Nor is this all. The Indian’s every-day attitude is one of reverence for the Powers Above. He does everything with these before his mind. The first thing he does on awakening is to propitiate all the powers of the five or seven cardinal points. When the sun rises he makes his offering to the powers behind it, that control and direct it, that it may be a blessing throughout the day. Indeed, every act of his life may be said to have a religious thought attached to it, so powerfully is the religious instinct developed within him. If you offer him a cigarette he will propitiate the Powers Above and Around and Below before he gives himself up to the full enjoyment of it. He does this, however, with such apparent unconcern that the stranger would never dream of it, even though he were looking straight at him. But the knowing will understand. When he sees the Indian quietly blow a puff of smoke to the East, he knows that is for the purpose of reminding the good and evil powers that reside there that the smoker wishes their good influences to rest upon him, or, at least, that the evil influences shall pass him by. And the same thing when the smoker puffs to the North, the West, the South, and the Here. For the Navaho Indian believes that there are powers that need propitiating just here, while the Hopis add the powers of the Above and the Below, thus making seven cardinal points.
The secret prayers and rites of the underground kivas, or the medicine hogans of Hopi and Navaho are marvels of sincerity, earnestness, and reverence. One is impressed whether he understands them or not, and the white man comes away, or at least I do, with this feeling, viz., that I would to God the white race, so long as they worship at all, would do so with such outward decorum, reverence, and earnestness that would imply their real inward belief that the thing is more than a meaningless, perfunctory ceremony that they must go through.
Another remarkable thing I would that the white race would learn from the Indian is his habit of teaching the victim of a misfortune of birth that his misfortune is a mark of divine favor. Let me explain fully. A hunchback or a dwarf among the Indians is not made the butt of rude wit, ghastly jokes, or of cruel treatment, as is generally the case with such a one of our own race, but is treated with special consideration and kindness. I knew a Mohave boy who was humpbacked when born. The shaman or medicine man explained how the deformity came. He was a special child, a gift from the gods above. He came from the Above to the Here on the exquisite pathway of a rainbow. But, unfortunately, the rainbow rested over a very sharp, rugged mountain peak, which the gods did not see, and, as the child slid down to the earth, his poor, little, naked back caught on the sharp peak and was thus deformed. With such a story of his origin his parents were made happy, and as he grew older, he was treated with kindness and consideration by his boy companions. Now, while I would not gain this end by the superstitious story of the Mohave medicine man, I would that we could in some way teach our boys to look with compassion upon the misfortune of such as happen to be afflicted at birth, or to be light-witted, or in some way not the equal of the majority.
DRINKING THE EMETIC AFTER THE HOPI SNAKE DANCE.
If an Indian be afflicted with hysteria, or fits of any kind, he is better treated as the result of his affliction rather than worse. Too often the white race makes these afflictions the cause of brutal and indifferent treatment, and adds sorrow to the already overburdened and distressed souls of the suffering.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE INDIAN AND IMMORTALITY
To the materialist immortality is a foolish dream, to the agnostic an unjustified human craving, to the simple Christian a belief, and to the transcendentalist a confident hope, but to the Indian it is as positive an assurance as is life. The white race has complicated its belief in the future life with many theological dogmas. The Roman Catholic church has its purgatory, as well as its paradise and hell; the first as a place of purging for the sins committed in the body and that must be burned away, the second the abode of the blest, and the third the place into which the damned are cast. The Seventh Day Adventists believe that only those who are saved by “the blood of Christ” and obedience to his commands are blessed with the gift of immortal life. They contend it is a free gift as an act of God’s grace and is not inherent in the soul or spirit of mankind. Those who refuse to accept salvation by the vicarious atonement of Christ, they believe, will be annihilated. The Presbyterian believes that a certain number of mankind are foreordained for salvation and heaven, and another number for damnation and hell, from the foundation of the world. The Universalist believes that all men will ultimately be saved and therefore enjoy heaven, whilst others have a belief in a “conditional” immortality.
The Indian believes in immortality without any admixture of complex theological ideas. His is a simple faith which he accepts as he accepts life. He believes that when he dies his spirit goes to its new life just as at birth he came into this life. And he believes that all the objects he used on earth—food, clothing, articles of adornment, baskets, horses, saddles, blankets—have a spirit-life as well as he has. Hence, when one dies, his friends throw upon his funeral pyre his clothing, blankets, and other personal belongings, utensils for his comfort, food for his nourishment on the way to the “under world,” or land of the future, and strangle his horse that its spirit may aid him on his journey. When death approaches he faces it with calmness, equanimity and serenity. Fearless and unafraid he awaits the coming of the last great enemy. In effect, he cries out with Browning:
“I would hate that death bandaged my eyes,
And forbore, and bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it; fare like my peers,
The heroes of old.”