The Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, Havasupais

by George Wharton James

Gambling, unfortunately, is not confined merely to horse-racing. All the afternoon, as I have sat at my work, a group of eight women, some young, some middle-aged, and one old, have gambled without cessation for five solid hours. Two young mothers had their babies—surely not more than two to three months old—and the youngest of the women was one of these mothers, and she could not have been more than eighteen years of age. Girls gamble at Hui-ta-qui-chi-ka for safety-pins, and boys for knives and the like, so that now it is a vice which has affected every individual of the tribe.

The Havasupai children are expert ball tossers. With three or four small melons they rival the conjurers and jugglers of our vaudeville shows in feats of dexterity, keeping three or more balls in the air at the same time.

Boys and girls alike run around in the fiercest rain, their feet and legs wet and the few clothes they have on absolutely soaked. The idea of changing them has never seemed to enter their primitive minds, and without care, without a fire, unless he chooses to build one, the youngster gets along as best he may. It is a case of the weaker going to the wall, for here only the strong can survive.

There is very little attempt on the part of their parents to control them. They are generally allowed to do as they choose. I have often seen a little girl take a cigarette from between her father's lips, give it a few puffs, and return it, he all the while either indifferent to or unconscious of the act.

The close proximity of Havasu Creek and its large ponds or reservoirs, made by the irrigation dams, naturally suggests that they are swimmers. Observation confirms this. From earliest childhood they are expert swimmers, boys and girls alike learning the art often before they can walk. I have seen mere babies placed in the creek and ditches by their parents and older brothers, and one can scarcely say they are taught to paddle, for it seems to come instinctively. There is not a child in the village who cannot swim and dive expertly, and there is no greater fun than to expend a dozen nickels by throwing them into one of the reservoirs and having the children dive for them. Sometimes they can be induced to bring the coins up in their teeth, even picking them in that manner from the sandy bed of the reservoir. They are as expert swimmers as the children of the South Seas. No Kanaka going out to meet an incoming steamer could ride the billows more daringly than the boys and girls of the Havasu swim in the rapid currents of their little stream. I have been with them to-day for a couple of hours. The boys dived into deep water and rose and fell like loons. I amused myself by throwing a stone into ten or more feet of water, and four or five of the boys would dive for it and get it almost as quickly as I could throw it. It was no sooner in than it was out again. One of the little girls, a sister of one of the boys, stood watching the sport. She became so interested that, suddenly, without removing her calico dress, she jumped into the deep place and enjoyed the fun with the rest.

Then, a Havasupai man, riding a burro, brought the animal down into the stream where it was shallow and had a gravelly bed. For an hour he and the boys amused themselves by swimming back and forth through the deep pool, and every now and again one or another would jump on the creature's back and, hanging on, overbalance him, or make him turn a somersault. The burro bore it all good-naturedly and seemed to object very little to the fun: the only time he showed decided inappreciation was when the Indians got him down into deep water and forced his head under for too long a time.

A little later on a horse was brought, who entered into the sport as if he were used to it. He swam back and forth and took to the water as willingly as a child takes candy. The boys hung on to his mane, got on his back, his neck, or hung on to his tail, and, to all seeming, it was all the same to him.

Though they are so fond of the water, the Havasupais cannot be called in some respects a cleanly people. Far from it. Though they take the sweat bath almost as a religious rite[7] and their skin is thus kept clean, there is another kind of cleanliness in which they are very remiss. It would be unreasonable to expect that people living in the exposed wicker huts of the Havasupais could approach anywhere near the ordinary white man's standard of cleanliness. But certainly they might have a higher standard than they do. Lice swarm in the heads of the children and most of the women. On the other hand, all the younger men are particular to be cleanly in this regard, and dress their hair with skill and neatness. Bed-bugs abound in Havasu Canyon as in no other place on earth. They swarm everywhere, and are absolutely found in clusters in the sand, under the old bark of decayed trees, and in every conceivable and inconceivable lodging-place. The warm sand and the seductive moisture that obtains during the major part of the year must be especially conducive to their breeding, for they are ubiquitous. Yet, strange to say, I have never known of an instance where a bed-bug has been brought out of the canyon by a visitor. Though I have been with the Havasupais scores of times I never detected one of these vermin either in my clothing or bedding. The breed seems to be peculiar to the warm, moist air of the canyon and to be unable to live away from it, for which we give hearty thanks.

Now and again scorpions may be found, and, after a rain, I have seen a score of hundred-legged worms (perfectly harmless) rolled up on the trail between the village and Bridal Veil Falls.

Rattlesnakes are not common anywhere in those portions of the canyon much visited by the Havasupais, but now and then one may be found on the trails or basking in the sun on the rocks near by. Elsewhere in this canyon and its many greater or lesser tributaries they are common, and the Indians can find any quantity if they are sent for them. In all my years of wandering to and fro, though, I have not seen a half-dozen rattlesnakes in Havasu Canyon.