Hapi

“ The famous priest and magician, who was subsequently deified and became one of the chief gods of Memphis.
"Where is the place of birth of Hapi (the Nile) ? What god, or what goddess, presideth (?) over it? What manner of form hath he? It is he who stablisheth revenue for me, and a full store of grain. I would go to the Chief of Het-Sekhet [FN#173] whose beneficence strengtheneth all men in their works. ”

“ One weakness of this particular strand is that the Egyptians themselves possessed no tradition of the Deluge. Indeed the annual inundation of the Nile is not such as would give rise to a legend of world-destruction; and in this respect it presents a striking contrast to the Tigris and Euphrates. The ancient Egyptian's conception of his own gentle river is reflected in the form he gave the Nile-god, for Hapi is represented as no fierce warrior or monster. He is given a woman's breasts as a sign of his fecundity. ”

“ And even in the later and more degraded worship of the bull-god Apis, while the common crowd see only the apotheosis of sensualism, as thou hast called it, in the fact that, when a new Apis is discovered, devout women at Memphis, during forty days, expose themselves stripped naked to the gaze of the sacred brute, the sad-faced priests realize that the endless and unavailing search to discover Hapi, 'the concealed,' had sometimes been prosecuted by unlawful means, against which Moses, in the Jewish scriptures, denounced the penalty of death. ”

“ It is an interesting occupation, during the ceremonies, to follow the priests, after they have deposited the puhtabi and begun to sprinkle the sacred meal, to the shrines. If the observer can then have explained to him the deity to whom the shrine is dedicated, and his or her place in the Hopi pantheon, his knowledge of Hopi worship will be considerably increased.
Of katchinas much might be written. They are ancient ancestral representatives of certain Hopi clans who, as spirits of the dead, are endowed with powers to aid the living members of the clan in material ways. ”

“ In appearance, the Hopi and Havasupai are more alike than either are like to the Navaho. As a rule, the Hopi is well built and stalwart, with the unmistakable Indian face, but with less coarse and sensual lips, higher and more intellectual brow, more alert and kindly eye, and stronger chin than the Havasupai. The lobes of the nostril are wide and flexible, showing the wonderful lung power of this great running people. ”

“ To her own mind it is clear that the Hopi are living today by their age-old and amazingly primitive traditions, as shown by their planting, hunting, house building, textile and ceramic arts, and their ceremonies for birth, marriage, burial, rain-making, etc. Even their favorite stories for amusement are traditional. Surely this can not last much longer in these days when easy transportation is bringing the modern world to their very door. ”

“ Priests came, but were driven out by the Hopis. A few years later these Indians moved on top of three mesas. These appear as huge prows of ships projecting into the great desert. To protect themselves the Indians built their houses in terrace fashion of such material that one on the desert can with difficulty see them.
The Hopi is industrious. Walled in gardens, fields of corn on the plain and flocks of sheep show his agricultural interests. Weaving is done by the men in winter. They make all the clothing. The women build and own the houses. ”

“ This has Al-Hafi told me long ago:
With transport adding then—how nobly Nathan
Bestows what he esteems it not a meanness
By prudent industry to have justly earned—
How free from prejudice his lofty soul—
His heart to every virtue how unlocked—
With every lovely feeling how familiar.
SALADIN.
Yet Hafi spake just now so coldly of him.
SITTAH.
Not coldly; but with awkwardness, confusion,
As if he thought it dangerous to praise him,
And yet knew not to blame him undeserving,
Or can it really be that e’en the best
Among a people cannot quite escape
The tinges of the tribe ”

“ Men looked this way and that to carry out the command of the king, but Hafela was gone. Already he was upon the hillside, running as a man has rarely run before—his face set towards that fastness in the mountains where he could find refuge among his mother’s tribesmen and the regiments which he commanded. Of late they had been sent thither by the king that they might be far from the Great Place when their prince was disinherited. ”

“ Each of the Hopi clans preserves a separate origin or emergence myth, agreeing in all essential parts, but carrying in its details special reference to its own clan. All of them claim, however, a common origin in the interior of the earth, and although the place of emergence to the surface is set in widely separated localities, they agree in maintaining this to be the fourth plane on which mankind has existed. ”

“ At near sunset of the eighth day a public dance of the Antelope priests takes place in the plaza, similar in many respects to the Snake Dance, except that corn stalks are carried by the priests instead of snakes.
On the morning of the ninth day the race of the young men occurs. This is an exciting scene. Long before sunrise the Hopis, and as many visitors as have climbed the mesa heights, huddle together or sleepily sit watching a point far off in the desert. It is from that region—one of the springs—the racers are to come. ”

“ And perhaps the oldest and certainly the youngest of the villages are at Third Mesa—Oraibi, the aged; and tiny Bacabi; and redolent, sullen Hotevilla.
Their first contact with white men was made in the dark of an autumn night in 1540, but it was in the next dawn that they realized invasion by a new and strange enemy. Most of Hopi history has the dawn atmosphere. Their [197] footprints lead back to the caves of the Dawn Men. Their homes face the rising sun from the highest point of the landscape; their ceremonies and hunts begin at sunrise. ”

“ G. A. Dorsey [29] speaking of the Hopi tribe of the Southwest, states: “When the Hopi are not at work they are worshipping in the Kivas. The underlying element of this worship is to be found in the environment. Mother nature does not deal kindly with man in the desert. Look where you will, across the drifting sands of the [Pg 102] plains, and the cry of man and beast is ‘Water!’ And so, to the gods of the rain clouds does the Hopi address his prayer. ”

“ When the time drew nigh for him to die he called his kinsfolk, and told them that he was going to die. And he continued to gaze upwards for the space of an hour, and behold a great arm, like the hand [and arm] of a man, opened the roof of the house, and came down from above, and reached itself out to his mouth, and took his soul. And when Anastasius, the Christian emperor, read the story of the strife of Habakkuk, he built a church in his honor in the city of Kartas, in the north of Egypt, and it was consecrated as on this day. Salutation to Habakkuk. ”

“ The full moon made the little valley more of a Paradise than ever. I lay and watched the light climb the massive cliffs that wall in the canyon entrance, till it reached the two grotesquely shaped pillars surmounting either cliff. The Havasupai have a legend concerning these monoliths, so oddly perched that they command oversight of the whole village. They are not really rocks, but gods,—the tutelary gods of the tribe. One the Havasupai call the Old Lady, while the other is naturally the Old Man. For centuries they have guarded their people. ”

“ No wonder the small brown man of the house has in some cases charged for the seats. What white man would not? Yet the practice is considered unethical by the Hopi themselves and is being discontinued.
We know that this weird, pagan Snake Dance was performed with deadly earnestness when white men first penetrated the forbidding wastelands that surround the Hopi. And we have every reason to believe that it has gone on for centuries, always as a prayer to the gods of the underworld and of nature for rain and the germination of their crops. ”

“ From the cradle to the grave the life of a Havasupai is practically an out-of-door life. Their hawas—even the best of them—are partially exposed and open, and in the summer hawas there is no pretence at what among civilized peoples is essential privacy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Hopi is glad to use the white man's wagon, cook stove, sugar, and coffee, but he prefers his own religion, government, social customs—the great things handed down in his traditions. Their very conservatism is according to one of their oldest traditions, which is:
Tradition for Walking Beside the White Man But in Footsteps of Fathers
In 1885, Wicki, chief of the Antelope Society at Walpi, told Mr. A.M. Stephen one of the most complete and interesting variants ever collected of the Snake myth. ”

“ As an example, take the case of these Hopi mesa towns, perched in such boldly picturesque fashion on high, sheer-walled rock ridges. Many good people wish to force the Hopis to desert these towns, and live in isolated families in nice tin-roofed houses on the plains below. ”

“ 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 ”

“ All these societies in all the tribes are for a purpose. The Hopi, or "People of Peace," as they call themselves, live in a desert country, and depend upon their little plantings of corn, beans, and squash for their food. They are not, and never were, hunters and warriors. Now, the most important thing in all the world for the Hopi is rain; rain to make their gardens yield a plenty of food. ”

“ He seemed almost a size too large for the chapel, so tall and broad was he. From the doorway was a wide view over the Haff, which was always muddy in colour except at sunrise, when it was blue, and at sunset, when it turned yellow and pink{180} and sometimes blood-red; but beyond it there was always a clear strip of deeper blue—the waters of the Baltic, or Ost-See (East Sea) as it is called in Germany. We grew to know the Haff very well, for every afternoon the children were taken across it in a little steamer to bathe at a tiny place called Kahlberg, which lay on the farther shore. ”

“ Yet how can this be the impi of Hafela, who, say the generals, is encamped upon the ridge?”
“He may have left the ridge, King, having been warned of the ambush.”
“It cannot be, for when the runner started his fires burned there and his soldiers were gathered round them.”
“Then perhaps his captains sit upon the ridge with some portion of his strength to deceive those who await him in the gorge; while, knowing that here men are few, he himself swoops down on you with the main body of his impi.” ”

“ Indian dolls of painted wood and feathers, made in the image of the Kachinas, are given the children, who thus get a graphic idea of the supposed appearance of the heroes of some of these stories.
The Hopi, like many primitive people, believe that when a bird sings he is weaving a magic spell, and so they have songs for special magic too; some for grinding, for weaving, for planting, others for hunting, and still others for war; all definitely to gain the favor of the gods in these particular occupations. ”

“ Thy son from off the field to-day From victory to snatch away!' But Odin said, 'Be thine the joy Valhal gives, my own brave boy!' "And Brage said, 'Eight brothers here Welcome thee to Valhal's cheer, To drain the cup, or fights repeat Where Hakon Eirik's earls beat.' Quoth the stout king, 'And shall my gear, Helm, sword, and mail-coat, axe and spear, Be still at hand! 'Tis good to hold Fast by our trusty friends of old.' "Well was it seen that Hakon still Had saved the temples from all ill;1 For the whole council of the gods Welcomed the king to their abodes. ”

“ In each of these villages are many of the true Hopi who have not succumbed to old age pensions and government bribes. They often speak a different dialect derived from the Tewa Indians who came from the southwest after the Great Rebellion of 1680, at the foot of the mesa. According to Hopi custom when any people come and ask to live among them they are asked what especial prayers or abilities they have to give to the Hopi. ”

“ 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. ”