THE INDIAN AS A WALKER, RIDER, AND CLIMBER
As a part of his out-of-door life the Indian is a great walker and
runner, having horses he is a great rider, and living in a mountainous
or canyon region he is a great climber. The Indian walks through
necessity, and also through delight and joy. He knows to the full “the
joy of mere living.” A few miles’ walk, more or less, is nothing to
him, and he does it so easily that one can see he enjoys it. In one of
my books[1] I tell the story of the running powers of the Hopi Indians
of northern Arizona. It is worth quoting here:
[1] The Indians of the Painted Desert Region. Little, Brown & Co.,
Boston, illustrated, $2.00 net, 20c postage.
“It is no uncommon thing for an Oraibi or Mashonganavi to run from his
home to Moenkopi, a distance of forty miles, over the hot blazing sands
of a real American Sahara, there hoe his corn-field, and return to his
home, within twenty-four hours. I once photographed, the morning after
his return, an old man who had made this eighty-mile run, and he showed
not the slightest trace of fatigue.
“For a dollar I have several times engaged a young man to take a
message from Oraibi to Keam’s Canyon, a distance of seventy-two miles,
and he has run on foot the whole distance, delivered his message, and
brought me an answer within thirty-six hours.
“One Oraibi, Ku-wa-wen-ti-wa, ran from Oraibi to Moenkopi, thence to
Walpi, and back to Oraibi, a distance of over ninety miles, in one day.”
I doubt not that most of my readers suppose that these experiences are
rare and unusual, and come after special training. Not at all! They are
regular occurrences, made without any thought that the white man was
either watching or recording. When asked for the facts, the Indians
gave them as simply and as unconcernedly as we might tell of a friend
met or a dinner eaten. And it is not with one tribe alone. I have found
the same endurance with Yumas, Pimas, Apaches, Navahos, Havasupais,
Wallapais, Chemehuevis, Utes, Paiutis, and Mohaves. Indeed, on the
trackless wastes of the Colorado desert the Mohaves and Yumas perhaps
show a greater endurance than any people I have ever seen.
As a horseback-rider the Indian can teach many things to the white
race. Among the Navahos and Hopis, the Havasupais and Wallapais,
the Pimas and Apaches, most of the children are taught to ride at
an early age. They can catch, bridle, and saddle their own horses
while they are still “little tots,” and the way they ride is almost
a marvel. There need be no wonder at this, for their mothers are as
used to horseback-riding as they are. Many an Indian child has come
near to being born on horseback. They ride up and down trails, over
the plains and up the mountains. They go with their parents gathering
the seeds and pinion nuts, and are also taught to handle their horses
in the chase. They study “horse-nature,” and early become expert
horse-breakers. While their animals are broncos and wild, and therefore
are never as well “broken” as are ours, they compel them to every duty,
and ride them fearlessly and constantly.
The girls and women, too, ride almost as much as the boys and men, and
_always astride_. If anything were needed to demonstrate to an Indian
woman the inferiority of a white woman it would be that she sits on a
side-saddle. The utter unnaturalness and folly of such a posture is so
incomprehensible to the Indian mind that she “throws up her hands,”
figuratively speaking, and gives up the problem of solving the peculiar
mentality of her white sister. And I don’t wonder! Thank God the day
is passing when women are ashamed of having legs, or of placing one of
them on one side and the other on the other side of a horse. Common
sense and comfort will ultimately prevail, and place the most modest,
refined, cultured, and womenly women upon the backs of their horses
cavalier fashion, dressed in trousers. The idea that men should dictate
to women what they should do to be womanly is so absurd as to make even
fools laugh. What does a man know as to what is womanly? Women alone
can determine that question, just as men alone must determine what is
manly. So I am satisfied that I shall live to see womenly women--the
best the world has--reasonably _natural_ in their dress on horseback,
and riding as the Creator evidently intended them to do.
If girls as well as boys of the white race were to ride horseback more,
much disease would flee away. Liver and stomach troubles are shaken
out of existence on horseback; the blue devils and constipation are
almost an impossibility, and the exhilaration of the swift motion and
the vivifying influence of the deeper breathing, the shaking up of the
muscles and nerves, the quickening effect of the accelerated heart
action, and the readier circulation of well-oxygenated blood make the
whole body a-tingle with a newness of life that is glorious. If I were
well to do and had a score of children their chief education should be
out of doors, and rain or shine, storm or calm, snow or sleet, winter
or summer, boys and girls alike should ride horseback ten to twenty
miles or more each day.
[Illustration: A ZUNI INDIAN WITH A JAR OF WATER UPON HER HEAD.]
Nor should this do away with daily walking. Walking is a fine offset
to riding. One needs to walk a good deal to enjoy riding a good deal.
One is a necessary complement to the other. One exercise uses muscles
that are little called upon by the other. So I would make good walkers,
in all weathers, of all boys, girls, men, and women of the white race,
even as are those of the Indian race. In order to be good walkers the
Indians have naturally found the most perfect and natural attitude for
walking. Every Indian walks upright, his abdomen in, chest up, chin
down, and spinal column easily carrying his body and arms. The white
race may well learn from the Indian how to keep the spinal column
upright, how to have a graceful carriage in walking, and how to cure
stooped shoulders. With all younger women and men of all ages among
the Indians a curved spine, ungraceful walk, and stooped shoulders are
practically unknown. The women produce this result by carrying burdens
upon their heads.
Yes, and the boys and men as well carry burdens also upon the head,
though not as much as the women. Burden carrying upon the head is a
good thing. As one writer has well said:
“Most of us are accustomed to regard the head as a mere thinking
machine, unconscious of the fact that this bony superstructure seems to
have been specially adapted by Nature to the carrying of heavy weights.
“The arms are usually considered as the means intended for the bearing
of burdens, but the effect of carrying heavy articles in the hands or
on the arms is very injurious, and altogether destructive of an erect
or graceful carriage. The shoulders are dragged forward, the back
loses its natural curve, the lungs are compressed, and internal organs
displaced.
“When the head bears the weight of the burden, as it is made to do
among the peasant women of Italy, Mexico, and Spain, and the people
of the Far East, there is great gain in both health and beauty. The
muscles of the neck are strengthened, the spine held erect, the chest
raised and expanded, so that breathing is full and deep, and the
shoulders are held back in their natural position.
[Illustration: A YOKUT INDIAN WITH A WHEELBARROW LOAD OF PEACHES
AND FIGS. THE CARRYING BASKET IS SUSPENDED BY A BROAD BAND OVER THE
FOREHEAD.]
“It is a good thing for children to be early accustomed to the carrying
of various articles, gradually increasing in weight, balanced upon the
head. In this way they may acquire an erect carriage, and free and
graceful walk.”
The Indian man and woman will pick up an olla of water, containing a
gallon or more, and swinging it easily to the top of the head will walk
along with hands by their sides, as unconcernedly as if they carried no
fragile bowl balanced and ready to fall at the slightest provocation.
And they will climb up steep and difficult trails, still balancing
the jar upon the head. The effect of this is to compel a natural and
dignified carriage. I know Navaho, Hopi, and Havasupai women who
walk with a simple dignity that is not surpassed in drawing-room of
president or king.
Then, too, another reason for this dignified, healthfully erect
carriage is found in the fact that neither men nor women wear
high-heeled shoes. The moccasin is always flat, and therefore the foot
of the Indian rests firmly and securely upon the floor. No doubt if the
Indian woman wished to imitate the forward motion of the kangaroo, or
any other frivolous creature, she could tilt herself in an unnatural
and absurd position by high-heeled shoes, but in all my twenty-five
years of association with them I never found one foolish enough to do
so.
The men, as well as the women, gain this upright attitude as the
result of “holding up their vital organs” when they go for their long
hunting and other tramps. It seems to me that fully one-half the white
men (and women) we meet on the streets are suffering from prolapsus
of the transverse colon. This is evidenced by the projection of the
abdomen, which generally grows larger as they grow older; so that we
have “tailors for fat men,” and special implements of torture for
compressing into what we call a decent shape the _embonpoint_ of women.
But, I ask, as I see the Indians, _why do white people have this
paunch?_
[Illustration: APACHE MAIDEN CARRYING A BASKET WATER OLLA UPON HER
HEAD. FULL OF WATER THIS WEIGHS MANY POUNDS.]
An Indian with a “bay-window” stomach, a paunch, is seldom, if ever
seen. Why? He has long ago learned the art, the necessity, of keeping
his abdominal muscles stretched tight. His belly is always held in. The
muscles across his abdomen are like steel. The result is the transverse
colon is held securely in position. It has no prolapse, hence there
is no paunch. If we taught ourselves, as the Indian does, to draw in
the abdomen and at the same time breathe long and deep, this prolapsus
would be practically impossible. Half the medicine that is sold to
so-called “kidney sufferers” is sold to people whose kidneys are no
more diseased than are those of the man in the moon. It is the pulling
and tugging of the falling colon that causes the wearisome backache;
and the lying and scoundrelous wretches who prey upon the ignorant
write out their catch-penny advertisements describing these feelings,
so that when the sufferer picks up their literature he is as good as
entrapped for “a dozen or more bottles,” or until his money gives out.
O men and women of America, learn to walk upright, as God intended
you should. Do not become “chesty” by throwing out your chest, and
throwing your shoulders back at the expense of your spine, but pull
in the muscles of your abdomen, fill your lungs with air, then pull
your chin down and in, and you will soon have three great, grand, and
glorious blessings; viz., a dignified, upright carriage; freedom from
and reasonable assurance that you will never have prolapsus of the
transverse colon and its attendant miseries and backache; and a lung
capacity that will help you withstand the approaches of disease should
you ever, in some other way, come under its malign influence.
When I see white boys slouching and shambling along the streets I wish
with a great wish that I could have them put under the training of some
of my wild Indian friends. They would soon brace up; heads would be
held erect, chins down, abdomen in, chest up, and with lips closed, and
the pure air of the mountain, canyon, plain, desert, or forest entering
their lungs through the nostrils; the whole aspect of life would begin
to change. For “nothing lifts up the spirits so much as just to lift
the chest up. It takes a load off the head, off the mind, off the
heart. Raise your chest so high that the abdominal organs perform their
functions in a proper way. When one is all doubled over, the head and
spine are deprived of blood that they are entitled to. When the chest
is lifted up, the abdominal organs are compressed, and the blood that
has been retired from the circulation and accumulated in the liver
and the stomach is forced back into the current where it belongs. The
head and spinal cord get their proper supply of blood, and one feels
refreshed and energized immediately.”
[Illustration: HAVASUPAI CHILD WITH WATER BOTTLE SUSPENDED FROM THE
FOREHEAD.]
But in addition to their walking and riding the Indians are great
climbers of steep canyon and mountain trails. Men, women, and children
alike pass up and down these trails with almost the ease and agility
of the goat. I have seen a woman with a _kathak_ (carrying basket)
suspended from her forehead containing a load of fruit, of pine nuts,
of grass seeds, weighing not less than from 50 to 100 lbs., her baby
perched on top of the load, steadily and easily climb a trail that made
me puff and blow like a grampus. Few exercises, properly taken, are
of greater benefit to the lungs and heart, and indeed, all the vital
organs, than is trail or mountain climbing. See that your clothing is
easy, especially around the waist, for there must be room for every
effort of lung expansion. This applies to men as well as to women, for
the wretched and injurious habit is growing among men of wearing a
belt instead of suspenders. If the prospective climber is a woman, let
her wear a loose, light dress, and with as short a skirt as her common
sense, judgment, and conscience will allow her to wear. If she is out
“in the wilds,” let her wear trousers and discard skirts entirely as a
senseless and barbarous slavery to custom and convention. Shoes should
be easy and comfortable, with thick soles and broad, _low_ heels.
[Illustration: CLIMBING THE TRAILS IN THE CANYON OF THE HAVASU,
ARIZONA.]
Begin to climb as early in the morning as possible. Don’t try to do
too much at first. Try a small hill. Conquer that by degrees. Get so
that you can finally go up and down without any great effort. Then
tackle the higher hills, and finally try real mountains, eight, ten,
fourteen thousand feet high. If you are delicate to begin with be more
careful still, and ask the advice of your physician, but don’t be
afraid so long as you do not get fatigued to exhaustion. For climbing
develops the thighs and calves of the leg, the muscles of the back,
enlarges the lungs, makes the heart pump more and purer (because better
oxygenated) blood throughout the whole body, brings about more rapid
changes in the material of the body, and thus exchanges old and useless
tissue for new and healthy, dissolves and dissipates fat, induces
perspiration and exhalations through the kidneys that are peculiarly
beneficial.
In breathing be sure to keep the mouth closed. Insist upon _nasal_
breathing, and the exercise will perforce make it _deep_ breathing. The
deeper you breathe the more good you will get from it. Let the posture
be correct or you will lose much good. This is in brief: pull the
abdomen in, raise the chest, keep the chin down, and let the arms hang
easily and naturally by the side.
For years I have compelled myself to seize every possible opportunity
for trail climbing or descending. Hundreds of miles of trails have I
gone up and down in the Grand Canyon of Arizona, often with a thirty,
forty, fifty pound camera and food supplies on my back. I have ascended
scores of mountains throughout the Southwest, and the rich experiences
of glowing health and vigor, vim, snap, tingle, that come from such
exercises no one can know but those who have enjoyed them.
A few weeks ago I came to the Grand Canyon (September, 1907), after
nearly a year of rest from physical labor on an extended scale (my
civilized occupations had pre-empted all my time). I started out on
the trail, up and down Havasu Canyon, Bass Trail of the Grand Canyon,
and the Grand View and Red Canyon trails. Again and again I walked up
the steepest portions for a mile at a time, setting the pace for the
horses and mules, and it was a source of mental as well as physical
delight that my lungs, heart, and body generally were in such good
condition that I could do this day after day for two weeks, not only
without exhaustion, but with positive exhilaration and physical
delight.