The Diaries of John Gregory Bourke Volume 5: May 23, 1881--August 26, 1881

17. The Last of Hopi Land

361 Chapter 17 ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ The Last of Hopi Land A ugust 18th 1881. Nahi-vehina and Gordon were out long before daylight, hunting for the mules and pony. They found them on the grassy ramp by which we had climbed the depression in the face of the mesa yesterday; this must have been 5 or 6 miles back. No trouble was had in driving them back to the ambulance. Gordon reported that near where they were grazing, was an old ruin; we inferred as much while passing there yesterday evening from the quantities of pot-sherds [sic] scattered over the knolls. In this bivouac this morning, found plenty of good clear rain-water for our animals and ourselves, collected in depressions in the rocks. Reservoirs and tanks of unlimited capacity will yet be blown with dynamite out of sandstone shelves or made by walling up rock-faced ravines in all parts of Arizona and this great district made as fertile as Egypt and Northern Africa in ancient times. Near the tank where we arranged our simple toilets, the remains of an old stone stair-case are still distinctly traceable in the face of the Bluff. This was another lovely morning, giving presage of a glorious day: but our yesterday’s experience taught us not to predict anything regarding the weather in this country. To-night, we said to each other, we may have to camp in 2 ft. of running water. Nahi-vehina told me this morning that our old guide of last evening, Toba-Moqui, belonged to the Butterfly gens. The Pueblo Indians are all extremely fond of bead-work, but their own efforts in that line are wretchedly inferior. A really pretty 362 the hopI Snake dance bead-purse, sent me lately by my sister, has elicited exclamations of surprise and delight whenever displayed, squaws, men and children evincing equal eagerness to handle and examine it. The best in their possession is received in trade from the Utes. Nahi-vehina took me to an old ruin, a few rods from our bivouac. In every feature, it was of same character as dozens of others already seen. There was the same confused pile of natural stone (uncut.) of all sizes, traceable in the bounding lines of an edifice, probably 100• to 150• square: the same half-obstructed stone stairway leading down through a cleft in the face of the precipice, the same old reservoir, partially destroyed, but retaining water from the copious fall of last night: the little patches of favorably lying ground tinged here and there, with a fresher hue than the land about them: and, as goes without saying, any quantity of pottery in pieces of all sizes. The sheep-trails, so Nahi-vehina said, were made by the herds of Mushangnewy which wintered here; but of the origin of the ruins themselves he know absolutely nothing. He told me that his boy Moses, had been to Saint George (S. West Utah) to trade with the Mormons, had learned “heap American”, and was now “muy lejos”1 in Washington (the name given by the Moquis to all the country East of the Rio Grande.) The youngster, I take it, was at school at Carlisle. Nahi-vehina seemed to be very proud of the progress made by his boy, who, he wished to have taught to “lead” and “lite” and become a “Mellycanno”. The boy was of the Juspón (“Chapparal Cock” or [“]Road Runner ”) gens, following his mother. Nahi said that he himself was Tumingbi (Oak.) and speaking of his boy said that he was TuningbiJuspon . He stuck in it that altho his youngster belonged strictly to his mother[’s] gens, yet he pertained also to that of his father; a peculiarity of the regulative system of the Moquis which, if I am not in error, would imply that children were invested with gentile rights on both sides of the house. The Moqui houses were “woman house”, (i.e. belonged to the women who, as we have seen, build them and keep them in repair.) The sheep were “man sheep”; the horses,—man hos’. The blankets “woman pisali”. (that is the womens’ [sic] frisadas,[)] (the Spanish for blanket).2 1. Very far. 2. Frazada is used to mean bed covering the laSt oF hopI land 363 The Moquis had but one wife, Navajos3 “a heap”. While Gordon is harnessing mules, and Smallwood putting away baggage, Mr...