THE HOPI SNAKE-DANCE 71 



mesa; and we saw donkeys laden with fagots 

 or water — another south European analogy. 



Altogether, the predominant impression made 

 by the sight of the ordinary life — not the 

 strange heathen ceremonies — was that of a 

 reasonably advanced, and still advancing, semi- 

 civihzation; not savagery at all. There is big 

 room for improvement; but so there is among 

 whites; and while the improvement should be 

 along the lines of gradual assimilation to the 

 life of the best whites, it should unquestionably 

 be so shaped as to preserve and develop the 

 very real element of native culture possessed 

 by these Indians — which, as I have already 

 said, if thus preserved and developed, may in 

 the end become an important contribution to 

 American cultural life. Ultimately I hope the 

 Indian will be absorbed into the white popula- 

 tion, on a full equahty; as was true, for instance, 

 of the Indians who served in my own regiment, 

 the Rough Riders; as is true on the Navajo res- 

 ervation itself of two of the best men thereon, 

 both in government employ, both partly of 

 northern Indian blood, and both indistinguish- 

 able from the most upright and efficient of the 

 men of pure white blood. 



A visiting clergyman from the Episcopal Ca- 

 thedral at Fond du Lac took me into one of 



