THE KI NG' S BUS I NESS
1060
that blessing and continue to grow up in ignorance and superstition. If the rising generation were placed in school it would shorten the Government’s task of civilizing the Navajoes by fifty years. Moreover the work of evangelizing them would be greatly simplified for our mis sionaries are located at all the schools and- have ready access to the children. The regulations of the Indian Office allow two hours each week and two hours on the Lord’s Day for religious instruction. In morals the Navajo standard is perhaps slightly below that of the white race especially where they come in con tact with a low class of whites. Their religion is not in any sense related to moral conduct for their medicine men may be of the vilest character if only they can accurately repeat their all- night incantations, or chants, and their prayers are purely ceremonial being addressed to the elements, to animals and creeping things, even to snakes and insects. The first chapter of Romans describes them accurately. The work of the missionaries is exceedingly slow and difficult. The peo ple being so widely scattered they must be hunted out on horseback. The dis tances that must be traveled and the privations that must be endured nec essitate a rugged constitution and the willingness and ability to “ endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” As only a very small percentage of the younger people understand English the Gospel can only be preached through an interpreter and one must know at least enough of the language to keep track of what his interpreter is saying or he may be telling the audience most anything but the Gospel. The language is very extensive, many verbs, having a far greater number of forms than in English. The Navajoes occupy a territory nearly three hundred miles east and west, or from the neighborhood of
about eight thousand souls. They had a good deal of trouble with surrounding tribes and with the Mexicans so the United States Government had the sol diers round them up and take them to Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where they were kept in captivity for four years. Being brought back and liberated in their own country they were given a few sheep, one or two to a family, and thus they began their wild, free life anew. The Navajos are of the Athapascan stock, coming originally from the cold northwest; they are related to the Apaches, many words being the same in both languages. The Spaniards called them Apache du Navajo. Today there are 32,500 of this tribe, so that in the fifty years which have elapsed since their return from captivity they have quadrupled their numbers. They are a virile, prolific people, living a healthful, outdoor life; being shepherds they are widely scattered and have no villages but must live apart in order to have sufficient feed for their flocks. A single animal requires several acres of the sparse desert range for its sup port. In a treaty made by the United States Government forty years ago they were promised a school for every thirty chil dren but at present there are over ten thousand children and only a little over two thousand in school, so that amongst these wards of the United States there is a very high rate of illi teracy, over ninety per cent; area and population considered this is the dark est spot in the United States, a blot upon the fair face of our country. These children whose people are the original possessors of the land in which we live, these people born under thè Stars and Stripes, these children who are Wards of our Government have an inherent right to an opportunity for an education equally with the children ofjthe white men who have invaded the American continent, but they are denied
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