Faraway People

Their world is part of our world, their land a continuation of our land. They live in and near such places whose names roll off the tongue with all the rich flavor of the strange and exotic - Moccasin, Hackberry, Tes Nos Pas, Dinnehotso, Shonto, Lukachukai, Rough Rock, Totacon, Tonalea, Moenkopi, Mishongnovi, Hotevilla, Oraibi, Shongopovi, Fort Apache, Cibecue, San Carlos, Seneca, Fort McDowell, Bapchule, Ocotillo, Komatke, Sacaton, Kom Vo, Chukut Kuk, Ak Chin, and hundreds of others just as strange and exotic. These are names like the roll of drums, tantalizing names that are mere dots on the wide open and mptier spaces on the map, both a challenge and an invitation to the adventuresome traveler.

More than the lonely miles, though, separate these faraway people from our civilization. Navajos, Hopis, Havasupais, Hualpais, Apaches, Pimas, Maricopas, Papagos - they were here long before the first Spaniards arrived, long before the first bearded trapper plodded his way along mountain streams looking for beaver, long before the first pioneers turned over the first clod to establish white man's dominion over the frontier. These, our native Indians, have maintained their own identity despite the enveloping sea of a new and younger civilization around them. True, an Apache cattleman, his pockets filled with hard coin from the sale of his fine Herefords, will drive a sleek station wagon, but he will do anything to avoid looking his mother-in-law in the face. A Navajo will feel perfectly at home shopping in a modern market in Flagstaff or Winslow, and will hardly turn his head when the Super Chief thunders by, but when he builds his hogan the opening will always face the rising sun, for such is the way and the thought of his people. A Pima farmer will herd a lumbering tractor with all the dexterity of an expert, every bolt in the chugging monster as familiar to him as the soil upon which he and generations of his family before him have lived; yet, he will believe implicitly in the many legends of the tribe narrated by his elders and he will expect his sons and his sons' sons to accept them as readily as he does. A Hopi mechanic, working for the railroad, is not daunted by the intricate innards of a diesel locomotive; but he will view with reverent awe the kachinas of his people as they dance on the high, wind-swept Hopi mesas.

These faraway people are closer to Nature than we are, their lives so much simpler than our own. The vagaries of the weather, the harshness of the elements are manifestations of the Power that governs the universe and are accepted without complaint or question. The fearful winds of winter that leave cruel marks in the sand dunes and howls so mournfully outside the Navajo's hogan can return to bring bountiful rains in spring and summer so that there will be ample grass for the sheep to grow fat on. The Papago does not need air-conditioning to endure the intense heat of a summer sun that sears his desert land. There is relief in the shade of his ramada and coolness inside the thick adobe walls of his humble hut. Without the tyrant sun how could the saguaro fruit ripen so lusciously, and the mesquite beans grow so rich and nutritive on the trees?

These people are of the land. By their very presence they add color to the land and bespeak the stability of their own ways of life. For them, the pastures are not greener on the other side of the hill. The land was good to their forefathers, they are content with it, and can see no reason why their children will not find it so.