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Show TRAITS OF THE NAVAJOS , Their Relation to Horses and Dogs Inveterate Gamblers. The Navajo i an Invetreate gambler. I Not only arc- there the professional j who live entirely by the practice, but I even tin BRiall boys are game8terfl, nnd adapt the pictorial Sunday-school '-ards to gaming purposes Their blankets illustrate- gambling?, "d even Lhelr account ac-count of the creation must have woven into It the story of a game. Thus, a s.i hni-; md : ti'ia.onlly ntle vice of formidable proportions at once confronts con-fronts the teuchcr and tb- missionary. The question of the best way to over-i over-i cinv It Is still an opr-r, one. Th, prohibition pro-hibition of Its practice does not go to the root of the matter, and all our logic falls to convince the Indian that he has not as great a right to play for stakes as he has to breathe A c'irloiis trait r the Navajo, common com-mon no doubt to all Indians, is his relation re-lation to his horses and his dogs. To our mind it is Incomprehensible Every man maintains many dogs, and for what reason It Is di'Tleult to discover. They arc- ill-kept, starving, cowardly canlne.-c which bear as little resemblance resem-blance to our own intelligent decilod dogs is can be imagined They are not for use. certainly not for beauty, and apparently they are no protection. I have never heard any reasonable explanation ex-planation of the Indian's having so many; perhaps he considers that the more he can maintain the more Important Im-portant lu- is! Toward his horses his attitude seems even more singular. They are, of cour-e. part of his wealth, but from our point of view he should have -1 favorite one among them nil. to which be should give more care and devotion. From small boyhood he draws horses in the sand or on the rocks, and as earij learns to ride and to ropj the real animal. He spends most of his time on horseback till he dies. He celebrates his horses In his blankets, and iearns also the most difficult dif-ficult horsemanship, of which he Is very proud. But apparently one animal ani-mal is the samo as another to him. He w 111 ride one to death and select Its I successor from the herd, to break It by I the most c ruel method, or to starve It and beat it Fear seems the only element ele-ment developed in the beast. The bits used make one shudder to look upon, and In buying a Najavo horse it is said that one must wish to fine scars on the anim.l Indicating that it has been go severely handled in the breaking that its spirit has heen broken 1 have Been horses whipped till the blood ran. This was done without anger, apparently but Indifferently, as If there were no other way. Our own little Navajo animal, ani-mal, which had been gentled by careful care-ful treatment, was finally resold to Its original owner The man was an Intel-llcent Intel-llcent person who could Bpeak good rmsiish rnd who had ha.! considerable intercourse with the white man. but when I asked him earnestl to be good to the i-iors he had no more comprehension compre-hension than If I were lalklncr P-inskrit As I stood on the last mesa, looking hack upon the hot. silent, beatulful, but unprofitable stretches of the Navajo Na-vajo land, and down upon the gor-eentiM gor-eentiM painter) desert which Seemed bis rirrhtfui artistic background I pondered earnestly upon the future of my Navajo Nava-jo friends No race or family in this age can live always to Itself and some day to these people will come the Inevitable In-evitable collision with the forces of the outside world, and we have to do with I he rrreat question of preparing him for the Impact. Southern Workman. |