And he sat down over against the treasury, and beheld how the
multitude cast money into the treasury; and many that were rich
cast in much. And there came a poor widow, and she cast in two
mites, which make a farthing.—Mark, xii. 41, 42
I have heard it said by old-timers, and they could very nearly prove
their suspicions through comparison of customs and the dragging in of
the Bible, that the Navajo are the Jews of the Desert, a lost tribe of
Israel. And suffice it to say that the true son of David has never been
able to prosper in their country. The closest approach of these
wanderers to the Navajo has been an invasion by marriage of a certain
part of the Pueblo Indian country in New Mexico. Those who once made
the effort to penetrate the Hopi-Navajo area of the Enchanted Empire
have withdrawn, defeated and outwitted.
But if this is the advantage that the Navajo as a trader has over his
white brother, in what relation does the Hopi stand to the Navajo? I
cast about me for a simile, and find none.
The desert post-trader welcomes the Navajo when he comes on a
purchasing expedition, because the Navajo is a spender and makes for
quick sales and large profits. It is when the Navajo is trading wool
and blankets and silver junk for hard dollars that the post-trader
peels his eye to the nerve, and then hopes he will not get skinned. But
the Hopi is maddening as a buyer. It will take a Hopi longer to spend
two bits than for a Navajo to squander a month’s freight-earnings. An
astute trader once described the Hopi method to me.
“You know,” he said, as if in pain, “an Oraibi will come into my place,
hungry. You can tell he is hungry by the look of him. Hasn’t had his
breakfast. And he will have come to buy something to eat. And then he
will stand before the canned-goods shelves, if I am not watching, and
get a full meal by just looking at the labels. Yes sir! Seen it many a
time—look at a can of pears and lick his lips until satisfied, then go
out without changing a dime. Give me a Navajo every time.”
This same trader at Oraibi—Charlie was murdered by the Navajo, for all
his love of them as customers,—would praise the Hopi as bankers. He was
located ninety miles from his headquarters and several hundred of miles
from his bank. A trader must pay in cash or negotiable checks to
Indians, according to the regulations, and on that reservation they had
to do it. There was no “tin money,” no trade tokens were used. Charlie
would run short of cash.
“I can go to the door, and whistle,” he declared, “and get a thousand
dollars silver from the mesa.”
The Hopi liked him, and trusted him, and once tried to protect him.
The bank the Hopi patronizes is his sand bank, or its equivalent—a hole
in the wall of his stone house, cleverly concealed, a place under the
hearth, or a sack in his corn-cellar.
It is seldom that the Hopi make presents. Curios have a potential value
with the trading public, and the Hopi believes that the laborer is
worthy of his hire. When they think well of one, likely they will wait
until he is leaving the country and then bear what is comparatively a
priceless gift, something different in basketry or pottery from those
hackneyed forms duplicated so often for the touring invaders. Where the
Sioux will impoverish himself in feasting and gifting his friends, the
Hopi regards brotherhood on a different basis. But I have in mind to
show when the flood of his generosity was loosened.
The Great War opened, and later “Washington” was involved. War is a
lost art in the Desert, but old warriors like to think of battles. The
far-removed Indians were interested in more ways than one. The
registration of them, a silly proceeding, caused not a little panic
among the unknowing. While Agents who knew law advised that the
non-competent and non-English-speaking ward would not and could not be
drafted, this made no difference to those who drew up the schedule. It
caused more than annoyance; it caused some little apprehension in the
Desert. Said Navajo chiefs to me:—
“You want soldiers for this war of Washington’s? Very well, we will
select them, and then married men will not be taken from their
families, nor young men from helpless parents. How many do you want?”
Was not their thought a trifle wise?
But it was not to be done that way. Little blue cards had been printed,
and the Indian Agent was nominated registrar for all persons of his
jurisdiction, whites and Indians, including himself. The Navajo simply
evaded; but the Hopi lists were prepared, and so much time and paper
and little blue cards were wasted.
Some of the Hopi took an equally fantastic view of the crisis. At
Oraibi were located the Mennonite missionaries, an earnest people, but
many of them of German extraction. A Hopi delegation waited on them,
saying: “In a few days there will be war. Washington will be at war
with Germany. You are Germans. You will be our enemies then, for we are
supporting Washington. What will you do when Washington sends the order
to kill you?”
This was no doubt a very discouraging vision to have before one.
The Hopi interest in war-time methods and inventions could always be
aroused through the illustrations in the great dailies. My pictorial
sections of the New York Times were in great demand. They would pore
over them, remarking the vast number of soldiers, and would ask for
many explanations. Men were flying as birds through the air, and
carrying the war beneath the waters. They had seen locomotives and
automobiles; and they could believe in the aeroplane and the submarine,
because of white man’s magic. But at wireless they balked.
“No!” said one old Indian, emphatically. “That is too much. The
telephone—yes, I understand, for there is a wire, and the man’s words
go through that wire, inside—I see that. But now you tell me of a man
talking from here to the mesa, twenty miles, without a wire? No—excuse
me, but that is too much.”
Then came the food regulations; and food in the Desert is a limited
fare at best. The Indian menu is slim enough, and much of it in flour.
He had no use for substitutes that the trader was compelled to have him
purchase, and when his horses disdained cornmeal as fodder, the Navajo
began to be aggrieved. He had offered to help Washington with his
prowess, no mean gift, and he could not see how an empty stomach helped
campaigns.
But came the first call for Indian help that could be accepted. A
bazaar was advertised, to be held in Washington, the proceeds to
finance a hospital unit. The Indians were invited to contribute curios.
Knowing Hopi thriftiness, I did not feel that they would respond in
great measure. I sent out the call and waited. When lo! for a time the
sale of pottery to trading-posts ceased. My warehouse began to overflow
with the donations. Hopi pottery is fragile; does not ship well; and I
felt that so generous a response should have good packing for the
journey of twenty-six hundred miles to Washington. I know how much they
gave in clay products, for I personally packed the major part of it.
There was not time to ship by freight, express gave no insurance
against breakage, so it was forwarded by parcel post. There was a
trifle of silverware; a rug or two of Hopi weave; there were reed
plaques, and small baskets, and pottery,—bowls and trays and plates and
odd forms,—hundreds of pieces. A tenderly whimsical thought: the vision
of some wounded lad finding relief through an old Hopi woman’s moulding
and baking clay figures, far from the hysteria of the cities, far from
the guns and stench of war, but contributing the one thing she knew,
while humming some chant, perhaps of ancient battles.
Next came the bond sales.
Now there was a deal of press-shouting anent the millions invested by
Indians in Liberty Bonds; and the Indians did invest millions in these
securities. But an explanation throws an illuminating light on the
Bureau’s puffery. Indian Agents, having Indian moneys in their control,
bought most of those bonds. There is nothing much to shout over, or for
that matter to weep over,—as a certain Commissioner was wont to do when
his emotions slipped,—if an Agent calls in old Jimmie Crowfeet, and
says to him: “Jimmie, you have twenty thousand dollars to your account,
from the sale of your dead children’s lands, the leasing of your own
and your wife’s allotments, and the careful manner in which I have
marketed your cattle. Now you will need but two thousand dollars to
cover the next several years. I propose that you place the remainder of
your money in Government bonds at four per cent. Savvy? You help
Washington. Washington help you sometime mebbeso.”
If Jimmie did not understand all at once, it was done for him anyway.
In any case, it was done. The Bureau directed it. And that’s that. A
trifle different from the story pushed into the Sunday supplement.
But with the Hopi—the Hopi had no moneys in the hands of his Agent. The
Hopi has not had lands for sale—thank God who made the Desert! and the
Hopi has not had lands to lease, thank God who was stingy with the
water. He sells his cattle for himself, and places the results down in
that pocket which is his own.
It would have to be a selling campaign; and I had first to convince the
Hopi, rude, unlettered, and suspicious always of documents, especially
those of Government, that this green paper would prove the same as
fifty or one hundred dollars in hard silver.
He knew of the country’s need and danger. It was easy to explain that
soldiers, armies, must have guns, ammunition, clothes, blankets,
medicines, and grub. The Hopi has to have all of these himself, even on
a peace footing. For him to propose to give curios, manufactures, even
corn, his staff of life, was simple; but the Agent was asking for
money, in lots of fifty, hundreds, and other multiples, the security
being a piece of green paper that the Hopi could not read, that would
be hard to safeguard from fire or theft, and that might prove only as
good as some other promises of our slow-moving Uncle in the East, who
had often forgotten him and at least once betrayed him.
“What shall we do if hard times come, and we must have cash?”
I knew that a Hopi would never be able to grasp market conditions.
Indeed, being of “the sticks,” I had little idea myself that Government
bonds would so quickly slump in value. It was necessary to convince and
sell; and I held the confidence of these people to some degree.
“I will see to it that every man’s bond is redeemed at face value,
should he come to me in need. You will not have to wait for maturity.
These bonds will not go begging.”
And in some cases, I had it to do, regardless of the quotation. But
these instances were few, and to the credit of the Hopi be it said
that, once invested, the major part stood firm, treasuring their green
papers, the first bank-accounts that many of them had ever owned.
It was at the Second Mesa that I held my first meeting, and a whole
group of hold-tights and skeptical were swept into buying through the
example of the poorest and most despised man of that district. They
gathered at the council and asked many questions.
“But we are poor, and we have no money for bonds,” they protested.
“I am not asking you for fifty dollars to-day, or to-morrow. I am
asking you for one dollar, and the promise to pay out the balance in
installments. When you have paid the full fifty dollars, with interest,
I will deliver the bond to you.”
“How can Washington sell a fifty-dollar paper for one dollar?”
“Washington will not. But I will go to the banks at the railroad, and
borrow forty-nine dollars at interest for each man who agrees to buy a
bond. The bank will hold the bond as security until all your payments
are made, and then deliver it.”
They were dubious of that. Said one young fellow: “How can you borrow
so much money? If twenty of us sign for bonds, and pay you one dollar
each, you will have to borrow twenty times forty-nine dollars. Will the
banks lend you that much?”
“With the bonds held as security, yes. Try it out.”
On that basis I hoped to carry my district’s quota; and as a matter of
recorded fact I sold to one hundred and thirty Hopi Indians $11,600 in
bonds, and for the whole reservation, including a few Navajo and many
whites, $36,200 during the five bond-selling campaigns. I three times
held the honor-flag for that county, competing with white men’s towns,
and my last honor-flag had three stars sewn to it, showing that the
Hopi Reserve had sold three times its quota. It snapped in the breeze
very proudly at the Agency, under Old Glory.
But these first prospects of the Second Mesa were holding back. If I
failed here, there would be no use in going to other mesas. Indians are
like sheep. The individual takes his politics from the mob. There was
some suspense.
And then arose an old Hopi. His coat was ragged, and his hat battered.
He had been a captive in Mexico, and spoke Spanish better than his
native tongue. Perhaps he had drifted away in the early days, perhaps
he had been taken prisoner in a Border foray, perhaps he had been one
of those parted with at Corn Rock, quien sabe? He was a butt in the
village because of his grand manner acquired among the Spanish people,
and twice he had appealed to me for justice when the home folks were
treating him unfairly.
“Superintendente!” he spoke out, “I will buy a bond.”
There was a shout of laughter from the Indians. They knew that this
poor fellow had no fifty dollars, that he did not possess a cash
dollar. It was a joke; and Indian ridicule is cruel.
“All right, Wupa—come forward.”
“Señor Superintendente! You will sell me a bond?”
“Yes, I will sell you a bond, as quickly as any one else.”
“Upon the payment of a dollar?” he deliberated, gravely.
“That is right. You pay a dollar down, and I will give you a receipt
for it; then I will borrow the rest for you, holding the bond as
security until you have paid it out.”
He looked around at his tormentors, as if to say: “You see, this man
knows a Spanish gentleman when he meets one.” All his Indian pride,
plus all he had garnered from the Dons, was aroused. He came to the
desk, while they continued to cry him down.
“Where’s your dollar?” they asked mockingly. “You haven’t any dollar!”
And I was much afraid he had not. A fluke would not do. It would mean
losing the lot, and I knew there were many present who could afford to
buy on payments and who would make good.
The old man grinned wisely.
“I will sign the paper for a bond,” he said.
The blank was shoved forward to him. He daubed his right thumb on an
ink-pad to make his thumb-print, the signature the Government accepts
from Indians who cannot write. He pressed it down on the dotted line.
“Now where’s your dollar, old father?” jeered the crowd.
Slowly he reached into his pocket, and drew out a rusty jackknife. He
looked all around him gravely, knowing, as a Spanish-Indian knows, that
he and he only held the centre of the stage. And then, beginning at the
top, he began to cut buttons from his old coat—Navajo silver buttons,
coin of the Empire when in need. He placed them, one by one, on the
desk before me, counting: “Una—dos—tres—”
They were worth fifteen, perhaps twenty cents each, as the desert
market fluctuated. As he laid each button down, he looked at me to see
if the dollar was completed.
“That isn’t money,” said one of the crowd.
“Cinco—” he counted, looking up.
“Buena! Lo-lo-mi! Write a receipt for one dollar, and mark Wupa down as
having bought a bond.”
“Thank you, Quat-che [friend]; you are the first man to help
Washington.”
We shook hands on it, and he was proud of himself. Turning, “You see—”
he motioned to the crowd, and strutted back to his place. The others
were now silent. In a manner of speaking, their bluff had been called;
and by Wupa!
“Now who buys the second bond to help Washington?”
Those who had laughed and mocked the loudest were now quiet. They began
to sway about, hesitating, looking from one to another, and then to
come forward. In the next few minutes, twelve hundred dollars in
Liberty Bonds were sold, most of them for spot cash. The old man from
the border had “helped me out,” as the Indians say, and when the
selling was over I read them a mild lecture on making game of their
first patriot. To my astonishment, several of them then offered to help
him with a fence he was building all alone.
As I drove away, around by the Corn Rock, I heard a shouting behind me.
I pulled up, wondering what I had forgotten. It was the old man, coming
down from his house on the height, bearing a bucket of peaches, the
delicious Hopi peaches that are as a blessing of the Spanish padres. He
put them into the auto and made a bow in the Latin style, hat sweeping,
hand upon his breast.
I shall never forget old Wupa of the Second Mesa, a wanderer in strange
lands, an alien at home, who bought the first Liberty Bond with buttons
from his ragged coat.
At the First Mesa I expected more of attention, because they are the
progressives of the Hopi, albeit they have progressed through being
pushed. The First Mesa and its several settlements are but thirteen
miles from the Agency headquarters, on the direct road to anywhere in
the field, and so their people have received more of regular attention.
The missionaries have made most progress there, and the Indians are
fortunate in having had two field matrons assigned to that station. The
first, Miss Sarah E. Abbott, who later faced down the Hotevilla, had
proceeded to educate and influence them; and the second, Miss Mary Y.
Rodger, has for the past fourteen years not only influenced and
assisted them, but in large measure helped to direct them. They have
also had the benefit of the Desert’s chief water-witch, Mr. A. H.
Womack, who has his office at their mesa, and who has greatly
influenced and improved all the Indians of the Desert.
But in matters of purchase the thrifty Hopi, of whatever location, is
inclined to pursue the label-tasting method. I found myself up against
the same detailed explanations, although knowing that hundreds, perhaps
thousands of dollars should be garnered there. Once again a patriotic
Hopi came to my rescue. This was Tom Pavatea, the full-blood Hopi
merchant. Tom is one of those few Indians who have succeeded without
the handicap of an education. Being a sensible man, he of course
deplores the fact that he decamped as a child from the first school,
and that a busy principal forgot him. Tom conducts an excellent store,
carrying goods of standard quality, and his prices are not calculated
on the altitude scale. Perhaps three-quarters of the Hopi trade in
pottery is dispatched through his hands. He is fairly rich in livestock
on the range, and has saved his money. Finance, however, troubles him
at times, and I hope the last Western bank-crash has not caused him to
suspect white men’s accounting. Years ago he could not fathom the
mystery of interest.
“Please explain,” said Tom, quite perplexed, “Why should that bank pay
me something for keeping my money? They have a strong steel box, and I
get the service, and I should pay them for keeping my money safe.”
Therefore I hope that he will never be deceived; because, on its being
explained to him, he did not seem altogether easy in his mind. He had
been rather of the opinion that his actual money always reposed in the
vaults he had seen in the cities.
As to Liberty Bonds for the winning of the war, Tom had been solicited
by an employee prior to my arrival.
“I’ll match you buying bonds, when the boss comes.”
“Match me?” inquired Tom, not grasping the idea.
“Yes—every dollar you spend, I’ll match you.”
“Dollar for dollar,” said Tom, “one dollar, me; one dollar, you?”
“That’s the game.”
“Well,” said Tommie, who always played as safely as he could, “I don’t
know these games; but you get your check-book ready.”
He patiently waited through my talk to the curious but not over eager
crowd, and then he came forward.
“This man, Leaming,” he announced, indicating the employee,—a gentleman
who has nominated himself in a number of campaigns for the mayoralty of
Polacca, and invariably lost to the water-witch,—“this man wants to
match me in buying bonds. I don’t know about that. I haven’t any cash
to spare to-day,—but will you take him?” The “him” was a piece of
paper. “If you take him, all right with me.”
“Is Mr. Leaming to cover this purchase?” I asked.
“He tell me so. I buy—he matches me.”
“That’s my proposal,” said Mr. Leaming, repressing a strong desire to
view the figures on the slip.
“But, Tommie, this certificate of deposit will not mature for thirty
days. Withdrawal at this time may cost you six months’ interest,
although I think I can arrange it that you will lose no interest. And
another point—I am anxious to sell bonds, but this certificate bears
interest at four and one-half per cent, and your bond will pay only
four per cent. You may lose six months’ interest, and you will surely
lose one-half of one per cent interest each year.”
“I know all that, lo-lo-mi,” he answered; “Washington has a war, and
needs the money. But you see that he covers it.”
“Lo-lo-mi,” I agreed heartily; “Mr. Leaming will please write his check
for one thousand dollars, while Tommie endorses this certificate of
deposit.”
Two thousand in the first sale. It started them. The closest financial
shark of all the Indians present hurried to his sand-bank and came back
with four hundred dollars. And Leaming grinned a golden grin of relief
when he produced his thousand to match the first sale.
“Tommie had me worried,” the genial principal admitted. “I could meet
him for several thousands, but Tom might have sold his herd of cattle,
and I should have lost caste throughout the whole district.”
Another evidence of Hopi thrift and credit is to be found in the
“reimbursable” records. About 1914 the Government instituted a plan of
loaning money to Indians, through their Agents, for the purchase of
livestock, implements, seed, building-materials, and so on. I was not
impressed with this plan, and to-day the Washington Office would like
to have some one advise how to collect its outstanding reimbursables.
The worthy charity provided many Indians with money without interest,
and with practically no security assuring repayment. As an instance of
this, the Mohave Indians found themselves embarrassed by these gifts,
and in 1922 owed more than $34,000, they having had about forty
thousand crowded on to them by a former superintendent. They had been
crushed by debt for years. At least eighty-five per cent of the Mohave
reimbursable was outstanding and delinquent, and with the best of
fortune at least twenty per cent of it a total loss.
The always cautious Hopi approached this experiment gingerly. He is
suspicious of Greeks bearing gifts. When he promises to pay, he expects
to pay; and too, I did not rush forth, laden with money and generosity,
to crowd them into debt. Between 1914 and 1915, my scruples having been
argued away by a squad of non-visioning clerks who now wish that they
had possessed a little less enthusiasm, I did advance $10,627 to the
Hopi Indians. This money was placed in wagons, harness, and livestock.
Within four years they had repaid seventy-five per cent of the advance,
and of the remainder it was estimated that not more than $300 would be
lost.
So the frontier work went on. We were building schools, quarters, and a
hospital; fighting dirt, disease, and superstition; improving
livestock, and selling it, and washing wool; experimenting with trees
and plants; hawking bonds, and lending money, and holding court;
checking traders’ prices and guaranteeing Navajo blankets; policing
Snake Dances, trapping bootleggers, and offending tourists; meantime
struggling with the summer floods, and the mud and quicksands
afterward, and the winter drifts. When the roads were destroyed, we
somehow rebuilt them—and then prepared to rebuild them again.
The Desert was a busy place. And when daylight failed, I reported it
all to an unappreciative, often snarling Bureau, twenty-six hundred
miles away, that understood little and corrected less, while it asked
senseless questions that must be answered, made foolish decisions, and
prepared for the field as many handicaps as distant ignorance and lack
of sympathy could contrive.
There were compensations, however. Drives along the mesa ledges and
across the wide vacant valleys gave time for planning; and each
excursion was an adventure. At five miles the hour a sturdy team does
not demand the alertness that an auto compels at twenty. Traffic did
not bother one. Only an occasional flock of sheep, a straying pony, or
a somnolent freight-team blocked the road. The drowsy hours of midday,
filled with the humming noises of the Desert, blessed by sunshine and
the wondrous panorama of the Empire, could make up for many frontier
irritations.
Sometimes one caught vistas into forgotten ages. Far away across the
lower plain, as at the edge of a greenish sea, lifted those strange
shapes, the Moqui Buttes. I had seen them frozen in a pallid sky; again
half lost in the fog and swirls of dust-storms; and again as drifting
mounds, with the one farthest west like a flat-headed Sphinx, touching
the clouds; and always they had been somnolent headlands, half
obscured. But one November day the sun burnt winter gold, and magic
touched the Desert. It stretched a placid sea along their coast line of
Parrish blue, that richest color of the fairies; and the many peaks
were flat against a golden screen. Some lonely galley, heeling under
old sails, was all it lacked; and I paused on the mesa-ledge to catch
the sound of surf on enchanted beaches. The Coast of Romance! It would
have ensnared that wanderer of the Greeks:—
My purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die;
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.
There they were, dreaming, awaiting a belated argosy of the years: the
farthest Happy Isles, where—who knows?—in the days of the great waters,
when the Desert floors were covered, some wily Ulysses may have landed
and heard the songs of Circe.