George Wharton James

“ Suddenly a loud, long, minor wail rises from the hawa in the midst of the willows, and one feels that he can see the sound ascend to the heights of these enclosing walls, striking here and there, and then rebounding to opposing walls, until the canyon is full of voices, wailing one against the other and making a spirit chorus of infinite sadness and distress. The imagination unconsciously suggests that these echoing wails are the sympathizing spirit voices of men and women—former inhabitants of this canyon of the willows—who have come to weep with those who weep for their dead loved ones. ”

“ To the checkered emblem of the rainbow she adds sweeping rays of color, typifying sunbeams; below the many-angled cloud group, she inserts random pencil lines of rain; or she softens the rigid meander, signifying lightning, with graceful interlacing, and shaded tints. Not confining herself alone to these traditional devices, she invents her own methods to introduce curious, realistic figures of common objects,—her grass brush, wooden weaving fork, a stalk of corn, a bow, an arrow, or a plume of feathers from a dancer's mask. ”

“ Each place is itself; and, for myself, I love the Painted Desert even in its waterlessness, its barrenness, and its desolation. Think of its stimulating altitude, its colors, its clear, cloudless sky, its glorious, divine stars, its delicious evening coolness, its never-disturbed solitudes, its speaking silences, its romances, its mysteries, its tragedies, its histories. These are some of the things that make the Painted Desert what it is—a region of unqualified fascination and allurement. ”

“ The industry of the women is proverbial, for seldom will one be found idle, her greatest seeming pleasure being to have her hands constantly occupied. What with carding the wool, washing, dyeing, and spinning it, preparing the dyes (after collecting them) for coloring it, and then weaving the blankets for which they are famous, going out into the mountains to collect the wild seeds and roots of which they are fond, caring for the corn, tending the sheep and goats, preparing the daily food, and many other duties that they impose upon themselves, none can say they are not models of industry. ”

“ Oh! the pathos, the woe, the untold but clearly written misery of the centuries in these cliff-built houses of the mesas, these residences that are fortresses, these steep trail-approached and precipice-protected homes. In a desert land, surrounded by relentless, wary, and vigilant foes, ever fighting a hard battle with the adverse conditions of their environment, short of water, of firewood, and with food grown in the desert-rescued lands below where at any moment the ruthless marauder might appear, there is no wonder that almost every elderly face is seamed and scarred ”

“ Is it not a land of enchantment and dreams, not a place for living men and women, Indians though they be?
It is a land of enchantment, but also of stern reality, as those who have marched, unprepared, across its waterless wastes can testify. No fabled land ever surpassed it in its wondrousness, yet a railway runs directly over it, and it is not on some far-away continent, but is close at hand; a portion, indeed, of our own United States.
In our schoolboy days we used to read of the Great American Desert. The march of civilization has marched that "desert" out of existence. ”

“ A land it is of witchcraft and sorcery, of horror and dread of ghosts and goblins, of daily propitiation of Fates and Powers and Princes of Darkness and Air at the very thought of whom withering curses and blasting injuries are sure to come.
Here dwell peoples who dance through fierce, flaming fires, lacerate themselves with cactus whips, run long wearisome races over the scorching sands of the desert, and handle deadly rattlesnakes with fearless freedom, as part of their religious worship. ”

“ Old men who are too poor to own modern weapons are often seen sitting like the proverbial and oft-pictured fox, stealthily watching for a ground squirrel, prairie-dog, or rat to come out of his hole, when the speedy and certain arrow is let fly to his undoing.
Except for a little wild meat of this kind, secured seldom, or a sheep, which is too valuable for its wool to kill on any except very special and rare occasions, the Hopis are practically vegetarians. They are not above taking what the gods send them, however, in the shape of a dead horse. ”

“ At the Thapala Dance I have seen three women almost simultaneously suddenly dart from different parts of the dance circle, and hysterically shrieking, yelling, and singing, foaming at the mouth, tearing their hair, falling down with violence, and with appalling disregard to the injury to their own bodies dash against each other, or on the great central tree trunk, which stands like a flagpole in the centre of their dance corral, yield to this uncontrollable frenzy, and remain under its influence for an hour or more. ”

“ The Havasupai is one of the most jolly, frolicsome, and light-hearted of mortals. With his stomach full he has no cares, and he goes into fun with a zest and energy that are pleasing. He is fond beyond measure of practical jokes,—when he is not the victim,—and cares very little who suffers so long as he can obtain fun. Consequently if one meets with a misfortune, especially a laughable one, he need expect little, if any, sympathy in Havasu Canyon. ”

“ To see a dozen swarthy and almost nude youths darting along in the dance plaza, or streets, or down in the valley on the sand, laughing, shouting, gesticulating, every now and then stopping for a moment, jabbering over the score, then eagerly following the motion of the thrower of the wē-la so as to be ready to strike the ma-te ́-va into it, and then, suddenly letting them fly, is a picturesque and lively sight. ”

“ As for sheep and goats, there are few places in the United States where so many were to be found as on the Navaho reservation. Every family had its flock, as every woman was a blanket weaver; and one of the prettiest sights in the whole Painted Desert Region was to come upon a flock of these gentle, domestic creatures quietly pasturing, led or driven by the owner herself, or one of her children. ”

“ The roads in the Painted Desert are long and tedious, and the horses drag their weary way over the scorching sands, the wheels of the wagon sinking in, as does also the heart of the sensitive rider who sees the efforts the poor beasts are making to obey his will. ”

“ Don't send your children to the school of the white man. If you do they will grow up with the heart of the white man, and the place of the Havasupai will know them no more. Your tribe will be broken up, and then the white man will come and take possession of your canyon home where the stream ever flows and sings to the waving of willows by their side. He will rob you of your corn-fields and of your peach orchards. ”

“ As the years went on they increased in numbers and strength. Tochopa was ever their good friend and guide. He taught them how to dance and smoke and rattle when they became sick; he gave them toholwa—the sweat-house—to cure them of all evil; he taught the women how to make pottery, baskets, and blankets woven from the dressed skins of rabbits. The men he taught how to dress buckskin, and hunt and trap all kinds of animals good for food. Thus they came almost to worship him and be ever singing his praises. This made Hokomata angry. He went away and sulked for days at a time. ”

“ Every field had its memories of slaughter, every canyon had echoed the fierce yells of attacking foes, the shrieks of the dying, or the exultant shouts of the victors, and every dwelling-place had heard the sad wailing of widows and orphans. ”

“ The student may here find in a few months what a lifetime elsewhere cannot reveal. Artistic! The artist will find it his rapture and his despair. Archæologic! Ruins everywhere, cavate, cliff, and pueblo dwellings, waiting for investigation, and, doubtless, scores as yet undiscovered. Ethnologic! Hopi, Wallapai, Havasupai, Navaho, Apache, and the rest; with mythologies as fascinating and complex as those of old Greece; with histories that lose themselves in dim legend and tradition, and that tell of feuds and wars, massacres and conflicts, that extend over centuries. ”

“ But here and there are patches of ground upon which weeds grow to a great height, plainly indicating that with cultivation and irrigation good crops could be raised. As we leave the mouth of the canyon the singular character of this plateau province is revealed. To the south the sandy desert, in lonesome desolation, stretches away as far as the eye can reach, its wearisome monotony relieved only by the close-by corn-fields of the Hopis and the peculiar buttes of the Mogollons. With the sun blazing down upon it, its forbidding barrenness is appalling. ”

“ Now and again a snake glides away toward the group of spectators, and there is a frantic dash to get away. But the gatherers never fail to stop and capture their particular reptile. As the dance continues, the gatherers have more than their hands full, so, to ease themselves, they hand over their excited and wriggling victims to the Antelope priests, who, during the whole of this part of the ceremony, remain in line, solemnly chanting. ”

“ Most people's conception of a desert is a flat, level place of nothing but sand. It is sand instead of water; a desert instead of an ocean. Few deserts conform to this conception,—none, indeed, that I know of in the boundaries of the United States. This Painted Desert Region is wonderfully diversified. There is sand, of course, but much rock, many trees, more canyons, some mountains and lava flows, extinct volcanoes, forests, and pastures. ”

“ Every face was as serious and wore as grave and earnest an expression as that of a novice about to be confirmed in her holiest vows. Arrived at the spring, an eminence just above it to the southwest was the chosen site for the preliminaries. Here an hour or more was spent in prayers, sprinkling of meal before and upon the altar, and the painting of the symbols of the clan upon the participants.
Other priests during the whole time were on their knees or in other postures of reverence, praying, singing, or chanting, and sprinkling the sacred meal on or before the altar. ”

“ Children of both sexes, their brown, swarthy bodies utterly indifferent to the piercing darts of the sun, lie down in this liquid filth, roll over, splash one another, run to and fro, and enjoy themselves hugely, even in the presence of the white visitor, until a glimpse of the dreaded camera sends them off splashing, yelling, gesticulating, and some of them crying, to the nearest shelter. ”

“ Sometimes, however, a vicious rattlesnake, resenting the rough treatment, coils ready to strike. Now watch the dexterous handling by a Hopi of a venomous creature aroused to anger. With a "dab" of meal, the snake whip is brought into play, and the tickling feathers gently touch the angry reptile. As soon as he feels them, he uncoils and seeks to escape. Now is the time! Quicker than the eye can follow, the expert "gatherer" seizes the escaping creature, and that excitement is ended, only to allow the visitor to witness a similar scene going on elsewhere with other participants. ”

“ With my horses I have camped, again and again, waterless, on its arid and inhospitable rocks and sands, and prayed for morning, only to resume our exhausting journey in the fiercely beating rays of the burning sun; longing for some pool of water, no matter how dirty, how stagnant, that our parched tongues and throats might feel the delights of swallowing something fluid. ”

“ Even as I write I catch glimpses now and then of a red-shawled girl on horseback and hear the hard strike of the horse's hoofs as he dashes along at break-neck speed along the trail near the hawa of my host. All ride astride, and are as fearless in ascending and descending the steep trails that give access and egress to their canyon home as the wildest and most expert of the Rough Riders.
One of their great sports and gala times is when visiting Indians—Navahoes, Hopis, or Wallapais—come with fleet horses and races are arranged for. ”

“ Where water, wind, storm, sand, frost, heat, atmosphere, and other agencies, unguided and uncontrolled by man, have combined to make figures more striking, more real, more picturesque, more ugly, more beautiful, and more fantastic than those of the angels, devils, saints, and sinners that crown and adorn the ancient Pagan shrines of the Orient and the more modern Christian shrines of the Occident;—a veritable Toom-pin-nu-wear-tu-weep—Land of the Standing Rocks—more gigantic, wonderful, and attractive than can be found elsewhere in the world. ”

“ It is a land of gloriously impressive mountains, crowned with the snows of blessing and bathed in a wealth of glowing colors, changing hues, and tender tints that few other countries on earth can boast. ”