MOHAVE WOMAN POUNDING MESQUITE TO PROVIDE A DRINK FOR HER GUEST.
I was once visiting the Mohave reservation, at Parker, on the Colorado River. It was a very hot day, and I was thirsty, weary, and hot. As soon as I arrived at the home of one old lady, she at once went out of doors to her wooden mortar, took some mesquite beans, pounded them, poured water over the flour thus made, and in a few minutes presented me with a copious drink that was both pleasing to the taste and refreshing. Look at her face as she kneels before the mortar. It is a kindly and generous face. She cared nothing for the fact that it was hot, or that it was hard work to lift the pounder and make the meal for the drink. She did it so simply and easily and naturally that I accepted the drink with the added pleasure that it was the product of a real, and not an artificial, hospitality.
Few visitors to the Snake Dance and the different religious or thanksgiving festivals of the Indians of the Southwest have failed to observe the great amount of preparation that goes on for expected but unknown guests. It is known they will come; therefore preparations must be made for them. Corn is ground in the metates, and piki is made.
An old Navaho Indian, pictured on the first page, is a wonderful illustration of the natural generosity of the aborigine before he is spoiled by contact with the white. Many years ago this man, who had large possessions of stock, sheep, horses, and goats, with much grazing land, and several fine springs, was riding on the plateau opposite where the Paria Creek empties into the Colorado River. Suddenly he heard shouts and screams, and rushing down to the water saw a raft filled with men, women, and children, dashing down the river to the rapids. When the raft and its human freight were overturned into the icy waters he did not hesitate because the people were of a different color from his own, but, plunging in, he rescued all those who were unable to save themselves, mainly by his own valor. It turned out that the strangers were a band of Mormons seeking a new home in Arizona, and, being met by the barrier of the Colorado River, had sought to cross it with their worldly goods upon the insecure and unsafe raft.
What could they now do? Though their lives were saved, their provisions were nearly all lost in the raging rapids of the turbulent and angry Colorado. Bidding them be of good cheer, this savage Indian led them to one of his hogans, where immediately he set his several wives (for the Navahos are polygamists) to grinding corn and making large quantities of mush for the half-famished white strangers. He thus fed them, daily, for months. In the mean time, he allowed them to plant crops (he finding seed) on his land, using for irrigation therefor water from his springs.
But he had not given himself proper care after his icy bath. His legs became drawn up by rheumatism, and from that day to this he has been a constant sufferer from his exposure to the cold water of the river and his after-neglect caused by his eager desire to care for unknown strangers.
The awful irony of the whole thing lies in the fact that in spite of what he had done, the recipients of his pure, simple, beautiful hospitality could not, or did not, appreciate it. He was “only an Indian.” He had no rights. They were American citizens,—white people; civilized people. Why should this Indian own or control all this fine land, all these flowing springs, all these growing crops? It was wrong, infamous, inappropriate. Therefore, to make matters right, these grateful (?) civilized (!!) Mormons stole from him the best part of his lands, and the largest of his springs, and for years laughed at his protests; until finally a white friend was raised up for him in a brave United States Army officer, now a general in the Philippines, I believe, who presented the case of the Indian to the courts, fought it successfully, and lived to see the Indian’s wrongs in some small measure righted.
To this day the Indian is known as “Old Musha,” the name given to him by the people whom he befriended in their distress, because mush was the chief article of the diet that his hospitality provided for them. Truly did Shakspere write:—
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude!”