Sickness

 

The beginning of the twentieth century.

Chiparopai, an old Yuma Indian, gives her views of the changes that confronted her:

SICKNESS COMES WITH YOU (THE WHITE MAN] AND HUNDREDS OF US die. Where is our strength? ... In the old times we were strong. We used to hunt and fish. We raised our little crop of corn and melons and ate the mesquite beans.

Now all is changed. We eat the white man's food, and it makes us soft; we wear the white man's heavy clothing and it makes us weak. Each day in the old times in summer and in winter we came down to the river banks to bathe. This strengthened and toughened our firm skin. But white settlers were shocked to see the naked Indians, so now we keep away. In old days we wore the breechcloth, and aprons made of bark and reeds. We worked all winter in the wind - bare arms, bare legs, and never felt the cold. But now, when the wind blows down from the mountains it makes us cough: Yes - we know that when you come, we die.