The Hopi Indians. Walter Hough
family than in Hopiland. If you ask, “Who is this man?” the answer may be, for instance, “Kopeli,” his individual name. “But what is he in Walpi?” “He is a chua,” that is, he belongs to the important Snake clan and his totem signature is a crawling reptile.
It affords great amusement to the Hopi when a person, not acquainted with their customs, asks a man his name; it is also very embarrassing to the man asked, unless there is a third party at hand to volunteer the service, because no Hopi can be prevailed on to speak his own name for fear of the bad consequences following “giving himself away.”
III
FOOD AND REARING
Indian legend tells of a time when all was water; then land was made; for a long time the earth was too wet for human beings and at last the earth was dried out by a mighty fire. All these are pretty stories for those who are looking for deluge legends and the effects of blazing comets, but if the Indian account is true, the drying process was carried entirely too far in the Southwest. Water! water! water! The word gains a new significance in this arid region. There is a rippling, cooling, refreshing note in it, a soothing of parched lips and a guaranty against death from thirst. So, all conversation among the people is replete with references to this mainstay of life, and one comes, like them, to discuss the water question with an earnest regard for its problems.
Wherever there is water, almost always will there be found ancient ruins. In modern times the windmill of the settler often stands by the spring which quenched the thirst of the ancient inhabitants of a now crumbling pueblo. The blessings which were invoked in Biblical times upon the man who “digged a well” apply also in this semi-desert, for Syria and Arizona do not differ greatly in climate. The Bedouin with his horses and camels would not be out of place on the sand wastes of our Sahara; nor were the Spanish conquerors on unfamiliar ground when they exchanged the dusty plains and naked sierras of their native land for those of the New World.
The traveler in Spain, northern Africa, or Asia Minor is impressed with the similarity between these countries and our Southwest, so that the name of New Spain, early applied by the Spaniards to all of Mexico, seems very appropriate. Like these countries, too, our Southwest is a land of thirst; the dry air and fervent sun parch the skin and devour every trace of moisture. (One feels as though he were placed under a bell glass exhausted of air undergoing the shriveling process of the apple in the experiment.)
So, before taking a journey, one inquires not so much of the roads and distances, but whether water may be found, for it is often necessary to submit to that most unpleasant of contingencies, a “dry camp.” Many parts of Arizona and New Mexico cannot easily be visited except in favorable seasons, because one is told, “it’s a hundred miles to water.” The Hopi often provide for the long journeys across waterless country by hiding water at points along the route. This wise precaution, which was noticed by the Spanish explorers of the sixteenth century, consists of burying sealed water-jars in the sand, their situation being indicated by “signs.” Far from the ancient or modern habitation these jars, uncovered by the wind, are often discovered by riders on the cattle ranges.
Not only must the dusty explorer “haul water,” for even the railroads across the semi-desert are provided with tank trains for water service, and the water tanks of the huge locomotive tenders of all trains are of unusual capacity.
Far out on the sandy, sage-brush plains are frequently seen small cairns of stones, called by the knowing ones “Indian water signs,” pointing out the direction of water, but the more common signs are the trails made by cattle on which a myriad of tracks in the dust point to water, miles away perhaps, and oftentimes, when the tracks are not fresh, leading to a dried-up pool, surrounded by carcasses or bleaching bones.
The Navaho herdsman or herdswoman is a person with great responsibility, for the sheep and ponies must have water at least every three or four days. When a well-defined thunder-storm passes within twenty or thirty miles of his camp he starts for the path of its influence, knowing that there will be pools of water and quick-springing herbs and grass. This chasing a thunder-storm is novel—and much more satisfactory than chasing a rainbow. Even the wild cattle scent the water and make for it, running like race-horses.
As a matter of fact, the animals of the desert have of necessity become used to doing without water. So far as one can determine, the rats, mice, squirrels, badgers, coyotes, prairie-dogs, skunks, and other denizens of the sand-wastes so rarely get a good drink of water that they seem to have outgrown the need of it. Cattle and horses have also developed such powers of abstinence as might put a camel to shame. There is a belief in the Western country that at least one of the burrows of a prairie-dog town penetrates to water, but whether this be true or not, judging from some of the locations of these queer animal villages the tribe of gophers must contain adepts in abysmal engineering.
One does not live long in the wilds of Arizona without becoming weatherwise and, perhaps, skilled in signs and trails like a frontiersman. The country is so open that the weather for a hundred miles or more can be taken in at a glance and the march of several storms observed at once, even though the sound of wind and thunder be far out of hearing. At Flagstaff, for instance, it is easy to tell when the Hopi are rejoicing in a rain, although it is more than a hundred miles away.
In a country with so little rainfall as Tusayan and in which the soil consists largely of sand with underlying porous rocks, springs are few and their flow scanty. The rivers, also, during most of the year, flow far beneath their sandy beds, which only once in a while are torn by raging torrents. This is one of the many novelties of a country that probably offers more attractions than any land on earth.
Around the springs the life of the Hopi comes to a focus, for here, at all hours of the day, women and girls may be seen filling their canteens, getting them well adjusted in the blankets on their backs for the toilsome climb up the trail. A feeling of admiration tinged with pity arises for these sturdy little women who in the blanket tied across the forehead literally by the sweat of their brows carry half a hundredweight of water up a height of nearly half a thousand feet. Mang i uh, “tired?” one asks them. Okiowa mang i uh, “Yes, alas, very tired!” they answer, these slaves of the spring.
At the edge of the water in the spring, where nothing can disturb them, are green-painted sticks with dangling feathers. These are offerings to the gods who rule the water element. At none of the frequent ceremonies of the Hopi are the springs forgotten, for a messenger carries prayer-sticks to them and places them in the water. In former times offerings of pottery and other objects were thrown into springs by devout worshippers.
Around the springs are gardens in which onions and other “garden sauce” are grown. When it is possible, a little rill is led from the spring into the gardens. The growing greens lend much to the drear surroundings of the springs, but the plants must be enclosed by a stone wall to keep away marauding burros and goats.
At least one spring at each pueblo is dug out and enlarged, forming a pool at the bottom of an excavation ten feet deep and thirty in diameter, with a graded way leading down to the water. These springs are convenient for watering the thirsty stock, but they are especially used in the ceremonies. During the Flute Dance, for example, they form the theater of an elaborate ceremony in which the priests wade in the spring and blow their flutes in the water.
All the springs have been given descriptive names. At Walpi, there are Dawapa, “sun spring”; Ishba, “wolf spring”; Canelba, “sheep spring”; Kokiungba, “spider spring”; Wipoba, “rush spring”; Kachinapa, “kachina spring,” and a number of others, around which cluster many associations dear to the good people of the East Mesa. Like the Hopi, every other human being who fares in the dry Southwest unconsciously becomes a devotee of water worship and eventually finds himself in the grip of the powers of Nature whom the Indians beseech for the fertilizing rain.
Springs are often uncertain quantities in this region. Earthquakes have been known to swallow up springs in one place and to cause them to burst out at another far away. One can readily imagine what a terrible calamity