CHAPTER 6. LIFE AT HARD LABOR—THE HOPI 86
they would be able to get along in sheep and cattle raising and in growing corn. But the government restrictions as to grazing made havoc with the Navajo. These restrictions came about because the best land was owned by the government and let out to wealthy white cattlemen. According to the government treaty, a school was to be provided wherever there were thirty children in a community; but not a fifth of the children were given schools. All this spare time made for shiftless living in the cities. The recent provision of half a million for food from Congress was coupled with three times that amount to "rehabilitate" the Navajo. This was another word for jobs for white bureaucrats to feed on the misery of the Indian with boondoggling experiments.
Navajos do not eat fish, bear, pork; in fact any animal that does not eat grass is not "clean" to them. They will not kill a coyote for the bounty, as do the whites.
After we had worked three hours, we took our cotton in to be weighed. I had thirty pounds and he had forty-two. The white men near us had eighty-five. In talking over this discrepancy we found that we had been picking only the clean white cotton, while the more experienced pickers picked the bolls along with the cotton and more than doubled the weight.
As we waited our turn for weighing our cotton, groups were shooting dice in the roadway. A Negro woman served coffee, chili, pie, wieners, etc. at reasonable prices. Some of the truck drivers sold food to their passengers.
Returning to the field we picked in more of an orthodox fashion, and in the total five and a half hours the Navajo picked eighty-two pounds and I picked sixty-two. Before we left I gave him the CW to read, with my letter about the Hopi refusing to go to war.
The next morning I met my Navajo friend beside the bonfire at Second and Madison. The truck of Negroes did not go out on Sunday. One truck took only those who had sacks. I got in a small pickup which headed westward about thirty miles to Litchfield Park. Several young girls kept us merry with songs. When we arrived at the field my Navajo friend arrived in another truck. We happened to get sacks at different times, so did not work together.
An old man said that the rule here was "rough picking," which meant everything that had white in it, but no stems or leaves. When I emptied my sack I had fifty-four pounds. The man next to me seemed to work rather expertly, and I asked him what time they quit on Sundays here. He replied that he only came on Sunday's. "Make $1.25 an hour at my job in town and time and a half for overtime." I commented that unless a person had a large family that was a good wage. "I don't work here for the money," he continued. "I just come out here so I can keep sober. I was drunk from Christmas until yesterday—ten days. I can keep sober if I am working, but I can't stand to be quiet or loaf. And as I have eight kids, I have to keep working."
There was not much cotton left to pick in this field, and the word went around that we would quit about 2 p.m. At that time my sack weighed thirty-one pounds, which, after paying rental on my sack, netted me $2.23. My Navajo friend had not done so well, picking only sixty-eight pounds. He said he had liked my reference to the Hopi in the CW. As we were going into town in the
