What is scarce is precious

An anthropologist went to a Hopi elder to ask to record some of the Hopi songs. The old man sang him song after song. After each song, the anthropologist would ask, "What was that song about?" The old man answered: one was about a thunderstorm bringing rain, another was about his wife going to get water from the spring, another was about a river. Every time the old man would sing a song, the anthropologist would say, "what’s that about?" And the old man would answer that it was about rain, or a spring – water. Eventually the anthropologist got impatient, and asked, "Is water all you people sing about down here?"

And the old man said, "Yes." He explained, "For thousands of years in this country we've learned to live here. Because our need for this water is so great to our families and to our people, to our nations, most of our songs are about our greatest need. I listen to a lot of American music. Seems like most American music is about love."

* Sun Valley Center for the Arts and Humanities, I Will Die an Indian, 1980, Institute of the American West, formerly a division of the Sun Valley Center, Sun Valley Idaho. Reprinted without permission.