They also manufacture, with beads and silk threads obtained
from the traders, very beautiful neck-ties, ribbons, garters, cufls
and other ornaments. More interesting to me than any of their
handicraft, is the unwearying patience they display in all their work,
and their zeal and quickness to learn in every thing which may im-
prove^their condition. Officers and agents universally tell me that
Na^oes work alongside of any employes they can get, and do full
\TOrk. They dig ditches and make embankments with great skill,
handling the spade as well as any Irishman. Surely such a people
are capable of civilization.

Mrs. Charity Menaul, teacher at Defiance, reported considerable
progress among the Navajoes under her charge. I found the older
people curious to learn about our customs, and very communicative
as to their own,. though like all barbarians a little reticent as to their
theology. Their religion, or superstition, is vague ; there is a difler-
ence on minor points between the bands, though some ideas are com-
mon. Chinday, the devil, is a more important personage in their
system than Whytohajfj the god; as, like the Mormons and many
other white schismatics, they charge all they don't like in other people
to the direct personal agency of the devil. About the only use, in
fact, of their god, is to lay plans to outwit the devil. Their moral
code is extremely vague : whatever is good for the tribe is in general
right; whatever is not pro bono publico is wrong. Cowards after
death will become coyotes, while braves will continue men in a better
country. Women will change to fish for awhile, and afterwards to
something else. But they/ don't trouble themselves much about the
next world. If they had^plenty in this, they would consider them-
selves in luck.

On minor points there are as many sects as in Boston. The general
belief is this: there is one Great Spirit; under him each people has
its own god. The goj/o( the Melicanoes is very good to them ; they
have corn and horses, blankets and much chinneakgo. But it is use-
less for Navajoes to pray to him. Each cares for his own. The coy-
ote will not take up the children of the rattlesnake ; the eagle will
not give his meat to the young hawks. It is light, it is nature.



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AMONG THE AZTECS. 275

Whylohay (a female^ by the way) made the Navajoes in the San Juan
Valley /they were rich^ and had abundance of all things. But one
night Chinday dammed the San Juan, and drowned them all. Besides
the fish, only two creatures escaped ; the snake swam ashore and the
turkey flew up to a peak in Colorado. The goddess made the turkey
into another man, and made a woman from a fish, and from these two
are descended all the present Navajoes. However, this may be only
an allegorical statement of the general masculine belief that the sex
divine are inclined to be slippery and hard to catch.

Women after death change to fish for awhile ; after that their des-
tiny seems unsettled. Because of this, Navajoes eat neither fish nor
tarkeys. The snake is the only animal that knows any thing about
what took place in the first creation. Hence, Navajoes seldom or
never kill one. From other fish Whylohay recreated the animal
kingdom. The turkey was made from a fish in a lake covered with
foam, which lodged on his tail as he swam ashore ; hence, the white
feathers in the turkey's tail. White men after death go up into the
air; Navajoes go down through Bat Cation and into the earth.
Thence they come out a long way west, on the edge of a great water.
The shore is guarded by terrible evil spirits in the form of men, but
with great ears reaching from above their heads to the ground. When
asleep, they lie on one ear an<jl cover with the other. Whether they
ever "walk oflF on their ear," the old men could not inform me.
Only half of them sleep at a time, and the Navajo has to fight his
way through them. If he is brave, and has treated his women well,
he gets through ; then the goddess takes him across the water. There,
like the white man, they stop; from thai country no one has ever
come back, to say what is there, or tell us about the climate.

Their women are oft«n quite handsome; but like barbarian
races generally, they sell their daughters in marriage. Common to
average can be had for property to the value of $25 ; prime to fine
for $50; while young and extra go at $60, the standard price of the
Navajp speckled pony. While in Cafion de Chelley, I was offered a
beautiftil Miss of fifteen for $60, or the horse I was riding. Perhaps
I should have closed with the offer — it is so much cheaper than one
can get a wife in the States. Two months vigorous courting will cost
more than that — ^particularly in the ice-cream season.

The men do the hardest work, in the fields and on the chase ; to
the women is left the weaving, household work, tending the herds
and grinding. The last is done with the mi7a^a— consisting of two
flat stones, the lower stationary, the upper rubbed upon it with the



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276 WESTERN WILDS.

hand, the result being a pasty flour. Of this and water they make
a mixture no thicker than starch, which they cook on hot stones.
The fire is built in a small hole, on which is placed the flat stone, no
more than an inch thick ; when sufficiently hot, the squaw thrusts her
hand into the starchy solution, and rapidly draws a handful, which
she spreads upon the stone. In a half-minute it is cooked in the
form of a brown wafer, no thicker than card board. Another and
another follows till they have a layer some inches thick, which is
rolled up conveniently for carrying.

They are the only wild tribe I know who do not scalp dead ene-
mies. They never had that practice. In fact, they never touch a
dead body, even of their own people. Each hogan is so constructed
that the weight rests mostly on two main beams. When one dies in
a hogan, they loosen these two outside, and let it drop upon him. If
ojie dies on the plain, they pile enough stones upon him to keep off
the coyotes, but never touch the body. This observance is a serious
drawback in one respect : it prevents them from building permanent
dwellings. It is said to be a part of their religion, but I apprehend
it originated during some plague, when contagion resulted from touch-
ing the dead.

One surprising &ct to me was that an Indian would sunburn by
exposure as readily as a white man. But many of our current notions
about the Indian are erroneous. For instance, it is a great mistake
to suppose they can travel so long without eating. They know the
country, and what roots are nourishing or poisonous. In many places
over this section between the two Coloradoes grows a species of milky
weed, with tough, stringy root, in taste resembling the "sweet hick-
ory " the boys use to pull ^nd chew, along the Wabash. The Nava-
joes cook this in boiled milk, or with bacon when at home, and on
journeys without supplies take it raw. They get poor as snakes on
such food ; but it does keep soul and body together for awhile, and
prevent the deadly faintness resulting from complete fasting. But
they endure thirst much better than we, and for obvious reasons.
Their food contains no salt, their bread no chemicals; they rarely get
intoxicating liquors, and use very little tobacco. With unsalted bread,
a scant indulgence in bacon, and coffee night and morning, I soon
found I could go half a day without water with no inconvenience
whatever. I also tried the practice of riding bareheaded, and found
that an easy accomplishment. In short, though it takes forty years
to civilize an Indian, I am positive a well-disposed white man could
go wild in six months.



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AMONG THE AZTECS. 277

The origin of the venereal poison is a subject much discussed by the
Indians. Most of them assert that they had none of it till the Meli-
canoes camCy^but the old men admitted that cases were introduced,
many years ago, from Mexico. The Coyotero, White Mountain and
Mogollon Apaches have never had a case of it. If one of their
women offend with a white man, her nose and ears are cut off, and she
is made a slave. The Moquis appeared quite ignorant of the exist-
ence of such a disease. The Tajj^uache Utes have a woman publicly
whipped for infidelity with wnites. If she be found diseased, she is
forthwith lanced and her body burned. This savage quarantine has
effectually preserved the tribe, and I supposed at first it was for that
purpose ; but the Navajo old men asserted that it was rather as an act
of mercy to the woman. The Mohaves are perishing rapidly from this
scourge. The Navajoes claim that there is now very little of it among
them, and that they treat it successfully. To sum up on my Navajo
friends : they are the only Indians in whom I could ever take much
interest, and I am confident they can be civilized, and that the "hu-
manitarian policy" will be a succe&s as applied to them,

I stop four days with the Moquis ; I should need six months to
learn all that is interesting in their mode of life, theology and social
organization. They are aboriginal Quakers; live at peace with all
men, and have a horror of shcdoing blood. As a natural consequence
they have retreated from the open country, and now occupy this
rocky mole, safe from the hostility of mounted Indians. Who are
they? Well, this is one of those things no fellow can find out. The
conundrum must be referred to that large class relative to the Mound-
Builders and other prehistoric races of America ; for it is self evident
that the semi-civilized Indians of the South-west are but the feeble
remnants of a long series of races.

The three towns on this mesa contain about a thousand inhabitants ;
and are known as Moqui, Tegua, and Moquina, {MolceCy Tawah, and
ifoiecna,) A' little way westward are four other towns of the same
race: Hualpec, Shepalawa, Oraybe, and Beowawa, {WaUpake, She-
palawa, Orybay, and Baowahwa.) The total population is about three
thousand. Their houses are of good architectural design, built of flat
stones laid in white cement, plastered neatly inside, and whitewashed
^th a material which gives a hard, smooth polish. The lower story
18 not as high as a man ; but that they occupy only in winter. On
this the second story rises ten or twelve feet, seldom more than half
as wide as the lower, leaving a broad margin on which they usually
sleep. The first story has no doors and very small windows; they



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278 WESTERN WILDS.

ascend to the second by a rude ladder or stone stairway at the comer.
The better class have carpets of sheep-skin, and all have them to sit
on ; the climate is too dry for mold, and I found the residences very
agreeable. ^

The people are exceedingly kind and communicative. When the
novelty of my appearance had worn away a little, and I could walk
about town without a wondering crowd after me, I rarely turned
toward a house without receiving the welcome wave of the hand to
the lips and breast, with the words, " Ho, Melicano, messay to; " or
sometimes, as many know a few words of Spanish, ^^ Entre: Pasar
adelante.^' Then a boy or girl would run down the stone staircase,
and extend a hand to steady me in ascending. They took me into
every room in their houses, and seemed to take a pride in exhibiting
their best specimens of pottery, wicker-jugs, and other property. Of
their children they were particularly demonstrative ; and, indeed, they
looked well enough, I did not, in all the towns, see a single birth-
mark, blotch, or deformity, except albinism. Children of both sexes
go entirely naked till about the age of ten years. I noted one curious
fact: the little ones seemed almost as white as American children,
till the age of six months or a year ; then they began to turn darker,
and at ten or twelve had attained to a rich mahogany color. They
play for hours along these clifls, chasing each other from rock to rock
at that dizzy height, and yet the parents seemed surprised when I
asked if accidents did not happen.

Their mode of living is very simple, and I happened upon a time
of unusual scarcity. The general drought of the past three years had
cut off their crops. As often as Chino, the Capitan of this mesa,
visited me, I had presented him a tin of warm, sweetened coffee, of
which they are very fond, and which was the only thing I could
spare; and had partaken of parched com with him the evening of my
arrival, when I received a special invitation to dine with him " the
day before I left." (People with weak stomachs may skip the next
paragraph.)

They breakfast early, and dine between 11 and 12. Besides Misi-
amtewah, a sort of official interpreter, there is another Moqui, who
speaks Spanish tolerably well, having been a year in Tucson and Pres-
cott; and both were at dinner with us. We sat upon sheep-skins on
the floor, in a circle around the earthen bowls, in which the food was
placed. The staple was a thick corn mush, which to me was rather
tasteless for the want of salt. The regular bread of the Moquis is a
decided curiosity. The wheat is ground with mitats, as by the Nava-



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AMONG THE AZTECS, 279

joes, but much iSner, six or seven women grinding together, reducing
the flour to the merest dust. It is then mixed as thin as milk; the
woman cooking dashes a handful on tlie hot stone, where it cooks al-
most instantly, and comes off no thicker than paper, and of a bright
blue color. The flakes are about two feet long, and as they are
stacked two or three feet deep on the platter, look remarkably like a
pile of blue silk. They raise white, blue, and red corn ; and by va-
rious mixtures produce bread of seven different colors. They are not
as clean in their cooking as the Navajoes, and it is hinted that they
sometimes mix their meal with chamber-lye for these festive occa-
sions ; but I did not know that till I talked with Mormons who had
visited them.

The piece de reswiance was the hinder half of a very fat young dog,
well cooked, that animal being the &vorite food of the Moquis. It is
subject to greater extremes than beef; the meat of an old, lean dog is
very tough, and that of a fet, young puppy, very tender. - I took from
my own store a box of sardines, and Misiamtewah was prevailed upon
to eat one; but Chino and the rest rejected them with horror.
There's gastronomic prejudice for you! This man is sweet on dog,
and rejects a sardine with abhorrence. My Eastern friends take sar-
dines with avidity, but their gorge rises at the thought of dog, while
my catholic stomach takes dog and sardine with equal impartiality.
Parched corn completed the bill of fare, with beverage of goat's milk.
Both the Moquis and Navajoes never use it until heated almost to the
boiliog point; but after one cup of this, I requested and was served
with mine cold. The stove, ingeniously constructed of flat stones, is.
either on the ground just beside the door, or on the roof of the first
story, by the door of the second.

With my Navajo guide and Chino^s son, we formed a very pleasant
party of six, and had quite a social time. The second interpreter
informed me that he went to Prescott with Melicanoes and Mesh-
icanoes, and that they named him — it was probably in sport —
Jesus Papa {Hay-soos Pahpah.) He was much more communicative
than Misiamtewah, and had a very fair idea of the Americans. To
these simple people I represented in person all the dignity of that
great nation, of whom such wonderful reports had reached them.
And here I must own to a little deceit. They were at first very in-
quisitive as to my business, and could not imagine why a white man
should be making such a long trip with only Indians for companions.
Savage people can rarely understand that intelligent curiosity which
'sthe product of civilization, and suspect some ulterior purpose when



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230 WESTERN WILDS.

one has nothing to trade^ and is not a prospector for mines. So I told
them I was collecting information about the friendly Indians for the
use of government, which may be passed as in a sense true.

The Moquis have a close struggle for existence. The sand sur-
rounding the mesa presents the poorest show for farming I ever saw,
yet every-where among these sand-hills are their little walled fields,
three or four rods square, and from the measure Papa showed me, I
estimated that his field had produced what would amount to twelve or
fifteen bushels of corn, and half as much wheat, to the acre. The
water from neither of the springs runs more than ten rods before
sinking in the sand ; but in some places they have constructed little
troughs of rock or wood which carry a stream perhaps as big as one's
finger to the field, and help the case a little. With a sharp stick they
dig a hole about eighteen inches deep through the top sand, which
brings them to a moister stratum, in which they lodge the grain.
Around the hill they then place a few stones, and after dressing in
clean clothes, sit in solemn silence for hours by the fields — supposed
to be praying for rain. If no rain comes, which is generally the case,
they carry water in their wicker-jugs from the spring, and pour a pint
or so on each hill. If the season is favorable, the corn grows about
two feet high, and yields ten to fifteen bushels per acre ; if unfavor-
able, they get nothing, and live upon goat's milk and white roots, with
a rare dessert of wild fruit, mesccUy or game.

I said " supposed to be praying," as I could learn of no religious be-
lief among them, though their Mormon visitors credit them with be-
ing very pious. I explained at great length our ideas of God and
nature, and asked Papa as to theirs, with this result:

Papa — Nothing! (Nada.) The grandfathers said nothing of Du)« —
what you say Got — God (making several attempts at the word.)

Myself — But, say to me, who made this mesa, these mountains, all
that you see here ?

P. — Nothing ! It is here.

M. — ^Was it always here ?

P. — (With a short laugh) — Yes, certainly, always here. What
would make it be away from here?

M. — But where do the dead Moquis go? Where is the child I saw
put in the sand yesterday? Where does it go?

P. — Not at all. Nowhere ; you saw it put in the sand. How can
it go anywhere ?

M. — Did you ever hear of Montezuma ?

P. — No; Monte — Montzoo — (attempting the word) — Melicanoman?



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AMONG THE AZTECS. 281

M. — ^No ; one of your people, we-think. What are these dances for
that you have sometimes?
P. — ^The grand&thers always had them.

So ended my attempts at Moqui theology. Probably they were too
suspicious of a stranger to let me know any thing about it, for an
Indian confers his religion hia even more exclusively than his horse
or his w)i^ But they have one curious custom which seems to have
a religious signifioAnce. Every morning, at the first break of day, a
young man runs the whole length of the mesa with several cow-bells
tied to his belt ; the entire population rise at once, and while the rest
proceed to milk their goats, the bell-man and a few others descend to
the plain and go a mile or so towards the east. An army officer, who
spent some time with them, says they expect a Deliverer to come from
that direction, and send an embassy to meet him. Thus the Moquis,
like all other races, look for One to usher in the time
** When useless lances into scythes shall bend,

And the broad falchion in a plowshare end ;

When wars shall cease, and ancient fraud shall fail ;

Returning Justice lift aloft her scale ;

Peace o'er^he world her olive wand extend,

And white-robed Innocence from heaven descend."

Their traditions say (or in their own phrase ^^the grandfathers
said'') that the ruins on the adjacent meaa were once the homes of a
powerful race of Moquis, and then an immense spring watered all the
plain ; but an earthquake threw down the pueblo, split the rock, and
dried up the spring, and the remnant of that people went far to the
South. Telashnimki and Tuba, two Oraybes, husband and wife, once
accompanied Jacob Hamlin to Salt Lake City, and were delighted with
all they saw. Since their return, a portion of the Oraybes have se-
ceded from the main body, and established a new settlement, to which
they invite white men, and propose more friendly relations. The
Moquis pointed out Oraybe in the distance; but did not think it safe
for me to visit it, as the Apaches are often there. The Mormons are
establishing friendly relations with all the tribes of north-western Ari-
zona, and will, 'it is to be hoped, succeed in peace in their vicinity.
One question frequently asked me was, " Are the Mormoneys Amer-
icans?'' A plain affirmative was near enoiigh to the truth for the
views of the Indians ; but, in point of fact, the question is open to
argument.

The dress of a Moqui man consists of very loose jacket and draw-
ers, made of calico obtained from traders. The first is made close at
the neck, and flows loosely to the hips; the second reaches from the



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282 WESTERN WILDS.

waist to a little below the knees. Heavy sandals protect the feet.
But this dress is only conventional, and they often appear entirely
naked, except the girdle and breech-clout. The women wear a heavy
woolen dress, of their own manufacture, consisting of a single skirt
and sort of half-waist, which leaves one arm and breast bare. Polyg-
amy prevails to a slight extent. Chino and Misiamtewah each have
two wives, but from what little they said on the subject, I conclude
they consider it a burden rather than a privilege. The women are
rather homely, short and stumpy — I think from carrying loads upon
their heads. None of them will compare with the graceful and sha|>ely
Navajo girls ; nor are they prolific. The town at the south end of the
mesa is slowly falling to ruins ; not half the houses are inhabited, and
through the other towns there are many abandoned dwellings, now
used for stables and sheep-pens, or for storing hay. The kindly, law
of nature will not permit increase in a country which can only furnish
a bare living. Moqui means "Dead Man,'^ and Moquina may be
translated " Little Dead Town.'' This is the half-abandoned town on
the south end of the mem; and I was informed by Jacob Hamlin that
some five years before my visit most of the inhabitants there died of
small-pox.

The Tegua town, the one we first enter on coming up the cliff,
has a language quite distinct from the ordinary Moqui. Those who
have examined say the Tegua is the same as that spoken by the Pu-
eblos near the city of Mexico. If true, this is a most important fact,
and to my mind goes far to supply the missing link in Baron Hum-
boldt's history of the Aztecs. Governor Amy, of Santa Fe, collected
many facts on this subject, but whether they have been published I
know not. Among ihese people are many albinoes, with sickly
white skin, red haii^nd pinky eyes. Many romantic stories have
been told as to the origin of these white Indians, the most sensational
being that they are descendants of some Scotchmen, carried away by the
Spaniards in their war against Queen Elizabeth; that they were sent
to work in the mines of Mexico, escaped in a body and joined the
Indians.

The un-romantic truth is, they are Indians as much as the others.
Their whiteness is simply a disease. If the term be medically cor-
rect, I would call it a species of American leprosy. We need not go
far to find the causes: a people living in this dry climate, on hard,
dry food, in the midst of burning sands, drought, and misery, and
shut up in these little isolated communities, where the same fiimilies
have intermarried in all probability for a dozen generations. The



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AMONQ THE AZTECS, 283

ooly woDcler is that they are not totally extinct, or ring-streaked,
speckled, and grizzled. In the "good old time^' when the Pueblos
were ten times as numerous, intermarriages took place between the
various towns, their language was nearly the same, and they were
prolific and progressive. Now they constitute but little islands, as it
were, in an ocean of Utes, Navajoes, and Apaches; the separated
towns have gradually grown apart, and become distinct nations ; they
have no central priesthood or ecclesiastical connection ; their religion
and learning steadily decay, and even the tradition of a common ori-
gm is &st becoming obscure.

Perhaps a theory as to the origin of the Pueblos may be constructed
by a system of comparative ethnology and archseology. Beginning in