Page 79 - TheHopiIndians

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAKD 71

there is hardly a growing thing in the neighborhood
worth collecting for fuel. Coal there is in the ground
in plenty, but the Hopi make less use of it than did
their ancestors, and the householder sets out from
time to time with a burro or two for the distant mesas,
where the stunted cedars grow, to lay in wood for
cooking. Each year the cedars get farther away, so
that at some future time the Hopi may have to make
use of the neglected coal.
A Hopi is in a fair way to become a great man
among his kin when he owns horses and a wagon.
In consequence of such wealth, he usually shows his
pride by the airs he assumes over his less fortunate
tribesmen, and justly, too, because hauling supplies
for the schools and traders brings in the silver dollars
that replenish the larder with white man's food. Ponies
are cheap, and twenty can exist as well as one on the
semi-starvation of the desert, so a Hopi teamster often
takes along his whole herd when on a freighting trip,
to make sure of arriving at his journey's end, and a
look at his horses will prove him a wise man.
Seemingly the men work harder making parapher
nalia and costumes for the ceremonies than at any
thing else, but it should be remembered that in ancient
days everything depended, in Hopi belief, on propiti
ating the deities. Still if we would pick the threads
of religion from the warp and woof of Hopi life there
apparently would not be much left. It must be re
corded, in the interests of truth, that Hopi men will