The Chemawa American, December 01, 1913, Page 6, Image 6

4
THE
CHEMAWA
AM ERICAN
— and of p ersuading the people of his own class and color th u s to treat
him .
Several tim es we w alked up th e precipitous cliff trails to th e mesa top,
and visited th e three villages thereon. W e w ere received w ith friendly
courtesy— perhaps partly because we endeavored to show good m anners
ourselves, w hich, I am sorry to say, is not invariably the case w ith to u r­
ists. T h e houses were colored red or w hite; and the houses individually,
and th e villages, as villages, com pared favorably w ith th e average
dw elling or village in m any of th e southern portions of M editerranean
E urope. C ontrary to w hat we had seen in the H opi village near T uba,
m ost of th e houses w ere scrupulously clean; alth o u g h the condition of
streets— w hile not worse th a n in the M editerranean villages above re ­
ferred to —showed u rg en t need of a crusade for san itatio n and elem en­
ta ry hygiene. T h e men and women were well dressed, in clothes quite
as picturesque as, and quite as near our own garb, as the dress of m any
E uropean peasants of a good type; aside, of course, from th e priests
and young men who were p rep arin g for the cerem onial dance, and who
were clad, or unclad, according to th e ancient ritu al. T here were sev­
eral room s in each house; and th e fu rn itu re included stoves, sew ing-
m achines, chairs, window panes of glass, and som etim es w indow c u r­
tains. T h ere were w agons in one or two of th e squares, for a wagon
road has been b u ilt to one end of the mesa; and we saw donkeys laden
w ith fagots or w ater— an o th er south E uropean analogy.
A ltogether, th e predom inant im pression made by the sig h t of the
ordinary life—not the strange heathen cerem onies—was that of a rea­
sonable advanced, and still advancing, sem i-civilization; not savagery
at all. T h ere is big room for im provem ent; but so there is am ong
w hites; and w hile the im provem ent should be along th e lines of g ra d ­
ual assim ilation to the life of the best w hites, it should unquestionably
be so shaped as to preserve and develop the very real elem ent of native
cu ltu re possessed by these In d ian s— w hich, as I have already said, if
th u s preserved and developed, may in the end become an im portant
contrib u tio n to A m erican cu ltu ral life. U ltim ately I hope the I n ­
dian will l>e absorbed into the w hite population, on a full equality; as
w as tru e, for instance, of the In d ian s who served in m y own regim ent,
the R ough R iders; as is tru e on the N avajo reservation itself of tw o of
th e best men thereon, both in G overnm ent em ploy, both p artly of n o rth ­
ern Ind ian blood, and both in d istin g u ish ab le from the most u pright
and efficient of the men of pure w hite blood.
Canon D ouglas, of th e Episcopal C athedral at F ond du Lac, took me
into one of the houses to look at the p o ttery . T h e g ran d m o th er of the
house was th e pottery-m aker, and, en tirely unhelped from w ithout and
w ith no incentive of m aterial rew ard, but purely to g ratify her own in-