CHAPTER 5. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—REFUSAL TO PAY INCOME TAX 81
At work I was allowed the eggs I would gather from a certain nest and planned for an omelette one noon. As we came in from work we noticed a beautiful bull snake about six feet long stretched out across the road with three lumps rising in his middle. "There is your omelette," said my boss. In my reading of the Hopi I had learned that a snake is not by nature mean if handled carefully. There is a certain grace to its symmetrical winding beauty. I picked the snake up gently, wet my fingers, stroked him, so as not to irritate his scales, and placed him over in the field where he could digest my three eggs in his own good time.
Another time when I entered my adobe house I noticed my coat which was hanging on a chair, moving. There was no wind, and looking closely I saw a large bull snake wound around the inside of my coat collar and in my inside pocket. I stroked him and took him outside. But ever afterward I looked in my sleeping bag when I went to bed.
The night before Christmas there was a celebration in the schoolhouse given by neighboring Mexicans. Some of the young folks who had picked apples with me asked me over. It was called "Santo Nino de Atocha," The Holy Child of Nazareth. Several dozen Mexicans, young and old of both sexes and gaily dressed, sang and danced a short shuffle dance for three hours or more. Special songs were written for this performance whose theme was that the Holy Child had been stolen. It was a song of the Comanche Indians who were hunting for the Child. In the midst of the song someone stole the doll in a crib by the altar. Much of the procession broke up and went from door to door in the village looking for the Holy Child which had disappeared. They know, of course, where it was all along and finally found it and whipped the thief in exaggerated gestures, bringing back the Infant. Then all present went on their knees to the front, placing money in a dish by the Infant. I gave a dime to the smallest girl dancer. One verse told of the time when there was a drought and the Comanches took their children to Santa Fe and sold them as slaves to the white men for sugar and coffee. The old timers here said that this was really true.
One of the Santo Nino de Atocha verses
- El comanche y la comancha
- Salieron para Santa Fe
- a vender los comanchitos
- For azucar y cafe.
- El comanche y la comancha
- The Comanche men and women
- Went to Santa Fe
- To sell the little Comanches
- for sugar and coffee.
- The Comanche men and women
Soon afterwards I asked some young folks where I could get a translation of the verses and they directed me across the road. I knocked at the door and who
