“And now you must show these ladies you are all good Americans,” said the teacher. We all stood and sang the Star Spangled Banner. The children showed individuality; they did not keep slavishly to one key. Each child started on the one that suited him best, and held it regardless of the others. By the time they were well started, every note in the scale was represented, including most of the half notes. Our patriotism ended in a dismal polychromatic howl, and the sudden silence which followed nearly deafened us. We had forgotten there was such a thing as silence. What a pity the government does not encourage the Indian to cultivate his own arts, instead of these alien and uncomprehended arts of the white man! In his ceremonial dances, he is lithe, graceful, and expressive; when he tries the one-step and waltz he is clumsy and ludicrous. His voice, strident, discordant and badly-placed when he attempts second-rate “civilized” music, booms out mellow and full-throated, perfectly placed in the nasal cavity, when he sings Indian melodies whose tantalizing syncopations, difficult modulations, and finely balanced tempo he manages with precision. His music fits his surroundings. To hear it chanted in a wide and lonely desert scene, to watch its savage, untamed vigor move feet and bodies to a climax of ecstatic emotion, until it breaks all bounds and produces the passion it is supposed to symbolize is to understand what music meant to the world, before it was tamed and harnessed and had its teeth extracted. To wean the Indian of this means of self-expression, and nurse him on puerile, anaemic melodies,--it is stupid beyond words, and unfortunately, it is of a piece with the follies and stupidities our government usually exhibits in its dealings with its hapless wards. If I seemed to laugh it was not at those enthusiastic brown babies, rejoicing in their ability to produce civilized discords, but at the pernicious system which teaches them to be ignorant in two languages. We finally left the strains of patriotism behind us, as we drove across the level plain to Acoma. Two tracks in a waste of sand made the road to the Sky City. A day sooner, or a day later, the wind would shift the fine grained beach sand, left there by some long vanished ocean, and block the road with drifted heaps; today, by the aid of our guide Solomon’s shovel, we were just able to plough through it.