That is what I should have said; but being of sound mind, and having very little use for platitudes, especially those courageously hurled by mail across two thousand miles, I did nothing of the sort. I had a convenient place in which I kept the sacred book hidden, and had trained myself into a complete forgetfulness of it.
But notwithstanding my sympathies, I could never soften the hatred of one of the sons. He hated his father [[154]]because of his mother’s treatment, and above all this he hated white men, including me. The stupid sins of one Moungwi are inherited by another in the line of succession.
“You took my father,” he said to me, “and left my mother to work hard in the fields; and when I grew big enough to work you took me to school, so she was left again without help. Then, when my father returned from Carlisle, he would have nothing to do with my mother. And you would not let me go home to her. I have no use for these ways of the white men. I will not cut my hair, and I do not agree to continue at school. You are strong enough to make me, but I will not do these things for you.”
He could tell me this in straight English, as at my desert school he had received a good grammar foundation; and he was not interrupted or punished, because I encouraged the pupils to come to me and speak their minds. But, being stronger, I elected to do these things for him, having in mind his individual interests as separate and apart from the feuds of the past; but I could not severely blame him for his stubborn opposition. He was a very bright lad, and became an exceptional student; but just as surely he returned finally to his “own unclean people, savagely.” Three weeks on the roads, breaking stone and wheeling sand, would have done more to cure that father’s rebellious attitude than those years at Carlisle, exiled from his household and all of life that he understood and cared for. To be sure,—and to be fair to his instructors,—the man learned a great deal at Carlisle, which was a very fine school; and more than this, he saw the wonders of the white man. He was one of the first to witness an air flight. And when he told his ancients at the pueblo of these strange and unbelievable things he had seen in Philadelphia, [[155]]they arose in wrath, knocked out their ceremonial pipes, and denounced him as the greatest liar unhung. So even by the elders, whose lost cause he had espoused and suffered for, he was repudiated and damned. Few patriots get such treatment as this. He was completely ostracized at home. To keep him in food, I employed him as a local policeman, hoping he would revenge himself; but this commission brought him only additional scorn and reprobation. For long he lived at Hotevilla as a pelican in the desert; where else could he live? Was it not home?
But we had reached 1911, with the same old situation burning on the Oraibi mesa, save that the hostiles were now in a pueblo of their own, and could be dealt with, however justly or unjustly, without affecting those who had never actively resisted the Government. It was sheer nonsense to begin again the farce of supplication and argument, of cheap bribes and equally impotent threats. No bones had “bleached in the sun,” and there were not enough native police and loyal employees to risk an attempt at coercing this sullen horde. I returned to the Agency and wrote a very impolitic report. Anything of truth that the Indian Bureau does not wish to know is impolitic.
I recited the facts, and recommended, as the Government had found it necessary to send in troops so many times before, and always after much backing and filling and abortive negotiation,—all to the amusement of the savage,—why not send troops now, and quickly. This recommendation was dated July 28, 1911.
Government moves with a truly fearsome swiftness. I realize now, after thirteen years of report-swapping and buck-passing, that some miracle happened in that my [[156]]suggestion was considered at all. I have been told that a friend assured the Secretary of the Interior that I was not a maniac. But it required until September 27, 1911 to request the Secretary of War to detail cavalry from a distant point, when troops were idle at Fort Apache only one hundred and eighty miles away—quite in the neighborhood, as desert spaces are considered. Another month drifted by, and on October 28 the Secretary of War detailed Hugh L. Scott, then Colonel in rank, as an officer of Indian experience likely to have influence with these strange people. Under date of November 15 I was directed to coöperate with Colonel Scott, and as no allowance was made for the fact that it was winter and mails likely to be delayed along the one hundred and five miles of wagon-transport, the great Indian diplomatist and his officers and men reached the Moqui Agency before my orders. Four months had been devoted to the delicate untwisting of red tape that a telephone conversation between Departments and a telegram to the nearest post would have settled in twenty-four hours’ time. How comfortable if those Hopi had been Ute, Apache, Navajo, or Sioux! [[157]]