Deadly storm hit area 80 years ago
By Bill Donovan
Special to the Times
WINDOW ROCK, Dec. 1, 2011
The event, which occurred exactly 80 years ago this week, was on the front page of almost every paper in the country as readers kept in touch with what rescuers were doing to save the lives of those stranded by the storm.
The first reports came Nov. 26, as a series snowstorms that began three days before had stranded hundreds of Navajos and Zunis on mesas near the Zuni Reservation and around Gallup. Nearby officials were worried that all of them may be dead.
By then, the official death toll was at seven, although the Associated Press said "the Indians themselves placed the dead at 11."
"While two inches of snow fell here today, the deaths of Mike Brodie, a 20-year-old student of the Crownpoint Navajo School, and John Goober, 14, were reported," the AP story said.
Brodie's frozen body was found in snowdrifts near Atarque, N.M., and Goober's death was reported by his younger brother who found the body near Pinedale, N.M.
The AP reported that every effort was being made to save those who were missing. Like all AP stories of the time, it carried no byline so the reporter or reporters was unknown.
Written in the customary language of the time, the AP story said, "From Washington, there came evidence that the Great White Father, the Indian conception of the federal government, was not unmindful of the plight of his wards."
John A. Hunter, superintendent of the Southern Navajo District, and W. A. Trotter, superintendent of the Zuni Agency, were told by their supervisors in Washington "to spare no expense in relieving and rescuing the Indians."
There was talk of dropping food from airplanes, something that had never been done before in this area, but federal officials believed it wouldn't be feasible because of the continuing storms.
So instead, several rescue parties, some in trucks and others on horseback, rode out from Ramah, N.M., on Nov. 26 heading in all directions to see how many of the pinon pickers could be saved.
Late that evening, Arizona Gov. George W.F. Hunt, worried about the reports he was getting, said the state would provide whatever was needed in rescue supplies and food.
Good news at last
On Nov. 27, the AP had some good news. In a story datelined Gallup, it said, "Medicine men thanked the sun god today for the escape of 600 Navajo and Zuni tribesman from the snow-swept lower plateaus and prayed for the safety of many more still facing death by starvation and cold atop the mesa of Malapais (sic)."
The sun had come out, permitting many of those trapped on the mesa to begin their trek to the nearest settlements.
The fate of as many as 400 other Navajos and Zunis was still in doubt as people from both tribes began coming into Zuni Pueblo for food and warmth.
By then, the official death toll was nine, four of which were children.
The AP couldn't pass up the chance to give readers a little history about the relationship of the two tribes.
"The little village of Zuni was crowded with Navajos last night, Navajos who, ignoring tribal feelings, lay down with Zunis and Mescaleros to sleep again on warm pueblo floors."
To emphasize how unusual this was, the news agency published another story offering its explanation of the traditional animosity between the two peoples. "The Zuni scorns the Navajos for his weakness in accepting the white man's custom, while the Navajos considers the Zuni little better than a savage," the AP reported.
By this time there were still three rescue teams out on the mesas, comprised of Natives but headed by white men who were desperately trying to find the Navajo and Zuni families who were still stranded on the snow-covered mesa, dependent on their dwindling supplies of pinon nuts.
A report late on Nov. 26 reported the discovery of A. J. Crockett, the only white man known to be missing. Crockett was stockman known throughout the region and was found safe and sound.
The AP reported that many in the search party were Zuni men hoping to find their wives and children.
"It is the custom for the men to establish their women and children in the nut camp and then return to their fields. The Navajos likewise take their families along."
The AP also released a backgrounder on the Zuni, whom most people in the U.S. were unaware existed until the blizzard coverage began.
Guarding the harvest
In another story datelined Gallup, the AP said one reason for the deaths of Zuni men in this tragedy may be that they stayed with the pinon harvest instead of escaping while they still had the chance.
"Zuni tradition," the AP story intoned, "says that the harvest must be guarded until death."
The Zuni men who died "were merely obeying the laws of their tribe."
That article went on at length about the history of the Zunis and their relationship with various missionaries. "Polygamy is said to be still in vogue," the article stated, "though not practiced as openly as formerly."
According to the AP, many Zuni women would rather be one of several wives "owned" by an old Zuni warrior, than to be with a young but poor brave.
"Then, too, mother and daughter are frequently spared the pain of separation by a brave being magnanimous and marrying both," the article states.
On Nov. 28, AP's main competitor, United Press International, called upon Gallup Indian trader Mike Kirk to write his account of events.
"With little firewood and nothing to eat, the (hundreds of Navajos who are stranded) are killing their horses for food and are suffering as they did in that cold November of 1918 when whole families were stricken with the flu and perished while harvesting the pinion (sic) crop."
Kirk reported that in some areas the snow was five feet deep and temperatures had dropped as low as 19 below zero.
"We have been snowed in for three days," he wrote. "In 20 years with the Navajos, I have never seen such a storm."
The horses that are still alive are so weak they don't have the strength to carry their owners to safety, he added.
Kirk said the snow was affecting every part of the Navajo Reservation and that crews were trying to carve a trail from Crystal, N.M., to Chinle (which he spelled "Chin Lee") in an effort to rescue families and livestock threatened with starvation.
By Nov. 30, the AP reported that the worse was over and in many cases, rescue parties found "the Indians comfortably camped, adapting themselves to their snowed-in predicament but without food."
Meanwhile, storm survivors were coming by the hundreds into the communities. The AP reported that 200 Natives reached Gallup on Nov. 29, "many of them exhausted from the long battle for life in the bitter cold that broke all-time weather records."
"They arrived in dilapidated trucks and on the backs of scrawny, near dead ponies. A few arrived in government trucks (since they) had killed and eaten their ponies to ward off starvation."
AP reporters apparently had a hard time getting decent quotes from the Navajo survivors.
"With the typical stoicism of the Indian, they were reluctant to discuss their suffering during the storm." the story said.
But the Navajo men and women were already making plans, the story continued, to save their sheep and their cattle still out on the reservation.
Seeking to put the week's events in perspective, the AP story said, "Constant battle for life against poverty, famine, disease and in the old days, against the wandering war parties of the Apache, the Navajos looked upon the horrors of the last week as just another fight for existence."
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