“It took three years’ bargaining to get that blanket from a Navajo chief. You can’t get them made of that quality any more. They’d rather get ten or twelve dollars for a blanket they spend a few weeks on and get paid often, than work a year on a single blanket that they can sell for a hundred.”
He picked out various examples of pattern and weaving and explained relative values. The amount of red, for instance, in the one we had been looking at added greatly to its price. We found out later that although not stationed at Albuquerque, he was one of the Harvey staff, and as we spent the whole evening talking with him, and he might not care to have his name taken in vain, I’ll call him Mr. X. He has lived for years among the Indians. We could have listened to his stories about them forever, but to remember the greater part would be a different matter.
On the subject of business dealings, an Indian, he said, has no idea of credit. No matter how well he knows and trusts you, he wants to be paid cash the moment he brings in his wares. To wait even an hour for his money will not satisfy him. A puzzling thing had happened on the platform that afternoon. I heard a lady say to an old squaw, “I’ll take these three baskets.” Whereupon instead of selling the baskets, the Indian hastily covered all of them with a blanket, got up and went away!
I told this to Mr. X. He considered a minute, then asked:
“Did the lady by chance wear violet?”
“She did!” interposed Celia. “She had on a violet shirtwaist and——”
“That explains it!” Mr. X broke in. “No wonder she ran away. To an Indian violet is the color of evil. None but a witch would wear it. Red is holy; they love red above all colors. Also they love yellow, orange and turquoise.”
As we were talking a young Navajo who was standing near us, suddenly covering his eyes with his arm, rushed from the room. Naturally we looked at our clothes for an evidence of violet but Mr. X. laughed.
“It wasn’t a case of color this time! Do you see that old squaw that just came in? She is his mother-in-law. Navajos won’t look at their wife’s mother; they think they will be bewitched if they do. He is going back to the Reservation tomorrow, because the old woman came down today. He is an intelligent Indian, too, but if he spies a stray cat or dog around tonight, he will probably think it is his mother-in-law having taken that shape. Their belief in witchcraft is impossible to break. At the same time they have an undeniable gift for necromancy, second sight or whatever it may be called, scarcely less wonderful than that of the Hindoos of India. The boy in the basket trick and the rope-climbing trick of Asia are not to be compared with things I have seen with my own eyes in New Mexico.
“I have seen a Shaman, or priest, sing over a bare adobe floor, and the floor slowly burst in one little place and a new shoot of corn appear. I have seen this grow before my eyes until it became a full-sized stalk with ripened corn. Instead of waving a wand, as European magicians do, the priest sings continually and as long as he sings the corn grows, when he stops the cornstalk stops.