What the White Race May Learn from the Indian

by George Wharton James

BEAUTY OF THE MORNING

Oh, the beauty of the morning! It showers its splendors down
From the crimson robes of sunrise, the azure mountain’s crown;
It smiles amid the waving fields, it dapples in the streams,
It breathes its sparkling music through the rapture of our dreams.

It floats upon the limpid air in rainbow clouds of mist,
It ripples through the glowing skies in pearl and amethyst,
It gleams in every burnished pool, it riots through the grass,
It splashes waves of glory on the shadows as they pass.

It steals among the nodding trees and to the forest croons,
In airy note and gentle voice, ’neath waning plenilunes;
It calls, and lo! the wooded brakes, the hills and tangled fens—
A world of life and mystery—swarm with its denizens.

It trembles in the perfumed breeze, and where its ardor runs,
A thousand light-winged choristers pant forth their orisons;
A thousand echoes clap their hands, and from their dewy beds,
A million scarlet-throated flowers peer forth with startled heads.

Oh, the beauty of the morning! It rains upon our ears:
The music of the universe, the chiming of the spheres;
From cloistered wood and leafy vale, its tuneful medleys throng,
Till all the earth is drenched in light and all the world in song!

INDIAN BASKET, SHOWING INFLUENCE OF NATURE IN THE DESIGN.

All children, and especially city children, need out-of-door life. Men and women need it too, sadly, but if the elders cannot have it, owing to our perverted social conditions, our law-givers should see to it that the children do better. It is a well-known fact that cities would soon die out if their vast populations were not constantly being replenished by the sons and daughters of the country. So instead of letting our city children grow up to imperfect manhood, let us find some way to get them out of doors and out into the country more and more. Exercise in the open, where pure air penetrates to the full depths of the lungs, personal contact with the soil, and physical work upon it, as well as personal contact with the trees and flowers and all growing things, the animals of the farm and field, the rocks and mountains, the hills and valleys, the waterfalls and streams, the deserts and canyons; all these are to be desired. Who does not wish to sing with Edwin Markham:

“I ride on the mountain tops, I ride,
I have found my life and am satisfied!”

Of course this out-in-the-country life for city children can only be gained if their parents and our educators and politicians combine to provide it. And in some way it ought to be done. What a joy it would be to many a city boy to be allowed to go and do some work in the country during certain times in the year! Those who have seen the city children who are taken yearly into the country by Fresh Air Funds, or out by vessel into the Bay of New York or Boston Harbor, by philanthropic people, know what delight, joy, and health they receive from the outing. These things all point to the great, the dire, the awful need there is for some way of giving to our city children and men and women more out-door life.

Just after the San Francisco earthquake, Dr. J. H. Kellogg, editor of Good Health, wrote in his forceful way of some lessons the people might learn from that disaster. Here is one of them bearing upon this very question:

MONO INDIAN COOKING CORN MUSH IN A
BASKET BY A CAMP FIRE.

“Three hundred thousand people have found out that they can live out of doors, and that out of doors is a safer place than indoors.

“People who have all their lives slept on beds of down, protected by thick walls of brick or stone, barricaded against the dangerous (?) air of night, have found that it is possible to spend a night upon an unsheltered hillside without risk to life, and it is more than likely that, as in the case of the Charleston earthquake, not a few modern troglodytes, who scarcely ever saw the light of day before, have been actually benefited by being forced out into the fresh air and the sunshine.

“The great tent colonies, improvised by the military authorities with such promptness under the efficient management of the able General Funston, may become the permanent homes for some of the thousands who are now for the first time in their lives tasting the sweets of an out-of-door life. Man is an out-of-door creature, meant to live amid umbrageous freshness, his skin bathed clean by morning dews or evening showers, browned and disinfected by the sun, fed by tropic fruits, and cheered by tropic birds and flowers. It is only through long generations of living under artificial conditions that civilized man has become accustomed to the unhealthful and disease-producing influences of the modern house to such a degree that they can be even in a small measure tolerated. But this immunity is only apparent. An atmosphere that will kill a Hottentot or a baboon in six months will also kill a bank president or a trust magnate—sometime. And if these tent-dwellers get such a taste of the substantial advantages of the out-of-door life that they refuse to return to the old unwholesome conditions of anti-earthquake days, they will profit substantially by their experience, terrible though it has been. It takes earthquakes and cyclones and tidal waves to jostle us out of the unnatural and degenerative ruts into which conventionality is always driving us.

“What advantages has the man in the brown-stone front over the man in the tent? Only these: A pale face instead of the brown skin which is natural to his species; a coated tongue, no appetite, and no digestion, instead of the keen zest for food and splendid digestive vigor of the tent-dweller; an aching head and confused mind and depressed spirits, instead of the vim and snap and energy, mental and physical, and the freedom from pain and pessimism of out-of-door dwellers; early consumption or apoplexy or paresis or cancer of the stomach or arteriosclerosis,—the dry rot of the body which stealthily weakens the props and crumbles the foundations of the citadel of life.”

Why is it that in our cities in summer, and in Florida and the South generally, and in the West, we do not follow the French custom of eating out of doors?

American visitors to Paris in the summer time have always been impressed by the prevalent custom there of dining out of doors. The sidewalks in front of cafés and restaurants are always so occupied with chairs and tables that pedestrians often have to step into the street to get by. This has long been the summer custom in Paris, but with the arrival of cold weather tables and chairs disappeared every year, and the diners returned to the close nicotine-laden air of the stuffy little dining-rooms inside. But last year, according to the London correspondent of the Outlook, an enterprising Frenchman, finding his patrons much attached to his open-air dining-room, and being short of room inside, undertook to make his guests comfortable out of doors by means of a large brazier placed upon the sidewalk. Others followed his example, and in a short time the streets were lined with braziers from the Madeline to the Bastile, much to the satisfaction of the cab-drivers and newsboys. One ingenious proprietor made his table-legs hollow, filled with hot water, and thus utilized them as foot-warmers. And so one may now enjoy a fashionable Parisian café au plein air any day in the year.

Everybody is always hungry at a picnic, not simply because of the unusual exercise, but as the result of the tonic appetite-stimulating influence of the out-of-doors. The same plan may be introduced into any private home by utilizing a back porch, or, when this is lacking, a tent-cloth awning may be provided at the expense of a few dollars.

The old Spanish patio, or inner court, provided the seclusion that many desire, with the possibility of a larger out-of-door life. Mr. Gustav Stickley, the far-seeing editor of The Craftsman, which so effectually pleads for a simpler and more democratic life for the people, has planned a number of Craftsman houses in which these open porches for eating, and sleeping as well, are introduced. This is a great step in the right direction, and is strongly to be commended.

But the outdoor life is larger than houses and porches. One must get away from all houses to really feel and know the joy of the great out-of-doors. Every teacher and orator should know the birds and trees, the flowers and grasses, the rocks and stars, the clouds and odors, at first hand. He should not depend upon books at all for any of this knowledge, save as guides to obtain it. Instead of reading books he should read Nature. See how powerful is the simple oratory of the Indian, whose figures and similes and illustrations and metaphors are of those things in Nature with which he is perfectly familiar.

Another effect upon the mind and soul as the result of this outdoor life is remarkable to those who have never given it a thought. One of our poets once said, “The undevout astronomer is mad.” And every Indian will tell you that the undevout Indian is either mad or “getting civilized.” One of our California historians once wrote something to the effect that the California Indian had no religion, no mythology, no reverence, no belief in anything outside of and beyond himself. Jeremiah Curtin, a careful and close student of the California Indian for many years, in his wonderfully interesting book, “Creation Myths of Primitive America,” shows the utter fallacy of this idea. He says: “Primitive man in America stood at every step face to face with divinity as he knew or understood it. He could never escape from the presence of those powers which had constituted the first world, and which composed all that there was in the present one. ... The most important question of all in Indian life was communication with divinity, intercourse with the spirits of divine personages.” Indeed, the Indian sees the divine power in everything. His God speaks in the storm, the howling wind, the tornado, the hurricane, the roaring rapids and dashing cataracts of the rivers, the never-ending rise and fall of the ocean, the towering mountains and the tiny hills, the trees, the bees, the buds and blossoms. It is God in the flower that makes it grow and gives it its odor; that makes the tree from the acorn; that makes the sun to shine; that sends the rain and dew and the gentle zephyrs. The thunder is His voice, and everything in Nature is an expression of His thought.

This belief compels the Indian to a close study of Nature. Hence the keenness of his powers of observation. He knows every plant, and when and where it best grows. He knows the track of every bird, insect, reptile, and animal. He knows all the signs of the weather. He is a past-master in woodcraft, and knows more of the habits of plants and animal life than all of our trained naturalists put together. He is a poet, too, withal, and an orator, using the knowledge he has of nature in his thought and speech. No writer that ever lived knew the real Indian so well as Fenimore Cooper, and we all know the dignified and poetical speech of his Indian characters. I know scores and hundreds of dusky-skinned Henry D. Thoreaus and John Burroughses, John Muirs and Elizabeth Grinnells and Olive Thorne Millers. Indeed, to get an Indian once started upon his lore of plant, tree, insect, bird, or animal, is to open up a flood-gate which will deluge any but the one who knows what to expect.

CHAPTER V
THE INDIAN AND SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS

TERRACED HOUSES OF THE HOPIS, ALLOWING SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS.

As I have already intimated, the Indian is practically an out-of-door sleeper. I say “practically,” for there are exceptions to the general rule. The Hopis of northern Arizona have houses. In the cold winter months they sleep indoors whenever they can. The Navahos, Apaches, Havasupais, and other tribes have their “hogans” and “hawas” in which they sleep in the very cold weather. But in the summer the invariable rule is for all to sleep out of doors. And even in the winter, if duty calls them away from home and they have to camp out, they sleep in the cold, on the snow, in the rain, as unconcerned for their health as if they were well protected indoors. It is this latter feature that so much commends itself to me. It is just as natural to them to have to sleep out of doors as it is to sleep indoors. They think no more of it, do not regard it as an unusual and dangerous experience, or one to be dreaded. They accept it without a murmur or complaint, and without fear. This is an attitude of mind that I would the white race would learn from the Indian. I once had a friend, a city-bred man, born and brought up in New York, sent west to me by his physician because he had had two or three hemorrhages, whom I took out into Arizona. The first night we had to sleep out was very cold, for it was early in the year, and at that high altitude the thermometer sank very rapidly after the sun went down. Yet I deliberately called camp by the side of a great snowbank. The fearful invalid wanted to know what I was stopping there for. I told him it was to afford him a good sleeping place on the snow. He expressed his dread, and assured me that such an experience would kill him at once. I told him that if it did I would see that he was decently buried, but that did not seem to dissipate his fears. After a good camp-fire was built, and he had had a warm and comforting supper, and his blankets were stretched out on the snow, and he was undressed and well wrapped up, with a hot rock at his feet and the cheery blaze lighting up the scene, he felt less alarmed. I talked him to sleep, and when he awoke in the morning it was to confess that his throat and lungs felt more comfortable than they had done for many long months. A month of this open-air sleeping gave him new ideas on the subject, and sent him back east to fit up a camp in the Adirondacks, where he could get a great deal of outdoor life, and sleeping with doors and windows wide open.

BOSTON MILLIONAIRES SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS ON THE SANDS OF THE COLORADO RIVER.

The outdoor treatment for tuberculosis is now almost universal. Here is what one eminent authority says on the subject:

“Tuberculosis is a direct result of over-work, either mental or physical, and rest is largely its cure. This life in the open air is best carried out in a sitting or semi-reclining posture. Every hour of the day in all seasons of the year and in all kinds of weather should thus be spent, together with sleeping in a tent, protected veranda, or in a house with windows wide open. It will be found that the colder the weather, the more marked and permanent the results. One does not need to be uncomfortable; one can be well wrapped with heavy blankets. It is the inhalation of cold air that is so effectual in stimulating appetite, as a general tonic and fever reducer. A consumptive should have for his motto: ‘Every hour in the closed house is an hour lost.’ There is no excuse for losing time.”

But it is not for those who are in ill health alone that I would commend out-of-door sleeping. Those who are healthy need to be kept in health, and there is a vim, a vigor, a physical joy, comes from this habit that I would that every child, young man and woman, and adult in the land might enjoy. Here is what one intelligent writer, Mary Heath, has recently said upon this subject, and her words I most heartily indorse:

“The success of any scheme for human betterment, morally, mentally, or physically, depends upon securing human co-operation by convincing the intellect of the truth or falsity of any widespread belief. The almost universal notion that night air is dangerous has predisposed, more than any other one cause, to the shutting of every door and window at sunset to keep out malaria. Notwithstanding the fact that all air analyses show that outdoor night air is much purer than day air, the old fear of night air still remains, and is responsible for much infection from foul air, because outdoor and indoor workers in summer and winter—all alike—spend their sleeping hours in ill-ventilated bedrooms. After false ideas about the harmfulness of fresh air are eradicated, plans should be devised and utilized for arranging outdoor sleeping apartments; plans should also be devised for keeping the body warm in cold weather without an over-amount of bedclothing; and for the health and convenience of the millions of middle class and more or less humble domestic home workers, provisions should be made for doing the housework as much as possible out of doors, away from the kitchen heat and odors of cooking food. Out-of-door recreation for the family should also be provided for. Could all sedentary workers spend the seven to nine hours of sleep in a clean, outdoor atmosphere, many of the evil effects of indoor sedentary work would be neutralized. The shop, office, or factory employe, after sleeping in the pure night air, would awake invigorated for the day’s demands and duties. Beginning the day aright, with a keen normal appetite for healthful food, he would be able to utilize his working energies without either structural damage to the tissues, or intellectual or moral degradation.”

Elbert Hubbard, of Roycroft fame, has converted all the sleeping-rooms of his phalanstery into outdoor rooms, where fresh, pure air is breathed. Dr. Kellogg, editor of Good Health, sleeps out of doors all the time, and all his large family of adopted children have rooms which practically contain no doors or windows, so that they sleep as near the open air as civilization will allow.

For years, as far as was possible, I have slept out of doors. When at home my bed is on an open porch, my face turned to the stars, the waving of plum, peach, and fig trees making music while I sleep, the beautiful lights of earliest dawn cheering my eyes before I arise, and the twittering and singing of the birds putting melodies into my soul as I dress. When I am in the wilds exploring, I sleep out of doors always, when and where I can. Those who have read my various books know of my experiences of sleeping in storms, during heavy rains, without bedding in rocky washes, in leaky boats and the rain pouring upon us, in the heat of the desert, and the cold of the snowy plateaus of Arizona. Yet I do not remember that I ever once “took cold,” though I have been wet through many a night. On the other hand, I never visit civilization, especially the proud, haughty, conceited civilization of the East, where houses are steam-heated, and street and railway cars are superheated, without taking severe colds and suffering much misery.

Those who have heard Nansen and Peary and other arctic explorers will remember that they had the same experience. Is it not apparent, therefore, that the outdoor life is the normal, the healthful, the rational, the natural life, while that of the steam-heated house is abnormal, unhealthful, irrational, and unnatural?

People often say: But I see that my house is well ventilated, and therefore the air is as pure and good as it is out of doors. In reply, permit me to say that no house can ever be well ventilated. Air to be pure and wholesome must be alive. It can only live when free and uncontained, and in contact with the direct rays of the sun during the day. Every thoughtful person has noticed the great difference there is between outdoor air and indoor air, on stepping from outside inside, even through all the doors and windows of the room were wide open. There is a vast difference between indoor and outdoor air, even under the best of conditions; so get into the open all you can, day or night, winter or summer, wet or dry.

One of the finest and strongest poems in the language is the following, by Richard Burton: