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Visitors are so rare that we were the centre of an admiring group on the agent’s lawn. Havasupai from nine months to ninety years freely commented on our every move. They imitated us as we ate apricots, and imitated us as we threw away the pits. The chief’s wife, a bride from the Wallapi, centered her fascinated gaze on Toby, and nearly sent that young lady into hysterics by faithfully repeating every word and inflection she uttered.
Though of the sincerest flattery, this mimicry finally palled, and we made our way to what we had been told was a secluded nook of the river, where we might bathe unmolested. Seclusion was essential, as we had to bathe as the small boy does, sans clothes and sans reproche. We found the nook, the river shaded by dense osiers, but its shore bordering the main street of the village. Several Havasupai rode by our swimming hole, and we ducked, in danger, like some of Toby’s films, of overexposure. Their heads turned as gentlemen’s naturally would in such circumstances,—or, not to be ambiguous,—away. These Havasupai, though dirty and unread, were gentlemen, according to the definition of a certain Pullman porter I once met.
Being about to descend from an upper berth on a crowded sleeper I had inquired of the porter if the berth below was occupied.
“Yas’m,” the porter replied. “A man, lady. But he’s a gen’lman. He’s turned his face to the wall. An’ now he is a shuttin’ his eyes. Take youah time, lady.”
I relate our adventure, not to flaunt our brazen conduct—the valley registered one hundred odd in the twilight, and you would have done as we did,—but to illustrate the rightness of certain Indian instincts, not confined to these few Havasupai.
It was the following day, when we explored the lower Cataract canyon, that we had our supreme experience in bathing, the bath of baths, before which Susanna’s, Marat’s, Anna Held’s, Montezuma’s, Hadrian’s, Messalina’s, Diana’s and other famous ablutions were as naught. Our ride took us into the lower village, past the prim board houses the government erects and the Indians refuse to inhabit, to the clusters of thatched mud and reed huts which they prefer. The chief of the tribe sat before his dwelling, his family about him to the third and fourth generation, including his new Wallapi wife. We bought baskets from him, prompting him to call “Hanegou” after us.
“What does ‘Hanegou’ mean?” asked Toby.
“It means ‘fine,’ ‘all right,’ ‘how do you do’ or ‘good-by’,” answered the guide.
It seemed a convenient sort of word, as it has several lesser meanings as well. As we rode along I amused myself by inventing a conversation in Havasupai, quite a long imaginary conversation between two Havasu bucks. It is remarkable how quickly I can pick up a language.