The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi

and Ce

r ritual is essentially a representation or dramatization of the main idea, usually based upon a narrative. Often the ceremony opens with or is

nment is the main incentive, but the celebration or holiday seems to be a sec

and Thanksgiving was instituted for other considerations than the eating of turkey, so the Hopi Snake Dance, for instance, is given not so much to entertain the throng of attentive and respectful Hopi, and the much larger thro

Planting, cultivating, harvesting, hunting, even war, are dominated by religious rites. The social order of the people is established and maintained by way of tribal ceremonials. Through age-old ritual and dramatic celebration, practi

ainly through the community dances, and in these ceremo

But we who have used the word to designate the social dances of modern society or the aesthetic and interpretive dances fo

a reverent attitude concerning the wisdom of birds, beasts, trees, clouds, sunligh

express in utmost brilliancy the vibrant faith of a people in the deific order of the world and in the way the ancients devised fo

more consistent reverence for the wisdom of the past a