The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-01-09
TRAITS OF THE NAvAJos.

Their Relation to Horses and Dogs
 Inveterate Gamblers.
 The Navajo is an inveterate gambler Not only are there the professionals who live entirely by the practice, but even the small boys are gamblers, and adapt the pictorial Sunday school cards to gaming purposes. Their blankets H. lustrate gambling, and even their ac- count of the creation must have woven into 1t the story of game. Thus, 8 serious and apparently native vice of formidable proportions at once con- fronts the teacher and the 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, ito all Indians, Is his re- lation to his horse and his dogs To our mind 1t is incomprehensible. Evo- ry man maintains many dogs, and for what reason 1t is difficult to discover. They are ill-kept, starving, cowardly canines, which bear as little resem- blance to our own intelligent, devoted dogs as can be imagined. They are not for use, certainly not for beauty, and apparently they are no protection. I have never heard any reasonable ex- plantation of the Indians having so many perhaps he considers that the more he can maintain the more inpor- tant he isl Toward his horses his attl- tude seems even more singular. They are, of course, part of his wealth, but from our point of view he would 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 to rope the real animal. He spends most of his time on horseback till he dies. He celebrates his horses in his blankets, and learns also the most diff fcult horsemanship, of which he Is very proud. But apparently one anl- mai is the same as another to him. He will ride one to death and select its successor from the herd, to break 1t by the most cruel method, or to starve it and beat 1t. Fear seems the only ele- ment developed in the breast, The bits used make one shudder to look upon, and in buying a Navajo horse 1t Is said that one must wish to find scars on the animal, indicating that 1t has been so severely handled in the breaking that 1 it's spirit has been broken. I have seen horses whipped till the blood ran. This was done without anger, apparently but indifferently, as if there were no other way. Our own little Navajo anil nal, which had been gentled by careful treatment, was finally resold to its original owner. The man was an in-
 telligent person, who could speak good | English and who had had considerable | intercourse with the white man; but when I asked him earnestly to be good to the horse. he had no more compre- hension than if I were talking Sans l krlt
 l As I stood on the last mesa, looking back upon the hot, silent, beautiful but | unprofitable stretches of the Navajo
 land, and down upon the gorgeous
 painted esert, which seemed his right full artistic background, I pondered
 earnestly upon the future of my Maya
 io friends. No race or family in this age can live always to itself, and some
 day to these people will come the in.
 evitarble collision with the forces of the
 outside world, and we have to do with sthe great question of preparing him for
 the impact.-Southern Workman.