Part 17

Following him came twenty priests painted as he was, each with a loin cloth and a coyote skin hanging from the cloth behind. These went around the circle seven times, which seems to be the mystic number used in all these ceremonies. They chanted a weird, wordless tune all the time. Then they gathered in front of the kiva, where the snakes could be heard keeping up a constant dull rattling, and chanted this same tune seven times, stamping on the boards that covered the opening to the Underworld, in order that the gods down there might know they were on the job. One priest had a piece of board on the end of a strong string and every so often he would step out in front of the others and whirl and whiz that board around until it wailed like a lost soul. That was the wind before the rain!

A priest entered the snake kiva and passed a snake out to a priest dancer. The dancer placed this big rattler in his mouth and began the circle. Close beside him danced a companion called the "hugger." This protecting Indian kept one arm around the dancer's shoulders and his other hand occupied with a bunch of feathers with which he kept the snake's head from coming too close to the dancer's face. Entirely around the ring they went until the starting-place had been reached, when, with a quick, sharp jerk of his head, the dancer threw the snake into the center of the plaza. It lay there coiled, sputtering, and rattling in rage for a moment, then started to glide away. Quick as a flash a "gatherer" snatched him up and twirled him around his arm.

As soon as the first dancer was rid of his snake he went for another, and we noticed that he was always given rattlers. Some of the other priests had thin, nervous whip snakes; some had big, sluggish bull snakes; but at least eighty per cent of the snakes were active, angry rattlers. The first dancer was an old man, gray-headed, and rather stooped. He had a poor hugger, for at least three times during the dance the hugger let a rattler strike the old priest. Once the priest flinched with pain and let the snake loose from his mouth. It hung on to his cheek with its fangs firmly implanted, and at last he tore him loose with both hands. The blood spurted from the wound, and a Hopi man beside me made a nervous clucking sound.

"Will he die from that bite?" I asked the Hopi.

"I think not. Maybe. I don't know." And I'm sure he didn't know any more about it than I did. But the old fellow continued with his dancing as if nothing had happened. At last about eighty snakes had been danced with and were now writhing, animated bouquets in the hands of the gatherers. A squaw came out and made a circle of sacred meal. Into this all the snakes were dumped, and more meal was sprinkled on them. Then each carrier, of which there were four, gathered all the snakes he could grasp by thrusting his arms into the squirming mass, and one carrier departed in each direction. We watched one running swiftly down the cliff until he reached the level desert, where he dumped his cargo, and came back to the plaza. There he and his other returned companions lined up on the edge of the mesa and drank a big draught of the secret preparation prepared by the Snake Priest and his wife. Then they let nature take its course. Such a heaving, vomiting set of redskins you never saw!

This little chore attended to, they removed their paint and prepared to join in the feast and dancing that would last through the night.

Before I left I hunted up the old Snake Priest and pressed him for an explanation of why the snake bites did not harm them. This is what he told me.

"We do not extract the fangs. We do not cause the snakes to bite at things and exhaust their poison. We do not stupefy them with drugs as you could well see. But we do cleanse the priests so thoroughly that the poison cannot take hold. For nine days they fast, partaking of no food, and only of herb drinks prepared by our wise ones. They have many sweat baths and get the harmful fluids out of their blood. They have absolutely no fear of the snakes, and convey to them no nervousness or anger. Just before the dance they have a big drink of the herb brew, and they are painted thickly with an ointment that contains herbs that kill snake poison. Then after the dance, the emetic. That is all."

"How many of your tribe know of this secret preparation?"

"Only two. Myself and my squaw. Should I die my squaw tell the secret to my son. When my squaw die he teach his squaw."

Probably because this dance is staged at the time of year the rains are due in Arizona, it is seldom that twenty-four hours elapse after the dance before a downpour arrives. Hopi Snake Priests are good weather prophets!

Chapter XI: THE TERRIBLE BADGER FIGHT

When winter ends, spring comes with a rush at the Canyon, and flowers pop up over night. They follow the melting snow until the hills are covered with flaming paintbrushes and tender blue lupine. Greasewood and manzanita put out fragrant, waxy blossoms, and wild pinks and Mariposa lilies hedge the trails.

Encouraged by the glorious display of wild flowers, I planned, with more enthusiasm than judgment, to have a real flower garden beside our new house.

I built a low rock wall around the space I had selected, and piled it full of rich black loam as fine as any green-house could afford. Father had sent seeds from the old garden at home, and various friends had contributed from their gardens in the East. These seeds had been planted in boxes which I kept near the stove until frost was gone. They were full of promising plants. Hollyhocks, larkspur, pansies, and foxglove were ready to transplant, when a terrible catastrophe occurred--a little neighbor girl called on me, and, finding me gone, was right peeved. She entertained herself by uprooting my posies. With a complete thoroughness she mixed plants and dirt together, stirring water into the mixture with my trowel. If her grown-up cake-making is done as conscientiously as was that job, she'll be a wonderful pastry cook! I discovered the mischief while it was still fresh, and out of the wreckage salvaged a few brave seedlings. They pouted awhile before they took heart, and root, but finally perked up again. Time healed their wounds and if an ambitious squirrel hadn't been looking for a place to hide a nut I might still have taken prizes in the state fair. As it was, only a very few sturdy plants lived to grace the garden. They flourished, and I had begun to look in their direction without crossing my fingers when a hungry cow and her yearling boy appeared on the scene.

"Help yourself, son!" Ma cow said, suiting her actions to the advice given.

Midsummer found a lonely cactus and a horned toad blooming in my garden.

The weather got hotter and more hot, and my bird bath was duly appreciated by the feathered population. They gathered there in flocks, and the news went far and wide that water was to be had at the Chief's house. All the birds that had been fed during the winter brought their aunts, uncles, and cousins seventy times seven removed, until all I had to do was lie in my hammock and identify them from a book with colored plates.

White Mountain's special pet was a tiny chickadee. This fragile little speck of birddom fluttered into the house one stormy day, and the Chief warmed it in his hands and fed it warm milk and crumbs. From that day on it belonged, brave soul and wee body, to him. As the days grew warmer it spent its time somewhere in the forest, but at mealtime when the Chief came home all he had to do was step outside the door and whistle. Out of the sky a diminutive atom would hurl itself downward to light on his outstretched palm. While we ate it would perch on White Mountain's shoulder and twitter and make soft little noises in its throat, now and then coming across to me but soon returning to its idol. There was something so touching in the confidence of the helpless bird, it brought a tight feeling into one's throat.

At the height of the drought a national railroad strike was called, and for a few weeks things looked serious for us poor mortals stranded a hundred miles from our water supply. Life took a backward leap and we lived as our forefathers did before us. No water meant no light except oil lamps, and when the oil supply failed we went to bed at dark. Flashlights were carefully preserved for emergencies. We learned that tomato juice will keep life in the body even if it won't quench thirst.

There was one well four miles away, and rangers were stationed there to see that nothing untoward happened to that supply. The water was drawn with a bucket, and it was some job to water all the park animals. Visitors were at that time barred from the Park, but one sage-brusher managed to get in past the sentry. He camped at Headquarters and sent his ten-year-old boy walking to Rowe Well to fill a pail with water and carry it back. Just before dark that night the Chief and I coming in from Hilltop met the little fellow, courageously struggling along eight miles from Headquarters and getting farther away every step. His bucket was leaky, and little of the precious water remained. We took him back to the well again, filled his bucket, and delivered him to his father. The lad pulled a dime from his pocket and extended it toward the Chief.

"You keep it, son," said White Mountain.

"Better take it, Mister. You hauled me quite a ways."

The Chief leaned toward him confidentially. "You see it's like this. I work for the Government and Uncle Sam doesn't like for us to take tips."

And so the matter rested. The boy had discharged his obligation like a gentleman. He didn't know he had offered the Chief Ranger a dime for saving his life.

A few stray I. W. W.'s ("I Won't Works," the rangers called them) came in to see that nobody did anything for the Santa Fe. Of course the rangers were put on for guard duty around the railroad station and power house, day and night, and the fact that they protected the railroad's property at odd hours did not relieve them from their own regular duties the rest of the time. For weeks they did the work of three times their actual number, and did it cheerfully. It finally became necessary to import Indians from the Navajo Reservation to help with the labor around the car yard and the boiler yard. These could hardly be described as having a mechanical turn of mind, but they were fairly willing workers, and with careful supervision they managed to keep steam up and the wheels turning. The shop foreman, however, was threatened with apoplexy a dozen times a day during their term of service.

When it seemed that we just couldn't endure any more, some boss somewhere pulled a string and train service was resumed. This brought in a mass of tourists, and the rangers were on the alert again to keep them out of messes.

One day as the Chief and I were looking at some picturegraphs near the head of Bright Angel Trail we saw a simple old couple wandering childlike down the trail.