The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi

ern

e 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] s

thing 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 h

ce 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 bulle

t of the New Fire Ceremony, as given at sunr

wake, open yo

light, vigorous,

from the four

, that water may abou

ields, that after planting

hearts

u will assembl

e the villages, d

e ready to pour

ome in plenty and a

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. Th

n and M

e 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-shoot

ng to perpetuate his own clan. The Hopi is monogamous. A daughter on marrying brings her husband to her home, later bu

ily at Shungopovi.

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 i

Lands, Hou

e. 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 th

orce and little dissension in domestic life among the Hopi, in spite of Crane's[9] half comical sympathy for men in this "woman-run" comm

n's

e primitive metate and mano taking much time, and the universal woman's task of bearing a

deed. She is, too, the builder of the house, though men willingly assist in any heavy labor when wanted. But why on earth shou

aking of baskets or pottery. One hears a great deal about Hopi pottery, but the pottery center in Hopiland is the

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. Nam

ry 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 b

ges are only a few miles apart, so the same raw materials are available to all. These friends merely la

new sauce-pan from the store for her cooking, and a good iron stove, for that

alpi.-Photo

village (See Figure 2) from their Navajo, Apache, and Piute enemies. They were given a place on the mesa-top to build their v

riendly, reliable, and so closely resemble

as "one kind of Hopi." However, they are of a distinctly different linguistic stock, speaking

well as Tewa, whereas the Hopi have never learned the T

en 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 woul

's

est the impression be gained that the industry

vent 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 dan

ve 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

arp 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