A MAID OF WOLPAI.BYR. W. Shufeldt, M. D.(With Plate i.)With the present paper is presented an excellent picture of a girlabout 15 years of age, belonging to the pueblo of Wolpai in north-western Arizona. She is in her everyday costume, and was photo-graphed on one of the streets of her native city. At her hand are sev-eral pieces of their curious pottery. Nowadays the life led by one ofthese girls is full of all that is most engaging to the ethnologist. Prayedover at birth, she must have her delicate baby skin well rubbed withfine wood ashes, or else her bones might become loose as she growsolder. Very soon she is strapped in her portable cradle, and totedabout upon her mother's back, but while in the house must, in the sameapparatus, be either stood up against the wall, or eveu hung up, wherefor au hour or more together, in either situation, her sole amusementconsists in peering about the " living room." As soon as able to walk,this little child is permitted to toddle about everywhere or ascend anddescend the house ladder before the second summer has passed overher head. She has no end of toys and other playthings to amuse her.From 3 on to 7, or perhaps a year or two more, her days are spentmostly in romping and playing with the numerous other children in thepueblo. Innocent of all clothing and possessing a wholesome dreadof water for any other purpose than to drink, she is at this age as wildas a mountain sheep, and can with almost equal celerity run up anddown the steep, rocky crags that so abruptly slope down from thepueblo on all sides save one.Becoming more sedate after her tenth year, she now assumes the garbof her elder sisters, or the companions of her own sex, and with a keeninterest commences her early education in those accomplishmentswhich soon render her a useful member of the tribe. Very soon she isquite familiar with all the duties that pertain to the kitchen, and asCapt. Bourke pointed out, "is duly instructed at this tender age inthe fabrication of pottery and basket work." As she grows stronger,the operation of carding and dyeing wool and the weaving of blankets,mantles, petticoats, garters, and sashes of cotton or wool. By the timeshe is 15, or even at an earlier age, she is considered nubile, andProceedings National Museum, Vol. XV?No. 889. 29
30 A MAID OF WOLPAI SHUFELDT.fairly entered in the matrimonial market. She can bake, sew, dye,card, weave, and spin ; her nimble fingers fashion the plastic claysinto every shape needed for use or ornament ; the tender shoots of thewillows or the pliable roots of the grasses respond to her fairy touchand round themselves into beautiful baskets, vivid with coloring andrepeating the sacred emblems of the butterfly, deer, or thunder-bird.In the number of stews, ragouts, and broths which she knows howto compound of the flesh of the kid or sheep, and such vegetables asthe onion, bean, and aromatic chile ; or in the endless diversity of hom-iny, mush, pop corn, and piki bread, she will hold her own with themost ingenious American housewife.The most striking feature about the girl in our plate is the mannerin which she does up her hair. This is the custom of the young un-married women, for the Wolpai maiden considers herself a womangrown at 15. They accomplish this remarkable feat in the toiletby wrapping their hair over some pliable switches of either willow orcottonwood, which latter have been previously wound round with blueyarn to keep them in place. Then next her head, the base of the whorlis also wound around to keep the whorl in proper shape. She alsoparts her hair in the middle, and wears two heavy locks, one over eachtemple, which hang down and are cut square off below, on a level withthe nostrils. This girl as will be seen has quite a pretty face, and thegreat whorls of hair over her ea'rs at the side of her head, are after allnot so very unbecoming.The hair is done up with especial care on all gala days, and upon suchoccasions in Moqui, Bourke says, "the young maidens of the villageswere out in full force, decked in the most gorgeous finery of nativemanufacture, their freshly cleaned tresses of raven black were done upin flat, circular coils one over each ear, the general effect being to makethem resemble the Chinese."*In another place of the same work just quoted (pp. 117, 118), Bourkeadds to the above statement that the " Moquis call themselves Hopiior Opii, a term not now in the language of everyday life, but referringin some way to the pueblo custom of. banging the hair at the level oftheeyebrows. This mode of wearing the hair distinguishes them from theApaches, Utes, and Navajos, and, as Lochi wished me to bear in mind,showed that they were once 'todos los mismos' with the Mohaves,Yumas, Maricopas, and other bands of Arizona, whose practice ofbanging the hair is in such curious contrast with the loose, unkemptmanner of wearing it peculiar to the Apaches. Now among numerousphotographs of girls of Moqui and Wolpai none of them have the hairbanged across the level of the eyebrows, but it is invariably arranged
* Snake dance of the Mokis, p. 114. That these coils are flat is an error quite com-monly made, and that they are not always so may be seeu from the plate in the presentpaper. All the published figures ever seen by the writer of the young unmarriedMoqui women have the coils too small, too flat, and altogether too much like circulardisks of wood. la
V 1892X.V ] PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 31and cut as shown in the plate illustrating this article ; moreover, thesame remark applies to photographs of groups of these girls taken inthe snake dance of August, 1889.The right is reserved to the girls of all the Moqui pueblos to choosetheir own husbands and probably also to divorce themselves from thesame, in case they discover they have made a mistake in any particularinstance. Daughters also inherit their mother's property. After mar-riage the Wolpai matron ceases to wear her hair in side-whorls, but,parting it in the middle, clubs it behind into a queue much after thefashion of the men. She may or may not bang it in front at the levelof the eyes, and as whim seizes her she may occasionally part it to theright or left side.During the snake dance and in full costume it is the business of theseWolpai maids, as well as the matrons, to sprinkle the corn meal. Thisthey do most effectually on the snakes, on the dancers, on the ground,and indeed in nearly all other directions. They are never allowed,however, to handle the snakes, a privilege enjoyed only by the men.Monogamy is the rule among the Pueblo Indians, and they do notobtain their wives through purchase. Indeed, in the household, thewoman reigns supreme, and the man has but little to say. Among theZuuis a purchase can not be made within doors unless it is by the con-sent of the wife, and the same holds true among the Moquis.Taking it all in all, then, the life of a Wolpai woman is by no meansan unhappy one ; indeed, from her babyhood to maturity it is filledin with many pleasurable chapters, and no doubt a great deal of thisis due to their contented dispositions, and their love of home life, andtheir untiring industry.

U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM PROCEEDINGS, VOL. XV PL. I
A Maid of Wolpai.