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Updated: June 27, 2025
The Hopi woman brings water to the village up a mile or two of heart-breaking trail, carrying it in great ollas set on her head or slung on her back. She must have water to make the mush for supper, and such trivial things as a shampoo or a bath are indulged in only just before the annual Snake Dance. Religion demands it then! Where water is plentiful, however, the Indians bathe and swim daily.
He filled the barrels, and when it had settled clear, the ollas were filled, and thus the drinking water was a trifle cooler than the air. One day it seemed unusually cool, so I said: "Let us see by the thermometer how cool the water really is." We found the temperature of the water to be 86 degrees; but that, with the air at 122 in the shade, seemed quite refreshing to drink.
Rude steps were cut in the rocky trail leading to the pueblo dwellings above two miles away, from whence came the squaws with big ollas to carry the water. This spring was the gossiping ground for all the female members of the mesa. They met there and laughed and quarreled and slandered others just as we white women do over a bridge table.
Among the mourners was a woman who suffered from black pinto, notably developed. The principal industry of the town is pottery. The clay, which is of a greyish-black color, is stiff and hard, and is first broken up with a mallet. When worked into a stiff paste, it is built by hand into great ollas and plates, one and a half or two feet in diameter.
The men made no pretense of sleeping until past ten o'clock, and two or three times during the night they broke out into loud conversation. Just outside the town-house, under a thatched shelter, a group of old women were cooking atole in great ollas until a late hour. This gruel they ladled out to those men and boys who had been working, and doled out to them drinks from black bottles.
Close at hand in the shade of a brush-covered "leanto" hung three or four huge ollas, earthen water-jars, swathed in gunny sack and blanket. Beyond them, warped out of all possibility of future usefulness, stood what had once been the running gear of a California buck-board.
That's the mountain, you know, where the Indians carved out their ollas. Some of them are still there, only half cut away. It would be too bad for you to miss that." At length, however, there came a day when excuses would do no longer. "We've waited long enough," he declared that morning over their coffee, "Besides, I may have to go now in a few days."
"Beautiful!" exclaimed the enthusiastic Margery, gazing at the Navajo rugs, the clean, white-washed walls against which the red ollas, filled with wild flowers, made a pretty picture, and the great grizzly-bear rug thrown across a home-made couch. "It's actually romantic!" "Me long suit, lady. We ain't got much, but what we got goes with this kind of country." Margery smiled.
The stone is first greased with hot mutton tallow, then the cook dips her fingers into the mixture and with one swift swipe spreads it evenly over the scorching surface. How they escape blistered fingers is always a marvel to me. Squaws are wearily climbing the steep trail with heavy ollas of water on their backs, held there by a shawl knotted around their foreheads.
On the other hand, there is abundance of dried corn in the caves, of gourds and squash seeds; and every cave has a metate, or grinding stone. In many of the caves, there are alcoves in the solid wall, where meal was stored; and of water jars, urns, ollas, there are remnants and whole pieces galore.
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