PRIMITIVE FOLK OF THE DESERT


no use in making an effort to preserve his beliefs, his arts, his handi-
crafts and his modes of life, because modern conditions would not
allow him to exist were this the case. There is no question but
what these objections apply with absolute truth to the nomadic
tribes, but it must be remembered that the Hopi are a nation apart,
with a fixed habitation, a compact, communal system of govern-
ment and a very well defined art and literature-if oral tradition
may be so called-which has been handed down to them by their
forefathers. Even the Navajos, whose reservation entirely en-
compasses the little Hopi country, are as widely separated from the
Hopi in speech, manners and customs as the Norwegians are from
the Turks. Separated from these in turn are the Sioux, Crows,
Cheyennes, Blackfeet and others of the plains Indians. A nomadic
tribe gathers few traditions, and its very mode of life prevents a
continuance of the elaborate and often beautiful religious observ-
ances which form so large a part of the life of the Hopi. In other
words, with the plains Indians there is no fixed home, little social
organization upon which to build a well-defined pagan cult, and
consequently no abiding national existence when once their environ-
ment has been changed. Nothing can be done to bring back to
these wandering tribes their old-time freedom and supremacy.
In the majority of instances this already has ceased. The primitive
life is doomed, and this for the reason that the roving tribes have
been impounded by their white conquerors in open-air prisons called
reservations, where all hunting has ceased because there is no more
game. Their buffalo has passed together with their former freedom;
their hunting grounds are gone and their liberty has been taken
away; their entire environment is changed, and in consequence
they have lost all the individuality which made vital their art and
customs and so made them worth preserving. But with the Hopi
all this is different. Their isolation and conservative habits of mind
have prevented the possibility of the white man's civilization taking
any real root among them, and they have so far escaped "develop-
ment" along civilized lines. Their environment remains the same
as it was hundreds of years ago, and it is only the force of a stronger
race that is beginning to bring about a change in their daily life.
This process of civilization is like to rob the whole country of some-
thing that it can ill afford to lose, and the hopeless part of it is that
the
work of destruction is being accomplished with the very best inten-
tions. It is a case of misdirected charity.    We white people,
who are so sure of ourselves, want to do good, but we are not always
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