The bank the Hopi patronizes is his sand bank, or its equivalent—a hole in the wall of his stone house, cleverly concealed, a place under the hearth, or a sack in his corn-cellar.
It is seldom that the Hopi make presents. Curios have a potential value with the trading public, and the Hopi believes that the laborer is worthy of his hire. When they think well of one, likely they will wait until he is leaving [[226]]the country and then bear what is comparatively a priceless gift, something different in basketry or pottery from those hackneyed forms duplicated so often for the touring invaders. Where the Sioux will impoverish himself in feasting and gifting his friends, the Hopi regards brotherhood on a different basis. But I have in mind to show when the flood of his generosity was loosened.
The Great War opened, and later “Washington” was involved. War is a lost art in the Desert, but old warriors like to think of battles. The far-removed Indians were interested in more ways than one. The registration of them, a silly proceeding, caused not a little panic among the unknowing. While Agents who knew law advised that the non-competent and non-English-speaking ward would not and could not be drafted, this made no difference to those who drew up the schedule. It caused more than annoyance; it caused some little apprehension in the Desert. Said Navajo chiefs to me:—
“You want soldiers for this war of Washington’s? Very well, we will select them, and then married men will not be taken from their families, nor young men from helpless parents. How many do you want?”
Was not their thought a trifle wise?
But it was not to be done that way. Little blue cards had been printed, and the Indian Agent was nominated registrar for all persons of his jurisdiction, whites and Indians, including himself. The Navajo simply evaded; but the Hopi lists were prepared, and so much time and paper and little blue cards were wasted.
Some of the Hopi took an equally fantastic view of the crisis. At Oraibi were located the Mennonite missionaries, an earnest people, but many of them of German extraction. A Hopi delegation waited on them, saying: “In a [[227]]few days there will be war. Washington will be at war with Germany. You are Germans. You will be our enemies then, for we are supporting Washington. What will you do when Washington sends the order to kill you?”
This was no doubt a very discouraging vision to have before one.
The Hopi interest in war-time methods and inventions could always be aroused through the illustrations in the great dailies. My pictorial sections of the New York Times were in great demand. They would pore over them, remarking the vast number of soldiers, and would ask for many explanations. Men were flying as birds through the air, and carrying the war beneath the waters. They had seen locomotives and automobiles; and they could believe in the aeroplane and the submarine, because of white man’s magic. But at wireless they balked.
“No!” said one old Indian, emphatically. “That is too much. The telephone—yes, I understand, for there is a wire, and the man’s words go through that wire, inside—I see that. But now you tell me of a man talking from here to the mesa, twenty miles, without a wire? No—excuse me, but that is too much.”