The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi

Showing that the Present-Day Social Organization of the Hopi Is the Outgrowth of Their Unwritten Literature

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GENERAL STATEMENT

By a brief survey of present day Hopi culture and an examination into the myths and traditions constituting the unwritten literature of this people, this bulletin proposes to show that an intimate connection exists between their ritual acts, their moral standards, their social organization, even their practical activities of today, and their myths and tales-the still unwritten legendary lore.

The myths and legends of primitive peoples have always interested the painter, the poet, the thinker; and we are coming to realize more and more that they constitute a treasure-trove for the archaeologist, and especially the anthropologist, for these sources tell us of the struggles, the triumphs, the wanderings of a people, of their aspirations, their ideals and beliefs; in short, they give us a twilight history of the race.

As the geologist traces in the rocks the clear record of the early beginnings of life on our planet, those first steps that have led through the succession of ever-developing forms of animal and plant life at last culminating in man and the world as we now see them, so does the anthropologist discover in the myths and legends of a people the dim traces of their origin and development till these come out in the stronger light of historical time. And it is at this point that the ethnologist, trying to understand a race as he finds them today, must look earnestly back into the "realm of beginnings," through this window of so-called legendary lore, in order to account for much that he finds in the culture of the present day.

The Challenge: Need of Research on Basic Beliefs Underlying Ceremonies

Wissler says:[2] "It is still an open question in primitive social psychology whether we are justified in assuming that beliefs of a basic character do motivate ceremonies. It seems to us that such must be the case, because we recognize a close similarity in numerous practices and because we are accustomed to believe in the unity of the world and life. So it may still be our safest procedure to secure better records of tribal traditional beliefs and to deal with objective procedures as far as possible. No one has ventured to correlate specific beliefs and ceremonial procedures, but it is through this approach that the motivating power of beliefs will be revealed, if such potency exists."

Some work has been done along this line by Kroeber for the tribes of California, Lowie for the Crow Indians, and Junod for the Ekoi of West Africa; but it appears that the anthropological problem of basic beliefs and philosophies is dependent upon specific tribal studies and that more research is called for.

The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life

As a background for our discussion we shall need to consider first, the nature and significance of mythology, since there is some, indeed much, difference of opinion on the subject, and to arrive at some basis of understanding as to its function.

The so-called school of Nature-Mythology, which flourishes mainly in Germany, maintains that primitive man is highly interested in natural phenomena, and that this interest is essentially of a theoretic, contemplative and poetical character. To writers of this school every myth has as its kernel or essence some natural phenomenon or other, even though such idea is not apparent upon the surface of the story; a deeper meaning, a symbolic reference, being insisted upon. Such famous scholars as Ehrenreich, Siecke, Winckler, Max Muller, and Kuhn have long given us this interpretation of myth.

In strong contrast to this theory which regards myth as naturalistic, symbolic, and imaginary, we have the theory which holds a sacred tale as a true historical record of the past. This idea is supported by the so-called Historical school in Germany and America, and represented in England by Dr. Rivers. We must admit that both history and natural environment have left a profound imprint on all cultural achievement, including mythology, but we are not justified in regarding all mythology as historical chronicle, nor yet as the poetical musings of primitive naturalists. The primitive does indeed put something of historical record and something of his best interpretation of mysterious natural phenomena into his legendary lore, but there is something else, we are led to believe, that takes precedence over all other considerations in the mind of the primitive (as well as in the minds of all of the rest of us) and that is getting on in the world, a pragmatic outlook.

It is evident that the primitive relies upon his ancient lore to help him out in his struggle with his environment, in his needs spiritual and his needs physical, and this immense service comes through religious ritual, moral incentive, and sociological pattern, as laid down in the cherished magical and legendary lore of his tribe.

The close connection between religion and mythology, under-estimated by many, has been fully appreciated by the great British anthropologist, Sir James Frazer, and by classical scholars like Miss Jane Harrison. The myth is the Bible of the primitive, and just as our Sacred Story lives in our ritual and in our morality, as it governs our faith and controls our conduct, even so does the savage live by his mythology.

The myth, as it actually exists in a primitive community, even today, is not of the nature of fiction such as our novel, but is a living reality, believed to have once happened in primeval times when the world was young and continuing ever since to influence the world and human destiny.

The mere fireside tale of the primitive may be a narrative, true or imaginary, or a sort of fairy story, a fable or a parable, intended mainly for the edification of the young and obviously pointing a moral or emphasizing some useful truth or precept. And here we do recognize symbolism, much in the nature of historical record. But the special class of stories regarded by the primitive as sacred, his sacred myths, are embodied in ritual, morals, and social organization, and form an integral and active part of primitive culture. These relate back to best known precedent, to primeval reality, by which pattern the affairs of men have ever since been guided, and which constitute the only "safe path."

Malinowski[3] stoutly maintains that these stories concerning the origins of rites and customs are not told in mere explanation of them; in fact, he insists they are not intended as explanations at all, but that the myth states a precedent which constitutes an ideal and a warrant for its continuance, and sometimes furnishes practical directions for the procedure. He feels that those who consider the myths of the savage as mere crude stories made up to explain natural phenomena, or as historical records true or untrue, have made a mistake in taking these myths out of their life-context and studying them from what they look like on paper, and not from what they do in life.

Since Malinowski's definition of myth differs radically from that of many other writers on the subject, we would refer the reader to the discussion of myth under the head of Social Anthropology in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, page 869.

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Their Country-The People

The Hopi Indians live in northern Arizona about one hundred miles northeast of Flagstaff, seventy miles north of Winslow, and seventy-five miles north of Holbrook.

For at least eight hundred years the Hopi pueblos have occupied the southern points of three fingers of Black Mesa, the outstanding physical feature of the country, commonly referred to as First, Second, and Third Mesas.

It is evident that in late prehistoric times several large villages were located at the foot of First and Second Mesas, but at present, except for two small settlements around trading posts, the villages are all on top of the mesas. On the First Mesa we find Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano, the latter not Hopi but a Tewa village built about 1700 by immigrants from the Rio Grande Valley, and at the foot of this mesa the modern village of Polacca with its government school and trading post. On Second Mesa are Mashongnovi, Shipaulovi, and Shungopovi, with Toreva Day School at its foot. On Third Mesa Oraibi, Hotavilla, and Bacabi are found, with a government school and a trading post at Lower Oraibi and another school at Bacabi. Moencopi, an offshoot from Old Oraibi, is near Tuba City.

This area was once known as the old Spanish Province of Tusayan, and the Hopi villages are called pueblos, Spanish for towns. In 1882, 2,472,320 acres of land were set aside from the public domain as the Hopi Indian Reservation. At present the Hopi area is included within the greater Navajo Reservation and administered by a branch of the latter Indian agency.

The name Hopi or Hopitah means "peaceful people," and the name Moqui, sometimes applied to them by unfriendly Navajo neighbors, is really a Zuni word meaning "dead," a term of derision. Naturally the Hopi do not like being called Moqui, though no open resentment is ever shown. Early fiction and even some early scientific reports used the term Moqui instead of Hopi.

Admirers have called these peaceful pueblo dwellers "The Quaker People," but that is a misnomer for these sturdy brown heathen who have never asked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a creditable record of defensive warfare during early historic times and running back into their traditional history, and have also some accounts of civil strife.

The nomadic Utes, Piutes, Apaches, and Navajos for years raided the fields and flocks of this industrious, prosperous, sedentary people; in fact, the famous Navajo blanket weavers got the art of weaving and their first stock of sheep through stealing Hopi women and Hopi sheep. But there came a time when the peaceful Hopi decided to kill the Navajos who stole their crops and their girls, and then conditions improved. Too, soon after, came the United States government and Kit Carson to discipline the raiding Navajos.

The only semblance of trouble our government has had with the Hopi grew out of the objection, in fact, refusal, of some of the more conservative of the village inhabitants to send their children to school. The children were taken by force, but no blood was shed, and now government schooling is universally accepted and generally appreciated.

A forbidding expanse of desert waste lands surrounds the Hopi mesas, furnishing forage for Hopi sheep and goats during the wet season and browse enough to sustain them during the balance of the year. These animals are of a hardy type adapted to their desert environment. Our pure blood stock would fare badly under such conditions. However, the type of wool obtained from these native sheep lends itself far more happily to the weaving of the fine soft blankets so long made by the Hopi than does the wool of our high grade Merino sheep or a mixture of the two breeds. This is so because our Merino wool requires the commercial scouring given it by modern machine methods, whereas the Hopi wool can be reduced to perfect working condition by the primitive hand washing of the Hopi women.

As one approaches the dun-colored mesas from a distance he follows their picturesque outlines against the sky line, rising so abruptly from the plain below, but not until one is within a couple of miles can he discern the villages that crown their heights. And no wonder these dun-colored villages seem so perfectly a part of the mesas themselves, for they are literally so-their rock walls and dirt roofs having been merely picked up from the floor and sides of the mesa itself and made into human habitations.

The Hopi number about 2,500 and are a Shoshonean stock. They speak a language allied to that of the Utes and more remotely to the language of the Aztecs in Mexico.[4]

According to their traditions the various Hopi clans arrived in Hopiland at different times and from different directions, but they were all a kindred people having the same tongue and the same fundamental traditions.

They did not at first build on the tops of the mesas, but at their feet, where their corn fields now are, and it was not from fear of the war-like and aggressive tribes of neighboring Apaches and Navajos that they later took to the mesas, as we once supposed. A closer acquaintance with these people brings out the fact that it was not till the Spaniards had come to them and established Catholic Missions in the late Seventeenth Century that the Hopi decided to move to the more easily defended mesa tops for fear of a punitive expedition from the Spaniards whose priests they had destroyed.

We are told that these desert-dwellers, whose very lives have always depended upon their little corn fields along the sandy washes that caught and held summer rains, always challenged new-coming clans to prove their value as additions to the community, especially as to their magic for rain-making, for life here was a hardy struggle for existence, with water as a scarce and precious essential. Among the first inhabitants was the Snake Clan with its wonderful ceremonies for rain bringing, as well as other sacred rites. Willingly they accepted the rituals and various religious ceremonials of new-comers when they showed their ability to help out with the eternal problem of propitiating the gods that they conceived to have control over rain, seed germination, and the fertility and well-being of the race.

In exactly the same spirit they welcomed the friars. Perhaps these priests had "good medicine" that would help out. Maybe this new kind of altar, image, and ceremony would bring rain and corn and health; they were quite willing to try them. But imagine their consternation when these Catholic priests after a while, unlike any people who had ever before been taken into their community, began to insist that the new religion be the only one, and that all other ceremonies be stopped. How could the Hopi, who had depended upon their old ceremonies for centuries, dare to stop them? Their revered traditions told them of clans that had suffered famine and sickness and war as punishment for having dropped or even neglected their religious dances and ceremonies, and of their ultimate salvation when they returned to their faithful performance.

The Hopi objected to the slavish labor of bringing timbers by hand from the distant mountains for the building of missions and, according to Hopi tradition, to the priests taking some of their daughters as concubines, but the breaking point was the demand of the friars that all their old religious ceremonies be stopped; this they dared not do.

So the "long gowns" were thrown over the cliff, and that was that. Certain dissentions and troubles had come upon them, and some crop failures, so they attributed their misfortunes to the anger of the old gods and decided to stamp out this new and dangerous religion. It had taken a strong hold on one of their villages, Awatobi, even to the extent of replacing some of the old ceremonies with the new singing and chanting and praying. And so Awatobi was destroyed by representatives from all the other villages. Entering the sleeping village just before dawn, they pulled up the ladders from the underground kivas where all the men of the village were known to be sleeping because of a ceremony in progress, then throwing down burning bundles and red peppers they suffocated their captives, shooting with bows and arrows those who tried to climb out. Women and children who resisted were killed, the rest were divided among the other villages as prisoners, but virtually adopted. Thus tenaciously have the Hopi clung to their old religion-noncombatants so long as new cults among them do not attempt to stop the old.

There are Christian missionaries among them today, notably Baptists, but they are quite safe, and the Hopi treat them well. Meantime the old ceremonies are going strong, the rain falls after the Snake Dance, and the crops grow. The Hopi realize that missionary influence will eventually take some away from the old beliefs and practices and that government school education is bound to break down the old traditional unity of ideas. Naturally their old men are worried about it. Yet their faith is strong and their disposition is kindly and tolerant, much like that of the good old Methodist fathers who are disturbed over their young people being led off into new angles of religious belief, yet confident that "the old time religion" will prevail and hopeful that the young will be led to see the error of their way. How long the old faith can last, in the light of all that surrounds it, no one can say, but in all human probability it is making its last gallant stand.

These Pueblo Indians are very unlike the nomadic tribes around them. They are a sedentary, peaceful people living in permanent villages and presenting today a significant transitional phase in the advance of a people from savagery toward civilization and affording a valuable study in the science of man.

Naturally they are changing, for easy transportation has brought the outside world to their once isolated home. It is therefore highly important that they be studied first-hand now for they will not long stay as they are.

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Government

In government, the village is the unit, and a genuinely democratic government it is. There is a house chief, a Kiva chief, a war chief, the speaker chief or town crier, and the chiefs of the clans who are likewise chiefs of the fraternities; all these making up a council which rules the pueblo, the crier publishing its decisions. Laws are traditional and unwritten. Hough[5] says infractions are so few that it would be hard to say what the penalties are, probably ridicule and ostracism. Theft is almost unheard of, and the taking of life by force or law is unknown.

To a visitor encamped at bedtime below the mesa, the experience of hearing the speaker chief or town crier for the first time is something long to be remembered. Out of the stillness of the desert night comes a voice from the house tops, and such a voice! From the heights above, it resounds in a sonorous long-drawn chant. Everyone listens breathlessly to the important message and it goes on and on.

The writer recalls that when first she heard it, twenty years ago, she sat up in bed and rousing the camp, with stage whispers (afraid to speak aloud), demanded: "Do you hear that? What on earth can it mean? Surely something awful has happened!" On and on it went endlessly. (She has since been told that it is all repeated three times.) And not until morning was it learned that the long speech had been merely the announcement of a rabbit hunt for the next day. The oldest traditions of the Hopi tell of this speaker chief and his important utterances. He is a vocal bulletin board and the local newspaper, but his news is principally of a religious nature, such as the announcement of ceremonials. This usually occurs in the evening when all have gotten in from the fields or home from the day's journey, but occasionally announcements are made at other hours.

The following is a poetic formal announcement of the New Fire Ceremony, as given at sunrise from the housetop of the Crier at Walpi:

"All people awake, open your eyes, arise,

Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly:

Hasten, Clouds, from the four world-quarters.

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

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

Let all hearts be glad.

The Wuwutchimtu will assemble in four days;

They will encircle the villages, dancing and singing.

Let the women be ready to pour water upon them

That moisture may come in plenty and all shall rejoice."[6]

As to the character of their government, Hewett says:[7] "We can truthfully say that these surviving pueblo communities constitute the oldest existing republics. It must be remembered, however, that they were only vest-pocket editions. No two villages nor group of villages ever came under a common authority or formed a state. There is not the faintest tradition of a 'ruler' over the whole body of the Pueblos, nor an organization of the people of this vast territory under a common government."

The Clan and Marriage

Making up the village are various clans. A clan comprises all the descendants of a traditional maternal ancestor. Children belong to the clan of the mother. (See Figure 1.) These clans bear the name of something in nature, often suggested by either a simple or a significant incident in the legendary history of the people during migration when off-shoots from older clans were formed into new clans. Thus a migration legend collected by Voth[8] accounts for the name of the Bear Clan, the Bluebird Clan, the Spider Clan, and others.

Sons and daughters are expected to marry outside the clan, and the son must live with his wife's people, so does nothing to perpetuate his own clan. The Hopi is monogamous. A daughter on marrying brings her husband to her home, later building the new home adjacent to that of her mother. Therefore many daughters born to a clan mean increase in population.

Figure 1.-Hopi Family at Shungopovi.-Photo by Lockett.

Some clans have indeed become nearly extinct because of the lack of daughters, the sons having naturally gone to live with neighboring clans, or in some cases with neighboring tribes. As a result, some large houses are pointed out that have many unoccupied and even abandoned rooms-the clan is dying out. Possibly there may be a good many men of that clan living but they are not with or near their parents and grandparents. They are now a part of the clan into which they have married, and must live there, be it near or far. Why should they keep up such a practice when possibly the young man could do better, economically and otherwise, in his ancestral home and community? The answer is, "It has always been that way," and that seems to be reason enough for a Hopi.

Property, Lands, Houses, Divorce

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Land is really communal, apportioned to the several clans and by them apportioned to the various families, who enjoy its use and hand down such use to the daughters, while the son must look to his wife's share of her clan allotment for his future estate. In fact, it is a little doubtful whether he has any estate save his boots and saddle and whatever personal plunder he may accumulate, for the house is the property of the wife, as well as the crop after its harvest, and divorce at the pleasure of the wife is effective and absolute by the mere means of placing said boots and saddle, etc., outside the door and closing it. The husband may return to his mother's house, and if he insists upon staying, the village council will insist upon his departure.

Again, why do they keep doing it this way? Again, "Because it has always been done this way." And it works very well. There is little divorce and little dissension in domestic life among the Hopi, in spite of Crane's[9] half comical sympathy for men in this "woman-run" commonwealth. Bachelors are rare since only heads of families count in the body politic. An unmarried woman of marriageable age is unheard of.

Woman's Work

The Hopi woman's life is a busy one, the never finished grinding of corn by the use of the primitive metate and mano taking much time, and the universal woman's task of bearing and rearing children and providing meals and home comforts accounting for most of her day.

She is the carrier of water, and since it must be borne on her back from the spring below the village mesa this is a burden indeed. She is, too, the builder of the house, though men willingly assist in any heavy labor when wanted. But why on earth should so kindly a people make woman the carrier of water and the mason of her home walls? Tradition! "It has always been this way."

Her leisure is employed in visiting her neighbors, for the Hopi are a conspicuously sociable people, and in the making of baskets or pottery. One hears a great deal about Hopi pottery, but the pottery center in Hopiland is the village of Hano, on First Mesa, and the people are not Hopi but Tewas, whose origin shall presently be explained.

Not until recent years has pottery been made elsewhere in Hopiland than at Hano. At present, however, Sichomovi, the Hopi village built so close to Hano that one scarce knows where one ends and the other begins, makes excellent pottery as does the Hopi settlement at the foot of the hill, Polacca. Undoubtedly this comes from the Tewa influence and in some cases from actual Tewa families who have come to live in the new locality. For instance, Grace, maker of excellent pottery, now living at Polacca, is a Tewa who lived in Hano twenty years ago, when the writer first knew her, and continued to live there until a couple of years ago. Nampeo, most famous potter in Hopiland, is an aged Tewa woman still living at Hano, in the first house at the head of the trail. Her ambitious study of the fragments of the pottery of the ancients, in the ruins of old Sikyatki, made her the master craftsman and developed a new standard for pottery-making in her little world.

Mention was made previously of the women employing their leisure in the making of baskets or pottery. An interesting emphasis should be placed upon the "or," for no village does both. The women of the three villages mentioned at First Mesa as pottery villages make no baskets. The three villages on Second Mesa make a particular kind of coiled basket found nowhere else save in North Africa, and no pottery nor any other kind of basket. The villages of Third Mesa make colorful twined or wicker baskets and plaques, just the one kind and no pottery. They stick as closely to these lines as though their wares were protected by some tribal "patent right." Pottery for First Mesa, coiled baskets for Second Mesa, and wicker baskets for Third Mesa.

The writer has known the Hopi a long time, and has asked them many times the reason for this. The villages are only a few miles apart, so the same raw materials are available to all. These friends merely laugh good naturedly and answer: "O, the only reason is, that it is just the way we have always done it."

Natural conservatives, these Hopi, and yet not one of them but likes a bright new sauce-pan from the store for her cooking, and a good iron stove, for that matter, if she can afford it. There is no tradition against this, we are told.

Figure 2.-Walpi.-Photo by Bortell.

More than two centuries ago, these Tewas came from the Rio Grande region, by invitation of the Walpi, to help them defend this village (See Figure 2) from their Navajo, Apache, and Piute enemies. They were given a place on the mesa-top to build their village, at the head of the main trail, which it was their business to guard, and fields were allotted them in the valley below.

They are a superior people, intelligent, friendly, reliable, and so closely resemble the Hopi that they can not be told apart.

The two peoples have intermarried freely, and it is hard to think of the Tewas otherwise than as "one kind of Hopi." However, they are of a distinctly different linguistic stock, speaking a Tewa language brought from the Rio Grande, while the Hopi speak a dialect of the Shoshonean.

It is an interesting fact that all Tewas speak Hopi as well as Tewa, whereas the Hopi have never learned the Tewa language. The Hopi have a legend accounting for this:

"When the Hano first came, the Walpi said to them, 'Let us spit in your mouths and you will learn our tongue,' and to this the Hano consented. When the Hano came up and built on the mesa, they said to the Walpi, 'Let us spit in your mouths and you will learn our tongue,' but the Walpi would not listen to this, saying it would make them vomit. This is the reason why all the Hano can speak Hopi, and none of the Hopi can talk Hano."[10]

Man's Work

The work of the men must now be accounted for lest the impression be gained that the industry of the women leaves the males idle and carefree.

It is but fair to the men to say that first of all they carry the community government on their shoulders, and the still more weighty affairs of religion. They are depended upon to keep the seasonal and other ceremonies going throughout the year, and the Hopi ceremonial calendar has its major event for each of the twelve months, for all of which elaborate preparation must be made, including the manufacture and repair of costumes and other paraphernalia and much practicing and rehearsing in the kivas. Someone has said much of the Hopi man's time is taken up with "getting ready for dances, having dances, and getting over dances." Yes, a big waste of time surely to you and me, but to the Hopi community-men, women, and children alike-absolutely essential to their well-being. There could be no health, happiness, prosperity, not even an assurance of crops without these ceremonies.

The Hopi is a good dry farmer on a small scale, and farming is a laborious business in the shifting sands of Hopiland. Their corn is their literal bread of life and they usually keep one year's crop stored. These people have known utter famine and even starvation in the long ago, and their traditions have made them wise. The man tends the fields and flocks, makes mocassins, does the weaving of the community (mostly ceremonial garments) and usually brings in the wood for fuel, since it is far to seek in this land of scant vegetation, in fact literally miles away and getting farther every year, so that the man with team and wagon is fortunate indeed and the rest must pack their wood on burros. Both men and women gather backloads of faggots wherever such can be found in walking distance, and said distance is no mean measure, for these hardy little people have always been great walkers and great runners.

Hough says:[11] "Seemingly the men work harder making paraphernalia and costumes for the ceremonies than at anything else, but it should be remembered that in ancient days everything depended, in Hopi belief, on propitiating the deities. Still if we would pick the threads of religion from the warp and woof of Hopi life there apparently would not be much left. It must be recorded in the interests of truth, that Hopi men will work at days labor and give satisfaction except when a ceremony is about to take place at the pueblo, and duty to their religion interferes with steady employment much as fiestas do in the easy-going countries to the southward. Really the Hopi deserve great credit for their industry, frugality, and provident habits, and one must commend them because they do not shun work and because in fairness both men and women share in the labor for the common good."

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