FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE HOPI
Three great fingers of rock from a gigantic and misshapen hand, roughly
speaking, pointing southward, the hand a great plateau, the fingers
mesas of solid rock thrust into the heart of a sandy valley,--this
is the home of the Hopi, commonly and wrongly termed the Moki. The
fingers are from seven to ten miles apart, and a visitor can go from
one finger-nail to another either by descending and ascending the steep
trails zigzagged on the fingers' sides, or he can circle around on the
back of the hand and thus in a round-about manner reach any one of the
three fingers. These mesa fingers are generally spoken of as the first
or east mesa, the second or middle mesa, and the third or west mesa.
They gain their order from the fact that in the early days of American
occupancy Mr. T. V. Keam established a trading-post in the canyon that
bears his name, and this canyon being to the east of the eastern mesa,
this mesa was reached first in order, the western mesa naturally being
third.
On the east mesa are three villages. The most important of all Hopi
towns is Walpi, which occupies the "nail" of this first "finger." It is
not so large as Oraibi, but it has always held a commanding influence,
which it still retains. Half a mile back of Walpi is Sichumavi, and
still further back Hano, or, as it is commonly and incorrectly called,
Tewa.
About seven miles--as the crow flies--to the west is the second or
middle mesa, and here are Mashonganavi, Shipauluvi, and on an offshoot
from this second mesa, separated from it by a deep, sand-filled ravine,
is Shungopavi.
Ten miles farther to the west is Oraibi, which marks the farthest
western boundary of pueblo civilization.
Oh! the pathos, the woe, the untold but clearly written misery
of the centuries in these cliff-built houses of the mesas, these
residences that are fortresses, these steep trail-approached and
precipice-protected homes. In a desert land, surrounded by relentless,
wary, and vigilant foes, ever fighting a hard battle with the adverse
conditions of their environment, short of water, of firewood, and
with food grown in the desert-rescued lands below where at any moment
the ruthless marauder might appear, there is no wonder that almost
every elderly face is seamed and scarred; furrowed deeply with the
accumulated centuries of never-ceasing care. Mystery here seems at
first to reign supreme. It stands and faces one as a Presence. It
hovers and broods, and you feel it even in your sleep. The air is full
of it. The very clouds here are mysterious. Who are these people?
From whence came they? What is their destiny? What fearful battles,
race hatreds, devastating wars, led them to make their homes on
these inaccessible cliffs? How did they ever conceive such a mass of
elaborate ceremonial as now controls them? Solitary and alone they
appear, a vast question mark, viewed from every standpoint. Whichever
way one looks at them a great query stares him in the face. They are
the chief mystery of our country, an anachronism, an anomaly in our
twentieth-century civilization.
When we see the ruins of Egypt, India, Assyria, we look upon something
that is past. Those peoples _were_: they pertain to the ages that are
gone. Their mysteries are of lives lived in the dim ages of antiquity.
But here are antique lives being lived in our own day; pieces of
century-old civilizations transplanted, in time and place, and brought
into our time and place; the past existent in the present; the lapse
of centuries forgotten, and the days of thousands of years ago bodily
transferred into our commercial, super-cultured, hyper-refined age.
The approach to the first mesa from Keam's Canyon is through a sandy
country, which, in places, is dry, desolate, and bare. But here and
there are patches of ground upon which weeds grow to a great height,
plainly indicating that with cultivation and irrigation good crops
could be raised. As we leave the mouth of the canyon the singular
character of this plateau province is revealed. To the south the sandy
desert, in lonesome desolation, stretches away as far as the eye can
reach, its wearisome monotony relieved only by the close-by corn-fields
of the Hopis and the peculiar buttes of the Mogollons. With the sun
blazing down upon it, its forbidding barrenness is appalling. Neither
tree, shrub, blade of grass, animal, or human habitation is to be seen.
The sand reflects the sun's rays in a yellow glare which is irritating
beyond measure, and which seems as if it would produce insanity by its
unchangeableness.
To the right of us are the extremities of the sandstone plateaus, of
which the Hopi mesas are the thrust out fingers. Here and there are
breaks in the plateau which seem like openings into rocky canyons.
Before us, ten or more miles away, is the long wall of the first mesa,
its falling precipices red and glaring in the sun. Immense rocks of
irregular shape lie about on its summit as if tumbled to and fro in
some long-ago-forgotten frolic of prehistoric giants. Right before us,
and at about the mid distances of the "finger" from the main plateau,
the mesa wall is broken down in the form of a U-shaped notch or
gap,--from which Walpi, "the place of the gap," obtains its name; and
it is on the extremity of the mesa, beyond this notch, that the houses
of the Hopi towns can now clearly be discerned. Just beyond the notch a
little heap of houses, apparently of the same color as the mesa itself,
appears. Then a little vacant space and another small heap, followed
by another vacancy with a larger heap at the extreme end of the mesa.
These heaps, beginning at the notch, are respectively Tewa, Sichumavi,
and Walpi.
Dotting the slopes of the talus at the foot of the mesa precipices are
corn-fields, peach orchards, and corrals for burros, sheep, and goats.
As we approach nearer we see that the first mesa is rapidly losing
its distinctively Indian character. The policy of the United States
Government, in its treatment of these Indians, is to induce them, so
far as possible, to leave their mesa homes and reside in the valley
nearer to their corn-fields. As their enemies are no longer allowed to
molest them, their community life on these mesa heights is no longer
necessary, and the time lost and the energy wasted in climbing up and
down the steep trails could far better be employed in working in the
fields, caring for their orchards, or attending to their stock. But
while all this sounds well in theory, and on paper appears perfectly
reasonable, it fails to take into consideration the influence of
heredity and the personal passions, desires, and feelings of volitional
beings. As a result, the government plan is not altogether a success.
The Indian agents, however, have induced certain of the Hopis, by
building houses for them, to consent to a partial abandonment of their
mesa homes. Accordingly, as one draws nearer, he sees the stone houses
with their red-painted corrugated-iron roofs, the schoolhouse, the
blacksmith's shop, and the houses of the teachers, all of which speak
significantly of the change that is slowly hovering over the Indian's
dream of solitude and desolation.
But after our camp is made and the horses sent out in the care of
willing Indians to the Hopi pastures, we find that the trails to the
mesa summit are the same; the glaring yellow sand is the same; the
red and gray rocks are the same; the fleecy and dark clouds that
occasionally appear at this the rainy time are the same; the glaring,
pitiless sun with its infernal scorching is the same; and we respire
and perspire and pant and struggle in our climb to the summit in the
same old arduous fashion. Above, in Hano, Sichumavi, and Walpi, the
pot-bellied, naked children, the lithe and active young men, the
not unattractive, shapely, and kindly-faced young women, with their
peculiar symbolic style of hair-dressing, the blear-eyed old men
and women, the patient and stolid burros, the dim-eyed and pathetic
captive eagles, the quaint terraced-houses with their peculiar
ladders, grotesque chimneys, passageways, and funny little steps, are
practically the same as they have been for centuries.
There are two trails from the valley to the summit of the first mesa on
the east side, one at the point, and three on the west side. We ascend
by the northeastern trail, which, on reaching the "Notch" or "Gap,"
winds close by an enclosure in which is found a large fossil, bearing a
rude resemblance to a stone snake. All around this fossil, within the
stone enclosure, are to be found "bahos," or prayer sticks, which have
been brought by the devout as their offerings to the Snake Divinities.
From time immemorial this shrine has been in existence, and no Hopi
ever passes it without some offering to "Those Above," either in the
form of a baho, a sprinkling of the sacred meal, the ceremonial smoking
to the six cardinal points, or a few words of silent but none the less
devout and earnest prayer.
At the head of this trail is Hano, and from this pueblo we can gain
a general idea of Hopi architecture, for, with differences in minor
details, the general styles are practically the same. Where they
gained their architectural knowledge it is hard to tell, and who they
are is yet an unsolved problem. It is pretty generally conceded,
however, that all the pueblo peoples of Arizona and New Mexico--of
whom the Hopis are the most western--are the descendants of the race,
or races, who dotted these territories and southern Colorado with
ruins, and who are commonly known as the Cliff and Cave Dwellers. But
this is thrusting the difficulty only a few generations, or scores of
generations, further back. For we are at once compelled to the agnostic
answer, "I don't know!" when asked who are the Cliff Dwellers. Who they
are and whence they came are still problems upon which such patient
investigators as J. Walter Fewkes is working. He has clearly confirmed
the decision of Bancroft and others which affirmed the identity of
the Cliff and Cave Dwellers with the Hopis and other pueblo-inhabiting
Indians of the Southwest.
[Illustration: HANO, (TEWA) FROM THE HEAD OF THE TRAIL.]
Although of different linguistic stocks and religion, the homes of
the pueblo Indians are very similar. Almost without exception the
pueblos built on mesa summits are of sandstone or other rock, plastered
with adobe mud brought up from the water-courses of the valley.
Those pueblos that are located in the valley, on the other hand, are
generally built of adobe.
No one can doubt that the Indians chose these elevated mesa sites for
purposes of protection. With but one or two almost inaccessible trails
reaching the heights, and these easily defendable, their homes were
their fortresses. Their fields, gardens, and hunting-grounds were in
the valleys or far-away mountains, whither they could go in times of
peace; but, when attacked by foes, they fled up the trails, established
elaborate methods of defence, and remained in their fortress-homes
until the danger was past.
The very construction of the houses reveals this. In none of the older
houses is there any doorway into the lowest story. A solid wall faces
the visitor, with perhaps a small window-hole. A rude ladder outside
and a similar one inside afford the only means of entrance. One climbs
up the ladder outside, drops through a hole in the roof, and descends
the ladder inside. When attacked, the outer ladder could be drawn up,
and thus, if we remember the crude weapons of the aborigines when
discovered by the white man, it is evident that the inhabitants would
remain in comparative security.
Of late years doors and windows have been introduced into many of the
ancient houses.
It is a picturesque sight that the visitor to the Hopi towns enjoys
as he reaches the head of the trail at Hano. The houses are built in
terraces, two or three stories high, the second story being a step
back from the first, so that a portion of the roof of the first story
can be used as the courtyard or children's playground of the people
who inhabit the second story. The third story recedes still farther,
so that its people have a front yard on the roof of the second story.
At Zuni and Taos these terraces continue for six and seven stories,
but with the Hopis never exceed three. The first climb is generally
made on a ladder, which rests in the street below. The ladder-poles,
however, are much longer than is necessary, and they reach up
indefinitely towards the sky. Sometimes a ladder is used to go from
the second to the third story, but more often a quaint little stairway
is built on the connecting walls. Equally quaint are the ollas used as
chimneys. These have their bottoms knocked out, and are piled one above
another, two, three, four, and sometimes five or six high. Some of the
"terraces" are partially enclosed, and here one may see a weaver's
loom, a flat stone for cooking _piki_ (wafer bread), or a beehive-like
oven used for general cooking purposes. Here and there cord-wood is
piled up for future use, and now and again a captive eagle, fastened
with a rawhide tether to the bars of a rude cage, may be seen. The
"king of birds" is highly prized for his down and feathers, which are
used for the making of prayer plumes (bahos).
There does not seem to have been much planning in the original
construction of the Hopi pueblos. There was little or no provision
made for the future. The first houses were built as needed, and then as
occasion demanded other rooms were added.
It will doubtless be surprising to some readers to learn that the Hopi
houses are owned and _built_ (in the main) by the women, and that the
men weave the women's garments and knit their own stockings. Here,
too, the women enjoy other "rights" that their white sisters have
long fought for. The home life of the Hopis is based upon the rights
of women. They own the houses; the wife receives her newly married
husband into her home; the children belong to her clan, and have her
clan name, and not that of the father; the corn, melons, squash, and
other vegetables belong to her when once deposited in her house by the
husband. She, indeed, is the queen of her own home, hence the pueblo
Indian woman occupies a social relationship different from that of most
aborigines, in that she is on quite equal terms with her husband.
In the actual building of the houses, however, the husband is required
to perform his share, and that is the most arduous part of the labor.
He goes with his burros to the wooded mesas or cottonwood-lined streams
and brings the roof-timbers, ladder-poles, and door-posts. He also
brings the heavier rocks needed in the building. Then the women aid him
in placing the heavier objects, after which he leaves them to their own
devices.
Being an intensely religious people, the shamans or priests are always
called upon when a new house is to be constructed. Bahos--prayer plumes
or sticks--are placed in certain places, sacred meal is lavishly
sprinkled, and singing and prayer offered, all as propitiation to
those gods whose especial business it is to care for the houses.
It is exceedingly interesting to see the women at work. Without
plumb-line, straight line, or trowel they proceed. Some women are
hod-carriers, bringing the pieces of sand or limestone rock to the
"bricklayers" in baskets, buckets, or dish pans. Others mix the adobe
to the proper consistency and see that the workers are kept supplied
with it. And what a laughing, chattering, jabbering group it is! Every
tongue seems to be going, and no one listening. Once at Oraibi I saw
twenty-three women engaged in the building of a house, and I then got
a new "side light" on the story of the Tower of Babel; The builders of
that historic structure were women, and the confusion of tongues was
the natural result of their feminine determination to all speak at once
and never listen to any one else.
I photographed the builders at Oraibi, and the next day contributed a
new dress to each of the twenty-three workers. Here are some of their
names: Wa-ya-wei-i-ni-ma, Mo-o-ho, Ha-hei-i, So-li, Ni-vai-un-si,
Si-ka-ho-in-ni-ma, Na-i-so-wa, Ma-san-i-yam-ka, Ko-hoi-ko-cha,
Tang-a-ka-win-ka, Hun-o-wi-ti, Ko-mai-a-ni-ma, Ke-li-an-i-ma.
The finishing of the house is as interesting as the actual building.
With a small heap of adobe mud the woman, using her hand as a trowel,
fills in the chinks, smooths and plasters the walls inside and out.
Splashed from head to foot with mud, she is an object to behold, and,
as is often the case, if her children are there to "help" her, no
mud-larks on the North River, the Missouri, or the Thames ever looked
more happy in their complete abandonment to dirt than they. Then when
the whitewashing is done with gypsum, or the coloring of the walls with
a brown wash, what fun the children have. No pinto pony was ever more
speckled and variegated than they as they splash their tiny hands into
the coloring matter and dash it upon the walls.
[Illustration: HOPI WOMEN BUILDING A HOUSE AT ORAIBI.]
[Illustration: MASHONGANAVI FROM THE TERRACE BELOW.]
Inside the houses the walls also are whitewashed or colored, and
generally there is some attempt made to decorate them by painting rude
though symbolic designs half-way between the floor and ceiling. The
floor is of earth, well packed down with water generally mixed with
plaster, and the ceiling is of the sustaining poles and cross-beams,
over which willows and earth have been placed. Invariably one can find
feathered bahos, or prayer plumes, in the beams above, and no house
could expect to be prospered where these offerings to "Those Above"
were neglected.
The chief family room serves as kitchen, dining-room,
corn-grinding-room, bedroom, parlor, and reception-room. In one
corner a quaint, hooded fireplace is built, and here the housewife
cooks her _piki_ and other corn foods, boils or bakes her squash,
roasts, broils, or boils the little meat she is able to secure, and
sits during the winter nights while "the elders" tell stories of the
wondrous past, when all the animals talked like human beings and the
mysterious people--the gods--from the upper world came down to earth
and associated with mankind.
The corn-grinding trough is never absent. Sometimes it is on a little
raised platform, and is large or small as the size of the family
demands. The trough is composed either of wooden or stone slabs,
cemented into the floor and securely fastened at the corners with
rawhide thongs. This trough is then divided into two, three, four, or
more compartments (according to its size), and in each compartment a
sloping slab of basic rock is placed. Kneeling behind this, the woman
who is the grinder of the meal (the true lady, _laf-dig_, even though
a Hopi) seizes in both hands a narrower flat piece of the same kind of
rock, and this, with the motion of a woman over a washboard, she moves
up and down, throwing a handful of corn every few strokes on the upper
side of her grinder. This is arduous work, and yet I have known the
women and maidens to keep steadily at it during the entire day.
When the meal is ground, a small fire is made of corn cobs, over which
an earthern olla is placed. When this is sufficiently heated the meal
is stirred about in it by means of a round wicker basket, to keep it
from burning. This process partially cooks the meal, so that it is more
easily prepared into food when needed.
In one corner of the house several large ollas will be found full of
water. Living as they do on these mesa heights, where there are no
springs, water is scarce and precious. Every drop, except the little
that is caught in rain-time or melted from the snows, has to be carried
up on the backs of the women from the valley below. In the heat of
summer, this is no light task. With the fierce Arizona sun beating down
upon them, the feet slipping in the hot sand or wearily pressing up on
the burning rocks, the olla, filled with water, wrapped in a blanket
and suspended from the forehead on the back, becomes heavier and
heavier at each step. Those of us who have, perforce, carried cameras
and heavy plates to the mesa tops know what strength and endurance this
work requires.
For dippers home-made pottery and gourd shells are commonly used. Now
and again one will find the horn of a mountain sheep, which has been
heated, opened out into a large spoon-like dipper; or a gnarled or
knotty piece of wood, hacked out with flint knife into a pretty good
resemblance to a dipper.
Near the water ollas one can generally see a shelf upon which the
household utensils are placed. Here, too, when corn is being ground,
a half-dozen plaques of meal will stand. This shelf serves as pantry
and meat safe (when there is meat), and the hungry visitor will seldom
look there in vain for a basket-platter or two piled high with _piki_,
the fine wafer bread for which the Hopis are noted. _Piki_ is colored
in a variety of ways. Dr. Hough says the ashes of _Atriplex canescens
James_ are used to give the gray color, and that _Amaranthus sp._ is
cultivated in terrace gardens around the springs for use in dyeing
it red; a special red dye from another species is used for coloring
the _piki_ used in the Katchina dances; and the ashes of _Parryella
filifolia_ are used for coloring. Saffron (_Carthamus tinctorius_) is
used to give the yellow color.
It is fascinating in the extreme to see a woman make _piki_. Dry
corn-meal is mixed with coloring matter and water, and thus converted
into a soft batter. A large, flat stone is so placed on stones that
a fire can be kept continually burning underneath it. As soon as the
slab is as hot as an iron must be to iron starched clothes it is
greased with mutton tallow. Then with fingers dipped in the batter
the woman dexterously and rapidly sweeps them over the surface of the
hot stone. Almost as quickly as the batter touches, it is cooked; so
to cover the whole stone and yet make even and smooth _piki_ requires
skill. It looks so easy that I have known many a white woman (and
man) tempted into trying to make it. Once while attending the Snake
Dance ceremonials at Mashonganavi, a young lady member of my party was
sure she could perform the operation successfully. My Hopi friend,
Kuchyeampsi, gladly gave place to the white lady, and laughingly looked
at me as the latter dipped her fingers into the batter, swept them
over the stone, gave a suppressed exclamation of pain, tried again,
and then hastily rose with three fingers well blistered. My cook, who
was a white man, was sure he could accomplish the operation, so he was
allowed to try. Once was enough. He was a religious man, and bravely
kept silence, which was a good thing for us.
When the _piki_ is sufficiently cooked, it is folded up into neat
little shapes something like the shredded wheat biscuits. One thing I
have often noticed is that a quick and skilful _piki_ maker will keep
a sheet flat, without folding, so that she may place it over the next
sheet when it is about cooked. This seems to make it easier to remove
the newly cooked sheet from the cooking slab.
If you are ever invited into a Hopi house you may rest assured you will
not be there long before a piled-up basket of _piki_ will be brought to
you, for the Hopis are wonderfully hospitable and enjoy giving to all
who become their guests.
Another object seldom absent is the "pole of the soft stuff." This
is a pole suspended from the roof beams upon which all the blankets,
skins, bedding, and wearing apparel are placed. Once upon a time these
were very few and very crude. The skins of animals tanned with the
hair on, blankets made of rabbit skins, and cotton garments made from
home grown, spun, and woven cotton, comprised their "soft stuff." But
when the Spaniards brought sheep into the province of Tusayan, and the
Hopis saw the wonderful improvement a wool staple was over a cotton
one, blankets and dresses of wool were slowly added to the household
treasures, until now the "garments of the old," except antelope, deer,
fox, and coyote skins, are seldom seen.
[Illustration: MASHONGCE, AN ORAIBI MAIDEN, DRYING CORN MEAL.]
[Illustration: THE TRIO OF METATES, AND HOPI WOMAN ABOUT TO GRIND
CORN.]
It is a remarkable fact that the Hopis wore garments made from cotton
which they grew themselves, prior to the time of the Spanish invasion.
They also knew how to color the cotton from unfading mineral and
vegetable dyes, and in the graves of ancient cliff and cave dwellings,
well-woven cotton garments often have been taken.
Sometimes to-day one may see an old man or woman weaving a blanket
from the tanned skins of rabbits. Such a garment is far warmer and
more comfortable than one would imagine. The dressed pelts are twisted
around a home-woven string made of shredded yucca fibre, wild flax, or
cotton, and thus a long rope is formed many yards in length. This rope
is then woven in parallel strings with cross strands of the same kind
of fibre, and a robe made some five or six feet square.
The windows of the ancient Hopi houses were either small open holes
or sheets of gypsum. Of late years modern doors and windows have been
introduced, yet there are still many of the old ones in existence.
Having thus taken a general and cursory survey of Hano, let us, in
turn, visit the six other villages on the mesa heights ere we look
further into the social and ceremonial life of this interesting people.