This transcription was created by the Harvard-Diggins Library
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Keams Canon, Arizona
Dec 18, 1897

My own true loving little wife,

Received three letters from you today & glad to hear from you. Excuse lead pencil but the ink is so poor.

I am here alone tonight and I am the only white man within 11 miles and nothing but rocks & sand, not even a blade of grass within several miles. Mr. Rauch has gone to Mr. Keam’s for provisions and I had to get my own meals today, which was simple. Tonight I got four eggs & four slices of bread & butter and cooked the eggs in my room, and while I was eating an Indian called on me who dances in the Snake Dance. He told me lots about it, which was very interesting. He speaks little English.

The handkerchiefs came all right, my dear, and I am much obliged for them (2) they are nice. Just as soon as you find out what your Xmas expenses are let me know, and I will send that extra.

The Moqui grind up their flour & meal same as the Pueblos. I have finished one picture of the Moqui, an awfully pretty girl with her hair done up so funny. It made a beautiful picture & commenced another today of a Moqui girl that is married. They dress their hair another way which is very pretty. She is very pretty. They never come alone, some relation always comes with them. They are the queerest Indians I have painted yet. I have to be so careful with them. When I was painting the first one, just as it was time to stop, her mother came in with a beautiful Moqui vase decorated, and I gave her 50¢ for it & today, when I finished this girl, she wanted to know if I was to pay her sister 50¢ for staying with her. (3) I told her no, that she ought to give her 50¢ of her money. She said I paid the other girl’s mother 50¢. She thought I had paid 50¢ and hadn’t received anything for it. But when I told her I simply bought a vase then it was all right.

Lots of times they make me mad and I just give them thunder. She didn’t come when she said she would, so I had to go way up on top of the Mesa after her and you ought to of see the place she lived in. The entrance to it was so small I could hardly get in. The door wasn’t more than 2 ft. high by a little over a foot wide and had to go up a ladder to get to it, and it was awfully queer inside and didn’t smell very nice. They we’re washing their hair, some of them, and looked like greasy stuff they (4) had on it.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I am going to stay all day long up there. In two days the Moqui would have their Xmas. They want me to come up. Three Indians have promised to sit for me in Snake dance costume which is hideous.

I wish you could get the past issue of the Century (magazine), my dear, as in it are a lot of pictures of some of the hideous costumes of either the Pueblos or Moquis. The Navajos also have hideous costumes. I saw two of them at Mr. Hubbell’s but didn’t care to paint them as their face was all covered up with a mask they make out of skins.

I want you to pay for having the piano moved, my dear.

Perhaps you might get the past issue of the Century at the library. The issues are somewhere in years 1880 or 1881 somewhere xxxx.

I received a letter from Thurber’s (gallery) (5) and they have sold Chief Little Chief for $175.00 and Cut Ear for $150.00 both to the same party, a friend of Martha Rogerson’s (?). I will show at my next exhibit some mighty pretty squaws in these Moquis and I am sure I will sell them all. I am learning a little Moqui. Have a smoke is "chow-chow-nee". And matches, "ge-ho-te-wah" and "e-weere-tee" is squaw. After I finish the picture I'm on now I will paint a fellow in Snake Dance costume. They paint their face black except the mouth & Chin, and their throat is painted white and they have on lots of feathers tied all over their hair. The rest of the body is fixed up.

I will close now, my dear & go to bed. Good night darling. Your own true loving husband.

Lots of love, hugs & kisses,

Elbridge