ROBBINS, HARRIN'OTON 

 FKEIRB-MABKECO 



■] ETHNOBOTANY OF THE TEWA INDIANS 77 



substance was likel}" to be ov^erlooked. ^ But the coming of the rail- 

 way has chano-ed all this; and a shortage of crops, general or individ- 

 ual, is now supplied, not from the savings of former years or by the 

 substitution of wild plants, but by earning American money to buy 

 American provisions. ^ 



The people gain immensely in protection against want; but, at least 

 in the present transition period, they decline in thrift. Idleness and 

 resourcelessness are as disastrous as ever, but they are not so obviously 

 irreparable. The nearer a pueblo lies to a railroad and stores, the 

 more do families tend to live from hand to mouth, raising and storing 

 less corn than will carry them through the 3"ear, selling corn extrava- 

 gantly for luxuries, and meeting every emergency by recourse to 

 store flour. The Tewa pueblos, which are all near the railroad and 

 open to American influence, are particularly affected; while the people 

 of Santo Domingo, near the railroad indeed but fenced in bj?- their 

 conservatism, are still rich in native food and thrifty in the use 

 of it; "they sell but they do not buy."^ Still it must be said that 

 some Tewa women make an intelligent use of modern resources, feed- 

 ing their families on store flour (paid for by the husband's and chil- 

 dren's earnings) in the early winter while it is comparatively cheap, 

 and reserving their own wheat and maize for the time when prices 

 rise.* Valuing their time cheaply, they will travel miles to buy at the 

 smallest advantage.^ Most families make debts in the late summer 

 and pay them after harvest. 



' Several times of scarcity occurred from 1840 to 1860. ''Our gran<lf;ither told us how poor the peo- 

 ple used to be. When they had a good piece of rawhide, such as would be used now for shoe soles, 

 they used to roast it, grind it, and make it into bread. He remembered one day when they went to 

 a fiesta at Santa Cruz. There had been a piece of bread in the house at suppertime, but they saved 

 it for grandmother because she was nursing my father (1852), so she ate it for breakfast and the rest 

 went fasting to Santa Cruz. The family whom they visited had no food either, so they came home 

 hungry as they went, and on the road they found a little corn dropped from a wagon and took it 

 home, ground it, and ate it." (Information communicated by a Tewa informant.) 



The Tewa etiquette of eating bread at meals recalls times of extreme economy— each person breaks 

 from the pile of tortillas no more than he can eat at once, and returns any remnant to the common 

 stock. Only sick people (and women soon after childbirth) take a whole tortilla at a time. The 

 Yavapai etiquette, founded on camp life, is exactly the contrary. 



' Mr. A. F. Bandelier was told by a Cochiti Indian in 1882 that "formerly the people saved many 

 wild plants in autumn in order to have food in spring when the crops gave out." "Now," Mr. 

 Bandelier says, "they have become less provident, or more indifferent to such means of subsistence." 

 (Information communicated by Mr. Bandelier.) 



3 The Hano people and the Hopi are less affected than are the Tewa in general by modern condi- 

 tions, but even among the former thrift is declining. Many women sell maize for sugar and coffee, 

 and run short before March; those who make pottery can exchange it for store flour to an indefinite 

 extent. Here again commercial facilities and thriftlessness are obviously related; the "nonpro- 

 gressive" village of Hotavila, where there are no traders, raises and stores more food per household 

 than Oraibi, and very much more than Hano, Walpi, or Siehomovi. 



■• A man at Santa Clara said, on February first, that his wife had nine almudns of maize besides her 

 own wheat flour. "We are buying flour now and only giving corn to the horses, and then the maize 

 will last us [three adults, four children] until I get my new wheat in August, and so we shall not be 

 hungry." , 



i-It must be added that the present scarcity of meat and hides makes money a necessity in New 

 Mexico, and corn must be sold, or wages must be earned. 



