<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII<br/> <span class="medium">THE INDIAN AND PHYSICAL LABOR</span></h2>
<p class="drop"><span class="upper">Ministers</span> and orators, teachers and statesmen,
members of the W. C. T. U., as well as the Y. M.
C. A., of the white race, all profess to believe that the
white race believes in the dignity of physical labor.</p>
<p>That profession is often a lie.</p>
<p>We no more believe in the dignity of physical labor
than we do in the refinement of a hog. Our actions
give the direct lie to our words. I am writing with the
utmost calmness, and say these strong words with
deliberate intent. As a nation we are humbugs when
we pretend to believe in the dignity of labor. Perhaps,
after all, we do believe in it, but in most cases it is not
for ourselves, but for “the other fellow.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Indian really and truly
believes in the dignity of physical labor. A chief
would just as soon be “caught” dressing buckskin,
or sewing a pair of moccasins, or irrigating his corn-field
as lolling on a Navaho blanket “smoking the
pipe of peace.” With the white race this is not so.
Men believe in the dignity of labor as much as they do
in the brotherhood of man. They would no more be
seen doing physical labor—wheeling a wheelbarrow,
for instance, digging a ditch, building a wall, plowing
a potato patch, or doing any other physical work,
save the few things men are allowed to do without
being thought peculiar, as, for instance, taking care
of a small home garden, taking the ashes out of the
furnace, and things of that kind—than they would be
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
seen picking their neighbors’ pockets or burglarizing
their houses. When they want to gain exercise they
go to some indoor gymnasium, where the air is the
breathed-over, dead air of a hundred people, and they
swing dumb-bells, pull on weights, struggle frantically
on bars, and do other similar and fool-like things,
because, forsooth, these things are gentlemanly; or
they go out and swing golf-clubs and pursue a poor
innocent little ball over the “links,” while gaping
caddies look on at their wild strokes, and listen to the
insane profanity with which they try to compel themselves
to believe that they are “gentlemen, bah Jove!”</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG id="i_106" src="images/i_106.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">A HAVASUPAI GIRL, WEAVER OF BASKETS.</p> </div>
<p>Of all the contemptible, shuffling, and mean subterfuges
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
the white race is capable of, this seems to me
to be about the meanest and most contemptible. To
pretend to believe in the dignity of labor, and then at
any and all opportunities afforded to labor to dodge
away and do these useless and selfish things that do
not take off one ounce of the burden of physical labor
we have imposed upon our fellows.</p>
<p>Let me not be thought for a moment to be opposed
to any healthful recreation or sport. If golf be pursued
as a recreation, for fun, I am heartily in accord
with it and its promoters. It is when it is taken as an
“exercise,” as a <i>substitute for honest and useful labor</i>,
that I protest against it, as a fraud, a delusion, a snare,
and a contemptible subterfuge. If you want real
exercise, real work, go and relieve some poor fellow-man
of his excess of hard work. Tell him you have
come to give him an hour’s rest, that he may go and
study nature, go and look at the flowers of your garden,
wander into the woods and hear the birds sing, or
visit the public library and read some entertaining
and instructive book. If you are too ashamed to
openly try to give an hour or two of rest and change
to your “brother” man, go and chop the wood for the
house, dig up the potato patch, wheel out the manure
from the stable, or do some other <i>useful</i> and beneficial
thing. Pleasure is pleasure, sport is sport, fun is fun,
but to engage in these sports seriously, as a physical
exercise to counteract the effects of your evil dietetic
habits or other grossnesses, is to add hypocrisy and
subterfuge to evil living.</p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG id="i_108" src="images/i_108.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">HOPI INDIAN WEAVING A DRESS FOR HIS WIFE.</p> </div>
<p>What labor the Indian has to do he does gladly,
cheerfully, openly. He is not ashamed to have soiled
hands or to be caught in the act. In this I am heartily
in accord with him. If I ever wrote a creed one
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
of the first articles of my religion would be: “I
believe in the benefit and joy of physical labor.” If
I had my way I would compel every member of the
so-called “learned” professions (!), from preacher to
lawyer, teacher and doctor, statesman, politician,
and bartender, to spend not less than three hours at
hard physical labor <i>every day</i>, and as for my brother
preachers, I would put them to road-making every
Monday, for half the day at least, so that by practical
knowledge of road-making on earth they might be
better able to preach to their congregations the following
Sunday about the road to heaven. There is nothing
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
that more reveals that we are a people of <i>caste</i>
and class than the attitude of the rich and the “learned”
toward physical labor. I am not in sympathy with
that attitude in any respect; I despise, hate, loathe it,
and would see it changed. To the Indian, for his
honest respect for and indulgence in physical labor,
I give my adherence and honor.
<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span></p>
<div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG id="i_110" src="images/i_110.jpg" alt="" /> <p class="caption">VARIOUS ARTICLES OF USE AND ORNAMENT MADE AND DECORATED BY INDIANS.</p> </div>
<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>
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