What the White Race May Learn from the Indian

by George Wharton James

Another thing that the civilized of this age may well learn from the Indian is intense earnestness and sincerity in all matters of religion. It is a painful thing for me to go into many of our city churches. Well-dressed women and girls and young men will sit and whisper through even the most sacred parts of the service. Indeed, it is the exception, not the rule, that I ever go to a service without being outraged by some such exhibition of rudeness, ill manners, and irreverence. This kind of thing is unknown with the Indian. Religion is a serious thing. Fun is fun, and when he goes in for fun he does it with thoroughness and completeness; but when his religious instincts are called upon, he puts aside all fun, and enters into the spirit of the occasion with becoming reverence and solemnity. It is civilized people who go into churches of other faiths than their own and gape and “gawp” around, whispering the while to one another at the strange things they see. Protestants are particularly guilty of this serious vice. Roman Catholics are so trained to attend to their own devotions, and to be devout in the house of God, that they pay no attention to one another, but Protestants will go to a Catholic church, or one of some other denomination than their own, and behave in a manner that I would never insult the Indians by calling “savage” or “uncivilized.” An Indian will not even set foot on the top of one of the underground kivas where religious ceremonies of one clan are going on to which he does not belong. I do not ignore the fact that this reserve comes from superstitious fear lest some harm befall him, and this fear, perhaps, is not good. But whether from fear or not, the reverence for the sacred place and the ceremonies going on is refreshing and gratifying. Especially so is it to me after seeing, week after week, a crowd of so-called civilized young men (and old) lounging around a church door, sometimes smoking, making comments upon the people entering the church. I have as little toleration for the acts of these young men who thus selfishly rob people of their comfort and destroy their religious feeling as I would have for any one who would laugh at sorrow, or make a mock of the grief of the bereaved. And my feeling extends also to the officials of the church who will permit such outrageous conduct. Churches are for the education of all the people in religious and higher things. How can youth be educated in higher things when the very precincts of the church are allowed to be used by them for acts of discourtesy, rudeness, and selfish disregard for the thoughts and rights of others? With the Indians these things never occur. In looking at ceremonies in which they have no part, their manner betokens the profoundest respect and reverence. If not for the worship itself, it is yet shown to the feelings of those who do worship. I have photographs in my collection of Indian youths standing at the door of a Christian church while the priest within intoned the mass, or performed some part of the appointed ritual. The rapt expression of intent earnestness and seriousness is so far removed from the flippant, indifferent, careless expression and attitude of many young men of my own race that I long for the latter to know somewhat of the feeling and reverence of the former.

THE CHIEF PRIEST OF THE ANTELOPES MARCHING TO THE DANCE PLAZA.

THE CIRCUIT OF ANTELOPE PRIESTS BEFORE THE KISI IN THE HOPI SNAKE DANCE.

THE ANTELOPE PRIEST PRAYING BEFORE THE
SHRINE OF THE WEAVER OF THE CLOUDS.

Then in the religious ceremonies in which they take part, their demeanor is remarkable in its intent seriousness and earnestness. I have seen Indians at their shrines, when they thought they were entirely alone, pray with an agony of seriousness and fervor that I have never seen equalled or at least surpassed. The priests of the Snake Dance and the Lelentu (prayers for rain and that water will flow freely into the springs) are as earnest and sincere and devout as the most consecrated Christian minister or priest I ever saw. And the dancers of the Acomas, Lagunas, Hopis, Navahos, Zunis, etc., enter into these, their religious ceremonies, with an earnestness and reverence that put to shame the flippant, bustling, looking-around, whispering congregations of many of our so-called Christian churches.

CARRYING THE SNAKES IN THEIR MOUTHS IN THE HOPI SNAKE DANCE.