I Married a Ranger Part 9

"Jim," said the Chief, "how is it that you ride and Mary walks?"

Jim's voice was reproachfully astonished that anyone could be so dense: "Mary, she no got um horse!"

The Indians gathered to see us off. I looked at the faces before me.

Even the babies seemed hopeless and helpless. It is a people looking backward down the years with no thought of the morrow.

"Can't you get them to be more hopeful or cheerful? Won't they even try to help themselves?" I asked Wattahomigie in desperation. He sadly shook his head.

"No help," he said; "plenty for today, maybe no tomorrow."

And maybe he's right. Not many more morrows for that doomed tribe.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Chapter X: WHERE THEY DANCE WITH SNAKES_[2]

A few days after our visit to Supai, Ranger Fisk dropped in.

"Going to the Snake Dance?" he asked me.

"What's a Snake Dance, and where is it?"

"Oh, it's over in the Hopi Reservation, and the crazy redskins hop around with rattlesnakes in their mouths so it'll rain."

"I don't believe _that_. I'm going over and ask Joe about it," I replied, indignant that Charlie would try to tell me anything so improbable.

I returned pretty soon from my visit to Joe, who is Chief of the Hopi Indians. He made his home with the Spencers at the Hopi House, and we were tried and true friends.

"What did he say?" Both the Chief and Ranger Fisk hurled the question at me.

"He said rattlesnakes are their brothers and they carry messages to the rain G.o.ds telling them of the need for rain in Hopi land. He didn't want to tell me much about it. White Mountain, let's go. _Please!_"

So we went. But before we started I managed to gather a little more information about the yearly ceremony that is held in the Painted Desert country. Joe told me that the Government at Washington was opposed to their Snake Dance. He told me to bear in mind that water is the very breath of life to the desert dwellers, and that while his people did not like to oppose the agents placed there by the Government they certainly intended to continue their dance.

We loaded the flivver with food and water, since we knew our welcome would be a shade warmer if we did not draw on the meager water supply in the Reservation. We dropped down to Flagstaff, and there on every street corner and in every store and hotel the Hopi Snake Dance was the main subject of conversation. It seemed that everybody was going!

We left the main road there and swung off across the desert for the Hopi villages, built high on rocky mesas overlooking the surrounding country.

It was delightful during the morning coolness, but all too soon the sun enveloped us. We met two or three Navajo men on their tough little ponies, but they were sullen and refused to answer my waves to them.

While we repaired a puncture, a tiny Navajo girl in her full calico skirt and small velvet basque drove her flock of sheep near and shyly watched us. I offered her an apple and she shied away like a timid deer. But candy was too alluring. She crept closer and closer, and then I got sorry for her and placed it on a rock and turned my back. She lost no time in grabbing the sweet and darting back to her flock.

The road was badly broken up with coulees and dry washes that a heavy rain would turn into embryo Colorados. I found myself hoping that the Snake Dance prayer for rain would not "take" until we were safely back over this road.

Evening found us encamped at the foot of the high mesa upon which was built the Hopi village where the dance would be held this year. Close beside was the water hole that furnished the population with a scant supply. It was a sullen, dripping, seeping spring that had nothing in common with our gushing, singing springs of the Southern mountains. The water was caught in a scooped-out place under the cliff, crudely walled in with stones to keep animals away. Some stray cattle, however, had pa.s.sed the barrier and perished there, for their bones protruded from the soft earth surrounding the pool. It was not an appetizing sight.

Rude steps were cut in the rocky trail leading to the pueblo dwellings above two miles away, from whence came the squaws with big ollas to carry the water. This spring was the gossiping ground for all the female members of the mesa. They met there and laughed and quarreled and slandered others just as we white women do over a bridge table.

I found myself going to sleep with my supper untasted, and leaving White Mountain to tidy up I went to bed with the sand for a mattress and the stars for a roof. Some time in the night I roused sufficiently to be glad that all stray rattlers, bull snakes, and their ilk were securely housed in the kivas being prayed over by the priests. At dawn we awakened to see half a score of naked braves dash by and lose themselves in the blue-shadowed distance. While we had breakfast I spoke of the runners.

"Yes," said the Chief, "they are going out to collect the rattlesnakes."

"Collect the rattlesnakes! Haven't they been garnered into the fold yet?"

"No, today they will be brought from the north, tomorrow from the west, next day from the south, and last from the east." He glanced at me.

"Provided, of course, that they don't show up here of their own accord.

I _have_ heard that about this time of year every snake within a radius of fifty miles starts automatically for the Snake Dance village."

"Well, _I_ shall sleep in the car tomorrow night and the next night and the next one, too."

"Where will you sleep tonight?"

"I'll not sleep. I intend to sit on top of the machine and see if any snakes do come in by themselves. Not that I'm afraid of snakes," I hastened to add; "but I'd hate to delay any pious-minded reptile conscientiously bent on reaching the scene of his religious duties."

We solved the difficulty by renting a room in one of the pueblo houses.

We followed the two-mile trail up the steep cliff to Walpi and found ourselves in a human aerie. n.o.body knows how many centuries have pa.s.sed since this tribe first made their home where we found them now. Living as they do in the very heart of a barren, arid waste, they control very little land worth taking from them and have therefore been unmolested longer than they otherwise would have been. They invite little attention from tourists except during the yearly ceremonial that we had come to witness. What _is_ this Snake Dance? The most spectacular and weird appeal to the G.o.ds of Nature that has ever been heard of!

To gain an understanding of what rain means to these Indians we had only to live in their village the few days preceding the dance. They are compelled to exist on the water from winter's melting snow and the annual summer showers, which they catch in their rude cisterns and water holes. One's admiration for this unconquerable tribe is boundless, as the magnitude of their struggle for existence is comprehended. Choosing the most inaccessible and undesirable region they could find in which to make a determined and successful stand against the Spanish and the hated friars, they have positively subjugated the desert. Its every resource is known and utilized for their benefit. Is there an underground irrigation that moistens the soil, they have searched it out and thrust their seed corn into its fertile depths. The rocks are used to build their houses; the cottonwood branches make ladders and supports for the ceilings; the clay is fashioned into priceless pottery; gra.s.ses and fiber from the yucca turn into artistic baskets under their skillful fingers. Every drop of water that escapes from the springs nourishes beans and pumpkins to be stored away for winter use. Practically every plant on the desert is useful to them, either for their own needs or as food for their goats and burros.

We knew and were known by many of the younger members of the tribe who had visited at the Grand Canyon, so we found a warm welcome and ready guides in our stroll around the village.

The Hopi Indians are friendly and pleasant. They always respond to a greeting with a flashing smile and a cheery wave of the hand. This is not the way the sullen Navajos greet strangers. We saw many of that nomad tribe walking around the Hopi village. They were just as curious as we were about this snake dance.

"Do the Navajos believe your dance will make the rain come?" I asked a young Hopi man who was chatting with the Chief.

"Oh, yes. They believe."

"Well, why don't you Hopis make them pay for their share of the rain you bring. It falls on their Reservation." That was a new thought to the Hopi and we left him staring over the desert, evidently pondering. I hope I didn't plant the seed that will lead to a desert warfare!

I watched with fascinated eyes the antics of round, brown babies playing on the three-story housetops. I expected every instant that one would come tumbling off, but n.o.body else seemed to worry about them. On one housetop an aged Hopi was weaving a woolen dress for his wife. What a strange topsy-turvy land this was--where the men do the weaving and the wives build the houses. For the women do build those houses. They are made from stone brought up from the desert far below, and then they are thickly plastered with a mixture of adobe and water. Many families live in the same pueblo, but there are no openings from one room to another.

Each house has its own entrance. There are generally three stories to each pueblo, the second one set back eight or ten feet on the roof of the first, and the third a like distance on the top of the second. This forms a terrace or balcony where many household duties are performed.

I noticed that one pueblo was completely fenced in with head and foot pieces of ornate iron beds! Evidently the Government had at some time supplied each family with a bed and they had all pa.s.sed into the hands of this enterprising landscape engineer. The houses we peeped into were bare of furniture with the exception of a Singer sewing machine. I venture to say there was one in every home up there. Many family groups were eating meals, all sitting in a circle around the food placed in dishes on the floor. It was difficult to see what they were serving, on account of the swarms of flies that settled on everything around. I saw corn on the ear, and in many places a sort of bean stew. Where there was a baby to be cared for, the oldest woman in the family sat apart and held it while the others ate. One old grandmother called my attention to the child she had on her lap. He was a big-eyed, shrunken mite, strapped flat to his board carrier. The day was broiling hot, but she motioned me to touch his feet. "Sick," she said. His tiny feet were like chunks of ice. It was a plain case of malnutrition, and what could I do to help, in the few days I was to be there?

Many of the school boys and girls from boarding-schools were home for vacation, but they knew little or nothing about the meaning of the different dances and ceremonies that were going on in a dozen underground kivas in the village. One pretty maiden with marvelous ma.s.ses of gleaming black hair volunteered to help us interview her uncle, an old Snake Priest, about his religion. We found "Uncle"

lounging in the sunshine, mending his disreputable moccasins. He was not an encouraging subject as he sat there with only a loin cloth by way of haberdashery. He welcomed us as royally, however, as if he wore a king's robes, and listened courteously while the girl explained our errand.

If there is a more difficult feat in the world than extracting information from a reluctant Indian I have never come across it. We gave up at last, and waited to see what was going to happen.

The exact date of the dance is determined by the Snake Priest, and announced from the housetops nine days before it takes place. The underground "kivas" are filled with the various secret orders, corresponding to our lodges, going through their mystic ceremonies. From the top of the ladder that extends above the kiva opening, a bunch of turkey feathers hung, notifying outsiders that lodge was in session and that no visitors would be welcome.

What candles and a cross mean to good Catholics, feathers mean to a Hopi. Flocks of turkeys are kept in the village for the purpose of making "bahos," or prayer sticks. These little pleas to spirits are found stuck all over the place. If a village is particularly blessed, they have a captive eagle anch.o.r.ed to a roof. And this bird is carefully fed and watered in order that its supply of feathers may not fail.

Days before the dance, the young men are sent out to bring in the snakes. Armed with a little sacred meal, feathers, a long forked stick, and a stout sack, they go perhaps twenty miles from the village. When a snake is located dozing in the sun, he is first sprinkled with the sacred meal. If he coils and shows fight the ever trusty feather is brought into play. He is stroked and soothed with it, and pretty soon he relaxes and starts to crawl away. Quick as a flash he is caught directly behind the head and tucked away in the sack with his other objecting brethren. Every variety of snake encountered is brought in and placed in the sacred kiva.

The legend on which they so firmly base their belief in snake magic is this: