740 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



habits and customs of ancestral life. What utter savages the little 

 fellows are ! Stark naked generally, whether it be summer or win- 

 ter, dirty from head to foot, their long black hair disheveled and 

 tangled and standing out in every direction, their head often resem- 

 bling a thick matted bunch of sagebrush. They are never idle; 

 now back of the village behind tiny stone ramparts eagerly watch- 

 ing their horsehair bird snares, or engaged in a sham battle with 

 slings and corncobs, or grouped in threes or fours about a water- 

 melon, eagerly and with much noise gorging themselves to abso- 

 lute fullness, or down on the side of the mesa playing in the clay 

 pits. A not uncommon sight is that of two or three little fellows 

 trudging off in pursuit of imaginary game, armed with miniature 

 bows and arrows or with boomerangs and digging-sticks. In their 

 disposition toward white visitors they are extremely shy and reti- 

 cent, but they are also very inquisitive and curious, and, further- 

 more, they have a sweet tooth, and one only need display a stick 

 of candy to have half the infantile population of the pueblo at his, 

 heels for an hour at a time. If perchance one of the little fellows 

 should die, he is not buried in the common cemetery at the foot of 

 the mesa, but he is laid away among the rocks in some one of the 

 innumerable crevices which are to be found on all sides near the 

 top of the mesa, for the Hopis, in common with many other native 

 tribes of America, believe that the souls of departed children do 

 not journey to the spirit land, but are born again. 



As the girls reach the age of ten or twelve they distinguish 

 themselves by dressing their hair in a manner which is both strik- 

 ing and absolutely unique on the face of the earth. The hair is 

 gathered into two rolls on each side of the head, and then, at a dis- 

 tance of from one to two inches, is wound over a large U-shaped 

 piece of wood into two semicircles, both uniting in appearance to 

 form a single large disk, the diameter of which is sometimes as 

 much as eight inches. After marriage the hair is parted in the 

 middle over the entire head, and is gathered into two queues, one 

 on each side, which are then wound innumerable times by a long 

 hair string beginning a few inches from the head and extending 

 about four inches. The ends of the queues are loose. Hopi maid- 

 ens are, as a rule, possessed of fine, regular features, slender, lithe, 

 and graceful bodies, and are often beautiful. But with the early 

 marriage comes a daily round of drudgery, which prevents full de- 

 velopment and stunts and dwarfs the body. But to old age she is 

 generally patient, cheerful, nor does she often complain. Lines 

 produced by toil and labor may show in her face, but rarely those 

 of worry or discontent. Even long before marriage she has not 

 only learned to help her mother in the care of her younger brothers 



