“Charlie Bega, he dead—kill—Charlie Bega!”
For the moment I thought someone had been murdered; and a second thought did not lessen my dismay, for this man was a miner. His face was streaked where the tears had washed down through the smudges of coal-dust. The reservation has large deposits of soft coal, and fuel for the Government plants is mined by Indians under a skilled white miner. I had been down the mine that week, and had noted its sagging pillars under the pressure of that heavy mesa roof. It flashed through my mind that there had been a tragedy down the drift, and that other miners were either dead or entombed. But the Navajo interpreter quickly explained:—
“His son has just died. Their hogan is down the cañon near the mine, and he came to tell you of it, and he wants a coffin built and a grave dug.”
The doctor came in to confirm this statement, and added:—
“The carpenter makes coffins for the people. The Navajo have a great fear of the dead, and they will not [[127]]bury when it is possible to have the work done by someone else. We usually send a squad of men to prepare a grave, and the parson conducts a little service. If you say so, I will tell him.”
It was late afternoon, and would soon be twilight.
“You may tell the carpenter,” I said to the interpreter; “we will arrange this funeral for to-morrow morning.”
“Pardon me, sir, but they have queer customs. No member of that family will eat until the body is disposed of; and they must purify themselves by sweat-baths and ceremonies. When one dies close to the Agency, we help them bury at once.”
My first inclination was not to be ruled by such superstition; and then I thought how little four centuries of progress around them and fifty years of American influence had changed the Navajo. Like his Desert, he has remained untouched, unaffected. A hogan that has held the dead is never afterward occupied by the living. Its wood will not be used to make a fire, though they come to freezing.
“Very well,” I said. “Have things made ready to-night.”