Hopi

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each pueblo has an hereditary chief who directs all the communal work, such as the cleaning of the springs and the general care of the village. Crimes are rare. This at first sight seems strange in view of the fact that no penalty was inflicted for any crime except sorcery, but under Hopi law all transgressions could be reduced to sorcery. One of the most striking features of Hopi life was its rich religious development. The Hopi recognized a large number of supernatural beings and had a great store of most interesting and poetic mythological tales. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rachel, and often both contracting parties, were prevented from attending the schools, as the old Hopi earnestly desired; and Hopi traditions as to fruition were completely satisfied.
There was an even more serious result. This grinding of corn meal early and late, crouched over the stone metate, ended in the young mother’s losing her first-born. At one time there was no Hopi woman at the First Mesa whose first-born child was living.
So, as Moungwi, I gave them fair warning that these things must stop. They did not stop. An Indian, of whatever tribe, will always chance a test. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The following is an abbreviation of the version gathered by A.M. Stephen, who lived many years among the Hopi and collected these sacred tales from the priests and old men of all the different villages some fifty years ago, as reported by Mindeleff. [20]
In the beginning all men lived together in the lowest depths, in a region of darkness and moisture; their bodies were mis-shapen and horrible and they suffered great misery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No married woman is happy unless she has a "quiver full" of children, and one of her constant prayers before her marriage is that she may be thus blessed.
So when the child comes there is great rejoicing. It is immediately rubbed all over with ashes to keep the hair from growing on the body; or that, at least, is the reason the Hopi mother gives for allowing her little one to be scrubbed all over with the ashes.
Then it is wrapped up in a cotton blanket of the mother's own weaving, for Hopi women, and men also, are great experts in growing, spinning, and weaving cotton. ”

“ Among the Hopi the earth is watered by the Rain-gods, but the dead are ceremonially made intercessors to affect them. In this view of the case the Hopi may be said to believe that the earth is “watered by the deceased of both sexes.”
The Hopi believe that the breath body of the Zuñi goes to a sacred place near Saint Johns, called Wénima. There the dead are supposed to be changed into Katcinas, and the place is reputed to be one of the homes of these personages. ”

“ With Hopi face, but white hair and skin, pink eyes, and general bleached-out appearance, they never fail to excite the greatest surprise in the mind of the stranger, and to those who see them often there is still a lingering wonder as to the cause of so singular a variation of physical appearance. At Mashonganavi there are two men albinos, one of them one of the Snake priests. It is claimed by the Indians that these albinos are of as pure Hopi blood as those who are normal in color, and the fact is incontrovertible that they are born of pure-blooded parents on both sides. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The always cautious Hopi approached this experiment gingerly. He is suspicious of Greeks bearing gifts. When he promises to pay, he expects to pay; and too, I did not rush forth, laden with money and generosity, to crowd them into debt. Between 1914 and 1915, my scruples having been argued away by a squad of non-visioning clerks who now wish that they had possessed a little less enthusiasm, I did advance $10,627 to the Hopi Indians. This money was placed in wagons, harness, and livestock. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The legends of the surviving Hopi contain constant references to former habitations of different clans in the country round about their present villages. These clans, which by consolidation make up the present population of the Hopi pueblos, are said to have originally entered Tusayan from regions as far eastward as the Rio Grande, and from the southern country included within the drainage of the Gila, the Salt, and their affluents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Hopi women make up extra supplies of baskets and pottery to offer for sale at the time of the Snake Dance because they know many tourists are coming to buy them, otherwise they get no revenue from the occasion. No admission is charged, and the snake priests themselves seriously object to having Hopi citizens charge anything for the use of improvised seats of boxes, etc., on the near-by house tops. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In order better to appreciate Indian mythology and ritual, he was initiated into the Antelope and Flute priesthoods of the Hopi, from which relationship many secret ceremonies of this tribe were witnessed and described for the first time. The archæology of the Zuñi and Hopi also interested him, and while connected with the Hemenway Southwestern Expedition Dr. Fewkes gathered in Arizona a large collection of Indian objects which is now on exhibition in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. ”

“ The Hopi invited warriors, and the warriors have graduated into policemen, for one learns to police the Hopi districts, and even to discipline some of the Navajo, with Tewa officers. They are dependable and courageous, even belligerent; that is to say, they will fight when it is necessary and, strange thing among desert Indians, with their fists, taking a delight in blacking the opponent’s eye. ”