What the White Race May Learn from the Indian

by George Wharton James

INDIAN KISH IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

I have thought a great deal about this, and am not prepared to say that with our present costume I would advocate women’s going out much in the rain. But I do say that once in a while they can put on short skirts and stout shoes and such old clothes as cannot be injured by getting wet, and then resolutely and boldly sally forth into the rain, and the harder it comes down the better, if it be warm weather. Then let them learn to enjoy the pattering of the rain upon cheeks and ears. Let them hold out their hands and feel the soft and gentle caresses of the “high-born, noble rain.” Let them watch the drops as they spatter on the leaves and trickle down the stems, gathering volume and speed as they reach the bole and fall to the ground, there to give life and nourishment to the whole plant. Everything in Nature loves to be out in the rain. How fresh and bright the trees look after a shower! How the rocks are cleansed and made bright and shining! How their color comes vividly out in the rain! And upon human beings the effect is the same, provided they value health and vigor more than they mind a little discomfort in the bedragglement of their clothes. Years ago I learned this lesson. I was riding from the line of the railway, over the Painted Desert, with several Havasupai Indians. It was the rainy season. Showers fell half a dozen times a day. At first I wished I had an umbrella. I got wet through, and so did the Indians. I thought I ought to feel wretched and miserable, but somehow the Indians were as bright and cheerful as ever, so I plucked up heart and courage, and in half an hour my clothes were dry again. Four or five times that day and an equal number the next day, I got wet through and dry again. Riding horseback kept me warm, and the quick and healthful circulation of the blood, the active deep breathing caused by the exercise, the absence of fear in the soul, all combined to make the wetting a benefit instead of an injury.

My friend W. W. Bass, of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, with whom I have made many trips in that Wonderland region, tells with great gusto a true story of my riding over the desert on one occasion, clothed in one of the old-fashioned linen dusters that reached below my knees. It was warm weather, and dusty on the railway, hence the duster, I suppose. But when we got fairly out on the desert it began to rain, and how it did pour! It came down so rapidly that by and by my pockets were full of water, and Bass says that when he overtook me, I was jogging along, singing at the top of my voice (just as the mocking-bird did), the water splashing out of my pockets as I bounced up and down in the saddle. The linen duster clung to the sides and back of the horse, and wrapped itself around my legs so that the picture was comical in the extreme. But I was happy, and refused to feel any discomfort, and so got joy out of the experience, as well as health and vigor. For let it be remembered that when I came from England, twenty-five years ago, I came as an invalid, broken down in health completely; so much so that I was even forbidden to read a book for a whole year. Now few men are as healthy as I. Years of association with the Indian, learning simplicity and naturalness of him, have aided materially in making the change. I have learned the value of putting the primary things first. I used to be so “nice” and “finnicky” that the idea of having my clothes wet would give me a small panic. “They would get out of shape and look badly, and have to be pressed before I could wear them again.” But when I came to the conclusion that I was worth more than clothes, that my health was of more importance than a crease in my trousers, I found I was taking hold of a principle which, while it might at times seem to be rough on my clothing, would have a decidedly beneficial influence on myself.

And this leads to another important lesson we may learn from the Indian. He is not as “nice” sometimes as I wish he were, but we are far too nice, often, for health and comfort. Many a woman ruins her health by wrecking her nerves, drives her husband distracted, worries and annoys her children, by being too nice in her house. I have found, in New England and elsewhere,—aye, even in Old England,—women who valued a clean house more than they valued their own lives, the happiness of their children, and the comfort of their husbands. Indeed, in one case I well remember a woman drove her husband into temporary insanity, and finally into ignominious flight away from her, by her eternal washing of floors, shaking of carpets, polishing of furniture, and dusting down. Every time the poor fellow went in from the workshop he must change his clothes. If he came in from the outside he must take off his shoes before he entered the door. If he put his warm hand down on the polished table he was rebuked, for his wife at once got up, fetched her chamois leather and rubbed off the offending marks. Poor, wretched woman, and equally poor, wretched man! No wonder he went crazy, and finally lost his manhood and ran away.

I know this is an extreme case. But I vouch for its strict truth. And there are thousands of women (and men too, for that matter) who are afflicted in a serious measure with the same disease. In that home where niceness is valued more than health and comfort and work in life, there lurks serious danger. Go to the Indian, and while I do not suggest that you lose all niceness by any means, seek to learn some of his philosophy and place primary things first. First, health, happiness, comfort, peace, contentment, love; then these other things.

HOPI CHILDREN ENJOYING THEIR DAILY SPORT ON THE BACK OF A BURRO.

I’m going to make a confession that I am afraid will bring me into sad repute with some of my readers. When my first boy was born, we were naturally very proud of him. As he grew out of his baby clothes we liked to see him look nice and neat and clean. He must be a pretty little cherub, dressed in white and have the manners of a Little Lord Fauntleroy. Then I came to the conclusion that we were valuing “niceness” more than the healthy development of the child. I remonstrated and urged a change but to no effect, so I resolved on a coup d’état. One morning after the youngster was dressed up in his white bib and tucker, and as uncomfortable and unhappy as any and all healthy children feel at such treatment, I took him by the hand and led him out of doors and out of sight of all watchful eyes, where there was plenty of mud and plenty of water. In half an hour his changed appearance was a marvel. We started a little stream of water, which we then dammed. We made mud pies, and I helped him mix the “dough” in his apron. We reveled in mud from top to toe. I rolled him in it, so that back was as vividly marked as front. Not a remnant of niceness was left in him. We went home happy and contented, laughing and merry, but bedaubed and beplastered everywhere. We had had such a good time. And it was such fun going out with father. We were going again to-morrow and the next day and the next. And so we did. It needed no words, no argument. It did not take long to get two or three suits of brown canvas or blue denim, and the youngster grew up healthy, happy, vigorous, strong, tough, and often dirty, rather than anæmic, miserable, dyspeptic, weak and ailing, and nice. There would be far less demand for children’s tombstones, surmounted with marble angels and inscribed with wretched doggerel, if mothers valued health rather than niceness, vigor before primness, and strength immaculate rather than bibs and aprons. So I say, let us not be over-nice. And especially let us not train our children to value clean hands and clothes more than the rugged health that comes from contact with the soil in out-of-door employments. I find one can enjoy Homer, and Browning, Dante, and Shakspere, all the better because his body is vigorous and strong, his brain clear, and his mind active as the result of rough-and-tumble mountain climbing, desert tramping or riding, and walking on canyon trails.

Another result of this frank and fearless acceptance of out-of-door conditions is manifested in a readiness to meet difficulties that over-niceness is disinclined to touch. Let me illustrate. Two or three months ago I made a journey with two Yuma Indians and four white men down the overflow of the Colorado River to the Salton Sea. We were warned beforehand that it would be “an awfully hard trip.” We were told that it was “hell boiled down” to try to go through certain places. The river for ten or twelve miles left its bed and ran wild over a vast tract of land covered with a mesquite forest. Mesquite is a fairly dense tree growth covered with strong and piercing thorns. When we came to this place we had to cut our way through the thorny thicket, and our faces, hands, and bodies all suffered with fierce scratchings and thorn-pricks. Several times we stuck fast, and there was nothing for it but to jump out into the water with ax in hand and cut away the obstructions or lift over the boat. My Indian, Jim, though dignified and serene, as I shall fully explain elsewhere, had the promptness that over-niceness destroys. He was out over the side of the boat as quickly as I was, ready for the hard and disagreeable work. Had I been “nicely” dressed, and “nice” about the feeling of water up to my middle, too “nice” to wade for hours, sinking into quicksands, in order to find the best passage for the boats, we should have been there yet. We cut down three mesquite trees, under water, in order to get our boats over the stumps. We forced our way through tall and dense arrow weeds, one in front and the other behind the boat, lifting and forcing, pulling and pushing. It was not “nice” work, but it was invigorating, stimulating, and soul-developing.