With the Indians of Arizona

Beloved Brother:-

Having had occasion to leave our station for a brief journey to southern Arizona, we took the occasion to visit our dear Hopi Indians about Phoenix, and are now ready to return to our desert home among the Navahoes of northern Arizona-our daughter Marie going with us.

The Hopi Indians are a small branch of the Pueblos; they number only about 2,500 in ten villages, and our former station was among them. Their Reservation is within the large Navaho Reservation, and the Navahoes, who are all shepherds and scattered, come for trade among the Hopis. We had been a year or so among the Hopis, when one of them going by the name of Frank, and his cousin Ruth, were both converted, and I never saw such progress in the Christian life as in these two. Ruth, who was well acquainted with the English language, became our interpreter. Brother Ironside gave Frank a nice small pocket Bible, which he carried with him everywhere, often lighting a lamp to read it at night for hours. I arranged to spend several hours a week with him whilst I was doing some secular work to help support our mission among the Navahoes, and it was a great joy to see Frank's growth in things spiritual.

His village was very hostile to the gospel, and the Indians felt it a good deal to lose one like Frank. One day, at the prayer-meeting in the mission, which he regularly attended, Frank said, "I would like you to pray for me. They are to have a meeting at the village to consider whether or not they will drive the white men away, and I thought that I might go and tell them of God's word and the gospel."

I wondered if it would be wise for one so recently converted to go before such a meeting. But I was soon convinced that God had put it in Frank's heart. We kneeled in prayer and commended him to God. So he went to the hostile people's meeting, while the white missionaries and their families remained to pray.

We learned that Frank's presence had put a damper on the Indians assembled. Some arose, said a few words in opposition to the white people, and sat down. At last the chief arose and said:"Little Rattle Snake is here (that was Frank) ; I am chief both of the heathen and the Christian Hopis. If he wants to speak, let him be heard."

"I thought," said Frank to me afterwards, "that if I was to speak for the Lord I should get up in front where they all could see me, and I did." Some say that for near two hours he pressed the gospel upon them.

Think of it, a man converted only a few weeks before, facing such an assembly and preaching the gospel to them! But he was a man of a good deal of force. "I told them," he related to me, "perhaps some of you here have a troubled heart, and I want to tell you howl to get rid of it. You all know me. You know my life, how proud I have been, but God humbled my heart as I felt the great burden of my sins. Then when Mr. Ironside preached on 'When I see the blood, I will pass over you,' I knew that it was for me, and any of you who have a burden on your heart may get rest from it as I did."
Frank became so much concerned for his people that he gave much of his time in going from one house to another, and spent hours with a single soul.

Mr. J. B. Frey, who is in charge of the Mennonite work at Moencopi, the village where Frank then lived, took him to the Los Angeles Bible Institute for about a year. When he returned he often came over to Oraibi where I was then dwelling (about 50 miles from Moencopi), and where was an assembly of godly Hopis. When he came all would come to see him, and would remain till 10 or 11 o'clock while he explained the Word to them and answered questions. The women and children would go then, but some of the more godly men would remain till morning.

I once asked him, "Frank why don't you go home to rest and come back the next day?" He replied, We used to sit up all night in our heathen ceremonies, why not when it is for things concerning our God?"

He came over to us in the fall to hold a series of meetings, and the "Flu" came about the same time. The Government doctor was one of the first to be taken down. We knew almost nothing about the disease, and had no doctor. Then Frank was taken with the "Flu." He knew from the first that he would not recover, and told the Indians so, but, for some reason, not to us. As the native Christians came to see him, they would say, "No, Frank, you must not die. You can read and explain God's Word to us; but we cannot read, nor preach the gospel to our people. No, you must not die." But he would reply, "Yes, I am going to die, and you must tell others about God's Word and His gospel."

I called upon him often, with no thought his end was so near, and we prayed together as was our wont to, but noticed at last that he was a little delirious while walking about the room. To some of his near friends he said, "I'll soon be walking in the streets of the New Jerusalem." During his last hours he was praying audibly for the Hopi people, and especially for his family.

Frank has three children living:two boys, 10 and 6 years; and a little girl, a dear child of about 8 years, a great favorite of her father's. I had not seen her since her father's death. She came and sat by me, tears streaming down her little cheeks while we talked of her father. They are all in the Mennonite orphanage near Cornville.

It is sometimes asked if any of our Indians are really converted. If I were asked where is the most godly little assembly I know of, I should answer, "At Oraibi, among the Hopi Indians."
H. A. HOLCOMB.

P. S.-The Navahoes tell us that they used to live away North in Canada, on the MacKenzie river. Many who have studied the race believe this to be true, as Indians there speak their language, and some of the Eskimoes are said to have many words in common.

They say that when they lived there, and had much trouble with their neighbors, that their gods told them to get on a certain rock. They got on it and flew down here; and Shiprock is supposed to look like a ship with sails.

The Navahoes were robber bands who lived by plunder. They conquered small tribes and made them part of themselves. When the Spanish came and conquered the comparatively peaceful Pueblo Indians, and brought sheep, goats, burros and horses to the Pueblos, the Navahoes robbed them of these. They and the Apaches made one tribe. When gold in California drew men from all parts, and wagon trains crossed the Arizona desert, the Navahoes plundered these.

In 1864 old Kit Carson brought them to a small reservation near Santa Fe. Many of them died, and on promise of good behavior were allowed to return to their former parts. Their chief possessions are sheep, goats, and horses, and therefore they move about in large ranges with scant food for their animals. They grow small patches of corn, melons and squash near small streams or springs often 30 miles from their sheep camps. They sell sheep and wool to buy flour, coffee and tobacco, and clothing and various ornaments. Rugs and blankets are woven by the women, to sell, and for their own use.

They have no towns, only two or three huts together, hence the difficulty in their evangelization.
H. A. H.