The Hopi Indians

Little Histories

2f

North American Indians

No, 4

THE HOPI

WALTER HOUGH

LITTLE HISTORIES
OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS

Number Four

IN THE SAME SERIES

THE NAVAHO

By Oscar H. Lipps
Supervisor in Charge, U. S. Indian School, Carlisle, Penn.

With map and illustration in three colors

THE IOWA
By William Harvey Miner

With map and illustrations in halftone

THE INDIANS OF GREATER NEW YORK

By Alanson Skinner

Assistant Curator of Anthropology, American Museum of
Natural History, New York

With a map of the region

Each Volume 1 2mo, $ 1 .00 net Delivery extra

Photo by P. G. Gates

A MADONNA AMONG THE MOKI

THE HOPI INDIANS

By WALTER HOUGH

Curator {Division of Ethnology, United States National Museum,
Washington, D. C.

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
THE TORCH PRESS, 1915

COPYRIGHT

1915

BY THE TORCH PRKSS
April

u. c.

ACADEMY OF
PACIFIC COAST
HISTORY

To My Wife

CONTENTS

THE COUNTRY, TOWNS, AND PEOPLES . . 13

SOCIAL LIFE 28

POOD AND BEARING 49

THE WORKERS 69

AMUSEMENTS 102

BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH . . . . 114

RELIGIOUS LIFE 132

MYTHS 179

TRADITIONS AND HISTORY .... 201

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES . . . . . 218

THE ANCIENT PEOPLE 250

INDEX 263

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

PREFACE

Whoever visits the Hopi falls perforce under the
magic influence of their life and personality. If any-
one entertains the belief that "a good Indian is a dead
Indian/9 let him travel to the heart of the Southwest
and dispel his illusions in the presence of the sturdy }
self -supporting, self-respecting citizens of the pueblos.
Many sojourns in a region whose fascinations are sec-
ond to no othert experiences that were happy and as-
sociations with a people who interest all coming in
contact with them combined to indite the following
pages. If the writer may seem biased in favor of the
"Quaker Indians/' as Lummis calls them, be it known
tliat he is moved by affection not less than by respect
for the Hopi and moreover believes that his commenda-
tions are worthily bestowed.

The recording of these sidelights on the Hopi far
from being an irksome task has been a pleasure which
it is hoped may be passed on to the reader, who may
here receive an impression of a tribe of Indians living
at the threshold of modern civilizing influences and
still retaining in great measure the life of the ancient
house-buuders of the unwatered lands.

To Mr. F. W. Hodge of the Bureau of American

12 PREFACE

Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, a fellow
worker in the Pueblo field, grateful acknowledgments
are due for his criticism and advice in the preparation
of this book. The frontispiece is by that distinguished
amateur P. G. Gates of Pasadena. Under the auspices
of the explorations carried on by Dr. J. Walter
Fewkes, for the Bureau of American Ethnology, the
writer had in 1896 his first introduction to the Hopi, a
favor and a pleasure that ivill always be remembered
with gratitude on his part. The indebtedness of sci-
ence to the researches of Dr. Fewkes among the Hopi
is very great and this book has profited by his inspira-
tion as well as by his counsel.

THE COUNTRY, TOWNS, AND PEOPLES

The Hopi, or Peaceful People, as their name ex-
presses, live in six rock-built towns perched on three
rnesas in northeastern Arizona. They number about
1,600 and speak a dialect of the language called the
Shoshonean, the tongue of the Ute, Comanche, and
other tribes in the United States. There is another
town, called Hano, making up seven on these mesas,
but its people are Tewas who came from the Rio Grande
valley in New Mexico more than two centuries ago.

There are a number of ways of reaching the Hopi
pueblos. If one would go in by the east, he may
choose to start from Holbrook on the Santa Fe Pacific
Railroad, or Winslow (two days each), or by the west
from Canyon Diablo (two days), or Flagstaff (three
days). The estimates of time are based on " traveling
light " and with few interruptions. A longer journey
may be made from Gallup, during which the Canyon
de Chelly, with its wonderful cliff dwellings, may be
visited if one has a sufficient outfit and plenty of time.

The home-land of the Hopi, known as Tusayan from
old times, is a semi-desert, lying a mile and a quarter

14 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

above sea-level. It is deeply scarred by canyons and
plentifully studded with buttes and mesas, though
there are vast stretches which seem level till one gets
closer acquaintance. From the pueblos the view is
open from the northwest to the southeast, and unin-
terrupted over the great basin of the Colorado Chi-
quito, or Little Colorado River, rimmed on the far
horizon by the peaks of the San Francisco, Mogollon,
and White Mountains, while in the other quarters
broken mesas shut out the view.

The rainfall almost immediately sinking into the
sandy wastes, determines that there shall be no peren-
nially-flowing rivers in Tusayan, and that springs
must be few and far between and the most valued of
all possessions. Were it not for winter snows and
summer thunder-storms, Tusayan would be a desert
indeed.

The hardy grasses and desert plants do their best to
cover the nakedness of the country ; along the washes
are a few cottonwoods ; on the mesas are junipers and
pinyons; and in the higher lands to the north small
oaks strive for an existence. At times, when the rains
are favoring, plants spring up and the desert is painted
with great masses of color ; here and there are stretches
green with grass or yellow with the flowering bunches
of the ' ' rabbit brush ' ' or gray with the ice plant. In
sheltered spots many rare and beautiful flowers may
be found.

The Hopi enjoy a summer climate the temperature

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 15

of which is that of Maine and a winter climate that is
far less severe than the latter, since most days are
bright and the sun has power. Even in the warmest
season the nights are cool, and an enjoyable coolness is
found by day in the shade. The dryness of the region
renders it ideal for healthful sleeping in the open air.
A pure atmosphere like that of the sea bathes Tu-
sayan ; no microbes pollute it with their presence and
it fills the body with good blood and an exhilaration
like wine.

Perforce the Hopi are agricultural, and since there
is little game to be hunted, they are also largely vege-
tarians, their chief food being corn. When the corn
crop fails the desert plants are relied on to prevent
starvation. The Hopi thus form a good example of a
people whose very existence depends on the plants of
the earth, and it speaks well for their skill as farmers,
in so unfavorable an environment, that there are any
of them living in Tusayan at this day.

Out of this environment the Hopi has shaped his re-
ligious beliefs, whose strenuous appeal is for food and
life from the grasping destroyers of nature that whelm
him. And in like manner he has drawn from this
niggard stretch his house, his pottery, baskets, clothing
and all the arts that show how man can rise above his
environment. But let us have a closer view of this
Indian who is so worthy of the respect of his superiors
in culture.

The Hopi man is moderate of stature, well-framed,

16 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

hard-muscled, and agile, since he depended on his own
feet for going anywhere and on his arms for work be-
fore the day of the hurro and the horse. Black,
straight hair worn long, brownish skin, the smooth
and expressive face in the young men, intensifying as
they grow older, bringing out the high cheek-bones, the
nose, the large mouth and accenting them with
wrinkles, but never developing a sullen, ferocious cast
of countenance, always preserving the lines of worth
and dignity and the pleasing curves of humor and
good-fellowship to the end of life, — these are the
salient characters of the Hopi.

The same remarks apply to the other sex, who from
childhood to old age run the course in milder degree.
Many of the maidens are pretty and the matrons are
comely and wholesome to behold. The old, wrinkled
and bowed go their way with quiet mien and busy
themselves with the light duties in which their experi-
ence counts for much.

In spite of the luxuriant hair that adorns the heads
of this people, one may notice the difference of head
shape which distinguishes them from the tribes of the
plains. The cradle-board is partly responsible for
this, since, from infancy, the children are bound to the
cradle and obliged to lie on the back for longer or
shorter intervals, and thus begins the flattening of the
back of the skull. But the heads of the women are
rarely flattened, probably because the girls are not so
well cared for as the boys.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 17

There are among the Hopi a greater number of
albinos in proportion to the population than may be
found almost anywhere else. They go about their
avocations like the rest and are in no way regarded as
different from their kin. The impulse is to address
them in English, and one feels surprised when they do
not comprehend. One albino maiden of Mishongnovi
has a marvelous growth of golden hair which shows to
great advantage in her ample hair whorls. Many
students believe that albinism has its origin in the
nervous system, and perhaps the timidity of the Hopi
explains the number of these remarkable people in
their midst; but this is a theory, based on a theory.
It has been observed that some of the albinos are be-
low the average in intelligence, and it has been ascer-
tained that the larger proportion of them are second
in order of birth in a family.

From the number of old people in the pueblos one
would gain the impression that the Hopi are long-
lived. All things considered, this is doubtless the
truth, but there are no statistics to settle the matter;
besides, the question of age is a doubtful one among
the Hopi themselves. If "sans everything" is any
criterion of a centenarian, there are such among the
Peaceful People. One must conclude that, on passing
childhood, the average Hopi is due for a second term
of the helpless period.

"Welcome" is not written over every Hopi door,
but the spirit of hospitality pervades the entire popu-

18 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

lation. This is one of the pleasant features of the
Pueblos and is the chief reason why the Hopi are held
in friendly remembrance by visitors. An acquaint-
ance with the Indians in the different pueblos of the
Southwest will convince one that there is a consider-
able range of disposition among them. Perhaps the
extremes are the untractable Santo Domingans and the
impressionable Hopi. It seems to be a matter of the
elements of which the tribes have been made up and
of their past experiences and associations.

High up on the gray rocks the Hopi towns look as
though they were part of the native cliff. The seven
towns, — though twenty miles and three distinct mesas
separate the extremes, — Hano and Oraibi, — are
built on the same stratum of sandstone. The rock
shows tints of light red, yellow, and brown, and cleaves
into great cubical pillars and blocks, leaving the face
of the cliff always vertical. Trails at different points
lead up over the low masses of talus and reach the flat
top through crevices and breaks in this rock- wall, often
over surfaces where pockets have been cut in the stone
for hand and foot. A very little powder, properly ap-
plied, would render these mesas as difficult of ascent
as the Enchanted Mesa near Acoma.

Once on top and breathing normally after the four
hundred feet or so of precipitous climbing, one sees
why the outer walls of the towns seem to be a con-
tinuation of the living rock. The houses are built of
slabs of stone of various sizes, quarried from the mesa

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 19

and laid up in mud. They are of terrace style, rarely
more than of two stories, flat-roofed, and grouped in
masses so as to form streets and plazas and conform-
ing to the irregularities of the surface and outline of
the mesas. For this reason not much order can be
found in a Hopi pueblo. The uneven surface of the
mesas gives a varying height to the houses and in-
creases the picturesqueness of the skyline.

These Hopi towns are the most primitive of the in-
habited pueblos. Before us is a picture of the ancient
life as true as may be found in this day of inquisitive
travelers and of rapid transportation to the ends of
the earth. But this state of things is changing with
increasing rapidity ; the Hopi is becoming progressive
and yearns for the things of the white man with in-
creasing desire, therefore it is evident that, before
many years, much that is charming in Tusayan by
reason of the ancient touch about it will have vanished
from the lives of its brown inhabitants.

This change is most marked at Walpi, because the
East Mesa people have longest been in contact with the
civilizing influences of schools, missions, and trading
posts ; besides, they were always apparently the most
tractable of the Hopi. Many families have abandoned
the villages on the cliffs, and their modern, red-roofed
houses dotting the lower ground near the fields show
the tendency to forsake the crowded hill-towns. But
the old towns exist in all their primitiveness and fur-
nish bits of surpassing interest to lovers of the pic-

20 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

turesque. To these the bulk of the conservative Hopi
still cling with all the force of their inherited instinct.

Two centuries ago visitors arrived at Walpi from
the Rio Grande. These were a tribe of Tewa, invited
to come to Tusayan to aid in fighting off the Apache
and Ute, those wily nomad adversaries with whom
the Peaceful People for so long had to contend. Here
they have lived ever since in their village of Hano, at
the head of the most readily accessible trail up the
mesa, preserving their language and customs, and be-
sides their own tongue, speaking well the language of
their friends and neighbors. The Tewa brought with
them their potter's art and now have the honor to be
practically the only makers of earthenware in Tu-
sayan. Nampeo is the best potter at Hano and her
work shows her to be a worthy descendant of the
ancient artists, whose graceful vessels lie with the
bones of the dead beneath the sands of the great
Southwest.

Beyond Hano, and midway between it and Walpi, is
Sichomovi, which signifies "flower mound." Sicho-
movi, if we may judge from the good preservation of
its houses and the regularity with which the town is
laid out, seems to be comparatively new, and indeed,
there is traditionary testimony to this effect. The
dusky historians of "Walpi relate the circumstances of
its foundation, when the yellow flowers grew in the
crevices of the rock at the place where several stranger
clans were allowed to settle.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 21

Passing out of Sichomovi and crossing a narrow
neck of the mesa traversed by a well-worn trail, Walpi
is reached. This village from different points of view
presents the appearance of a confused jumble of dilap-
idated houses, and a walk through its alleys and pas-
sages confirms the impression. Walpi was a town of
necessity and was erected in 1590, having been moved
up from a lower point after troubles with the Spanish
conquistadores.

Looking down from the town one may trace the site
of Old Walpi and descry the pottery-strewn mounds of
still older settlements, since around this mesa the first
comers to Tusayan probably located. At the foot of
the mesa are also springs and shrines, one of the latter
being the true "center of the world" to the Hopi
mind, a point which gave the ancients much trouble to
determine. Along the ledges are corrals for the mot-
ley flocks of black and white sheep and goats, adepts
in subsisting on all sorts of unpalatable brush. Far-
ther down in the level are the fields, at the proper sea-
son green with the prospect of corn, melons, and beans.

Walpi streets are the living rock of the mesa worn
smooth by human feet and swept by the officious wind-
god, whose dry air, with the aid of the sun, form the
board of health of the Hopiland. This rocky surface
must have been a great trial to the kiva builders, as
traditional custom requires that such meeting places
of the secret societies or brotherhoods should be under-
ground. The Tcivas along the streets thus represent a

22 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

great amount of work in their construction, and it is
clear that, when the builders found a cleft in the rock
or a niche in the cliff-edge, they appropriated it as the
site of a kiva, then built an outer wall overhanging
the precipice and prepared the deep oblong room with
toilsome labor, for they had only the rude tools of the
stone age.

The 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, plas-
tered 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 subter-
ranean chambers are now found in use only in Tu-
sayan, 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

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 23

looked on with pride and complacency. In the gran-
ary, 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
nictates 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 cov-
ered 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 vil-
lages will interest the visitor, who will not have serious
difficulty in overlooking the innovations or in obtain-
ing 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 con-
tact 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

24 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

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 chim-
neys 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 mar-
riages are not infrequent among members of the two
tribes. Generallv it is a Navaho brave who seeks a

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 25

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 Zuni have cast their lot at Tusayan and sev-
eral of the latter live at Zuni 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 Zuni 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 Zuni and that
Sichomovi has a strong admixture from that pueblo.
In support of this it may be said that the Zuni vis-
itors are usually domiciled at Sichomovi, where they
seem very much at home, and many of the people there
speak the Zuni language.

At the time of the ceremonies, especially those per-
formed 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 llano
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

26 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

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 tradi-
tions of an ancient time.

Long ago, say the Hopi, the Paiute, who are uncul-
tured 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 re-
motely related, were not friendly to the Hopi, and be-
sides, there was much of value to be seized from the
mesa-dwellers. For this reason the Hopi did not cul-
tivate 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 cos-
mopolitan in their tastes and did not allow tribal en-
mity to interfere with trade.

Far to the south another people were friends of the
Hopi. Very long ago the Pima were closer neighbors

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 27

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
Ari/xma, 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 sum-
mer 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

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 29

mice and vermin and occasionally sunned on the roof.
There are, no doubt, many cares and much labor, but
the women take their time, and everyone, from the
little child to the experienced old grandmother, lends
a helping hand. A Hopi woman would perhaps not
understand our kind commiseration for the lot that
her sex has experienced and thriven under from time
immemorial.

Winter in Tusayan is more enjoyable than other-
wise, as the sun is bright and the sky a clear blue.
The snows of winter are nearly as rare as the rain-
storms of summer, much to the regret of the Hopi.
Often the cold at night is intense, but the day may
have the crisp though mild air of a rare day in spring
at the East.

Not much change comes over the landscape of Tu-
sayan by the advent of winter. There are few trees
to lose their leaves after a gorgeous pageant of fare-
well. The desert plants scarcely ever alter the ap-
pearance of the earth by their leaf tints of spring,
summer, or autumn ; with their diminutive leaves and
sober color they sink into the vast surface and are lost
among the vivid aerial tints and the bright hues of the
rocks and plains. There are no rivers to be covered
by a sheen of ice, and rarely does a mantle of snow
reach across the deserts from the snow-clad moun-
tains. The winds rave and whirlwinds swirl the sand
along the plain in giant columns, while the sun hangs
lower and lower in the southwest until the Hopi fear

30 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

that lie will finally depart and leave them in the grasp
of winter. But the priests have potent charms to
draw him back, and after the Soyalana ceremony at
the winter solstice anyone can see that the sun no
longer wanders.

Those Hopi who have not laid in a supply of fuel
must go wood-gathering right speedily when cold
weather approaches, for the trees are distant and the
day is hardly long enough to get a burro load piled
on the house wall. Every morning also the flocks of
sheep and goats must be driven out from the corrals
on the ledges under the mesas, to browse on the leafless
brush.

October is called the Harvest moon. The women
who garner the grain hold a ceremony at this time and
great is the feasting and rejoicing in the pueblo. The
winter tightens in November, called the " Neophyte
moon," since the youths of proper age are initiated
into the societies in this month. These beginners bear
the sportive name of ' ' Pigeon Hawks. ' ' In even years
comes the great ceremony of the New Fire, full of
strange rites of fire worship handed down from the
olden time. In odd years occurs the Na-a-ish-nya
ceremony, which like the other is performed by the
New Fire Society. By December, Tusayan is hard in
the grip of winter, and as the spirits are held fast be-
neath the frozen ground, they cannot do ill to anyone
who speaks about them, so that many legends and
stories and much sacred lore are freely divulged

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 31

around the glowing fires of fat piilon wood in the
Hopi houses. Everyone is also on the qui vive for the
Soyaluna, in many respects the most important cere-
mony in the Hopi calendar, when the first kachinas
appear. December is called the ' ' Hoe moon ' ' because
in this month it is prescribed that the fields shall be
cleared for the spring planting. The wind has per-
haps done its share toward clearing movable things
from the fields, but much remains to be done in level-
ing the surface for the spring sowing.

No month of winter is too cold for a ceremony.
January, called the "Prayer-stick moon," brings the
Alosaka, a ceremony of the Horn Society with their
grotesque masks. During the vicissitudes of this hard
month, more of the beloved kachinas return to their
people from the high peaks of the San Francisco
Mountains, poetically known as the "snow houses,"
and to these ancestral beings many petitions are made.

February, the hardest month of all the winter, is
called the * i Getting-ready moon." It was in this
month that the hero of the Kachina people found
melons and green corn near the San Francisco Moun-
tains. The Powamu ceremony is held during this
moon.

If the Hopi should have nearly reached the starva-
tion point, March is likely to inspire a hope of reach-
ing the end of the disastrous season, for in sheltered
places a few shoots of green appear, and if the mois-
ture from melting snow is sufficient, perhaps the little

32 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

wiwa, plant springs up, furnishing palatable and nour-
ishing greens. For some reason March is called the
"Prickly-pear moon," and it is the only month named
from a natural object. Perhaps the designation
points to a time when some of the Hopi lived in a
clime where the prickly-pear bloomed in March. This
might have been in southern Arizona, whence a number
of clans, for instance, such as the *" Agave People,"
have derived their names. March ushers in the most
disagreeable part of the year, the season of fierce
winds charged with dust and sand which drift like
snow against the sides of the mesas.

This chronicle of the winter of the Hopi, incomplete
as it is, shows that the l ' Peaceful People ' ' get a great
deal of enjoyment out of life at this season. Many
important ceremonies belong to the wintertime and
there are conventions of the different societies. In
the underground meeting-places those entitled to the
privileges drop in for gossip, as at a club, being sure
of warmth, agreeable company, and perhaps a smoke
to while away the time. Around the fireside, also,
there is a good company, and plenty of stories, well
worth the hearing, are told. The men may go hunt-
ing or make a winter journey to the settlements or
the mountains.

As for the cold, the Hopi seem to regard it lightly.
There is little or no change in the costume, though the
blanket or the rabbit-fur robe comes in handy for a
wrap. If a man has an errand out of doors he trusts

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 33

to running to keep up the circulation. After the cere-
monies, the men usually ascend, scantily clothed, from
the superheated kivas into the bitter air, with utter
disregard for the rules of health. The purity of the
air is a saving factor ; nevertheless, pulmonary dis-
eases are common, due to the close, badly ventilated
houses more than to any other causes.

Most visitors to Tusayan see the Hopiland at the
best season, when the cornfields are green and the cot-
tonwoods are in full leaf, when the desert smiles to its
greatest capability and the people are well fed and
happy. The rebirth of Nature begins in April, when
the thrifty farmers cut brush and set up long wind-
breaks to protect prospective crops. The month is
named for this circumstance, and like everything else
at the pueblos the time for beginning work is pre-
scribed, according to custom, by those in authority
over the clans.

Frosts and lashing winds often destroy every green
shoot in the spring, save the native plants, which are
inured to the weather, and the people frequently have
to mourn the loss of their peaches, their only desir-
able fruit, for which they owe a debt to the Spanish
friars of long ago.

In the "Waiting moon," as May is called, all is ac-
tivity in the fields, for the planting of the sweet corn
goes merrily on and the Hopi become, for most of the
time, an out-door people. The winds perhaps have
abated their power or have ceased entirely, and life is

34 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

more pleasant under the warm sun. Still, with all the
work incident to the care of the fields there is time for
ceremony and during the period between the arrival
of the kachinas in December and their departure in
July, there are many minor celebrations by masked
dancers in addition to the great monthly ceremonies.
Especially interesting in the season of awakening life
anl growing crops are these kachina dances with their
pleasing songs and pageantry, their unlimited variety
and surprises. The " Peaceful People" enjoy this
season in the highest degree. June and July see every
Hopi happy, unless there is something constitutionally
wrong with him or he is afflicted with sickness. It is
difficult to realize how thoroughly all Hopi life is
linked with growing things, showing out in their every
word and action and entering into their ideas of the
unseen world.

When the sun pauses in his march along the eastern
horizon at the summer solstice, the Hopi spend the
day in making feather prayer-plumes as petitions for
blessings. These children of the sun know the course
of Daiva, the sun, and read his positions as we the
hands of a clock.

With the departure of the kachinas a new class of
ceremonies begins. The dancers who previously ap-
peared in strange masks and headgear now perform
unmasked, and the cumbrous paraphernalia is laid
away for another year. The great event of the sum-
mer, the Snake Dance, is now at hand, and everyone

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 35

sets about preparing for a good time. In the latter
part of August, after this ceremony, the pueblo re-
sumes its normal state and the people settle down to
the feast of good things from their fields, which they
attack with primitive zest and enjoyment. It is great-
ly to the credit of the Hopi that they work well and
rest well like the unconscious philosophers they are.

The moon of September watches over a scene of
peace and plenty in Tusayan. The cool, clear nights
betoken that frosts and the time of harvest are ap-
proaching. The heat of summer is gone and the sea-
son is ideal.

Since the Hopi are good people one would infer that
they need no rulers. One might live among the Hopi
for some time and not wittingly come in contact with
a chief or a policeman or any evidence of laws, but the
rulers and laws are there nevertheless.

The voice of the town crier awakens one to the fact
that here is the striking apparatus of some sort of a
social clock. It will be found that there is an organ-
ization of which the crier is the ultimate utterance.
Chiefs are there in abundance, the house chief, the
kiva chief, the war chief, the speaker chief who is the
crier; chiefs of clans, who are chiefs of the fraterni-
ties: all these are members of the council that rules
the pueblo. The council meets on occasion and acts
for the common weal, and the village chief publishes
their mandates by crier.

In this most democratic organization the agents of

36 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

the Government who wish to treat with the Hopi, not
finding a responsible head, felt forced to appoint one.
Thus each Hopi pueblo received a supreme ruler, who
neither deceived himself nor the people as to the power
he acquired from Washington, which was nil. The
true rulers are the heads of the clans, and by their
wise advice and their knowledge of the traditional un-
written laws everything is regulated for the tractable
Hopi. Each pueblo acts for itself and knows nothing
and cares less for the doings of the other pueblos, so
there has never been a league of Hopi tribes. In a
few instances there was a temporary unity of action,
as when the people of other pueblos destroyed Awa-
tobi, an event related circumstantially in the tradition.
(See p. 210.) Traces of this independence of action
abound in the Southwest. The ancient ruins show
that the clans built each its house cluster apart from
the others and moved when it liked. The present vil-
lages are made up of clans and fragments of clans,
each living in the ward where it settled when it joined
the others in the old time.

These clans are larger families of blood relations,
who trace their descent from the mother and who have
a general family name or totem, as Eagle, Tobacco
Plant, Cloud, etc. Although no blood relationship
may be traceable between them, no youth and maid
of the same clan may marry, and this seems to be the
first law of the clan. The working of the strange law
of mother-right makes the children of no clan rela-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 37

tion to the father. Since the woman owns the house
and the children, the father is only a sojourner in the
clan of his wife.

Another law of the greater family was that of mu-
tual help, providing for the weak, infirm, and unpro-
tected members. From this grows the hospitality of
the Indian, and nowhere does this graceful custom
prevail more than among the Hopi.

As if in recognition of the interests of the whole
people in the farming lands the messengers sent out to
bear plume-prayers to the nature gods while the cere-
monies are in progress encircle all the fields of the
pueblo, so that all may receive the blessings of rain.
While the lands are spoken of as belonging to the vil-
lage, they are known to have been immemorially di-
vided among the clans, hence at Walpi the oldest and
otherwise ranking clans have the best land. The di-
vision of the land in severalty by the United States
government some years ago had no effect on the
ancient boundaries and no one but the surveyor knows
where his lines ran.

Every once in a while the Hopi have a "raising,"
but instead of the kind and willing neighbors of the
"bee" in the States, here the workers are clan rela-
tions. Cooperation or communal effort goes a long
way toward explaining why the days of the Pueblo
dweller are long in the land and the Mormon settlers
in the Southwest also followed this primitive law
which goes into effect wherever men are gathered for
the common weal.

38 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Laws are but expressions of common sense formu-
lated by the wisest and most experienced. The Hopi
must have good laAvs, for though their laws are strong-
er by far than those written and refined by civiliza-
tion, the people observe them unconsciously and never
feel the burden. There are so few infractions of the
law that it is difficult to say what the various punish-
ments are. The taking of life by force or law is un-
known; the respect of mine and thine is the rule
among the Hopi, and so on through the temptations of
life that beset mortals. There is no desire to place the
Hopi on a pedestal and declare them perfect, for they
are not; but in many ways they set their civilized
brothers an example. As to punishment, it is prob-
able that a loss of standing in a fraternity, ostracism
from the clan or pueblo, and ridicule are the suasive
penalties.

With the increased influence of education and con-
tact with white people the business side of the Hopi
is being brought out, and because from time im-
memorial they have been chief among the traffickers
in the primitive commerce of the Southwest, they have
rapidly assimilated the devices of modern trade. They
have their own native merchants and are gradually
becoming independent of the trader. The latter say
they would rather deal with six Navaho than one Hopi,
because the Navaho does not haggle, while the Hopi,
with the thrift that is bringing him to the front, is de-
termined to get the benefit of a bargain.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 39

The Pueblo folk retire early and leave the safety of
the village to the patrol. Some one is always on guard
about the pueblo, whether it be the children amusing
themselves on the rocks, — and these little folks have
eyes as sharp as any, — or the grown people looking
off into the country for " signs, " a custom which has
become habitual with them. The night patrol is a
survival of the times when the whole village was a
committee of safety, for the outside foes were fierce
and treacherous.

If running about the town keeping the dogs barking
and good folks awake is the principal office of the
patrol, then it is eminently successful and the pueblos
furnish nocturnal noises on the scale of the cities of
civilization. The tradition of the coming of the Flute
clan speaks of the watchman of Walpi, who was Al-
osaka, a horned being alert as a mountain sheep. The
Flute migrants also sent out ' ' Mountain Sheep " to as-
certain whether human beings lived in the locality.
During some of the ceremonies there are vigilant
patrols, and on a few ceremonial days no living being
is allowed to come into the pueblo from the outside,
formerly under pain of death at the hands of the fra-
ternity guards. It is thought that the trouble arising
between the Spaniards and the Hopi on that first visit
to Tusayan in 1540 was due to a violation of the cere-
monial bar, and not to the belligerent habit of the In-
dians.

The village shepherds have an easy, though very

40 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

monotonous occupation. They have the advantage of
other Arizona shepherds because their charges are
brought at nightfall into secure corrals among the
rocks below the town and do not require care till
morning. Frequently one sees a woman and a child
driving the herd around, in what seems a vain search
for green things that a sheep with a not too fastidious
appetite might eat. Formerly, at least, the office of
herder was bestowed by the village chief, much as was
once the case with the village swineherd or gooseherd
of Europe in olden time.

Perhaps a visitor straying about a Hopi village at a
time when there are no ceremonies in progress may
find a quaint street market, conducted by a few
women squatted on the ground, with their wares
spread in front of them. Such markets are only a
faint reflection of those which have been held in Mex-
ico from time immemorial; but it is interesting to
know that the Hopi have such an institution, because
it shows a step in political economy that has been
rarely noticed among the Indians in the United States.
The little barter by exchange that goes on here, accom-
panied with the jollity of the Hopi women, has in it
the germ of commerce with its world-embracing
activities. Here it is found also that woman has her
place as the beginner and promoter of buying and sell-
ing as she has in the inception of many other lines of
human progress.

Honi, the speaker-chief, is the living newspaper of

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 41

Walpi, or rather he is a vocal bulletin-board. Like
the reader for the United States Senate, his voice is of
the robust kind, and for this qualification, perhaps,
he was selected to make the numerous announcements
from the housetops. His news is principally of a re-
ligious character, such as the beginning and progress
of the many ceremonies at the pueblo, but there is a
fair sprinkling of secular notices of interest to the
community. Honi, however, is only a voice crying in
the wilderness at the bidding of the secret council or
of the heads of the brotherhoods who are the true
rulers of the pueblos, because they have the destiny of
the flock in their hands. He holds, however, the of-
fice of speaker-chief, the pay of which is not highly
remunerative, but the duties do not interfere with the
pursuit of other occupations, since his announcements
are made usually when the people have gathered in
the town after their day's labor in the fields. No
doubt, Honi regards himself and is regarded by others
as an important functionary who, with the house chief,
has the privilege of frequenting the Mong-kiva or
council chamber of the pueblo. The town crier 's an-
nouncements attracted the notice of the Spanish con-
querors in the early days as they have that of modern
travelers. In the quaint language of Castaneda,
speaking of Zuni: "They have priests who preach
to them whom they call papas. These are the elders.
They go up on the highest roof of the village and
preach to the village from there, like public criers in

42 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

the morning while the sun is rising, the whole village
being silent and sitting in the galleries to listen. They
tell them how to live, and I believe that they give cer-
tain commandments for them to keep. ' '

It must be admitted that Honi's is an ancient and
honorable office, found useful by civilized communi-
ties before the time of newspapers and surviving yet,
as the sereno of Spain.

It is surprising, by the way, how fast news flies in
Hopiland. The arrival of a white man is known the
whole length and breadth of Tusayan in an incred-
ibly short time. A fondness for small talk, together
with the dearth of news, make it incumbent upon
every Hopi, when anything happens, to pass the word
along.

To a visitor encamped below the Wai pi mesa the
novelty of hearing the speaker-chief for the first time
is a thing long to be remembered. Out of the dark-
ness and indescribable silence of the desert comes a
voice, and such a voice! From the heights above it
seems to come out of space and to be audible for an
infinite distance. It takes the form of a chant, long
drawn and full of sonorous quality. Everyone listens
breathlessly to the important message, and when the
crier finishes after the third repetition, an Indian in-
forms us that the substance of the announcement was
that the wire which "Washington" had promised to
send had come and that in two days the villages would
go out to build fences.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 43

That Honi'g messages are worth hearing is wit-
nessed by the following announcement of the New
Fire ceremony. Honi, standing on the housetop at
sun-up, intones:

All people awake, open your eyes, arise,

Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly;

Hasten, Clouds, from the four world-quarters.

Come, Snow, in plenty, that water may abound when
summer appears.

Come, Ice, and cover the fields that after planting,
they may yield abundantly.

Let all hearts be glad.

The Wuwutchimtu will assemble in four days.

They will encircle the villages, dancing and singing.

Let the women be ready to pour water upon them

That moisture may come in plenty and all shall re-
joice.

This is a good example of the poetry of the Hopi
which, in the kachina songs, is of no low degree of
artistic expression.

The Hopi use the world for a dial and the sun for
the clock-hand. The sun-priest from his observatory
on a point of the mesa watches the luminary as care-
fully as any astronomer. He determines the time for
the beginning of each ceremony or important event
in the life of the pueblo, such as corn planting, by the
rising or setting of the sun behind a certain peak or
notch in the marvelous mountain profile on the eastern
and western horizons. These profiles are known to
him as we know the figures on a watch face. Along

44 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

them he notes the march of the seasons, and at the
proper time the town-crier chants his announcement
from the house-tops.

The clear air of Tusayan renders the task of the
sun-priest easy ; this primitive astronomer has the best
of skies for observation. By day the San Francisco
peaks, a hundred miles away, stand clearly silhouetted
on the horizon ; by night the stars are so brilliant that
one can distinguish objects by their light.

The Hopi also know much of astronomy, and not
only do they have names for the planets and particu-
lar stars, but are familiar with many constellations,
the Pleiades especially being venerated, as among
many primitive peoples. The rising and position of
the Pleiades determine the time of some important
ceremonies when the " sweet influences" reign. Any
fixed star may be used to mark off a period of time by
position and progress in the heavens as the sun is used
by day. The moon determines the months, but there
is no word for "year" or for the longer periods of
time. Days are marked by "sleeps," thus today is
pui or "now"; the days of the week are two sleeps,
three sleeps, etc.; tcibuco is "yesterday."

While the larger periods of time are kept with ac-
curacy, so that the time of beginning the ceremonies
varies but little from year to year, the Hopi have poor
memories for dates. No one knows his age, and many
of these villages seem to live within the shifting hori-
zons of yesterday and tomorrow. The priests, how-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 45

ever, keep a record of the ceremonies by adding to
their tiponi, or palladium of their society, a feather
for each celebration. At Zufii a record of the death
of priests of the war society is kept by making
scratches on the face of a large rock near a shrine, and
by this method a Hopi woman keeps count of the days
from the child's birth to the natal ceremony. Ask a
Hopi when some event happened, and he will say,
"Pai he sat o," meaning "some time ago, when my
father was a boy ' ' ; stress on the word means a longer
time, and if the event was long beyond the memory of
man, the Indian will almost shake his head off with
emphasis.

The only notched time-stick is that jealously guard-
ed by the sun priest, and no one knows just how he
makes his calculations from it.

As for dinner time, the great sun and "the clock
inside" attend to that; dawa yamu, dawa nashab, and
dawa poki stand for "sunrise," "noonday," and
"sunset." If the Hopi makes an appointment for a
special hour, he points to where the sun will be at that
time. The seasons are known to him in a general way
as the time of the cold or snow, the coming back of the
sun (winter solstice), the time of bean or corn plant-
ing, the time of green corn, the time of harvest, etc.,
but there is a calendar marked by the ceremonies held
during each month.

Perhaps these children of the sun are happier in not
being slaves of the second as we have become. Our

46 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

watches, which, they call dawa, "the sun," have not
bound them to the wheel by whose turning we seem to
advance. They are satisfied with the grander proces-
sion of the heavenly bodies, and their days fade into
happy forgetfulness.

An experience of several years ago may here be re-
lated in order to show how the clan name of a Hopi
is a veritable part of himself and also links him to his
clan and the most intimate religious and secular life of
the pueblo.

There was a jolly crowd of Hopi under the dense
shade of a cottonwood on the Little Colorado River
one hot day in July. The mound of earth, strewn
with chips of flint and potsherds like a buried city on
the Euphrates, had yielded its secrets, and the house
walls of the ancient town of Homolobi resembled a
huge honeycomb on the bluff.

The Hopi, who had worked like Trojans in laying
bare the habitations of their presumptive ancestors,
were now assembled to receive their wages in silver
dollars, which they expressively call "little white
cakes." Around were scattered the various belong-
ings of an Indian camp, among which tin cans were
prominent ; a wind-break had been constructed of cot-
tonwood boughs; from the tree hung the shells of
turtles caught in the river ; a quantity of wild tobacco
was spread out to dry in the sun, and several crop-
eared burros hobbling about on three legs were enjoy-
ing an unusually luxuriant pasture of sagebrush.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 47

" Paying off " is surrounded with attractions for all
sorts and conditions of men. The Hopi seemed like
a lot of children anticipating a holiday, as they sat in
a circle around Dr. Fewkes, who was paymaster. This
was their first experience, perhaps, with Government
"red tape/' of whose intricacies they must have had
but the faintest idea. There are times when blissful
ignorance is to be envied.

The "sub- vouchers" were filled out with the time
of service and the amount to be paid, and as the doc-
tor's clerk called out the names, the boys came for-
ward to sign. An Indian sign his name ! Curiously
enough, every Hopi from the least to the greatest can
sign his name, and he does not have to resort to the
' ' X-mark ' ' of our boasted civilization.

Perhaps it would be better to say ' ' draws his name, ' '
for when the first Indian grasped the pen in the most
unfamiliar way imaginable, he drew the picture of a
rabbit, the next drew a tobacco plant, the third a liz-
ard, and so on, until the strangest collection of sig-
natures that ever graced a Government voucher-book
was completed.

It must be explained that each Hopi has an every-
day name which his fond relatives devised for him
during infancy, and a clan name, which shows his
blood relationship or family. Nowhere, even in these
days of ancestor hunting, is more importance given to
family than in Hopiland. If you ask, "Who is this
man?" the answer may be, for instance, "Kopeli,"

48 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

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 rep-
tile.

It affords great amusement to the Hopi when a per-
son, 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 fol-
lowing ' ' giving himself away. ' '

Ill

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 ef-
fects 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 wind-
mill 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 in-
voked in Biblical times upon the man who "digged a

50 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

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 Span-
ish conquerors on unfamiliar ground when they ex-
changed 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 Mex-
ico, seems very appropriate. Like these countries, too,
our Southwest is a land of thirst ; the dry air and fer-
vent 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 Span-
ish explorers of the sixteenth century, consists of
burying sealed water- jars in the sand, their situation

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 51

being indicated by ' i 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 un-
usual capacity.

Far out on the sandy, sage-brush plains are fre-
quently 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

52 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

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 den-
izens 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 engineer-
ing.

One does not live long in the wilds of Arizona with-
out 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 Flag-
staff, 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 under-
lying 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

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 53

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 hundred-
weight 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 noth-
ing 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 pot-
tery 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.

54 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

At least one spring at each pueblo is dug out and
enlarged, forming a pool at the bottom of an excava-
tion 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
Plute 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 WaJpi, there are Dawapa, "sun spring"; Ishba,
"wolf spring"; Canelba, "sheep spring"; Kokiungba,
1 ' spider spring" ; Wipoba, * ' rush spring" ; Kachinapa,
"kachina spring," and a number of others, around
which cluster many associations dear to the good peo-
ple of the East Mesa. Like the Hopi, every other hu-
man being who fares in the dry Southwest uncon-
sciously becomes a devotee of water worship and event-
ually 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 re-
gion. 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 such a phenomenon can be in so dry
a country, for the only thing the people can do under
such circumstances is to move and to move quickly.
It seems probable that some of the many ancient In-
dian settlements that make the Southwest a ruin-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 55

;

strewn region have been caused by just such fickle-
ness 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 f o;
the Peaceful People. They may then become prosper-
ous 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, un-
dertook 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 angwish-
ey, 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 re-
flected 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 Salako with a Hopi name, was
weak in the subtleties of Hopi speech and missed
many points to which, out of politeness, he responded

56 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

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 gnaw-
ing ears of corn roasted in a little fire. Everyone re-
quested 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 pun-
gent 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 ex-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 57

hausted in a single day's search, for subsequent jour-
neys 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 abun-
dance 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 under-
standing.

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 im-

58 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

presses one that the Hopi depend on the crops of Na-
ture'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, re-
minding 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 medi-
cine, 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 water-
melon 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, be-
cause that is the time the slothful bat sleeps. It is

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 59

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, Ms
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 in-
duced 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

60 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

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, cover-
ing them with the hands. Whether he has any rule like

One for the cutworm,

One for the crow,
One for luck,

And three for to grow,

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 61

is doubtful, but in the years when cutworms are likely
to be plentiful he plants more com to the hill.

One hill finished, he gets up, moves away about ten
feet, sits down, and goes through the same process.
He never thins the corn, but leaves the numerous
stalks close together for shade and protection from the
winds. His care of the field consists merely in hoeing
the weeds and keeping a watch on the crows, which he
frightens away by demoniac shouts. His scarecrows
are also wonders of ingenuity, and many a time one
takes them for watchful Indians.

When the corn is fit for roasting ears the Hopi get
fat and there is feasting from morn till night. Tall
columns of smoke arise from the roasting pits in the
fields. These large pits are dug in the sand, heated
with burning brush, filled with roasting ears, and
closed up tightly for a day. The opening of a pit is
usually the occasion of frolicking and feasting, where
laughter and song prevail. Some of the corn is con-
sumed at once in making puddings and other dishes
of which the Hopi prepare many, and what remains is
dried on the cob and hung in bunches in the houses
for the winter.

The ears of the Indian corn are close to the ground
and are hidden by the blades, which touch the sand.
The blades are usually tattered and blown away by the
wind, so that by the time the corn is ripe, the fodder
is not of much value. The ripe corn is gathered and
laboriously carried by back-loads up the steep mesa to

62 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

the houses, where it is stored away in the corn cham-
ber. Here the ears are piled up in symmetrical walls,
separate from the last year's crop, which may now be
used, as the Hopi, taught by famine, keep one year's
harvest in reserve. Once in a while, the women bring
out the old com, spread it on the roof to sun, and care-
fully brush off each ear before returning it to the
granary, for in this dry country, though corn never
molds, insect pests are numerous.

Among the superstitions connected with corn the
Hopi believe that the cobs of the seed corn must not
be burned until rain has fallen on the crop for fear of
keeping away or "drying up" the rains.

No cereal in the world is so beautiful as Hopi com.
The grains, though small, are full and highly pol-
ished ; the ears are white, yellow, red of several shades,
a lovely rose madder, blue, a very dark blue or purple
which the Hopi call black, and mottled. A tray of
shelled corn of various colors looks like a mosaic.

In the division of labor, the planting, care of the
corn in the fields and the harvesting belong to the
men. When the brilliant ears are garnered, then the
women's work begins. No other feature of the Hopi
household is so interesting as the row of three or more
slabs placed slantwise in stone-lined troughs sunk in
the floor; these are their mills. They are of graded
fineness, and this is also true of the oblong hand
stones, or manos, which are rubbed upon them with an
up and down motion as in using a washboard. Some-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 63

times three women work at the mills ; the first woman
grinds the corn into coarse meal on the coarse stone
and passes her product over to the second, who grinds
it still finer, and the third finishes it on the last stone ;
sometimes one woman alone carries the meal through
the successive stages, but it is a poor household that
cannot furnish two grinders. The skill with which
the woman spreads the meal over the grinding slab by
a flirt of the hand as the mano is brought up for the
return stroke is truly remarkable, and the rhythmic
precision of all the motions suggests a machine. The
weird song sung by the grinders and the rumble of the
mill are characteristic sounds of the Hopi pueblos, and
as the women grinders powder their perspiring faces
with meal while they work, they look well the part of
millers. Little girls are early taught to grind, and
they often may be prevailed upon to display their ac-
complishment before visitors.

The finely ground meal is piled and patted into
conical heaps on the flat basket trays, making quite an
exhibition of which the Hopi women are very proud,
much meal indicating diligence as well as a bountiful
supply of the staff of life. Grinding is back-breaking
work, and one humanely wishes that the Hopi women,
and especially the immature girls, could be relieved
of this too heavy task.

While corn-meal enters into all Hopi cooking as
the chief ingredient, most of it is made into "paper-
bread," called pikij resembling more than anything

64 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

else the material of a hornet's nest. This bread is
made from batter, colored gray with wood ashes, dex-
terously spread very thinly with the hand over a
heated slab of stone. Piki bakes quickly, coming free
from the slab and is directly folded up into conven-
ient compass and so crisp is it that it crackles like
paper. Sometimes it is tinted with attractive colors
for festal occasions, such as the Kachina ceremonies.

Before a dance the women busily prepare food and
the girls go about speechless, with mouths full of meal,
"chewing yeast " for the corn pudding. This and
other ins and outs of the kitchen make the knowing
traveler rather shy of the otherwise attractive-looking
Hopi food.

Surely corn is the "mother" of the Hopi. All the
powers of nature are invoked to grant a good crop
by giving rain and fertility, and the desire for corn
is the central motive of the numerous ceremonies of
the villagers of Tusayan. If the prayers of the Hopi
could be formulated like the "Ow mane padme /turn"
of the Hindus, it would be in the smaller compass of
these words, ' ' Grant us corn ! ' ' Nor are these simple
villagers ungrateful for such blessings. Kopeli used
to stand looking over his thriving cornfield and say
with fervor, "Kwa kwi, Kwa kwi," "thanks, thanks,"
and it was evident that the utterance was made with
true thankfulness and a spirit of devotion.

It is difficult to imagine the ancient people with-
out corn ; but very long ago, as the legends tell, they

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 65

did not know this cereal. Certain it is they were
not then pueblo dwellers and had not spread far in the
Southwest. They lived in the places where there was
game, and for the same reason that the important food
animals lived in such places, — the presence of vegeta-
tion that would sustain life.

Their life was along the foot hills of well-watered
and timbered mountains rising from plains, where
with the flesh of game and seeds and roots of plants
they could supply their semi-savage wants. Long
perhaps they roved thus as hunters until they drifted
to the land of promise — the semi-desert where agri-
culture of grain plants was born and there they re-
ceived i l mother corn. ' ' Henceforward all the former
sources of food wrested from a niggard Nature became
as nothing to this food of foods, but even to this day
the Hopi have not forgotten their old-time intimate
knowledge of the resources in fields not sown by hu-
man hands. With corn, which possesses a high food
value and is easily raised, stored, and preserved, the
Hopi and their Pueblo brethren spread without fear
throughout the semi-arid lands.

It has been pointed out that a constant diet of corn
produces disagreeable physiological effects, and this is
suggested for the use of chile and other condiments,
the mixture of corn food with meat and vegetable
substances, and, in fact, for the multifarious ways of
preparing and cooking corn. This necessity for va-
riety also gives an explanation of the resourcefulness

66 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

of the Hopi housewife and has acted as a spur to her
invention of palatable dishes.

The vocabulary of corn in the Hopi language is
extensive and contains words descriptive even of the
parts of the plant that are lacking to most civilized
people. The importance of corn is also reflected in
the numerous words describing the kinds of meal, the
dishes made from corn or in which corn enters, and of
the various ways in which it is prepared by fire for
the consumption of the ever-hungry Hopi. To give
an incomplete census of corn foods, there are fifteen
kinds of piki or paper bread, three kinds of mush;
five of short-cake; eleven of boiled corn; four kinds
baked or roasted in the coals ; two cooked by frying ;
four stewed and eight of cooked shelled corn, making
fifty-two varieties.

After the paper-bread, perhaps the most popular
food is pigame, or sweet corn mush, wrapped in corn-
husk and baked in an underground oven. Another
standby is shelled corn soaked and boiled till each
grain swells to several times the normal size. The
Hopi like their food well-cooked and know the art of
making each starch grain expand to the limit. A
book of Hopi cookery would be bulky, but how inter-
esting to the housewife who would know how to make
plain food appetizing without milk or eggs, and who
would learn new and strange combinations! There
are cakes made from dried fruits, chopped meat, and
straw, put on the roof to dry; dumplings formed

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 67

around old hammerstones, corn dodgers, pats of corn-
meal mush wrapped in corn husk and boiled or baked,
and many other styles of food that would seem
strange to other than a Hopi epicure.

When it is time to dine, a large bowl of stew is
placed on the floor as the piece de resistance and beside
it a tray of piki. Each member of the family breaks
off a piece of piki, and, holding it between thumb and
finger, it is dragged through the stew much like a
seine to catch as many particles of meat as possible,
then deposited far back in the mouth so that the stew
adhering to the fingers may be cleared off with a re-
sounding smack of the lips. A traveler to Hopi in
1869 describes a more formal meal which consisted of
mutton, dried peaches, blue piki, coffee, and a drink
made by steeping the roasted heart of agave in water.
This writer says:

You take a small piece, lay a fragment of mutton
and some peaches upon it or a little of the sweet
liquid and bolt the mass, spoon and all. This dinner,
though prepared and cooked by Indians, tasted better
than many a meal eaten by us in border settlements
cooked by whites.

Hopi women assiduously gather the seeds of grasses
and other plants, which they grind up and add to
corn-meal to improve the flavor of the bread, or, per-
haps, a prized bread is made entirely of the ground
seed of some desert plant. Oily seeds, such as those
of the pinon, pumpkin, and melons are ground to form
shortening in various cakes and to add richness to

68 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

stews. Often food is colored with harmless vegetable
dyes, no doubt with the deep-laid scheme on the part
of the mother of the household to cause the familiar
fare to be attacked with renewed zest. Our tradition
of "spring lamb with mint sauce " is duplicated by
stewed rabbit with namakopsM greens, which, witr
various other herbs, are put to appropriate uses by the
master of the Hopi culinary art.

IV
THE WORKERS

The Hopi believe in the gospel of work, which is
evenly divided between the men and the women.

When it is said that people work, there is, uncon-
sciously perhaps, a desire to know the reason, which
is rarely a subject of curiosity when people amuse
themselves. Come to think of it, the answer is an
old one, and a Hopi, if asked why he works, might put
forward the first great cause, nusha, * ' food. ' '

Not only must the Hopi work to supply his wife
and little ones, but he must do his share for his clan,
which is the large family of blood-relations, bound
together by the strongest ties and customs of mutual
helpfulness. This family is an object of the greatest
pride, a little world of its own, in which every member
from the least to the greatest has duties and respon-
sibilities. So all labor — men, women, and the little
ones, who add their tiny share. The general division
of work gives the woman the affairs of the household,
and the man the cultivation of the fields. Men plant
corn and the older women often help hoe it, and the
women and children frequently go down to the fields
and watch the crops to keep off birds.

70 f. MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

When the harvest is gathered, taken up the mesa,
and put into the granary, man's interest in it ceases,
except in the matter of eating a large share. Never
was a Hopi who was not hungry. Much of the wo-
man's time is taken up in grinding corn and baking
bread. The water-carrying falls to her, and this
duty might give rise to a suspicion that she has the
larger share of the burdens, if the Hopi were not com-
pelled to be frugal in the use of water. Besides the
duties mentioned, she may also add that of potter,
basket maker, house builder, and sometimes carver of
dolls and maker of moccasins. Then the children must
be cared for, but everyone takes a hand at that, in-
cluding the children themselves. If it were not for the
numerous ceremonies, woman's work in Hopiland
would be much easier. Grinding, baking, water-carry-
ing, and the bother and hurry of preparation for vari-
ous events continue with painful iteration. The Hopi
housewife can give full condolence to her white sister
who has borne the burdens of a church festival, and
the plaint that ''woman's work is never done" would
sound familiar to her ears. Still, rarely is she heard
to bewail her lot, and it may be depended on that no
maidens bloom in idleness about her house.

But the men also follow crafts, and of these, card-
ing, spinning, dyeing, and weaving are exclusively
man 's work in contrast with the Navaho, among whom
such matters are woman 's work. His also is the task
of wood-gathering, which takes him far afield, since

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND ., 71

there is hardly a growing thing in the neighborhood
worth collecting for fuel. Coal there is in the ground
in plenty, but the Hopi make less use of it than did
their ancestors, and the householder sets out from
time to time with a burro or two for the distant mesas,
where the stunted cedars grow, to lay in wood for
cooking. Each year the cedars get farther away, so
that at some future time the Hopi may have to make
use of the neglected coal.

A Hopi is in a fair way to become a great man
among his kin when he owns horses and a wagon.
In consequence of such wealth, he usually shows his
pride by the airs he assumes over his less fortunate
tribesmen, and justly, too, because hauling supplies
for the schools and traders brings in the silver dollars
that replenish the larder with white man's food. Ponies
are cheap, and twenty can exist as well as one on the
semi-starvation of the desert, so a Hopi teamster often
takes along his whole herd when on a freighting trip,
to make sure of arriving at his journey's end, and a
look at his horses will prove him a wise man.

Seemingly the men work harder making parapher-
nalia and costumes for the ceremonies than at any-
thing else, but it should be remembered that in ancient
days everything depended, in Hopi belief, on propiti-
ating 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 re-
corded, in the interests of truth, that Hopi men will

72 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

work at day 's labor and give satisfaction except when
a ceremony is about to take place at the pueblo, and
duty to their religion interferes with steady employ-
ment much as fiestas do in the easy-going countries to
the southward.

Really, the Hopi deserve great credit for their in-
dustry, frugality, and provident habits, and one must
commend them because they do not shun work and be-
cause in fairness both men and women share in the
labor for the common good.

An account of the arts which are carried on in the
Hopi towns may prove interesting to the reader who
would like to know something of the methods of the
moccasin maker, potter, weaver, carver, basket maker,
and house builder, examples of whose handiwork are
scattered widely among collectors of artistic and re-
markable things.

As though to keep up the dignity of the Peaceful
People the wife of "Harry," the new Snake chief of
.Walpi, frequently wears the cumbrous foot-gear com-
mon along the Rio Grande. In spite of the scarcity
of deer-skins, every Hopi bride must have as part of
her trousseau a pair of these remarkable foot-cover-
ings, which require a large deerskin for their manu-
facture. When the burdensome ceremony of marriage
is over the moccasins are laid away or worn out and
never again may the woman expect to have her meas-
ure taken for another pair.

But as moccasins are a part of the men's costume

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 73

without which they cannot run well over the yielding
sand, and as there is no village shoemaker, every man
must make his own or go barefoot. Frequently in the
villages one meets a moccasin maker, chewing at the
rawhide and busily plying his awl and sinew while he
goes gadding about. Just before the Snake Dance,
when every Snake priest must provide a pair of new
moccasins for himself, this art is very much in evi-
dence.

The moccasin maker takes pride in hiding his
stitches, and it must be said that his sewing is excep-
tionally good in spite of the crude tools of his craft.
With the same skill he displays in other crafts, the
Hopi prepares the leather for the indispensable moc-
casins. The simplest way of giving color to the leather
is to rub red ocher or other clay into the soft-tanned
skin, as is seen in the red moccasins of the Snake
dancers. A warm brown is given to the leather with
an infusion of the bark of the water birch, and a
black dye is made by burning pifion resin with crude
native alum. Sometimes the esthetic tastes of a young
man are gratified by moccasins dyed with aniline red
or blue according to his fancy.

If the visitor will give an order for a pair of totchi,
he may see the whole process at his leisure. A piece
of well-curried cowhide, preferably from the back of
the animal, is produced, the outline of the foot is
marked out on it and a margin is left by the cutter for
the turning up of the sole. This is all the moccasin

74 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

maker seems to require, and his formula for the height
of the instep has not been divulged, but it must be ef-
fective, because moccasins are made to fit with greater
art than is displayed by many civilized shoemakers.

The soles are buried in damp sand to make them
pliable, and the front section of the top is sewn around
the edge reaching to about the ankle bones. The moc-
casin is then turned inside out and the ankle section
sewn on. Tying strings are added, or if especial style
is desired, silver buttons made by Navaho from dimes
or quarters take their place.

The Hopi live a very long way from the range of
the deer, a fact which accounts largely for their use of
woven fabrics. But deerskins must always have been
in demand, and these were got in exchange with the
Navaho, Havasupai, and other neighbors. In this way
in old times buffalo skins and pelts of animals came
to Tusayan, and Hopi bread and blankets went to re-
mote mountains and plains.

It would be interesting to know whether the Hopi
formerly were sandal people or moccasin people, and
this knowledge would reveal a great deal that is now
mere guesswork as to their history. The sandal peo-
ple would mean those of the south who were of Mex-
ico, where no moccasins seem ever to have been worn.
The moccasin people would be those of the north, the
tribes of our mountains and plains, among whom this
foot-wear is typical. Perhaps the Hopi belong to both
classes. The cliff-dwellers wore sandals, and for win-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 75

ter had boots of network to which turkey feathers
were skilfully fastened as covering. The sandals
found in the cliff-houses are variously woven from
rushes or agave strips, or maybe a plain sole of leather
with the toe cord, but those worked of cotton showing
ingenious designs are worthy of the highest admira-
tion.

Those clans of the cliff-people and the clans from the
south that congregated in Tusayan centuries ago were
sandal wearers, while the resident clans and those
coming from the north, perhaps bands of the Ute, —
were moccasin wearers and impressed their language
and moccasins on the Hopi. This was much to the ad-
vantage of the Hopi, granting that they had never
thought of better protection than sandals from the
biting winter.

Everyone who visits Tusayan will bring away as a
souvenir some of the work of Nampeo, the potter who
lives with her husband Lesu in the house of her
parents at Hano, the little Tewa village on the great
Walpi mesa near the gap. The house belongs to
Nampeo 's mother according to Pueblo property right,
wherein she and her husband, both aged and ruddy
Tewa, with their children and grandchildren live
amicably as is usual among the Peaceful People. The
house below the mesa, topped with a glowing red iron
"Government" roof, is Nampeo 's, who thus has two
houses, but she spends most of her time in the parental
dwelling at Hano.

76 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Nampeo is a remarkable woman. No feeling of her
racial inferiority arises even on the first meeting with
this Indian woman, bare-foot, bonnetless, and clad in
her quaint costume. For Nampeo is an artist-potter,
the sole survivor in Hano of the generations of women
artists who have deposited the product of their handi-
craft in the care of the dead.

In the household her aged father and mother are
final authority on the interpretation of ancient sym-
bolic or cult representations in art. Nampeo likewise
carefully copies on paper the decorations of all avail-
able ancient pottery for future use. Her archeologi-
cal methods are further shown by her quest for the
clays used by those excellent potters of old Sikyatki
and by her emulation of their technique.

One noon under the burning August sun, Doctor
Fewkes and the writer climbed the East Mesa, the
former to attend the Flute Ceremony at Walpi and the
latter with an appointment to pry into the secrets of
Nampeo, the potter. In the house, pleasantly cool
and shaded, sat the old couple and Lesu. The baby
was being secured to its board for its afternoon nap,
while Lesu spun. It was a pleasure to examine the
quaint surroundings and the curious belongings hung
on the wall or thrust above the great ceiling beams, —
strings of dried wiwa, that early spring plant which
has before now tided the Peaceful People over famine,
gaily painted dolls, blankets, arrows, feathers, and
other objects enough to stock a museum. Lesu did the

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 77

honors and said among other things that some of the
ceiling beams of the room came from ancient Awatobi,
destroyed in 1700.

A small niche in the rear wall of the living room,
at the back of which stood a short notched log-ladder,
caused some speculation. Quite unexpectedly and in
a somewhat startling way its purpose was explained,
for, when someone called the absent Nampeo, a pair of
feet were seen coming down the steps of the ladder,
followed finally by Nampeo, who, after a profound
bodily contortion, smilingly emerged from the narrow
passage into the room.

Nampeo was prepared to instruct. Samples of the
various clays were at hand and the novice was initi-
ated into the qualities of the hisat chuoka, or ancient
clay, white, unctuous and fragrant, to which the
ancient Sikyatki potters owed the perfection of their
ware ; the reddish clay, siwu chuoka, also from Sikyat-
ki ; the hard, iron-stained clay, choku chuoka, a white
clay with which vessels are coated for finishing and
decoration, coming from about twelve miles southeast
of Walpi. In contrast with Nampeo 's four clays the
Hopi women use only two, a gray body clay, chaka-
butska, and a white slip clay, kutsatsuka.

Continuing her instructions Nampeo transferred a
handful of well-soaked ancient clay from a bowl on the
floor by her side to a smooth, flat stone, like those
found in the ruined pueblos. The clay was thrust
forward by the base of the right hand and brought

78 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

back by the hooked fingers, the stones, sticks, and hairs
being carefully removed. After sufficient working,
the clay was daubed on a board, which was carried out,
slanted against the house, and submitted to the all-
drying Tusayan sun and air. In a short time the clay
was transferred from the board to a slab of stone and
applied in the same way, the reason being a minor one
known to Nampeo, — perhaps because the clay after
drying to a certain degree may adhere better to stone
than to wood. Sooner than anyone merely acquainted
with the desiccating properties of the moisture-laden
air of the East might imagine, the clay was ready to
work and the plastic mass was ductile under the fin-
gers of the potter.

Nampeo set out first to show the process of coiling a
vessel. The even "ropes'7 of clay were rolled out from
her smooth palms in a marvelous way, and efforts to
rival excited a smile from the family sitting around as
-interested spectators. The concave dish called tabipi,
in which she began the coiled vessel and which turns
easily on its curved bottom, seems to be the nearest ap-
proach of the Pueblos to the potter 's wheel. The
seeming traces of unobliterated coiling on the bases of
some vessels may be the imprints from the coils of the
tabipi. As the vessel was a small one, the coiling pro-
ceeded to the finish and the interims of drying as ob-
served in the manufacture of large jars were not neces-
sary. Then gourd smoothers, tuhupbi, were employed

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 79

to close up the coiling grooves, and were always backed
from the outside or inside by the fingers. Finally the
smooth * * green ' ' vessel was set aside to dry.

Then a toy canteen was begun by taking a lump of
clay which, by modeling, soon assumed the shape of a
low vase. With a small stick, a hole was punched
through each side, a roll of clay was doubled for the
handles, the ends thrust through the holes and
smoothed down inside the vase, through the opening.
The neck of the canteen was inserted in a similar way.
Now the problem was to close the opening in this soft
vessel from the outside. Nampeo threw a coil around
the edge of the opening, pressing the layers together,
gradually drawing in, making the orifices smaller un-
til it presented a funnel shape. Then the funnel was
pressed toward the body of the canteen, the edges
closed together, soldered, smoothed, and presto ! it was
done and all traces of handling hidden. Anyone
knowing the difficulties will appreciate this surpris-
ingly dextrous piece of manipulation. Afterward,
Nainpeo made a small vase-shaped vessel, by modeling
alone, without the addition of coiling as in the shaping
of the canteen.

The ware when it becomes sufficiently dry must re-
ceive a wash of the white clay called hopi chuoka or
kutsatsuka, which burns white. Thereupon it is care-
fully polished with a smooth pebble, shining from long
use, and is ready for decoration. The use of the glar-
ing white slip clay as a ground for decoration was

80 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

probably brought from the Rio Grande by the Tewa;
ancient Hopi ware is much more artistic, being pol-
ished on the body or paste, which usually blends in
harmony with the decoration.

Nampeo exhibited samples of her paints, of which
she knows only red and dark brown. The red paint is
yellow ochre, called sikyatho, turning red on firing.
It was mixed on a concave stone with water. The
dark brown paint is made from toha, an iron stone
brought from a distant mesa. It was ground on a
slab with a medium made from the seed of the tansy
mustard (Sisymbrium canescens). The brushes were
two strips of yucca, mohu, one for each color. With
these slender means, without measurement, Nampeo
rapidly covered the vessels with designs, either geo-
metrical or conventionalized, human or cult, — fig-
ures or symbols. The narrow brush, held like a paint-
er's striper, is effective for fine lines. In broad lines
or wide portions of the decoration, the outlines are
sharply defined and the spaces are filled in. No mis-
takes are made, for emendations and corrections are
impossible.

Quite opportunely the next day, an invitation to
see the burning of pottery came from an aged potter
who resides at the Sun Spring. When the great Hopi
clock reached the appointed place in the heavens, the
bowed yet active potter was found getting ready for
the important work of firing the ware. In the heap
of cinders, ashes, and bits of rock left from former

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 81

firings, the little old woman scooped out a concave
ring. Nearby was a heap of slabs of dry sheep's
droppings, quarried from the floor of a fold perched
on a ledge high up the mesa and brought down in the
indispensable blanket. In the center of the concave
kiln floor a heap of this fuel was ignited by the aid of
some frayed cedar bark and a borrowed match from
the opportune Pahana, ' ' people of the far water, ' ' the
name by which white men are known. When the fire
was well established, it was gradually spread over the
floor to near the margin and the decorated bowls
brought from the house were set up around with the
concave sides toward the fire, while the potter brought,
in her blanket, a back load of friable sandstone from
a neighboring hillock.

Under the first heat the ware turned from white to
purple gray or lavender, gradually assuming a lead
color. They were soon heated enough and were ready
for the kiln. Guarding her hand by the interposition
of a fold of the blanket, the potter set the vessels, now
quite unattractive, aside, proceeded to rake the fire
flat and laid thereon fragments of stone at intervals to
serve as rests or stilts for the ware. Larger vessels
were set over smaller and all were arranged as com-
pactly as possible. Piece by piece, dextrously as a
mason, the potter built around the vessels a wall of
fuel, narrowing at the top, till a few slabs completed
the dome of the structure, itself kiln and fuel.

Care was taken not to allow the fuel to touch the

82 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

vessels, as a discoloration of the ware would result,
which might subject the potter to the shafts of ridi-
cule. Gradually the fire from below creeps up the
walls till the interior is aglow and the ware becomes
red hot. Little attention is now needed except closing
burned out apertures with new pieces of fuel; the
potter, who before, during the careful and exact dis-
positions, has been giving little ejaculations as though
talking to a small child, visits the kiln intermittently
from the nearby house. Here she seeks refuge from
the penetrating, unaromatic smoke and the blazing
sun.

The Hopi have an odd superstition that if any one
speaks above a whisper during the burning of pottery
the spirit inhabiting the vessel will cause it to break.
No doubt the potter had this in mind while she was
whispering and was using all her blandishments to
induce the small spirits to be good.

She remarked that when the sun should hang over
the brow of the mesa at the height indicated by her
laborious fingers, the ware would be baked, the kiln a
heap of ashes, the yellow decoration a lively red and
the black a dark brown on a rich cream-color ground.
Next day, with true foresight, she brought her quaint
wares to the camp and made a good bargain for them,
incidentally asking, " Matches all gone V

One woman at least in Tusayan is a weaver of blank-
ets. Anowita's wife enjoys that distinction because
she is a Navaho, among whom weaving is woman 'a

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 83

work. The Hopi housewives have enough to do keep-
ing house, a thing not burdensome to the Navaho, and
as has been explained, the Hopi men hold a monopoly
of the spinning and weaving.

Time out of mind the Hopi have grown cotton in
their little fields, and the first white men that made
their acquaintance were presented with "towels" of
their weaving as a peace offering. In the cliff -houses
of the ancient people are found woven fabrics of cot-
ton and rugs made of strips of rabbit fur like those
now to be seen in the pueblos. The ancient people
also had feather garments made by tying plumage to
a network of cords. In the ruins of the pueblos one
often finds cotton seeds which have been buried with
the dead, and the braided mats of yucca or bark and
bits of cloth fortunately preserved show that the peo-
ple of former times were skilful weavers. There is
no reason to doubt that the Hopi stuffs were prized
for their excellence throughout the Southwest in the
early times as they are now.

When the Spaniards brought sheep among the pue-
blos, the weavers and fabric makers seem to have ap-
preciated the value of wool at once, and the ancient
garments of feathers and skins quickly disappeared.
Cotton remained in use only for ceremonial costumes
or for cord employed in the religious ceremonies. The
rabbit-fur robes which once were made throughout a
vast region of the Rockies from Alaska to the Gulf of
California were largely displaced by blankets, in later

84 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

years, gorgeously dyed and cunningly woven. Long
before the introduction of trade dyes the Hopi were
satisfied with sober colors; the dark blue and brown
given to the yarn by the women were from the plants.
Even now the Hopi weavers stick to their colors and
refuse to perpetrate the zigzags of the Navaho. For
this reason the women of all the pueblos of the South-
west dress in dark blue and brown, as the Hopi are
purveyors of stuffs for wear to all their fellow house-
dwellers of Indian lineage. Good cloth it is, too, and
worthy of its renown, for it wears exceedingly well.
More than one generation often enjoys its service, and
when the older folks get through with their blanket
dresses, the little ones have garments fashioned from
them for their own apparel.

If one will examine the Hopi blankets, he will be
surprised at the skilful weaving they show. The
blanket dress often has the body of plain weaving in
black and the two ends bordered with damask or bas-
ket weave in blue. Sometimes a whole blanket is of
damask, giving a surface that, on close inspection, has
a pleasing effect. The women's ceremonial blanket
of cotton with blue and red borders sometimes show
three kinds of weaving and several varieties of cord-
ing. The belts also have a wonderful range of pat-
terns. On the whole, one is led to believe that the
Hopi are more adept at weaving than their rivals, the
Navaho.

The carding and spinning are thoroughly done, the

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 85

resulting yarn being strong, even, and tightly twisted
with the simple spindle. Sometimes the spinner
dresses and finishes the yarn by means of a corn cob
smoothed by long use. The women, by virtue of their
skill in culinary matters, are usually the dyers, and the
dye they concoct from sunflower seeds or blue beans
is a fast blue. In old times cotton was prepared for
spinning by whipping it with slender switches on a
bed of sand, and this process is yet required for the
cotton used for the sacred sashes. Now nearly every
family is provided with wire cards purchased from
traders. These cards look quite out of place in the
hands of priests in the kiva, where they are used in
combing the cotton for the sacred cord used in tying
the feathers to the pahos.

When the kiva is not in use for a ceremony it is
common to find there a weaver busy at his rude loom
and growing web. To the great beams of the roof is
fastened the upper yarn beam of the loom, and secured
to pegs in holes in the stone slabs of the floor is the
lower yarn beam. Between these is tightly stretched
the warp. The weaver squats on the floor before the
loom, having ready by him the few simple implements
of his craft, consisting of a wooden knife or batten
highly polished from use, for beating down the yarn,
a wooden comb also for pressing home the woof, and
the bobbins which are merely sticks with the yarn
wrapped back and forward spirally upon them. He
picks out a certain number of warp threads with the

86 MESA FOLK OF HOP1LAND

batten, passes through the bobbin, beats the yarn
home with great patience, and so continues, making
slow headway.

There are several reasons why the kiva is used by
the weavers. These subterranean rooms, usually the
property of the men, are cool and quiet, and the light
streams down from overhead across the surface of the
web, allowing the stitches to be seen to good advantage.
The best reason is that the kiva ceiling is high enough
to allow the stretching of the warp to the full length
of a blanket, which cannot be done in the low living
rooms of the dwellings.

Belts, garters, and hair tapes are made on a small
loom provided with reed or heddle frame, and usually
th^is is woman's work. Strangely enough the belt
loom is a kind of harness, for the warp is stretched
out between the woman's feet and a yoke that extends
across her back. The yarn used for belts is bought
from the trader. The old belts are marvels of design
and are among the most pleasing specimens of the
art work of the Hopi.

With the introduction of dyed trader's yams and
coal-tar colors has come a deterioration in the work
of the Navaho weavers. Among the Hopi this is not
noticeable, but, no doubt, for this reason the embroid-
ery on the hems of the ceremonial blankets, sashes, and
kilts is gayer than in former times when subdued min-
eral colors and vegetable dyes only were available.

Every visitor to the Hopi pueblos is attracted by

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 87

the carved wooden figures painted in bright colors
and decorated with feathers, etc., that hang from the
rafters of the houses. "Dolls," they are usually
called, but the Hopi know that they are representa-
tions of the spiritual beings who live in the unseen
world, and a great variety there is of them. Thou-
sands of these figures are made by the Hopi, many
to be sold to visitors, a thing no Zuiii would do, be-
cause in that pueblo these images have a religious char-
acter and are hidden away, while the Hopi decorate
the houses with them.

The carvers of these strange figurines must be grant-
ed the possession of much skill and ability in their
art, which is carried on with a few simple tools. The
country far and near is ransacked for cottonwood,
this being the wood prescribed for masks, dolls, prayer-
sticks, etc. The soft cottonwood, especially the root,
is easily worked with the dull knives that the Hopi
possess. On every hand is soft, coarse sandstone for
rubbing the wood into shape, and much of the work is
not only finished, but formed by this means. For
this reason the rocks around a Hopi village are cov-
ered with grooves and pits left by the workers in
wood.

If any parts, such as ears, hair, whorls, etc., are to
be added to the figures, they are pegged on quite in-
securely. Some of the terraces which surmount the
kachina masks are remarkable structures built up of
wood pegged together. A little string, a few twigs

88 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

and pieces of cot ton wood suffice the Hopi for the con-
struction of flowers and complicated parts of the decor-
ation of dolls and masks or other ceremonial belong-
ings. Corn husks, dyed horsehair, woolen yarn, deer-
skin, cotton cloth, twigs, basketry, and feathers are
worked in and the result, though crude, is effective.

But in the realm of mechanical apparatus the Hopi
is even ahead of the toy makers of the Schwartzwald.
For the Palulukong ceremony he arranges startling
effects, causing the Great Plumed Snake to emerge
through screens, out of jars, or from the ceiling of
the kiva, to the number of nine appearances, each
requiring artful devices. The head of the Snake is a
gourd furnished with eyes, having the mouth cut into
sharp teeth, a long tongue, a plume, and the whole
surface painted. The body is made up of wooden
hoops over which cords run and is covered with cloth.
Often two of these grotesque monsters are caused, by
the pulling of cords, to advance and withdraw through
flaps in the screen and to struggle against each other
with striking realism. Nothing in Hopiland is more
remarkable than this drama, as one may gather from
Dr. Fewkes' account of it given at another place.

Little of the Hopi's skill as a carver and decorator
goes to the furnishing or building of the house ; almost
all is taken up with ceremonial matters. Previous to
a few years ago chairs were unknown, as was any
other domestic joinery, except the Hopi head masks,
prayer-sticks and the thousand objects used in his

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 89

pagan worship, in the manufacture of which he was
master of all expedients. As a worker in stone and
shell he still knows the arts of the ancient times,
but lacks the skill of his forebears. The turquoise
mosaics of old days so regularly and finely set on the
backs of sea shells, have given place to the uneven
scraps of turquoise set in confusion on bits of wood,
as on the woman's earrings. Many devices have gone
out entirely, and it is probable that no Hopi could
make an axe of hard stone like the old ones or chip
a finely proportioned arrow-head. The hand-stones
for grinding corn are still made, and a woman pecking
away at one with a stone hammer is not infrequently
seen and heard.

The Hopi were never metal-workers, because free
metals are scarce in the Southwest. Their name for
silver, with which they became familiar in the shape
of coins, is sJviba, "a little white cake." Gold they
regard with suspicion, since it resembles copper or
brass, with which they have been deceived at times by
unscrupulous persons. A few workers in silver have
produced some crude ornaments, but the Hopi gets
his buttons, belt ornaments, etc., from the adept Nava-
ho, silversmiths by trade, through whom also strings
of beads come from the pueblos of the Rio Grande.

The rocks all over the Southwest bear witness that
the Hopi can draw. In thousands of instances he
expressed his meaning in symbols or in compositions
representing the chase of the deer or mountain goat.

90 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

One of these groups on the smooth rocks near Hoi-
brook, Arizona, shows a man driving a flock of turkeys,
and is exceedingly graphic. On the cliff faces below
Walpi are numerous well-executed pictographs, and
occasionally one runs across recent work on the mesa
top that excites admiration. With sculpture in the
round the Hopi has done nothing remarkable because
his tastes and materials have never led in this direc-
tion. A few rather large figures rudely carved from
soft sandstone may be seen around the pueblos, and
numerous fetiches, some of very hard stone, repre-
senting wolves, bears, and other animals, are still in
the keeping of the societies. Some of these are very
well done, but show little progress in sculpture. The
visitor must beware of the little fetiches whittled from
soft stone and offered for sale as genuine by the guile-
ful Hopi in quest of shiba.

The industry which the Hopi woman has all in her
own hands is basket-making, and the work is appor-
tioned to such as have the skill and fancy for it, as if
there were a division of labor. The women of the
three towns on the East Mesa do not make baskets at
all, those of the Middle Mesa sew only coiled baskets,
while the women of Oraibi weave wicker baskets ex-
clusively. Thus, there is no difficulty in saying just
where a Hopi basket comes from, and there is also no
excuse for not recognizing these specimens of Hopi
woman's work at first glance, as they have a strong
individuality that separates them from all other bas-
kets of the Indians.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 91

If one should visit the most skilful basket-maker of
the Middle Mesa, Kuchyeampsi, that modest little
woman, might be seen busily at work, and from her a
great deal about the construction of coiled baskets
could be learned. But it would take some time and
patience to find that the grass whose steins she gathers
for the body of the coil is named takashu, which botan-
ists know as Hilaria jamesii, and that the strips which
she sews over and joins the coil are from the leaves
of the useful mohu (Yucca glauca) .

Then when Kuchyeampsi comes home laden with
her basket materials one must take further lessons in
stripping the yucca leaves, splitting them with the
thumb-nail to uniform size, and dyeing some of them
various colors, for which anilines are principally used
in these degenerate days. One must have an eye for
the colors of the natural leaves of the yucca and select
the yellow or yellowish green of the old leaves, the
vivid green of the young leaves, and the white of the
heart leaves, for the basket weaver discriminates all
of these and uses them in her work.

Of course Kuchyeampsi has all her material ready,
the strips buried in moist sand, the grass moistened,
and she may be starting a plaque. The slender coil
at the center is too small to be formed with grass stems,
so she builds it up of waste bits from the leaf -tripping,
wrapping it with yucca strips, and taking only a few
stitches with the encircling coil, since the bone awl is
too clumsy for continuous stitching at the outset. Af-

92 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

ter the third round the bone awl is plied, continuously
piercing through under the coil and taking in the
stitches beneath strips. As a hole is made the yucca
strip is threaded through and drawn tight on the
grass coil, and so the patient work goes on till the
basket is complete. The patterns which appear on the
baskets are stored up in the maker's brain and unfold
as the coil progresses with the same accuracy as is
evinced by the pottery decorator. The finish of the
end of the coil gives an interesting commentary on
Hopi beliefs. It is said that the woman who leaves the
coil end unfinished does not complete it because that
would close her life and no more children would bless
her.

At Oraibi one may see the women making wicker
tray-baskets. Three or four slender sumach twigs are
wickered together side by side at the middle and an-
other similar bundle laid across the first at right
angles. Then dyed branches of a desert plant known
as "rabbit brush" are woven in and out between the
twigs, and as the basket progresses she adds other
radial rods until the basket is large enough. She fin-
ishes the edge by bending over the sumach ribs, form-
ing a core, around which she wraps strips of yucca,

One must admire the accuracy with which the de-
signs are kept in mind and woven into the structure of
the basket with splints of various colors or strips of
tough yucca. The translation of a design into the
radiating sewing of the coiled basket or the horizontal

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 93

filling of the wicker basket shows the necessity of the
different treatments, contrasting with the freedom
which it is the potter's privilege to display on the
smooth surface of her ware. So far as known the
Hopi women never fail in applying their designs,
however intricate. Frequently these designs repre-
sent mythical birds, butterflies, clouds, etc.

Among the Hopi certain of the villages are noted for
their local manufactures. Thus Walpi and Hano are
practically the only towns where pottery is made, the
Middle Mesa towns are headquarters for coiled bas-
kets, and Oraibi furnishes wicker baskets. Perhaps
the meaning of this is that these arts belong to clans,
who have preserved them and know the secrets, and
with the dying out of the workers or migration of the
clans the arts have disappeared or have been trans-
formed. Another cause which will suggest itself is
the local abundance and quality of the materials re-
quired to be found in the surrounding plains and
mountains.

Basketry has at least as many uses as pottery among
the Hopi, and a number of kinds besides the familiar
plaques with symbolical decoration have been eagerly
sought by collectors. The crops from the fields are
borne to the houses on the mesas in carrying baskets,
resembling a pannier, which are worked of wicker over
a frame of two bent sticks crossed at right angles. In
the house the coiled and wicker trays heaped high
with corn meal, the basket for parched corn and the

94 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

sifting basket near the corn grinding stones, will be
found. In the bread-baking room is the coarse, though
effective, piki tray, and occasionally one may still see
a neatly made floor mat. The thin checker mat of
ancient days has long since gone out of use, but for-
merly, the dead were wrapped in such mats before
they were placed in the earth.

Over the fireplace is a hood of basketry plastered
to prevent burning. The wicker cradle to which the
infant hopeful is bound must not be forgotten. Sev-
eral small globular wicker baskets for various pur-
poses may also be displayed among the household be-
longings. The mat of grass stems in which the wed-
ding blanket is folded is also a kind of basketry, as
are the twined mats for covering the hatchway of the
kiva and the twined fence around the fields.

With all their own resources, the Hopi are great
collectors of baskets from other tribes. One must not
be surprised to see in use in the Hopi houses the
water bottles coated with pitch and the well-made
basket-bowls from the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon,
the Pimas of southern Arizona, and other tribes
touched by Hopi commerce.

The vizors of old masks used in the ceremonies were
of basketry, generally a section cut from a Ute basket-
bowl, which shows one of the most interesting employ-
ments of baskets among the Hopi. The highly dec-
orated trays may also be said to have a sacred charac-
ter from their frequent appearance in the ceremonies,

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 95

where they are used to contain prayer-sticks, meal,
etc. Appropriately the women's ceremonies display
many baskets on the altars, and in the public dances
each woman carries a bright plaque. One of the
episodes of these ceremonies is full of action when
women throw baskets to men who struggle energetical-
ly for them. On this account these ceremonies have
been called Basket Dances.

One of the frequent sights in a Hopi town is a
woman carrying a heaped-up plaque of meal of her
own grinding as a present to some friend. This usual-
ly happens 011 the eve of a ceremony, like our Christ-
mas gifts, but no one must fail to notice that an equal
present is religiously brought in return.

The Hopi value their baskets; they appreciate fully
a pretty thing, and this explains why one of the Sicho-
movi men, who is rich in Havasupai baskets, has had
the good taste to decorate the walls of the best room of
his house with these trophies of Cataract Canyon.

Judging from the number of ruins in the Southwest,
it might be thought that the former inhabitants spent
much of their time in laying up walls and considered
the work easy. What these ruins do show in an em-
phatic way is the organization of the builders and
what mutual aid will accomplish.

Dismiss the idea of the modern architect, builder,
laborers, brick makers, planning mill hands, plumbers,
etc., combining to get ready a dwelling for a family,
and substitute in their place all the Indian relatives,

96 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

from the infant to the superannuated, lending willing
hands for the "raising." The primitive architect is
there, builders too, of skill and experience and a full
corps of those who furnish builders' supplies, includ-
ing the tot who carries a little sand in her dress and
those who ransack the country round for brush, clay,
beams, stones, and water.

Before going farther it must be understood that
house-building is women 's work among the Hopi, and
these likewise are the house-owners. It seems rather
startling, then, that all the walls of the uninhabited
houses and the fallen walls of the ruins that prevail in
the Southwest should be mainly the work of women's
hands, whose touch we might expect to find on the
decorated pottery, but not on the structures that cause
the Pueblo people to be known as house-builders.
From this one begins to understand the importance of
woman in these little nations of the desert.

Let us suppose that an addition is to be made to a
Hopi village of a house containing a single room,
built without regard to the future additions which
may later form a house cluster. The plan of such a
house would be familiar to any Hopi child, since it is
merely a rectangular box. When the location has
been determined, word is passed around among the
kinsfolk and the collection of stones, beams, etc., is be-
gun. Cottonwood trees for many miles around are
laid under contribution. Some beams may be sup-
plied from trees growing near-by along the washes and

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 97

in the cornfields, and some may require journeys of
eighty or a hundred miles, representing immense la-
bor. Beams are precious, and in this dry climate they
last indefinitely, so that one may not be surprised to
find timber in the present houses from Awatobi or
older ruins, or from Spanish mission times. It is also
probable that often when pueblos were abandoned,
they were revisited later and the timbers torn out and
brought to the new location, thus the ruins might ap-
pear more ancient than they really are. With the ad-
vent of the burro, the horse, and the iron axe, timber-
ing became easier than in the stone age, but it was still
no sinecure.

Stones are gathered from the sides of the mesa not
far away, those not larger than a moderate burden be-
ing selected. The sand-rock of the mesa is soft and
with a hammer-stone convenient masses may be broken
off. At present there is a quarry on the Walpi mesa ;
the blocks gotten out by means of axes are more reg-
ular than those in the old houses, which show little or
no traces of working. Between the layers of rock are
beds of clay which require only moistening with water
to become ready for the mason.

The architect has paced off the ground and deter-
mined the dimensions of the house, giving the arm
measurement of the timbers to the logging party who,
with the rest, have got the materials ready. The next
step is to find the house-chief and secure from him
four eagle- feather prayer-plumes. These are deposited

98 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

under the four corner stones with appropriate cere-
mony of breath-prayers for the welfare of the house
and its occupants. The plumes are dedicated to the
god of the underworld, the sun, and other deities con-
cerned with house-life. The builder then determines
where the door shall be and places an offering of food
on either side of it; he then walks around the site
from left to right, sprinkling a mixture of piki crumbs
and other food with tobacco along the line of the walls,
singing to the sun his kitdauwi, "house song"; Si-si,
a-liai, si-si, a-hai, the meaning of which has long been
forgotten.

The walls are laid in irregular courses, mortar be-
ing sparingly used. The addition of plastering to the
outside and inside of the house awaits some future
time, though sometimes work on the outside coat is
put off to an ever vanishing manana. When the house
walls, seven or eight feet in height and of irregular
thickness from seventeen to twenty-two inches are
completed, the women begin on the roof. The beams
are laid across the side walls at intervals of two
feet; above these and parallel with the side walls
are laid poles; across these is placed a layer of
rods or willow brush, and above this is piled grass or
small twigs. A layer of mud comes next, and when
this is dry, earth is placed on it and tramped down
until hard. The roof, which is complicated and in-
genious, is nearly level, but provision is made for car-
rying off the water by means of spouts.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 99

When the roof is finished the women put a thick
coating of mud on the floor and plaster the walls. At
Zuiii floors are nearly always made of slabs of stone,
but in Hopi mud is the rule. The process of plaster-
ing a floor is interesting to an onlooker. Clay dug
from under the cliffs, crushed and softened in water
and tempered with sand is smeared on the floor with
the hand, a little area at a time. The floor may be
dry and occasionally the mud gets too hard ; a dash of
water corrects this. When the mud dries to the
proper stage, it is rubbed with a smooth stone having
a flat face, giving the completed floor a fine finish like
pottery. As an extra finish to the room a dado is
painted around the wall, in a wash of red ocher by
means of a rabbit skin used as a brush. Formerly a
small space on the wall was left unplastered; it was
believed that a kachina came and finished it, and al-
though the space remained bare it was considered cov-
ered with invisible mud.

Before the house can be occupied the builder pre-
pares four feathers for its dedication. He ties the
nakwakwoci or breath feathers to a willow twig, the
end of which is inserted over one of the central roof-
beams. The builder also appeases Masauah, the God
of Death, by an offering in which the house is "fed"
by putting fragments of food among the rafters or in
a niche in the door lintels, beseeching the god not to
hasten the departure of any of the family to the un-
derworld. At the feast of Soyaluna in December, the

100 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

feathers, farming the "soul" of the house, are re-
newed, and at this season when the sun returns north-
ward, the village house-chief visits the houses which
have been built within the year and performs a cere-
mony over them.

A hole is left in one corner of the roof, under which
the women build the mud fireplace, with its knob
andirons and the column of pots with the bottoms
knocked out which form the chimney. Over the fire-
place, a chimney hood, usually supported on posts, is
constructed of basket-work, plastered over with mud.
A row of mealing stones slanted in sunken stone boxes
in the floor must not be forgotten, and no one in Hopi-
land could set up housekeeping without a smooth
stone slab to bake piki upon. Some of the houses have
a low bench along one or two sides of the room which
forms convenient seats. The windows are small, being
often mere chinks, through which the curious spy with-
out being seen. Stones are usually at hand, by means
of which, and mud, windows and doors may be closed
when the family go off on a rather protracted stay.

This one-room house is the nucleus of the village.
When the daughters marry and require space for
themselves, another house is built in front of and ad-
joining the first one, and a second story may be added
to the original house. Thus the cluster grows, and
around the spaces reserved for streets and plazas other
clusters grow until they touch one another and rise
three or four stories, the inner rooms being dark from

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 101

the addition to the later houses and these become stor-
age places.

While the old houses were entered from the trap-
doors in the roof, the new houses have doors at the
ground level and often windows glazed in the most ap-
proved style. Frequently in the march of progress
doors are cut into the old houses, and the streets begin
to assume the appearance of a Mexican town ; but the
old nucleus buried under the successive buildings rare-
ly shows and may be traced with difficulty. In win-
ter the people withdraw from the exposed and retire
to the old enclosed rooms, huddling together to keep
warm, enlivening the confinement with many a song,
legend, and story.

So much for the woman builders of Tusayan, tx>
whom all honor.*

* One who desires to pursue this subject in more detail
should consult Mendeleff's paper on Pueblo Architecture in
the 8th Annual Report Bureau American Ethnology, 1886-1887.

V
AMUSEMENTS

The enviable title of " Song-Makers " has been
earned by the music-loving Indians of Tusayan, and
their fame as singers has gone out among all the tribes
of the ' ' Land of Little Rain. ' ' Many a less inventive
Indian has come a long, wearisome journey to learn
songs from the Hopi, bringing also his fee, since songs
that give the singer magic power over the gods and
forces of nature are not to be had for the asking, be-
sides to their learning a man must give the full devo-
tion of his being and sit humbly at the feet of his in-
structors. The land where the Hopi live may seem to
furnish slight incentive to song, especially when one's
ideas of the desert are of its dreariness and desolation ;
but when one sets foot in the sacred precincts of the
mysterious desert a new revelation comes to him and
he sees with these Indians that the wastes which un-
fold from the high mesas are full of beauty of form
and brilliancy of color. Sunrise and sunset bring
wonderful tints into the landscape, — the distant blue
mountains, the violet cloud shadows, the tawny, whirl-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 103

ing sand columns, the far-off thunder-storm, the vibra-
tion of the midday air, and the sparkling night sky
must inspire the most prosaic mind. There comes to
one in these surroundings a feeling of freedom, to-
gether with a sense of the vastness, transparency, and
mystery of the desert which stir the emotions and
makes the close pent life of crowded cities left behind
seem but an unsubstantial dream. Here the Hopi
have been always free ; the isolated life on the narrow
mesas brings about a close companionship and a true
home-life besides. The air of the desert makes a man
healthy and hungry, thus cheerfulness cannot but fol-
low, expressed in songs that are from the soul.

It must be confessed that the impression of Indian
music one draws from various sources is that it con-
sists of whoops, yells, and odd, guttural noises, but
this is far from describing Hopi music. Between the
light and airy Kachina songs and the stirring though
somewhat gruesome chants of the Snake ceremony,
there is a variety of compositions to many of which
the most enlightened music lovers would listen with
pleasure.

The Flute music is especially pleasing. In the sum-
mer of 1896, the writer had the good fortune to wit-
ness the Flute ceremony at the Hopi pueblo of Walpi.
In the course of the ritual, which is an invocation for
rain, a series of songs are repeated each day for several
days. To one hearing Indian music for the first time

104 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

the sensation was quite novel. The chorus of priests,
rattle in hand, sang in unison before the Flute altar,
in a narrow, low, windowless room that greatly aug-
mented the volume of sound. The time was set by
the speaker-chief, who uniformly shook his rattle eight
beats in five seconds for all the songs and for each
day 's songs with the accuracy of a metronome. There
were three beats in each measure. The pitch was low,
the range limited, and the deep, vibrant voices seemed
to portray the winds, thunder, rain, the rushing water
and the elemental forces of nature.

The notation is chromatic, not possible to be ex-
pressed on any instrument save the violin, or the five-
hole transverse flutes which later accompanied the
singing. These flutes were played in unison on the
octave above the voices, and their shrill, harsh notes
marred the singing. In general effect the music is
minor, but frequently major motives of great beauty
spring out of dead-level monotonous minors. Some-
times a major motive is followed by a minor counter-
part of the same. There is much slurring, and an
occasional reduplication comes in with great effect.
A number of songs are monotonous, with once in a
while a vigorous movement. The closing song is
spirited and may truly be called beautiful. It con-
sists of several legato verses, each closing with a turn,
a rapid vibration of the rattle, and a solemn refrain.
In structure and melody it resembles a Christian
hymn. The music reminds one of the Gregorian

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 105

chants, and to the listener some of the motives seemed
quite equal to those upon which Handel built his
great oratorios.

It is a pity that the many beautiful songs of Tusa-
yan cannot be written down and preserved but this
will no doubt soon be accomplished. Perhaps some
genius like Liszt who gave the world the spirit of Hun-
garian folk-music will arise to ravish our ears with
these musical expressions passed down from aboriginal
American sweet singers.

While the music which most attracts our attention
in Hopiland is that of the various ceremonies, there is
still a cycle of songs, many in number, of love, war,
or for amusement; those sung by mothers to their
infants, or shrilled by the women grinding corn. The
men sing at their work, the children at their play in
this land of the Song Makers.

If songs are numerous beyond computation among
the Hopi there are also more games conducing to
their amusement than one finds among many other
tribes. One may surmise that these games have been
brought in by the clans that came from all points of
the compass to make up the Hopi, and who must have
touched elbows with other tribes of different lineage
during the wanderings. All games seem to have been
borrowed, and no one may, in the light of present
knowledge, say when, where, and by whom any one of
the typical games was invented, any more than the
father of a proverb or a joke may have the parentage
ascribed to him.

106 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

But the Hopi are not disturbed by suck philosophi-
cal considerations and adhere to the traditional and
time-honored games they know without desire for in-
novation. With them athletic games are most pop-
ular, are pursued with whole-souled abandon, and are
accompanied with a world of noise and rough play;
but the races and games connected with the religious
ceremonies are carried on with due decorum. Stout
shinny sticks of oak brought from the north show
that the Hopi know the wide-spread sport that warms
the blood of many an American boy, but, alas! there
is no ice for its full enjoyment. Among other athletic
sports one may reckon throwing darts, shooting with
bow and arrow at a mark, or hurling the boomerang-
like club, which is an ancient weapon, or even im-
promptu trials of skill in throwing stones or in bouts
of friendly wrestling. The most amusing struggle
game is the Nuitiwa, played by both sexes after the
close of the Snake ceremony. Men and boys provide
themselves with some piece of pottery or other object of
value and run through the village crying "Wa ha ha!
Wa ha ha!" pursued by the fleet-footed women who
chase them and struggle for the prize with much
laughter and shortness of breath. The men take the
precaution to remove their shirts, if they value them,
before they begin, for that garment is not worth a
moment's purchase when the girls reach for the prize
held at arm-length above the head.

Many of the sacred games are of an athletic char-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 107

acter. Of these may be mentioned the numerous races,
including the kicking race in which stones are carried
on top of one foot, and the sacred game of ball. One
might include in the list the bow-women of the Mam-
zrauti ceremony and basket throwers of the Lalakonti
ceremony, since it can be seen that games are closely
connected with primitive religious beliefs and may
all have originated as a form of divination, or some
other early attempts of man either to influence the
beings or to spy into the future. It may be that some
games are remnants of long-forgotten ceremonies,. once
of great import to early worshippers.

Of sedentary games there are a number. One like
"fox and geese, " called totolospi, is the patoli of
the Mexicans, which is said to be in turn the pachise
of the Hindus, and the rectangular plan of this game
may sometimes be found on the rocks near the villages.
There is "cup and ball," a guessing game in which
four cups cut from wood and a stone about the size
of a marble form the paraphernalia; and there is a
game in which reed dice with markings are thrown.
A set of these dice was found in an ancient ruin near
Winslow, Arizona, and they are represented on an
ancient bowl from Sikyatki, a ruin near Walpi.

With all these games the Hopi are not gamblers
and appear to have the same aversion to it as they
have to fire-water, differing in this respect from the
Navaho, Zuni, and many other tribes of Indians. Most
of their games, like those of the ancient Greeks, are

108 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

full of the exhilaration of life, the glow of physical
training, the doing of something to win the favor of
the gods.

In this account the children must not be left out.
Imitating the customs of their seniors, they not only
carry out the great games but also enter with abandon
the childish sports of chasing, tag, ring around a
rosy, ball, and other juveniles. Tops and popguns are
not unknown, and if a boy has a pebble shooter made
of an agave stalk with a spring of elastic wood he
can go as far in mischief as ever Hopi children do,
but he never fires away peas or beans, for they are too
precious.

It may be well to recount here the endurance of the
Hopi in their great national accomplishment — that of
making long runs at record speed.

One morning about seven o'clock at Winslow, Ari-
zona, a message was brought to the hotel that an In-
dian wished to see the leader of an exploring party.
On stepping out on the street the Indian was found
sitting on the curbstone, mouth agape with wonder
at the trains moving about on the Santa Fe Pacific
Railroad.

He delivered a note from a white man at Oraibi
and it was ascertained that he had started from that
place at four on the previous afternoon, and arrived
at Winslow some time about the middle of the night.
When it is known that the distance is sixty-five miles
and the Indian ran over a country with which he

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 109

was not familiar, the feat seems remarkable. It is
presumed that he ran until it became dark and then
waited till the moon rose, finishing the journey by
moonlight.

On his back he carried a canteen of water wrapped
in a blanket. He took only a sandwich, explaining
that if he ate he could not run, and receiving the
answer to the note, resumed his journey to Oraibi.
Afterward it was learned that the runner reached
Oraibi with the answer that afternoon, having been
promised a bonus if he made the trip in one day.
The distance run cannot be less than 130 miles, a
pretty long course to get over in the time, and this
Indian is not the best runner in Oraibi. There is one
man who takes a morning practice of thirty miles or
so in order to get in trim for the dawn races in some
of the ceremonies, and it is said that he won in such
a race some years ago, distancing all competitors.

Nothing in the whole realm of animal motion can
be imagined more graceful than the movements of
one of these runners as he passes by in the desert,
his polished sinewy muscles playing with the utmost
precision — nothing but flight can be compared with
it. The Indians say that moccasins are the best foot-
wear for travel over sandy country, as the foot, so
clad, presses the loose sand into a firm, rounded bunch,
giving a fulcrum for the forward spring, but the
naked feet scatters the sand, and this, on experiment,
was found to be true.

110 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

While excavating at Winslow one day some of the
workmen looked up toward the north and cried out,
Hopi tu, Hopi tu, "The Hopi are coming." It was
some time before our eyes could pick them out, but
soon three men could be seen running, driving a little
buiTO in front at the top of its speed. These were
Walpi men journeying to a creek some miles beyond
Winslow to get sabred water for one of their cere-
monies. Similar journeys are made to San Francisco
Mountains for pine boughs and to the Cataract of the
Colorado to trade with the Havasupai. The Spanish
conquerors were struck with the ability of the Hopi
runners, and they record that the Indians could easily
run in one day across the desert to the Grand Canyon,
a distince which the Spaniards required three days'
march to accomplish.

Often a crowd of Hopi young men will go out afoot
to hunt rabbits, and woe to the bunny that comes in
reach! He is soon run down and dispatched with
their curved boomerangs.

Though baseball, foot-ball, and many other athletic
games of civilization have no place among the Hopi
sports, of foot racing they are as passionately fond as
even the ancient Greeks. Almost every one of the
many ceremonies has its foot race in which the whole
pueblo takes the greatest interest, for all the Hopi
honor the swift runners.

This brings to mind the story of how Sikyabotoma
lost his hair. Sikyabotoma, who bears the school

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 111

name of John, is the finest specimen of physical man-
hood at the East Mesa. John is not unaware of this
gift of nature, as he poses on all occasions out of sheer
pride.

One cannot observe that John got anything out of
his American schooling; he seemingly does not speak
a word of English, and he is beyond all reason taciturn
for a Hopi. It may be that John is a backslider,
having forgotten or thrown over his early education
and relapsed to his present state under the influence
of Hopi paganism.

As runner for the Walpi Flute Society, his duty is
to carry the offerings to the various shrines and
springs, skirting on the first day the entire circuit
of the cultivated fields of the pueblo, and coming
nearer and nearer each day till he tolls the gods to
the very doors of Walpi. It is no small task to in-
clude all the fields in the blessings asked by the Flute
priests, since the circuit must exceed twenty miles.
Each day Sikyabotoma, wearing an embroidered kilt
around his loins, his long, glossy hair hanging free,
stands before the Flute priests, a brave sight to be-
hold. They fasten a small pouch of sacred meal at
his side and anoint him with honey on the tip of the
tongue, the forehead, breast, arms, and legs, perhaps
to make him swift as the bee. Then he receives the
prayer-sticks, and away he goes down the mesa as
though he had leaped down the five hundred feet, his
long, black hair streaming. He stops at a spring,

112 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

then at a shrine, and in a very short time can scarce-
ly be distinguished running far out by the arroyo
bounding the fields. John in this role is a sight not
soon to be forgotten.

This brings us to the story of John's Waterloo.
At sunrise on the last day of the Wawash ceremony
there are foot races in honor of the gods, and a curious
condition of these races is that the loser forfeits his
hair. Now the Hopi are like the Chinese in having
an aversion to losing this adornment. A bald Hopi
is a great rarity, and the generality of the men have
long, beautiful locks, black as a raven's wing, washed
with soap-root and made wavy by being tied tightly
in a knot at the back of the head. Sikyabotoma en-
tered the Wauxish race with confidence, but when the
runners came back on the tortuous trail up the rocks
Sikyabotoma was second. A pair of sheep shears in
the hands of his adversary soon made havoc with his
locks. At the time this sketch was written John's
hair had grown again to a respectable length.

In making his toilet as Flute Messenger, to which
the writer was a witness, John found it necessary to
have his bang trimmed. This service was performed
by an old fellow who picked up from the floor a dubi-
ous looking brush made of stiff grass stems, moistened
it with his tongue occasionally as he brushed John's
hair, and finally with a pair of rickety scissors cut the
bang to regulation shape.

Sikyabotoma, in spite of the drawbacks pointed out,

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 113

is one of the lions of Walpi by birth ; he also belongs
to the first families. Divested of civilized garb, and
as a winged Mercury flying with messages to the good
beings, he is an object to be gazed on with admiration,
disposing one to be lenient with his besetting vanity.

VI
BIRTH, MARRIAGE, AND DEATH

A blanket hangs over the usually opened door and
a feeble wail issuing from within the dusky house
betokens that a baby has come into the world, and
awaits only a name before he becomes a member of
the Hopi commonwealth. The ceremony by which
the baby is to be dedicated to the sun and given a
name that will bind him indissolubly to the religious
system of his people is interesting from the light it
casts on the customs of the Hopi and the parallels it
offers to the natal rites of other peoples.

On the mud-plastered wall of the house, the mother
has made, day by day, certain scratches which mark
the infant's age, or perhaps reckons the time on her
fingers till nineteen days have passed. The morning
of the twentieth day brings the ceremony.

Meanwhile the little one has been made to know
some of the trials of life. On the first day of his
entrance into this arena, his head has been washed in
soaproot suds and his diminutive body rubbed with
ashes, the latter, it is alleged, to kill the hair, and his
mother must also undergo the ceremonial head wash-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 115

ing, which must be repeated on the fifth, tenth, and
fifteenth days with the amole root, which is the only
soap known to the Hopi Besides, the mother must
never be touched by the direct rays of the sun during
the first five days, which explains the blanket often
hung before the doorway; nor may she put on her
moccasins, for fear of ill luck.

At last, on the evening of the nineteenth day, comes
the paternal grandmother, who, by custom, is the mis-
tress of ceremonies, a fact which seems a little strange,
for though the child takes its descent from the mother,
the father's people name the baby and conduct the cer-
emony. The grandmother sees to the fire and attends
to the stew of mutton with shelled corn, called nu-
kwibi, and the sweet corn pudding, called pigame,
cooking for the feast in the morning. "While she is
bustling about, boiling a tea of juniper twigs, placing a
few stones in the fire to heat for use in the morning,
and pounding soaproot, the relatives are bringing
plaques of basketwork heaped with fine meal as pres-
ents to the new-born. These the mother receives with
the woman's words of thanks, eskwali — the men's
word being kiva kwi — and invites the guests to par-
take of food. It is late when the relatives depart, and
the mother busies herself with getting ready the return
presents, adding, perhaps, with a generous hand, more
than was given, while the object of all this prepara-
tion is sleeping oblivious, hidden beneath his blanket.

At the first glint of dawn the godmother arises,

116 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

renews the fire, and draws with fine meal four short
parallel lines on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the
room, and on the lines on the floor puts a prayer
feather tied to a cotton string, and above that places
a bowl of amole suds. The mother kneels by the
bowl, her long black hair falling in the foam, and the
godmother dips an ear of corn in the suds four times
and, touches each time the head of the mother with
the end, then bathes her head. Perhaps others of
the guests who have come early for the ceremony use
the suds in turn with an idea of getting some imag-
inary benefit; the practical benefit of cleanliness is
obtained at any rate. The mother 's arms and legs
are bathed in the juniper tea ; the heated stones placed
in a cracked bowl and some of the tea thrown over
them, form an impromptu sweat bath, while she stands,
wrapped in a blanket, over the steam. This finishes
the part of the ceremony designed for purification.

The old woman carefully sweeps up the room and
puts all the sweepings in a bowl which she throws
over the mesa, while another woman sprinkles water
on the floor, saying, "clouds and rain," the two
magic words which are often on the lips and in their
thoughts. Now the baby is waked from his blissful
sleep, bathed in soapsuds, and rinsed with a mouthful
of water applied in the manner of a Chinese laundry-
man. This time it is not ashes but white corn meal
with which he is rubbed, and all the company rub
suds on his head with ears of corn dipped in the
wash bowl. The godmother puts meal on the baby's

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 117

face and neck, and, waving an ear of corn, prays over
the mother and child. This is the prayer: "May
you live to be old, may you have good corn, may you
keep well, and now I name you Samiwiki," ("roasting
ears"), or she bestows any name which strikes her
fancy. All the other relatives give the baby a name
and it is a matter of chance which one survives.

The naming of the baby being ended, the dedica-
tion of the child to the sun is next in order. As a
preliminary, the baby is introduced to the hard lot
of the cradle. The cradle may be a bent stick inter-
laced with twigs, a cushion of frayed juniper bark
placed on it and a bow attached to the upper end to
protect the baby 's face. A small blanket or two form
the covering. The mother tucks the little fellow in,
placing his arms straight along his sides and finishes
by lashing him round and round with a sash until he
resembles a miniature mummy. The godmother has
not been idle meanwhile. She has taken meal and
made a white path out the door, and at a signal from
the father, who has been anxiously watching for sun-
rise from a neighboring housetop, she quickly takes
up the cradle and carries it low down over the path of
meal, out to where the sun may be seen. The women
have put on their clean mantas, the mother has ar-
rayed herself in her embroidered cotton wedding
blanket, and they stand in the clear dawn, a pic-
turesque group of sun-worshippers. The godmother
draws away the blanket from the baby's face, holds
a handful of meal to her mouth, and says a short

118 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

prayer over it and throws it toward the sun ; so also
does the mother, and the ceremony is over.

The assembly then turns to the nukwibl, pigame,
and other good things, for among the Hopi a feast al-
ways follows a ceremony, just as enlightened people
enjoy a good dinner after church ; but before they be-
gin the repast, a pinch of the food must be taken out
and thrown by the ladder or into an inner room as an
offering to the sun. The baby, being guest of honor,
is first to eat of the food, though the act would seem
a mere pretense. Directly he is laid aside to resume
his broken slumbers while all assembled fall to with
keen appetites. Soon the guests arise to depart, and
receiving their "Indian gifts'7 return to their homes.

Custom demands, however, that other things for
the welfare of the child be done. A boy should have
a swift insect called bimonnuh tied to his wrist to
make him a runner, and a girl a cocoon of a butterfly
to make her wrists strong for grinding corn. Later,
for some reason, a band of yucca is put on the child 's
wrist and ankle and left on for several days, when
the child is held over an ant hill, the bands taken off
and left to the ants.

It is pleasant to know that the Hopi are good to
the old. In the ceremony just described they are
given special gifts of food and meal, and if the grand-
mother is an invalid she is tenderly carried to the
dedication.1

1 From Natal Ceremonies of the Hopi Indians. J. G. Owens,
Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol. II, 1892.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 119

When the number of children born is considered,
there seems to be no reason why the Hopi should not
soon have a dense population, instead of remaining
stationary. When more is known, though, of the un-
ripe melons and other green things given the children
to eat at their own sweet will, the wonder is that any
of them ever reach the years of discretion. It is a
wise provision of custom that the children are not
required to wear any clothes whatever, and one soon
becomes accustomed to the graceful, animated little
bronzes that swarm in the quaint, terraced pueblos.

Nowhere are these little flowers of the tree of life
more cunning and interesting. Like the Japanese
children they seem to deserve no correction, and it is
as rare a sight as green grass, in the land of Tusayan,
to see a parent strike a child. Always instead there is
kindness and affection worthy of the highest praise.
It is refreshing to observe the association of children
with their parents or near relatives, and how quiet
and obedient they are. This close parental attention
must be the secret of good children wherever the
country may be. The Hopi children are fortunate in
having many teachers who, at home or in the fields
or in the country, explain to them the useful things
which they should know in order to become good
citizens of Tusayan. It surprises visitors to find out
how much the little people have learned, not only of
the birds, plants, and other sides of nature, but of
their future duties in the house, the fields, and the vil-

120 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

lage, and one comes to respect the Hopi kindergarten
in which the children are taught through play-work
and unconsciously come to "know how.'7 Even the
odd-looking dolls, which the Hopi children love with
the same fervor as the rest of the little men and women
of the child world, assist in teaching. These dolls,
carved from cottonwood and brilliantly decorated
with paint, feathers, and shells, represent the numer-
ous beings who inhabit the spiritual world supposed
to rule the destinies of the Hopi. The children are
given these wooden figures to play with, and thus they
learn the appearance of the gods and at the same
time get a lesson in mythology.

In their sport, several little fellows armed with
bows and arrows may pretend to guard the pueblo,
and no doubt they have the same proud feeling in
possessing these savage weapons of war as a small
white boy has when master of a toy gun. Little tots
scarcely able to walk will be encouraged to shoot at a
target made of a bundle of sage-brush set up in the
sand at no great distance, and loud is the applause
from the parents and other onlookers when one of
these infants bowls over the target. The girls con-
gregate in a secluded street and play, their soft voices
quite in contrast with any such group of white chil-
dren. Perhaps the game is "play house," with the
help of a few stones and much imagination. The
moment, however, a visitor casts his eye in their
direction the game is broken up and all become pain-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 121

fully conscious of his presence. Should a rain fill the
water holes on the mesa the children have great sport
bathing, splashing around like ducks and chasing one
another. This must be a rare treat to the childreny
because, like Christmas, the good fortune of a rain-
water bath may come but once a year.

Wherever the grown people go, the children go
along, berrying, gathering grass and yucca for bas-
kets, or seeds of the wild plants for food, watching
the confield, or gathering the crops, each having a
little share in the work and a good portion of amuse-
ment. One soon sees that the children of the Hopi
help in everything that is going on and take care not
to hinder. If a house is being built, the little ones
work as hard as their elders, carrying in their bas-
kets a tiny load of stones or earth for the building
with an earnestness that is really amusing. Outside
of the Hopi towns one usually finds a number of in-
scriptions in picture writing on the rocks. Besides
the inscriptions there are many cup-shaped depressions
that have puzzled more than one visitor. One day
some children were seen hammering diligently on the
rocks with hand-stones, and it was found that they
were digging cup-cavities in the soft sandstone, per-
haps making tiny play-reservoirs to catch rain water.
The children may also be responsible for many of the
queer pictures that adorn the smooth sides of the rocks
around the villages; and who knows but that many
ancient inscriptions on the Arizona rocks were cut
by childish hands.

122 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

In every Hopi child's life the time comes when he
must join some one of the brotherhoods or societies,
which take in nearly every one in the pueblos, so that
a young man to have any standing must belong to
one at least of the Kaehina brotherhoods. The boys
during their solemn initiation are soundly whipped
by the ' i flogger, ' ' whose name need but be mentioned
to the little ones to make them scamper.

But this takes us beyond the age of tender child-
hood in the children's Paradise. To a children's
friend the Hopi tots are a perennial joy. Their
bright eyes are full of appreciation, though bashful-
ness may make them hide behind mother's skirts, but
there is a magic word they have learned from the
white people which overcomes that. A picture still
dwells in the writer's mind of a little fellow who
approached some visitors as near as he dared and
spoke the two words of English he knew: " Hello,
kente" (candy).

Although the ceremony of marriage is of small im-
portance in comparison with the endless ceremonies of
the Hopi priesthoods, yet a great deal of interest
clusters around it and it is really a complicated af-
fair. The trying antecedent stage of courtship, so
amusing to those not concerned, is the same as among
civilized young men and maidens. One of the first
questions Hopi women ask one is, ' ' Have you a wife ? ' '
and if the answer is negative, they express condolence
and sympathy, if they do not go so far as to inquire

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 123

the reason. As elsewhere, the young man must show
some possession and likewise an ability to provide be-
fore he can take the step of matrimony, and of course,
the most inflexible rule of all those which regulate
the affairs in Hopiland is observed in making the
choice of a wife — the absolute prohibition against
marriage between members of the same clan. If both
have the totem of the tobacco plant, for instance, it
would be hopeless to think of union even if it were
imaginable that such a thing would ever enter a
Hopi's thoughts. There may be no relationship, but
if the clan name is the same, there is an effectual bar.

One of the sure signs that matters are going smooth-
ly is when a girl is seen combing a young man 's hair,
seated perhaps in the doorway where all the world
may stare. This is taken to mean a betrothal, but
long before this in a community where everyone's
business is known, the "match" has been no secret.
Hopi courtship presents advantages. No prospective^
ly irate parents have to be asked ; the Peaceful People
do not put thorns in the path of true love, but let
things adjust themselves in a simple, natural way.
There are no first families with pride of birth or
wealth, no exclusive circles or cliques, there is no bar
except the totem in this perfect democracy.

When the young people decide to be married, the
girl informs her mother, who takes her daughter, bear-
ing a tray of meal made from white corn, to the house
of the bridegroom where she is received by his mother

124 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

with thanks. During that day she must labor at the
mealing stones, grinding white corn, silent and un-
noticed ; the next day she must continue her task with
the white corn. On the third day of this laborious
trial she grinds the dark blue corn which the Hopi
call back, no doubt glad when the evening brings a
group of her friends, laden with trays of meal of their
own grinding, as presents, and according to 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, which would indi-
cate that a Hopi maiden must be very devoted to
undertake it, 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 over her breast to give
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 as the bride before the bowl
of the young man 's mother, and their heads are thor-
oughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring
handsful of suds over the bowed heads of the couple.
While this ceremonial head-washing is going on, some
of the women and girls creep in between the couple
and try to hold their heads over the bowls while others

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 125

strive to tear away the intruders, and 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 each takes 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 as husband and wife.

The ceremony over, the mother of the bride builds
a fire under the baking stone, while the daughter pre-
pares the batter and begins to bake a large quantity
of paper bread. After this practical and beautiful
starting of the young folks in life the mother returns
to her home. But there is much more to do before
the newly married merge into the staid married
folks of Tusayan. The wedding breakfast follows
closely on the heels of the ceremony and the father of
the young man must run through the pueblo with a
bag of cotton, handfuls of which he gives to the rela-
tives 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.

The practical side and the mutual helpfulness of
the Hopi come out strongly here, when a few days
later the loud-voiced crier announces the time for the
spinning of the cotton for the bride's blankets. This

126 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

takes place in the kivas, where usually all the weaving
is done by the man, 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 sagebrush-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. They fall to, like the
genius of famine, without knives and forks, but with
active, though not over-clean digits, at the start.
When they are through, there is little left for the
gaunt, half -starved dogs that scent the savors of the
feast outside the door. If one desires to see the Hopi
at his happiest he must find him squatted on the floor
before an ample and well-spread feast.

With the spun cotton serious work begins for the
bridegroom and his male relatives lasting several
weeks. A large white blanket five by six feet and one
four and a half by five feet must be woven, and a
reed mat made in which the blankets are to be rolled.
A white sash with long fringe, and a pair of moccasins,
each having half a deerskin for leggings, like those
worn by the women of the Bio Grande pueblos, com-
plete the costume. The blankets must have elaborate
tassels at the four corners. Shortly before sunrise

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 127

the bride, arrayed in her finery, performs the last
act in the drama, called "going home." It must be
explained that 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,
where she is received with a few words of greeting,
and the long ceremony is over.

In this land of women's rights the husband must
live with his wife's relatives. The children, also, are
hers, taking their descent from her and are nearer
kin to her brothers and sisters than to the father.
The house they live in is hers, and all the corn and
other food brought into its grain room. In case of
domestic troubles, she alone has the right of separa-
tion and can turn the man from her door. Though
this dark side of the picture is sometimes presented,
the rule is that husband and wife are faithful and
live happily, as becomes the Peaceful People.

It may be interesting to follow the history of the
wedding costume, which plays such a prominent part
in the ceremony. The moccasins are soon put to use
and worn out, and thereafter the woman goes barefoot
like the rest of her sisters. The sash and blankets
are rolled in a mat and hung from a roof -beam in a
back room. Perhaps the larger /blanket is embroid-
ered, when it becomes a ceremonial blanket, or it may
be pressed into use for carrying corn and watermelons

128 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

from the fields. The^ smaller blanket is kept as one
of the most sacred possessions; the young mother
puts it on only at the name-giving ceremony of her
first-born, and often it enshrouds her for the last rites
among the rocks below the mesa where the dead are
laid away. At the farewell ceremony of the Kaehinas
all the brides of the year dress in their white robes
and appear among the spectators, look on for a time,
and then return to their homes. This review of the
brides adds much to the picturesqueness of this fes-
tive occasion.1

There is no doubt that to the wise customs of the
pueblo dwellers is due their survival in the deserts
of the Southwest. One can only admire the work-
ings of the unwritten laws which have lived from
out of the experience of past centuries and continue
yet to regulate the life of Tusayan.

There is no more interesting chapter of human
beliefs than that which deals with the ideas enter-
tained by primitive peoples of death and the here-
after. The Hopi, like other peoples, have thought
out the deep questions of origin and destiny, peopled
the mysterious spaces with spiritual beings, and pene-
trated the realm of the hereafter to describe the life
after death. Thus they say that the breath body
travels and has various experiences on its way to the

2 The details of the marriage ceremony are taken from an
article by H. E. Voth in the American Anthropologist, N. S.,
Vol. 2, No. 2, April-June, 1900.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 129

underworld, and "as everyone came up from out of
the sipapu, or earth navel, so through the sipapu to
the underworld of spirits must he go after death.
Far to the west in the track of the sun must he travel
to the sipapu which leads down through a lake. Food
must he have for the journey, and money of shell and
green turquoise; hence bowls of food and treasures
we place in his grave. Masauah, the ruler of the un-
derworld, first receives the spirit. It is the spirit of a
good man, straightway he speeds it along the pathway
of the sun to the happy ahode, where the ancestors
feast and dance and hold ceremonies like those of the
Hopi on the earth. Truly, we received the ceremon-
ies from them, long ago.

If the spirit is not good, it must be tried, so Masauah
sends it on to the keeper of the first furnace in which
the spirit is placed. Should it come out clean, forth-
with it is free; if not, on it goes to a second or a
third master of the furnace, but if the third fire test-
ing does not cleanse the spirit, the demon seizes it and
destroys it, because it is posh kalolomi, "very not
good!" Just how much of this has been influenced
by later teachings is a vexed question and must be left
open.

In the underworld the spirits of the ancestors are
represented as living a life of perennial enjoyment.
Often they visit the upperworld, and since the Hopi
believe that their chief care is to guard the interests
of the pueblos of Tusayan, they must be appeased by

130 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

prayers and offerings in order to secure their good
will.

The last offices of the dead- are very simple. In
sitting posture with head between the knees, with
cotton mask, symbolic of the rain cloud, over the
face, and sewed fast in a ceremonial blanket, the body
is carried down among the rocks by two men, who
have cleared out a place with their hoes. The rela-
tives follow and without a word the body is placed
in the rude grave. A bowl containing food is set
near by under the rocks, and all return, the women
washing their feet before entering the house.

For four days the relatives visit the grave and place
upon it bowls containing morsels of food, and they
also deposit there feathered prayer-sticks. At the end
of four days the "breath body" descends to the under-
world, whence it came, and is judged by the ordeal of
fire. In a closely-built town like Walpi the house is
not vacated after a death, but it would seem that this
widespread custom is observed in some of the pueblos.
The Navaho, in pursuance of this custom, throw down
the earth-covered hogan over the dead, and in the
course of time a mound filled with decaying timbers
marks the spot. Hopi burial customs have not changed
for centuries; they have never burned their dead, as
formerly did the Zuni and the peoples of the Gila val-
ley. The ancient Hopi ceremonies contain almost the
only records of their past history in the pottery, orna-
ments, weapons, and relics of bone, shell, stone, traces

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 131

of prayer-sticks, cloth, baskets, and matting. These
serve to give an idea of the life and arts of the ancient
Americans who left no written record.

When one inquires for a person who, perchance, is
dead, the Hopi say he is shttui, which means, * ' gone. ' '
On closer inquiry they may tell of the mysterious
journey of the dead, through the sipapu, to the land
of the underworld, which is below the far-off lake.

VII
RELIGIOUS LIFE

The chief feature attracting popular interest to the
Hopi is the number and remarkable character of their
ceremonies. These "dances," as they are usually
called, seem to be going on with little intermission.
Every Hopi is touched by some one of the numerous
ceremonies and nearly every able-bodied inhabitant of
the seven towns takes an active part during the year.

This keeps the Hopi out of mischief and gives them
a good reputation for minding their own business, be-
sides furnishing them with the best round of free
theatrical entertainments enjoyed by any people in
the world, for nearly every ceremony has its divert-
ing as well as its serious side, for religion and the
drama are here united as in primitive times. The
Hopi live and move and have their being in religion.
They have peopled the unseen world with a host of be-
ings, and they view all nature as full of life. The
sun, moon, stars, rocks, winds, rain, and rivers are
members of the Hopi pantheon to be reckoned with in
their complicated worship.

Every moon brings its ceremony, and the cycle of

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 133

the different "dances" is completed in perhaps four
years ; a few dances indeed may have even longer in-
tervals, but these dances do not seem to fall in the cal-
endar and are held whenever decided upon by the
proper chief. Some of the dances alternate also, the
Snake Dance, for instance, being held one year and the
Flute Dance the following year. For half the year,
from August to January, the actors in the ceremonies
wear masks, while for the remainder of the year the
dancers appear unmasked ; and as every ceremony has
its particular costumes, ritual, and songs, there is
great variety for the looker-on in Tusayan. So many
are the ceremonies, which differ more or less in the
different villages, and so overwhelming is the im-
memorial detail of their performance, that one might
well despair of recording them, much less of finding
out a tithe of their meaning.

There is grouped around these dances the lore of
clans in the bygone centuries, innumerable songs and
prayers and rites gathered up here and there in the
weary march, strewn with shells of old towns of the
forgotten days. No fear that this inexhaustible mine
will be delved out by investigators before it disap-
pears utterly; the wonder is that it has survived so
long into this prosaic age of anti-fable. We have here
the most complete Freemasonry in the world, which,
if preserved, would form an important chapter in the
history of human cults, and in the opinion of enlight-
ened men, it should have a record before the march
of civilization treads it in the dust.

134 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

The searcher for truth at the bottom of the Hopi
well is likely to get various answers. Seeing the im-
portance of the sun in Hopi thoughts and rites, one
feels inclined to say "sun worship/' but the clouds,
wind, rain, rocks, springs, rivers that enter into this
paganism make for ' ; nature worship ' ' ; then the birds
and beasts give ' i animal worship ' ' ; the plants for food
and ceremony, "plant worship"; the snake means
" serpent worship," and the communion with deified
ancestors shows "ancestor worship" with unmistak-
able plainness.

The oldest gods in the Hopi conception of the un-
seen world are the deified manifestations of Nature
and the natural objects that force themselves to his
notice. The lightning, the cloud, the wind, the snow,
the rain, the water, the rainbow, the dawn, the fire,
all are beings. The sun, the moon, certain planets
and constellations, and the sky are beings of power.
The surface of the earth is ruled by a mighty being
whose sway extends to the underworld and over death,
fire, and the fields; springs, rivers, and mountains
have their presiding deities. Among animals also
there are many gods, — the eagle, bear, deer, moun-
tain lion, badger, coyote, and mole among the rest.
Among the insects the butterfly, dragonfly, and spider
are most important, the latter as the Spider Woman
or Earth Goddess. She is spouse of the Sun and as
mother of the warrior culture heroes of the race is
revered by the Hopi. To the plants, however, the list

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 135

of beings does not extend, except in few instances, as
the Corn Maid or Goddess of Corn, and perhaps to the
Goddess of Germs. There are beings of the six direc-
tions ; a god of chance in games and of barter ; gods of
war and the chase ; a god of the oven, and endless be-
ings, good and bad, that have arisen in the Hopi fancy
as the centuries rolled by with their changes of cul-
ture.

At some period a group of beings called Kachinas
and new to Hopi worship was added to the pantheon.
Most of these were brought in by the Badger clans, as
tradition relates, from the East, which means the up-
per Rio Grande, and some were probably introduced
during the great westward migrations of other elans
from that region. The KacMnas are believed to be the
spirits of ancestors in some part, but the Kachina wor-
ship is remarkable for the diversity of beings that it
includes, from the representation of a tribe as the
Apache Kachina, to the nature beings as the sun, but
many of them are not true Kachinas. ( See Chapter X,
Intiwa, p. 227)

As might be anticipated from the fact that the Hopi
are made up of clans and fragments of clans of vari-
ous origin, each with its separate ideas and practices,
their beliefs and customs as to the unseen world show
a surprising variety and include those of lower and
higher comparative rank. One idea, however, run-
ning through all the ceremonies gives a clue to their
intention, obvious to any man of the Southwest, be his

136 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

skin white or brown, the desire for rain so there shall
be food and life. To wheedling, placating, or coercing
the agencies which are thought to have power to bring
rain all the energies of the Hopi are bent. Included
among these petitions are prayers for other things
that seem good and desirable, and the ceremonies also
embrace such episodes as the installing of a chief, or
the initiation of novitiates, the hunts, races, etc.

From these ceremonies, which fall under one or the
other of the thirteen moons, we may select the more
striking for a brief description of their more salient
features.

No one can determine which ceremony begins the
Hopi calendar, but perhaps the Soyaluna, celebrated
at the last of December, should have the honor. Not
because it nearly coincides with our Christmas, but be-
cause it marks the astronomical period known as the
winter solstice, an important date which ought by
right to begin the new year. Few strangers see the
Soyaluna, but those who have braved the winter to be
present say that it is one of the most remarkable of
the Hopi ceremonies. All the kivas are in use by the
various societies taking part, and while there is only a
simple public "dance," there are dramatic observ-
ances of surprising character going on in the meeting
places.

When the faint winter sun descends into his ' ' south
house," which is a notch in the Elden Mesa near Flag-
staff, there is great activity in the Hopi pueblos, and

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 137

as in our holiday season the people exchange greet-
ings of good wishes and make presents of nakwakwo-
shi, consisting of a downy eagle feather and long pine
needles tied to a cotton string. December is a sacred
month when all occupations are limited and few games
are allowed, so that the Soyal is at the center of a
"holy truce," a time of "peace on earth and good
will to men, ' ' but strangely celebrated by pagan sun-
worshippers. For the Soyal is peculiarly a ceremony
brought to Hopiland by the Patki people who came
from the south where in past centuries they wor-
shipped the god of day. The warrior societies of the
pueblos have made this their great festival and are
most prominent in its celebration.

In the principal kiva the customary elaborate ritual
has been conducted for nine days by the Soyal fra-
ternity, which is made up of members of the Agave,
Horn, Singers, and New Fire societies. At one end of
the kiva is placed the altar, consisting of a frame with
parallel slats on which are tied bunches of grass, and
in these bunches are thrust hundreds of gaudily paint-
ed artificial flowers. On the top are bows covered
with cotton, representing snow clouds. Before the
altar is a pile of corn laid up like a wall which has
been collected in the village to be returned filled with
fertility after the ceremony. Before the corn wall is
a ridge of sand on which are set corn fetiches of stone
and wood. The medicine bowl and many pipes,
feather prayer-sticks, etc., are in position on the floor.

138 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

There is also in the Walpi ceremony a performance
of the Great Feathered Serpent who thrusts his gro-
tesque head through an orifice in the screen and roars
in answer to the prayers of the priests.

After a series of musical songs accompanied by
rattles, flutes, whistles, and bull-roarers, and inter-
spersed with prayers, there is an initiation of novices.
Then enters the first bird man, elaborately costumed,
whose postures and pantomime imitate a bird. Next
come another bird man and the Soyaluna maid who
perform a strange dance, then comes Eototo, the fore-
runner of the Kachinas, bearing corn, and this episode
closes with a stirring dance of the priests around the
fireplace accompanied with song.

Next occurs the fierce assault by members from the
different kivas on the Soyal shield-bearer. With wild
yells and dramatic action they thrust their shields
against the sun shield as in deadly combat, but the
sun shield-bearer forces them back and vanquishes
them in turn. This remarkable drama represents per-
haps the driving of the sun back into his northward
path, so that he may bring life to the Hopi. The
Soyal public dance is performed by a Kachina and two
Kachina maids and is simple compared with the elab-
orate, multicolored pageant of other dances. At the
close of the public ceremony the corn is distributed
to the villagers, and for four days consecrated pahos
are placed in the shrines, some for the dead and some

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 139

for increase of flocks, corn, peaches, and all good
things spiritual and temporal and the people feast
and are happy.

In February comes a ceremony called Powamu with
its introductory ceremony called Powalawu. Some ex-
pectancy of the coming activities in the fields is in the
air and hence, as the name indicates, the ceremony re-
lates to getting ready, preparing the fields, etc. One
of the chief features is the sprouting of beans in the
kivas and the distribution of the sprouts to various
persons. Another is the initiation of youthful candi-
dates, accompanied by severe flogging with yucca
switches at the hands of ferocious Kachinas. The cere-
mony lasts nine days and is presided over by the chief
of the Powamu fraternity assisted by the Kachina
chief. In the kivas various rites are carried on and
altars of bright-colored sand are made. The most in-
teresting event is the recital of the myth of the Po-
wamu on which the ceremony is based. This account
is given by a costumed priest who represents the
Kachina Muyingwa, the god of germs, and relates to
the wanderings of certain clans and their arrival in
Tusayan.

On the ninth and last day bands of different Kachi-
nas roam the village, some furnishing amusement to
the people and others bringing terror to naughty chil-
dren, while still others go about distributing bean
sprouts or on various errands. With this ceremony

140 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

the joyous season of the Kachinas begins. Dr. Fewkes
says: 3

The origin of this feast dates from the adventures
of a hero of the Ka~tci-nyu-muh, "Ka-tci-nia people."
The following legend of this people is preserved.
While the group of gentes known by this name was on
its travels, they halted near the San Francisco Moun-
tains and built houses. During this moon the hero
went out to hunt rabbits, and came to a region where
there was no snow. There he saw another Ka-tci-na
people dancing amidst beautiful gardens. He re-
ceived melons from them, and carrying them home,
told a strange story of a people who inhabited a coun-
try where there were flowering plants in midwinter.
The hero and a comrade were sent back, and they
stayed with these people, returning home, loaded with
fruit, during February. They had learned the songs
of those with whom they had lived, and taught them
in the kib-va of their own people.

The Great Plumed Serpent who appears in the myth-
ology of many American tribes is the chief actor in
the Palulukong ceremony, which is held in March. It
is a serpent drama in which the sun also has high
honor. The actors are masked, as the ceremony is
under the control of the Kachinas, who are adept at
theatrical performances when represented by the fer-
tile-minded Hopi.

3 For an extended study of this ceremony see The Oraibi
Powamu Ceremony by H. R. Voth, Publication 61, Field Col-
umbian Museum, Chicago, 1901, and Tusayan Katcinas by Dr.
J. Walter Fewkes, 15th Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 141

The clans have gathered in their respective kivas,
where painting of masks and other paraphernalia, re-
hearsals, etc., have continued for several days. In the
kiva which is for the nonce to be the theater, a crowd
of visitors have assembled, and in the middle of the
room two old kiva chiefs sit around the fire, which
they feed with small twigs of greasewood to produce
an uncertain, flickering light.

The arrival of the first group of actors is heralded
by strange cries from without the kiva, and a ball of
corn meal thrown down the hatchway is answered
with invitations to enter. The fire is darkened by a
blanket held over it, and the actors climb down the
ladder and arrange their properties. The fire tenders
drop the blankets, and on the floor is seen a miniature
field of corn made by fastening sprouted corn in clay
pedestals. Behind this corn field is a cloth screen
decorated with figures of human beings, corn, clouds,
lightning, etc., hung across the room, and along the
screen six openings masked by flaps. On either side
of the screen stand several masked men, one dressed
as a woman holding a basket tray of meal and an ear
of corn. A song begins and the actors dance to the
music; the hoarse roar of a gourd horn resounds
through the kiva, and instantly the flaps in the screen
are drawn up and the heads of grotesque serpents
with goggle eyes, feather crest, horn, fierce teeth, and
red tongues, appear in the six openings. Farther and
farther they seem to thrust themselves out, until four

142 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

feet of the painted body can be seen. Then as the
song grows louder the plumed snakes sway in time to
the music, biting at each other and darting toward
the actors. Suddenly they bend their heads down and
sweep the imitation cornfield into a confused heap,
then raise their wagging heads as before, and it is seen
that the central serpent has udders and suckles the
others. Amid the roars of the horn and great excite-
ment offerings of meal and prayers are made to the
plumed serpents. The actor dressed as a woman and
who represents the mother of the Kachinas now pre-
sents the corn and meal to the serpents as food and
offers his breasts to them.

Now the song diminishes, the effigies are drawn
back, and the flaps with the sun symbol painted on
them let down ; the blankets are again held around the
fire, the spectacle is dismantled, the actors file out, and
the people among whom the corn hills have been dis-
tributed wait for other actors to appear, while foreign
visitors wonder at the mechanical skill displayed in
constructing and manipulating the effigies.

Now Tewan actors from Hano give a remarkable
buffalo dance. They wear helmets, representing buf-
falo heads, and are clad in black sheep pelts. In
their hands they hold zigzag lightning wands, and to
the beat of a drum dance with characteristic postures ;
with them dance a man and boy dressed as eagles,
who give forth shrill bird calls. This dance is an in-
troduction from Rio Grande Pueblos.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 143

After them comes another group of actors clothed
in ceremonial kilts and wearing helmet masks. They
are called the "Stone War Club Kacliinas" and with
them are two men dressed as women ; one, represent-
ing the Spider Woman, dances before the fire with
graceful movements of the arms and body to the sound
of singing and the beat of a drum. At the close of
the dance she distributes seeds of corn, melons, and
useful plants.

The fourth act is that of the Maiden Corn Grinders.
First, two masked men bring down the ladder bundles
containing two grinding slabs and grinding stones and
arrange them on the floor. After them come two
masked girls in elaborate ceremonial attire, followed
in a little while by a line of masked dancers who form
the chorus. At a signal the chorus begins to sing and
posture while the maids grind corn in time with the
song. They then leave the mills and dance in the
middle of the room with graceful movements, point-
ing at the audience with ears of corn, while the bear-
ers of the mill stones put pinches of meal in the
mouths of the spectators.

The fifth act is somewhat like the first, except that
there are two huge snakes, and several of the actors as
chorus, with knobs of mud on their masks, wrestle with
the snakes in a most realistic fashion and afford great
entertainment.

After this act another set of performers gives a
more remarkable serpent drama. Back of the field of

144 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

corn on the floor are seen two large pottery vases, and,
as if by magic, the covers of the vases fly back, and
from them two serpents emerge, swoop down and over-
throw the corn hills, struggle with each other and per-
form many gyrations, then withdraw into the vases.
In the dim light of the kiva fire the cords by which
the serpents are manipulated cannot be seen, and the
realism of the act is wonderful. In other years the
acts are even more startling, as when masked men
wrestle with serpents which seem to try to coil about
their victims. The actor thrusts one arm in the body
of the snake in order to give these movements, while a
false arm is tied to his shoulder. Sometimes also the
corn-maid grinders are represented by joined figures
surrounded by a framework. They are made to bend
backward and forward and grind corn on small met ci-
tes. At times they raise one hand and rub meal on
their faces, like the Hopi corn grinders in daily life,
while above them on the framework two birds carved
from wood and painted are made to walk back and
forth. On the day of the public dance the corn maids
attended by many masked KacMnas grind in the dance
plaza.

The Great Plumed Serpent who has control of all
the waters of the earth and who frequents the springs,
once, as the legend goes, caused a great flood and was
appeased only by the sacrifice of a boy and girl. ( See
Myths.) The home of this monster was in the Red
Land of the South, whence some of the Hopi clans

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 145

came. Dr. J. Walter Fewkes believes that the great
serpent of Mexican and Central American mythology
is this same being, which shows the debt of the Hopi
to the culture of the south.

Now the Kachinas throng the pueblos and a perfect
carnival reigns with the joyful Hopi. There is a be-
wildering review of the hosts of the good things and
bad, interwoven with countless episodes. Songs of
great beauty, strange masked pageants, bright-tinted
piki and Kachina bread attract powerfully three of the
senses, and the Hopi enjoy the season to the full with
the knowledge that the growing crops thrive toward
perfection in the fields below the mesa.

The Kachmas are the deified spirits of the ancestors,
who came from San Francisco Mountains and per-
haps from the Rio Grande and other places, to visit
their people. Their name means the "sitters," be-
cause of the custom of burial in a sitting posture, and
they resemble "The watchers sitting below" of Faiist.
They are believed to guard the interests of the Hopi
and to intercede with the gods of rain and fertility.
Their first coming is in December at the Soyal cere-
mony, and others continue to come till August when
the great Niman, or Farewell Kachina, is celebrated
with songs, dances, and feasting.

These deified spirits, or Kachinas, are personated by
Indians who sometimes go outside the town, dress
themelves in appropriate costume, present themselves
at the gate, and are escorted through the streets with

146 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

great fun and frolic. Every few days there is a new
arrival and a fresh festival. Each year there is some-
thing new, and the Indians rack their inventive genius
to produce the most startling masks and costumes. The
kachinas admit of any character in the extensive Hopi
mythology. Almost any character from a clown to a
god can be introduced, and there are songs belonging
to each. Every male Hopi takes some part in the
kachinas, and all dates and distances are cancelled
when these dances are in progress.

The kachina dances promote sociability among the
pueblos. The. Walpi boys, for instance, may give a
representation of a kachina at a neighboring pueblo
in return for a like expression of good- will on some
other occasion. It goes without saying that there is a
friendly rivalry among the pueblos, each striving to
give the best dance. Like his white brothers, the In-
dian works harder at his amusement than at almost
anything else.

These dances also show the cheerful Hopi at his
best, — a true, spontaneous child of nature. They are
the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, most
musical, spectacular, and pleasing. They are really
more worthy of the attention of white people than the
forbidding Snake Dance, which overshadows them by
the element of horror.

In July the kachinas take their flight, and with a
great culminating ceremony the Hopi bid them fare-
well. The Niman, or Farewell ceremony, begins

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 147

about July 20th and lasts nine days, like the four
great ceremonies between August and November, and
like them also having a regular secret ritual in the
kivas. Instead, however, of one day or so of public
ceremony, the Niman furnishes many surprises and
sallyings forth to the amusement of the populace.
Delegates hurry on very long journeys for sacred
water, pine boughs, and other essentials for the use of
the priests. Sad indeed is the state of the Hopi that
fate detains, and strong must be circumstances that
prevent his reunion with his people at this great fes-
tival.

The Niman public dances which follow the eight
days of kiva rites are imposing spectacles. The first
takes place before sunrise and the second in the after-
noon. There are many kachinas in rich costumes,
wearing strange helmets and adorned in many striking
ways. They carry planting sticks, hoes, and other
emblematic paraphernalia. A number are dressed as
female kachinas. These furnished an accompaniment
to the song by rasping sheep's scapulae over notched
sticks placed on wooden sounding boxes. The male
and female dancers stand in two lines and posture to
the music, and the former turn around repeatedly dur-
ing the dance. The children especially enjoy the
dance, because the kachinas have brought great loads
of corn, beans, and melons, and baskets of peaches,
which are gifts for the young folks, and dolls, bows,
and arrows are also given them. The dance is repeated

148 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

in the afternoon in another plaza, after which the pro-
cession departs to carry offerings to a shrine outside
the town and the drama of the Farewell kacliina, is
over.

With the coming of the different clans, each having
some ceremony peculiar to itself, and held at a certain
time in the year, there must have been an adjustment
of interests to fit the ceremonies to the moons, as we
now see in the Hopi calendar. This may explain the
fusing of the Snake-Antelope ceremonies and the two
Flutes, which come in August, and the assignment of
the two groups to alternate years. It is to be ex-
pected also that rain ceremonies would preponderate
in the Southwest, and by mutual concessions the clans
making up the Hopi would arrange their rites to fit
in the month when the rain-makers are needed. Thus,
the women's ceremonies in September and October
would not need to be disturbed, perhaps to the relief
of the obscure Hopi who, like Julius Caesar, reformed
the calendar.

The Snake and Flute ceremonies of the Hopi are
most widely known, since at this season of the year
most travelers visit Tusayan, and besides, the Snake
Dance, from it elements of horror, has overshadowed
other ceremonies that are beautiful and interesting.
Still, the Snake Dance is unique, and in its unfolding
displays virile action and the compelling force of man
over the lesser animate creation, giving to the drama a
certain grandeur not observed in other ceremonies.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 149

No form of language is capable of describing it. Those
who have seen it make it an unforgettable episode in
their lives. Those who have made it a study declare
that the mind of man has never conceived its equal.

When the Snake and Antelope fraternities descend
into their respective kivas about the middle of August,
the rites commence. The events that attract popular
interest begin at once on the first day, when a party of
Snake priests, painted and costumed and with snake
whips and digging sticks in their hands, descend from
the mesa to hunt snakes in the north quarter. These
men, keenly watching for snake trails, eagerly search,
beating the sage-brush and digging in holes that
may harbor their quarry, thrusting their hands into
such places with the utmost fearlessness. At sunset,
after an exhausting day's work, they return from the
hunt with snakes, if they have been successful, which
are transferred from their pouches into the snake jars.
For four days the hunt goes on, each day to a different
world quarter. If a snake is seen it is sprinkled with
meal, and as it tries to escape, one of the hunters
seizes it a few inches back of the head and places it in
his pouch.

When the snakes, big and little, venomous and harm-
less, have been collected and stowed away in the jars
like those used by the women to carry water, there
comes the great event of snake washing. The priests
assemble in the kiva and seat themselves on stone seats
around the wall, holding in the hand a snake whip

150 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

made of two eagle feathers secured to a short stick.
On the floor dry sand has been spread out and on it a
medicine bowl of water. The snakes have been placed
in bags near by in the care of priests, and the snake
washer, arrayed as a warrior, sets himself before the
bowl, while back of him stand two men waving snake
whips. A weird song begins, and the warrior thrusts
his hand into the bag and draws out a handful of
snakes, plunges them into the medicine water, and
drops them on the sand. Then the snakes are rapidly
passed to the warrior, who plunges them and casts
them forth, while the priests wave their wands and
sing, now low and now loudly and vehemently. Some
of the snakes try to escape, but are herded on the sand
field, which is for the purpose of drying them. The
snakes are left on the floor for a few hours intervening
before the public dance, a writhing mass, watched over
by naked boys. These boys, barefoot and otherwise
entirely naked, sit down on the stones and with their
whips or naked hands, play with the snakes, per-
mitting them to crawl over and under their feet, be-
tween their legs, handling them, using them as play-
things, paying no more attention to the rattlesnakes
than to the smallest harmless whip-snakes, creating a
sight never to be forgotten. It must be admitted,
however, that owing to the absolute abandon and reck-
lessness used by the boys in handling these snakes, all
of one 's preconceived notions of the dangerousness of
the rattlesnake entirely disappear. Occasionally, one

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 151

of the snakes, being tossed to a distance of four or
five feet, apparently resents the insult, but before
the snake has had sufficient time to coil, it will be
straightened out by one of the other boys or tossed
back to its original position, and so the sport (for it
was nothing less to these boys) continue, as has been
stated, for more than two hours.4
Dr. Fewkes thus describes the Walpi snake washing :

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 Su-pe-la, so that my attention
was distracted by them. Su-pe-la 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 accom-
panied by a melodious hum by all present, then be-
gan. 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

* The Mishongnovi Ceremonies of the Snake and Antelope
Ceremonies. G. A. Dorsey and H. B. Yoth. Field Columbian
Museum, Chicago, 1902, p. 247-248.

152 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

out, not having left the hands of the priests, and for-
cibly 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 fol-
lowed one after another in quick succession. The
sight haunted me for weeks afterwards, 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 con-
tinued 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, fetiches, 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 thor-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 153

oughly 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 rep-
tiles the snake ti-po-ni 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 mo-
tion of the snake whips ceased, and all was silent.

On the previous day the Antelope society had cele-
brated its race and public dance, which duplicate those
of the Snake society, except that the former take first
place, and instead of snakes, the priests dance about,
the leader holding a bundle of cornstalks in the mouth.

Now comes the stirring dawn race of the Snake so-
ciety. The race is from a distant spring to the mesa
and is full of excitement, filling one with surprise at
the endurance of the runners. The winner will ar-
rive at the kiva, breathing more freely, perhaps, than
usual, but showing almost no traces of his strenuous
efforts, and will wait quietly for the award of the
prize. In the kiva meanwhile the priests have been
enacting a drama of the Snake legend.

After a few hours, when the sun is getting low, the
Antelope priests file out and after circling the plaza
stand in line awaiting the Snake priests, who advance
with tragic strides. They circle the plaza three times,
each stamping on a plank in front of the cottonwood

154 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

bower, kisi, to notify the denizens of the underworld
that a ceremony in their honor is progressing. They
face the Antelope chorus, the rattles tremble with a
sound like the warning of the rattlesnake, and a deep,
low-toned chant begins like a distant storm. The
chant increases in volume, the lines sway, then undu-
late backward and forward, and at last, in a culmi-
nating burst of the chant, the Snake men form in
groups of three and dance around the plaza with a
strange step like a restrained leap. The snakes have
been placed in the kisi in care of the passer hidden
among the boughs. As the trios in succession arrive
before the kisi the carrier drops to his knees, secures
a. snake which he grasps in his mouth, rises and dances
around in a circular path four times, when the snake
is dropped to the ground and is picked up with light-
ning rapidity by the third member of the trio who re-
tains the squirming reptile in his hands. Thus these
groups of demons circle until all the snakes have been
carried. The chant ceases; a priest draws a cloud
symbol in white meal on the rock floor of the mesa, and
with wild action the gatherers throw the snakes on
the meal; a fierce scramble ensues, and in a moment
one sees the priests running down the trails to deposit
their brothers among the rocks a mile or so away.

After all, no ceremony goes on in Hopiland without
the aid of the gentler sex. While the dance has focussed
the attention of every eye a group of maids and ma-
trons, neat and clean as to hair and costume, and hold-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 155

ing trays of sacred meal, have sprinkled the dancers
and snakes as they passed by. The Antelopes take up
their line, march around the plaza the required num-
ber of times, file away to their kiva, and the public
dance is over. Those who wish, however, go to the
mesa side to see the effects of the powerful emetic
taken by the Snake priests as a purification. At
Walpi, the old Snake Woman, Saalako, brews the medi-
cine, and she knows how many black bettles must be
stewed in this concoction of herbs. Last, but not least,
comes the feast consumed with the appetite of youth
amid general rejoicing if the August rain cumuli
burst over the fields. For several days after the
Snake Dance the young and not too old play jolly
conies the feast consumed with the appetite of youth,
childlike simplicity.

A bite from a venomous snake so rarely occurs that
there is no eye witness, so far as is known, to such
happening. The fangs are not extracted, nor are the
snakes stupefied. Careful handling and the herding
of the reptiles with others of their kind before the
ceremony perhaps give the explanation.

The Snake Ceremony, whose wild scenes rack the
nerves of the onlooker, is a prayer for rain and is based
on a legend whose sentiment might be appla.uded if
the other passive actors were not subject to an in-
stinctive enmity. Snakes are blood brothers of the
Hopi Snake clan.

The legend relates that a youth, having the curiosity

156 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

to know where the waters flowed, embarked in a hol-
low log, closed except a small orifice, and went down
the Great Colorado to its mouth, thus antedating the
perilous feat of Major Powell by a long time ! Here
he found the Spider Woman, who prompted him in
his dealings with the people living there. After many
strange adventures, during which he was taught the
rites now practiced by the Snake society, he won the
daughter of a Snake chief and brought her to his
country. The first fruits of this union were snakes,
who bit the Hopi and who were driven away on this
account. Later, children were human, and with them
originated the Snake clan, whose wanderings brought
them at last to Walpi ; and tradition affirms that they
were among the first arrivals there.

The Flute Ceremony, which alternates with the
Snake- Antelope Ceremony, is most pleasing and inter-
esting. Visitors to Hopiland in August of the proper
year are always charmed with the dramatic perform-
ance and beautiful songs of the Flute society. In Wal-
pi there is only one priesthood of the Flute, but in other
pueblos of the Middle Mesa and in Oraibi there are two,
one of the Blue Flute and the other of the Gray Flute.

On the first day the sand altar is made and at night
the songs are begun. Within the kiva the intermin-
able rites go on, and daily the cycle of songs accom-
panied 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

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 157

shrines, encircling the fields in his runs and coming
nearer the pueblo on each circuit. During the sev-
enth and eighth days a visit is made to three impor-
tant springs where ceremonies are held, and on the re-
turn 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 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 proces-
sion forms and winds down the trail to the spring in
order: a leader, the Snake maiden and two Snake
youths, the priests, and in the rear a costumed warrior
with bow and whizzer. At the spring they sit on the
north 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 the water, and
plants a prayer-stick in the muddy bottom. Then
taking a flute he again wades into the spring and

158 MESA POLK OF HOPILAND

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 on
the trail with white corn meal a line and across it
three cloud symbols. The Flute children throw the
offerings they hold in their hands upon the symbols
and advance to the symbols, followed by the priests
who sing to the sound of the flutes. The children pick
the offerings from the ground with sticks held in the
hand, and the same performance is repeated till
they stand again in the plaza on the mesa before the
cottonwood bower, when they sing melodious songs,
then disperse.

The Flute legend, of which the ceremony is a drama-
tization, relates that the Bear and Snake people in
early times lived along the Walpi. The Horn and
Flute people came that way and halted at a spring.
Not knowing whether other people lived in their neigh-
borhood, they sent out a spy who returned and re-
ported that he had seen traces of other peoples. The
Flute people set forth to find them, and so they came
to the Walpi houses, halting at the foot of the mesa
and moving up the trail, as in the ceremony, with songs
and the music of flutes.

The Walpi people had drawn a line of meal across
the trail, closing it from all comers, and demanded

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 159

whence the Flutes were going and what they desired.
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 they challenged the Flute people
as they stood before the line of meal and four times
this reply was given. Then the Walpians erased the
meal barrier and the Flutes passed into the pueblo, set
up their altar, sang the cloud-compelling songs and
brought the welcome rain. Then the Bear and Snake
chiefs said, "Surely your chief shall be one of our
chiefs."

It will be seen that this legend, collected by Dr. J.
Walter Fewkes, is enacted in the ceremony just de-
scribed. And the Flute priests also think they are
more successful rain makers than the Snake-Antelope
priests, and do not hesitate to so declare.5

In the September moon the Hopi women of five of
the pueblos hold a celebration of their own, which is
not the least interesting ceremony in the calendar.
It is called the Lalakonti, and like the other cere-
monies of this part of the year extends over nine days.
Sometimes it is called the Basket Dance — from the
great use made of the sacred plaques in the ceremony
— a quite appropriate use, since these baskets are pe-
culiarly the product of women 's taste and skill. The
details of the kiva rites, such as paho making, the con-

s The Walpi Flute Observance, Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Jour.
Am. Folk-Lore, Vol. 7, Oct.-Dec., 1894.

160 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

struction of a sand altar, initiation of novitiates, dis-
patching of messengers, songs, etc., need not be en-
tered into, since they belong to all the ceremonies and
have much in common.

On the morning of the fourth day, if one is up at the
faintest dawn he may see a procession emerging from
the kiva and marching single-file to deposit, with much
ceremony, offerings at a shrine. At six in the evening
of the eighth day a picturesque procession winds
down the trail among the rocks to the sacred spring,
where pahos are planted and rites performed. Then
comes the stirring event, the race up the trail to the
kiva. Under the supervision of an old priest an even
start is made and the women run up the trail. As
Hopi women in contrast with the men are stout, the
chances are that a lithe, clean-limbed young girl will
win the goal over her breathless sisters.

At daybreak on the ninth day the Lalakonti race is
eagerly awaited by the spectators and by the Lakone
maid, who stands gorgeously costumed, basket in her
hand, on the trail by which the runners will come.
As the dawn brightens, they may be seen, mere specks
on the trail over the plain, and soon they run up the
trail to the villages amid great excitement and ap-
plause for the winner. The priestesses have marched
to the dance plaza, where they form a circle, and as the
racers come they rush through the circle and this act
of the drama is over. Later in the day comes the
public dance, when the circle of priestesses, each car-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 161

rying a basket plaque, again forms in the plaza and
begins singing in chorus. The baskets are held in the
two hands with concave side to the front, and as the
song continues the women sway their bodies and raise
the baskets slowly, first to one breast, then to the
other, and finally bring them downward to a line with
the hips. In a short time two gorgeously decorated
maidens, wearing ceremonial blankets and having
bundles on their backs, advance within the circle.
All interest is centered in them as they untie their
bundles and stand for a moment at opposite sides of
the circle, holding up in their hands a basket, and
then crossing back and forth and exchanging places.
All at once they throw their baskets high in the air
and into the crowd of young men. Then begins a
titanic struggle that would put a football melee in the
shade. Fiercely they wrestle, till out of the squirm-
ing, perspiring, now ragged mass emerges the lucky
young man with a much damaged basket for his prize.
Sometimes these struggles last a long time, but there
is no slugging and no blood is spilt, and there is a
great deal of jollity. This closes the Lalakonti cere-
mony and the celebrants return to their homes to
take up their ordinary avocations. Supela is one of
the two men who aid the women in the Lalakonti
ceremony, and he also has an important place in the
Mamzrauti ceremony, described below, of which his
wife, Salako, is the chief priestess.

The Mamzrauti ceremony, held at the October moon,

162 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

is a harvest dance, and fortunate are the Hopi when
they can celebrate it with joyful heart and abund-
ant feasting. The Mamzrau resembles in many points
the Lalakonti, but the differences are more import-
ant. A sand picture is made, a frame of painted
slabs erected back of it, and fetiches placed around the
medicine bowl and sand picture. Novices are initi-
ated in a tedious ceremony lasting through several
days, and messengers are sent to springs and shrines to
deposit prayer-stick. There are ceremonial head
washings as in other ceremonies, and various secret
rites are performed in the kiva. On the fourth day
the final initiation of the novices takes place, and the
priestesses dance around a pile of peaches on the kiva
floor, and, what is more, enjoy a good feast of this
prized fruit. On the sixth day a public dance is held
by actors who imitate certain kachinas, and on the sev-
enth day, just at sunset, the priestesses, some disguised
as men, dance the spirited buffalo dance. On the
eighth day, disguised as clowns, they parade around
the pueblo and are attacked by the men who throw
water none too clean and various unpleasant things
upon them, and after much noise and fun, the women
run home.

There is no dawn race on the morning of the ninth
day, but early the priestesses hjave donned their cos-
tumes and assemble in the court where they dance and
throw green cornstalks among the men who crowd
around. Later in the day comes the concluding dance,

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 163

when the celebrants, holding gaily painted slabs of
wood in each hand, march into the plaza and form a
horseshoe figure with the opening toward the east.
From the kiva now come two women dressed as men,
having bows and arrows in their hands. As they ad-
vance they throw before them a package of corn husks
and shoot their arrows at it, the act representing light-
ning striking and fertilizing the fields. Thus they ad-
vance by stages to the circle of dancers and throw the
bundle in their midst, shooting at it, then shooting
two arrows in the air they return to the kiva. In a
few minutes they appear again, carrying trays of
dumplings of sweet corn meal which they toss one by
one to the eager spectators. Then the circle of dancers
disperse, but again and again throughout the day, the
distributors return to dispense their offerings. At
sunset, the sand pictures, fetiches, and altar slabs are
removed by Saalako and the Mamzrau is over.

At night there is a serenade by two parties of men,
each party singing loudly as though to drown the
voices of the other. This serenade is said to be in
honor of the women for their pious celebration of the
Mamzrau.6

One of the most complicated ceremonies of the Hopi
is the New Fire, which occurs in November at five of
the pueblos. Every fourth year the ceremony is ex-

<* The Marnzrauti : A Tusayan Ceremony, by J. Walter
Fewkes and A. M. Stephen, American Anthropologist, Vol.
5, No. 3, July, 1892.

164 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

tended by the initiation of novices, but in ordinary
years it is abbreviated. Four societies take part and
these include almost every male adult in the villages,
so there is no lack of performers.

The first event that is noteworthy is the making of
new fire by two of the societies. Two pairs of fire
makers each place a piece of cottonwood on the kiva
floor and drill upon it with a slender rod revolved be-
tween the palms of the hands, until the friction of the
drill on the wood ignites the dust which has been
ground off. The little coal of fire is fed with shredded
bark until flame is produced ; from this the fuel on the
kiva fireplace is lighted and with a bark fuse is carried
to the kivas of the three other societies. This fire is
sacred and no one may blow upon it, or take a light
from it, and after the end of the ceremony it is suf-
fered to go out and the ashes are thrown over the mesa
with prescribed rites. Sacrifices of pine needles are
made to the sacred fire soon after it is kindled. Most
of the Hopi are familiar with the ancient method of
making fire by the friction of wood, and it is not many
years since they knew no other way. Now matches
of a particularly sulphurous variety are easy to get,
and the primitive fire drill is in force only in the
New Fire ceremony.

From day to day there are processions of the cele-
brating societies, who dance through the pueblo, form-
ing a line with locked hands and moving with a side-
long halting step forward and backward, while the

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 165

women from the houses drench them with water and
shout rude jests. At night there are patrols of the
celebrants, who ring cowbells or beat on tin cans and
make night hideous. The novices take their nocturnal
rounds at breakneck speed led by a priest, somewhat
in the way of a college initiation. These poor fellows
have a hard life of fasting and vigils; one of their
ordeals is to go to a mountain about fifteen miles away
to dig soap root and white earth with which they
return gaunt and worn.

This ceremony presents more life and public exhi-
bition than almost any other in Hopiland, hence a de-
scription of it in brief compass is impossible. To an
onlooker it must exhibit a chaos of acts by the four
powerful fraternities that perform it, a bewildering
pageant by day and alarms and sallying forth by
night, with rites also in progress in all the kivas.

The meaning of the New Fire Ceremony is obscure,
but it seems in our present knowledge to be a prayer
to the Germ God for fertility of human beings, animals,
and crops. The Germ Gods, earth gods, and fire gods
are to be placated and honored by these rites, and no
doubt the new fire ceremonies of all times and peoples
were held with such intent, for the relation of life and
fire was a philosophic observation of the remote past.
With this ceremony the round of the year has been
finished and the Hopi are ready to begin again.7

7 The Naac-nai-ya. By J. Walter Fewkes and A. M.
Stephen; Jour. American Folk-Lore, Vol. 5, 1892. The Tusa-

166 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

The Yayawimpkia are fire priests who heal by fire.
They are experts in the art of making fire by drilling
with a stick on a bit of wood and they perform this
act in the Sumaikoli or Little New Fire Ceremony.
There are few of them remaining, and their services
are sometimes called for when a burn is to be treat-
ed, or some such matter. One woman whose breast
had been blistered by a too liberal application
of kerosene was healed by the Yaya, who filled his
mouth with soot and spurted the fluid over the burn,
the theory of the Yaya being that wounds made by
fire should be checked by fire or the products of fire.

The Yaya priests are supposed to be able to bring
to life people who have been killed in accidents.
There is a story that a man who was pushed off the
high mesa upon the rocks below was restored to his
friends by the magical power of the Yaya. Other
fabulous stories, always placed among the happenings
of the past, tell of the wonderful doings of the Yaya.
The Hopi relate that one Yaya standing at the edge
of the mesa said : ' ' Do you see that butte over yon-
der [the Giant's Chair, 30 miles distant] ; it is black,
is it not ? I will paint it white. ' ' So with a lump of
kaolin the Yaya made magical passes skyward, and be-
hold, the mountain was white ! A brother Yaya said,

yan New Fire Ceremony, by J. Walter Fewkes; Proc. Boat.
Society Nat. Hist., Vol. 26, 1895. The New Fire Ceremony at
Walpi, by J. Walter Fewkes; Am. Anthropologist (N. S.), Vol.
2, Jan., 1900.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 167

"I will make it black again!" So with soot he made
magical passes horizonward, and behold, the butte re-
sumed again its natural color !

Notwithstanding the style of these stories, of which
there are many, the fire-priests do perform wonderful
feats of juggling and legerdemain, especially in win-
ter when abbreviated ceremonies are held. On ac-
count of these performances of sleight-of-hand and
deception the Hopi are renowned as jugglers and have
a reputation extending far and wide over the South-
west.

Besides the Yaya there are many other medicine
men, or shamans, who relieve persons afflicted by sor-
cerers.

The sufferer believes that a sorcerer has shot with
his span-long bow an old turquoise bead or arrowhead
into some part of his body. He, therefore, summons
one of his shamans to relieve him. A single shaman
is called Tu hi ky a, ' * the one who knows by feeling or
touching. ' ' The first treatment adopted to relieve the
sufferer is to pass an eagle feather, held by the shaman
in his fingers, over the body of the afflicted person un-
til the shaman asserts he feels and locates the missile.

The term applied to more than one of these shamans
is Poboctu or eye seekers. In the concluding part of
the conjuring, in which more than one person usually
engages, the shamans move around peering and gazing
everywhere, until they determine the direction in
which the malign influence lies. I have been in-
formed by Mr. Stephen that he saw them engaged over
a victim in Sitcumovi many years ago and that they

168 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

cleverly pretended to take out of the sufferer 's breast
a stone arrowhead half the size of the hand.8

One may chance to see, even yet, a patient being
treated for headache or some minor ailment. The
method is very like massage, the eyebrows, forehead,
temples and root of the nose being rubbed with
straight strokes or passes, with occasional pressure at
certain points, while a preternatural gravity is main-
tained by the operator.

The Hopi ideas and customs as to animals connected
with their religious observances form an interesting
and picturesque feature of their life. An account of
some of the more striking customs in this regard fol-
laws :

A few years ago a story went the rounds about a
Hopi and his eagle which a Navaho had taken. It was
related that the Hopi hurried to the agent with his
grievance and secured a written order commanding
the Navaho to restore the bird. With considerable
temerity the Hopi presented the "talk paper" to the
lordly Navaho, and as might have been expected got no
satisfaction. This story produced a great deal of
amusement at the time, but no one realized that there
was embodied history, folk-lore, religious custom, tribal
organization, archeology, and a number of other mat-
ters recently made clear by Dr. J. Walter Fewkes.9

8 Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Journal of American Ethnology
and Archaeology, Vol. II, Boston, 1892, p. 157.

9 Property-Right in Eagles among the Hopi ; Am. Anthro-
pologist, N. S., Vol. II, Oct.-Dec., 1900.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 169

It transpired that the Navaho had not bodily and
by force seized an eagle which the Hopi had captured
by his craft, though one not knowing the relations be-
tween those desert neighbors might have so thought.
On the contrary, the Navaho had taken the eagle from
an eyrie on a mountain many miles away from the
Hopi villages, not dreaming of poaching on anyone's
preserves.

He would probably care as little to know that the
Snake clan claims the eagle nests near their old village
of Tokonabi to the north of Walpi; the Horn clan
those to the northeast ; the Firewood clan those at the
upper end of Keam's Canyon; the Bear clan those at
the mouth of the same canyon ; the Tobacco clan those
on the crags of Awatobi ; the Rain Cloud clan the nests
in the Moki Buttes ; the Reed clan those in the region
of their old town forty miles north of Navajo Springs
on the Santa Fe railroad ; the Lizard clan the nests on
Bitahuchi or Red Rocks, about forty miles south of
Walpi; or that the eagle nests west of the pueblos
along the Little Colorado and Great Colorado belong
to the Oraibi and Middle Mesa villagers. He would
disdain the fact that one cannot meddle with eagles
within forty or fifty miles of the Hopi towns without
trespassing on property rights.

The curious fact comes out that these eagle preserves
are near the place of ancient occupancy of the clans,
and show in a most interesting way the lines of migra-
tion by which the several clans traveled to the vil-

170 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

lages where they now live. These rights are jealously
guarded by the Hopi and are one of the sore spots in
their relations with the Navaho; they frequently ask
to have the Government define their eagle reservations
by survey to establish the boundaries free from moles-
tation.

It may be well to say here that the eagle is a Hopi
sacred bird and one of the most important. Its
feathers, like those of the turkey, parrot, and other
birds, are of especial use in the religious ceremonies.
The downy plumes moving at the faintest breath are
thought to be efficacious in carrying to the nature
gods the prayers of their humble worshippers.

Among the sacred hunts that of the eagle was one
of the most ancient as well as important. Small cir-
cular stone towers about four feet in height were
built and across the top were laid beams to which were
tied dead rabbits as a bait. Perhaps the mysterious
towers of the Mancos and of the north in Colorado
may be explained in this light. Within the tower the
hunter hid after a ceremonial head washing symbolic
of purification, and the deposit of a prayer-offering at
a shrine. The eagle, attracted by the rabbits, circled
around and at last launched himself upon his prey.
When he had fastened his talons in a rabbit the con-
cealed hunter reached through the beams and grasped
the king of the air by the legs and made him captive,
taking him to the village where a cage was provided
for his reception. At each hunt one eagle was lib-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 171

crated after a prayer-stick had been tied to his thigh
in the belief that the bird would carry the prayer to
the mighty beings with whom he was supposed to be
on familiar terms.

This describes the method pursued formerly and
which some of the old men have witnessed. Now the
Hopi eagle hunters take upon themselves the difficult
and somewhat hazardous task of visiting the eyries
to seize the eaglets. Not all are taken from the nest,
since a wise prohibition requires that some be left to
continue the species. The eaglets are brought to the
pueblo, where their heads are washed with due cere-
mony, and they are sprinkled with sacred meal. Then
the feathers are plucked out and the birds are killed
by pressure on the breastbone so as not to shed blood,
and they are buried in a special cemetery in a cleft
among the rocks where a few stones are put upon the
bodies after the ritual. At the close of the ceremony
of the departure of the gods, called the Niman, or Fare-
well ceremony, small painted wooden dolls and little
bows and arrows are placed upon the eagle graves and
liberally sprinkled with sacred meal.

But this does not end the Hopi eagle customs. Near
the school at Dawapa, below "Walpi, one may stumble
upon a collection of oval objects of wood, placed
among rocks, some weathered and some bearing traces
of spots of white paint and feathers. He may learn
also that this is an eagle shrine and that these wooden
eggs are prayers for the increase of eagles prepared

172 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

during the Soyaluna or Winter Solstice ceremony.
At present figurines of the domestic animals are also
offered for the same purpose. Perhaps we have here
a step toward the domestication of animals which was
carried out with the turkey, parrot, and dog. In any
case, however, there is shown the veneration of the
Hopi for the birds of the air and especially the eagle,
which is honored in the symbols of so many peoples.

Among the sacred animals of the Hopi the turkey is
of great importance. 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 bring-
ing rain. The ^Spanish Conquerors of the sixteenth
century when they visited the pueblos spoke of * ' cocks
with great hanging chins" they saw there, and this is
the first notice of the bird for which the world is in-
debted to America. In the villages turkeys roam
around without restraint and become household pets.
Sometimes also they dispute the entrance of a village
by a stranger and put him to a great deal of annoy-
ance by their attacks, which are usually in the nature
of a surprise from the rear. At present the Hopi
keep them for their feathers, which are plucked as oc-
casion requires, so that the village turkey commonly
has a ragged appearance.

There were ceremonial antelope hunts before cattle
and horses destroyed the grass on the ranges and while

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 173

these members of the deer tribe were plentiful. One
of the most beautiful flowers of the Southwest, the
scarlet gilia, is thought to be especially liked by the
antelope, and tradition says that for this reason the
hunter formerly ground up the flowers with sacred
meal and made offerings with it for success in hunting
that graceful animal. Remains of extensive stake
fences and corrals built by the Navaho for driving
the antelope are to be seen south of the Hopi Reserva-
tion. One of these is called the ' ' Chindi corral, ' ' be-
cause the Navaho say that in the last great hunt those
who ate of the antelope captured were made sick and
many died. Hence no Navaho will camp in this be-
witched corral or use a piece of the wood for camp
fires, no matter how great the necessity.

The Hopi sometimes hunted the antelope by driving,
but usually relied on surprise, fleetness of foot, the
bow and arrow, and the boomerang. No doubt the
deer and great elk were ceremonially hunted in the
old days of tradition. There is little reason to believe
that the Hopi vegetarians have for centuries gained
more than a flavor of animal food to vary their diet.
Formerly the antelope must have been more impor-
tant, though always difficult to capture. Now, the
Hopi perforce hunt rabbits, as the tabo or cottontail
and the sowi or jaekrabbit alone of all the game ani-
mals survive in this region.

If one chances to see a hunting party set out or to
encounter them in active chase he will have a novel

174 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

experience and wonder what all the screaming, bark-
ing of dogs, and running hither and thither mean, if
he does not fear that he has met the Peaceful People
on the warpath. The hunters smeared with clay pre-
sent a strange appearance. In their hands they carry
bow and arrows, boomerangs of oak, and various clubs
and sticks. One of the party is delegated to carry the
rabbits, and he usually rides a burro. In and out
among the rocks of the mesa sides they skirmish like
coyotes and with quite as fiendish noise. Rabbits
have little chance unless they take to earth, and even
then the Hopi stop to dig or twist them out. Such a
hunt means sixty or seventy miles, perhaps, of hard
work before the hunters dash up the home mesa with
their game to "feed the eagles " or for some other
ceremonial purpose.

Some of the ceremonial hunts bring out as many as
a hundred Hopi, and in such case those on horse or bur-
ro or afoot drive the rabbits into a narrowing circle and
close in with an exciting melee that displays more en-
ergy than a football game. If for any reason the rab-
bits are scarce and the result of a hunt is small, the
Hopi return somewhat dejected and have little to say,
but if the sowimaktu has been a success they make a
triumphant entry with much shouting and exultant
song.

In walking about the pueblos one sees many things
connected with the religious life of the Hopi, especial-
ly shrines. An account of the more notable of these
may prove of interest.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 175

It is not often granted one to stand at the center of
the world. The feeling ought not to he different from
that occasioned hy standing at any other place on the
earth, but in the presence of the shrine hy which the
Walpians mark that mysterious spot a number of in-
quiries spring up in the mind. At Jerusalem, at
Mecca, and at perhaps a hundred other places are au-
thentic earth centers, each fixed by edicts of church or
the last word of wise men and upheld against all
comers. The disputes over the center of the world in
the times before men knew that the world was round
are amusing to enlightened nineteenth century people.

The Hopi felt the need of an earth center just as
other benighted folks did in early times, so beneath
the mesa cliffs among the rocks they placed their shrine
and bestowed their offerings. Just what the Hopi be-
lieve about this particular shrine no doubt would be
very interesting.

Other shrines abound near each pueblo and are
likely to be happened upon in out-of-the-way places
among the rocks where the offerings are scattered
about, some new with fresh paint and feathers and
some much weather-worn. Near the Sun Spring at
Walpi there is a spot where many rounded blocks of
wood lie on the ground. This is the Eagle Shrine and
the bits of wood represent eagle eggs ; the green paint
and cotton string with the prayer feather decorating
them soon disappear in the sun and wind.

While it is not good policy to pry around these

176 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

sacred places, knowing that the keen eyes of the Hopi
watch from the mesa top, yet casually some of the
more interesting shrines may be visited.

At the point of the Walpi mesa where the old town
stood several centuries ago, are several shrines, to one
of which the kachinas after the ceremonies go in order
to deposit their wreaths of pine brought from the San
Francisco Mountains and to make "breath-feather"
offerings of paint and meal. Here also they make
offerings of food to the dead. At another spot the
bushes are hung with little disks of painted gourd,
each with a feather representing the squash flower.

A heap of small stones is a Mas a uah shrine, and a
stone is added by each one who passes as an offering
to the terrible god of the earth, death, and fire. No
orthodox Hopi would dare to omit throwing a stone
accompanied with a prayer to Masauah, of whom all
speak in fear and with bated breath. For a good rea-
son, then, many shrines to this god may be seen in
Hopiland, as it is necessary to appease this avenging
being.

Everyone who goes to Walpi sees the great shrine in
the gap which is called the l ' shrine of the end of the
trail." The base and sides are large slabs of stone,
and within are various odd-shaped stones surrounding
a coiled fossil believed by the Hopi to be a stone ser-
pent. During the winter Sun ceremony this whole
stone box blossoms with feathered prayer-sticks, al-
most hiding the shrine, and converting it into a thing
of beauty.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 177

Other holy places, most of them ruins of abandoned
towns, are visited at times by this people, who cheer-
fully make long journeys to mountains and running
streams for sacred water, pine boughs, or herbs. They
carry with them feather prayer-sticks and sacred meal
as offerings to the gods of the place. One of the
streams from which holy water is brought is Clear
Creek near the town of Winslow, seventy-five miles
south of Walpi.

Each field has a shrine and pahos are often seen
there; this is also the custom among the Zuni and
other of the Pueblos. In the center of the main plaza
of each pueblo may be seen a stone box with a slab of
stone for a door which opens to the east. This is
called the pahoki, or "house of the pahos," the central
shrine of the village, and it is carefully sealed up when
not in use.

It is to be expected that the shrines of the ancient
pueblos would have vanished, and it is true that such
remains are the rarest encountered in exploring ruins.
Still a few traces reward a careful search in the out-
skirts of many of the ruins. A shrine made of slabs
of stone painted with symbolic designs of the rain
cloud was found at the ancient town of Awatobi, and
is now in the National Museum.

In caves and rock recesses of the mesas are depos-
its of the sacred belongings of the societies. These
places, while not shrines perhaps, are kept inviolably
sacred, and no curious white visitors have peered into

178 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

them, even those highest in the good graces of the
priests.

Once by chance two explorers came upon such a
treasure house and with some trepidation took a photo-
graph of it. In a dark cleft under the rocks were
the jars in which the "snake medicine *' is carried,
These were arranged without much order near a most
remarkable carved stone figure of Talatumsi, the
* ' dawn goddess, ' ' painted and arrayed in the costume
of that deity. In truth, this little cavern had a grue-
some look, and knowing also the prohibition against
prying, one breathed more freely on getting away
from the neighborhood.

Though the Hopi may have no house shrines, and
this is said with caution, because not much is known of
their domestic life, yet in some of the houses are rude
stone images which are venerated. These images may
be household gods like the Lares and Penates of the
ancients. No one would be surprised to know that
the Hopi hold the fireplace sacred and make sacrifice
to it as the shrine of Masauah, the dread ruler of the
underworld.

So while our towns have interesting churches and
historical buildings, none of them can compete with
the high houses of the Hopi surrounded by primitive
shrines to the nature gods, who, in their simple belief,
protect the people and send the rains which insure
abundant harvests.

VIII
MYTHS

As yet the myths of the Hopi have not been sys-
tematically collected, hence our view of the deeper
workings of the Hopi mind is a limited one. No ob-
server familiar with the language has lived with the
Good People in order to hear from the wrinkled sages
the tales of beginnings and the explanations of things
that must be stored in their minds, if the fragmentary
utterances that are extant may give indication. A
few myths collated principally from the writings of
Dr. J. Walter Fewkes are given as examples, display-
ing the range and depth of the imagination of these
Indians.16

In the early days when the world was young, many
monsters, most of whom were hostile to man, roamed
the earth or infested the sky, and particularly
harassed the Hopi. These monsters were gigantic in
size and possessed special weapons of tremendous
power to assist them in their supernatural craft.
Long the people groaned under the ravages of the

10 Since writing this Rev. H. R. Voth has published a valua-
ble collection of folk- tales and myths. Field Mus. Pub. 96.

180 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

monsters, and the time and manner of their deliver-
ance they delight to recount in many weird stories
during the winter nights by their flickering fires of
piiion wood.

In the earth lived the Spider Woman, ancient of
days, full of wisdom, and having a tender regard for
her people, the Hopi. Born to her from a light-ray
and a drop of rain were the Twins; one, the son of
light, was the little war-god called the Youth; the
other was Echo, the son of the cloud.

The Youth became the savior of the people; his
heroic deeds of the old times in slaying the monsters
cause him still to be held in reverence by the Hopi
and remembered in their ceremonies.

The conquests of the Twins gave rise to many
strange adventures. The transformation of the man-
eagle by the Twins is a favorite legend of the Hopi.

In the above, in the heart of the sky, lived the
Man-Eagle. On the people of the whole earth he
swooped down, carrying aloft women and maidens
to his house, where after four days he devoured them.
The Youth, journeying to the San Francisco Moun-
tains, met at the foot-hills the Piiion maids dressed
in mantles of piiion bark and grass, and here like-
wise he met the Spider Woman and the Mole. ' ' You
have come, ' ' said they in greeting ; ' ' sit down ; whence
go you?" Then said the Youth, "Man-Eagle has
carried away my bride and I seek to bring her back."
"I will aid you," said the Spider Woman.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 181

She bade the Pinon maids to gather pinon gum,
wash it, and make a garment in exact imitation of
the flint arrow head armor which rendered Man-
Eagle invulnerable. So did they, and the Spider
Woman gave it, with charm flour, to the Youth. As a
spider, then, so small as to be invisible, she perched
on the right ear of the Youth that she might whisper
advice. Mole led the way to the top of the moun-
tains, but the Pinon maids remained behind.

When they reached the summit, Eagle swooped
down ; they got on his back and he soared aloft with
them till he was tired. Hawk came close by, and on
his back he carried them still higher in the sky. When
he was weary, Gray Hawk took them and mounted to
the heavens with them till he could go no farther, and
Red Hawk received the burden ; thus, for an immense
distance, upward they flew, until the adventurers
reached a chasm in the sky through which the Youth,
Spider Woman, and Mole passed, and saw the great
white house in which Man-Eagle lived.

The ladder which led into the house had for rungs
sharp flint knives. The Spider Woman advised the
Youth, before mounting the ladder, to gather a hand-
ful of sumach berries and give them to Lizard, who
received them with thanks, chewed them and gave
him back the cud. The Youth rubbed the sharp rungs
with the chewed berries and they became dull at once,
and he was able to climb the ladder without cutting
himself. When he entered the house of Man-Eagle

182 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

he saw hanging the monster's flint arrow head armor,
on a peg in a recess, and he at once exchanged it for
the false armor the Pinon maids had given him. In
another recess he saw Man-Eagle and his lost wife.
He called out to her that he had come to rescue her
from the monster, and she replied that she was glad,
but that he could not do so, as no one ever left the
place alive. The Youth replied, "Have no fear; you
will soon he mine a gain. "

The Spider Woman's charm was so powerful that
the Man-Eagle did not hear what was said, hut he
soon awoke, and put on the imitation flint armor with-
out detecting the fraud. He then for the first time
became aware of the Youth's presence, and demanded
what he wished. "I have come to take my wife
home," answered the hero. Man-Eagle said, "We
must gamble to decide that, and if you lose I shall
slay you," to which the Youth agreed. Man-Eagle
brought out a huge pipe, larger than a man's head,
and having filled it with tobacco, gave it to the hero,
saying, "You must smoke this entirely out, and if
you become dizzy or nauseated, you lose." So the
Youth lit the pipe and smoked, but exhaled nothing.
He kept the pipe aglow and swallowed all the smoke
and felt no ill effect, for he passed it through his
body into an underground passageway that Mole had
dug. Man-Eagle was amazed and asked what had be-
come of the smoke. The Youth, going to the door,
showed him great clouds of dense smoke issuing from

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 183

the four cardinal points, and the monster saw that he
had lost.

But Man-Eagle tried a second time with the hero.
He brought two deer-antlers, saying, "We will each
choose one, and he who fails to break the one he
chooses loses/' The antler which he laid down on the
northwest side was a real antler, but that on the
southeast was an imitation made of brittle wood.
Spider Woman prompted the Youth to demand the
first choice, but Man-Eagle refused him that right.
After the youth had insisted four times, Man-Eagle
yielded, and the hero chose the brittle antler and tore
its prongs asunder, but Man-Eagle could not break
the real antler, and thus lost a second time.

Man-Eagle had two fine, large pine trees growing
near his house, and said to the hero, ' ' You choose one
of these trees and I will take the other, and whoever
plucks one up by the roots shall win." Now Mole
had burrowed under one of them and had gnawed
through all its roots, cutting them off; and had run
through his tunnel and was sitting at its mouth, peer-
ing through the grass, anxious to see the Youth win.
The hero, with the help of his grandmother, chose the
tree that Mole had prepared and plucked it up, and
threw it over the cliff, but Man-Eagle st niggled with
the other tree and could not move it, so he was un-
happy in his third defeat.

Then Man-Eagle spread a great supply of food on
the floor and said to the Youth that he must eat all

184 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

at one sitting. The Youth sat and ate all the meat,
bread, and porridge, emptying one food basin after
another, and showed no sign of being satisfied before
all was consumed ; for Mole had again aided him and
dug a large hole below to receive it, and the Youth
was a winner the fourth time.

Man-Eagle then made a great wood-pile and direct-
ed the Youth to sit upon it, saying he would ignite it
and that if he were unharmed he would submit him-
self to the same test. The Youth took his allotted
place, and Man-Eagle set fire to the pile of wood at
the four cardinal points, and it speedily was ablaze.
The arrow-heads of which the flint armor was made
were coated with ice, which melted so that water
trickled down and prevented the Youth from being
burnt, and all the wood-pile was consumed, leaving
the Youth unharmed.

The monster was filled with wonder and grieved
very much when he saw the Youth making another
great pile of wood. Still thinking that he wore his
fire-proof suit, he mounted the wood-pile, which the
Youth lit at the four cardinal points. The fuel blazed
up, and as soon as the fire caught the imitation armor
of gum, it ignited with a flash and the monster was
consumed. At the prompting of the Spider Woman,
the Youth approached the ashes, took the charm in his
mouth, and spurted it over them, when suddenly a
handsome man arose. The Spider Woman said to him,
"Will you refrain from killing people, and will you

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 185

forsake your evil habits?'7 The Man-Eagle assented
with a fervent promise, and the Youth, rejoicing, ran
to his wife, embraced her, and set free all the captive
women wives of the Hopi and other peoples, of whom
there were many. Eagle and Hawk carried them to
the ground on their broad pinions.

Over the plains and through the mountains roamed
the Giant Elk. Many times larger was he than an
ordinary elk, and an enemy to the Hopi, whom he
slew with his great horns, laughing at their arrows
and flint knives.

No one was safe from this roaming monster, enemy
to living beings, so the Twins set out to have a trial of
strength and skill with him. As it chanced, the Giant
Elk was lying down in a beautiful valley, under the
aspen trees of the San Francisco Mountains. Near
the house of the Youths was this valley, and as they
sought to stalk the Giant Elk the Mole met them and
said, "Do not encounter him, for he is mighty and
may kill you; wait here and I will help you."

The Mole then excavated four chambers in the earth,
one below another, and made the Twins remain in the
upper one. He dug a long tunnel and coming up
under the Elk, plucked a little soft hair from over his
heart, at which the Elk turned his head and looked
down, but the Mole said, ' ' Be not angry, I only want
a little soft hair to make a bed for my children. ' ' So
the Elk allowed him to continue the plucking. But
the Mole took away enough fur to leave the skin quite

186 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

bare over the heart, and expose the Elk to death. He
then returned to the Twins and told them what he
had done, and they threw bolts of lightning and
wounded the Elk, who sprang to his feet and charged
fiercely. But the Twins concealed themselves in the
upper chamber, and when the Elk tried to gore them
his horns were not long enough ; again he charged, and
thrust his horns downward, but the Twins had safely
retreated to the second chamber; again he tried to
reach them, but they were safe in the third room.
They retreated to the fourth chamber, and when the
Elk made another attempt he fell dead.

The Chipmunk who had witnessed the fight hurried
up, and after thanking the Twins said he had come to
show them how to cut up the monster's body, which
with his sharp teeth he soon accomplished. One of
the Twins thanked Chipmunk, and, stooping, he
dipped the tips of the first two fingers of his right
hand in the Elk's blood and drawing them along the
body of the Chipmunk, made on it the marks which
he still bears.

This is the story of how the Twins killed Chaveyo,
who was a giant of the old times, clad in armor made
of flint and seeking always for people to devour.

One day the Twins wrent to a great pool near Mt.
Taylor, and soon Chaveyo came there likewise; he
knelt down and drank four times, empting the pool.
He then arose and smelt the Twins and threw his
weapon at them, but one of the Twins sprang in

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 187

the air and as the weapon passed under him he
caught it in his hand. Chaveyo then flung his light-
ning at the hero, but one of the Twins caught this
as he had the weapon. The little war-god now flung
his weapon at Chaveyo, but it glanced off his flint
shirt. Then the Youth threw the lightning, but it
only staggered him. After this they threw more
lightning at Chaveyo, which knocked him down and
killed him outright.

Another story tells how the Twins visited the sun.

The Twins lived with Spider Woman, their mother,
on the west side of Mt. Taylor, and desired to see the
home of their father. Spider Woman gave them as a
charm a kind of meal, and directed that when they met
the guardians of the home of the Sun, to chew a little
and spurt it upon them.

The Twins journeyed far to the sunrise where the
Sun's home is entered through a canyon in the sky.
There Bear, Mountain Lion, Snake, and Canyon Clos-
ing keep watch. The sky is solid in this place, and the
walls of the entrance are constantly opening and clos-
ing, and would crush any iinauthorized person who
attempted to pass through.

As the Twins approached the ever-fierce watchers,
the trail lay along a narrow way; they found it led
them to a place on one side of which was the face of a
vertical cliff, and on the other a precipice which sunk
sheer to the Below (Underworld). An old man sat
there, with his back against the wall and his knees

188 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

drawn up close to his chin. When they attempted to
pass, the old man suddenly thrust out his legs, trying
to knock the passers over the cliff. But they leaped
back and saved themselves, and in reply to a protest
the old man said his legs were cramped and he simply
extended them for relief. Whereupon the hero re-
membered the charm which he had for the southwest
direction, and spurted it upon the old man, forcing
the malignant old fellow to remain quite still with legs
drawn up, until the Twins had passed.

They then went on to the watchers, guardians of the
entrance to the Sun 's house, whom they subdued in the
same manner. They also spurted the charm on the
sides of the cliff, so that it ceased its oscillations and
remained open until they had passed.

These dangers being past, they entered the Sun's
house and were greeted by the Sun's wife, who laid
them on a bed of mats. Soon Sun came home from
his trip through the underworld, saying,

I smell strange children here; when men go away
their wives receive the embraces of strangers. Where
are the children whom you have ?

So she brought the Twins to him, and he put them
in a flint oven and made a hot fire. After a while,
when he opened the door of the oven, the Twins
capered out laughing and dancing about his knees,
and he knew that they were his sons.11

it From ' * The Destruction of the Tusayan Monsters, ' ' by
J. Walter Fewkes; Journ. Amer. Folk-Lore, April- June, 1895,
pp. 136-137.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 189

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes says:

The Hopi, like many people, look back to a mythic
time when they believe their ancestors lived in a l ' par-
adise," a state or place where food (corn) was plenty
and rains abundant — a world of perpetual summer
and flowers. Their legends recount how, when corn
failed or rains ceased, culture heroes have sought this
imaginary or ideal ancestral home to learn the * ' medi-
cine" which blessed this happy land. Each sacerdotal
society tells the story of its own hero, who generally
brought from that land a bride who transmitted to
her son the knowledge of the altars, songs, and prayers
which forced the crops to grow and the rains to fall in
her native country. To become thoroughly conversant
with the rites he marries the maid, since otherwise at
his death they would be lost, as knowledge of the
"medicine" is transmitted not through his clan, but
to the child of his wife. So the Snake hero brought
the Snake maid (Corn-rain girl) from the underworld,
the Flute hero, her sister, the Little War God the
Lakone mana. A Katcina hero, in the old times, on
a rabbit hunt, came to a region where there was no
snow. There he saw other Katcina people dancing
amidst beautiful gardens. He received melons from
them and carrying them home told a strange story of
a people who inhabited a country where there were
flowering plants in midwinter. The hero and a com-
rade were sent back and they stayed with these people,
returning home loaded with fruit during February.
They had learned the songs of those with whom they
had lived and taught them in the kiva of their own
people.12

i;2 The Journ. Amer. Eth. and Arch., Vol. II, p. 152. The
Kachina hero in this story would appear not to have brought a
wife from this people.

190 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Most of the migration traditions are full of mythic
elements which have been incorporated with what has
often been found to be veritable history. One of these,
recounting the wanderings of certain Southern clans,
is given by Dr. Fewkes.

At the Red House in the south internecine wars pre-
vailed, and the two branches of the Patki people sep-
arated from the other Hopi and determined to return
to the fatherland in the north. But these two branches
were not on the best of terms, and they traveled north-
ward by separate routes, the (later settlers of) Mico-
ninovi holding to the east of the (later settlers of)
Walpi.

The Patki traveled north until they came to the
Little Colorado River, and built houses on its banks.
After living there many years the factional dissen-
sions, which seem to have ever haunted these people,
again broke out, and the greater portion of them with-
drew still farther north and built villages the ruins of
which are still discernable not far from the site of the
villages their descendants inhabit at present.

The Squash (Miconinovi) also trended slowly north-
ward, occupying, like all their legendary movements,
a protracted period of indefinite length — years dur-
ing which they planted and built homes alternating
with years of devious travel. They grew lax in the
observance of festivals, and Muinwu inflicted punish-
ment upon them. He caused the water to turn red,
and the color of the people also turned red; he then
changed the water to blue, and the people changed to
a similar color. The Snow katcina appeared and
urged them to return to their religion, but they gave
no heed to him, so he left them and took away corn.

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 191

Muinwu then sent Palulukon who killed rabbits and
poured their blood in the springs and streams, and all
the water was changed to blood and the people were
stricken with a plague. They now returned to their
religious observances, and danced and sang, but none
of the deities would listen to them.

A horned katcina appeared to the oldest woman and
told her that on the following morning the oldest man
should go out and procure a root, and that she and a
young virgin of her clan should eat it. After a time
she (the old woman) would give birth to a son who
would marry the virgin, and their offspring would re-
deem the people. The old woman and the virgin
obeyed the katcina, and the former gave birth to a son
who had two horns upon his head. The people would
not believe that the child was of divine origin; they
called it a monster and killed it.

After this all manner of distressing punishments
were inflicted upon them, and wherever they halted,
the grass immediately withered and dried. Their
wanderings brought them to the foot of the San Fran-
cisco Mountains, where they dwelt for a long time,
and at that place the virgin gave birth to a daughter
who had a little knob on each side of her forehead.
They preserved this child, and when she had grown to
be a woman, the horned katcina appeared and an-
nounced to her that she would give birth to horned
twins, who would bring rain and remove the punish-
ment from their people. This woman was married,
and the twins, a boy and a girl, were born; but she
concealed their divine origin, fearing they would be
destroyed.

The Patun (Squash) now moved to the Little Colo-
rado, where they built houses and met some of the

192 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Patki people to whom they related their distresses. A
wise man of the Patki came over to see them, and on
seeing the twins at once pronounced them to be the
Alosaka. They had no horns up to this time, but as
soon as this announcement was made, their horns be-
came visible and the twins then spoke to the people
and said it had been ordained that they were to be
unable to help their people until the people themselves
discovered who they were. The Patun were so en-
raged to think that the Alosaka had been with them,
unknown so many years, that they killed them, and
still greater sufferings ensued.

They again repented, and carved two stone images
of the Alosaka which they painted and decked with
feathers and sought to propitiate the mother. She
was full of pity for her people and prayed to the Sky-
god to relieve them. A period elapsed in which their
troubles were in great measure abated.

The Patun then sought to join the Patki clans, but
the Patki would not permit this, and compelled them
to keep east of Awatobi.

Many ruins of phratry and family houses of the
Patun people exist on the small watercourses north of
the Puerco at various distances eastward from the
present village of Walpi. The nearest are almost fif-
teen miles, the farthest about fifty miles.

Their wandering course was now stayed. When
they essayed to move farther eastward, a nomadic
hunting race who occupied that region besought them
not to advance farther. Their evil notoriety had pre-
ceded them, and the nomads feared the maleficent in-
fluence of their neighborhood. It would seem, how-
ever, that instead of hostile demonstrations the nomads
entered into a treaty with them, offering to pay tribute

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 193

of venison, roots, and grass-seeds, if they would ab-
stain from traversing and blighting their land, to
which the Patun agreed.

But these unfortunate wretches were soon again
embroiled in factional warfare which finally involved
all the Hopi, and the stone images of the Alosaka were
lost or destroyed. Famine and pestilence again deci-
mated them, until finally the Alosaka Jcatcina appeared
to them and instructed them to carve two wooden im-
ages, but threatening them that if these images should
be lost or destroyed, all the people would die.

" Many other but widely divergent legends exist re-
garding the Alosaka, a number of which are associated
with the pueblo of Awatobi, which was formerly one
of the most populous Hopi towns. At one time this
village experienced drought and famine, and Alosaka,
from his home in the San Francisco Mountains, ob-
served the trouble of the people. Disguised as a youth
he visited Awatobi and became enamored with a
maiden of that town. Several times he visited her,
but no one knew whence he came or whither he went,
for his trail no one could follow. The parents of the
girl at last discovered that he came on the rainbow,
and recognized him as a divine being. The children
of this maid were horned beings, or Alosakas, but their
identity was not at first recognized.

Like all the cultus heroes, Alosaka is said, in legends,
to have been miraculously born of a virgin. His
father was the. Sun, his mother an Earth-goddess,
sometimes called a maiden. Like many gods, he trav-
eled on the rainbow ; he lived at Tawaki, the house of

194 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

his father, the Sun, or the San Francisco Mountains.13
There is another tradition of the clans that moved
from the southward collected by the late A. M. Ste-
phen from no less a personage than Anowita (p. 208),
who was chief of the Cloud people. The tradition is
as follows:

We did not come direct to this region [Tusayan] , —
we had no fixed intention as to where we should go.
We are the Patki nyumu, and we dwelt at Palatkwabi
[Red land] where the agave grows high and plentiful;
perhaps it was in the region the Americans call Gila
valley, but of that I am not certain. It was far south
of here, and a large river flowed past our village,
which was large, and the houses were high, and a
strange thing happened there.

Our people were not living peaceably at that time,
we were quarreling among ourselves, over huts and
other things, I have heard, but who can tell what
caused their quarrels? There was a famous hunter of
our people, and he cut off the tips from the antlers of
the deer which he killed and [wore them for a neck-
lace] he always carried them. He lay down in a hol-
low in the court of the village, as if he had died, but
our people doubted this; they thought he was only
shamming death, yet they covered him up with earth.
Next day his extended hand protruded, the four fin-
gers erect, and the first day after that one finger dis-
appeared [was doubled up?] ; each day a finger disap-
peared, until on the fourth day his hand was no longer

i® The Alosaka Cult of the Hopi Indians, by J. Walter
Fewkes; American Anthropologist (N. S.), Vol. I, July, 1899,
pp. 535-539.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 195

visible and the old people thought that he dug down
to the underworld with the horn tips.

On the fifth day water spouted up from the hole
where his hand had been and it spread over every-
where. On the sixth day, Palulokona [the Serpent
Deity] protruded from this hole and looked around in
every direction. All the lower ground was covered
and many were drowned, but most of our people had
fled to some knolls not far from the village and which
were not yet submerged.

When the old men saw Palulukona they asked him
what he wanted, because they knew he had caused this
flood ; and Palulukona said, * ' I want you to give me a
youth and a maiden. ' ' The elders consulted and then
selected the handsomest youth and fairest maid and
arrayed them in their finest apparel, the youth with a
white kilt and paroquet plume, and the maid with a
fine blue tunic and white mantle. These children
wept and besought their parents not to send them to
Palulukona, but an old chief said, "You must go; do
not be afraid: I will guide you." And he led them
toward the village court and stood at the edge of the
water, but sent the children wading in toward Palu-
lukona, and when they had reached the center of the
court where Palulukona was the deity, the children
disappeared. The water then rushed down after them,
through a great cavity, and the earth quaked and
many houses tumbled down, and from this cavity a
great mound of dark rock protruded. This rock
mound was glossy and of all colors; it was beautiful,
and, as I have been told, it still remains there.

The White Mountain Apache have told me that they
know a place in the south where the old houses sur-

196 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

round a great rock, and the land in the vicinity is wet
and boggy.

We traveled northward from Palatkwabi and con-
tinued to travel just as long as any strength was left
in the people, — as long as they had breath. During
these journeys we would halt only for one day at a
time. Then our chief planted corn in the morning
and the dragonfly came and hovered over the stalks
and by noon the corn was ripe ; before sunset it was
quite dry and the stalks fell over, and in whichever
way they pointed, in that direction we traveled.

When anyone became ill, or when children fretted
and cried, or the young people became homesick the
Coiyal Katcina (a youth and a maiden) came and
danced before them; then the sick got well, children
laughed, and sad ones became cheerful. We would
continue to travel until everyone was thoroughly worn
out, then we would halt and build houses and plant,
remaining perhaps many years. One of these places
where we lived is not far from San Carlos, in a valley,
and another is on a mesa near a spring called Coyote
Water by the Apache. . .

When we came to the valley of the Little Colorado,
south of where Winslow now is, we built houses and
lived there ; then we crossed to the northern side of the
valley and Wilt houses at Homolobi. This was a good
place for a time, but a plague of flies came and bit the
suckling children, causing many of them to die, sx> we
left there and traveled to Cipa (near Kuma spring).
Finally we found the Hopi, some going to each of the
villages except Awatobi; none went there.14

i * Cosmos Mindeleff , 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of
American Ethnology, pp. 188-189.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 197

The figure of a hand with extended fingers is very
common, in the vicinity of ruins, as a rock etching,
and also is frequently seen daubed on the rocks with
colored pigments or white clay. These are vestiges of
a test formerly practiced by the young men who as-
pired for admission to the fraternity of the Calako.
The Calako is a trinity of two women and a man from
whom the Hopi obtained the first corn, and of whom
the following legend is told :

There was neither springs nor streams, although
water was so near the surface that it could be found
by pulling up a tuft of grass. The people had but
little food, however, and they besought Masauwuh to
help them, but he could not.

There came a little old man, a dwarf, who said that
he had two sisters who were the wives of Calako, and
it might be well to petition them. So they prepared
an altar, every man making a paho, and these were
set in the ground so as to encircle a sand hillock, for
this occurred before houses were known.

Masauwuh 's brother came and told them that when
Calako came to the earth's surface wherever he placed
his foot a deep chasm was made, then they brought
to the altar a huge rock, on which Calako might stand,
and they set it between the two pahos placed for his
wives. Then the people got their rattles and stood
around the altar, each man in front of his own paho ;
but they stood in silence, for they knew no song with
which to invoke this strange god. They stood there
for a long while, for they were afraid to begin the
ceremonies, until a young lad, selecting the largest
rattle, began to shake it and sing. Presently a sound

198 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

like rushing water was heard, but no water was seen ;
a sound also like great winds, but the air was perfectly
still, and it was seen that the rock was pierced with a
great hole through the center. The people were fright-
ened and ran away, all save the young lad who had
sung the invocation.

The lad soon afterward rejoined them, and they
saw that his back was cut and bleeding, and covered
with splinters of yucca and willow. The flagellation,
he told them, had been administered by Calako, who
told him that he must endure this laceration before he
could look upon the beings he had invoked; that only
to those who passed through his ordeals could Calako
become visible ; and as the lad had braved the test so
well, he should henceforth be chief of the Calako
altar. The lad could not describe Calako, but said
that his two wives were exceedingly beautiful and ar-
rayed with all manner of fine garments. They wore
great headdresses of clouds and every kind of corn
which they were to give to the Hopi to plant for food.
These were white, red, yellow, blue, black, blue and
white speckled, and red and yellow speckled corn, and
a seded grass (kwapi).

The lad returned to the altar and shook his rattle
over the hole in the rock and from its interior Calako
conversed with him and gave him instructions. In ac-
cordance with these he gathered all the Hopi youths
and brought them to the rock, that Calako might se-
lect certain of them to be his priests. The first test
was that of putting their hands in the mud and im-
pressing them upon the rock. Only those were chosen
as novices the imprints of whose hands had dried on
the instant. The selected youths then moved within
the altar and underwent the test of flagellation. Cala-
ko lashed them with yucca and willow. Those who made

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 199

no outcry were told to remain in the altar, to abstain
from salt and flesh for ten days, when Calako would
return and instruct them concerning the rites to he
performed when they sought his aid.

Calako and his two wives appeared at the appointed
time, and after many ceremonials gave to each of the
initiated five grains of each of the different kinds of
corn. The Hopi women had been instructed to place
baskets woven of grass at the foot of the rock, and in
these Calako 's wives placed the seeds of squashes,
melons, beans, and all the other vegetables which the
Hopi have since possessed. Calako and his wives,
after announcing that they would again return, took
off their masks and garments, and laying them on the
rock disappeared within it.

Some time after this, when the initiated were as-
sembled in the altar, the Great Plumed Snake ap-
peared to them and said that Calako could not return
unless one of them was brave enough to take the mask
and garments down into the hole and give it to him.
They were all afraid, but the oldest man' of the Hopi
took them down and was deputed to return and repre-
sent Calako.

Shortly afterward Masauwuh stole the parapher-
nalia and with his two brothers masqueraded as Calako
and his wives. This led the Hopi into great trouble,
and they incurred the wrath of Muiyinwuh, who with-
ered all their grain and corn. One of the Hopi finally
discovered that the supposed Calako carried a cedar
bough in his hand, when it should have been willow ;
then they knew it was Masauwuh who had been mis-
leading them. The boy hero one day found Masau-
wuh asleep, and so regained possession of the mask.
Muiyinwuh then withdrew his punishments and sent
Palulukon (The Plumed Snake) to tell the Hopi that

200 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Calako would never return to them, but that the boy
hero should wear his mask and represent him, and his
festival should be celebrated when they had a proper
number of novices to be initiated.

The celebration occurs in the modern Hopi pueblos
in the Powamu ceremony, where the representative of
Calako flogs the children. Calako 's picture is formed
on the Powamu altars of several of the villages of the
Hopi.15

is Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Expedition to Arizona in 1895, 17th
Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part 2,
Washington, 1898. C has the sound of sh.

IX
TRADITIONS AND HISTORY

When men grow old, they become, as if realizing
their passing, years willing or even anxious to transfer
to younger minds what they have learned. To the old
men the historian of Hopi turns for information ; the
young men by the laws of growth live in the present.
So when an old man dies there is a feeling of regret ;
especially when one as versed in the lore of his people
as Masimptua departs, for who knows whether the pic-
tures of his brain are impressed upon the minds of the
new generation or whether they are lost forever ?

Masimptua was one of the chief men of the East
Mesa. His house was as large and neatly-kept as any
in Sichomovi, where there is more room to build
large dwellings than in circumscribed Walpi with its
narrow cells. His children were grown up and mar-
ried, and a number of little ones called him grand-
father. Still his resting place is among the rocks on
the mesa slope below the town, unmarked, as are those
of his ancestors who sleep outside of the walls of the
ruined cities of the Southwest. It is pleasant to re-

202 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

member "Masi'' in his cheerful days, before warning
shadow fell across his sunny spirit. In those days he
was a genuine Hopi, a little boisterous, perhaps, but
truly openhearted. No man in all the tribe could re-
late more vividly the legendary history of the old
times, hence Masi stands to all who knew him as the
exponent of Hopi traditions. Often summer even-
ings, returning from his fields he would tarry at the
camp of the white people at the Sun Spring for a
friendly smoke and chat. Here under the genial in-
fluences, led on by skillful questioning, he would un-
fold many a tale as interesting as those of an Eastern
storyteller, till the sunset faded and the bright stars
twinkled in the clear night sky.

One of his stories gives an idea of the happenings
in Hopiland some centuries ago. At that time the
people suffered from the attacks of the bands of
Apache, who came out of their hunting grounds to the
south in search of trouble. The trails to the mesa
were closed and the Hopi went up and down the pre-
cipitous rock sides by means of a ladder which could
be drawn up in time of danger. Masi could not avoid
painting the prowess of the Hopi in strong colors
while he described the last attack the Apache made
when his grandfather was a boy. He gesticulated ex-
citedly as though he were giving the death-blow to
each of the fallen enemy that had fled before the
valiant Hopi, and his hearer caught the contagion of
his enthusiasm and slew with him the hated foe.

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 203

Another tradition he related was about the ancient
people. Looking toward the Southwest he said, "Do
you see two small peaks close together on the horizon ?
There is one of the houses of the sun, where he rests
when he is in the west. Our people once lived in a
rock town on the peak to the left. The town was
called ' Chub i o chala, ki, ' i The house of the place of
the Antelopes, ' where also there are pine trees, shrubs
and flowers, grass and much water. Perhaps it was
here, who knows ? ' ' said he, i i that the people were al-
most overwhelmed by a great flood which kept rising
over the plains and over the hills till it reached nearly
the tops of the mountains where the ancestors were
waiting in fear. When the boy and girl were thrown
into the flood, then came safety, for the wrath of the
earth-god was appeased and the waters went down.
But the youth and maiden heroes were turned into
two great stone pillars, which bear their names to this
day." (See Myths.)

This striking legend of some almost forgotten deluge
related by Masi is not found alone among the Hopi,
but is widespread among the Pueblos of the Southwest.
Surely, there is no danger now of a flood in this dry
region, but in former times as the vast levels and the
beds of ancient lakes show, there must have been
plenty of water. Masi's traditions do not go into
geological periods, however.

Another time, while in reminiscent mood, Masi
divulged that "very, very when" ago the Peaceful

204 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

People lived on the Little Colorado River near Wins-
low. The name of the region where several towns
were scattered over an extent of fifteen miles or so
was Homolobi, "the place of two views." Here the
people lived centuries before they came to the pre-
cipitous mesas of Hopiland. Later, when explorers
tested the accuracy of Masi 's tradition, they found in
the low mounds that mark the ruined towns of Homo-
lobi, many wonderful relics of the people who lived
there before America was even a name. So Masi was
proved a reliable traditionist, and an ' ' honisht man, ' '
as Toby, the Tewa, says.

It is truly remarkable how the traditions and
legendary lore have been carried down from ancient
times among the Hopi. The moderns, who are accus-
tomed to place reliance in recorded history, might be
inclined to doubt the accuracy of oral tradition, if
there were not much reason to believe otherwise. For
instance, the Hopi have a number of traditions of the
Spanish friars who lived in their country after the dis-
covery by Coronado about three hundred and seventy-
five years ago. An Oraibi Indian relates one of these
minor traditions which might be expected to have been
lost in the lapse of time but has been passed down with
complete preservation of all the details.

It is thus: the friars who lived at Oraibi did not
relish the water from the springs near the pueblo.
Now the water at Moenkapi, the summer village of
Oraibi, is excellent. The priests used to compel the

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 205

Indians to bring water from that place. It chanced
that the Indian whose duty it was to carry water from
Moenkapi, not liking to bring water many miles por
el amor de Dios, one day filled his canteen with the
water of Oraibi and brought it to the friars. On
tasting the water, they accused the Indian of deceit
and compelled him to go to Moenkapi for more.

An old chief of Walpi gave a long and circumstan-
tial account of the rule of the friars, against whom
even at this late day he was very bitter. He said with
emphasis, "Castil shimuno posh kalolomi," "The
Spanish are very bad," and related how they strove
to enslave the people, making them carry large cotton-
wood beams from the Little Colorado for the churches.
To our knowledge, a few of these beams from the old
churches, curiously carved, are now doing service in
the ceilings of pagan kivas or underground rooms
where secret ceremonies are carried on. The "long
gowns, ' ' as the Indians also call them, might have held
this tractable, timid people long in subjection in the
non-essential things, such as labor, but as the old
chief relates, they interfered with their time-honored
ceremonies of ancestor and nature worship. "They
said the dances were very bad and we must stop
them," explained the old chief. There was still an-
other grievance that the Hopi allege against the
friars, and that was their treatment of the women.
Interference with religion and custom have been at
the bottom of most of the troubles of humanity. At

206 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

last the Peaceful People turned and the Castil shinu-
mo were thrown over the rocky mesa, and from that
time to this their names have been execrated by the
Hopi.

Traditions of the very first appearance of Spaniards
before the Pueblos have come down for ten genera-
tions as fresh as though the events had happened last
year, and they can be compared with the accounts of
the conquerors themselves. This lapse of time has
not given mythical tinge to these events. It may be
believed, then, that the ancient history which has be-
come mythical dates very far back and to regions far
removed from the present mesas of Hopiland. Every
ruin in the province, those south on the Little Colo-
rado and farther beyond the dim Mogollon Moun-
tains on the horizon and those to other compass points
for surprising distances are known in Hopi traditions,
and wise is the student of ancient things in Tusayan
who first fortifies himself by delving in this store of
unwritten history.

The duties of the warrior chiefs are not burdensome,
since the Hopi have fostered the arts of peace till it
has become a national characteristic. It is fortunate
for the Hopi that they belong to those who run away,
not even "to fight another day,." desirous to live in
contentment and happy to exist on the earth, after the
fierce enemies have jostled many tribes out of exist-
ence. Still, the Hopi keep up in a feeble, traditional
way a warrior society, which corresponds to the pow-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 207

erful Priesthood of the Bow who are said to rule Zuni.
So in the villages of Tusayan the warriors are merely
ornamental and dance bravely in some ceremonies,
though at some critical period of invasion the necessity
of drawing the "dead line" might fall upon the war-
rior society, as it has bef oretimes.

When one day in the year 1540 the Spaniards halted
under the Hopi towns there was consternation among
the people at the sight of the armored conquerors and
all held back in their houses for fear of them. Not so
the warrior priests, who, striding down the trail,
sprinkled a line of meal between the town and the
Spaniards. According to immemorial custom this
line of meal means that no one shall pass under penalty
of death. One of the Spanish soldiers crossed the line
and was killed by the warriors. Then the Spanish
friar who came with the expedition in quest of new
souls to save, cried out in effect, "What are we here
for ?; ' ; a volley followed ; the Hopi heard the report of
a gun for the first time, and a number of them bit the
dust. The remainder fled to the village, which was
thoroughly frightened at the terrible visitation of
bearded foes. On the next day a deputation came
down to the Spanish camp bringing presents and
offering humble submission to the white men.

More than three centuries later, a body of United
States troops who were sent to coerce the Oraibi be-
cause they would not send their children to school, met
with a similar experience, but by good management no

208 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

blood was shed and the Indian leaders were exiled to
California for a year or so. It is a curious circum-
stance that in our county where the past is forgotten
so soon there should exist a people who remember and
take warning from the events of almost four centuries
ago.

On the rocks below Walpi there is a curiously
carved record which has a good bit of war history
connected with it. Hear Anowita, the Warrior Chief,
tell the story :

Very when ago [long time] the Ute and Apache
were always wishing to kill the Good People. They
were very bad. At that time there was no trail up
the great rocks to Hopi-ki "Walpi." The people
climbed up and down a long ladder which could be
drawn up at night. I can show you where the ladder
stood. It was bad for the people to be frightened all.
the time, so they sent messengers to ask the Tewa
from the Great River to come and dwell at Walpi to
fight their enemies. The Tewa came, many families
of them ; there was a battle at a spring north of Walpi
and the Tewa killed as many Utes as there are marks
cut in the rock below the Gap. The Ute did not come
back again. The Tewa were given lands and springs to
the eastward and their village was set at the head of the
trail near the Gap so that they could guard the mesa.

This is the origin of the Tewa town of Hano on
the East Mesa, through which everyone must go who
seeks an easy entrance into Walpi. One cannot avoid
thinking that the recorder of the battle of the spring
was not sparing with his list of dead Ute, which he

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 209

scored with a series of lines cut in a smooth sandstone
face.

The explorations in the buried towns of a section
of the ancient Hopi which extend in a line from the
Gila River to their present mesa homes show that for
all these centuries they have been unwarlike people.
There is the greatest scarcity of weapons, such as ar-
rowheads and spearheads, and there are few war axes
to be found among the numerous relics of peaceful pur-
suits, though wooden clubs were no doubt used. This
accords with the situation of the towns on high, easily
defended positions and the building of houses in clus-
ters, the outer walls forming a fortification which de-
fied assailants.

Only once during their history did the Hopi light
the fires of war, and this was a religious conflict car-
ried on in true Indian fashion. About the beginning
of the seventeenth century the Spanish priests had
gained a foothold in the town of Awatobi, situated on
a high mesa south of Walpi. The Awatobi Hopi had
prospered, and their valley, presenting to the south a
marvelous panorama of the lava buttes, produced
abundant food besides cotton for woven fabrics. Awa-
tobi was a large town of Hopiland; the walls of
the mission church still stand high enough to be a
landmark miles away. The houses were four stories
high and they were sufficient to accommodate 1,000
souls.

Perhaps this prosperity caused envy; perhaps the

210 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

submission to the priests roused enmity; the other
Hopi said that the Awatobi were witches, and one
night they gathered to exterminate them. The Awa-
tobi men were conducting a ceremony in the under-
ground rooms when blazing fagots were thrown down,
followed by pepper pods, and they perished miserably.
Those who were captured in the houses were led out
to a spring and massacred. The women and children,
many of them, were taken to other Hopi towns and
their lives spared.

This massacre took place about the year 1700 and
f onus the darkest page in the history of Tusayan ; it
shows also that the Peaceful People can be overzealous
at times. In times much before this, according to tra-
dition, Sikyatki, the home of the Firewood people,
who were the last potters of Tusayan, was destroyed,
as were, no doubt, other pueblos of tribes of different
origin from the Hopi.

The story of Saalako, who descends from a survivor
of the Awatobi massacre, runs as follows :

The chiefs Wiki and Simo, and others, have told
you their stories, and surely their ancestors were liv-
ing here at Walpi when Awatobi was occupied. It
was a large village, and many people lived there, and
the village chief was called Tapolo, but he was not at
peace with his people, and there was quarreling and
trouble. Owing to this conflict only a little rain fell,
but the land was fertile and fair harvests were still
gathered. The Awatobi men were bad [powako, sor-
cerers] . Sometimes they went in small bands among

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 211

the fields of the other villagers and cudgeled any sol-
itary workers they found. If they overtook any
woman they ravished her, and they waylaid hunting
parties, taking the game and sometimes killing the
hunters. There was considerable trouble at Awatobi,
and Tapolo sent to the Oraibi chief asking him to
bring his people and kill the evil Awatobeans. The
Oraibis came and fought with them, and many were
killed on both sides, but the Oraibis were not strong
enough to enter the village and were compelled to
withdraw. On his way back, the Oraibi chief stopped
at Walpi and talked with the chiefs there. Said he,
t ' I can not tell why Tapolo wants the Oraibis to kill
his folks, but we have tried and have not succeeded
very well. Even if we did succeed, what benefit
would come to us who live too far away to occupy the
land ? You Walpi people live close to them and have
suffered most at their hands; it is for you to try."
While they were talking Tapolo had also come, and it
was then decided that other chiefs of all the villages
should convene at Walpi to consult. Couriers were
sent out, and when all the chiefs had arrived Tapolo
declared that his people had become sorcerers [Chris-
tians], and hence should all be destroyed.

It was then arranged that in four days large bands
from all the other villages should prepare themselves,
and assemble at a spring not far away from Awatobi.
A long while before this, when the Spaniards lived
there, they had built a wall on the side of the village
that needed protection, and in this wall was a great,
strong door. Tapolo proposed that the assailants
should come before dawn, and he would be at this
door ready to admit them, and under this compact he
returned to his village. During the fourth night after

212 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

this, as agreed upon, the various bands assembled at
the deep gulch spring, and every man carried, besides
his weapons, a cedar-bark torch and a bundle of
greasewood. Just before dawn they moved silently
up to the mesa summit, and, going directly to the east
side of the village they entered the gate, which opened
as they approached. In one of the courts was a large
kiva, and in it were a number of men engaged in sor-
cerer 's rites. The assailants at once made for the
kiva, and plucking up the ladder, they stood around
the hatchway, shooting arrows down among the en-
trapped occupants. In the numerous cooking pits fire
had been maintained through the night for the prep-
aration of food for a feast on the appointed morning,
and from these they lighted their torches. Great
numbers of these and the bundles of greasewood be-
ing set on fire were then cast down the hatchway, and
firewood from stacks upon the house terraces was
also thrown into the kiva. The red peppers for which
Awatobi was famous were hanging in thick clusters
along the fronts of the houses, and these they crushed
in their hands and flung upon the blazing fire in the
kiva to torment their blazing occupants. After this,
all who were capable of moving were compelled to
travel or drag themselves until they came to the sand
hills of Miconinovi, and there the final disposition of
the prisoners was made.

My maternal ancestor had recognized a woman chief
(Mamzrau monwi), and saved her at the place of
massacre called Maski, and now he asked her whether
she would be willing to initiate the women of Walpi in
the rites of the Mamzrau. She complied, and thus
the observance of the ceremony called Mamzrauti
came to the other villages. This Mamzrau monwi had

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 213

no children and hence my maternal ancestor's sister
became chief, and her badge of office, or tiponi, came
to me. Some of the other Awatobi women knew how
to bring rain, and such of them as were willing to
teach their songs were spared and went to different
villages. The Oraibi chief saved a man who knew
how to cause the peach to grow, and that is why
Oraibi has such an abundance of peaches now. The
Miconinovi chief saved a prisoner who knew how to
make the sweet, small-ear corn grow, and this is why
it is more abundant there than elsewhere. All the
women who knew prayers and were willing to teach
them were spared, and no children were designedly
killed, but were divided among the villages, most of
them going to Miconinovi. The remainder of the
prisoners, men and women, were again tortured and
dismembered and left to die on the sand hills, and
there their bones are, and the place is called Mastcomo,
or Death Mound. This is the story of Awatobi told
by my people.16

It is difficult to conceive of the conservatism of
some of the older Hopi. A glimpse of the clinging
to the myth of the golden age is shown by the speech
of the old chief Nashihiptuwa, to whom the past
was an ideal time of plenty and contentment under
the bright sky of Tusayan.

It was Sunday and the camp by a peach orchard
in a deep valley at the Middle Mesa was made lively

16 ' ' Preliminary account of an expedition to the cliff
villages of the Red Bock country; and the Tusayan ruins of
Sikyatki and Awatobi, Arizona, in 1895." By J. Walter
Fewkea, from the Smithsonian Report for 1895, pp. 568-569.

214 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

by the presence of about thirty Indian laborers, most-
ly Walpi ' l boys. ' ' Far above on the rotfky mesas
could be seen three Hopi towns which bear names
difficult of pronunciation, "The place of peaches"
being most picturesque. To the West were innum-
erable barren hillocks, furrowed and gullied, rising
toward the warm sandstone cliffs bearing the pueblos
at the top. Along the wash which from time im-
memorial had been carving out this wonderfully
sculptured valley were the bean and melon patches
of the Indians, and on the higher ground dark green
peach orchards. Out of the mouth of the valley there
stretched the wide plain, merging into the many-
hued desert.

On this particular Sunday the exploring party felt
out of sorts. The Indian workmen who had been
digging in the ruins of an ancient pueblo near by
had been served notice by the chief of the neighboring
village to quit and a warning sent to our party in this
wise, "Go away, you are bad; you bring the wind and
keep away the rains. ' ' This is a grave charge in a
country where winds disperse the thunder clouds with
their precious burden before they reach the corn fields.
No invention could devise a more damaging statement.
The Walpi, who are freer from superstition than most
of the Hopi, felt less desire to earn the coveted silver
after this announcement. Finally it was decided to
ask Nashihiptuwa to a council, talk it over with him
and persuade him to withdraw his ultimatum. A

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 215

boy was dispatched to find him in his field where he
was at work.

Shortly the old chief of Shumopavi appeared in
the distance, clad in a breech-clout and with a hoe on
his shoulder. He stopped outside the camp and put
on an abbreviated cotton shirt, making himself some-
what more presentable. Squatting on the sand with
hands clasped around the knees, a favorite Indian
posture, the superannuated chief helped himself to
tobacco and prepared for the argument with the
circle of interested listeners. The day was very warm
and a bank of clouds slowly coming up from the San
Francisco Mountains seemed to promise rain which
might convince the old man of the fallacy of his views.
Hence the progress of this rain storm was an object
of uncommon solicitude to the explorers. Dan, a
school boy, who had been taught English, acted as
interpreter.

After a few preliminary remarks in which the old
chief craftily laid the blame of the edict to the chief
of another town whom all the Middle Mesa people
fear, the discussion began as to whether the contact
with the white man had been beneficial or injurious
to the Hopi. Since circumstances, geographical and
governmental, have conspired to keep the Hopi away
from strong drink and other contaminations, the white
man had a better case than usual. On his side the
old chief mumbled that in the good old times the
fields were more fruitful, the country covered with

216 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

grass waist high, there were no cares, the people were
happy and long-lived, the gods propitious, Urukiwa,
the wind-god, did not drive away the rains ; now all
this was changed.

The Walpi spokesman then in his turn pointed out
the benefits which the white man had brought. Said
he:

1 1 What were we before the white man from the far
water came? Half naked, working our scanty crops
with hoes of wood, often suffering from famine as the
traditions relate, without sheep and beasts of burden,
without peach trees and many vegetables, without
sugar, flour and tobacco, and driven from place to
place in the deserts by our ancient enemies. Where
did you get your shirt, your cotton cloth, and your
hoe f Has not Wasintona given us wagons and many
other things, and protected us from the Navaho and
Apache ? The white man is posh lolomi, ' very good. ' '

The old man seemed vexed at the force of this argu-
ment, and he began a speech which lasted, it seemed
to the listeners, about two hours. It is a loss to sci-
ence that this speech could not be taken down. As
near as could be gathered he began at the beginning
when the people came up from the underworld, and
traced the history through its various stages, detailing
the events, weaving in ancient lore arguing, expand-
ing, and digressing until he brought it down to the
present.

As he drew his remarks to a close, a blast of wind
charged with sand blew down the canvas sun-shade.
The old chief found in this a corroboration of his
contention, and, in tho confusion, seized his hoe and a
can of peaches, which was a present, and made off

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

217

angrily, firing as a parting shot, ' ' Go away ; you are
very bad ! ' '

It is scarcely necessary to say that the next day,
bright and early, witnessed the exodus of all strangers
from that quiet valley near the Middle Mesa. Nashi-
hiptuwa, clad in his natural wrinkled bronze costume,
was hoeing in his bean patch, looking neither to the
right nor to the left.

BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES

The former chief Snake Priest of Walpi was a
young man of good presence, of splendid physique,
with regular features and grave, dignified look; in
whose face there seemed to be often a trace of melan-
choly, arising perhaps from deep thought. For it
takes a man to be Snake Priest, and the office brings
out all there is in one.

Kopeli was as well trained as any civilized man
whatsoever, taking into consideration the demands
of the different planes of culture. Education is as
general among these Indians as it is among the more
enlightened people. It would be too long to go into
details, but briefly the Hopi child's life is largely a
kindergarten of play-instruction by kind teachers of
things useful in active life. He is wrapped in the cus-
toms which have become religion, he is initiated into
manhood, and takes his place, perhaps inherited, in the
fraternities. With all these he is taught the lore, the
practices, and the songs — minutiae which require a
strong memory. He learns the plants and the ani-
mals to which the Hopi had given descriptive names

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 219

long before Linnasus or Cuvier. The sun is his clock,
and all nature is near to him. He must work also in
the fields if he would eat — no drones are tolerated.
In short, there is a surprising complexity in this life,
and its demands are weighty. Thus Kopeli at the
head of the most powerful and awe-inspiring society
of his people has been put to many tests and bore
upon his shoulders the weight of immemorial custom.

While there was in Kopeli a dignity which com-
mands respect from the mirthful Hopi, he could on oc-
casion be as entertaining as any of his tribe, and us-
ually was cheerful and friendly. The exception is
when the Snake rites are in progress. Then he seemed
a different person, and it was not proper for him to
recognize his best friend.

The Walpi Snake Ceremony, of which the public
dance is known to many persons, is well worth braving
the journey to see. The grand entry of the Snake
and Antelope priests on the dance plaza headed by
Kopeli and Wiki is one of the most impressive specta-
cles that can be witnessed on this continent. There
is so much energy put into the work; with strides
positively tragic, the file of strangely costumed priests
march to the kisi, where the snakes have been deposit-
ed. Then commences the weird dance with live rattle-
snakes held in the mouth to the distant chant of
Antelope priests. Kopeli was here at his best. He was
a notable figure; 110 other participant displayed such
eagerness and force. These were some of the salient

220 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

elements of his character, and by these he succeeded,
whether as a fanner as as Snake Priest, and took
his high position among his people. There is an in-
teresting mingling of the old and new at Walpi.
Kopeli became a typical example of the union of
past and present. Wiki, his Nestor, was in every
fiber imbued with the usages and traditions of the
past. One instinctively admires the old man's firm
belief, and his respect for the ancient ceremonies.
The leaven of the new was in Kopeli, as may be seen
from the following. A wide-awake town in New Mex-
ico wanted the Hopi Snake Dance reproduced at the
fair held there in the autumn, realizing that it would
be a feature to attract many visitors. Kopeli was ap-
proached and offered what seemed to him a large
sum of money for the performance. Though in some
doubt as to the care and transportation of the snakes,
Kopeli and the younger snake priests were tempted
to favor the scheme, through his avaricious father,
Supela. When Wiki, chief of the related society of the
Antelopes, heard the proposal, he became very angry
and put his foot down, reading the young men of lax
morals a severe lecture on their duties to their re-
ligion.

Even had this plan been carried out and had proved
a death blow to the so-called pagan and heathenish
rites of the Hopi, one would have regretted Kopeli 's
share in it. It is well known, too, that, at present,
money will admit strangers to view the sacred rites

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 221

of the Snake Dance, which formerly were kept in-
violably secret. Evidently, the Hopi are deteriorating,
when they barter their religion for silver; at no dis-
tant date, when the elder men are dead, the curious
ceremonies of the Hopi will decay and disappear, and
let us trusit that a new and better light may be given
them.

Some years ago Kopeli passed from the scene,
and his brother, " Harry, " took his, place as Snake
Chief.

Dr. J. "Walter Fewkes has given an estimate of him
as follows:

Kopeli, the Snake chief at the Tusayan pueblo of
Walpi, Arizona, died suddenly on January 2, 1899.
He was the son of Saliko, the oldest woman of the
Snake clan, which is one of the most influential as
well as one of the most ancient in Tusayan. His
father was Supela, one of the chiefs of the Patki, or
Rain-cloud people, who came to Walpi from southern
Arizona about the close of the seventeenth century.
As chief of the Snake priests at Walpi in the last
five presentations of the Snake dance at that pueblo,
Kopeli has come to be one of the best known of all
the Hopi Indians. He inherited his badge of office
as Snake Chief from his uncle, and was the only
chief in Tusayan who had a Snake tiponi. His pre-
decessor in this duty was Nuvaiwinu, his uncle, who
is still living, and who led the Snake priests in a
single ceremony, after which it was found necessary
for him to retire on account of his infirmities. At
the celebration of the Snake dance in 1883, described
by Bourke, Natciwa, an uncle of Kopeli, was Snake

222 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

chief. The oldest Snake chief of whom I can get
any information was Murpi, a contemporary of Ma-
cali, the Antelope chief preceding Wiki. Kopeli was
a relative on his mother 's side of both these men.
At the time of his death Kopeli was not far from
twenty-five years of age ; he had a strong, vigorous
constitution, was of medium size, with an attractive
face and dignified manner that won him many friends
both among his own people and the Americans with
whom he was brought in contact. He was a thor-
oughly reliable man, industrious and self-respecting.
Although a conscientious chief of one of the most
conservative priesthoods in Walpi, he was a zealous
friend of the whites, and supported innovations in-
troduced by them for the good of his people. He
believed in the efficacy of the ceremonial rites of his
ancestors and performed his duty as priest without
shirking. As Mr. Thomas V. Keam, who knows the
Walpi people better than any other white man, told
the chiefs in council a few days after the Snake
chief's death: "Kopeli was the best man of the
Hopis." He was a pac lolomai taka, an excellent
man, whose heart was good and whose speech was
straight. To most Americans who are interested in
the Hopi, Kopeli was simply the energetic chief in
barbaric attire, who dashed into the Walpi plaza lead-
ing his Snake priests in the biennial Snake dance.
This is one of the most striking episodes of the cere-
mony, and its dramatic effect is not equaled in any of
the other pueblos. It was through Kopeli 's influ-
ence that the Snake dance at Walpi was the largest
and most striking of these weird ceremonies in the
Hopi pueblos. Kopeli welcomed the educational
movement and had two children in the school at

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 223

Keam's Canyon at the time of his death. He was
buried among the rocks at the base of the Walpi mesa
with simple ceremonies appropriate to a chief of his
standing.17

Wiki, the genial, good-hearted old chief of the
Antelope Society was one of the celebrities of Walpi.
His very presence breathed benignity and his heart
was full of kindness. The years were telling on Wiki,
however, and the marks of age were becoming apparent
in his wrinkled face. He gave one the impression of
a Hopi gentleman of the old school, a survivor of the
best of the past generation. Still, Wiki 's form was not
bent, nor his hair gray, and he led the Antelope
dance with all the fire of youth. Stored away in his
brain was a vast stock of ancient lore, of legend, myth,
and song. Since he was quite deaf, his body of in-
formation was somewhat difficult of access.

Wiki maintained a certain dignity and attention to
his own affairs, which commendable trait a few of the
prominent Hopi possess. He has long been known
by the scientific explorers who have visited Tusayan,
and all who have come in contact with him speak
highly of his good qualities.

Supela is in some respects the antithesis of Wiki.
Wiki was identified with the Antelope Society or
brotherhood, Supela assumed a part in everything.
Great must be Supela 's ability, since he is capable of
counselling the numerous societies on any doubtful

17 American Anthropologist (N. S.), Vol. I, Jan., 1899.

224 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

points in their rites and ceremonies. In fact, it seems
that no observance in Walpi can get along without his
aid, and even the farther towns often call upon him to
assist them in delicate points involved in the conduct
of their religious celebrations.

It is time we should have a pen picture of him.
Short of stature, thick, gray hair hanging to his
shoulders around a not unpleasant, mobile face.
Nervous of movement, cordial, but occupied with
pressing business, going somewhere, has scarcely time
more than to ask a few curious questions, he seems to
have the burden of Atlas on his shoulders. He re-
sembles a promoter or a ward politician and he covers
more ground in a day than Wiki could in a week.

If Supela seems head and front of everything re-
ligious in the summer, in the winter he plays a more
prominent part in the Soyaluna, which is held at the
last of December. Of this wonderful sun ceremony
he is chief, and is as illustrious a personage to the Hopi
as Santa Claus is to the fair-skinned children. At
this time Supela is in his element and proud of him-
self to the last degree, for does he not regulate the
rites that are to bring back the sun from his far
winter wanderings?

Wiki was a man of action, coming forward to add
power and dignity to that most astounding ceremony
ever originated by human brain, the Snake Dance ;
Supela is a man of craft, a worker by formulas and
incantations, but first and last a believer in getting

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 225

all the silver he can in return for an insight into the
mysteries — a thing that Wiki has never stooped to
countenance.

There are first families in Tusayan. Saalako enjoys
the distinction of being by birthright the chief snake
priestess of all Hopiland. Hence Kopeli, her son,
was chief priest of the powerful Snake Society in that
metropolis of Tusayan, Walpi ; while Supela, her hus-
band, has no credit for his share in passing on the
inheritance. At present, her son "Harry" is the
Snake Chief in place of the beloved Kopeli.

Saalako is an old, wise woman. The mystery which
hangs around her is born of her connection with the
fearful rites of the Snake cult and her store of the
knowledge which has been passed down from time im-
memorial "by living words from lips long dust."
This connection carries her to distant pueblos to mix
the "medicine" for the ceremonies, no one in the
whole province being better versed in herbs and spells
than she. One might meet her on this errand far
out in the desert or among the rugged mesas on the
trail to Oraibi, afoot, moving actively for a person
apparently so frail. It is difficult to measure, es-
pecially in a limited time and short acquaintance, the
respect and honor given by the Walpi people to Saala-
ko and the Snake Chief's family. It would seem that
there is a certain dignity and reserve natural to peo-
ple of rank, although in the common associations the
Hopi are quite democratic. In any case Saalako is

226 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

free from the habit of begging, so often observed
among her people, which is probably due to this dig-
nity. It is very evident, however, that the vice of
begging is becoming general among the Pueblos which
have been most in contact with white people.

This sketch of Saalako would be incomplete without
the mention of her chief shortcoming, inordinate
curiosity. Apologists commend rather than excuse
laudable curiosity, affirming it to be a desirable quality
in an investigator. No doubt Saalako owes her ac-
quaintance with nature to this class, but she is famous
for curiosity in other minor matters. No visitor to
Wapli escapes the ordeal of her questions, and popular
account has it that very few happenings escape her
notice. The Hopi of both sexes are most curious;
Saalako has the trait in greater degree. The hoary
error of attributing curiosity to woman alone has
small countenance in Hopi. However, Saalako 's curi-
osity is well meaning and harmless. It is only an ex-
pression of the infantile which blossoms in this peace-
ful and isolated people.

Saalako felt it her duty to give a name to one of the
exploring party under the direction of Dr. Fewkes.
After several days meditation, having tried and re-
jected several queer sounding appellations, she at
last dubbed him Kuktaimu, briefly, " Investigator, "
and kindly offered to adopt him ; the adoption, how-
ever, was not consummated. Kuktaimu owes his name
to the ardor with which he collected plants, insects,

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 227

and geological specimens, this not escaping the sharp
eyes of Saalako.

This sketch is given as a tribute to a remarkable
Hopi woman whose history is worthy of fuller pre-
sentation.

Intiwa was another celebrity whose acquaintance
early ripened into a regard for his true worth. His
was a modest personality; in him one saw the living
presentment of the sages who guided the people before
America dawned upon history. A striking instance
that came to notice concerning him gives an interest-
ing sidelight on Hopi customs.

One day Intiwa went down to his corn-field to see
how the crops were getting on. As he was reaching
under the drooping corn blades, feeling for the ripen-
ing ears, a rattlesnake struck him on the hand. He
hurried home and applied all the remedies which
Hopi medical knowledge could suggest, but got no
relief. Some white visitors who happened to be near
were called in and did all they could for the man, and
finally, after much suffering, Intiwa recovered. Now
comes the curious sequel of the snake bite. The Snake
Fraternity decided that Intiwa, being specially fa-
vored by the bite of the snake, must of necessity belong
to their order. Perhaps Intiwa was not impressed
with the alleged favor of the snake. Still he took the
initiation and became a full-fledged snake priest. This
is the first record of such happening in Tusayan.

Beside the honor thus thrust upon him, Intiwa was

228 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

the Kachma chief of Walpi, and thus an important
man, the impresario and chief entertainer of his town,
honored by the rain-bringing serpent, blessed with a
large family, ample house and abundant food — gifts
no doubt of the good fairy Kachina.

Several years ago Intiwa took a journey to the
underworld across the deserts and down through the
sipapu, or earth-navel, finding at last that wondrous
land whence all people came out and where they
finally must return, according to Hopi belief. Walpi
will suffer the loss of his great knowledge ; who knows
but that he will emerge, and, sitting with the zealous
kachinas, watch over the s^ene of his earthly triumphs ?

The first meeting with the Hopi and with the Ho-
nani family was one of the most pleasurable experi-
ences of the journey from Winslow to the Middle
Mesa several years ago.

The party had toiled to the north for nearly three
days through the brilliantly painted deserts that lie
between the Little Colorado and the Hopi villages.
The grotesque black buttes whose contours had
changed so many times during the journey were left
behind to the south and the gray cretaceous mesas
began to narrow in on the dry washes, fringed with
sage-green desert plants that characterize the region
of the Hopi villages. Everyone felt that though many
miles of loose sand still intervened, this was the home
stretch to the goal. Far ahead on the plain several
black dots were sighted, and with lively interest the

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 229

party began to speculate as to what they might be.
After a while it could be seen that a mounted party
was coming, perhaps Navaho on first thought, likely
Hopi on reflection. Soon they were decided to be a
number of Hopi mounted on burros and ponies, and
in a short time they were greeting the Americans with
the fervor of a long-lost brother, their faces wreathed
with smiles. These, then, were the tactiturn Indians
of the story-books.

Honani, "the Badger," citizen of Shumopavi, was
escorting his family on an outing of many miles after
berries. Berries, such as they are, do grow in the
desert, but they may be enjoyed only by those who
never tasted any other variety. Honani 's wife and
her three pretty daughters were astride ponies, while
the baby was securely fastened in his mother's blanket ;
the old grandfather and grandmother who bestrode
burros made up the rest of the party, which formed a
very picturesque group. The women asked for water,
and Honani spoke the magic word piba, tobacco, fol-
lowed by the word, matchi. These words one very soon
finds are the indispensable preliminary to a "smoke
talk ' ' in Hopiland.

Honani 's better half is no light weight. So thought
her pony which, without warning, proceeded to lie
down. Amidst the screaming and chattering, the
stout lady managed to extricate herself, being much
hampered by her prudence in tying her blanket to the
horn of the saddle. When all were quieted and the

230 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

pony soundly thumped, they started again on their
way berrying.

Honani is quite a prominent man and was one time
chief of his pueblo. He is one of the very few Hopi
who have made the grand tour to Washington — Was-
intona, as they call it. He has a farm in the country,
where he lives in summer. The vagrant Navaho who
encroach on his premises are the bane of his life, and
when none of this tribe is near he wishes them all
sorts of unpleasant things. Honani himself is no
saint ; from all accounts, it is advisable to leave noth-
ing loose while he is around. His wife has a pleas-
ant, matronly face that one cannot help admiring.
She is a skillful basket-maker and keeps her house
neat and clean, which is more than can be said of
her contemporaries.

There is a good deal of feeling, mingled with a
large element of jealousy, against Honani in the minds
of his fellow villagers, because of his friendliness to-
ward the white man and his stand in favor of educat-
ing the children in the schools provided by the Gov-
ernment. At Zuni, through some pretext or other,
Honani would be hung as a wizard, whereas the am-
icable Hopi merely ignore him for a while.

On another occasion, while the party was encamped
in a sheltered valley of the Middle Mesa, the "Ho-
nanis" came visiting. It was about supper time; the
connection of the time and visit needs no explanation.
Among the scanty utensils of the party two cans of

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 231

similar shape contained respectively salt and sugar.
Honani's wife liberally sweetened her coffee and gave
the baby a taste. In a moment his hitherto placid
face assumed the contortions of a Hindu idol, and he
squirmed and yelled. His mother, not knowing what
was the matter, shook him and punched his fat stom-
ach to find out. Then she took a sip of coffee and
screamed out, "Ingiwa!" (salt). Her reproachful
look seemed to convey the idea that someone had de-
signs on the baby. A few words of explanation soon
put her mind at rest on that score, and smiles were
again restored. When she heard that several of the
party had been at times sufferers from those same ma-
licious salt and sugar boxes, she enjoyed the joke huge-
ly ; fellow sufferers are always appreciated the world
over.

There is at least one open and above-board infidel
at the East Mesa. Chakwaina is his name, and he is a
Tewa of Hano. The old nature faith in this pueblo
does not show many signs of weakening, so that were
Chakwaina less in possessions and in consequent influ-
ence, he might have been brought to book long ago
for his sins. Chakwaina says "the kachinas are no
good. ' ' Perhaps the poor people who so depend on the
crops for their existence believe devoutly in the gift-
bearing kachinas from ignorance or selfish motives,
while ChakwaMW,, who has sheep, flour, and money,
feels independent of any spiritual aids; this is the old
story. Chakwaina undoubtedly feels able to take care

232 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

of himself, for no one has succeeded in getting ahead
of him at a bargain. Of course when a pair of sheep
shears or a stone is too frequently found in a bag of
wool after weighing, people will suspect cheating. It
is well to keep watch on Chakwaina !

On the other hand, Chakwaina was one of the first
to move down permanently from the mesa when the
Government offered inducements to the Hopi to
descend from their eyrie. He has always been friend-
ly to the white people ; he aided in the establishment
of a day school at the "Sun Spring," and used his
influence to persuade the people to send pupils to
the school at Ream's Canyon. He has also traveled
much, adding Spanish, Navaho, and a smattering of
"American" to his Hopi- Te wan repertory of lan-
guages, for the Tewa, besides being the most pro-
gressive inhabitants of Tusayan, are the best linguists.
This is due to the fact that the people of the little
town of Hano have preserved their own language, and
being within a stone-throw of Walpi, must also know
Hopi. Hence the step toward learning other tongues
is made easier.

Chakwaina has his house near Ishba, or "wolf
spring, ' ' in very picturesque surroundings. Below, in
the wash, are his cornfields and melon patches, show-
ing skillful engineering in diverting the water on the
arable ground by means of dams and wings. Here
he and his faithful adjutant, "Tom Sawyer," the
Paiute, put in many a laborious hour, the latter waging

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 233

deadly warfare on the obnoxious prairie dogs whose
fate is to be eaten if caught.

Chakwaina is disposed to poke fun at the scientific
men who come to Tusayan to study the ways of the
Hopi. He has a remarkable laugh, and his mimicry
of the Snake Dance is one of the most amusing things
to be seen in Hopiland. His object is to ridicule all
parties by making himself ridiculous. It is evident
that Chakwaina has not the accustomed contentment of
the Hopi. Having denied the first article of faith in
the kachinas and having received nothing higher in
return, he stands in the unhappy position of all un-
believers of whatever race or time.

A portrait gallery of the celebrities of Tusayan
would not be complete without Mungwe, or, as his
name is translated, "El Capitan," "Cap" for short;
but his name is properly Mongwe, i ' the owl. ' ' " Cap ' '
is a Tewa whose ancestors were invited long ago to
come from the Rio Grande and cast their lot with
the Hopi on the Walpi Mesa. Here their descendants
still dwell in the village of Hano, preserving the
language and customs transplanted from the "Great
River of the North. ' ' " Cap ' ' is one of the most ener-
getic and capable Indians in all Hopiland. Wiry in
figure, alert of movement, loquacious, quick of com-
prehension, trustworthy and experienced, he is quite
in advance of the large majority of his contempor-
aries. Long ago he abandoned the inconvenient mesa ;
his farm-house with its red roof can be seen among

234 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

his cornfields far out in the broad valley to the south-
east of Walpi. The men who work for Mongwe seem
to be pervaded with his energy, and there is no doubt
that he is regarded by them as a captain of industry,
for he allows no laggards to eat his bread. In the
line of teaming, Cap excels. No matter how long or
bad the road or how heavy the load, his staunch little
ponies will carry it through. A rickety wagon and
providence-tempting harness seem to prove no bar
to any attempt, where money is to be earned. Hence,
though a number of the Hopi possess wagons through
the generosity of the Government, Mongwe gets most
of the hauling.

Our friend, alas, is not modest in the announce-
ment of his worth. It is a subject on which his tongue
works like a spinning- jenny. At night after the cares
of the day, sitting around the camp-fire with ample
bread, unlimited rashers of bacon, and a circle of
hearers, Cap eats and talks in the plural. The word
plural calls for a sentence or two in reference to Cap 's
wives. Not that he has ever defied Hopi customs to
the extent of having more than one wife at a time, but
the list of the ones who have disagreed with him, if
completely up to date, would be interesting reading.
From what can be gleaned, in this Utopian land,
women have the right of divorce. The relationship
of Cap's children, it will be seen, is very assorted.
To hazard a guess, Cap's matrimonial ventures are
marred by his general ' ' f ussiness. ' '

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 235

Aside from this, Mongwe is an honor to Hopiland.
His success has drawn to him a party of the young
generation who are afflicted with the universal desire
for shiba (silver) , and if they are inspired with Mong-
we's example it will be a benefit to Tusayan, the
Hopi body politic, which needs active young blood
to overcome the centuries of inertion.

Another vivacious Hopi is Wupa, whose name means
"great." The fatherly interest which Wupa takes
in the white man was sufficient recommendation to
attach him to our camp as man-of -all- work, and a closer
acquaintance brought to view other sides of his char-
acter in which the gay features far outnumber the
grave. Faithful to the extent of his lights, though
averse to steady work, he managed to earn his bread
and a small stipend, but considering the entertain-
ment he furnished, his pay should have been equal to
that of the end-man in a minstrel show.

So it happens that the memories of Wupa bring
forth a flood of pleasing recollections. The merriest
of all that merry race of laughing, joking, singing
Hopi, his presence around the camp-fire diffused an
atmosphere of cheerfulness which does not always pre-
vail amidst the discomforts of roughing-it in the
desert. Short of stature and bandy-legged, possessed
of a headpiece wrinkled and quizzical, one cannot by
any stretch of the imagination make him out hand-
some ; but he is so loquacious, witty, and full of tricks
that it is not possible to doubt his fitness for the posi-

236 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

tion of king's jester. Wupa has his moods, though.
Sometimes an air of preternatural gravity and un-
speakable wisdom enwraps him ; very close behind this
mask, for such it is, lurks a mirth-provoking skit and
boisterous laugh. Like other humorists Wupa has the
fatality of being most amusing when serious. Still,
in the iridescent interworld between smiles and tears
Wupa has a romantic and sad history.

The dramatis personae woven into this history are
white men, Mexicans, Zuni Indians, and his fellow
Hopi. The first misfortune that befell Wupa was to
be born at the time when famine harried the Peaceful
People in their seven villages to the north of the Little
Colorado. Famine is an old story with the Hopi.
For two years no rain had fallen, and neither the
Snake nor the Flute dance availed to bring the good
will of their gods. The sacredly reserved corn laid up
to tide over a bad year had been eaten, and the Hopi
were in distress. They gathered the wild plants that
seem to be independent of drought, and tried to keep
soul and body together till the rain-clouds should
again sweep across the Painted Desert ; but many were
those who never saw the time of ripe corn. Many
deserted the pueblos and cast their lot among the
Navaho shepherds, the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon,
and other more fortunate tribes of friendly people.

So it happened that Wupa's mother with her hungry
babe took the well-known trail to Zuni 100 miles away,
and nerved with the strength of desperation at last

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 237

reached the pueblo under "Corn Mountain." In-
dian philanthropy rarely extends outside the circle
of relatives, and the Zuiii had no mind to give corn to
the poor Hopi woman beyond enough to keep her from
starving. But little Wupa was worth a bushel of the
precious ears, and for that amount he was exchanged,
becoming, without being consulted, a Zufii, while his
mother trudged back to Hopiland with food for her
starving kinsfolk, feeling, no doubt, little sorrow at the
loss of her babe, so great is the levelling power of
famine and misfortune. There are usually strays at
all Indian villages, and thus the presence of the little
Hopi stranger passed without notice. When the crops
were assured in the fields of the famine-stricken Hopi,
they ceased coming to Zuiii, and Wupa seems to have
been unclaimed and forgotten.

When he was five or six, the Zuiii in turn sold him
to some Mexicans, and the next account there is of
him he was living at Albuquerque, a stout young
peon, with cropped hair, a devout Catholic, speaking
Castilian after the fashion of the ' ' Greasers. ' ' Wupa
thus became, to all intents and purposes, a Mexican,
and perhaps had lost sight of his origin. Neither is
the transition from Indian to Mexican at all difficult
or incongruous. Few Americans realize the new
problem of the population that came to us through the
treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the clannish, unpro-
gressive foreigners who were made American citizens
without being consulted. It must be said, however,

238 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

that the Anglo-Saxon prejudice of the Latin leaves
quite out of sight the good qualities of the Mexican ;
it rarely considers that his ignorance is due largely
to lack of advantages during several centuries, and
that the strain of Indian blood has not helped matters.
According to the white man's way of looking at it, this
listless race, seemingly satisfied to be peons in the
land of the free, is inferior and doubtfully classed
with the Indians, with the doubt in the latter 's favor.

Wupa quickly picked up the language and associa-
tions of his accidental compatriots, and soon the Padre
rejoiced in another brand plucked from the burning.
His next step was to find a senorita and to marry her,
and after the semi-barbarous wedding his woes really
begin. In explanation of the description given of
Wupa as he appears at present, it may be fair to say
that twenty years on6 his age would leave him a passa-
bly young man, but even with this gloss, one cannot
form a very high estimate of the senorita 's taste.

During the period of Wupa's exile, one knowing the
Hopi would be curious to find out how he bore him-
self and whether an inherited love for the freedom
of the desert was ever shown. Perhaps the early age
at which he began kicking about the world, and his
varied experiences, completely lost him to the feeling
of his kith and kin. Civilization is irksome to the
desert-bred Hopi and he soon becomes as homesick for
his wind-swept mesas as the Eskimo for his land of
ice or the Bedouin for the Sahara. These questions

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 239

may have a suggested answer in the home-coming of
Wupa, for he returned again to his native pueblo after
one of the most varied and remarkable series of ad-
ventures that ever filled out a true story. The events
that led up to the home-coming of Wupa form not the
least interesting episodes in his history and occurred
along the old Santa Fe Trail, immortalized by
Josiah Gregg. The railroad builders had labored
across the plains, up the steep slopes of the Rockies,
following the famous trail to old Santa Fe, leaving
behind two bands of steel. Blasting, cutting, filling,
and bridging, they were advancing toward quiet Al-
buquerque on the lazy Rio Grande, and the news of
these activities stirred that ancient town from center
to circumference.

The dwellers in the Southwest are brought squarely
up against the ' ' proposition, ' ' as they call it, that one
must work if he would live. The Mexicans, though
reputed lazy, are on the contrary always anxious to
work for wages, and the motley and wicked railroad
camp had a large population of the dark-skinned be-
lievers in Montezuma recruited from long distances.

Wupa joined with the Albuquerque contingent.
What his duties were it is not difficult to imagine ; his
skill in ''rustling" wood and water in later years
gives a good clue as to his work on the railroad. As
messenger and general utility boy where steady labor
was not required, h,e no doubt proved useful and
picked up sundry pieces of silver for his sefiora.

240 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Perhaps not the least of his services lay in his unfail-
ing good-humor expressed in cheering songs, with
which he softened the trials of railroad pioneering
through that almost desert country.

The picturesque wickedness of the westward trav-
eling construction camp with its fringe of saloons,
gambling hells, and camp followers seems never to
have taken Wupa in its snares. Of shooting irons and
drunken men he had the inborn terror shown always
by the Hopi, a feeling still kept alive among them by
that later incursion into New Mexico and Arizona, the
Texas cowboy. There was no fight in Wupa ; the most
that could be gotten out of him was a disarming laugh
and a disappearance, as soon as that move could be
made. Picturesque as was the construction camp, the
stern side of life came very near, and the wonderful
hues of the landscape were but mockery to the tired
and thirsty men, who prepared the Santa Fe Trail for
the iron horse. Poor food, worse water, alkali dust,
parching heat and chilly nights of summer and the
severity of winter were living realities; there were
health and vigor in the air of the mountains and ele-
vated plateaus, though food and appetite did not al-
ways strike a balance of compensation.

Wupa moved along with the camp, little realizing
the meaning of the struggle with the drifting sand,
the rocky canyons, and the dry rivers that became
torrents and in an hour swept away the work of a
month, burying ties and rails in the limbo of boiling

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 241

sand. By night he rolled himself in his blanket and
after his orisons slept under the brilliant stars, while
his fellow Mexicans snored in strangely assorted heaps
among the sage-clumps.

The rails came down the treacherous Puerco and
along the banks of the Little Colorado. To the north
the dark blue Hopi Domes reared their fantastic sum-
mits, signifying nothing to this expatriated Indian,
though the mother who bore him and sold him into
bondage waited for him there. To the west the San
Francisco peaks stood always in view, but Wupa was
ignorant of the traditions of his tribe that cluster
around them. The rails left the river, stretched
across a flat country, and halted at the edge of a tre-
mendous chasm, whose presence could not be suspected
until it yawned beneath the feet. Here the camp halt-
ed for months, while a spider's web of steel was spun
across the Devil's Canyon.

One day several Hopi came to the camp, and after
staring, open-mouthed, at the labors of the white man,
wandered about, as if looking for someone. Soon they
ran across Wupa, and the leader spoke to him in Hopi
language to this effect: "You are a Hopi; we come
to bring you to your house. ' ' A doubtful shake of
the head from Wupa, who did not understand the
tongue of his people.

"Yes, come; they sit up there waiting for you."
This ought to have stirred in Wupa a desire to go at
once, but he "no sabe." Finally, after parleying in

242 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

a mixture of Hopi, Zuni, and Spanish, pieced out here
and there with sign language, they persuaded him. to
desert the camp and set out with them for his native
town a hundred miles to the north.

The home-coming of Wupa was a great affair, and
his reintroduction to his mother was touching, for the
Hopi are more demonstrative than other Indians. The
event must have been a nine days' wronder in the gos-
sipy pueblo of Walpi. His education was taken up
at once with the intention of eradicating the evil ef-
fects of Mexican training, especially on the side of his
religious instruction. If the grave priests are satis-
fied with their labors in helping Wupa to begin anew
as a Hopi, an outsider would consider the results as
rather mixed. To this day Wupa is taunted with be-
ing a Mexican ; these taunts he answers with silence
and an air of superiority he knows so well how to as-
sume; how, indeed, can they know what he has gone
through in his remarkable experiences ?

While Wupa was willing to desert and become a
pagan, as were his ancestors, exchanging the quaint
cathedral of Albuquerque with its figures of saints
and grewsome Corpus Cristi in a glass case for a
dimly lighted room underground and familiarity with
rattlesnakes, his senora had other ideas. Wupa
mourned that his senora would not cast her lot with
the "Peaceful People" of Tusayan; but money was
scarce and the distance too great for a personal inter-
view ; the letters written by a laborious Mexican scribe

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 243

were productive of no results. Though the sefiora
might have done worse, who will blame her? Dur-
ing the years that passed one might think that Wupa
would have forgotten his wife on the Rio Grande,
but it was always the dream of his life to bring her
to him at Walpi. It was pathetic to hear his schemes
and to see the way in which he treasured letters from
her written in the scrawl of the town scribe and ad-
dressed to Senor Don Jose Padilla, which is Wupa 's
high-sounding Castilian name. His constancy seemed
admirable, for he did not take an Indian wife, granting
that he could have secured one of the Hopi belles for
spouse.

Still, with all this care Wupa was light-hearted,
caroled with abandon Mexican or Hopi songs, or in-
toned solemn church music. Though a much-traveled
man, he remained at his native place, the mainstay of
his old mother who sold him aforetime, his father long
since having traveled to the underworld. Hopi-Mex-
ican, Pagan-Christian, he still occupies a somewhat
anomalous position among his people, who have con-
sistently hated the proud proselyting Spaniards dur-
ing the more than two hundred years since they threw
the "long gowns" from the rocky mesa.

About the camp Wupa was very useful. Mounted
on his agile burro, a sight well worth seeing, he
brought the mail from Keam 's Canyon. He collected
wood and water, indulging in many a song and ex-
clamation. The cook especially seemed to him a fit

244 MESA POLK OF HOPILAND

subject of jest. The cook was really an adept at snor-
ing and the still watches of the desert night were often
too vocal. Wupa used to sing out "Dawa yamu,
Kook!" "Daybreak, cook!'' followed by a fine imita-
tion of snoring which the subject of the jest did not
enjoy. But Wupa was at his best when prospecting
an ancient ruin to locate the most promising place to
dig for relics. At such times his gravity and wisdom
fairly bulged out. His advice was clearly and forci-
bly given, but the nemesis of humorists followed him,
and no one ever thought of taking him seriously. And
he never seemed disappointed. Wupa is a true hu-
morist, without bitterness, one to be laughed at and
loved. He was almost tearful at parting and made
many protestations of friendship, at the same time
presenting two watermelons from his field. These
melons were unripe, according to un-Hopi standards,
but were received in the spirit in which they were
given, and later some natives met on the road to
Keam's Canyon had an unexpected feast.

The romance of Wupa's devotion to his Mexican
senora and the fine flavor of constancy he showed to-
ward her received a rude shattering the year after
the commencement of this account. He took unto
himself a Hopi helpmeet, — an albino, — and a whim-
sical pair they looked when they came to the Snake
Dance the following summer.

This step of Wupa's, in view of the repeated con-
fidences that Hopi maidens were not to his taste any-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 245

how, was a surprise to his friends. His choice of an
albino for a mate clears him to some extent, as no
doubt he believes her to be as near an approach to a
white woman as a Hopi may hope to reach. However,
his friends wish him well and feel like saying, ' ' Long
live Wupa, 'great' by name and truly great in quip,
gibe, and gest by nature. ' '

A visit to the East Mesa cannot be regarded as com-
plete without an interview with Toby. Usually no
one leaves this portion of Tusayan without seeing him.
His name, which means "the fly," exactly fits Toby,
who has all the pertinacity of that well-known insect.

Several years ago, however, the writer failed to meet
Toby and remained in complete ignorance of his great
possibilities, except by hearsay, until the next season.
Then when the party wound its way up to the first
bench of the mesa under the dizzy cliffs and camped
on a level spot near a peach tree on land which the
Tewa have held for two centuries, Toby was there as
a reception committee.

His ' ' how do ' ' was rather startling and unexpected.
After the routine of handshaking, Toby remarked,
"This my Ian'," and pointing to the antique tree
long past fruit-bearing, ' ' This my peach tlee. ' ' Proud
of his possessions he squatted on the ground and drew
a plan of his Ian' and inquired as he pointed out the
locations of his crops, "Have you seen my con [corn] ?
Have you seen my beanzes?" Suddenly an idea
struck him. He approached the leader of the party

246 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

and put these questions to him, "You good man,
uneshtan', you honesht man?" Then as if satisfied,
he turned to another of the party and said, "You
handsome man ; you beautiful man, ' ' and it was not
long before Toby had a packet of coveted smoking to-
bacco, although from the unkempt appearance of the
explorers, his laudations were base flattery.

It was plain that Toby was desirous of airing his
remarkable English, of which he is very proud, and
also of paving the way to sundry small gratuities.
These intentions of the Hopi are quite as apparent as
that of the little child who says, "Ducky likes sweet
cakes." Toby was asked to bring in a burro load of
wood for cooking purposes, but with great suavity he
explained that on this day the Snake priests hunted in
the East world-quarter, and according to custom no
one must work in that direction. On account of these
conscientious scruples of Toby's, the venerable peach
tree was requisitioned for enough dead branches till
such time as he should sally forth with his burros for
cedar billets.

The day before the Antelope Dance Toby came down
to the camp on important business chewing a moc-
casin sole which he was stitching. He broached the
subject by mysteriously saying, "Plenty Navaho come
to see Snake Dance. Navaho velly bad, steal evely-
thing. ' ' ( This in a furtive way, because the Hopi are
afraid of the Navaho. ) ' ' Me stay, watch camp ; you
go see dance; Navaho bad man." It is well to say

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 247

that after Toby's watchful care at the camp all the
baking powder and matches were missing. Few Hopi
are proof against these articles, especially before a
feast, and Toby is evidently no exception. He fought
shy of camp after that, no doubt fearing a "rounding
up." Perhaps, however, Toby appropriated the
matches and baking powder as rent for his ' ' Ian '. ' '

Toby is father of a large family. When asked to
give a census, he counted on his fingers, "Boy, girl;
boy, girl ; boy, ' ' then with great enthusiasm, ' ' Babee ! ' '
Toby's command of English is due to the fact that he
was the prize pupil of a teacher at the Keam's Canyon
School some years ago. He delights to show how he
can spell. If no one should ask him to exhibit this
accomplishment, he usually brings up the subject by
asking, for instance, "How you spell box?" pro-
nounced "boxsh." If ignorance is professed, Toby
spells b-o-x, and follows with dog, cat, man, and other
words of one syllable, and proudly finishes by writing
his own name in the sand.

Toby thus furnishes great amusement to sojourners
at Walpi and also leaves the suspicion in the minds
of most that he is a trifle "light in the upper story."

Another character is "Tom Sawyer," a Paiute In-
dian who lives with the Peaceful People at the East
Mesa. As handsome as a Japanese grotesque mask
and almost as taciturn, his gravity seems to have tele-
scoped his squat figure and multiplied the wrinkles
in his face, half hidden by his lank, grizzled hair.

248 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

Keen, shrewd eyes has he and very evasive. Torn,
however, is not "bad" in the Arizona sense, nor will
his make-up allow him to be altogether good. He is,
therefore, a man, for which this sketch is to be con-
gratulated. While Tom's early history may never
be known to the world, his step in leaving the Paiute
for the Hopi is very much in his favor. Here he fell
naturally in his place as serf to Chakwaina, of whom
something has already been said.

Tom became washerman for the Fewkes expedition
while the party sojourned at Walpi. Percy, who
prides himself on his faultless "American," held the
position in former years, but having gotten a few
dollars ahead, felt above work at this time. It must
be said that Tom is an excellent laundryman. The
idiosyncrasies of wayworn civilized garb do not stump
him; in fact, he is "oF- clo'es man" for the whole
East Mesa. His many quests for discarded garments
to Winslow, Holbrook, and other points on the rail-
road are always successful. The people of Winslow
affirm ,that wearing apparel often disappears from
clotheslines and other exposed situations coincidently
with the visits of Hopi, who clear the town of rags as
the winds do of loose paper. When the physician of
the place lost a pair of overshoes which were reposing
on the back kitchen steps, he remembered too late that
a Hopi had gone down the alley sometime before. The
disappearance of the overshoes can scarcely arouse as
much wonder as their presence and utility in arid,

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 249

dusty Winslow. No doubt Toni has caused many of
these mysterious disappearances and the spoils borne
northward on his patient burros have promoted a
dressed-up feeling among the Hopi braves.

It has not yet been found out whether Tom gave
an exhibition of artistic lying or was telling the truth
about the following matter. Tom was starting on one
of his periodical clothes raids to Winslow, and he was
asked to bring back a can of plaster. About a week
later Tom returned with the following laconic tale,
* * Snake bite burro, burro die ; me take can back, give
to man/'

At the time it was thought that Tom had over-
loaded his burro with old clothes and had invented
the story. There is much to be said on Indian in-
vention. If Tom is living he is still an active citizen
of Hopiland.

XII
THE ANCIENT PEOPLE

The Southwest has always been a storied land to its
native dwellers. Mountain profile, sweep of plain,
carved-out mesa, deep canyon, cave, lava stream, level
lake bed, painted desert, river shore, spring and forest
are theirs in intimacy, and around them have gathered
legends which are bits of ancient history, together with
multitude of myths of nature deities reaching back
into the misty beginning.

Deep is this intimacy in the practical affairs of life,
teaching the way to the salt, the place of the springs,
the range of the game, the nest of the honey bee, the
home of the useful plants, the quarry of the prized
stones, and the beds of clay for pottery, for the desert
is home and there is no thing hidden from keen eyes.
From far off, too, came in trade shells from the Pacific,
feathers from Mexico, buffalo pelts from the Plains,
and, perhaps, pipestone from Minnesota, so that the-
land of sunshine was not so isolated as one might
think, and its resources fed, clothed, and ministered
to the esthetic and religious needs of numerous tribes
of men from the old days to the present.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 251

The white men who tracked across the vast stretches
of the ''Great American Desert" no doubt saw ruined
towns sown over the waste, and perhaps believed them
lost to history, little suspecting that within reach lived
dusky-hued men to whom these potsherd-strewn
mounds and crumbling walls were no sealed book.
The newer explorers have drawn the old-world stories
from the lips of living traditionists, and by their
friendly aid have gathered the clues which, when
joined, will throw a flood of light on the wanderings
of the ancient people. Through them it has been
learned that each pueblo preserves with faithful care
the history of its beginnings and the wanderings of
its clans. This a.t proper times the old men repeat
and the story often takes a poetical form chanted with
great effect in the ceremonies. As an example of these
interesting myths, one should read the Zuni Eitual of
Creation, that Saga of the Americans which reveals a
beauty and depth of thought and form surprising to
those who have a limited view of the ability of the
Indian.

One thing is settled in the minds of the Pueblo
dwellers. In the beginning all the people lived in the
seven-story cave of the underworld, whence they
climbed toward the light and after reaching the sur-
face of the earth, migrated, led by supernatural be-
ings. Where the mythical underworld adventures
leave off begins a real account, telling the wanderings
of the clans and the laying of the foundations of the

252 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

multitudinous ruins of the Pueblo region. It may
not be possible to connect all the ruinous villages with
the migrations of the present Indians, for there is
room enough in this vast country to have sunk into
oblivion other peoples and languages, as the vanished
Piro, who passed away since the white strangers came
to Cibola, but much may be done to gather the glit-
tering threads before they slip from sight.

The journeyings and campings of the ancient people
becomes intelligible when the make-up of the present
pueblos is known. One finds that every pueblo con-
sists of clans which are larger families of blood rela-
tions having certain duties and responsibilities to-
gether; a name, such as the bear, cloud, or century
plant; certain rites and ceremonies to the beings;
clan officers and customs amounting to laws, and a
history preserved in the minds of the members. So it
will be seen that a tribe among the house-builders is
composed of a number of smaller tribes, called clans,
each complete and able to take care of itself, forming
the present villages. Often in the early days a pow-
erful clan migrated long distances and left members
in many different places, because clan law forbids
marriage within the clan, and the man must live with
the people of his wife. In these migrations portions
of a clan would break off and cast their lot with other
villages, and often several clans traveled in company,
building their pueblos near one another, and thus
came the groups of ruins so common in the Southwest.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 253

For this reason, all the present villages have re-
ceived swarms from other hives and have sent out in
turn swarms from the home village, during their slow
migrations around the compass. The habits of the
ancient people thus led to a constant flux and reflux
in the currents of life in the Southwest and in spite
of their substantial houses and works costly of labor
the Pueblo Indians were as migratory as the tent-
dwellers of the Plains, though they moved more slow-
ly. Their many-celled villages on mesas or on the
banks of streams, in the cliffs of the profound can-
yons, dug in the soft rocks or built in the lava caves,
were but camps of the wanderers, to be abandoned
sooner or later, leaving the dead to the ministrations
of the drifting sand.

Nor with the coming of the white people did the
wandering cease. There were Seven Cities of Cibola
ing the subsequent stretch of time, these seven towns
were fused into the Pueblo of Zuni and again came a
dispersal and from this great pueblo formed the small
summer villages of Nutria, Pescado, and Ojo Caliente.
A human swarm built Laguna two centuries ago to
swarm again other times. Acoma is mistress of Aco-
mita; Isleta has a namesake on an island in the Rio
Grande near El Paso, and in Tusayan the farming
pueblo of Moenkapi Hotavila and Ushtioki in the
plains in front of Walpi, are late additions. Thus, in
times of peace, these hamlets spring up, each having
the possibilities of becoming large settlements, and in

254 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

times of danger they come together to better with-
stand the common enemy, for the union born of need
and strengthened by the coming of wily foes was in-
culcated by former experiences. But these unions
were never close, even between the clans \vhen they
forsook their small community houses and came to-
gether forming tribes. Between tribes of the same
language there were but the faintest traces of com-
binations for mutual welfare.

Perhaps about the time of the landfall of Columbus
a group of tribes began to push their way into the
region of the house-builders.18 These tribes were re-
lated and had crept down from the north, where now
their kinsfolk live under the Arctic Circle. It was
many years before the Apache and Navaho were
strong enough to try conclusions with the settled peo-
ples, but when they had gathered to themselves the
lawless from many tribes, then began terrible chap-
ters of history which only recently have been written
to a finis. Wherever these conscienceless savages
ranged were carnage and destruction. The habits of
the house-builders changed and the ruins on high
mesas and the lookouts on every hill tell plainly how
they sought defence from the scouting enemy. The
large towns in the Salinas of Manzano passed into
oblivion under the attacks of the Apache and began
a mythical career as the "Gran Quivira" of treasure

is The Early Navaho and Apache. F. W. Hodge, Amer.
Anthropologist, July, 1895.

MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND 255

hunters. Great was the devastation of which the com-
plete story may never be told, yet nearly every tribe
preserves legends of bloody contacts with the Navaho
and Apache.

Still at an early period the Navaho became changed
from a fierce warrior to a comparatively peaceful
herdsman, subject to the maddening vagaries of that
most whimsical of gentle creatures, the sheep. Early
in the Spanish colonial period the Navaho preyed on
the flocks of sheep of the Rio Grande pueblos, where
they had been brought by the Conquistadores, and by
that act his destiny was altered. Later on, instead of
hunting the scalps of his fellow creatures, his flint
knife became more useful in removing the wool, from
the backs of his charges ; he thus became famous as a
blanket weaver, and soon excelled his teachers in that
peaceful art. BfiDCTOJX LlDntfJ

Other visitors and neighbors of the Pueblo people
were almost as undersirable as the Apache and Nava-
ho. The Comanche of the Plains brought ruin to
many a clan by his forays, and his brother, the Ute,
from the mountains to the north, was a dangerous
enemy to encounter and at many times in the past
attacked the villages of the Hopi. To the west were
the Yum a and Mohave, to the. south were the Pima,
extending into Mexico, and in the Cataract Canyon of
the Colorado lived the Havasupai deep in the earth.
These have been the neighbors of the Pueblos since
recorded history began. Also the tent dwellers of the

256 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

buffalo plains sometimes visited the Pueblos, tracking
up the Canadian, and perhaps other neighbors there
were, now vanished beyond resurrection or legend or
the spade of the archeologist into the dust of the wind-
swept plains.

Besides the harrying of enemies of the wandering
sort, there were quarrels among the sedentary tribes
and the old-fashioned way of fighting it out according
to Indian methods left many a village desolate. For
this reason the villages were often built on mesas be-
fore the ancient enemies of their occupants began
their range of the Southwest, and hostilities were car-
ried on against brothers located near the corn lands
and life-giving springs of the Pueblo country.

In the ancient days, as at present, the secret of the
distribution of Pueblo men was the distribution of
water. It seems that in the vast expanse embraced
in the Pueblo region every spring has been visited by
the Indians, since whoever would live must know
where there is water. The chief springs near the vil-
lages they dug out and walled up and built steps or
a graded way down to the water, and often these
works represent great labor. Likewise, the irrigation
canals and reservoirs of southern Arizona show what
he could do and surprise the moderns. One soon sees
that there is not a spring near the present villages that
does not receive its offerings of painted sticks adorned
with feathers, as prayers to the givers of water. These
simple-hearted folk in the toils of drought seem to

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 257

have all their ceremonies to bring rain, and there is
nothing else quite as important in their thoughts.
In the same way the Southwest has made the settlers
workers in stone and clay, for Nature has withheld
the precious wood. Few other parts of the world
show so clear an instance of the compelling power of
the surroundings on the customs of a people.

Why or how the pueblo builders came into this
inhospitable region no one may decide. The great
plateau extending from Fremont's Peak to the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec, with its varied scenery, its plants and
animals, and its human occupants is replete with inter-
esting problems of the Old New World. Perhaps as
the people crowded from the North along the Rockies
toward the fertile lands of Mexico, some weaker tribes
were thrust into the embrace of the desert and re-
mained to work out their destiny. It would appear
that no tribe could adopt the land as a home through
free choice, because the sparseness of the arid country
must make living a desperate struggle to those who
had not the precious seeds of corn.

Corn is the mother of the Pueblos, ancient and mod-
ern. Around it the Indian 's whole existence centers,
and the prevalent prayers for rain have corn as the
motive, for corn is life. Given corn and rain or
flowing water, even in small amount, and the Indian
has no fear of hard times, but prospers and multiplies
in the sanitorium where his lot is cast.

If we travel backward into the Ancient Southwest

258 MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND

we must leave behind many things that came to the
people since the Spaniards sallied from Mexico to the
new land of wonders. Sheep, goats, chickens, burros,
horses, cattle there are none, and the children of
the sun have no domestic animal except the turkey.
The coyote-like dog haunted the pueblos, but his an-
cient enemy, the cat, was not there to dispute with
him. No peaches or apricots were on the bill of fare,
and the desert must be scoured for small berries and
the fruit of the yucca and prickly-pear. Corn, beans,
melons, and squashes there were, but wheat, oats, and
alfalfa came from other hands. What would be the
deprivation if sugar, coffee, flour, and baking powder
were cut off from the present Indians. The ancients
had none, nor were the useful vessels of tin and iron
for cooking dreamed of. The agave of the South furn-
ished a sweet in the roasted leaves, which took the
place of sugar and went far and wide by early com-
merce. Tobacco always grew wild around the pueblos,
but the ancients never knew the fascination of the
modern leaf.

Before the trader's cotton stuffs, were those of
native cotton and before woolen stuffs there were
warm blankets of strips of rabbit fur interwoven with
cord, feather garments, mats of yucca, and blankets
of mountain goat and buffalo wool, with girdles and
stockings of the same textile. Perhaps more in use
than these for clothing were the tanned skins of the
elk, deer, and antelope, ornamented with native col-

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 259

ors before aniline dyes came into existence. Buffalo
skins were a part of the belongings of the ancients
secured through trade with the people of the plains.
There were sandals of plaited yucca and moccasins
of turkey feathers. For jewelry there were seeds of
the pine, shells, beads, and ornaments of turquoise
and colored stones, quite enough to satisfy the love
of ornament and quite suitable to the dusky skins of
the Indians, as anyone may verify, if he will travel
to the pueblos.

About the houses every vestige of metal and glass
is absent. The windows may have been glazed with
irregular plates of selenite, and the marks of fire and
the rude stone axe are upon the beams. Instead of
the gun, curved clubs, the bow, and stone-tipped ar-
rows hang from the rafters with the lance thrown by
the atlatl. In the corner stands a hoe of stone and a
digging stick ; pottery, gourds, and basketry are the
sole utensils, the knife is a chipped stone blade set
with pine gum in a wooden handle, and the horns of
the mountain sheep are formed into spoons.

The rooms are smoky and dark, since the chimney
is not yet, and the fire on the floor must be nursed,
for, when it goes out, it must be rekindled by the
friction of two pieces of wood or borrowed from a
neighbor in the manner of primitive times, not yet
forgotten among the advanced sharers of civilization.
Much might be added to this picture of the early life
of the Pueblos, and the exploration of the ruins will

260 MESA FOLK OP HOPILAND

tell us yet more to excite our interest and admiration.

Among the inhabited Hopi pueblos are many seats
of the ancient people now become mounds or fallen
walls and their memory a tradition. There were four
mission churches; hardly a vestige of them remains,
and a few of the carved beams support the roofs of
pagan kivas. This bears strong testimony to the com-
pleteness of the weeding out of the foreign missions
by the Hopi more than two centuries ago. The Hopi
have always been free and independent, even when
the search for gold by the Conquistadores had been
turned to the search for souls to the subjugation of
most of the other Pueblos in the Southwest.

Several of the interesting ruins in Tusayan have
been explored. Sikyatki, or " Yellow House/' lying
on the sand hills four miles east of Walpi, has yielded
many strange and beautiful relics of pottery and
stone, as has Awatobi, a large town on a mesa ten
miles southeast of "Walpi, destroyed about the year
1700 by the other villagers. Here may be traced the
walls of the mission of San Bernardino de Awatobi,
a large church built of blocks of adobe mixed with
straw. The church stood on the mesa commanding
a superb view of the lava buttes to the south and
must have been in its time an imposing building. The
old town of Kisakobi, near Walpi, has yielded relics
in profusion of a later period than the sites mentioned,
and it is here that we must look for the arts of the
Hopi just before they came into the light of history.

MESA FOLK OF HOPILAND 261

The prevalence of ruins around the Hopi mesas is
in keeping with the movements of the tribes in the
Pueblo region. Of the seven Hopi towns, Oraibi is
the only one now on the site it occupied when the
Spaniards came to Tusayan.

Not long ago, according to Hopi traditionists, some
clans withdrew from Tusayan and rebuilt cliff -houses
in the Canyon de Chelly, where before some of the
clans that finally settled in Tusayan lived for a time.

Without doubt the connection between the early
Hopi clans and the people who lived in the cliff-dwell-
ings was close at a former period, and there is reason
to believe that the older clans who are said to have
come in from, the North possessed the black-and-white
pottery and the arts of the cliff-dwellers. Other clans
coming from the South must have worked considera-
ble changes in Hopi arts. While the southern clans
brought yellow pottery, it remained for the great in-
flux of peoples from the Bio Grande to introduce the
artistic ware with complicated symbolic decoration
that rendered the Tusayan ceramics superior to all
others in northern America.

INDEX

Albinos, 17

Ancient life, pictures of, 257-259

Announcements of town crier, 43

Apache, 26

Astronomy, primitive, 44

Attacks of Navaho and Apache,

254

Basket dance, 159
Baskets, kinds of, 90
Basket making, 91-95
Basket, materials of, 91
Basket struggle, 161
Baskets, uses of, 93
Blessing of the fields, 37
Burial, 130, 131
Carving, joinery, painting and

drawing, 87-90
Ceremonies, 132; basis of, 135,

136
Ceremonial calendar, regulation

of, 148
Chakwaina, biography of, 231-

233
Children, games of, 107, 108;

education of, 119-122
Clan ceremonies, 135; laws, 36
Cliff dwellers, 261
Climate, 15
Cold, disregard of, 33
Communication of news, 42
Constellations named, 44
Cooperation, 37
Corn, cooking of, 66; cultivation

and care of, 61, 62; diet of,

65; feast, 61; grinding, 62;

meal, 64 ; origin myth of, 65 ;

planting of, 60, 61
Cornfield, appearance of, 60
Cotton, use of, 83
Courtship, 122-123
Crafts, 70

Day, division of, 45
Death, ideas concerning, 128, 129,

130
Dedication of infant to the sun,

117

Dolls, making of, 87

Dyeing, 85

Eagle capture, 170; cemetery,

171; egg shrine, 171; feathers

in ceremony, 170 ; ownership

of, 168

Education of children, 218, 219
Environment, effect in shaping

culture, 15
Fewkes (Dr. J. Walter), xl, 47,

88, 151, 159, 179; on Kopeli,

221-223

Fields, guarding of, 56
Flute, ceremony of, 156-159
Fire priests, 166, 167; making,

164

Founding of new villages, 253
Fuel gathering, 71
Games, athletic and sedentary,

105, 106
Gardens, 53
Hano, origin of, 20
Havasupai, 25
Head flattening, 16
Herbs, collection of, 58 ; mixed

with tobacco, 60
Historical ruins, 260
Hodge (F. W.), x, 254
Honani family, account of, 228-

231
House, arrangement of, 100;

building of, 95-101; dedication

ceremonies, 99, 100 ; descrip-
tion of, 22-23

Hunts, ceremonial, 172, 173, 174
Industry, 71

Intiwa, biography of, 227, 228
Kachinas, 135

Kachina ceremonies, 145-146
Kisakobi, 260
Kivas, construction of, Walpi, 21-

22

Kopeli, biography of, 218-223
Labor, division of, 69
Lalakonti ceremony, 159-161
Land, ownership of, 37

264

INDEX

Laws, 38

Longevity, 17

Lummis (C. P.), 4

Mamzrauti ceremony, 161-163

Marriage, 123-128

Meals, 67

Medicine men, 167, 168; theory
and practice, 58

Migration of Apache and Navaho,
254; of Pueblo, 253

Mindeleff (Cosmos), 101

Mission churches, 260

Moccasin making, 72, 73, 74

Months of summer, 33, 34, 35 ; of
winter 30, 31, 32

Mungwe, biography of, 233-235

Mushongnovi pueblo, 23

Music, character of, 103 ; of Flute
ceremony, 103, 104, 105

Myth of Alosaka, 193 ; Dr. Fewkes
quoted, 189; of flint clad giant,
186, 187; of Great Elk, 185,
186; of man-eagle, 180-185; of
migration, 190-194, 196, 197-
200; of monsters, 179; of
plumed serpent, 194, 195; of
sun twins, 187, 188

Naming customs, 117

Nampeo, 75, 76

Nampeo, potter, 20

Nashihiptuwa on the golden age,
213-217

Natal rites, 114-115

Native worship, 134-135

Navaho contracts, 24

New fire ceremony, 163-165

Niman Kachina ceremony, 146-
148

Oraibi, location of, 260; pueblo,
24

Organization of ancient Pueblos,
252

Origin of pueblo builders, 257

Paiute, 26

Palulukong ceremony, 140-145

Physical characteristics, 16

Pima, 26, 27

Plants, knowledge of, 57; lore of,
59; uses of, 59

Planting stick, 60

Pottery, ancient, 261 ; burning,
80, 81, 82; clays, 77; evolution
of, 78, 79; paints, 80; super-
stition regarding, 83 ; tools, 78

Powamu ceremony, 139, 140

Prayersticks in springs, 256

Preservation of tradition, 251

Primitive commerce, 250

Pueblo origin accounts, 251, 252

Punishments, 38

Routes to Pueblos, 13

Running, feats of, 108,113

Saalako, medicine woman, biog-
raphy of, 225-227

Sandals, 74, 75

Seed gathering, 67

Social organization, 35

Sheep, introduction of, 83, 255

Shepherds, 39-40

Shipaulovi pueblo, 24

Shrines, 175-178

Shumopavi pueblo, 24

Sichomovi pueblo, origin of name,
20

Sikyatki, ancient pueblo de-
stroyed, 210; ruins of, 260

Snake dance, 148-155 ; legend,
155-156

Songs, purchase of, 102 ; variety
of, 105

Soyaluna ceremony, 136-139

Springs, 53 ; disappearance of,
54 ; Flute Dance in, 54 ; names
of, 54 ; offerings in, 53 ; sacred,
54

Street market, 40

Summer occupations, 33

Tewa, migration of, 20; visits of
pueblos, 25

Time, determination of, 43, 44;
reckoning in birth rites, 114;
record, 44

Toby, biography of, 245, 247

"Tom Sawyer," biography of,
247-249

Totem names, 46, 47

Town crier, or speaker chief, 41,
42

Town patrol, 39

Traders, ability of, 38

Tradition of Apache raids, 202 ;
of destruction of Awatobi, 210-
213; of flood, 203; of former
location, 304; of origin of
Hano, 208; of Spanish con-
querors, 206, 207; of the Span-
ish Friars, 204, 205

Turkey, 172

Tusayan, physical description of,
13

Unwarlike character of Hopi, 209

INDEX 265

of, 51; jars, hidden, 50; signs8 Hf asSon 'with, 25