The Hopi Indians. Walter Hough
the people can do under such circumstances is to move and to move quickly. It seems probable that some of the many ancient Indian settlements that make the Southwest a ruin-strewn region have been caused by just such fickleness in the water supply.
When modern engineering comes to the aid of the Hopi in storing the occasional vast rushes of water for use throughout the year, a new era will dawn for the Peaceful People. They may then become prosperous farmers and gradually forget the days when they invoked the powers of nature with strange charms and ceremonies.
If the Hopi know well the springs, they are not less perfect in knowledge of plants that are useful to them. One day Kopeli, the former Snake chief, undertook to teach his pupil, Kuktaimu, the lore of the plants growing near the East Mesa. They set out for a flooded cornfield near the wash, and long before they reached it, they could hear the watchers emitting blood-curdling yells to scare away the hated angwishey, crows, that from time to time made a dash for the toothsome ears.
It goes without saying that the day was beautiful, for in August thunder-cloud masses often fill the sky with graceful forms, tinted beneath by a rosy glow reflected from the surface of the red plains. The rain had started the vegetation anew and the deep green cornfields showed its benign influences.
Kopeli was communicative, but Kuktaimu, although having been blessed by Saalako with a Hopi name, was weak in the subtleties of Hopi speech and missed many points to which, out of politeness, he responded Owi, “yes.” Still, the queer-sounding names of the plants and their uses given by Kopeli were duly put down on paper, for which the Hopi have a word which literally means corn-husk. On their journey around the cornfields they met various groups of watchers, some reclining beneath the sloping farm shelters of cottonwood boughs, some chatting together or gnawing ears of corn roasted in a little fire. Everyone requested matches and willingly assisted in conferences over plants of which Kopeli might be doubtful. Boys with their bows and arrows tried for shots at crows, and little girls minded the babies. Life in the fields is full of enjoyment to the Hopi, and the children especially delight to spend a day picnicking amidst the rustling corn-leaves.
The plants having been hunted out in the cornfields, Kopeli and Kuktaimu sought higher ground among the rocks below the mesa, where different species of plants grow. At the foot of the gray rocks are found many plants of great medicinal and ceremonial value to the Hopi, according to the Snake priest, who grew enthusiastic over a small silvery specimen with pungent odor. “Very good medicine,” he said. At this juncture, when the plant had been carefully placed in the collecting papers, Kopeli made a characteristic gesture by rapidly sliding one of his palms over the other and said pasha, “all.” The nearness of the evening meal must have been the influence that caused Kopeli to say that the flora of Tusayan had been exhausted in a single day’s search, for subsequent journeys about the mesas brought to light many other plants that have place in Hopi botany.
It is surprising to find such a general knowledge of the plants of their country as is met with among the Hopi. No doubt this wonder arises among those who live the artificial life of the cities. The Hopi is a true child of the desert and near to the desert’s heart. His surroundings do not furnish clear streams, grassy meadows, and massy trees; there is much that is stern and barren at first glance, and there is a meagerness except in vast outlooks and brilliant coloring. Here Nature is stripped and all her outlines are revealed; the rocks, plains and mountains stand out boldly in the clear air. Still, in all this barrenness there is abundance of animal and vegetal life which has adapted itself to the semi-desert, and if one becomes for the time a Hopi, he may find in odd nooks and corners many things delightful both to the eyes and the understanding.
There are few Hopi who do not know the herbs and simples, and some are familiar with the plants that grow, in the mountains and canyons, hundreds of miles from their villages. Even the children know many of the herbs, and more than once I have successfully asked them for their Indian names. This is not strange, because such things are a part of their education and in this way they are in advance of the majority of their civilized brothers. After a while the idea impresses one that the Hopi depend on the crops of Nature’s sowing as much as on the products of their well-tilled fields. Many a time, as the legends tell, the people were kept from famine by the plants of the desert, which, good or bad seasons alike, thrust their gray-green shoots through the dry sands, a reminder of the basis of all flesh.
Perhaps all the Hopi believe that the wild plants are most valuable for healing and religious purposes, for the plants they use in medicine would stock a primitive drug store. Bunches of dried herbs, roots, etc., hang from the ceiling beams of every house, reminding one of the mysterious bundles of “yarbs” in a negro cabin, and, as occasion requires, are made into teas and powders for all sorts of ills.
Hopi doctors have a theory and practice of medicine, just as have their more learned white brethren. Without the remotest acquaintance with the schools dividing the opinions of our medicine-afflicted race, they unconsciously follow a number of the famous teachings. So, if a patient has a prickling sensation in the throat a tea made from the thistle will perform a cure, as “like cures like.” The hairy seeds of the clematis will make the hair grow, and the fruit of a prolific creeping plant should be placed in the watermelon hills to insure many melons. The leaves of a plant named for the bat are placed on the head of a restless child to induce it to sleep in the daytime, because that is the time the slothful bat sleeps. It is not often that Hopi children require an application of bat-plant medicine, but even the best of children get fractious sometimes.
Many are the strange uses of plants by the Hopi, and much curious lore has gathered about them. Some of the plants are named for the animals and insects which live upon them, such as “the caterpillar, his corn,” “the mole, his corn”; while some, from fancied resemblances, are called “rat’s ear,” “bat plant,” “rattle plant,” etc. Two plants growing in company are believed to be related and one is spoken of as the child of the other. Plants are also known as male and female, and each belongs to its special point of the compass. Many are used in the religious ceremonies; those beloved by the gods appear on the prayer-sticks offered to beseech the kind offices of the nature deities.
Strange as it may seem, the Hopi have medicine women as well as medicine men. The best known of these is Saalako, the mother of the Snake priest. She brews the dark medicine for the Snake dance and guards the secret of the antidote for snake bites. The writer once met at the place called “Broad House” a Navaho medicine man. He was a wrinkled, grizzled specimen of humanity mounted on a burro and was hunting for herbs, as was seen by a glance into the pouch which he wore by his side. A little tobacco induced him to dismount and spread out his store of herbs. When shown the writer’s collection of plants, he became much interested, no doubt believing that he had found a fellow practitioner. He requested samples of several of the plants, and when they were given him, stored them away in his pouch with every evidence of satisfaction.
The Hopi priests are also very glad to receive any herb coming from far off, especially from the sea-coast, “the land of the far water,” as they call it. They treasure such carefully and mix it with sacred smoking tobacco or introduce it into the “charm liquid” which is used in every ceremony to mix the paint for the prayer-sticks and to sprinkle during their strange rites.
An American farmer might be at a loss to recognize a Hopi cornfield when he saw one. In the usually dry stream beds or “washes” he would see low clumps of vegetation, arranged with some regularity over the sand. This is the Hopi cornfield, so planted in order to get the benefit of rains which, falling higher up, may fill the washes, for the summer thunder-storms are very erratic in their favors.
The Hopi farmer sets out to plant, armed only with a dibble which serves as plow, hoe, and cultivator combined. Arriving at the waste of sand which is his unpromising seed-field, he sits down on the ground, digs a hole, and puts in perhaps twenty grains, covering them with the hands. Whether he has any rule like
One for the cutworm,
One for the crow,
One for luck,
is doubtful, but in the years when cutworms are likely to be plentiful he plants more corn to the hill.
One hill finished, he gets up,