Beautiful baskets were brought by the older squaws, and botched-up
shabby ones by the younger generation. Sometimes a sick child would be
brought by the mother, but there was little I could do for it outside of
giving it nourishing food. An Indian's cure-all is castor oil. He will
drink quarts of that if he can obtain it.

The Supai women are without dignity or appeal, and I never formed the
warm friendships with them that I did with women of other tribes. They
begged for everything in sight. One fat old squaw coveted a yellow
evening gown she saw in my closet; I gave it to her, also a discarded
garden hat with big yellow roses on it. She draped the gown around her
bent shoulders and perched the hat on top of her gray tangled hair and
went away happier than Punch. In a few minutes a whole delegation of
squaws arrived to see what they could salvage.

Wattahomigie, their chief, and Dot, his wife, are far superior to the
rest of the tribe, and when it was necessary to have any dealing with
their people the Chief acted through Wattahomigie. He had often begged
us to visit their Canyon home, and we promised to go when we could. He
came strutting into our house one summer day and invited us to accompany
him home, as the season of peaches and melons was at its height. He had
been so sure we would go that he left orders for members of the tribe to
meet us at Hilltop where the steep trail begins. We listened to him.




[Illustration]

_Chapter IX: THE DOOMED TRIBE_[1]