With all these games the Hopi are not gamblers and appear to have the same aversion to it as they have to fire-water, differing in this respect from the Navaho, Zuñi, and many other tribes of Indians. Most of their games, like those of the ancient Greeks, are full of the exhilaration of life, the glow of physical training, the doing of something to win the favor of the gods.
In this account the children must not be left out. Imitating the customs of their seniors, they not only carry out the great games but also enter with abandon the childish sports of chasing, tag, ring around a rosy, ball, and other juveniles. Tops and popguns are not unknown, and if a boy has a pebble shooter made of an agave stalk with a spring of elastic wood he can go as far in mischief as ever Hopi children do, but he never fires away peas or beans, for they are too precious.
It may be well to recount here the endurance of the Hopi in their great national accomplishment—that of making long runs at record speed.
One morning about seven o’clock at Winslow, Arizona, a message was brought to the hotel that an Indian wished to see the leader of an exploring party. On stepping out on the street the Indian was found sitting on the curbstone, mouth agape with wonder at the trains moving about on the Santa Fé Pacific Railroad.
He delivered a note from a white man at Oraibi and it was ascertained that he had started from that place at four on the previous afternoon, and arrived at Winslow some time about the middle of the night. When it is known that the distance is sixty-five miles and the Indian ran over a country with which he was not familiar, the feat seems remarkable. It is presumed that he ran until it became dark and then waited till the moon rose, finishing the journey by moonlight.
On his back he carried a canteen of water wrapped in a blanket. He took only a sandwich, explaining that if he ate he could not run, and receiving the answer to the note, resumed his journey to Oraibi. Afterward it was learned that the runner reached Oraibi with the answer that afternoon, having been promised a bonus if he made the trip in one day. The distance run cannot be less than 130 miles, a pretty long course to get over in the time, and this Indian is not the best runner in Oraibi. There is one man who takes a morning practice of thirty miles or so in order to get in trim for the dawn races in some of the ceremonies, and it is said that he won in such a race some years ago, distancing all competitors.
Nothing in the whole realm of animal motion can be imagined more graceful than the movements of one of these runners as he passes by in the desert, his polished sinewy muscles playing with the utmost precision—nothing but flight can be compared with it. The Indians say that moccasins are the best foot-wear for travel over sandy country, as the foot, so clad, presses the loose sand into a firm, rounded bunch, giving a fulcrum for the forward spring, but the naked feet scatters the sand, and this, on experiment, was found to be true.
While excavating at Winslow one day some of the workmen looked up toward the north and cried out, Hopi tu, Hopi tu, “The Hopi are coming.” It was some time before our eyes could pick them out, but soon three men could be seen running, driving a little burro in front at the top of its speed. These were Walpi men journeying to a creek some miles beyond Winslow to get sacred water for one of their ceremonies. Similar journeys are made to San Francisco Mountains for pine boughs and to the Cataract of the Colorado to trade with the Havasupai. The Spanish conquerors were struck with the ability of the Hopi runners, and they record that the Indians could easily run in one day across the desert to the Grand Canyon, a distance which the Spaniards required three days’ march to accomplish.
Often a crowd of Hopi young men will go out afoot to hunt rabbits, and woe to the bunny that comes in reach! He is soon run down and dispatched with their curved boomerangs.
Though baseball, football, and many other athletic games of civilization have no place among the Hopi sports, of foot racing they are as passionately fond as even the ancient Greeks. Almost every one of the many ceremonies has its foot race in which the whole pueblo takes the greatest interest, for all the Hopi honor the swift runners.