Indians of the Enchanted Desert

by Leo Crane

In 1890 the defiance of the Oraibi first caused notice. Old Lo-lo-lo-mi, their good chief, had been to Washington, and had agreed to place the children of his faction in the school. His counsels were disregarded by the opposition; in fact they imprisoned the old man and threatened him with death for this lapse from the traditions. Lo-lo-lo-mi was “too good,” as his name implied. The sub-Agent, Mr. Ralph Collins, arrested several of the war-chiefs and sent them to their Agent at Fort Defiance. When they returned they busied themselves making more trouble; so troops were sent to pacify and coerce them, and the first great blunder was made by an army officer. This officer accompanied Collins to the Oraibi mesa. They were warned that the hostiles had armed and meant to fight. Believing this to be so much bluff, they ascended the mesa to the pueblo. A war-chief, who had refused to attend a council, stepped out on one of the terraced houses. He was painted for the occasion, carried a rifle, [[149]]and looked the part of his office. He was joined by a medicine man, who wore a raw sheepskin that dripped blood and besmeared his body. These two, knowing of many sympathizers within the hovels, dared the whites to combat and greatly abused them. The two white men prudently retired after an abortive parley.

Then came five troops of cavalry. The commanding officer invited the hostile headmen to a council below the mesa, and gave his word that they should be respected. They came, but stubbornly refused to change their minds as to this white man’s educational propaganda. They were then seized and bound as prisoners; and were afterward marched up the pueblo trail as a screen for the soldiers. This was rank betrayal, and the effects of it live in the Oraibi country to this day.

“Some white men do not keep their word.” And at Oraibi, or at least among unreconstructed Oraibans, who are now at Hotevilla, it is wisdom to suspect all white men.

Collins, the civilian and sub-Agent, had no part in this. He advised against it and deplored it. It would have been better to risk a bit of bad marksmanship, for which the Hopi is noted; it would have been better to beat a few worthless war-chiefs and medicine men to death, if that were actually necessary. One can forgive a battle—but betrayal rankles in the heart.

The prisoners taken at this time were sent to Fort Wingate. In a few months they were released on promise to be good, but when they returned from captivity they too refused to keep the parole given. The goose of an officer had produced a flock of ganders, and his work was to live for nearly three decades. In 1894 troops were again in demand at Oraibi, and nineteen of the Indian leaders [[150]]were sent as prisoners to Alcatraz Island. They were imprisoned about eight months, and returned impenitent.

In 1898 the Hopi suffered from smallpox. It was not so bad as that epidemic told of by the Spanish, but it was severe enough. Superstition and fright, combined with fatalism, are hard things to conquer among a people who know nothing of vaccination, who trust no stranger, but prefer to die unassisted by aliens. Troops were necessary, to affect quarantine and to cremate bodies. In 1899, say the records, troops came again, and once more prisoners were sent to Fort Defiance.

All this time internal dissension was at work among the Oraibans, and in 1905 differences as to the views of local oracles concerning the traditions reached a climax. This quarrel involved nearly everyone within reaching distance. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Francis E. Leupp, the best supporter of discipline the Service has had in three decades, was at odds with his Agent on this station and, to tell the truth, this Agent had met one Waterloo at the Chimopovi pueblo, where an outpost of the Oraibi dwelt. His effort to coerce the Hopi with an enlarged Navajo police force had nearly resulted in bloodshed and real war; and at the end of this fiasco the Navajo mercenaries threatened his life because the pay-chest was not promptly thrown open to them.

So the Commissioner came to exert a strong personal influence. And he found speedily that his personal influence in the great Desert amounted to very little. The Indians had a keen sense of the fitness of things, and they resented his appearing to negotiate with them without an official sponsor.

“Who are you?” asked the troubled Oraibi, when invited to a council with him. [[151]]

“I am the Commissioner from Washington,” he stated, a fact that was known to President Roosevelt, the Grid-iron Club, and the New York Evening Post, and that should have been patent everywhere.