John L. Stoddard's Lectures Part 6

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ALTAR.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANCE IN THE PUEBLO.]

While, therefore, the Pueblos go to church and repeat prayers in accordance with Christian teaching, they also use the prayer-sticks of their ancestors, and still place great reliance on their dances, most of which are of a strictly religious character, and are not only dedicated to the sun, moon, rainbow, deer, elk, and sheep, but are usually performed for the specific purpose of obtaining rain.

Formerly, too, when their lives were far less peaceful than they are to-day, the Pueblos indulged in war and scalp dances; but these are now falling into disuse. The most remarkable exhibition of dancing, still in vogue, is the repulsive Snake Dance of the Moquis of Arizona, which takes place every year alternately in four villages between the 10th and the 30th of August according to the phase of the moon. The origin of this extraordinary custom is not intelligible now even to the Indians themselves, but the object in performing it is to obtain rain, and the dance, itself, is the culmination of a religious ceremonial which continues for nine days and nights. During that time only those who have been initiated into the Sacred Fraternities of the tribe may enter the _estufa_, on the floor of which weird pictures have been made with colored sand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUEBLO GIRLS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THREE SNAKE PRIESTS.]

In the tribe of Moquis there are two fraternities known as the Antelopes and the Snakes, Each has from twenty to thirty members, some of whom are boys who serve as acolytes. When the open air ceremony of the Snake Dance begins, the members of these brotherhoods appear scantily clothed, with their faces painted red and white, and with tortoise-sh.e.l.l rattles tied to their legs. The Antelope fraternity first enters the square, preceded by a venerable priest carrying two bags filled with snakes. These serpents, which have been previously washed and covered with sacred meal, are deposited by the priest in a small leaf-embowered enclosure called the _kisi_. Around this the Antelopes now march, stamping with the right foot violently, to notify the spirits of their ancestors (presumably in the lower world) that the ceremony has begun. After making the circuit of the enclosure four times, they halt, and stand in line with their backs turned toward it. Then the Snake fraternity appears, headed by its priest, and performs the same ceremony. Then they too form a line, facing the Antelopes, and all of them, for about five minutes, wave their wands and chant some unintelligible words. Suddenly one Antelope and one Snake man rush to the _kisi_, and the priest who is presiding over the serpents presents them with a snake. The Snake man immediately places the wriggling reptile in his mouth, and holds it by the centre of its body between his teeth, as he marches around the little plaza, taking high steps. Meantime the, Antelope man accompanies him, stroking the snake continually with a wand tipped with feathers. Then all the members of the two fraternities follow in couples and do the same thing. Finally, each Snake man carries at least two snakes in his mouth and several in his hands; and even little boys, five years old, dressed like the adults, also hold snakes in their hands, fearlessly. Once in a while a snake is purposely dropped, and a man whose special duty it is to prevent its escape rushes after it and catches it up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SNAKE DANCE.]

All the time that this hideous ceremony is going on, a weird chant is sung by the men and women of the tribe; and, at last, the chief priest draws on the ground a mystic circle with a line of sacred meal, and into this the men unload their snakes until the whole s.p.a.ce becomes a writhing ma.s.s of serpents. Suddenly the members rush into this throng of squirming reptiles, most of which are rattlesnakes, and each, grabbing up a handful of them, runs at full speed down the _mesa_ and sets them at liberty, to act as messengers to carry to the G.o.ds their prayers for rain. This ends the ceremony for the snakes, but not for the men; for after they have liberated the reptiles, the members of the brotherhoods return and bathe themselves in a kind of green decoction, called Frog-water. Then they drink a powerful emetic, and having lined up on the edge of the _mesa_, vomit in unison! This is to purge them from the evil effects of snake-handling; and lest it should not be sufficiently effectual, the dose is repeated. Then they sit down, and eat bread, given them by the women as a kind of communion or religious rite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFTER THE EMETIC.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHIEF SNAKE PRIEST.]

The seventy or eighty snakes used in this dance are treated from first to last with the utmost kindness and respect, especially the rattlesnakes, a dozen of which will frequently be squirming on the ground at once. It is noticeable that the Indians never pick up a rattlesnake when coiled, but always wait until it straightens itself out under the feather stroking, for it is claimed that the rattlesnake cannot strike uncoiled. At all events, when one is at its full length, the Indians not only catch it up fearlessly, but carry it with impunity in their mouths and hands. As might be supposed, however, the Moquis are said to possess an antidote against the poison of a rattlesnake, which, if a man is bitten, is given to him at once; and it is said that none of them ever dies from the effects of a snake-bite.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE THE SNAKES ARE KEPT.]

The religious element in all these ceremonies should not be lost sight of, for the life of the Pueblo Indians is permeated with religion, or superst.i.tion, to the minutest details. Thus, it is an interesting fact that vicarious atonement has been a custom among them from time immemorial, and their _cacique_ is compelled to fast and do penance in many ways for the sins of his people. In some of the villages, also, certain men and women are chosen to expiate the wrongdoings of the tribe; and for more than a century there has been in New Mexico an order of Penitents, who torture themselves by beating their bodies with sharp cactus thorns, by carrying heavy crosses for great distances, and even by actual crucifixion. The severest of these cruel rites have, finally, been suppressed by the Roman Catholic church, but it encountered great difficulty in so doing, and the last crucifixion took place in 1891.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RELICS OF CLIFF DWELLERS.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUMMIT OF A MOQUI MESA.]

Such, then, are the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona; a race uniting aboriginal Pagan rites with Christian ceremonies: cherishing at the same time their idols and their churches; using to-day their rifles, and to-morrow their bows and arrows; pounding occasionally with a hammer, but preferably with a stone; and handling American money for certain purchases, while trading beads, sh.e.l.ls, and turquoises for others. Sometimes we wonder that they have not made more progress during the centuries in which they have been a.s.sociated with Europeans; but it is hard to realize the difficulties which they have encountered in trying to comprehend our civilization, and in grasping its improvements. Even the adoption of the antique Spanish plow, the clumsy two-wheeled cart, the heavy ax and the rude saw, which are still found among them, caused them to pa.s.s at one stride from the Stone to the Iron Age, which, but for the intervention of the Spaniards, they would not naturally have reached without centuries of patient plodding. Moreover, before the arrival of the Europeans, the Aborigines of America had never seen horses, cows, sheep, or dogs, and the turkey was the only domestic animal known to them. Hence, in ancient American society there was no such thing as a pastoral stage of development; and the absence of domestic animals from the western hemisphere is a very important reason why the progress of mankind in this part of the world was not more rapid. Still it is a remarkable fact that the most ancient race, of which we have any actual knowledge on this continent, is, also, the most peaceful, self-supporting, and industrious, subsisting princ.i.p.ally on the sale of their curiously decorated pottery, and the products of their arid soil. We saw here a young man who had been educated in the Government School at Carlisle; but, like most of his race, after returning to his village he had reverted to the ways of his ancestors, disqualified by his birth and instincts of heredity from doing anything else successfully.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOQUI CART AND PLOW.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOQUI CHILDREN.]

It was late on the night succeeding our visit to acoma that we arrived at Flagstaff, and our entire party was asleep. Suddenly we were aroused by a prolonged shout and the discharge of half a dozen revolvers. Five minutes later there came a general fusillade of pistol shots, and near and distant cries were heard, in which our half-awakened faculties could distinguish only the words: "Hurry up!"

"Call the crowd!" "Down the alley!" Then a gruff voice yelled just beneath my window: "Let her go," and instantly our locomotive gave a whistle so piercing and continuous that all the occupants of our car sprang from their couches, and met in a demoralized group of multicolored pajamas in the corridor. What was it? Had the train been held up? Were we attacked? No; both the whistle and the pistol shots were merely Flagstaff's mode of giving an alarm of fire. We hastily dressed and stepped out upon the platform. A block of buildings just opposite the station was on fire, and was evidently doomed; yet Flagstaff's citizens, whose forms, relieved against the lurid glow, looked like Comanche Indians in a war dance, fought the flames with stubborn fury. The sight of a successful conflagration always thrills me, partly with horror, partly with delight. Three hundred feet away, two buildings formed an ever-increasing pyramid of golden light. We could distinguish the thin streams of water thrown by two puny engines; but, in comparison with the great tongues of fire which they strove to conquer, they appeared like silver straws. Nothing could check the mad carousal of the sparks and flames, which danced, leaped, whirled, reversed, and intertwined, like demons waltzing with a company of witches on Walpurgis Night. A few adventurous men climbed to the roofs of the adjoining structures, and thence poured buckets of water on the angry holocaust; but, for all the good they thus accomplished, they might as well have spat upon the surging, writhing fire, which flashed up in their faces like exploding bombs, whenever portions of the buildings fell. Meantime huge clouds of dense smoke, scintillant with sparks, rolled heavenward from this miniature Vesuvius; the neighboring windows, as they caught the light, sparkled like monster jewels; two telegraph poles caught fire, and cut their slender forms and outstretched arms against the jet black sky, like gibbets made of gold. How fire and water serve us, when subdued as slaves; but, oh, how terribly they scourge us, if ever for a moment they can gain the mastery! Too interested to exchange a word, we watched the struggle and awaited the result. The fury of the fire seemed like the wild attack of Indians, inflamed with frenzy and fanaticism, sure to exhaust itself at last, but for the moment riotously triumphant. Gradually, however, through want of material on which to feed itself, the fiery demon drooped its shining crest, brandished its arms with lessening vigor, and seemed to writhe convulsively, as thrust after thrust from the silver spears of its a.s.sailants reached a vital spot. Finally, after hurling one last shower of firebrands, it sank back into darkness, and its hereditary enemy rushed in to drown each lingering spark of its reduced vitality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAGSTAFF STATION.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: PACKING WOOD.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MEXICAN HOME.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR CAR AT FLAGSTAFF.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HEAVENS FROM THE OBSERVATORY, FLAGSTAFF.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWILIGHT.]

Upon a hill near Flagstaff stands an astronomical observatory from which distinguished students of the midnight skies search for the secrets of the moon and stars. Few better sites on earth could have been chosen for this purpose, since Arizona's atmosphere is so transparent that the extent of celestial scenery here disclosed is extraordinary. We visited the structure at the solemn hour that marks the hush between two days, when the last sound of one has died away, and before the first stir of the other thrills the morning air. Then, gazing through the lenses of its n.o.ble telescope, we welcomed the swift waves of light pulsating toward us from the sh.o.r.eless ocean we call s.p.a.ce. There is a mysterious beauty about the radiance of a star that far surpa.s.ses that of the moon. The latter glitters only with reflected light; but a star (that is to say a distant sun), when seen through a telescope, frequently scintillates with different colors like a diamond, and quivers like a thing of life. Moreover, the moon, forever waxing, waning, or presenting almost stupidly its great flat face, is continually changing; but the fixed star is always there. It fills the thoughtful soul with awe to look upon the starry heavens through such an instrument as that at Flagstaff. s.p.a.ce for the moment seems annihilated. We are apparently transported, as observers, from our tiny planet to the confines of our solar system, and, gazing thence still farther toward infinity, we watch with bated breath the birth, the progress, and the death of worlds. To one of the most distant objects in the depths of s.p.a.ce, known as the Ring Nebula, the author addressed the following lines:

TO THE RING NEBULA.

O, pallid spectre of the midnight skies!

Whose phantom features in the dome of Night Elude the keenest gaze of wistful eyes Till amplest lenses aid the failing sight, On heaven's blue sea the farthest isle of fire.

From thee, whose glories it would fain admire, Must vision, baffled, in despair retire!

What art thou, ghostly visitant of flame?

Wouldst thou 'neath closer scrutiny dissolve In myriad suns that constellations frame, Round which life-freighted satellites revolve, Like those unnumbered orbs which nightly creep In dim procession o'er the azure steep, As white-wing'd caravans the desert sweep?

Or, art thou still an incandescent ma.s.s, Acquiring form as hostile forces urge, Through whose vast length a million lightnings pa.s.s As to and fro its fiery billows surge, Whose glowing atoms, whirled in ceaseless strife Where now chaotic anarchy is rife.

Shall yet become the fair abodes of life?

We know not; for the faint, exhausted rays Which hither on Light's winged coursers come From fires which ages since first lit their blaze, One instant gleam, then perish, spent and dumb!

How strange the thought that, whatsoe'er we learn, Our tiny globe no answer can return, Since with but dull, reflected beams we burn!

Yet this we know; yon ring of spectral light, Whose distance thrills the soul with solemn awe, Can ne'er escape in its majestic might The firm control of omnipresent law.

This mote descending to its bounden place.

Those suns whose radiance we can scarcely trace, Alike obey the Power pervading s.p.a.ce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NIGHT.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SAN FRANCISCO VOLCANOES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: STARTING FOR THE GRAND CAnON.]

One glorious September morning, leaving our train at Flagstaff, we started in stage-coaches for a drive of sixty-five miles to the Grand Canon. I had looked forward to this drive with some misgiving, dreading the heat of the sun, and the dust and sand which I had supposed we should encounter; but to my astonishment and delight it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It was only eleven hours in duration, and not only was most of the route level, but two-thirds of it lay through a section of beautifully rolling land, diversified with open glades and thousands upon thousands of tall pines and cedars entirely free from undergrowth. It is no exaggeration to say that we drove that day for miles at a time over a road carpeted with pine needles. The truth is, Arizona, though usually considered a treeless and rainless country, possesses some remarkable exceptions; and the region near Flagstaff not only abounds in stately pines, but is at certain seasons visited by rainstorms which keep it fresh and beautiful. During our stay at the Grand Canon we had a shower every night; the atmosphere was marvelously pure, and aromatic with the odors of a million pines; and so exhilarating was exercise in the open air, that however arduous it might be, we never felt inconvenienced by fatigue, and mere existence gave us joy. Decidedly, then, it will not do to condemn the whole of Arizona because of the heat of its arid, southern plains; for the northern portion of the state is a plateau, with an elevation of from five thousand to seven thousand feet. Hence, as it is not lat.i.tude, so much as alt.i.tude, that gives us healthful, pleasing temperature, in parts of Arizona the climate is delightful during the entire year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DRIVE THROUGH THE PINES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SAN FRANCISCO MOUNTAIN.]

A portion of this stage-coach journey led us over the flank of the great San Francisco Mountain. The isolated position, striking similarity, and almost uniform alt.i.tude of its four peaks, rising nearly thirteen thousand feet above the sea, have long made them famous. Moreover, they are memorable for having cast a lurid light upon the development of this portion of our planet. Cold, calm, and harmless though they now appear, the time has been when they contained a molten ma.s.s which needed but a throb of Earth's uneasy heart to light the heavens with an angry glare, and cover the adjoining plains with floods of fire. Lava has often poured from their destructive cones, and can be traced thence over a distance of thirty miles; proving that they once served as vents for the volcanic force which the thin crust of earth was vainly striving to confine.

But their activity is apparently ended. The voices with which they formerly shouted to one another in the joy of devastation have been silenced. Conquered at last, their fires smolder now beneath a barrier too firm to yield, and their huge forms appear like funeral monuments reared to the memory of the power buried at their base.

Another fascinating sight upon this drive was that of the Painted Desert whose variously colored streaks of sand, succeeding one another to the rim of the horizon, made the vast area seem paved with bands of onyx, agate, and carnelian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LUNCH STATION.]

About the hour of noon we reached a lunch-station at which the stages, going to and from the Canon, meet and pa.s.s. The structure itself is rather primitive; but a good meal is served to tourists at this wayside halting-place, and since our appet.i.tes had been sharpened by the long ride and tonic-giving air, it seemed to us the most delicious of repasts. The princ.i.p.al object of one of the members of our party, in making the journey described in these pages, was to determine the advisability of building a railroad from Flagstaff to the Canon. Whether this will be done eventually is not, however, a matter of vital interest to travelers, since the country traversed can easily be made an almost ideal coaching-route; and with good stages, frequent relays of horses, and a well-appointed lunch-station, a journey thus accomplished would be preferable to a trip by rail.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HANCE'S CAMP.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OUR TENT AT HANCE'S CAMP.]

Night had already come when we arrived at our destination, known as Hance's Camp, near the border of the Canon. As we drove up to it, the situation seemed enchanting in its peace and beauty; for it is located in a grove of n.o.ble pines, through which the moon that night looked down in full-orbed splendor, paving the turf with inlaid ebony and silver, and laying a mantle of white velvet on the tents in which we were to sleep. Hance's log cabin serves as a kitchen and dining-room for travelers, and a few guests can even find lodging there; but, until a hotel is built, the princ.i.p.al dormitories must be the tents, which are provided with wooden floors and furnished with tables, chairs, and comfortable beds. This kind of accommodation, however, although excellent for travelers in robust health, is not sufficiently luxurious to attract many tourists. The evident necessity of the place is a commodious, well-kept inn, situated a few hundred feet to the rear of Hance's Camp, on the very edge of the Canon. If such a hotel, built on a spot commanding the incomparable view, were properly advertised and well-managed, I firmly believe that thousands of people would come here every year, on their way to or from the Pacific coast--not wishing or expecting it to be a place of fashion, but seeking it as a point where, close beside a park of pines, seven thousand feet above the level of the sea, one of the greatest marvels of the world can be enjoyed, in all the different phases it presents at morning, noon, and night, in sunshine, moonlight, and in storm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD HANCE.]