was cut and bleeding, and covered with splinters of yucca and
willow. The flagellation, he told them, had been administered by
Calako, who told him that he must endure this laceration before he
could look upon the beings he had invoked; that only to those who
passed through his ordeals could Calako become visible; and as the
lad had braved the test so well, he should henceforth be chief of
the Calako altar. The lad could not describe Calako, but said that
his two wives were exceedingly beautiful and arrayed with all
manner of fine garments. They wore great headdresses of clouds and
every kind of corn which they were to give to the Hopi to plant
for food. These were white, red, yellow, blue, black, blue and
white speckled, and red and yellow speckled corn, and a seeded
grass (_kwapi_).
The lad returned to the altar and shook his rattle over the hole
in the rock and from its interior Calako conversed with him and
gave him instructions. In accordance with these he gathered all
the Hopi youths and brought them to the rock, that Calako might
select certain of them to be his priests. The first test was that
of putting their hands in the mud and impressing them upon the
rock. Only those were chosen as novices the imprints of whose
hands had dried on the instant. The selected youths then moved
within the altar and underwent the test of flagellation. Calako
lashed them with yucca and willow. Those who made no outcry were
told to remain in the altar, to abstain from salt and flesh for
ten days, when Calako would return and instruct them concerning
the rites to be performed when they sought his aid.
Calako and his two wives appeared at the appointed time, and after
many ceremonials gave to each of the initiated five grains of each
of the different kinds of corn. The Hopi women had been instructed
to place baskets woven of grass at the foot of the rock, and in
these Calako's wives placed the seeds of squashes, melons, beans,
and all the other vegetables which the Hopi have since possessed.
Calako and his wives, after announcing that they would again
return, took off their masks and garments, and laying them on the
rock disappeared within it.
Some time after this, when the initiated were assembled in the
altar, the Great Plumed Snake appeared to them and said that
Calako could not return unless one of them was brave enough to
take the mask and garments down into the hole and give it to him.
They were all afraid, but the oldest man of the Hopi took them
down and was deputed to return and represent Calako.
Shortly afterward Masauwuh stole the paraphernalia and with his
two brothers masqueraded as Calako and his wives. This led the
Hopi into great trouble, and they incurred the wrath of Muiyinwuh,
who withered all their grain and corn. One of the Hopi finally
discovered that the supposed Calako carried a cedar bough in his
hand, when it should have been willow; then they knew it was
Masauwuh who had been misleading them. The boy hero one day found
Masauwuh asleep, and so regained possession of the mask, Muiyinwuh
then withdrew his punishments and sent _Palulukon_ (The Plumed
Snake) to tell the Hopi that Calako would never return to them,
but that the boy hero should wear his mask and represent him, and
his festival should be celebrated when they had a proper number of
novices to be initiated.
* * * * *
The celebration occurs in the modern Hopi pueblos in the Powamu
ceremony, where the representative of Calako flogs the children.
Calako's picture is found on the Powamu altars of several of the
villages of the Hopi.[16]
[16] Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Expedition to Arizona in 1895, 17th
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part 2,
Washington, 1898. C has the sound of sh.
IX
TRADITIONS AND HISTORY
When men grow old, they become, as if realizing their passing years,
willing or even anxious to transfer to younger minds what they have
learned. To the old men the historian of Hopi turns for information;
the young men by the laws of growth live in the present. So when an
old man dies there is a feeling of regret; especially when one as
versed in the lore of his people as Masimptua departs, for who knows
whether the pictures of his brain are impressed upon the minds of the
new generation or whether they are lost forever?
Masimptua was one of the chief men of the East Mesa. His house was as
large and neatly-kept as any in Sichomovi, where there is more room to
build large dwellings than in circumscribed Walpi with its narrow
cells. His children were grown up and married, and a number of little
ones called him grandfather. Still his resting place is among the
rocks on the mesa slope below the town, unmarked, as are those of his
ancestors who sleep outside of the walls of the ruined cities of the
Southwest. It is pleasant to remember "Masi" in his cheerful days,
before warning shadow fell across his sunny spirit. In those days he
was a genuine Hopi, a little boisterous, perhaps, but truly
openhearted. No man in all the tribe could relate more vividly the
legendary history of the old times, hence Masi stands to all who knew
him as the exponent of Hopi traditions. Often summer evenings,
returning from his fields he would tarry at the camp of the white
people at the Sun Spring for a friendly smoke and chat. Here under the
genial influences, led on by skillful questioning, he would unfold
many a tale as interesting as those of an Eastern storyteller, till
the sunset faded and the bright stars twinkled in the clear night sky.
One of his stories gives an idea of the happenings in Hopiland some
centuries ago. At that time the people suffered from the attacks of
the bands of Apache, who came out of their hunting grounds to the
south in search of trouble. The trails to the mesa were closed and the
Hopi went up and down the precipitous rock sides by means of a ladder
which could be drawn up in time of danger. Masi could not avoid
painting the prowess of the Hopi in strong colors while he described
the last attack the Apache made when his grandfather was a boy. He
gesticulated excitedly as though he were giving the death-blow to each
of the fallen enemy that had fled before the valiant Hopi, and his
hearer caught the contagion of his enthusiasm and slew with him the
hated foe.
Another tradition he related was about the ancient people. Looking
toward the Southwest he said, "Do you see two small peaks close
together on the horizon? There is one of the houses of the sun, where
he rests when he is in the west. Our people once lived in a rock town
on the peak to the left. The town was called '_Chub i o chala ki_,'
'The house of the place of the Antelopes,' where also there are pine
trees, shrubs and flowers, grass and much water. Perhaps it was here,
who knows?" said he, "that the people were almost overwhelmed by a
great flood which kept rising over the plains and over the hills till
it reached nearly the tops of the mountains where the ancestors were
waiting in fear. When the boy and girl were thrown into the flood,
then came safety, for the wrath of the earth-god was appeased and the
waters went down. But the youth and maiden heroes were turned into two
great stone pillars, which bear their names to this day." (See Myths.)
This striking legend of some almost forgotten deluge related by Masi
is not found alone among the Hopi, but is widespread among the Pueblos
of the Southwest. Surely, there is no danger now of a flood in this
dry region, but in former times as the vast levels and the beds of
ancient lakes show, there must have been plenty of water. Masi's
traditions do not go into geological periods, however.
Another time, while in reminiscent mood, Masi divulged that "very,
very when" ago the Peaceful People lived on the Little Colorado River
near Winslow. The name of the region where several towns were
scattered over an extent of fifteen miles or so was Homolobi, "the
place of two views." Here the people lived centuries before they came
to the precipitous mesas of Hopiland. Later, when explorers tested the
accuracy of Masi's tradition, they found in the low mounds that mark
the ruined towns of Homolobi, many wonderful relics of the people who
lived there before America was even a name. So Masi was proved a
reliable traditionist, and an "honisht man," as Toby, the Tewa, says.
It is truly remarkable how the traditions and legendary lore have been
carried down from ancient times among the Hopi. The moderns, who are
accustomed to place reliance in recorded history, might be inclined to
doubt the accuracy of oral tradition, if there were not much reason to
believe otherwise. For instance, the Hopi have a number of traditions
of the Spanish friars who lived in their country after the discovery
by Coronado about three hundred and seventy-five years ago. An Oraibi
Indian relates one of these minor traditions which might be expected
to have been lost in the lapse of time but has been passed down with
complete preservation of all the details.
It is thus: the friars who lived at Oraibi did not relish the water
from the springs near the pueblo. Now the water at Moenkapi, the
summer village of Oraibi, is excellent. The priests used to compel
the Indians to bring water from that place. It chanced that the
Indian whose duty it was to carry water from Moenkapi, not liking to
bring water many miles _por el amor de Dios_, one day filled his
canteen with the water of Oraibi and brought it to the friars. On
tasting the water, they accused the Indian of deceit and compelled him
to go to Moenkapi for more.
An old chief of Walpi gave a long and circumstantial account of the
rule of the friars, against whom even at this late day he was very
bitter. He said with emphasis, "_Castil shimuno posh kalolomi_," "The
Spanish are very bad," and related how they strove to enslave the
people, making them carry large cottonwood beams from the Little
Colorado for the churches. To our knowledge, a few of these beams from
the old churches, curiously carved, are now doing service in the
ceilings of pagan kivas or underground rooms where secret ceremonies
are carried on. The "long gowns," as the Indians also call them, might
have held this tractable, timid people long in subjection in the
non-essential things, such as labor, but as the old chief relates,
they interfered with their time-honored ceremonies of ancestor and
nature worship. "They said the dances were very bad and we must stop
them," explained the old chief. There was still another grievance that
the Hopi allege against the friars, and that was their treatment of
the women. Interference with religion and custom have been at the
bottom of most of the troubles of humanity. At last the Peaceful
People turned and the _Castil shinumo_ were thrown over the rocky
mesa, and from that time to this their names have been execrated by
the Hopi.
Traditions of the very first appearance of Spaniards before the
Pueblos have come down for ten generations as fresh as though the
events had happened last year, and they can be compared with the
accounts of the conquerors themselves. This lapse of time has not
given mythical tinge to these events. It may be believed, then, that
the ancient history which has become mythical dates very far back and
to regions far removed from the present mesas of Hopiland. Every ruin
in the province, those south on the Little Colorado and farther beyond
the dim Mogollon Mountains on the horizon and those to other compass
points for surprising distances are known in Hopi traditions, and wise
is the student of ancient things in Tusayan who first fortifies
himself by delving in this store of unwritten history.
The duties of the warrior chiefs are not burdensome, since the Hopi
have fostered the arts of peace till it has become a national
characteristic. It is fortunate for the Hopi that they belong to those
who run away, not even "to fight another day," desirous to live in
contentment and happy to exist on the earth, after the fierce enemies
have jostled many tribes out of existence. Still, the Hopi keep up in
a feeble, traditional way a warrior society, which corresponds to the
powerful Priesthood of the Bow who are said to rule Zuñi. So in the
villages of Tusayan the warriors are merely ornamental and dance
bravely in some ceremonies, though at some critical period of invasion
the necessity of drawing the "dead line" might fall upon the warrior
society, as it has beforetimes.
When one day in the year 1540 the Spaniards halted under the Hopi
towns there was consternation among the people at the sight of the
armored conquerors and all held back in their houses for fear of them.
Not so the warrior priests, who, striding down the trail, sprinkled a
line of meal between the town and the Spaniards. According to
immemorial custom this line of meal means that no one shall pass under
penalty of death. One of the Spanish soldiers crossed the line and was
killed by the warriors. Then the Spanish friar who came with the
expedition in quest of new souls to save, cried out in effect, "What
are we here for?"; a volley followed; the Hopi heard the report of a
gun for the first time, and a number of them bit the dust. The
remainder fled to the village, which was thoroughly frightened at the
terrible visitation of bearded foes. On the next day a deputation came
down to the Spanish camp bringing presents and offering humble
submission to the white men.
More than three centuries later, a body of United States troops who
were sent to coerce the Oraibi because they would not send their
children to school, met with a similar experience, but by good
management no blood was shed and the Indian leaders were exiled to
California for a year or so. It is a curious circumstance that in our
country where the past is forgotten so soon there should exist a
people who remember and take warning from the events of almost four
centuries ago.
On the rocks below Walpi there is a curiously carved record which has
a good bit of war history connected with it. Hear Anowita, the Warrior
Chief, tell the story:
Very when ago [long time] the Ute and Apache were always wishing
to kill the Good People. They were very bad. At that time there
was no trail up the great rocks to _Hopi-ki_ "Walpi." The people
climbed up and down a long ladder which could be drawn up at
night. I can show you where the ladder stood. It was bad for the
people to be frightened all the time, so they sent messengers to
ask the Tewa from the Great River to come and dwell at Walpi to
fight their enemies. The Tewa came, many families of them; there
was a battle at a spring north of Walpi and the Tewa killed as
many Utes as there are marks cut in the rock below the Gap. The
Ute did not come back again. The Tewa were given lands and springs
to the eastward and their village was set at the head of the trail
near the Gap so that they could guard the mesa.
This is the origin of the Tewa town of Hano on the East Mesa, through
which everyone must go who seeks an easy entrance into Walpi. One
cannot avoid thinking that the recorder of the battle of the spring
was not sparing with his list of dead Ute, which he scored with a
series of lines cut in a smooth sandstone face.
The explorations in the buried towns of a section of the ancient Hopi
which extend in a line from the Gila River to their present mesa homes
show that for all these centuries they have been unwarlike people.
There is the greatest scarcity of weapons, such as arrowheads and
spearheads, and there are few war axes to be found among the numerous
relics of peaceful pursuits, though wooden clubs were no doubt used.
This accords with the situation of the towns on high, easily defended
positions and the building of houses in clusters, the outer walls
forming a fortification which defied assailants.
Only once during their history did the Hopi light the fires of war,
and this was a religious conflict carried on in true Indian fashion.
About the beginning of the seventeenth century the Spanish priests had
gained a foothold in the town of Awatobi, situated on a high mesa
south of Walpi. The Awatobi Hopi had prospered, and their valley,
presenting to the south a marvelous panorama of the lava buttes,
produced abundant food besides cotton for woven fabrics. Awatobi was a
large town of Hopiland; the walls of the mission church still stand
high enough to be a landmark miles away. The houses were four stories
high and they were sufficient to accommodate 1,000 souls.
Perhaps this prosperity caused envy; perhaps the submission to the
priests roused enmity; the other Hopi said that the Awatobi were
witches, and one night they gathered to exterminate them. The Awatobi
men were conducting a ceremony in the underground rooms when blazing
fagots were thrown down, followed by pepper pods, and they perished
miserably. Those who were captured in the houses were led out to a
spring and massacred. The women and children, many of them, were taken
to other Hopi towns and their lives spared.
This massacre took place about the year 1700 and forms the darkest
page in the history of Tusayan; it shows also that the Peaceful People
can be overzealous at times. In times much before this, according to
tradition, Sikyatki, the home of the Firewood people, who were the
last potters of Tusayan, was destroyed, as were, no doubt, other
pueblos of tribes of different origin from the Hopi.
The story of Saalako, who descends from a survivor of the Awatobi
massacre, runs as follows:
The chiefs Wiki and Simo, and others, have told you their stories,
and surely their ancestors were living here at Walpi when Awatobi
was occupied. It was a large village, and many people lived there,
and the village chief was called Tapolo, but he was not at peace
with his people, and there was quarreling and trouble. Owing to
this conflict only a little rain fell, but the land was fertile
and fair harvests were still gathered. The Awatobi men were bad
[_powako_, sorcerers]. Sometimes they went in small bands among
the fields of the other villagers and cudgeled any solitary
workers they found. If they overtook any woman they ravished her,
and they waylaid hunting parties, taking the game and sometimes
killing the hunters. There was considerable trouble at Awatobi,
and Tapolo sent to the Oraibi chief asking him to bring his people
and kill the evil Awatobeans. The Oraibis came and fought with
them, and many were killed on both sides, but the Oraibis were not
strong enough to enter the village and were compelled to withdraw.
On his way back, the Oraibi chief stopped at Walpi and talked with
the chiefs there. Said he, "I can not tell why Tapolo wants the
Oraibis to kill his folks, but we have tried and have not
succeeded very well. Even if we did succeed, what benefit would
come to us who live too far away to occupy the land? You Walpi
people live close to them and have suffered most at their hands;
it is for you to try." While they were talking Tapolo had also
come, and it was then decided that other chiefs of all the
villages should convene at Walpi to consult. Couriers were sent
out, and when all the chiefs had arrived Tapolo declared that his
people had become sorcerers [Christians], and hence should all be
destroyed.
It was then arranged that in four days large bands from all the
other villages should prepare themselves, and assemble at a spring
not far away from Awatobi. A long while before this, when the
Spaniards lived there, they had built a wall on the side of the
village that needed protection, and in this wall was a great,
strong door. Tapolo proposed that the assailants should come
before dawn, and he would be at this door ready to admit them, and
under this compact he returned to his village. During the fourth
night after this, as agreed upon, the various bands assembled at
the deep gulch spring, and every man carried, besides his weapons,
a cedar-bark torch and a bundle of greasewood. Just before dawn
they moved silently up to the mesa summit, and, going directly to
the east side of the village they entered the gate, which opened
as they approached. In one of the courts was a large kiva, and in
it were a number of men engaged in sorcerer's rites. The
assailants at once made for the kiva, and plucking up the ladder,
they stood around the hatchway, shooting arrows down among the
entrapped occupants. In the numerous cooking pits fire had been
maintained through the night for the preparation of food for a
feast on the appointed morning, and from these they lighted their
torches. Great numbers of these and the bundles of greasewood
being set on fire were then cast down the hatchway, and firewood
from stacks upon the house terraces was also thrown into the kiva.
The red peppers for which Awatobi was famous were hanging in thick
clusters along the fronts of the houses, and these they crushed in
their hands and flung upon the blazing fire in the kiva to torment
their blazing occupants. After this, all who were capable of
moving were compelled to travel or drag themselves until they came
to the sand hills of Miconinovi, and there the final disposition
of the prisoners was made.
My maternal ancestor had recognized a woman chief (_Mamzrau
monwi_), and saved her at the place of massacre called Maski, and
now he asked her whether she would be willing to initiate the
women of Walpi in the rites of the Mamzrau. She complied, and thus
the observance of the ceremony called Mamzrauti came to the other
villages. This _Mamzrau monwi_ had no children and hence my
maternal ancestor's sister became chief, and her badge of office,
or tiponi, came to me. Some of the other Awatobi women knew how to
bring rain, and such of them as were willing to teach their songs
were spared and went to different villages. The Oraibi chief saved
a man who knew how to cause the peach to grow, and that is why
Oraibi has such an abundance of peaches now. The Miconinovi chief
saved a prisoner who knew how to make the sweet, small-ear corn
grow, and this is why it is more abundant there than elsewhere.
All the women who knew prayers and were willing to teach them were
spared, and no children were designedly killed, but were divided
among the villages, most of them going to Miconinovi. The
remainder of the prisoners, men and women, were again tortured and
dismembered and left to die on the sand hills, and there their
bones are, and the place is called Mastcomo, or Death Mound. This
is the story of Awatobi told by my people.[17]
[17] "Preliminary account of an expedition to the cliff villages
of the Red Rock country; and the Tusayan ruins of Sikyatki and
Awatobi, Arizona, in 1895." By J. Walter Fewkes, from the
Smithsonian Report for 1895, pp. 568-569.
It is difficult to conceive of the conservatism of some of the older
Hopi. A glimpse of the clinging to the myth of the golden age is shown
by the speech of the old chief Nashihiptuwa, to whom the past was an
ideal time of plenty and contentment under the bright sky of Tusayan.
It was Sunday and the camp by a peach orchard in a deep valley at the
Middle Mesa was made lively by the presence of about thirty Indian
laborers, mostly Walpi "boys." Far above on the rocky mesas could be
seen three Hopi towns which bear names difficult of pronunciation,
"The place of peaches" being most picturesque. To the West were
innumerable barren hillocks, furrowed and gullied, rising toward the
warm sandstone cliffs bearing the pueblos at the top. Along the wash
which from time immemorial had been carving out this wonderfully
sculptured valley were the bean and melon patches of the Indians, and
on the higher ground dark green peach orchards. Out of the mouth of
the valley there stretched the wide plain, merging into the many-hued
desert.
On this particular Sunday the exploring party felt out of sorts. The
Indian workmen who had been digging in the ruins of an ancient pueblo
near by had been served notice by the chief of the neighboring village
to quit and a warning sent to our party in this wise, "Go away, you
are bad; you bring the wind and keep away the rains." This is a grave
charge in a country where winds disperse the thunder clouds with their
precious burden before they reach the corn fields. No invention could
devise a more damaging statement. The Walpi, who are freer from
superstition than most of the Hopi, felt less desire to earn the
coveted silver after this announcement. Finally it was decided to ask
Nashihiptuwa to a council, talk it over with him and persuade him to
withdraw his ultimatum. A boy was dispatched to find him in his field
where he was at work.