In the first of these places there was no room for hiding between the
sacks, and when I moved against them I could feel the corn they held. I
prepared to leave the place, and was at the opening, when I heard a
sigh, as if someone had long held his breath and could hold it no
longer. Back I went. No one among the melons, nor behind the racked
corn. I began moving the sacks. Three were filled with corn on the cob;
the fourth—my hand grasped the top of a Hopi head. It was like the jars
of wine and the hidden thieves.
From the sacks we delivered the three children of that household.
When they appeared in the main room, laughing, the father caught them
in his arms; and when they were taken from him, the mother proceeded to
play the same trick. It was easy to break his hold on them, but not so
easy to handle a woman without giving grounds for complaint as to rough
usage—a charge the Hopi like to make. But those three children went
into the street, notwithstanding all this hokum, and other employees
took them before the physicians. There were three doctors present, the
Army surgeon and two physicians of the Indian Service. Each child
received a thorough examination, and only those fit and above the age
of ten years were taken from the village.
I do not know how many houses there are in Hotevilla, but I crawled
into every filthy nook and hole of the place, most of them blind traps,
half-underground. And I discovered Hopi children in all sorts of
hiding-places, and through their fright found them in various
conditions of cleanliness. It was not an agreeable job; not the sort of
work that a sentimentalist would care for.
In but one instance was real trouble threatened. On coming from one
cellar, I found the head of the house sitting in the centre of his
castle with an axe at his feet. He protested against the removal of the
children, and grasped the axe as if to use it. The men with me promptly
removed the implement, and threw him into a corner.
By midday the wagons had trundled away from Hotevilla with fifty-one
girls and eighteen boys. Our survey of the place in July had warranted
an estimate of one hundred and fifty pupils, but in the five months
that had elapsed an epidemic of measles and its terrible aftermath of
bronchial pneumonia had swept the town.
“Where are the others?” the interpreter asked of a villager.
“Dead,” he replied, solemnly.
So much for expediency and Departmental delay.
Of those taken, nearly all had trachoma. It was winter, and not one of
those children had clothing above rags; some were nude. During the
journey of forty-five miles to the Agency many ragged garments went to
pieces; the blankets provided became very necessary as wrappings before
the children reached their destination. It was too late to attempt the
whole distance that afternoon, so the outfit went into camp at the
Oraibi day-school, where a generous meal was provided, and the next day
their travel was completed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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