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by Hattie Greene Lockett
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Title: The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi
Author: Hattie Greene Lockett
Release Date: May 24, 2005 [EBook #15888]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERATURE OF THE HOPI ***
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Vol. IV, No. 4
May 15, 1933
University of Arizona Bulletin
SOCIAL SCIENCE BULLETIN No. 2
The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi
BY
HATTIE GREENE LOCKETT
PUBLISHED BY
University of Arizona
TUCSON, ARIZONA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Introduction
General Statement
The Challenge
The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life
II. The Hopi
Their Country, The People
III. Hopi Social Organization
Government
The Clan and Marriage
Property, Lands, Houses, Divorce
Woman's Work
Man's Work
IV. Pottery and Basket Making Traditional, Its Symbolism
V. House Building
VI. Myth and Folktale, General Discussion
Stability
Intrusion of Contemporary Material
How and Why Myths are Kept
Service of Myth
Hopi Story Telling
VII. Hopi Religion
Gods and Kachinas
Religion Not for Morality
VIII. Ceremonies, General Discussion
Belief and Ceremonial
IX. Hopi Myths and Traditions and Some Ceremonies Based Upon Them
The Emergence Myth and the Wu-wu-che-Ma Ceremony
Some Migration Myths
Flute Ceremony and Tradition
Other Dances
The Snake Myth and the Snake Dance
A Flood and Turkey Feathers
X. Ceremonies for Birth, Marriage, Burial
Birth
Marriage
Burial
XI. Stories Told Today
An Ancient Feud
Memories of a Hopi Centenarian
The Coyote and the Water Plume Snake
A Bear Story
The Giant and the Twin War Gods
The Coyote and the Turtle
The Frog and the Locust
XII. Conclusion
The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi[1]
[Footnote 1: A thesis accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Archaeology, University of
Arizona, 1933. Published under the direction of the Committee on
Graduate Study, R.J. Leonard, Chairman.]
I. INTRODUCTION
SHOWING THAT THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE HOPI IS THE
OUTGROWTH OF THEIR UNWRITTEN LITERATURE
* * * * *
GENERAL STATEMENT
By a brief survey of present day Hopi culture and an examination into
the myths and traditions constituting the unwritten literature of this
people, this bulletin proposes to show that an intimate connection
exists between their ritual acts, their moral standards, their social
organization, even their practical activities of today, and their myths
and tales--the still unwritten legendary lore.
The myths and legends of primitive peoples have always interested the
painter, the poet, the thinker; and we are coming to realize more and
more that they constitute a treasure-trove for the archaeologist, and
especially the anthropologist, for these sources tell us of the
struggles, the triumphs, the wanderings of a people, of their
aspirations, their ideals and beliefs; in short, they give us a twilight
history of the race.
As the geologist traces in the rocks the clear record of the early
beginnings of life on our planet, those first steps that have led
through the succession of ever-developing forms of animal and plant life
at last culminating in man and the world as we now see them, so does the
anthropologist discover in the myths and legends of a people the dim
traces of their origin and development till these come out in the
stronger light of historical time. And it is at this point that the
ethnologist, trying to understand a race as he finds them today, must
look earnestly back into the "realm of beginnings," through this window
of so-called legendary lore, in order to account for much that he finds
in the culture of the present day.
=The Challenge: Need of Research on Basic Beliefs Underlying Ceremonies=
Wissler says:[2] "It is still an open question in primitive social
psychology whether we are justified in assuming that beliefs of a basic
character do motivate ceremonies. It seems to us that such must be the
case, because we recognize a close similarity in numerous practices and
because we are accustomed to believe in the unity of the world and life.
So it may still be our safest procedure to secure better records of
tribal traditional beliefs and to deal with objective procedures as far
as possible. No one has ventured to correlate specific beliefs and
ceremonial procedures, but it is through this approach that the
motivating power of beliefs will be revealed, if such potency exists."
[Footnote 2: Wissler, Clark, An Introduction to Social Anthropology:
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1926, p. 266.]
Some work has been done along this line by Kroeber for the tribes of
California, Lowie for the Crow Indians, and Junod for the Ekoi of West
Africa; but it appears that the anthropological problem of basic beliefs
and philosophies is dependent upon specific tribal studies and that more
research is called for.
=The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life=
As a background for our discussion we shall need to consider first, the
nature and significance of mythology, since there is some, indeed much,
difference of opinion on the subject, and to arrive at some basis of
understanding as to its function.
The so-called school of Nature-Mythology, which flourishes mainly in
Germany, maintains that primitive man is highly interested in natural
phenomena, and that this interest is essentially of a theoretic,
contemplative and poetical character. To writers of this school every
myth has as its kernel or essence some natural phenomenon or other, even
though such idea is not apparent upon the surface of the story; a deeper
meaning, a symbolic reference, being insisted upon. Such famous scholars
as Ehrenreich, Siecke, Winckler, Max Muller, and Kuhn have long given us
this interpretation of myth.
In strong contrast to this theory which regards myth as naturalistic,
symbolic, and imaginary, we have the theory which holds a sacred tale as
a true historical record of the past. This idea is supported by the
so-called Historical school in Germany and America, and represented in
England by Dr. Rivers. We must admit that both history and natural
environment have left a profound imprint on all cultural achievement,
including mythology, but we are not justified in regarding all mythology
as historical chronicle, nor yet as the poetical musings of primitive
naturalists. The primitive does indeed put something of historical
record and something of his best interpretation of mysterious natural
phenomena into his legendary lore, but there is something else, we are
led to believe, that takes precedence over all other considerations in
the mind of the primitive (as well as in the minds of all of the rest of
us) and that is getting on in the world, a pragmatic outlook.
It is evident that the primitive relies upon his ancient lore to help
him out in his struggle with his environment, in his needs spiritual and
his needs physical, and this immense service comes through religious
ritual, moral incentive, and sociological pattern, as laid down in the
cherished magical and legendary lore of his tribe.
The close connection between religion and mythology, under-estimated by
many, has been fully appreciated by the great British anthropologist,
Sir James Frazer, and by classical scholars like Miss Jane Harrison.
The myth is the Bible of the primitive, and just as our Sacred Story
lives in our ritual and in our morality, as it governs our faith and
controls our conduct, even so does the savage live by his mythology.
The myth, as it actually exists in a primitive community, even today, is
not of the nature of fiction such as our novel, but is a living reality,
believed to have once happened in primeval times when the world was
young and continuing ever since to influence the world and human
destiny.
The mere fireside tale of the primitive may be a narrative, true or
imaginary, or a sort of fairy story, a fable or a parable, intended
mainly for the edification of the young and obviously pointing a moral
or emphasizing some useful truth or precept. And here we do recognize
symbolism, much in the nature of historical record. But the special
class of stories regarded by the primitive as sacred, his sacred myths,
are embodied in ritual, morals, and social organization, and form an
integral and active part of primitive culture. These relate back to best
known precedent, to primeval reality, by which pattern the affairs of
men have ever since been guided, and which constitute the only "safe
path."
Malinowski[3] stoutly maintains that these stories concerning the
origins of rites and customs are not told in mere explanation of them;
in fact, he insists they are not intended as explanations at all, but
that the myth states a precedent which constitutes an _ideal_ and a
warrant for its continuance, and sometimes furnishes practical
directions for the procedure. He feels that those who consider the myths
of the savage as mere crude stories made up to explain natural
phenomena, or as historical records true or untrue, have made a mistake
in taking these myths out of their life-context and studying them from
what they look like on paper, and not from what they do in life.
[Footnote 3: Malinowski, B., Myth in Primitive Psychology: M.W. Norton &
Co., Inc., New York, 1926, p. 19.]
Since Malinowski's definition of myth differs radically from that of
many other writers on the subject, we would refer the reader to the
discussion of myth under the head of Social Anthropology in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, page 869.
II. THE HOPI
* * * * *
=Their Country--The People=
The Hopi Indians live in northern Arizona about one hundred miles
northeast of Flagstaff, seventy miles north of Winslow, and seventy-five
miles north of Holbrook.
For at least eight hundred years the Hopi pueblos have occupied the
southern points of three fingers of Black Mesa, the outstanding physical
feature of the country, commonly referred to as First, Second, and Third
Mesas.
It is evident that in late prehistoric times several large villages were
located at the foot of First and Second Mesas, but at present, except
for two small settlements around trading posts, the villages are all on
top of the mesas. On the First Mesa we find Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano,
the latter not Hopi but a Tewa village built about 1700 by immigrants
from the Rio Grande Valley, and at the foot of this mesa the modern
village of Polacca with its government school and trading post. On
Second Mesa are Mashongnovi, Shipaulovi, and Shungopovi, with Toreva Day
School at its foot. On Third Mesa Oraibi, Hotavilla, and Bacabi are
found, with a government school and a trading post at Lower Oraibi and
another school at Bacabi. Moencopi, an offshoot from Old Oraibi, is near
Tuba City.
This area was once known as the old Spanish Province of Tusayan, and the
Hopi villages are called pueblos, Spanish for towns. In 1882, 2,472,320
acres of land were set aside from the public domain as the Hopi Indian
Reservation. At present the Hopi area is included within the greater
Navajo Reservation and administered by a branch of the latter Indian
agency.
The name Hopi or Hopitah means "peaceful people," and the name Moqui,
sometimes applied to them by unfriendly Navajo neighbors, is really a
Zuni word meaning "dead," a term of derision. Naturally the Hopi do not
like being called Moqui, though no open resentment is ever shown. Early
fiction and even some early scientific reports used the term Moqui
instead of Hopi.
Admirers have called these peaceful pueblo dwellers "The Quaker People,"
but that is a misnomer for these sturdy brown heathen who have never
asked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a
creditable record of defensive warfare during early historic times and
running back into their traditional history, and have also some accounts
of civil strife.
The nomadic Utes, Piutes, Apaches, and Navajos for years raided the
fields and flocks of this industrious, prosperous, sedentary people; in
fact, the famous Navajo blanket weavers got the art of weaving and their
first stock of sheep through stealing Hopi women and Hopi sheep. But
there came a time when the peaceful Hopi decided to kill the Navajos who
stole their crops and their girls, and then conditions improved. Too,
soon after, came the United States government and Kit Carson to
discipline the raiding Navajos.
The only semblance of trouble our government has had with the Hopi grew
out of the objection, in fact, refusal, of some of the more conservative
of the village inhabitants to send their children to school. The
children were taken by force, but no blood was shed, and now government
schooling is universally accepted and generally appreciated.
A forbidding expanse of desert waste lands surrounds the Hopi mesas,
furnishing forage for Hopi sheep and goats during the wet season and
browse enough to sustain them during the balance of the year. These
animals are of a hardy type adapted to their desert environment. Our
pure blood stock would fare badly under such conditions. However, the
type of wool obtained from these native sheep lends itself far more
happily to the weaving of the fine soft blankets so long made by the
Hopi than does the wool of our high grade Merino sheep or a mixture of
the two breeds. This is so because our Merino wool requires the
commercial scouring given it by modern machine methods, whereas the Hopi
wool can be reduced to perfect working condition by the primitive hand
washing of the Hopi women.
As one approaches the dun-colored mesas from a distance he follows their
picturesque outlines against the sky line, rising so abruptly from the
plain below, but not until one is within a couple of miles can he
discern the villages that crown their heights. And no wonder these
dun-colored villages seem so perfectly a part of the mesas themselves,
for they are literally so--their rock walls and dirt roofs having been
merely picked up from the floor and sides of the mesa itself and made
into human habitations.
The Hopi number about 2,500 and are a Shoshonean stock. They speak a
language allied to that of the Utes and more remotely to the language of
the Aztecs in Mexico.[4]
[Footnote 4: Colton, H.S., Days in the Painted Desert: Museum Press,
Flagstaff, 1932, p. 17.]
According to their traditions the various Hopi clans arrived in Hopiland
at different times and from different directions, but they were all a
kindred people having the same tongue and the same fundamental
traditions.
They did not at first build on the tops of the mesas, but at their feet,
where their corn fields now are, and it was not from fear of the
war-like and aggressive tribes of neighboring Apaches and Navajos that
they later took to the mesas, as we once supposed. A closer acquaintance
with these people brings out the fact that it was not till the Spaniards
had come to them and established Catholic Missions in the late
Seventeenth Century that the Hopi decided to move to the more easily
defended mesa tops for fear of a punitive expedition from the Spaniards
whose priests they had destroyed.
We are told that these desert-dwellers, whose very lives have always
depended upon their little corn fields along the sandy washes that
caught and held summer rains, always challenged new-coming clans to
prove their value as additions to the community, especially as to their
magic for rain-making, for life here was a hardy struggle for existence,
with water as a scarce and precious essential. Among the first
inhabitants was the Snake Clan with its wonderful ceremonies for rain
bringing, as well as other sacred rites. Willingly they accepted the
rituals and various religious ceremonials of new-comers when they showed
their ability to help out with the eternal problem of propitiating the
gods that they conceived to have control over rain, seed germination,
and the fertility and well-being of the race.
In exactly the same spirit they welcomed the friars. Perhaps these
priests had "good medicine" that would help out. Maybe this new kind of
altar, image, and ceremony would bring rain and corn and health; they
were quite willing to try them. But imagine their consternation when
these Catholic priests after a while, unlike any people who had ever
before been taken into their community, began to insist that the new
religion be the only one, and that all other ceremonies be stopped. How
could the Hopi, who had depended upon their old ceremonies for
centuries, dare to stop them? Their revered traditions told them of
clans that had suffered famine and sickness and war as punishment for
having dropped or even neglected their religious dances and ceremonies,
and of their ultimate salvation when they returned to their faithful
performance.
The Hopi objected to the slavish labor of bringing timbers by hand from
the distant mountains for the building of missions and, according to
Hopi tradition, to the priests taking some of their daughters as
concubines, but the breaking point was the demand of the friars that all
their old religious ceremonies be stopped; this they dared not do.
So the "long gowns" were thrown over the cliff, and that was that.
Certain dissentions and troubles had come upon them, and some crop
failures, so they attributed their misfortunes to the anger of the old
gods and decided to stamp out this new and dangerous religion. It had
taken a strong hold on one of their villages, Awatobi, even to the
extent of replacing some of the old ceremonies with the new singing and
chanting and praying. And so Awatobi was destroyed by representatives
from all the other villages. Entering the sleeping village just before
dawn, they pulled up the ladders from the underground kivas where all
the men of the village were known to be sleeping because of a ceremony
in progress, then throwing down burning bundles and red peppers they
suffocated their captives, shooting with bows and arrows those who tried
to climb out. Women and children who resisted were killed, the rest were
divided among the other villages as prisoners, but virtually adopted.
Thus tenaciously have the Hopi clung to their old religion--noncombatants
so long as new cults among them do not attempt to stop the old.
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. Yet their
faith is strong and their disposition is kindly and tolerant, much like
that of the good old Methodist fathers who are disturbed over their
young people being led off into new angles of religious belief, yet
confident that "the old time religion" will prevail and hopeful that the
young will be led to see the error of their way. How long the old faith
can last, in the light of all that surrounds it, no one can say, but in
all human probability it is making its last gallant stand.
These Pueblo Indians are very unlike the nomadic tribes around them.
They are a sedentary, peaceful people living in permanent villages and
presenting today a significant transitional phase in the advance of a
people from savagery toward civilization and affording a valuable study
in the science of man.
Naturally they are changing, for easy transportation has brought the
outside world to their once isolated home. It is therefore highly
important that they be studied first-hand now for they will not long
stay as they are.
III. HOPI SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
* * * * *
=Government=
In government, the village is the unit, and a genuinely democratic
government it is. There is a house chief, a Kiva chief, a war chief, the
speaker chief or town crier, and the chiefs of the clans who are
likewise chiefs of the fraternities; all these making up a council which
rules the pueblo, the crier publishing its decisions. Laws are
traditional and unwritten. Hough[5] says infractions are so few that it
would be hard to say what the penalties are, probably ridicule and
ostracism. Theft is almost unheard of, and the taking of life by force
or law is unknown.
[Footnote 5: Hough, Walter, The Hopi: Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, 1915.]
To a visitor encamped at bedtime below the mesa, the experience of
hearing the speaker chief or town crier for the first time is something
long to be remembered. Out of the stillness of the desert night comes a
voice from the house tops, and such a voice! From the heights above, it
resounds in a sonorous long-drawn chant. Everyone listens breathlessly
to the important message and it goes on and on.
The writer recalls that when first she heard it, twenty years ago, she
sat up in bed and rousing the camp, with stage whispers (afraid to speak
aloud), demanded: "Do you hear that? What on earth can it mean? Surely
something awful has happened!" On and on it went endlessly. (She has
since been told that it is all repeated three times.) And not until
morning was it learned that the long speech had been merely the
announcement of a rabbit hunt for the next day. The oldest traditions of
the Hopi tell of this speaker chief and his important utterances. He is
a vocal bulletin board and the local newspaper, but his news is
principally of a religious nature, such as the announcement of
ceremonials. This usually occurs in the evening when all have gotten in
from the fields or home from the day's journey, but occasionally
announcements are made at other hours.
The following is a poetic formal announcement of the New Fire Ceremony,
as given at sunrise from the housetop of the Crier at Walpi:
"All people awake, open your eyes, arise,
Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly:
Hasten, Clouds, from the four world-quarters.
Come, Snow, in plenty, that water may abound when summer appears.
Come, Ice, and cover the fields, that after planting they may yield
abundantly.
Let all hearts be glad.
The Wuwutchimtu will assemble in four days;
They will encircle the villages, dancing and singing.
Let the women be ready to pour water upon them
That moisture may come in plenty and all shall rejoice."[6]
[Footnote 6: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., p. 43.]
As to the character of their government, Hewett says:[7] "We can
truthfully say that these surviving pueblo communities constitute the
oldest existing republics. It must be remembered, however, that they
were only vest-pocket editions. No two villages nor group of villages
ever came under a common authority or formed a state. There is not the
faintest tradition of a 'ruler' over the whole body of the Pueblos, nor
an organization of the people of this vast territory under a common
government."
[Footnote 7: Hewett, E.L., Ancient Life in the American Southwest:
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1929, p. 71.]
=The Clan and Marriage=
Making up the village are various clans. A clan comprises all the
descendants of a traditional maternal ancestor. 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.
[Footnote 8: Voth, H.R., Traditions of the Hopi: Field Columbian Museum
Pub. 96, Anthropological series, vol. 8, pp. 36-38, 1905.]
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. A daughter on marrying brings her husband
to her home, later building the new home adjacent to that of her
mother. Therefore many daughters born to a clan mean increase in
population.
[Illustration: Figure 1.--Hopi Family at Shungopovi.
--Photo by Lockett.]
Some clans have indeed become nearly extinct because of the lack of
daughters, the sons having naturally gone to live with neighboring
clans, or in some cases with neighboring tribes. As a result, some large
houses are pointed out that have many unoccupied and even abandoned
rooms--the clan is dying out. Possibly there may be a good many men of
that clan living but they are not with or near their parents and
grandparents. They are now a part of the clan into which they have
married, and must live there, be it near or far. Why should they keep up
such a practice when possibly the young man could do better,
economically and otherwise, in his ancestral home and community? The
answer is, "It has always been that way," and that seems to be reason
enough for a Hopi.
=Property, Lands, Houses, Divorce=
Land is really communal, apportioned to the several clans and by them
apportioned to the various families, who enjoy its use and hand down
such use to the daughters, while the son must look to his wife's share
of her clan allotment for his future estate. In fact, it is a little
doubtful whether he has any estate save his boots and saddle and
whatever personal plunder he may accumulate, for the house is the
property of the wife, as well as the crop after its harvest, and divorce
at the pleasure of the wife is effective and absolute by the mere means
of placing said boots and saddle, etc., outside the door and closing it.
The husband may return to his mother's house, and if he insists upon
staying, the village council will insist upon his departure.
Again, why do they keep doing it this way? Again, "Because it has always
been done this way." And it works very well. There is little divorce and
little dissension in domestic life among the Hopi, in spite of
Crane's[9] half comical sympathy for men in this "woman-run"
commonwealth. Bachelors are rare since only heads of families count in
the body politic. An unmarried woman of marriageable age is unheard of.
[Footnote 9: Crane, Leo, Indians of the Enchanted Mesa: Little, Brown &
Co., Boston, 1925.]
=Woman's Work=
The Hopi woman's life is a busy one, the never finished grinding of corn
by the use of the primitive metate and mano taking much time, and the
universal woman's task of bearing and rearing children and providing
meals and home comforts accounting for most of her day.
She is the carrier of water, and since it must be borne on her back from
the spring below the village mesa this is a burden indeed. She is, too,
the builder of the house, though men willingly assist in any heavy
labor when wanted. But why on earth should so kindly a people make woman
the carrier of water and the mason of her home walls? Tradition! "It has
always been this way."
Her leisure is employed in visiting her neighbors, for the Hopi are a
conspicuously sociable people, and in the making of baskets or pottery.
One hears a great deal about Hopi pottery, but the pottery center in
Hopiland is the village of Hano, on First Mesa, and the people are not
Hopi but Tewas, whose origin shall presently be explained.
Not until recent years has pottery been made elsewhere in Hopiland than
at Hano. At present, however, Sichomovi, the Hopi village built so close
to Hano that one scarce knows where one ends and the other begins, makes
excellent pottery as does the Hopi settlement at the foot of the hill,
Polacca. Undoubtedly this comes from the Tewa influence and in some
cases from actual Tewa families who have come to live in the new
locality. For instance, Grace, maker of excellent pottery, now living at
Polacca, is a Tewa who lived in Hano twenty years ago, when the writer
first knew her, and continued to live there until a couple of years ago.
Nampeo, most famous potter in Hopiland, is an aged Tewa woman still
living at Hano, in the first house at the head of the trail. Her
ambitious study of the fragments of the pottery of the ancients, in the
ruins of old Sikyatki, made her the master craftsman and developed a new
standard for pottery-making in her little world.
Mention was made previously of the women employing their leisure in the
making of baskets or pottery. An interesting emphasis should be placed
upon the "or," for no village does both. The women of the three villages
mentioned at First Mesa as pottery villages make no baskets. The three
villages on Second Mesa make a particular kind of coiled basket found
nowhere else save in North Africa, and no pottery nor any other kind of
basket. The villages of Third Mesa make colorful twined or wicker
baskets and plaques, just the one kind and no pottery. They stick as
closely to these lines as though their wares were protected by some
tribal "patent right." Pottery for First Mesa, coiled baskets for Second
Mesa, and wicker baskets for Third Mesa.
The writer has known the Hopi a long time, and has asked them many
times the reason for this. The villages are only a few miles apart, so
the same raw materials are available to all. These friends merely laugh
good naturedly and answer: "O, the only reason is, that it is just the
way we have always done it."
Natural conservatives, these Hopi, and yet not one of them but likes a
bright new sauce-pan from the store for her cooking, and a good iron
stove, for that matter, if she can afford it. There is no tradition
against this, we are told.
[Illustration: Figure 2.--Walpi.
--Photo by Bortell.]
More than two centuries ago, these Tewas came from the Rio Grande
region, by invitation of the Walpi, to help them defend this village
(See Figure 2) from their Navajo, Apache, and Piute enemies. They were
given a place on the mesa-top to build their village, at the head of the
main trail, which it was their business to guard, and fields were
allotted them in the valley below.
They are a superior people, intelligent, friendly, reliable, and so
closely resemble the Hopi that they can not be told apart.
The two peoples have intermarried freely, and it is hard to think of the
Tewas otherwise than as "one kind of Hopi." However, they are of a
distinctly different linguistic stock, speaking a Tewa language brought
from the Rio Grande, while the Hopi speak a dialect of the Shoshonean.
It is an interesting fact that all Tewas speak Hopi as well as Tewa,
whereas the Hopi have never learned the Tewa language. The Hopi have a
legend accounting for this:
"When the Hano first came, the Walpi said to them, 'Let us spit in your
mouths and you will learn our tongue,' and to this the Hano consented.
When the Hano came up and built on the mesa, they said to the Walpi,
'Let us spit in your mouths and you will learn our tongue,' but the
Walpi would not listen to this, saying it would make them vomit. This is
the reason why all the Hano can speak Hopi, and none of the Hopi can
talk Hano."[10]
[Footnote 10: Mindeleff, Cosmos, Traditional History of Tusayan (After
A.M. Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, p. 36, 1887.]
=Man's Work=
The work of the men must now be accounted for lest the impression be
gained that the industry of the women leaves the males idle and
carefree.
It is but fair to the men to say that first of all they carry the
community government on their shoulders, and the still more weighty
affairs of religion. They are depended upon to keep the seasonal and
other ceremonies going throughout the year, and the Hopi ceremonial
calendar has its major event for each of the twelve months, for all of
which elaborate preparation must be made, including the manufacture and
repair of costumes and other paraphernalia and much practicing and
rehearsing in the kivas. Someone has said much of the Hopi man's time is
taken up with "getting ready for dances, having dances, and getting over
dances." Yes, a big waste of time surely to you and me, but to the Hopi
community--men, women, and children alike--absolutely essential to their
well-being. There could be no health, happiness, prosperity, not even an
assurance of crops without these ceremonies.
The Hopi is a good dry farmer on a small scale, and farming is a
laborious business in the shifting sands of Hopiland. Their corn is
their literal bread of life and they usually keep one year's crop
stored. These people have known utter famine and even starvation in the
long ago, and their traditions have made them wise. The man tends the
fields and flocks, makes mocassins, does the weaving of the community
(mostly ceremonial garments) and usually brings in the wood for fuel,
since it is far to seek in this land of scant vegetation, in fact
literally miles away and getting farther every year, so that the man
with team and wagon is fortunate indeed and the rest must pack their
wood on burros. Both men and women gather backloads of faggots wherever
such can be found in walking distance, and said distance is no mean
measure, for these hardy little people have always been great walkers
and great runners.
Hough says:[11] "Seemingly the men work harder making paraphernalia and
costumes for the ceremonies than at anything else, but it should be
remembered that in ancient days everything depended, in Hopi belief, on
propitiating the deities. Still if we would pick the threads of religion
from the warp and woof of Hopi life there apparently would not be much
left. 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."
[Footnote 11: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, pp. 156-58.]
IV. POTTERY AND BASKET MAKING TRADITIONAL; ITS SYMBOLISM
* * * * *
The art of pottery-making is a traditional one; mothers teach their
daughters, even as their mothers taught them. There are no recipes for
exact proportions and mixtures, no thermometer for controlling
temperatures, no stencil or pattern set down upon paper for laying out
the designs. The perfection of the finished work depends upon the
potter's sense of rightness and the skill developed by practicing the
methods of her ancestors with such variation as her own originality and
ingenuity may suggest.
All the women of a pueblo community know how to make cooking vessels, at
least, and in spare time they gather and prepare their raw materials,
just as the Navajo woman has usually a blanket underway or the Apache a
basket started. The same is true of Hopi basketry; its methods, designs,
and symbolism are all a matter of memory and tradition.
From those who know most of Indian sacred and decorative symbols, we
learn that two main ideas are outstanding: desire for rain and belief in
the unity of all life. Charms or prayers against drought take the form
of clouds, lightning, rain, etc., and those for fertility are expressed
by leaves, flowers, seed pods, while fantastic birds and feathers
accompany these to carry the prayers. It may be admitted that the modern
craftsman is often enough ignorant of the full early significance of the
motifs used, but she goes on using them because they express her idea of
beauty and because she knows that always they have been used to express
belief in an animate universe and with the hope of influencing the
unseen powers by such recognition in art.
The modern craftsman may even tell you that the once meaningful symbols
mean nothing now, and this may be true, but the medicine men and the old
people still hold the traditional symbols sacred, and this reply may be
the only short and polite way of evading the troublesome stranger to
whom any real explanation would be difficult and who would quite likely
run away in the middle of the patient explanation to look at something
else. Only those whose friendship and understanding have been tested
will be likely to be told of that which is sacred lore. However, if the
tourist insists upon having a story with his basket or pottery and the
seller realizes that it's a story or no sale, he will glibly supply a
story, be he Indian or white, both story and basket being made for
tourist consumption.
To the old time Indian everything had a being or spirit of its own, and
there was an actual feeling of sympathy for the basket or pot that
passed into the hands of unsympathetic foreigners, especially if the
object were ceremonial. The old pottery maker never speaks in a loud
tone while firing her ware and often sings softly for fear the new being
or spirit of the pot will become agitated and break the pot in trying to
escape. Nampeo, the venerable Tewa potter, is said to talk to the
spirits of her pots while firing them, adjuring them to be docile and
not break her handiwork by trying to escape. But making things to sell
is different--how could it be otherwise?
In one generation Indian craftsmen have come to be of two classes, those
who make quantities of stuff for sale and those few who become real
artists, ambitious to save from oblivion the significance and idealism
of the old art that was done for the glory of the gods. Indian art may
survive with proper encouragement, but it must come now; after a while
will be too late.
A notably fine example of such encouragement is the work of Mary Russell
F. Colton of Flagstaff, Arizona, in the Hopi Craftsman Exhibition held
annually at the Northern Arizona Museum of which she is art curator. At
the 1931 Exhibition, 142 native Hopi sent in 390 objects. Over $1500
worth of material was sold and $200 awarded in prizes. The attendance
total of visitors was 1,642. From this exhibit a representative
collection of Hopi Art was assembled for the Exposition of Indian Tribal
Arts at the Grand Central Galleries, New York City, in December of the
same year. A gratifying feature of these annual exhibits is the fact
that groups of Hopi come in from their reservation 100 miles away and
modestly but happily move about examining and enjoying these lovely
samples of their own best work and that of their neighbors; and they are
quick to observe that it is the really excellent work that gets the blue
ribbon, the cash prize, and the best sale.
Dr. Fewkes points out that while men invented and passed on the
mythology of the tribe, women wrote it down in symbols on their
handicrafts which became the traditional heritage of all.
The sand paintings made for special ceremonies on the floors of the
various kivas, in front of the altars, are likewise designs carried only
in the memory of the officiating priest and derived from the clan
traditions. All masks and ceremonial costumes are strictly prescribed by
tradition. The corn symbol is used on everything. Corn has always been
the bread of life to the Hopi, but it has been more than food, it has
been bound up by symbolism with his ideas of all fertility and
beneficence. Hopi myths and rituals recognize the dependence of their
whole culture on corn. They speak of corn as their mother. The chief of
a religious fraternity cherishes as his symbol of high authority an ear
of corn in appropriate wrappings said to have belonged to the society
when it emerged from the underworld. The baby, when twenty days old, is
dedicated to the sun and has an ear of corn tied to its breast.
V. HOUSE BUILDING
* * * * *
As already stated, the house (See Figure 3) belongs to the woman. She
literally builds it, and she is the head of the family, but the men help
with the lifting of timbers, and now-a-days often lay up the masonry if
desired; the woman is still the plasterer. The ancestral home is very
dear to the Hopi heart, men, women, and children alike.
After the stone for building has been gathered, the builder goes to the
chief of the village who gives him four small eagle feathers to which
are tied short cotton strings. These, sprinkled with sacred meal, are
placed under the four corner stones of the new house. The Hopi call
these feathers Nakiva Kwoci, meaning a breath prayer, and the ceremony
is addressed to Masauwu. Next, the door is located by placing a bowl of
food on each side of where it is to be. Likewise particles of food,
mixed with salt, are sprinkled along the lines upon which the walls are
to stand. The women bring water, clay, and earth, and mix a mud mortar,
which is used sparingly between the layers of stone. Walls are from
eight to eighteen inches thick and seven or eight feet high, above which
rafters or poles are placed and smaller poles crosswise above these,
then willows or reeds closely laid, and above all reeds or grass holding
a spread of mud plaster. When thoroughly dry, a layer of earth is added
and carefully packed down. All this is done by the women, as well as the
plastering of the inside walls and the making of the plaster floors.
Now the owner prepares four more eagle feathers and ties them to a
little willow stick whose end is inserted in one of the central roof
beams. No home is complete without this, for it is the soul of the house
and the sign of its dedication. These feathers are renewed every year at
the feast of Soyaluna.
The writer remembers once seeing a tourist reach up and pull off the
little tuft of breath feathers from the mid-rafter of the little house
he had rented for the night. Naturally he replaced it when the enormity
of his act was explained to him.
Not until the breath feathers have been put up, together with particles
of food placed in the rafters as an offering to Masauwu, with due
prayers for the peace and prosperity of the new habitation, may the
women proceed to plaster the interior, to which, when it is dry, a coat
of white gypsum is applied (all with strokes of the bare hands), giving
the room a clean, fresh appearance. In one corner of the room is built a
fireplace and chimney, the latter often extended above the roof by
piling bottomless jars one upon the other, a quaint touch, reminding one
of the picturesque chimney pots of England.
[Illustration: Figure 3.--Typical Hopi Home.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
The roofs are finished flat and lived upon as in Mediterranean
countries, particularly in the case of one-story structures built
against two-story buildings, the roof of the low building making the
porch or roof-garden for the second-story room lying immediately
adjacent. Here, on the roof many household occupations go on, including
often summer sleeping and cooking.
When the new house is completely finished and dedicated, the owner gives
a feast for all members of her clan who have helped in the
house-raising, and the guests come bearing small gifts for the home.
Formerly, the house was practically bare of furniture save for the
fireplace and an occasional stool, but the majority of the Hopi have
taken kindly to small iron cook stoves, simple tables and chairs, and
some of them have iron bedsteads. Even now, however, there are many
homes, perhaps they are still in the majority, where the family sits in
the middle of the floor and eats from a common bowl and pile of piki
(their native wafer corn bread), and sleeps on a pile of comfortable
sheep skins with the addition of a few pieces of store bedding, all of
which is rolled up against the wall to be out of the way when not in
use.
In the granary, which is usually a low back room, the ears of corn are
often sorted by color and laid up in neat piles, red, yellow, white,
blue, black, and mottled, a Hopi study in corn color. Strings of native
peppers add to the colorful ensemble.
VI. MYTH AND FOLKTALE; GENERAL DISCUSSION
* * * * *
=Stability=
Because none of this material could be written down but was passed by
word of mouth from generation to generation, changes naturally occurred.
Often a tale traveled from one tribe to another and was incorporated, in
whole or in part, into the tribal lore of the neighbor--thus adding
something. And, we may suppose, some were more or less forgotten and
thus lost; but, as Wissler[12] tells us, "tales that are directly
associated with ceremonies and, especially, if they must be recited as a
part of the procedure, are assured a long life."
[Footnote 12: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit, p. 254.]
Such of these tales as were considered sacred or accounted for the
origin of the people, were held in such high regard as to lay an
obligation upon the tribe to see to it that a number of individuals
learned and retained these texts, perhaps never in fixed wording, except
for songs, but as to essential details of plot.
Many collectors have recorded several versions of certain tales, thus
giving an idea of the range of individual variation, and the writer
herself has encountered as many as three variants for some of her
stories, coming always from the narrators of different villages. But
Wissler,[13] while allowing for these variations, says: "All this
suggests instability in primitive mythology. Yet from American data,
noting such myths as are found among the successive tribes of larger
areas, it appears that detailed plots of myths may be remarkably
stable."
[Footnote 13: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit., p. 254.]
=Intrusion of Contemporary Material=
However there is another point discussed by Wissler which troubled the
writer greatly as a beginner, and that was the intrusion of new material
with old, for instance, finding an old Hopi story of how different
languages came to exist in the world and providing a language for the
_Mamona_, meaning the Mormons, who lived among the Hopi some years ago.
The writer was inclined to throw out the story, regarding the whole
thing as a modern concoction, but Wissler[14] warns us that: "From a
chronological point of view we may expect survival material in a tribal
mythology along with much that is relatively recent in origin. It is,
however, difficult to be sure of what is ancient and what recent,
because only the plot is preserved; rarely do we find mention of objects
and environments different from those of the immediate present."
[Footnote 14: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit, p. 255.]
A tale, to be generally understood, must often be given a contemporary
setting, and this the narrator instinctively knows, therefore the
introduction of modern material with that of undoubted age.
Stability, then, lies in the plot rather than in the culture setting;
the former may be ancient, while the latter sometimes reflects
contemporary life.
Boaz[15] argues that much may be learned of contemporary tribal culture
by a study of the mythology of a given people, since so much of the
setting of the ancient tale reflects the tribal life of the time of the
recording. He has made a test of the idea in his study of the Tsimshian
Indians. From this collection of 104 tales he concludes that: "In the
tales of a people those incidents of the everyday life that are of
importance to them will appear either incidentally or as the basis of a
plot. Most of the reference to the mode of life of the people will be an
accurate reflection of their habits. The development of the plot of the
story, further-more, will on the whole exhibit clearly what is
considered right and what wrong."
[Footnote 15: Boaz, Franz, Tsimshian Mythology: Bureau American
Ethnology, vol. 35, 1916, p. 393.]
=How and Why Myths Are Kept=
There are set times and seasons for story-telling among the various
Indian tribes, but the winter season, when there is likely to be most
leisure and most need of fireside entertainment, is a general favorite.
However, some tribes have myths that "can not be told in summer, others
only at night, etc."[16] Furthermore there are secret cults and
ceremonials rigidly excluding women and children, whose basic myths are
naturally restricted in their circulation, but in the main the body of
tribal myth is for the pleasure and profit of all.
[Footnote 16: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit., p. 256.]
Old people relate the stories to the children, not only because they
enjoy telling them and the children like listening to them, but because
of the feeling that every member of the tribe should know them as a part
of his education.
While all adults are supposed to know something of the tribal stories,
not all are expected to be good story-tellers. Story-telling is a gift,
we know, and primitives know this too, so that everywhere we have
pointed out a few individuals who are the best story-tellers, usually an
old man, sometimes an old woman, and occasionally, as the writer has
seen it, a young man of some dramatic ability. When an important story
furnishing a religious or social precedent is called for, either in
council meeting or ceremonial, the custodian of the stories is in
demand, and is much looked up to; yet primitives rarely create an office
or station for the narrator, nor is the distinction so marked as the
profession of the medicine man and the priest.
=Service of Myth=
As to the service of myth in primitive life, Wissler[17] says: "It
serves as a body of information, as stylistic pattern, as inspiration,
as ethical precepts, and finally as art. It furnishes the ever ready
allusions to embellish the oration as well as to enliven the
conversation of the fireside. Mythology, in the sense in which we have
used the term, is the carrier and preserver of the most immaterial part
of tribal culture."
[Footnote 17: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit., p. 258.]
=Hopi Story-Telling=
There comes a time in the Hopi year when crops have been harvested, most
of the heavier and more essentially important religious ceremonials have
been performed in their calendar places, and even the main supply of
wood for winter fires has been gathered. To be sure, minor dances, some
religious and some social, will be taking place from time to time, but
now there will be more leisure, leisure for sociability and for
story-telling.
[Illustration: Figure 4.--Kiva at Old Oraibi.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
In the kivas (See Figure 4) the priests and old men will instruct the
boys in the tribal legends, both historical and mythological, and in the
religious ceremonies in which they are all later supposed to
participate. In the home, some good old story-telling neighbor drops in
for supper, and stories are told for the enjoyment of all present,
including the children; all kinds of stories, myths, tales of adventure,
romances, and even bed-time stories. 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.
Without books and without writing the Hopi have an extensive
literature. That a surprising degree of accuracy is observed in its oral
transmission from generation to generation is revealed by certain
comparisons with the records made by the Spanish explorers in the
sixteenth century.
VII. HOPI RELIGION
* * * * *
=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; but their reverence for and communion with the spirits of
ancestors gives to this complex religious fabric of the Hopi a strong
quality of Ancestor Worship. It is all this and more.
The surface of the earth is ruled by a mighty being whose sway extends
to the underworld and over death, fire, and the fields. This is Masauwu,
to whom many prayers are said. Then there is the Spider Woman or Earth
Goddess, Spouse of the Sun and Mother of the Twin War Gods, prominent in
all Hopi mythology. Apart from these and the deified powers of nature,
there is another revered group, the Kachinas, spirits of ancestors and
some other beings, with powers good and bad. These Kachinas are
colorfully represented in the painted and befeathered dolls, in masks
and ceremonies, and in the main are considered beneficent and are
accordingly popular. They intercede with the spirits of the other world
in behalf of their Hopi earth-relatives.
Masked individuals represent their return to the land of the living from
time to time in Kachina dances, beginning with the Soyaluna ceremony in
December and ending with the Niman or Kachina Farewell ceremony in July.
Much of this sort of thing takes on a lighter, theatrical flavor
amounting to a pageant of great fun and frolic. Dr. Hough says these are
really the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, musical,
spectacular, delightfully entertaining, and they show the cheerful Hopi
at his best--a true, spontaneous child of nature.
There are a great many of these Kachina dances through the winter and
spring, their nature partly religious, partly social, for with the Hopi,
religion and drama go hand in hand. Dr. Hough speaks appreciatively of
these numerous occasions of wholesome merry-making, and says these
things keep the Hopi out of mischief and give them a reputation for
minding their own business, besides furnishing them with the best round
of free theatrical entertainments enjoyed by any people in the world.
Since every ceremony has its particular costumes, rituals, songs, there
is plenty of variety in these matters and more detail of meaning than
any outsider has ever fathomed.
The Niman, or farewell dance of the Kachinas, takes place in July. It is
one of their big nine-day festivals, including secret rites in the kivas
and a public dance at its close.
Messengers are sent on long journeys for sacred water, pine boughs, and
other special objects for these rites. This is a home-coming festival
and a Hopi will make every effort to get home to his own town for this
event. On the ninth day there is a lovely pageant just before sunrise
and another in the afternoon. No other ceremony shows such a gorgeous
array of colorful masks and costumes. And it is a particularly happy day
for the young folk, for the Kachinas bring great loads of corn, beans,
and melons, and baskets of peaches, especially as gifts for the
children; also new dolls and brightly painted bows and arrows are given
them. The closing act of the drama is a grand procession carrying sacred
offerings to a shrine outside the village.
This is the dance at which the brides of the year make their first
public appearance; their snowy wedding blankets add a lovely touch to
the colorful scene.
=Religion Not For Morality=
The Hopi is religious, and he is moral, but there is no logical
connection between the two.
Mrs. Coolidge says:[18] "In all that has been said concerning the gods
and the Kachinas, the spiritual unity of all animate life, the
personification of nature and the correct conduct for attaining favor
with the gods, no reference has been made to morality as their object.
The purpose of religion in the mind of the Indian is to gain the
favorable, or to ward off evil, influences which the super-spirits are
capable of bringing to the tribe or the individual. Goodness,
unselfishness, truth-telling, respect for property, family, and filial
duty, are cumulative by-products of communal living, closely connected
with religious beliefs and conduct, but not their object. The Indian,
like other people, has found by experience that honesty is the best
policy among friends and neighbors, but not necessarily so among
enemies; that village life is only tolerable on terms of mutual safety
of property and person; that industry and devotion to the family
interest make for prosperity and happiness. Moral principles are with
him the incidental product of his ancestral experience, not primarily
inculcated by the teaching of any priest or shaman. Yet the Pueblos show
a great advance over many primitive tribes in that their legends and
their priests reiterate constantly the idea that 'prayer is not
effective except the heart be good.'"
[Footnote 18: Coolidge, Mary Roberts, The Rain-makers: Houghton Mifflin
Co., New York, 1929, p. 203.]
VIII. CEREMONIES; GENERAL DISCUSSION
* * * * *
=Beliefs and Ceremonials=
The beliefs of a tribe, philosophical, religious, and magical, are, for
the most part, expressed in objective ceremonies. The formal procedure
or ritual is essentially a representation or dramatization of the main
idea, usually based upon a narrative. Often the ceremony opens with or
is preceded by the narration of the myth on which it is based, or the
leader may merely refer to it on the assumption that everyone present
knows it.
As to the purpose of the ceremony, there are those who maintain that
entertainment is the main incentive, but the celebration or holiday
seems to be a secondary consideration according to the explanation of
the primitives themselves.
If there chances to be a so-called educated native present to answer
your inquiry on the point, he will perhaps patiently explain to you that
just as July Fourth is celebrated for something more than parades and
firecrackers, and Thanksgiving was instituted for other considerations
than the eating of turkey, so the Hopi Snake Dance, for instance, is
given not so much to entertain the throng of attentive and respectful
Hopi, and the much larger throng of more or less attentive and more or
less respectful white visitors, as to perpetuate, according to their
traditions, certain symbolic rites in whose efficacy they have
profoundly believed for centuries and do still believe.
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.
Through age-old ritual and dramatic celebration, practiced with
unvarying regularity, participated in by all, keeping time to the days,
seasons and ages, moving in rhythmic procession with life and all
natural forces, the people are kept in a state of orderly composure and
like-mindedness.
[Footnote 19: Hewett, E.L., Op. cit., p. 117.]
"The religious life of the Pueblo Indian is expressed mainly through the
community dances, and in these ceremonies are the very foundations of
the ancient wisdom...."
Dance is perhaps hardly the right word for these ceremonies, yet it is
what the Hopi himself calls them, and he is right. But we who have used
the word to designate the social dances of modern society or the
aesthetic and interpretive dances for entertainment and aesthetic
enjoyment will have to tune our sense to a different key to be in
harmony with the Hopi dance.
Our primitive's communion with nature and with his own spirit have
brought him to a reverent attitude concerning the wisdom of birds,
beasts, trees, clouds, sunlight, and starlight, and most of all he
clings trustingly to the wisdom of his fathers.
"All this," according to Hewett, "is voiced in his prayers and
dramatized in his dances--rhythm of movement and of color summoned to
express in utmost brilliancy the vibrant faith of a people in the deific
order of the world and in the way the ancients devised for keeping man
in harmony with his universe. All his arts, therefore, are rooted in
ancestral beliefs and in archaic esthetic forms."
Surely no people on earth, not even the Chinese, show a more consistent
reverence for the wisdom of the past as preserved in their myths and
legends, than do the Hopi.
IX. HOPI MYTHS AND TRADITIONS AND SOME CEREMONIES BASED UPON THEM
* * * * *
=The Emergence Myth and the Wu-wu-che-ma Ceremony=
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.
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]
[Footnote 20: Mindeleff, Cosmos, Traditional History of Tusayan (After
A.M. Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, pp. 16-41, 1887.]
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.
By appealing to Myuingwa (a vague conception of the god of the interior)
and Baholinkonga (plumed serpent of enormous size, genius of water)
their old men obtained a seed from which sprang a magic growth of cane.
The cane grew to miraculous height and penetrated through a crevice in
the roof overhead and mankind climbed to a higher plane. Here was dim
light and some vegetation. Another magic cane brought them to a higher
plane, with more light and vegetation, and here was the creation of the
animal kingdom. Singing was always the chief magic for creating
anything. In like manner, they rose to the fourth stage or earth; some
say by a pine tree, others say through the hollow cylinder of a great
reed or rush.
This emergence was accompanied by singing, some say by the Magic Twins,
the two little war gods, others say by the mocking bird. At any rate, it
is important to observe that when the song ran out, no more people could
get through and many had to remain behind.
However, the outlet through which man came has never been closed, and
Myuingwa sends through it the germs of all living things. It is still
symbolized, Stephen says, by the peculiar construction of the hatchway
of the kiva, in designs on the kiva sand altars, and by the unconnected
circle on pottery, basketry, and textiles. Doubtless the most direct
representation of this opening to the underworld is the sipapu or
ceremonial small round opening in the floor of the kiva, which all Hopi,
without exception, agree symbolizes the opening or spirit passage to the
underworld. "Out of the sipapu we all came," they say, "and back to the
underworld, through the sipapu, we shall go when we die."
Once every year the Hopi hold an eight-day ceremony commemorating this
emergence from the underworld. It is called the Wu-wu-che-ma, occurs in
November and thus begins the series of Winter festivals. Four societies
take part, and the Da-dow-Kiam or Mocking Bird Society opens the
ceremony by singing into the kiva of the One-Horned Society this
emergence song, the very song sung by the mocking bird at the original
emergence, according to Voth.[21] This ceremony is a prayer to the
powers of the underworld for prosperity and for germination of new life,
human, animal, and vegetable. Fewkes called this the New Fire Ceremony,
and in the course of the eight-day ceremonial the kindling of new fire
with the primitive firestick does take place. But it is not hard to feel
a close relation between the idea of fire and that of germination which
stands out as the chief idea in the whole ritual, particularly in the
subtle dramatization of the underworld life and emergence as carried on
in the kivas, preceding the public "dance" on the last day.
[Footnote 21: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, p. 11.]
Thus we have at least three distinct points in this one myth that
account for three definite things we find the Hopi doing today: (1)
Note that it was "our old men" who got from the gods the magic seed of
the tall cane which brought relief to the people. To this day it is the
old men who are looked up to and depended upon to direct the people in
all important matters. "It was always that way." (2) While the magic
song lasted the people came through the sipapu, but when the song ended
no more could come through, and there was weeping and wailing. Singing
is today the absolutely indispensable element in all magic rites. There
may be variation in the details of some performances, but "unless you
have the right song, it won't work." The Hopi solemnly affirm they have
preserved their original emergence song, and you hear it today on the
first morning of the Wu-wu-che-ma. (3) The sipapu seen today in the
floor of the kiva or ceremonial chamber symbolizes the passage from
which all mankind emerged from the underworld, so all the Hopi agree.
The belief of the present-day Hopi that the dead return through the
sipapu to the underworld is based firmly upon an extension of this myth,
as told to Voth,[22] for it furnishes a clear account of how the Hopi
first became aware of this immortality.
[Footnote 22: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, p. 11.]
It seems that soon after they emerged from the underworld the son of
their chief died, and the distressed father, believing that an evil one
had come out of the sipapu with them and caused this death, tossed up a
ball of meal and declared that the unlucky person upon whose head it
descended should be thus discovered to be the guilty party and thrown
back down into the underworld. The person thus discovered begged the
father not to do this but to take a look down through the sipapu into
the old realm and see there his son, quite alive and well. This he did,
and so it was.
Do the Hopi believe this now? Yes, so they tell you. And Mr. Emery
Koptu, sculptor, who lived among them only a few years ago and enjoyed a
rare measure of their affection and good will, recently told the writer
of a case in point:
On July 4, 1928, occurred the death of Supela, last of the Sun priests.
Mr. Koptu, who had done some studies of this fine Hopi head, was in
Supela's home town, Walpi, at the time of the old priest's passing.
The people were suffering from a prolonged drouth, and since old Supela
was soon to go through the sipapu to the underworld, where live the
spirits who control rain and germination, he promised that he would
without delay explain the situation to the gods and intercede for his
people and that they might expect results immediately after his arrival
there. Since his life had been duly religious and acceptable to the
gods, it was the belief of both Supela and his friends that he would
make the journey in four days, which is record time for the trip, when
one has no obstacles in the way of atonements or punishments to work off
en-route. Supela promised this, and the people looked for its
fulfillment. Four days after Supela's death the long drouth was broken
by a terrific rain storm accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning. Did
the Hopi show astonishment? On the contrary they were aglow with
satisfaction and exchanged felicitations on the dramatic assurance of
Supela's having "gotten through" in four days. The most wonderful eulogy
possible!
It is indicated, in the story of Supela, that the Hopi believe that only
the "pure in heart," so to speak, go straight to the abode of the
spirits, whereas some may have to take much longer because of atonements
or punishments for misdeeds. Their basis for this lies in a tradition
regarding the visit of a Hopi youth to the underworld and his return to
the earth with an account of having passed on the way many suffering
individuals engaged in painful pursuits and unable to go on until the
gods decreed they had suffered enough. He had also seen a great smoke
arising from a pit where the hopelessly wicked were totally burned up.
He was told to go back to his people and explain all these things and
tell them to make many pahos (prayer-sticks) and live straight and the
good spirits could be depended upon to help them with rain and
germination. Voth records[23] two variants of this legend.
[Footnote 23: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, pp. 109-119 (A journey to the
skeleton house).]
=Some Migration Myths=
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." Then each group was given a path and started on its way by
the Twin War Gods and their mother, the Spider Woman.
The Hopi were taught how to build stone houses, and then the various
clans dispersed, going separate ways. And after many many generations
they arrived at their present destination from all directions and at
different times. They brought corn with them from the underworld.
It is generally agreed that the Snake people were the first to occupy
the Tusayan region.
There are many variations in the migration myths of the Snake people,
but the most colorful version the writer has encountered is the one
given to A.M. Stephen, fifty years ago, by the then oldest member of the
Snake fraternity. A picturesque extract only is given here.
It begins: "At the general dispersal, my people lived in snake skins,
each family occupying a separate snake-skin bag, and all were hung on
the end of a rainbow, which swung around until the end touched Navajo
Mountain, where the bags dropped from it; and wherever their bags
dropped, there was their house. After they arranged their bags they came
out from them as men and women, and they then built a stone house which
had five sides.
"A brilliant star arose in the southwest, which would shine for a while
and then disappear. The old men said, 'Beneath that star there must be
people,' so they determined to travel toward it. They cut a staff and
set it in the ground and watched till the star reached its top, then
they started and traveled as long as the star shone; when it
disappeared they halted. But the star did not shine every night, for
sometimes many years elapsed before it appeared again. When this
occurred, our people built houses during their halt; they built both
round and square houses, and all the ruins between here and Navajo
Mountain mark the places where our people lived. They waited till the
star came to the top of the staff again, then they moved on, but many
people were left in those houses and they followed afterward at various
times. When our people reached Wipho (a spring a few miles north from
Walpi) the star disappeared and has never been seen since."
There is more of the legend, but quoted here are only a few closing
lines relative to the coming of the Lenbaki (the Flute Clan):
"The old men would not allow them to come in until Masauwu (god of the
face of the earth) appeared and declared them to be good Hopitah. So
they built houses adjoining ours and that made a fine large village.
Then other Hopitah came in from time to time, and our people would say,
'Build here, or build there,' and portioned the land among the
new-comers."[24]
[Footnote 24: Mindeleff, Victor, Pueblo architecture (Myths after
Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, pp. 17-18, 1887.]
The foregoing tradition furnishes the answer to two things one asks in
Hopiland. First, why have these people, who by their traditions wandered
from place to place since the beginning of time, only building and
planting for a period sometimes short, sometimes a few generations, but
not longer, they believe--why have they remained in their present
approximate location for eight hundred years and perhaps much longer?
The answer is their story of the star that led them for "many moves and
many stops" but which never again appeared, to move them on, after they
reached Walpi.
The second point is: The Flute Dance, which is still held on the years
alternating with the Snake Dance, is of what significance? It is the
commemoration of the arrival of this Lenbaki group, a branch of the Horn
people, and the performance of their special magic for rain-bringing,
just as they demonstrated it to the original inhabitants of Walpi, by
way of trial, before they were permitted to settle there.
=Flute Ceremony and Tradition=
This Flute ceremony is one of the loveliest and most impressive in the
whole Hopi calendar. And because it is one which most clearly
illustrates this thesis, some detail of the ceremony will be given.
From the accounts of many observers that of Hough[25] has been chosen:
"On the first day the sand altar is made and at night songs are begun.
Within the kiva the interminable rites go on, and daily the cycle of
songs accompanied with flutes is rehearsed. A messenger clad in an
embroidered kilt and anointed with honey, runs, with flowing hair, to
deposit prayer-sticks at the shrines, encircling the fields in his runs
and coming nearer the pueblo on each circuit. During the seventh and
eighth days a visit is made to three important springs where ceremonies
are held, and on the return of the priests they are received by an
assemblage of the Bear and Snake Societies, the chiefs of which
challenge them and tell them that if they are good people, as they
claim, they can bring rain.
[Footnote 25: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., pp. 156-158.]
"After an interesting interchange of ceremonies, the Flute priests
return to their kiva to prepare for the public dance on the morrow. When
at 3:00 a.m. the belt of Orion is at a certain place in the heavens, the
priests file into the plaza, where a cottonwood bower has been erected
over the shrine called the entrance to the underworld. Here the priests
sing, accompanied with flutes, the shrine is ceremonially opened and
prayer-sticks placed within, and they return to the kiva. At some of the
pueblos there is a race up the mesa at dawn on the ninth day, as in
other ceremonies.
"On the evening of the ninth day the Flute procession forms and winds
down the trail to the spring in order: A leader, the Snake maiden, two
Snake youths, the priests, and in the rear a costumed warrior with bow
and whizzer. At the spring they sit on the south side of the pool, and
as one of the priests plays a flute the others sing, while one of their
number wades into the spring, dives under water, and plants a
prayer-stick in the muddy bottom. Then taking a flute he again wades
into the spring and sounds it in the water to the four cardinal points.
Meanwhile sunflowers and cornstalks have been brought to the spring by
messengers. Each priest places the sunflowers on his head and each takes
two cornstalks in his hands and the procession, two abreast, forms to
ascend the mesa. A priest draws a line on the trail with white corn meal
and across it three cloud symbols. The Flute children throw the
offerings they hold in their hands upon the symbols, followed by the
priests who sing to the sound of the flutes.
[Illustration: Figure 5.--Flute Ceremony at Michongnovi.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
"The children pick the offerings from the ground with sticks held in
their hands, and the same performance is repeated till they stand again
in the plaza on the mesa before the cottonwood bower, where they sing
melodious songs then disperse."
The foregoing description of Hough's is an account of the Walpi
ceremony, where we find only one Flute fraternity. Each of the other
villages has two fraternities, the Blue Flute and the Drab Flute. The
Flute Ceremony at Mishongnovi is perhaps the most impressive example of
this pageant as given by the double fraternity. Dr. Byron Cummings
reports this Mishongnovi ceremony as having several interesting
variations from the Walpi report given above. (See Figure 5.)
[Illustration: Figure 6.--Flute Boy before Costuming.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
On the ninth day women were observed sweeping the trail to the spring
with meticulous care, in preparation for the double procession which
came down at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
All the costuming was done at the spring--body painting, putting on of
ceremonial garments and arranging of hair.
The fathers of the Flute maidens brushed and arranged their hair for
them and put on their blankets. If a girl had no father, her uncle did
this for her. There were two Flute Maids and a Flute Boy (See Figure 6)
who walked between them, in each of the two fraternities. Even this
ceremonial costuming was accompanied by solemn singing.
When all was ready the priests sat on the edge of the pool with their
legs hanging over, and the two maids and the boy sat behind them on a
terrace of the bank. The Blue Flute fraternity occupied one side of the
pool and the Drab Flute fraternity another. Many songs were sung to the
strange, plaintive accompaniment of the flute players. After a while an
old priest waded into the pool and walked around it in ever-narrowing
circles till he reached the center, where he sank into the water and
disappeared for a dramatically long moment and came up with a number of
ceremonial objects in his hands, including a gourd bottle filled with
water from the depths of the spring.
It was late afternoon by the time all the songs had been sung, and
evening when the two processions had finished their ceremonial ascent to
the mesa top, pausing again and again as the old priest went ahead and
drew his symbolic barrier of meal and the three rain clouds across the
path, which were to be covered with the pahos of the Flute children,
then taken up and moved on to the next like symbol. The old priest led
the procession, the three children behind him, then the flute players,
followed by the priests bearing emblems, and the priest with the bull
roarer at the end of the line. Each fraternity preserved its own
formation. Having reached the village plaza they marched to the Kisa and
deposited their pahos and ceremonial offerings, then dispersed. The
solemnity of the long ritual, the weird chant and the plaintive
accompaniment of the flutes running through the whole ceremony, while at
the spring, coming up the hill, and to the last act before the Kisa,
leaves the imprint of its strange musical vibration long after the scene
has closed.
The legend back of this ceremony is a long account of the migrations of
the Horn and Flute people. It relates that when they at last reached
Walpi, they halted at a spring and sent a scout ahead to see if people
were living there. He returned and reported that he had seen traces of
other people. So the Flute people went forth to find them. When they
came in sight of the houses of Walpi, they halted at the foot of the
mesa, then began moving up the trail in ceremonial procession, with
songs and the music of the flutes.
Now the Bear and Snake people who lived in Walpi drew a line of meal
across the trail, a warning understood by many primitives, and
challenged the new-comers as to who they were, where they were going,
and what they wanted. Then the Flute chief said, "We are of your blood,
Hopi. Our hearts are good and our speech straight. We carry on our backs
the tabernacle of the Flute Altar. We can cause rain to fall."
Four times the demand was repeated, as the Flute people stood
respectfully before the barrier of meal, and four times did their chief
make the same reply. Then the Walpis erased the line of meal and the
Flute people entered the pueblo, set up their altars and demonstrated
their rain magic by singing their ceremonial Flute songs which resulted
in bringing the needed rain. Then said the Bear and Snake chiefs,
"Surely your chief shall be one of our chiefs."
Thus we see that the Flute Dance as given today is a dramatization of
this legend. Dr. Fewkes, who collected this legend, tells us that the
Flute fraternity claims to be even more successful rain-makers than the
world-famous Snake fraternity.[26]
[Footnote 26: Fewkes, J. Walter, The Walpi Flute Observance: Journal
American Folklore, vol. 7, 1894.]
Dr. Monsen tells of seeing the Flute ceremony at Mishongnovi, a good
many years ago, and of the deeply religious feeling that pervaded the
whole scene. His words are descriptive of a dramatic moment at the close
of the day, when the procession had at last reached the public plaza on
top of the mesa.[27]
[Footnote 27: Monsen, Frederick, Religious Dances of the Hopi: The
Craftsman, vol. 12, 1907, pp. 284-285.]
[Illustration: Figure 7.--Hopi Girl in Butterfly Costume.
--Photo by Lockett.]
"By this time it was nearly dark, but the ceremony went on in the center
of the plaza where other mysterious symbols were outlined on the rocky
floor with the strewn corn meal, and numbers of supplementary chants
were sung until night closed down entirely and the moon appeared....
Then came something so extraordinary that I am aware that it will sound
as if I were drawing on the rich stores of my imagination, for the
coincidence which closed the festival.
"But all I can say is that to my unutterable astonishment, it happened
exactly as I tell it. At a certain stage in this part of the ceremony
there was a pause. No one left the plaza, but every one stood as still
as a graven image, and not a sound broke the hush, apparently of
breathless expectancy. The stillness was so unearthly that it became
oppressive, and a few white friends who were with me began to urge in
whispers that we leave the plaza as all was evidently at an end, and go
back to our camp below the mesa, when suddenly there rang out such a
wild, exultant shout of unrestrained, unmeasured rejoicing as only
Indians can give in moments of supreme religious exaltation--raindrops
had splashed on devout, upturned faces.
"Their prayers had been answered. The spell of the drouth-evil had been
broken, and the long strain of the solemn ceremonial gave place to such
a carnival of rejoicing as it seldom falls to the lot of civilized man
to see....
"From the white man's point of view, this answer to prayer was, of
course, the merest coincidence, but not all the power of church or
government combined could convince the Hopi that their god had not heard
them ... that their devotion to the ancient faith had brought relief
from famine, and life to themselves and their flocks and herds."
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. And this has
been the conviction of a majority of the scientific observers who have
studied them.
=Other Dances=
There is a very definite calendar arrangement of these ceremonials, some
variation in the different villages, but no deviation in the order and
essential details of the main dances.
In December comes the Soyaluna, or winter solstice ceremony, to turn the
sun back from his path of departure and insure his return with length of
days to the Indian country. Good-will tokens are exchanged, not unlike
our idea of Christmas cards, at the end of the ceremony; they are
prayer tokens which are planted with prayers for health and prosperity.
The kiva rituals are rich in symbolism and last eight days, if young men
are to be initiated, otherwise four. The public dance at the end is a
masked pageant.
In January comes the Buffalo Dance, with masks representing buffalo,
deer, mountain sheep, and the other big game animals. Its chief
characters are the Hunter and the Buffalo Mother, or Mother of all big
game. A prayer for plentiful big game is the idea of this dance.
In February the Powamu, "bean sprouting," ceremony occurs, with very
elaborate ritual signifying consecration of fields for planting. Various
masks and symbolic costumes are used, and the children's initiation is
accompanied with a ceremonial "flogging"--really a switching by
kachinas. Dr. Dorsey considers this the most colorful of all Hopi
ceremonies and says that nowhere else on earth can one see in nine days
such a wealth of religious drama, such a pantheon of the gods
represented by masked and costumed actors, such elaborate altars and
beautiful sand mosaics, nor songs and myths sung and recited of such
obvious archaic character, containing many old words and phrases whose
meaning is no longer known even to the Hopi themselves.
March brings the Palululong, "Great Plumed Serpent," a masked and
elaborately costumed mystery play given in the kiva. This shows more of
the dramatic ability and ingenuity of this people than any other of
their ceremonies; the mechanical representation of snakes as actors
being one of its astonishing features.
One of the very pretty social dances is the Butterfly Dance, given
during the summer by the young people of marriageable age. Costumes are
colorful and tall wooden headdresses or tablets are worn. Figure 7 shows
a Hopi girl acquaintance photographed just at the close of a Butterfly
Dance that the writer witnessed in the summer of 1932 at Shungopovi.
(See Figure 8.)
This dance is really a very popular social affair, a sort of coming out
party adopted from the Rio Grande Pueblos a good many years ago.
=The Snake Myth and the Snake Dance=
The Snake Dance of the Hopi is, of course, the best known and most
spectacular of their ceremonies, and comparatively few white people have
seen any other.
One hears from tourists on every hand, "Oh, they used to believe in
these things, but of course they know better now, and at any rate it's
all a commercial racket, a side show to attract tourists!"
[Illustration: Figure 8.--Shungopovi, Second Mesa.
--Photo by Lockett.]
Anyone who says this has seen little and thought less. 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.
The writer has seen tourists so crowd the roofs of the Hopi homes
surrounding the dance plaza that she feared the roofs would give way,
and has also observed that the resident family was sometimes crowded out
of all "ring-side" seats. 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.
The writer has observed these ceremonies in the various Hopi villages
for the past twenty years, some with hundreds of spectators from all
over the world, others in more remote villages, with but a mere handful
of outsiders present. She is personally convinced that the Snake Dance
is no show for tourists but a deeply significant religious ceremony
performed definitely for the faithful fulfillment of traditional magic
rites that have, all down the centuries, been depended upon to bring
these desert-dwellers the life-saving rain and insure their crops. They
have long put their trust in it, and they still do so.
Are there any unbelievers? Yes, to be sure; but not so many as you might
think. There are unbelievers in the best, of families, Methodist,
Presbyterian, and Hopi, but the surprising thing is that there are so
many believers, at least among the Hopi.
The Snake Dance, so-called, is the culmination of an eight-days'
ceremonial, an elaborate prayer for rain and for crops. Possibly
something of the significance of parts of its complicated ritual may
have been forgotten, for some of our thirst for knowledge on these
points goes unquenched, in spite of the courteous explanations the Hopi
give when our queries are sufficiently courteous and respectful to
deserve answers. And possibly some of the things we ask about are "not
for the public" and may refer to the secret rituals that take place in
the kivas, as in connection with many of their major ceremonials.
We do know that the dramatization of their Snake Myth constitutes part
of the program. This myth has many variations. The writer, personally,
treasures the long story told her by Dr. Fewkes, years ago, and
published in the Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol.
IV., 1894, pages 106-110. But here shall be given the much shorter and
very adequate account of Dr. Colton,[28] as abbreviated from that of
A.M. Stephen:
"To-ko-na-bi was a place of little rain, and the corn was weak. Tiyo, a
youth of inquiring mind, set out to find where the rain water went to.
This search led him into the Grand Canyon. Constructing a box out of a
hollow cottonwood log, he gave himself to the waters of the Great
Colorado. After a voyage of some days, the box stopped on the muddy
shore of a great sea. Here he found the friendly Spider Woman who,
perched behind his ear, directed him on his search. After a series of
adventures, among which he joined the sun in his course across the sky,
he was introduced into the kiva of the Snake people, men dressed in the
skins of snakes. The Snake Chief said to Tiyo, 'Here we have an
abundance of rain and corn; in your land there is but little; fasten
these prayers in your breast; and these are the songs that you will sing
and these are the prayer-sticks that you will make; and when you display
the white and black on your body the rain will come.' He gave Tiyo part
of everything in the kiva as well as two maidens clothed in fleecy
clouds, one for his wife, and one as a wife for his brother. With this
paraphernalia and the maidens, Tiyo ascended from the kiva. Parting from
the Spider Woman, he gained the heights of To-ko-na-bi. He now
instructed his people in the details of the Snake ceremony so that
henceforth his people would be blessed with rain. The Snake Maidens,
however, gave birth to Snakes which bit the children of To-ko-na-bi, who
swelled up and died. Because of this, Tiyo and his family were forced to
emigrate and on their travels taught the Snake rites to other clans."
[Footnote 28: Colton, H.S., Op. cit., p. 18.]
Most of the accounts tell us that later only human children were born to
the pair, and these became the ancestors of the Snake Clan who, in their
migrations, finally reached Walpi, where we now find them, the most
spectacular rain-makers in the world.
Another fragment of the full Snake legend must be given here to account
for what Dr. Fewkes considers the most fearless episode of the Snake
Ceremonial--the snake washing:
"On the fifth evening of the ceremony and for three succeeding evenings
low clouds trailed over To-ko-na-bi, and Snake people from the
underworld came from them and went into the kivas and ate corn pollen
for food, and on leaving were not seen again. Each of four evenings
brought a new group of Snake people, and on the following morning they
were found in the valleys metamorphosed into reptiles of all kinds. On
the ninth morning the Snake Maidens said: 'We understand this. Let the
Younger Brothers (The Snake Society) go out and bring them all in and
_wash their heads_, and let them dance with you.'"[29]
[Footnote 29: Fewkes, J.W., The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi: Jour. Am.
Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol. IV, 1894, p. 116.]
Thus we see in the ceremony an acknowledgment of the kinship of the
snakes with the Hopi, both having descended from a common ancestress.
And since the snakes are to take part in a religious ceremony, of course
they must have their heads washed or baptized in preparation, exactly as
must every Hopi who takes part in any ceremony. The meal sprinkled on
the snakes during the dance and at its close is symbolic of the Hopi's
prayers to the underworld spirits of seed germination; and thus the
Elder Brothers bear away the prayers of the people and become their
messengers to the gods, to whom the Elder Brothers are naturally closer,
being in the ground, than are the Younger Brothers, who live above
ground.
Rather a delicately right idea, isn't it, this inviting of the Elder
Brothers, however lowly, to this great religious ceremonial which
commemorates the gift of rain-making, as bestowed by their common
ancestress, and perpetuates the old ritual so long ago taught by the
Snake Chief of the underworld to Tiyo, the Hopi youth who bravely set
out to see where all the blessed rain water _went_, and came back with
the still more blessed secrets of whence and how to make it _come_.
Nine days before the public Snake Ceremony, the priests of the Antelope
and Snake fraternities enter their respective kivas and hang over their
hatchways the Natsi, a bunch of feathers, which, on the fifth day is
replaced by a bow decorated with eagle feathers. This first day is
occupied with the making of prayer-sticks and in the preparation of
ceremonial paraphernalia. On the next four days, ceremonial snake hunts
are conducted by the Snake men. Each day in a different quarter of the
world, first north, next day west, then south, then east.
It is an impressive sight, this line of Snake priests, bodies painted,
pouches, snake whips, and digging sticks in hand, marching single file
from their kiva, through the village and down the steep trail that leads
from the mesa to the lowlands.
When a snake is found under a bush or in his hole, the digging stick
soon brings him within reach of the fearless hand; then sprinkling a
pinch of corn meal on his snakeship and uttering a charm and prayer, the
priest siezes the snake easily a few inches back of the head and
deposits him in the pouch. Should the snake coil to strike, the snake
whip (two eagle feathers secured to a short stick) is gently used to
induce him to straighten out.
At sunset they return in the same grim formation, bearing the snake
pouches to the kiva, where four jars (not at all different from their
water jars) stand ready to receive the snakes and hold them till the
final or ninth day of the ceremony.
On the next three mornings, just before dawn, in the Antelope Kiva, is
held the symbolic marriage of Tiyo and the Snake Maiden, followed by the
singing of sixteen traditional songs.
Just before sunset of the eighth day, the Antelope and Snake priests
give a public pageant in the plaza, known as the Antelope or Corn Dance.
It is a replica of the Snake Dance, but shorter and simpler, and here
corn is carried instead of snakes.
On the morning of the ninth and last day occurs the Sunrise Corn Race,
when the young men of the village race from a distant spring to the mesa
top. The whole village turns out to watch from the rim of the mesa, and
great merriment attends the arrival of the racers, the winner receiving
some ceremonial object, which, placed in his corn field, should work as
a charm and insure a bumper crop.
In 1912, Dr. Byron Cummings witnessed a more interesting sunrise race
than the writer has ever seen or heard described by any other observer.
An aged priest stood on the edge of the mesa, before the assembled crowd
of natives and visitors, and gave a long reverberating call, apparently
the signal for which the racers were waiting, for away across the plain
below and to the right was heard an answering call, and from the left
and far away, another answer. Eagerly the crowd watched to catch the
first glimpse of the approaching racers, for there was no one in sight
for some time, from the direction of either of the answering calls.
Finally mere specks in the distance to the right resolved themselves
into a line of six men running toward the mesa. As they came within
hailing distance they were greeted by the acclamations of the watchers.
These runners were Snake priests, all elderly men, and as each in turn
reached the position of the aged priest at the mesa edge, he received
from that dignitary a sprinkling of sacred meal and a formal
benediction, then passed on to the Snake Kiva.
Before the last of these had appeared, began the arrival of the young
athletes from across the plain to the left. Swiftly them came, and
gracefully, their lithe brown bodies glistening in the early sunlight,
across the level lowland, then up the steep trail, to be met at the mesa
edge by a picturesque individual carrying a cow bell and wearing a
beautiful garland of fresh yellow squash blossoms over his smooth
flowing, black hair, and a girdle of the same lovely flowers round his
waist, with a perfect blossom over each ear completing his unique
decoration.
As the athletes, one at a time, joined him they fell into a procession
and, led by the flower bedecked individual, they moved gracefully in a
circle to the rhythmic time of a festive chant and the accompaniment of
the cow bell. When the last racer had arrived, they were led in a sort
of serpentine parade toward the plaza. But before they reached that
point they encountered a waiting group of laughing women and girls in
bright-colored shawls, whose rollicking role seemed to be that of
snatching away from the young men the stalks of green corn, squash, and
gourds they had brought up from the fields below. The scene ended in a
merry skirmish as the crowd dispersed.
Later, Dr. Cummings unobtrusively followed the tracks of the priests
back along their sunrise trail and out across the desert for more than
two miles, to find there a simple altar and nine fresh prayer-sticks.
About noon occurs the snake washing in the kiva. This is not for the
public gaze. If one knows no better than to try to pry into kiva
ceremonies, he is courteously but firmly told to move along.
A few white men have been permitted to see this ceremony, among them,
Dr. Fewkes; an extract from his description of a snake washing at Walpi
follows:[30]
[Footnote 30: Fewkes, J.W., Op. cit.]
"The Snake priests, who stood by the snake jars which were in the east
corner of the room, began to take out the reptiles and stood holding
several of them in their hands behind Supela (the Snake Priest), so that
my attention was distracted by them. Supela then prayed, and after a
short interval, two rattlesnakes were handed him, after which venomous
snakes were passed to the others, and each of the six priests who sat
around the bowl held two rattlesnakes by the necks with their heads
elevated above the bowl. A low noise from the rattles of the priests,
which shortly after was accompanied by a melodious hum by all present,
then began. The priests who held the snakes beat time up and down above
the liquid with the reptiles, which, although not vicious, wound their
bodies around the arms of the holders.
"The song went on and frequently changed, growing louder, and wilder,
until it burst forth into a fierce, blood-curdling yell, or war cry. At
this moment the heads of the snakes were thrust several times into the
liquid, so that even parts of their bodies were submerged, and were then
drawn out, not having left the hands of the priests, and forcibly thrown
across the room upon the sand mosaic, knocking down the crooks and other
objects placed about it. As they fell on the sand picture, three Snake
priests stood in readiness, and while the reptiles squirmed about or
coiled for defense, these men with their snake whips brushed them back
and forth in the sand of the altar. The excitement which accompanied
this ceremony cannot be adequately described. The low song, breaking
into piercing shrieks, the red-stained singers, the snakes thrown by the
chiefs and the fierce attitudes of the reptiles as they lashed on, the
sand mosaic, made it next to impossible to sit calmly down and quietly
note the events which followed one another in quick succession. The
sight haunted me for weeks afterward, and I can never forget this
wildest of all the aboriginal rites of this strange people, which showed
no element of our present civilization. It was a performance which might
have been expected in the heart of Africa rather than in the American
Union, and certainly one could not realize that he was in the United
States at the end of the nineteenth century. The low, weird song
continued while other rattlesnakes were taken in the hands of the
priests, and as the song rose again to the wild war cry, these snakes
were also plunged into the liquid and thrown upon the writhing mass
which now occupied the place of the altar. Again and again this was
repeated until all the snakes had been treated in the same way, and
reptiles, fetishes, crooks, and sand were mixed together in one confused
mass. As the excitement subsided and the snakes crawled to the corners
of the kiva, seeking vainly for protection, they were pushed back in the
mass, and brushed together in the sand in order that their bodies might
be thoroughly dried. Every snake in the collection was thus washed, the
harmless varieties being bathed after the venomous. In the destruction
of the altar by the reptiles, the snake ti-po-ni (insignia) stood
upright until all had been washed, and then one of the priests turned it
on its side, as a sign that the observance had ended. The low, weird
song of the snake men continued, and gradually died away until there was
no sound but the warning rattle of the snakes, mingled with that of the
rattles in the hands of the chiefs, and finally the motion of the snake
whips ceased, and all was silent."
Several hours later these snakes are used in the public Snake Dance, and
until that time they are herded on the floor of the kiva by a delegated
pair of snake priests assisted by several boys of the Snake Clan,
novices, whose fearless handling of the snakes is remarkable.
Already (on the eighth day) in the plaza has been erected the Kisa, a
tall conical tepee arrangement of green cottonwood boughs, just large
enough to conceal the man who during the dance will hand out the snakes
to the dancers. Close in front of the Kisa is a small hole made in the
ground, covered by a board. This hole symbolizes the sipapu or entrance
to the underworld.
[Illustration: Figure 9.--Antelope Priest with Tiponi.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
At last comes the event for which the thronged village has been waiting
for hours, and for which some of the white visitors have crossed the
continent. Just before sundown the Antelope priests file out of their
kiva in ceremonial array--colorfully embroidered white kilts and sashes,
bodies painted a bluish color with white markings in zigzag lines
suggestive of both snakes and lightning, chins painted black with white
lines through the mouth from ear to ear, white breath feathers tied in
the top of their hair, and arm and ankle ornaments of beads, shells,
silver, and turquoise. (See Figure 9.) Led by their chief, bearing the
insignia of the Antelope fraternity and the whizzer, followed by the
asperger, with his medicine bowl and aspergill and wearing a chaplet of
green cottonwood leaves on his long, glossy, black hair, they circle the
plaza four times, each time stamping heavily on the sipapu board with
the right foot, as a signal to the spirits of the underworld that they
are about to begin the ceremony. Now they line up in front of the Kisa,
their backs toward it, and await the coming of the Snake priests, for
these Antelope priests, with song and rattle, are to furnish the music
for the Snake Dance.
There is an expectant hush and then come the Snake priests, up from
their kiva in grim procession, marching rapidly and with warlike
determination. You would know them to be the Snake priests rather than
the Antelope fraternity by the vibration of their mighty tread alone,
even if you did not see them. Their bodies are fully painted, a reddish
brown decorated with zigzag lightning symbols and other markings in
white. The short kilt is the same red-brown color, as are their
mocassins, the former strikingly designed with the snake zigzag and
bordered above and below this with conventionalized rainbow bands.
Soft breath feathers, stained red, are worn in a tuft on the top of the
head, and handsome tail feathers of the hawk or eagle extend down and
back over the flowing hair. A beautiful fox skin hangs from the waist in
the back. Their faces are painted black across the whole mid section and
the chins are covered with white kaolin--a really startling effect.
Necks, arms, and ankles are loaded with native jewelry and charms,
sometimes including strings of animal teeth, claws, hoofs, and even
small turtle shells for leg ornaments, from all of which comes a great
rattling as the priests enter the plaza with their energetic strides.
Always a hushed gasp of admiration greets their entrance,--an admiration
mixed with a shudder of awe. Again the standard bearer, with his whizzer
or thunder-maker, leads, followed by the asperger, and we hear the sound
of thunder, as the whizzer (sometimes called the bull-roarer) is whirled
rapidly over the priest's head. The chapleted asperger sprinkles his
charm liquid in the four directions, first north, then west, south, and
east.
They circle the plaza four times, each stamping mightily upon the cover
of the sipapu as they pass the Kisa. Surely, the spirits of the
underworld are thus made aware of the presence of the Snake Brotherhood
engaged in the traditional ritual. Incidentally, this Snake Dance is
carried on in the underworld on a known date in December, and at that
time the Hopi Snake men set up their altar and let the spirits know that
they are aware of their ceremony and in sympathy with them.
[Illustration: Figure 10.--Snake Priests in Front of Kisa.
--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]
Now the procession lines up facing the Antelope priests in front of the
Kisa, (See Figure 10), and the rattles of both lines of priests begin a
low whirr not unlike the rattle of snakes. All is perfectly rhythmic and
the Snake priests, with locked fingers, sway back and forth to the
music, bodies as well as feet keeping time, while the Antelopes mark
time with a rhythmic shuffle. At last they break into a low chant, which
increases in volume, and rising and falling goes on interminably.
At last there is a pause and the Snake priests form into groups of
three, a carrier, an attendant, and a gatherer.
Each group waits its turn before the Kisa. The carrier kneels and
receives a snake from the passer, who (with the snake bag) sits
concealed within the Kisa. As he rises, the carrier places his snake
between his lips or teeth, usually holding it well toward the neck, but
often enough near the middle, so that its head may sometimes move across
the man's face or eyes and hair, a really harrowing sight. The
attendant, sometimes called the hugger, places his left arm across the
shoulder of the first dancer and walks beside and a step behind him,
using his feather wand or snake whip to distract the attention of the
snake. (See Figure 11.) Just behind this pair walks their gatherer, who
is alertly ready to pick up the dropped snake, when it has been carried
four times around the dance circle; sometimes it is dropped sooner.
The dance step of this first pair is a rhythmic energetic movement,
almost a stamping, with the carrier dancing with closed eyes. The
gatherer merely walks behind, and is an alertly busy man. The writer has
seen as many as five snakes on the ground at once, some of them coiling
and rattling, others darting into the surrounding crowd with lightning
rapidity, but never has she seen one escape the gatherer, and just once
has she seen a snake come near to making its escape. This was during the
ceremony at Hotavilla last summer (1932); the spectators had crowded
rather close to the circle, and several front rows sat on the ground, in
order that the dozens of rows back of them might see over their heads.
As for the writer, she sat on a neighboring housetop, well out of the
way of rattlers, red racers, rabbit snakes, and even the harmless but
fearsome-looking bull snake from 3 to 5 feet long. Often the snake
starts swiftly for the side lines, but always without seeming haste the
gatherer gets it just as the startled spectators begin a hasty retreat.
If the snakes coils, meal is sprinkled on it and the feather wand
induces it to straighten, when it is picked up. But this time the big
snake really got into the crowd, second or third row, through space
hurriedly opened for him by the frightened and more or less squealing
white visitors. The priest was unable to follow it quickly without
stepping on people, who had repeatedly been warned not to sit too close.
[Illustration: Figure 11.--Snake Priests with Snake.
--Photo by Bortell]
Very quietly and without rising, a man in the third row picked up the
snake and handed it to the gatherer. The writer shuddered but did not
realize that the impromptu gatherer was her son, so bronzed by a
summer's archaeology field trip that she did not recognize him.
Afterward he merely said, "It was a harmless bull snake, and the priest
couldn't reach it; it's a shame for visitors to crowd up and get in the
way unless they are prepared to sit perfectly still, whatever happens."
Really one feels ashamed of the squealing and frightened laughter of
careless white visitors who stand or sit nearer than they should and
then make an unseemly disturbance when a snake gets too close. The
priests resent such conduct, but always go right on without paying any
attention to it. The rattles and singing voices of the Antelope priests
furnish a dignified, rhythmic accompaniment throughout the dance, and
the Snake men move in perfect time to it.
When all the snakes have been carried and the last one has been dropped
from the mouth of the carrier, the chant ceases. A priest draws a great
round cloud symbol on the ground. Quickly the Hopi maids and women, (a
small selected group), who stand ready with baskets of meal, sprinkle
the ground within the circle. At a signal all the snakes, now in the
hands of the gatherers and the Antelope priests, are thrown upon this
emblem. The women hastily drop sacred meal on the mass of snakes, then a
second signal and the Snake priests grab up the whole writhing mass in
their hands and run in the four directions off the steep mesa, to
deposit their Elder Brothers again in the lowlands with the symbolic
sacred meal on their backs, that they may bear away to the underground
the prayers of their Younger Brothers, the Snake Clan. The Antelope
priests now circle the plaza four times, stamping on the sipapu in
passing, and then return to their own kiva, and the dance is over. The
Snake priests presently return to the village, still running, disrobe in
their kiva and promptly go to the nearest edge of the mesa, where the
women of their clan wait with huge bowls of emetic (promptly effective)
and tubs of water for bathing. This is the purification ceremony which
ends the ritual. Immediately the women of their families bring great
bowls and trays of food and place them on top of the Snake Kiva, and the
men, who have fasted all day and sometimes longer, enjoy a feast.
A spirit of relief and happiness now pervades the village and everybody
keeps open house.
Far more often than otherwise, rain, either a sprinkle or a downpour,
has come during or just at the close of the dance, and the people are
thankful and hopeful, for this is often the first rain of the season.
The writer has herself stood soaked to the skin by a thunder shower that
had been slowly gathering through the sultry afternoon and broke with
dramatic effect during the ceremony. The Snake priests were noticeably
affected by the incident and danced with actual fanatic frenzy.
Those who habitually attend this ceremony from Flagstaff and Winslow and
other points within motoring distance (if there is any motoring distance
these days) have long ago learned that they would better start for home
immediately following the dance, not waiting for morning, else the dry
washes may be running bank high by that time and prevent their getting
away.
The writer has counted more than a hundred marooned cars lined up at Old
Oraibi or Moencopi Wash, waiting, perhaps another twenty-four hours, for
the ordinarily dry wash to become fordable. One will at least be
impressed with the idea that the Snake Dance (a movable date set by the
priests from the observation of shadows on their sacred rocks) comes
just at the breaking of the summer drouth.
The writer has seen in the Snake Dance as many as nine groups of three,
all circling the plaza at once. But in recent years the number is
smaller, in some villages not more than four, for the old priests are
dying off and not every young man who inherits the priesthood upon the
death of his maternal uncle (priest) is willing to go on, though there
are some novices almost every year. This year (1932) the eleven year old
brother of a Hopi girl in the writer's employ went into his first snake
dance, as a gatherer, and his sister (a school girl since six) was as
solicitous as the writer whenever it was a rattler that Henry had to
gather up. But we both felt that we must keep perfectly still, so our
expressions of anxiety were confined to very low whispers. Henry was not
bitten and if he had been he would not have died. It is claimed and
generally believed that no priest has ever died from snake bite, and
indeed they are seldom bitten. During the past twenty years the writer
has twice seen a priest bitten by a rattler, once a very old priest and
once a boy of fourteen. No attention was paid, and apparently nothing
came of it.
Dr. Fewkes, Dr. Hough, and other authorities, in works already referred
to, assert that the fangs of the snakes are not removed, nor are the
snakes doped, nor "treated" in any way that could possibly render their
poison harmless. Nor is it believed that the Hopi have any antidote for
snake bite in their emetic or otherwise.
Does their belief make them fearless and likewise immune? Or are they
wise in their handling of the snakes, so that danger is reduced to the
vanishing point? No one knows.
The writer has made no attempt to go into the very numerous minute
details of this ceremony, such as the mixing of the liquid for snake
washing, the making of the elaborate sand painting for the Snake altar,
or descriptions of various kinds of prayer-sticks and their specific
uses. Authorities differ greatly on these points and each village uses
somewhat different paraphernalia and methods of procedure. These details
occupy hours and even days and are accompanied by much prayer and
ceremonial smoking, and the sincerity and solemnity of it all are most
impressive to any fair-minded observer.
The Hopi year is full of major and minor ceremonies, many of them as
deeply religious as those already described at some length; others of a
secular or social order, but even these are tinged with the religious
idea and invariably based on tradition.
If many elements of traditional significance have been forgotten, as
they undoubtedly have in some instances, nevertheless the thing is kept
going according to traditional procedure, and the majority of the
participants believe it best to keep up these time-honored rituals.
Their migration tales, partly mythical, partly historical, relate many
unhappy instances of famine, pestilence, and civil strife, which have
been brought upon various clans because of their having neglected their
old dances and ceremonies, and of relief and restored prosperity having
followed their resumption. Once, bad behavior brought on a flood.
Here is the story, and it will explain at least partially, the
ceremonial use of turkey feathers.
=A Flood and Turkey Feathers=
Turkey feathers are much prized for ceremonial uses today. If you want
to carry a little present to a Hopi friend, particularly an old man, or
an old woman, save up a collection of especially nice looking turkey
feathers. They will be put to ceremonial uses and bring blessings to
their owners.
Here is at least one of the legends back of the idea, as collected by
Stephen and reported by Mindeleff.[31] The chief of the water people
speaks:
"In the long ago, the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in
Tusayan), but their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for
rain the cloud sent only a thin mist. My people then lived in the
distant Palatkiwabi in the South. There was a very bad old man there,
who, when he met anyone, would spit in his face, blow his nose upon him,
and rub ordure upon him. He ravished the girls and did all manner of
evil. (Note: Other variants of the legend say the young men were
mischievously unkind and cruel to the old men, rather than that an old
man was bad. H.G.L.) Baholikonga (big water serpent deity) got angry at
this and turned the world upside down, and water spouted up through the
kivas and through the fireplaces in the houses. The earth was rent in
great chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of
mud; and across this the serpent deity told all the people to travel. As
they journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell into
the dark water, but the good, after many days, reached dry land. While
the water, rising around the village, came higher, the old people got on
the tops of the houses, for they thought they could not struggle across
with the younger people. But Baholikonga clothed them with the skins of
turkeys, and they spread out their wings and floated in the air just
above the surface of the water, and in this way they got across. There
were saved of our people, Water, Corn, Lizard, Horned Toad, Sand, two
families of Rabbit, and Tobacco. The turkeys' tails dragged in the
water--hence the white on the turkey tail now. Wearing these turkey
skins is the reason why old people have dewlaps under the chin like a
turkey; it is also the reason why old people use turkey feathers at the
religious ceremonies."
[Footnote 31: Mindeleff, Victor, Op. cit. (Myths by Cosmos Mindeleff
after Stephen), p. 31.]
Hough[32] says that in accord with the belief that the markings on the
tail feathers were caused by the foam and slime of an ancient deluge,
the feathers are prescribed for all pahos, since through their mythical
association with water they have great power in bringing rain.
[Footnote 32: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, p. 172.]
X. CEREMONIES FOR BIRTH, MARRIAGE, BURIAL
* * * * *
The story of the Hopi, who does every important thing in his life
according to a traditional pattern and accompanied by appropriate
religious ceremony, would not be complete without some account of birth,
marriage, and burial. Not having seen these ceremonies, the writer
offers the record of authoritative observers.
=Birth=
Babies are welcomed and well cared for in Hopiland, and now that the
young mothers are learning to discard unripe corn, fruit, and melons as
baby food, the infant mortality, once very high, is decreasing.
Natal ceremonies are considered important. Goddard[33] gives us a brief
picture of the usual proceedings: "The Hopi baby is first washed and
dressed by its paternal grandmother or by one of her sisters. On the day
of its birth she makes four marks with corn meal on the four walls of
the room. She erases one of these on the fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and
twentieth day of the child's life. On each of these days the baby and
its mother have their heads washed with yucca suds. On the twentieth
day, which marks the end of the lying-in period, the grandmother comes
early, bathes the baby and puts some corn meal to its lips. She utters a
prayer in which she requests that the child shall reach old age and in
this prayer gives it a name. A few of the women members of the father's
clan come in one at a time, bathe the baby and give it additional names.
After the names have been given, the paternal grandmother goes with the
mother and the child to the eastern edge of the mesa, starting so as to
arrive about sunrise. Two ears of white corn which have been lying near
the child during the twenty days, are carried with them. The grandmother
touches these ears of corn to the baby's breast and waves them to the
east. She also strews corn meal toward the sun, placing a little on the
child's mouth. As she does this, she prays, uttering in the course of
her prayer the various names which have been given to the child. The
mother goes through a similar ceremony and utters a similar prayer.
"The names given relate in some way to the clan of the one who bestows
them. Of the various names given to the child, one, because it strikes
the fancy of the family, generally sticks ... until the individual is
initiated into some ceremony. At that time a new name is given."
For instance, a Hopi man of middle age, known to the writer as George
(school name), tells her that his adopted father belonged to the Tobacco
Clan, so the name selected for him by the paternal aunts was
"Sackongsie" or "green tobacco plant with the blossoms on." Bessie, born
in the same family, was named "Sackhongeva" or "green tobacco plant
standing straight." The nine month's baby daughter of a Hopi girl once
in the employ of the writer is merrily called "Topsy," although formally
named Christine in honor of the school superintendent's wife. Her mother
explains that the father's clan is Tobacco, and the aunts named this
baby "Topt-si," "the red blossom on top of the tobacco plant," which
sounds so exactly like Topsy that the family sense of humor has
permitted the nickname. One of the writer's Hopi girls was named "two
straight, tall rows of corn," another, "Falling Snow." These pretty
names, too long for convenience, are nevertheless cherished, as a matter
of sentiment, by their owners.
[Footnote 33: Goddard, P.E., Indians of the Southwest: N.Y. Amer. Mus.
Nat. Hist., Handbook Series No. 2, 1921.]
=Marriage=
The following is Hough's[34] description of the wedding ceremony at
Oraibi: "When the young people decide to be married, the girl informs
her mother, who takes her daughter, bearing a tray of meal made from
white corn, to the house of the bridegroom where she is received by his
mother with thanks. During the day the girl must labor at the mealing
stones, grinding the white meal, silent and unnoticed; the next day she
must continue her task.... On the third day of this laborious trial she
grinds the dark blue corn which the Hopi call black, no doubt, glad when
the evening brings a group of friends, laden with trays of meal of
their own grinding as presents, and according to the custom, these
presents are returned in kind, the trays being sent back next day heavy
with choice ears of corn.
"After this three days' probation ... comes the wedding. Upon that day
the mother cuts the bride's front hair at the level of her chin and
dresses the longer locks in two coils, which she must always wear in
token that she is no longer a maiden. At the dawn of the fourth day, the
relatives of both families assemble, each one bringing a small quantity
of water in a vessel. The two mothers pound up roots of the yucca, used
as soap, and prepare two bowls of foaming suds. The young man kneels
before the bowl prepared by his future mother-in-law, and the bride
before the bowl of the young man's mother, and their heads are
thoroughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring handsful of
suds over the bowed heads of the couple. While this ceremonial ... goes
on ... a great deal of jollity ensues. When the head-washing is over,
the visitors rinse the hair of the couple with the water they have
brought, and return home. Then the bridal couple take each a pinch of
corn meal and leaving the house go silently to the eastern side of the
mesa on which the pueblo of Oraibi stands. Holding the meal to their
lips, they cast the meal toward the dawn, breathing a prayer for a long
and prosperous life, and return to the house, husband and wife.
"The ceremony over, the mother of the bride (Note: All other authorities
say groom, H.G.L.) builds a fire under the baking stone, while the
daughter prepares the batter and begins to bake a large quantity of
paper bread.... The wedding breakfast follows closely on the heels of
the wedding ceremony and the father of the young man must run through
the pueblo with a bag of cotton, handsful of which he gives to the
relatives and friends, who pick out the seeds and return the cotton to
him. This cotton is for the wedding blankets and sash which are to be
the trousseau of the bride....
"A few days later the crier announces the time for the spinning of the
cotton for the bride's blanket. This takes place in the kivas, where
usually all the weaving is done by the men, and with jollity and many a
story the task is soon finished. The spun cotton is handed over to the
bridegroom as a contribution from the village, to be paid for like
everything else Hopi, by a sumptuous feast, which has been prepared by
the women for the spinners. Perhaps ten sage-brush-fed sheep and goats,
tough beyond reason, are being softened in a stew, consisting mainly of
corn; stacks of paper bread have been baked, various other dishes have
been concocted, and all is ready when the crier calls in the hungry
multitude....
"With the spun cotton, serious work begins for the bridegroom and his
male relatives, lasting several weeks. A large white blanket ... and a
smaller one must be woven and a reed mat in which the blankets are to be
rolled. A white sash with long fringe and a pair of mocassins, each
having half a deerskin for leggings, like those worn by the women of the
Rio Grande pueblos, complete the costume. The blankets must have
elaborate tassels at the four corners. (Note: Representing rain falling
from the white cloud blanket. H.G.L.)
"Shortly before sunrise, the bride, arrayed in her finery, performs the
last act in the drama, called 'going home.' Up to this time the bride
has remained in the house of her husband's people. Wearing the large
white blanket, picturesquely disposed over her head, and carrying the
small blanket wrapped in the reed mat in her hands, she walks to her
mother's house ... and the long ceremony is over ... for in this land of
women's rights the husband must live with his wife's relatives."
[Footnote 34: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, p. 123.]
The bride may not appear at a public ceremonial dance until the
following July, at the Kachina Farewell ceremony, when all the brides of
the year turn out in their lovely wedding blankets and white leggings,
the only time this blanket is ever worn after the wedding (during life),
save one the naming ceremony of her first child.
It becomes her winding sheet when at death she wears it in her grave,
then after four days, she takes it from her shoulders and uses it as a
magic carpet when, having reached the edge of the Grand Canyon, she
steps out upon her ceremonial blanket, and like a white cloud it
descends with her to Maski, the underworld paradise of the Hopi.
Are the Hopi married in this way today? Most certainly. Figure 12 shows
a Hopi girl who worked for the writer for three summers. She is a fine,
intelligent girl, having gone more than halfway through high school
before she returned to her home on Second Mesa to live. This is her
wedding picture taken last year at the moment of her "going home," after
just such a wedding ceremonial as described above.
[Illustration: Figure 12.--A Hopi Bride.
--Photo by Colton.]
A letter from friends of the writer states that her baby is just now
going through his natal ceremonies in the good old Hopi way. If the
Snake Dance is continued till he grows up--it makes one shudder to think
of it--he is in line to be a Snake priest!
=Burial=
Here we have the account of Goddard:[35] "When an adult dies, the
nearest relatives by blood wash the head, tie a feather offering to the
hair so that it will hang over the forehead, wrap the body in a good
robe and carry it to one of the graveyards which are in the valleys near
the mesas. The body is buried in a sitting position so that it faces
east. This is done within a few hours after death has occurred. The
third night, a bowl containing some food, a prayer-stick offering, and a
feather and string, are carried to the grave. The string is placed so
that it points from the grave to the west. The next morning, the fourth,
the soul is supposed to rise from the grave and proceed in the direction
indicated by the string, where it enters the 'skeleton house.' This is
believed to be situated somewhere near the Canyon of the Colorado."
[Footnote 35: Goddard, P.E., Op. cit.]
Any bodies of young children who have not yet been initiated into any
fraternity are not buried in the ground, but in a crevice of rock
somewhere near the mother's home and covered with stones. A string is
left hanging out, pointing to the home of the family. The spirit of the
child is believed to return and to be re-born in the next child born in
the family, or to linger about till the mother dies and then to go with
her to the underworld.
If the adult spirit has led a good life, it goes to the abode where the
ancestral spirits feast and hold ceremonies as on earth, but if evil it
must be tried by fire and, if too bad for purification, it is
destroyed.
XI. STORIES TOLD TODAY
* * * * *
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.
However, there is a lighter side, of which we have heard less, to this
unwritten literature of the Hopi people. These are the stories for
entertainment, so dear to the hearts of young and old alike. Even these
stories are old, some of them handed down for generations. And they
range from the historical tale, the love story, and the tale of
adventure to the bugaboo story and the fable. Space permits only a few
stories here.
No writing of these can equal the art of the Hopi story-teller, for the
story is told with animation and with the zest that may inspire the
narrator who looks into the faces of eager listeners.
The Hopi story-teller more or less dramatizes his story, often breaking
into song or a few dance steps or mimicking his characters in voice and
facial expression. Sometimes the writer has been so intrigued with the
performance she could scarcely wait for her interpreter (See Figure 13)
to let her into the secret. Often the neighbors gathered round to hear
the story, young and old alike, and they are good listeners. All of
these stories save one, that of Don, of Oraibi, were told in the Hopi
language, but having a Hopi friend as an interpreter has preserved, we
think, the native flavor of the stories.
The first story, as told by Sackongsie, of Bacabi, is a legend
concerning the adventure of the son of the chief of Huckovi, a
prehistoric Hopi village whose ruins are pointed out on Third Mesa. The
writer has since heard other variants of this story.
=An Ancient Feud,= as told by Sackongsie
"This is a story of the people that used to live on Wind Mountain. There
is only a ruin there now, but there used to be a big village called
Huckovi; that means wind on top of the mountain. These people finally
left this country and went far away west. We have heard that they went
to California, and the Mission Indians themselves claim they are from
this place.
[Illustration: Figure 13.--The Author's Interpreter at Walpi and
Daughter, "Topsy."]
"These people used to have ladder dances; that is an old kind of a
dance that nobody has now. But we are told that a long time ago these
people brought trees from far away and set them up in round holes made
on purpose in the rock along the very edge of the mesa.
"Then the Mud heads (masked Kachinas) furnish the music and young men
dressed as leopards and mountain lion Kachinas climb into the tree tops
and swing out over the canyon rim to time of the music. You can see the
round holes in the rock there now.
"Well--it has always been this way among Hopi--when there is a dance,
everybody goes to see.
"Now there was a dance at Mishongnovi and the boys from Huckovi went
over to see it.
"Now the war chief at Huckovi was a great man that everybody looked up
to, and he had only one son. This young man was so religious that he
never went to this kind of just funny dances, but this time he went
along with some friends. Long time ago the chief never goes to these
dances, nor his son who will follow his steps.
"When they got to Mishongnovi the dance was going on and everybody
laughing and having a good time, for the clown kachinas were going round
pestering the dancing kachinas. These rough clown kachinas took turns
appearing and disappearing, and some coming, others going away, then
coming back.
"About the middle of the afternoon, came two Kachina racers to run with
the clowns, and soon they began to call out some of the young men from
the audience, known to be the best runners. After a while the son of
Huckovi chief was chosen to run, but he was very bashful and refused to
perform. But the Kachina who had chosen him as a competitor insisted and
finally brought a gift of baked sweet corn and the young man was
embarrassed and thought he had to run or be made fun of, so he came over
and ran with this Kachina and beat him. They ran a long race, and the
Kachina never could catch up with him, but when the boy stopped, the
Kachina ran up and took hold of him and cut off his hair. The name of
this Kachina was Hair Eater, and he was supposed to cut off the hair if
he beat the boy, but he never did beat him.
"The Hopi, in those days, took great pride in their hair and would not
cut it off for anything in the world.
"The people who saw what had happened were so sorry that the honorable
son of the chief had been disgraced, that, to show their disapproval,
they all left while the dance was still going on.
"When the boy got home his father was grieved to see his son coming home
scalped, as he said. The father didn't know what to do.
"Now the chief had a daughter twelve years old. He told her to practice
running till she can beat her brother. Both the boy and the girl
practiced a long time and at last the girl can run faster and farther
than her brother.
"Then the father said, 'I think it is good enough.'
"Soon the chief, he was the war chief, went to visit his friend, the war
chief at Mishongnovi, and asked him to arrange a dance without letting
the village chief know, because he said he wanted to give some kind of
exhibition there.
"So his friend arranged the dance and four nights of practice followed.
This dance was to be given by the Snow Kachinas. So that night the dance
is going to be, the father and mother of the children baked up much
sweet corn for them to take to this dance at Mishongnovi.
"Now the chief had discovered that it was the son of the Mishongnovi
village chief (not the war chief there) that had scalped his son.
"Being fast runners, the children went a round-about way and were still
in time for the three o'clock dance. So they approached the village from
another direction so no one would know where they had come from, and
they put on their costumes and the girl dressed exactly like the son of
the Mishongnovi village chief in his Hair Eater Kachina costume so no
one can tell who she is.
"Now when the father started his children off, he gave them two
prayer-sticks for protection, and he said when they were pursued they
must conceal these and never let anyone touch them and they will be
protected.
"Well, when they got there the clowns were dancing with the Kachinas. So
the daughter of the Huckovi chief goes to a house top where she can see
the pretty daughter of the Mishongnovi chief sitting with a bunch of
girls, all in their bright shawls and with their hair in whorls.
"When these girls see a Hair Eater Kachina coming up on the house top
they run from her, remembering the old trouble when that kind of a
kachina had done such an awful thing. The girls all ran into a room and
on down into a lower room, and the Huckovi girl followed them and caught
the chief's daughter and cut off a whorl of her hair and also cut her
throat. Then she went out on the house top and shook out the whorl for
all the people to see.
"Of course the dance stopped and everybody started to come after her,
but she and her brother ran from house top to lower house top and jumped
to the ground and ran on west by Toreva and toward home, with all the
men of Mishongnovi chasing them and shooting with bows and arrows. At
last some were coming after them on horses. Then her brother asked her
if she was too tired to run farther, fearing they would be caught. She
replied, 'No more tired than at first!'
"By now they had come to the Oraibi Wash, and looking back they could
see some men coming on horses.
"They remembered their two prayer-sticks, so they took them out of where
they had hidden them in their clothes and they planted them at the two
sides of the wash.
"And immediately a great whirl wind started up from that place and grew
into a great sand storm that blotted out their tracks and made such a
thick cloud that their enemies could no longer see them. Then they
turned straight home.
"So the children came home with the whorl and scalp attached, and the
father was satisfied.
"But the Mishongnovi chief was terribly angry and told his people to
make much bows and arrows.
"Then a friend of the Huckovi chief went over from Mishongnovi and told
all this to the war chief of Huckovi, who told his people to do
likewise, for now there will be war.
"So after preparations had gone on for a long time, the Mishongnovi
chief went to the Huckovi chief and said, 'We have to divide the land
between us, and Oraibi Wash shall be the line.' (Meaning the mark past
which an enemy was not to be pursued, and each would be safe on his own
side of the line.)
"Oraibi Wash was already the line for the same purpose between
Mishongnovi and Oraibi Village because of an older trouble.
"Well, when the enemies came from Mishongnovi to fight them, the Huckovi
people had gathered many rocks and rolled them down from the mesa top,
and killed so many that the Mishongnovi men started for home. But the
Huckovi men came down then and followed them, and fought them every foot
of the way back to Oraibi Wash, where they had to let them go free, and
they went on running all the way home, and the Huckovi people then
returned to their homes satisfied."
* * * * *
The next two stories are by Dawavantsie, whose name means "sand dune."
She is a member of the Water Clan, and is the oldest woman now living in
Walpi. She is much loved by the whole village, who claim that she is
over a hundred years old. How old she really is, it would be impossible
to know, for such things were not kept track of so long ago. She speaks
no English. When asked about her age she merely shrugs her small
shrunken shoulders, draws her shawl around them, and with a pleasant
toothless smile, says: "O, I never know that, but I remember a long,
long time."
She loves to tell stories, and enjoys quite a reputation as a
story-teller among her relatives and neighbors, who like to gather round
and listen as she sits on the floor of her second story home, her back
against the wall, bare feet curled up and quiet hands folded in her lap.
Her face, while deeply wrinkled, is fine and expressive of much
character as well as sweetness of disposition. Figure 14 shows her
posing for her picture just outside her door, on the roof of the next
lower room. Her skin and hair and dress are all clean and neat; her
little back is astonishingly straight, and her bare brown feet, so long
used to the ladders of Hopiland, are surer than mine, if slower.
She has lived all her life, as did her mother and grandmother before
her, in this second story room, on whose clean clay floor we sat for the
visiting and story-telling. From its open door she looks out over the
roofs of Walpi and far across the valley in all directions, for hers is
the highest house, and near the end of the mesa. The ancestral home with
its additions is now housing four generations. She has always been a
woman of prominence because of her intelligence and has the marks of
good breeding--one of nature's gentlewomen.
[Illustration: Figure 14.--Dawavantsie of Walpi.]
The writer's friends, Dr. and Mrs. Fewkes, had told of her several
years ago, for it was in her house that they had lived for some time in
the early nineties while carrying on research work for the Bureau of
American Ethnology. The writer did not realize that this was the house
and the woman of whom she had heard till half-way through the first
story, when some mention of Dr. Fewkes, by her son-in-law (a man past
middle age) brought out the fact. When informed of the death of both Dr.
and Mrs. Fewkes, her controlled grief was touching. In speaking of our
mutual friend, the writer used the Hopi name given him by the Snake
fraternity of the old woman's village so many years ago--Nahquavi
(medicine bowl), a name always mentioned with both pride and amusement
by Dr. Fewkes. And I found that in this family, none of whom speak
English, exactly these same emotions expressed themselves in the faces
of all the older members of the family, who remembered with a good deal
of affection, it seemed, these friends of nearly forty years ago.
Over and over, they repeated the name; it stirred memories; they laughed
eagerly, and nodded their heads, and began to talk to me in Hopi,
completely forgetting the interpreter. Then their faces sobered and
sighs and inarticulate sounds were all that broke the silence for fully
ten minutes. Then quietly the little grandmother turned to the
interpreter and asked her to say to me, "He called me his sister."
Silence again, and after a few minutes she went on with her stories.
=Memories of a Hopi Centenarian,= as told by Dawavantsie
"One of the first important things I can remember was when some Spanish
soldiers came here. I don't know how old I was, but I had been married
for several years, I think, for my first child had died. I was then
living in this same old house. These Spaniards came from the direction
of Keam's Canyon, and they passed on toward Oraibi. They did not come up
onto this mesa at all, but just took corn and melons and whatever they
wanted from the fields down below.
"It was early one morning and I had gone with two other girls, cousins
of mine, down to the spring at the foot of the mesa for water. These
men came toward us, and we ran, but they caught us and started to take
us away. I fought the man who was holding me and got loose and ran up
the mesa trail faster than he could run.
"I rolled rocks on them when they tried to come up and so they gave it
up. I ran on up to the top of the mesa and gave the alarm and our men
went to rescue the other two girls, but the Spaniards had horses and
they got away with the girls, who have never been heard of to this day.
"The Hopi had no horses in those days, but there were just a few burros.
So the men followed on foot, but they could never catch them. There was
a skirmish at Oraibi, too, over the stealing of girls.
"One Walpi man in the fields was unable to keep them from taking his two
girls, so he just had to give them up and he never saw them again. The
poor father had few relations and had to go from house to house asking
for food, for he was so grieved that he could never get along after
that, but just was always worrying about his girls, and he died in less
than a year.
"After a long time other Spaniards came, and a young man who was down
below the mesa, practicing for a race before sunrise, saw them and ran
back and got enough men to go down and capture them. They kept their
prisoners fastened in a room for a while and then the older men decided
that they would not let them be killed although some wanted to; so they
took them to some houses below the mesa--the place is still called
Spanish Seat--and kept them there.
"After a few weeks they let them go away. Some Hopi men were bribed to
get some girls to go down off the mesa that day so these Spaniards could
take them away with them.
"They asked me to go and a girl friend of mine, but we would not go. One
girl did go, for a famine was beginning and this poor girl thought she
was being taken to visit with the Zunis and would be better off there.
Nobody ever got track of her again.
"Once food was so scarce that I had to go with my mother and sister to
Second Mesa, and we stayed there with our clan relations till food was
scarce, and then we went to Oraibi and stayed with our clan relations
there until summer. We could go back to Walpi then because corn and
melons were growing again; but we left my sister because she had married
there.
"This was a two-year famine and almost everybody left Walpi and wandered
from village to village, living wherever they could get food. There had
been more rain and better crops in some of the other places.
"Ever since then some Walpi people have scattered among other villages,
where they married, and some went as far as the Rio Grande villages, and
some perished on the way.
"Again after many years, Spaniards came, stealing corn, and this time
they went through the houses and stole whatever they wanted. They took
away ceremonial and sacred things, that was the worst. And when they
left, they went northeast, past where Tom's store is now.
"No, there were never any Spanish missionaries living in Walpi; those
who tell of priests living here are mistaken--too young to know. I have
heard of those at Oraibi long ago, and at Awatobi; some were killed at
those places.
"Some of the rafters of this house, not of this room but another part,
were brought from ruins of Awatobi. An uncle of my daughter's husband
here brought some sacred things from Awatobi and revived some of the old
ceremonials that had been dropped on account of our not having the right
things to use for them. Spaniards had already been here and taken some
of those things out of the houses, so some ceremonies could never be
held any more without those things. You see, the Awatobi people had some
such things, too, and so our people wanted to save them. I think some of
our trouble with Awatobi was to get these things.
"I remember that after the famine, when crops were good again, we had
trouble with Navajos. It was in the summer and a Hopi hoeing his field
was killed by a bunch of thieving Navajos, and that started the trouble.
This man who was killed had a crippled nephew working with him at the
time, and that boy got away and ran back to Walpi with the word, and
everybody was surprised that he could run fast enough to get away.
"After that they made him a watchman to look out for Navajos.
"A good while after that two Hopi boys were fired upon by prowling
Navajos who were hiding in the village of Sichomovi. For a number of
years then the Navajos plundered the fields, drove off the stock, and
killed children. Then they stopped coming here for a good while, but
later they began doing all those things again, worse than ever. So then
the Hopi decided to shoot every Navajo they saw in their fields, and
this stopped the trouble.
"Now the Navajos are good friends, come here often, and bring meat."
=The Coyote and the Water Plume Snake,= by Dawavantsie
"Once upon a time a Coyote and a Water Plume Snake got acquainted. One
day the Coyote invited his friend, the big snake, to come and visit him
at his house. The Snake was pleased to be invited, so he went that very
night.
"The Coyote was at home waiting, and when his guest arrived, he told him
to come right in. So the Snake started in, first his head, then his long
body, and more and more of him kept coming in, so that the Coyote had to
keep crowding over against the wall to make room. By the time the Snake
was in, tail and all, the Coyote had to go up and stay outside, for his
visitor took up all the room in his house.
"Now the Coyote could still put his head close to his door and visit
with the Snake, so that they had a very good visit. But that night was
pretty cold, and after while the Coyote was so cold he got cross and
wished the Snake would go home.
"Well, by and by, the Snake said he must go home now, so he said
goodnight and invited the Coyote to come over to his house the next
night.
"The Coyote said he would be sure to come over, then he went into his
house and sat by the fire and got warm and made plans how he would get
even with that big Water Plume Snake.
"Well, next day he went and gathered a lot of cedar bark and some corn
husks and some pine gum, and he made himself a great long tail and put
lots of wool and some of his hair on the outside, so that it was a very
big tail and long, too.
"So when evening came, he waited for it to get dark, then he started for
the kiva of the big Snake.
"When he got there his friend was waiting and had a nice fire and
received him with good welcome and told him to come right in and get
warm.
"Now the Water Plume Snake was sure surprised when the Coyote got in and
kept going round and round, pulling his long tail after him, and being
wise he saw just what was going on, and now he knows the Coyote is
making fun of him. So he just says nothing and makes room enough for the
Coyote by going outdoors himself.
"So the Snake just put his head in and was very nice and polite and they
have a good visit. But the Snake got very cold and still the Coyote will
not go home and the Snake is nearly freezing.
"At last the Coyote says he have to go and the Snake is pretty cold and
pretty mad, too. So he says good night to the Coyote and crawls right
down into his house quick as the Coyote's body is out, and when he sees
all that big tail rolling out he just holds the end of it over the
fireplace and gets it burning.
"But the Coyote is very pleased with himself and he don't look back but
just goes right along. After a while he notices a fire behind him and
turns around and sees the grass is burning way back there. So he says to
himself, 'Well I better not go into my house for the Hopi have set fire
to the grass to drive me away, and I'll just go on, so they won't find
me at home.'
"But soon the fire got going fast in that cedar bark and before he can
get that tail untied he is burned so bad that he just keeps running till
he gets to Bayupa (Little Colorado River). There was a great flood going
down the river and he was so weak from running that he could not swim,
so he drowned. And that is what he got for trying to get even with
somebody."
Quentin Quahongva, who tells the next story, lives at Shungopovi,
Second Mesa. He is a good-natured, easy-going man of middle age, and
usually surrounded by a troop of children, his own and all the
neighbors'.
[Illustration: Figure 15.--Quahongva, Story-teller of Shungopovi, and
Listeners.]
We had no more than started our first story when the youngsters began to
appear. They squatted about on the floor and covered the door step, and
were good listeners. Their squeals of glee brought other children
scampering, as the story-teller imitated the song and dance steps of the
Eagle, in one of his stories. But the one we have chosen to record here
is a Bear story. Figure 15 shows Quahongva surrounded by those of the
children who had not been called home to supper when the stories ended.
One small girl in the foreground is carrying her doll on her back by
means of her little shawl, exactly as her mother carries her baby
brother.
Quahongva was a good story-teller. Some of his tales were long enough to
occupy an evening. His best story took two and a half days for the
telling and recording, so can not be included here.
=A Bear Story,= as told by Quahongva
"Long ago at Shipaulovi there lived a woman with her husband and two
little children, two and four years old. The husband died. For a long
time the woman stayed alone and had to do all the work herself, bring
wood and make the fire and everything.
"One day she went to a little mesa a good ways off for wood, for there
was dry wood in that place. One of the children wanted to go with her
and cried, but the mother could not take her, she was too little. So she
told her to stay at home and play and watch for her return.
"The two little ones were playing 'slide down' on a smooth, slanting
rock, and from quite a distance the mother looked back and saw them
still playing there. Then she went around a little hill to find her
wood.
"She gathered a big bunch and tied it up, making a kind of rack that she
could carry on her back. Now she leaned her load up on a big rock so she
could lift it to her back, and as she turned around just ready to take
up the load, she saw a bear coming. She was terribly frightened and just
stood still, and the bear came closer and made big noise. (Note: A good
imitation was given, and the children listeners first laughed and then
became comically sober. H.G.L.)
"She said, 'Poor me, where shall I hide! What am I going to do!'
"She was so frightened she could not think where to go; but now she saw
a crevice under the rock where she was leaning, so she crawled in and
put the rack of wood in front of her.
"From behind the wood she could still see the bear coming and hear his
great voice. Soon he reached the rock and tore the wood away with his
great paws. Then he reached in and pulled the woman out and ripped her
open with his terrible claws and tore her heart out and ate it up.
"By this time the sun was nearly down; it was soon dark and the poor
children were still waiting for their mother just where she had left
them, but she never returned. Some one came to them and asked, 'What are
you doing here?'
"'We are watching for our mother, who went for wood, and we are waiting
for her,' they said.
"'But why does she not come when it is so late?' they said. Then they
said, 'Let's all go home; something must have happened.' So they took
the children home with them and sent some others to look for the mother.
"They followed her tracks and found the place, the mother dead, and her
heart gone. So they came back home in the dark night.
"Next day, they returned to the place and followed the bear tracks to
the woods where his home was, but never found the bear. So they went
home.
"The poor little children were very lonely and not treated very well by
the neighbors, and both children died, first the younger, and then the
older; and this is a true story." (Note: One could well imagine from the
faces of the young listeners that something like a resolution to stay
pretty close around home was passing unanimously. H.G.L.)
* * * * *
Don Talayesva of Upper Oraibi was the only one of my story-tellers who
spoke without the aid of an interpreter. He is a tall, good-looking man
of less than forty, with an expressive face and a pair of merry dark
eyes that hold a prophesy of the rich sense of humor one soon discovers
in both his conversation and his stories.
This particular tale rather gives away some state secrets as to how Hopi
children are persuaded to be good, and Don chuckled and paused to lower
his voice and see that his own small son was out of hearing, when
explaining certain parts of the story.
=The Giant and the Twin War Gods,= as told by Don Talayesva
"Well, once upon a time more people lived here in Old Oraibi--many
people, many, many children, and the children getting pretty bad. People
tried every way to punish and correct them and at last the head governor
got tired of this business, and so he thought of best way to fix them.
They were all time throwing stones at the old people and pinning rags on
the back of somebody and don't mind their parents very good.
"Now this head governor is very powerful and very wise. He went out to
where there is many pinon and cedar trees and he gathered much pinon
gum. Next day he called an old lady, a Spider Woman, to come and help
him out.
"She asked what she can do. He explained about the naughty children and
their disrespect for the old people and their parents.
"He asked her to make a Giant out of the gum. She greased her hands and
molded a big figure about a foot thick and four feet high with head and
arms and legs. Then she covered it up with a white wedding blanket, and
then she take whisk-broom and she patted with the broom, in time to her
singing, on this doll figure, and it began to live and grow larger.
"When she finished singing he was enormously wide and tall, and he got
up and uncovered himself and he sat there and said, 'What can I do to
help you?'
"Then the governor said, 'I hired the old lady to make you and make you
come to life so you can do a job for me. Now you go and make your home
over here near by.'
"The governor gave him as weapons a hatchet, bow and arrow, a rabbit
stick, and a big basket to carry the children away in, and a big wooden
spear.
"'Now you go over there,' the governor said, 'and make your home. On the
fourth day you come down and catch the first child you see playing on
trash piles.'
"So on the fourth day the Giant came over early before sunrise and got
to Oraibi by sunrise and got up here on top of the mesa and saw two
brothers playing on the trash pile. They were facing west and he slipped
up behind and tied them together and put them in his basket and carry
them to his home.
"At breakfast the families missed the children and traced them to where
the Giant picked them up, but saw no tracks farther.
"Every morning he comes over looking for some more children and got away
with many before parents know where they went.
"This kept going on till there were very few children left and the
parents were very sad. Giant leaves no tracks, so nobody knows what to
do. At last parents decide to do something.
"The second chief decided to go to the two little War Gods, who live
with their grandmother, a Spider Woman, and see if they would help them.
"So then the second chief cut two round pieces out of strong buckskin,
and made two big balls and stuffed them hard and painted them with a red
face, a mask like Supais. He made a strong bow and many strong arrows
and put them in a--something like an army bag. All this he made for the
Twin War Gods, who are small but powerful and their medicine too.
"Then he took these presents and started off to the home of these two
little War Gods.
"At early sunrise he arrived there and peeked down into their house,
which was like a big kiva, and there were the two boys playing shinney.
"The grandmother received the man kindly and told the rough, unruly boys
to stop their playing and be quiet. But they don't stop their playing,
so she picked up a big stick and hit the boys a good lick across the
legs. Now the boys see the man and his two fine balls and sticks. They
say to each other, 'We like to have those things!'
"After a good breakfast she asked the man, 'What can we do for you?'
"'Yes,' he said, 'a Giant at Oraibi has been carrying away more than
half the children from our village.'
"She said, 'Yes, we know all about this and just waiting for you to come
to ask our help. I have dreamed that you would come today for our help.'
"Then the man gave his nice presents to the boys and said, 'Tomorrow you
come over to Oraibi and meet the Giant when he comes at sunrise for
children.'
"The boys said, 'Sure, we kill him!'
"But the grandmother said, 'Don't brag, just say you do your best!'
"Next morning both boys forget all about it, but grandmother wake them
up and started them off.
"They got to Oraibi Mesa and waited for the Giant, but they got to
playing with their balls and sticks and forgot to watch for him.
"Soon the Giant came slipping up, but the boys saw him and they said,
'Here's that Giant, let's hit the ball hard and hit him in the head and
kill him.' So they did, and knocked him off the mesa.
"It didn't kill him though, but he got mad, and he said, 'You wait and
see what I do to you!' And he came back and picked them up, one at a
time, and put them in his basket and started off with them.
"As they were going along, the boys told the Giant they have to get out,
for just a minute please. So the Giant let them get out of the basket,
but he held on to the rope that he has tied around them.
"So the boys stepped behind a big rock and untied themselves and
fastened the rope to the rock. Then the Giant got mad and pulled the
rope hard and the big rock rolled over on him and hurt his legs.
"Then that Giant was sure mad, and he catch those boys again and he put
them in his basket and take them right home and make oven very hot for
cooking boys.
"But the boys had some good medicine with them that their grandmother
gave them, and each took some in his mouth and when the Giant threw the
first boy in the oven, he spit a little of the medicine out into the
oven and cooled it off, so that it was just warm enough for comfort. So
the boys told stories and had fun all night.
"Next morning the Giant made pudding to go with his meat, and he opened
the oven and there were the boys smiling.
"Giant was very hungry, so he said, 'You come out and I challenge you to
fight it out and see who is more powerful.'
"So the Giant threw his rabbit stick at the bigger boy, but the boy
jumped up and the stick caught fire as it passed under him. Then the
Giant threw at smaller boy just high enough to hit his head, but he
ducked down and the stick passed over his head like a streak of fire.
Then he tried bow and arrows, but nothing hurt the boys.
"Then the Giant said, 'Well I have used all my weapons and failed, so
now you can try to kill me.'
"So both boys threw their rabbit sticks at the same time. One broke the
Giant's legs, the other cut off his head. Then the boys smelled the pine
gum that he was made of, so they burned him up and he sure did make a
big blaze.
"They just saved his head, and carried it to the Hopi at Oraibi. They
arrived just when the people were having breakfast, at about ten in the
morning. So they reported to the second chief and presented him with the
Giant's head.
"The second chief was well pleased and said he was glad and very
thankful, and then he said, 'I don't know what I can give you for a
proper gift, but I have two daughters and, if you want them, you can
take them along.'
"The boys smiled and whispered, 'They look pretty good, let's take them
for squaws.' So they said they would take them.
"'All right,' said their father, 'come on the fourth day and get them.'
"So they went home and told their grandmother, and on the fourth day
they came back and got their wives.
"The Hopi always kept the head of this Giant to use as a mask in some
dances.
"Really the most important thing we do with this kind of a mask is for
the men to wear when they go round the village and call out the children
and scare them a little bit and tell them to be good so they don't have
to come back with the basket and carry them off. Sometimes they act like
they were going to take some naughty children with them right now, and
ask the parents if they have any bad ones, and the parents are supposed
to be very worried and hide the children and tell the Giants their
children are good, and always the parents have to give these Giants that
come around some mutton and other things to eat, in order to save their
children; and then the children are very grateful to their parents.
"You see, the parents always tell the men who are coming around,
beforehand, of a few of the things the children have been doing, so when
they come looking for bad children they mention these special things to
show the children that they know about it. And parents tell children a
Giant may come back for them if they are pretty bad, and come right down
the chimney maybe.
"My brother is a pretty tall man, and I am the tallest man in Oraibi, so
we are sometimes chosen to act the part of Giants. Then we paint all
black and put on this kind of a mask. It is an enormous black head with
a big beak and big teeth. The time when the Giants go around and talk to
the children is in February.
"There were a good many of these masks, very old and very funny ones.
But a beam fell, killing many giant masks and leaving only two of the
real old ones. So now we have to use some masks made of black felt; one
of these is a squaw mask.
"I don't know if we can wait till February, or not, mine is getting
pretty bad already." (Note: This last was said with a big laugh and a
look around to see where his own boy was. And just then the tall little
son, aged eight, let out a yell exactly like any other little boy who
has cut his finger on Daddy's pocket knife. The buxom mother and two
aunts went scrambling down the ladder to see what was the matter. The
father got up, too, but laughed and remarked, "He be all right," and
came back and sat down. H.G.L.)
* * * * *
One of the most pleasant memories the writer has kept of her Hopi
story-tellers is that of wholesome Mother Sacknumptewa of Oraibi. She
must be middle-aged, and is surprisingly young-looking to be the mother
of her big family of grown-up sons and daughters. She wore a brand-new
dress of pretty yellow and white print, made in the full Hopi manner,
and her abundant black hair was so clean and well brushed that it was
actually glossy. Her house was spic and span and shining with a new
interior coat of white gypsum.
Her long Indian name, Guanyanum, means "all the colors of the
butterflies."
It was late afternoon, and she sat on the clean clay floor of her house
and husked a great pile of young green corn for supper, as she told me
the two little fables that follow. There was a poise and graciousness
about this woman, quite outstanding; yet she was a simple, smiling,
motherly person who often laughed quietly, or broke into a rhythmic
crooning song as she imitated her characters.
Several of her grown children gathered round and laughed with hearty
approval at her impersonations, and at last her husband came in smiling
and sat near, joining in the songs of the frog and the locust, to the
great merriment of their children.
=The Coyote and the Turtle,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa
"A long time ago, there were many turtles living in the Little Colorado
River near Homolovi, southeast of Winslow, where Hopi used to live. And
there was a coyote living there too, and of course, he was always
hungry.
"Now one day the turtles decided they would climb out of the river and
go hunt some food, for there was a kind of cactus around there that they
like very much. But one of the turtles had a baby and she didn't like to
wake it up and take it with her because it was sleeping so nicely. So
they just went along and left the baby asleep.
"After a while the little turtle woke up and he said, 'Where is my
mother? She must have gone somewhere and left me. O, I must go and find
her!'
"So the baby turtle saw that the others had crawled up the bank, and he
followed their tracks for a little way. But he soon got tired and just
stopped under a bush and began to cry. (Note: Her imitation of the
crying was good. H.G.L.)
"Now the coyote was coming along and he heard the poor little turtle
crying. So he came up and said, 'That's a pretty song; now go on and
sing for me.'
"But the baby turtle said, I'm not singing, I'm crying.'
"'Go on and sing,' said the coyote, 'I want to hear you sing.'
"'I can't sing,' said the poor baby, 'I'm crying and I want my mother.'
"'You'd better sing for me, or I'll eat you up,' said the big hungry
coyote.
"'O, I can't sing--I just can't stop crying,' said the baby, and he
cried harder and harder.
"'Well,' the big coyote said, 'if you don't sing for me I'm going to
eat you right up.' The coyote was mad, and he was very hungry. 'All
right, then, I'll just eat you,' he said.
Now the little turtle thought of something. So he said, 'Well, I can't
sing, so I guess you'll have to eat me. But that's all right, for it
won't hurt me any; here inside of my shell I'll go right on living
inside of you.'
"Now the coyote thought about this a little bit and didn't like the idea
very well.
"Then the baby turtle said, 'You can do anything you want with me, just
so you don't throw me into the river, for I don't want to drown.'
"Now the old coyote was pretty mad and he wanted to be as mean as
possible. So he just picked that baby up in his mouth and carried him
over to the river and threw him in.
"Then the baby turtle was very happy; he stuck his little head out of
his shell and stretched out his feet and started swimming off toward the
middle of the river. And he said, 'Goodbye, Mr. Coyote, and thank you
very much for bringing me back to my house so that I didn't have to walk
back.' And the little turtle laughed at the old coyote, who got madder
and madder because he had let the little turtle go. But he couldn't get
him now, so he just went home. And the baby turtle was still laughing
when his mother got home, and she laughed too. And those turtles are
still living in that water. (Note: Here is manifest all the subtlety of
"The Tar Baby," though generations older. H.G.L.)
=The Frog and the Locust,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa
"Qowakina was a place where Paqua, the frog, lived. One day he was
sitting on a little wet ground singing a prayer for rain, for it was
getting very hot and dry and that was Paqua's way of bringing the rain,
so he had a very good song like this. (Note: Here she sang a pretty
little song, very rhythmic, and her body swayed gently in time to the
music. It occurred to the writer that this would make a good bedtime
story and the little song, a lullaby, for it went on and on with
pleasing variation. H.G.L.)
"Not far away Mahu, the locust, was sitting in a bush, and he was
singing too, for he was getting pretty dusty and the weather was very
hot, and so he, too, was praying for rain. He has a very nice song for
rain, and it goes this way. (Note: Here came a lovely little humming
song whose words could not be interpreted, since they were but syllables
and sounds having no meaning in English. However, these sounds had a
definite order and rhythm. At this point the husband smilingly joined in
the song, and the unison of both sounds and rhythm was perfect. H.G.L.)
"By and by the locust heard the frog, so he came over and asked him what
he was doing. The frog said he was hot and wanted it to rain; that's why
he was singing. Then the locust said, 'Now isn't that strange, that's
exactly what I do to make it rain, too, and that's the best thing to
do.' So they both sang.
"Pretty soon they noticed that the clouds had been coming up while they
were singing, and before long it rained, and they both were happy.
"After this they were always great friends because they had found out
they both had the same idea about something."
XII. CONCLUSION
* * * * *
For some years the writer has been merely a friendly neighbor to these
friendly people, and this past summer she spent some time among her Hopi
friends, studying their present-day life, domestic and ceremonial, and
listening to their stories. The foregoing pages record her observations,
supplemented largely by the recordings of well-known authorities who
have studied these 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. Only a few years ago they were geographically
isolated and had been so for centuries. Culturally, the Hopi are not a
new, raw people, but old, mature, long a sedentary and peaceful people,
building up during the ages a vast body of traditional literature
embodying law, religion, civic and social order, with definite patterns
for the whole fabric of their life from the cradle to the grave and on
into Maskim, the home of Hopi Souls. It is because they have so long
been left alone, with their own culture so well suited to their nature
and to their environment, that we find them so satisfied to remain as
they are, friendly, even cordial, but conservative.
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.
One of its interesting details concerns a prophesy of the manner in
which the Hopitah are to take on the White man's culture. In plain words
the Spider Woman tells Tiyo that a time will come when men with white
skins and a strange tongue shall come among the Hopitah, and the Snake
Brotherhood, having brave hearts, will be first to make friends and
learn good from them. But the Hopitah are not to follow in the white
men's footsteps but to walk _beside them_, always keeping in the
footsteps of their fathers![36]
That is just what the Hopi are doing today.
[Footnote 36: Stephen, A.M., Hopi Tales: Jour. Amer. Folklore, vol. 42,
1929, p. 37.]
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
More than to any one else, I am indebted to Dr. Byron Cummings for
guidance in the preparation of this study; to Prof. John H. Provinse for
material and suggestion; to Dr. H.S. Colton and Mary Russell F. Colton
for the generous use of materials; and to my Hopi friends, Sackongsie of
Bacabi, Don Talayesva of Oraibi, Guanyanum Sacknumptewa of Lower Oraibi,
Quentin Quahongva of Shungopovi, Dawavantsie of Walpi, and Mother Lalo
of Sichomovi, for Hopi stories.--H.G.L.
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