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

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Unwritten
Literature of the Hopi[1]

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.”

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.

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]

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.

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:

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.”

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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.'”

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.

“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]

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.

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.

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.

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]

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.

“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.

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.)

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]

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]

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!”

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.”

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]

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]

“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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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’.

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.

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.