Page:The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist.djvu/128

CHAPTER 6. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—THE HOPI 115 I had been a vegetarian since 1910. Along with this idea and with my attendance at Christian Science Church from 1922 to 1934 there had been a skepticism about the need for medicine. In fact I took none during that time nor since. The regular vegetarian papers and societies contained such a collection of freaks and frauds that I was repelled from emphasizing this portion of my belief. But to others who saw me refuse meat three times a day it seemed the most important of my ideas. The HYGIENIC REVIEW edited by Dr. Herbert Shelton of San Antonio, Texas—himself a vegetarian of anarchistic inclinations—seemed the best magazine along these lines. Rest and fasting was all that was needed when a person felt ill. Illness, such as colds and fevers were nature's way of cleansing the system of impurities. A radical druggist friend told me of the immense profit made from vitamin pills and of the obvious patent medicine frauds on the market. As we were sitting on the bus one day he pointed to a beautiful girl nearby and said: "See that unnatural look in her eyes. She has been taking that so-and-so medicine for reducing and it is playing hell with her kidneys." Of all the phony moves the silliest was when Symon Gould, super-professional vegetarian, nominated himself for vice-president and two other men at different presidential elections, for president. He predicted a vote of 3,000,000 for peace, because vegetarians do not kill animals.

In late August Rik and I took a bus to Leupp's Corners, on our way to the Hopi Snake Dance. We had been invited by two Hopi friends. No bus runs to the Hopi so we started hiking the 70 miles to Hopiland. It was a fine clear, morning and although we each carried a medium sized bag, we cheerfully walked northward. After about three miles a woman in a nice car stopped and asked us to get in. She was on vacation too and lived in Baltimore. As Rik and I knew most of what the books said about the Hopi, and as Rik had lived with an aunt for eight years on a reservation where she was a government nurse, our conversation on Indians in general and in particular proved interesting to her. Naturally we told her that our point of contact with the Hopi was the fact that we were conscientious objectors. She was of a liberal mind and seemed to understand what the words meant. Before we reached the Hopi I had given her my current tax statement, a CW and my green card summarizing my tax refusal stand.

Small cornfields appeared bordering in the distance the Washes where water sought its level when it did rain. Red buttes glistened in the sun, and finally the brown mesa of thousand year old Oraibi appeared right before us. From our view we could not see the stone houses which formed the most ancient of settlements on this continent. The brown sandstone homes at the bottom of the cliff which formed New Oraibi were scattered here and there. Patches of corn, beans, melons, and trees of peaches and apricots surrounded them. The whole pueblo was an organic part of the desert, with the exception of the white Mennonite church (with white outhouses that could be seen for twenty miles) Rik worked in an architects office and he shivered at this violation of taste. Both