Puchilowa sang for me the Wallapai song on the death of their chiefs. It is a weird, mournful melody, which, however, I have not yet had time and opportunity to transcribe from the graphophone. It says: "Our chief, our father, our friend, is dead. His voice is silent, his tread is silent. Come together, ye his friends, and cry about with sorrow. Burn up his body that his spirit may go to the world of spirits. Burn up his house that his spirit may not long to stay around. Burn up all his possessions that they may be with him in the spirit world. Then let no one to whom he belonged stay near the place where he died. Move away, that his spirit may feel nothing to keep him to the earth."
Hence it will be seen that the Wallapai is naturally a believer in cremation. Indeed he still practises the burning of his dead, except where white influences are brought to bear. These influences are not altogether a perfect good. There is no harm in burning the dead, but, unfortunately, the general Indian belief is that the goods of the deceased, his horses, his guns, his clothes,—indeed, all his personal possessions, and the gifts of his friends,—should also be burned to accompany him to the spirit world. If this destruction of valuable property could be arrested without interfering with the corporeal cremation, it would be a good thing.
The thanksgiving song for harvest, though purely Indian, is a much more cheerful melody. Puchilowa gave me the words, as well as sang the song in the graphophone, but he was unable to tell what the words meant. "The old Indians gave me this song long time ago. I sing it all 'a time at harvest. I no sapogi (understand) what it means."
"Ho si a ya ma,
In ya a sonk a kīt a,
In ya va va vam
Ho si a ya ma
In ya ha sak a kīt a,"
etc., ad infinitum.
There are three native policemen, engaged by the Indian department, among the Wallapais,—Puchilowa, (Jim Fielding), at Truxton; Su-jin´-i-mi (Indian Jack), at Kingman; and Wa-wa-ti´-chi-mi, at Chloride. Each receives ten dollars per month for his services. It was the former who acted as interpreter during my last visit.
I had just finished making the photographs of Quasula and one or two others, when an old woman and her husband came in from the desert. As he sat waiting for me to photograph him, he took some prickly pears from his bundle and began to eat them. I had often seen tourists from the East fill their fingers with the almost invisible and countless spines of the prickly pear, so I asked At-e-e how he gathered them. Picking up a stick, he sharpened one end, thrust it into his fruit, and, as if it were still on the tree, chopped it off with his knife. Now, still holding it on the stick, he peeled it and then handed it to me to eat. It is a slightly sweet and acid fruit, dainty enough in flavor, but so crowded with annoying small seeds as not to pay for the trouble of separating them.
Elsewhere I have described the method of making fire with the drill. While talking with Atee, to whom I had given some tobacco which he twisted into a cigarette, he suddenly asked me for a match. I said I would give him a boxful if he would make a fire without a match. In a minute he set to work. He borrowed the walking cane of Puchilowa, which had just the right kind of end to it, and then, getting a piece of softer, half-rotten but very dry wood, he bored a small hole in it. Now, taking the stick, he placed the end of it into the hole, and then, rubbing the stick between his hands, he made it revolve so rapidly that in a minute or less a slight smoke could be seen in the hole where the end of the stick was revolving. Stopping for just a moment, he got some dry punk and put it into the hole and around the end of the stick and began to twirl it again, at the same time gently blowing on the punk. In less time than it takes me to write it he had got a spark. This he blew gently until it became two, or three and more, and then with a few pieces of shredded cedar bark he picked up the sparks, blew them more and more until the bark was ignited, and in five minutes he had a good camp-fire.
Mescal is one of the chief native foods of both Wallapais and Havasupais. They call it vi-yal. It is made in winter, when the plant is fullest of moisture. It is a species of cactus that is treated as follows: A sharp stick is thrust into the plant to see if it is soft and moist enough. Then the outer leaves are cut off until the white, pulpy, and fibrous masses inside are exposed. This is the part used. It is cooked in large pits, ten or more feet in diameter. A hole is dug in the ground, or better still, in a mass of rocky débris. Plenty of wood is laid in the hole, and this covered over with small pieces of rock upon which the material to be cooked is placed four or five feet high. This, in turn, is also covered with small stones, grass, and dirt to keep in the heat. The wood is then fired and allowed to burn for two or more days. Then the dirt and grass are taken off, and if the mass has cooked brown it is removed, piled upon flat rocks, and then pounded by the women into big flat sheets, three or four feet wide and twice as long. Exposure in the sun rapidly dries it, when it is folded up into two or three feet lengths, taken home, and stored for winter use.