Evening star., 1925-11-10
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
l. G.. NJ.

Brown & Co.
"Will you accept appointment SUI
perintendent Moqui; salary, eighteen
hundred; bond, thirty thousand; wire"
So ran the message from Washington
to Leo Crane, health hunter, out in
| Arizona.
The business began some time
earlier. in this way "See the chief"
said the friendly NJ. D., "and get a
berth in the West. Stay out O doors
rough 1t, live on milk and eggs and
don't come home till / agree to it.
The advice was taken and the request
made at once. A bureaucratic button
pressed, an official seal set and inside
the week Leo Crane, clerk to an
| indian agency, was on a 3,000-mile
run TO his billet in an Arizona reser-
VatiOn. The wire from headquarters,
already given, changed the six months
OF vocational clerkship to an eight
year permanency as authorized head
of the 1opi and Navajo Indians of
| Arizona, after which Crane was trans
ferred TO a similar headship Of the
Pueblos in New Mexico. Therefore
this record has the good backing of
personal experience, running the ups
and downs OF years of intimate associ
| alton. And such Is the immediate
effect upon the reader of Indians of
the Enchanted Desert'-that it's au
| lHOi' Is DIT no essential point uedllHB III
hearsay, but rather with that which he
| himself has found to be the fact. No
passing artist. this. trying to convert
the Enchanted Desert into canvas and
paint; no poet dribbling pallid and
| futile words; no dude Wrangler round
ing up the greatest show on earth to
the company around him; not a geol-
| ogi-t hammering the rocks for their
| mOnstrouS secret, nor an arCheologiSt
! lii q
life, nor an antiquarian packing his
kit with museum scraps Of dead ages.
Not even historian skimming off
the top Of the Painted Desert and its
! Indian life. Not any of these. In
| stead, just a man working at his
| Indian job i'll Il deep interest for the
material under his hand, in a steady
outlook for the weIl-being of the Hopi
and the Navajo. A man immensely
keen to the Indian in his curiously
aloof nature Of remote and unknown
| source, sensitive to the reactions of
the Indian facing the ways of the
| white man. A modest man, Withal,
| not certain that, all said and done, the
people Of his own race have really
| Cornered the wisdom of the world
Therefore, a tolerant man. patient
with the deep-seated traditions and
customs Of these to whom he stands,
| for the moment. as feudal overlord.
| A most unlordly man. this Leo Crane,
so busy at his job, studying it, trying
out this measure and that one for q
| working accommodation between con
| stituted authority and these old desert
! dwellers resentful at encroachment
and not altogether certain of either
the wisdom or the good faith of the
distant White Father.
+ X X
I 1t is only after reading Indians
Of the Enchanted Desert" while sit
ting back in the glow Of it's vivid and
seizable reality, while counting the
gain OF a truer acquaintance than
one has had before with Hopi and
Navajo, tragic remnants Of an Ameri-
can occupation as valid as our own
and certainly of infinitely longer
tenure; It Is only while in this after
mood that one catches a full picture
Of the author himself. The book
reads simply like the daily account
of a cheerful optimist tusging away
at the days work of multitudinouS
detail. But here, at some good point
Of vantage, is a sketch of history.
Here is the adventuring and conquer
ing Spaniard. Then a great Indian
revolt. Then the. greater menace of
the Painted Desert itself, implacable
and invincible. And 50. in broken
lines, the history grows. waiting upon
the important issues of the business
in hand, stepping in only as an IL
Elimination of this tradition, or that
one. wherein are set customs that
should be respected and left inviolate
$50 this author says, wisely. In the
same way does the character of the
Indian make itself clear to the reader
not by analysis and dissertation,
but, rather, by the behavior of the
L.. ~. Il,
circumstance of the moment. 1t may
be a matter of personal habit-that Of
cleanliness or general sanitation, a
matter of yielding to authority, mat
ter of business relations. Just an Incl
dent-only hundreds of these out of
which emerge the true nature OF these
fellow countrymen of ours. 1t is in
this same incidental and experimental
way that the great spectacle Of the
desert itself grows-conquering it's
barriCading cliffs on some useful
errand bent. camping under it's match
less nights on the way from this point
to that one. Catching its moods at
dawn or in the blazing midday or in
the sinister and brooding twilight
! catching these up in a few words over
and over again through weeks and
! months and years. 1t is the desert
growing upon one, rather than the
desert bursting upon one, that Leo
Crane looks after here. There are
tense moments and spectacular mo-
mentS here-Indian resistance to in
novation. some religious ceremonial
like the Hopi snake dance. There are
comments on the remote authority
| that issues orders without intimate
knowledge-but not many of these
The man is too busy to waste time in
fruitless challenges and complaints.
There are fine tributes to interested
and intelligent authority operating
for the Indians-Theodore Roosevelt
the king of White Fathers, Kit Carson
of earlier days, and Gen. Hugh Scott
of more recent inspiration. All in all.
this is a remarkable picture an amaz-
ing summary of this Indian kingdom
in Arizona at the hands of man who.
obviously, felt both the obligation of
his task and the spell of his environ
ment and the urge of the days work
X X
LEAST KNOWN AMERICA. A.
Eugene Bartlett. Fleming II.
Revell Co.
This is the story of the happy trav-
eler looking for untraveled points in
America. So he and his wife betake
New Mexico and Arizona. Chimayo,
Barita, Talpa, Las Truches-"Have
you heard Of these old Mexican
towns? I think not, for they still lie
: beyond the beaten track" With
their own camping outfit, these two
; set up, and break up, housekeeping
at will. And in between times they
wander from trail to trail in the will
| derness of the West, seeking out the
) old churches, older than the missions
: | Of California coming l1nOn Stra ge