A FEW HOPI CUSTOMS
To know any people thoroughly requires many years of studied
observation. The work of such men as A. M. Stephen, Dr. Fewkes, Rev.
H. R. Voth, and Dr. George A. Dorsey reveals the vast field the Hopis
offer to students. To the published results of these indefatigable
workers the student is referred for fuller knowledge. There are certain
things of interest, however, that the casual observer cannot fail to
note.
The costume of the men is undoubtedly a modification of the dress
of the white man. Trousers are worn, generally of white muslin, and
from the knee down on the outer side they are split open at the seam.
Soleless stockings, home-spun, dyed and knit, are worn, fastened with
garters, similar in style and design, though smaller, to the sashes
worn by the women. The feet are covered with rawhide moccasins. The
shirt is generally of colored calico, though on special occasions
the "dudes" of the people appear in black or violet velvet shirts
or tunics, which certainly give them a handsome appearance. The
never-failing banda, wound around the forehead, completes the costume,
though accessories in the shape of silver and wampum necklaces, finger
rings, etc., are often worn.
The costume of the women is both picturesque and adapted to their
life and customs. It is neat, appropriate, and modest. The effort our
government feels called upon to make to lead them to change it for
calico "wrappers," in accordance with a principle adopted which regards
as "bad" and "a hindrance to civilization" anything native, is to my
mind vicious and senseless. The Indians are not to be civilized by
making them wear white people's costumes, nor by any such nonsense.
There are those who condemn their basket weaving, because, forsooth, it
is not a Christian art. True civilizing processes come from within, and
desire for change must precede the outward manifestation if permanent
results are desired.
To return to the costume. It consists mainly of a home-woven robe,
dyed in indigo. When made, it looks more like an Indian blanket than
a dress, but when the woman throws it over her right shoulder, sews
the two sides together, leaving an opening for the right arm, and then
wraps one of the highly colored and finely woven sashes around her
waist, the beholder sees a dress at once healthful and picturesque. As
a rule, it comes down a little below the knee, and the left shoulder
is uncovered. Of late years many of the women and girls have learned
to wear a calico slip under the picturesque native dress, so that both
arms and shoulders are covered.
Most of the time the legs and feet are naked, but when a woman wishes
to be fully attired, she wraps buckskins, cut obliquely in half,
around her legs, adroitly fastening the wrappings just above the knee
with thongs cut from buckskin, and then encases her feet in shapely
moccasins. There is no compression of her solid feet, no distortion
with senseless high heels. She is too self-poised, mentally, to care
anything about Parisian fashions. Health, neatness, comfort, are the
desiderata sought and obtained in her dress. The question is sometimes
asked, however, if the heavy leg swathings of buckskin are not a mere
fashion of Hopi dress. Undoubtedly there is a following of custom here
as well as elsewhere, and, as I have before remarked, one of the keys
to the Hopi character is his conservatism. But the buckskin leggings
have a decided reason for their existence. In a desert country where
cacti, cholla, many varieties of prickly shrubs, sharp rocks, and
dangerous reptiles abound, it is necessary that the women whose work
calls them into these dangers should so dress as to be prepared to
overcome them. Many a man wearing the ordinary trousers of civilization
and finding himself off the beaten paths of these desert regions has
longed for just such protection as the Hopi women give themselves. The
cow-boys who ride pell-mell through the brush wear leather trousers,
and their stirrups are covered with tough and thick leather to protect
their shoes from being pierced by the searching needles of the cactus,
cholla, and buck-brush.
The adornments that a Hopi maiden of fashion affects are silver rings
and bracelets made by native silversmiths, and necklaces of coral,
glass, amber, or more generally of the shell wampum found all over the
continent. The finer necklets of wampum are highly prized, and when
very old and ornamented with pieces of turquoise, can not be purchased
for large sums. Occasionally ear pendants are worn. These are made of
wood, half an inch broad and an inch long, inlaid on one side with
pieces of bright shell, turquoise, etc.
When a girl reaches the marriageable age, she is required by the
customs of her people to fix up her hair in two large whorls, one on
each side of her head. This gives her a most striking appearance.
The whorl represents the squash blossom, which is the Hopi emblem
of purity and maidenhood. Girls mature very early, the young maidens
herewith represented being not more than from twelve to fifteen years
of age.
[Illustration: SHUPELA, FATHER OF KOPELI, LATE SNAKE PRIEST AT WALPI.]
[Illustration: A HOPI GIRL, ORAIBI.]
When a woman marries she must no longer wear the nash-mi (whorls). A
new symbolism must be introduced. The hair is done up in two pendant
rolls, in imitation of the ripened fruit of the long squash, which is
the Hopi emblem of fruitfulness.
In my book on "Indian Basketry" I have described in detail the basketry
of the Hopis. There are two distinct varieties made at the four
villages of the middle and western mesas. Those made on the middle mesa
are of yucca fibre (mo-hu) coiled around a core of grass or broom-corn
(sü-ü). Those of Oraibi are of willow and approximate as nearly to
the crude willow work of civilization as any basketry made by the
aborigines. In both cases the splints are dyed, commonly nowadays with
the startling aniline dyes, and with marvellous fertility of invention
the weavers make a thousand and one geometrical designs, in imitation
of natural objects, katchinas, etc. These are mainly plaques, but
the yucca fibre weavers make a treasure or trinket basket, somewhat
barrel-shaped, oftentimes with a lid, that is both pretty and useful.
The name for all the yucca variety is pü-ü-ta. The Oraibi willow
plaques are called yung-ya-pa, while a bowl-shaped basket is sa-kah-ta,
and the bowls made of coiled willow splints bought from the Havasupai
are sü-kü-wü-ta.
The Hopi weavers when at work invariably keep a blanket full of moist
sand near them in which the splints are buried. This keeps them
flexible, and the moist sand is better than water.
A reddish-brown native dye is made from Ohaishi (_Thelesperma
gracile_), with which the splints are colored.
Unfortunately, the introduction of aniline dyes has almost killed
the industry of making native dyes, but there are some few
conservatives--God bless them!--who adhere to the ancient colors and
methods of preparing them.
It cannot be said that the Hopis are devoid of musical taste, for in
the early morning especially, as the youths and men take their ponies
or flocks of goats and sheep out to pasture, they sing with sweet and
far-reaching voices many picturesque melodies.
Of the weird singing at their religious ceremonials I have spoken in
the chapter devoted to that purpose.
To most civilized ears Hopi instrumental music, however, is as much a
racket and din as is Chinese music. The lelentu, or flute, however,
produces weird, soft, melancholy music. Their rattles are of three
kinds, the gourd rattle (ai-i-ya), the rattle used by the Antelope
priests, and the leg rattle of turtle shell and sheep's trotters
(yöng-ush-o-na). The drum and hand tombe are crude affairs, the former
made by hollowing out a tree trunk and stretching over each end wet
rawhide, the lashings also being of strips of wet rawhide (with
the hair on), which, when dry, tightens so as to give the required
resonance. The hand tombe is as near like a home-made tambourine as can
be. It has no jingles, however. Another instrument is the strangest
conception imaginable. It consists of a large gourd shell, from the top
of which a square hole has been cut. Across this is placed a notched
stick, one end of which is held in the performer's left hand. In the
other hand is a sheep's thigh-bone, which is worked back and forth
over the notched stick, and the resultant noise is the desired music.
This instrument is the zhe-gun´-pi.
They do not seem to have many games, so many of their religious
ceremonials affording them the diversion other peoples seek in athletic
sports. Their racing is purely religious, as I have elsewhere shown,
and they get much fun out of some of their semi-religious exercises.
A game that they are very fond of, and that requires considerable
skill to play, is wē-la. The game consists in several players, each
armed with a feathered dart, or ma-te´-va, rushing after a small hoop
made of corn husks or broom-corn well bound together--the wē-la,
and throwing their darts so that they stick into it The hoop is about
a foot in diameter and two inches thick, the ma-te´-va nearly a foot
long. Each player's dart has a different color of feathers, so that
each can tell when he scores. To see a dozen swarthy and almost nude
youths darting along in the dance plaza, or streets, or down in the
valley on the sand, laughing, shouting, gesticulating, every now and
then stopping for a moment, jabbering over the score, then eagerly
following the motion of the thrower of the wē-la so as to be ready
to strike the ma-te´-va into it, and then, suddenly letting them fly,
is a picturesque and lively sight.
The Hopi is quite a traveller. Though fond of home, I have met members
of the tribe in varied quarters of the Painted Desert Region. They
get a birch bark from the Verdi Valley with which they make the dye
for their moccasins. A yellowish brown color, called _pavissa_, is
obtained from a point near the junction of the Little Colorado and
Marble Canyon. Here they obtain salt, and at the bottom of the salt
springs, where the waters bubble up in pools, this _pavissa_ settles.
Bahos, or prayer sticks, are always deposited at the time of obtaining
this ochre, as it is to be used in the painting of the face of the
bahos used in most sacred ceremonies. The so-called Moki trail is
evidence of the long association between the Hopis and the Havasupais
in Havasu (Cataract) Canyon, and I have often met them there trading
blankets, horses, etc., for buckskin and the finely woven wicker
bowl-baskets--kü-üs--of the Havasupais, which are much prized by the
Hopis.
Occasionally he reaches as far northeast as Lee's Ferry and even
crosses into southern Utah, and at Zuni to the southeast he is ever
a welcome visitor. The Apaches in the White Mountains tell that on
occasions the Hopis will visit them, and when visiting the Yumas in
1902 they informed me that long ago the Snake Dancing Mokis were their
friends, and sometimes came to see them.
Dr. Walter Hough has written a most interesting paper on "Environmental
Interrelations in Arizona," in which are many items about the Hopis. He
says they brought from their priscan home corn, beans, melons, squash,
cotton, and some garden plants, and that they have since acquired
peaches, apricots, and wheat, and among other plants which they
infrequently cultivate may be named onions, chili, sunflowers, sorghum,
tomatoes, potatoes, grapes, pumpkins, garlic, coxcomb, coriander,
saffron, tobacco, and nectarines. They are great beggars for seeds and
will try any kind that may be given to them.
Owing to their dependence upon wild grasses for food when their corn
crops used to fail,--that is, in the days before a paternal government
helped them out at such times,--every Hopi child was a trained botanist
from his earliest years; not trained from our standpoint, but from
theirs. We should say much of his knowledge was unscientific, and it
goes far beyond the use of grasses and plants as food. Dr. Hough in
his paper gives a number of examples of the uses to which the various
seeds, etc., are put. The botanist as well as the ethnologist will find
this a most comprehensive and useful list. For food forty-seven seeds,
berries, stems, leaves, or roots are eaten. The seeds of a species of
sporobolus are ground with corn to make a kind of cake, which the Hopis
greatly enjoy. The leaves of a number are cooked and eaten as greens.
A large amount of folk-lore connected with plants has been collected
by Drs. Fewkes and Hough. From the latter's extensive list I quote.
For headache the leaves of the _Astragalus mollissimus_ are bruised
and rubbed on the temples; tea is made from the root of the _Gaura
parviflora_ for snake bite; women boil the _Townsendia arizonica_
into a tea and drink it to induce pregnancy; a plant called by the
Hopi _wütakpala_ is rubbed on the breast or legs for pain; _Verbesina
enceloides_ is used on boils or for skin diseases; _Croton texlusis_ is
taken as an emetic; _Allionia linearis_ is boiled to make an infusion
for wounds; the mistletoe that grows on the juniper (_Phoradendron
juniperinum_) makes a beverage which both Hopi and Navaho say is like
coffee, and a species that grows on the cottonwood, called _lo mapi_,
is used as medicine; the leaves of _Gilia longiflora_ are boiled
and drank for stomach ache; the leaves of the _Gilia multiflora_
(which is collected forty miles south of Walpi at an elevation of six
thousand feet), when bruised and rubbed on ant bites is said to be a
specific; _Oreocarya suffruticosa_ is pounded up and used for pains in
the body; _Carduus rothrockii_ is boiled and drank as tea for colds
which give rise to a prickling sensation in the throat; the leaves
of _Coleosanthus wrightii_ are bruised and rubbed on the temples for
headache, as also is the _Artemisia canadensis_; and so on throughout a
list as long again as this.
In connection with this list Dr. Hough calls attention to the workings
of the Hopi mind in a manner which justifies an extensive quotation:--
"The word 'medicine' as applied by the Hopi and other tribes is very
comprehensive, including charms to influence gods, men, and animals,
or to cure a stomach ache. As stated, from experiments with the plants
some have been discovered which are uniform in action and which
would have place in a standard pharmacopœia. Thus there are heating
plasters, powders for dressing wounds, emetics, diuretics, purges,
sudorific infusions, etc. Other plants are of doubtful value, and in
their use other animistic ideas may enter, though some of them, such
as those infused for colds, headache, rheumatism, fever, etc., may
have therapeutic properties. The obligation of the civilized to the
uncivilized for healing plants is very great. Another class is clearly
out of the domain of empirical medicine. Tea made from the thistle is
a remedy for prickling pains in the larynx, milkweed will induce a
flow of milk, and there are other examples of inferential medicine.
Perhaps another class is shown by the employment of the plant named
for the bat, in order to induce sleep in the daytime.
"It may be interesting to look into the workings of the Indian mind as
shown by his explanation of the uses of certain of these plants.
"A beautiful scarlet gilia (_Gilia aggregata_ Spreng) grows on the
talus of the giant mesa on which ancient Awatobi stood. This is the
only locality where the plant has been collected in this region,
but it grows in profusion on the White Mountains, one hundred and
twenty-five miles southeast.
"The herdsman of our party was asked the name and use of the plant. He
replied: 'It is the _pala katchi_, or red male flower, and it is very
good for catching antelope. Before going out to kill antelope, hunters
rub up the flowers and leaves of the plant and mix them with the meal
which they offer during their prayer to the gods of the chase.'
"'Why is that?' was asked.
"'Because,' he replied, 'the antelope is very fond of this plant and
eats it greedily when he can find it.' (Animistic idea.)
"Another creeping plant (_Solanum triflorum_ Nutt.), which bears
numerous green fruit about the size of a cherry, filled with small
seeds, is called _cavayo ngahu_, or watermelon medicine. The plant may
be likened to a miniature watermelon vine. It was explained that if
one took the fruit and planted it in the same hill with the watermelon
seeds, would there be many watermelons,--that is, the watermelon would
be influenced to become as prolific as the small plant.
"Every one is familiar with the clematis bearing fluffy bunches of
seeds having long, hair-like appendages. An Indian lecturing on a
collected specimen of the clematis said: 'This is very good to make
the hair grow. You make a tea of it and rub it on the head, and pretty
quick your hair will hang down to your hips,' indicating by a gesture
the extraordinary length. For the same reason the fallugia is a good
hair tonic."
The Hopi uses a weapon for catching rabbits which, for want of a
better name, white men call a boomerang. It possesses none of the
strange properties of the Australian weapon, yet in the hands of a
skilled Hopi it is wonderfully effective. I have seen fifty Oraibis on
horseback, and numbers of men and boys on foot, each armed with one
of these weapons, on their rabbit drive. They determine on a certain
area and then beat it thoroughly for rabbits, and woe be to the unhappy
cottontail or even lightning-legged jack-rabbit if a Hopi throws his
boomerang. Like the wind it speeds true to its aim and seldom fails to
kill or seriously wound.
Though most of the men have guns and many of the youths revolvers, the
bow and arrow as a weapon is not entirely discarded. All the young
boys, even little tots that can scarcely walk, use the bow and arrow
with dexterity. A small hard melon or pumpkin is thrown into the air
and a child will sometimes put two or even three arrows into it before
it reaches the ground. Old men who are too poor to own modern weapons
are often seen sitting like the proverbial and oft-pictured fox,
stealthily watching for a ground squirrel, prairie-dog, or rat to come
out of his hole, when the speedy and certain arrow is let fly to his
undoing.
Except for a little wild meat of this kind, secured seldom, or a sheep,
which is too valuable for its wool to kill on any except very special
and rare occasions, the Hopis are practically vegetarians. They are
not above taking what the gods send them, however, in the shape of a
dead horse. A few years ago Mr. D. M. Riordan, formerly of Flagstaff,
conducted a party of friends over a large section of the region
presented in these pages, and when near Oraibi a beautiful mare of one
of the teams suddenly bloated and speedily died. In less than an hour
after they were told they might take the flesh; the Hopis had skinned
it, cut up the carcass, and removed every shred of it. I afterwards saw
the flesh cut into strips, hung outside the houses of the fortunate
possessors to dry, and I doubt not that horse meat made many a happy
meal for them during the months that followed.
[Illustration: HOPI CHILDREN, AT ORAIBI, WAITING FOR A SCRAMBLE OF
CANDY.]
When a Hopi feels rich he may buy a sheep or a goat from a Navaho, or
even kill a burro in order to vary his dietary.
Corn is his staple food. It is cooked in a variety of ways, but the
three principal methods are piki, pikami, and pū-vū-lū. Piki
is a thin, wafer-like bread, cooked as I have before described.
On one occasion, at Oraibi, an old friend, Na-wi-so-ma, was making piki
for the Snake Dancers. When I took my friends to see her, they all ate
of the bread and asked her all manner of questions about it.
Na-wi-so-ma was very kind and obliging. One of my party wished to
make moving photographs of the operation of making piki, so she
cheerfully moved her tōō-ma (cooking stone) outside. She insisted
upon placing it, however, so that her back was to the blazing sun,
which rendered it impossible to make the photographs. It was in vain
that I explained to her why she must face the sun, and, at last, in
desperation, I seized the heavy tōō-ma and carried it where I
desired it to be. In my haste in putting it down--rather, dropping
it--it snapped in two, and I had to repair the damage to her stone and
feelings with a piece of silver ere we could proceed.
Pikami is made as follows: A certain amount of corn-meal is mixed with
a small amount of sugar, and coloring matter made from squash flowers.
This mixture is then placed in an earthenware vessel, or olla, and a
cover tightly sealed on the vessel with mud. It is now ready to go
into the oven. The pikami oven is generally out of doors. Sometimes
it is a mere hole in the ground, without a covering, but the better
style is where the hole is located in the angle of two walls and
partially covered. A broken olla is made to serve as a chimney. To
prepare the oven, sticks of wood are placed inside it and set on fire.
When these are reduced to flaming coals and the oven is red hot, the
coals are withdrawn, and the olla containing the corn-meal mixture is
lowered into the hole. This is then covered with a stone slab, sealed
with mud, and allowed to remain closed for several hours. When the
oven is unsealed and the olla withdrawn, the corn-meal is thoroughly
cooked--now pikami--and the dish is both nutritious and delicious.
Pū-vū-lū is a corn-meal preparation that corresponds somewhat
to the New England doughnut. On one occasion, just before the Snake
Dance at Mashonganavi, I found Ma-sa-wi-ni-ma, Kuchyeampsi's mother,
busy preparing the dish. When I induced her to come into the sunshine
to be photographed, stirring the meal, just eight other kodak and
camera fiends insisted upon "shooting" her at the same time. She was
very complacent about it, especially when I collected ten cents a head
for her, and handed her ninety cents for her five minutes' pose.
Her method was as follows: Into a cha-ka-ta (bowl) she placed corn-meal
and a little coloring matter. Then adding sugar and water, she stirred
it with a stick, as shown in the photograph. It was made to a thick
dough. In the meantime a pan of water, into which mutton fat had been
placed, was on the fire, and when it was hot enough small balls of the
corn-meal dough were dropped into the water and fat and allowed to
remain until cooked. The result is a not unpleasant food, of which the
Hopis are very fond.
One of the common dishes, when a sheep has been killed, is the
neü-euck´-que-vi, a stew composed of corn, mutton, and chili.
So far the Hopis have not been a success as traders. It is a slow
and long journey from aboriginal life to civilization. One of the
young men who had been to school, a bright youth of some twenty-three
years,--Kuy-an-im´-ti-wa,--was fired with a desire to trade with his
people on his own account. Permission was given him by the agent to
start a store. A small building was speedily erected at the foot of
the Mashonganavi mesa and a stock of goods purchased. For a while
things went well. Then Kuyanimtiwa had to go away on business, and an
elderly uncle (I think it was) took charge of the store in his absence.
When the embryo trader returned he found his shelves nearly empty,
and a lot of trash accumulated under his counter, which the old man
had taken "in trade." The credits of many Hopis had been extended and
enlarged without proper consulting of Bradstreet's or Dun's, and blank
ruin stared poor Kuyanimtiwa in the face. I purchased about eighty
dollars' worth of baskets and "truck" from him, for which, however,
I was compelled to give him my check. For long weeks, indeed months,
the check did not come in, until I feared the poor fellow had lost it.
When I inquired I found it was in the hands of the agent, being held as
security until some disposal was made of a suit between the old man and
Kuyanimtiwa. It ultimately reached the bank, so I assume the trouble
was ended, but it will be some time, if what he said has lasting force,
before the young Hopi will open store again with an untrained assistant.
In an earlier chapter I have shown that the women build and own the
houses. In return the men knit the stockings and weave the women's
dresses and sashes. With looms very similar to those described in the
chapter on "Navaho Blanketry," they make the dresses we have seen
the women wearing. In the days before the Spaniards introduced sheep
the Hopis grew cotton quite extensively, dyed it with the simple but
beautiful and permanent dyes, and wove it into garments. The blue of
the dresses was originally obtained--and is yet by some--from the seeds
of the sunflower.
In several cases I have found blind men engaged in knitting stockings.
With needles of wood, long and slender, their fingers busily moved as
those of the old housewives used to do in my boyhood's days. One was
an old man, Tu-ki-i´-ma. He was "si-bo´-si" (blind), and expressed his
thankfulness for the occupation. Another poor old man, stone blind, was
winding yarn into a ball. He was squatted upon the ground, with the
yarn around his feet and knees. It was a pathetic sight to see the old
and forlorn creature anxious to make himself useful, even though blind
and aged.
There are a score of other interesting matters I should enjoy referring
to did space permit, but these must be left for some future time.
That they are picturesque and interesting, and in some of their
ceremonies fascinating, there is no question. They are religious (in
their way), domestic, honest, faithful, industrious, and chaste. But
there is no denying that many of them are dirty,--really, indescribably
filthy. One of my old drivers, Franklin French, used to say with a
turn up of his nose: "I'd rather associate with a good skunk who was
up in the skunk business than get to leeward of a Moki town." Their
sanitary accommodations are _nil_, and their habits accord with their
accommodations. Were it not for the fierce rays of the sun and the
strong winds that purify their elevated mesa-tops, the accumulated
evils would soon render habitation impossible. Water being so scarce,
they are not habitually cleanly in person, as are some of the other
peoples. Hence the contempt with which many of the Navahoes regard them.
Of course there are exceptions, where both houses and individuals are
as neat and clean as can be. Among Hopis as well as among whites, it is
not possible to generalize too widely.