Page 66 - TheHopiIndians

58 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

presses one that the Hopi depend on the crops of Na
ture's sowing as much as on the products of their
well-tilled fields. Many a time, as the legends tell,
the people were kept from famine by the plants of the
desert, which, good or bad seasons alike, thrust their
gray-green shoots through the dry sands, a reminder
of the basis of all flesh.
Perhaps all the Hopi believe that the wild plants
are most valuable for healing and religious purposes,
for the plants they use in medicine would stock a
primitive drug store. Bunches of dried herbs, roots,
etc., hang from the ceiling beams of every house, re
minding one of the mysterious bundles of "yarbs" in
a negro cabin, and, as occasion requires, are made into
teas and powders for all sorts of ills.
Hopi doctors have a theory and practice of medi
cine, just as have their more learned white brethren.
Without the remotest acquaintance with the schools
dividing the opinions of our medicine-afflicted race,
they unconsciously follow a number of the famous
teachings. So, if a patient has a prickling sensation
in the throat a tea made from the thistle will perform
a cure, as ' ' like cures like. ' ' The hairy seeds of the
clematis will make the hair grow, and the fruit of a
prolific creeping plant should be placed in the water
melon hills to insure many melons. The leaves of a
plant named for the bat are placed on the head of a
restless child to induce it to sleep in the daytime, be
cause that is the time the slothful bat sleeps. It is