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THE HOPI INDIANS
By WALTER HOUGH
Curator Division of Ethnology,
United States National Museum,
Washington, D. C.
[Publisher's device]
CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
THE TORCH PRESS, 1915
Copyright
1915
By The Torch Press
_April_
LITTLE HISTORIES
OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Number Four
_IN THE SAME SERIES_
THE NAVAHO
By Oscar H. Lipps
Supervisor in Charge, U. S. Indian School,
Carlisle, Penn.
With map and illustration in three colors
THE IOWA
By William Harvey Miner
With map and illustrations in halftone
THE INDIANS OF GREATER NEW YORK
By Alanson Skinner
Assistant Curator of Anthropology,
American Museum of Natural History,
New York
With a map of the region
Each Volume 12mo, $1.00 net
Delivery extra
[Illustration: A MADONNA AMONG THE MOKI
_Photo by P. G. Gates_]
_To My Wife_
CONTENTS
The Country, Towns, and Peoples 13
Social Life 28
Food and Rearing 49
The Workers 69
Amusements 102
Birth, Marriage, and Death 114
Religious Life 132
Myths 179
Traditions and History 201
Brief Biographies 218
The Ancient People 250
Index 263
MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND
_PREFACE_
Whoever visits the Hopi falls perforce under the magic influence of
their life and personality. If anyone entertains the belief that "a
good Indian is a dead Indian," let him travel to the heart of the
Southwest and dispel his illusions in the presence of the sturdy,
self-supporting, self-respecting citizens of the pueblos. Many
sojourns in a region whose fascinations are second to no other,
experiences that were happy and associations with a people who
interest all coming in contact with them combined to indite the
following pages. If the writer may seem biased in favor of the "Quaker
Indians," as Lummis calls them, be it known that he is moved by
affection not less than by respect for the Hopi and moreover believes
that his commendations are worthily bestowed.
The recording of these sidelights on the Hopi far from being an
irksome task has been a pleasure which it is hoped may be passed on to
the reader, who may here receive an impression of a tribe of Indians
living at the threshold of modern civilizing influences and still
retaining in great measure the life of the ancient house-builders of
the unwatered lands.
To Mr. F. W. Hodge of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the
Smithsonian Institution, a fellow worker in the Pueblo field, grateful
acknowledgments are due for his criticism and advice in the
preparation of this book. The frontispiece is by that distinguished
amateur P. G. Gates of Pasadena. Under the auspices of the
explorations carried on by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, for the Bureau of
American Ethnology, the writer had in 1896 his first introduction to
the Hopi, a favor and a pleasure that will always be remembered with
gratitude on his part. The indebtedness of science to the researches
of Dr. Fewkes among the Hopi is very great and this book has profited
by his inspiration as well as by his counsel.
I
THE COUNTRY, TOWNS, AND PEOPLES
The Hopi, or Peaceful People, as their name expresses, live in six
rock-built towns perched on three mesas in northeastern Arizona. They
number about 1,600 and speak a dialect of the language called the
Shoshonean, the tongue of the Ute, Comanche, and other tribes in the
United States. There is another town, called Hano, making up seven on
these mesas, but its people are Tewas who came from the Rio Grande
valley in New Mexico more than two centuries ago.
There are a number of ways of reaching the Hopi pueblos. If one would
go in by the east, he may choose to start from Holbrook on the Santa
Fé Pacific Railroad, or Winslow (two days each), or by the west from
Canyon Diablo (two days), or Flagstaff (three days). The estimates of
time are based on "traveling light" and with few interruptions. A
longer journey may be made from Gallup, during which the Canyon de
Chelly, with its wonderful cliff dwellings, may be visited if one has
a sufficient outfit and plenty of time.
The home-land of the Hopi, known as Tusayan from old times, is a
semi-desert, lying a mile and a quarter above sea-level. It is deeply
scarred by canyons and plentifully studded with buttes and mesas,
though there are vast stretches which seem level till one gets closer
acquaintance. From the pueblos the view is open from the northwest to
the southeast, and uninterrupted over the great basin of the Colorado
Chiquito, or Little Colorado River, rimmed on the far horizon by the
peaks of the San Francisco, Mogollon, and White Mountains, while in
the other quarters broken mesas shut out the view.
The rainfall almost immediately sinking into the sandy wastes,
determines that there shall be no perennially-flowing rivers in
Tusayan, and that springs must be few and far between and the most
valued of all possessions. Were it not for winter snows and summer
thunder-storms, Tusayan would be a desert indeed.
The hardy grasses and desert plants do their best to cover the
nakedness of the country; along the washes are a few cottonwoods; on
the mesas are junipers and piñons; and in the higher lands to the
north small oaks strive for an existence. At times, when the rains are
favoring, plants spring up and the desert is painted with great masses
of color; here and there are stretches green with grass or yellow with
the flowering bunches of the "rabbit brush" or gray with the ice
plant. In sheltered spots many rare and beautiful flowers may be
found.
The Hopi enjoy a summer climate the temperature of which is that of
Maine and a winter climate that is far less severe than the latter,
since most days are bright and the sun has power. Even in the warmest
season the nights are cool, and an enjoyable coolness is found by day
in the shade. The dryness of the region renders it ideal for healthful
sleeping in the open air. A pure atmosphere like that of the sea
bathes Tusayan; no microbes pollute it with their presence and it
fills the body with good blood and an exhilaration like wine.
Perforce the Hopi are agricultural, and since there is little game to
be hunted, they are also largely vegetarians, their chief food being
corn. When the corn crop fails the desert plants are relied on to
prevent starvation. The Hopi thus form a good example of a people
whose very existence depends on the plants of the earth, and it speaks
well for their skill as farmers, in so unfavorable an environment,
that there are any of them living in Tusayan at this day.
Out of this environment the Hopi has shaped his religious beliefs,
whose strenuous appeal is for food and life from the grasping
destroyers of nature that whelm him. And in like manner he has drawn
from this niggard stretch his house, his pottery, baskets, clothing
and all the arts that show how man can rise above his environment. But
let us have a closer view of this Indian who is so worthy of the
respect of his superiors in culture.
The Hopi man is moderate of stature, well-framed, hard-muscled, and
agile, since he depended on his own feet for going anywhere and on his
arms for work before the day of the burro and the horse. Black,
straight hair worn long, brownish skin, the smooth and expressive face
in the young men, intensifying as they grow older, bringing out the
high cheek-bones, the nose, the large mouth and accenting them with
wrinkles, but never developing a sullen, ferocious cast of
countenance, always preserving the lines of worth and dignity and the
pleasing curves of humor and good-fellowship to the end of
life,--these are the salient characters of the Hopi.
The same remarks apply to the other sex, who from childhood to old age
run the course in milder degree. Many of the maidens are pretty and
the matrons are comely and wholesome to behold. The old, wrinkled and
bowed go their way with quiet mien and busy themselves with the light
duties in which their experience counts for much.
In spite of the luxuriant hair that adorns the heads of this people,
one may notice the difference of head shape which distinguishes them
from the tribes of the plains. The cradle-board is partly responsible
for this, since, from infancy, the children are bound to the cradle
and obliged to lie on the back for longer or shorter intervals, and
thus begins the flattening of the back of the skull. But the heads of
the women are rarely flattened, probably because the girls are not so
well cared for as the boys.
There are among the Hopi a greater number of albinos in proportion to
the population than may be found almost anywhere else. They go about
their avocations like the rest and are in no way regarded as different
from their kin. The impulse is to address them in English, and one
feels surprised when they do not comprehend. One albino maiden of
Mishongnovi has a marvelous growth of golden hair which shows to great
advantage in her ample hair whorls. Many students believe that
albinism has its origin in the nervous system, and perhaps the
timidity of the Hopi explains the number of these remarkable people in
their midst; but this is a theory, based on a theory. It has been
observed that some of the albinos are below the average in
intelligence, and it has been ascertained that the larger proportion
of them are second in order of birth in a family.
From the number of old people in the pueblos one would gain the
impression that the Hopi are long-lived. All things considered, this
is doubtless the truth, but there are no statistics to settle the
matter; besides, the question of age is a doubtful one among the Hopi
themselves. If "sans everything" is any criterion of a centenarian,
there are such among the Peaceful People. One must conclude that, on
passing childhood, the average Hopi is due for a second term of the
helpless period.
"Welcome" is not written over every Hopi door, but the spirit of
hospitality pervades the entire population. This is one of the
pleasant features of the Pueblos and is the chief reason why the Hopi
are held in friendly remembrance by visitors. An acquaintance with the
Indians in the different pueblos of the Southwest will convince one
that there is a considerable range of disposition among them. Perhaps
the extremes are the untractable Santo Domingans and the
impressionable Hopi. It seems to be a matter of the elements of which
the tribes have been made up and of their past experiences and
associations.
High up on the gray rocks the Hopi towns look as though they were part
of the native cliff. The seven towns,--though twenty miles and three
distinct mesas separate the extremes,--Hano and Oraibi,--are built on
the same stratum of sandstone. The rock shows tints of light red,
yellow, and brown, and cleaves into great cubical pillars and blocks,
leaving the face of the cliff always vertical. Trails at different
points lead up over the low masses of talus and reach the flat top
through crevices and breaks in this rock-wall, often over surfaces
where pockets have been cut in the stone for hand and foot. A very
little powder, properly applied, would render these mesas as difficult
of ascent as the Enchanted Mesa near Acoma.
Once on top and breathing normally after the four hundred feet or so
of precipitous climbing, one sees why the outer walls of the towns
seem to be a continuation of the living rock. The houses are built of
slabs of stone of various sizes, quarried from the mesa and laid up
in mud. They are of terrace style, rarely more than of two stories,
flat-roofed, and grouped in masses so as to form streets and plazas
and conforming to the irregularities of the surface and outline of the
mesas. For this reason not much order can be found in a Hopi pueblo.
The uneven surface of the mesas gives a varying height to the houses
and increases the picturesqueness of the skyline.
These Hopi towns are the most primitive of the inhabited pueblos.
Before us is a picture of the ancient life as true as may be found in
this day of inquisitive travelers and of rapid transportation to the
ends of the earth. But this state of things is changing with
increasing rapidity; the Hopi is becoming progressive and yearns for
the things of the white man with increasing desire, therefore it is
evident that, before many years, much that is charming in Tusayan by
reason of the ancient touch about it will have vanished from the lives
of its brown inhabitants.
This change is most marked at Walpi, because the East Mesa people have
longest been in contact with the civilizing influences of schools,
missions, and trading posts; besides, they were always apparently the
most tractable of the Hopi. Many families have abandoned the villages
on the cliffs, and their modern, red-roofed houses dotting the lower
ground near the fields show the tendency to forsake the crowded
hill-towns. But the old towns exist in all their primitiveness and
furnish bits of surpassing interest to lovers of the picturesque. To
these the bulk of the conservative Hopi still cling with all the force
of their inherited instinct.
Two centuries ago visitors arrived at Walpi from the Rio Grande. These
were a tribe of Tewa, invited to come to Tusayan to aid in fighting
off the Apache and Ute, those wily nomad adversaries with whom the
Peaceful People for so long had to contend. Here they have lived ever
since in their village of Hano, at the head of the most readily
accessible trail up the mesa, preserving their language and customs,
and besides their own tongue, speaking well the language of their
friends and neighbors. The Tewa brought with them their potter's art
and now have the honor to be practically the only makers of
earthenware in Tusayan. Nampeo is the best potter at Hano and her work
shows her to be a worthy descendant of the ancient artists, whose
graceful vessels lie with the bones of the dead beneath the sands of
the great Southwest.
Beyond Hano, and midway between it and Walpi, is Sichomovi, which
signifies "flower mound." Sichomovi, if we may judge from the good
preservation of its houses and the regularity with which the town is
laid out, seems to be comparatively new, and indeed, there is
traditionary testimony to this effect. The dusky historians of Walpi
relate the circumstances of its foundation, when the yellow flowers
grew in the crevices of the rock at the place where several stranger
clans were allowed to settle.
Passing out of Sichomovi and crossing a narrow neck of the mesa
traversed by a well-worn trail, Walpi is reached. This village from
different points of view presents the appearance of a confused jumble
of dilapidated houses, and a walk through its alleys and passages
confirms the impression. Walpi was a town of necessity and was erected
in 1590, having been moved up from a lower point after troubles with
the Spanish conquistadores.
Looking down from the town one may trace the site of Old Walpi and
descry the pottery-strewn mounds of still older settlements, since
around this mesa the first comers to Tusayan probably located. At the
foot of the mesa are also springs and shrines, one of the latter being
the true "center of the world" to the Hopi mind, a point which gave
the ancients much trouble to determine. Along the ledges are corrals
for the motley flocks of black and white sheep and goats, adepts in
subsisting on all sorts of unpalatable brush. Farther down in the
level are the fields, at the proper season green with the prospect of
corn, melons, and beans.
Walpi streets are the living rock of the mesa worn smooth by human
feet and swept by the officious wind-god, whose dry air, with the aid
of the sun, form the board of health of the Hopiland. This rocky
surface must have been a great trial to the _kiva_ builders, as
traditional custom requires that such meeting places of the secret
societies or brotherhoods should be underground. The _kivas_ along the
streets thus represent a great amount of work in their construction,
and it is clear that, when the builders found a cleft in the rock or a
niche in the cliff-edge, they appropriated it as the site of a _kiva_,
then built an outer wall overhanging the precipice and prepared the
deep oblong room with toilsome labor, for they had only the rude tools
of the stone age.
The two poles of the ladder project from the _kiva_ hatchway, and one
may descend if no ceremony is on hand. There is not much to see except
an empty, smoke-blackened room with stone-paved floor, plastered
walls, and ceiling crossed by heavy beams. Just in front of the ladder
is a fireplace, consisting of a stone box sunk in the floor, and the
portion of the room back of the ladder is elevated. These subterranean
chambers are now found in use only in Tusayan, where this manner of
building them, along with many other ancient customs, has been
preserved by the Hopi through many generations.
Hopi houses are small, and as in the other pueblos of the Southwest,
the first families live in the second story, which is reached by a
ladder. In recent times, though, the ground floor, which formerly was
used chiefly for storage, has been cleaned out, furnished with doors,
and occupied as habitations. Steps on the dividing walls lead to the
upper story and the roof forms a general loitering-place. The living
room is kept in good order, and a goodly array of blankets, harness,
and clothes hanging from a swinging pole are looked on with pride and
complacency. In the granary, which is generally a back room, the ears
of corn are often sorted by color and laid up in neat walls and one
year's crop is always kept in reserve for a bad season. Red corn,
yellow corn, white corn, blue corn, black corn, and mottled corn make
a Hopi grain room a study in color. Three oblong hollowed stones or
metates of graded fineness are sunk in the floor of every Hopi house,
and on these, with another stone held in the hands, the corn is ground
to fine meal, the grinders singing shrill songs at their back-breaking
work.
In the corner of the baking-room is a fireplace covered with a smoke
hood and containing slabs of stone for the baking of _piki_, or paper
bread, while scattered about are many baskets, jars, bowls, cups, and
other utensils of pottery well fitted for the purposes of the Hopi
culinary art. Outside the house is a sunken pit in which corn-pudding
is baked.
These and many other things about the Hopi villages will interest the
visitor, who will not have serious difficulty in overlooking the
innovations or in obtaining a clear idea of Pueblo life as it was in
the times long past.
If one crosses the plain to the three villages of the Middle Mesa, he
will find still less of the effect of contact with modern things.
Mushongnovi, the second town of Tusayan in point of size, presented as
late as 1906 a perfect picture of an unmodified pueblo on its giant
mesa, the eastern and northern walls of the town blank and high like
the face of a cliff. Within this closely-built village the terraced
houses face the streets and open plazas, after the ancient fashion.
Because of their harmony with their primitive surroundings, one
hesitates to believe in the modernness of the chimneys of these
pueblos, yet it appears to be true that the idea is of Spanish
introduction.
Shipaulovi, on its high vantage point, seems newer than Shumopavi, its
neighbor, the latter being the most regular pueblo in Tusayan. Some
fifteen miles beyond Shumopavi is Oraibi, the largest of the seven
Hopi towns, whose rough walls give it an appearance of great age.
Oraibi held out longest against the white intruders, and even now
would much prefer to be left alone in the enjoyment of its accustomed
ways, but the school-houses and the red roofs brought by the white man
increasingly menace its old-world notions.
The nearest neighbors of the Hopi are the Navaho, that large and
rapidly growing tribe who are what they call themselves, _Dene_,
"men." They crowd upon the Hopi, and when the opportunity offers
"raise" some stock or dictate with sublime egotism the conduct of the
ceremonies. Several hundred years of contact with the pueblo folk have
made the once uncultured Navaho in many respects like them. The timid
Hopi do not choose to affiliate with the Navaho, but marriages are not
infrequent among members of the two tribes. Generally it is a Navaho
brave who seeks a Hopi maiden to wife, coming to live with her
people, but rarely does a Hopi youth lead a "Teshab" girl to his
hearth as did Anowita of Walpi.
A few Zuñi have cast their lot at Tusayan and several of the latter
live at Zuñi and in some of the Rio Grande pueblos. Not many years
ago, a Hopi was chief of an important fraternity at Sia, a pueblo on
the Jemez River in New Mexico. The Zuñi are quite neighborly and visit
Tusayan to witness the ceremonies or to exchange necklaces of shell
and turquoise beads for blankets. Tradition has it that some of the
clans from the Rio Grande came by way of Zuñi and that Sichomovi has a
strong admixture from that pueblo. In support of this it may be said
that the Zuñi visitors are usually domiciled at Sichomovi, where they
seem very much at home, and many of the people there speak the Zuñi
language.
At the time of the ceremonies, especially those performed in summer,
Tewa from the Rio Grande pueblos come to visit and trade and enjoy the
merrymaking that attends the dances. Some of the people of Hano have
visited their relatives on the Rio Grande, but few of the Hopi are so
far-traveled in these days. There has been for centuries, however,
more or less communication across the vast stretch of arid country
lying between the Great River and Tusayan, and in a number of
instances in the distant past, whole tribes have emigrated from the
east to the Hopi country where they have founded new towns. Although
100 miles away, the Havasupai may also be regarded as near neighbors
who cross the desert to sell their fine baskets and superior
white-tanned deerskins, for which articles there is great demand. The
Hopi also traverse the sandy waste to visit the "People of the
Ladders," as they call the Havasupai, and bring back sacred red ocher
and green copper stone for pigments. The Havasupai and Hopi are
likewise linked by traditions of an ancient time.
Long ago, say the Hopi, the Paiute, who are uncultured but strong in
the art of warfare, came down from the north and harassed them until
the people of Hano vanquished them. The Paiute, although remotely
related, were not friendly to the Hopi, and besides, there was much of
value to be seized from the mesa-dwellers. For this reason the Hopi
did not cultivate the friendship with the Paiute and the only one of
that tribe living in Tusayan is "Tom Sawyer," whose portrait is drawn
in another place.
Nor were the Apache more desirable neighbors. The Hopi tell of the
troublous times when these nomads came from the south and compelled
them to draw up their ladders from the cliff at night. Still, Paiute
and Apache baskets and other aboriginal manufactures found their way
to the pueblos, who were always cosmopolitan in their tastes and did
not allow tribal enmity to interfere with trade.
Far to the south another people were friends of the Hopi. Very long
ago the Pima were closer neighbors and allies of some of the Hopi
clans, who touched them in their wide migrations, which brought them
to the "Palatkwabi." This is the Red Land of the south, lying on the
Verde River and its tributaries. The Hopi lay claim to the Tonto Basin
in southern Arizona, which has been thought to be their ancient
country since far and wide over this southern region is found the
yellow pottery so characteristic of the golden age of the Hopi.
Sometimes still the Hopi visit the Pima, and it is known that formerly
they joined in a fair that was held in the Pima country and brought
back various commodities in exchange for their own products. Even
today agave sweetmeats and alder bark, the latter used for dyeing
leather, are found in Hopi dwellings, having been brought from beyond
"Apache House," as they call the region south of the San Francisco
Mountains where the Apache formerly lived.
II
SOCIAL LIFE
When the crops are harvested and Indian summer is gone and the cold
winds buffet the mesas, the Hopi find comfort in their substantial
houses around their hearth-stones. The change of the season enforces a
pleasant reunion and the people who were occupied with the care as
well as the delights of outdoor summer life, begin to get acquainted
again.
The men have plenty of idle time on their hands,--the masks need
repairing and refurbishing with new colors; there are always moccasins
to be made; the carvers of dolls construct these odd painted figures
from cottonwood procured during the summer, and the weaver works at
his loom. Now the basket maker draws on her stock of split yucca
leaves, twigs and grass, but the potter's craft is in abeyance till
the warm months.
One would think that the winter work falls pretty severely on the
women, but their duties are largely the same in all seasons. There is
corn to be ground, food to be prepared, and water to be carried up the
steep trails. The winter store must be guarded against mice and
vermin and occasionally sunned on the roof. There are, no doubt, many
cares and much labor, but the women take their time and everyone, from
the little child to the experienced old grandmother, lends a helping
hand. A Hopi woman would perhaps not understand our kind commiseration
for the lot that her sex has experienced and thriven under from time
immemorial.
Winter in Tusayan is more enjoyable than otherwise, as the sun is
bright and the sky a clear blue. The snows of winter are nearly as
rare as the rain-storms of summer, much to the regret of the Hopi.
Often the cold at night is intense, but the day may have the crisp
though mild air of a rare day in spring at the East.
Not much change comes over the landscape of Tusayan by the advent of
winter. There are few trees to lose their leaves after a gorgeous
pageant of farewell. The desert plants scarcely ever alter the
appearance of the earth by their leaf tints of spring, summer, or
autumn; with their diminutive leaves and sober color they sink into
the vast surface and are lost among the vivid aerial tints and the
bright hues of the rocks and plains. There are no rivers to be covered
by a sheen of ice, and rarely does a mantle of snow reach across the
deserts from the snow-clad mountains. The winds rave and whirlwinds
swirl the sand along the plain in giant columns, while the sun hangs
lower and lower in the southwest until the Hopi fear that he will
finally depart and leave them in the grasp of winter. But the priests
have potent charms to draw him back, and after the Soyaluna ceremony
at the winter solstice anyone can see that the sun no longer wanders.
Those Hopi who have not laid in a supply of fuel must go
wood-gathering right speedily when cold weather approaches, for the
trees are distant and the day is hardly long enough to get a burro
load piled on the house wall. Every morning also the flocks of sheep
and goats must be driven out from the corrals on the ledges under the
mesas, to browse on the leafless brush.
October is called the Harvest moon. The women who garner the grain
hold a ceremony at this time and great is the feasting and rejoicing
in the pueblo. The winter tightens in November, called the "Neophyte
moon," since the youths of proper age are initiated into the societies
in this month. These beginners bear the sportive name of "Pigeon
Hawks." In even years comes the great ceremony of the New Fire, full
of strange rites of fire worship handed down from the olden time. In
odd years occurs the Na-a-ish-nya ceremony, which like the other is
performed by the New Fire Society. By December, Tusayan is hard in the
grip of winter, and as the spirits are held fast beneath the frozen
ground, they cannot do ill to anyone who speaks about them, so that
many legends and stories and much sacred lore are freely divulged
around the glowing fires of fat piñon wood in the Hopi houses.
Everyone is also on the qui vive for the Soyaluna, in many respects
the most important ceremony in the Hopi calendar, when the first
kachinas appear. December is called the "Hoe moon" because in this
month it is prescribed that the fields shall be cleared for the spring
planting. The wind has perhaps done its share toward clearing movable
things from the fields, but much remains to be done in leveling the
surface for the spring sowing.
No month of winter is too cold for a ceremony. January, called the
"Prayer-stick moon," brings the Alosaka, a ceremony of the Horn
Society with their grotesque masks. During the vicissitudes of this
hard month, more of the beloved kachinas return to their people from
the high peaks of the San Francisco Mountains, poetically known as the
"snow houses," and to these ancestral beings many petitions are made.
February, the hardest month of all the winter, is called the
"Getting-ready moon." It was in this month that the hero of the
Kachina people found melons and green corn near the San Francisco
Mountains. The Powamu ceremony is held during this moon.
If the Hopi should have nearly reached the starvation point, March is
likely to inspire a hope of reaching the end of the disastrous season,
for in sheltered places a few shoots of green appear, and if the
moisture from melting snow is sufficient, perhaps the little _wiwa_
plant springs up, furnishing palatable and nourishing greens. For some
reason March is called the "Prickly-pear moon," and it is the only
month named from a natural object. Perhaps the designation points to a
time when some of the Hopi lived in a clime where the prickly-pear
bloomed in March. This might have been in southern Arizona, whence a
number of clans, for instance, such as the "Agave People," have
derived their names. March ushers in the most disagreeable part of the
year, the season of fierce winds charged with dust and sand which
drift like snow against the sides of the mesas.
This chronicle of the winter of the Hopi, incomplete as it is, shows
that the "Peaceful People" get a great deal of enjoyment out of life
at this season. Many important ceremonies belong to the wintertime and
there are conventions of the different societies. In the underground
meeting-places those entitled to the privileges drop in for gossip, as
at a club, being sure of warmth, agreeable company, and perhaps a
smoke to while away the time. Around the fireside, also, there is a
good company, and plenty of stories, well worth the hearing, are told.
The men may go hunting or make a winter journey to the settlements or
the mountains.
As for the cold, the Hopi seem to regard it lightly. There is little
or no change in the costume, though the blanket or the rabbit-fur robe
comes in handy for a wrap. If a man has an errand out of doors he
trusts to running to keep up the circulation. After the ceremonies,
the men usually ascend, scantily clothed, from the superheated _kivas_
into the bitter air, with utter disregard for the rules of health. The
purity of the air is a saving factor; nevertheless, pulmonary diseases
are common, due to the close, badly ventilated houses more than to any
other causes.
Most visitors to Tusayan see the Hopiland at the best season, when the
cornfields are green and the cottonwoods are in full leaf, when the
desert smiles to its greatest capability and the people are well fed
and happy. The rebirth of Nature begins in April, when the thrifty
farmers cut brush and set up long wind-breaks to protect prospective
crops. The month is named for this circumstance, and like everything
else at the pueblos the time for beginning work is prescribed,
according to custom, by those in authority over the clans.
Frosts and lashing winds often destroy every green shoot in the
spring, save the native plants, which are inured to the weather, and
the people frequently have to mourn the loss of their peaches, their
only desirable fruit, for which they owe a debt to the Spanish friars
of long ago.
In the "Waiting moon," as May is called, all is activity in the
fields, for the planting of the sweet corn goes merrily on and the
Hopi become, for most of the time, an outdoor people. The winds
perhaps have abated their power or have ceased entirely, and life is
more pleasant under the warm sun. Still, with all the work incident to
the care of the fields there is time for ceremony and during the
period between the arrival of the kachinas in December and their
departure in July, there are many minor celebrations by masked dancers
in addition to the great monthly ceremonies. Especially interesting in
the season of awakening life and growing crops are these kachina
dances with their pleasing songs and pageantry, their unlimited
variety and surprises. The "Peaceful People" enjoy this season in the
highest degree. June and July see every Hopi happy, unless there is
something constitutionally wrong with him or he is afflicted with
sickness. It is difficult to realize how thoroughly all Hopi life is
linked with growing things, showing out in their every word and action
and entering into their ideas of the unseen world.
When the sun pauses in his march along the eastern horizon at the
summer solstice, the Hopi spend the day in making feather
prayer-plumes as petitions for blessings. These children of the sun
know the course of _Dawa_, the sun, and read his positions as we the
hands of a clock.
With the departure of the kachinas a new class of ceremonies begins.
The dancers who previously appeared in strange masks and headgear now
perform unmasked, and the cumbrous paraphernalia is laid away for
another year. The great event of the summer, the Snake Dance, is now
at hand, and everyone sets about preparing for a good time. In the
latter part of August, after this ceremony, the pueblo resumes its
normal state and the people settle down to the feast of good things
from their fields, which they attack with primitive zest and
enjoyment. It is greatly to the credit of the Hopi that they work well
and rest well like the unconscious philosophers they are.
The moon of September watches over a scene of peace and plenty in
Tusayan. The cool, clear nights betoken that frosts and the time of
harvest are approaching. The heat of summer is gone and the season is
ideal.
Since the Hopi are good people one would infer that they need no
rulers. One might live among the Hopi for some time and not wittingly
come in contact with a chief or a policeman or any evidence of laws,
but the rulers and laws are there nevertheless.
The voice of the town crier awakens one to the fact that here is the
striking apparatus of some sort of a social clock. It will be found
that there is an organization of which the crier is the ultimate
utterance. Chiefs are there in abundance, the house chief, the kiva
chief, the war chief, the speaker chief who is the crier; chiefs of
clans, who are chiefs of the fraternities: all these are members of
the council that rules the pueblo. The council meets on occasion and
acts for the common weal, and the village chief publishes their
mandates by crier.
In this most democratic organization the agents of the Government who
wish to treat with the Hopi, not finding a responsible head, felt
forced to appoint one. Thus each Hopi pueblo received a supreme ruler,
who neither deceived himself nor the people as to the power he
acquired from Washington, which was nil. The true rulers are the heads
of the clans, and by their wise advice and their knowledge of the
traditional unwritten laws everything is regulated for the tractable
Hopi. Each pueblo acts for itself and knows nothing and cares less for
the doings of the other pueblos, so there has never been a league of
Hopi tribes. In a few instances there was a temporary unity of action,
as when the people of other pueblos destroyed Awatobi, an event
related circumstantially in the tradition. (See p. 210.) Traces of
this independence of action abound in the Southwest. The ancient ruins
show that the clans built each its house cluster apart from the others
and moved when it liked. The present villages are made up of clans and
fragments of clans, each living in the ward where it settled when it
joined the others in the old time.
These clans are larger families of blood relations, who trace their
descent from the mother and who have a general family name or totem,
as Eagle, Tobacco Plant, Cloud, etc. Although no blood relationship
may be traceable between them, no youth and maid of the same clan may
marry, and this seems to be the first law of the clan. The working of
the strange law of mother-right makes the children of no clan
relation to the father. Since the woman owns the house and the
children, the father is only a sojourner in the clan of his wife.
Another law of the greater family was that of mutual help, providing
for the weak, infirm, and unprotected members. From this grows the
hospitality of the Indian, and nowhere does this graceful custom
prevail more than among the Hopi.
As if in recognition of the interests of the whole people in the
farming lands the messengers sent out to bear plume-prayers to the
nature gods while the ceremonies are in progress encircle all the
fields of the pueblo, so that all may receive the blessings of rain.
While the lands are spoken of as belonging to the village, they are
known to have been immemorially divided among the clans, hence at
Walpi the oldest and otherwise ranking clans have the best land. The
division of the land in severalty by the United States government some
years ago had no effect on the ancient boundaries and no one but the
surveyor knows where his lines ran.
Every once in a while the Hopi have a "raising," but instead of the
kind and willing neighbors of the "bee" in the States, here the
workers are clan relations. Coöperation or communal effort goes a long
way toward explaining why the days of the Pueblo dweller are long in
the land and the Mormon settlers in the Southwest also followed this
primitive law which goes into effect wherever men are gathered for the
common weal.
Laws are but expressions of common sense formulated by the wisest and
most experienced. The Hopi must have good laws, for though their laws
are stronger by far than those written and refined by civilization,
the people observe them unconsciously and never feel the burden. There
are so few infractions of the law that it is difficult to say what the
various punishments are. The taking of life by force or law is
unknown; the respect of mine and thine is the rule among the Hopi, and
so on through the temptations of life that beset mortals. There is no
desire to place the Hopi on a pedestal and declare them perfect, for
they are not; but in many ways they set their civilized brothers an
example. As to punishment, it is probable that a loss of standing in a
fraternity, ostracism from the clan or pueblo, and ridicule are the
suasive penalties.
With the increased influence of education and contact with white
people the business side of the Hopi is being brought out, and because
from time immemorial they have been chief among the traffickers in the
primitive commerce of the Southwest, they have rapidly assimilated the
devices of modern trade. They have their own native merchants and are
gradually becoming independent of the trader. The latter say they
would rather deal with six Navaho than one Hopi, because the Navaho
does not haggle, while the Hopi, with the thrift that is bringing him
to the front, is determined to get the benefit of a bargain.
The Pueblo folk retire early and leave the safety of the village to
the patrol. Some one is always on guard about the pueblo, whether it
be the children amusing themselves on the rocks,--and these little
folks have eyes as sharp as any,--or the grown people looking off into
the country for "signs," a custom which has become habitual with them.
The night patrol is a survival of the times when the whole village was
a committee of safety, for the outside foes were fierce and
treacherous.
If running about the town keeping the dogs barking and good folks
awake is the principal office of the patrol, then it is eminently
successful and the pueblos furnish nocturnal noises on the scale of
the cities of civilization. The tradition of the coming of the Flute
clan speaks of the watchman of Walpi, who was Alosaka, a horned being
alert as a mountain sheep. The Flute migrants also sent out "Mountain
Sheep" to ascertain whether human beings lived in the locality. During
some of the ceremonies there are vigilant patrols, and on a few
ceremonial days no living being is allowed to come into the pueblo
from the outside, formerly under pain of death at the hands of the
fraternity guards. It is thought that the trouble arising between the
Spaniards and the Hopi on that first visit to Tusayan in 1540 was due
to a violation of the ceremonial bar, and not to the belligerent habit
of the Indians.
The village shepherds have an easy, though very monotonous
occupation. They have the advantage of other Arizona shepherds because
their charges are brought at nightfall into secure corrals among the
rocks below the town and do not require care till morning. Frequently
one sees a woman and a child driving the herd around, in what seems a
vain search for green things that a sheep with a not too fastidious
appetite might eat. Formerly, at least, the office of herder was
bestowed by the village chief, much as was once the case with the
village swineherd or gooseherd of Europe in olden time.
Perhaps a visitor straying about a Hopi village at a time when there
are no ceremonies in progress may find a quaint street market,
conducted by a few women squatted on the ground, with their wares
spread in front of them. Such markets are only a faint reflection of
those which have been held in Mexico from time immemorial; but it is
interesting to know that the Hopi have such an institution, because it
shows a step in political economy that has been rarely noticed among
the Indians in the United States. The little barter by exchange that
goes on here, accompanied with the jollity of the Hopi women, has in
it the germ of commerce with its world-embracing activities. Here it
is found also that woman has her place as the beginner and promoter of
buying and selling as she has in the inception of many other lines of
human progress.
Honi, the speaker-chief, is the living newspaper of Walpi, or rather
he is a vocal bulletin-board. Like the reader for the United States
Senate, his voice is of the robust kind, and for this qualification,
perhaps, he was selected to make the numerous announcements from the
housetops. His news is principally of a religious character, such as
the beginning and progress of the many ceremonies at the pueblo, but
there is a fair sprinkling of secular notices of interest to the
community. Honi, however, is only a voice crying in the wilderness at
the bidding of the secret council or of the heads of the brotherhoods
who are the true rulers of the pueblos, because they have the destiny
of the flock in their hands. He holds, however, the office of
speaker-chief, the pay of which is not highly remunerative, but the
duties do not interfere with the pursuit of other occupations, since
his announcements are made usually when the people have gathered in
the town after their day's labor in the fields. No doubt, Honi regards
himself and is regarded by others as an important functionary who,
with the house chief, has the privilege of frequenting the Mong-kiva
or council chamber of the pueblo. The town crier's announcements
attracted the notice of the Spanish conquerors in the early days as
they have that of modern travelers. In the quaint language of
Castañeda, speaking of Zuñi: "They have priests who preach to them
whom they call papas. These are the elders. They go up on the highest
roof of the village and preach to the village from there, like public
criers in the morning while the sun is rising, the whole village
being silent and sitting in the galleries, to listen. They tell them
how to live, and I believe that they give certain commandments for
them to keep."
It must be admitted that Honi's is an ancient and honorable office,
found useful by civilized communities before the time of newspapers
and surviving yet, as the _sereno_ of Spain.
It is surprising, by the way, how fast news flies in Hopiland. The
arrival of a white man is known the whole length and breadth of
Tusayan in an incredibly short time. A fondness for small talk,
together with the dearth of news, make it incumbent upon every Hopi,
when anything happens, to pass the word along.
To a visitor encamped below the Walpi mesa the novelty of hearing the
speaker-chief for the first time is a thing long to be remembered. Out
of the darkness and indescribable silence of the desert comes a voice,
and such a voice! From the heights above it seems to come out of space
and to be audible for an infinite distance. It takes the form of a
chant, long drawn and full of sonorous quality. Everyone listens
breathlessly to the important message, and when the crier finishes
after the third repetition, an Indian informs us that the substance of
the announcement was that the wire which "Washington" had promised to
send had come and that in two days the villages would go out to build
fences.
That Honi's messages are worth hearing is witnessed by the following
announcement of the New Fire ceremony. Honi, standing on the housetop
at sun-up, intones:
All people awake, open your eyes, arise,
Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly;
Hasten, Clouds, from the four world-quarters.
Come, Snow, in plenty, that water may abound when summer appears.
Come, Ice, and cover the fields that after planting, they may yield
abundantly.
Let all hearts be glad.
The Wuwutchimtu will assemble in four days.
They will encircle the villages, dancing and singing.
Let the women be ready to pour water upon them
That moisture may come in plenty and all shall rejoice.
This is a good example of the poetry of the Hopi which, in the kachina
songs, is of no low degree of artistic expression.
The Hopi use the world for a dial and the sun for the clock-hand. The
sun-priest from his observatory on a point of the mesa watches the
luminary as carefully as any astronomer. He determines the time for
the beginning of each ceremony or important event in the life of the
pueblo, such as corn planting, by the rising or setting of the sun
behind a certain peak or notch in the marvelous mountain profile on
the eastern and western horizons. These profiles are known to him as
we know the figures on a watch face. Along them he notes the march of
the seasons, and at the proper time the town-crier chants his
announcement from the housetops.
The clear air of Tusayan renders the task of the sun-priest easy; this
primitive astronomer has the best of skies for observation. By day the
San Francisco peaks, a hundred miles away, stand clearly silhouetted
on the horizon; by night the stars are so brilliant that one can
distinguish objects by their light.
The Hopi also know much of astronomy, and not only do they have names
for the planets and particular stars, but are familiar with many
constellations, the Pleiades especially being venerated, as among many
primitive peoples. The rising and position of the Pleiades determine
the time of some important ceremonies when the "sweet influences"
reign. Any fixed star may be used to mark off a period of time by
position and progress in the heavens as the sun is used by day. The
moon determines the months, but there is no word for "year" or for the
longer periods of time. Days are marked by "sleeps," thus today is
_pui_ or "now"; the days of the week are two sleeps, three sleeps,
etc.; _tabuco_ is "yesterday."