In the case of girls, ceremonies of instruction, purification, and dedication are almost universally observed. The adolescent is set apart from her fellows, and the elder women give her definite and full instruction as to what the change that is taking place in her life means. She is shown the importance of the new function, and how much the welfare of the race depends upon it. Then she is made to undergo ceremonies that last for several days, in which her body and all its functions are dedicated to the tribe. She is one of the future mothers now, and, as such, is entitled to all respect and consideration. There is no foolish reserve, no “modesty,” so-called, which arrogates to itself the right to criticise the wisdom of God in creating human beings male and female that they may marry and propagate their kind upon the earth. For, wherever one finds the sort of “modesty” that is ashamed of natural and God-given functions, there is either a mental perversion for which the victim is to be pitied, or a moral perversion which is to be reprobated. Every Indian girl is given fully to understand what the function means, with all its possibilities, and she is taught to pray that, when the time comes, she may have a lover, and that he may be a good husband, and that, in due time, she may be the happy and healthy mother of many happy and healthy children.

And in some tribes there are certain shrines where the girls are taught to go and offer their prayers that lovers, husbands, and children—not one or two of the latter, but many—may be given to them at the will of the gods above.

This is to dignify sex, to train the girls that wifehood and motherhood are holy and to be desired, and that they are not matters merely to jest and joke about, or to talk in secret whispers about one to another, as if the very subject were unholy and unclean.

Then a matter of practical healthfulness is observed that white parents need very much to learn, it appears to me, especially in this age of scholastic crowding and mental overworking. Each month the girl is required to rest, in order that she may preserve and maintain her body in perfectly healthy condition. She may go where she will, but she must be quiet and still, in order that the function may be not disturbed, and that its regularity may be established. Not only this, but this habit of rest is kept up so long as the function continues through life. Even on the march a woman may stay behind (if she so desires) and rest for a day or so. The result of this rest at such times is shown in the strength and vigor the women show during pregnancy and at birth. They seem to store up strength, and, as I shall later show, childbirth to most of them is no more a time of peril, pain, or distress than is breathing.

Mothers who neglect to thus instruct and care for their daughters at the adolescent period are criminals both to their children and to the race. Among the ancient Greeks such a mother would have been regarded as a monstrosity; yet many mothers have confessed to their physicians they have never had one word of converse with their daughters upon this most important subject. When I see children going to school at this adolescent period, and being forced by our competitive system of education to strain every nerve to cram the required amount of facts into their brains, I do not wonder that we have so many sickly women who are incapable of being the mothers of healthy and happy children. Far better that our children be not educated in chemistry, and literature, in physical science and art, than that they unfit themselves for the happy relations of a beautiful marriage and sweet and tender parenthood. For let the new or the old woman say what she will, the divinely ordered plan is that women shall be wives, and happy wives at that, capable of making their husbands happy, or at least of contributing their share to that end, and also that they shall know the joys of maternity. Unhappy indeed is that woman whose physical condition is such that she refuses to know the sweet touch of her own baby’s body, and denies herself the blessed privilege of training its soul for a beautiful and useful life.

The Indian mother sees to it that her daughter is early taught her future possibilities and the will of Those Above in regard to her, and the growing woman would as soon shirk the responsibilities of her sex as she would refuse to eat. The consequences are that normal births with Indian women are practically painless and entirely free from danger. I have known a woman to deliver herself of her child, sever the umbilicus, and then walk half a mile to the creek, walk into it with the baby, and give herself and the child a good washing, then return to her camp, suckle the little one, and proceed to attend to her duties as if nothing had happened. At another time I saw a woman, less than half an hour after her child was born, start off for a heavy load of wood. Their freedom from constricting waist-bands, their absolute freedom of body, their nasal and deep breathing, their muscular exercise through life, their open air sleeping and living,—all have much to do with these easy births.

To a good Indian woman, also, there is nothing more evil than to circumvent the will of Those Above by refusing to have children. Such a woman would be almost a monstrosity to an Indian, who would be unable to comprehend the mental workings of such an abnormality. Children are to be desired, to be longed for, and to become a joyous possession. In the making of some of their basketry the Paiuti women weave a design which shows the opening between the upper and lower worlds through which the souls of all children born into this upper world must come. By a correspondence of the symbol with the thing symbolized, the Paiuti weaver believes that if she closes up this opening in the basket, she will render herself incapable of bearing any more children. Therefore, even though you were to offer her her weight in money, you could not persuade her to close up the aperture in the basket’s design. This would be circumventing the will of the gods.

The same law, too, applies to the suckling of her child. The Indian mother never dreams of foregoing this healthful duty and pleasure. She regards it as one of her special joys, in which she is superior to man. And just as the Paiuti weaver refuses to close the aperture in her basket, so does the Zuni woman refuse to close, except with averted eyes and a prayer that the gods will see she did it with unseeing eyes, the tiny aperture in the mammæ of the water bottles which she makes of clay in imitation of the human breasts. She dare not, even thus in symbol, suggest the closing of her own maternal founts.

Ah! beautiful simplicity and joy of naturalness. The God of men and women surely knew what was good for them when He set in motion the forces that created them. In harmony with His will and purpose we are healthy, happy, normal beings, living lives of purity, progress, and peace. In opposition to His will we are unhealthy, unhappy, abnormal beings, full of wretchedness, impurity, and misery. In many things the Indian, too simple to go far away from the Divine precepts which come to him through contact with nature, is wiser than we. Let us then put on the garment of simplicity, seek to know the will of God, and with hearts like little children learn the true way, and then seek for courage to walk therein.

CHAPTER XVI
THE INDIAN AND HER BABY

I have elsewhere spoken of the Indian woman’s reception of her child. It is welcomed with joy, and yet in its first hour’s treatment most white women would think its life would terminate. After seeing that it breathes properly—that is, through the nose—the mother carries her little one to the nearest creek or water-hole and gives it a good bath. Cold water has no terrors for her, and she does not fear its use for the child. With this cold bath the child may be said to enter its earthly existence. Henceforth life is to be a succession of hardening processes. Indian babies get no foolish and weakening coddling. They are loved dearly and petted often, but are made to lie down on flat boards or basket cradles, with arms and legs strapped down, and are thus early accustomed to physical restraint. They sleep out of doors from the day of their birth, and become accustomed to all kinds of weather. For an Indian child who has taken cold we shall look in vain. The name, the thought of such an ill is unknown.

If the parents have to move from canyon up to plateau, or go off to far away forests for the winter’s supply of pinion nuts, the child is put into its carrying basket, swung on the back of the mother, dependent from her forehead, and carried either on horseback or on foot to the new stopping place. Simplicity and naturalness accompany every stage of the little one’s life until the age of puberty, when the child-life is supposed to end, and the man or woman life begins.

Now, while of very necessity our method of treating white children must be different from this, we can learn many lessons from the Indian that will materially benefit our race. The key-stone of the whole idea is found in the words: “No coddling.” Not long ago I went to the home of an artist friend. His wife had just presented him with a fine, healthy son. The wife’s mother was present, and had taken charge of the young mother and her baby. The room was stifling hot, so that I could scarcely breathe, and when I went to see the baby it was wrapped up in a cradle with a sheet and three blankets over its head. At once I opened the doors and windows, taking good precaution to see that the mother did not take cold. I gave both grandmother and new mother a lecture upon the monstrous folly and cruelty of thus depriving the new-born child of needed air for its expanding lungs. The lesson was accepted in the proper spirit, for the father fully agreed with me, and on the grandmother’s departure, a few days later, the coddling, smothering process ceased, and a cold bath, sleeping out of doors, and a generally healthy treatment of the child substituted. I know this is an exaggerated case, but it serves as an illustration of the wrongful and excessive “coddling” we give our children, from which follow such evils as weak lungs, weak throats, readiness to take cold, etc.

As the exaggerated opposite of this, let me relate the treatment I accorded to my own children.

When my first son was born, we were so located that I was compelled to be both physician and nurse. His first experience—after a good hot bath—was a cold bath, and within half an hour of his birth he was sleeping out of doors. At five weeks of age he and his mother accompanied me on an eight-hundred-mile drive over the plains and deserts of Nevada. We camped out, slept on the ground, and gave him, whenever possible, an open air bath in the cold mountain brooks that occasionally were met with.

A year or so after the second boy was born I was stationed in the little town of Cedarville, Cal., and one of the happiest remembrances of my life there was in winter when the snow was deep upon the ground. I would place a canvas upon the floor of my small study, where a good fire blazed in the stove, fetch in a couple of washtubs full of snow, then undress the youngsters, and watch them as they sat in the snow, rubbed it on their naked bodies and laughed and shouted and crowed with delight when I gently snowballed them.

While they were little tots, every morning before being dressed they stood outside while I threw—not poured, but threw,—a bucketful of cold water over them. Then, after a vigorous and hearty rub down, they went with me for a walk where they were allowed to run and jump and romp to their heart’s content.

This I call a rational treatment of children. It certainly is a healthy treatment, and those brought up under such an Indian method will never know the aches, pains, ills, and weaknesses that most white children are afflicted with. And I would treat my baby girls, if I had any, exactly the same as my boys, for the health of the race more nearly depends upon the health of the future mothers than upon that of the future fathers.

If it be thought that I am too extreme I quote an article entire from a recent Good Health, entitled “Strenuous Health Culture,” in which it will be seen that others have done the same thing with equally good results.

“Yet they were far healthier and hardier than the present much-clad generation. Why does the savage go naked with impunity while the civilized man shivers in his clothes, and is a prey to colds, pneumonia, and a variety of diseases unknown to the naked savage?

“One of the marvels of the normal human body is its wonderful adaptability—the maintenance of its equilibrium under constantly varying conditions. By the regulation and adaptation of the heat functions of the body the bodily temperature is maintained at the normal standard in spite of the changing temperature of the surrounding atmosphere. But when the body is artificially heated continually, as by over-clothing and over-heated rooms, its functions become to some degree dormant, and in consequence the natural bodily resistance is greatly lessened.

“The effort of the body to resist cold stimulates and strengthens. One who can resist cold can resist all kinds of disease germs. This has been demonstrated by the success of the ‘cold-air cure’ for a variety of diseases.

“The old-time coddling of delicate children, which still further lessened their vitality and weakened their powers of endurance, is now giving place to its opposite. Judicious exposure to cold has been found to be one of the best methods of strengthening weak infants and developing healthy children. At a recent conference of mothers held in Minnesota, they were advised that a snowbank makes one of the best cradles. One mother who had tried this treatment thought that it accounted for the unusual health and strength of the family.

“A Milwaukee physician, Dr. John E. Worden, has adopted this strenuous treatment to prepare his babes for the rigors of life, and up to the present his methods have been abundantly justified by their success. His little daughters, Shirley and Jane, aged respectively eight and three years, are two of the firmest and healthiest bits of humanity to whom disease of all kinds is unknown. During the cold weather these children may be seen barefooted and bareheaded, clad only in their cotton garments, thoroughly enjoying a romp in the snowdrifts, and without even a goose-pimple on their skin.

“‘We are merely following out health rules,’ said Dr. Worden, speaking of his unique methods of bringing up his children. ‘We are aiming at prevention rather than at cure. We have brought the children up so that they are fearless, and dread neither the ice-cold plunge nor a romp in the snow in their bare feet. The door is always open, and they go out when they like and return when they are ready to do so. We do not force the children to go out in the snow barefooted; they go out of their own free will, and play until they are tired, or their attention is called to something else.

“‘In the summer we send them out into the sun bareheaded and barefooted, with orders to keep out of the shade. On the street cars they are instructed to sit on the sunny side of the car. It is well that they experience something of contrast; therefore, a cold bath is given them daily in the warm weather. In the winter they are allowed to go outdoors to get stimulus from the cold air.

“‘Children brought up like tender hot-house plants are likely to contract colds and other diseases, and to die as the result of not having robust constitutions. These children, on the contrary, will and do escape without any sickness; and should they get sick, their recovery is almost certain, because of their being strong and in good condition.’

“Both Dr. Worden and his wife are graduates of the University of Michigan, and Mrs. Worden was for a number of years before her marriage a trained nurse.

“‘During my hospital training and institutional work,’ says Mrs. Worden, ‘I saw so much sickness due to weakened bodies that I investigated causes, and came to the conclusion that much of the weakness was due to a lack of physical development, to abuses through mistaken kindness on the part of the parents, that so weakened the immature bodies that they could not withstand the attack of disease. With our children, beginning from babyhood, we have had one aim, and that is to give them strong physiques, and we have succeeded thus far. They have never had one drop of medicine, and never been ill one moment.’

“The clothing of these children is always light, and much the same summer and winter. It is of cotton almost exclusively, and no bands are ever used. In the place of stockings the easy, sensible, comfortable Roman sandal, made only in England, is worn.

“‘We believe in clothing them as lightly as possible,’ says Mrs. Worden, ‘depending on their excellent heat-making organs to develop any extra warmth needed in an emergency. This stimulates a necessity for a good, strong internal circulation of the fluids of the body, and creates a desire to exercise a little in order to keep warm. Over-warm children are usually lazy.’

“The Worden home is sunny and bright, with windows wide open day and night, and the rooms kept always cool and fresh. No useless furniture, no bric-a-brac, no draperies, harbor dust and germs. The walls and hard-wood floors and few articles of furniture are kept scrupulously clean, but without ornament. The whole house is given over to the children, and there is no need for prohibitions of any sort.

“Concerning the diet of his children Dr. Worden says: ‘No national or international problems concerning the welfare of our people are as important as our food problem. And yet it is a very simple one, solved by an all-wise Creator before the creation of man. Time enough is wasted in the kitchen of our modern homes, spoiling good food by making almost impossible mixtures and then over-cooking these, to do all the necessary work of any nation. This careless and ignorant diet leads to ill-health, from which there is no escape unless we learn to lead a sensible life, eating moderately of natural foods, and these in simple combinations.

“‘With our children, very little cow’s milk is used, largely because of its unreliability in the city; but we do not favor an abundance of milk anyway, after children have teeth to use on their food. Their diet consists of fruits, cereals, nuts, and vegetables, no spices, vinegar, etc., being used. Whole wheat flour, the bran included, is used exclusively.

“‘They are never urged to eat. We expect them to know whether they are hungry or not. Urging children to eat leads to overfilling of the stomach, and this to bowel disorders, and often death. Next to urging children to eat, as a cause of overeating, is variety. We never supply them with a choice of foods at one meal. The diet for each meal is simple, and yet in one season or year they get quite a variety, as exampled by a list of the fruits they get, one kind at a time: Apples, pears, grapes, plums, cherries, oranges, pineapples, peaches, grape fruit, prunes, apricots, figs, dates, raisins, bananas, melons, and the numerous kinds of berries—all choice fruit. They scorn anything with a bad spot as being not fit to eat. Then again we buy them lots of nuts for food, not just for the fun of cracking and eating and usually overeating. They get nut food as a United States soldier his rations. Next we have an immense choice of vegetables, of which they get one kind at a meal—never two vegetables to one child at the same meal. On such a diet it is no occasion for surprise that they have never been sick. The good health to be derived from a simple meal more than repays for any fancied abstinence.’

“The Worden children are already little athletes. The elder girl is the youngest basket-ball player in Milwaukee. Every evening they exercise for a few minutes nude, incidentally getting an air bath to the skin of the whole body while developing and strengthening the muscles.

“Dr. and Mrs. Worden are not faddists. They are earnestly and steadfastly endeavoring to fulfill the trust committed to them, to develop their children into strong healthy women, to strengthen their powers of endurance, and develop their physical faculties by bringing them up in accordance with all the laws of health.”

Another thing that I would have white women learn from their Indian sisters, is a thing they used to know but are rapidly forgetting. That is, the joy of suckling their own children. An Indian mother that does not suckle her own child is almost unknown. With the “superior classes” of the white race it is the opposite of this proposition that is true. Not only is this of great injury to the child, but it is fraught with most serious consequences to the mother. Is it nothing that the mother of a child willfully puts away from herself all the little, fond, sweet intimacies that naturally grow out of this relationship; the joy of exercise of a natural and beautiful function; the feeling that the baby life is still being sustained by the mother’s own life-blood transmuted by mother love and mother-processes into sweet, delicious food that nothing else can equal?

It is a fact that all the higher affections and emotions of the human soul have to be cultivated and developed. The child sees little or no beauty in a sunset; it must be trained to recognize it. The love of Nature grows as we cultivate it. The nobler emotions of self-sacrifice, humility, kindliness, grow as we cultivate them, and while, where maternity is a perfectly natural process, joy accompanies it in all its manifestations, there is no denying the fact that in our so-called civilization women have to cultivate the feelings connected with the function to bring to themselves the joy they should normally possess. But that there is a joy in suckling one’s own child many, many mothers—true mothers—have assured me, and I wish to add my voice to the supplications of the innocent child that every mother give of her own sweet, loving breast to the child she has brought into the world. Some mothers refuse because it destroys the beautiful contour of the bust; others because it demands too close confinement, and would therefore prohibit regular attendance upon club or social functions. Poor women! Bartering their God-given rights and privileges for the messes of pottage that society and club life afford—that is, afford to mothers at the time they should be with their babes. Can any society on earth, any club that ever existed, compensate for the loss of healthful nutrition given from a loving mother’s breast? Let the statistics of “bottle-fed” babies attest the dangers that accrue from the mother’s refusal (or inability—for which she is to be pitied rather than condemned) to suckle her own young.

CHAPTER XVII
THE INDIAN AND THE SANCTITY OF NUDITY

While adults of both sexes among all Indians wear either a skirt or a gee-string, there is not the slightest hesitancy in allowing the young, both boys and girls, to run about in a state of nudity. Since we have sent white teachers and missionaries to the Indians, they are beginning to learn that somehow—though they can’t sort it out just how or why—there is something indecent in allowing nude children to wander about their homes and villages. They are being taught to be “ashamed,”—their children are becoming sex-conscious as are our white children, long before their time, and we are foisting on to them our hateful, impure, and blasphemous conceptions of nudity. For myself I am free to confess that I have no sympathy with this kind of teaching. I think it unnecessary, and not only unnecessary but a positive injury. I believe in the sanctity of nudity, especially in that of young children, and while with our present social customs we cannot allow our children to be nude or partially nude in public, I would that our minds were as clean in this matter as are those of the Indians with whom I have so long been acquainted.

Whatever society may demand of us in public, there is no reason why, in private, both our children and ourselves should not spend a certain portion of every day, if possible, in contact with the direct rays of the sun and the air. Every school in the land should be so equipped, and our children and their parents be so trained, that, under proper direction, a certain part of every day the students could be so exposed. All know the benefit that comes from the exposing of the arms and legs to the sun and breezes at the sea-shore. Men, women, and children alike who flee the city for an annual holiday to the seaside return to their shut-in, civilized (!) life with renewed vigor and health. Why not give some of this life to city children every day in the year? Even in Eastern cities, in winter, a solarium could be created in the top stories of the schoolhouses, and there, with every window wide open, the children clothed in the scantiest of garments, as at the seaside, could go through physical and breathing exercises, and romp or play games for half an hour, to their great benefit both of body and mind.

We have for so long trained ourselves to the half expressed belief that there is something wrong about nudity that we find women’s clubs draping statues, and organizations rejecting figures because they are nude, which all ages and all civilized peoples have accepted as pure and chaste works of art. I would not for a moment have it thought that I approve of all nude statues or pictures. Many of them have no virtue to commend them. Yet I would not indiscriminately condemn all works of art in the nude merely because they are nude. We have forgotten the appearance of a healthy body, and feel ashamed to see one. By our mental attitude we accuse the Creator of indecency that “male and female created He them,” for, not only do we veil the bodies of the opposite sexes from each other, (which is a perfectly correct and wise thing to do) but daughters are ashamed to be seen nude by their own mothers, and mothers by their daughters. I believe in the sanctity of nudity. Let the sexes remain apart, by all means, but let there be less of false shame when men see nude men, or women see nude women, or either or both see nude children. It is a fact declared by the most conservative of white explorers, that the naked tribes of aborigines are the most pure, chaste, and truly modest. Our conception that because Indians are unclothed they are therefore indecent and unclean, impure and unchaste, is a dirty conception, dishonoring to ourselves and our Creator. Honi soit qui mal y pense, and “to the pure all things are pure” are as true to-day as when they were first spoken and written, and while I am as opposed as is any one living to nude pictures and statues that have nothing to commend them but their nudity; while I am strongly opposed to promiscuous nudity either in whole or in part, I am equally opposed to the mental attitude that nudity in itself is wrong, and that the Creator did not know His business when he created us both nude and of different sexes.

Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, and many others of the great men of the world, made it a daily practice to expose their bodies to the sun and the air. For years I have seized every proper opportunity to do so, such as when I took my fifteen days’ rowing trip down the Colorado River. When on the Salton Sea exploring trip; when out in the deserts, the canyons, the forests, on the mountain tops, I endeavored every day to give my body some exposure, and every night and morning, when camping out, before retiring and arising, I have a brief air bath, sometimes with vigorous physical exercises. Thus the power of God’s own sun and air enter my body through every pore of the skin, and I enjoy a health, vigor, vim, and tingle of delight I can get in no other way.

When I first visited the Havasupai Indians, all the men were nude, part of the time, save for the breech-clout. In their dances, in some of which I participated, it was a delight to see the movements of their perfect muscles, their bronze flesh glistening in the sun, or in the glow of the camp fires. And men, women, and children all bathed at the same time, in the clear waters of Havasu Creek, all the adults, of course, wearing either a short skirt or a breech clout, but the major part of the body fully exposed. There was no immodesty and no thought of anything of the kind. Nudity or semi-nudity was taken as a matter of course, and neither by word or deed did anyone seem conscious of it. After vigorous swimming, the young men wrestled, the youngsters ran races, the men indulged in various games, their bodies still exposed to the sun and the air, and no one could fail to observe the health, vigor, and robustness that came from this habit of life.

The Hopis train their boys and young men to their morning runs over the desert in a state of almost complete nudity, and in their snake dance races, nothing but the gee-string is worn, and people of both sexes gaze upon them with no thought of immodesty. Modesty is a condition of soul, and has nothing to do with the exposure or covering of the body. One may be a Godiva and be far more modest than another who veils not only her whole body but even her face. And for myself, I wish to record my conviction that it would be far better for the morals of civilized man if he would bring up his children of both sexes to recognize and know the sanctity of nudity, rather than to cover the body as he does and to affirm by his words and suggest by his demeanor that he regards an exposed body as indecent. A small trunk can always be worn and this suffices for every purpose of true modesty.

In many of the leading sanitariums of the world the patients are required to expose their bodies to the sun and air for a certain length of time daily. Here is a struggling to get back to a natural condition, an almost essential condition to the attainment and retention of perfect health. Of the outdoor gymnasiums for men and women at the Boulder Sanitarium, Colorado, Dr. Howard F. Rand thus writes:

“Here the men patients, clothed with simple trunks, bask in the sunshine on the sand which covers the ground, follow the trainer through the different lines of gymnastic work, finally plunging into the pool and coming out ready to be dried and thoroughly rubbed. Donning their simple apparel, they can, if they choose, proceed up the mountain, and gather beautiful wild flowers and rest the eye on the surrounding scenery.

“The outdoor gymnasium is especially helpful in the treatment of women. It is very difficult to get them to dress properly when taking physical exercise, and they are ‘so afraid’ of exposing themselves to the sunlight and ‘ruining’ their complexion. But the beautiful physique of some of our young women who have trained in this line, and the assurance that they can so develop themselves, lead them to make short trips to the gymnasium, and gradually they grow willing to be delivered from close wrappings, and expose themselves to the sunlight. The pleasure is enticing; enjoyment of exercise in this place without the restriction of tight clothing rapidly increases, and desired results are obtained by this means in less time than in any other line of training. The great essential is to have the person in natural condition when exercising, so that all the organs of the body may move freely and naturally, without let or hindrance. Number seems to increase the enchantment; hence the more readily do the timid and backward take the first steps.

“At first it is impossible for many to expand at the waist line; but a jump into the pool, the temperature of the water being 70° to 75°, causes them involuntarily to inflate the respiratory organs, and through this and special training deep breathing becomes habitual in less time than it would in any other way.

“We aim to have our patients spend at least one hour, twice a day (forenoon and afternoon), in the open-air gymnasium.

“Soon after beginning this course, the patient’s skin, and mind as well, will be found clearing up. He will say his appetite is better, and that he sleeps more soundly, and is gaining weight and strength. The surface becomes brown in a short time, but as soon as pigmentation ceases, there is a natural, pearly-white hue—a sure indicator of health.”

These open-air gymnasiums are to be found at the leading sanitariums of the world, thus clearly showing that the Indian idea of nudity has the sanction of the highest and wisest medical opinions of the white race.

The body is a sweet, a precious, a beautiful expression of God’s thought; it was and is intended by the Divine as the house of the mind, the soul, the immortal part of the human being. Paul expressly declares it is “the temple of the Holy Ghost.” Every part of it is beautiful, every part God-given. In health it is the most perfect machine ever designed, and the most beautiful. Every function it performs is a marvel, every power contained within it a miracle. How obviously wrong then is anything that disparages, lowers, offends the high and supreme dignity of this glorious structure. Yet we are ashamed of it, we apologize for it, we teach our children to be ashamed of it and to cover it as an evil thing.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE INDIAN AND FRANKNESS

Another thing the white race might learn from the Indian, and it would be well for them if they did, is the virtue of frankness. If an Indian likes you or dislikes you, he lets you know. There is no pretense, no hypocrisy, and in his speech he indicates his feelings. Then, too, he is not offended by plain speech. If he lies and you tell him so, he honors you; and if you lie, he will not hesitate to say so. Making the fingers of both hands as a tongue on each side of the mouth, he says: “You talk two ways at once,” which is Indian for our ruder vernacular: “You are a liar!” There are no conventional lies among Indians. They do not speak untruths for the sake of politeness. They have learned the lesson of the Man of Galilee, who two thousand years ago taught, “Let your yea be yea, and your nay nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” Of course there are untruthful Indians, but with the major part their word is never broken. I would just as soon take the simple word of most of the Indians I know as that of the most upright and honored of the old-fashioned Southern gentlemen. And I would no more think of insulting the Indian by putting his integrity in speech on the same plane as that of the ordinary society or business man or woman of America than I would insult the lion by calling him a wolf. Strong words, but true, and capable of demonstration. Too often Indians who come in contact with the whites learn to lie, but the pure, uncontaminated, uncivilized Indian hates a lie and a liar as much as the proverb says the devil hates holy water. I shall never forget the impression made in the court-room at Flagstaff, Arizona, when Bigwoetten, a Navaho Indian, who had been charged with murder, and who had sent word to the sheriff that it would be useless to hunt for him as he could never be found, but that, if he was wanted, he would come in when the trial began,—I say, I shall never forget the marvelous impression caused by the proud stalking into the court-room of this old and dignified Indian, and his speech to the judge: “Though I am sore wounded, and the journey over the desert has been dreary and long, and has well-nigh killed me, I gave my word that I would be here,—the word of a Navaho that never was broken—so here I am. Do with me as you will, so that you do honestly.”

Several times, with perfect confidence, I have risked my life in exploring trips, on the mere word of an Indian that he would be at such a place at a certain time with food and water. And such has been my experience that now I never hesitate to accept the simple word of any Indian who has an ordinarily good reputation.

I have often had pow-wows with various tribes and whatever they have promised me in such councils has invariably been performed.

And yet there is a peculiar twist to the mentality of many Indians that needs comment here. When a stranger is questioning an Indian about anything that she (or he) deems of no great importance, as, for instance, the meaning of a certain design on a basket, the Indian conception of politeness leads her to give you the reply your question seems to call for. For instance, if you see a zigzag design on a basket and you ask her, “Is this to represent lightning?” she thinks that is what you want it to represent, so she says, “Yes!” Ten minutes later and her questioner asks, “Is this the ripple of the sunshine on water?” Again with the same thought uppermost in her mind, that she must be polite to her questioner, that that is the answer asked for, she says, “Yes!” And so on with a dozen different questioners, and all of them with a different interpretation of the same symbol, her answer would be “yes” every time. This, however, is not untruth. It is because the white questioner does not know that his is not the method of extracting truth from an Indian. He has asked for a certain answer and he has it.

CHAPTER XIX
THE INDIAN AND REPINING

In all my association with Indians, I cannot recall a single instance of repining, regret over the unalterable events of the past, weeping or wailing over joys lost, demoralizing self-pity, or magnified distress because “we have seen better days.” The simple, unpretentious, really democratic life of the Indian disposes of these latter ills to which the white race is heir by rendering them impossible, and repining and self-pity seem to have no place in their vocabulary. They weep and wail when their loved ones die; and they gather together and pray if drought or other natural evils destroy their crops, but when the weeping is done it is done, and life’s duties are taken up without constant repining or self-pity. What has happened has happened. Nothing can alter it. It is the will of Those Above, or whether it is or not it IS, and that is enough. Hence why complain, why protest. Accept the inevitable. Leave it alone. Let the dead past bury its dead. Do the work of to-day; never mind the woe of yesterday.

This seems to me to be the Indian attitude. A kind of proud acquiescence, a manly, womanly recognition of facts, and a willingness to face them and thus triumph over them. Instead of magnifying their sorrows they minimize them by constant labor and by doing the very opposite, viz., magnifying their joys. Often have I heard this done. A widow speaking of her lost husband, and immediately referring in tones of joy to her boys and girls, her fine corn-field, her peach orchard,—her blessings, in fact.

It is simply impossible for any one to estimate the amount of time, strength, energy, and life that have been wasted by the white race in lamenting, repining, weeping, over things that could neither be helped nor changed. And how absurd such lamentation is. If an evil can be remedied, remedy it. If a wrong can be righted, right it. But to waste valuable time, strength, and energy in vain repining and self-pity is a crime that no Indian is so foolish as to commit. It is left to the white race to thus show its superiority! This comes from two or three causes. First: Our race, mainly our women, are not as healthy physically as the Indian, and where physical health is lacking it is so easy to yield to the force of evil circumstance. Strong men or women can force themselves into physical and mental activity and these bring solace and forgetfulness of the pains, ills, and sorrows of the past. Second: The very ease and luxury of our lives which all white people so much covet, give us time and opportunity to sit down and study over sources of sadness, while on the other hand, the Indian woman has her daily work that she must perform, willy nilly, and thus is kept from the contemplation of her sorrows. Third: There is in the Indian that calm serenity of mind and soul that belong only to either very childlike or exceedingly cultured natures. With the Indian it is childlike acceptance of the will of the gods; with Browning, it was the calm philosophy of the highest culture. Unfortunately for most of us, we have lost the religious simplicity of our ancestors, our childlike faith and trust, and have not yet attained to the serenity of the philosopher.

I write this brief chapter merely to call attention to the facts, and to urge upon the white race the necessity, if it would preserve its serenity, of either reverting to the simple faith of the Indian, or of cultivating a religious philosophy that will produce an equal serenity and equanimity in the face of trial, sorrow, misfortune or death.

CHAPTER XX
THE INDIAN AND THE SUPERFLUITIES OF LIFE

The white race may learn much from the Indian as to the superfluities of life. There is no question but that we—the white race—are cursed with the collecting habit; we are vexed by many possessions. And what is the good of much of what we gather? Mere trash, accumulated for show; bought without much thought merely to gratify a passing whim, and half the time we don’t know what to do with our purchases when we have made them. Our houses are no longer homes, they are converted into bric-a-brac establishments. Our children become a terror to us lest they should touch this or that or the other, and our nervous systems are wrecked because of dread lest our fine “Japanese bowl,” or our elegant “Etruscan vase,” or our exquisite “Italian figurine,” or “that lovely Hindoo idol,” should be injured.

A year or two ago I was the guest in the home of an eminent scientist, whose wife is herself a remarkable woman, gifted as a writer and public speaker, and yet whose home is laden with extraneous material to the nerve-breaking point. One evening they were entertaining a well-known author and lecturer, and the hostess had called upon him to tell of some of his interesting experiences. The guest was a normal, healthy man and gentle in his movements, but, while speaking, somewhat free in gesticulation. In one part of his story he made a quick motion and pushed his chair gently back. In doing so he overturned a Japanese vase that stood on a slight pedestal near by. With a crash that shocked the nerves of every one present, the valuable piece of bric-a-brac fell. Fortunately, it was not broken, but, with blanched face, though her voice was well under control, the hostess tenderly picked it up. She endeavored to smooth over the accident, but the author’s interest in his story was gone. He brought it to a lame conclusion, and gave an evident sigh of relief,—though quite unconsciously,—when his wife suggested that “the babies might need her presence at home.” After they had gone I was witness of the grief and distress of the poor woman who lamented the injury to her treasure, and who evidently valued it far more than she did the comfort and welfare of her visitors and guests.

I sometimes go to homes where the furniture is of the elegantly polished or “enameled” type. To place a book or one’s hand upon such polish is to mar the surface. The hostess must either keep the table to be merely looked at, and be in constant terror lest some one outwit her vigilance and mar its “beauty,” or resign herself to seeing it used and spoiled.

Now, of all of these things, I constantly ask myself, What’s the use? For myself I value the health and happiness of my wife and my children more than all the bric-a-brac that ever was, or ever will be, made. The nerves of the former, and the healthy, untrammeled movements of the latter, are worth far more than a few “curios.” And so with my guests. I want my visitors to feel free to move around and about in my home, as healthy men and women ought to do, and if there is anything in the way of such action the sooner it is knocked down and smashed the better I shall like it. And as for “enameled” furniture: if I found any of it introduced into my house where I was constantly in danger of marring it, I fear my “angry passions would rise,” and so would the polished article, to find itself at the next moment on the woodpile. Human happiness and comfort are of more value than many pieces of furniture, and he, and he only, is wise who keeps life as simple as possible, and free from these needless, labor-creating, nerve-wearing luxuries and superfluities of life.