Bisbee daily review., 1906-01-09
CHARACTERISTICS OF
 NAVAJO INDIANS

The Navajo is an inveterate gamb- Ter. Not only are there the profes- lsionals who live entirely by the prac- tice. but even the small boys are gamesters and adapt the pictorial Sunday school cards to gaming pur- poses. Their blankets illustrate gambling, and even their account of the creation must have woven into it the story of game. This is ser ious and apparently native vice of formidable proportions which con fronts the teacher and missionary. The question of the best way to over come it is still an open one. The pro hibition of it's practice does not go to the root of the matter, and all our logic fails to convince the Indian that he has not as great a right to play for stakes as he has to breathe.
 A curious trait of the Navajo, com mon no doubt to all Indians. is his relation to his horses and his dogs.
 To our mind it is incomprehensive. Every man maintains many dogs and for what reason it is difficult to dis cover. They are ill-kept, starving, cowardly canines which bear as lit tie resemblance to our own intelli- gent devoted dogs as can be imagined. They are not for use, certainly not for beauty, and apparently they are no protection. have never heard of any
 reasonable explanation of the Indians
 having So many; perhaps he considers I that the more he can maintain the
 more important he is. Toward his | horses his attitude seems even more singular. They are, of course, part of his wealth, but from our point of view he should have a favorite one
 among them all, to which he should give more care and devotion. From
 small boyhood he draws horses in the ! sand or on the rocks and as early
 learns to ride and rope the real ani- I nal. He spends most of his time on
 horseback till he dies. He celebrates
 his horse in his blankets, and learns
 also the most difficult horsemanship.
 of which he is very proud. But ap- | parently one animal is the same as
 another to him. He will ride one to death and select it's successor from
 the herd, to break it by the most cruel method, or to starye it and beat Il it.
 | Fear seems the only element de veloped in the beast. The bits used | make one shudder to look upon. and
 in buying a Navajo horse it is said | that one must wish to find scars on
 the animsp, indicating that it has been so severely handled in the break
 ing that its spirit has been broken.
 1 l have seen horses hipped till the
 blood ran. This was done without an 1, ger apparently, but indifferently, as if ] there were no other way. Our own 1 little Navajo animal, which has been
 gentled by careful treatment, was
 finally resoid to it's original owner. The man was an intelligent person, who could speak good English, and who had had considerable intercourse with the white man, but when asked him earnestly to be good to the horse
 he had no more comprehension than
 If l were talking Sanskrit.
 As I stood on the last mesa looking
 back upon the hot, silent, beautiful.
 but unprofitable stretches of the Ma Vajo land, and down upon the gor- geous painted desert which seemed it's rishtful artistic background, ij pondered earnestly upon the future of my Navajo friends. No race or fam fly in this age can live always to it. self, and some day to these people will come the inevitable collision with the forces of the outside world, and we have to do with the great question of preparing him for the impact.
 nGlIRf rEI EppH-t1sr