the scene of the dance, were lying in a hogan built of cottonwood branches.
Outside, standing closely packed together, were the Navajo bucks and the medicine men. When an Indian is sick he goes to the doctor instead of sending
for the doctor to visit him. And then invitations are sent out all over the Reservation for the singers to come and assist in the cure. The Navajos had responded loyally on this occasion and were grouped according to location. One
group would sing the weird minor wail for half an hour and then another bunch
would break in for a few minutes, only to have still a third delegation snatch the song away from them. So closely did they keep time and so smoothly did one bunch take up where another left off that we, standing less than twenty feet away, could not tell which group was singing except when the Tuba City crowd
took up the plaint. Their number was so small that they couldn't get out much noise. The Indians had discarded their civilized garb for the occasion and were
clad mostly in atmosphere helped out with a gee-string of calico. Some had streaks of white and black paint on them. I fell to dreaming of what it would have meant to be captured by such demons only a few years ago, and it wasn't
long until I lost interest in that scene. I was ready to retreat. We watched the medicine men thump and bang the invalids with bunches of herbs and prayer sticks a few minutes longer; then with Smolley as our guide we wandered over
to the Squaw Dance beside another bonfire, located at a decorous distance from
the improvised hospital hogan.
The leading squaw, with a big bunch of feathers fastened to a stick, advanced to the fire and made a few impressive gestures. She was garbed in the wide, gathered calico skirt, the velvet basque trimmed with silver buttons, and the high brown moccasins so dear to feminine Navajos. The orchestra was vocal, the bucks again furnishing the music. After circling around the spectators a few times the squaw decided on the man she wanted and with one hand took a firm
grasp of his shirt just above the belt. Then she galloped backward around him while he was dragged helplessly about with her, looking as sheepish as the mutton simmering in the kettle. Other squaws picked partners and soon there were numerous couples doing the silly prance. Silly it looked to us, but I thought of a few of our civilized dances and immediately reversed my opinion.
The squaws occasionally prowled around among the spectators, keeping in the shadows and seeking white men for partners. These, mostly cowboys and
trading-post managers, were wary, and only one was caught napping. It cost him
all the loose silver he had in his pocket to get rid of the tiny fat squaw that had captured him.
We were told that dances and races would continue for several days, and so, firmly bidding good night to Smolley, we went back to camp and fell asleep with
the faint hubbub coming to us now and then.
Almost before the Chief had breakfast started the next morning Smolley stepped
into the scene and took a prominent seat near the steaming coffeepot. "You arrive early," I remarked. "Now how could you know that breakfast was so near ready?" This last a trifle sarcastically, I fear. "Huh, me, I sleep here," pointing to the side of a rock not ten feet from my own downy bed. That settled me for keeps. I subsided and just gazed with a fatal hypnotism at the flapjacks disappearing down his ample gullet. It was fatal, for while I was spellbound the last one disappeared and I had to make myself some more or go without breakfast. When Smolley had stilled the first fierce pangs of starvation he pulled a pair of moccasins out of the front of his dirty shirt and tossed them to me. (The gesture had somewhat the appearance of tossing a bone to an angry dog.) Anyway the dog was appeased. The moccasins had stiff rawhide soles exactly
shaped to fit my foot, and the uppers were soft brown buckskin beautifully tanned. They reached well above the ankles and fastened on the side with three
fancy silver buttons made by a native silversmith. A tiny turquoise was set in the top of each button. I marveled at the way they fitted, until the Chief admitted that he had given Smolley one of my boudoir slippers for a sample. Eventually
the other slipper went to a boot manufacturer and I became the possessor of real hand-made cowboy boots.
Breakfast disposed of, we mounted and went in search of a rug factory, that being the initial excuse for the journey. A mile or two away we found one in operation. The loom consisted of two small cottonwood trees with cross-beams
lashed to them, one at the top and the other at the bottom. A warp frame with four lighter sticks forming a square was fastened within the larger frame. The warp was drawn tight, with the threads crossed halfway to the top. Different-colored yarns were wound on a short stick, and with nimble fingers a squaw wove the pattern. There was no visible pattern for her to follow. She had that all mapped out in her brain, and followed it instinctively. I asked her to describe the way the rug would look when finished, and she said, "No can tell. Me know here," tapping her forehead. I liked the way the weaving was begun, and so I squatted there in the sunshine for two hours trying to get her to talk. Finally I gave her ten dollars for the rug when it should be finished and little by little she began to tell me the things I wanted to know. We made no real progress in our
conversation until I learned that she had been a student at Sherman Indian Institute for eight years. When she found that I knew the school well and some
of the teachers, a look of discontent and unhappiness came over her face. She said that she had been very, very happy at Sherman. With a wave of her slender
brown hand she said: "Look at this!" Her eyes rested with distaste on the flock of sheep grazing near, turned to the mud-daubed hogan behind us, and swept on across the cactus-studded desert. "They teach us to sleep in soft, white beds and to bathe in tile bathtubs. We eat white cooking. We cook on electric stoves. We
are white for years, and then they send us back to this! We sleep on the earth, we cook with sheep-dung fires; we have not water even for drinking. We hate our own people, we hate our children when they come!" I was so startled at the outburst. Her English was faultless. I had enough sense to keep still, and she went on more quietly: "When I left Sherman I hoped to marry a boy there who was learning the printer's trade. Then we could have lived as your people do. My father sold me for ten ponies and forty sheep. I am a squaw now. I live as squaws did hundreds of years ago. And so I try to be just a squaw. I hope to die soon."
And there it was, just as she said. Turned into a white girl for eight years, given a
long glimpse of the Promised Land, then pushed back into slavery. We saw lots of that. It seemed as though the ones that were born and lived and died without
leaving the reservation were much happier.
"What is your name?" I asked after we had been silent while her swift, nervous fingers wove a red figure into a white background. "I'm Mollie, Smolley's daughter." So the greedy old dog had sold his own child. That is the usual thing, Mollie said. Girls are sold to the highest bidder, but fortunately there is a saving clause. In case the girl dislikes her husband too much she makes him so miserable he takes her back to her father and they are divorced instantly. The father keeps the wedding gifts and sells her again for more sheep and horses.
The flocks really belong to the women, but I can't see what good they do them.
The women tend them and shear them and even nurse them. They wash and dye
and card and weave the wool into rugs, and then their lordly masters take the rugs and sell them. A part of the money is gambled away on pony races or else
beaten into silver jewelry to be turned into more money. A certain number of rugs are turned in to the trading-post for groceries, calico, and velvet. Navajos never set a table or serve a meal. They cook any time there is anything to cook, and then when the grub is done, eat it out of the pot with their fingers. They have no idea of saving anything for the next meal. They gorge like dogs, and then starve perhaps for days afterward.
Mollie had two children, a slim, brown lad perhaps ten years old, who was watching the sheep near by, and a tiny maid of three, sitting silently by her mother. The boy seemed to have inherited some of his mother's rebellion and discontent, but it appeared on his small face as wistfulness. He was very shy, and when I offered him a silver coin he made no move to take it. I closed his fingers around it, and he ran to his mother with the treasure. As he passed me going back to his sheep, he raised his great, sad black eyes and for a second his white teeth flashed in a friendly grin.
The men folks had wandered on to the races a mile away, and Mollie, the babe,
and I followed. There was no business of closing up house when we left. She just put the bright wool out of the reach of pack rats and we were ready. I admired her forethought, for only the night before I had lost a cake of soap, one garter, and most of my hairpins. Of course the rat was honest, for he had left a dried cactus leaf, a pine cone, and various assorted sticks and straws in place of what he took. That's why this particularly vexing rodent is called a "trade rat." I used to hear that it takes two to make a bargain. That knowledge has not penetrated into pack-ratdom.
A few Hopi and Supai Indians were darting around on show ponies, spotted and striped "Paints," as they call them. A Navajo lad came tearing down upon us, riding a most beautiful sorrel mare. It seemed that he would ride us down; but I never did run from an Indian, so I stood my ground. With a blood-chilling war
