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Show rest as from an intense devotion to their religion, which calls for ' numberless dances and other ceremonials; for these they are ready at n moment's notice to stop anything else they happen to be doing. The question whether the Indian can be made into an efficient skilled laborer has beqn well tested on the Zuni dam. I t has been necessary there to train the Zunis in different kinds of work requiring more or less accuracy, and a considerable number have become fairly skilful drillers, quarrymen, derrickmen, etc.; a smaller number have risen to rank in the first class in their special lines. A nm,ber of Zunis have recently been put to work who had not been employed before, thus aEording a good chance for comparison between two groups of the same tribe. one wholly unaccust~med to such work and one that had been working for some time tho irregularly; and, albeit the general average of efficiency among the Zunis is low as compared with corresponding white labor, the men who had done some work were found fully twice as valuable as the newcomers. The Navahos as a class are much better workmen than the Zunis; they not only are stronger, but are more alert and learn more rapidly. As a rule they stay only one or two months. By that time they have laid up what is to them a neat little sum, and they prefer to go off and have a good time with it. They criticize the unhappy existence of white people who work unceasingly till they die, taking no leisure to enjoy what they have earned. A few Indians employed at the dam have made themselves individ-ually conspicuous for the quality of their work and other notable characteristics. Two Isleta Pueblos who have lived for years among the Zunis have done extremely well. One of these, Antonio Lucero, has never mxt a day without permission, tries to do exactly what he is told, and works as faithfully by himself as under a foreman. The superintendent says of him that he never knew a more eonscien-tious person of any race. Unfortunately, he has recently lost his eye-sight thru disease, but work has been found for him, such as screening gravel. The other, John Antonio, has worked on the rock fill ever since it began, but early developed such skill that he was set at laying stone, and two-thirds of the upstream face of the stonework was laid by him. One Hopi Indian, Bert Fredricks, began as a common laborer, but showed so much intelligence in the work that he was put in charge of small gangs. Whatever he was given to do he did so well that be was presently advanced to night foreman on the tunnel at the most critical stage of that undertaking, and is now running a horsepower hoist at one of the quarries. In this place, as elsewhere in the Southwest, the Navahos prove the brightest and best of the Indian workers. They seem to take an especial interest in mechanical matters One of them, whose name is Skate, I watched myself during a visit last summer at the dam, and |
