Page 73 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 65

did not know this cereal. Certain it is they were
not then pueblo dwellers and had not spread far in the
Southwest. They lived in the places where there was
game, and for the same reason that the important food
animals lived in such places, — the presence of vegeta
tion that would sustain life.
Their life was along the foot hills of well-watered
and timbered mountains rising from plains, where
with the flesh of game and seeds and roots of plants
they could supply their semi-savage wants. Long
perhaps they roved thus as hunters until they drifted
to the land of promise — the semi-desert where agri
culture of grain plants was born and there they re
ceived "mother corn." Henceforward all the former
sources of food wrested from a niggard Nature became
as nothing to this food of foods, but even to this day
the Hopi have not forgotten their old-time intimate
knowledge of the resources in fields not sown by hu
man hands. With corn, which possesses a high food
value and is easily raised, stored, and preserved, the
Hopi and their Pueblo brethren spread without fear
throughout the semi-arid lands.
It has been pointed out that a constant diet of corn
produces disagreeable physiological effects, and this is
suggested for the use of chile and other condiments,
the mixture of corn food with meat and vegetable
substances, and, in fact, for the multifarious ways of
preparing and cooking corn. This necessity for va
riety also gives an explanation of the resourcefulness