Another of the things I think we might well learn from the Indian is his kind of hospitality. Too often in our so-called civilization hospitality degenerates into a kind of extravagant, wasteful, injurious ostentation. I do not object, on formal occasions, to ceremonial hospitality, to an elaborate spread and all that goes with it. But in our every-day homes, when our friends call upon us for a meal or a visit of a week, it is not true hospitality to let them feel that we are overworking ourselves in order to overfeed and entertain them. When one has plenty of servants, the overwork may perhaps not be felt, but the preparation and presentation of “extra fine” meals should be looked upon as an unmitigated evil that ought to cease.
THE NAVAHO INDIAN EXPECTS YOU TO PARTAKE OF HIS SIMPLE DESERT HOSPITALITY.
IN THE HOME OF A HOSPITABLE NAVAHO AT TOHATCHI.
Why is it that the professional lecturers, singers, and public performers generally refuse to accept such hospitalities? Every one doing their kind of work knows the reason. It is because this “high feeding” unfits them for the right discharge of their duties. To overfeed a preacher (and I’ve been a preacher for many years) is to prevent the easy flow of his thought. It is as true now as when Wordsworth wrote it, that “plain living and high thinking” go together. For the past five weeks I have been lecturing nightly in New York City. I am often invited to dinners and banquets, but I invariably refuse unless I am promised that a full supply of fruit, nuts, celery, and bread and butter, or foods of that nature are provided for me, and that I am not even asked to eat anything else. I don’t even want the mental effort of being compelled to refuse to eat what I know will render my brain “logy,” heavy, and dull.
Then, again, when I am invited to a home where no servants are kept (as I often am), and see the hostess worrying and wearying herself to prepare a great variety of “dainties” and “fine foods” for me that I know I am far better without, what kind of creature am I if I can accept such hospitality with equanimity? I go to see people to enjoy them, their kindness, their intellectual converse, the homelikeness of themselves and their children. If I want to “stuff and gorge” I can do so at any first-class restaurant on the expenditure of a certain sum of money. But at the homes of my friends I want them; I go for social intercourse; and to see them working and slaving to give me food that is an injury to me is not, never can be, my idea of hospitality. I would not have my readers infer from this that I am unmindful of the kindly spirit of hospitality behind all of this needless preparation; nor would I have them think that I never eat luxurious things. I am afraid some of my readers would forego their kind thoughts towards me if they were to see me sometimes as I indulge in all kinds of things that “ordinary people” eat. But I do want to protest against the ostentatious and extravagant manifestation of our hospitality, and also the injuriousness of much of it when it comes to the food question, and to commend the spirit and method of the Indian’s way. If friends come unexpectedly to an Indian home, they are expected to make themselves at home. They are not invited to the “festive board” to eat, but they are expected to share in the meal as a matter of course. Hospitality is not a thing of invitation, whim, or caprice. It is the daily expression of their lives. Every one, friend or stranger, coming to their camp at meal times is for the time being a member of the family. There is no display, no ostentation, no show, no extra preparation. “You are one of us. Come and partake of what there is!” is the spirit they manifest. There is nothing more beautiful to me than to find myself at a Navaho hogan in the heart of the Painted Desert, and to realize that I am expected to sit down and eat of the frugal meal which the family has prepared for itself.
HOPI INDIANS COOKING CORN IN AN UNDERGROUND OVEN.
My contention is, that this is the true spirit of hospitality. You are made to feel at home. You are one of the family. Formality is dispensed with; you are welcomed heartily and sincerely, and made to feel at ease. This is “to be at home”; this is the friendly, the human, the humane thing to do. Unnecessary work is avoided; the visitor is not distressed by seeing his hostess made to do a lot of extra cooking and “fussing” on his account; his heart is warmed by the friendliness displayed (and surely that is far better than merely to have his stomach filled); and, furthermore, if he be a thoughtful man who values health and vigor rather than the gratification of his appetite, he is saved the mortification and the annoyance of having to choose between the risk of offending his hostess by refusing to eat the luxurious “obnoxities” she has provided, or offending himself by eating them under protest, and possibly suffering from them afterward.