Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

And then I found the famous Colonel Scott seated at one end of my desk. I apologized for being so ignorant, having received no Departmental orders, and supposed that he would be thoroughly informed. Aside from the request that he coöperate with the Agent in this little frontier squabble, it appeared that his mission was a survey, and action would await further instructions. Quarters were arranged for the officers and a camping-place for the men, and then the Colonel and I sat down to a discussion of conditions among the Indians of the reserve. Having read of his career among the warriors of the Plains, I felt that the less I said to this experienced soldier and tribal expert the better would be my chances for making no mistakes. I hoped to create an impression of wisdom by keeping my mouth shut.

But Colonel Scott would have none of that. He had then and has to this day a most disconcerting method of propounding a question, and then boring one completely through and through with a pair of gimlet-like blue-gray eyes that pierce as if made of steel. He could see that I was very green and young at the business of being an Indian Agent, but he would not permit me to retreat before his age and superior rank.

“I propose first to go among these Indians, and learn something of their reasons for this refusal to obey the wishes of the Department,” he said.

I remained silent.

“I will go alone,” he said.

I said nothing.

“You do not think they will receive me unpleasantly?”

“Oh, no!” I hastened to make up for lost time. “They are peaceful enough, so long as they are permitted to have their own way. Very likely they will receive you with much of courtesy and even hospitality.”

“That is as I thought,” said the Colonel, who has always gone alone into hostile camps—a method of conciliation that would give most people pause. “I will reason with them,” he continued, “and I believe I can bring them to a sensible view of the matter we have to adjust.”

I said nothing.

“What do you think of my plan?”

“Why, Sir, I would not presume to suggest—”

“That is not the question. You should be somewhat familiar with these Indian people by now. Will my plan succeed?”

His eyes punched through mine, straight back into the brain, out through the skull of my rear elevation, and I knew they were drilling on through the stone wall immediately behind me.

“Considering the experiences of former agents, and even soldiers, Colonel Scott, and—”

“Do you think my plan will succeed?”

“It is a very good plan to try, Colonel. It has been your method with other tribes, and it may prove successful here.”

“But what do you think?”

There was no way of avoiding the truth. He would have it.

“You will not succeed.”

He studied a moment or two.

“I have dealt with unreasonable Indians,” he said, slowly.

“So I am informed, sir. But you have not dealt with the Hopi Indian, who is a religious fanatic; and since you pressed me for an opinion, I had to give it. I can ask only that these people be not promised anything that will not be fulfilled. That has provoked half the trouble of the past. The Department has threatened them, and then curled up. They are accustomed to being betrayed by soldiers. They will talk endlessly; but if you expect to bring a Hopi to reason without a show of force, it is too much. You will not accomplish it.”

Whereupon the Colonel seemed satisfied that he had procured an answer from me, and next day he departed for the pueblo of Hotevilla, with an interpreter and a striker to attend him. His extraordinary knowledge and uncanny skill in the sign-language would avail him nothing among the Hopi, for few of the Southwest Indians use this method of conversing. The deserted mission house was placed at his disposal. The troop remained encamped in Keams Cañon at the Agency.

That night the mail brought those belated orders, in duplicate, from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to me, and from the Secretary of the Interior to Colonel Scott. I read them with amazement and a complete mixture of feelings. They had been drawn without deference to the facts, and were as completely garbled a set of instructions as one could imagine. By merely accepting the conditions imposed, the Indians could win, and the whole expedition be reduced to farce. Washington had been so careful to preserve a shield between it and the sentimental critics of the country that, no matter what I proposed doing and no matter what the officer agreed to assist in doing, the fat was in the fire if those orders were recognized.

And here were more than one hundred men, with mounts and extra mounts, and a pack train, and a wagon train en route with additional supplies. Hay for the horses was being purchased locally at sixty dollars the ton, and oats in proportion; and these were but two items of the expense. A very costly piece of humor, indeed.

But the Colonel was at Hotevilla; and there he remained for ten days, talking, talking, talking, when he was not listening to Youkeoma. I had one report from a messenger, who found the old chief seated in the centre of the floor, facing the Colonel on his camp-bed, the interpreter to one side. It was the seventh day, and Youkeoma, in the recital of his traditions, had reached a date only four hundred years removed. To give the old chap credit, he never weakened. The Colonel, sitting bolt upright, would go into a doze, finish a nap, and pick up the thread of the discourse immediately on waking, to continue as long as daylight lasted.

Of course there were breaks in this programme. They invited the officer to a rabbit-hunt, and gave exhibitions of their fleetness in running and their skill with the rabbit-club or Hopi boomerang; and he witnessed some of their ceremonies. But the end of it all was talk—so many words arranged one after the other, one string in slow, even-toned English, studied, level, monotonously imperative; the other in imperturbable Hopi, rising and falling as Chinese, started with a long intake of the breath and finished in whispers when Indian lungs were exhausted.

Youkeoma began at a point in his traditions before the period of the Dawn Men, when they came up from the Underworld. Wells’ Outline of History is not half so elaborate. And without a break or hesitation, supporting his statements with pieces of pictured rock offered as indisputable evidence, much as Moses would have brought forth the Tables of the Law, he progressed down through the ages. The troop surgeon, who had joined the Colonel, furnished me a rough transcript of this legend, which, boiled to a bare consistency, follows:—

HOPI GENESIS ACCORDING TO YOUKEOMA, CHIEF PRIEST OF THE HOTEVILLA

The Hopi came from the Underworld, down in the earth. They had
their chiefs and medicine men, and their villages, in the
Underworld, the same as now and here. But the people drifted away
from the traditions. They had too much love of a good time, and
refused to hear their wise men. They held social dances, and forgot
the old religious ceremonies. First the girls, then the women, and
finally nearly all the Hopi people came under this influence. They
forgot everything else. And even the wives of the priests became
evil.

Then the good chiefs and medicine men held a council. They were
against these evils, and decided to look for another world. They
discussed many methods of leaving the Underworld. And they made
experiments. First they planted pine trees, and by ceremonies grew
these trees very tall. The pine trees grew up to touch the roof of
the sky, but they did not pierce it. Their tops bent over and
spread along the sky. And the good Hopi knew that pine trees could
not help them.

Next they planted sharp-pointed reeds, and these grew tall and
pierced the sky.

Now to find what sort of place was above them. They sent up birds
as messengers, to go out through the holes in the sky and find a
land for the good people. They told the birds to return and tell
what they saw. So they sent humming birds first. These flew up and
up, circling the tall reeds, and resting on them when tired. But
the humming birds became exhausted, and fell back into the
Underworld.

Then they sent up a chicken hawk. It could fly much swifter, but it
too became exhausted. The swallow was sent, but he did not reach
the top of the reeds. Each bird was dispatched by a clan. And
finally the catbird was sent. He flew with such a strange jerky
motion that they never expected him to reach the top—but he did,
and went through the hole in the sky, and came to Oraibi. There he
found the Red-headed Spirit.

The bird asked the Ghost if it would permit the good people of the
Hopi in the Underworld to come and live at Oraibi. And the Spirit
was willing, so the bird returned with this message.

Most of the people were still busy with their social dances; but
the chiefs and medicine men and the good people, when they had the
news, began to climb the reeds. In this they were helped by the two
Gods of Hard Substances, who made the reeds firm. These people
managed to crawl through the hole in the sky. But those who had
given their time to frivolous things were shaken from the reeds by
the chiefs, and they dropped back into the Underworld, and the hole
in the sky was stopped up.

Search for the new home was then begun. But the head chief’s
daughter died. This delayed things. He believed that some powerful
witch had come out of the Underworld with them, so he called the
people together and made some medicine of cornmeal, saying that the
meal would fall on the witch’s head. It did fall on a girl’s head.
The chief then decided to throw this witch back into the
Underworld; but when he looked down through the hole in the sky he
saw his daughter playing there, in the old place, as a little
child; and he knew then that everyone went back to the Underworld
after death.

Now the witch told the chief that if she might live with him he
would be kept from many hardships and difficulties, and that some
day his daughter would return to him. So the witch was spared.

It was utter darkness when the Hopi arrived on the earth. They
counseled, and sought a means to create light. They cut out a round
piece of buckskin, and on it put bits of the hearts of birds and
beasts, and of all the people, and then told the buckskin to give
forth light.

But this was not powerful enough. So they took white cotton cloth,
and put the bits of their hearts on it, and set it in the East for
the Sun. Thus the Sun gave light for every living thing, and to-day
we all welcome its coming up in the East.

The head chief then called the mocking bird, and told him to give
to each group a language. The older brother’s people received the
first language, which is that of the white men.

The clans now went in different directions. The older brother of
the chief, with his people, was directed to go where the Sun rises,
and to stay there. In time of trouble he would be sent for. The
chief told him not to be baptized into any strange fraternity.

Then the clans went their several ways, each to find a country.
They would travel for a distance, and stop to raise a crop of corn,
and then go on. Sometimes they stayed at places two or three years.
And the older brother, with those who made up his company, traveled
fast to the East, and has not yet returned.

The Ghost clan finally arrived at Moencopi, and there too came the
Smoke and the Spider clans. The Bear clan reached Chimopovi. Two
brothers were chiefs of this division, and one of them settled
Oraibi, where the Ghost and other clans later joined them.

Within the Ghost clan were two groups—the Ghost clan proper, and
the Ghost-and-Bird clan. Youkeoma is of the Ghost-and-Bird clan.
They were known as the bravery clan, and acted as guards. When came
a war with the Ute, Navajo, and Apache, the Bear clan and the Ghost
clan tried to win without the aid of these brave men of the
Ghost-and-Bird clan. But they did not succeed, and had to ask their
aid. So the bravest of the warriors then put explosives in pottery,
and threw these bombs among the enemy, and scattered them. Then the
Ghost-and-Bird clan lived at Oraibi, and were taken into the sacred
fraternities, and were known as warriors.

Now the traditions say that a stronger people will come upon the
Hopi, and try to get them to adopt new ways of living. And it is in
the traditions that the Bear clan will yield to these stronger
ones.

Many years ago, when the Spaniards came from the South, they sought
to make the Hopi accept their ways. They were here four years. And
the Bear clan yielded; and the Spider clan yielded; but the
Ghost-and-Bird clan did not yield.

Then the Spanish black-robes came to live at Oraibi; and after four
years these priests of the strangers wanted to baptize the Hopi.
That caused much trouble. It was against the traditions. And the
warriors of the Ghost-and-Bird clan were unwilling to assist the
larger clans, like the Bear and Spider, because they had yielded to
the Spanish. The Ghost-and-Bird clan knew that the sea would
swallow up the land if they accepted these new teachings. Finally,
the Badger clan killed the Spanish black-robes.

Then came a great battle, between the Oraibi people on the one side
and the Spanish helped by the First and Second Mesa Hopi and also
the Navajo on the other. The Oraibans drove the enemy into Skull
Flat, named because of the heads that were piled there. And the
people of Oraibi recognized the Ghost-and-Bird clan as their
bravest men; and they lived in peace for many years.

Next came the white men—at first but a few, looking through the
country; then more; and then they brought a school. This was to
teach the Hopi children new ways—to lead them away from the
ceremonies and the traditions.

Again some of the Oraibi people yielded, and took on the new ways
taught by these white men of the Government. But the Ghost-and-Bird
clan would not yield.

And then came the soldiers of the white men. They have come many
times. Youkeoma has been a prisoner eight times, and has been taken
away to forts where there were many soldiers; but he has not
yielded. Five years ago, because of these troubles among the
people, the Ghost-and-Bird clan left Oraibi and settled here at
Hotevilla. Youkeoma looks on the Oraibans as traitors, for they
have more than once received strangers and yielded to strange
teachings.

In the end, all the enemies will combine against the Ghost-and-Bird
clan. So say the traditions. These things will come to pass.
Youkeoma cannot change it, nor can he go contrary to the
traditions. The talk of the white men is incited by witches. And
Youkeoma knows that these white men are not the true Bohanna, who
will come some day and who will know the Hopi language. These white
men are simply forerunners; they are not the Bohanna. They have
treated him kindly when a prisoner among them, but they have never
encouraged him in his way of living.

Now the way for the white men to conquer the Hopi is to cut off
Youkeoma’s head. The traditions say that the head of one of the
Oraibi chiefs will be cut off, and then the trouble will cease. But
Youkeoma cannot yield; for then the Sea would swallow up the land,
and all would perish.

Ten days of it. Priestcraft and sorcery, superstition and cruelty, differ very little among primitive peoples. The Hopi beginnings were very like our own. And in the ages past they had out-talked many enemies. The old man flattered himself that so long as the Colonel listened, he was gaining credence; and that when the officer became completely hypnotized by weariness, he would capitulate, and cry, “You win, old man! For God’s sake, give me a rest!”

Whereas Colonel Scott was awaiting a reply to a telegram forwarded through me four days after his arrival at the pueblo. He had recommended to the Secretary of the Interior that the children of the village be removed to schools, without further regard to this old fanatic and his sacred traditions. Youkeoma had confirmed my view of the situation. At the same time, Colonel Scott had written to me: “There is no use in arguing with a lunatic. If the Secretary says ‘Take the children,’ come on with your transportation and police and the troops.”

These messages were carried by riders to the nearest telegraph point. To send them by the archaic mail-route would court long delays. Hotevilla was forty-five miles from the Agency and the railroad eighty miles south of that, so a round trip required two hundred and fifty miles of riding.

On the eighth day answers were received in duplicate, repeating the original conditions. Realizing that the buck was being passed in strict accordance with our traditions, I forwarded the Colonel’s copy to him by messenger, and ordered all necessary wagons to Oraibi. The Lieutenant commanding the cavalry put his men in motion a little before midnight, to reach and surround the pueblo before dawn of the next day. Guided by Indian police, and following the shortest trails, they went directly to Hotevilla and had about it a picket-guard before the wondrous piece of White Cotton Cloth, holding the hearts of all the people, swung up out of the East.

I found Colonel Scott at an early breakfast in the little mission house, and reported to him that everything was right and ready save one.

“I am directed to read this telegram to Chief Youkeoma and, should he have brains enough to seize on its provisions, this whole affair will spell failure.”

“Well, can’t you do these things?” he asked in surprise.

“No one of them can be carried out. The placing of the children in the boarding-school at the Agency is made contingent on certain equipment being at hand for their comfort, and the Office knows perfectly that such equipment is not at hand. I informed the Office to that effect some time ago, and the Office has not corrected the situation. Then parents are to be given the privilege of selecting the school in which their children shall be placed—either at the Cañon or one of the local day-schools. The day schools are not close enough to permit attendance. The Indians know it. Should they accept the day-school proposition, it would require a troop of cavalry to get the pupils in each morning. Moreover, this whole attitude is equivalent to indulging a group of contentious savages in the belief that they are to be consulted, and that they shall have the privilege of decision.”

“What do you propose to do about it?” he asked.

“Why, sir, since it would appear that Washington has none, I would supply a bit of intelligence and read it into these orders. And there would be a result.”

“Are my orders the same as yours?”

“Exactly the same—they are in duplicate.”

“Well, I am a soldier, and I do not break orders.”

This came in a tone of utter finality, and I could see that it would be useless to advance argument.

“Very good, sir. Then I suppose you will withdraw your men. This thing will go by default.”

But the Colonel had studied old Youkeoma for ten days, and actually he disliked as much as I did the accepting of stupid instructions issued by a Department that has a long record in buck-passing. And he felt that our dilemma might be solved by permitting the obdurate Indian to hang himself on the horns of it.

“Let us have in Youkeoma,” he said; “and you propose to read the telegram to him, stating plainly that these are orders from Washington. If he does not at once accept the conditions, will you be prepared to collect the children promptly, with a squad of soldiers and your police?”

“I do not think I shall need the police, and I do not want the soldiers in the village. If you will keep the picket-guard as it is, and have a squad ready in case of trouble, I will go into the houses with two employees who know the people. I will bring out the children for medical examination. But I certainly do not propose to enter into debate with each savage as to schools, bedding, and commissary matters.”

“Will you wish to make prisoners?”

“Not unless there is positive resistance. That has been done before, and I cannot see that any good resulted. It simply indulged the ringleaders in their idea of persecution.”

“Very good. Have the old chap in.”

Youkeoma came wrathfully into the council-room. His anger was like that of a trapped animal; his eyes gleamed with hatred, and he fairly quivered with rage. All morning he had fumed, realizing that he had wasted ten days of perfectly good oratory and traditions. He squatted on the floor.

“This is your Agent,” said Colonel Scott. “He wants to shake hands with you.”

I held out my hand to him.

Youkeoma looked me over carefully, and drew his blanket around his shoulders as if he had been insulted.

“I am done with white men,” he said. “I will not shake hands with you or any other white man.”

“Here is a telegram from Washington. It must be read to you.”

The interpreter explained.

“I do not care to hear anything from Washington.”

“But I must read it to you.” And I straightway began. The interpreter translated the first sentence, the second—when the old fellow stood up. He waved his arm toward the soldiers outside, and cried angrily:—

“You have your men here; why not go ahead and do what you want? You can cut off my head. Why don’t you do it? I will have nothing more to say to you. I am through with white people.”

He stalked from the council-room, the maddest man in Arizona; and that was the last of him for many months.

“Now, Colonel, if you please, I will search the pueblo. Will you lend me your flashlight?”

“What do you want with that? It’s broad day.”

“I shall have to crawl into every corn-crib and cellar in the place, and none of them have windows.”

He directed that soldiers accompany me through the village, but at the first house I asked them not to come inside. They remained in the street. This was followed throughout the search. The two employees who had some knowledge of this population entered with me.

“There should be three children in this house,” one would say.

There were never any children in sight. The long, narrow, principal room would seem to have no doors leading from it. Racks of corn, carefully piled, and blankets and folded skins lined the walls. The employees, having assisted in such matters before, began lifting down these blankets and piled furnishings, to reveal usually a small door, and beyond this door would loom the blackness of a corn-cellar. The flashlight showed more corn racked up, melons in piles, and filled sacks; but no children. I would scramble through the little trap to make a closer investigation, recalling how Judge Hooker had walled up his brood, years before, when the Hopi of the First Mesa protested against education.

In the first of these places there was no room for hiding between the sacks, and when I moved against them I could feel the corn they held. I prepared to leave the place, and was at the opening, when I heard a sigh, as if someone had long held his breath and could hold it no longer. Back I went. No one among the melons, nor behind the racked corn. I began moving the sacks. Three were filled with corn on the cob; the fourth—my hand grasped the top of a Hopi head. It was like the jars of wine and the hidden thieves.

From the sacks we delivered the three children of that household.

When they appeared in the main room, laughing, the father caught them in his arms; and when they were taken from him, the mother proceeded to play the same trick. It was easy to break his hold on them, but not so easy to handle a woman without giving grounds for complaint as to rough usage—a charge the Hopi like to make. But those three children went into the street, notwithstanding all this hokum, and other employees took them before the physicians. There were three doctors present, the Army surgeon and two physicians of the Indian Service. Each child received a thorough examination, and only those fit and above the age of ten years were taken from the village.

I do not know how many houses there are in Hotevilla, but I crawled into every filthy nook and hole of the place, most of them blind traps, half-underground. And I discovered Hopi children in all sorts of hiding-places, and through their fright found them in various conditions of cleanliness. It was not an agreeable job; not the sort of work that a sentimentalist would care for.

In but one instance was real trouble threatened. On coming from one cellar, I found the head of the house sitting in the centre of his castle with an axe at his feet. He protested against the removal of the children, and grasped the axe as if to use it. The men with me promptly removed the implement, and threw him into a corner.

By midday the wagons had trundled away from Hotevilla with fifty-one girls and eighteen boys. Our survey of the place in July had warranted an estimate of one hundred and fifty pupils, but in the five months that had elapsed an epidemic of measles and its terrible aftermath of bronchial pneumonia had swept the town.

“Where are the others?” the interpreter asked of a villager.

“Dead,” he replied, solemnly.

So much for expediency and Departmental delay.

Of those taken, nearly all had trachoma. It was winter, and not one of those children had clothing above rags; some were nude. During the journey of forty-five miles to the Agency many ragged garments went to pieces; the blankets provided became very necessary as wrappings before the children reached their destination. It was too late to attempt the whole distance that afternoon, so the outfit went into camp at the Oraibi day-school, where a generous meal was provided, and the next day their travel was completed.

Across the great Oraibi Valley was the pueblo of Chimopovi, perched on the highest of the mesa cliffs. And this place had a suburb, dominated by one Sackaletztewa, a direct descendant of the gentleman who had founded the original Hopi settlement after their emerging from the Underworld. Sackaletztewa was as orthodox as old Youkeoma, and it was his following that had given battle to a former Agent and his Navajo police. I proposed to Colonel Scott that Chimopovi should be visited.

“Take the troop to-morrow morning, and finish it up yourself.”

So next day the same scene was enacted. It was a short job, only three children being found; but here occurred something like resistance. All the protestants congregated in the house of Sackaletztewa. When I entered, a man opened a little cupboard of the wall and produced a packet of papers. They were offered to me as documents of great value. And they were strange documents—letters from people of the country who had read in newspapers of Youkeoma’s visit to Washington, and his defiance of the Government. I suppose such persons have nothing better to do, and write letters of sympathy to the members of every Indian delegation that parades itself eastward in feathers and war-paint to present a fancied grievance. I recall the words of one of these papers, from some weak-minded woman:—

Chief Youkeoma: you are a noble man. Do not let the Government have
your children. Their schools are not the place for your Indian lads
who know only the hunt and the open spaces. Resist to the last
gasp. Die rather than submit.

Very like, she is now writing scenarios. Of course this correspondent had read Fenimore Cooper, and was filled to the neck with the storybook idea of Indians—lithe, clean, untouched by disease, and painted by romance. The Southwest has no such Indians; and Indians, whether lithe or not, are seldom clean and never romantic. She knew nothing of filth and trachoma and child-prostitution, while the Hopi had brought such things to a fine degree of perfection. And she lived in Indiana.

Now there is a wide difference between demanding the rights of Indians, rights that should be sacred under agreements,—and perhaps foreign treaties, such as those of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico,—and inciting them to warfare and rebellion when teachers and physicians are striving to recover them from ignorance and disease. There is a vast difference between the argument that a title confirmed by three sovereign Governments be not attacked for the sake of political loot—as in the case of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico—and denouncing the educational system of the United States and advising a group of benighted savages to kill in a distant and lonely desert. That writer from Indiana should have been a field matron for a little!

I have no sympathy with this type of sentimentalist. I deported some of them from the Hopi desert country when they appeared with their box of theoretical tricks.

I handed back the documents, and asked where the children were. Accompanied by my Tewa policeman, I entered a small room off the main house and found these three mentioned surrounded by relatives. The room filled up to its capacity and a harangue began. At Hotevilla we had not listened to argument, but here I thought it best to placate them, to explain things, rather more in line with the moral-suasion programme outlined from Washington. All talk led to one definite answer, growing sullenly louder and louder: “You cannot take the children.”

We had to make an end. When I proceeded to lift one from the floor, in a twinkle two lusty Indians were at my throat. The Tewa (Indian police) came to my assistance, his face expanding in a cheerful grin as he recognized the opportunity of battle, and three or four others draped themselves around his form. The sound of the struggle did not at once get outside. The Tewa began to thresh out with his arms and let his voice be heard. An employee peered inside and set up a shout. Then in plunged several very earnest fellows in uniform, and out went the protestants, scrambling, dragging, and hitting the door jambs. The Tewa followed to see that these things were properly managed, he being the local and ranking officer in such affairs. I remained behind to counsel against this attitude, but did not remain long enough, for on going outside the house I spoiled a little comedy.

Sackaletztewa, the head man, a sinewy fellow of about fifty years, when unceremoniously booted forth, had challenged the Tewa policeman to mortal combat. He declaimed that no Indian policeman could whip him. The soldiers had greeted this as the first worthy incident of a very dull campaign.

“You have on a Washington uniform and wear guns,” said Sackaletztewa, “but without them you are not a match for me. If you did not have those things, I would show you how a real Hopi fights.”

Now this Tewa always rejoiced in a chance for battle. The fact that no one at Hotevilla had been arrested had filled him with gloom. Unbuckling his belt and guns, he handed them to the nearest trooper; then he promptly shucked himself out of his uniform. Twenty or thirty of the soldiers made a ring, their rifles extended from hand to hand, and into this arena Nelson was conducting Sackaletztewa for the beating of his life. It was a pity to issue an injunction. If I had remained only five minutes longer in the house, those patient soldiers would have had something for their pains, and the grudge of the Indian police, who had suffered in esteem at Chimopovi five years earlier, would have been wiped from the slate.

Sackaletztewa was a good man physically; he had courage; but he was a Hopi, and knew nothing of striking blows with his fists. He would have relied on the ancient grapple method of combat, and the proficient art of scalp-tearing. Perhaps he would have tried to jerk Nelson’s ears off by dragging at his turquoise earrings. He would have scratched and gouged, and, if fortunate enough to get a twist in the neckerchief, would have choked his man to a finish. All this is permitted by the desert Indian rules of the game. But unless Nelson had been tied to a post, he would have accomplished none of these things; for the first rush would have carried him against a terrific right smash, accompanied by a wicked left hook. Behind these two taps would have lunged one hundred and sixty pounds of pure muscle. And a very bewildered Hopi would have spent the remainder of the day holding a damaged head, and wondering how he would manage a flint-corn diet without his teeth.

That night, blaming myself for the necessary interference, I joined Colonel Scott at the Agency.

Now you will please not strive to conjure up a harrowing scene of terrified children, removed from their parents, lonely and unconsoled. They were not babies. They were nude, and hungry, and covered with vermin, and most of them afflicted with trachoma, a very unpleasant and messy disease. Some of them had attended this Cañon school in the past, that time before their parents’ last defiance, and they knew what was in store for them—baths, good food, warm clothing, clean beds and blankets, entertainment and music, the care of kindly people. There would be no more packing of firewood and water up steep mesa-trails, and living for weeks at a time on flint corn, beans, and decaying melons. There would be meat,—not cut from hapless burros,—and excellent bread of wheat flour, gingerbread even; and toys and candy at that wonderful time the Bohannas call Christmas. There would be games for both boys and girls, and no one at this school would interfere with their innocent Indian pleasures. Their parents would visit them, and bring piki bread—and the parents very promptly availed themselves of the privilege.

So there was nothing of exile or punishment involved in this matter; and if you have any true regard for childhood and defenceless children, there will be seen a great deal of protection and happiness in it. I fancy that many of the girls—especially those who had reached that age when the maternal uncles, the ogres of the family, assign them in marriage and as the old men pleased—had been counting the days since the first news of the troop’s coming.

It was a busy time for the corps of school employees when the wagons arrived. Seventy-two children had to be recovered from the dirt and vermin that had accumulated during their long holiday. The less said about this the better; but I would have been amused to see the critics at the job of hair-cutting!

Those children spent four years at the Cañon school, and without vacations. When the school departments were closed in 1915, because certain buildings showed weaknesses and I feared their collapse, the Hotevilla children, having reached eighteen years, might decide for themselves whether or not they wished further education. With few exceptions, they elected to attend the Phœnix Indian school. They had no wish to visit Hotevilla, and very frankly told me so. To illustrate their standpoint, Youkeoma’s granddaughter, an orphan, was not of age so to elect. She feared that I would consult the old man about the matter, and she knew that he would insist upon her return to the pueblo life. So she secreted herself in one of the wagons that would carry the older pupils to the railroad, and went away without my knowledge.

I had advised against the immediate recall of the troop of soldiers, and had expected that a sergeant’s squad would remain for some months to return runaways and to preserve discipline among those who might risk the power of my army of three policemen. It was not improbable that a band of Hotevillans would come to the Cañon to demand their children, once the soldiers were withdrawn. They had staged this play before, and in 1913 certain Navajo did not hesitate to make off with pupils. But trouble on the Border called. It was then I sought the Colonel’s counsel. For a time he evaded a direct statement of his views, but I was insistent, and he said:—

“I would never permit an Indian to remove his child from the school against my orders to the contrary. They would find me sitting on the dormitory steps. Other methods of prevention you must devise for yourself.”

He concluded with the words I have quoted before: “Young man! you have an empire to control. Either rule it, or pack your trunk.”

Very early the next morning the troop departed. There was a light fall of snow, to be followed by more and more, until the stark Cañon cliffs were frozen and white in the drifts. The little campaign in the hills had closed just in time.

Twice thereafter Colonel Scott, accompanied by the cavalry, came to the Desert; once to pacify the truculent Navajo at Beautiful Mountain, after they had threatened the San Juan Agency at Shiprock, New Mexico, and once to quiet the Ute on our northern borders. But the Moqui Reservation was left entirely to my ruling. The Department read the Colonel’s report through a reducing glass, and gave me eight policemen instead of the twenty he advised. With these and a few determined employees I contrived to have peace and order within the Hopi-Navajo country—not always easily or pleasantly, but without actual war. And I did not pack the proverbial trunk until the latter part of 1919, eight years later, when ordered to take charge of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico.

XV

AN ECHO OF THE DAWN-MEN

“According to the law of the Medes and Persians.”
—Daniel, vi, 12

The sending of a small army to one’s home, and the imposing of rigid Governmental regulations, would seem to be sufficient to give any rebel pause. But not so Youkeoma. He stood faithfully by the traditions; and unfortunately for him, the traditions obstructed or became entangled with everything that a white official proposed for the best interests of his community. No doubt the old man had been amazed, and I think somewhat disappointed, when he was not sent away as a prisoner. He could have made capital of another entry in an already lengthy record as a political martyr. But he did not propose to soften in consideration of this amnesty. He very likely thought it an exhibition of the white man’s weakness, and gave his ancient oracles the credit.

Nothing was heard of him until the next early summer, when came time for the dipping of sheep on the range. The Hotevilla flocks were the poorest of all the Hopi stock, which is saying a good deal, since the Hopi is a disgraceful shepherd at any pueblo. But whatever their condition, the head man of Hotevilla did not intend to recognize the sanitary live-stock regulations issued by the peculiar Bohannas. They paid no attention to the Indian crier who announced the order, and they did not move their sheep toward the vats. It was necessary to send police, hire herders, drive the animals to the dip about twenty-five miles from their village, and return them to the sullen owners. Naturally, in such a movement, there are losses. Youkeoma came to the Agency, at the head of a delegation, to file protest against this action and to present claims for damages. He came modestly clad in one garment, a union suit, and without other indication of his rank.

During the hearing a few of the Hotevilla children came in to greet their relatives. It was a satisfied little group of clean and well-fed youngsters, having no resemblance to the filthy, trachomatous urchins we had gathered at the pueblo.

“Your people’s children are happy here,” said a clerk.

Youkeoma looked at the girls in their fresh frocks, and noticed their well-dressed hair, which had not been weeded with a Hopi broom.

“They should be dirty like the sheep,” he answered, “as dirty as I am. That is the old Hopi way.”

His claims for damage were disallowed, and for much angry disputing he spent a few days in the jail; then, very much to my surprise, he promised that he would not counsel resistance to future Governmental orders.

“I will attend to my affairs hereafter,” he agreed. “For myself, I do not promise to obey Washington; but the people may choose for themselves which way to go—with me, or with Washington.”

This was all that was asked of him, and he departed.

A year passed without incident. When the pupils were not returned in vacation time, the parents filed regular complaints. They very truthfully admitted that, were their requests granted, they had no intention of permitting the children to return, so it seemed best to deny them.

And now the other children of the village were growing up. At the time of the first gathering, only those above ten years of age were taken; and given a few years among the Hopi, without epidemic, children spring up and expand like weeds. A census was taken, not without acrid dispute and a few blows, which showed that the pueblo held about one hundred children of age to attend primary grades. So I proposed to build a complete school-plant close to their homes. This was another terrible blow to the traditions.

When selecting a site, great care was taken not to appropriate tillable land or to invade fields. The school stands on a rock-ledge. For a water-supply it was necessary to develop an old spring, one that the Hopi had long since abandoned and lost. It is the only Hopi school on the top of a mesa, and the children do not have to use dangerous trails.

The villagers watched us very suspiciously as we surveyed the lines for seven buildings, and they respected the flags marking the site-limits. But when materials and workmen arrived, and the buildings began to go up, they uttered a violent protest.

“We do not wish to see a white man’s roof from our pueblo!”

They declared that all such buildings would be burned. Guards were necessary whenever the workmen left the camp. The school was built, however, and the smaller children rounded up and into it. Two dozen men managed what had required a troop of cavalry; but do not think that we approached it in a spirit of indifference. The town held about one hundred husky men, and one never knew what might happen. Once again I had to crawl through the corn-cellars of the place.

The old Chief was not to the front, and his body-guard of elders was conspicuous by its absence. Great credit was given them for keeping their word. I flattered myself that the contentious Hopi spirit and the backbone of rebellion had cracked together. But he was simply waiting for a more propitious date, in strict accord with prophecy, perhaps. The fire in the kiva had not burned with a flame of promise; the cornmeal had not fallen in a certain sign; the auguries were not auspicious. A little later and these things must have strengthened him, for one night he appeared at the door of the field matron’s quarters, accompanied by his cohort, the whole band evidencing an angry mood.

“It is time,” he said, wrathfully. “You have been here long enough. We will not drive you away to-night, but in the morning do not let us find you here. There will be trouble, and we may have to cut off your head.”

The field matron was alarmed, but she did not leave as directed. She waited until they had gone away, and then slipped across the half-cleared desert space to the school principal’s home. He promptly saddled a horse and came into the Agency that night. There were no telephones across the Desert then. Next day he returned with definite instructions.

It is not wise to permit Indians of an isolated place to indulge themselves in temper of this kind. One bluff succeeds another, until finally a mistake in handling causes a flare-up that is not easy to control, and one is not thanked in Washington for fiascos. I have pointed out how quickly Washington moves itself to aid when there is revolt.

A capable field-matron or field-nurse is a good angel among such people. She supplements daily the work of the visiting physician, dispensing simple remedies according to his direction; she is foster-mother to the little children of the camps and to the girls who return from the schools. All social ills have her attention. She maintains a bathhouse and laundry for the village people, and a sewing-room for the women. In times of epidemic, these field matrons perform extraordinary labors, and have been like soldiers when facing contagious disease. With one other, Miss Mary Y. Rodger at the First Mesa, Miss Abbott of Hotevilla ranked as the best in the Service; and having ordered her to remain on that station, I determined that she should live at the pueblo of Hotevilla in peace, if every one of the ten-thousand sacred traditions reaching straight back to the Underworld went by the board.

It is necessary first to catch your rabbit.

Whenever wanted and diligently sought for, Youkeoma was somewhere else, and an unknown somewhere. While it was said that he and the other old men spent their time in the kivas, I had failed to find them there. Like the coyote that scents gun-oil, he smelt business from afar; and this time it was business, and I wanted him.

Summoning the Indian police, I dispatched them under two white officers to attend a Navajo dance in a distant cañon, forty miles east of the Agency. Hotevilla was directly west from the Agency and about the same distance removed. Having placed eighty miles between my police and the scene of action, I informed my office force that I intended visiting the railroad town on business. This would take me eighty miles to the south. Others of the white men were sent to work at different range points. No one suspected a Hotevilla mission. We went our several ways.

But I did not go to the railroad town. A messenger, sent from the Desert, recalled the two officers and the Indian police from the Navajo encampment and, going roundabout the trails, they joined me at the Indian Wells trading-post on the south line of the Reserve. After dark on the second night we hiked across the southern Desert, avoiding all Indian camps and settlements, to reach the Second Mesa about midnight. There we halted for a pot of coffee, and rested an hour or two. Then on again, crossing the Second Mesa in the wee sma’ hours, we avoided alarming Oraibi, that always suspicious pueblo. The rangemen were collected from their different stations. In the black, before the stars had begun to pale, we arrived at Hotevilla and, without disturbing a soul, strung out around the town.

With the first streak of red in the east, the Hopi became aware that strangers were present. A perfect bedlam of noise arose. It seemed that thousands of dogs came into vociferous action, and made the morning ring with their challenges. But no man got out of the place.

We found our slippery friend Youkeoma and his supporters. They were taken to the school and identified as those who had threatened the matron. And once again the wagons started for the Agency guardhouse. This time friend Youkeoma joined our Cañon community permanently, for I had no idea of releasing him while in charge of the post. This occurred in the summer of 1916 and he remained at the Agency until the autumn of 1919.

He did not complain. In fact he seemed quite contented in his quarters. He was not imprisoned in the sense of being locked-up, but was given the work of mess-cook for the other prisoners. This in no way offended his dignity. The more able of the men were required to work at odd jobs—the cutting of weeds, the herding of sheep, the tilling of small fields, and an occasional bit of road-mending.

Life as prisoners was not very irksome for these old men. The guardhouse was very like their home kiva. Instead of cold stone benches, they slept on good beds; for rabbit-skin quilts and sheepskins, they had good blankets; and in place of a central smoky fire there was an excellent egg-shaped stove. Aside from being clean, with walls freshly painted and floors scrubbed, it was very like their kiva indeed. No one disturbed them in it. I fancy their discussions were the same, and the ceremonies conducted according to the calendar. Certainly they occupied themselves in weaving belts and other talismanic articles.

And as prisoners they developed fully some very peculiar tastes. Required to bathe regularly, they came to like soap and water very much. I recall the first time Youkeoma found himself under a shower. He had soap and towels, things considered entirely unessential at home, and he looked for a tub and water. Suddenly the ceiling opened and the water came down from Lodore. He was scared speechless at first, and then began chattering as if this were some rare form of white man’s magic. And he liked it!

They received new clothing, sufficient for the different seasons, but they would refuse to don these garments until ordered to do so by Moungwi. A clerk would make the issue from commissary, and would succeed in getting them to pack the articles to the guardhouse. Next morning they would appear in their old rags. When a solemn Governmental pronunciamento was hurled at them, something smacking of excommunication, the traditions were satisfied, and forthwith they would array themselves.

They very diligently prepared and sowed certain fields—small patches of corn, beans, and melons, such as they used at home. They weeded and cultivated and watched the plants, until told that the harvest would be theirs to supplement the guardhouse ration of staples. They refused to work at once. It was against the traditions. They would not willingly raise a crop, to accept it as a reward from Washington. Their work must be wholly in the nature of punishment.

“So be it,” I said, washing my hands of them; and they continued working those fields faithfully, once they knew that others would possess the fruits thereof.

One by one, the men were released for good conduct, until only Youkeoma remained. I told him plainly that he would not return to foment trouble until I was relieved of authority. Often in the long, drowsy, summer afternoons I would talk with him. He would sit on my porch-floor, hugging his knees in his skinny arms, and amaze me by his observations.

“You see,” he would say, “I am doing this as much for you as for my own people. Suppose I should not protest your orders—suppose I should willingly accept the ways of the Bohannas. Immediately the Great Snake would turn over, and the Sea would rush in, and we would all be drowned. You too. I am therefore protecting you.”

He stated such things as an infallible prophet. There was no malice in the old chap, and I did not bear him any grudge for his pertinent reflections.

“Yes; I shall go home sometime. I am not unhappy here, for I am an old man, little use, and my chief work is ceremonies. But I shall go back sometime. Washington may send another Agent to replace you, or you may return to your own people, as all men do. Or you may be dismissed by the Government. Those things have happened before. White men come to the Desert, and white men leave the Desert; but the Hopi, who came up from the Underworld, remain. You have been here a long time now—seven winters—much longer than the others. And, too—you may die.”

He had many probable strings to his bow of the future. I had to admit the soundness of his remarks, but I did not relish his last sentence. There was a little too much of hope in it.