Radio Digest (Nov 1930-Apr 1931)

10 long fleshless arm to nab you and you have managed to escape is an experience that gives you one kind of a thrill. Then to behold a miracle through savage superstition is another. Want to hear about the miracle of the Painted Desert? I have only recently returned from that desolate country as you may know. The Painted Desert is located in the very bad, bad lands of Arizona. My camp was at the edge of this wilderness. The nearest railroad was 110 miles distant. Navajo Indians were my only neighbors and I think the nearest one was about 75 miles away. The Navajos have a primitive sort of civilization of their own. They are satisfied with what they have and are not interested much in our schools and other forms of culture. They have much to command the respect of some of us who consider ourselves of abetter breed. We live according to our light. Since the white man does not care to live in the discomfort and frugality of the desert the Navajos confine themselves to that part of the country. Although they are widely scattered they manage to keep in contact with each other. They live in crude huts which they call "hogans". I too lived in one of these peculiar huts, and I came to be especially friendly with the Navajo chief, Seginetso, truly a splendid survival of the noble red man. One day to my great surprise Indians came galloping down to my camp from the four points of the compass. There were 300 of them. They represented various divisions of the Navajos. At their head rode Chief Seginetso. Obviously it was a concerted movement and their mission was one of importance. However, my familiarity with the Navajo conception of good manners caused me to restrain any evidence of curiosity until they were ready to tell me why they had come of their own volition. We chatted of various commonplace things and of the extremely dry weather, and bad crops, the chief employing an interpreter to speak for him. We were sitting before the open fireplace. The group included a number of his leading counselors. Several moments passed in silence while the chief puffed at his pipe. Suddenly he lifted his hand and asked solemnly a question that was interpreted to me. "Are you a friend of the Navajos?" "Yes. I am a friend of all Indians," I nodded with equal solemnity. Gilbert Gable at the mike. "As a friend of the Navajos would you be willing to help our people who find themselves in great difficulty?" "I should be pleased to do anything in my power to prove that I am a true friend of the Navajos." Moments of puffing the pipe in silence. These Indians are very proud. To ask help of the white men is only a matter of last resort. "It has been a very bad year. The grain has failed. Our people will suffer from cold and hunger." And then he reluctantly asked me if I could lend them some grain, some sheep and some wool or any other commodities I could spare until they could repay me from another season of harvest. j| It was a very ponderous and weighty question. To respond quickly and graciously would be extremely discourteous no matter how willingly and gladly I might feel to give them all that I had. So I listened gravely and silently and reserved my answer for due and worthy deliberation. I told them I would have to think many things and would give them my answer in a little while. This was to their satisfaction. For considerable time I sat looking into the fire and pretending to be in deep cogitation. At last I arrived at my decision. I turned to the interpreter: "It will be very, very difficult, but I shall try to do for you whatever I can." This pleased the chief mightily. He arose with every expression of gratitude and left my hut. The others followed after him. They were pleased not merely that I had promised to help them but had done so with real Indian grace and proper consideration of the gravity of their request. In the morning I made good on my promise and they rode away. T« .HE friendship thus engendered repaid my advances many fold. First came the miracle of the Painted Desert. All precedents were broken when I was invited to witness one of their healing ceremonials — for no white man, they said, had ever before been permitted to see this most sacred of their ancient rites. The girl, who was to be healed by the ceremonial, was afflicted with an infected hand. Her left hand was swollen enormously, and her fingers were stiff and paralytic — sticking out of that swollen hand like clothes-pins out of dough. All about her were grouped thirty-five Indians — and in front of her was the witchdoctor. The witch-doctor, before the ceremonial vbegan,~ took a black piece of tallow and drew a line below the stricken girl's lips, and under the lips of everyone in the tent. This was to signify that no one should say anything evil against the poor, sick girl. A crimson tallow was used to draw a line, in the same fashion, under the eyes; and a green tallow to draw a line under the forehead of everyone in the tent — to signify in the same manner that no one should see or think anything evil about the girl. With that done, the ceremonial began. 1b .HE witch-doctor began dancing, making the weirdest antics imaginable— a grotesque dance, it was! — and intoning an equally weird chant in his native Navajo language. This chant had a truly remarkable psychological effect not only upon the sick girl but also upon all of us. First the witch-doctor intoned, in a deep haunting voice: There is nothing wrong with your foot, No! there is nothing wrong with your foot! We are sure that there is nothing wrong with your foot! All of the Indians repeated this after him, passionately and with accompanying grotesque gestures, the same lines for about twenty minutes — repeating the lines clearly, slowly, effectively, until they were fully and deeply impressed upon the mind of the sick girl. Then when they felt that the sick girl was fully convinced that there was nothing at all wrong with her foot, they began in the very same way, to tell her that there was nothing wrong with her stomach, either, or with her chest or face. Finally — the entire procedure took several hours — they began to speak about her afflicted hand. The witch-doctor intoned: But an evil spirit has settled in your hand! The evil spirit has stayed too long in your hand! It is time for the evil spirit to leave your hand! The Indians repeated this tirelessly for another twenty minutes — once again passionately, accompanying it with a wild, barbaric dance. One could see that they really believed that their passion — both in their singing and in their dancing — would drive out the evil spirit from the sick girl's arm. After this — not doubting for a moment but that their ceremonial would be most efficacious — the Indians began a monster celebration in honor of the departure of the evil-spirit of the infected hand of the sick-girl. A tremendous bon-fire was built, and it almost seemed that the flames licked the heavens. Around this bon-fire — led by the witch-doctor — a weird dance took place in which the entire tribe took part, accompanied by haunting, shrieking