Page 243 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 235

Aside from this, Mongwe is an honor to Hopiland.
Ilis success has drawn to him a party of the young
generation who are afflicted with the universal desire
forshiba (silver), and if they are inspired with Mong
we 's example it will be a benefit to Tusayan, the
Hopi body politic, which needs active young blood
to overcome the centuries of inertion.
Another vivacious Hopi is Wupa, whose name means
"great" The fatherly interest which Wupa takes
in the white man was sufficient recommendation to
attach him to our camp as man-of-all-work, and a closer
acquaintance brought to view other sides of his char
acter in which the gay features far outnumber the
grave. Faithful to the extent of his lights, though
averse to steady work, he managed to earn his bread
and a small stipend, but considering the entertain
ment he furnished, his pay should have been equal to
that of the end-man in a minstrel show.
So it happens that the memories of Wupa bring
forth a flood of pleasing recollections. The merriest
of all that merry race of laughing, joking, singing
Hopi, his presence around the camp-fire diffused an
atmosphere of cheerfulness which does not always pre
vail amidst the discomforts of roughing-it in the
desert. Short of stature and bandy-legged, possessed
of a headpiece wrinkled and quizzical, one cannot by
any stretch of the imagination make him out hand
some ; but he is so loquacious, witty, and full of tricks
that it is not possible to doubt his fitness for the posi