"The word 'medicine' as applied by the Hopi and other tribes is very comprehensive, including charms to influence gods, men, and animals, or to cure a stomach ache. As stated, from experiments with the plants some have been discovered which are uniform in action and which would have place in a standard pharmacopœia. Thus there are heating plasters, powders for dressing wounds, emetics, diuretics, purges, sudorific infusions, etc. Other plants are of doubtful value, and in their use other animistic ideas may enter, though some of them, such as those infused for colds, headache, rheumatism, fever, etc., may have therapeutic properties. The obligation of the civilized to the uncivilized for healing plants is very great. Another class is clearly out of the domain of empirical medicine. Tea made from the thistle is a remedy for prickling pains in the larynx, milkweed will induce a flow of milk, and there are other examples of inferential medicine. Perhaps another class is shown by the employment of the plant named for the bat, in order to induce sleep in the daytime.
"It may be interesting to look into the workings of the Indian mind as shown by his explanation of the uses of certain of these plants.
"A beautiful scarlet gilia (Gilia aggregata Spreng) grows on the talus of the giant mesa on which ancient Awatobi stood. This is the only locality where the plant has been collected in this region, but it grows in profusion on the White Mountains, one hundred and twenty-five miles southeast.
"The herdsman of our party was asked the name and use of the plant. He replied: 'It is the pala katchi, or red male flower, and it is very good for catching antelope. Before going out to kill antelope, hunters rub up the flowers and leaves of the plant and mix them with the meal which they offer during their prayer to the gods of the chase.'
"'Why is that?' was asked.
"'Because,' he replied, 'the antelope is very fond of this plant and eats it greedily when he can find it.' (Animistic idea.)
"Another creeping plant (Solanum triflorum Nutt.), which bears numerous green fruit about the size of a cherry, filled with small seeds, is called cavayo ngahu, or watermelon medicine. The plant may be likened to a miniature watermelon vine. It was explained that if one took the fruit and planted it in the same hill with the watermelon seeds, would there be many watermelons,—that is, the watermelon would be influenced to become as prolific as the small plant.
"Every one is familiar with the clematis bearing fluffy bunches of seeds having long, hair-like appendages. An Indian lecturing on a collected specimen of the clematis said: 'This is very good to make the hair grow. You make a tea of it and rub it on the head, and pretty quick your hair will hang down to your hips,' indicating by a gesture the extraordinary length. For the same reason the fallugia is a good hair tonic."
The Hopi uses a weapon for catching rabbits which, for want of a better name, white men call a boomerang. It possesses none of the strange properties of the Australian weapon, yet in the hands of a skilled Hopi it is wonderfully effective. I have seen fifty Oraibis on horseback, and numbers of men and boys on foot, each armed with one of these weapons, on their rabbit drive. They determine on a certain area and then beat it thoroughly for rabbits, and woe be to the unhappy cottontail or even lightning-legged jack-rabbit if a Hopi throws his boomerang. Like the wind it speeds true to its aim and seldom fails to kill or seriously wound.
Though most of the men have guns and many of the youths revolvers, the bow and arrow as a weapon is not entirely discarded. All the young boys, even little tots that can scarcely walk, use the bow and arrow with dexterity. A small hard melon or pumpkin is thrown into the air and a child will sometimes put two or even three arrows into it before it reaches the ground. Old men who are too poor to own modern weapons are often seen sitting like the proverbial and oft-pictured fox, stealthily watching for a ground squirrel, prairie-dog, or rat to come out of his hole, when the speedy and certain arrow is let fly to his undoing.
Except for a little wild meat of this kind, secured seldom, or a sheep, which is too valuable for its wool to kill on any except very special and rare occasions, the Hopis are practically vegetarians. They are not above taking what the gods send them, however, in the shape of a dead horse. A few years ago Mr. D. M. Riordan, formerly of Flagstaff, conducted a party of friends over a large section of the region presented in these pages, and when near Oraibi a beautiful mare of one of the teams suddenly bloated and speedily died. In less than an hour after they were told they might take the flesh; the Hopis had skinned it, cut up the carcass, and removed every shred of it. I afterwards saw the flesh cut into strips, hung outside the houses of the fortunate possessors to dry, and I doubt not that horse meat made many a happy meal for them during the months that followed.
Hopi Children, at Oraibi, Waiting for a Scramble of Candy.
When a Hopi feels rich he may buy a sheep or a goat from a Navaho, or even kill a burro in order to vary his dietary.
Corn is his staple food. It is cooked in a variety of ways, but the three principal methods are piki, pikami, and pū-vū-lū. Piki is a thin, wafer-like bread, cooked as I have before described.
On one occasion, at Oraibi, an old friend, Na-wi-so-ma, was making piki for the Snake Dancers. When I took my friends to see her, they all ate of the bread and asked her all manner of questions about it.
Na-wi-so-ma was very kind and obliging. One of my party wished to make moving photographs of the operation of making piki, so she cheerfully moved her tōō-ma (cooking stone) outside. She insisted upon placing it, however, so that her back was to the blazing sun, which rendered it impossible to make the photographs. It was in vain that I explained to her why she must face the sun, and, at last, in desperation, I seized the heavy tōō-ma and carried it where I desired it to be. In my haste in putting it down—rather, dropping it—it snapped in two, and I had to repair the damage to her stone and feelings with a piece of silver ere we could proceed.