The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi

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ndred miles northeast of Flagstaff, seventy miles nort

ern points of three fingers of Black Mesa, the outstanding physical featu

pi, 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, Shi

owns. In 1882, 2,472,320 acres of land were set aside from the public domain as the Hopi Indian Reservation. At present

bors, is really a Zuni word meaning "dead," a term of derision. Naturally the Hopi do not like being called Moqui, though

en who have never asked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a creditable record of defensive warf

eavers 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 Nav

some of the more conservative of the village inhabitants to send their children to school. The children were take

ronment. 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

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 them

They speak a language allied to that of the Utes and m

at different times and from different directions, but they were all a k

avajos 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 Cathol

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 ac

ese 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

issions and, according to Hopi tradition, to the priests taking some of their daughters as concubines, but the brea

e 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

nd 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

eople living in permanent villages and presenting today a significant transitional phase in the advan

ide world to their once isolated home. It is therefore highly important t