Hopi people

“ The Hopi chants are primitive, but have in them an echo of Catholic litanies. I have seen a Hopi priest anoint with and toss the sacred meal just as his forbears saw the padres bless the people. The Hopi is an assiduous adapter. And while listening to the chanting, I have often expected to catch the response: “Ora pro nobis.” The padres were sacrificed to the desert gods in that red revolt of 1680, but their peaches dry each season on the pueblo housetops, and Hopi ceremonies carry an unconscious echo of the black-robes who taught the solemnity of ritual. ”

“ The relatively high social organization of the latter people and the intricacy and significance of their religious ceremonials are well known. Mentally the Hopi seem to be the equal of any tribe, but it is doubtful whether they have much more innate capacity than many of their more backward neighbors. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We don't want to have someone plan our lives for us, issue us rations, social security or other dole. Our plan of life have all been laid out for us long ago by our Great Spirit, Massau'u. This is our traditional pact we must travel now. Now if you truly and seriously want to help the Hopi people and honestly want us to understand one another we demand that you come to us who are the religious leaders of the Hopi tribe. This is the only way we can settle any problem. We must come together. The white people seem to be at a loss as to what to do now in the face of the terrible H-Bomb. ”

“ Among all the visitors I met in Hopi-land, he was one of very few who sensed the things that should be done and those not done for their welfare. Briefly, his idea was that the community life should not be violently disrupted, for fear of the effect our own isolated rural populations had suffered; and that efforts should be made to keep alive all that is best in the social and mesa-plan of living, without permitting the Indian people narrowly to confine themselves to it. This of course would include the harmless dances or shows, the social features that many confuse with ceremonies. ”

“ Whom will he punish, a white man or an Indian? Because we know these terrible truths and facts we the religious leaders of the Hopi people have been continuously opposing the $90,000,000 long-range program. ”

“ Of course, [90] they are a 'chosen people.' 'Those Above' have given especial favors to them. They must be a credit to those Powers who have thus favored them. This implies a steady cultivation of their muscular powers. Not to be strong is to be a bad Hopi, and to be a bad Hopi is to court the disfavor of the gods. Hence the shamans or priests urge the religious necessity of being swift and strong."
Hopi Woman weaving Basket, her Husband knitting Stockings.
Hopi Woman preparing Corn Meal for making Doughnuts. ”

“ The migration myths of the various clans are entirely too numerous and too lengthy to be in their entirety included here. Every clan has its own, and even today keeps the story green in the minds of its children and celebrates its chief events, including arrival in Hopiland, with suitable ceremony.
We are told that when all mankind came through the sipapu from the underworld, the various kinds of people were gathered together and given each a separate speech or language by the mocking bird, "who can talk every way." ”

“ The present-day Hopi, including the most intelligent and best educated of them, will tell you, that all their important dances and ceremonials follow faithfully the old traditions, and are still believed to be efficacious and necessary to the welfare of the people. ”

“ That supereminence of Hopi character is conservatism is shown as one walks from Sichumavi to Walpi. Here is a literal exemplification demonstrating how the present generations "tread in the footsteps" of their forefathers. The trail over which the bare and moccasined feet of these people have passed and repassed for years is worn down deep into the solid sandstone. ”

“ But you have not dealt with [161] the Hopi Indian, who is a religious fanatic; and since you pressed me for an opinion, I had to give it. I can ask only that these people be not promised anything that will not be fulfilled. That has provoked half the trouble of the past. The Department has threatened them, and then curled up. They are accustomed to being betrayed by soldiers. They will talk endlessly; but if you expect to bring a Hopi to reason without a show of force, it is too much. ”

“ A Hopi prayer combines two elements of ceremony—prayer proper and sacrifice, the former spoken or not, the latter always expressed by symbols. As they are an agricultural people, their aboriginal wealth is an agricultural product, as corn. Their poverty of corn and the requirement of their ritual necessitated sacrifices of meal, a highly practical substitution. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are few ceremonies in the world that equal in solemnity and interest, and that are more charming, than those performed by the parents and other relatives when a Hopi baby comes into the world. There are religion, [94] affection, sentiment, and poetry embraced in what we—the superior people—would undoubtedly term the superstitious rites of these simple-hearted people. One reason for the fervor of this rite is the genuine welcome every Hopi mother and father accord to their baby when it is born. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Children belong to the clan of the mother. (See Figure 1.) These clans bear the name of something in nature, often suggested by either a simple or a significant incident in the legendary history of the people during migration when off-shoots from older clans were formed into new clans. Thus a migration legend collected by Voth [8] accounts for the name of the Bear Clan, the Bluebird Clan, the Spider Clan, and others.
Sons and daughters are expected to marry outside the clan, and the son must live with his wife's people, so does nothing to perpetuate his own clan. The Hopi is monogamous. ”

“ Water-house people joined the other Hopi, the latter inhabited pueblos and were to all intents a pueblo people. If this hypothesis be a correct one, the Snake, Horn, and Bear peoples, whom the southern colonists found in Tusayan, had a culture of their own similar to that of the people from the south. Whence that culture came must be determined by studies of the component clans of the Hopi before the arrival of the Patki people. ”

“ Despite our white man's arrogance, we must not permit ourselves to be deluded into thinking that we have something to offer the primitive people, such as the Hopi Indians, whose civilization without war and government can teach us many lessons. ”

“ Concerning the Pueblos (which include the Hopi) , Hewett says: [19] "There can be no understanding of their lives apart from their religious beliefs and practices. The same may be said of their social structure and of their industries. Planting, cultivating, harvesting, hunting, even war, are dominated by religious rites. The social order of the people is established and maintained by way of tribal ceremonials. ”

“ The Patki people say that you will find on the rocks of Palatkwabi, the "Red Land of the South" from which they came, totems of the rain-cloud, sun, crane, parrot, etc. If we find these markings in the direction which they are thus definitely declared to exist, and the Hopi say similar pictures were made by their ancestors, there seems no reason to question such circumstantial evidence that some of the Hopi clans once came from this region. ”

“ Nevertheless they made much more progress before the days of the white man, as can easily be seen in their artistic development. Every one who has crossed the continent by the Santa Fe route knows how interesting and beautiful are their pottery, basketry, and weaving. Not only in art but also in government the Hopi are highly advanced. Their governing body is a council of hereditary elders together with the chiefs of religious fraternities. Among these officials there is a speaker chief and a war chief, but there seems never to have been any supreme chief of all the Hopi. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It must be recorded in the interests of truth, that Hopi men will work at days labor and give satisfaction except when a ceremony is about to take place at the pueblo, and duty to their religion interferes with steady employment much as fiestas do in the easy-going countries to the southward. Really the Hopi deserve great credit for their industry, frugality, and provident habits, and one must commend them because they do not shun work and because in fairness both men and women share in the labor for the common good."
IV. POTTERY AND BASKET MAKING TRADITIONAL ”

“ The real Hopi should not live in town and cater after the fleshpots of the white man. He should not strive for big cars, go in debt or be obligated to any one in a manner which would make it difficult for him to be a true Hopi. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fewkes, Stephen, Mindeleff, Voth, and others have collected the more important tales of migrations and the major myths underlying both religion and social organization among the Hopi. One gets substantially the same versions today from the oldest story-tellers. These are the stories that never grow old; in the kiva and at the fireside they live on, for these are the vital things on which Hopi life is built. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are Christian missionaries among them today, notably Baptists, but they are quite safe, and the Hopi treat them well. Meantime the old ceremonies are going strong, the rain falls after the Snake Dance, and the crops grow. The Hopi realize that missionary influence will eventually take some away from the old beliefs and practices and that government school education is bound to break down the old traditional unity of ideas. Naturally their old men are worried about it. ”

“ 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. ”