A HIDDEN CITY

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 38, 15 February 1919, Page 10

A HIDDEN CITY

tN A 3,000-FOOT CANYON

INVESTIGATION IN ARIZONA

'AN INTERESTING INDIAN TRIBE,

_ls strange as the tales of the childTen's wonder books is the story of a wild tribe of Indians in Northern Arilona buried deep in a great canyon which

a representative of the American Museum

of Natural History has just visited, says / i the New York Times. He descended 3000 ft of steep, sheer rock surface and :was there received by the tribe as a special ambassador from another world, \ He spent a month and a half in what was an almost undiscovered country. This little tribe is the Havasupai Indians. -They are intermediates, having characteristics of other tribes well known to Indian students—the Pueblos, Plateau .people, and Mohaves, but entirely individual, forming in a great chasm, 3000 ft deep, four times the height of tho tallest building in New York, a self-supporting community, producing everything for its ■; pwn need's. The only entrance to the canyon is by a precipitous trail, the rocks forming great 100 ft steps, the final 500 ft being down a verticle wall on which the visitor has the appearance of a fly. This difficulty of .entrance for years prevented the visit of friends and foes and has kept the people a lost tribe.. The youngest man in the tribe can remember the day when the first white man was seen, and less than_ ten years ago the ' Havasupais were using stone heads for their hunting arrows and stone implements in their different occupations. More recently a few of their younger men have gone up to the upper earth's surface to work as cowboys, and through them they have traded with the other Indian tribes, but the nearest trader's ctore is 120 miles from them across a nearly waterless desert. To this unknown people Leslie Spier, one of the workers in the Department of Anthrology of the Museum, went and remained through last August and a part of September. On the top of the plateau from which one/descends to the Havasupais there is a country of pine forests. Going down one passes through arid regions, and on reaching the bottom of the canyon finds a fertile oasis with willow and Cottonwood trees, fruit trees, including the fig, with great fields of corn, beans, and squash. Wild seeds and cactus come from the mountains; there are wild deer, antelope, mountain sheep, and turkeys—everything needed to support the tribe. Mr. Spier, who is a young man, had been spending the summer in the mountains with different Indian tribes. "There were several of the Indians ,v?ith me," lie says, "but we all of us dismounted except one kid who didn't.care what happened to him, On part of that trail there is not room for the body of a borse." The first thing for the visitor to do was to find a member of the tribe who knew something of. English', and Sir. Spier then sent word that he would be glad to receive the chief and learn whatever he could tell of the past life of the people. The Supias proved to bo gentle and amiable and welcomed their guest. The tribe live in brush huts as much as they live in anything, for the climat&,at the. bottom of the canyoii is very 'wild, and it is only-necessary to go- inside when it rains. One of the tents was assigned to Mr. Spier. His own blankets served for a bed. The household equipment of the people, is slender. They have a few cooking uten-; si!*, and baskets serve for table service as'well as for many "other purposes...", „: "Mr. Hoover would have approved of their cooking," said Mr. Spier, "for I never, knew so many dishes could be made with corn. They take a basket, make it fireproof with cactus juice, put their corn in it with hot coals, and shake thS basket to parch the corn. All their meats were dried, and I never could tell one from the other. I always had to ask what it was. Eating was more or less a continuous process, the pot was always on the fire,' and the housewife stirred it with a spoon made of antelope horn. Fires are lighted by rubbing sticks together. "We"ate from baskets, deep square trays, all the family eating from one tray, -taking up,the food with the fingers or with the native bread. One of the corn products was green corn, mashed and made into; patties and cooked in the corn husks. It was not bad, but they must have had a different corn from ours, for I have tried it since without success. One-of their best dishes was made from squash blossom boiled like spinach with, mashed corn. They use very little salt, and were amused that I peeded so much of it. Salt was one of.", their native ' capplies, rock salt which' * they gathered themselves at the Grand Canyon, ... "It is a smkll tribe, with only about 175 members now, and there never have been more than 250.. There is a scarcity . of women between 20 and 40, arid a. nuipber of widowers with children. There are 38 camps, or family groups, with, several houses in each. The wo- .

men are well treated, though as a rule the men and the children eat first and the women last, taking what is left, and the men are not careful to see that there is much of that. There is, how•ever, plenty of food for every one. "The men and the women both work '~-in the fields, but things grow almost spontaneously. The early hours of the day are given to farm work, and the men work very hard. The women work more continuously than the men, as they are the cook^, but they are not overworked. The men hunt a little, not much, trade a little with other tribes,

and tho women make baskets—that is a soTt of fancy work of theirs, and both the men and women gamble in a sort of fantan played with native dice. They play for different articles, and also they use some money, having a little from cowboys. They have no regular use for it among themselves. "The Supais are the cleanest Indians I have ever known, and it was a great relief after some of the Indians I have been with. The swell-house is the social hobby of the people. The men use it constantly, and the men go in sometimes with either a husband or a brother. Every one has a sweathouse, but two or three will be going at a time. One of the men will say to another, 'Let's go over to So-and-So's and have a sweat,' and a group will gather here and there. Four seemed to be the sacred number of the tribe. Four would go into the sweathouse together, come out and plunge into the creek, and then dry off and go in again, until they had been in four times'. They dry off between sweats sitting outside, and that is the time for

gossip -.."The sweathouse is a small, almost airtight' hut, with a hot stone on which water is 'thrown to make steam. It is pitch dark, and when f went in I was glad to have someone with me, the1 dark being almost terrifying in the heat. That is intense, and the plunge into the j ice cold creek after it is a terrible shock, j I was told that it sometimes affetts the

heart, but I tried it. The men wear simply a breechcloth in going in, and i. the .vomen a double apron. I'hey were anxious to see me ready for the; sweathouse. After I had been living with them., for some time, they accepted mc as one of themselves' and never called me a white man, but spoke of me as an Indian. "They were in and out of the ae«fc

1 all day. They did not swim, the creek was too swift. The boys would plunge under like submarines, and go with! the stream. The people have drums and rattles for musical instruments and a big harvest dance given once a year. They use at other times, dances of other Indian tribes known by their names." Mr. Spier lias three pictures which, put together, give an idea of the great 3000 feet walls of tho canyon, rising here and there like cathedral towers. These walls are also filled with caves in which there lived a pre-historic people. Members of the tribe go "to them now sometimes "in inclement weather, and in case of floods, which have been serious in their bottom lands. They also use them for storehouses. The tribe is thrifty, and has always a year's store of grain on hand, in case of the loss of a "crop. The first which seems to have been heard of this isolated tribe was 1775----1776. A Spanish missionary, Father Garces, travelling through the country converting the Indians with the courage and energy of his kind, not stopped by the difficulties of the way, discovered this hidden people. In his diary, which has been published, he states simply that the road by which he reached them was difficult. The Supais seem.to have no record of this. The forty-niners travelled not far south of the Supais, but the Indians and the white men wero unconscious of each others* existence.