Page 248 - TheHopiIndians

238 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

that the Anglo-Saxon prejudice of the Lathi leaves
quite out of sight the good qualities of the Mexican ;
it rarely considers that his ignorance is due largely
to lack of advantages during several centuries, and
that the strain of Indian blood has not helped matters.
According to the white man 's way of looking at it, this
listless race, seemingly satisfied to be peons in the
land of the free, is inferior and doubtfully classed
with the Indians, with the doubt in the latter's favor.
Wupa quickly picked up the language and associa
tions of his accidental compatriots, and soon the Padre
rejoiced in another brand plucked from the burning.
His next step was to find a senorita and to marry her,
and after the semi-barbarous wedding his woes really
begin. In explanation of the description given of
Wupa as he appears at present, it may be fair to say
that twenty years off his age would leave him a passa
bly young man, but even with this gloss, one cannot
form a very high estimate of the senorita's taste.
During the period of Wupa's exile, one knowing the
Hopi would be curious to find out how he bore him
self and whether an inherited love for the freedom
of the desert was ever shown. Perhaps the early age
at which he began kicking about the world, and his
varied experiences, completely lost him to the feeling
of his kith and kin. Civilization is irksome to the
desert^bred Hopi and he soon becomes as homesick for
his wind-swept mesas as the Eskimo for his land of
ice or the Bedouin for the Sahara. These questions