Evening star., 1902-05-24
Women Not Field Workers.

Contrary 10 the tatIt q Gtne Algonq 5
and other Indians Of the regions east of
the Mississippi. the Moki and his imme-
date kin exacted none Of the field work
from the women. The men tended the
crops while the women looked after the
household affairs very much as our own
women do, except that they went a step
or two further and also built the house,
which, it may be added, was a very good
one.
When the corn was brought to them they
ground 1t as they still do today and then
they made it into peculiar, but excellent.
nutritious bread. In their arid country
there was little game to hunt SO the man
time was free for his farming. leaving the
women. who. unlike the Indian women OF
the east were in no danger from enemies
of other tribes in the villages on the mesa
tops.
These bleak SUBMITS, seven hundred feet
above the plain, have not blade OF grass
TO show nor can anything else grow there.
One must look below for all the farms,
and there your eye percelVeS them scat
tered along for miles like ira ragments or
some huge checker board. Wherever the
soil offers the conditions which the Mokl
farmer, in his long experience has found
advantageous, there lies farm.
Owing to the extreme dryneSS or the
climate his method of procedure is differ
ent in some respects from that of his east
ern brothers, who were favored with timely
and abundant rains. All the latter had TO
corn when occasional attention kept 1t in
good condition, but the Moki is compelled
to devote very close attention to his crop.
The ground with layer or SAND upon II is
considered desirable, and the writer has
passed fields in good cndition. growing
apparently in nothing but sand. Below.
however was a good soil, the sand merely
acting "a n.ulch
How the Mokis Plant Corn.
Planting is done with a dibble' which
is a stick with a sharpened point ana
shoulder at right angles on one size lot
receiving a foot pressure with this ilh-
plement a hole several inches deep is made,
into which the grains of corn are dropped
When there are showers. and these come
rather frequently during the growing sea-
son. all the men having fields in the same
neighborhood are called out by the proper
official no matter what the time of day or
night, and they descend to the valley
there to assist each other in guiding the
shower waters in and out among the grow
ing crops, wherever such procedure is pos
sibe
With their hoes they rapidly construct
little earth dams across streamlets and
washes and thus cause the flowing wa
ters to be concentrated for better manipu-
are considered when the crops are put In,
it is generally possible to secure consid-
erable irrigation in this manner from pass
ing showers that would otherwise be of
the southwest, particularly those of by
gone day, extended this principle of irriga-
ton to the utilization of living streams
and in many places are still to be seen the
remnants of irrigating bitches which often
stretched across the country for miles.
The corn that was grown centuries ago
was often larger and finer than that of to-
dav a fact that is established by the speci-
mems found in ruins The reader wonders
lust here, no doubt, how grains of corn
could be preserved so long even in the dry
air Of the southwest, but when it is eX-
planned that this corn was rendered into
pure and indestructible carbon by the burn
ing of the house or other shelter where 1t
was stored the matter becomes clear
enough Some of the grains of corn thus
made into charcoal by the cruelty of an
enemy or the misfortune of a moment are
as large and full and well developed as
any that can be found even in ,ne Iowa of
our day, proving that the old methods of
working and irrigating were entirely ef-
fective.
The Moki corn comes up bushy and not
very high, but it produces a generous num-
ber of ears, not large, to be sure, but
abundant enough to make up for deficiency
in size.
Harvesting Crops
Besides the corn they also grow water
melon, peppers and sQuashes, and in IA
vored spots cofton apd pea ches On the