Big Jim welcomed us gravely, asking the Chief: "Did you bring my fermit?" This permit, a paper granting Big Jim a camping location on Park grounds, having been duly delivered, Jim invited us to share his hewa, but after one look at the surroundings we voted unanimously to camp farther up the stream among the cottonwoods. We chose a level spot near the ruins of an old hewa.
While supper was being prepared an aged squaw tottered into camp and sat down. She wailed and beat her breast and finally was persuaded to tell her troubles. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in this hewa until his death a year or two before. Then the hewa was thrown open to the sky and abandoned, as is their custom. She disliked to mention his name because he might hear it in the spirit world and come back to see what was being said about him.
"Don't you want him to come back?" I asked idly, thinking to tease her. Her look of utter terror was answer enough and shamed me for my thoughtlessness. These
Indians have a most exaggerated fear of death. When one dies he and his personal belongings are taken to a wild spot and there either cremated or covered with stones. No white man has ever been permitted to enter this place of the dead. Any hour of the day or night that a white man approaches, an Indian rises
apparently from out of the earth and silently waves him away. Until a few years
ago the best horse of the dead Indian was strangled and sent into the Happy Hunting Ground with its owner, but with the passing of the older generation this custom has been abandoned.
From a powerful and prosperous tribe of thousands this nation has dwindled down to less than two hundred wretched weaklings. Driven to this canyon fastness from their former dwelling-place by more warlike tribes, they have no coherent account of their wanderings or their ancestors. About all they can tell is that they once lived in cliff dwellings; that other Indians drove them away; and that then Spaniards and grasping whites pushed them nearer and nearer the Canyon until they descended into it, seeking refuge. They are held in low esteem by all other Indian tribes and never marry outside of their own people.
Ridiculous and unreasonable tales about their savage customs have kept timid explorers at a safe distance, and thus little has been learned about them. This last fragment will pass away within a few years and all trace will be lost.
Tuberculosis claims a dozen yearly; the children are weaklings from diseased parents and the result of intermarriage, so they fall victims of comparatively harmless ailments. A few years ago an epidemic of measles swept through the tribe. Poor ignorant creatures, trying to cool the burning fever they spent hours bathing in the cold waters of the stream flowing through the village. More than
eighty died in one week from the effects, and others that lived through it are invalids. This was almost too much for their superstitious minds. They were for
fleeing from that accursed place, but the old men said: "Where can we go? We have no other place but this. Let us wait here for death." So they spent hours in
dancing and ceremonies to appease the angry gods. They have no favoring gods, only evil spirits which they must outwit or bribe with dances. The Peach Dance
which we had gone to see was for the purpose of celebrating good crops of melons, corn, and other products and to implore the mercy of harmful powers during the winter months.
After the sun was out of sight we followed Wattahomigie to the scene of the dance. There was no other light than that of the brush fires. A huge circle of howling, chanting Indians had formed a wide ring in which a dozen or more bucks and as many squaws were gathered. There seemed to be no prearranged procedure. When one of the dancers would feel so inclined, he, or she, would start a wild screeching and leaping about. This would continue until the singer ran out of breath. Occasionally a squaw would grow so enthused she would be
quite overcome with emotion and fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. No
notice would be taken except to grab her by the hair and drag her to the edge of the circle. The dance lasted until the gray dawn and was the most ghastly and weird experience I ever went through. All I can compare it to is the nightmare I used to have after too much mince pie.
Safely back at our camp with a brisk fire crackling under a pot of coffee, I began to throw off the shivering sensation, and by the time the coffee pot was empty I was ready for new adventures. Word had gone forth that I would buy all the baskets the squaws brought to me. I hoped in this way to get some first-hand information about the feminine side of affairs. Squaws and baskets and information poured in. Baskets of all sizes and shapes were brought, some good,
some bad, but I bought them all. If I hesitated a moment over one the owner put
the price down to a few cents. Just a dime or two for a whole week's work. Time
has no value to them, and the creek banks are covered with the best willows in
the world for basket-making. The basket-making art is the only talent these squaws have, while the bucks excel in tanning buckskin and other skins. These
they trade to the Navajo Indians for silver and blankets. Then they race their ponies or gamble for the ownership of the coveted blankets. How they do love to
gamble! Horses, blankets, squaws—anything and everything changes hands
under the spell of the magic cards. Even the squaws and children gamble for beads and bright-colored calico. When a few pieces of real money are at stake,
all is wild excitement. How the black eyes snap, and how taut is every nerve!
Their hewas are merely shelters of willow, and there is absolutely no privacy about anything. Yet they are neither immoral nor unmoral. The girls all marry very young. At the age of twelve or thirteen the girl is chosen by some brave,
who bargains with the father for her. A pony or its value in buckskin will buy almost any father's favorite daughter. But the girl is not forced to go with a lover whom she does not approve. The marriage ceremony is not elaborate; after all preliminaries are disposed of, the would-be bridegroom takes his blanket and moves into the hewa of the girl's people. If two or three moons pass without any quarrels between the young people, they move into a hewa of their own, and thus
it is known that they are married. Divorce is just as simple; he merely sends her back to her father. An Indian brave of the Supai tribe can have as many wives as he can buy according to the tribal law. But since there is only about one squaw to every three braves, a man is lucky to have any wife, and divorce is rare. When
two or more braves center their affections on one fair damsel, things are likely to happen. But three Indian judges solemnly sit in council and settle the question.
Their solution is usually final, although two or three disgruntled braves have journeyed to our home at El Tovar sixty miles away to appeal to White Mountain
for aid.
The valley is fertile, and all sorts of fruits and vegetables thrive. In fact the natives live on what they raise in their haphazard way. They have a rude system
of irrigation which carries water to every little garden. One other thing grows in abundance there—dogs! Such a flock of surly, mangy mongrels one would have
to travel far to find. I don't know what they live on, for I never saw one of them being fed.
"Big sing tonight," said one of the squaws squatting by our campfire.
"What is a sing, Dottie?"
"Much sing and dance. Medicine man drive away bad spirit from blind man."
Of course we were present at the "sing," although I would never have called it that. An old half-blind Indian afflicted with granulated eyelids was the victim.
The night was chilly, but he was clothed only in a look of resignation. The medicine man had a shot-filled gourd, a bunch of dried herbs, and an unlimited
capacity for howling. First of all the patient was given a "sweat bath." He was put into a little teepee made of willows closely covered with burlap. Hot rocks
were introduced and a pan of water thrown on them. More rocks and more water
went inside until the poor Indian could stand it no longer. He came forth choking and gasping with the perspiration running from him. Buckets of cold water were
then dashed over him and the medicine man got busy beating him over the head
with the bunch of herbs, keeping up an unearthly screeching. This would last
until morning, they said, but my interest flagged just about the time the priest found his second wind, and I retired.
Five beautiful waterfalls are scattered down the valley, and I was most anxious
to visit these. For some reason Wattahomigie hung back and we had trouble in persuading him to take us there. He reluctantly accompanied us when he saw we
intended to go either with him or without. His attitude was explained when we
were well along the trail; some freak of formation has made great sounding boxes of the Canyon, and these gather the noises of the water and the wind and
return them again in shrieks of demoniacal laughter, barking of dogs, and sounds of talking and singing. It is startling to say the least, and no amount of explaining would convince Wattahomigie that it is not the revel hall of departed Indian spirits. The sun is lost there at midday, and darkness settles down soon after.
