The Hopi Indians. Walter Hough
two poles of the ladder project from the kiva hatchway, and one may descend if no ceremony is on hand. There is not much to see except an empty, smoke-blackened room with stone-paved floor, plastered walls, and ceiling crossed by heavy beams. Just in front of the ladder is a fireplace, consisting of a stone box sunk in the floor, and the portion of the room back of the ladder is elevated. These subterranean chambers are now found in use only in Tusayan, where this manner of building them, along with many other ancient customs, has been preserved by the Hopi through many generations.
Hopi houses are small, and as in the other pueblos of the Southwest, the first families live in the second story, which is reached by a ladder. In recent times, though, the ground floor, which formerly was used chiefly for storage, has been cleaned out, furnished with doors, and occupied as habitations. Steps on the dividing walls lead to the upper story and the roof forms a general loitering-place. The living room is kept in good order, and a goodly array of blankets, harness, and clothes hanging from a swinging pole are looked on with pride and complacency. In the granary, which is generally a back room, the ears of corn are often sorted by color and laid up in neat walls and one year’s crop is always kept in reserve for a bad season. Red corn, yellow corn, white corn, blue corn, black corn, and mottled corn make a Hopi grain room a study in color. Three oblong hollowed stones or metates of graded fineness are sunk in the floor of every Hopi house, and on these, with another stone held in the hands, the corn is ground to fine meal, the grinders singing shrill songs at their back-breaking work.
In the corner of the baking-room is a fireplace covered with a smoke hood and containing slabs of stone for the baking of piki, or paper bread, while scattered about are many baskets, jars, bowls, cups, and other utensils of pottery well fitted for the purposes of the Hopi culinary art. Outside the house is a sunken pit in which corn-pudding is baked.
These and many other things about the Hopi villages will interest the visitor, who will not have serious difficulty in overlooking the innovations or in obtaining a clear idea of Pueblo life as it was in the times long past.
If one crosses the plain to the three villages of the Middle Mesa, he will find still less of the effect of contact with modern things. Mushongnovi, the second town of Tusayan in point of size, presented as late as 1906 a perfect picture of an unmodified pueblo on its giant mesa, the eastern and northern walls of the town blank and high like the face of a cliff. Within this closely-built village the terraced houses face the streets and open plazas, after the ancient fashion. Because of their harmony with their primitive surroundings, one hesitates to believe in the modernness of the chimneys of these pueblos, yet it appears to be true that the idea is of Spanish introduction.
Shipaulovi, on its high vantage point, seems newer than Shumopavi, its neighbor, the latter being the most regular pueblo in Tusayan. Some fifteen miles beyond Shumopavi is Oraibi, the largest of the seven Hopi towns, whose rough walls give it an appearance of great age. Oraibi held out longest against the white intruders, and even now would much prefer to be left alone in the enjoyment of its accustomed ways, but the school-houses and the red roofs brought by the white man increasingly menace its old-world notions.
The nearest neighbors of the Hopi are the Navaho, that large and rapidly growing tribe who are what they call themselves, Dene, “men.” They crowd upon the Hopi, and when the opportunity offers “raise” some stock or dictate with sublime egotism the conduct of the ceremonies. Several hundred years of contact with the pueblo folk have made the once uncultured Navaho in many respects like them. The timid Hopi do not choose to affiliate with the Navaho, but marriages are not infrequent among members of the two tribes. Generally it is a Navaho brave who seeks a Hopi maiden to wife, coming to live with her people, but rarely does a Hopi youth lead a “Teshab” girl to his hearth as did Anowita of Walpi.
A few Zuñi have cast their lot at Tusayan and several of the latter live at Zuñi and in some of the Rio Grande pueblos. Not many years ago, a Hopi was chief of an important fraternity at Sia, a pueblo on the Jemez River in New Mexico. The Zuñi are quite neighborly and visit Tusayan to witness the ceremonies or to exchange necklaces of shell and turquoise beads for blankets. Tradition has it that some of the clans from the Rio Grande came by way of Zuñi and that Sichomovi has a strong admixture from that pueblo. In support of this it may be said that the Zuñi visitors are usually domiciled at Sichomovi, where they seem very much at home, and many of the people there speak the Zuñi language.
At the time of the ceremonies, especially those performed in summer, Tewa from the Rio Grande pueblos come to visit and trade and enjoy the merrymaking that attends the dances. Some of the people of Hano have visited their relatives on the Rio Grande, but few of the Hopi are so far-traveled in these days. There has been for centuries, however, more or less communication across the vast stretch of arid country lying between the Great River and Tusayan, and in a number of instances in the distant past, whole tribes have emigrated from the east to the Hopi country where they have founded new towns. Although 100 miles away, the Havasupai may also be regarded as near neighbors who cross the desert to sell their fine baskets and superior white-tanned deerskins, for which articles there is great demand. The Hopi also traverse the sandy waste to visit the “People of the Ladders,” as they call the Havasupai, and bring back sacred red ocher and green copper stone for pigments. The Havasupai and Hopi are likewise linked by traditions of an ancient time.
Long ago, say the Hopi, the Paiute, who are uncultured but strong in the art of warfare, came down from the north and harassed them until the people of Hano vanquished them. The Paiute, although remotely related, were not friendly to the Hopi, and besides, there was much of value to be seized from the mesa-dwellers. For this reason the Hopi did not cultivate the friendship with the Paiute and the only one of that tribe living in Tusayan is “Tom Sawyer,” whose portrait is drawn in another place.
Nor were the Apache more desirable neighbors. The Hopi tell of the troublous times when these nomads came from the south and compelled them to draw up their ladders from the cliff at night. Still, Paiute and Apache baskets and other aboriginal manufactures found their way to the pueblos, who were always cosmopolitan in their tastes and did not allow tribal enmity to interfere with trade.
Far to the south another people were friends of the Hopi. Very long ago the Pima were closer neighbors and allies of some of the Hopi clans, who touched them in their wide migrations, which brought them to the “Palatkwabi.” This is the Red Land of the south, lying on the Verde River and its tributaries. The Hopi lay claim to the Tonto Basin in southern Arizona, which has been thought to be their ancient country since far and wide over this southern region is found the yellow pottery so characteristic of the golden age of the Hopi. Sometimes still the Hopi visit the Pima, and it is known that formerly they joined in a fair that was held in the Pima country and brought back various commodities in exchange for their own products. Even today agave sweetmeats and alder bark, the latter used for dyeing leather, are found in Hopi dwellings, having been brought from beyond “Apache House,” as they call the region south of the San Francisco Mountains where the Apache formerly lived.
II
SOCIAL LIFE
When the crops are harvested and Indian summer is gone and the cold winds buffet the mesas, the Hopi find comfort in their substantial houses around their hearth-stones. The change of the season enforces a pleasant reunion and the people who were occupied with the care as well as the delights of outdoor summer life, begin to get acquainted again.
The men have plenty of idle time on their hands—the masks need repairing and refurbishing with new colors; there are always moccasins to be made; the carvers of dolls construct these odd painted figures from cottonwood procured during the summer, and the weaver works at his loom. Now the basket maker draws on her stock of split yucca leaves, twigs and grass, but the potter’s craft is in abeyance till the warm months.
One would think that the winter work falls pretty severely on the women, but their duties are largely the same in all seasons. There is corn to be ground, food to be prepared, and water to be carried up the steep trails. The winter store must be guarded against mice and vermin and occasionally