Article August 2, 1900 Issue

The Moqui Indians

Mabel W. Collins

Galveston Semi-Weekly News

Romance confronts at every step the one who is fortunate enough to be received into the interesting family of Moqui in Arizona. Away in the highest of the mountain fastnesses, far from the turmoil of civilization, these Indians live quiet and curious lives, clinging to customs the origin of which is lost in the mists of antiquity, and worshiping anything that suggests the mystery of the supernatural, the sun, the moon, stars, wind, and atmospheric phenomena. About three years ago I left my home in Philadelphia to live among these people, and now that I have returned to the white people for a little while I gladly take the opportunity of lifting the veil from the secrecy that has prevented the American people from thoroughly understanding and appreciating the virtues of the Moquis and the attractions of their quiet lives.

The Moqui reservation is located in the northeastern part of the state, and is about eighty-five miles from the Santa Fe Railroad station at Holbrook, Ariz. To reach this place it is necessary to go by team over a sandy desert country to the Keam's Canon, where there is a government boarding school. Then begins the high climb to the mesa, where the Indians hide themselves shyly from the eyes of whites, and know no more about the doings of the world beyond their mountain home than did Alexander Selkirk on his desert island.

There are about two hundred Indians in all, living on three mesas. On one mesa is a large village and on the other two or three small villages. To the top of these high mountains the ancestors of the present tribesmen retired to live peaceably, far from the attacks of the Indians who sought to exterminate them. Having preserved all the customs and traditions of their ancient progenitors, the lives of the Moqui are full of interesting studies. All the water used in the villages is carried to the mesa by the women, a distance of seven hundred feet, little springs at the foot of the mountains furnishing all the water supply. I heard no complaint from the women, who had to toil up the hills with the water pitchers on their heads, and it did not occur to the Indians that they could transfer their villages to the water supply. They had lived on the mountain top so long that the valley had no charm for them.

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