Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-01

situated on the sides of washes and
they seldom have wells or reservoirs, de-
pending on the generally scanty stream in
the wash for the water supply.
Take for instance the Moki Indians, or
Hopis, as they call themselves, in northern
Arizona. They are supposed to be de-
scended from the original cliff jewellers,
and long ago-two or three thousand years
probably-they established themselves on
the high and rocky mesas of the
scorched southwest. There they could live
IN comparative peace and safety. Their
warlike neighbors of the plains could reach
| them by only two or three paths over the
| steep cliffs. a few Indians, comparatively,
at the top of the cliff, could keep the
! passes clear by throwing rocks on the
heads of the assaulters.
There is no water on the barren mesas,
but at the base of each, some hundreds
of feet below, there generally runs scant
and irregular stream. In the summer the
men are busy in their cornfields scattered
| for miles along the wash, and in winter
| they weave blankets and make pottery,
so the women are the water carriers. With
great jugs held to their backs in the folds
of shawls bound about their foreheads,
they start from their homes on the cliff
tops. They make the descent, fill their
jugs with water and start up again
The two or three paths over the rocks
are just natural cuts and steps in the face
of the cliff. In the burning sun, with their
liquid burdens Juggling at their backs the
women Chamber over the slippery Lodges
anu CIlillD the steep steps, elcn sometimes
two or three feet high, before they can
reach their homes again.
Hardships of School.
When water is obtained at such cost
only, it cannot be wondered at that the
Moki woman cares little for personal neat
ness and cleanliness; and though the con-
ditions in some of the tribes are not so
bad as in the Hopi tribe still water is
almost always scarce and must generally
be carried a long distance. When water
comes to the Indian woman, however, she
uses it freely and with evident delight.
At the foot of one of the mesas a mission
recently established wash house with
modern baths and wash tubs. Not only
did the women flock there of their own &C
cord, but they brought their clothes and
children with them, and had a general
cleaning time.
Little Indian girls are much like little
white American girls. They play games,
amuse their younger brothers and sisters,
and beg for stories from their elders. But
their childhood is short most of them have
children of their own by the time they are
fourteen or fifteen, and then. after
dozen years of hard work, they are old
and worn out and unattractive at thirty.
When the little real American girl grows
up, and perhaps is sent east to an In
dian school to study and become civilized,
she finds out for the first time in her life
how much she has learned to love the
place of her bringing up, and her unfet-
tered. comparatively care-free life. She
gets homesick, always; sometimes she suf-
fers an awful, whitening longing for the
mesa which has been home to her and
the folk of her own race whom she has
always known that makes her wish to die.
Often she dies of nothing else than sheer
longing to be among her own, and amid
her natural surroundings again. Her
teachers have learned the Indian charac
ter so well that they look for this dread
full inconsistencies invariably. They know
hat aIf oh he cir DC nv
other students of her race, STILL clad in
their civilized clothes, they not really
the same sort to her that they were out
in the wild, and they know, too, that her
stoicism will prevent her from showing
her inconsistencies, maybe till ii is too late.
To the danger of inconsistencies is added
the danger from tuberculosis peculiar
peril TO the real American girl, who for
the first time in her life is cooped up in
house with four walls and tight roof.
To be sure, there are windows for ventia-
ton. but the Indian girl does not under
stand, and, unless closely watched for
long times, she will endanger herself by ne
glecting TO keep her room purified by the
free passage of fresh air.
Once over her inconsistencies and accli-
mated SO to speak, to house life, the real
American girl is quick to take on ctviliZa-
tion-at least its externals. She learns
early to want pretty clothes, trinkets and
cost money, and so she is eager to earn
money. AS a rule. she Is a very self-re-
speeding person. though and will earn it
In such ways only as please her.
Reared as Wild Indians.
The year of the Omaha transmississippi
exposition number of Indian girl students,
Sioux, originally from the Iowa reserva-
| ton, earned a good bit of money by giving
up their vacations to the project of ex-
| hibiting themselves in the Indian village
as "uncvilized specimens" They were a
great success. They thought it great
lark to fool the visitors TO the exposition
as they did and they could understand
every word the sightseers said, and as the
latter could not understand the speech of
| the Indian girls at all, they had lots of
| fun" every day from the time the gates
opened till they closed at night.
These girls had keen sense Of humor,