and dark brown. The red paint is yellow ocher, called _sikyatho_,
turning red on firing. It was mixed on a concave stone with water. The
dark brown paint is made from _toho_, an iron stone brought from a
distant mesa. It was ground on a slab with a medium made from the seed
of the tansy mustard (_Sisymbrium canescens_). The brushes were two
strips of yucca, _mohu_, one for each color. With these slender means,
without measurement, Nampeo rapidly covered the vessels with designs,
either geometrical or conventionalized, human or cult,--figures or
symbols. The narrow brush, held like a painter's striper, is effective
for fine lines. In broad lines or wide portions of the decoration, the
outlines are sharply defined and the spaces are filled in. No mistakes
are made, for emendations and corrections are impossible.
Quite opportunely the next day, an invitation to see the burning of
pottery came from an aged potter who resides at the Sun Spring. When
the great Hopi clock reached the appointed place in the heavens, the
bowed yet active potter was found getting ready for the important work
of firing the ware. In the heap of cinders, ashes, and bits of rock
left from former firings, the little old woman scooped out a concave
ring. Nearby was a heap of slabs of dry sheep's droppings, quarried
from the floor of a fold perched on a ledge high up the mesa and
brought down in the indispensable blanket. In the center of the
concave kiln floor a heap of this fuel was ignited by the aid of some
frayed cedar bark and a borrowed match from the opportune Pahana,
"people of the far water," the name by which white men are known. When
the fire was well established, it was gradually spread over the floor
to near the margin and the decorated bowls brought from the house were
set up around with the concave sides toward the fire, while the potter
brought, in her blanket, a back load of friable sandstone from a
neighboring hillock.
Under the first heat the ware turned from white to purple gray or
lavender, gradually assuming a lead color. They were soon heated
enough and were ready for the kiln. Guarding her hand by the
interposition of a fold of the blanket, the potter set the vessels,
now quite unattractive, aside, proceeded to rake the fire flat and
laid thereon fragments of stone at intervals to serve as rests or
stilts for the ware. Larger vessels were set over smaller and all were
arranged as compactly as possible. Piece by piece, dextrously as a
mason, the potter built around the vessels a wall of fuel, narrowing
at the top, till a few slabs completed the dome of the structure,
itself kiln and fuel.
Care was taken not to allow the fuel to touch the vessels, as a
discoloration of the ware would result, which might subject the potter
to the shafts of ridicule. Gradually the fire from below creeps up the
walls till the interior is aglow and the ware becomes red hot. Little
attention is now needed except closing burned out apertures with new
pieces of fuel; the potter, who before, during the careful and exact
dispositions, has been giving little ejaculations as though talking to
a small child, visits the kiln intermittently from the nearby house.
Here she seeks refuge from the penetrating, unaromatic smoke and the
blazing sun.
The Hopi have an odd superstition that if any one speaks above a
whisper during the burning of pottery the spirit inhabiting the vessel
will cause it to break. No doubt the potter had this in mind while she
was whispering and was using all her blandishments to induce the small
spirits to be good.
She remarked that when the sun should hang over the brow of the mesa
at the height indicated by her laborious fingers, the ware would be
baked, the kiln a heap of ashes, the yellow decoration a lively red
and the black a dark brown on a rich cream-color ground. Next day,
with true foresight, she brought her quaint wares to the camp and made
a good bargain for them, incidentally asking, "Matches all gone?"
One woman at least in Tusayan is a weaver of blankets. Anowita's wife
enjoys that distinction because she is a Navaho, among whom weaving is
woman's work. The Hopi housewives have enough to do keeping house, a
thing not burdensome to the Navaho, and as has been explained, the
Hopi men hold a monopoly of the spinning and weaving.
Time out of mind the Hopi have grown cotton in their little fields,
and the first white men that made their acquaintance were presented
with "towels" of their weaving as a peace offering. In the
cliff-houses of the ancient people are found woven fabrics of cotton
and rugs made of strips of rabbit fur like those now to be seen in the
pueblos. The ancient people also had feather garments made by tying
plumage to a network of cords. In the ruins of the pueblos one often
finds cotton seeds which have been buried with the dead, and the
braided mats of yucca or bark and bits of cloth fortunately preserved
show that the people of former times were skilful weavers. There is no
reason to doubt that the Hopi stuffs were prized for their excellence
throughout the Southwest in the early times as they are now.
When the Spaniards brought sheep among the pueblos, the weavers and
fabric makers seem to have appreciated the value of wool at once, and
the ancient garments of feathers and skins quickly disappeared. Cotton
remained in use only for ceremonial costumes or for cord employed in
the religious ceremonies. The rabbit-fur robes which once were made
throughout a vast region of the Rockies from Alaska to the Gulf of
California were largely displaced by blankets, in later years,
gorgeously dyed and cunningly woven. Long before the introduction of
trade dyes the Hopi were satisfied with sober colors; the dark blue
and brown given to the yarn by the women were from the plants. Even
now the Hopi weavers stick to their colors and refuse to perpetrate
the zigzags of the Navaho. For this reason the women of all the
pueblos of the Southwest dress in dark blue and brown, as the Hopi are
purveyors of stuffs for wear to all their fellow house-dwellers of
Indian lineage. Good cloth it is, too, and worthy of its renown, for
it wears exceedingly well. More than one generation often enjoys its
service, and when the older folks get through with their blanket
dresses, the little ones have garments fashioned from them for their
own apparel.
If one will examine the Hopi blankets, he will be surprised at the
skilful weaving they show. The blanket dress often has the body of
plain weaving in black and the two ends bordered with damask or basket
weave in blue. Sometimes a whole blanket is of damask, giving a
surface that, on close inspection, has a pleasing effect. The women's
ceremonial blanket of cotton with blue and red borders sometimes show
three kinds of weaving and several varieties of cording. The belts
also have a wonderful range of patterns. On the whole, one is led to
believe that the Hopi are more adept at weaving than their rivals, the
Navaho.
The carding and spinning are thoroughly done, the resulting yarn
being strong, even, and tightly twisted with the simple spindle.
Sometimes the spinner dresses and finishes the yarn by means of a corn
cob smoothed by long use. The women, by virtue of their skill in
culinary matters, are usually the dyers, and the dye they concoct from
sunflower seeds or blue beans is a fast blue. In old times cotton was
prepared for spinning by whipping it with slender switches on a bed of
sand, and this process is yet required for the cotton used for the
sacred sashes. Now nearly every family is provided with wire cards
purchased from traders. These cards look quite out of place in the
hands of priests in the _kiva_, where they are used in combing the
cotton for the sacred cord used in tying the feathers to the _pahos_.
When the kiva is not in use for a ceremony it is common to find there
a weaver busy at his rude loom and growing web. To the great beams of
the roof is fastened the upper yarn beam of the loom, and secured to
pegs in holes in the stone slabs of the floor is the lower yarn beam.
Between these is tightly stretched the warp. The weaver squats on the
floor before the loom, having ready by him the few simple implements
of his craft, consisting of a wooden knife or batten highly polished
from use, for beating down the yarn, a wooden comb also for pressing
home the woof, and the bobbins which are merely sticks with the yarn
wrapped back and forward spirally upon them. He picks out a certain
number of warp threads with the batten, passes through the bobbin,
beats the yarn home with great patience, and so continues, making slow
headway.
There are several reasons why the kiva is used by the weavers. These
subterranean rooms, usually the property of the men, are cool and
quiet, and the light streams down from overhead across the surface of
the web, allowing the stitches to be seen to good advantage. The best
reason is that the kiva ceiling is high enough to allow the stretching
of the warp to the full length of a blanket, which cannot be done in
the low living rooms of the dwellings.
Belts, garters, and hair tapes are made on a small loom provided with
reed or heddle frame, and usually this is woman's work. Strangely
enough the belt loom is a kind of harness, for the warp is stretched
out between the woman's feet and a yoke that extends across her back.
The yarn used for belts is bought from the trader. The old belts are
marvels of design and are among the most pleasing specimens of the art
work of the Hopi.
With the introduction of dyed trader's yarns and coal-tar colors has
come a deterioration in the work of the Navaho weavers. Among the Hopi
this is not noticeable, but, no doubt, for this reason the embroidery
on the hems of the ceremonial blankets, sashes, and kilts is gayer
than in former times when subdued mineral colors and vegetable dyes
only were available.
Every visitor to the Hopi pueblos is attracted by the carved wooden
figures painted in bright colors and decorated with feathers, etc.,
that hang from the rafters of the houses. "Dolls," they are usually
called, but the Hopi know that they are representations of the
spiritual beings who live in the unseen world, and a great variety
there is of them. Thousands of these figures are made by the Hopi,
many to be sold to visitors, a thing no Zuñi would do, because in that
pueblo these images have a religious character and are hidden away,
while the Hopi decorate the houses with them.
The carvers of these strange figurines must be granted the possession
of much skill and ability in their art, which is carried on with a few
simple tools. The country far and near is ransacked for cottonwood,
this being the wood prescribed for masks, dolls, prayer-sticks, etc.
The soft cottonwood, especially the root, is easily worked with the
dull knives that the Hopi possess. On every hand is soft, coarse
sandstone for rubbing the wood into shape, and much of the work is not
only finished, but formed by this means. For this reason the rocks
around a Hopi village are covered with grooves and pits left by the
workers in wood.
If any parts, such as ears, hair, whorls, etc., are to be added to the
figures, they are pegged on quite insecurely. Some of the terraces
which surmount the kachina masks are remarkable structures built up of
wood pegged together. A little string, a few twigs and pieces of
cottonwood suffice the Hopi for the construction of flowers and
complicated parts of the decoration of dolls and masks or other
ceremonial belongings. Corn husks, dyed horsehair, woolen yarn,
deerskin, cotton cloth, twigs, basketry, and feathers are worked in
and the result, though crude, is effective.
But in the realm of mechanical apparatus the Hopi is even ahead of the
toy makers of the Schwartzwald. For the Palulukong ceremony he
arranges startling effects, causing the Great Plumed Snake to emerge
through screens, out of jars, or from the ceiling of the kiva, to the
number of nine appearances, each requiring artful devices. The head of
the Snake is a gourd furnished with eyes, having the mouth cut into
sharp teeth, a long tongue, a plume, and the whole surface painted.
The body is made up of wooden hoops over which cords run and is
covered with cloth. Often two of these grotesque monsters are caused,
by the pulling of cords, to advance and withdraw through flaps in the
screen and to struggle against each other with striking realism.
Nothing in Hopiland is more remarkable than this drama, as one may
gather from Dr. Fewkes' account of it given at another place.
Little of the Hopi's skill as a carver and decorator goes to the
furnishing or building of the house; almost all is taken up with
ceremonial matters. Previous to a few years ago chairs were unknown,
as was any other domestic joinery, except the Hopi head masks,
prayer-sticks and the thousand objects used in his pagan worship, in
the manufacture of which he was master of all expedients. As a worker
in stone and shell he still knows the arts of the ancient times, but
lacks the skill of his forebears. The turquoise mosaics of old days so
regularly and finely set on the backs of sea shells, have given place
to the uneven scraps of turquoise set in confusion on bits of wood, as
on the woman's earrings. Many devices have gone out entirely, and it
is probable that no Hopi could make an axe of hard stone like the old
ones or chip a finely proportioned arrowhead. The hand-stones for
grinding corn are still made, and a woman pecking away at one with a
stone hammer is not infrequently seen and heard.
The Hopi were never metal-workers, because free metals are scarce in
the Southwest. Their name for silver, with which they became familiar
in the shape of coins, is _shiba_, "a little white cake." Gold they
regard with suspicion, since it resembles copper or brass, with which
they have been deceived at times by unscrupulous persons. A few
workers in silver have produced some crude ornaments, but the Hopi
gets his buttons, belt ornaments, etc., from the adept Navaho,
silversmiths by trade, through whom also strings of beads come from
the pueblos of the Rio Grande.
The rocks all over the Southwest bear witness that the Hopi can draw.
In thousands of instances he expressed his meaning in symbols or in
compositions representing the chase of the deer or mountain goat. One
of these groups on the smooth rocks near Holbrook, Arizona, shows a
man driving a flock of turkeys, and is exceedingly graphic. On the
cliff faces below Walpi are numerous well-executed pictographs, and
occasionally one runs across recent work on the mesa top that excites
admiration. With sculpture in the round the Hopi has done nothing
remarkable because his tastes and materials have never led in this
direction. A few rather large figures rudely carved from soft
sandstone may be seen around the pueblos, and numerous fetiches, some
of very hard stone, representing wolves, bears, and other animals, are
still in the keeping of the societies. Some of these are very well
done, but show little progress in sculpture. The visitor must beware
of the little fetiches whittled from soft stone and offered for sale
as genuine by the guileful Hopi in quest of _shiba_.
The industry which the Hopi woman has all in her own hands is
basket-making, and the work is apportioned to such as have the skill
and fancy for it, as if there were a division of labor. The women of
the three towns on the East Mesa do not make baskets at all, those of
the Middle Mesa sew only coiled baskets, while the women of Oraibi
weave wicker baskets exclusively. Thus, there is no difficulty in
saying just where a Hopi basket comes from, and there is also no
excuse for not recognizing these specimens of Hopi woman's work at
first glance, as they have a strong individuality that separates them
from all other baskets of the Indians.
If one should visit the most skilful basket-maker of the Middle Mesa,
Kuchyeampsi, that modest little woman, might be seen busily at work,
and from her a great deal about the construction of coiled baskets
could be learned. But it would take some time and patience to find
that the grass whose stems she gathers for the body of the coil is
named _takashu_, which botanists know as _Hilaria jamesii_, and that
the strips which she sews over and joins the coil are from the leaves
of the useful _mohu_ (_Yucca glauca_).
Then when Kuchyeampsi comes home laden with her basket materials one
must take further lessons in stripping the yucca leaves, splitting
them with the thumb-nail to uniform size, and dyeing some of them
various colors, for which anilines are principally used in these
degenerate days. One must have an eye for the colors of the natural
leaves of the yucca and select the yellow or yellowish green of the
old leaves, the vivid green of the young leaves, and the white of the
heart leaves, for the basket weaver discriminates all of these and
uses them in her work.
Of course Kuchyeampsi has all her material ready, the strips buried in
moist sand, the grass moistened, and she may be starting a plaque. The
slender coil at the center is too small to be formed with grass stems,
so she builds it up of waste bits from the leaf-stripping, wrapping it
with yucca strips, and taking only a few stitches with the encircling
coil, since the bone awl is too clumsy for continuous stitching at the
outset. After the third round the bone awl is plied, continuously
piercing through under the coil and taking in the stitches beneath
strips. As a hole is made the yucca strip is threaded through and
drawn tight on the grass coil, and so the patient work goes on till
the basket is complete. The patterns which appear on the baskets are
stored up in the maker's brain and unfold as the coil progresses with
the same accuracy as is evinced by the pottery decorator. The finish
of the end of the coil gives an interesting commentary on Hopi
beliefs. It is said that the woman who leaves the coil end unfinished
does not complete it because that would close her life and no more
children would bless her.
At Oraibi one may see the women making wicker tray-baskets. Three or
four slender sumach twigs are wickered together side by side at the
middle and another similar bundle laid across the first at right
angles. Then dyed branches of a desert plant known as "rabbit brush"
are woven in and out between the twigs, and as the basket progresses
she adds other radial rods until the basket is large enough. She
finishes the edge by bending over the sumach ribs, forming a core,
around which she wraps strips of yucca.
One must admire the accuracy with which the designs are kept in mind
and woven into the structure of the basket with splints of various
colors or strips of tough yucca. The translation of a design into the
radiating sewing of the coiled basket or the horizontal filling of
the wicker basket shows the necessity of the different treatments,
contrasting with the freedom which it is the potter's privilege to
display on the smooth surface of her ware. So far as known the Hopi
women never fail in applying their designs, however intricate.
Frequently these designs represent mythical birds, butterflies,
clouds, etc.
Among the Hopi certain of the villages are noted for their local
manufactures. Thus Walpi and Hano are practically the only towns where
pottery is made, the Middle Mesa towns are headquarters for coiled
baskets, and Oraibi furnishes wicker baskets. Perhaps the meaning of
this is that these arts belong to clans, who have preserved them and
know the secrets, and with the dying out of the workers or migration
of the clans the arts have disappeared or have been transformed.
Another cause which will suggest itself is the local abundance and
quality of the materials required to be found in the surrounding
plains and mountains.
Basketry has at least as many uses as pottery among the Hopi, and a
number of kinds besides the familiar plaques with symbolical
decoration have been eagerly sought by collectors. The crops from the
fields are borne to the houses on the mesas in carrying baskets,
resembling a pannier, which are worked of wicker over a frame of two
bent sticks crossed at right angles. In the house the coiled and
wicker trays heaped high with corn meal, the basket for parched corn
and the sifting basket near the corn grinding stones, will be found.
In the bread-baking room is the coarse, though effective, _piki_ tray,
and occasionally one may still see a neatly made floor mat. The thin
checker mat of ancient days has long since gone out of use, but
formerly, the dead were wrapped in such mats before they were placed
in the earth.
Over the fireplace is a hood of basketry plastered to prevent burning.
The wicker cradle to which the infant hopeful is bound must not be
forgotten. Several small globular wicker baskets for various purposes
may also be displayed among the household belongings. The mat of grass
stems in which the wedding blanket is folded is also a kind of
basketry, as are the twined mats for covering the hatchway of the kiva
and the twined fence around the fields.
With all their own resources, the Hopi are great collectors of baskets
from other tribes. One must not be surprised to see in use in the Hopi
houses the water bottles coated with pitch and the well-made
basket-bowls from the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon, the Pimas of
southern Arizona, and other tribes touched by Hopi commerce.
The vizors of old masks used in the ceremonies were of basketry,
generally a section cut from a Ute basket-bowl, which shows one of the
most interesting employments of baskets among the Hopi. The highly
decorated trays may also be said to have a sacred character from their
frequent appearance in the ceremonies, where they are used to contain
prayer-sticks, meal, etc. Appropriately the women's ceremonies display
many baskets on the altars, and in the public dances each woman
carries a bright plaque. One of the episodes of these ceremonies is
full of action when women throw baskets to men who struggle
energetically for them. On this account these ceremonies have been
called Basket Dances.
One of the frequent sights in a Hopi town is a woman carrying a
heaped-up plaque of meal of her own grinding as a present to some
friend. This usually happens on the eve of a ceremony, like our
Christmas gifts, but no one must fail to notice that an equal present
is religiously brought in return.
The Hopi value their baskets; they appreciate fully a pretty thing,
and this explains why one of the Sichomovi men, who is rich in
Havasupai baskets, has had the good taste to decorate the walls of the
best room of his house with these trophies of Cataract Canyon.
Judging from the number of ruins in the Southwest, it might be thought
that the former inhabitants spent much of their time in laying up
walls and considered the work easy. What these ruins do show in an
emphatic way is the organization of the builders and what mutual aid
will accomplish.
Dismiss the idea of the modern architect, builder, laborers, brick
makers, planing mill hands, plumbers, etc., combining to get ready a
dwelling for a family, and substitute in their place all the Indian
relatives, from the infant to the superannuated, lending willing
hands for the "raising." The primitive architect is there, builders
too, of skill and experience and a full corps of those who furnish
builders' supplies, including the tot who carries a little sand in her
dress and those who ransack the country round for brush, clay, beams,
stones, and water.
Before going farther it must be understood that house-building is
women's work among the Hopi, and these likewise are the house-owners.
It seems rather startling, then, that all the walls of the uninhabited
houses and the fallen walls of the ruins that prevail in the Southwest
should be mainly the work of women's hands, whose touch we might
expect to find on the decorated pottery, but not on the structures
that cause the Pueblo people to be known as house-builders. From this
one begins to understand the importance of woman in these little
nations of the desert.