“FIRST WHITE WOMAN TO EXPLORE THE GRAND CANYON”

VIRGINIA DOX’S LETTERS ON PUEBLOS, ZUNI SACRED OBJECTS, AND NATIVE RELICS

“Just think of how many centuries they have stood…I do not like the book because it is so unjust to Indians and to Mexicans, and because it contains to many incorrect statements… the director of the Indian Department heard of my collection and came down at once to see me about them. He says I have a valuable collection..”

A group of two (2) letters by missionary and frontierswoman Virginia Dox (1851–1941), together with the book Land of the Pueblos, referenced by Dox in one of her letters, and a partial stereoview of an adobe. Items include:

1. Partial autograph letter signed by Virginia Dox (1851–1941). N.p., circa 1888. 3 pages, 8vo (lacking preliminary leaves; final leaf tipped in to the interior rear board of Land of the Pueblos).

2. Partial autograph letter signed by Virginia Dox (1851–1941). N.p., n.d. 3 pages, 8vo (lacking preliminary leaves).

3. Susan E. Wallace. The Land of the Pueblos. New York: John B. Alden, 1888. 8vo. Frontispiece plus 11 illustrations. Original illustrated olive green cloth, gilt. Provenance: Asa S. Hardy Jr., Unionville, Ohio, 1888 (ownership inscription to front free endpaper).

This copy belonged to Asa S. Hardy of Ohio, who apparently traveled west at some point, and whose son later moved to Idaho after graduating from Oberlin College in 1896. Accompanied by a photograph of a pueblo house purchased while en route to Las Vegas.

[Mexican Adobe House]. Partial albumen stereoview on original orange cardstock mount. Period pencil inscription on the mount verso titles the view and reads, “Bought in Las Vegas, N.M.” Enclosed inside an envelope tipped in to the front free endpaper.

Born in Wilson, New York, in 1851, Virginia Dox graduated from Mount Carroll Seminary in 1875 and also studied medicine at the University of Michigan until failing health forced her to abandon her studies. Beginning in late 1883, Dox undertook missionary work for the New West Education Commission (NWEC), a Congregationalist organization. Over the course of her career, she founded schools throughout Idaho and New Mexico, lived among 23 different Native American tribes, and was adopted by nine of them. Interestingly, she was the first white woman to explore the Grand Canyon and to visit the Havasupai people who call it home.

In the six pages from two different letters included here, she gives her well-informed opinion on the book The Land of the Pueblos:

“I have read Mrs. Wallace's ‘Land of the Pueblos.’ It is indeed, an interesting book but cannot be taken as authority. I have read other of her writings and like them better than this last work of hers. You can readily see all through the book how she depreciates everything in the West except the mountains. Her estimate of Indian character and of Mexican character is a lone one. Her statements about the Ruins are (very many of them) quite incorrect. For instance, she states repeatedly that nothing but tiny fragments of pottery are ever [to] be found. She bases this statement on what she has seen, but she doesn't consider that the Ruins she has visited have been searched not for years already, but even for centuries. She greatly underestimates the architecture of these old ruins. The stone walls are made of masonry. Only think how many centuries they have stood and many of them are yet in a perfect condition. In many of them the stones must have been hauled many miles. She also states that the red of the Navajo blankets is American's flannel unravelled, and in the very next line she tells how they obtain these pure and fadeless dyes. No, I do not like the book because it is so unjust to Indians and to Mexicans, and because it contains to many incorrect statements. I have been reading Baldwin's ‘Ancient America.’ It is a fine work.”

In both letters, she also speaks about her own collection of Native American artifacts:

“All my Aztec and Indian relics are to be on exhibition at the Buffalo International Fair. The director of the Indian Department heard of my collection and came down at once to see me about them. He says I have a valuable collection.”

She continues in her second partial letter, referencing anthropologist Frank Cushing (1846–1900):

“Gen. Loring heard of my relics, and invited me to his elegant home to dine, and to meet Frank Cushing and other scientists. I had a pleasant time though it was most too elaborate an affair for a country girl like me. Do you remember that striped stone I showed you? It was small and round. Cushing says it is one of the most sacred of all the fetiches [sic] to be found among the Zunis. He has tried for years to obtain possession of one, but cannot as they are held to be too sacred to pass out of their hands. It is called the ‘sky stone,’ the priests grind off a little of it in water by rubbing it. Then they drink some of the water, and throw the rest towards the sky praying for rain on their crops, and joy in their hearts. He says they always pray for a spiritual and temporal blessing at the same time. He told me if the Zunis saw me with this stone they would take it away from me, as they would think I had no right to it. Yesterday a lady sent me word she wishes to purchase some of my relics. Unless she is willing to pay me a good price, she cannot have them.”

An interesting group of related items with excellent content.

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