Page 247 - TheHopiIndians
P. 247
MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 237
reached the pueblo under ''Corn Mountain." In
dian philanthropy rarely extends outside the circle
of relatives, and the Zuui had no mind to give corn to
the poor Hopi woman beyond enough to keep her from
starving. But little Wupa was worth a bushel of the
precious ears, and for that amount he was exchanged,
becoming, without being consulted, a Zufii, while his
mother trudged back to Hopiland with food for her
starving kinsfolk, feeling, no doubt, little sorrow at the
loss of her babe, so great is the levelling power of
famine and misfortune. There are usually strays at
all Indian villages, and thus the presence of the little
Hopi stranger passed without notice. When the crops
were assured in the fields of the famine-stricken Hopi,
they ceased coming to Zuni, and Wupa seems to have
been unclaimed and forgotten.
When he was five or six, the Zuni in turn sold him
to some Mexicans, and the next account there is of
him he was living at Albuquerque, a stout young
peon, with cropped hair, a devout Catholic, speaking
Castilian after the fashion of the ' ' Greasers. ' ' Wupa
thus became, to all intents and purposes, a Mexican,
and perhaps had lost sight of his origin. Neither is
the transition from Indian to Mexican at all difficult
or incongruous. Few Americans realize the new
problem of the population that came to us through the
treaty of Guadahipe-Hidalgo. the clannish, unprc-
gressive foreigners who were made American citizens
without being consulted. It must be said, however,