that 
 baffles description. Being a real religious act, 
 there is no self-consciousness on the part of the 
 participants they are not playing to the galleries ; 
 the activity of the venomous snakes makes that 
 impossible, even if the desire existed; and, from 
 start to finish, the attention of the spectators is 
 tensely held. Not only is there no levity hard, 
 indeed, to subdue in an American white crowd 
 but, on the contrary, one sometimes sees among 
 the more emotional onlookers twitching faces 
 and eyes wet with tears. 
 
 As Sylvia and I joined the crowd on their way 
 down the trail to the camps and the horses, we 
 
THE WALPI SNAKE DANCE 219 
 
 suddenly stopped and looked at each other, 
 struck with a common thought. The perman 
 ganate of potash we had forgotten to bring it! 
 "Is it not too bad?" Sylvia mourned. "Emily 
 was so anxious for us to have it with us, and, 
 of course, the snakes might have bitten us." 1 
 
 1 What is the Snake Dance all about, you ask? It is an 
 elaborate invocation to the divinities of Moqui, entrusted to the 
 serpents, which, it is believed, will convey the prayers to the gods 
 and bring the blessing of rain in return. This explains why the 
 snakes are never hurt by the priests. It is also a dramatisation 
 of an ancient myth concerning the origin and early history of 
 the Snake and Antelope fraternities the two clans which conduct 
 the ceremony. See The Moki Snake Dance by Walter Hough, 
 for a condensed statement of the snake legend, or J. Walter 
 Fewkes s detailed account in the Journal of American Ethnology 
 and Archtzology, vol. iv. 
 
Chapter XXI 
 
 Of the Arts of tKe Pueblos, Especially the 
 Ceramic. 
 
 C^G before the interloping Spaniard and 
 the later Anglo-Saxon had penetrated into 
 their country, the Pueblo Indians had 
 developed a fair kind of civilisation of their o.wn, 
 and with it arts that were a vital expression of 
 Pueblo life. The wonderful beauty of that land 
 most of it semi-desert, and some of it pure desert, 
 sublime in its colour and natural conformation 
 is an inspiration to every artist who visits it, 
 and it is not strange that these dwellers in it 
 from prehistoric times should be an artist people, 
 working into their various arts the conventions 
 of natural objects and the symbolism of the 
 pagan faith given to their forefathers in the dawn 
 of time. Among such arts are the weaving of 
 woollen and cotton garments on rude looms set 
 up in the rooms of their homes 1 ; the making of 
 1 It was from the Pueblos that the Navajos, the best known of 
 
 220 
 
Xampeyo of Tewa moulding a water-jar. No wheel is ever used 
 by Pueblo potters. 
 
 (Copyright by A. C. Vroman.) 
 
PUEBLO ARTS 221 
 
 basketry of varied forms from native plants; 
 the manufacture of necklaces from beads wrought 
 with infinite care from shells broken up, ground 
 into disks by hand on a wet stone, and pierced 
 with a curious pump drill an entirely different 
 art, by the way, from the latter-day work of 
 the Plains tribes, using the glass beads of American 
 factories. Among the minor arts, too, I like to 
 include the chipping of arrow-points. This is 
 now practically extinct, since guns have replaced 
 the bow; but the work of dead-and-gone makers 
 is continually offered to visitors and forms a 
 feature in Pueblo curio collections. A really 
 good assortment of arrow-points is a revelation 
 of the hidden beauty of stone. They are made of 
 various minerals moss agate, flint, chalcedony, 
 sardonyx, lava, obsidian and hold wonderful 
 charm of colour. In form they are often exquisite, 
 some, for small game, being quite tiny, but all 
 revealing in every patiently wrought line the 
 love of an artist for his art. 
 
 At the present time, the Pueblo art par excellence 
 
 our aboriginal weavers, learned this art. Among the Pueblos 
 to-day only the Hopis and Zunis do any all-round weaving, 
 though sashes and chongo ties are woven in other pueblos as 
 well. 
 
222 PUEBLO ARTS 
 
 is pottery-making, which is done invariably by 
 the women. The form which it takes is varied; 
 but principally water- and storage- jars, canteens, 
 bowls, and cooking vessels. It is fashioned entirely 
 by hand, no wheel or mechanical device being 
 employed, and in one of the preceding chapters 
 of this book, the process has been described in 
 some detail. In the prehistoric days of Pueblo 
 art, as evidenced by the pottery found in ancient 
 cliff-dwellings, glazing was practised, but that art 
 has been lost and the modern Pueblo ware is 
 unglazed. In the case of water-jars, this is a 
 distinct advantage, as the porosity of the vessel 
 causes a "sweating" which tends to keep the 
 water cool. 
 
 The designs of the Pueblo pottery are a study 
 in themselves and of exceeding interest. They 
 are handed down from mother to daughter, and 
 being traditional, their significance may not 
 always be understood by the artist herself. In 
 the main they are conventionalised forms of certain 
 features of her little world and of the phenomena 
 of nature the mountains, the birds, and animals, 
 the clouds, the falling rain, the wind, the lightning- 
 flash; or of her religion such as the creatures of 
 
PUEBLO ARTS 223 
 
 her people s origin myths, the faces of the gods 
 of the Pueblo pantheon, or the suggestion (rarely 
 absent from the work of the older potters) of 
 the mystic gateway of Shipapu, through which the 
 souls of the new-born enter this world and the 
 spirits of the dead pass out of it. 
 
 Usually three colours red, white, and black 
 are employed, though occasionally only two are 
 used, and in some few of the pueblos the pottery 
 is solid black or solid red, unornamented. In 
 the last-named pottery the dependence for beauty 
 is entirely on the grace and dignity of the shape. 
 Pottery for cooking is invariably without decora 
 tion. 
 
 The accompanying illustrations of Pueblo pot 
 tery are from examples in the writer s collection, 
 bought, in many cases, directly from the potter 
 herself. As will be noted, the work of different 
 villages has characters of its own, distinguishing 
 it from the work of others, yet has a certain 
 harmony with the rest that holds all together in 
 the bond of a common art. 
 
 The collection of Moqui is almost entirely the 
 work of Nampeyo, the most famous of the Pueblo 
 potters, and her daughter. To see Nampeyo 
 
224 PUEBLO ARTS 
 
 at work is to the art lover one of the most interest 
 ing sights in Moqui. She is a simple-hearted, 
 unpretentious squaw, who sits on the floor of her 
 dwelling moulding her vessels of clay or adorning 
 them with her wonderful lines, and rising now 
 and then to stir the mutton stew as it cooks upon 
 the fire or lift the baby out of reach of the flame. 
 Though her work, in the words of Dr. George 
 A. Dorsey, "has gone far and wide over the curio- 
 loving world," she is apparently unconscious that 
 her gift is anything out of the common, and has 
 all the shy modesty that distinguishes the women 
 of her race. The Moqui ware is very distinct 
 from other Pueblo pottery, both in form and 
 decoration. The most common shapes are a low 
 flat bowl and a shallow, wide-spreading water-jar, 
 both adorned with remarkable designs in red and 
 black on a white ground designs frequently 
 suggested by the masks of the Katchinas, or dancers 
 of the Moqui religious ceremonials. The best 
 Moqui ware is particularly appealing in its colour, 
 the white ground upon which the decoration 
 is laid being distinguished by a soft, creamy tone, 
 flushed usually with red. 
 
 In marked contrast to the work of Moqui is 
 
A collection of Moqui ware very distinct from all other Pueblo 
 pottery both in form and decoration. 
 
 "Water-jars of San Ildefonso and Cochiti with bird decorations 
 symbolical of lightness. 
 
PUEBLO ARTS 225 
 
 the pottery of Zufii. A feature of the Zufii 
 decoration is the frequent incorporation of real 
 istic animal forms in the design deer, ducks, 
 frogs, butterflies, tadpoles. As with the Moqui 
 ware, the colours used by the Zunis are custom 
 arily red and black upon a white surface, but a 
 notable exception is a red ware upon which the 
 decoration is laid on in white. The colour would 
 appear to be an integral feature of any particu 
 lar form or decoration that is, given a particular 
 design, it should be painted on in one, particular 
 colour established by tradition. If other colours 
 are wanted, the design must be changed! 
 
 Flower forms are rarely used by the Zufiis, 
 though a very striking design sometimes met 
 with is a conventionalised sunflower. The potters 
 of Acoma pueblo, on the contrary, whose work 
 is noteworthy for its exceptional lightness, have 
 made rather a specialty of floral and leaf adorn 
 ment, and some suggestion of plant life is intro 
 duced into almost every design. This is the more 
 remarkable as their town is built upon a bare 
 rock that rises almost perpendicularly three or 
 four hundred feet from a great, sandy plain 
 a singularly barren, inhospitable situation where 
 is 
 
226 PUEBLO ARTS 
 
 there is scarcely earth enough to afford a flower 
 a foothold. In the Indian s art work, however, 
 he loves to preserve the suggestion of that which is 
 most dear and precious to his poetic mind; so, 
 from his standpoint, it is entirely fitting that the 
 leaves and flowers of the plain and mountain, 
 brought from a distance to this rock-founded 
 village of the sky and employed in many secret, 
 religious rites, as well as in the public dance cere 
 monials, should find representation on the pottery. 
 Intermingled with these on the Acoma ware 
 are the vertical or slanting parallel lines, which 
 in Pueblo symbolry represent the falling rain, 
 and the terraces and steps which conventionalise 
 the clouds of heaven. A peculiar, checker-board 
 design is also not uncommon in the Acoma work, 
 but its especial significance is unknown to the 
 writer. Bird forms were common in the older 
 work of the Acomas, as well as of other Pueblos, 
 though now less frequent. As a bird in flight is 
 the embodiment of airy lightness, the adornment 
 of the water vessels with the pictures of birds 
 would, in the Indian s fancy, add lightness to the 
 clay a great desideratum, as the jars, which 
 when filled are borne upon the carriers heads, 
 
Zufri ware, a feature of which is the frequent use of animal forms in 
 the designs deer, frogs, butterflies, etc. The jar decorated in 
 curves and lines, depicts, as explained by the potter who made 
 it for the author, a pueblo (blocks against which rest poles with 
 cross-pieces representing ladders) and rain (vertical lines) 
 descending from clouds (arches) above. 
 
 Black, lustrous ware of Santa Clara and San Juan. The only 
 ornamentation used is a slight moulding, as along the bulging 
 edge of the double-necked jar in the foreground. 
 
PUEBLO ARTS 227 
 
 often contain a weight of water equal to thirty 
 pounds or more, and to this the vessel s weight 
 is additional. 
 
 At Santo Domingo a very superior grade of 
 Pueblo pottery is made a rather heavy ware, 
 but one distinguished in many cases by an almost 
 Greek grace of shape. The decoration used is 
 a series of triangles, circles, and other geometric 
 forms in black on white that are little short of 
 marvellous in their variety. The chalky white of 
 Zuni and the creamy white of Acoma are replaced 
 in the Santo Domingo ware with a pinkish tint. 
 Quite recently there has been developed there a 
 deep red jar with pink and black decorations, 
 extremely interesting as a variant of the original, 
 geometric designs of this place in white and black. 
 
 The Santa Clara potters, until recently, were 
 pre-eminent among the Pueblos as makers of a 
 lustrous, black ware, the colour being produced 
 by the smudging of the fire so that the black 
 smoke was absorbed into the clay. The pot 
 was then rubbed by hand until the desired lustre 
 was produced. Unfortunately American influ 
 ences have done much of late to lower the art 
 standards of these people, who in some instances 
 
228 PUEBLO ARTS 
 
 now use a cheap varnish for their effects. The 
 clay used at this town naturally burns red, if 
 there is no smudging, and Santa Clara ware is 
 accordingly often to be had in solid, unorna- 
 mented red, as well as black. 
 
 The neighbouring Pueblo town, San Juan, 
 has taken up the "black art" of Santa Clara, and 
 is conservatively disposed to hold to the tried 
 ways which made Santa Clara s reputation. 
 Their ware, however, still lacks the grace of outline 
 which has long distinguished the Santa Clara 
 pottery. A double-necked water-jar is a charac 
 teristic shape of both those pueblos, though not 
 peculiar to them, as some form of double mouth 
 appears to have been made at times by other 
 pueblos. As the two mouths are joined by a bar, 
 convenience in handling may have had something 
 to do with this shape. The San Juan pottery is 
 thin and light, and it will be interesting to see 
 whether it will eventually gain the crown of 
 excellence which Santa Clara, because of too much 
 American kindergartening, has lost. 
 
 A rougher black ware used in cooking at Taos, 
 Picuris, and Nambe represents another sort of 
 Pueblo art. Where the proper kind of clay is not 
 
Water-jars of Acoma. The prevalent designs are suggested by flower 
 and leaf forms. The older potters often introduced figures of 
 birds, as in the upper right-hand jar, symbolising lightness. 
 
 Water-jars of Santo Domingo. This ware is distinguished by an especial 
 grace of shape and a remarkable scheme of decoration in triangles, 
 circles, and other geometric forms. 
 
PUEBLO ARTS 229 
 
 readily obtainable near the village, or where the 
 activities of the people find more congenial exercise 
 in other lines than the potter s, the people are con 
 tent to make only cooking vessels, crude in form 
 and bare of design, obtaining by trade from other 
 Pueblos the carefully moulded and decorated ware 
 which is the delight of every Pueblo household. 
 
 Besides the commoner shapes of Pueblo pottery 
 employed in the every-day business of the house 
 hold, there are some forms especially designed 
 for use in connection with religious ceremonials. 
 Among such are the bowl-like vessels for holding 
 the sacred meal, which is sprinkled upon parti 
 cipants in religious rites and dances. In some of 
 these ceremonial pieces the rim is moulded to 
 represent ascending and descending steps sym 
 bolising clouds. Upon others are painted forms 
 of frogs, tadpoles, or butterflies showing how im 
 portant a part the element of water that ever- 
 present need in desert life plays in the prayers of 
 these people. A characteristic Zufii design is the 
 moulded form utilised as a handle of Koloo- 
 wissi, the sacred serpent which in the myths of 
 that people is represented as having brought 
 seeds from the gods to ancient Zufii. 
 
230 PUEBLO ARTS 
 
 Although this native American art, thanks to 
 a few discriminating traders scattered through 
 the Pueblo country of Arizona and New Mexico, 
 still survives in its beauty, it bids fair to pass 
 out of existence within another decade. The 
 quickening cause is to be found in the system 
 of American schooling which the United States 
 Government compels the children to accept, and 
 in which instruction in drawing is part of a gen 
 eral educational scheme. The Pueblos are a gen 
 tle, biddable race, unconscious of the marvels of 
 their own artistic gifts, and in the hands of a push 
 ing, inartistic schoolmistress from New England 
 or the Middle West the children produce feeble 
 copies in bright-coloured crayon of the white 
 man s art, which their ignorant teacher shows 
 with pride to visitors as examples of "what an 
 Indian can do when he is taught." Meantime 
 such a teacher is utterly unappreciative of the 
 superiority of the beautiful examples of native 
 pottery, gifts from her timid pupils, which gather 
 dust in corners of the schoolhouse. I The natural 
 
 1 The obtuseness of this kind of mind was illustrated in another 
 way by an American dweller in a district of New Mexico distant 
 from the pottery-makers. He had a beautiful jar of San Ilde- 
 
PUEBLO ARTS 231 
 
 result of this pseudo-education is that the young 
 generation of Pueblo women are growing up in 
 comparative ignorance of the art of their mothers 
 and of the art symbols and traditions of their race. 
 The idea that there is an Indian art worth at 
 tention did get dimly into the mind of a former 
 head of the Government s Office of Indian Affairs, 
 but such attempts as he instituted, with the view 
 of condescendingly fostering the art, have been 
 in the hands of employes who seem to be quite 
 incapable of intelligently handling the case. It 
 appears impossible for the average American to 
 dispossess himself of the conceit that his nation s 
 way is the only really correct way. It does not 
 occur to him that to Americanise Pueblo art is 
 as absurd as to ask Japanese artists to learn 
 kindergarten methods. The truth is, the Pueblos 
 are to be learned from, not taught. Their art 
 is the expression of their nature and of a long, 
 traditional past, and to set such a people to 
 drawing copy-book designs can teach them no 
 thing, while it does stifle absolutely the real art 
 
 fonso make, which he showed us admiringly, with the naive 
 remark, "That must surely have been done by a girl who had 
 gone to school." 
 
232 PUEBLO ARTS 
 
 sense in them. They are a body of conservative 
 artists, who can be trusted, if not interfered with, 
 to develop in their own way the inherited gift of 
 centuries, and to perpetuate the one native Amer 
 ican art of to-day. Cannot the more enlightened 
 minds of the country realise that the only right 
 policy for this nation to pursue toward such a 
 people is that of "hands off," and to begin it at 
 once before the old generation of potters is dead 
 and their traditions dead with them? 
 
Chapter XXII 
 
 Of tHe Native Government of tKe Pueblos, and 
 THeir Political Status vinder O\rs. 
 
 TWENTY-SIX little republics in the bosom 
 of our great republic that, in a phrase, 
 is the political case of the Pueblo commun 
 ities. Each is an independent political entity, 
 and while, of course, the authority of the United 
 States is over them all and acknowledged by all, 
 each prefers to manage its own affairs without 
 reference to our Government or to one another. 
 There is, however, no occasion for any one else 
 even the United States to interfere; for the 
 Pueblo governmental method is a good one for 
 Pueblos, and life and property under it are as safe 
 as anywhere in the land. 
 
 The Pueblo form of government is essentially 
 republican, but conjoined with a theocracy, the 
 latter under the headship of the Cacique, or Chief 
 Priest. People who have much to do with 
 
 233 
 
234 NATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 Pueblo authorities are inclined to the view that 
 the Cacique is the real power behind the throne; 
 or to put it in the picturesque figure of a Govern 
 ment official in Santa Fe, that "the old man holds 
 the trump card in every deal, and the bunch goes 
 along." While this may be so in the case of 
 masterful minds in Caciques, as in the "bosses" of 
 our own political system, the Cacique is by no 
 means officially a dictator. He is the spiritual 
 care-taker of the community and the keeper of 
 its traditions. He is supposed to be able to reveal 
 the mind of the Powers Above, and in order to 
 keep his spiritual perceptions keen, he fasts and 
 undergoes mortification of the flesh on occasion 
 for the good of the people. His term of office is 
 for life, and he educates an understudy to succeed 
 him. Upon the death of the Cacique, there is 
 usually a decent interregnum of a year or more 
 before the new incumbent enters upon his 
 duties. 
 
 The executive department of the government 
 consists of a governor, a lieutenant-governor (or 
 teniente), a war-captain, an alguacil (or sheriff), 
 and a few other officials all elected annually 
 by the voice of the people. The officials are 
 
NATIVE GOVERNMENT 235 
 
 assisted in their administration by a permanent 
 council of old men or junta de principales 
 in some pueblos these being the ex-governors. 
 With the Pueblos, the elective office does not 
 dignify the man, as with us; an elected official is 
 a public servant, in fact, and as such deserves no 
 particular reverence. This was a surprise to the 
 monarchical Spanish pioneers, who on one oc 
 casion captured the war-captain of a pueblo 
 and held him as hostage, thinking so great an 
 official a noteworthy prize; but he was not in 
 the Indian view he was just one man. So too, on 
 our first visit to Taos, when we asked to see the 
 Governor, who was not in his house, a little 
 child was unceremoniously despatched to fetch 
 him, and in quick time he came without any 
 flourish of trumpets whatsoever. Sancta simpli- 
 citas, indeed. 
 
 The lands of each pueblo are held in common 
 for all the people. Every head of a family makes 
 application for what he needs to till, and this is 
 set aside to him while he works it. Failure to use 
 it for a certain period causes it to revert to the 
 pueblo, to be parcelled out to a new applicant. 
 What each man raises is his own, to be carried 
 
23 6 NATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 home to his wife ; and when beneath her roof, it 
 is hers in trust for the family. It is well to bear 
 this in mind, if you wish to make a present of 
 eatables to a Pueblo man. Once at a certain 
 pueblo, thinking to make a little acknowledgment 
 to a man who had befriended us, we carried a 
 basket of fruit for him to his home. We found him 
 industriously at work by his fireside and handed 
 him the fruit with a suitable speech. He took it, 
 rather sheepishly, we thought, gave it a hungry 
 look, and passed it on to his wife, who was standing 
 confidently by and who promptly walked off with 
 it. The public utilities of the pueblo the outdoor 
 ovens, the corrals for animals, the grazing lands, 
 the wells, and waters are enjoyed in common; 
 but every family dwells strictly by itself in its 
 own apartments, and lives of its own industry, 
 independently of others. Knowing, from past 
 experience, of the possibility of crop failures, it 
 is the practice to hold over enough of each crop 
 until the succeeding one is assured, and danger of 
 a famine is past. If famine come, in spite of all, 
 the Pueblo starves along as best he may until he 
 can raise a new crop dies, if must be, and outfits 
 for Shipapu, but does not beg. 
 
NATIVE GOVERNMENT 237 
 
 The political status of the Pueblo Indian is 
 distinctly different from that of our other native 
 races. He is not a "ward of the Government," 
 but, from the beginning of our authority over him, 
 a United States citizen. Under Mexican law, 
 the Pueblos were citizens of the Republic of 
 Mexico, and the treaty between the United 
 States and Mexico, entered into at Guadalupe 
 Hidalgo in 1848, whereby the south-west terri 
 tories were ceded to this country, provided for 
 the extension of those rights of citizenship under 
 our law. The courts of New Mexico have several 
 times affirmed that the Pueblos of that territory 
 are citizens of the United States, and had there 
 been no special legislation to the contrary, their 
 right to vote at general elections could not have 
 been denied. Luckily for the Pueblos, the exer 
 cise of such a right was deemed inexpedient and 
 the New Mexico Legislative Assembly in 1854 
 passed an Act excluding the Pueblo Indians "for 
 the present and until they shall be declared by 
 the Congress of the United States to have the 
 right," from the privilege of voting, except in 
 matters proper to their own pueblos, "according 
 to their ancient customs." 
 
238 NATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 
 Moreover, the lands occupied by the New 
 Mexico Pueblos are not Government Reserva 
 tions, as in the case of other Indians ; but are the 
 Pueblos own originally by grants of the Spanish 
 crown, and later confirmed to them by United 
 States patents, with some subsequent additions, 
 in the case of certain pueblos, by Executive 
 order. 
 
 The Arizona Pueblos the Hopis have been 
 less fortunate in the recognition of their political 
 status. Their lands are theirs only by grace of 
 an Executive order of December 16, 1882, creating 
 the Moqui Reservation, and judging by past 
 Indian history, the Hopi Pueblos of Moqui may 
 be "moved on" whenever enough white people 
 of necessary influence, who want the land, say so. 
 At present, there is a Government allotting agent 
 at work there, seeking to apportion lands to in 
 dividuals under the terms of the general Allot 
 ment Act of Congress. There seems also a curious 
 disposition on the part of the Office of Indian 
 Affairs to exclude the Hopis from the class of 
 Pueblo Indians. They were, up to 1896, desig 
 nated in the reports of the Indian Office as Moqui 
 Pueblos; but since that, they figure therein shorn 
 
I 
 
 
 A cupid of Shimo rovi. The very small children go unattired 
 in summer in Moqui. 
 
NATIVE GOVERNMENT 239 
 
 of their Pueblo appendage. The Government s 
 treatment of them is practically as of any Reserv 
 ation Indians and their decadence is correspond 
 ingly progressing. 
 
Chapter XXIII 
 
 Of the Native Religion of the Pueblos. 
 
 IF there is one thing more than another which 
 forces itself upon the convictions of the 
 sympathetic student of American-Indian 
 character, it is that the Indian in his native estate 
 is intensely religious. To this the Pueblo is no 
 exception. His religion is so ingrained in his being 
 that he gives it up only with life itself. It is not 
 a matter of one day in seven with him, but of 
 every day. By this, I do not mean his devotion 
 to Roman Catholicism, to which seventeen out of 
 the twenty-six Pueblo communities are nominal 
 adherents, each with a padre to confess and pay 
 tithes to. Every one who knows the Pueblo 
 Indian, knows that, as a rule, so far as his profes 
 sion of Christianity goes, it is his pastime; his 
 real religion is that remarkable system of rites 
 which his fathers have delivered him as a trust 
 from the foundation of the world, in which he 
 
 240 
 
NATIVE RELIGION 241 
 
 finds an explanation satisfactory to his poetic 
 mind of the origin of his people and the destiny 
 of the individual in the world to come. 
 
 Of course, the. Pueblo s pagan conception of 
 Deity differs widely in many particulars from that 
 of the Christian, yet in certain fundamentals 
 of vital religion that relationship which binds 
 the spirit of a man to his Creator the Pueblo 
 stands where all the rest of us stand. There is, 
 for instance, an abiding sense of humanity s de 
 pendence upon Higher Powers, that rule and 
 uphold the world and the affairs thereof ; and there 
 is faith in the continuance of their ancient care, 
 if appealed to. So there is need of prayer contin 
 ually to those Powers, and of thanksgiving to 
 them for the favours of life; and whether the 
 people starve or feast, mourn or frolic, labour 
 or idle in the sun, the red gods of their fathers 
 fathers get their due. It is the childlike attitude 
 towards the Lord of the Harvests and the Shaper 
 of Men s Destinies, innate in all primitive races 
 but run out of civilised ones, save as the latter 
 are individually converted and born anew into the 
 kingdom of the little child and of God. There 
 is a spot outside certain of the pueblos and, it 
 
 16 
 
242 NATIVE RELIGION 
 
 may be, of all where every morning at sunrise, 
 some representative of the people stands and offers, 
 one for all, an invocation to the Sun Father, and 
 scatters sacred meal to the six mystical regions 
 of the world, west, south, east, north, zenith, and 
 nadir. Continually through the year prayers 
 are being breathed upon feathers selected from 
 various sorts of birds, according to a fixed ritual, 
 and bound to especially prepared sticks a few 
 inches long, and then deposited at immemorial 
 shrines on mountain and plain and by certain 
 sacred springs. So by a feather is the prayer 
 borne to the ears of the gods. I The public dances, 
 which white people find delight in attending as 
 spectacles, besides countless others to which 
 outsiders are not admitted, are with the Pueblos 
 religious ceremonies, in many of which the par 
 ticipants, masked and fantastically attired, repre 
 sent divine personages of the people s elaborate 
 
 1 The sharp eyes of the early Spanish explorers detected these 
 plumed prayer sticks here and there about the pueblos in their 
 day, and wondered at them. Certain of them, cross-shaped, 
 are minutely described by Castaneda, the chronicler of Coronado s 
 expedition. "It certainly seems to me," he piously observes* 
 "that in some way [the Indians] must have received some light 
 from the cross of our Redeemer Christ, and it may have come 
 by way of India, from whence they proceeded." 
 
NATIVE RELIGION 243 
 
 mythology. Some are in the nature of sacred 
 dramas, akin, one may say, to the mystery plays 
 of the Middle Ages, and when rendered in pueblos 
 where the white inroads are least, are very im 
 pressive, their effect heightened by the chanting 
 of ancient songs and the accompaniment of 
 gourd rattles and native-made drums. Personal 
 purification, fasts, and abstinence attend these 
 ceremonials, as well as being precedent to them. 
 
 In the matter of spiritual belief, the Pueblo is 
 an animist that is, he holds to a spiritual essence 
 in all creation, even those things which we Christ 
 ian folk call inanimate, such as trees, and rocks, 
 and water, the corn plant of his own raising, and 
 the jar which his potter- wife has moulded. He 
 believes in the persistence of the spirits of all 
 these companions of his earthly sojourn, as well 
 as of his own spirit, in an unseen world to which 
 physical death is the portal. It is not apparent, 
 however, that he regards that future estate as one 
 of reward and punishment for deeds done here in 
 the flesh, but rather as another stage of life. 
 
 Pagan as we may call such a faith, it has fos 
 tered in the Pueblo virtues which all the civilised 
 world applauds and very largely falls short of. 
 
244 NATIVE RELIGION 
 
 It inculcates kindliness to one another and 
 gentleness of speech, hospitality to the stranger, 
 though an enemy, reverence for old age, truth 
 fulness, obedience to parents, tenderness to 
 childhood, and the bringing up of children, as we 
 would say, in the nurture and admonition of the 
 Lord, as He is dimly perceived in that polytheistic 
 twilight. It would seem that that universal 
 grace of God, which Paul preached as appearing 
 to all men, teaching the denying of ungodliness, 
 has appeared to Pueblos, too. All this was very 
 surprising to the Pueblos Spanish discoverers, 
 and Castaneda, noting down his observations in 
 Zuni in 1540, records his belief that the elders 
 must "give certain commandments for the people 
 to keep, for there is no drunkenness among them 
 nor sodomy nor sacrifices, 1 neither do they eat 
 human flesh, nor steal, but are usually at work." 
 It is to the credit of the Spanish guardianship 
 of the Pueblos through three centuries and the 
 innate virility of the native faith that their moral 
 code is still much as Coronado found it. 
 
 1 Referring doubtless to the practice of human sacrifices 
 among the contemporary Aztecs of Old Mexico. There is no 
 evidence that the Pueblos made such sacrifices. 
 
NATIVE RELIGION 245 
 
 A mythology as complex and fanciful as Greece s , 
 involving a pantheon as numerous, goes with the 
 native religion of the Pueblos; but the subject is 
 too technical to be discussed here. Indeed, in 
 spite of the efforts of our scientific dwellers 
 among the Indians, comparatively few of their 
 myths are understood. The aborigine is very 
 loath to lay bare his inner heart to one of alien 
 blood, and his religious beliefs come out only a 
 little at a time to sympathetic friends who have 
 been tried and found worthy of all confidence. A 
 suspicion of contempt or ridicule, or even con 
 descension, is enough to close his mouth. Each 
 Pueblo community appears to have its own body 
 of myths, accounting for its origin in the world 
 and narrating its primitive wanderings and adven 
 tures under the care of the gods. The stories of 
 origin differ markedly, though certain features 
 are common to many of them, as the Sun Father 
 and Moon Mother of the race, the creation of the 
 first people in a subterranean world up from which 
 they were led by the Divine Ones through the 
 opening Shipapu into this world of light, and the 
 part played by the Twin Heroes, or Gods of 
 War, in the early affairs of men. The curious 
 
246 NATIVE RELIGION 
 
 are referred to those delightful volumes Zuni Folk 
 Tales, by F. H. Gushing, and Pueblo Indian Folk 
 Stories, by Chas. F. Lummis ; as well as to the re 
 ports of the American Bureau of Ethnology for 
 more technical presentations. 
 
Chapter XXIV 
 
 Of WHat tKe United States Possesses in tKe Pueblo 
 Indian Being a Brief Summing Up. 
 
 THE Pueblo is something more than just an 
 Indian. He is something more than pic 
 turesque. He represents a unique develop 
 ment among the aborigines of the United States 
 a native-born civilisation, or semi-civilisation, 
 if you will, which, before the white man stumbled 
 upon it, embodied a settled habitation with a dis 
 tinctive architecture, a stable form of democratic 
 government, a religious ritual free from human 
 or animal sacrifices, the practice of monogamy, 
 the equality of woman, an orderly pursuit of 
 agriculture, well-developed arts, and the love of 
 peace. He was our first apartment-house builder 
 our first irrigationist, our first cotton-spinner, 1 
 
 1 A species of cotton grew indigenously in parts of the Pueblo 
 country, and before the introduction of sheep by the Spanish 
 the cotton fibre was used in weaving garments. 
 
 247 
 
248 SUMMING UP 
 
 and his wife was our first artist in ceramics. As 
 the Pueblo was when history discovered him, so 
 in essentials is he to-day. Between him and his 
 neighbour, the Apache, for instance, there is as 
 much difference, it has been well said, as between 
 the Broadway merchant and the Bowery tough. 
 
 Thanks to the literary habits of his Spanish 
 conquerors, we possess of the Pueblo a more 
 complete historic record than of any other ab 
 origine of the United States; and the labours of 
 our own archaeologists and ethnologists have very 
 convincingly connected his ancestry with those 
 fascinating monuments of a remote past, the ruined 
 cliff dwellings of the Southwest. Under Spanish 
 association, he added many amenities to his way 
 of life; the indispensable burro, for instance; 
 iron tools and carts; horses, sheep, and cattle; 
 wheat, grapes, and peaches. He acquiesced 
 though at first somewhat rebelliously in being 
 Roman-Catholicised, his complaisant nature 
 hospitably harbouring the new religion along with 
 the old, which he has never surrendered. To 
 Spain, also, he owes his present land-titles ; for the 
 Spanish Indian policy was in the main one of 
 humanity and common-sense, and recognising 
 
Husking corn on a Zuni housetop. Flush times for the burros. 
 
SUMMING UP 249 
 
 the Pueblo at something like his worth, secured 
 to him by royal grant sufficient land to maintain 
 him in his way of life. "It is fortunate," says a 
 caustic historian J of the Pueblo, that the Spaniard 
 was his brother s keeper. Had the Pueblo enjoyed 
 sixteenth-century acquaintance with the Saxon, 
 we should be limited now to unearthing and 
 articulating his bones." 
 
 As a citizen, the Pueblo is peaceable, self-sup 
 porting, hospitable, honest, and merry-hearted, 
 minding his own business. His wife, who is in no 
 sense an inferior but his acknowledged equal, 
 owns the home and is the trustee for the family 
 of what the house contains. Old age is respected 
 and its counsel courted. The children are obedi 
 ent, well-behaved, and intensely beloved, not only 
 by parents but by grandparents and all their kin 2 ; 
 they are taught industry and obedience from the 
 beginning of their years, the boys helping in the 
 farming, wood-gathering, herding, and hunting; 
 
 1 C. F. Lummis in The Land of Poco Tiempo. 
 
 2 Compare this with what Mrs. Hugh Fraser says of Japanese 
 childhood in her Letters from Japan: "Little children are called 
 the treasure flowers of life, and that which ministers to their 
 happiness is never considered trivial, but regarded as a necessary 
 part of the family occupations." This might have been written 
 of the Pueblo little folks. 
 
250 SUMMING UP 
 
 the girls in pottery-making, corn-grinding, cooking, 
 and other domestic vocations. They are taught 
 regard for one another, and the care of little folk 
 of eight or ten over their younger brothers and 
 sisters is a touching trait to be witnessed in any 
 pueblo where white influence has not rooted out 
 the aboriginal virtues. 
 
 The contemporary life of the Pueblos has been 
 invaluable beyond words in throwing light upon 
 the endeavours of our archaeologists and ethnolo 
 gists to explain the remarkable remains of pre 
 historic human life in our great Southwest. It 
 further assists to an understanding, by the com 
 parative method, of much that concerns the past 
 of the human race as a whole; for it helps us, to 
 use the apt phrase of John Fiske, "in getting 
 down into the stone age of human thought." 
 
 Few Americans [says that same sterling historian] 
 realise how highly our country is favoured in having 
 within its limits such communities as those of the 
 Moquis and Zunis. Our land is certainly lacking in 
 such features of human interest as the ruins of 
 mediaeval castles and Grecian temples. But we may 
 be to some extent consoled when we reflect that, 
 within our broad domain, we have surviving rem 
 nants of a state of society so old-fashioned as to make 
 
SUMMING UP 251 
 
 that of the Book of Genesis seem modern by com 
 parison. In some respects the Moquis and Zufiis 
 may be called half civilised ; but their turn of thought 
 is still very primitive. They are peaceful and self- 
 respecting people: and in true refinement and be 
 haviour are far superior to ourselves. We have still 
 much to learn from them concerning ancient society, 
 and we ought not to be in too great a hurry to 
 civilise them, especially if they do not demand it of 
 us. 
 
 The Pueblo, being human, has his faults and 
 shortcomings, of course. There is room for his 
 improvement, just as for yours and mine; but 
 the genius which enabled him to work up to 
 the plane of civilisation where Spain found him 
 and left him, is still his, and is quite capable 
 of solving his twentieth-century problems in 
 the Pueblo way. Unlike the Reservation tribes, 
 who have been crowded off their native land by 
 the advance of white civilisation, the Pueblo s 
 foot is still on his ancestral heath, and the 
 heath is capable of supporting him in his ab 
 original way of living, which to him is a happy 
 way. The features of that existence form an 
 interesting and instructive object-lesson in the 
 simple life for which the soul of our complex 
 
252 SUMMING UP 
 
 time is crying out. His is the last of our indige 
 nous races which it is now possible to preserve 
 in anything approaching its native estate ; and one 
 would think it worth an effort to conserve it 
 to put up a "no trespass" sign on its lands and 
 guard it from molestation. One would think that 
 such a people might be suffered to live out its 
 destiny in its own harmless way by this great 
 republic, which has made much advertisement 
 of itself as standing for the right of all men to life, 
 liberty, and pursuit of happiness. 
 
 What is really happening in the matter is out 
 lined in the next chapter. 
 
Chapter XXV 
 
 Of What Our Government is Doing witH the 
 Pueblo. 
 
 IN considering the activities of the United 
 States Government towards the Pueblos, it 
 is necessary to bear in mind that the case 
 of the Pueblos is essentially a different one from 
 that of the at one time nomadic tribes of the 
 plains and forests, that is, the Reservation tribes 
 of to-day. The latter, the red men of Fenimore 
 Cooper and the Wild West Show, have for gener 
 ations been gradually pushed off their native 
 hunting-grounds by the ever-advancing line of 
 the white man s settlements, have been fought and 
 cheated, bargained with and broken faith with, 
 until now they are as men without a country in 
 surroundings totally different from those in which 
 nature placed them and in which nature fitted 
 them to live. That this aboriginal remnant should 
 have something done for it by the race that has 
 
 253 
 
254 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 crowded it off its earth is just, and that that some 
 thing should be in the nature of an education to 
 equip it to cope with alien conditions of life is 
 reasonable. That, roughly summed up, is the 
 theory of the Government s educational policy 
 towards the Indian, and it is not within the 
 province of this book to discuss it in practice. 
 
 The Pueblo case, however, is not that at all. 
 A sedentary people, advanced in the arts and 
 practices of a native civilisation, the Pueblos, 
 thanks to Spanish prevision, have not been dis 
 possessed of their lands; they still inhabit their 
 Syrian-like towns, that are older than anything 
 of white men s building on this continent, and 
 they still till the self same ground which their 
 fathers fathers worked long ago, and which 
 is hallowed to them with associations that reach 
 back to the days when the gods walked the earth 
 and the animals talked with men. Unlike the 
 Plains Indians, whose main source of livelihood 
 was the chase and who have to be taught to be 
 farmers, the Pueblos are born agriculturists who, 
 from inherited experience, are singularly capable 
 of raising crops under the exacting climatic con 
 ditions of their semi-desert home. They have, 
 
A man of Taos, in native dress. Sheets are worn in lieu 
 of blankets in warm weather. 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 255 
 
 of course, learned much from their association with 
 Spaniard and Anglo-Saxon; from both they have 
 adopted improvements, which they apply in their 
 own way, and they are still in every respect in a 
 position to live out their quiet, useful lives after 
 the fashion of the red nature which the Lord of 
 Life implanted in them. When unspoiled by too 
 much white interference, their communities are 
 entirely self-supporting and law-abiding, and as 
 contented as humanity ever gets to be here be 
 low the most picturesque and natural class of 
 people in our artificial, dead-level, dollar-driven 
 United States. 
 
 In the mechanical application to the Pueblos of 
 an Indian policy which was framed for all the 
 Indians, the Government has to give the devil 
 his due done some commendable things. It has, 
 for instance, exempted the Pueblo lands from 
 taxation; it has sought to keep the whisky-seller 
 away from the pueblos; and it undertakes to 
 provide medical care for the prevention of the 
 epidemics of such diseases as smallpox, diph 
 theria, measles, and the like, which, more than 
 any other one cause, nowadays, keep down the 
 growth of the population. On the other hand, 
 
256 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 however, and this is the crux of the case as 
 between Government and Pueblo, the Indian 
 Office lumps the Pueblo with the rest of the Indians 
 and drops him into the common educational 
 melting-pot prepared by Congress for all red men. 
 Day schools have been established in most of 
 the pueblos and the children are forced into them, 
 unless the parents prefer to send them to some 
 boarding-school. In the more important pueblos, 
 field matrons are quartered for the purpose of 
 teaching housekeeping to the Pueblo women, 
 who have been skilful housekeepers from the dawn 
 of time ; farmers, also, are sent to some to acquaint 
 this race of farmers, who have no memory of a 
 time when their ancestors were not farmers and 
 who practised irrigation before any one in the 
 United States ever heard of such a thing, how to 
 raise corn and beans. 
 
 At Santa Fe, at Albuquerque, at Black Rock, 
 at Ream s Canon, large boarding-schools are 
 maintained and paid for by the taxpayers of the 
 United States, where white education, in part 
 literary and in part industrial, is crammed down 
 the young Pueblo throat in steam-heated rooms 
 and in an atmosphere often foul to suffocation. 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 257 
 
 The agents of more distant schools, as at Riverside 
 in California, Grand Junction in Colorado, Carlisle 
 in Pennsylvania, are busy in season drumming 
 up recruits, that their institutions, too, may have 
 part in the same educational game. It is the 
 boarding-schools, the more distant from the pueblo 
 the better, that nearest meet the ideal of the 
 Indian educator; for thereby the child is most 
 thoroughly separated from his "tribal relations 
 and is more perfectly at the mercy of the Great 
 White Father, who has so benevolently undertaken 
 to undo the Creator s handiwork and turn these 
 "benighted" red people into white. 
 
 When you ask the .gentlemen of the Indian 
 Office for the reason of this active onslaught of 
 education, they will doubtless tell you, as they 
 have told the present writer, that, in its capacity 
 as a civilising agent, the Office has a special edu 
 cational duty to discharge towards the children 
 of these Indians, who must be prepared for the 
 future and to adjust themselves finally as citizens 
 to our modern civilisation. This statement ap 
 pears to be part of the Office fixt tires, passed down 
 from Commissioner to Commissioner and, so far as 
 it is not buncombe, doubtless applies well enough 
 17 
 
258 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 to the Reservation Indian. It is not plain, how 
 ever, that it does fit the case of the Pueblo, who 
 is already a citizen, and quite as well able in his 
 pueblo to take care of himself and be a useful 
 member of society as a Shaker or a Dunkard, 
 an Amishman, a Franciscan friar, or any other 
 member of a score of peculiar sects in the United 
 States who are given to clannishness of living and 
 are freely conceded the right to do so. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Government s educa 
 tional activities towards the Pueblos are making 
 practically to this end: the destruction of the 
 characteristic features of a very wonderful and in 
 teresting communal life, racy of our soil, and the 
 wiping of the Pueblos as a people out of existence. 
 Such a proceeding is not only cruel and un- 
 American, but it is needless; for the Pueblo has 
 a very good system of education of his own, 
 though it is not literary. 
 
 In the normal life of the Pueblo, the native 
 education of the child begins as soon as it can 
 talk, and continues daily by precept and example 
 until it is grown; for the children are constant 
 companions of their elders, and having no thought 
 but to respect them, are constantly learning 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 259 
 
 from them. For instance, at an age when little 
 white girls are making mud pies, their small 
 Pueblo sisters are having just as much enjoyment 
 in learning, of their own volition, to copy in clay 
 the beautiful bowls and water- jars which their 
 potter mothers are experts in making. The boys 
 follow their fathers and grandfathers to the field, 
 and gather with them in the estufas, or private 
 council chambers of the men, and there little by 
 little become familiar with the ancient traditions 
 of their people. In the ceremonial dances which 
 are one of the outward forms of worship practised 
 by the Pueblos, boys and girls, sometimes hardly 
 more than infants, take their little parts with 
 earnestness and solemnity. So by degrees, the 
 elements of the simple, sunny, wholesome life 
 are acquired and the young fitted to carry it 
 forward, if the Indian way is allowed to prevail. 
 
 But, when the Pueblo children are sent to the 
 white school, as by hook and by crook the Govern 
 ment is seeing to it that they are, all this is changed 
 as it is designed that it should be. The children 
 are being taken at as near the age of four as they 
 can be gotten hold of, and by being inhumanly 
 kept away from their parents as long as possible, 
 
2 6o GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 lose, during the most formative years of their 
 life, the advantage of the parental training and 
 companionship. As a nation, we have never 
 been a success at raising children, and certainly 
 the case of this Congressional fathering of the 
 Pueblo youth has added no lustre to our crown. 
 I have visited every one of the Pueblo communities 
 and have lived in several for longer or shorter 
 periods, and I can say unqualifiedly that their 
 most disheartening feature to-day is furnished 
 by returned scholars. One knows the young men 
 of this class by their short hair, their slouchy 
 ways, and their ill manners ; the girls are disposed 
 to indolence, and distinguished by rats in their 
 hair and peek-a-boo shirt-waists, unless they have 
 resumed their native, comfortable, and suitable 
 Pueblo dress. 
 
 The minds of both sexes, bright enough on sub 
 jects of Indian lore, are as a rule slow to stupid 
 ity in matters of the white man s curriculum, and 
 it is amazing to see how little has really been 
 assimilated in the years of labour which their 
 generally conscientious teachers have bestowed 
 upon them. Far from "uplifting their people" 
 the favourite dream of their educators they 
 
A "little mother" of the pueblo. It is a duty of the little Pueblo 
 girls to attend their baby brothers and sisters, when the 
 parents are busy. 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 261 
 
 are not only lacking in initiative, but helpless to 
 teach what they have but imperfectly learned, 
 and they hang around the pueblo, a positive drag 
 upon its busy life. Rare, indeed, is it to find one 
 at all qualified to compete with the white man 
 in any walk of life above that of day labourer; 
 while they have lost irretrievably years of a native 
 education that would really have helped them in 
 the life for which nature has peculiarly adapted 
 them. Furthermore, these educated ones are 
 often handicapped by a substantial start in 
 tuberculosis, contracted in the confined life of 
 the school; are more or less pauperised by their 
 years of being boarded and lodged gratis, and are 
 pretty sure to be tinctured with an assortment 
 of white vices. 
 
 The lot of these young people is, indeed, hard. 
 Unfitted by nature to meet the keen competition 
 of the white man s world, and unfitted by education 
 for the life of the pueblo, there is nothing for them 
 but to begin afresh and learn to live as their fathers 
 lived, or else go to the bad generally. As a matter 
 of fact, some follow one course, and some the other ; 
 but in either case, the net result of the American 
 education to the Pueblo is a moral drop. The 
 
262 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 elders of the Pueblos, knowing from hard experi 
 ence the inevitable result, seek persistently to 
 keep their children from the contamination of the 
 schools ; and in several instances have run the day 
 schools from the pueblo. It is to no purpose, 
 however, for the Government agents hunt down 
 the children under the very skirts of their mothers, 
 and by one argument or another secure them and 
 pack them off to the boarding-schools. 
 
 The Government still regarding the Pueblos 
 as ignorant of the conditions of a fixed life as 
 though they were Apaches or Comanches fresh 
 from the warpath, instead of the peaceful, im 
 memorial town-dwellers that they are assumes 
 furthermore that they need the white point of 
 view in their housekeeping. Hence the field 
 matron referred to above. Her uplifting influence 
 is directed at the women of the pueblo, whom she 
 is expected to instruct in the care of the house, 
 personal cleanliness, the adornment of the home, 
 the care of the sick, and incidentally to brighten 
 the darkness of the " benighted" by introducing 
 among the little folks of the Pueblos "the sports 
 of white children." 
 
 In spite of some absurdities as regards the 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 263 
 
 Pueblos in the Government regulations, there is 
 some under current of sense in the field matron s 
 office, if it were possible to have it administered 
 by a woman of tact and experience, in sympathy 
 with Indian nature; for the need of better know 
 ledge of some fundamentals of sanitation, for 
 instance, and the care of the sick, is a real need 
 in the pueblos. In practice, however, the field 
 matron is a more or less conscientious lady of 
 mature age, who may or may not speak her 
 native tongue grammatically, and who has, as 
 likely as not, been transferred to her pueblo 
 from the Comanche Reservation, or the Piutes, 
 or some other distant place, and does not in the 
 least know the essential difference between such 
 tribes and the Pueblos. T 
 
 1 At a pueblo which the writer visited recently, he found a field 
 matron of this sort in charge, transferred thither from an Okla 
 homa Reservation. She was absolutely ignorant of the Pueblo 
 manner of life, and had from the Government a printed blanket 
 form of instructions, which, of course, gave no hint of one Indian s 
 differing from another. The lady was low in her spirits as to 
 the transfer. "They won t talk any English to me hardly," 
 she complained of her new charges, "and I don t know any more 
 Spanish than a goat." To a Pueblo man who came in to do some 
 sewing on a sewing-machine, she granted permission, but added 
 very distinctly, so he could catch the full import, "And if you 
 break that machine, brother, I 11 string you up by the neck." 
 It is not to be inferred that her bite would have been as bad 
 
264 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 Finding the Pueblo women leisurely with their 
 work instead of rushing about it like victims of 
 Americanitis, such an official sets them down as 
 lazy; and because their dress bears the stain of 
 the prevailing dust of the Southwest, they are, 
 in her eyes, dirty. So, perfectly convinced that 
 Pueblo women are as "benighted" as the authori 
 ties in Washington think they are, she proceeds 
 to revolutionise the Pueblo household. 
 
 Take the matter of cooking, for instance : The 
 Pueblo woman has inherited from her forbears 
 a really admirable system of cookery, which, 
 if the baking-powder and cheap coffee of the 
 border whites can be kept out of it, produces 
 results which are both simple and nutritious. 
 There are in most households two meals a day, 
 breakfast about ten or eleven in the morning, 
 and supper or dinner about sunset or later, 
 after the labours of the day are concluded. These 
 meals are prepared in four principal ways: 
 
 First: In the open fireplace which is an 
 essential feature of the Pueblo living-room. 
 
 as her bark, but it seems hardly needful to comment upon the 
 "uplifting influence" of such association upon a sensitive, 
 amiable race like the Pueblos. 
 
i 
 
 ^ oj 
 
 <u ,_ 
 
 rl GJ 
 
 H > 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 265 
 
 Here all stews are set to simmer and beans to 
 cook in a clay cooking-pot of native make. This 
 fireplace serves further the double purpose of 
 insuring good ventilation in the room, and of 
 providing a means always at hand of doing away 
 with scraps and dirt, which the Pueblo housewife 
 many times a day sweeps with her broom of dried 
 grasses into the blaze of the hearth. 
 
 Secondly: Upon a large, flat stone resting on 
 four short ones and heated by a fire beneath, 
 she bakes as upon a griddle the wafer bread of 
 cornmeal and water, known variously as piki, 
 hewe, or wa-yah -vi. Folded in packets or rolled 
 into sticks, this is a staple of Pueblo diet, sweet 
 to the taste and not excelled in digestibility by 
 the twice-baked breads of our modern hospitals. 
 
 Thirdly: In the New Mexico pueblos, the 
 dome-shaped, adobe bake-ovens are a striking 
 feature, built always outdoors, either in front 
 of the house or on the roof. This makes it im 
 perative for the housewife to be in the health- 
 giving air during the entire time of heating the 
 oven and baking the bread. In these ovens 
 yeast -risen wheat bread is baked in an even 
 heat with the thoroughness that distinguished 
 
266 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 the loaves which our grandmothers baked in 
 their great brick ovens. 
 
 Fourthly: In the Arizona pueblos, there is a 
 permanent pit, sunk to the depth of a couple of 
 feet in the ground near the house. In this 
 the housewife builds a hot fire, and when the sides 
 and bottoms of the pit are thoroughly heated, 
 she takes out the embers, sets a vessel within 
 filled with cornmeal batter, covers the mouth of 
 the pit with a flat stone, seals it up with adobe 
 mud, and leaves it for hours. The result is a 
 thoroughly cooked, nutritious mush, prepared 
 exactly on the theory of the fireless cooker of 
 our civilisation. No better system could be 
 desired. 
 
 The culinary methods above described serve 
 two noteworthy ends they insure wholesome, 
 thorough cooking, and they conserve that open- 
 air life essential to Indian well-being, which ex 
 istence in permanent towns is prone to curtail. 
 
 Now, what generally happens when a field 
 matron, acting under orders from Washington, 
 gets under way, is the introduction of the American 
 cook-stove an article in every way unsuited 
 to that land whose almost perpetual sunshine 
 
Pueblo women baking wheaten bread at the outdoor ovens. 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 267 
 
 is ever calling to life under the sky. Then the 
 Pueblo woman closes up her indoor fireplace, 
 abandons her outdoor cooking-pit, kindles a 
 furious fire in her new stove indoors, and puts into 
 the oven a quantity of bread, which scorches on 
 the outside while still underdone in the middle. 
 Upon this she feeds her family, as well as with 
 other dyspeptic matters, which are sure to follow 
 under the tuition of the dyspeptic nation which 
 has undertaken the uplifting of the "benighted" 
 Pueblos. The continually close air, following 
 upon the overheating of the room and the clos 
 ing up of the self -ventilating fireplace, develops 
 coughs and colds. Expectoration is on the floor, 
 which remains unswept longer now that there is 
 no convenient fireplace to brush litter into, and 
 consumption enters. So the national work of 
 "civilising" the Indian out of existence is helped 
 along. 
 
 I have dwelt upon the cook-stove episode at 
 considerable length, because it affords a concrete 
 instance of what is persistently ignored by our 
 nation, namely, the fact that the Pueblo Indians 
 have as systematically developed a domestic 
 economy as we ourselves have; one which is 
 
268 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 peculiarly fitted to their nature and environment ; 
 and one to which white interference is distinctly 
 prejudicial, besides being impertinent. 
 
 What has been said of the cooking is true of 
 other innovations which are stupidly being forced 
 upon the Pueblos by our Government. Their 
 distinctive dress, for instance, is as picturesque 
 as that of the Swiss peasantry ; but it has, besides 
 picturesqueness, a side of comfort and especial 
 adaptation to the people s habit of life, not so 
 apparent, until studied. It is really scientific 
 in its looseness and openness, which besides 
 allowing the free play of the limbs in exercise, 
 admits between the body and clothing, in a way 
 that our dress does not, the circulation of that 
 wonderful south-western air to whose cleansing 
 and antiseptic qualities the Indian largely owes 
 his health. Yet white agencies are too dense to 
 understand this, and must needs treat the Pueblo 
 as though he were clothed in the conventional G 
 string and paint of savagery. His dress must be 
 Americanised, and the beginning is with the 
 children, who, as fast as they are rounded up in 
 the schools, have their hair shorn, and their bodies 
 divested of Pueblo garb and are all put into 
 
A little maid of Taos in native attire. 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 269 
 
 variously fitting abominations, including under 
 clothing, of the one and only civilisation. In a 
 community without bathtubs and laundries, 
 living in a country where rain is the rarest of 
 Heaven s gifts, is it any wonder that the result of 
 such sartorial revolution is a degree of uncleanness 
 both of body and clothing never known under the 
 native regime, and at times unspeakable? There 
 would be some sense in encouraging neatness and 
 cleanliness in the native dress where laxity was 
 apparent, but there is none at all in abolishing 
 that perfectly adequate native attire for another 
 designed for a people of other traditions, living 
 under different conditions. 
 
 In every other instance which I have seen of 
 the attempt to make this people s customs con 
 form to white standards, the result is equally 
 detrimental. Assuming that there is only one 
 right way and that is our way, we have taken it 
 for granted that these communities are undis 
 ciplined savages and, knowing nothing, must be 
 taught what is good for them. 
 
 Nobody better understands the fundamental 
 error of this than the Government employes at 
 the pueblos, when they think for themselves. 
 
270 GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 Of course it is their business to carry out the 
 Department regulations; but, time and time 
 again, I have heard them deprecate the policy of 
 sending teachers to a people like the Pueblos, 
 who are already as good citizens as their neigh 
 bour whites. "Yet," they add, "what can we 
 do about it? The work means our bread and 
 butter." 
 
 It is not the purpose of this chapter to advocate 
 holding back any Indians who really desire to 
 participate in the white man s education. Now 
 and then one finds a Pueblo whose native bent 
 is such as to enable him to assimilate something 
 from our present-day American civilisation, just 
 as generations ago his ancestors adopted somewhat 
 from their Spanish conquerors mode of life. 
 While it is the present writer s conviction, based 
 on observation, that even in such cases what the 
 man loses in his lapse from native ways is greater 
 than his gain, yet to such an one he would cordially 
 say, "Go ahead, and if you can find anything to 
 your liking, in jumpers and overalls and cowhide 
 brogans, in simplified spelling and in ability to 
 read about the latest murder in Chicago or the 
 graft cases in San Francisco, and if with this 
 
GOVERNMENTAL ACTIVITIES 271 
 
 equipment you think you can beat the white man 
 at his own trade, for goodness sake go to school 
 and be educated. " The plea made is solely for 
 those and they are the large majority who do 
 not desire this whitewash on their red skin, who 
 protest vehemently against being trained as white 
 men when the Lord created them red for ever 
 more, and yet on whom the United States 
 Government is sedulously forcing an education 
 which in practical results experience shows to be 
 productive of more harm to the Pueblo than 
 good an education which too often sharpens 
 the young people s wits at the expense of their 
 morals, so that they even overreach their parents. 
 Is it any wonder that the old people resist the 
 schools? 
 
Chapter XXVI 
 
 Of tKe Future of the Pueblo, if He Has Any. 
 
 IF the Pueblo Indian has a future, it rests with 
 the rank and file of the people of the United 
 States to assure it to him. New Mexico and 
 Arizona ought to do it, but they are too busy 
 with mining and sheep-herding to bother about 
 an Indian who scalps nobody and steals no horses. 
 Congress, as at present enlightened, cannot be 
 expected to do it; for it is not in evidence that 
 Congress ever heard of a Pueblo Indian. The 
 Indian Office will not do it; for that Office is a 
 machine grinding out a traditional cut-and-dried 
 policy. 1 Strange Juggernaut of our boasted 
 
 1 "The Office appreciates the fact that, in their contact with 
 modern civilisation, much of the value of the Pueblos as a 
 picturesque factor in the national life is being sacrificed. 
 Regarding their ancient laws and customs, although in some 
 respects admirable, those which do not coincide with the national 
 laws must inevitably give way. To the older Indians, who cling 
 to these customs, this may seem a hardship, at times bringing 
 them into more or less conflict with the representatives of the 
 
 272 
 
FUTURE OF THE PUEBLO 273 
 
 free republicanism, this Indian policy of ours! 
 Though our literature is full of denunciation of 
 it, though ethnologists, even, of the Government, 
 deplore the stupidity of it, though our text -books 
 record its inhumanity, it goes stolidly on in its 
 deadening work, and our complacent nation clips 
 coupons, goes to church, and lets it! 
 
 Yet, while the Indian betrayed by his Great 
 White Father at Washington and dispossessed of 
 his heritage is a stock figure of American history, 
 and jeremiads a-plenty have been written bewail 
 ing an irrevocable past gone to judgment, the 
 nation has, in the Pueblos, one last chance to save 
 a fine remnant of aboriginal life before the whole 
 fabric is utterly gone. The procedure is simplicity 
 itself : Stop our education of them ; or, if we must 
 teach something, let it be only at day schools 
 
 Government. But these matters are being gradually adjusted 
 with as much tact and diplomacy as is consistent with a positive 
 attitude towards the situation. 
 
 "Thus the Office is confronted with conditions not altogether 
 of its own making, and however desirable from an aesthetic point 
 of view it might be to maintain this quaint, old, semi-civilisation 
 in our midst, it is not altogether practicable." 
 
 (From a letter dated September 29, 1910, from F. H. Abbott, 
 Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to the author. This 
 may be considered official notice that the death-warrant of 
 Pueblo life has been signed.) 
 18 
 
274 FUTURE OF THE PUEBLO 
 
 within the pueblo, in the simplest rudiments 
 and without interference in the native ways. 
 
 Coincidently, the present wise law of exemp 
 tion from taxation should be continued; for it 
 will take a long time for the Pueblo mind, used 
 to communal ways, to assimilate the Caucasian 
 theory of taxation, and meantime inevitable de 
 linquencies would speedily result in the Sheriff s 
 sale of every pueblo in the South- West. Surely, 
 the country has gotten land bargains enough out 
 of its aborigines to warrant this item of generosity. 
 Moreover, the matters of medical supervision 
 and liquor regulation should continue increasingly 
 to be of Government concern. 
 
 This will not make good the harm already done 
 to the Pueblos, but it will enable a naturally 
 capable and contented people to work out their 
 destiny in their natural way, which interferes 
 with that of nobody else. They are a people 
 worth saving and their arts are worth fostering, 
 which, it is to be observed, does not mean Ameri 
 canising. 
 
 Unfortunately, many of their communities are 
 hopelessly demoralised by this time, and can 
 only be left to their fate; but others, where a 
 
FUTURE OF THE PUEBLO 275 
 
 considerable conservative element yet remains 
 such, for instance, as the large pueblos of Zuni, 
 Santo Domingo, Isleta, Jemez, and Taos in New 
 Mexico, and the smaller but still virile Hopi 
 villages of Shimopovi and Hotavila in Arizona 
 can still be helped, if left to the inherent strength 
 of their native institutions. Instead of consign 
 ing them to the educational mill to be ground 
 away between the upper and the nether millstones 
 of school-teacher and field matron, it would seem 
 a truer philanthropy to make easy for them the 
 path of development along native lines a tried 
 pathway on which they had themselves started 
 before Washington took charge of them, and upon 
 which they had wonderfully progressed. 
 
 In that vast region of sunshine, desert, and 
 elemental majesty where the Pueblos dwell, 
 they supply a feature of contemporary human 
 interest unique in the world. Their country, 
 like our National Parks, is already part of our 
 nation s holiday grounds and will be increasingly 
 so used. We are intent enough, down there, 
 upon exploring and protecting from desecration 
 the remains of a remarkable prehistoric civilisation 
 which once flourished where the Pueblos now live ; 
 
276 FUTURE OF THE PUEBLO 
 
 New Mexico has established a well equipped 
 Institute of Archaeology and is spending money to 
 maintain the crumbling homes of her ancient 
 Cliff Dwellers; yet both nation and state have 
 been incredibly blind to the greater living wonder 
 of this Pueblo race, which is made up of descend 
 ants of those vanished denizens of the cliffs and 
 is pursuing to-day, in all essentials, the same 
 kind of life. While we are thus busy conserv 
 ing the material evidences of humanity dead and 
 gone, is it not a better work to save a living people 
 from extinction? 
 
.A Table of Approximate Population of 
 Each Pueblo in 191O 
 
 With the English pronunciation of its name and its nearest 
 railroad station. 
 
 A.rizona Pueblos 
 
 
 
 NEAREST RAILROAD 
 
 POPULATION STATION 
 
 FIRST MESA 
 
 
 
 Walpi (Wol pee) 
 
 250 
 
 {Winslow, Ariz., 80 miles. 
 
 Sichum ovi 
 
 IOO 
 
 Holbrook, Ariz., 90 miles. 
 
 Tewa (Ta -wah) or 
 
 
 
 Han o 
 
 150 
 
 Gallup, N. M., 120 miles. 
 
 SECOND MESA 
 
 
 
 Mishong novi 
 
 250 
 
 f Winslow, Ariz., \ 
 
 Shipaul ovi 
 
 125 
 
 j or > 90 miles. 
 
 Shimo povi 
 
 225 
 
 Canon Diablo ) 
 
 THIRD MESA 
 
 
 
 Oraibi (Orf bee) 
 
 
 ( Winslow, Ariz., \ 
 
 (summer pueblo 
 
 500 
 
 j or > 75 miles. 
 
 Moenkop i) 
 
 
 ( Canon Diablo ) 
 
 Hotavi la 
 
 400 
 
 f Winslow, Ariz., } 
 
 
 
 < or > 80 miles. 
 
 Bacabi (Bah -ca-bee) 
 
 IOO 
 
 (. Cafton Diablo ) 
 
 Total population of 
 Arizona pueblos, 
 approximately 2100 
 
 277 
 
278 POPULATION OF EACH PUEBLO 
 
 J. L. Hubbell, of Ganado and Keam s Canon, 
 Arizona, gives the following list of principal 
 Hopi ceremonies and dances the exact days of 
 the month are not fixed: 
 
 November, New Fire Ceremony; December, 
 War Dance; January, Buffalo Dance; February, 
 Bean Planting; March, " Mystery Play"; May, 
 Katcina Dances; July, Departure of Katcinas; 
 August, Snake, Antelope, and Flute Dances; 
 September, Basket Dance; October, Basket and 
 Hand-Tablet Dances. 
 
 New Mexico Pueblos 
 
 PRINCIPAL 
 
 Acoma (Ah coma) 
 (inclusive of its 
 summer pueblo, 
 Acomi ta) 
 
 TION 
 
 800 
 
 Cochiti (Cochi- 
 tee ) 
 
 Isleta (Iss-lett -a) 
 
 Jemez (Ha -mess) 
 Lagu na (including 
 six farming vil 
 lages) 
 
 300 
 
 1000 
 
 500 
 1500 
 
 NEAREST RAILROAD 
 STATION. 
 
 Sept. 2 Laguna, 15 miles. 
 
 (McCarty sfor 
 Acomi ta) 
 
 July 14 Domingo, 
 8 Isleta, 
 
 Sept. 19 Laguna. 
 
 10 miles. 
 
 Nov. 12 Bernalillo, 25 miles. 
 
 Nambe (Nam-ba ) 100 Oct. 4 | ^^ " ^ 
 
 ( (Santa F6, 15 miles. 
 
POPULATION OF EACH PUEBLO 279 
 
 PRINCIPAL 
 
 
 POPULA 
 
 PUBLIC 
 
 NEAREST RAILROAD 
 
 
 TION 
 
 FIESTA 
 
 STATION. 
 
 
 Picuris (Pic-oo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 rees ) 
 
 IOO 
 
 Aug. 10 
 
 Embudo, 
 
 20 miles. 
 
 Sandia (Sandee -a) 
 
 75 
 
 June 12 
 
 Alameda, 
 
 i mile. 
 
 Santa Ana (Sant- 
 
 
 
 
 
 an a) 
 
 200 
 
 July 26 
 
 Bernalillo, 
 
 12 miles. 
 
 Santa Clara 
 
 250 
 
 Aug. 12 
 
 Espanola, 
 
 2 miles. 
 
 Santo Domingo 
 
 700 
 
 Aug. 4 
 
 Domingo, 
 
 2 miles. 
 
 San Felipe (Fe- 
 lee -pa) 
 
 500 
 t 
 
 May i 
 
 j Algodones, 
 ( Bernalillo, 
 
 3 miles. 
 10 miles. 
 
 San Ildefon so 
 
 200 i 
 
 Jan. 23 
 Sept. 6 
 
 Espanola, 
 
 8 miles. 
 
 San Juan (Hwahn) 
 
 500 
 
 June 24 
 
 j Chamita, 
 ( Espanola, 
 
 I mile. 
 6 miles. 
 
 Sia (See -a) 
 
 IOO 
 
 Aug. 15 
 
 Bernalillo, 
 
 1 8 miles. 
 
 Taos (Towss) 
 
 500 
 
 Sept. 30 
 
 Servilleta, 
 
 
 
 
 
 or Barranca, 
 
 30 miles. 
 
 Tesuque (Te-soo - 
 ka) 
 
 Zuni (Soo -n y e e, 
 Span.-A m e r. ; 
 Zoo -nee, Amer.) 
 (Inclusive of its 
 summer pueblos) 
 
 150 Nov. 12 Santa Fe", 
 
 9 miles. 
 
 1650 
 
 About Nov. 
 30 (different 
 each year) Gallup, 
 
 40 miles. 
 
 Total population 
 of New Mexico 
 pueblos, approx 
 imately 
 
 9200 
 
 The hire of a double team and driver in the 
 Pueblo country is from $5 to $8 a day, including 
 
28o POPULATION OF EACH PUEBLO 
 
 keep, and of a saddle pony with saddle $1.00 per 
 day, exclusive of keep. 
 
 For an extended trip a good way is to contract 
 with a reliable man who knows Spanish and who 
 can cook, to supply team, covered waggon, and 
 services at a fixed rate per week or per month 
 (a basis of $90 to $100 per month would be fair), 
 the traveller to pay additionally for the animals 
 feed and the provisions for himself and the man. 
 This plan permits stopping where one pleases, 
 with entire independence of local accommodations, 
 which are sometimes exceedingly primitive in 
 the Pueblo land. 
 
 If one prefers horseback for a trip covering some 
 weeks and knows enough about horseflesh to take 
 the risk, it is economy to purchase a pony and 
 saddle outright. The pony would cost from 
 $15.00 to $50.00, according to age, size, condition, 
 etc.; a saddle and bridle from $20.00 to $75.00. 
 If bought with discretion and used not too hard, 
 such an outfit could be resold at the end of the 
 trip at little or no loss. After July I5th and until 
 the beginning of winter, the cost of keep for the 
 pony would not exceed twenty-five or fifty cents 
 a day for grain feed, which should be given every 
 
POPULATION OF EACH PUEBLO 281 
 
 day the animal is being ridden; for, though wild 
 forage then is sufficient to take the place of hay, 
 so much time would be consumed grazing at night 
 where growth is sparse that, if not grain-fed, 
 the pony would not get proper rest. Scotch rolled 
 oats is found by many riders a satisfactory feed 
 to provide. If one travels in company, a pack 
 animal for the baggage must be calculated upon. 
 In hiring horses or teams in a country where 
 it is sometimes a day s travel between water-holes, 
 and where every man must be his own repairer 
 of breaches, it is well to remember the old adage 
 that "the best is the cheapest." Nowhere does 
 it pay better to pay for responsibility in those 
 with whom you deal. 
 
Glossary and Pronunciation of Span- 
 isH-American and Indian Terms 
 
 Adios (ah-de-ose ) , adieu. 
 
 Algodones (al-go-do -ness) , sand dunes. 
 
 Arro yo, bed of a stream, usually dry. 
 
 Ban da, a band, usually a folded handkerchief, encircling the hair. 
 
 Barato (bar-ah -to), cheap. 
 
 Bar ran ca, a gully. 
 
 Bueno (bwa -no, Mex. and Ind. wa-no), good. 
 
 Buenos dias (dee-as), good-morning. 
 
 Cabeza de Vaca (ca-ba -sa de vah -ca), cow head. 
 
 Cabezon (cab-a-sone ) , big head, the name of a New Mexico 
 
 mountain. 
 
 Cacique (ca-see -ka), the spiritual chief in a pueblo. 
 Cam po San to, holy ground, consecrated burial-place. 
 Cerrillos (cer-ree -yose) , turquoises. 
 
 Chon go, the clubbed queue in which Pueblos wear their hair. 
 Cibola (see -bo-la) , old Spanish name for Zufii. 
 Cin ta, a narrow band or ribbon for winding about the chongo 
 
 or side locks. 
 
 Co mo sta? How are you? 
 Compadre (com-pah -dra), lit., godfather, but used colloquially 
 
 for friend or brother. Compra melo nes, compadre? Will 
 
 you buy some melons, brother? 
 Corral , an enclosure, as for cattle. 
 Durazno (doo-rahs -no), peach. 
 En tra, come in. 
 Estufa (es-too -fa), a special room, usually underground, where 
 
 meetings of Pueblo men are held and secret religious rites 
 
 performed. The word is Spanish for stove, or a warm room, 
 282 
 
P RON UN CIA TION OF INDIAN TERMS 283 
 
 and was applied by the Conquistador es to such chambers 
 
 because of their warmth. 
 
 Faja (fah -ha), the sash worn about the waist by Pueblo women. 
 Frijoles (free-ho -les) , beans. 
 Kiva (kee -va), same as estufa the Hopi word. 
 Malpais (mal -pl), a sort of volcanic rock, used for making 
 
 metates. 
 
 Mariana (man-yah -na) , to-morrow. 
 Man ta, a woman s dress; lit., blanket. 
 Mesa (ma -sa) , tableland, or flat-topped mountain. 
 Metate (metah -ta), a stone on which corn is ground. 
 Mucho (moo -cho), very; lit., much. 
 Mucho Sabio (moo -cho sah -bio), one who knows much, a Pueblo 
 
 councillor. 
 
 Navajo (nav -a-ho), a large Indian tribe adjoining the Pueblos. 
 Olla (oh -ya), a water -jar. 
 Padre (pah -dra), a Catholic priest. 
 Pasear (pah-sa-ar ) , to take a walk. 
 Piki (pee -kee), wafer bread (Hopi); the same as Zufii he"- we" 
 
 (ha-wa), and the wah-yah -vi of the Rio Grande Pueblos. 
 Plazita (pla-see -ta), a dooryard, or interior court of a residence. 
 Po co, little; po-co ti-emp o, in a little while. 
 Pueblo (poo-eb -lo), a town; when capitalised, an Indian of the 
 
 pueblos. 
 Puerco (pwar -co), muddy; whence the S.-W.-Amer. term 
 
 "perky" for a muddy creek. 
 
 Quien sabe (kee-en sah -be), I do not know; lit., who knows? 
 Quiero (ke-er -o), I want; quiere (ke-er -a), you want. 
 Ranchito (ran-chee -to), a little farm. 
 Real (ra-al ), 12^ cents. Eight of them made the old 
 
 Spanish piece of eight. Used in multiples of two, as dos 
 
 (2) reales, 25 cents; cuatro (4) reales, 50 cents, etc. 
 Retrato (ra-trah -to) , any picture; strictly a portrait. 
 Sandia (san-dee -a) , watermelon; sandia uena, treinte centavos, 
 
 good watermelon, 30 cents. 
 
 Shipapu (ship-a-poo ), gateway to the next world. 
 Sombrero (som-bra -ro), a wide-brimmed hat. 
 
284 PRONUNCIATION OF INDIAN TERMS 
 
 Teniente (ten-ee-en -ta), lieutenant. 
 
 Tienda (tee-end -a), a shop or store. 
 
 Tinaja (tin-ah -ha), a water-jar. 
 
 Tombe (tom -ba), an Indian drum. 
 
 Tortilla (tor-tee -ya) f a pancake. 
 
 Tusayan, (too say-an) an old Spanish name for Moqui. 
 
 Vamos (vah -mos), begone; lit., let us go. 
 
A Partial Pueblo Bibliography 
 
 The Pueblos have an important representation in 
 general literature. The inquiring reader will find 
 them entertainingly treated in the following works, 
 among others, which have a place in public libraries: 
 
 The Delight Makers, by Adolph F. Bandelier, New 
 York, 1890 a romance of the Cliff Dwellers, 
 embodying a treasury of information about 
 Pueblo native customs, by one of the foremost 
 American ethnologists. 
 
 Pueblo Indian Folk Stories, by Charles F. Lummis, 
 New York, 1910 a delightful sheaf of aboriginal 
 tales, put into English by one who got them at 
 first hand; originally published (1894) under the 
 title The Man who Married the Moon. 
 
 The Land of Poco Tiempo (1893), A New Mexico 
 David (1891), Some Strange Corners of our Country 
 (1892), and A Tramp across the Continent (1892) 
 all by Charles F. Lummis contain many chap 
 ters on the Pueblos and their ancestors, the Cliff 
 Dwellers. 
 
 285 
 
286 A PARTIAL PUEBLO BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Journey of Coronado, edited by George Parker 
 Winship, New York, 1904 a translation from 
 Spanish documents of the Conquest, with many 
 illuminating notes by the editor. This little 
 volume depicts graphically the condition of the 
 Pueblos, as seen by those who discovered them. 
 
 Zuni Folk Tales, by Frank H. Gushing, New York, 
 1901 a collection of English translations by the 
 poet-ethnologist, who understood the Pueblo 
 heart as, perhaps, no other white man has ever 
 known it. 
 
 My Adventures in Zuni, by the same author three 
 delightful articles in the Century Magazine, Dec., 
 1882, Feb., May, 1883. 
 
 The Song of the Ancient People, by Edna Dean Proctor, 
 Boston, 1893 a poem which, "as a rendering of 
 Moqui-Zuni thought, is a contribution of great 
 and permanent value to American literature." 
 There are notes and preface by John Fiske, the 
 historian, and a commentary by F. H. Gushing. 
 
 Indians of the South-West, by George A. Dorsey a 
 guide-book issued in 1903 by the Passenger De 
 partment of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 
 Railroad; a compendium of authoritative in 
 formation concerning the Pueblos, among others. 
 
 The Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, by Capt. 
 John G. Bourke, U. S. A., New York, 1884 
 
A PARTIAL PUEBLO BIBLIOGRAPHY 287 
 
 contains a vivacious account of the general 
 features of Pueblo life a generation ago. 
 
 Lolami in Tusayan, by Clara Kern Bayliss, Blooming- 
 ton, 111., 1903 a child s story, portraying life in a 
 Hopi pueblo before the white advent. 
 
 Among the Pueblo Indians, by Carl and Lilian W. 
 Eickemeyer, New York, 1895, an unpretentious 
 travel tale of San Ildefonso, Santo Domingo, and 
 Taos. 
 
 The Flute of the Gods, by Marah Ellis Ryan, New 
 York, 1909 an historical romance of the Spanish 
 Conquest. 
 
 Indian Love Letters, by Marah Ellis Ryan, Chicago, 
 1907 an idealistic presentation, with good local 
 colour, of the case of a Hopi man educated in a 
 Government school and "gone back to the 
 blanket." 
 
 The Indians of the Painted Desert Region, by Geo. 
 Wharton James, Boston, 1903 includes informa 
 tion as to Hopi life in recent years, with a detailed 
 account of the Snake Dance. 
 
 The Indians Book, by Natalie Curtis, New York, 1907 
 contains a section devoted to the Pueblos, with 
 the music of a number of their songs. 
 
 The Land of the Pueblos, by Susan E. Wallace, New 
 York, 1888 a series of pleasant, old-time, home 
 letters by the wife of the author of Ben Hur. 
 
288 A PARTIAL PUEBLO BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The Destruction of our Indians, and three other articles 
 by Frederick I. Monsen, with especial reference 
 to the Hopis, finely illustrated from the author s 
 photographs, in The Craftsman Magazine for 
 March, April, May, and June, 1907. 
 
 Indians of the Stone Houses, by Edward S. Curtis, in 
 Scribner s Magazine, Feb., 1909, with beautiful 
 illustrations from the author s photographs. 
 
 For the scientific student of Pueblo life, the available 
 material is very extensive. Mention may be made of 
 the following titles among many : 
 
 Final Report of Investigations among the Indians of the 
 South-Western United States, by Adolph F. Bande- 
 lier. Papers of the Archaeological Institute of 
 America, 1890, 1892. 
 
 The Zuni Indians, by Matilda Coxe Stevenson. 
 Bureau of American Ethnology, 1905. 
 
 The Sia, by Matilda Coxe Stevenson, embodied in the 
 Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Eth 
 nology, Washington, 1889-90. 
 
 The American Indian as Product of Environment, with 
 Especial Reference to the Pueblos, by Arthur J. 
 Fynn, Boston, 1907. 
 
 The Gilded Man, by A. F. Bandelier, New York, 1893 
 includes historical papers on Zuni, Acoma, 
 Santa Clara, etc. 
 
A PARTIAL PUEBLO BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 
 
 Pottery of the Ancient Pueblos, Fourth Annual Report, 
 
 Bureau of Ethnology, Washington. 
 The Spanish Pioneers, by Charles F. Lummis, Chicago, 
 
 1893- 
 
 The Discovery of America, by John Fiske, Boston, 1892 
 touches, in the light of modern ethnology, on 
 the status of the Pueblos with relation to other 
 Indians and to Old World peoples also. 
 
 The Spanish Conquest of New Mexico, by W. W. H. 
 Davis, Doylestown, Pa., 1869 contains a de 
 tailed account from original Spanish sources of 
 the conflicts between the Spaniards and the 
 Pueblos prior to 1703. 
 
 The Traditions of the Hopi, by H. R. Voth, Field 
 Columbian Museum publication, Chicago, 1905. 
 
 A Study of Pueblo Architecture in Tusayan and Cibola, 
 by Victor Mindeleff, in Eighth Annual Report, 
 Bureau of Ethnology, Washington. 
 
 Zuni Melodies, by Benjamin Ives Oilman, in Journal 
 of American Ethnology and Archeology, vol. i. 
 
 Hopi Songs, by the same, in same publication, vol. v. 
 
 In addition to these, there are scores of contribu 
 tions, touching upon every phase of Pueblo life, by 
 trained scientific workers, such as Bandelier, Gushing, 
 Dorsey, Fewkes, Hodge, Holmes, Hough, McGee, 
 Mindeleff, Stevenson, etc., to be found in the bound 
 
 19 
 
290 A PARTIAL PUEBLO BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 volumes of the Reports of the Bureau of American 
 Ethnology, the American Anthropologist, the Scien 
 tific American, Science, the Journal of American Folk- 
 Lore, and similar scientific periodicals. 
 
U-< 
 
 Id! 
 
 *4 2 <z 
 
Index 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abiquiu ......... 92 
 
 Acoma . . . . . . 14 et seq., 225 
 
 Architecture ..... 5,50,79,101,132 
 
 Arts 85,135,220,231 
 
 Bacabi ......... 194 
 
 Basketry ......... 185 
 
 Bent, Governor, murder of . . . . . .104 
 
 Black Mesa, siege of ....... 90 
 
 Bouquet, Sefiora ........ 88 
 
 Chamita ......... 92 
 
 Character of Pueblos: Industry, 51, 64, 67, 172; good humour, 
 39, 40, 51,91; love of home, 58; love of children, 62, 96, 123, 
 146, 249; reticence, 68; joy of life, 73, 183; peaceableness, 
 103, 170; gentleness, 230; hospitality, 86, 91, 161, 185, 197; 
 conservatism, 102, 184; naturally artistic, 231; dislike of 
 camera, 12, 76, 120, 156 
 Cibola, see Zufii 
 Civilisation, native . . . . . ,v, 247, 250 
 
 Cliff Dwellers, Pueblos relationship to . . . 250, 276 
 
 Cochiti . . 79 et seq. 
 
 Cookery, Pueblo 145, 1 60, 264 
 
 Dances . . . 9, 65, 107, 203 
 
 Delight makers . . . . . . . .108 
 
 Dress 7, 78, 80, 100, 187, 268 
 
 Education, native 249, 258 
 
 Enchanted Mesa . . . , . , 16,37 
 
 Espafiola . . .91 
 
 291 
 
292 INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Field matrons . . . . . . 198, 262 
 
 Fiestas: San Esteban, 25 et seq.; at Santo Domingo, 78; at Tesu- 
 
 que, 86; San Ger<5nimo, 105 et seq. Also vide Shalako, Snake 
 
 Dance 
 
 Government, native ...... 233 et seq. 
 
 Government s (U. S.) attitude towards Pueblos . 253 et seq. 
 
 Hopis 167 et seq. 
 
 Hotavila . . . . . .184, 192 et seq., 275 
 
 Intemperance . . . . . . .66,95,122 
 
 Isleta 46 et seq., 275 
 
 Jemez . . . . . . . 62 et seq., 275 
 
 Laguna 43 et seq. 
 
 Land tenure 188,189,235,238 
 
 Mesa Encantada . . . . . . 16, 37 
 
 Mesa Huerfana ........ 90 
 
 Mexican encroachment ...... 88, 90 
 
 Mishongnovi . . . . . . . .184 
 
 Moenkopi ......... 184 
 
 Moqui ....... 167 et seq., 224 
 
 Nambe 87,228 
 
 Nampeyo ......... 223 
 
 Oraibi ........ 184, 192 
 
 Penasco . . . . . . . . 117 
 
 Penitentes . . . . . . . . .115 
 
 Picuris ........ 118 et seq. 
 
 Plains Indians, how Pueblo case differs from that of, . iv, 254 
 Pojuaque ......... 88 
 
 Political status of Pueblos . . . . 237,238 
 
 Pope" . . .... 103 
 
 Population by pueblos . . . . . . .277 
 
 Pottery, . . . .85, 93, 122, 142, 207, 222 et seq. 
 
 Prayer plumes ....... 151,242 
 
 Puye" .92 
 
INDEX 293 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Religion, native . . . 65,119,150,152,153,240^^. 
 Rito de los Frijoles .82 
 
 Sanctuario -92 
 
 Sandia .69 
 
 San Felipe . 70 et seq. 
 
 San Ildefonso 89 
 
 San Juan . . . . 95, 228 
 
 Santa Ana -57 
 
 Santa Clara 92 et seq., 227 
 
 Santo Domingo . . . . 75 et seq., 227, 275 
 
 Scholars, returned 85,208,217 
 
 School, U. S. Government . . . 186, 230, 256, 273 
 Shalako ceremonies . . . . . 140, 153 et seq. 
 
 Shim6povi . . . . . . . . 184,275 
 
 Shipaulovi ......... 184 
 
 Sia 59 et seq. 
 
 Sich6movi . ... . . . . . 184, 185 
 
 Sierra Sangre de Cristo 91,92 
 
 Snake dance, Hopi 203 et seq. 
 
 Spanish guardianship ..... 244, 248, 249 
 
 Taos . 97 et seq., 228, 275 
 
 Teachers, U. S. Government . . .60, 119, 151, 190, 230 
 
 Tesuque . . . ... . 5 et seq., 84 et seq. 
 
 Tewa . .184 
 
 Tiguex . . 54 
 
 Truchas, Las . . . . . . 91,92 
 
 Tuberculosis . . . . . . . .118 
 
 Tusayan . . . . . . . 169 
 
 Walpi . . . *"* ?*... 181 et seq., 203 et seq. 
 Witchcraft, belief in ... . .. 57, 70, 87 
 
 Women, status of .... 128, 145, 236, 249 
 
 Zufii, discovery of . . . . . . 125 et seq. 
 
 Zufii of to-day .... 130 et seq., 225, 229, 275 
 
M69002 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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