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335 Chapter 16 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Bad Trails and Bad Weather A ugust 15th 1881. The sun is struggling through clouds. We have some hopes of better weather, and if we can secure a guide will start to complete the tour of the remaining pueblos of the Moquis and possibly make a trip to the Cohoninos and returning , will move down, by way of Sunset Crossing, to Camp Apache.1 In front of Keam’s store, high upon the opposite side of the ca- ñon in a niche in the vertical face of the rock is a pyramidal pile of stones, placed there by the ancestors of the present Moquis, as they say. It is not now pasible [sic] to approach it, the trail which formerly must have run along the face of the cliff, and portions of which are still visible, having been carried off by a landslide or something of that kind. The Moquis make use of the same kind of a boomerang, as is to be found among the Zunis; but the weapon cut out by the Moquis is painted with cabalistic characters occasionally, while that of the Zunis, so far as my knowledge goes, is always plain. Contrary to our fond anticipations, they sky again clouded at 11 o’clock, great banks of black and brown vapor massing right over 1. “Camp Apache” is carried over from Bourke’s service in Arizona, seven years earlier. It had been upgraded to a fort in 1879. The post was established in 1870 on the Mogollon Plateau to guard a proposed reservation in the White Mountains (later Fort Apache Reservation). Fort Apache was pivotal during the Apache campaigns of the 1870s and 1880s. It was abandoned and transferred to the Indian Service in 1922. Altshuler, Starting with Defiance, 12. 336 the hopI Snake dance our house. A few drops pattered on the dirt roof, a scattering fusillade followed, and then the flood poured down, covering the ground for a couple of inches in depth and bounding over the walls of the cañon in muddy cascades of varying volume. Of these, one tawny as the mane of a furious lion, sprang from bench to bench, passing upon each long enough to send a cloud of muddy spray high in the air and then descended to lower levels in a torrent sweeping everything before its path, with a roar to appeal to the stoutest heart. Seeing only in such a case is believing; no description could to justice to one of these Arizona cloud-bursts and, if it be remembered, the Keam house is in a narrow gorge, only one hundred yards wide and the receptacle for every drop of water falling within an area of ten miles square, it doesn’t take much of a calculation to convince a person of the immense power of the storms prevailing here during the rainy season. “Ate”, the “Louse”, a Moqui of some prominence, came in to visit this P.M. He seemed disinclined to give any information about the Sacred Name of his people, of which I had heard from other sources and to which I have elsewhere alluded; he even went so far as to deny that they call themselves Opi-ki, but when we showed the name to him in black and white, he became more tractable and ceased to deny its existence, altho’ he would not commit himself one way or the other. Considering the clans, he confirmed the list to be found on p. [Bourke left blank], except the one which I have put down as Cirga and translated as “Leña” or Firewood. The sound Cirga, he did not understand, and the translation “Leña”, he would not admit as correct : he said that the other clans given were correctly named and comprehended all their gentile divisions. They have no “Yucca”, “Buffalo”, “Sun-flower” or Sage-brush” gentes. This Indian spoke Navajo fluently and Mr. Keam interpreted my questions and his answers. He went on to say he didn’t think anybody got bitten at the Snake Dance. He didn’t know anything about the “medicine” used: they were kept a great secret among the head “medicine men”. Nahi-vehana (the “Peace-maker”) came in also. With him I made an agreement to guide me to the other Pueblos of the Moquis and thence to the Summit Crossing of the Rio Colorado Chiquito. Terms one dollar and a ration per diem, while with me and pay and food for...

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