Walter Hough

“ At Wolpi, the top of the mushroom-shaped rock is a favorite seat. The crowd is hardly less interesting than the dancers. Everyone, except the white visitor, is in gala costume, Moki and Navajo vying in gaudy colors. The Moki maidens have their hair done up in great whorls of shining blackness at the sides of their heads. The women, who have brushed away the evidences of preparation for the feast to follow the dance, now appear at their best, and the children dash around, consuming unlimited slices of watermelon. ”

“ Man in his originals seems to be a thing unarmed and naked, and unable to help itself, as needing the aid of many things; therefore Prometheus makes haste to find out fire, which suppediates and yields comfort and help in a manner to all human wants and necessities; so that if the soul be the form of forms, and the hand be the instrument of instruments, fire deserves well to be called the succor of succors, or the help of helps, that infinite ways afford aid and assistance to all labors and the mechanical arts, and to the sciences themselves. ”

“ Only an instant and the priests start up, each with one or more snakes; away they dart for the trail to carry the rain-bringing messengers to their native hiding places. They dash down the mesa and reappear far out on the trails below, running like the wind with their grewsome burdens. The Antelope priests next march gravely around the plaza four times, thumping the sunken plank, and file out to their kiva. ”

“ The weird, high-pitched songs of the corn grinders, and the rumble of the mealing-stones, are familiar sounds in a Moki village. If you see a woman or maiden with face powdered with corn flour, it means that she has been busy grinding in the hopper-like mills sunken in the floor of every house,—and very hard labor it is. Most of the able-bodied men are in the fields if the time is summer, that is if no ceremony is going on—a rare contingency. Moki men are not afraid of work. ”

“ New fire is made by desperate and painful exertion, by three men seated on the ground facing each other and violently drilling the end of a stick into a hard block of wood by rolling 550 it between the hands, each one catching it in turn from the others without allowing the motion to stop until smoke, and at last a spark of fire is seen and caught in a piece of spunk, when there is great rejoicing in the crowd.” [19] The desperate exertion was not necessary, except in imitation of the Zuñi fashion of wetting the drill to create sacred fire. ”

“ Other dances of the Mokis are more pleasing, as the Kachina dances, with their mirth and music, or the Flute dance, full of color and ceremony, but the Snake dance attracts with a potent fascination. One gets so interested in the progress of the dance that the anticipated element of horror does not appear amid the rhythmic movement and tragic gestures of the dancers with here and there the sinuous undulation of a venomous rattlesnake. Along the sky-line of the houses and on every available foothold and standing place are spectators. ”

“ The bow is used by individuals in boring holes. It is presumed that its use as a fire-making tool is secondary, the cord and handles being the older. The difficulty of making fire is greatly increased when one man attempts to make it with the compound drill; at the critical moment the dust will fail to ignite; besides, there is no need of one man making fire; a thing that is for the common good will be shared by all. Hence the cord with handles, which usually requires that two men should work at the drill, is as a rule used by the Eskimo. ”

“ This is the soul of the house and the sign of its dedication; no house is without one. Around the walls and from the beams hang all sorts of quaint belongings—painted wooden dolls, bows and arrows, strings of dried herbs and mysterious bundles, likely of trappings for the dances—enough to stock a museum. In well-to-do families the blanket pole, extending across the room, is loaded with their riches in the shape of harness, sashes, blankets and various other valuables. In one corner is a fireplace with hood; sunk in the floor are the corn mills ”

“ One stick of dry wood that has a hole in it, with a smaller hole at the bottom going through, is placed between the feet. Another piece made round and about 3 feet long is made to revolve rapidly back and forth between the hands in the hole, and the fire drops through the small hole below. When new fire was wanted for the Green Corn Dance, or other purposes, three men would place themselves so that each in turn could keep the stick revolving without a stop, until fire would drop down through the hole, which was nursed with dry material into a flame. ”

“ A stroll about a Moki town will convince the explorer that there are streets full of "surprises," as we call unexpected nooks and corners in our own houses. Just what the building regulations are no one has yet divulged, but the lay of the ground has much to do with the arrangement. Wolpi is crowded upon the point of a narrow mesa, and some of the houses are perched on the edge of the precipice, their foundation walls going down many feet, the building of which is a piece of adventurous engineering. ”

“ As soon as the blaze has fairly caught, the stick and tinder are deftly turned over upon a little pile of dry twigs and leaves, got ready beforehand, and the fire is started.
This operation of getting fire is always performed by the men, and not by the squaws. The fire is invariably built in the center of the hut, upon the ground, and, is usually kept burning, for the Indians never slept regularly, but whenever they pleased, often asleep in the day time and awake nights, or vice versa, as they felt inclined. ”

“ The light side of life is uppermost in Moki-land. The disposition of the Moki is to make work a sport, necessity a pleasure and to have a laugh or joke ready in an instant. This is the home of song makers; the singing of the men at work, of the mother to her babe, of the corn grinders, of the priests in assembly chamber or in the kiva-vault, constantly ripples forth. ”

“ The Navajo fire-set looks very much like a mere makeshift. The hearth is a piece of yucca stalk and the fire-holes have but a shallow side notch. The drill is a broken arrow shaft, to which has been rudely lashed with a cotton rag a smaller piece of yucca wood (fig. 15) . This carelessness, which it is rather than lack of skill, is characteristic of the Navajos in their minor implements. They resemble the crude Apache in this. One thinks of the Navajos only with regard to their fine blanket weaving and silver working, so well presented by Dr. ”

“ At first it is dark; a thin line of smoke comes from it; gradually the fire spreads through it until it glows. In this semi-charred dust the heat is held until it increases to about 450°, or higher. Everything depends on keeping the dust in a heap; it is impossible to make fire without doing this. This is true in all kinds of wooden fire-making tools.
By examination of many specimens of aboriginal fire apparatus it is found that both the drill and lower piece, which, for convenience, shall be called the hearth, must be of dry, inflammable wood. Wood that is soft from incipient decay is chosen ”