V/h '<■ THE WHITE RACE MAY iff"", VV ' '5" ^".f/^ GEORGE WHARTON JAMES GIFT OF y^y\^^ THE INDIANS' SECRETS OF HEALTH OR WHAT THE WHITE RACE MAY LEARN FROM THE INDIAN BOOKS BY GEORGE WHARTON JAMES What the White Race May Learn from the Indian. In and Around the Grand Canyon. Indians of the Painted Desert Region. In and Out of the Old Missions of California. The Wonders of the Colorado Desert. The Story of Scraggles. Indian Basketry. How to Make Indian and Other Baskets. Travelers' Handbook to Southern Cali- fornia. The Beacon Lis:ht. GEOUP OF HOPI MAIDENS AND AN OLD MAN AT MASHONGANAVI. The Indians' Secrets of Health OR What the White Race May Learn from the Indian By GEORGE WHARTON JAMES Author of The Indians of the Painled Desert Region, Indian Basketry, Indian Blankets and their Makers, In and Out of the Old Missions of California, Our Ameiican Wonder- lands Living the Radiant Life, Quit Your Wor- rying, The Lake of the Sky — Lake Tahoe, etc., etc., etc. NEW and ENLARGED EDITION PASADENA, CALIF. THE RADIANT LIFE PRESS 1917 Copyright, 1908 BY EDITH E. FARNSWOKTII J. F. Tapley Co. New York k WHAT THE WHITE RACE MAYLEARN FROM THE INDIAN' FOREWORD T WOULD not have it thought that I commend indis- criminately everything that the Indian does and is. There are scores of things about the Indian that are reprehensible and to be avoided. Most Indians smoke, and to me the habit is a vile and nauseating one. In- dians often wear filthy clothes. They are often coarse in their acts, words, and their humor. Some of their habits are repulsive. I have seen Indian boys and men maltreat helpless animals until my blood has boiled with an indignation I could not suppress, and 9 368755 FORKWORD I li;iv(" t.ikcii llic .iiiimals ;i\v;iy iVoiii lliciii. Tliey ;ii-(> cciKMJillv \ iii(li('ti\ (' .111(1 relentless in ])iirsnit ot" tlieii- encMiiies. 'riiey often content tlienist^lves with iinj)in-e and filthy water when a little careful labor would (l. in uuuiei'ous Ihinjjjs and ways I have per- sonally seen the Indian is not to be commended, l)ut condemned, and his methods of Hfe avoicU'd. But })ecanse of this, I do not close my eyes to the many good thinith such con- tact. Buddha, Mahomet, Moses, David, Elijah, Christ, were all lovers of out-of-doors. Vvashington, Lincoln, and Gai'field were all out-of-door men. One learns in the solitude and primitive frankness of the free life of the out doors to do his own thinking, un- trammeled by convention or prejudice. He sees things as they are. Ilis soul is unclothed, and there can no longer be any dece])tion or pretense. So he becomes an individual; not a mere rote thinker of other's thoughts, and not a mere parrot of other men's ideas. Edwin Markham could never have written The Man with the Hoe had he lived only in the city. He would never have seen deeply enough, and he would never have dared brave the conventional pi-ejudices of the civilized ( ':') world as he did in his poem, had he been city-bred. But because he thought nakedly before God and his own soul he was compelled to see the monstrousness of making a man — a son of God, created in His image — a mere clod of clay. The idea that this ])oem is a reflection upon labor is utter nonsense. It is merely a protest, strong, vigorous, forceful as a thunder-storm, against comj)elling some 58 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE men to labor so hard that they have neither time nor opportunity for mental and spiritual occupation, and have thus even lost the desire for or hope of gaining it. Labor is ennobling, but man is made for more than mere physical labor. The unequal distribution of affairs in this life causes some men to have no physical labor, to their vast disadvantage, while others have nothing but physical labor, equally to their disadvantage. The finding of a just equilibrium between these two extremes, and then aiding the men of both extremes to see the need of each helping the other, or of taking some of the burden of the other, w^ould result in the immediate benefiting of the race to an incalculable extent, both in body, mind, and soul. And it is this for which I plead, earnestly calling upon my fellows to so adjust their own lives that they will strike the happy mean, thus living (not merely talking about) the dignity of labor as well as the joy of mental and spiritual occupation. Another important thing must not be overlooked. As a result of this out-of-door life the Indian is an early riser and an early retirer to bed. The civilized habit of turning night into day, living in the glare of gas and electric light, is, on the face of it, artificial, unnatural, and unhealthful. It is indefensible from every stand- point. There is not one word of good can be said of it. The day is made for work, the night for rest and sleep. The use of artificial light to the extent we indulge it in civilization is gradually rendering normal eyesight a rarity. Children are born with myoptic and other eye-diseased tendencies. Sometimes it seems as if more people, of all ages, wear glasses than use their natural eyesight, and this is but one of many sad consequences accruing in part from 59 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE our reversal of tlio natural use of the day and night times. INIany men, literary and others, wait until the (juiet of evening to do tluMr work. They often stimulate themselves with eoffee, and even stronger beverages, and then work until the "wee sma' hours," by arti- ^^^B^^^mB|J|mJs. -^^^k 11 1Il '*''^9l ..:^,^*; .<^- "^^'^ Wr. wKmMkl^^-r WWi ^^ W M ■ ^^fi i ^ f jSH^^B^RJJP^pA^ ^^^ . HAPPY AXD HEALTHY HOPI CHILDREN, ASKING THE AUTHOR FOR CANDY'. ficial light, after tlieij liave already done a fair daifs work. We used to hear a great many words of com- mendation of the youths in school and college who "burned the midnight oil." If I had my way I would "use the leather strap" upon all these burners-up of their physical and mental forces at the time God 60 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE intended they should be abed and asleep. The time for mental work is in the early morning after a hearty, healthy, good night's sleep. The body is strengthened, the mind refreshed, and thought flows easily and readily, because all weariness has disappeared under the influence of "tired nature's sweet restorer." Mental work done at such time is not only a pleasure, but is well done, properly done, because the condi- tions are right for its doing. Nor is this all. There is a mental and spiritual pleasure given to the early riser that the late sleeper knows nothing of. One of the most beautiful baskets in my historic collection of Indian baskets is one made by a Coahuila woman who depicted thereon the white light of the morning shining through the dark silhouettes of the sharp points of the giant cactus. Her sesthetic enjoyment was thus made the inspiration of a real work of art. How much white people lose by not seeing and knowing the beauty of the early morning hours, — the hours just preceding dawn, and during the first outburst of the sun! A friend and I stood out the other morning before sunrise, looking at the exquisite delicate lights over the mountain peaks, and she gave expression to the above thought, and only a few days before I had said it to a friend as we had wended our way from El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon out to O'Neill Point to see the sunrise. Elisha Safford eloquently speaks as follows of this : BEAUTY OF THE MORNING Oh, the beauty of the morning ! It showers its splendors down From the crimson robes of sunrise, the azure mountain's crown; It smiles amid the waving fields, it dapples in the streams. It breathes its sparkling music through the rapture of our dreams. 61 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE It floats upon the limpid air in rainbow clouds of mist, It rip})les throu^di the glowing' skies in pearl and amethyst. It gleams in every burnished pool, it riots through the grass. It splashes waves of glory on the shadows as they pass. It steals among the nodding trees and to the forest croons, In airy note and gentle voice, 'neath waning plenilunes; It calls, and lo! the wooded brakes, the hills and tangled fens — A world of life and mystery — swarm with its denizens. It treml)l(\s in the perfumed breeze, and where its ardor runs, A thousand light-winged choristers pant forth their orisons; A thousand echoes clap their hands, and from their dewy beds, A million scarlet-throated flowers peer forth with startled heads. Oh, the beauty of the morning ! It rains upon our ears : The music of the universe, the chiming of the spheres; From cloistered wood and leafy vale, its tuneful medleys throng. Till all the earth is drenched in light and all the world in song! INDIAN BASKET, SHOWING INFLUENCE OF NATURE IN THE DESIGN. m THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE All children, and especially city children, need out- of-door life. Men and women need it too, sadly, but if the elders cannot have it, owing to our perverted social conditions, our law-givers should see to it that the children do better. It is a well-known fact that cities would soon die out if their vast populations were not constantly being replenished by the sons and daughters of the country. So instead of letting our city children grow up to imperfect manhood, let us find some way to get them out of doors and out into the country more and more. Exercise in the open, where pure air penetrates to the full depths of the lungs, personal contact with the soil, and physical work upon it, as well as personal contact with the trees and flowers and all growing things, the animals of the farm and field, the rocks and mountains, the hills and valleys, the waterfalls and streams, the deserts and canyons; all these are to be desired. Who does not wish to sing with Edwin Markham: " I ride on the mountain tops, I ride, I have found my life and am satisfied ! ' ' Of course this out-in-the-country life for city chil- dren can only be gained if their parents and our edu- cators and politicians combine to provide it. And in some way it ought to be done. What a joy it would be to many a city boy to be allowed to go and do some v/ork in the country during certain times in the year! Those who have seen the city children who are taken yearly into the country by Fresh Air Funds, or out by vessel into the Bay of New York or Boston Harbor, by philanthropic people, know^ what delight, joy, and health they receive from the outing. These things all point to the great, the dire, the awful need there is for 63 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE some way of giving to our city children and men and women more ont-door life. Just after the San Francisco earthquake, Dr. J. H, KelloiTir, editor of Good Health, wrote in his forceful way of some lessons the people might learn from that disaster. Here is one of them bear- ing upon this very question : "Three hun- dred thousand people have found out that they can live out of doors, and that out of doors is a safer place than indoors. "People who have all their lives slept on beds of down, protected by thick walls of 1) r i c k or stone, barricaded against the dangerous ( ?) air of night, have found that it is possible to spend a night upon an unsheltered hillside without risk to life, and it is more than likely that, as in the case of the Charleston earth- quake, not a few modern troglodytes, who scarcely ever saw the light of day before, have been actually benefited by being forced out into the fresh air and the sunshine. "The great tent colonies, improvised by the military 64 MONO INDIAN COOKING CORN MUSH IN A BASKET BY A CAMP FIRE. THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE authorities with such promptness: under the effident management of the ahle General Funston, may become the permanent homes for some of the thousands who are now for the first time in their hves tasting the sweets of an out-of-door life. Man is an out-of-door creature, meant to live amid umbrageous freshness, his skin bathed clean by morning dews or evening showers, browned and disinfected by the sun, fed by tropic finiits, and cheered by tropic birds and flowers. It is only through long generations of living under artificial conditions that civilized man has become accustomed to the unhealthful and disease-producing influences of the modern house to such a degree that they can be even in a small measure tolerated. But this immunity is only apparent. An atmosphere that will Idll a Hottentot or a baboon in six months will also kill a bank president or a trust magnate — some- time. And if these tent-dwellers get such a taste of the substantial advantages of the out-of-door life that they refuse to return to the old unwholesome condi- tions of anti-earthquake daj^s, they will profit substan- tially by their experience, terrible though it has been. It takes earthquakes and cyclones and tidal waves to jostle us out of the unnatural and degenerative ruts into which conventionality is always driving us. "What advantages has the man in the brown-stone front over the man in the tent? Only these: A pale face instead of the brown skin which is natural to his species ; a coated tongue, no appetite, and no digestion, instead of the keen zest for food and splendid digestive vigor of the tent-dweller; an aching head and confused mind and depressed spirits, instead of the vim and snap and energy, mental and physical, and the freedom from pain and pessimism of out-of-door dwellers; 65 TllK INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE early consiimptioii or apoplexy or paresis or cancer of the stomach or arteriosclerosis, — the dry rot of the body which stealthily weakens the props and crumbles the foundations of the citadel of life." Why is it that in our cities in summer, and in P'lorida and the South generally, and in the West, we do not follow the French custom of eating out of doors ? American visitors to Paris in the summer time have always been impressed by the prevalent custom there of dining out of doors. The sidewalks in front of cafes and restaurants are always so occupied with chairs and tables that pedestrians often have to step into the street to get by. This has long been the summer custom in Paris, but with the arrival of cold weather tables and chairs disap})eared every year, and the diners returned to the close nicotine-laden air of the stuffy little dining- rooms inside. But last year, according to the London correspondent of the Outlook, an enterprising French- man, finding his patrons much attached to his open-air dining-room, and being short of room inside, under- took to make his guests comfortable out of doors by means of a large brazier placed upon the sidewalk. Others followed his example, and in a short time the streets were lined with braziers from the Madeline to the Bastile, much to the satisfaction of the cab-drivers and newsboys. One ingenious proprietor made his table-legs hollow, filled with hot water, and thus utilized them as foot-warmers. And so one may now enjoy a fashionable Parisian cafe au pleiii air any day in the year. Every])ody is always hungry at a picnic, not simply because of the unusual exercise, but as the result of the tonic appetite-stimulating influence of the out-of-doors. 66 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE The same plan may be introduced into any private home by utihzing a back porch, or, when this is lack- ing, a tent-cloth awning may be provided at the expense of a few dollars. The old Spanish patio, or inner court, provided the seclusion that many desire, with the possibility of a larger out-of-door life. Mr. Gustav Stickley, the far- seeing editor of TJie Craftsman, which so effectually pleads for a simpler and more democratic life for the people, has planned a number of CraftsTtian houses in which these open porches for eating, and sleeping as well, are introduced. This is a great step in the right direction, and is strongly to be commended. But the outdoor life is larger than houses and porches. One must get away from all houses to really feel and know the joy of the great out-of-doors. Every teacher and orator should know the birds and trees, the flowers and grasses, the rocks and stars, the clouds and odors, at first hand. He should not depend upon books at all for any of this knowledge, save as guides to obtain it. Instead of reading books he should read Nature. See how powerful is the simple oratory of the Indian, whose figures and similes and illustrations and metaphors are of those things in Nature with which he is perfectly familiar. Another efl^ect upon the mind and soul as the result of this outdoor life is remarkable to those who have never given it a thought. One of our poets once said, "The undevout astronomer is mad." And every Indian will tell you that the undevout Indian is either mad or "getting civilized." One of our California historians once wrote something to the effect that the California Indian had no religion, no mythology, no reverence, no belief in anything outside of and beyond 67 THE INDIAN x\ND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE himself. Jeremiali Curtin, a careful and close student of the California Indian for many years, in his wonder- fully interesting book, "Creation ^lyths of Primitive America," shows the utter fallacy of this idea. He says: "Primitive man in America stood at every step face to face with divinity as he knew or understood it. He could never escape from the ])resence of those powers which had constituted the first world, and which composed all that there was in the present one. .... The most important question of all in Indian life was communication with divinity, intercourse with the spirits of divine personages." Indeed, the Indian sees the divine power in everything. His God speaks in the storm, the howling wind, the tornado, the hurricane, the roaring rapids and dashing cataracts of the rivers, the never-ending rise and fall of the ocean, the towering mountains and the tiny hills, the trees, the bees, the buds and blossoms. It is God in the flower that makes it grow and gives it its odor; that makes the tree from the acorn; that makes the sun to shine; that sends the rain and dew" and the gen- tle zephyrs. The thunder is His voice, and everything in Nature is an expression of His thought. This belief compels the Indian to a close study of Nature. Hence tine keenness of his powers of observa- tion. He knows every plant, and when and where it best grows. He knows the track of every bird, insect reptile, and animal. He knoW'S all the signs of the weather. He is a past-master in woodcraft, and knows more of the habits of plants and animal life than all of our trained naturalists put together. He is a poet, too, withal, and an orator, using the knowl- edge he has of nature in his thought and sj^eech. No writer that ever lived knew the real Indian so well as 68 THE INDIAN AND OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE Fenimore Cooper, and we all know the dignified and poetical speech of his Indian characters. I know scores and hundreds of dusky-skinned Henry D. Thoreaus and John Burroughses, John Muirs and Elizabeth Grinnells and Olive Thorne Millers. Indeed, to get an Indian once started upon his lore of plant, tree, insect, bird, or animal, is to open up a flood-gate which will deluge any but the one who knows what to expect. 69 CHArTER V THE INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS S I have already intimated, the Indian is prac tically an oiit-of-door sleeper. I say " practically,' for there are exceptions to the general rule. The A^ .Cz TERRACED HOUSES OF THE HOPIS, ALLOWING SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS. Hopis of northern Arizona have houses. In the cold winter months they sleep indoors whenever they can. The Navahos, Apaches, Havasupais, and other tribes have their "hogans" and "hawas" in 7C INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS which they sleep in the very cold weather. But in the summer the invariable rule is for all to sleep out of doors. And even in the winter, if duty calls them away from home and they have to camp out, they sleep in the cold, on the snow, in the rain, as uncon- cerned for their health as if they were well protected indoors. It is this latter feature that so much com- mends itself to me. It is just as natural to them to have to sleep out of doors as it is to sleep indoors. They think no more of it, do not regard it as an un- usual and dangerous experience, or one to be dreaded. They accept it without a murmur or complaint, and without fear. This is an attitude of mind that I would the white race would learn from the Indian. I once had a friend, a city-bred man, born and brought up in New York, sent west to me by his physician because he had had two or three hemorrhages, whom I took out into Arizona. The first night we had to sleep out was very cold, for it was early in the year, and at that high altitude the thermometer sank very rapidly after the sun went down. Yet I deliberately called camp by the side of a great snowbank. The fearful invalid wanted to know what I was stopping there for. I told him it was to afford him a good sleeping place on the snow. He expressed his dread, and assured me that such an experience would kill him at once. I told him that if it did I would see that he was decently buried, but that did not seem to dissipate his fears. After a good camp-fire was built, and he had had a warm and comforting supper, and his blankets were stretched out on the snow, and he was undressed and well wrapped up, with a hot rock at his feet and the cheery blaze lighting up the scene, he felt less alarmed. I talked him to sleep, and when he awoke in the morn- 71 INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS ins it was to confess tliat his throat and hin^^s felt more comfortable than they had done for many long months. A month of this open-air sleeping gave him new ideas on the subject, and sent him back east to fit u]) a cam]) in the Adirondacks, where he could get a BOSTON MILLIONAIRES SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS ON THE SANDS OF THE COLORADO RIVER. great deal of outdoor life, and sleeping with doors and windows wide open. The outdoor treatment for tuberculosis is now almost universal. Here is what one eminent authority says on the subject: "Tuberculosis is a direct result of over-work, either mental or physical, and rest is largely its cure. 72. INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS This life in the open air is best carried out in a sitting or semi-recHning posture. Every hour of the day in all seasons of the year and in all kinds of weather should thus be spent, together with sleeping in a tent, protected veranda, or in a house with windows wide open. It will be found that the colder the weather, the more marked and permanent the results. One does not need to be uncomfortable; one can be well wrapped with heavy blankets. It is the inhalation of cold air that is so effectual in stimulating appetite, as a general tonic and fever reducer. A consumptive should have for his motto: 'Every hour in the closed house is an hour lost.' There is no excuse for losing time." But it is not for those who are in ill health alone that I would commend out-of-door sleeping. Those who are healthy need to be kept in health, and there is a vim, a vigor, a physical joy, comes from this habit that I would that every child, young man and woman, and adult in the land might enjoy. Here is what one intelligent writer, Mary Heath, has recently said upon this subject, and her words I most heartily indorse: "The success of any scheme for human betterment, morally, mentally, or physically, depends upon secur- ing human co-operation by convincing the intellect of the truth or falsity of any widespread belief. The almost universal notion that night air is dangerous has predisposed, more than any other one cause, to the shutting of every door and window at sunset to keep out malaria. Notwithstanding the fact that all air analyses show that outdoor night air is much purer than day air, the old fear of night air still retnains, and is responsible for much infection from foul air, because outdoor and indoor workers in summer and winter — all alike — spend their sleeping hours in ill- 73 INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS ventilated bedrooms. xVfter false ideas about the harmfulness of fresh air are eradicated, plans should be devised and utilized for arranging outdoor sleeping apartments; plans should also be devised for keeping the body warm in cold weather without an over-amount of bedclothing; and for the health and convenience of the millions of middle class and more or less humble domestic home workers, provisions should be made for doing the housework as much as possible out of doors, away from the kitchen heat and odors of cook- ing food. Out-of-door recreation for the family should also be provided for. Could all sedentary workers spend the seven to nine hours of sleep in a clean, out- door atmosphere, many of the evil effects of indoor sedentary work w ould be neutralized. The shop, office, or factory employe, after sleeping in the pure night air, would awake invigorated for the day's demands and duties. Beginning the day aright, with a keen normal appetite for healthful food, he would be able to utilize his working energies without either structural damage to the tissues, or intellectual or moral degradation." Elbert Hubbard, of Roycroft fame, has converted all the sleeping-rooms of his phalanstery into out- door rooms, where fresh, pure air is breathed. Dr. Kellogg, editor of Good Health, sleeps out of doors all the time, and all his large family of adopted children have rooms which practically contain no doors or windows, so that they sleep as near the open air as civilization will allow. For years, as far as was possible, I have slept out of doors. When at home my bed is on an open porch, my face turned to the stars, the waving of j^lum, peach, and fig trees making music while I sleep, the beautiful lights of earliest dawn cheering my eyes before I arise, V4 INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS and the twittering and singing of the birds putting melodies into my soul as I dress. When I am in the wilds exploring, I sleep out of doors always, when and where I can. Those who have read my various books know of my experiences of sleeping in storms, during heavy rains, without bedding in rocky washes, in leaky boats and the rain pouring upon us, in the heat of the desert, and the cold of the snowy plateaus of Arizona. Yet I do not remember that I ever once "took cold," though I have been wet through many a night. On the other hand, I never visit civilization, especially the proud, haughty, conceited civilization of the East, where houses are steam-heated, and street and railway cars are superheated, without taking severe colds and suffering much misery. Those who have heard Nansen and Peary and other arctic explorers will remember that they had the same experience. Is it not apparent, therefore, that the outdoor life is the normal, the healthful, the rational, the natural life, while that of the steam- heated house is abnormal, unhealthful, irrational, and unnatural ? People often say: But I see that my house is well ventilated, and therefore the air is as pure and good as it is out of doors. In reply, permit me to say that no house can ever be well ventilated. Air to be pure and wholesome must be alive. It can only live when free and uncontained. and in contact with the direct rays of the sun during the day. Every thoughtful person has noticed the great difference there is between outdoor air and indoor air, on stepping from outside inside, even through all the doors and windows of the room were wide open. There is a vast difference between indoor and outdoor air, even under the best 75 INDIAN AND SLEEPING Ol T OF DOORS of conditions ; so ^ct into the open all yon can, day or night, winter or snninicr, wet or dry. One of the finest and strongest j)oems in the language is the following, by Richard Burton: GODS (iirr, THE air Now, is tliere anything tliat freer seems Than air, the fresh, the vital, that a man Draws in with l)reathings hountiful, nor dreams Of any better l)hss, ))eeause he ean Make over all his l)loo(l thereby, and feel Once more his youth return, his muscles steel. And life grow buoyant, part of God's good plan! Oh, how on plain and mountain, and by streams That shine along their path; o'er many a field Proud with pied flowers, or where sunrise gleams In spangled splendors, does the rich air yield Its balsam; yea, how hunter, pioneer. Lover, and bard have felt that heaven Avas near Because the air their spirit touched and healed I And yet — God of the open ! — look and see The millions of thy creatures pent within Close places that are foul for one clean breath, Thrilling with health, and hope, and purity; Nature's vast antidote for stain and sin. Life's sweetest medicine this side of death! How comes it that this largess of the sky Thy children lack of, till they droop and die r Many white people go out tenting in the summer and think they are sleeping out of doors. What a foolish error. Here is what a scientific authority says upon the subject: "Are you tenting.^ If so, you should know: "That a well-closed tent is nearly air-tight, and consequently, — " That in an ordinary-sized tent, one occupant will 76 INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS _^^mF^ fc ^^B 1 ^^^ '-- .'S*'- i ' p$ :is^^^ _^|Mi mr^ A CHEAIEHIKM INDIAN AND HIS OUT-OF-DOOR SHELTER FROM THE SUN. SO pollute the air as to render it unfit to breathe in less than twenty minutes; two occupants, in less than ten minutes. "That if you are tenting for your health, an open- ing at each end of the tent must be provided for ventilation at night. The openings should be at least a foot square for each occupant. " Breathing impure air lowers the vitality, and con- sequently renders one susceptible to colds and other diseased conditions." T7 CHAPTER VI THE INDIAN AS A WALKER, RIDER, AND CLIMBER A S a part of his out-of-door life the Indian is a -^^- great walker and runner, having horses he is a great rider, and living in a mountainous or canyon region he is a great climber. The Indian walks through necessity, and also through delight and joy. He knows to the full "the joy of mere living." A few miles' walk, more or less, is nothing to him, and he does it so easily that one can see he enjoys it. In one of my books * I tell the story of the running powers of the Hopi Indians of northern Arizona. It is worth quoting here: " It is no uncommon thing for an Oraibi or Mashon- ganavi to run from his home to Moenkopi, a distance of forty miles, over the hot blazing sands of a real American Sahara, there hoe his corn-field, and return to his home, within twenty-four hours. I once photo- graphed, the morning after his return, an old man who had made this eighty-mile run, and he showed not the slightest trace of fatigue. "For a dollar I have several times engaged a young man to take a message from Oraibi to Ream's Canyon, a distance of seventy-two miles, and he has run on foot the whole distance, delivered his message, and brought me an answer within thirty-six hours. "One Oraibi, Ku-wa-wen-ti-wa, ran from Oraibi *The Indians of the Painted Desert Region. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, illustrated, $2.00 net, 20c postage. 79 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER to Moenkopi, thence to AYalpi, and back to Oraibi, a distance of over ninety miles, in one day." I doubt not that most of my readers suppose that these experiences are rare and unusual, and come after special training. Not at all ! They are regular occur- rences, made without any thought that the white man was either watching or recording. When asked for the facts, the Indians gave them as simply and as unconcernedly as we might tell of a friend met or a dinner eaten. And it is not with one tribe alone. I have found the same endurance with Yumas, Pimas, Apaches, Navahos, Havasupais, Wallapais, Cheme- huevis, Utes, Paiutis, and Mohaves. Indeed, on the trackless wastes of the Colorado desert the Mohaves and Yumas perhaps show a greater endurance than any people I have ever seen. As a horseback-rider the Indian can teach many things to the wdiite race. Among the Navahos and Hopis, the Havasupais and Wallapais, the Pimas and Apaches, most of the children are taught to ride at an early age. They can catch, bridle, and saddle their own horses while they are still "little tots," and the way they ride is almost a marvel. There need be no wonder at this, for their mothers are as used to horseback- riding as they are. INIany an Indian child has come near to being born on horseback. They ride up and down trails, over the plains and up the mountains. They go with their parents gathering the seeds and pinion nuts, and are also taught to handle their horses in the chase. They study "horse-nature," and early become expert horse-breakers. While their animals are bron- cos and wild, and therefore are never as well" broken" as are ours, they compel them to every duty, and ride them fearlessly and constantly. 80 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER The girls and women, too, ride almost as much as the boys and men, and always astride. If anything were needed to demonstrate to an Indian woman the inferiority of a white woman it would be that she sits on a side-saddle. The utter unnaturalness and folly of such a posture is so incomprehensible to the Indian mind that she "throws up her hands," figuratively speaking, and gives up the problem of solving the peculiar mentality of her white sister. And I don't wonder! Thank God the day is passing when women are ashamed of having legs, or of placing one of them on one side and the other on the other side of a horse. Common sense and comfort will ultimately prevail, and place the most modest, refined, cultured, and womenly women upon the backs of their horses cava- lier fashion, dressed in trousers. The idea that men should dictate to women what they should do to be womanly is so absurd as to make even fools laugh. What does a man know as to what is womanly ? Women alone can determine that question, just as men alone must determine what is manly. So I am satisfied that I shall live to see womenly women — the best the world has — reasonably natural in their dress on horseback, and riding as the Creator evidently intended them to do. If girls as well as boys of the white race were to ride horseback more, much disease would flee away. Liver and stomach troubles are shaken out of existence on horseback; the blue devils and constipation are almost an impossibility, and the exhilaration of the swift motion and the vivifying influence of the deeper breathing, the shaking up of the muscles and nerves, the quickening efl^ect of the accelerated heart action, and the readier circulation of well-oxygenated blood 81 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER A ZUNI INDIAN WITH A JAR OF WATER UPON HER HEAD. 82 make tlie wliole body a-tingle with a new- ness of life that is glorious. If I were well to do and had a score of children their chief education should be out of doors, and rain or shine, storm or calm, snow or sleet, winter or summer, boys and girls alike should ride horseback ten to twenty miles or more each day. Nor should this do away with daily walking. Walking is a fine offset to riding. One needs to walk a good deal to enjoy riding a good deal. One is a necessary complement to the other. One exercise uses muscles that are little called upon by the other. So I would make good walkers, in all weath- ers, of all boys, girls, men, and women of the white race, even THE INDIAN AS A WALKER as are those of the Indian race. In order to be good walkers the Indians have naturally found the most per- fect and natural attitude for walking. Every Indian walks upright, his abdomen in, chest up, chin down, and spinal column easily carrying his body and arms. The white race may well learn from the Indian how to keep the spinal column upright, how to have a graceful carriage in walking, and how to cure stooped shoulders. With all younger women and men of ail ages among the Indians a curved spine, ungraceful walk, and stooped shoulders are practically unknown. The women produce this result by carrying burdens upon their heads. Yes, and the boys and men as well carry burdens also upon the head, though not as much as the women. Burden carrying upon the head is a good thing. As one writer has well said: "Most of us are accustomed to regard the head as a mere thinking machine, unconscious of the fact thai this bony superstructure seems to have been specially adapted by Nature to the carrying of heavy weights. "The arms are usually considered as the means intended for the bearing of burdens, but the effect of carrying heavy articles in the hands or on the arms is very injurious, and altogether destructive of an erect or graceful carriage. The shoulders are dragged forward, the back loses its natural curve, the lungs are compressed, and internal organs displaced. "When the head bears the weight of the burden, as it is made to do among the peasant women of Italy, Mexico, and Spain, and the people of the Far East, there is great gain in both health and beauty. The muscles of the neck are strengthened, the spine held erect, the chest raised and expanded, so that breathing is full 83 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER and (loop, and tlio sliouldors aro liold ])ack in tlioir natural ])osition. "It is a good tiling for children to be early accus- tomed to the carrying of various articles, gradually A YOKUT INDIAN WITH A WHEELBARROW LOAD OP PEACHES AND FIGS. THE CARRYING BASKET IS SUSPENDED BY A BROAD BAND OVER THE FOREHEAD. increasing in weight, balanced upon the head. In this way they may acquire an erect carriage, and free and graceful walk." 84 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER The Indian man and woman will pick up an olla of water, containing a gallon or more, and swinging it easily to the top of the head will walk along with hands by their sides, as unconcernedly as if they carried no fragile bowl balanced and ready to fall at the slightest provocation. And they will climb up steep and diffi- cult trails, still balancing the jar upon the head. The effect of this is to compel a natural and dignified car- riage. I know Navaho, Hopi, and Havasupai women who walk with a simple dignity that is not surpassed in drawing-room of president or king. Then, too, another reason for this dignified, health- fully erect carriage is found in the fact that neither men nor women wear high-heeled shoes. The moc- casin is always flat, and therefore the foot of the Indian rests firmly and securely upon the floor. No doubt if the Indian woman wished to imitate the forward motion of the kangaroo, or any other frivolous creature, she could tilt herself in an unnatural and absurd posi- tion by high-heeled shoes, but in all my twenty-five years of association with them I never found one foolish enough to do so. The men, as well as the women, gain this upright attitude as the result of "holding up their vital organs" when they go for their long hunting and other tramps. It seems to me that fully one-half the white men (and women) we meet on the streets are suffering from prolapsus of the transverse colon. This is evidenced by the projection of the abdomen, which generally grows larger as they grow older; so that we have "tailors for fat men," and special implements of torture for compressing into what we call a decent shape the embonpoint of women. But, I ask, as I see the Indians, why do white people have this paunch? 85 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER An Indian with a "bay- windoAv" stomach, a paunch, is seldom, if ever seen. Why? lie lias lon<^ ae^o learned the art. the necessity, of keep- ing his abdominal muscles stretched tight, llis belly is always held in. The muscles across his abdomen are like steel. The result is the trans- verse colon is held securely in position. It has no prolapse, hence there is no paunch. If we taught ourselves, as the Indian does, to draw in the abdomen and at the same time breathe long and deep, this prolapsus would be prac- tically impossible. Half the medicine that is sold to so- called "kidney suffer- ers" is sold to people /y A whose kidneys are no more diseased than are / I those of the man in the moon. It is the pulling and tugging of the falling colon that causes the wearisome back- ache; and the lying and s c o u n d r e 1 o u s APACHE MAIDEN CARRYING A BASKET WrCtclieSwllO prCyUpOn WATER OLLA UPON HER HEAD. FULL ^|^^ ignOraUt WritC OUt OF WATER THIS WEIGHS MANY , ^ POUNDS. their c a t c h - p e n n y 8G THE INDIAN AS A WALKER advertisements describing these feelings, so that when the sufferer picks up their hterature he is as good as entrapped for "a dozen or more bottles," or until his money gives out. O men and women of America, learn to walk upright, as God intended you should. Do not become "chesty" by throwing out your chest, and throwing your shoulders back at the expense of your spine, but pull in the muscles of your abdomen, fill your lungs with air, then pull your chin down and in, and you will soon have three great, grand, and glorious blessings; viz., a dignified, upright carriage; freedom from and reasonable assurance that you will never have pro- lapsus of the transverse colon and its attendant miseries and backache; and a lung capacity that will help you withstand the approaches of disease should you ever, in some other way, come under its malign influence. When I see white boys slouching and shambling along the streets I wish with a great wish that I could have them put under the training of some of my wild Indian friends. They would soon brace up; heads would be held erect, chins down, abdomen in, chest up, and with lips closed, and the pure air of the moun- tain, canyon, plain, desert, or forest entering their lungs through the nostrils ; the whole aspect of life would begin to change. For "nothing lifts up the spirits so much as just to lift the chest up. It takes a load off the head, off the mind, off the heart. Raise your chest so high that the abdominal organs perform their functions in a proper way. When one is all doubled over, the head and spine are deprived of blood that they are entitled to. When the chest is lifted up, the abdominal organs are compressed, and the blood that has been retired from the circulation and accu- 87 HAVASUPAI CHILD WITH WATER BOTTLE SUSPENDED FROM THE FOREHEAD. THE INDIAN AS A WALKER mulated in the liver and the stomach is forced back into the current where it belongs. The head and spinal cord get their proper supply of blood, and one feels refreshed and energized immediately." But in addition to their walking and riding the Indians are great climbers of steep canyon and moun- tain trails. Men, women, and children alike pass up and down these trails with almost the ease and agility of the goat. I have seen a woman with a kathak (carrying basket) suspended from her forehead con- taining a load of fruit, of pine nuts, of grass seeds, weighing not less than from 50 to 100 lbs., her baby perched on top of the load, steadily and easily climb a trail that made me puff and blow like a grampus. Few exercises, properly taken, are of greater benefit to the lungs and heart, and indeed, all the vital organs, than is trail or mountain climbing. See that your clothing is easy, especially around the waist, for there must be room for every effort of lung expansion. This applies to men as well as to women, for the wretched and injurious habit is growing among men of wearing a belt instead of suspenders. If the prospective climber is a woman, let her wear a loose, light dress, and with as short a skirt as her common sense, judgment, and conscience will allow her to wear. If she is out "in the wilds," let her wear trousers and discard skirts entirely as a senseless and barbarous slavery to custom and convention. Shoes should be easy and com- fortable, with thick soles and broad, low heels. Begin to climb as early in the. morning as possible. Don't try to do too much at first. Try a small hill. Conquer that by degrees. Get so that you can finally go up and down without any great effort. Then tackle the higher hills, and finally try real mountains, eight, 89 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER ten, fourteen thousand feet high. If you are delicate to begin with be more careful still, and ask the advice of your physician, but don't be afraid so long as you do not get fatigued to exhaustion. For climbing develops the thighs and calves of the leg, the muscles of the back, enlarges the lungs, makes the heart pump more and purer (because better oxygenated) blood throughout the whole body, brings about more rapid changes in the material of the body, and thus exchanges old and useless tissue for new and healthy, dissolves and dissipates fat, induces perspiration and exhalations through the kidneys that are peculiarly beneficial. In breathing be sure to keep the mouth closed. Insist upon nasal breathing, and the exercise will per- force make it deep breathing. The deeper you breathe the more good you will get from it. Let the posture be correct or you will lose much good. This is in brief: pull the abdomen in, raise the chest, keep the chin down, and let the arms hang easily and naturally by the side. For years I have compelled myself to seize every possible opportunity for trail climbing or descending. Hundreds of miles of trails have I gone up and down in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, often with a thirty, forty, fifty pound camera and food supplies on my back. I have ascended scores of mountains through- out the Southwest, and the rich experiences of glowing health and vigor, vim, snap, tingle, that come from such exercises no one can know but those who have enjoyed them. A few weeks ago I came to the Grand Canyon (September, 1907), after nearly a year of rest from physical labor on an extended scale (my civilized occupations had pre-empted all my time). I started 91 THE INDIAN AS A WALKER out on the trail, up and down Ilavasu Canyon, Bass Trail of the Grand Canyon, and the Grand View and Red Canyon trails. Again and again I walked up the steepest portions for a mile at a time, setting the pace for the horses and mules, and it was a source of mental as well as physical delight thatmy lungs, heart, and body generally were in such good condition that I could do this day after day for two weeks, not only without exhaustion, but with positive exhilaration and physical delight. 92 CHAPTER VII THE INDIAN IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT T TOW these "things we may learn from the Indian" -*■ ^ grow upon us, as we study the " noble red man " in his own haunts. Again and again I have noticed that ''he doesnt knoiv enough to go in when it rahis.'' The white man who first coined that expression deemed it an evidence of smartness, and reared his head more proudly than his fellows because he was the author of so bright an idea. Yet when you come to consider it, what a foolish proposition it is! Go in when it rains ? Why should you go in ? Do the birds go in ? I have just been w^atching them from my study win- dow, — larks, linnets, song-sparrows, and mocking- birds. Not one of them seems to care a particle about the rain, and their songs are as sweet and as cheery and as full of melody as they are on the days of brightest sunshine. How well I recall seeing a mocking-bird on a stand on my lawn one day w^hen the rain was pouring down fiercely. He stood with bill up and tail dow^n so that he had a very "Gothic-roof-like" appearance, his mouth wide open, and as the rain poured from the end of his tail he sent out a flood of melody more rich and sweet than any bird-song I ever heard. And the horses! How they enjoy the rain! I have seen them loose in a stable having double doors, the upper of which was open, and when it rained they would thrust their noses out into the rain and let the drippings of the eaves fall upon them wdth evident 93 IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT pleasure and longing that they might get out into it all over. Nothing alive in Nature save "civilized" man dreads the rain. The Indian fairly revels in it. I was once at the Havasupai village for a couple of weeks, the guest of my friend Wa-lu-tha-ma. His little girl, seven years old, was a perfect little witch. She was HEALTHY XAVAIIO CIULDHEX USED TO THE RAIN AND THE OUT OF DOORS. 94 IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT quick, nervy, lively, and healthy. When it rained and her clothes got wet I tried to prevail upon her to come into shelter. But no! She wanted to be out in the rain, and off she sprang through the door, playing with the pools as they collected, and running with others of her playmates to where the extemporized waterfalls dashed themselves into semi-spray as they fell from the heights above upon the shelving rocks. Here they stood, in the water and rain, like dusky fairies, laughing and shouting, romping and sporting, in perfect glee. The older women, too, mind it but little, unless it is very cold or the wind is blowing. They no more mind being wet than they do that the wind should blow or the sun shine, and as for any ill effect that either children or grown-ups suffer from the wet, I have yet to see it. Why ? The reasons are clear. In the first place, they have no fear of the rain. It is not con- stantly instilled into their minds from childhood that "they mustn't get wet, or they'll take cold," and girls are not taught to expect functional disarrangement if they "get their feet wet." This has something to do with it, for the effect of the mind upon the body is far more potent than we yet know. In the second place, they move about with natural activity in the rain as at other times. This keeps the blood circulating and prevents any lowering of the temperature of the body. In the third place, their general out-of-door life gives them such a robustness that if there is any tax upon the system it is fully ready to meet it. But I am asked, "Would you advocate white peo- ple, especially girls and women, getting wet? Think of their skirts bedraggled in the rain, and how these 95 I IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT wet skirts cling to the ankles and make their wearers uncomfortable. I have thought a great deal about this, and am not prepared to say that with our present costume I would advocate women's going out much in the rain. But I do say that once in a while they can put on short skirts and stout shoes and such old clothes as cannot be injured by getting wet, and then resolutely and boldly sally forth into the rain, and the harder it comes down the better, if it be warm weather. Then let them learn to enjoy the pattering of the rain upon cheeks and ears. Let them hold out their hands and feel the soft and gentle caresses of the "high-born, noble rain." Let them watch the drops as they spatter on the leaves and trickle down the stems, gathering volume and speed as they reach the bole and fall to the ground, there to give life and nourishment to the whole plant. Everything in Nature loves to be out in the rain. How fresh and bright the trees look after a shower! How the rocks are cleansed and made bright and shining! How their color comes vividly out in the rain! And upon human beings the effect is the same, provided they value health and vigor more than they mind a little discomfort in the bedragglement of their clothes. Years ago I learned this lesson. I was riding from the line of the railway, over the Painted Desert, with several Havasupai Indians. It was the rainy season. Showers fell half a dozen times a day. At first I wished I had an umbrella. I got wet through, and so did the Indians. I thought I ought to feel wretched and miserable, but somehow the Indians were as bright and cheerful as ever, so I plucked up heart and courage, and in half an hour my clothes were dry again. Four or five times that day and an equal 97 IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT number tlio next day, I got wet thronfT;li and dry again. Riding liorsebaek kept nie warm, and the (juiek and healthful circulation of the blood, the active deep breathing caused by the exercise, the absence of fear in the soul, all combined to make the wetting a benefit instead of an injury. My friend W. W. Bass, of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, with whom I have made many trips in that Wonderland region, tells w ith great gusto a true story of my riding over the desert on one occasion, clothed in one of the old-fashioned linen dusters that reached below my knees. It was warm weather, and dusty on the railway, hence the duster, I suppose. But when we got fairly out on the desert it began to rain, and how it did pour! It came down so rapidly that by and by my pockets w^ere full of water, and Bass says that w^hen he overtook me, I was jogging along, singing at the top of my voice (just as the mocking-bird did), the water splashing out of my pockets as I bounced up and down in the saddle. The linen duster clung to the sides and back of the horse, and wrapped itself around my legs so that the picture was comical in the extreme. But I was happy, and refused to feel any discomfort, and so got joy out of the experience, as well as health and vigor. For let it be remembered that wdien I came from England, twenty-five years ago, I came as an invalid, broken down in health com- pletely; so much so that I was even forbidden to read a book for a whole year. Now few men are as healthy as I. Years of association with the Indian, learning simplicity and naturalness of him, have aided materi- ally in making the change. I have learned the value of putting the primary things first. I used to be so "nice" and "finnicky" that the idea of having my 98 IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT clothes wet would give me a small panic. "They would get out of shape and look badly, and have to be pressed before I could wear them again." But when I came to the conclusion that I was worth more than clothes, that my health was of more importance than a crease in my trousers, I found I was taking hold of a principle which, while it might at times seem to be rough on my clothing, would have a decidedly beneficial influence on myself. And this leads to another important lesson we may learn from the Indian. He is not as "nice" some- times as I wish he were, but we are far too nice, often, for health and comfort. Many a woman ruins her health by wrecking her nerves, drives her husband dis- tracted, worries and annoys her children, by being too nice in her house. I have found, in New England and elsewhere, — aye, even in Old England, — women who valued a clean house more than they valued their own lives, the happiness of their children, and the comfort of their husbands. Indeed, in one case I well remember a woman drove her husband into temporary insanity, and finally into ignominious flight away from her, by her eternal washing of floors, shaking of car- pets, polishing of furniture, and dusting down. Every time the poor fellow went in from the workshop he must change his clothes. If he came in from the out- side he must take off his shoes before he entered the door. If he put his warm hand down on the polished table he was rebuked, for his wife at once got up, fetched her chamois leather and rubbed off the offend- ing marks. Poor, wretched woman, and equally poor, wretched man ! No wonder he went crazy, and finally lost his manhood and ran away. I know this is an extreme case. But I vouch for its 99 IN THE RAIN AND THE DHIT strict triitli. And tliorc are tlioiisaiuls of women (and men too, for that matter) who are alllicted in a serious measure with the same disease. In that home where niceness is vahied more than health and comfort and work in life, there lurks serious danger. Go to the Indian, and while I do not suggest that you lose all HOPI ('IIILDKFA' ];.\JOYI\(; THEIR DAILY Sl'OHT ()\ TIIK HACK OF A BURRO. niceness by any means, seek to learn some of his philosophy and place primary things first. First, health, happiness, comfort, peace, contentment, love; then these other things. I'm going to make a confession that I am afraid will bring me into sad repute with some of my readers. 100 IN THE RAIN A.ND the; i)iK:T When my first boy was born, we were naturally very proud of him. As he grew out of his baby clothes we liked to see him look nice and neat and clean. He must be a pretty little cherub, dressed in white and have the manners of a Little Lord Fauntleroy. Then I came to the conclusion that we were valuing "nice- ness" more than the healthy development of the child. I remonstrated and urged a change but to no effect, so I resolved on a coup d'etat. One morning after the youngster was dressed up in his white bib and tucker, and as uncomfortable and unhappy as any and all healthy children feel at such treatment, I took him by the hand and led him out of doors and out of sight of all watchful eyes, where there was plenty of mud and plenty of water. In half an hour his changed appearance was a marvel. We started a little stream of water, which we then dammed. We made mud pies, and I helped him mix the "dough" in his apron. We reveled in mud from top to toe, I rolled him in it, so that back was as vividly marked as front. Not a remnant of niceness was left in him. We went home happy and contented, laughing and merry, but bedaubed and beplastered everywhere. We had had such a good time. And it was such fun going out with father. We were going again to-morrow and the next day and the next. And so we did. It needed no words, no argument. It did not take long to get two or three suits of brown canvas or blue denim, and the youngster grew up healthy, happy, vigorous, strong, tough, and often dirty, rather than ansemic, miserable, dyspeptic, weak and ailing, and nice. There would be far less demand for children's tombstones, surmounted with marble angels and inscribed with wretched doggerel, if mothers 101 IN IHE RAIN AND TIIP: DIRT valued liealth rather than niceness, vigor before prim- ness, and strength immaculate rather than bibs and aprons. So I say, let us not be over-nice. And espe- cially let us not train our children to value clean hands and clothes more than the rugged health that comes from contact with the soil in out-of-door employments. 1 find one can enjoy Homer, and Browning, Dante, and Shakspere, all the better because his body is vigorous and strong, his brain clear, and his mind active as the residt of rough-and-tumble mountain climbing, desert tramping or riding, and walking on canyon trails. Another result of this frank and fearless acceptance of out-of-door conditions is manifested in a readiness to meet difficulties that over-niceness is disinclined to touch. Let me illustrate. Two or three months ago I made a journey with two Yuma Indians and four white men down the overflow of the Colorado River to the Salton Sea. We were warned beforehand that it would be "an awfully hard trip." We were told that it was "hell boiled down" to try to go through certain places. The river for ten or twelve miles left its bed and ran wild over a vast tract of land covered with a mesqiiite forest. Mesquite is a fairly dense tree growth covered with strong and piercing thorns. When we came to this place we had to cut our way through the thorny thicket, and our faces, hands, and bodies all suffered with fierce scratchings and thorn- pricks. Several times we stuck fast, and there was nothing for it but to jump out into the water with ax in hand and cut away the obstructions or lift over the boat. My Indian, Jim, though dignified and serene, as I shall fully explain elsewhere, had the promptness that over-niceness destroys. He was out over the side of the boat as quickly as I was, ready for the hard and 102 IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT disagreeable work. Had I been "nicely" dressed, and "nice" about the feeling of water up to my middle, too "nice" to wade for hours, sinking into quicksands, in order to find the best passage for the boats, we should hsive been there yet. We cut down three mesquite trees, under water, in order to get our boats over the stumps. We forced our way through tall and dense arrow weeds, one in front and the other behind the boat, lifting and forcing, pulling and pushing. It was IN THE MESQUITE FOREST ON OUR WAY TO THE SALTON SEA. not "nice" work, but it was invigorating, stimulating, and soul-developing. The other day I went photographing on the Salton Sea. When the launch stopped twenty feet from the island covered with pelicans, where I wished to make photographs, I shouldered my camera, stepped out into the water, which came up to my thighs, and walked ashore. The engineer wondered. Why should he ? Had I waited, the pelicans would have flown away. Speed was necessary. " Niceness " would have prevented my getting what I went for. When I stand on the lecture platform, or in the pulpit, or in the 103 IN THE RAIN AND THE DIRT drawing-room; wlieii I meet ladies in the parlor and go with them for an automobile ride, I dress as neatly as I can afford, and endeavor to look "nice;" but when I go into my garden to work, I put on blue overalls, a flannel shirt, and a })air of lu^avy shoes, and I try not to be nice. I roll around in the dirt, I feel it with my hands, I revel in it, for thus, I find, do I gain healthful enjoyment for body, mind, and soul. I owe many things to the Indian, but few things I am more grateful for than that he taught me how to value impor- tant things more than " looking neat" and being " nice." 104 CHAPTER VIII THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR MINISTERS and orators, teachers and statesmen, members of the W. C. T. U., as well as the Y. M. C. A., of the white race, all profess to believe that the white race believes in the dignity of physical labor. That profession is often a lie. We no more believe in the dignity of physical labor than we do in the refinement of a hog. Our actions give the direct lie to our words. I am writing with the utmost calmness, and say these strong words with deliberate intent. As a nation we are humbugs when we pretend to believe in the dignity of labor. Perhaps, after all, we do believe in it, but in most cases it is not for ourselves, but for "the other fellow." On the other hand, the Indian really and truly believes in the dignity of physical labor. A chief would just as soon be "caught" dressing buckskin, or sewing a pair of moccasins, or irrigating his corn- field as lolling on a Navaho blanket "smoking the pipe of peace." With the white race this is not so. Men believe in the dignity of labor as much as they do in the brotherhood of man. They would no more be seen doing physical labor — wheeling a wheelbarrow, for instance, digging a ditch, building a wall, plowing a potato patch, or doing any other physical work, save the few things men are allowed to do without being thought peculiar, as, for instance, taking care of a small home garden, taking the ashes out of the furnace, and things of that kind — than they would be 105 THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR seen pickiiif]^ their neighbors' pockets or burglarizing their liouses. When they want to gain exercise they go to some indoor gymnasium, where the air is the breathetl-over, dead air of a luuidred people, and they swing dumb-bells, [)ull on weights, struggle franti- cally on bars, and do other similar and fool-like things, A HAVASUPAI GIRL, WEAVER OF BASKETS. because, forsooth, these things are gentlemanly; or they go out and swing golf-clubs and pursue a poor innocent Uttle ball over the "hnks," while gaping caddies look on at their wild strokes, and listen to the insane profanity with w^hich they try to compel them- selves to believe that they are "gentlemen, bah Jove!" Of all the contemptible, shuffling, and mean sub- 106 THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR terfuges the white race is capable of, this seems to me to be about the meanest and most contemptible. To pretend to believe in the dignity of labor, and then at any and all opportunities afforded to labor to dodge away and do these useless and selfish things that do not take off one ounce of the burden of physical labor we have imposed upon our fellows. Let me not be thought for a moment to be opposed to any healthful recreation or sport. If golf be pur- sued as a recreation, for fun, I am heartily in accord with it and its promoters. It is when it is taken as an "exercise," as a substitute for honest and useful labor, that I protest against it, as a fraud, a delusion, a snare, and a contemptible subterfuge. If you want real exercise, real work, go and relieve some poor fellow- man of his excess of hard work. Tell him you have come to give him an hour's rest, that he may go and study nature, go and look at the flowers of your garden, wander into the woods and hear the birds sing, or visit the public library and read some entertaining and instructive book. If you are too ashamed to openly try to give an hour or two of rest and change to your "brother" man, go and chop the wood for the house, dig up the potato patch, wheel out the manure from the stable, or do some other useful and beneficial thing. Pleasure is pleasure, sport is sport, fun is fun, but to engage in these sports seriously, as a physical exercise to counteract the effects of your evil dietetic habits or other grossnesses, is to add hypocrisy and subterfuge to evil living. What labor the Indian has to do he does gladly, cheerfully, openly. He is not ashamed to have soiled hands or to be caught in the act. In this I am heartily in accord with him. If I ever wrote a creed one 107 THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR of the first articles of my religion Avould be: "I believe in the benefit and joy of physical labor." If I had my way I would compel every member of the so-called "learned" professions (!), from preacher to lawyer, teacher and doctor, statesman, })olitician, and bartender, to spend not less than three hours at HOPI INDIAN WEAVING A DRESS FOR HIS WIFE. hard physical labor every day, and as for my brother preachers, I would put them to road-making every Monday, for half the day at least, so that by practical knowledge of road-making on earth they might be better able to preach to their congregations the follow- ing Sunday about the road to heaven. There is noth- 108 THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR ing that more reveals that we are a people of caste and class than the attitude of the rich and the " learned" toward physical labor, I am not in sympathy with that attitude in any respect ; I despise, hate, loathe it, and would see it changed. To the Indian, for his honest respect for and indulgence in physical labor^ I give my adherence and honor. 109 VARIOUS ARTICLES OF USE AND ORNAMENT MADE AND DECORATED BY INDIANS. CHAPTER IX THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN TN the preceding chapter I have given the Indian's life, -*• habit, thought, towards physical labor for himself and his sons. He holds the same attitude toward it for his daughter and his wife. And not only does he so hold it, but the wife and daughter regard it in exactly the same way. The out-door life of the Indian girl and woman makes her healthy, vigorous, muscular, and strong. She glories in her physical vigor and strength, and wonders why her white sister is not equal to her in physical capacity. When I tell her that the white women pity her because, forsooth, "she has to do so much hard work, while the lazy men sit by, smoking, and doing nothing," she looks at me in vacant amazement. Once when I was talking in this way one of them said: "Are your white women all fools .^ Tell them we not only don't need their pity, but we despise them for their habits of life that lead them to pity us. The Creator made us with the capacity and power for work. He knows that all be- ings must work, if they would be healthy. We would be healthy, and therefore we do His will in working at our appointed tasks. We are glad and proud to do them. And as for the men: let them dare to in- terfere in our work and they will soon see what they will see. We brook no interference or help from them." So their children (girls as well as boys) are all 111 LABOR FOR (ilRLS AND WOMEN brought np from tlie earliest years to work, and to work liard. Boys are sent out to herd sheep, horses, and cattle; to watch the corn and see that nothing disturbs it. And the girls, as soon as they can toddle, become "little mothers" to their younger brothers and sisters. HOPI WOMEN BUILDING A HOUSE AT ORAIBI, ARIZONA. As they grow older they grind all the corn, gather all the wild grass and other seeds, make all the basketry and pottery, and prepare all the food for the household. To grind corn in the Indian fashion, with flat rock and metate, is no easy task for a strong man of the white race, yet I have known a girl of fifteen to keep 112 LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN at work at the metate for ten hours a day for several days in succession, in order that there might be plenty of flour when guests came to the Snake Dance. On one of my visits to the Hopi village of Oraibi I found the women at work building a house. This is their occupation. All labor among Hopis is divided between the sexes in accordance with long-established custom, and I think it is so divided in all aboriginal peoples. The men undertook the protection of the home (were the warriors) and the hunting of animals for food. They also make the robes and moccasins. Those tribes that lost their nomad character and became sedentary added care of the fields and the stock to the work of their men. The women practi- cally undertook all the rest. The building of the home, its care, the general gathering of seeds, and the preparation of all foods belong to them. And as a rule, they do their chosen or appointed or hereditary work cheerfully. They know nothing of the aches and pains of their weaker white sisters; they are as strong as men, so they have no fear of physical labor. Not only this, but they enjoy it; they go to it with pleasure, as all healthy bodies do. How often have I stood and watched a healthy, vigorous man swing a hammer at the forge, or in a mine or a trench. How easily it was done, how gladly, how unconscious of effort! To the healthy woman, with reasonable strength, labor is also a pleasure. To feel one's self accomplishing something, and able to do it without undue fatigue or exhaustion, what a delight it is! The woman who honors us by coming to our house weekly to do the heavy work, often reminds me of a panther. She fairly "leaps" upon her work with an 113 LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN exul)oraiic'e of strength and sjjirit that is a })erfect th'hght, in this age of woman's physical disabihty and disincHnation to do physical labor. So it is with Indian women. They sing in nnison &>MHSlr' NAVAHO :MATni:\S CAHRYIXG WATER OVER THE DESERT. when a dozen of them get together at the grinding- trough; though the work is hard enough, when long continued, to exhaust any strong man. I have seen women kneel and pound acorns all day, lifting a heavy pestle as high as their heads at every stroke. In the 114 LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN case of these women builders at Oraibi: they carried all the hea\y rocks and put them in position, mixed their own mortar, and were their own paddies, and in everything, save the placing of the heavy cross- beams for the roof, to handle which they called upon some of the men for aid, they did all the work from beginning to end. Now, while I do not especially want to see white INDIAN MAIDENS TAUGHT BY THEIK MOTHER TO BE BASKET WEAVERS. women building a house, I do wish, with all my heart, that they had the physical strength to do it or similar arduous labor. I do long for the whole of my race that the women and girls shall have such vigorous health and strength that no ordinary labor could tire them. " But, ' ' say my w hite friends, — women and girls, — "we don't want to work physically; there is no need 115 ft 2^ ^ (UAHLILA BASKET WEAVER WORKING IN THE OPEN AIR. LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN for it; we are not strong enough to do it; we exhaust ourselves, and then do not have energy enough for the other duties of Hfe; we engage servants to do our menial labor for us." Indeed! In the first place I want to protest with all the power I have against the word and idea " menial." There is no menial service. All service, rendered in willing helpfulness and love, is dignified, noble, and ennobling. He or she who accepts service from another with the idea that the service is "menial," thereby degrades himself, herself, far more than the person is "degraded" by the performance of the service. I would rather have my son a good scavenger, working daily to keep the city pure and clean, than be an "honored" lawyer, engaged in dishonest cases; a "successful" politician, tangled up with graft; a "popular" physician, selfishly deceiving his patients; or an "eloquent" and "dear" minister, self-righteously lauding himself and pouring forth inane platitudes in high-sounding phrases from the pulpit. "Menial service" is divine compared with these occupations when they are demoralized. And the principle of all I have said applies to girls as well as boys. I would rather that daughters of mine should be able to scrub the floor, bake bread, do the family washing and mending, repair the boys' clothes, knit, sew, and take care of the kitchen garden and the flowers, than strum "The Battle of Prague" or "The Maiden's Prayer," without feeling or expression, on a half-tuned piano. The former occupations are holy and dignified as compared with the sham exhibi- tion of the latter. I like to see a girl with an apron on, strong, healthy, willing, useful, capable, engaged in useful household work, and if our young men had 117 LABOR FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN one-toiith part of tlie sense they ought to have, they ^voulcl hunt for such girls to become their wives and tlie mothers of their children, rather than for the dainty, white-faced, w^asp-w-aisted, finger-manicured dolls who are useful for no other purpose than to be looked at. I have no desire to make pack-horses or slaves of intelligent women or girls, but I cannot help asking the question of them: ""Which would you rather be, strong enough to do any and all so-called menial and laborious service, and endowed with perfect health, or be weakly and puny and live the life of ease and luxury that most women and girls seem to covet?" And upon the answer to that question should I base my judgment as to the wisdom, intelligence, and fitness for the duties of life of the answerer. There is no dignity in woman superior to the dignity of being able personally (if necessary) to care for all the physical needs of her household; there is no charm greater than the charm of strength coml^ined with gracious, w^omanly sweetness exercised for the joy of others; there is no refinement greater than the refinement of a gloriously healthy woman radiating physical, mental, spiritual life upon all those who come within the sphere of her influence. 118 CHAPTER X THE INDIAN AND DIET A MAN is largely the result of what he eats. Indeed, "^^^ many scientific specialists now tell us that sex de- termination is largely the result of the food eaten by the expectant mother, so that according to what the mother eats the unborn child becomes — male or female. Ploss in his well-known " Ueber die das Geschlecht- sverhdltniss der Kinder bedingenden Ursachen,'' Diising in his painstaking "Die Regidirimg des Geschlechts- verhdltnisses bei der Vernehrung der Menschen, Miere und Pflanzeti,^' and Westermarck in the "History of Human Marriage," prove conclusively, from close study of actual experimentation, that the sex of the child is largely fixed by the quantity and quality of nutrition absorbed by the mother. Hence it is not too strong a statement that a man is largely the result of his (or his mother's) food. At first sight it will appear foolish to many of my readers to go to the Indian for ideas on diet, yet I think I can prove, more conclusively than the learned scientists whose books I have named above can prove their theories, that the Indian has many ideas on diet which the white race can learn to its great advantage. In the first place, the normal aborigine, before he began to use the white man's foods, was perforce compelled to live on a comparatively simple diet. His choice was limited, his cookery simple. Yet he lived in perfect health and strength. With few articles of diet, and these of the simplest character, prepared 119 THE INDIAN AND DIET in the readiest and easiest ways, lie attained a vio;or, a robustness, that puts to shame the strength and power of civiHzed men. Why? Tlie reasons are not far to seek. In simpHcity of food there is safety. We eat HAVASUPAI WOMAN AL^XING BREAD IN THE OPEN AIR. not only too much, but too great variety, and every student of dietetics knows that the greater the variety the greater the possibility that too much will be eaten. The Indian, living his simple life, was compelled to 120 THE INDIAN AND DIET be content with the maize, beans, pumpkins, and mel- ons of his fields, the peaches of his orchards, the wild grass seeds, nuts, fruits, and roots he or his squaw could gather, and the products of his traps or the chase. Here, then, was a restricted dietary. He had not much choice, nor a large menu for each meal. The smaller the menu the less, as a rule, any person will eat, be he Indian or white man. The extended menu is a series of temptations to overeat. The simple menu of the Indian was a preventive to gluttony. It will doubtless be recalled that when the great Bismarck was broken down in health, his physicians gave him no other prescription as to food than that he should eat but one kind of food to a meal. This is a dietetic axiom: The less variety the less one eats. In a diseased condition health can often be restored by giv- ing the stomach and assimilative organs less work to do. Among the Indian race dyspepsia is almost unknown. To this fact that they have a small variety of foods, this healthful condition is largely attributable. On the other hand, one has but to pick up any daily newspaper to see the positive proofs of the dyspeptic condition of the "greatest nation of the world" among the white race. There are nostrums for dyspepsia without end. Syrups, pills, doses that work while you sleep, and dopes that work inside and out. Millions of dollars are annually spent merely in advertising these dam- nable proofs of our idiocy or gluttony, or both. A thousand nostrums flout their damned and damning lies in the faces of the " superior race" ! And a drug store on every corner of our large cities demonstrates the great demand there is for these absolute proofs of our vile dietetic habits. Every pill taken, every nostrum swallowed, is a proof positive of our ignor- 121 THE INDIAN AND DIP:T ance, or our orluttony, or our gullibility, and probably a good deal of each. Seventy-five millions of dol- lars were spent in 1905 in the purchase of patent medicines, every cent of which was worse than wasted. Before the white race came and perverted — pardon me, civilized — him, what did the "uncivilized Indian" know of patent medicines ? What did he know of the diseases which these nostrums are supposed to cure? Nothing! He was as ignorant of one as the other. In his native wildness he was healthy and strong; only since he has been led into evil ways by a false civiliza- tion has he so degenerated as to need such compounds. Let us, then, forget our civilization, — this portion of it, — and forego our physical ills and our patent nostrums, and go back to a simple, natural, restricted diet. In that one course of procedure will be found more restored health than all the physicians of the world can give otherwise in a score of years. Let us learn to eat few^ things to a meal, and those of such a nature that they will properly mix, and thus not overtax the stomach in its work of digestion. \Mien I sit down to the laden tables of my rich friends, or at the tables of the first-class hotels of the country, I sometimes find my judgment stronger than my perverted appetite. At such times I look over the bill of fare. I see ten or a dozen courses, varying from cocktails, oysters, and fish to ice-cream, fruit, and wines. There are meats and vegetables, nuts and fruits, cooked and uncooked, pastries and jellies, soups and coffee, wines and spices, sauces, relishes, and seasonings galore, and I am more or less disgusted with the whole business, and eat sparingly of but two or three dishes. At other times, alas! my appetite asserts itself, and I "go the pace" with the rest. Now, THE INDIAN AND DIET when all these things, so elaborately prepared, so daintily served, so "nicely" eaten, are disposed of and in the stomach, let me ask (without any desire to offend) : Is there the slightest difference in the con- tents of the stomach of such a person and the stomach of a hoo; filled with swill? In the first case there is cocktail and caviar, olives and celery, oysters and soup, fish and entremes, entree and roast, game and punch, ice-cream and cheese, pastry and fruit, nuts and crackers, with water, coffee, tea, or wine to liquefy it all, all taken separately, but now mixed in one horrible mess within, and in the case of the hog they were mixed first and swallowed mixed instead of in courses. O men and women of the wliite race, of the supe- rior civilization, quit such gluttony and disease-breeding courses! Get back to the Indian's simplicity in diet. Learn the meaning of "low living and high thinking." Stop pampering your sensual appetites and feeding your stomachs at the expense of your minds, aye, and at the expense of your souls, for men and w^omen Avho thus live continuously, generally become selfish, indif- ferent to the sufferings of others, "proud stomached" — which means much more than it seems to mean — and incapable of the finer feelings. Nor is this all that the Indian may teach us as to diet. Wliile at times he eats everything he can lay his hands upon and also eats ravenously, in his normal condition he eats slowly and masticates thoroughly. Since Horace Fletcher wrote his most interesting and useful books on diet and life, the term "fletcherizing" has become almost universal amongst thoughtful peo- ple to express mastication to the point of liquifaction. But I was familiar w^ith "fletcherizing" before I had 124 THE INDIAN AND DIET ever heard of Mr. Fletcher. The Indians, with their parched corn, had taught me years before the benefit of thorougli and complete mastication. I had gone off with a band of Indians on a hard week's ride with no other food than parched corn and a few raisins. This was chewed and chewed and chewed by the hour, a handful of the grain making an excellent meal, and thoroughly nourishing the per- fect bodies of these stalwart athletes, who never knew an ache or a pain, and who could withstand fatigue and hardship with- out a thought. A marked and wonderful effect of thorough mastica- tion is that it de- creases the appetite from 10 to 15 per cent, and reduces the desire for flesh meat from 30 to 50 per cent. The more we masticate the less we desire to eat, and the more normal our appetites become. This in itself is a thing to be desired, for it is far easier not to have an abnormal appetite than it is to control it when it has fastened itself upon us. Then, too, while Indians w^ill often eat to repletion, 125 MY HAVASUPAI HOSTESS PARCHING CORN IN A BASKET. THE INDIAN AND DIET and at Ihcir feasts iiululgc in disgusting gorging, they do know how to fast with cahnness and equa- nimity. I am not prepared to say that they will fast vokmtarily — except in the cases of those neophytes wlio are seeking some unusual powers or gifts from Those Above — yet I do know that several times I have been with them when fasting was obligatory because of the scarcity of food, and they accepted the condition without a murmur. I know a very prominent physician in San Francisco, who has an extensive prac- tice, who pumps the food out of the stomachs of several of his gluttonous patients after their hearty French dinners. He defends his course of procedure by saying that his patients would not listen to him if he counseled fasting for even one meal, yet they are willing to allow him to remove the food after it is eaten, and to swallow some harmless "dope" that he gives them, because that is easy and requires no self- control. I know the power of appetite; I know how hard it is to eat only that which the reason tells us is best. 1 know how hard it is to eat slowly and thoroughly masticate the food, but I also know that these things are imperative if one would have perfect health. Therefore, in spite of my many lapses into the old habits, I persist in asserting the good over the evil, and in teaching the good to others, in the hope that, in my own case, the good course will become the easiest to follow, and in the case of the young who listen to me they may learn the best way before they have fallen into the evil way. There is one other thing the white race might learn from the Indian, and that is that the habitual use of flesh is not essential to health. When Captain 126 THE INDIAN AND DIET Cook visited the Maoris of New Zealand, he found them a perfectly healthy people, and he states that he never observed a single person who appeared to have any bodily complaint. Nor, among the number that were seen naked, was once perceived the slightest eruption of the skin, nor the least mark which indi- cated that such eruptions had formerly existed. As Dr. Kress says: "Another proof of the health of these people was the readiness with which wounds they at any time received healed up. In a man who had been shot with a musket-ball through the fleshy part of the arm, 'his wound seemed well digested, and in so fair a way to be healed,' says the Captain, 'that if I had not known that no application had been made to it, I should have inquired with very interesting curiosity after the vulnerary herbs and surgical art of the country.' " ' An additional evidence of the healthiness of the New Zealanders.' he says, 'is in the great number of old men found among them. Many of them appeared to be very ancient, and yet none of them were decrepit. Although they were not equal to the young in muscular strength, they did not come in the least behind them in regard to cheerfulness and vivacity.' " At the advent of Captain Cook, the Maoris were practically vegetarians; they had no domestic or wild animals on the islands, hence could not have been flesh eaters. While our Indians of the Southwest will eat some forms of flesh at times, they are, generally speaking, vegetarians. The Navahos scarcely ever eat meat while in their primitive condition, and they are proud, independent, high-spirited, vigorous, healthy, and 127 THE INDIAN AND DIET strong. So with tlie Ilavasupais and Wallapais, and most of the aborigines of this region. The Apaches also are hirgely vegetarians, and yet are known as a fierce and Avarlike ])eople. They are fierce when aroused, but when fi-iendly are kindly disposed, honest, reliable and good workers, strong, athletic, vigorous, and healthy. These facts demonstrate that flesh meat is not necessary. Meat is another fetich of the civilization of the white race, before which we bow down in ignorant worship. The world would be far better off, in my judgment, and as the result of my observation and experience, if we ate no flesh at all. Personally I am never so well physically and my brain so active as when I live the vegetarian life, though when I am at the tables of meat eaters I eat whatever comes and make the best of it. The experiences of thousands of healthy and vigorous white men demonstrate that meat is not necessary to the highest development. Weston, the great pedes- trian, is both a teetotaler and vegetarian; Bernarr Macfadden and several of his muscular helpers are practical vegetarians; and athletes, business men, lawyers, judges, doctors, clergymen, and many others testify to the beneficial effects of the vegetarian diet. There is no man in the civilized world to-day that works as hard and as continuously, physically as well as m.entally, as Dr. J. H. Kellogg of the Battle Creek Sanitarium. He is a rigid vegetarian, and seldom eats more than one meal a day. Yet he works from 16 to 20 hours daily, edits two magazines, writes continually for scientific magazines and periodicals, attends to a vast correspondence, is the business head of the greatest sanitarium in the world, consults annually with thousands of patients, and keeps daily watch of their condition, gives numberless lectures, is always experi- 128 THE INDIAN AND DIET meriting on foods and surgical appliances and inventing new instruments and methods for curing disease, and at the same time performs more surgical operations, perhaps, with less fatal results, than any other surgeon in the country. Besides this he is the president of the medical college, and lecturer to the students, and gives many lectures to the Medical Missionary Classes, and withal, finds time and strength to confer with, direct the education of, and give personal love to the ten or fifteen children he has adopted into his home and made his own. Here is an additional item which adds strength to what I have written: "The attention of medical men has recently been called to the case of Gustav Nordin, a hardy Swede who paddled his own canoe from Stockholm to Paris, reaching there in robust health after the long voyage, during which he lived on apples, milk, water, and bread. " The New York Herald states that this dangerous and arduous voyage was undertaken by the Swede to show what could be done by a man who has given up meat, tea, coffee, wine, beer, spirits, and tobacco. He prides himself in eclipsing those 'vegetarians' who continue the use of tea and condiments. "When in America, at the age of eighteen, Nordin was suffering so from dyspepsia that he could not take ordinary food. He therefore began a diet of fruit, principally apples, whereby he attained to his present robust condition of health." So, meat-eating, alcoholic-liquor-drinking white race, cast aside your high-headedness and pride, your dietetic errors and ill-health, at one and the same time, and go and learn of the Indian simplicity of diet, wise limitation of your dietary, careful and thorough mastication, and abstention from all flesh foods. 129 CHAPTER XI THE INDIAN AND EDUCATION ri^AKE it all in all. I think I believe more in the Indi- -*■ an's system of education than our own, — I mean, in the principles involved. Our education is largely an education of books. We teach from books, we study from books, we get our ideas from books, Joaquin Miller's reply to Elbert Hubbard, before quoted, seems to many people to be a foolish remark. But I see a profound thought in it. It was the poet's protest against the too great use of books. He regards books as subversive of individual thought. He contends that books retard and prevent thought, and that we read, not to stimulate thought, but to deaden it. And un- doubtedly too much reading and dependence upon books does deaden and destroy not only thought, but, alas! far worse still, the power to indulge in individual thought. Hence books are often a hindrance and a curse instead of a help and a blessing. The Indian has no books. While he has tradition and legend, myth and story, he has no written word. Everything that is, as differentiated from everything that is su])posed, in his life has to be personally learned by individual contact with the things themselves. Botany is the study of flowers, not of words about flowers. There is but one way we can really study botany, and that is out in the fields with the flower growing before us. It must be seen day in and day out from its planting until its fruition. All its develop- ment must be known and understood. The properties 130 THE INDIAN AND EDUCATION of its fruit, its roots, its stem, its leaves, for food, medi- cinal, manufacturing, or other purposes are all con- nected with the study. It is well to know the names of the plants, the names of all parts of plants, and the families and species to which they belong, but these latter things, important and interesting though they be, are but secondary or tertiary as compared with the primary out-door personal and intimate knowledge I have referred to. Those who think the Indian uneducated should read Charles Eastman's (Ohiyesa) book telling of his boyhood days with his Sioux parents and grandparents. Eastman is a full-blooded Sioux, and though later educated at Dartmouth College, still shows by his writings and words how much he reveres his wise teachers of the open air and the woods. The fact is, that in matters pertaining to personal observation the Indian children are far ahead of our own brightest and smartest children; they observe the slightest deviations from the regular order. Who does not know of the Indian's power in trailing. I know Navahos, Mohaves, Hopis, Havasupais, and others who will follow the dimmest trail with unerring certainty, and tell you the details of the actions of the person or animal trailed. This is education of a won- derfully useful kind; a kind that it would be well to give more of to our own children. Indeed, I have been saying, both privately and publicly, for many years, and I here repeat it, that if my children were trained to observe and reflect upon what they observed I should not care if they never went to school until they were grown up to young manhood and woman- hood. That keen, though unusual thinker, Ernest Crosby, 131 THE INDIAN AND EDUCATION in one of his books, presented tlie following, which perfectly meets my ideas and suggests what I mean in regard to the Indian: EDUCATION Here are two ('(lucated men. The one has a smattering of I^atin and Greek; The other knows the speech and hahits of horses and cattle, and "•ives them tlieir food in