Page:Spider Boy (1928).pdf/183

 seated at table, eating an excellent luncheon of Mexican dishes in her attractive dining-room, which had been furnished by despoiling the humble interiors of local farmers, that she broached her favourite topic. Jack had warned him that this might prove tiresome, but Ambrose, who had never even considered the Indian before save in his literary or historical aspects, found it absorbing. The customs and habits, religious and social, of these Pueblo tribes to which she had given her special allegiance, became for the moment of vast importance to him. He was thrilled to learn that two tribes had lived for centuries—perhaps for thousands of years—twenty-five miles apart, never intermarrying, speaking different languages, each tribe even with its distinctive costume. It was solely in the practice of religion that the Indian of one tribe met his brother of the other on the same ground, and even here there were disagreements.

The Indian derives from the soil, Miss Frost was saying as she lighted a cheroot, and to the soil he returns thanksgiving. Unless we realize this we cannot comprehend him. All his prayers are directed towards the earth. His whole being is in communication with it. That is why the Hopis dance their snake dance. Through the lustrated serpents which they