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=Gods and Kachinas=
The Hopi live, move, and have their being in religion. To them the
unseen world is peopled with a host of beings, good and bad, and
everything in nature has its being or spirit.
Just what kind of religion shall we call this of the Hopi? Seeing the
importance of the sun in their rites, one is inclined to say Sun
Worship; but clouds, rain, springs, streams enter into the idea, and we
say Nature Worship. A study of the great Snake Cult suggests Snake
Worship; but their reverence for and communion with the spirits of
ancestors gives to this complex religious fabric of the Hopi a strong
quality of Ancestor Worship. It is all this and more.
The surface of the earth is ruled by a mighty being whose sway extends
to the underworld and over death, fire, and the fields. This is Masauwu,
to whom many prayers are said. Then there is the Spider Woman or Earth
Goddess, Spouse of the Sun and Mother of the Twin War Gods, prominent in
all Hopi mythology. Apart from these and the deified powers of nature,
there is another revered group, the Kachinas, spirits of ancestors and
some other beings, with powers good and bad. These Kachinas are
colorfully represented in the painted and befeathered dolls, in masks
and ceremonies, and in the main are considered beneficent and are
accordingly popular. They intercede with the spirits of the other world
in behalf of their Hopi earth-relatives.
Masked individuals represent their return to the land of the living from
time to time in Kachina dances, beginning with the Soyaluna ceremony in
December and ending with the Niman or Kachina Farewell ceremony in July.
Much of this sort of thing takes on a lighter, theatrical flavor
amounting to a pageant of great fun and frolic. Dr. Hough says these are
really the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, musical,
spectacular, delightfully entertaining, and they show the cheerful Hopi
at his best--a true, spontaneous child of nature.
There are a great many of these Kachina dances through the winter and
spring, their nature partly religious, partly social, for with the Hopi,
religion and drama go hand in hand. Dr. Hough speaks appreciatively of
these numerous occasions of wholesome merry-making, and says these
things keep the Hopi out of mischief and give them a reputation for
minding their own business, besides furnishing them with the best round
of free theatrical entertainments enjoyed by any people in the world.
Since every ceremony has its particular costumes, rituals, songs, there
is plenty of variety in these matters and more detail of meaning than
any outsider has ever fathomed.
The Niman, or farewell dance of the Kachinas, takes place in July. It is
one of their big nine-day festivals, including secret rites in the kivas
and a public dance at its close.
Messengers are sent on long journeys for sacred water, pine boughs, and
other special objects for these rites. This is a home-coming festival
and a Hopi will make every effort to get home to his own town for this
event. On the ninth day there is a lovely pageant just before sunrise
and another in the afternoon. No other ceremony shows such a gorgeous
array of colorful masks and costumes. And it is a particularly happy day
for the young folk, for the Kachinas bring great loads of corn, beans,
and melons, and baskets of peaches, especially as gifts for the
children; also new dolls and brightly painted bows and arrows are given
them. The closing act of the drama is a grand procession carrying sacred
offerings to a shrine outside the village.
This is the dance at which the brides of the year make their first
public appearance; their snowy wedding blankets add a lovely touch to
the colorful scene.
=Religion Not For Morality=
The Hopi is religious, and he is moral, but there is no logical
connection between the two.
Mrs. Coolidge says:[18] "In all that has been said concerning the gods
and the Kachinas, the spiritual unity of all animate life, the
personification of nature and the correct conduct for attaining favor
with the gods, no reference has been made to morality as their object.
The purpose of religion in the mind of the Indian is to gain the
favorable, or to ward off evil, influences which the super-spirits are
capable of bringing to the tribe or the individual. Goodness,
unselfishness, truth-telling, respect for property, family, and filial
duty, are cumulative by-products of communal living, closely connected
with religious beliefs and conduct, but not their object. The Indian,
like other people, has found by experience that honesty is the best
policy among friends and neighbors, but not necessarily so among
enemies; that village life is only tolerable on terms of mutual safety
of property and person; that industry and devotion to the family
interest make for prosperity and happiness. Moral principles are with
him the incidental product of his ancestral experience, not primarily
inculcated by the teaching of any priest or shaman. Yet the Pueblos show
a great advance over many primitive tribes in that their legends and
their priests reiterate constantly the idea that 'prayer is not
effective except the heart be good.'"
[Footnote 18: Coolidge, Mary Roberts, The Rain-makers: Houghton Mifflin
Co., New York, 1929, p. 203.]