And in early August come letters to the Agency. The queries are many and various.
“Please furnish the date of the Snake Dance.”
“Will you send me a permit to Oskaloosa, Michigan?” [[244]]
“Mail me a permit to the El Tovar, Grand Cañon, where I will meet my wife and see if she wants to come.”
“Are moving pictures permitted, and if not, why not?”
“What are the rates at the Hopi hotels?”
“Is it good form to carry an umbrella in the Desert?”
“A Hopi woman sold me a loaf of bread in 1895. I want some of that bread this trip.”
“Please reserve me a room and bath; I will arrive on the eighteenth.”
All these should be answered, to the effect that the date of the dance will be given to the press as soon as known; that permits are issued when the permittee arrives; that there are no hotels; that the Agent can reserve nothing; that tourists should provide themselves with camping equipment and come prepared for rain. Does not the Snake Dance produce rain? The thunder mutters and the rain-clouds lower ominously, if no rain falls. There will be a drencher in the fortnight of the Snake Dance, one may be sure; and it often occurs so shortly thereafter as to cause one to wonder how the priests dope it out. In 1911 the storm broke just at the close of the ceremony. It broke immediately over me, as I perched on top of the Dance Plaza rock. That is an excellent place for an unobstructed view of the whole show, but it has an enormous—and unforeseen by me—disadvantage, in that one may wish to get down at a specific moment, as I did. And at that moment, the tribe’s collection of snakes, scores of them, hissing, writhing, entangled, were thrown into the sacred-meal circle just below my dangling feet. I did not get down. I sat there in the rain, and soaked.
A slicker, or oiled-coat such as fishermen wear, is an important part of a desert outfit. It does not weigh much, it may prove useful in covering the hood of the engine [[245]]when bucking flooded washes, and it will certainly protect its owner after the Hopi prayer for rain. Pack one in from the railroad towns; for while the desert traders carry them, the demand is often heavy enough to exhaust stocks. Like the Texan’s gun, it may not be needed; but if needed, it will be “wanted damn bad.”
Comes also to the Agent a telegram from the Commissioner: HOPE YOU ARE DOING NOTHING TO ENCOURAGE HOPI SNAKE DANCE—just that. Already advertising or lurid press-stories have announced the date in Washington. The somnolent Bureau, that so often finds it inexpedient to administer justice, arouses itself and heaves the telegram over three thousand miles. Never shall it be said that the joys of the savage should receive sympathetic understanding. By no means permit them to be happy in their way. Teach them to be happy in our way. Encourage that broad spirit of charity we invite from Kansas via the Civil Service examinations. But do these things without hurting the native’s feelings. Never act so as to arouse or even risk antagonism. “Do nothing to encourage the Snake Dance,” but remember, if you have an urge to discourage it, that we have not directed you to do anything. We have simply expressed the hope that you will successfully do nothing.
And the Agent, whoever he may be, has just finished wrestling with the last of his fiscal-year accounts, closing June thirtieth and requiring all of July to assemble. He has signed 7863 papers of different colors and symbols, all explaining his honesty. He has completed one thousand calculations forming the statistical section of his Annual Report, long arrays of figures, giving the exact value of each washtub, proving the altitude and longitude of everything, from the number of sheep the Indians [[246]]devour in a year and why, to the number of tacks used in fixing the linoleum to his kitchen floor. He will have recently emerged from the impotent phrases of his narrative Report, a mandatory composition of past woes and future griefs, destined to fill an Eastern pigeonhole. These things are fetishes, thieves of time and destroyers of efficiency, worshiped by the Bureau as the documentary reason for its existence. Like prefaces, they are hopefully prepared, but seldom read, and certainly never acted on.
The Agent will pause long enough to sign a permit—a colored slip of paper printed over with regulations having a local significance. Read them; for he will not have time to read them to you. He has had them printed for a purpose—the purpose of relieving him of explanations.
Should the Agent appear a trifle acrid in manner, have patience. He may have just opened a batch of exceptions to his last year’s accounts, rebuking him many times for intelligently carrying on the business of the Government, when absence of intelligence would have been much cheaper and approved. Or he may have received one of those Departmental questionnaires, calculated on the abacus of economy, and propounding solemnly something like this:—
It is noted that you mine coal, and request $3000 annually for the pay of miners. This seems beyond all reason. The Office has been informed on good authority that excellent bituminous coal may be purchased at five dollars the ton, f.o.b. Gallup, New Mexico. Would it not be advisable to purchase fuel in Gallup? You are directed to procure bids f.o.b. your station, and transmit them to the Office for consideration and comparison with your mining costs.