Canyons of the Colorado Part 15

On the last day of September we follow the Vermilion Cliffs around to the mouth of the Paria. Here the cliffs present a wall of about 2,000 feet in height,--above, orange and vermilion, but below, chocolate, purple, and gray in alternating bands of rainbow brightness. The cliffs are cut with deep side canyons, and the rainbow hills below are dest.i.tute of vegetation. At night we camp on the bank of the Colorado River, on the same spot where our boat-party had camped the year before.

Leaving the party in charge of Mr. Graves and Mr. Bishop, while they are building a ferryboat, I take some Indians to explore the canyon of the Paria. We find steep walls on either side, but a rather broad, flat plain below, through which the muddy river winds its way over quicksands. This stream we have to cross from time to time, and we find the quicksands treacherous and our horses floundering in the trembling ma.s.ses.

These broad canyons, or canyon valleys, are carved by the streams in obedience to an interesting law of corrasion. Where the declivity of the stream is great the river corrades, or cuts its bottom deeper and still deeper, ever forming narrow clefts, but when the stream has cut its channel down until the declivity is greatly reduced, it can no longer carry the load of sand with which it is fed, but drops a part of it on the way. Wherever it drops it in this manner a sand bank is formed. Now the effect of this sand bar is to turn the course of the river against the wall or bank, and as it unloads in one place it cuts in another below and loads itself again; so it unloads itself and forms bars, and loads itself with more material to form bars, and the process of vertical cutting is transformed into a process of lateral cutting. The rate of cutting is greatly increased thereby, but the wear is on the sides and not on the bottom. So long as the declivity of the stream is great, the greater the load of sand carried the greater the rate of vertical cutting; but when the declivity is reduced, so that part of the load is thrown down, vertical cutting is changed to lateral and the rate of corrosion multiplied thereby. Now this broad valley canyon, or "box canyon," as such channels are usually called in the country, has been formed by the stream itself, cutting its channel at first vertically and afterwards laterally, and so a great flood-plain is formed.

For a day we ride up the Paria, and next day return. The party in camp have made good progress. The boat is finished and a part of the camp freight has been transported across the river. The next day the remainder is ferried over and the animals are led across, swimming behind the ferryboat in pairs. Here a bold bluff more than 1,200 feet in height has to be climbed, and the day is spent in getting to its summit.

We make a dry camp, that is, without water, except that which has been carried in canteens by the Indians.

_October 4-_--All day long we pa.s.s by the foot of the Echo Cliffs, which are in fact the continuation of the Vermilion Cliffs. It is still a landscape of rocks, with cliffs and pinnacles and towers and b.u.t.tes on the left, and deep chasms running down into the Marble Canyon on the right. At night we camp at a water pocket, a pool in a great limestone rock. We still go south for another half day to a cedar ridge; here we turn westward, climbing the cliffs, which we find to be not the edge of an escarpment with a plateau above, but a long narrow ridge which descends on the eastern side to a level only 500 or 600 feet above the trail left below. On the eastern side of the cliff a great h.o.m.ogeneous sandstone stretches, declining rapidly, and on its sides are carved innumerable basins, which are now filled with pure water, and we call this the Thousand Wells. We have a long afternoon's ride over sand dunes, slowly toiling from mile to mile. We can see a ledge of rocks in the distance, and the Indian with us a.s.sures us that we shall find water there. At night we come to the cliff, and under it, in a great cave, we find a lakelet. Sweeter, cooler water never blessed the desert.

While at Jacob's Pool, several days before, I sent a runner forward into this region with instructions to hunt us up some of the natives and bring them to this pool. When we arrive we are disappointed in not finding them on hand, but a little later half a dozen men come in with the Indian messenger. They are surly fellows and seem to be displeased at our coming. Before midnight they leave. Under the circ.u.mstances I do not feel that it is safe to linger long at this spot; so I do not lie down to rest, but walk the camp among the guards and see that everything is in readiness to move. About two o'clock I set a couple of men to prepare a hasty lunch, call up all hands, and we saddle, pack, eat our lunch, and start off to the southwest to reach the Moenkopi, where there is a little rancheria of Indians, a farming settlement belonging to the Oraibis, so we are told. We set out at a rapid rate, and when daylight comes we are in sight of the canyon of the Moenkopi, into which we soon descend; but the rancheria has been abandoned. Up the Moenkopi we pa.s.s several miles, in a beautiful canyon valley, until we find a pool in a nook of a cliff, where we feel that we can defend ourselves with certainty, and here we camp for the night. The next day we go on to Oraibi, one of the pueblos of the Province of Tusayan.

At Tusayan we stop for two weeks and visit the seven pueblos on the cliffs. Oraibi is first reached, then Shumopavi, Shupaulovi, and Mashongnavi, and finally Walpi, Sichumovi, and Hano.

In a street of Oraibi our little party is gathered. Soon a council is called by the _cacique,_ or chief, and we are a.s.signed to a suite of six or eight rooms for our quarters. We purchase corn of some of the people, and after feeding our animals they are intrusted to two Indian boys, who, under the direction of the _cacique,_ take them to a distant mesa to herd. This is my first view of an inhabited pueblo, though I have seen many ruins from time to time. At first I am a little disappointed in the people. They seem scarcely superior to the Shoshones and Utes, tribes with whom I am so well acquainted. Their dress is less picturesque, and the men have an ugly fas.h.i.+on of banging their hair in front so that it comes down to their eyes and conceals their foreheads.

But the women are more neatly dressed and arrange their hair in picturesque coils.

Oraibi is a town of several hundred inhabitants. It stands on a mesa or little plateau 200 or 300 feet above the surrounding plain. The mesa itself has a rather diversified surface. The streets of the town are quite irregular, and in a general way run from north to south. The houses are constructed to face the east. They are of stone laid in mortar, and are usually three or four stories high. The second story stands back upon the first, leaving a terrace over one tier of rooms.

The third is set back of the second, and the fourth back of the third; so that their houses are terraced to face the east. These terraces on the top are all flat, and the people usually ascend to the first terrace by a ladder and then by another into the lower rooms. In like manner, ladders or rude stairways are used to reach the upper stories. The climate is very warm and the people live on the tops of their houses. It seems strange to see little naked children climbing the ladders and running over the house tops like herds of monkeys. After we have looked about the town and been gazed upon by the wondering eyes of the men, women, and children, we are at last called to supper. In a large central room we gather and the food is placed before us. A stew of goat's flesh is served in earthen bowls, and each one of us is furnished with a little earthen ladle. The bread is a great novelty to me. It is made of corn meal in sheets as thin and large as foolscap paper. In the corner of the house is a little oven, the top of which is a great flat stone, and the good housewife bakes her bread in this manner: The corn meal is mixed to the consistency of a rather thick gruel, and the woman dips her hand into the mixture and plasters the hot stone with a thin coating of the meal paste. In a minute or two it forms into a thin paper-like cake, and she takes it up by the edge, folds it once, and places it on a basket tray; then another and another sheet of paper-bread is made in like manner and piled on the tray. I notice that the paste stands in a number of different bowls and that she takes from, one bowl and then another in order, and I soon see the effect of this. The corn before being ground is a.s.sorted by colors, white, yellow, red, blue, and black, and the sheets of bread, when made, are of the same variety of colors, white, yellow, red, blue, and black. This bread, held on very beautiful trays, is itself a work of art. They call it _piki._ After we have partaken of goat stew and bread a course of dumplings, melons, and peaches is served, and this finishes the feast. What seem to be dumplings are composed of a kind of hash of bread and meat, tied up in little b.a.l.l.s with cornhusks and served boiling hot. They are eaten with much gus...o...b.. the party and highly praised. Some days after we learned how they are made; they are prepared of goat's flesh, bread, and turnips, and kneaded by mastication. As we prefer to masticate our own food, this dainty dish is never again a favorite.

In the evening the people celebrate our advent by a dance, such it seemed to us, but probably it was one of their regular ceremonies.

After dark a pretty little fire is built in the chimney corner and I spend the evening in rehearsing to a group of the leading men the story of my travels in the canyon country. Of our journey down the canyon in boats they have already heard, and they listen with great interest to what I say. My talk with them is in the Mexican patois, which several of them understand, and all that I say is interpreted.

The next morning we are up at daybreak. Soon we hear loud shouts coming from the top of the house. The _cacique_ is calling his people. Then all the people, men, women, and children, come out on the tops of their houses. Just before sunrise they sprinkle water and meal from beautiful grails; then they all stand with bare heads to watch the rising of the sun. When his full orb is seen, once more they sprinkle the sacred water and the sacred meal over the tops of the houses. Then the _cacique_ in a loud voice directs the labor of the day. So his talk is explained to us.

Some must gather corn, others must go for wood, water must be brought from the distant wells, and the animals of the strangers must be cared for. Now the house tops present a lively scene. Bowls of water are brought; from them the men fill their mouths and with dexterity blow water over their hands in spray and wash their faces and lave their long s.h.i.+ning heads of hair; and the women dress one another's locks. With bowls of water they make suds of the yucca plant, and wash and comb and deftly roll their hair, the elder women in great coils at the back of the head, the younger women in flat coils on their cheeks. And so the days are pa.s.sed and the weeks go by, and we study the language of the people and record many hundreds of their words and observe their habits and customs and gain some knowledge of their mythology, but above all do we become interested in their religious ceremonies.

One afternoon they take me from Oraibi to Shupaulovi to witness a great religious ceremony. It is the invocation to the G.o.ds for rain. We arrive about sundown, and are taken into a large subterranean chamber, into which we descend by a ladder. Soon about a dozen Shamans are gathered with us, and the ceremony continues from sunset to sunrise. It is a series of formal invocations, incantations, and sacrifices, especially of holy meal and holy water. The leader of the Shamans is a great burly bald-headed Indian, which is a remarkable sight, for I have never seen one before. Whatever he says or does is repeated by three others in turn. The paraphernalia of their wors.h.i.+p is very interesting. At one end of the chamber is a series of tablets of wood covered with quaint pictures of animals and of corn, and overhead are conventional black clouds from which yellow lightnings are projected, while drops of rain fall on the corn below. Wooden birds, set on pedestals and decorated with plumes, are arranged in various ways. Ears of corn, vases of holy water, and trays of meal make up a part of the paraphernalia of wors.h.i.+p.

I try to record some of the prayers, but am not very successful, as it is difficult to hold my interpreter to the work. But one of these prayers is something like this:

"Muingwa pash lolomai, Master of the Clouds, we eat no stolen bread; our young men ride not the stolen a.s.s; our food is not stolen from the gardens of our neighbors. Muingwa pash lolomai, we beseech of thee to dip your great sprinkler, made of the feathers of the birds of the heavens, into the lakes of the skies and sprinkle us with sweet rains, that the ground may be prepared in the winter for the corn that grows in the summer."

At one time in the night three women were brought into the _kiva._ These women had a cincture of cotton about their loins, but were otherwise nude. One was very old, another of middle age, and the third quite young, perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. As they stood in a corner of the _kiva_ their faces and bodies were painted by the bald-headed priest. For this purpose he filled his mouth with water and pigment and dexterously blew a fine spray over the faces, necks, shoulders, and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the women. Then with his finger as a brush he decorated them over this groundwork, which was of yellow, with many figures in various colors. From that time to daylight the three women remained in the _kiva_ and took part in the ceremony as choristers and dancing performers.

At sunrise we are filed out of the _kiva,_ and a curious sight is presented to our view. Shupaulovi is built in terraces about a central court, or plaza, and in the plaza about fifty men are drawn up in a line facing us. These men are naked except that they wear masks, strange and grotesque, and great flaring headdresses in many colors.

Our party from the _kiva_ stand before this line of men, and the bald-headed priest harangues them in words I cannot understand. Then across the other end of the plaza a line of women is formed, facing the line of men, and at a signal from the old Shaman the drums and the whistles on the terraces, with a great chorus of singers, set up a tumultuous noise, and with slow shuffling steps the line of men and the line of women move toward each other in a curious waving dance. When the lines approach so as to be not more than 10 or 12 feet apart, our party still being between them, they all change so as to dance backward to their original positions. This is repeated until the dancers have pa.s.sed over the plaza four times. Then there is a wild confusion of dances, the order of which I cannot understand,--if indeed there is any system, except that the men and women dance apart. Soon this is over, and the women all file down the ladder into the _kiva_ and the men strip off their masks and arrange themselves about the plaza, every one according to his own wish, but as if in sharp expectancy; then the women return up the ladder from the _kiva_ and climb to the tops of the houses and stand on the brink of the nearer terrace. Now the music commences once more, and the old woman who was painted in the _kiva_ during the night throws something, I cannot tell what, into the midst of the plaza. With a shout and a scream, every man jumps for it; one seizes it, another takes it away from him, and then another secures it; and with shouts and screams they wrestle and tussle for the charm which the old woman has thrown to them. After a while some one gets permanent possession of the charm and the music ceases. Then another is thrown into the midst. So these contests continue at intervals until high noon.

In the evening we return to Oraibi. And now for two days we employ our time in making a collection of the arts of the people of this town.

First, we display to them our stock of goods, composed of knives, needles, awls, scissors, paints, dyestuffs, leather, and various fabrics in gay colors. Then we go around among the people and select the articles of pottery, stone implements, instruments and utensils made of bone, horn, sh.e.l.l, articles of clothing and ornament, baskets, trays, and many other things, and tell the people to bring them the next day to our rooms. A little after sunrise they come in, and we have a busy day of barter. When articles are brought in such as I want, I lay them aside. Then if possible I discover the fancy of the one who brings them, and I put by the articles the goods which I am willing to give in exchange for them. Having thus made an offer, I never deviate from it, but leave it to the option of the other party to take either his own articles or mine lying beside them. The barter is carried on with a hearty good will; the people jest and laugh with us and with one another; all are pleased, and there is nothing to mar this day of pleasure. In the afternoon and evening I make an inventory of our purchases, and the next day is spent in packing them for s.h.i.+pment. Some of the things are heavy, and I engage some Indians to help transport the cargo to Fort Wingate, where we can get army transportation.

_October 24-.--_To-day we leave Oraibi. We are ready to start in the early morning. The whole town comes to bid us good-by. Before we start they perform some strange ceremony which I cannot understand, but, with invocations to some deity, they sprinkle us, our animals, and our goods with water and with meal. Then there is a time of handshaking and hugging. "Good-by; good-by; good-by!" At last we start. Our way is to Walpi, by a heavy trail over a sand plain, among the dunes. We arrive a little after noon. Walpi, Sichumovi, and Hano are three little towns on one b.u.t.te, with but little s.p.a.ce between them; the stretch from town to town is hardly large enough for a game of ball. The top of the b.u.t.te is of naked rock, and it rises from 300 to 400 feet above the sand plains below by a precipitous cliff on every side. To reach it from below, it must be climbed by niches and stairways in the rock. It is a good site for defense. At the foot of the cliff and on some terraces the people have built corrals of stone for their a.s.ses. All the water used in these three towns is derived from a well nearly a mile away--a deep pit sunk in the sand, over the site of a dune-buried brook.

When we arrive the men of Walpi carry our goods, camp equipage, and saddles up the stairway and deposit them in a little court. Then they a.s.sign us eight or ten rooms for our quarters. Our animals are once more consigned to the care of Indian herders, and after they are fed they are sent away to a distance of some miles. There is no tree or shrub growing near the Walpi mesa. It is miles away to where the stunted cedars are found, and the people bring curious little loads of wood on the backs of their donkeys, it being a day's work to bring such a cargo. The people have antic.i.p.ated our coming, and the wood for our use is piled in the chimney corners. After supper the hours till midnight are pa.s.sed in rather formal talk.

Walpi seems to be a town of about 150 inhabitants, Sichumovi of less than 100, and Hano of not more than 75. Hano, or "Tewa" as it is sometimes called, has been built lately; that is, it cannot be more than 100 or 200 years old. The other towns are very old; their foundation dates back many centuries--so we gather from this talk. The people of Hano also speak a radically distinct language, belonging to another stock of tribes. They formerly lived on the Rio Grande, but during some war they were driven away and were permitted to build their home here.

Two days are spent in trading with the people, and we pride ourselves on having made a good ethnologic collection. We are especially interested in seeing the men and women spin and weave. In their courtyards they have deep chambers excavated in the rocks. These chambers, which are called _kivas,_ are entered by descending ladders. They are about 18 by 24 feet in size. The _kiva_ is the place of wors.h.i.+p, where all their ceremonies are performed, where their cult societies meet to pray for rain and to prepare medicines and charms against fancied and real ailments and to protect themselves by sorcery from the dangers of witchcraft. The _kivas_ are also places for general rendezvous, and at night the men and women bring their work and chat and laugh, and in their rude way make the time merry. Many of the tribes of North America have their cult societies, or "medicine orders," as they are sometimes called, but this inst.i.tution has been nowhere developed more thoroughly than among the pueblo Indians of this region. I am informed that there are a great number in Tusayan, that a part of their ceremonies are secret and another part public, and that the times of ceremony are also times for feasting and athletic sports.

Here at Walpi the great snake dance is performed. For several days before this festival is held the people with great diligence gather snakes from the rocks and sands of the region round about and bring them to the _kiva_ of one of their clans in great numbers, by scores and hundreds. Most of these snakes are quite harmless, but rattlesnakes abound, and they are also caught, for they play the most important role in the great snake dance. The medicine men, or priest doctors, are very deft in the management of rattlesnakes. When they bring them to the _kiva_ they herd all the snakes in a great ma.s.s of writhing, hissing, rattling serpents. For this purpose they have little wands, to the end of each one of which a bunch of feathers is affixed. If a snake attempts to leave its allotted place in the _kiva_ the medicine man brushes it or tickles it with the feather-armed wand, and the snake turns again to commingle with its fellows. After many strange and rather wearisome ceremonies, with dancing and invocations and ululations, the men of the order prepare for the great performance with the snakes. Clothed only in loincloth, each one seizes a snake, and a rattlesnake is preferred if there are enough of them for all. It is managed in this way: The snake is teased with the feather wand and his attention occupied by one man, while another, standing near, at a favorable moment seizes the snake just, back of the head. Then he puts the snake in his mouth, holding it across, so that the head protrudes on one side and the body on the other, which coils about his hand and arm. A few inches of the head and neck are free, and with this free portion the snake struggles, squirming in the air; but the attention of the snake is constantly occupied by the attendant who carries the wand. Then the men of the priest order carrying the snakes in their mouths arrange themselves in a line in the court and move in a procession several times about the court, and then engage in a dance. After the ceremony all of the snakes are carried to the plain and given their freedom.

This snake dance was not witnessed at the time of the first visit, but an account of it was then obtained, such as given above. It has since been witnessed by myself and by others, and carefully prepared accounts of the ceremonies have been published by different persons.

At last our work at Walpi is done, on October 27, and we arrange to leave on the morrow.

CHAPTER XIV.

TO ZUNI.

_October 28_.--To-day we leave the Province of Tusayan for a journey through the Navajo country. There is quite an addition to the party now, for we have a number of Indians employed as freighters. Their a.s.ses are loaded with heavy packs of the collections we have made in the various towns of Tusayan. After a while we enter a beautiful canyon coming down from the east, and by noon reach a spring, where we halt for refreshment. The poor little donkeys are thoroughly wearied, but our own animals have had a long rest and have been well fed and are all fresh and active. On the rocks of this canyon picture-writings are etched, and I try to get some account of them from the Indians, but fail.

After lunch we start once more. It is a halcyon day, and with a companion I leave the train and push on for a view of the country. Away we gallop, my Indian companion and I, over the country toward a great plateau which we can see in the distance. The Salahkai is covered with a beautiful forest. We have an exhilarating ride. When the way becomes stony and rough we must walk our horses. My Indian, who is well mounted on a beautiful bay, is a famous rider. About his brow a kerchief is tied, and his long hair rests on his back. He has keen black eyes and a beaked nose; about his neck he wears several dozen strings of beads, made of nacre s.h.i.+ning sh.e.l.ls, and little tablets of turkis are perforated and strung on sinew cord; in his ears he has silver rings, and his wrists are covered with silver bracelets. His leggings are black velvet, the material for which he has bought from some trader; his moccasins are tan-colored and decorated with silver ornaments, and the trappings of his horse are decorated in like manner. He carries his rifle with as much ease as if it were a cane, and rides with wonderful dexterity. We get on with jargon and sign language pretty well. At night, after a long ride, I descend to the foot of the mesa, and near a little lake I find the camp. The donkey train has not arrived, but soon one after another the Indians come in with their packs, and with white men, Oraibi Indians, Walpi Indians, and Navajos, a good party is a.s.sembled.

_October 29.--_We have a long ride before us to-day, for we must reach old Fort Defiance. I stay with the train in order to keep everything moving, for we expect to travel late in the night. On the way no water is found, but in mid-afternoon the trail leads to the brink of a canyon, and the Indians tell me there is water below; so the animals are unpacked and taken down the cliff in a winding way among the rocks, where they are supplied with water. Again we start; night comes on and we are still in the forest; the trail is good, yet we make slow progress, for some of the animals are weary and we have to wait from time to time for the stragglers. About ten o'clock we descend from the plateau to the canyon beneath and are at old Port Defiance, and the officers at the agency give us a hearty greeting.

We spend the 30th of October at the agency and see thousands of Indians, for they are gathered to receive rations and annuities. It is a wild spectacle; groups of Indians are gambling, there are several horse races, and everywhere there is feasting. At night the revelry is increased; great fires are lighted, and groups of Indians are seen scattered about the plains.

_November 1.--_After a short day's ride we camp at Rock Spring. A fountain gushes from the foot of the mesa. Then another day's ride through a land of beauty. On the left there is a line of cliffs, like the Vermilion Cliffs of Utah. In the same red sandstones and on the top of the cliff the Kaibab scenery is duplicated. A great tower on the cliff is known as "Navajo Church." Early in the afternoon we are at Fort Wingate and in civilization once more. The fort is on a beautiful site at the foot of the Zuni Plateau. And now our journey with the pack train is ended, and I bid good-by to my Indian friends. My own pack train is to go back to Utah, while from Fort Wingate I expect to go to Santa Fe in an ambulance. But the region about is of interest for its wonderful geologic structure and for the many ruins of ancient pueblos found in the neighborhood. On the 2d of November Captain Johnson, an artillery officer, takes me for a ride among the ruins. Many of these ancient structures are found, but those which are of the most interest are the round towers. Nothing remains of these but the bare walls. They average from 18 to 20 feet in diameter, and are usually two or three stories high. Probably they were built as places of wors.h.i.+p.

Above Fort Wingate there is a great plateau; below, there stretches a vast desert plain with mesas and b.u.t.tes. The ruins are at the foot of the plateau where the streams come down from the pine-clad heights.

On the 3d of November with a party of officers I visit Zuni in an ambulance. The journey is 40 miles, along the foot of the plateau half the way, and then we turn into the desert valley, in the midst of which runs the Zuni River, sometimes in canyons cut in black lava. Zuni is a town much like those already visited, except that it is a little larger.

Nothing can be more repulsive than the appearance of the streets; irregular, crowded, and filthy, in which dogs, a.s.ses, and Indians are mingled in confusion. In the distance Toyalone is seen, a great b.u.t.te on which an extensive ruin is found, the more ancient home of these people, though Zuni itself appears to be hundreds of years old. The people speak a language radically different from that of Tusayan, and no other tribe in the United States has a tongue related to it.

In the midst of the town there is an old Spanish church, partly in ruins, but it is still graced with the wooden image of a saint, gayly colored; and the old tongueless bell remains, for it was sounded with a stone hammer held in the hand of the bellman; the marks of his blows are deeply indented in the metal. Alvar Nunez Caveza de Vaca was the first white man to see Zuni, when he wandered in that long journey from Florida around by the headwaters of the Arkansas, through what is now New Mexico and Arizona, southward to the City of Mexico. He had with him a Barbary negro, who was killed by the Zuni, and his burial place is still pointed out.

Among the Zuni, as among the tribes of Tusayan, the form of government which prevails throughout the North American tribes is well ill.u.s.trated.

Kins.h.i.+p is the tie by which the members of the tribe are bound together as a common body of people. Each tribe is divided into a series of clans, and a clan is a group of people that reckon kins.h.i.+p through the family line. The children therefore belong to the clan of the mother.

Marriage is always without the clan; the husband and father must belong to a different clan from the mother and children, and the children belong to their mother and are governed by her brothers, or by her mother's brothers if they be still living. The husband is but the guest of the wife and the clan, and has no other authority in the family than that acquired by personal character. If he is an able and wise man his advice may be taken, but each clan is very jealous of its rights, and the members do not submit to dictation from the guest husband. The woman is not the ruler of the clan; the ruler is the patriarch or elder man, or if he is not a man of ability a younger and more able man is chosen, who by legal fiction is recognized as the elder. Over the officers of the clan are the officers of the tribe,--a chief with a.s.sistant chiefs.

The organization by tribal governors varies from tribe to tribe.

Sometimes the chieftaincy is hereditary in a particular clan, but more often the chieftaincy is elective. There is very little personal property among the tribal people, such property being confined to clothing, ornaments, and a few inconsiderable articles. The owners.h.i.+p of the great bulk of the property inheres in the clan, such as their houses, their patches of land, the food raised from the soil, and the game caught in the chase. Sometimes the clans are grouped, two or more const.i.tuting a phratry, and then there are other officers or chiefs standing between the clan and tribal authority. Again, tribes are sometimes organized into confederacies, and a grand confederate chief recognized. In addition to the chieftaincy of confederate tribes, phratries, and clans, there are councils; but these are not councils of legislation in the ordinary sense. The councils are clans whose decisions become a precedent. Tribal law is therefore court-made law, and such customary law grows out of the exigencies which daily life presents to the people. The problems as they arise are solved as best they may be, and the deliberations of the councils look not to the future but only to the present, and are invoked to settle controversy, that peace may be maintained. Of course there is no written const.i.tution or body of laws, but there are traditional regulations which are well preserved in the idioms of oral speech, every rule of procedure or of justice being sooner or later coined into an aphorism.

It has been seen that a clan is a body of kins.h.i.+p in the female line; but the members of the different clans are related to one another by intermarriage. Thus the first tie is by affinity; but, as fathers belong to other clans than the children, the tie is also by consanguinity. Thus the entire tribe is a body of kindred, and the tribal organization is a fabric with warp of streams of blood and woof of marriage ties. When different tribes unite to form a confederacy for offensive or defensive purposes, artificial kins.h.i.+p is established. One tribe perhaps is recognized as the grandfather tribe, another is the father tribe, a third is the elder-brother tribe, a fourth is the younger-brother tribe, etc. In these artificial kins.h.i.+ps the members of one tribe address the members of another tribe by kins.h.i.+p terms established in the treaty.

Strangers are sometimes adopted into a clan, and this gives them a status in the tribe. The adoption is usually accomplished by the woman claiming the individual as her youngest son or daughter, and such adopted person has thereupon the status belonging to such a natural child; and, though he be an adult, he calls the child born into the clan before his advent, though it be but a year old, his elder brother or his elder sister. Then often young men are advanced in the clan because of superior ability, and this is done by giving them a kins.h.i.+p rank higher than that belonging to their real age; so that it is not infrequently found that old men address young men as their elder brothers and yield to their authority. The ties of the tribe are kins.h.i.+p, and authority inheres in superior age; but in order to adjust these rules so that the abler men may be given control, artificial kins.h.i.+p and artificial age are established. The civil chiefs direct the daily life of the people in their labors.

To the civil organization of the tribe, as thus indicated, there is added a military organization, and war chiefs are selected. But usually these war chiefs are something more than war chiefs, for they also const.i.tute a constabulary to preserve peace and mete out punishment; and young men from the various clans are designated as warriors and advanced in military rank according to merit. There is thus a brotherhood of warriors, and every man in this brotherhood recognizes all others of the group as being elder or younger, and so a.s.sumes or yields authority in all matters pertaining to war and the enforcement of criminal law.

In addition to the secular government there is always a cult government. In every tribe there are Shamans, designated variously by white men as "medicine men," "priests," "priest doctors," "theurgists,"

etc. In many tribes, perhaps in all, the people are organized into Shamanistic societies; but that these societies are invariably recognized is not certain. The Shamans are always found. Among the Zuni there are thirteen of these cult societies. The purpose of Shamanistic inst.i.tutions is to control the conduct of the members of the tribe in relation to mythic personages, the mysterious beings in which the savage men believe. In the mind of the savage the world is peopled by a host of mythic beings, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic. The difference between man and brute recognized in civilization, is unrecognized in savagery.

All animal life is wonderful and magical co sylvan man. Wisdom, cunning, skill, and prowess are attributed to the real animals to a degree often greater than to man; and there are mythic animals as well as mythic men--monsters dwelling in the mountains and caves or hiding in the waters, who make themselves invisible as they pa.s.s over the land. Not only are there great monsters, beasts, and reptiles in their mythology, but there are wonderful insects and worms. All life is miraculous and is wors.h.i.+ped as divine. The heavenly bodies, the sun and moon and stars, are mythic animals, and all of the phenomena of nature are attributed to these zoic beings. For example, the Indian knows nothing of the ambient air. The wind is the breath of some beast, or it is a fanning which rises from under the wings of a mythic bird. All the phenomena of nature, the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, the s.h.i.+ning of the stars, the coming of comets, the flash of meteors, the change of seasons, the gathering and vanis.h.i.+ng of the clouds, the blowing of the winds, the falling of the rain, the spreading of the snow, and all other phenomena of physical nature, are held to be the acts of these wonderful zoic deities. It is deemed of prime importance that such deities should be induced to act in the interest of men. Thus it is that Shamanistic government is held to be of as great importance as tribal government, and the Shamans are the peers of the chiefs. With some tribes the cult societies have greater powers than the clan; with other tribes clan government is the more important; but always there is a conflict of authority, and there is a perpetual war between Shamanistic and civil government.

These Shamans and cult societies have a great variety of functions to perform. All disease and all injuries are attributed to mythic beings or to witchcraft, and on these pathologic ideas the medicine practices of the people are based. The medicine men are sorcerers, who work wonders in discovering witchcraft and averting its effects or in discovering the disease-making animals and overcoming their power. So the Shamans and the cult societies are the possessors of medicine and ceremonies designed to prevent and cure human ailments. They also have charge of the ceremonies necessary to avert disaster and to secure success in all the affairs of life in peace and war; and they prescribe methods and observances and furnish charms and amulets, and in every way possible control human conduct in its relation to the unknown. No small part of savage life is devoted to cult ceremonies and observances. The hunter cannot penetrate the forest without his charm; the woman cannot plant corn until a ceremony is performed for securing the blessings of some divine being. Religious festivals and ceremonies are carried on for days and weeks. A war must be submitted to the G.o.ds, and a sneeze demands a prayer.

Our arrival at Fort Wingate practically ended the exploration of the great valley of the Colorado. This was in 1870. In 1891 we can look back upon the completion of the survey of all of that region, for it has now been carefully mapped. The geology of the country has been studied, and the tribes which inhabit it have been subjects of careful research. This work has been carried on by a large corps of men, and interesting results have accrued.