work by promises of reward and compliments on his extraordinary
strength. The high mountains were crossed with great toil, and while
they were on the dry plains the travelers suffered for want of water.
The sun had dried up everything, and it almost seemed as if he
understood their object, for he poured down upon them his hottest rays.
Several changes of the seasons, and many moons, had come and gone before
they reached the dense forest from behind which the sun was accustomed
to rise. They managed to arrive at this big forest at night, so that the
sun should not see them, and then they screened themselves in the woods,
resting there for several days. When, at last, they felt rested and
refreshed, they began their work at nightfall, and the first thing they
did was to uncoil the rope. The little boy then took one end of it in
his teeth, and climbed up one of the trees at the extreme edge of the
woods, where he spread it out in the branches, making loops and
slip-knots here and there all over, from one tree to another, until the
rope looked like an immense net. Then the mouse, finding his services no
longer needed, left them and wandered far away.
[Illustration: THE FIELD-MOUSE CARRYING THE LITTLE PAIR ACROSS A RIVER]
As morning approached, the two children quitted the wood, everything
being in readiness, and retired to a distance to watch the result of
their work. Soon they espied a pale light gleaming behind the forest and
gradually becoming brighter and brighter. On came the sun, rolling up in
all his grandeur and fast approaching the rope, while the two little
hearts were beating quickly down below. In a moment he had reached the
network of rope, and then, before he knew it, he was entangled in its
meshes, and found himself thoroughly entrapped! What a proud moment for
our hero! He compared his own size with that of the sun, and his delight
seemed beyond bounds as he and the little girl watched the sun
struggling to free himself, getting red with fury and rage, and pouring
out his burning heat on all surrounding things. The leaves shriveled and
dropped from the trees, the branches could be seen to smoke, the grass
curled up and withered, and at last the forest began to burn as the heat
became more intense. It seemed as if all nature was on fire. The joy of
the children now turned into fear. The elk, deer, and buffalo came
rushing out of the woods. The birds circled, shrieking and crying, and
all living things seemed wild with fear.
[Illustration: THE CONSULTATION]
At last the field-mouse called the animals together for a consultation
as to what was best to be done. They held a brief council, for no time
could be lost. The elk spoke up and said that as the mouse had gone to
so much trouble to carry the rope to entrap the sun, he was the one who
ought to set him free from his entanglement. This was generally agreed
to, and, besides, the field-mouse was the largest animal, and had such
sharp and strong teeth that it would be easy for him to gnaw through any
rope.
It was getting hotter and hotter: something must be done quickly. The
sun was blazing with rage! The field-mouse finally yielded to the wishes
of his fellow-animals; and, rushing into the wood, through the terrible
heat and smoke, he gnawed the rope, but in doing so was melted down to
his present size. The sun then rapidly arose, and everything soon became
all right again.
The fact of the little man trapping the sun and causing so much mischief
proved his superiority over the other animals, and they have feared him
ever since. And, according to the Indian belief, this little man and
little woman were the father and mother of all the tribes of men.
FUN AMONG THE RED BOYS
BY JULIAN RALPH
VARIOUS as are the customs of the Indians, it is their savage, warlike
natures that we are most apt to remember. Few of us, in fact, ever think
of Indian children at all, except at the sight of a picture of them.
Little has been told or written about the boy and girl red folk, and it
would puzzle most of my readers to say what they suppose these children
of nature look like, or do to amuse themselves, or how they are brought
up. It will astonish most city people to hear that red children are very
like white children, just as a lady who was out on the plains a few
years ago was astonished to find that they had skins as smooth and soft
as any lady's--no, smoother and softer than that: as delicate and lovely
as any dear little baby's here in New York. This lady was visiting the
Blackfeet in my company, and she was so surprised, when she happened to
touch one little red boy's bare arm, that she went about pinching a
dozen chubby-faced boys and girls to make herself sure that all their
skins were like the coats of ripe peaches to the touch.
Whether the Indians really love their children, or know what genuine
love or affection is, I cannot say; but they are so proud and careful of
their little ones that it amounts to the same thing so far as the
youngsters are concerned. Boy babies are always most highly prized,
because they will grow up into warriors.
The little that is taught to Indian boys must seem to them much more
like fun than instruction. They must hear the fairy stories and the
gabble of the medicine-men or conjurers, and the tales of bloody fights
and brave and cunning deeds which make the histories of their tribes.
They learn not to take what does not belong to them unless it belongs to
an enemy. They learn not to be impudent to any one stronger and bigger
than themselves; they learn how to track animals and men, how to go
without food when there is not any, how to eat up all there is _at once_
when any food is to be had, how to ride and shoot and run and paddle,
and smoke very mild tobacco. As for the rest, they "just grow," like
Topsy, and are as emotional and fanciful and wilful as any very little
white child ever was. They never get over being so. The older they grow
to be, the older children they become, for they are all very much like
spoiled children as long as they live.
The first Indians I ever saw, outside of a show, were boys at play. They
were Onondagas, on their reservation near Syracuse, New York. They were
big boys of from sixteen to twenty years old, and the game they were
playing was "snow-snakes." The earth was covered with snow, and by
dragging a stout log through this covering they had made a narrow gutter
or trough about 500 or 700 feet long. Each youth had his snow-snake,
which is a stick about eight feet long, and shaped something like a
spear. All the snow-snakes were alike, less than an inch wide, half an
inch thick, flat on the under side, rounded on top, and with a very
slight turn upward at the point to suggest a serpent's head. The
"snakes" were all smoothed and of heavy hard wood. The game was to see
who could send his the farthest along the gutter in the snow. The young
men grasped their snakes at the very end, ran a few steps, and shot the
sticks along the trough. As one after another sped along the snow, the
serpent-like heads kept bobbing up and down over the rough surface of
the gutter precisely like so many snakes. I bought a snow-snake, but,
though I have tried again and again, I cannot get the knack of throwing
it.
[Illustration: ONONDAGA INDIAN BOYS PLAYING AT "SNOW-SNAKES"]
But I have since seen Indian boys of many tribes at play, and one time I
saw more than a hundred and fifty "let loose," as our own children are
in a country school-yard at recess. To be sure, theirs is a perpetual
recess, and they were at home among the tents of their people, the
Canada Blackfeet, on the plains, within sight of the Rocky Mountains.
The smoke-browned tepees, crowned with projecting pole-ends, and painted
with figures of animals and with gaudy patterns, were set around in a
great circle, and the children were playing in the open, grassy space in
the center. Their fathers and mothers were as wild as any Indians,
except one or two tribes, on the continent, but nothing of their savage
natures showed in these merry, lively, laughing, bright-faced little
ragamuffins. At their play they laughed and screamed and hallooed. Some
were running foot-races, some were wrestling, some were on the backs of
scampering ponies; for they are sometimes put on horseback when they are
no more than three years old. Such were their sports, for Indian boys
play games to make them sure of aim, certain of foot, quick in motion,
and supple in body, so that they can shoot and fight and ride and hunt
and run well. To be able to run fast is a necessary accomplishment for
an Indian. What they call "runners" are important men in every tribe.
They are the messenger men, and many a one among them has run a hundred
miles in a day. They cultivate running by means of foot-races. In war
they agree with the poet who sang:
"For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day";
and afterward, if they were taken prisoners, they had a chance for life,
in the old days, if they could run fast enough to escape their captors
and the spears and bullets of their pursuers.
A very popular game that attracted most of the Blackfeet boys was the
throwing of darts, or little white hand-arrows, along the grass. The
game was to see who could throw his arrow farthest in a straight line.
At times the air was full of the white missiles where the boys were
playing, and they fell like rain upon the grass.
In another part of the field were some larger boys with rude bows with
which to shoot these same darts. These boys were playing a favorite
Blackfeet game. Each one had a disk or solid wheel of sheet-iron or
lead, and the game was to see who could roll his disk the farthest,
while all the others shot at it to tip it over and bring it to a stop.
The boys made splendid shots at the swift-moving little wheels, and from
greater distances than you would imagine.
They play with arrows so frequently that it is no wonder they are good
marksmen; yet you would be surprised to see how frequently they bring
down the birds, rabbits, and gophers which abound on the plains. The
houses of these plump little drab-colored creatures are holes in the
turf, and as you ride along the plains you will see them everywhere
around, sitting up on their haunches with their tiny fore paws held idle
and limp before them, and their bead-like, bright eyes looking at you
most trustingly--until you come just so near, when pop! suddenly down
goes little Mr. Gopher in his hole. You may be sure the Indian boys find
great sport in shooting at these comical little creatures. But the boys
take a mean advantage of the fact that the restless gophers cannot stay
still in one place any great length of time. When one pops into a hole
it is only for a minute, and during that minute the Indian boy softly
and deftly arranges a snare around the hole, so that when the gopher
pops up again the snare can be jerked and the animal captured.
We gave the boys in the Blackfeet camp great sport by standing at a
distance of a hundred yards from all of them and offering a silver
quarter to whichever boy got to us first. You should have seen the
stampede that followed the signal, "Go!" Blankets were dropped,
moccasins fell off, boys stumbled and others fell atop of them, their
black locks flew in the breeze, and the air was noisy with yelling and
laughter.
These boys spin tops, but their "top-time" is the winter, when snow is
on the ground and is crusted hard. Their tops are made of lead or some
other metal, and are mere little circular plates which they cover with
red flannel and ornament with tiny knots or wisps of cord all around the
edges. These are spun with whips and look very pretty on the icy white
playgrounds. Nearly all Indian boys play ball, but not as we do, for
their only idea of the game is the girlish one of pitching and catching.
All their games are the simplest, and lack the rules which we lay down
to make our sports difficult and exciting.
The boys of the Papago tribe in the Southwest have a game which the
fellows in Harvard and Yale would form rules about, if they played it,
until it became very lively indeed. These Indian boys make dumb-bells of
woven buckskin or rawhide. They weave them tight and stiff, and then
soak them in a sort of red mud which sticks like paint. They dry them,
and then the queer toys are ready for use. To play the game they mark
off goals, one for each band or "side" of players. The object of each
side is to send its dumb-bells over to the goal of the enemy. The
dumb-bells are tossed with sticks that are thrust under them as they lie
on the ground. The perverse things will not go straight or far, and a
rod is a pretty good throw for one. The sport quickly grows exciting,
and the players are soon battling in a heap, almost as if they were
playing at foot-ball.
[Illustration: "YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE STAMPEDE THAT FOLLOWED THE
SIGNAL, 'GO!'"]
These are games that will not wear out while there are Indian boys to
play them. On the oldest reservations, where even the grandfathers of
the Indians now alive were shut up and fed by their government, the boys
still play the old games. But wherever one travels to-day, even among
the wildest tribes, a new era is seen to have begun as the result of
the Indian schools, and Indian boys are being taught things more useful
than any they ever knew before. The brightest boys in the various tribes
are selected to be sent to these schools, and it is hoped that what they
learn will make all the others anxious to imitate white men's ways.
[Illustration: COPY IN BLACK AND WHITE OF A COLOR-DRAWING BY AN INDIAN
BOY]
THE CHILDREN OF ZUNI
BY MARIA BRACE KIMBALL
"Little Indian, Sioux or Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo,
Little Turk or Japanee,
Oh, don't you wish that you were me?"
SO says the well-fed, well-dressed, well-housed little Scotchman in
Robert Louis Stevenson's rhyme. But I don't believe that the small
Indians of Zuni would care at all to change places with the little "me"
of Edinburgh or New York. In their village of mud and stone, on the
sunny plains of New Mexico, they have lived for centuries in perfect
contentment. Fine houses, green parks, and merry streets would be
nothing to them; hats and parasols, candies and ice-cream would make
them stare; and mere cleanliness would only astonish them. Indeed, if
they saw us washing our faces and brushing our hair every day, they
would probably one and all cry out in Zuni words:
"Oh, don't you wish that you were _me_?"
The little half-civilized children of Zuni so aroused our curiosity that
we drove through forty miles of sand and sage-brush, from the railroad
at Fort Wingate, to pay them a visit. As the Indians do not provide for
travelers, we took our hotel with us--tents, beds, and food--and camped
just outside their village. The village looks like a huge beehive made
of clay and stuck fast to the top of a sandy knoll. The hive is filled
with a mass of cells--three hundred single rooms, placed side by side
and piled in rows one on top of another. In each of these rooms lives a
Zuni family. There are no inside stairways leading from story to story,
but if the boys and girls living in one row wish to pay a visit to a
house above them, they must go outdoors and climb a ladder. On the slope
between the village and the Zuni River are a number of small
vegetable-gardens, each one inclosed by a mud wall. Zuni has no inns, no
shops, no saloons, not even proper streets, but only narrow alleys that
thread their way through the strange town. As we walked through the
village, all the world came out to see us. Girls and boys clustered on
the roofs or sat on the ovens,--queer little cones of mud which seem to
grow up out of the house-tops,--while fathers, mothers, and babies
peered out from dark doorways, to stare at the visitors. When we had
finished our tour of the roofs and alleys, we were hospitably invited
indoors; even there the children followed us, and as we glanced up to a
hole in the ceiling which served as a window, a girl's laughing face
filled the opening. We must have looked strange enough in our hats and
gloves and long skirts.
The Zuni child spends his early days in a cradle. But a cradle in
Zuni-land does not mean down pillows, silken coverlets, and fluffy
laces; it is only a flat board, just the length of the baby, with a hood
like a doll's buggy-top over the head. Upon this hard bed the baby is
bound like a mummy--the coverings wound round and round him until the
little fellow cannot move except to open his mouth and eyes. Sometimes
he is unrolled, and looks out into the bare whitewashed room, blinks at
the fire burning on the hearth, and fixes his eyes earnestly on the wolf
and cougar skins that serve as chairs and beds and carpets in the Zuni
home.
[Illustration: A ZUNI FAMILY ON THE MARCH]
By the time he is two or three years old, he has grown into a plump
little bronze creature, with the straightest of coarse black hair and
the biggest and roundest of black eyes. He is now out of the cradle, and
trots about the house and the village. When the weather is bad he wears
a small coarse shirt, and always a necklace of beads or turquoise.
As he grows older, he adds a pair of loose cotton trousers to his
costume, and, if anything more is needed to keep him warm, he girds on
his blanket, just as his forefathers have done in all the three hundred
years since white men first knew the Zunis. His long hair, either flying
loosely in the wind or tied back with a band of some red stuff, serves
him both as hair and as hat.
His little sister, however, has a more elaborate dress. Her mama weaves
it for her, as she does her own, in a rude loom. She makes two square
blankets of black cotton, finishes them neatly across top and bottom,
sews them together at the sides with red yarn, and the dress is ready to
try on. It always fits perfectly, as the part which forms the skirt is
simply held in place by a sash, and the waist is made by drawing two
corners of the blankets up over the left shoulder. The sash, woven in
gay colors, is also the work of Mama Zuni. A long, narrow piece of
cotton cloth is draped from the other shoulder, and swings easily about,
serving as pocket, shawl, or pinafore. In cold weather, moccasins,
leggings, and blankets are also worn. These articles, too, are made at
home. While the mother is the dressmaker and tailor, the father is the
family shoemaker. A few of the Zuni girls have dresses like those of
American girls. These clothes have come to them through the
mission-school which adjoins the village.
The Zunis have a language of their own--no very easy one for boys and
girls to learn, judging from its many-syllabled, harsh-sounding words.
They also speak a little Spanish, as does nearly everybody in New
Mexico.
The little Zunis amuse themselves with running, wrestling, jumping, and
playing at grown folks, just as civilized children do. They have their
bows and arrows, their rag-dolls,--strapped like real babies to
cradles,--and their shinny sticks and balls. The children also make
themselves useful at home. The older girls take care of their younger
brothers and sisters, and the boys tend the goats. There are large herds
of goats belonging to the village, and they must be taken every morning
to graze on the plain, and brought home at night to be shut up in the
corrals, or folds, safe from prowling wolves.
The little children often go with their mothers to draw water from the
village well, about a hundred yards from the houses. At the top of a
flight of stone steps they wait, playing about in the sand, while their
mothers go down to the spring. There the women fill the jars, then,
poising them on their heads, climb the hill and mount the ladders to
their homes. As all the water used by the village has to be brought to
it in these _ollas_ (water-jars), carried on the women's heads, it is
not surprising that the boys' clothes are grimy and the girls have
apparently never known what it is to wash their faces.
The _ollas_, which answer the purpose of family china and of
kitchen-ware, are made by the Zuni women from the clay of the
river-bank. The wet earth is shaped by hand into jars of all sorts and
sizes; the jars are then painted with gay colors, in queer patterns, and
burned. It is a pretty sight, of an evening, to see the fires of the
kilns dotted all over the terraces of the village. Each piece of pottery
is shut up inside a little wall of chips, which are set on fire; when
the chips are burned up, the article is baked and ready for use. The
Zuni mamas make not only the jars for family use, but also clay toys for
the children, curious rattles, dolls' moccasins, owls, eagles, horses,
and other childish treasures.
[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO FORT WINGATE]
The Zuni has learned that American coffee and tobacco are better than
Indian herb tea and willow bark. As he must have ready money in order to
buy such articles, he has contrived various ways of earning a few
_reales_ (Spanish for shillings). When spring comes and the snows have
melted, he collects the jars and bowls and trinkets that have been made
during the winter, ties them up in the several corners of his blanket,
and trudges off to market at Fort Wingate, forty miles away. Bows and
arrows, and canes made from a singular cactus which grows near Zuni, are
also added to the stock in trade. If the Indian is lucky enough to own a
burro, he and one of the boys mount the patient creature, while the
family, big and little, with some of the neighbors, complete the party.
Once in the garrison, the Zuni family need only walk up and down to
advertise their wares; the boys and girls help to carry the jars, while
the babies follow. The group, with its bright blankets and gay
pottery, soon attracts attention and sales begin on the sidewalks and
verandas. Little is said by the Zuni merchants, but when the bargaining
is finished, they stand silent, waiting with a hungry look for the usual
invitation to the kitchen. There, seated in a circle on the floor, they
gratefully eat and drink whatever is set before them. Their store of
words does not include "Thank you," but their faces brighten, and the
older people politely shake hands with a "Bueno, bueno, senora" ("Good,
good, madame"), while the babies munch and crumble their cake and cry
for more, just as our own white babies do. The thoughtful mamas do not
forget the miles of "home stretch" before the family, and wisely tuck
away in their blankets the last bits of cheese and crackers.
When they have looked over the fort, tasted its bread and coffee, and
sold their cargo, they cheerfully go home to their mud village and
Indian habits. Old and young, they all are children, easily pleased,
contented with things as they are, and quite certain in their own minds
that the Zuni way is the right way to live.
THE INDIAN GIRL AND HER MESSENGER-BIRD
BY GEORGE W. RANCK
ONCE upon a time, there was an Indian who lived in a big wood on the
banks of a beautiful river, and he did nothing all day long but catch
fish and hunt wild deer. Well, this Indian had two lovely little
daughters, and he named one Sunbeam, because she was so bright and
cheerful, and the other he called Starlight, because, he said, her sweet
eyes twinkled like the stars.
Sunbeam and Starlight were as gay as butterflies, and as busy as bees,
from morning till night. They ran races under the shady trees, made
bouquets of wild flowers, swung on grape-vine swings, turned berries and
acorns into beads, and dressed their glossy black hair with bright
feathers that beautiful birds had dropped. They loved each other so
much, and were so happy together, that they never knew what trouble
meant until, one day, Starlight got very sick, and before the big moon
came over the tree-tops the sweet Indian child had closed her starry
eyes in death, and rested for the last time upon her soft, little
deerskin bed. And now, for the first time, Sunbeam's heart was full of
grief. She could not play, for Starlight was gone, she knew not where;
so she took the bright feathers out of her hair, and sat down by the
river and cried and cried for Starlight to come back to her. But when
her father told her that Starlight was gone to the Spirit-land of love
and beauty, and would be happy for ever and ever, Sunbeam was comforted.
"Now," said she, "I know where darling Starlight is, and I can kiss her
and talk to her again."
Sunbeam had heard her people say that the birds were messengers from the
Spirit-land. So she hunted through the woods until she found a little
song-bird, that was too young to fly, fast asleep in its nest. She
carried it gently home, put it into a cage, and watched over it and fed
it tenderly day after day until its wings grew strong and it filled the
woods with its music. Then she carried it in her soft little hands to
Starlight's grave; and after she had loaded it with kisses and messages
of love for Starlight, she told it never to cease its sweetest song or
fold its shining wings until it had flown to the Spirit-land. She let it
go, and the glad bird, as it rose above the tall green trees, poured
forth a song more joyful than any that Sunbeam had ever heard. Higher
and higher it flew, and sweeter and sweeter grew its song, until at last
both its form and its music were lost in the floating summer clouds.