{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_15888/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_15888","id":"gutenberg_15888","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15888","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Hopi Indians","Hopi Indians -- Folklore","Mythology","Native America"],"text":"Produced by David Starner, Stephanie Maschek and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\nVol. IV, No. 4\nMay 15, 1933\n\nUniversity of Arizona Bulletin\n\nSOCIAL SCIENCE BULLETIN No. 2\n\n\nThe Unwritten Literature of the Hopi\n\n\nBY\nHATTIE GREENE LOCKETT\n\n\nPUBLISHED BY\nUniversity of Arizona\nTUCSON, ARIZONA\n\n\n\n\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\nI. Introduction\nGeneral Statement\nThe Challenge\nThe Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life\n\nII. The Hopi\nTheir Country, The People\n\nIII. Hopi Social Organization\nGovernment\nThe Clan and Marriage\nProperty, Lands, Houses, Divorce\nWoman's Work\nMan's Work\n\nIV. Pottery and Basket Making Traditional, Its Symbolism\n\nV. House Building\n\nVI. Myth and Folktale, General Discussion\nStability\nIntrusion of Contemporary Material\nHow and Why Myths are Kept\nService of Myth\nHopi Story Telling\n\nVII. Hopi Religion\nGods and Kachinas\nReligion Not for Morality\n\nVIII. Ceremonies, General Discussion\nBelief and Ceremonial\n\nIX. Hopi Myths and Traditions and Some Ceremonies Based Upon Them\nThe Emergence Myth and the Wu-wu-che-Ma Ceremony\nSome Migration Myths\nFlute Ceremony and Tradition\nOther Dances\nThe Snake Myth and the Snake Dance\nA Flood and Turkey Feathers\n\nX. Ceremonies for Birth, Marriage, Burial\nBirth\nMarriage\nBurial\n\nXI. Stories Told Today\nAn Ancient Feud\nMemories of a Hopi Centenarian\nThe Coyote and the Water Plume Snake\nA Bear Story\nThe Giant and the Twin War Gods\nThe Coyote and the Turtle\nThe Frog and the Locust\n\nXII. Conclusion\n\n\n\n\nThe Unwritten Literature of the Hopi[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: A thesis accepted in partial fulfillment of the\nrequirements for the Master of Arts degree in Archaeology, University of\nArizona, 1933. Published under the direction of the Committee on\nGraduate Study, R.J. Leonard, Chairman.]\n\n\n\n\nI. INTRODUCTION\n\nSHOWING THAT THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE HOPI IS THE\nOUTGROWTH OF THEIR UNWRITTEN LITERATURE\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGENERAL STATEMENT\n\nBy a brief survey of present day Hopi culture and an examination into\nthe myths and traditions constituting the unwritten literature of this\npeople, this bulletin proposes to show that an intimate connection\nexists between their ritual acts, their moral standards, their social\norganization, even their practical activities of today, and their myths\nand tales--the still unwritten legendary lore.\n\nThe myths and legends of primitive peoples have always interested the\npainter, the poet, the thinker; and we are coming to realize more and\nmore that they constitute a treasure-trove for the archaeologist, and\nespecially the anthropologist, for these sources tell us of the\nstruggles, the triumphs, the wanderings of a people, of their\naspirations, their ideals and beliefs; in short, they give us a twilight\nhistory of the race.\n\nAs the geologist traces in the rocks the clear record of the early\nbeginnings of life on our planet, those first steps that have led\nthrough the succession of ever-developing forms of animal and plant life\nat last culminating in man and the world as we now see them, so does the\nanthropologist discover in the myths and legends of a people the dim\ntraces of their origin and development till these come out in the\nstronger light of historical time. And it is at this point that the\nethnologist, trying to understand a race as he finds them today, must\nlook earnestly back into the \"realm of beginnings,\" through this window\nof so-called legendary lore, in order to account for much that he finds\nin the culture of the present day.\n\n\n=The Challenge: Need of Research on Basic Beliefs Underlying Ceremonies=\n\nWissler says:[2] \"It is still an open question in primitive social\npsychology whether we are justified in assuming that beliefs of a basic\ncharacter do motivate ceremonies. It seems to us that such must be the\ncase, because we recognize a close similarity in numerous practices and\nbecause we are accustomed to believe in the unity of the world and life.\nSo it may still be our safest procedure to secure better records of\ntribal traditional beliefs and to deal with objective procedures as far\nas possible. No one has ventured to correlate specific beliefs and\nceremonial procedures, but it is through this approach that the\nmotivating power of beliefs will be revealed, if such potency exists.\"\n\n[Footnote 2: Wissler, Clark, An Introduction to Social Anthropology:\nHenry Holt & Co., New York, 1926, p. 266.]\n\nSome work has been done along this line by Kroeber for the tribes of\nCalifornia, Lowie for the Crow Indians, and Junod for the Ekoi of West\nAfrica; but it appears that the anthropological problem of basic beliefs\nand philosophies is dependent upon specific tribal studies and that more\nresearch is called for.\n\n\n=The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life=\n\nAs a background for our discussion we shall need to consider first, the\nnature and significance of mythology, since there is some, indeed much,\ndifference of opinion on the subject, and to arrive at some basis of\nunderstanding as to its function.\n\nThe so-called school of Nature-Mythology, which flourishes mainly in\nGermany, maintains that primitive man is highly interested in natural\nphenomena, and that this interest is essentially of a theoretic,\ncontemplative and poetical character. To writers of this school every\nmyth has as its kernel or essence some natural phenomenon or other, even\nthough such idea is not apparent upon the surface of the story; a deeper\nmeaning, a symbolic reference, being insisted upon. Such famous scholars\nas Ehrenreich, Siecke, Winckler, Max Muller, and Kuhn have long given us\nthis interpretation of myth.\n\nIn strong contrast to this theory which regards myth as naturalistic,\nsymbolic, and imaginary, we have the theory which holds a sacred tale as\na true historical record of the past. This idea is supported by the\nso-called Historical school in Germany and America, and represented in\nEngland by Dr. Rivers. We must admit that both history and natural\nenvironment have left a profound imprint on all cultural achievement,\nincluding mythology, but we are not justified in regarding all mythology\nas historical chronicle, nor yet as the poetical musings of primitive\nnaturalists. The primitive does indeed put something of historical\nrecord and something of his best interpretation of mysterious natural\nphenomena into his legendary lore, but there is something else, we are\nled to believe, that takes precedence over all other considerations in\nthe mind of the primitive (as well as in the minds of all of the rest of\nus) and that is getting on in the world, a pragmatic outlook.\n\nIt is evident that the primitive relies upon his ancient lore to help\nhim out in his struggle with his environment, in his needs spiritual and\nhis needs physical, and this immense service comes through religious\nritual, moral incentive, and sociological pattern, as laid down in the\ncherished magical and legendary lore of his tribe.\n\nThe close connection between religion and mythology, under-estimated by\nmany, has been fully appreciated by the great British anthropologist,\nSir James Frazer, and by classical scholars like Miss Jane Harrison.\nThe myth is the Bible of the primitive, and just as our Sacred Story\nlives in our ritual and in our morality, as it governs our faith and\ncontrols our conduct, even so does the savage live by his mythology.\n\nThe myth, as it actually exists in a primitive community, even today, is\nnot of the nature of fiction such as our novel, but is a living reality,\nbelieved to have once happened in primeval times when the world was\nyoung and continuing ever since to influence the world and human\ndestiny.\n\nThe mere fireside tale of the primitive may be a narrative, true or\nimaginary, or a sort of fairy story, a fable or a parable, intended\nmainly for the edification of the young and obviously pointing a moral\nor emphasizing some useful truth or precept. And here we do recognize\nsymbolism, much in the nature of historical record. But the special\nclass of stories regarded by the primitive as sacred, his sacred myths,\nare embodied in ritual, morals, and social organization, and form an\nintegral and active part of primitive culture. These relate back to best\nknown precedent, to primeval reality, by which pattern the affairs of\nmen have ever since been guided, and which constitute the only \"safe\npath.\"\n\nMalinowski[3] stoutly maintains that these stories concerning the\norigins of rites and customs are not told in mere explanation of them;\nin fact, he insists they are not intended as explanations at all, but\nthat the myth states a precedent which constitutes an _ideal_ and a\nwarrant for its continuance, and sometimes furnishes practical\ndirections for the procedure. He feels that those who consider the myths\nof the savage as mere crude stories made up to explain natural\nphenomena, or as historical records true or untrue, have made a mistake\nin taking these myths out of their life-context and studying them from\nwhat they look like on paper, and not from what they do in life.\n\n[Footnote 3: Malinowski, B., Myth in Primitive Psychology: M.W. Norton &\nCo., Inc., New York, 1926, p. 19.]\n\nSince Malinowski's definition of myth differs radically from that of\nmany other writers on the subject, we would refer the reader to the\ndiscussion of myth under the head of Social Anthropology in the\nEncyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, page 869.\n\n\n\n\nII. THE HOPI\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=Their Country--The People=\n\nThe Hopi Indians live in northern Arizona about one hundred miles\nnortheast of Flagstaff, seventy miles north of Winslow, and seventy-five\nmiles north of Holbrook.\n\nFor at least eight hundred years the Hopi pueblos have occupied the\nsouthern points of three fingers of Black Mesa, the outstanding physical\nfeature of the country, commonly referred to as First, Second, and Third\nMesas.\n\nIt is evident that in late prehistoric times several large villages were\nlocated at the foot of First and Second Mesas, but at present, except\nfor two small settlements around trading posts, the villages are all on\ntop of the mesas. On the First Mesa we find Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano,\nthe latter not Hopi but a Tewa village built about 1700 by immigrants\nfrom the Rio Grande Valley, and at the foot of this mesa the modern\nvillage of Polacca with its government school and trading post. On\nSecond Mesa are Mashongnovi, Shipaulovi, and Shungopovi, with Toreva Day\nSchool at its foot. On Third Mesa Oraibi, Hotavilla, and Bacabi are\nfound, with a government school and a trading post at Lower Oraibi and\nanother school at Bacabi. Moencopi, an offshoot from Old Oraibi, is near\nTuba City.\n\nThis area was once known as the old Spanish Province of Tusayan, and the\nHopi villages are called pueblos, Spanish for towns. In 1882, 2,472,320\nacres of land were set aside from the public domain as the Hopi Indian\nReservation. At present the Hopi area is included within the greater\nNavajo Reservation and administered by a branch of the latter Indian\nagency.\n\nThe name Hopi or Hopitah means \"peaceful people,\" and the name Moqui,\nsometimes applied to them by unfriendly Navajo neighbors, is really a\nZuni word meaning \"dead,\" a term of derision. Naturally the Hopi do not\nlike being called Moqui, though no open resentment is ever shown. Early\nfiction and even some early scientific reports used the term Moqui\ninstead of Hopi.\n\nAdmirers have called these peaceful pueblo dwellers \"The Quaker People,\"\nbut that is a misnomer for these sturdy brown heathen who have never\nasked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a\ncreditable record of defensive warfare during early historic times and\nrunning back into their traditional history, and have also some accounts\nof civil strife.\n\nThe nomadic Utes, Piutes, Apaches, and Navajos for years raided the\nfields and flocks of this industrious, prosperous, sedentary people; in\nfact, the famous Navajo blanket weavers got the art of weaving and their\nfirst stock of sheep through stealing Hopi women and Hopi sheep. But\nthere came a time when the peaceful Hopi decided to kill the Navajos who\nstole their crops and their girls, and then conditions improved. Too,\nsoon after, came the United States government and Kit Carson to\ndiscipline the raiding Navajos.\n\nThe only semblance of trouble our government has had with the Hopi grew\nout of the objection, in fact, refusal, of some of the more conservative\nof the village inhabitants to send their children to school. The\nchildren were taken by force, but no blood was shed, and now government\nschooling is universally accepted and generally appreciated.\n\nA forbidding expanse of desert waste lands surrounds the Hopi mesas,\nfurnishing forage for Hopi sheep and goats during the wet season and\nbrowse enough to sustain them during the balance of the year. These\nanimals are of a hardy type adapted to their desert environment. Our\npure blood stock would fare badly under such conditions. However, the\ntype of wool obtained from these native sheep lends itself far more\nhappily to the weaving of the fine soft blankets so long made by the\nHopi than does the wool of our high grade Merino sheep or a mixture of\nthe two breeds. This is so because our Merino wool requires the\ncommercial scouring given it by modern machine methods, whereas the Hopi\nwool can be reduced to perfect working condition by the primitive hand\nwashing of the Hopi women.\n\nAs one approaches the dun-colored mesas from a distance he follows their\npicturesque outlines against the sky line, rising so abruptly from the\nplain below, but not until one is within a couple of miles can he\ndiscern the villages that crown their heights. And no wonder these\ndun-colored villages seem so perfectly a part of the mesas themselves,\nfor they are literally so--their rock walls and dirt roofs having been\nmerely picked up from the floor and sides of the mesa itself and made\ninto human habitations.\n\nThe Hopi number about 2,500 and are a Shoshonean stock. They speak a\nlanguage allied to that of the Utes and more remotely to the language of\nthe Aztecs in Mexico.[4]\n\n[Footnote 4: Colton, H.S., Days in the Painted Desert: Museum Press,\nFlagstaff, 1932, p. 17.]\n\nAccording to their traditions the various Hopi clans arrived in Hopiland\nat different times and from different directions, but they were all a\nkindred people having the same tongue and the same fundamental\ntraditions.\n\nThey did not at first build on the tops of the mesas, but at their feet,\nwhere their corn fields now are, and it was not from fear of the\nwar-like and aggressive tribes of neighboring Apaches and Navajos that\nthey later took to the mesas, as we once supposed. A closer acquaintance\nwith these people brings out the fact that it was not till the Spaniards\nhad come to them and established Catholic Missions in the late\nSeventeenth Century that the Hopi decided to move to the more easily\ndefended mesa tops for fear of a punitive expedition from the Spaniards\nwhose priests they had destroyed.\n\nWe are told that these desert-dwellers, whose very lives have always\ndepended upon their little corn fields along the sandy washes that\ncaught and held summer rains, always challenged new-coming clans to\nprove their value as additions to the community, especially as to their\nmagic for rain-making, for life here was a hardy struggle for existence,\nwith water as a scarce and precious essential. Among the first\ninhabitants was the Snake Clan with its wonderful ceremonies for rain\nbringing, as well as other sacred rites. Willingly they accepted the\nrituals and various religious ceremonials of new-comers when they showed\ntheir ability to help out with the eternal problem of propitiating the\ngods that they conceived to have control over rain, seed germination,\nand the fertility and well-being of the race.\n\nIn exactly the same spirit they welcomed the friars. Perhaps these\npriests had \"good medicine\" that would help out. Maybe this new kind of\naltar, image, and ceremony would bring rain and corn and health; they\nwere quite willing to try them. But imagine their consternation when\nthese Catholic priests after a while, unlike any people who had ever\nbefore been taken into their community, began to insist that the new\nreligion be the only one, and that all other ceremonies be stopped. How\ncould the Hopi, who had depended upon their old ceremonies for\ncenturies, dare to stop them? Their revered traditions told them of\nclans that had suffered famine and sickness and war as punishment for\nhaving dropped or even neglected their religious dances and ceremonies,\nand of their ultimate salvation when they returned to their faithful\nperformance.\n\nThe Hopi objected to the slavish labor of bringing timbers by hand from\nthe distant mountains for the building of missions and, according to\nHopi tradition, to the priests taking some of their daughters as\nconcubines, but the breaking point was the demand of the friars that all\ntheir old religious ceremonies be stopped; this they dared not do.\n\nSo the \"long gowns\" were thrown over the cliff, and that was that.\nCertain dissentions and troubles had come upon them, and some crop\nfailures, so they attributed their misfortunes to the anger of the old\ngods and decided to stamp out this new and dangerous religion. It had\ntaken a strong hold on one of their villages, Awatobi, even to the\nextent of replacing some of the old ceremonies with the new singing and\nchanting and praying. And so Awatobi was destroyed by representatives\nfrom all the other villages. Entering the sleeping village just before\ndawn, they pulled up the ladders from the underground kivas where all\nthe men of the village were known to be sleeping because of a ceremony\nin progress, then throwing down burning bundles and red peppers they\nsuffocated their captives, shooting with bows and arrows those who tried\nto climb out. Women and children who resisted were killed, the rest were\ndivided among the other villages as prisoners, but virtually adopted.\nThus tenaciously have the Hopi clung to their old religion--noncombatants\nso long as new cults among them do not attempt to stop the old.\n\nThere are Christian missionaries among them today, notably Baptists, but\nthey are quite safe, and the Hopi treat them well. Meantime the old\nceremonies are going strong, the rain falls after the Snake Dance, and\nthe crops grow. The Hopi realize that missionary influence will\neventually take some away from the old beliefs and practices and that\ngovernment school education is bound to break down the old traditional\nunity of ideas. Naturally their old men are worried about it. Yet their\nfaith is strong and their disposition is kindly and tolerant, much like\nthat of the good old Methodist fathers who are disturbed over their\nyoung people being led off into new angles of religious belief, yet\nconfident that \"the old time religion\" will prevail and hopeful that the\nyoung will be led to see the error of their way. How long the old faith\ncan last, in the light of all that surrounds it, no one can say, but in\nall human probability it is making its last gallant stand.\n\nThese Pueblo Indians are very unlike the nomadic tribes around them.\nThey are a sedentary, peaceful people living in permanent villages and\npresenting today a significant transitional phase in the advance of a\npeople from savagery toward civilization and affording a valuable study\nin the science of man.\n\nNaturally they are changing, for easy transportation has brought the\noutside world to their once isolated home. It is therefore highly\nimportant that they be studied first-hand now for they will not long\nstay as they are.\n\n\n\n\nIII. HOPI SOCIAL ORGANIZATION\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=Government=\n\nIn government, the village is the unit, and a genuinely democratic\ngovernment it is. There is a house chief, a Kiva chief, a war chief, the\nspeaker chief or town crier, and the chiefs of the clans who are\nlikewise chiefs of the fraternities; all these making up a council which\nrules the pueblo, the crier publishing its decisions. Laws are\ntraditional and unwritten. Hough[5] says infractions are so few that it\nwould be hard to say what the penalties are, probably ridicule and\nostracism. Theft is almost unheard of, and the taking of life by force\nor law is unknown.\n\n[Footnote 5: Hough, Walter, The Hopi: Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, 1915.]\n\nTo a visitor encamped at bedtime below the mesa, the experience of\nhearing the speaker chief or town crier for the first time is something\nlong to be remembered. Out of the stillness of the desert night comes a\nvoice from the house tops, and such a voice! From the heights above, it\nresounds in a sonorous long-drawn chant. Everyone listens breathlessly\nto the important message and it goes on and on.\n\nThe writer recalls that when first she heard it, twenty years ago, she\nsat up in bed and rousing the camp, with stage whispers (afraid to speak\naloud), demanded: \"Do you hear that? What on earth can it mean? Surely\nsomething awful has happened!\" On and on it went endlessly. (She has\nsince been told that it is all repeated three times.) And not until\nmorning was it learned that the long speech had been merely the\nannouncement of a rabbit hunt for the next day. The oldest traditions of\nthe Hopi tell of this speaker chief and his important utterances. He is\na vocal bulletin board and the local newspaper, but his news is\nprincipally of a religious nature, such as the announcement of\nceremonials. This usually occurs in the evening when all have gotten in\nfrom the fields or home from the day's journey, but occasionally\nannouncements are made at other hours.\n\nThe following is a poetic formal announcement of the New Fire Ceremony,\nas given at sunrise from the housetop of the Crier at Walpi:\n\n  \"All people awake, open your eyes, arise,\n  Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly:\n  Hasten, Clouds, from the four world-quarters.\n  Come, Snow, in plenty, that water may abound when summer appears.\n  Come, Ice, and cover the fields, that after planting they may yield\n  abundantly.\n  Let all hearts be glad.\n  The Wuwutchimtu will assemble in four days;\n  They will encircle the villages, dancing and singing.\n  Let the women be ready to pour water upon them\n  That moisture may come in plenty and all shall rejoice.\"[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., p. 43.]\n\nAs to the character of their government, Hewett says:[7] \"We can\ntruthfully say that these surviving pueblo communities constitute the\noldest existing republics. It must be remembered, however, that they\nwere only vest-pocket editions. No two villages nor group of villages\never came under a common authority or formed a state. There is not the\nfaintest tradition of a 'ruler' over the whole body of the Pueblos, nor\nan organization of the people of this vast territory under a common\ngovernment.\"\n\n[Footnote 7: Hewett, E.L., Ancient Life in the American Southwest:\nBobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1929, p. 71.]\n\n\n=The Clan and Marriage=\n\nMaking up the village are various clans. A clan comprises all the\ndescendants of a traditional maternal ancestor. Children belong to the\nclan of the mother. (See Figure 1.) These clans bear the name of\nsomething in nature, often suggested by either a simple or a significant\nincident in the legendary history of the people during migration when\noff-shoots from older clans were formed into new clans. Thus a migration\nlegend collected by Voth[8] accounts for the name of the Bear Clan, the\nBluebird Clan, the Spider Clan, and others.\n\n[Footnote 8: Voth, H.R., Traditions of the Hopi: Field Columbian Museum\nPub. 96, Anthropological series, vol. 8, pp. 36-38, 1905.]\n\nSons and daughters are expected to marry outside the clan, and the son\nmust live with his wife's people, so does nothing to perpetuate his own\nclan. The Hopi is monogamous. A daughter on marrying brings her husband\nto her home, later building the new home adjacent to that of her\nmother. Therefore many daughters born to a clan mean increase in\npopulation.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 1.--Hopi Family at Shungopovi.\n\n--Photo by Lockett.]\n\nSome clans have indeed become nearly extinct because of the lack of\ndaughters, the sons having naturally gone to live with neighboring\nclans, or in some cases with neighboring tribes. As a result, some large\nhouses are pointed out that have many unoccupied and even abandoned\nrooms--the clan is dying out. Possibly there may be a good many men of\nthat clan living but they are not with or near their parents and\ngrandparents. They are now a part of the clan into which they have\nmarried, and must live there, be it near or far. Why should they keep up\nsuch a practice when possibly the young man could do better,\neconomically and otherwise, in his ancestral home and community? The\nanswer is, \"It has always been that way,\" and that seems to be reason\nenough for a Hopi.\n\n\n=Property, Lands, Houses, Divorce=\n\nLand is really communal, apportioned to the several clans and by them\napportioned to the various families, who enjoy its use and hand down\nsuch use to the daughters, while the son must look to his wife's share\nof her clan allotment for his future estate. In fact, it is a little\ndoubtful whether he has any estate save his boots and saddle and\nwhatever personal plunder he may accumulate, for the house is the\nproperty of the wife, as well as the crop after its harvest, and divorce\nat the pleasure of the wife is effective and absolute by the mere means\nof placing said boots and saddle, etc., outside the door and closing it.\nThe husband may return to his mother's house, and if he insists upon\nstaying, the village council will insist upon his departure.\n\nAgain, why do they keep doing it this way? Again, \"Because it has always\nbeen done this way.\" And it works very well. There is little divorce and\nlittle dissension in domestic life among the Hopi, in spite of\nCrane's[9] half comical sympathy for men in this \"woman-run\"\ncommonwealth. Bachelors are rare since only heads of families count in\nthe body politic. An unmarried woman of marriageable age is unheard of.\n\n[Footnote 9: Crane, Leo, Indians of the Enchanted Mesa: Little, Brown &\nCo., Boston, 1925.]\n\n\n=Woman's Work=\n\nThe Hopi woman's life is a busy one, the never finished grinding of corn\nby the use of the primitive metate and mano taking much time, and the\nuniversal woman's task of bearing and rearing children and providing\nmeals and home comforts accounting for most of her day.\n\nShe is the carrier of water, and since it must be borne on her back from\nthe spring below the village mesa this is a burden indeed. She is, too,\nthe builder of the house, though men willingly assist in any heavy\nlabor when wanted. But why on earth should so kindly a people make woman\nthe carrier of water and the mason of her home walls? Tradition! \"It has\nalways been this way.\"\n\nHer leisure is employed in visiting her neighbors, for the Hopi are a\nconspicuously sociable people, and in the making of baskets or pottery.\nOne hears a great deal about Hopi pottery, but the pottery center in\nHopiland is the village of Hano, on First Mesa, and the people are not\nHopi but Tewas, whose origin shall presently be explained.\n\nNot until recent years has pottery been made elsewhere in Hopiland than\nat Hano. At present, however, Sichomovi, the Hopi village built so close\nto Hano that one scarce knows where one ends and the other begins, makes\nexcellent pottery as does the Hopi settlement at the foot of the hill,\nPolacca. Undoubtedly this comes from the Tewa influence and in some\ncases from actual Tewa families who have come to live in the new\nlocality. For instance, Grace, maker of excellent pottery, now living at\nPolacca, is a Tewa who lived in Hano twenty years ago, when the writer\nfirst knew her, and continued to live there until a couple of years ago.\nNampeo, most famous potter in Hopiland, is an aged Tewa woman still\nliving at Hano, in the first house at the head of the trail. Her\nambitious study of the fragments of the pottery of the ancients, in the\nruins of old Sikyatki, made her the master craftsman and developed a new\nstandard for pottery-making in her little world.\n\nMention was made previously of the women employing their leisure in the\nmaking of baskets or pottery. An interesting emphasis should be placed\nupon the \"or,\" for no village does both. The women of the three villages\nmentioned at First Mesa as pottery villages make no baskets. The three\nvillages on Second Mesa make a particular kind of coiled basket found\nnowhere else save in North Africa, and no pottery nor any other kind of\nbasket. The villages of Third Mesa make colorful twined or wicker\nbaskets and plaques, just the one kind and no pottery. They stick as\nclosely to these lines as though their wares were protected by some\ntribal \"patent right.\" Pottery for First Mesa, coiled baskets for Second\nMesa, and wicker baskets for Third Mesa.\n\nThe writer has known the Hopi a long time, and has asked them many\ntimes the reason for this. The villages are only a few miles apart, so\nthe same raw materials are available to all. These friends merely laugh\ngood naturedly and answer: \"O, the only reason is, that it is just the\nway we have always done it.\"\n\nNatural conservatives, these Hopi, and yet not one of them but likes a\nbright new sauce-pan from the store for her cooking, and a good iron\nstove, for that matter, if she can afford it. There is no tradition\nagainst this, we are told.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 2.--Walpi.\n\n--Photo by Bortell.]\n\nMore than two centuries ago, these Tewas came from the Rio Grande\nregion, by invitation of the Walpi, to help them defend this village\n(See Figure 2) from their Navajo, Apache, and Piute enemies. They were\ngiven a place on the mesa-top to build their village, at the head of the\nmain trail, which it was their business to guard, and fields were\nallotted them in the valley below.\n\nThey are a superior people, intelligent, friendly, reliable, and so\nclosely resemble the Hopi that they can not be told apart.\n\nThe two peoples have intermarried freely, and it is hard to think of the\nTewas otherwise than as \"one kind of Hopi.\" However, they are of a\ndistinctly different linguistic stock, speaking a Tewa language brought\nfrom the Rio Grande, while the Hopi speak a dialect of the Shoshonean.\n\nIt is an interesting fact that all Tewas speak Hopi as well as Tewa,\nwhereas the Hopi have never learned the Tewa language. The Hopi have a\nlegend accounting for this:\n\n\"When the Hano first came, the Walpi said to them, 'Let us spit in your\nmouths and you will learn our tongue,' and to this the Hano consented.\nWhen the Hano came up and built on the mesa, they said to the Walpi,\n'Let us spit in your mouths and you will learn our tongue,' but the\nWalpi would not listen to this, saying it would make them vomit. This is\nthe reason why all the Hano can speak Hopi, and none of the Hopi can\ntalk Hano.\"[10]\n\n[Footnote 10: Mindeleff, Cosmos, Traditional History of Tusayan (After\nA.M. Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, p. 36, 1887.]\n\n\n=Man's Work=\n\nThe work of the men must now be accounted for lest the impression be\ngained that the industry of the women leaves the males idle and\ncarefree.\n\nIt is but fair to the men to say that first of all they carry the\ncommunity government on their shoulders, and the still more weighty\naffairs of religion. They are depended upon to keep the seasonal and\nother ceremonies going throughout the year, and the Hopi ceremonial\ncalendar has its major event for each of the twelve months, for all of\nwhich elaborate preparation must be made, including the manufacture and\nrepair of costumes and other paraphernalia and much practicing and\nrehearsing in the kivas. Someone has said much of the Hopi man's time is\ntaken up with \"getting ready for dances, having dances, and getting over\ndances.\" Yes, a big waste of time surely to you and me, but to the Hopi\ncommunity--men, women, and children alike--absolutely essential to their\nwell-being. There could be no health, happiness, prosperity, not even an\nassurance of crops without these ceremonies.\n\nThe Hopi is a good dry farmer on a small scale, and farming is a\nlaborious business in the shifting sands of Hopiland. Their corn is\ntheir literal bread of life and they usually keep one year's crop\nstored. These people have known utter famine and even starvation in the\nlong ago, and their traditions have made them wise. The man tends the\nfields and flocks, makes mocassins, does the weaving of the community\n(mostly ceremonial garments) and usually brings in the wood for fuel,\nsince it is far to seek in this land of scant vegetation, in fact\nliterally miles away and getting farther every year, so that the man\nwith team and wagon is fortunate indeed and the rest must pack their\nwood on burros. Both men and women gather backloads of faggots wherever\nsuch can be found in walking distance, and said distance is no mean\nmeasure, for these hardy little people have always been great walkers\nand great runners.\n\nHough says:[11] \"Seemingly the men work harder making paraphernalia and\ncostumes for the ceremonies than at anything else, but it should be\nremembered that in ancient days everything depended, in Hopi belief, on\npropitiating the deities. Still if we would pick the threads of religion\nfrom the warp and woof of Hopi life there apparently would not be much\nleft. It must be recorded in the interests of truth, that Hopi men will\nwork at days labor and give satisfaction except when a ceremony is about\nto take place at the pueblo, and duty to their religion interferes with\nsteady employment much as fiestas do in the easy-going countries to the\nsouthward. Really the Hopi deserve great credit for their industry,\nfrugality, and provident habits, and one must commend them because they\ndo not shun work and because in fairness both men and women share in the\nlabor for the common good.\"\n\n[Footnote 11: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, pp. 156-58.]\n\n\n\n\nIV. POTTERY AND BASKET MAKING TRADITIONAL; ITS SYMBOLISM\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe art of pottery-making is a traditional one; mothers teach their\ndaughters, even as their mothers taught them. There are no recipes for\nexact proportions and mixtures, no thermometer for controlling\ntemperatures, no stencil or pattern set down upon paper for laying out\nthe designs. The perfection of the finished work depends upon the\npotter's sense of rightness and the skill developed by practicing the\nmethods of her ancestors with such variation as her own originality and\ningenuity may suggest.\n\nAll the women of a pueblo community know how to make cooking vessels, at\nleast, and in spare time they gather and prepare their raw materials,\njust as the Navajo woman has usually a blanket underway or the Apache a\nbasket started. The same is true of Hopi basketry; its methods, designs,\nand symbolism are all a matter of memory and tradition.\n\nFrom those who know most of Indian sacred and decorative symbols, we\nlearn that two main ideas are outstanding: desire for rain and belief in\nthe unity of all life. Charms or prayers against drought take the form\nof clouds, lightning, rain, etc., and those for fertility are expressed\nby leaves, flowers, seed pods, while fantastic birds and feathers\naccompany these to carry the prayers. It may be admitted that the modern\ncraftsman is often enough ignorant of the full early significance of the\nmotifs used, but she goes on using them because they express her idea of\nbeauty and because she knows that always they have been used to express\nbelief in an animate universe and with the hope of influencing the\nunseen powers by such recognition in art.\n\nThe modern craftsman may even tell you that the once meaningful symbols\nmean nothing now, and this may be true, but the medicine men and the old\npeople still hold the traditional symbols sacred, and this reply may be\nthe only short and polite way of evading the troublesome stranger to\nwhom any real explanation would be difficult and who would quite likely\nrun away in the middle of the patient explanation to look at something\nelse. Only those whose friendship and understanding have been tested\nwill be likely to be told of that which is sacred lore. However, if the\ntourist insists upon having a story with his basket or pottery and the\nseller realizes that it's a story or no sale, he will glibly supply a\nstory, be he Indian or white, both story and basket being made for\ntourist consumption.\n\nTo the old time Indian everything had a being or spirit of its own, and\nthere was an actual feeling of sympathy for the basket or pot that\npassed into the hands of unsympathetic foreigners, especially if the\nobject were ceremonial. The old pottery maker never speaks in a loud\ntone while firing her ware and often sings softly for fear the new being\nor spirit of the pot will become agitated and break the pot in trying to\nescape. Nampeo, the venerable Tewa potter, is said to talk to the\nspirits of her pots while firing them, adjuring them to be docile and\nnot break her handiwork by trying to escape. But making things to sell\nis different--how could it be otherwise?\n\nIn one generation Indian craftsmen have come to be of two classes, those\nwho make quantities of stuff for sale and those few who become real\nartists, ambitious to save from oblivion the significance and idealism\nof the old art that was done for the glory of the gods. Indian art may\nsurvive with proper encouragement, but it must come now; after a while\nwill be too late.\n\nA notably fine example of such encouragement is the work of Mary Russell\nF. Colton of Flagstaff, Arizona, in the Hopi Craftsman Exhibition held\nannually at the Northern Arizona Museum of which she is art curator. At\nthe 1931 Exhibition, 142 native Hopi sent in 390 objects. Over $1500\nworth of material was sold and $200 awarded in prizes. The attendance\ntotal of visitors was 1,642. From this exhibit a representative\ncollection of Hopi Art was assembled for the Exposition of Indian Tribal\nArts at the Grand Central Galleries, New York City, in December of the\nsame year. A gratifying feature of these annual exhibits is the fact\nthat groups of Hopi come in from their reservation 100 miles away and\nmodestly but happily move about examining and enjoying these lovely\nsamples of their own best work and that of their neighbors; and they are\nquick to observe that it is the really excellent work that gets the blue\nribbon, the cash prize, and the best sale.\n\nDr. Fewkes points out that while men invented and passed on the\nmythology of the tribe, women wrote it down in symbols on their\nhandicrafts which became the traditional heritage of all.\n\nThe sand paintings made for special ceremonies on the floors of the\nvarious kivas, in front of the altars, are likewise designs carried only\nin the memory of the officiating priest and derived from the clan\ntraditions. All masks and ceremonial costumes are strictly prescribed by\ntradition. The corn symbol is used on everything. Corn has always been\nthe bread of life to the Hopi, but it has been more than food, it has\nbeen bound up by symbolism with his ideas of all fertility and\nbeneficence. Hopi myths and rituals recognize the dependence of their\nwhole culture on corn. They speak of corn as their mother. The chief of\na religious fraternity cherishes as his symbol of high authority an ear\nof corn in appropriate wrappings said to have belonged to the society\nwhen it emerged from the underworld. The baby, when twenty days old, is\ndedicated to the sun and has an ear of corn tied to its breast.\n\n\n\n\nV. HOUSE BUILDING\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs already stated, the house (See Figure 3) belongs to the woman. She\nliterally builds it, and she is the head of the family, but the men help\nwith the lifting of timbers, and now-a-days often lay up the masonry if\ndesired; the woman is still the plasterer. The ancestral home is very\ndear to the Hopi heart, men, women, and children alike.\n\nAfter the stone for building has been gathered, the builder goes to the\nchief of the village who gives him four small eagle feathers to which\nare tied short cotton strings. These, sprinkled with sacred meal, are\nplaced under the four corner stones of the new house. The Hopi call\nthese feathers Nakiva Kwoci, meaning a breath prayer, and the ceremony\nis addressed to Masauwu. Next, the door is located by placing a bowl of\nfood on each side of where it is to be. Likewise particles of food,\nmixed with salt, are sprinkled along the lines upon which the walls are\nto stand. The women bring water, clay, and earth, and mix a mud mortar,\nwhich is used sparingly between the layers of stone. Walls are from\neight to eighteen inches thick and seven or eight feet high, above which\nrafters or poles are placed and smaller poles crosswise above these,\nthen willows or reeds closely laid, and above all reeds or grass holding\na spread of mud plaster. When thoroughly dry, a layer of earth is added\nand carefully packed down. All this is done by the women, as well as the\nplastering of the inside walls and the making of the plaster floors.\n\nNow the owner prepares four more eagle feathers and ties them to a\nlittle willow stick whose end is inserted in one of the central roof\nbeams. No home is complete without this, for it is the soul of the house\nand the sign of its dedication. These feathers are renewed every year at\nthe feast of Soyaluna.\n\nThe writer remembers once seeing a tourist reach up and pull off the\nlittle tuft of breath feathers from the mid-rafter of the little house\nhe had rented for the night. Naturally he replaced it when the enormity\nof his act was explained to him.\n\nNot until the breath feathers have been put up, together with particles\nof food placed in the rafters as an offering to Masauwu, with due\nprayers for the peace and prosperity of the new habitation, may the\nwomen proceed to plaster the interior, to which, when it is dry, a coat\nof white gypsum is applied (all with strokes of the bare hands), giving\nthe room a clean, fresh appearance. In one corner of the room is built a\nfireplace and chimney, the latter often extended above the roof by\npiling bottomless jars one upon the other, a quaint touch, reminding one\nof the picturesque chimney pots of England.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 3.--Typical Hopi Home.\n\n--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]\n\nThe roofs are finished flat and lived upon as in Mediterranean\ncountries, particularly in the case of one-story structures built\nagainst two-story buildings, the roof of the low building making the\nporch or roof-garden for the second-story room lying immediately\nadjacent. Here, on the roof many household occupations go on, including\noften summer sleeping and cooking.\n\nWhen the new house is completely finished and dedicated, the owner gives\na feast for all members of her clan who have helped in the\nhouse-raising, and the guests come bearing small gifts for the home.\n\nFormerly, the house was practically bare of furniture save for the\nfireplace and an occasional stool, but the majority of the Hopi have\ntaken kindly to small iron cook stoves, simple tables and chairs, and\nsome of them have iron bedsteads. Even now, however, there are many\nhomes, perhaps they are still in the majority, where the family sits in\nthe middle of the floor and eats from a common bowl and pile of piki\n(their native wafer corn bread), and sleeps on a pile of comfortable\nsheep skins with the addition of a few pieces of store bedding, all of\nwhich is rolled up against the wall to be out of the way when not in\nuse.\n\nIn the granary, which is usually a low back room, the ears of corn are\noften sorted by color and laid up in neat piles, red, yellow, white,\nblue, black, and mottled, a Hopi study in corn color. Strings of native\npeppers add to the colorful ensemble.\n\n\n\n\nVI. MYTH AND FOLKTALE; GENERAL DISCUSSION\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=Stability=\n\nBecause none of this material could be written down but was passed by\nword of mouth from generation to generation, changes naturally occurred.\nOften a tale traveled from one tribe to another and was incorporated, in\nwhole or in part, into the tribal lore of the neighbor--thus adding\nsomething. And, we may suppose, some were more or less forgotten and\nthus lost; but, as Wissler[12] tells us, \"tales that are directly\nassociated with ceremonies and, especially, if they must be recited as a\npart of the procedure, are assured a long life.\"\n\n[Footnote 12: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit, p. 254.]\n\nSuch of these tales as were considered sacred or accounted for the\norigin of the people, were held in such high regard as to lay an\nobligation upon the tribe to see to it that a number of individuals\nlearned and retained these texts, perhaps never in fixed wording, except\nfor songs, but as to essential details of plot.\n\nMany collectors have recorded several versions of certain tales, thus\ngiving an idea of the range of individual variation, and the writer\nherself has encountered as many as three variants for some of her\nstories, coming always from the narrators of different villages. But\nWissler,[13] while allowing for these variations, says: \"All this\nsuggests instability in primitive mythology. Yet from American data,\nnoting such myths as are found among the successive tribes of larger\nareas, it appears that detailed plots of myths may be remarkably\nstable.\"\n\n[Footnote 13: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit., p. 254.]\n\n\n=Intrusion of Contemporary Material=\n\nHowever there is another point discussed by Wissler which troubled the\nwriter greatly as a beginner, and that was the intrusion of new material\nwith old, for instance, finding an old Hopi story of how different\nlanguages came to exist in the world and providing a language for the\n_Mamona_, meaning the Mormons, who lived among the Hopi some years ago.\nThe writer was inclined to throw out the story, regarding the whole\nthing as a modern concoction, but Wissler[14] warns us that: \"From a\nchronological point of view we may expect survival material in a tribal\nmythology along with much that is relatively recent in origin. It is,\nhowever, difficult to be sure of what is ancient and what recent,\nbecause only the plot is preserved; rarely do we find mention of objects\nand environments different from those of the immediate present.\"\n\n[Footnote 14: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit, p. 255.]\n\nA tale, to be generally understood, must often be given a contemporary\nsetting, and this the narrator instinctively knows, therefore the\nintroduction of modern material with that of undoubted age.\n\nStability, then, lies in the plot rather than in the culture setting;\nthe former may be ancient, while the latter sometimes reflects\ncontemporary life.\n\nBoaz[15] argues that much may be learned of contemporary tribal culture\nby a study of the mythology of a given people, since so much of the\nsetting of the ancient tale reflects the tribal life of the time of the\nrecording. He has made a test of the idea in his study of the Tsimshian\nIndians. From this collection of 104 tales he concludes that: \"In the\ntales of a people those incidents of the everyday life that are of\nimportance to them will appear either incidentally or as the basis of a\nplot. Most of the reference to the mode of life of the people will be an\naccurate reflection of their habits. The development of the plot of the\nstory, further-more, will on the whole exhibit clearly what is\nconsidered right and what wrong.\"\n\n[Footnote 15: Boaz, Franz, Tsimshian Mythology: Bureau American\nEthnology, vol. 35, 1916, p. 393.]\n\n\n=How and Why Myths Are Kept=\n\nThere are set times and seasons for story-telling among the various\nIndian tribes, but the winter season, when there is likely to be most\nleisure and most need of fireside entertainment, is a general favorite.\nHowever, some tribes have myths that \"can not be told in summer, others\nonly at night, etc.\"[16] Furthermore there are secret cults and\nceremonials rigidly excluding women and children, whose basic myths are\nnaturally restricted in their circulation, but in the main the body of\ntribal myth is for the pleasure and profit of all.\n\n[Footnote 16: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit., p. 256.]\n\nOld people relate the stories to the children, not only because they\nenjoy telling them and the children like listening to them, but because\nof the feeling that every member of the tribe should know them as a part\nof his education.\n\nWhile all adults are supposed to know something of the tribal stories,\nnot all are expected to be good story-tellers. Story-telling is a gift,\nwe know, and primitives know this too, so that everywhere we have\npointed out a few individuals who are the best story-tellers, usually an\nold man, sometimes an old woman, and occasionally, as the writer has\nseen it, a young man of some dramatic ability. When an important story\nfurnishing a religious or social precedent is called for, either in\ncouncil meeting or ceremonial, the custodian of the stories is in\ndemand, and is much looked up to; yet primitives rarely create an office\nor station for the narrator, nor is the distinction so marked as the\nprofession of the medicine man and the priest.\n\n\n=Service of Myth=\n\nAs to the service of myth in primitive life, Wissler[17] says: \"It\nserves as a body of information, as stylistic pattern, as inspiration,\nas ethical precepts, and finally as art. It furnishes the ever ready\nallusions to embellish the oration as well as to enliven the\nconversation of the fireside. Mythology, in the sense in which we have\nused the term, is the carrier and preserver of the most immaterial part\nof tribal culture.\"\n\n[Footnote 17: Wissler, Clark, Op. cit., p. 258.]\n\n\n=Hopi Story-Telling=\n\nThere comes a time in the Hopi year when crops have been harvested, most\nof the heavier and more essentially important religious ceremonials have\nbeen performed in their calendar places, and even the main supply of\nwood for winter fires has been gathered. To be sure, minor dances, some\nreligious and some social, will be taking place from time to time, but\nnow there will be more leisure, leisure for sociability and for\nstory-telling.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 4.--Kiva at Old Oraibi.\n\n--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]\n\nIn the kivas (See Figure 4) the priests and old men will instruct the\nboys in the tribal legends, both historical and mythological, and in the\nreligious ceremonies in which they are all later supposed to\nparticipate. In the home, some good old story-telling neighbor drops in\nfor supper, and stories are told for the enjoyment of all present,\nincluding the children; all kinds of stories, myths, tales of adventure,\nromances, and even bed-time stories. Indian dolls of painted wood and\nfeathers, made in the image of the Kachinas, are given the children, who\nthus get a graphic idea of the supposed appearance of the heroes of some\nof these stories.\n\nThe Hopi, like many primitive people, believe that when a bird sings he\nis weaving a magic spell, and so they have songs for special magic too;\nsome for grinding, for weaving, for planting, others for hunting, and\nstill others for war; all definitely to gain the favor of the gods in\nthese particular occupations.\n\nWithout books and without writing the Hopi have an extensive\nliterature. That a surprising degree of accuracy is observed in its oral\ntransmission from generation to generation is revealed by certain\ncomparisons with the records made by the Spanish explorers in the\nsixteenth century.\n\n\n\n\nVII. HOPI RELIGION\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=Gods and Kachinas=\n\nThe Hopi live, move, and have their being in religion. To them the\nunseen world is peopled with a host of beings, good and bad, and\neverything in nature has its being or spirit.\n\nJust what kind of religion shall we call this of the Hopi? Seeing the\nimportance of the sun in their rites, one is inclined to say Sun\nWorship; but clouds, rain, springs, streams enter into the idea, and we\nsay Nature Worship. A study of the great Snake Cult suggests Snake\nWorship; but their reverence for and communion with the spirits of\nancestors gives to this complex religious fabric of the Hopi a strong\nquality of Ancestor Worship. It is all this and more.\n\nThe surface of the earth is ruled by a mighty being whose sway extends\nto the underworld and over death, fire, and the fields. This is Masauwu,\nto whom many prayers are said. Then there is the Spider Woman or Earth\nGoddess, Spouse of the Sun and Mother of the Twin War Gods, prominent in\nall Hopi mythology. Apart from these and the deified powers of nature,\nthere is another revered group, the Kachinas, spirits of ancestors and\nsome other beings, with powers good and bad. These Kachinas are\ncolorfully represented in the painted and befeathered dolls, in masks\nand ceremonies, and in the main are considered beneficent and are\naccordingly popular. They intercede with the spirits of the other world\nin behalf of their Hopi earth-relatives.\n\nMasked individuals represent their return to the land of the living from\ntime to time in Kachina dances, beginning with the Soyaluna ceremony in\nDecember and ending with the Niman or Kachina Farewell ceremony in July.\n\nMuch of this sort of thing takes on a lighter, theatrical flavor\namounting to a pageant of great fun and frolic. Dr. Hough says these are\nreally the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, musical,\nspectacular, delightfully entertaining, and they show the cheerful Hopi\nat his best--a true, spontaneous child of nature.\n\nThere are a great many of these Kachina dances through the winter and\nspring, their nature partly religious, partly social, for with the Hopi,\nreligion and drama go hand in hand. Dr. Hough speaks appreciatively of\nthese numerous occasions of wholesome merry-making, and says these\nthings keep the Hopi out of mischief and give them a reputation for\nminding their own business, besides furnishing them with the best round\nof free theatrical entertainments enjoyed by any people in the world.\nSince every ceremony has its particular costumes, rituals, songs, there\nis plenty of variety in these matters and more detail of meaning than\nany outsider has ever fathomed.\n\nThe Niman, or farewell dance of the Kachinas, takes place in July. It is\none of their big nine-day festivals, including secret rites in the kivas\nand a public dance at its close.\n\nMessengers are sent on long journeys for sacred water, pine boughs, and\nother special objects for these rites. This is a home-coming festival\nand a Hopi will make every effort to get home to his own town for this\nevent. On the ninth day there is a lovely pageant just before sunrise\nand another in the afternoon. No other ceremony shows such a gorgeous\narray of colorful masks and costumes. And it is a particularly happy day\nfor the young folk, for the Kachinas bring great loads of corn, beans,\nand melons, and baskets of peaches, especially as gifts for the\nchildren; also new dolls and brightly painted bows and arrows are given\nthem. The closing act of the drama is a grand procession carrying sacred\nofferings to a shrine outside the village.\n\nThis is the dance at which the brides of the year make their first\npublic appearance; their snowy wedding blankets add a lovely touch to\nthe colorful scene.\n\n\n=Religion Not For Morality=\n\nThe Hopi is religious, and he is moral, but there is no logical\nconnection between the two.\n\nMrs. Coolidge says:[18] \"In all that has been said concerning the gods\nand the Kachinas, the spiritual unity of all animate life, the\npersonification of nature and the correct conduct for attaining favor\nwith the gods, no reference has been made to morality as their object.\nThe purpose of religion in the mind of the Indian is to gain the\nfavorable, or to ward off evil, influences which the super-spirits are\ncapable of bringing to the tribe or the individual. Goodness,\nunselfishness, truth-telling, respect for property, family, and filial\nduty, are cumulative by-products of communal living, closely connected\nwith religious beliefs and conduct, but not their object. The Indian,\nlike other people, has found by experience that honesty is the best\npolicy among friends and neighbors, but not necessarily so among\nenemies; that village life is only tolerable on terms of mutual safety\nof property and person; that industry and devotion to the family\ninterest make for prosperity and happiness. Moral principles are with\nhim the incidental product of his ancestral experience, not primarily\ninculcated by the teaching of any priest or shaman. Yet the Pueblos show\na great advance over many primitive tribes in that their legends and\ntheir priests reiterate constantly the idea that 'prayer is not\neffective except the heart be good.'\"\n\n[Footnote 18: Coolidge, Mary Roberts, The Rain-makers: Houghton Mifflin\nCo., New York, 1929, p. 203.]\n\n\n\n\nVIII. CEREMONIES; GENERAL DISCUSSION\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=Beliefs and Ceremonials=\n\nThe beliefs of a tribe, philosophical, religious, and magical, are, for\nthe most part, expressed in objective ceremonies. The formal procedure\nor ritual is essentially a representation or dramatization of the main\nidea, usually based upon a narrative. Often the ceremony opens with or\nis preceded by the narration of the myth on which it is based, or the\nleader may merely refer to it on the assumption that everyone present\nknows it.\n\nAs to the purpose of the ceremony, there are those who maintain that\nentertainment is the main incentive, but the celebration or holiday\nseems to be a secondary consideration according to the explanation of\nthe primitives themselves.\n\nIf there chances to be a so-called educated native present to answer\nyour inquiry on the point, he will perhaps patiently explain to you that\njust as July Fourth is celebrated for something more than parades and\nfirecrackers, and Thanksgiving was instituted for other considerations\nthan the eating of turkey, so the Hopi Snake Dance, for instance, is\ngiven not so much to entertain the throng of attentive and respectful\nHopi, and the much larger throng of more or less attentive and more or\nless respectful white visitors, as to perpetuate, according to their\ntraditions, certain symbolic rites in whose efficacy they have\nprofoundly believed for centuries and do still believe.\n\nConcerning the Pueblos (which include the Hopi), Hewett says:[19] \"There\ncan be no understanding of their lives apart from their religious\nbeliefs and practices. The same may be said of their social structure\nand of their industries. Planting, cultivating, harvesting, hunting,\neven war, are dominated by religious rites. The social order of the\npeople is established and maintained by way of tribal ceremonials.\nThrough age-old ritual and dramatic celebration, practiced with\nunvarying regularity, participated in by all, keeping time to the days,\nseasons and ages, moving in rhythmic procession with life and all\nnatural forces, the people are kept in a state of orderly composure and\nlike-mindedness.\n\n[Footnote 19: Hewett, E.L., Op. cit., p. 117.]\n\n\"The religious life of the Pueblo Indian is expressed mainly through the\ncommunity dances, and in these ceremonies are the very foundations of\nthe ancient wisdom....\"\n\nDance is perhaps hardly the right word for these ceremonies, yet it is\nwhat the Hopi himself calls them, and he is right. But we who have used\nthe word to designate the social dances of modern society or the\naesthetic and interpretive dances for entertainment and aesthetic\nenjoyment will have to tune our sense to a different key to be in\nharmony with the Hopi dance.\n\nOur primitive's communion with nature and with his own spirit have\nbrought him to a reverent attitude concerning the wisdom of birds,\nbeasts, trees, clouds, sunlight, and starlight, and most of all he\nclings trustingly to the wisdom of his fathers.\n\n\"All this,\" according to Hewett, \"is voiced in his prayers and\ndramatized in his dances--rhythm of movement and of color summoned to\nexpress in utmost brilliancy the vibrant faith of a people in the deific\norder of the world and in the way the ancients devised for keeping man\nin harmony with his universe. All his arts, therefore, are rooted in\nancestral beliefs and in archaic esthetic forms.\"\n\nSurely no people on earth, not even the Chinese, show a more consistent\nreverence for the wisdom of the past as preserved in their myths and\nlegends, than do the Hopi.\n\n\n\n\nIX. HOPI MYTHS AND TRADITIONS AND SOME CEREMONIES BASED UPON THEM\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=The Emergence Myth and the Wu-wu-che-ma Ceremony=\n\nEach of the Hopi clans preserves a separate origin or emergence myth,\nagreeing in all essential parts, but carrying in its details special\nreference to its own clan. All of them claim, however, a common origin\nin the interior of the earth, and although the place of emergence to the\nsurface is set in widely separated localities, they agree in maintaining\nthis to be the fourth plane on which mankind has existed.\n\nThe following is an abbreviation of the version gathered by A.M.\nStephen, who lived many years among the Hopi and collected these sacred\ntales from the priests and old men of all the different villages some\nfifty years ago, as reported by Mindeleff.[20]\n\n[Footnote 20: Mindeleff, Cosmos, Traditional History of Tusayan (After\nA.M. Stephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, pp. 16-41, 1887.]\n\nIn the beginning all men lived together in the lowest depths, in a\nregion of darkness and moisture; their bodies were mis-shapen and\nhorrible and they suffered great misery.\n\nBy appealing to Myuingwa (a vague conception of the god of the interior)\nand Baholinkonga (plumed serpent of enormous size, genius of water)\ntheir old men obtained a seed from which sprang a magic growth of cane.\n\nThe cane grew to miraculous height and penetrated through a crevice in\nthe roof overhead and mankind climbed to a higher plane. Here was dim\nlight and some vegetation. Another magic cane brought them to a higher\nplane, with more light and vegetation, and here was the creation of the\nanimal kingdom. Singing was always the chief magic for creating\nanything. In like manner, they rose to the fourth stage or earth; some\nsay by a pine tree, others say through the hollow cylinder of a great\nreed or rush.\n\nThis emergence was accompanied by singing, some say by the Magic Twins,\nthe two little war gods, others say by the mocking bird. At any rate, it\nis important to observe that when the song ran out, no more people could\nget through and many had to remain behind.\n\nHowever, the outlet through which man came has never been closed, and\nMyuingwa sends through it the germs of all living things. It is still\nsymbolized, Stephen says, by the peculiar construction of the hatchway\nof the kiva, in designs on the kiva sand altars, and by the unconnected\ncircle on pottery, basketry, and textiles. Doubtless the most direct\nrepresentation of this opening to the underworld is the sipapu or\nceremonial small round opening in the floor of the kiva, which all Hopi,\nwithout exception, agree symbolizes the opening or spirit passage to the\nunderworld. \"Out of the sipapu we all came,\" they say, \"and back to the\nunderworld, through the sipapu, we shall go when we die.\"\n\nOnce every year the Hopi hold an eight-day ceremony commemorating this\nemergence from the underworld. It is called the Wu-wu-che-ma, occurs in\nNovember and thus begins the series of Winter festivals. Four societies\ntake part, and the Da-dow-Kiam or Mocking Bird Society opens the\nceremony by singing into the kiva of the One-Horned Society this\nemergence song, the very song sung by the mocking bird at the original\nemergence, according to Voth.[21] This ceremony is a prayer to the\npowers of the underworld for prosperity and for germination of new life,\nhuman, animal, and vegetable. Fewkes called this the New Fire Ceremony,\nand in the course of the eight-day ceremonial the kindling of new fire\nwith the primitive firestick does take place. But it is not hard to feel\na close relation between the idea of fire and that of germination which\nstands out as the chief idea in the whole ritual, particularly in the\nsubtle dramatization of the underworld life and emergence as carried on\nin the kivas, preceding the public \"dance\" on the last day.\n\n[Footnote 21: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, p. 11.]\n\nThus we have at least three distinct points in this one myth that\naccount for three definite things we find the Hopi doing today: (1)\nNote that it was \"our old men\" who got from the gods the magic seed of\nthe tall cane which brought relief to the people. To this day it is the\nold men who are looked up to and depended upon to direct the people in\nall important matters. \"It was always that way.\" (2) While the magic\nsong lasted the people came through the sipapu, but when the song ended\nno more could come through, and there was weeping and wailing. Singing\nis today the absolutely indispensable element in all magic rites. There\nmay be variation in the details of some performances, but \"unless you\nhave the right song, it won't work.\" The Hopi solemnly affirm they have\npreserved their original emergence song, and you hear it today on the\nfirst morning of the Wu-wu-che-ma. (3) The sipapu seen today in the\nfloor of the kiva or ceremonial chamber symbolizes the passage from\nwhich all mankind emerged from the underworld, so all the Hopi agree.\n\nThe belief of the present-day Hopi that the dead return through the\nsipapu to the underworld is based firmly upon an extension of this myth,\nas told to Voth,[22] for it furnishes a clear account of how the Hopi\nfirst became aware of this immortality.\n\n[Footnote 22: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, p. 11.]\n\nIt seems that soon after they emerged from the underworld the son of\ntheir chief died, and the distressed father, believing that an evil one\nhad come out of the sipapu with them and caused this death, tossed up a\nball of meal and declared that the unlucky person upon whose head it\ndescended should be thus discovered to be the guilty party and thrown\nback down into the underworld. The person thus discovered begged the\nfather not to do this but to take a look down through the sipapu into\nthe old realm and see there his son, quite alive and well. This he did,\nand so it was.\n\nDo the Hopi believe this now? Yes, so they tell you. And Mr. Emery\nKoptu, sculptor, who lived among them only a few years ago and enjoyed a\nrare measure of their affection and good will, recently told the writer\nof a case in point:\n\nOn July 4, 1928, occurred the death of Supela, last of the Sun priests.\nMr. Koptu, who had done some studies of this fine Hopi head, was in\nSupela's home town, Walpi, at the time of the old priest's passing.\n\nThe people were suffering from a prolonged drouth, and since old Supela\nwas soon to go through the sipapu to the underworld, where live the\nspirits who control rain and germination, he promised that he would\nwithout delay explain the situation to the gods and intercede for his\npeople and that they might expect results immediately after his arrival\nthere. Since his life had been duly religious and acceptable to the\ngods, it was the belief of both Supela and his friends that he would\nmake the journey in four days, which is record time for the trip, when\none has no obstacles in the way of atonements or punishments to work off\nen-route. Supela promised this, and the people looked for its\nfulfillment. Four days after Supela's death the long drouth was broken\nby a terrific rain storm accompanied by heavy thunder and lightning. Did\nthe Hopi show astonishment? On the contrary they were aglow with\nsatisfaction and exchanged felicitations on the dramatic assurance of\nSupela's having \"gotten through\" in four days. The most wonderful eulogy\npossible!\n\nIt is indicated, in the story of Supela, that the Hopi believe that only\nthe \"pure in heart,\" so to speak, go straight to the abode of the\nspirits, whereas some may have to take much longer because of atonements\nor punishments for misdeeds. Their basis for this lies in a tradition\nregarding the visit of a Hopi youth to the underworld and his return to\nthe earth with an account of having passed on the way many suffering\nindividuals engaged in painful pursuits and unable to go on until the\ngods decreed they had suffered enough. He had also seen a great smoke\narising from a pit where the hopelessly wicked were totally burned up.\nHe was told to go back to his people and explain all these things and\ntell them to make many pahos (prayer-sticks) and live straight and the\ngood spirits could be depended upon to help them with rain and\ngermination. Voth records[23] two variants of this legend.\n\n[Footnote 23: Voth, H.R., Op. cit, pp. 109-119 (A journey to the\nskeleton house).]\n\n\n=Some Migration Myths=\n\nThe migration myths of the various clans are entirely too numerous and\ntoo lengthy to be in their entirety included here. Every clan has its\nown, and even today keeps the story green in the minds of its children\nand celebrates its chief events, including arrival in Hopiland, with\nsuitable ceremony.\n\nWe are told that when all mankind came through the sipapu from the\nunderworld, the various kinds of people were gathered together and given\neach a separate speech or language by the mocking bird, \"who can talk\nevery way.\" Then each group was given a path and started on its way by\nthe Twin War Gods and their mother, the Spider Woman.\n\nThe Hopi were taught how to build stone houses, and then the various\nclans dispersed, going separate ways. And after many many generations\nthey arrived at their present destination from all directions and at\ndifferent times. They brought corn with them from the underworld.\n\nIt is generally agreed that the Snake people were the first to occupy\nthe Tusayan region.\n\nThere are many variations in the migration myths of the Snake people,\nbut the most colorful version the writer has encountered is the one\ngiven to A.M. Stephen, fifty years ago, by the then oldest member of the\nSnake fraternity. A picturesque extract only is given here.\n\nIt begins: \"At the general dispersal, my people lived in snake skins,\neach family occupying a separate snake-skin bag, and all were hung on\nthe end of a rainbow, which swung around until the end touched Navajo\nMountain, where the bags dropped from it; and wherever their bags\ndropped, there was their house. After they arranged their bags they came\nout from them as men and women, and they then built a stone house which\nhad five sides.\n\n\"A brilliant star arose in the southwest, which would shine for a while\nand then disappear. The old men said, 'Beneath that star there must be\npeople,' so they determined to travel toward it. They cut a staff and\nset it in the ground and watched till the star reached its top, then\nthey started and traveled as long as the star shone; when it\ndisappeared they halted. But the star did not shine every night, for\nsometimes many years elapsed before it appeared again. When this\noccurred, our people built houses during their halt; they built both\nround and square houses, and all the ruins between here and Navajo\nMountain mark the places where our people lived. They waited till the\nstar came to the top of the staff again, then they moved on, but many\npeople were left in those houses and they followed afterward at various\ntimes. When our people reached Wipho (a spring a few miles north from\nWalpi) the star disappeared and has never been seen since.\"\n\nThere is more of the legend, but quoted here are only a few closing\nlines relative to the coming of the Lenbaki (the Flute Clan):\n\n\"The old men would not allow them to come in until Masauwu (god of the\nface of the earth) appeared and declared them to be good Hopitah. So\nthey built houses adjoining ours and that made a fine large village.\nThen other Hopitah came in from time to time, and our people would say,\n'Build here, or build there,' and portioned the land among the\nnew-comers.\"[24]\n\n[Footnote 24: Mindeleff, Victor, Pueblo architecture (Myths after\nStephen): Bureau American Ethnology, vol. 8, pp. 17-18, 1887.]\n\nThe foregoing tradition furnishes the answer to two things one asks in\nHopiland. First, why have these people, who by their traditions wandered\nfrom place to place since the beginning of time, only building and\nplanting for a period sometimes short, sometimes a few generations, but\nnot longer, they believe--why have they remained in their present\napproximate location for eight hundred years and perhaps much longer?\nThe answer is their story of the star that led them for \"many moves and\nmany stops\" but which never again appeared, to move them on, after they\nreached Walpi.\n\nThe second point is: The Flute Dance, which is still held on the years\nalternating with the Snake Dance, is of what significance? It is the\ncommemoration of the arrival of this Lenbaki group, a branch of the Horn\npeople, and the performance of their special magic for rain-bringing,\njust as they demonstrated it to the original inhabitants of Walpi, by\nway of trial, before they were permitted to settle there.\n\n\n=Flute Ceremony and Tradition=\n\nThis Flute ceremony is one of the loveliest and most impressive in the\nwhole Hopi calendar. And because it is one which most clearly\nillustrates this thesis, some detail of the ceremony will be given.\n\nFrom the accounts of many observers that of Hough[25] has been chosen:\n\"On the first day the sand altar is made and at night songs are begun.\nWithin the kiva the interminable rites go on, and daily the cycle of\nsongs accompanied with flutes is rehearsed. A messenger clad in an\nembroidered kilt and anointed with honey, runs, with flowing hair, to\ndeposit prayer-sticks at the shrines, encircling the fields in his runs\nand coming nearer the pueblo on each circuit. During the seventh and\neighth days a visit is made to three important springs where ceremonies\nare held, and on the return of the priests they are received by an\nassemblage of the Bear and Snake Societies, the chiefs of which\nchallenge them and tell them that if they are good people, as they\nclaim, they can bring rain.\n\n[Footnote 25: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., pp. 156-158.]\n\n\"After an interesting interchange of ceremonies, the Flute priests\nreturn to their kiva to prepare for the public dance on the morrow. When\nat 3:00 a.m. the belt of Orion is at a certain place in the heavens, the\npriests file into the plaza, where a cottonwood bower has been erected\nover the shrine called the entrance to the underworld. Here the priests\nsing, accompanied with flutes, the shrine is ceremonially opened and\nprayer-sticks placed within, and they return to the kiva. At some of the\npueblos there is a race up the mesa at dawn on the ninth day, as in\nother ceremonies.\n\n\"On the evening of the ninth day the Flute procession forms and winds\ndown the trail to the spring in order: A leader, the Snake maiden, two\nSnake youths, the priests, and in the rear a costumed warrior with bow\nand whizzer. At the spring they sit on the south side of the pool, and\nas one of the priests plays a flute the others sing, while one of their\nnumber wades into the spring, dives under water, and plants a\nprayer-stick in the muddy bottom. Then taking a flute he again wades\ninto the spring and sounds it in the water to the four cardinal points.\nMeanwhile sunflowers and cornstalks have been brought to the spring by\nmessengers. Each priest places the sunflowers on his head and each takes\ntwo cornstalks in his hands and the procession, two abreast, forms to\nascend the mesa. A priest draws a line on the trail with white corn meal\nand across it three cloud symbols. The Flute children throw the\nofferings they hold in their hands upon the symbols, followed by the\npriests who sing to the sound of the flutes.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 5.--Flute Ceremony at Michongnovi.\n\n--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]\n\n\"The children pick the offerings from the ground with sticks held in\ntheir hands, and the same performance is repeated till they stand again\nin the plaza on the mesa before the cottonwood bower, where they sing\nmelodious songs then disperse.\"\n\nThe foregoing description of Hough's is an account of the Walpi\nceremony, where we find only one Flute fraternity. Each of the other\nvillages has two fraternities, the Blue Flute and the Drab Flute. The\nFlute Ceremony at Mishongnovi is perhaps the most impressive example of\nthis pageant as given by the double fraternity. Dr. Byron Cummings\nreports this Mishongnovi ceremony as having several interesting\nvariations from the Walpi report given above. (See Figure 5.)\n\n[Illustration: Figure 6.--Flute Boy before Costuming.\n\n--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]\n\nOn the ninth day women were observed sweeping the trail to the spring\nwith meticulous care, in preparation for the double procession which\ncame down at about 1:30 in the afternoon.\n\nAll the costuming was done at the spring--body painting, putting on of\nceremonial garments and arranging of hair.\n\nThe fathers of the Flute maidens brushed and arranged their hair for\nthem and put on their blankets. If a girl had no father, her uncle did\nthis for her. There were two Flute Maids and a Flute Boy (See Figure 6)\nwho walked between them, in each of the two fraternities. Even this\nceremonial costuming was accompanied by solemn singing.\n\nWhen all was ready the priests sat on the edge of the pool with their\nlegs hanging over, and the two maids and the boy sat behind them on a\nterrace of the bank. The Blue Flute fraternity occupied one side of the\npool and the Drab Flute fraternity another. Many songs were sung to the\nstrange, plaintive accompaniment of the flute players. After a while an\nold priest waded into the pool and walked around it in ever-narrowing\ncircles till he reached the center, where he sank into the water and\ndisappeared for a dramatically long moment and came up with a number of\nceremonial objects in his hands, including a gourd bottle filled with\nwater from the depths of the spring.\n\nIt was late afternoon by the time all the songs had been sung, and\nevening when the two processions had finished their ceremonial ascent to\nthe mesa top, pausing again and again as the old priest went ahead and\ndrew his symbolic barrier of meal and the three rain clouds across the\npath, which were to be covered with the pahos of the Flute children,\nthen taken up and moved on to the next like symbol. The old priest led\nthe procession, the three children behind him, then the flute players,\nfollowed by the priests bearing emblems, and the priest with the bull\nroarer at the end of the line. Each fraternity preserved its own\nformation. Having reached the village plaza they marched to the Kisa and\ndeposited their pahos and ceremonial offerings, then dispersed. The\nsolemnity of the long ritual, the weird chant and the plaintive\naccompaniment of the flutes running through the whole ceremony, while at\nthe spring, coming up the hill, and to the last act before the Kisa,\nleaves the imprint of its strange musical vibration long after the scene\nhas closed.\n\nThe legend back of this ceremony is a long account of the migrations of\nthe Horn and Flute people. It relates that when they at last reached\nWalpi, they halted at a spring and sent a scout ahead to see if people\nwere living there. He returned and reported that he had seen traces of\nother people. So the Flute people went forth to find them. When they\ncame in sight of the houses of Walpi, they halted at the foot of the\nmesa, then began moving up the trail in ceremonial procession, with\nsongs and the music of the flutes.\n\nNow the Bear and Snake people who lived in Walpi drew a line of meal\nacross the trail, a warning understood by many primitives, and\nchallenged the new-comers as to who they were, where they were going,\nand what they wanted. Then the Flute chief said, \"We are of your blood,\nHopi. Our hearts are good and our speech straight. We carry on our backs\nthe tabernacle of the Flute Altar. We can cause rain to fall.\"\n\nFour times the demand was repeated, as the Flute people stood\nrespectfully before the barrier of meal, and four times did their chief\nmake the same reply. Then the Walpis erased the line of meal and the\nFlute people entered the pueblo, set up their altars and demonstrated\ntheir rain magic by singing their ceremonial Flute songs which resulted\nin bringing the needed rain. Then said the Bear and Snake chiefs,\n\"Surely your chief shall be one of our chiefs.\"\n\nThus we see that the Flute Dance as given today is a dramatization of\nthis legend. Dr. Fewkes, who collected this legend, tells us that the\nFlute fraternity claims to be even more successful rain-makers than the\nworld-famous Snake fraternity.[26]\n\n[Footnote 26: Fewkes, J. Walter, The Walpi Flute Observance: Journal\nAmerican Folklore, vol. 7, 1894.]\n\nDr. Monsen tells of seeing the Flute ceremony at Mishongnovi, a good\nmany years ago, and of the deeply religious feeling that pervaded the\nwhole scene. His words are descriptive of a dramatic moment at the close\nof the day, when the procession had at last reached the public plaza on\ntop of the mesa.[27]\n\n[Footnote 27: Monsen, Frederick, Religious Dances of the Hopi: The\nCraftsman, vol. 12, 1907, pp. 284-285.]\n\n[Illustration: Figure 7.--Hopi Girl in Butterfly Costume.\n\n--Photo by Lockett.]\n\n\"By this time it was nearly dark, but the ceremony went on in the center\nof the plaza where other mysterious symbols were outlined on the rocky\nfloor with the strewn corn meal, and numbers of supplementary chants\nwere sung until night closed down entirely and the moon appeared....\nThen came something so extraordinary that I am aware that it will sound\nas if I were drawing on the rich stores of my imagination, for the\ncoincidence which closed the festival.\n\n\"But all I can say is that to my unutterable astonishment, it happened\nexactly as I tell it. At a certain stage in this part of the ceremony\nthere was a pause. No one left the plaza, but every one stood as still\nas a graven image, and not a sound broke the hush, apparently of\nbreathless expectancy. The stillness was so unearthly that it became\noppressive, and a few white friends who were with me began to urge in\nwhispers that we leave the plaza as all was evidently at an end, and go\nback to our camp below the mesa, when suddenly there rang out such a\nwild, exultant shout of unrestrained, unmeasured rejoicing as only\nIndians can give in moments of supreme religious exaltation--raindrops\nhad splashed on devout, upturned faces.\n\n\"Their prayers had been answered. The spell of the drouth-evil had been\nbroken, and the long strain of the solemn ceremonial gave place to such\na carnival of rejoicing as it seldom falls to the lot of civilized man\nto see....\n\n\"From the white man's point of view, this answer to prayer was, of\ncourse, the merest coincidence, but not all the power of church or\ngovernment combined could convince the Hopi that their god had not heard\nthem ... that their devotion to the ancient faith had brought relief\nfrom famine, and life to themselves and their flocks and herds.\"\n\nThe present-day Hopi, including the most intelligent and best educated\nof them, will tell you, that all their important dances and ceremonials\nfollow faithfully the old traditions, and are still believed to be\nefficacious and necessary to the welfare of the people. And this has\nbeen the conviction of a majority of the scientific observers who have\nstudied them.\n\n\n=Other Dances=\n\nThere is a very definite calendar arrangement of these ceremonials, some\nvariation in the different villages, but no deviation in the order and\nessential details of the main dances.\n\nIn December comes the Soyaluna, or winter solstice ceremony, to turn the\nsun back from his path of departure and insure his return with length of\ndays to the Indian country. Good-will tokens are exchanged, not unlike\nour idea of Christmas cards, at the end of the ceremony; they are\nprayer tokens which are planted with prayers for health and prosperity.\nThe kiva rituals are rich in symbolism and last eight days, if young men\nare to be initiated, otherwise four. The public dance at the end is a\nmasked pageant.\n\nIn January comes the Buffalo Dance, with masks representing buffalo,\ndeer, mountain sheep, and the other big game animals. Its chief\ncharacters are the Hunter and the Buffalo Mother, or Mother of all big\ngame. A prayer for plentiful big game is the idea of this dance.\n\nIn February the Powamu, \"bean sprouting,\" ceremony occurs, with very\nelaborate ritual signifying consecration of fields for planting. Various\nmasks and symbolic costumes are used, and the children's initiation is\naccompanied with a ceremonial \"flogging\"--really a switching by\nkachinas. Dr. Dorsey considers this the most colorful of all Hopi\nceremonies and says that nowhere else on earth can one see in nine days\nsuch a wealth of religious drama, such a pantheon of the gods\nrepresented by masked and costumed actors, such elaborate altars and\nbeautiful sand mosaics, nor songs and myths sung and recited of such\nobvious archaic character, containing many old words and phrases whose\nmeaning is no longer known even to the Hopi themselves.\n\nMarch brings the Palululong, \"Great Plumed Serpent,\" a masked and\nelaborately costumed mystery play given in the kiva. This shows more of\nthe dramatic ability and ingenuity of this people than any other of\ntheir ceremonies; the mechanical representation of snakes as actors\nbeing one of its astonishing features.\n\nOne of the very pretty social dances is the Butterfly Dance, given\nduring the summer by the young people of marriageable age. Costumes are\ncolorful and tall wooden headdresses or tablets are worn. Figure 7 shows\na Hopi girl acquaintance photographed just at the close of a Butterfly\nDance that the writer witnessed in the summer of 1932 at Shungopovi.\n(See Figure 8.)\n\nThis dance is really a very popular social affair, a sort of coming out\nparty adopted from the Rio Grande Pueblos a good many years ago.\n\n\n=The Snake Myth and the Snake Dance=\n\nThe Snake Dance of the Hopi is, of course, the best known and most\nspectacular of their ceremonies, and comparatively few white people have\nseen any other.\n\nOne hears from tourists on every hand, \"Oh, they used to believe in\nthese things, but of course they know better now, and at any rate it's\nall a commercial racket, a side show to attract tourists!\"\n\n[Illustration: Figure 8.--Shungopovi, Second Mesa.\n\n--Photo by Lockett.]\n\nAnyone who says this has seen little and thought less. The Hopi women\nmake up extra supplies of baskets and pottery to offer for sale at the\ntime of the Snake Dance because they know many tourists are coming to\nbuy them, otherwise they get no revenue from the occasion. No admission\nis charged, and the snake priests themselves seriously object to having\nHopi citizens charge anything for the use of improvised seats of boxes,\netc., on the near-by house tops.\n\nThe writer has seen tourists so crowd the roofs of the Hopi homes\nsurrounding the dance plaza that she feared the roofs would give way,\nand has also observed that the resident family was sometimes crowded out\nof all \"ring-side\" seats. No wonder the small brown man of the house has\nin some cases charged for the seats. What white man would not? Yet the\npractice is considered unethical by the Hopi themselves and is being\ndiscontinued.\n\nWe know that this weird, pagan Snake Dance was performed with deadly\nearnestness when white men first penetrated the forbidding wastelands\nthat surround the Hopi. And we have every reason to believe that it has\ngone on for centuries, always as a prayer to the gods of the underworld\nand of nature for rain and the germination of their crops.\n\nThe writer has observed these ceremonies in the various Hopi villages\nfor the past twenty years, some with hundreds of spectators from all\nover the world, others in more remote villages, with but a mere handful\nof outsiders present. She is personally convinced that the Snake Dance\nis no show for tourists but a deeply significant religious ceremony\nperformed definitely for the faithful fulfillment of traditional magic\nrites that have, all down the centuries, been depended upon to bring\nthese desert-dwellers the life-saving rain and insure their crops. They\nhave long put their trust in it, and they still do so.\n\nAre there any unbelievers? Yes, to be sure; but not so many as you might\nthink. There are unbelievers in the best, of families, Methodist,\nPresbyterian, and Hopi, but the surprising thing is that there are so\nmany believers, at least among the Hopi.\n\nThe Snake Dance, so-called, is the culmination of an eight-days'\nceremonial, an elaborate prayer for rain and for crops. Possibly\nsomething of the significance of parts of its complicated ritual may\nhave been forgotten, for some of our thirst for knowledge on these\npoints goes unquenched, in spite of the courteous explanations the Hopi\ngive when our queries are sufficiently courteous and respectful to\ndeserve answers. And possibly some of the things we ask about are \"not\nfor the public\" and may refer to the secret rituals that take place in\nthe kivas, as in connection with many of their major ceremonials.\n\nWe do know that the dramatization of their Snake Myth constitutes part\nof the program. This myth has many variations. The writer, personally,\ntreasures the long story told her by Dr. Fewkes, years ago, and\npublished in the Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol.\nIV., 1894, pages 106-110. But here shall be given the much shorter and\nvery adequate account of Dr. Colton,[28] as abbreviated from that of\nA.M. Stephen:\n\n\"To-ko-na-bi was a place of little rain, and the corn was weak. Tiyo, a\nyouth of inquiring mind, set out to find where the rain water went to.\nThis search led him into the Grand Canyon. Constructing a box out of a\nhollow cottonwood log, he gave himself to the waters of the Great\nColorado. After a voyage of some days, the box stopped on the muddy\nshore of a great sea. Here he found the friendly Spider Woman who,\nperched behind his ear, directed him on his search. After a series of\nadventures, among which he joined the sun in his course across the sky,\nhe was introduced into the kiva of the Snake people, men dressed in the\nskins of snakes. The Snake Chief said to Tiyo, 'Here we have an\nabundance of rain and corn; in your land there is but little; fasten\nthese prayers in your breast; and these are the songs that you will sing\nand these are the prayer-sticks that you will make; and when you display\nthe white and black on your body the rain will come.' He gave Tiyo part\nof everything in the kiva as well as two maidens clothed in fleecy\nclouds, one for his wife, and one as a wife for his brother. With this\nparaphernalia and the maidens, Tiyo ascended from the kiva. Parting from\nthe Spider Woman, he gained the heights of To-ko-na-bi. He now\ninstructed his people in the details of the Snake ceremony so that\nhenceforth his people would be blessed with rain. The Snake Maidens,\nhowever, gave birth to Snakes which bit the children of To-ko-na-bi, who\nswelled up and died. Because of this, Tiyo and his family were forced to\nemigrate and on their travels taught the Snake rites to other clans.\"\n\n[Footnote 28: Colton, H.S., Op. cit., p. 18.]\n\nMost of the accounts tell us that later only human children were born to\nthe pair, and these became the ancestors of the Snake Clan who, in their\nmigrations, finally reached Walpi, where we now find them, the most\nspectacular rain-makers in the world.\n\nAnother fragment of the full Snake legend must be given here to account\nfor what Dr. Fewkes considers the most fearless episode of the Snake\nCeremonial--the snake washing:\n\n\"On the fifth evening of the ceremony and for three succeeding evenings\nlow clouds trailed over To-ko-na-bi, and Snake people from the\nunderworld came from them and went into the kivas and ate corn pollen\nfor food, and on leaving were not seen again. Each of four evenings\nbrought a new group of Snake people, and on the following morning they\nwere found in the valleys metamorphosed into reptiles of all kinds. On\nthe ninth morning the Snake Maidens said: 'We understand this. Let the\nYounger Brothers (The Snake Society) go out and bring them all in and\n_wash their heads_, and let them dance with you.'\"[29]\n\n[Footnote 29: Fewkes, J.W., The Snake Ceremonials at Walpi: Jour. Am.\nEthnology and Archaeology, Vol. IV, 1894, p. 116.]\n\nThus we see in the ceremony an acknowledgment of the kinship of the\nsnakes with the Hopi, both having descended from a common ancestress.\nAnd since the snakes are to take part in a religious ceremony, of course\nthey must have their heads washed or baptized in preparation, exactly as\nmust every Hopi who takes part in any ceremony. The meal sprinkled on\nthe snakes during the dance and at its close is symbolic of the Hopi's\nprayers to the underworld spirits of seed germination; and thus the\nElder Brothers bear away the prayers of the people and become their\nmessengers to the gods, to whom the Elder Brothers are naturally closer,\nbeing in the ground, than are the Younger Brothers, who live above\nground.\n\nRather a delicately right idea, isn't it, this inviting of the Elder\nBrothers, however lowly, to this great religious ceremonial which\ncommemorates the gift of rain-making, as bestowed by their common\nancestress, and perpetuates the old ritual so long ago taught by the\nSnake Chief of the underworld to Tiyo, the Hopi youth who bravely set\nout to see where all the blessed rain water _went_, and came back with\nthe still more blessed secrets of whence and how to make it _come_.\n\nNine days before the public Snake Ceremony, the priests of the Antelope\nand Snake fraternities enter their respective kivas and hang over their\nhatchways the Natsi, a bunch of feathers, which, on the fifth day is\nreplaced by a bow decorated with eagle feathers. This first day is\noccupied with the making of prayer-sticks and in the preparation of\nceremonial paraphernalia. On the next four days, ceremonial snake hunts\nare conducted by the Snake men. Each day in a different quarter of the\nworld, first north, next day west, then south, then east.\n\nIt is an impressive sight, this line of Snake priests, bodies painted,\npouches, snake whips, and digging sticks in hand, marching single file\nfrom their kiva, through the village and down the steep trail that leads\nfrom the mesa to the lowlands.\n\nWhen a snake is found under a bush or in his hole, the digging stick\nsoon brings him within reach of the fearless hand; then sprinkling a\npinch of corn meal on his snakeship and uttering a charm and prayer, the\npriest siezes the snake easily a few inches back of the head and\ndeposits him in the pouch. Should the snake coil to strike, the snake\nwhip (two eagle feathers secured to a short stick) is gently used to\ninduce him to straighten out.\n\nAt sunset they return in the same grim formation, bearing the snake\npouches to the kiva, where four jars (not at all different from their\nwater jars) stand ready to receive the snakes and hold them till the\nfinal or ninth day of the ceremony.\n\nOn the next three mornings, just before dawn, in the Antelope Kiva, is\nheld the symbolic marriage of Tiyo and the Snake Maiden, followed by the\nsinging of sixteen traditional songs.\n\nJust before sunset of the eighth day, the Antelope and Snake priests\ngive a public pageant in the plaza, known as the Antelope or Corn Dance.\nIt is a replica of the Snake Dance, but shorter and simpler, and here\ncorn is carried instead of snakes.\n\nOn the morning of the ninth and last day occurs the Sunrise Corn Race,\nwhen the young men of the village race from a distant spring to the mesa\ntop. The whole village turns out to watch from the rim of the mesa, and\ngreat merriment attends the arrival of the racers, the winner receiving\nsome ceremonial object, which, placed in his corn field, should work as\na charm and insure a bumper crop.\n\nIn 1912, Dr. Byron Cummings witnessed a more interesting sunrise race\nthan the writer has ever seen or heard described by any other observer.\n\nAn aged priest stood on the edge of the mesa, before the assembled crowd\nof natives and visitors, and gave a long reverberating call, apparently\nthe signal for which the racers were waiting, for away across the plain\nbelow and to the right was heard an answering call, and from the left\nand far away, another answer. Eagerly the crowd watched to catch the\nfirst glimpse of the approaching racers, for there was no one in sight\nfor some time, from the direction of either of the answering calls.\n\nFinally mere specks in the distance to the right resolved themselves\ninto a line of six men running toward the mesa. As they came within\nhailing distance they were greeted by the acclamations of the watchers.\n\nThese runners were Snake priests, all elderly men, and as each in turn\nreached the position of the aged priest at the mesa edge, he received\nfrom that dignitary a sprinkling of sacred meal and a formal\nbenediction, then passed on to the Snake Kiva.\n\nBefore the last of these had appeared, began the arrival of the young\nathletes from across the plain to the left. Swiftly them came, and\ngracefully, their lithe brown bodies glistening in the early sunlight,\nacross the level lowland, then up the steep trail, to be met at the mesa\nedge by a picturesque individual carrying a cow bell and wearing a\nbeautiful garland of fresh yellow squash blossoms over his smooth\nflowing, black hair, and a girdle of the same lovely flowers round his\nwaist, with a perfect blossom over each ear completing his unique\ndecoration.\n\nAs the athletes, one at a time, joined him they fell into a procession\nand, led by the flower bedecked individual, they moved gracefully in a\ncircle to the rhythmic time of a festive chant and the accompaniment of\nthe cow bell. When the last racer had arrived, they were led in a sort\nof serpentine parade toward the plaza. But before they reached that\npoint they encountered a waiting group of laughing women and girls in\nbright-colored shawls, whose rollicking role seemed to be that of\nsnatching away from the young men the stalks of green corn, squash, and\ngourds they had brought up from the fields below. The scene ended in a\nmerry skirmish as the crowd dispersed.\n\nLater, Dr. Cummings unobtrusively followed the tracks of the priests\nback along their sunrise trail and out across the desert for more than\ntwo miles, to find there a simple altar and nine fresh prayer-sticks.\n\nAbout noon occurs the snake washing in the kiva. This is not for the\npublic gaze. If one knows no better than to try to pry into kiva\nceremonies, he is courteously but firmly told to move along.\n\nA few white men have been permitted to see this ceremony, among them,\nDr. Fewkes; an extract from his description of a snake washing at Walpi\nfollows:[30]\n\n[Footnote 30: Fewkes, J.W., Op. cit.]\n\n\"The Snake priests, who stood by the snake jars which were in the east\ncorner of the room, began to take out the reptiles and stood holding\nseveral of them in their hands behind Supela (the Snake Priest), so that\nmy attention was distracted by them. Supela then prayed, and after a\nshort interval, two rattlesnakes were handed him, after which venomous\nsnakes were passed to the others, and each of the six priests who sat\naround the bowl held two rattlesnakes by the necks with their heads\nelevated above the bowl. A low noise from the rattles of the priests,\nwhich shortly after was accompanied by a melodious hum by all present,\nthen began. The priests who held the snakes beat time up and down above\nthe liquid with the reptiles, which, although not vicious, wound their\nbodies around the arms of the holders.\n\n\"The song went on and frequently changed, growing louder, and wilder,\nuntil it burst forth into a fierce, blood-curdling yell, or war cry. At\nthis moment the heads of the snakes were thrust several times into the\nliquid, so that even parts of their bodies were submerged, and were then\ndrawn out, not having left the hands of the priests, and forcibly thrown\nacross the room upon the sand mosaic, knocking down the crooks and other\nobjects placed about it. As they fell on the sand picture, three Snake\npriests stood in readiness, and while the reptiles squirmed about or\ncoiled for defense, these men with their snake whips brushed them back\nand forth in the sand of the altar. The excitement which accompanied\nthis ceremony cannot be adequately described. The low song, breaking\ninto piercing shrieks, the red-stained singers, the snakes thrown by the\nchiefs and the fierce attitudes of the reptiles as they lashed on, the\nsand mosaic, made it next to impossible to sit calmly down and quietly\nnote the events which followed one another in quick succession. The\nsight haunted me for weeks afterward, and I can never forget this\nwildest of all the aboriginal rites of this strange people, which showed\nno element of our present civilization. It was a performance which might\nhave been expected in the heart of Africa rather than in the American\nUnion, and certainly one could not realize that he was in the United\nStates at the end of the nineteenth century. The low, weird song\ncontinued while other rattlesnakes were taken in the hands of the\npriests, and as the song rose again to the wild war cry, these snakes\nwere also plunged into the liquid and thrown upon the writhing mass\nwhich now occupied the place of the altar. Again and again this was\nrepeated until all the snakes had been treated in the same way, and\nreptiles, fetishes, crooks, and sand were mixed together in one confused\nmass. As the excitement subsided and the snakes crawled to the corners\nof the kiva, seeking vainly for protection, they were pushed back in the\nmass, and brushed together in the sand in order that their bodies might\nbe thoroughly dried. Every snake in the collection was thus washed, the\nharmless varieties being bathed after the venomous. In the destruction\nof the altar by the reptiles, the snake ti-po-ni (insignia) stood\nupright until all had been washed, and then one of the priests turned it\non its side, as a sign that the observance had ended. The low, weird\nsong of the snake men continued, and gradually died away until there was\nno sound but the warning rattle of the snakes, mingled with that of the\nrattles in the hands of the chiefs, and finally the motion of the snake\nwhips ceased, and all was silent.\"\n\nSeveral hours later these snakes are used in the public Snake Dance, and\nuntil that time they are herded on the floor of the kiva by a delegated\npair of snake priests assisted by several boys of the Snake Clan,\nnovices, whose fearless handling of the snakes is remarkable.\n\nAlready (on the eighth day) in the plaza has been erected the Kisa, a\ntall conical tepee arrangement of green cottonwood boughs, just large\nenough to conceal the man who during the dance will hand out the snakes\nto the dancers. Close in front of the Kisa is a small hole made in the\nground, covered by a board. This hole symbolizes the sipapu or entrance\nto the underworld.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 9.--Antelope Priest with Tiponi.\n\n--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]\n\nAt last comes the event for which the thronged village has been waiting\nfor hours, and for which some of the white visitors have crossed the\ncontinent. Just before sundown the Antelope priests file out of their\nkiva in ceremonial array--colorfully embroidered white kilts and sashes,\nbodies painted a bluish color with white markings in zigzag lines\nsuggestive of both snakes and lightning, chins painted black with white\nlines through the mouth from ear to ear, white breath feathers tied in\nthe top of their hair, and arm and ankle ornaments of beads, shells,\nsilver, and turquoise. (See Figure 9.) Led by their chief, bearing the\ninsignia of the Antelope fraternity and the whizzer, followed by the\nasperger, with his medicine bowl and aspergill and wearing a chaplet of\ngreen cottonwood leaves on his long, glossy, black hair, they circle the\nplaza four times, each time stamping heavily on the sipapu board with\nthe right foot, as a signal to the spirits of the underworld that they\nare about to begin the ceremony. Now they line up in front of the Kisa,\ntheir backs toward it, and await the coming of the Snake priests, for\nthese Antelope priests, with song and rattle, are to furnish the music\nfor the Snake Dance.\n\nThere is an expectant hush and then come the Snake priests, up from\ntheir kiva in grim procession, marching rapidly and with warlike\ndetermination. You would know them to be the Snake priests rather than\nthe Antelope fraternity by the vibration of their mighty tread alone,\neven if you did not see them. Their bodies are fully painted, a reddish\nbrown decorated with zigzag lightning symbols and other markings in\nwhite. The short kilt is the same red-brown color, as are their\nmocassins, the former strikingly designed with the snake zigzag and\nbordered above and below this with conventionalized rainbow bands.\n\nSoft breath feathers, stained red, are worn in a tuft on the top of the\nhead, and handsome tail feathers of the hawk or eagle extend down and\nback over the flowing hair. A beautiful fox skin hangs from the waist in\nthe back. Their faces are painted black across the whole mid section and\nthe chins are covered with white kaolin--a really startling effect.\nNecks, arms, and ankles are loaded with native jewelry and charms,\nsometimes including strings of animal teeth, claws, hoofs, and even\nsmall turtle shells for leg ornaments, from all of which comes a great\nrattling as the priests enter the plaza with their energetic strides.\n\nAlways a hushed gasp of admiration greets their entrance,--an admiration\nmixed with a shudder of awe. Again the standard bearer, with his whizzer\nor thunder-maker, leads, followed by the asperger, and we hear the sound\nof thunder, as the whizzer (sometimes called the bull-roarer) is whirled\nrapidly over the priest's head. The chapleted asperger sprinkles his\ncharm liquid in the four directions, first north, then west, south, and\neast.\n\nThey circle the plaza four times, each stamping mightily upon the cover\nof the sipapu as they pass the Kisa. Surely, the spirits of the\nunderworld are thus made aware of the presence of the Snake Brotherhood\nengaged in the traditional ritual. Incidentally, this Snake Dance is\ncarried on in the underworld on a known date in December, and at that\ntime the Hopi Snake men set up their altar and let the spirits know that\nthey are aware of their ceremony and in sympathy with them.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 10.--Snake Priests in Front of Kisa.\n\n--Courtesy Arizona State Museum.]\n\nNow the procession lines up facing the Antelope priests in front of the\nKisa, (See Figure 10), and the rattles of both lines of priests begin a\nlow whirr not unlike the rattle of snakes. All is perfectly rhythmic and\nthe Snake priests, with locked fingers, sway back and forth to the\nmusic, bodies as well as feet keeping time, while the Antelopes mark\ntime with a rhythmic shuffle. At last they break into a low chant, which\nincreases in volume, and rising and falling goes on interminably.\n\nAt last there is a pause and the Snake priests form into groups of\nthree, a carrier, an attendant, and a gatherer.\n\nEach group waits its turn before the Kisa. The carrier kneels and\nreceives a snake from the passer, who (with the snake bag) sits\nconcealed within the Kisa. As he rises, the carrier places his snake\nbetween his lips or teeth, usually holding it well toward the neck, but\noften enough near the middle, so that its head may sometimes move across\nthe man's face or eyes and hair, a really harrowing sight. The\nattendant, sometimes called the hugger, places his left arm across the\nshoulder of the first dancer and walks beside and a step behind him,\nusing his feather wand or snake whip to distract the attention of the\nsnake. (See Figure 11.) Just behind this pair walks their gatherer, who\nis alertly ready to pick up the dropped snake, when it has been carried\nfour times around the dance circle; sometimes it is dropped sooner.\n\nThe dance step of this first pair is a rhythmic energetic movement,\nalmost a stamping, with the carrier dancing with closed eyes. The\ngatherer merely walks behind, and is an alertly busy man. The writer has\nseen as many as five snakes on the ground at once, some of them coiling\nand rattling, others darting into the surrounding crowd with lightning\nrapidity, but never has she seen one escape the gatherer, and just once\nhas she seen a snake come near to making its escape. This was during the\nceremony at Hotavilla last summer (1932); the spectators had crowded\nrather close to the circle, and several front rows sat on the ground, in\norder that the dozens of rows back of them might see over their heads.\nAs for the writer, she sat on a neighboring housetop, well out of the\nway of rattlers, red racers, rabbit snakes, and even the harmless but\nfearsome-looking bull snake from 3 to 5 feet long. Often the snake\nstarts swiftly for the side lines, but always without seeming haste the\ngatherer gets it just as the startled spectators begin a hasty retreat.\nIf the snakes coils, meal is sprinkled on it and the feather wand\ninduces it to straighten, when it is picked up. But this time the big\nsnake really got into the crowd, second or third row, through space\nhurriedly opened for him by the frightened and more or less squealing\nwhite visitors. The priest was unable to follow it quickly without\nstepping on people, who had repeatedly been warned not to sit too close.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 11.--Snake Priests with Snake.\n\n--Photo by Bortell]\n\nVery quietly and without rising, a man in the third row picked up the\nsnake and handed it to the gatherer. The writer shuddered but did not\nrealize that the impromptu gatherer was her son, so bronzed by a\nsummer's archaeology field trip that she did not recognize him.\nAfterward he merely said, \"It was a harmless bull snake, and the priest\ncouldn't reach it; it's a shame for visitors to crowd up and get in the\nway unless they are prepared to sit perfectly still, whatever happens.\"\nReally one feels ashamed of the squealing and frightened laughter of\ncareless white visitors who stand or sit nearer than they should and\nthen make an unseemly disturbance when a snake gets too close. The\npriests resent such conduct, but always go right on without paying any\nattention to it. The rattles and singing voices of the Antelope priests\nfurnish a dignified, rhythmic accompaniment throughout the dance, and\nthe Snake men move in perfect time to it.\n\nWhen all the snakes have been carried and the last one has been dropped\nfrom the mouth of the carrier, the chant ceases. A priest draws a great\nround cloud symbol on the ground. Quickly the Hopi maids and women, (a\nsmall selected group), who stand ready with baskets of meal, sprinkle\nthe ground within the circle. At a signal all the snakes, now in the\nhands of the gatherers and the Antelope priests, are thrown upon this\nemblem. The women hastily drop sacred meal on the mass of snakes, then a\nsecond signal and the Snake priests grab up the whole writhing mass in\ntheir hands and run in the four directions off the steep mesa, to\ndeposit their Elder Brothers again in the lowlands with the symbolic\nsacred meal on their backs, that they may bear away to the underground\nthe prayers of their Younger Brothers, the Snake Clan. The Antelope\npriests now circle the plaza four times, stamping on the sipapu in\npassing, and then return to their own kiva, and the dance is over. The\nSnake priests presently return to the village, still running, disrobe in\ntheir kiva and promptly go to the nearest edge of the mesa, where the\nwomen of their clan wait with huge bowls of emetic (promptly effective)\nand tubs of water for bathing. This is the purification ceremony which\nends the ritual. Immediately the women of their families bring great\nbowls and trays of food and place them on top of the Snake Kiva, and the\nmen, who have fasted all day and sometimes longer, enjoy a feast.\n\nA spirit of relief and happiness now pervades the village and everybody\nkeeps open house.\n\nFar more often than otherwise, rain, either a sprinkle or a downpour,\nhas come during or just at the close of the dance, and the people are\nthankful and hopeful, for this is often the first rain of the season.\nThe writer has herself stood soaked to the skin by a thunder shower that\nhad been slowly gathering through the sultry afternoon and broke with\ndramatic effect during the ceremony. The Snake priests were noticeably\naffected by the incident and danced with actual fanatic frenzy.\n\nThose who habitually attend this ceremony from Flagstaff and Winslow and\nother points within motoring distance (if there is any motoring distance\nthese days) have long ago learned that they would better start for home\nimmediately following the dance, not waiting for morning, else the dry\nwashes may be running bank high by that time and prevent their getting\naway.\n\nThe writer has counted more than a hundred marooned cars lined up at Old\nOraibi or Moencopi Wash, waiting, perhaps another twenty-four hours, for\nthe ordinarily dry wash to become fordable. One will at least be\nimpressed with the idea that the Snake Dance (a movable date set by the\npriests from the observation of shadows on their sacred rocks) comes\njust at the breaking of the summer drouth.\n\nThe writer has seen in the Snake Dance as many as nine groups of three,\nall circling the plaza at once. But in recent years the number is\nsmaller, in some villages not more than four, for the old priests are\ndying off and not every young man who inherits the priesthood upon the\ndeath of his maternal uncle (priest) is willing to go on, though there\nare some novices almost every year. This year (1932) the eleven year old\nbrother of a Hopi girl in the writer's employ went into his first snake\ndance, as a gatherer, and his sister (a school girl since six) was as\nsolicitous as the writer whenever it was a rattler that Henry had to\ngather up. But we both felt that we must keep perfectly still, so our\nexpressions of anxiety were confined to very low whispers. Henry was not\nbitten and if he had been he would not have died. It is claimed and\ngenerally believed that no priest has ever died from snake bite, and\nindeed they are seldom bitten. During the past twenty years the writer\nhas twice seen a priest bitten by a rattler, once a very old priest and\nonce a boy of fourteen. No attention was paid, and apparently nothing\ncame of it.\n\nDr. Fewkes, Dr. Hough, and other authorities, in works already referred\nto, assert that the fangs of the snakes are not removed, nor are the\nsnakes doped, nor \"treated\" in any way that could possibly render their\npoison harmless. Nor is it believed that the Hopi have any antidote for\nsnake bite in their emetic or otherwise.\n\nDoes their belief make them fearless and likewise immune? Or are they\nwise in their handling of the snakes, so that danger is reduced to the\nvanishing point? No one knows.\n\nThe writer has made no attempt to go into the very numerous minute\ndetails of this ceremony, such as the mixing of the liquid for snake\nwashing, the making of the elaborate sand painting for the Snake altar,\nor descriptions of various kinds of prayer-sticks and their specific\nuses. Authorities differ greatly on these points and each village uses\nsomewhat different paraphernalia and methods of procedure. These details\noccupy hours and even days and are accompanied by much prayer and\nceremonial smoking, and the sincerity and solemnity of it all are most\nimpressive to any fair-minded observer.\n\nThe Hopi year is full of major and minor ceremonies, many of them as\ndeeply religious as those already described at some length; others of a\nsecular or social order, but even these are tinged with the religious\nidea and invariably based on tradition.\n\nIf many elements of traditional significance have been forgotten, as\nthey undoubtedly have in some instances, nevertheless the thing is kept\ngoing according to traditional procedure, and the majority of the\nparticipants believe it best to keep up these time-honored rituals.\nTheir migration tales, partly mythical, partly historical, relate many\nunhappy instances of famine, pestilence, and civil strife, which have\nbeen brought upon various clans because of their having neglected their\nold dances and ceremonies, and of relief and restored prosperity having\nfollowed their resumption. Once, bad behavior brought on a flood.\n\nHere is the story, and it will explain at least partially, the\nceremonial use of turkey feathers.\n\n\n=A Flood and Turkey Feathers=\n\nTurkey feathers are much prized for ceremonial uses today. If you want\nto carry a little present to a Hopi friend, particularly an old man, or\nan old woman, save up a collection of especially nice looking turkey\nfeathers. They will be put to ceremonial uses and bring blessings to\ntheir owners.\n\nHere is at least one of the legends back of the idea, as collected by\nStephen and reported by Mindeleff.[31] The chief of the water people\nspeaks:\n\n\"In the long ago, the Snake, Horn, and Eagle people lived here (in\nTusayan), but their corn grew only a span high, and when they sang for\nrain the cloud sent only a thin mist. My people then lived in the\ndistant Palatkiwabi in the South. There was a very bad old man there,\nwho, when he met anyone, would spit in his face, blow his nose upon him,\nand rub ordure upon him. He ravished the girls and did all manner of\nevil. (Note: Other variants of the legend say the young men were\nmischievously unkind and cruel to the old men, rather than that an old\nman was bad. H.G.L.) Baholikonga (big water serpent deity) got angry at\nthis and turned the world upside down, and water spouted up through the\nkivas and through the fireplaces in the houses. The earth was rent in\ngreat chasms, and water covered everything except one narrow ridge of\nmud; and across this the serpent deity told all the people to travel. As\nthey journeyed across, the feet of the bad slipped and they fell into\nthe dark water, but the good, after many days, reached dry land. While\nthe water, rising around the village, came higher, the old people got on\nthe tops of the houses, for they thought they could not struggle across\nwith the younger people. But Baholikonga clothed them with the skins of\nturkeys, and they spread out their wings and floated in the air just\nabove the surface of the water, and in this way they got across. There\nwere saved of our people, Water, Corn, Lizard, Horned Toad, Sand, two\nfamilies of Rabbit, and Tobacco. The turkeys' tails dragged in the\nwater--hence the white on the turkey tail now. Wearing these turkey\nskins is the reason why old people have dewlaps under the chin like a\nturkey; it is also the reason why old people use turkey feathers at the\nreligious ceremonies.\"\n\n[Footnote 31: Mindeleff, Victor, Op. cit. (Myths by Cosmos Mindeleff\nafter Stephen), p. 31.]\n\nHough[32] says that in accord with the belief that the markings on the\ntail feathers were caused by the foam and slime of an ancient deluge,\nthe feathers are prescribed for all pahos, since through their mythical\nassociation with water they have great power in bringing rain.\n\n[Footnote 32: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, p. 172.]\n\n\n\n\nX. CEREMONIES FOR BIRTH, MARRIAGE, BURIAL\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe story of the Hopi, who does every important thing in his life\naccording to a traditional pattern and accompanied by appropriate\nreligious ceremony, would not be complete without some account of birth,\nmarriage, and burial. Not having seen these ceremonies, the writer\noffers the record of authoritative observers.\n\n\n=Birth=\n\nBabies are welcomed and well cared for in Hopiland, and now that the\nyoung mothers are learning to discard unripe corn, fruit, and melons as\nbaby food, the infant mortality, once very high, is decreasing.\n\nNatal ceremonies are considered important. Goddard[33] gives us a brief\npicture of the usual proceedings: \"The Hopi baby is first washed and\ndressed by its paternal grandmother or by one of her sisters. On the day\nof its birth she makes four marks with corn meal on the four walls of\nthe room. She erases one of these on the fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and\ntwentieth day of the child's life. On each of these days the baby and\nits mother have their heads washed with yucca suds. On the twentieth\nday, which marks the end of the lying-in period, the grandmother comes\nearly, bathes the baby and puts some corn meal to its lips. She utters a\nprayer in which she requests that the child shall reach old age and in\nthis prayer gives it a name. A few of the women members of the father's\nclan come in one at a time, bathe the baby and give it additional names.\nAfter the names have been given, the paternal grandmother goes with the\nmother and the child to the eastern edge of the mesa, starting so as to\narrive about sunrise. Two ears of white corn which have been lying near\nthe child during the twenty days, are carried with them. The grandmother\ntouches these ears of corn to the baby's breast and waves them to the\neast. She also strews corn meal toward the sun, placing a little on the\nchild's mouth. As she does this, she prays, uttering in the course of\nher prayer the various names which have been given to the child. The\nmother goes through a similar ceremony and utters a similar prayer.\n\n\"The names given relate in some way to the clan of the one who bestows\nthem. Of the various names given to the child, one, because it strikes\nthe fancy of the family, generally sticks ... until the individual is\ninitiated into some ceremony. At that time a new name is given.\"\n\nFor instance, a Hopi man of middle age, known to the writer as George\n(school name), tells her that his adopted father belonged to the Tobacco\nClan, so the name selected for him by the paternal aunts was\n\"Sackongsie\" or \"green tobacco plant with the blossoms on.\" Bessie, born\nin the same family, was named \"Sackhongeva\" or \"green tobacco plant\nstanding straight.\" The nine month's baby daughter of a Hopi girl once\nin the employ of the writer is merrily called \"Topsy,\" although formally\nnamed Christine in honor of the school superintendent's wife. Her mother\nexplains that the father's clan is Tobacco, and the aunts named this\nbaby \"Topt-si,\" \"the red blossom on top of the tobacco plant,\" which\nsounds so exactly like Topsy that the family sense of humor has\npermitted the nickname. One of the writer's Hopi girls was named \"two\nstraight, tall rows of corn,\" another, \"Falling Snow.\" These pretty\nnames, too long for convenience, are nevertheless cherished, as a matter\nof sentiment, by their owners.\n\n[Footnote 33: Goddard, P.E., Indians of the Southwest: N.Y. Amer. Mus.\nNat. Hist., Handbook Series No. 2, 1921.]\n\n\n=Marriage=\n\nThe following is Hough's[34] description of the wedding ceremony at\nOraibi: \"When the young people decide to be married, the girl informs\nher mother, who takes her daughter, bearing a tray of meal made from\nwhite corn, to the house of the bridegroom where she is received by his\nmother with thanks. During the day the girl must labor at the mealing\nstones, grinding the white meal, silent and unnoticed; the next day she\nmust continue her task.... On the third day of this laborious trial she\ngrinds the dark blue corn which the Hopi call black, no doubt, glad when\nthe evening brings a group of friends, laden with trays of meal of\ntheir own grinding as presents, and according to the custom, these\npresents are returned in kind, the trays being sent back next day heavy\nwith choice ears of corn.\n\n\"After this three days' probation ... comes the wedding. Upon that day\nthe mother cuts the bride's front hair at the level of her chin and\ndresses the longer locks in two coils, which she must always wear in\ntoken that she is no longer a maiden. At the dawn of the fourth day, the\nrelatives of both families assemble, each one bringing a small quantity\nof water in a vessel. The two mothers pound up roots of the yucca, used\nas soap, and prepare two bowls of foaming suds. The young man kneels\nbefore the bowl prepared by his future mother-in-law, and the bride\nbefore the bowl of the young man's mother, and their heads are\nthoroughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring handsful of\nsuds over the bowed heads of the couple. While this ceremonial ... goes\non ... a great deal of jollity ensues. When the head-washing is over,\nthe visitors rinse the hair of the couple with the water they have\nbrought, and return home. Then the bridal couple take each a pinch of\ncorn meal and leaving the house go silently to the eastern side of the\nmesa on which the pueblo of Oraibi stands. Holding the meal to their\nlips, they cast the meal toward the dawn, breathing a prayer for a long\nand prosperous life, and return to the house, husband and wife.\n\n\"The ceremony over, the mother of the bride (Note: All other authorities\nsay groom, H.G.L.) builds a fire under the baking stone, while the\ndaughter prepares the batter and begins to bake a large quantity of\npaper bread.... The wedding breakfast follows closely on the heels of\nthe wedding ceremony and the father of the young man must run through\nthe pueblo with a bag of cotton, handsful of which he gives to the\nrelatives and friends, who pick out the seeds and return the cotton to\nhim. This cotton is for the wedding blankets and sash which are to be\nthe trousseau of the bride....\n\n\"A few days later the crier announces the time for the spinning of the\ncotton for the bride's blanket. This takes place in the kivas, where\nusually all the weaving is done by the men, and with jollity and many a\nstory the task is soon finished. The spun cotton is handed over to the\nbridegroom as a contribution from the village, to be paid for like\neverything else Hopi, by a sumptuous feast, which has been prepared by\nthe women for the spinners. Perhaps ten sage-brush-fed sheep and goats,\ntough beyond reason, are being softened in a stew, consisting mainly of\ncorn; stacks of paper bread have been baked, various other dishes have\nbeen concocted, and all is ready when the crier calls in the hungry\nmultitude....\n\n\"With the spun cotton, serious work begins for the bridegroom and his\nmale relatives, lasting several weeks. A large white blanket ... and a\nsmaller one must be woven and a reed mat in which the blankets are to be\nrolled. A white sash with long fringe and a pair of mocassins, each\nhaving half a deerskin for leggings, like those worn by the women of the\nRio Grande pueblos, complete the costume. The blankets must have\nelaborate tassels at the four corners. (Note: Representing rain falling\nfrom the white cloud blanket. H.G.L.)\n\n\"Shortly before sunrise, the bride, arrayed in her finery, performs the\nlast act in the drama, called 'going home.' Up to this time the bride\nhas remained in the house of her husband's people. Wearing the large\nwhite blanket, picturesquely disposed over her head, and carrying the\nsmall blanket wrapped in the reed mat in her hands, she walks to her\nmother's house ... and the long ceremony is over ... for in this land of\nwomen's rights the husband must live with his wife's relatives.\"\n\n[Footnote 34: Hough, Walter, Op. cit, p. 123.]\n\nThe bride may not appear at a public ceremonial dance until the\nfollowing July, at the Kachina Farewell ceremony, when all the brides of\nthe year turn out in their lovely wedding blankets and white leggings,\nthe only time this blanket is ever worn after the wedding (during life),\nsave one the naming ceremony of her first child.\n\nIt becomes her winding sheet when at death she wears it in her grave,\nthen after four days, she takes it from her shoulders and uses it as a\nmagic carpet when, having reached the edge of the Grand Canyon, she\nsteps out upon her ceremonial blanket, and like a white cloud it\ndescends with her to Maski, the underworld paradise of the Hopi.\n\nAre the Hopi married in this way today? Most certainly. Figure 12 shows\na Hopi girl who worked for the writer for three summers. She is a fine,\nintelligent girl, having gone more than halfway through high school\nbefore she returned to her home on Second Mesa to live. This is her\nwedding picture taken last year at the moment of her \"going home,\" after\njust such a wedding ceremonial as described above.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 12.--A Hopi Bride.\n\n--Photo by Colton.]\n\nA letter from friends of the writer states that her baby is just now\ngoing through his natal ceremonies in the good old Hopi way. If the\nSnake Dance is continued till he grows up--it makes one shudder to think\nof it--he is in line to be a Snake priest!\n\n\n=Burial=\n\nHere we have the account of Goddard:[35] \"When an adult dies, the\nnearest relatives by blood wash the head, tie a feather offering to the\nhair so that it will hang over the forehead, wrap the body in a good\nrobe and carry it to one of the graveyards which are in the valleys near\nthe mesas. The body is buried in a sitting position so that it faces\neast. This is done within a few hours after death has occurred. The\nthird night, a bowl containing some food, a prayer-stick offering, and a\nfeather and string, are carried to the grave. The string is placed so\nthat it points from the grave to the west. The next morning, the fourth,\nthe soul is supposed to rise from the grave and proceed in the direction\nindicated by the string, where it enters the 'skeleton house.' This is\nbelieved to be situated somewhere near the Canyon of the Colorado.\"\n\n[Footnote 35: Goddard, P.E., Op. cit.]\n\nAny bodies of young children who have not yet been initiated into any\nfraternity are not buried in the ground, but in a crevice of rock\nsomewhere near the mother's home and covered with stones. A string is\nleft hanging out, pointing to the home of the family. The spirit of the\nchild is believed to return and to be re-born in the next child born in\nthe family, or to linger about till the mother dies and then to go with\nher to the underworld.\n\nIf the adult spirit has led a good life, it goes to the abode where the\nancestral spirits feast and hold ceremonies as on earth, but if evil it\nmust be tried by fire and, if too bad for purification, it is\ndestroyed.\n\n\n\n\nXI. STORIES TOLD TODAY\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFewkes, Stephen, Mindeleff, Voth, and others have collected the more\nimportant tales of migrations and the major myths underlying both\nreligion and social organization among the Hopi. One gets substantially\nthe same versions today from the oldest story-tellers. These are the\nstories that never grow old; in the kiva and at the fireside they live\non, for these are the vital things on which Hopi life is built.\n\nHowever, there is a lighter side, of which we have heard less, to this\nunwritten literature of the Hopi people. These are the stories for\nentertainment, so dear to the hearts of young and old alike. Even these\nstories are old, some of them handed down for generations. And they\nrange from the historical tale, the love story, and the tale of\nadventure to the bugaboo story and the fable. Space permits only a few\nstories here.\n\nNo writing of these can equal the art of the Hopi story-teller, for the\nstory is told with animation and with the zest that may inspire the\nnarrator who looks into the faces of eager listeners.\n\nThe Hopi story-teller more or less dramatizes his story, often breaking\ninto song or a few dance steps or mimicking his characters in voice and\nfacial expression. Sometimes the writer has been so intrigued with the\nperformance she could scarcely wait for her interpreter (See Figure 13)\nto let her into the secret. Often the neighbors gathered round to hear\nthe story, young and old alike, and they are good listeners. All of\nthese stories save one, that of Don, of Oraibi, were told in the Hopi\nlanguage, but having a Hopi friend as an interpreter has preserved, we\nthink, the native flavor of the stories.\n\nThe first story, as told by Sackongsie, of Bacabi, is a legend\nconcerning the adventure of the son of the chief of Huckovi, a\nprehistoric Hopi village whose ruins are pointed out on Third Mesa. The\nwriter has since heard other variants of this story.\n\n\n=An Ancient Feud,= as told by Sackongsie\n\n\"This is a story of the people that used to live on Wind Mountain. There\nis only a ruin there now, but there used to be a big village called\nHuckovi; that means wind on top of the mountain. These people finally\nleft this country and went far away west. We have heard that they went\nto California, and the Mission Indians themselves claim they are from\nthis place.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 13.--The Author's Interpreter at Walpi and\nDaughter, \"Topsy.\"]\n\n\"These people used to have ladder dances; that is an old kind of a\ndance that nobody has now. But we are told that a long time ago these\npeople brought trees from far away and set them up in round holes made\non purpose in the rock along the very edge of the mesa.\n\n\"Then the Mud heads (masked Kachinas) furnish the music and young men\ndressed as leopards and mountain lion Kachinas climb into the tree tops\nand swing out over the canyon rim to time of the music. You can see the\nround holes in the rock there now.\n\n\"Well--it has always been this way among Hopi--when there is a dance,\neverybody goes to see.\n\n\"Now there was a dance at Mishongnovi and the boys from Huckovi went\nover to see it.\n\n\"Now the war chief at Huckovi was a great man that everybody looked up\nto, and he had only one son. This young man was so religious that he\nnever went to this kind of just funny dances, but this time he went\nalong with some friends. Long time ago the chief never goes to these\ndances, nor his son who will follow his steps.\n\n\"When they got to Mishongnovi the dance was going on and everybody\nlaughing and having a good time, for the clown kachinas were going round\npestering the dancing kachinas. These rough clown kachinas took turns\nappearing and disappearing, and some coming, others going away, then\ncoming back.\n\n\"About the middle of the afternoon, came two Kachina racers to run with\nthe clowns, and soon they began to call out some of the young men from\nthe audience, known to be the best runners. After a while the son of\nHuckovi chief was chosen to run, but he was very bashful and refused to\nperform. But the Kachina who had chosen him as a competitor insisted and\nfinally brought a gift of baked sweet corn and the young man was\nembarrassed and thought he had to run or be made fun of, so he came over\nand ran with this Kachina and beat him. They ran a long race, and the\nKachina never could catch up with him, but when the boy stopped, the\nKachina ran up and took hold of him and cut off his hair. The name of\nthis Kachina was Hair Eater, and he was supposed to cut off the hair if\nhe beat the boy, but he never did beat him.\n\n\"The Hopi, in those days, took great pride in their hair and would not\ncut it off for anything in the world.\n\n\"The people who saw what had happened were so sorry that the honorable\nson of the chief had been disgraced, that, to show their disapproval,\nthey all left while the dance was still going on.\n\n\"When the boy got home his father was grieved to see his son coming home\nscalped, as he said. The father didn't know what to do.\n\n\"Now the chief had a daughter twelve years old. He told her to practice\nrunning till she can beat her brother. Both the boy and the girl\npracticed a long time and at last the girl can run faster and farther\nthan her brother.\n\n\"Then the father said, 'I think it is good enough.'\n\n\"Soon the chief, he was the war chief, went to visit his friend, the war\nchief at Mishongnovi, and asked him to arrange a dance without letting\nthe village chief know, because he said he wanted to give some kind of\nexhibition there.\n\n\"So his friend arranged the dance and four nights of practice followed.\nThis dance was to be given by the Snow Kachinas. So that night the dance\nis going to be, the father and mother of the children baked up much\nsweet corn for them to take to this dance at Mishongnovi.\n\n\"Now the chief had discovered that it was the son of the Mishongnovi\nvillage chief (not the war chief there) that had scalped his son.\n\n\"Being fast runners, the children went a round-about way and were still\nin time for the three o'clock dance. So they approached the village from\nanother direction so no one would know where they had come from, and\nthey put on their costumes and the girl dressed exactly like the son of\nthe Mishongnovi village chief in his Hair Eater Kachina costume so no\none can tell who she is.\n\n\"Now when the father started his children off, he gave them two\nprayer-sticks for protection, and he said when they were pursued they\nmust conceal these and never let anyone touch them and they will be\nprotected.\n\n\"Well, when they got there the clowns were dancing with the Kachinas. So\nthe daughter of the Huckovi chief goes to a house top where she can see\nthe pretty daughter of the Mishongnovi chief sitting with a bunch of\ngirls, all in their bright shawls and with their hair in whorls.\n\n\"When these girls see a Hair Eater Kachina coming up on the house top\nthey run from her, remembering the old trouble when that kind of a\nkachina had done such an awful thing. The girls all ran into a room and\non down into a lower room, and the Huckovi girl followed them and caught\nthe chief's daughter and cut off a whorl of her hair and also cut her\nthroat. Then she went out on the house top and shook out the whorl for\nall the people to see.\n\n\"Of course the dance stopped and everybody started to come after her,\nbut she and her brother ran from house top to lower house top and jumped\nto the ground and ran on west by Toreva and toward home, with all the\nmen of Mishongnovi chasing them and shooting with bows and arrows. At\nlast some were coming after them on horses. Then her brother asked her\nif she was too tired to run farther, fearing they would be caught. She\nreplied, 'No more tired than at first!'\n\n\"By now they had come to the Oraibi Wash, and looking back they could\nsee some men coming on horses.\n\n\"They remembered their two prayer-sticks, so they took them out of where\nthey had hidden them in their clothes and they planted them at the two\nsides of the wash.\n\n\"And immediately a great whirl wind started up from that place and grew\ninto a great sand storm that blotted out their tracks and made such a\nthick cloud that their enemies could no longer see them. Then they\nturned straight home.\n\n\"So the children came home with the whorl and scalp attached, and the\nfather was satisfied.\n\n\"But the Mishongnovi chief was terribly angry and told his people to\nmake much bows and arrows.\n\n\"Then a friend of the Huckovi chief went over from Mishongnovi and told\nall this to the war chief of Huckovi, who told his people to do\nlikewise, for now there will be war.\n\n\"So after preparations had gone on for a long time, the Mishongnovi\nchief went to the Huckovi chief and said, 'We have to divide the land\nbetween us, and Oraibi Wash shall be the line.' (Meaning the mark past\nwhich an enemy was not to be pursued, and each would be safe on his own\nside of the line.)\n\n\"Oraibi Wash was already the line for the same purpose between\nMishongnovi and Oraibi Village because of an older trouble.\n\n\"Well, when the enemies came from Mishongnovi to fight them, the Huckovi\npeople had gathered many rocks and rolled them down from the mesa top,\nand killed so many that the Mishongnovi men started for home. But the\nHuckovi men came down then and followed them, and fought them every foot\nof the way back to Oraibi Wash, where they had to let them go free, and\nthey went on running all the way home, and the Huckovi people then\nreturned to their homes satisfied.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe next two stories are by Dawavantsie, whose name means \"sand dune.\"\nShe is a member of the Water Clan, and is the oldest woman now living in\nWalpi. She is much loved by the whole village, who claim that she is\nover a hundred years old. How old she really is, it would be impossible\nto know, for such things were not kept track of so long ago. She speaks\nno English. When asked about her age she merely shrugs her small\nshrunken shoulders, draws her shawl around them, and with a pleasant\ntoothless smile, says: \"O, I never know that, but I remember a long,\nlong time.\"\n\nShe loves to tell stories, and enjoys quite a reputation as a\nstory-teller among her relatives and neighbors, who like to gather round\nand listen as she sits on the floor of her second story home, her back\nagainst the wall, bare feet curled up and quiet hands folded in her lap.\nHer face, while deeply wrinkled, is fine and expressive of much\ncharacter as well as sweetness of disposition. Figure 14 shows her\nposing for her picture just outside her door, on the roof of the next\nlower room. Her skin and hair and dress are all clean and neat; her\nlittle back is astonishingly straight, and her bare brown feet, so long\nused to the ladders of Hopiland, are surer than mine, if slower.\n\nShe has lived all her life, as did her mother and grandmother before\nher, in this second story room, on whose clean clay floor we sat for the\nvisiting and story-telling. From its open door she looks out over the\nroofs of Walpi and far across the valley in all directions, for hers is\nthe highest house, and near the end of the mesa. The ancestral home with\nits additions is now housing four generations. She has always been a\nwoman of prominence because of her intelligence and has the marks of\ngood breeding--one of nature's gentlewomen.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 14.--Dawavantsie of Walpi.]\n\nThe writer's friends, Dr. and Mrs. Fewkes, had told of her several\nyears ago, for it was in her house that they had lived for some time in\nthe early nineties while carrying on research work for the Bureau of\nAmerican Ethnology. The writer did not realize that this was the house\nand the woman of whom she had heard till half-way through the first\nstory, when some mention of Dr. Fewkes, by her son-in-law (a man past\nmiddle age) brought out the fact. When informed of the death of both Dr.\nand Mrs. Fewkes, her controlled grief was touching. In speaking of our\nmutual friend, the writer used the Hopi name given him by the Snake\nfraternity of the old woman's village so many years ago--Nahquavi\n(medicine bowl), a name always mentioned with both pride and amusement\nby Dr. Fewkes. And I found that in this family, none of whom speak\nEnglish, exactly these same emotions expressed themselves in the faces\nof all the older members of the family, who remembered with a good deal\nof affection, it seemed, these friends of nearly forty years ago.\n\nOver and over, they repeated the name; it stirred memories; they laughed\neagerly, and nodded their heads, and began to talk to me in Hopi,\ncompletely forgetting the interpreter. Then their faces sobered and\nsighs and inarticulate sounds were all that broke the silence for fully\nten minutes. Then quietly the little grandmother turned to the\ninterpreter and asked her to say to me, \"He called me his sister.\"\nSilence again, and after a few minutes she went on with her stories.\n\n\n=Memories of a Hopi Centenarian,= as told by Dawavantsie\n\n\"One of the first important things I can remember was when some Spanish\nsoldiers came here. I don't know how old I was, but I had been married\nfor several years, I think, for my first child had died. I was then\nliving in this same old house. These Spaniards came from the direction\nof Keam's Canyon, and they passed on toward Oraibi. They did not come up\nonto this mesa at all, but just took corn and melons and whatever they\nwanted from the fields down below.\n\n\"It was early one morning and I had gone with two other girls, cousins\nof mine, down to the spring at the foot of the mesa for water. These\nmen came toward us, and we ran, but they caught us and started to take\nus away. I fought the man who was holding me and got loose and ran up\nthe mesa trail faster than he could run.\n\n\"I rolled rocks on them when they tried to come up and so they gave it\nup. I ran on up to the top of the mesa and gave the alarm and our men\nwent to rescue the other two girls, but the Spaniards had horses and\nthey got away with the girls, who have never been heard of to this day.\n\n\"The Hopi had no horses in those days, but there were just a few burros.\nSo the men followed on foot, but they could never catch them. There was\na skirmish at Oraibi, too, over the stealing of girls.\n\n\"One Walpi man in the fields was unable to keep them from taking his two\ngirls, so he just had to give them up and he never saw them again. The\npoor father had few relations and had to go from house to house asking\nfor food, for he was so grieved that he could never get along after\nthat, but just was always worrying about his girls, and he died in less\nthan a year.\n\n\"After a long time other Spaniards came, and a young man who was down\nbelow the mesa, practicing for a race before sunrise, saw them and ran\nback and got enough men to go down and capture them. They kept their\nprisoners fastened in a room for a while and then the older men decided\nthat they would not let them be killed although some wanted to; so they\ntook them to some houses below the mesa--the place is still called\nSpanish Seat--and kept them there.\n\n\"After a few weeks they let them go away. Some Hopi men were bribed to\nget some girls to go down off the mesa that day so these Spaniards could\ntake them away with them.\n\n\"They asked me to go and a girl friend of mine, but we would not go. One\ngirl did go, for a famine was beginning and this poor girl thought she\nwas being taken to visit with the Zunis and would be better off there.\nNobody ever got track of her again.\n\n\"Once food was so scarce that I had to go with my mother and sister to\nSecond Mesa, and we stayed there with our clan relations till food was\nscarce, and then we went to Oraibi and stayed with our clan relations\nthere until summer. We could go back to Walpi then because corn and\nmelons were growing again; but we left my sister because she had married\nthere.\n\n\"This was a two-year famine and almost everybody left Walpi and wandered\nfrom village to village, living wherever they could get food. There had\nbeen more rain and better crops in some of the other places.\n\n\"Ever since then some Walpi people have scattered among other villages,\nwhere they married, and some went as far as the Rio Grande villages, and\nsome perished on the way.\n\n\"Again after many years, Spaniards came, stealing corn, and this time\nthey went through the houses and stole whatever they wanted. They took\naway ceremonial and sacred things, that was the worst. And when they\nleft, they went northeast, past where Tom's store is now.\n\n\"No, there were never any Spanish missionaries living in Walpi; those\nwho tell of priests living here are mistaken--too young to know. I have\nheard of those at Oraibi long ago, and at Awatobi; some were killed at\nthose places.\n\n\"Some of the rafters of this house, not of this room but another part,\nwere brought from ruins of Awatobi. An uncle of my daughter's husband\nhere brought some sacred things from Awatobi and revived some of the old\nceremonials that had been dropped on account of our not having the right\nthings to use for them. Spaniards had already been here and taken some\nof those things out of the houses, so some ceremonies could never be\nheld any more without those things. You see, the Awatobi people had some\nsuch things, too, and so our people wanted to save them. I think some of\nour trouble with Awatobi was to get these things.\n\n\"I remember that after the famine, when crops were good again, we had\ntrouble with Navajos. It was in the summer and a Hopi hoeing his field\nwas killed by a bunch of thieving Navajos, and that started the trouble.\nThis man who was killed had a crippled nephew working with him at the\ntime, and that boy got away and ran back to Walpi with the word, and\neverybody was surprised that he could run fast enough to get away.\n\n\"After that they made him a watchman to look out for Navajos.\n\n\"A good while after that two Hopi boys were fired upon by prowling\nNavajos who were hiding in the village of Sichomovi. For a number of\nyears then the Navajos plundered the fields, drove off the stock, and\nkilled children. Then they stopped coming here for a good while, but\nlater they began doing all those things again, worse than ever. So then\nthe Hopi decided to shoot every Navajo they saw in their fields, and\nthis stopped the trouble.\n\n\"Now the Navajos are good friends, come here often, and bring meat.\"\n\n\n=The Coyote and the Water Plume Snake,= by Dawavantsie\n\n\"Once upon a time a Coyote and a Water Plume Snake got acquainted. One\nday the Coyote invited his friend, the big snake, to come and visit him\nat his house. The Snake was pleased to be invited, so he went that very\nnight.\n\n\"The Coyote was at home waiting, and when his guest arrived, he told him\nto come right in. So the Snake started in, first his head, then his long\nbody, and more and more of him kept coming in, so that the Coyote had to\nkeep crowding over against the wall to make room. By the time the Snake\nwas in, tail and all, the Coyote had to go up and stay outside, for his\nvisitor took up all the room in his house.\n\n\"Now the Coyote could still put his head close to his door and visit\nwith the Snake, so that they had a very good visit. But that night was\npretty cold, and after while the Coyote was so cold he got cross and\nwished the Snake would go home.\n\n\"Well, by and by, the Snake said he must go home now, so he said\ngoodnight and invited the Coyote to come over to his house the next\nnight.\n\n\"The Coyote said he would be sure to come over, then he went into his\nhouse and sat by the fire and got warm and made plans how he would get\neven with that big Water Plume Snake.\n\n\"Well, next day he went and gathered a lot of cedar bark and some corn\nhusks and some pine gum, and he made himself a great long tail and put\nlots of wool and some of his hair on the outside, so that it was a very\nbig tail and long, too.\n\n\"So when evening came, he waited for it to get dark, then he started for\nthe kiva of the big Snake.\n\n\"When he got there his friend was waiting and had a nice fire and\nreceived him with good welcome and told him to come right in and get\nwarm.\n\n\"Now the Water Plume Snake was sure surprised when the Coyote got in and\nkept going round and round, pulling his long tail after him, and being\nwise he saw just what was going on, and now he knows the Coyote is\nmaking fun of him. So he just says nothing and makes room enough for the\nCoyote by going outdoors himself.\n\n\"So the Snake just put his head in and was very nice and polite and they\nhave a good visit. But the Snake got very cold and still the Coyote will\nnot go home and the Snake is nearly freezing.\n\n\"At last the Coyote says he have to go and the Snake is pretty cold and\npretty mad, too. So he says good night to the Coyote and crawls right\ndown into his house quick as the Coyote's body is out, and when he sees\nall that big tail rolling out he just holds the end of it over the\nfireplace and gets it burning.\n\n\"But the Coyote is very pleased with himself and he don't look back but\njust goes right along. After a while he notices a fire behind him and\nturns around and sees the grass is burning way back there. So he says to\nhimself, 'Well I better not go into my house for the Hopi have set fire\nto the grass to drive me away, and I'll just go on, so they won't find\nme at home.'\n\n\"But soon the fire got going fast in that cedar bark and before he can\nget that tail untied he is burned so bad that he just keeps running till\nhe gets to Bayupa (Little Colorado River). There was a great flood going\ndown the river and he was so weak from running that he could not swim,\nso he drowned. And that is what he got for trying to get even with\nsomebody.\"\n\nQuentin Quahongva, who tells the next story, lives at Shungopovi,\nSecond Mesa. He is a good-natured, easy-going man of middle age, and\nusually surrounded by a troop of children, his own and all the\nneighbors'.\n\n[Illustration: Figure 15.--Quahongva, Story-teller of Shungopovi, and\nListeners.]\n\nWe had no more than started our first story when the youngsters began to\nappear. They squatted about on the floor and covered the door step, and\nwere good listeners. Their squeals of glee brought other children\nscampering, as the story-teller imitated the song and dance steps of the\nEagle, in one of his stories. But the one we have chosen to record here\nis a Bear story. Figure 15 shows Quahongva surrounded by those of the\nchildren who had not been called home to supper when the stories ended.\nOne small girl in the foreground is carrying her doll on her back by\nmeans of her little shawl, exactly as her mother carries her baby\nbrother.\n\nQuahongva was a good story-teller. Some of his tales were long enough to\noccupy an evening. His best story took two and a half days for the\ntelling and recording, so can not be included here.\n\n\n=A Bear Story,= as told by Quahongva\n\n\"Long ago at Shipaulovi there lived a woman with her husband and two\nlittle children, two and four years old. The husband died. For a long\ntime the woman stayed alone and had to do all the work herself, bring\nwood and make the fire and everything.\n\n\"One day she went to a little mesa a good ways off for wood, for there\nwas dry wood in that place. One of the children wanted to go with her\nand cried, but the mother could not take her, she was too little. So she\ntold her to stay at home and play and watch for her return.\n\n\"The two little ones were playing 'slide down' on a smooth, slanting\nrock, and from quite a distance the mother looked back and saw them\nstill playing there. Then she went around a little hill to find her\nwood.\n\n\"She gathered a big bunch and tied it up, making a kind of rack that she\ncould carry on her back. Now she leaned her load up on a big rock so she\ncould lift it to her back, and as she turned around just ready to take\nup the load, she saw a bear coming. She was terribly frightened and just\nstood still, and the bear came closer and made big noise. (Note: A good\nimitation was given, and the children listeners first laughed and then\nbecame comically sober. H.G.L.)\n\n\"She said, 'Poor me, where shall I hide! What am I going to do!'\n\n\"She was so frightened she could not think where to go; but now she saw\na crevice under the rock where she was leaning, so she crawled in and\nput the rack of wood in front of her.\n\n\"From behind the wood she could still see the bear coming and hear his\ngreat voice. Soon he reached the rock and tore the wood away with his\ngreat paws. Then he reached in and pulled the woman out and ripped her\nopen with his terrible claws and tore her heart out and ate it up.\n\n\"By this time the sun was nearly down; it was soon dark and the poor\nchildren were still waiting for their mother just where she had left\nthem, but she never returned. Some one came to them and asked, 'What are\nyou doing here?'\n\n\"'We are watching for our mother, who went for wood, and we are waiting\nfor her,' they said.\n\n\"'But why does she not come when it is so late?' they said. Then they\nsaid, 'Let's all go home; something must have happened.' So they took\nthe children home with them and sent some others to look for the mother.\n\n\"They followed her tracks and found the place, the mother dead, and her\nheart gone. So they came back home in the dark night.\n\n\"Next day, they returned to the place and followed the bear tracks to\nthe woods where his home was, but never found the bear. So they went\nhome.\n\n\"The poor little children were very lonely and not treated very well by\nthe neighbors, and both children died, first the younger, and then the\nolder; and this is a true story.\" (Note: One could well imagine from the\nfaces of the young listeners that something like a resolution to stay\npretty close around home was passing unanimously. H.G.L.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nDon Talayesva of Upper Oraibi was the only one of my story-tellers who\nspoke without the aid of an interpreter. He is a tall, good-looking man\nof less than forty, with an expressive face and a pair of merry dark\neyes that hold a prophesy of the rich sense of humor one soon discovers\nin both his conversation and his stories.\n\nThis particular tale rather gives away some state secrets as to how Hopi\nchildren are persuaded to be good, and Don chuckled and paused to lower\nhis voice and see that his own small son was out of hearing, when\nexplaining certain parts of the story.\n\n\n=The Giant and the Twin War Gods,= as told by Don Talayesva\n\n\"Well, once upon a time more people lived here in Old Oraibi--many\npeople, many, many children, and the children getting pretty bad. People\ntried every way to punish and correct them and at last the head governor\ngot tired of this business, and so he thought of best way to fix them.\nThey were all time throwing stones at the old people and pinning rags on\nthe back of somebody and don't mind their parents very good.\n\n\"Now this head governor is very powerful and very wise. He went out to\nwhere there is many pinon and cedar trees and he gathered much pinon\ngum. Next day he called an old lady, a Spider Woman, to come and help\nhim out.\n\n\"She asked what she can do. He explained about the naughty children and\ntheir disrespect for the old people and their parents.\n\n\"He asked her to make a Giant out of the gum. She greased her hands and\nmolded a big figure about a foot thick and four feet high with head and\narms and legs. Then she covered it up with a white wedding blanket, and\nthen she take whisk-broom and she patted with the broom, in time to her\nsinging, on this doll figure, and it began to live and grow larger.\n\n\"When she finished singing he was enormously wide and tall, and he got\nup and uncovered himself and he sat there and said, 'What can I do to\nhelp you?'\n\n\"Then the governor said, 'I hired the old lady to make you and make you\ncome to life so you can do a job for me. Now you go and make your home\nover here near by.'\n\n\"The governor gave him as weapons a hatchet, bow and arrow, a rabbit\nstick, and a big basket to carry the children away in, and a big wooden\nspear.\n\n\"'Now you go over there,' the governor said, 'and make your home. On the\nfourth day you come down and catch the first child you see playing on\ntrash piles.'\n\n\"So on the fourth day the Giant came over early before sunrise and got\nto Oraibi by sunrise and got up here on top of the mesa and saw two\nbrothers playing on the trash pile. They were facing west and he slipped\nup behind and tied them together and put them in his basket and carry\nthem to his home.\n\n\"At breakfast the families missed the children and traced them to where\nthe Giant picked them up, but saw no tracks farther.\n\n\"Every morning he comes over looking for some more children and got away\nwith many before parents know where they went.\n\n\"This kept going on till there were very few children left and the\nparents were very sad. Giant leaves no tracks, so nobody knows what to\ndo. At last parents decide to do something.\n\n\"The second chief decided to go to the two little War Gods, who live\nwith their grandmother, a Spider Woman, and see if they would help them.\n\n\"So then the second chief cut two round pieces out of strong buckskin,\nand made two big balls and stuffed them hard and painted them with a red\nface, a mask like Supais. He made a strong bow and many strong arrows\nand put them in a--something like an army bag. All this he made for the\nTwin War Gods, who are small but powerful and their medicine too.\n\n\"Then he took these presents and started off to the home of these two\nlittle War Gods.\n\n\"At early sunrise he arrived there and peeked down into their house,\nwhich was like a big kiva, and there were the two boys playing shinney.\n\n\"The grandmother received the man kindly and told the rough, unruly boys\nto stop their playing and be quiet. But they don't stop their playing,\nso she picked up a big stick and hit the boys a good lick across the\nlegs. Now the boys see the man and his two fine balls and sticks. They\nsay to each other, 'We like to have those things!'\n\n\"After a good breakfast she asked the man, 'What can we do for you?'\n\n\"'Yes,' he said, 'a Giant at Oraibi has been carrying away more than\nhalf the children from our village.'\n\n\"She said, 'Yes, we know all about this and just waiting for you to come\nto ask our help. I have dreamed that you would come today for our help.'\n\n\"Then the man gave his nice presents to the boys and said, 'Tomorrow you\ncome over to Oraibi and meet the Giant when he comes at sunrise for\nchildren.'\n\n\"The boys said, 'Sure, we kill him!'\n\n\"But the grandmother said, 'Don't brag, just say you do your best!'\n\n\"Next morning both boys forget all about it, but grandmother wake them\nup and started them off.\n\n\"They got to Oraibi Mesa and waited for the Giant, but they got to\nplaying with their balls and sticks and forgot to watch for him.\n\n\"Soon the Giant came slipping up, but the boys saw him and they said,\n'Here's that Giant, let's hit the ball hard and hit him in the head and\nkill him.' So they did, and knocked him off the mesa.\n\n\"It didn't kill him though, but he got mad, and he said, 'You wait and\nsee what I do to you!' And he came back and picked them up, one at a\ntime, and put them in his basket and started off with them.\n\n\"As they were going along, the boys told the Giant they have to get out,\nfor just a minute please. So the Giant let them get out of the basket,\nbut he held on to the rope that he has tied around them.\n\n\"So the boys stepped behind a big rock and untied themselves and\nfastened the rope to the rock. Then the Giant got mad and pulled the\nrope hard and the big rock rolled over on him and hurt his legs.\n\n\"Then that Giant was sure mad, and he catch those boys again and he put\nthem in his basket and take them right home and make oven very hot for\ncooking boys.\n\n\"But the boys had some good medicine with them that their grandmother\ngave them, and each took some in his mouth and when the Giant threw the\nfirst boy in the oven, he spit a little of the medicine out into the\noven and cooled it off, so that it was just warm enough for comfort. So\nthe boys told stories and had fun all night.\n\n\"Next morning the Giant made pudding to go with his meat, and he opened\nthe oven and there were the boys smiling.\n\n\"Giant was very hungry, so he said, 'You come out and I challenge you to\nfight it out and see who is more powerful.'\n\n\"So the Giant threw his rabbit stick at the bigger boy, but the boy\njumped up and the stick caught fire as it passed under him. Then the\nGiant threw at smaller boy just high enough to hit his head, but he\nducked down and the stick passed over his head like a streak of fire.\nThen he tried bow and arrows, but nothing hurt the boys.\n\n\"Then the Giant said, 'Well I have used all my weapons and failed, so\nnow you can try to kill me.'\n\n\"So both boys threw their rabbit sticks at the same time. One broke the\nGiant's legs, the other cut off his head. Then the boys smelled the pine\ngum that he was made of, so they burned him up and he sure did make a\nbig blaze.\n\n\"They just saved his head, and carried it to the Hopi at Oraibi. They\narrived just when the people were having breakfast, at about ten in the\nmorning. So they reported to the second chief and presented him with the\nGiant's head.\n\n\"The second chief was well pleased and said he was glad and very\nthankful, and then he said, 'I don't know what I can give you for a\nproper gift, but I have two daughters and, if you want them, you can\ntake them along.'\n\n\"The boys smiled and whispered, 'They look pretty good, let's take them\nfor squaws.' So they said they would take them.\n\n\"'All right,' said their father, 'come on the fourth day and get them.'\n\n\"So they went home and told their grandmother, and on the fourth day\nthey came back and got their wives.\n\n\"The Hopi always kept the head of this Giant to use as a mask in some\ndances.\n\n\"Really the most important thing we do with this kind of a mask is for\nthe men to wear when they go round the village and call out the children\nand scare them a little bit and tell them to be good so they don't have\nto come back with the basket and carry them off. Sometimes they act like\nthey were going to take some naughty children with them right now, and\nask the parents if they have any bad ones, and the parents are supposed\nto be very worried and hide the children and tell the Giants their\nchildren are good, and always the parents have to give these Giants that\ncome around some mutton and other things to eat, in order to save their\nchildren; and then the children are very grateful to their parents.\n\n\"You see, the parents always tell the men who are coming around,\nbeforehand, of a few of the things the children have been doing, so when\nthey come looking for bad children they mention these special things to\nshow the children that they know about it. And parents tell children a\nGiant may come back for them if they are pretty bad, and come right down\nthe chimney maybe.\n\n\"My brother is a pretty tall man, and I am the tallest man in Oraibi, so\nwe are sometimes chosen to act the part of Giants. Then we paint all\nblack and put on this kind of a mask. It is an enormous black head with\na big beak and big teeth. The time when the Giants go around and talk to\nthe children is in February.\n\n\"There were a good many of these masks, very old and very funny ones.\nBut a beam fell, killing many giant masks and leaving only two of the\nreal old ones. So now we have to use some masks made of black felt; one\nof these is a squaw mask.\n\n\"I don't know if we can wait till February, or not, mine is getting\npretty bad already.\" (Note: This last was said with a big laugh and a\nlook around to see where his own boy was. And just then the tall little\nson, aged eight, let out a yell exactly like any other little boy who\nhas cut his finger on Daddy's pocket knife. The buxom mother and two\naunts went scrambling down the ladder to see what was the matter. The\nfather got up, too, but laughed and remarked, \"He be all right,\" and\ncame back and sat down. H.G.L.)\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne of the most pleasant memories the writer has kept of her Hopi\nstory-tellers is that of wholesome Mother Sacknumptewa of Oraibi. She\nmust be middle-aged, and is surprisingly young-looking to be the mother\nof her big family of grown-up sons and daughters. She wore a brand-new\ndress of pretty yellow and white print, made in the full Hopi manner,\nand her abundant black hair was so clean and well brushed that it was\nactually glossy. Her house was spic and span and shining with a new\ninterior coat of white gypsum.\n\nHer long Indian name, Guanyanum, means \"all the colors of the\nbutterflies.\"\n\nIt was late afternoon, and she sat on the clean clay floor of her house\nand husked a great pile of young green corn for supper, as she told me\nthe two little fables that follow. There was a poise and graciousness\nabout this woman, quite outstanding; yet she was a simple, smiling,\nmotherly person who often laughed quietly, or broke into a rhythmic\ncrooning song as she imitated her characters.\n\nSeveral of her grown children gathered round and laughed with hearty\napproval at her impersonations, and at last her husband came in smiling\nand sat near, joining in the songs of the frog and the locust, to the\ngreat merriment of their children.\n\n\n=The Coyote and the Turtle,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa\n\n\"A long time ago, there were many turtles living in the Little Colorado\nRiver near Homolovi, southeast of Winslow, where Hopi used to live. And\nthere was a coyote living there too, and of course, he was always\nhungry.\n\n\"Now one day the turtles decided they would climb out of the river and\ngo hunt some food, for there was a kind of cactus around there that they\nlike very much. But one of the turtles had a baby and she didn't like to\nwake it up and take it with her because it was sleeping so nicely. So\nthey just went along and left the baby asleep.\n\n\"After a while the little turtle woke up and he said, 'Where is my\nmother? She must have gone somewhere and left me. O, I must go and find\nher!'\n\n\"So the baby turtle saw that the others had crawled up the bank, and he\nfollowed their tracks for a little way. But he soon got tired and just\nstopped under a bush and began to cry. (Note: Her imitation of the\ncrying was good. H.G.L.)\n\n\"Now the coyote was coming along and he heard the poor little turtle\ncrying. So he came up and said, 'That's a pretty song; now go on and\nsing for me.'\n\n\"But the baby turtle said, I'm not singing, I'm crying.'\n\n\"'Go on and sing,' said the coyote, 'I want to hear you sing.'\n\n\"'I can't sing,' said the poor baby, 'I'm crying and I want my mother.'\n\n\"'You'd better sing for me, or I'll eat you up,' said the big hungry\ncoyote.\n\n\"'O, I can't sing--I just can't stop crying,' said the baby, and he\ncried harder and harder.\n\n\"'Well,' the big coyote said, 'if you don't sing for me I'm going to\neat you right up.' The coyote was mad, and he was very hungry. 'All\nright, then, I'll just eat you,' he said.\n\nNow the little turtle thought of something. So he said, 'Well, I can't\nsing, so I guess you'll have to eat me. But that's all right, for it\nwon't hurt me any; here inside of my shell I'll go right on living\ninside of you.'\n\n\"Now the coyote thought about this a little bit and didn't like the idea\nvery well.\n\n\"Then the baby turtle said, 'You can do anything you want with me, just\nso you don't throw me into the river, for I don't want to drown.'\n\n\"Now the old coyote was pretty mad and he wanted to be as mean as\npossible. So he just picked that baby up in his mouth and carried him\nover to the river and threw him in.\n\n\"Then the baby turtle was very happy; he stuck his little head out of\nhis shell and stretched out his feet and started swimming off toward the\nmiddle of the river. And he said, 'Goodbye, Mr. Coyote, and thank you\nvery much for bringing me back to my house so that I didn't have to walk\nback.' And the little turtle laughed at the old coyote, who got madder\nand madder because he had let the little turtle go. But he couldn't get\nhim now, so he just went home. And the baby turtle was still laughing\nwhen his mother got home, and she laughed too. And those turtles are\nstill living in that water. (Note: Here is manifest all the subtlety of\n\"The Tar Baby,\" though generations older. H.G.L.)\n\n\n=The Frog and the Locust,= as told by Guanyanum Sacknumptewa\n\n\"Qowakina was a place where Paqua, the frog, lived. One day he was\nsitting on a little wet ground singing a prayer for rain, for it was\ngetting very hot and dry and that was Paqua's way of bringing the rain,\nso he had a very good song like this. (Note: Here she sang a pretty\nlittle song, very rhythmic, and her body swayed gently in time to the\nmusic. It occurred to the writer that this would make a good bedtime\nstory and the little song, a lullaby, for it went on and on with\npleasing variation. H.G.L.)\n\n\"Not far away Mahu, the locust, was sitting in a bush, and he was\nsinging too, for he was getting pretty dusty and the weather was very\nhot, and so he, too, was praying for rain. He has a very nice song for\nrain, and it goes this way. (Note: Here came a lovely little humming\nsong whose words could not be interpreted, since they were but syllables\nand sounds having no meaning in English. However, these sounds had a\ndefinite order and rhythm. At this point the husband smilingly joined in\nthe song, and the unison of both sounds and rhythm was perfect. H.G.L.)\n\n\"By and by the locust heard the frog, so he came over and asked him what\nhe was doing. The frog said he was hot and wanted it to rain; that's why\nhe was singing. Then the locust said, 'Now isn't that strange, that's\nexactly what I do to make it rain, too, and that's the best thing to\ndo.' So they both sang.\n\n\"Pretty soon they noticed that the clouds had been coming up while they\nwere singing, and before long it rained, and they both were happy.\n\n\"After this they were always great friends because they had found out\nthey both had the same idea about something.\"\n\n\n\n\nXII. CONCLUSION\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor some years the writer has been merely a friendly neighbor to these\nfriendly people, and this past summer she spent some time among her Hopi\nfriends, studying their present-day life, domestic and ceremonial, and\nlistening to their stories. The foregoing pages record her observations,\nsupplemented largely by the recordings of well-known authorities who\nhave studied these people.\n\nTo her own mind it is clear that the Hopi are living today by their\nage-old and amazingly primitive traditions, as shown by their planting,\nhunting, house building, textile and ceramic arts, and their ceremonies\nfor birth, marriage, burial, rain-making, etc. Even their favorite\nstories for amusement are traditional. Surely this can not last much\nlonger in these days when easy transportation is bringing the modern\nworld to their very door. Only a few years ago they were geographically\nisolated and had been so for centuries. Culturally, the Hopi are not a\nnew, raw people, but old, mature, long a sedentary and peaceful people,\nbuilding up during the ages a vast body of traditional literature\nembodying law, religion, civic and social order, with definite patterns\nfor the whole fabric of their life from the cradle to the grave and on\ninto Maskim, the home of Hopi Souls. It is because they have so long\nbeen left alone, with their own culture so well suited to their nature\nand to their environment, that we find them so satisfied to remain as\nthey are, friendly, even cordial, but conservative.\n\nThe Hopi is glad to use the white man's wagon, cook stove, sugar, and\ncoffee, but he prefers his own religion, government, social customs--the\ngreat things handed down in his traditions. Their very conservatism is\naccording to one of their oldest traditions, which is:\n\n\n=Tradition for Walking Beside the White Man But in Footsteps of Fathers=\n\nIn 1885, Wicki, chief of the Antelope Society at Walpi, told Mr. A.M.\nStephen one of the most complete and interesting variants ever collected\nof the Snake myth.\n\nOne of its interesting details concerns a prophesy of the manner in\nwhich the Hopitah are to take on the White man's culture. In plain words\nthe Spider Woman tells Tiyo that a time will come when men with white\nskins and a strange tongue shall come among the Hopitah, and the Snake\nBrotherhood, having brave hearts, will be first to make friends and\nlearn good from them. But the Hopitah are not to follow in the white\nmen's footsteps but to walk _beside them_, always keeping in the\nfootsteps of their fathers![36]\n\nThat is just what the Hopi are doing today.\n\n[Footnote 36: Stephen, A.M., Hopi Tales: Jour. Amer. Folklore, vol. 42,\n1929, p. 37.]\n\n\n\n\nACKNOWLEDGMENTS\n\n\nMore than to any one else, I am indebted to Dr. Byron Cummings for\nguidance in the preparation of this study; to Prof. John H. Provinse for\nmaterial and suggestion; to Dr. H.S. Colton and Mary Russell F. Colton\nfor the generous use of materials; and to my Hopi friends, Sackongsie of\nBacabi, Don Talayesva of Oraibi, Guanyanum Sacknumptewa of Lower Oraibi,\nQuentin Quahongva of Shungopovi, Dawavantsie of Walpi, and Mother Lalo\nof Sichomovi, for Hopi stories.--H.G.L.","title":"The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":30944}