picturesque surroundings. Below, in the wash, are his cornfields and
melon patches, showing skillful engineering in diverting the water on
the arable ground by means of dams and wings. Here he and his faithful
adjutant, "Tom Sawyer," the Paiute, put in many a laborious hour, the
latter waging deadly warfare on the obnoxious prairie dogs whose fate
is to be eaten if caught.
Chakwaina is disposed to poke fun at the scientific men who come to
Tusayan to study the ways of the Hopi. He has a remarkable laugh, and
his mimicry of the Snake Dance is one of the most amusing things to be
seen in Hopiland. His object is to ridicule all parties by making
himself ridiculous. It is evident that Chakwaina has not the
accustomed contentment of the Hopi. Having denied the first article of
faith in the _kachinas_ and having received nothing higher in return,
he stands in the unhappy position of all unbelievers of whatever race
or time.
A portrait gallery of the celebrities of Tusayan would not be complete
without Mungwe, or, as his name is translated, "El Capitan," "Cap" for
short; but his name is properly _Mongwe_, "the owl." "Cap" is a Tewa
whose ancestors were invited long ago to come from the Rio Grande and
cast their lot with the Hopi on the Walpi Mesa. Here their descendants
still dwell in the village of Hano, preserving the language and
customs transplanted from the "Great River of the North." "Cap" is one
of the most energetic and capable Indians in all Hopiland. Wiry in
figure, alert of movement, loquacious, quick of comprehension,
trustworthy and experienced, he is quite in advance of the large
majority of his contemporaries. Long ago he abandoned the inconvenient
mesa; his farm-house with its red roof can be seen among his
cornfields far out in the broad valley to the southeast of Walpi. The
men who work for Mongwe seem to be pervaded with his energy, and there
is no doubt that he is regarded by them as a captain of industry, for
he allows no laggards to eat his bread. In the line of teaming, Cap
excels. No matter how long or bad the road or how heavy the load, his
staunch little ponies will carry it through. A rickety wagon and
providence-tempting harness seem to prove no bar to any attempt, where
money is to be earned. Hence, though a number of the Hopi possess
wagons through the generosity of the Government, Mongwe gets most of
the hauling.
Our friend, alas, is not modest in the announcement of his worth. It
is a subject on which his tongue works like a spinning-jenny. At night
after the cares of the day, sitting around the camp-fire with ample
bread, unlimited rashers of bacon, and a circle of hearers, Cap eats
and talks in the plural. The word plural calls for a sentence or two
in reference to Cap's wives. Not that he has ever defied Hopi customs
to the extent of having more than one wife at a time, but the list of
the ones who have disagreed with him, if completely up to date, would
be interesting reading. From what can be gleaned, in this Utopian
land, women have the right of divorce. The relationship of Cap's
children, it will be seen, is very assorted. To hazard a guess, Cap's
matrimonial ventures are marred by his general "fussiness."
Aside from this, Mongwe is an honor to Hopiland. His success has
drawn to him a party of the young generation who are afflicted with
the universal desire for _shiba_ (silver), and if they are inspired
with Mongwe's example it will be a benefit to Tusayan, the Hopi body
politic, which needs active young blood to overcome the centuries of
inertion.
Another vivacious Hopi is Wupa, whose name means "great." The fatherly
interest which Wupa takes in the white man was sufficient
recommendation to attach him to our camp as man-of-all-work, and a
closer acquaintance brought to view other sides of his character in
which the gay features far outnumber the grave. Faithful to the extent
of his lights, though averse to steady work, he managed to earn his
bread and a small stipend, but considering the entertainment he
furnished, his pay should have been equal to that of the end-man in a
minstrel show.
So it happens that the memories of Wupa bring forth a flood of
pleasing recollections. The merriest of all that merry race of
laughing, joking, singing Hopi, his presence around the camp-fire
diffused an atmosphere of cheerfulness which does not always prevail
amidst the discomforts of roughing-it in the desert. Short of stature
and bandy-legged, possessed of a headpiece wrinkled and quizzical, one
cannot by any stretch of the imagination make him out handsome; but he
is so loquacious, witty, and full of tricks that it is not possible to
doubt his fitness for the position of king's jester. Wupa has his
moods, though. Sometimes an air of preternatural gravity and
unspeakable wisdom enwraps him; very close behind this mask, for such
it is, lurks a mirth-provoking skit and boisterous laugh. Like other
humorists Wupa has the fatality of being most amusing when serious.
Still, in the iridescent interworld between smiles and tears Wupa has
a romantic and sad history.
The _dramatis personae_ woven into this history are white men,
Mexicans, Zuñi Indians, and his fellow Hopi. The first misfortune that
befell Wupa was to be born at the time when famine harried the
Peaceful People in their seven villages to the north of the Little
Colorado. Famine is an old story with the Hopi. For two years no rain
had fallen, and neither the Snake nor the Flute dance availed to bring
the good will of their gods. The sacredly reserved corn laid up to
tide over a bad year had been eaten, and the Hopi were in distress.
They gathered the wild plants that seem to be independent of drought,
and tried to keep soul and body together till the rain-clouds should
again sweep across the Painted Desert; but many were those who never
saw the time of ripe corn. Many deserted the pueblos and cast their
lot among the Navaho shepherds, the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon, and
other more fortunate tribes of friendly people.
So it happened that Wupa's mother with her hungry babe took the
well-known trail to Zuñi 100 miles away, and nerved with the strength
of desperation at last reached the pueblo under "Corn Mountain."
Indian philanthropy rarely extends outside the circle of relatives,
and the Zuñi had no mind to give corn to the poor Hopi woman beyond
enough to keep her from starving. But little Wupa was worth a bushel
of the precious ears, and for that amount he was exchanged, becoming,
without being consulted, a Zuñi, while his mother trudged back to
Hopiland with food for her starving kinsfolk, feeling, no doubt,
little sorrow at the loss of her babe, so great is the levelling power
of famine and misfortune. There are usually strays at all Indian
villages, and thus the presence of the little Hopi stranger passed
without notice. When the crops were assured in the fields of the
famine-stricken Hopi, they ceased coming to Zuñi, and Wupa seems to
have been unclaimed and forgotten.
When he was five or six, the Zuñi in turn sold him to some Mexicans,
and the next account there is of him he was living at Albuquerque, a
stout young _peon_, with cropped hair, a devout Catholic, speaking
Castilian after the fashion of the "Greasers." Wupa thus became, to
all intents and purposes, a Mexican, and perhaps had lost sight of his
origin. Neither is the transition from Indian to Mexican at all
difficult or incongruous. Few Americans realize the new problem of the
population that came to us through the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo,
the clannish, unprogressive foreigners who were made American citizens
without being consulted. It must be said, however, that the
Anglo-Saxon prejudice of the Latin leaves quite out of sight the good
qualities of the Mexican; it rarely considers that his ignorance is
due largely to lack of advantages during several centuries, and that
the strain of Indian blood has not helped matters. According to the
white man's way of looking at it, this listless race, seemingly
satisfied to be _peons_ in the land of the free, is inferior and
doubtfully classed with the Indians, with the doubt in the latter's
favor.
Wupa quickly picked up the language and associations of his accidental
compatriots, and soon the Padre rejoiced in another brand plucked from
the burning. His next step was to find a señorita and to marry her,
and after the semi-barbarous wedding his woes really begin. In
explanation of the description given of Wupa as he appears at present,
it may be fair to say that twenty years off his age would leave him a
passably young man, but even with this gloss, one cannot form a very
high estimate of the señorita's taste.
During the period of Wupa's exile, one knowing the Hopi would be
curious to find out how he bore himself and whether an inherited love
for the freedom of the desert was ever shown. Perhaps the early age at
which he began kicking about the world, and his varied experiences,
completely lost him to the feeling of his kith and kin. Civilization
is irksome to the desert-bred Hopi and he soon becomes as homesick for
his wind-swept mesas as the Eskimo for his land of ice or the Bedouin
for the Sahara. These questions may have a suggested answer in the
home-coming of Wupa, for he returned again to his native pueblo after
one of the most varied and remarkable series of adventures that ever
filled out a true story. The events that led up to the home-coming of
Wupa form not the least interesting episodes in his history and
occurred along the old Santa Fé Trail, immortalized by Josiah Gregg.
The railroad builders had labored across the plains, up the steep
slopes of the Rockies, following the famous trail to old Santa Fé,
leaving behind two bands of steel. Blasting, cutting, filling, and
bridging, they were advancing toward quiet Albuquerque on the lazy Rio
Grande, and the news of these activities stirred that ancient town
from center to circumference.
The dwellers in the Southwest are brought squarely up against the
"proposition," as they call it, that one must work if he would live.
The Mexicans, though reputed lazy, are on the contrary always anxious
to work for wages, and the motley and wicked railroad camp had a large
population of the dark-skinned believers in Montezuma recruited from
long distances.
Wupa joined with the Albuquerque contingent. What his duties were it
is not difficult to imagine; his skill in "rustling" wood and water in
later years gives a good clue as to his work on the railroad. As
messenger and general utility boy where steady labor was not required,
he no doubt proved useful and picked up sundry pieces of silver for
his señora. Perhaps not the least of his services lay in his
unfailing good-humor expressed in cheering songs with which he
softened the trials of railroad pioneering through that almost desert
country.
The picturesque wickedness of the westward traveling construction camp
with its fringe of saloons, gambling hells, and camp followers seems
never to have taken Wupa in its snares. Of shooting irons and drunken
men he had the inborn terror shown always by the Hopi, a feeling still
kept alive among them by that later incursion into New Mexico and
Arizona, the Texas cowboy. There was no fight in Wupa; the most that
could be gotten out of him was a disarming laugh and a disappearance,
as soon as that move could be made. Picturesque as was the
construction camp, the stern side of life came very near, and the
wonderful hues of the landscape were but mockery to the tired and
thirsty men, who prepared the Santa Fé Trail for the iron horse. Poor
food, worse water, alkali dust, parching heat and chilly nights of
summer and the severity of winter were living realities; there were
health and vigor in the air of the mountains and elevated plateaus,
though food and appetite did not always strike a balance of
compensation.
Wupa moved along with the camp, little realizing the meaning of the
struggle with the drifting sand, the rocky canyons, and the dry rivers
that became torrents and in an hour swept away the work of a month,
burying ties and rails in the limbo of boiling sand. By night he
rolled himself in his blanket and after his orisons slept under the
brilliant stars, while his fellow Mexicans snored in strangely
assorted heaps among the sage-clumps.
The rails came down the treacherous Puerco and along the banks of the
Little Colorado. To the north the dark blue Hopi Domes reared their
fantastic summits, signifying nothing to this expatriated Indian,
though the mother who bore him and sold him into bondage waited for
him there. To the west the San Francisco peaks stood always in view,
but Wupa was ignorant of the traditions of his tribe that cluster
around them. The rails left the river, stretched across a flat
country, and halted at the edge of a tremendous chasm, whose presence
could not be suspected until it yawned beneath the feet. Here the camp
halted for months, while a spider's web of steel was spun across the
Devil's Canyon.
One day several Hopi came to the camp, and after staring,
open-mouthed, at the labors of the white man, wandered about, as if
looking for someone. Soon they ran across Wupa, and the leader spoke
to him in Hopi language to this effect: "You are a Hopi; we come to
bring you to your house." A doubtful shake of the head from Wupa, who
did not understand the tongue of his people.
"Yes, come; they sit up there waiting for you." This ought to have
stirred in Wupa a desire to go at once, but he "no sabe." Finally,
after parleying in a mixture of Hopi, Zuñi, and Spanish, pieced out
here and there with sign language, they persuaded him to desert the
camp and set out with them for his native town a hundred miles to the
north.
The home-coming of Wupa was a great affair, and his reintroduction to
his mother was touching, for the Hopi are more demonstrative than
other Indians. The event must have been a nine days' wonder in the
gossipy pueblo of Walpi. His education was taken up at once with the
intention of eradicating the evil effects of Mexican training,
especially on the side of his religious instruction. If the grave
priests are satisfied with their labors in helping Wupa to begin anew
as a Hopi, an outsider would consider the results as rather mixed. To
this day Wupa is taunted with being a Mexican; these taunts he answers
with silence and an air of superiority he knows so well how to assume;
how, indeed, can they know what he has gone through in his remarkable
experiences?
While Wupa was willing to desert and become a pagan, as were his
ancestors, exchanging the quaint cathedral of Albuquerque with its
figures of saints and grewsome Corpus Cristi in a glass case for a
dimly lighted room underground and familiarity with rattlesnakes, his
señora had other ideas. Wupa mourned that his señora would not cast
her lot with the "Peaceful People" of Tusayan; but money was scarce
and the distance too great for a personal interview; the letters
written by a laborious Mexican scribe were productive of no results.
Though the señora might have done worse, who will blame her? During
the years that passed one might think that Wupa would have forgotten
his wife on the Rio Grande, but it was always the dream of his life to
bring her to him at Walpi. It was pathetic to hear his schemes and to
see the way in which he treasured letters from her written in the
scrawl of the town scribe and addressed to Señor Don José Padilla,
which is Wupa's high-sounding Castilian name. His constancy seemed
admirable, for he did not take an Indian wife, granting that he could
have secured one of the Hopi belles for spouse.
Still, with all this care Wupa was light-hearted, caroled with abandon
Mexican or Hopi songs, or intoned solemn church music. Though a
much-traveled man, he remained at his native place, the mainstay of
his old mother who sold him aforetime, his father long since having
traveled to the underworld. Hopi-Mexican, Pagan-Christian, he still
occupies a somewhat anomalous position among his people, who have
consistently hated the proud proselyting Spaniards during the more
than two hundred years since they threw the "long gowns" from the
rocky mesa.
About the camp Wupa was very useful. Mounted on his agile _burro_, a
sight well worth seeing, he brought the mail from Keam's Canyon. He
collected wood and water, indulging in many a song and exclamation.
The cook especially seemed to him a fit subject of jest. The cook was
really an adept at snoring and the still watches of the desert night
were often too vocal. Wupa used to sing out "_Dawa yamu, Kook!_"
"Daybreak, cook!" followed by a fine imitation of snoring which the
subject of the jest did not enjoy. But Wupa was at his best when
prospecting an ancient ruin to locate the most promising place to dig
for relics. At such times his gravity and wisdom fairly bulged out.
His advice was clearly and forcibly given, but the nemesis of
humorists followed him, and no one ever thought of taking him
seriously. And he never seemed disappointed. Wupa is a true humorist,
without bitterness, one to be laughed at and loved. He was almost
tearful at parting and made many protestations of friendship, at the
same time presenting two watermelons from his field. These melons were
unripe, according to un-Hopi standards, but were received in the
spirit in which they were given, and later some natives met on the
road to Keam's Canyon had an unexpected feast.
The romance of Wupa's devotion to his Mexican señora and the fine
flavor of constancy he showed toward her received a rude shattering
the year after the commencement of this account. He took unto himself
a Hopi helpmeet,--an albino,--and a whimsical pair they looked when
they came to the Snake Dance the following summer.
This step of Wupa's, in view of the repeated confidences that Hopi
maidens were not to his taste anyhow, was a surprise to his friends.
His choice of an albino for a mate clears him to some extent, as no
doubt he believes her to be as near an approach to a white woman as a
Hopi may hope to reach. However, his friends wish him well and feel
like saying, "Long live Wupa, 'great' by name and truly great in quip,
gibe, and gest by nature."
A visit to the East Mesa cannot be regarded as complete without an
interview with Toby. Usually no one leaves this portion of Tusayan
without seeing him. His name, which means "the fly," exactly fits
Toby, who has all the pertinacity of that well-known insect.
Several years ago, however, the writer failed to meet Toby and
remained in complete ignorance of his great possibilities, except by
hearsay, until the next season. Then when the party wound its way up
to the first bench of the mesa under the dizzy cliffs and camped on a
level spot near a peach tree on land which the Tewa have held for two
centuries, Toby was there as a reception committee.
His "how do" was rather startling and unexpected. After the routine of
handshaking, Toby remarked, "This my lan'," and pointing to the
antique tree long past fruit-bearing, "This my peach tlee." Proud of
his possessions he squatted on the ground and drew a plan of his lan'
and inquired as he pointed out the locations of his crops, "Have you
seen my con [corn]? Have you seen my beanzes?" Suddenly an idea struck
him. He approached the leader of the party and put these questions to
him, "You good man, uneshtan', you honesht man?" Then as if satisfied,
he turned to another of the party and said, "You handsome man; you
beautiful man," and it was not long before Toby had a packet of
coveted smoking tobacco, although from the unkempt appearance of the
explorers, his laudations were base flattery.
It was plain that Toby was desirous of airing his remarkable English,
of which he is very proud, and also of paving the way to sundry small
gratuities. These intentions of the Hopi are quite as apparent as that
of the little child who says, "Ducky likes sweet cakes." Toby was
asked to bring in a burro load of wood for cooking purposes, but with
great suavity he explained that on this day the Snake priests hunted
in the East world-quarter, and according to custom no one must work in
that direction. On account of these conscientious scruples of Toby's,
the venerable peach tree was requisitioned for enough dead branches
till such time as he should sally forth with his burros for cedar
billets.
The day before the Antelope Dance Toby came down to the camp on
important business chewing a moccasin sole which he was stitching. He
broached the subject by mysteriously saying, "Plenty Navaho come to
see Snake Dance. Navaho velly bad, steal evelything." (This in a
furtive way, because the Hopi are afraid of the Navaho.) "Me stay,
watch camp; you go see dance; Navaho bad man." It is well to say that
after Toby's watchful care at the camp all the baking powder and
matches were missing. Few Hopi are proof against these articles,
especially before a feast, and Toby is evidently no exception. He
fought shy of camp after that, no doubt fearing a "rounding up."
Perhaps, however, Toby appropriated the matches and baking powder as
rent for his "lan'."
Toby is father of a large family. When asked to give a census, he
counted on his fingers, "Boy, girl; boy, girl; boy," then with great
enthusiasm, "Babee!" Toby's command of English is due to the fact that
he was the prize pupil of a teacher at the Keam's Canyon School some
years ago. He delights to show how he can spell. If no one should ask
him to exhibit this accomplishment, he usually brings up the subject
by asking, for instance, "How you spell box?" pronounced "boxsh." If
ignorance is professed, Toby spells b-o-x, and follows with _dog_,
_cat_, _man_, and other words of one syllable, and proudly finishes by
writing his own name in the sand.
Toby thus furnishes great amusement to sojourners at Walpi and also
leaves the suspicion in the minds of most that he is a trifle "light
in the upper story."
Another character is "Tom Sawyer," a Paiute Indian who lives with the
Peaceful People at the East Mesa. As handsome as a Japanese grotesque
mask and almost as taciturn, his gravity seems to have telescoped his
squat figure and multiplied the wrinkles in his face, half hidden by
his lank, grizzled hair. Keen, shrewd eyes has he and very evasive.
Tom, however, is not "bad" in the Arizona sense, nor will his make-up
allow him to be altogether good. He is, therefore, a man, for which
this sketch is to be congratulated. While Tom's early history may
never be known to the world, his step in leaving the Paiute for the
Hopi is very much in his favor. Here he fell naturally in his place as
serf to Chakwaina, of whom something has already been said.
Tom became washerman for the Fewkes expedition while the party
sojourned at Walpi. Percy, who prides himself on his faultless
"American," held the position in former years, but having gotten a few
dollars ahead, felt above work at this time. It must be said that Tom
is an excellent laundryman. The idiosyncrasies of wayworn civilized
garb do not stump him; in fact, he is "ol' clo'es man" for the whole
East Mesa. His many quests for discarded garments to Winslow,
Holbrook, and other points on the railroad are always successful. The
people of Winslow affirm that wearing apparel often disappears from
clotheslines and other exposed situations coincidently with the visits
of Hopi, who clear the town of rags as the winds do of loose paper.
When the physician of the place lost a pair of overshoes which were
reposing on the back kitchen steps, he remembered too late that a Hopi
had gone down the alley sometime before. The disappearance of the
overshoes can scarcely arouse as much wonder as their presence and
utility in arid, dusty Winslow. No doubt Tom has caused many of these
mysterious disappearances and the spoils borne northward on his
patient burros have promoted a dressed-up feeling among the Hopi
braves.
It has not yet been found out whether Tom gave an exhibition of
artistic lying or was telling the truth about the following matter.
Tom was starting on one of his periodical clothes raids to Winslow,
and he was asked to bring back a can of plaster. About a week later
Tom returned with the following laconic tale, "Snake bite burro, burro
die; me take can back, give to man."
At the time it was thought that Tom had overloaded his burro with old
clothes and had invented the story. There is much to be said on Indian
invention. If Tom is living he is still an active citizen of Hopiland.