The Hopi, or Peaceful People, as their name expresses, live in six rock-built towns perched on three mesas in northeastern Arizona. They number about 1,600 and speak a dialect of the language called the Shoshonean, the tongue of the Ute, Comanche, and other tribes in the United States. There is another town, called Hano, making up seven on these mesas, but its people are Tewas who came from the Rio Grande valley in New Mexico more than two centuries ago.
There are a number of ways of reaching the Hopi pueblos. If one would go in by the east, he may choose to start from Holbrook on the Santa Fé Pacific Railroad, or Winslow (two days each), or by the west from Canyon Diablo (two days), or Flagstaff (three days). The estimates of time are based on “traveling light” and with few interruptions. A longer journey may be made from Gallup, during which the Canyon de Chelly, with its wonderful cliff dwellings, may be visited if one has a sufficient outfit and plenty of time.
The home-land of the Hopi, known as Tusayan from old times, is a semi-desert, lying a mile and a quarter [14] above sea-level. It is deeply scarred by canyons and plentifully studded with buttes and mesas, though there are vast stretches which seem level till one gets closer acquaintance. From the pueblos the view is open from the northwest to the southeast, and uninterrupted over the great basin of the Colorado Chiquito, or Little Colorado River, rimmed on the far horizon by the peaks of the San Francisco, Mogollon, and White Mountains, while in the other quarters broken mesas shut out the view.
The rainfall almost immediately sinking into the sandy wastes, determines that there shall be no perennially-flowing rivers in Tusayan, and that springs must be few and far between and the most valued of all possessions. Were it not for winter snows and summer thunder-storms, Tusayan would be a desert indeed.
The hardy grasses and desert plants do their best to cover the nakedness of the country; along the washes are a few cottonwoods; on the mesas are junipers and pi?ons; and in the higher lands to the north small oaks strive for an existence. At times, when the rains are favoring, plants spring up and the desert is painted with great masses of color; here and there are stretches green with grass or yellow with the flowering bunches of the “rabbit brush” or gray with the ice plant. In sheltered spots many rare and beautiful flowers may be found.
The Hopi enjoy a summer climate the temperature [15] of which is that of Maine and a winter climate that is far less severe than the latter, since most days are bright and the sun has power. Even in the warmest season the nights are cool, and an enjoyable coolness is found by day in the shade. The dryness of the region renders it ideal for healthful sleeping in the open air. A pure atmosphere like that of the sea bathes Tusayan; no microbes pollute it with their presence and it fills the body with good blood and an exhilaration like wine.
Perforce the Hopi are agricultural, and since there is little game to be hunted, they are also largely vegetarians, their chief food being corn. When the corn crop fails the desert plants are relied on to prevent starvation. The Hopi thus form a good example of a people whose very existence depends on the plants of the earth, and it speaks well for their skill as farmers, in so unfavorable an environment, that there are any of them living in Tusayan at this day.
Out of this environment the Hopi has shaped his religious beliefs, whose strenuous appeal is for food and life from the grasping destroyers of nature that whelm him. And in like manner he has drawn from this niggard stretch his house, his pottery, baskets, clothing and all the arts that show how man can rise above his environment. But let us have a closer view of this Indian who is so worthy of the respect of his superiors in culture.
The Hopi man is moderate of stature, well-framed, [16] hard-muscled, and agile, since he depended on his own feet for going anywhere and on his arms for work before the day of the burro and the horse. Black, straight hair worn long, brownish skin, the smooth and expressive face in the young men, intensifying as they grow older, bringing out the high cheek-bones, the nose, the large mouth and accenting them with wrinkles, but never developing a sullen, ferocious cast of countenance, always preserving the lines of worth and dignity and the pleasing curves of humor and good-fellowship to the end of life,—these are the salient characters of the Hopi.
The same remarks apply to the other sex, who from childhood to old age run the course in milder degree. Many of the maidens are pretty and the matrons are comely and wholesome to behold. The old, wrinkled and bowed go their way with quiet mien and busy themselves with the light duties in which their experience counts for much.
In spite of the luxuriant hair that adorns the heads of this people, one may notice the difference of head shape which distinguishes them from the tribes of the plains. The cradle-board is partly responsible for this, since, from infancy, the children are bound to the cradle and obliged to lie on the back for longer or shorter intervals, and thus begins the flattening of the back of the skull. But the heads of the women are rarely flattened, probably because the girls are not so well cared for as the boys.
[17] There are among the Hopi a greater number of albinos in proportion to the population than may be found almost anywhere else. They go about their avocations like the rest and are in no way regarded as different from their kin. The impulse is to address them in English, and one feels surprised when they do not comprehend. One albino maiden of Mishongnovi has a marvelous growth of golden hair which shows to great advantage in her ample hair whorls. Many students believe that albinism has its origin in the nervous system, and perhaps the timidity of the Hopi explains the number of these remarkable people in their midst; but this is a theory, based on a theory. It has been observed that some of the albinos are below the average in intelligence, and it has been ascertained that the larger proportion of them are second in order of birth in a family.
From the number of old people in the pueblos one would gain the impression that the Hopi are long-lived. All things considered, this is doubtless the truth, but there are no statistics to settle the matter; besides, the question of age is a doubtful one among the Hopi themselves. If “sans everything” is any criterion of a centenarian, there are such among the Peaceful People. One must conclude that, on passing childhood, the average Hopi is due for a second term of the helpless period.
“Welcome” is not written over every Hopi door, but the spirit of hospitality pervades the entire [18] population. This is one of the pleasant features of the Pueblos and is the chief reason why the Hopi are held in friendly remembrance by visitors. An acquaintance with the Indians in the different pueblos of the Southwest will convince one that there is a considerable range of disposition among them. Perhaps the extremes are the untractable Santo Domingans and the impressionable Hopi. It seems to be a matter of the elements of which the tribes have been made up and of their past experiences and associations.
High up on the gray rocks the Hopi towns look as though they were part of the native cliff. The seven towns,—though twenty miles and three distinct mesas separate the extremes,—Hano and Oraibi,—are built on the same stratum of sandstone. The rock shows tints of light red, yellow, and brown, and cleaves into great cubical pillars and blocks, leaving the face of the cliff always vertical. Trails at different points lead up over the low masses of talus and reach the flat top through crevices and breaks in this rock-wall, often over surfaces where pockets have been cut in the stone for hand and foot. A very little powder, properly applied, would render these mesas as difficult of ascent as the Enchanted Mesa near Acoma.
Once on top and breathing normally after the four hundred feet or so of precipitous climbing, one sees why the outer walls of the towns seem to be a continuation of the living rock. The houses are built of slabs of stone of various sizes, quarried from the mesa [19] and laid up in mud. They are of terrace style, rarely more than of two stories, flat-roofed, and grouped in masses so as to form streets and plazas and conforming to the irregularities of the surface and outline of the mesas. For this reason not much order can be found in a Hopi pueblo. The uneven surface of the mesas gives a varying height to the houses and increases the picturesqueness of the skyline.
These Hopi towns are the most primitive of the inhabited pueblos. Before us is a picture of the ancient life as true as may be found in this day of inquisitive travelers and of rapid transportation to the ends of the earth. But this state of things is changing with increasing rapidity; the Hopi is becoming progressive and yearns for the things of the white man with increasing desire, therefore it is evident that, before many years, much that is charming in Tusayan by reason of the ancient touch about it will have vanished from the lives of its brown inhabitants.
This change is most marked at Walpi, because the East Mesa people have longest been in contact with the civilizing influences of schools, missions, and trading posts; besides, they were always apparently the most tractable of the Hopi. Many families have abandoned the villages on the cliffs, and their modern, red-roofed houses dotting the lower ground near the fields show the tendency to forsake the crowded hill-towns. But the old towns exist in all their primitiveness and furnish bits of surpassing interest to lovers of the [20] picturesque. To these the bulk of the conservative Hopi still cling with all the force of their inherited instinct.
Two centuries ago visitors arrived at Walpi from the Rio Grande. These were a tribe of Tewa, invited to come to Tusayan to aid in fighting off the Apache and Ute, those wily nomad adversaries with whom the Peaceful People for so long had to contend. Here they have lived ever since in their village of Hano, at the head of the most readily accessible trail up the mesa, preserving their language and customs, and besides their own tongue, speaking well the language of their friends and neighbors. The Tewa brought with them their potter’s art and now have the honor to be practically the only makers of earthenware in Tusayan. Nampeo is the best potter at Hano and her work shows her to be a worthy descendant of the ancient artists, whose graceful vessels lie with the bones of the dead beneath the sands of the great Southwest.
Beyond Hano, and midway between it and Walpi, is Sichomovi, which signifies “flower mound.” Sichomovi, if we may judge from the good preservation of its houses and the regularity with which the town is laid out, seems to be comparatively new, and indeed, there is traditionary testimony to this effect. The dusky historians of Walpi relate the circumstances of its foundation, when the yellow flowers grew in the crevices of the rock at the place where several stranger clans were allowed to settle.
[21] Passing out of Sichomovi and crossing a narrow neck of the mesa traversed by a well-worn trail, Walpi is reached. This village from different points of view presents the appearance of a confused jumble of dilapidated houses, and a walk through its alleys and passages confirms the impression. Walpi was a town of necessity and was erected in 1590, having been moved up from a lower point after troubles with the Spanish conquistadores.
Looking down from the town one may trace the site of Old Walpi and descry the pottery-strewn mounds of still older settlements, since around this mesa the first comers to Tusayan probably located. At the foot of the mesa are also springs and shrines, one of the latter being the true “center of the world” to the Hopi mind, a point which gave the ancients much trouble to determine. Along the ledges are corrals for the motley flocks of black and white sheep and goats, adepts in subsisting on all sorts of unpalatable brush. Farther down in the level are the fields, at the proper season green with the prospect of corn, melons, and beans.
Walpi streets are the living rock of the mesa worn smooth by human feet and swept by the officious wind-god, whose dry air, with the aid of the sun, form the board of health of the Hopiland. This rocky surface must have been a great trial to the kiva builders, as traditional custom requires that such meeting places of the secret societies or brotherhoods should be underground. The kivas along the streets thus represent a [22] great amount of work in their construction, and it is clear that, when the builders found a cleft in the rock or a niche in the cliff-edge, they appropriated it as the site of a kiva, then built an outer wall overhanging the precipice and prepared the deep oblong room with toilsome labor, for they had only the rude tools of the stone age.
The two poles of the ladder project from the kiva hatchway, and one may descend if no ceremony is on hand. There is not much to see except an empty, smoke-blackened room with stone-paved floor, plastered walls, and ceiling crossed by heavy beams. Just in front of the ladder is a fireplace, consisting of a stone box sunk in the floor, and the portion of the room back of the ladder is elevated. These subterranean chambers are now found in use only in Tusayan, where this manner of building them, along with many other ancient customs, has been preserved by the Hopi through many generations.
Hopi houses are small, and as in the other pueblos of the Southwest, the first families live in the second story, which is reached by a ladder. In recent times, though, the ground floor, which formerly was used chiefly for storage, has been cleaned out, furnished with doors, and occupied as habitations. Steps on the dividing walls lead to the upper story and the roof forms a general loitering-place. The living room is kept in good order, and a goodly array of blankets, harness, and clothes hanging from a swinging pole are [23] looked on with pride and complacency. In the granary, which is generally a back room, the ears of corn are often sorted by color and laid up in neat walls and one year’s crop is always kept in reserve for a bad season. Red corn, yellow corn, white corn, blue corn, black corn, and mottled corn make a Hopi grain room a study in color. Three oblong hollowed stones or metates of graded fineness are sunk in the floor of every Hopi house, and on these, with another stone held in the hands, the corn is ground to fine meal, the grinders singing shrill songs at their back-breaking work.
In the corner of the baking-room is a fireplace covered with a smoke hood and containing slabs of stone for the baking of piki, or paper bread, while scattered about are many baskets, jars, bowls, cups, and other utensils of pottery well fitted for the purposes of the Hopi culinary art. Outside the house is a sunken pit in which corn-pudding is baked.
These and many other things about the Hopi villages will interest the visitor, who will not have serious difficulty in overlooking the innovations or in obtaining a clear idea of Pueblo life as it was in the times long past.
If one crosses the plain to the three villages of the Middle Mesa, he will find still less of the effect of contact with modern things. Mushongnovi, the second town of Tusayan in point of size, presented as late as 1906 a perfect picture of an unmodified pueblo on its [24] giant mesa, the eastern and northern walls of the town blank and high like the face of a cliff. Within this closely-built village the terraced houses face the streets and open plazas, after the ancient fashion. Because of their harmony with their primitive surroundings, one hesitates to believe in the modernness of the chimneys of these pueblos, yet it appears to be true that the idea is of Spanish introduction.
Shipaulovi, on its high vantage point, seems newer than Shumopavi, its neighbor, the latter being the most regular pueblo in Tusayan. Some fifteen miles beyond Shumopavi is Oraibi, the largest of the seven Hopi towns, whose rough walls give it an appearance of great age. Oraibi held out longest against the white intruders, and even now would much prefer to be left alone in the enjoyment of its accustomed ways, but the school-houses and the red roofs brought by the white man increasingly menace its old-world notions.
The nearest neighbors of the Hopi are the Navaho, that large and rapidly growing tribe who are what they call themselves, Dene, “men.” They crowd upon the Hopi, and when the opportunity offers “raise” some stock or dictate with sublime egotism the conduct of the ceremonies. Several hundred years of contact with the pueblo folk have made the once uncultured Navaho in many respects like them. The timid Hopi do not choose to affiliate with the Navaho, but marriages are not infrequent among members of the two tribes. Generally it is a Navaho brave who seeks a [25] Hopi maiden to wife, coming to live with her people, but rarely does a Hopi youth lead a “Teshab” girl to his hearth as did Anowita of Walpi.
A few Zu?i have cast their lot at Tusayan and several of the latter live at Zu?i and in some of the Rio Grande pueblos. Not many years ago, a Hopi was chief of an important fraternity at Sia, a pueblo on the Jemez River in New Mexico. The Zu?i are quite neighborly and visit Tusayan to witness the ceremonies or to exchange necklaces of shell and turquoise beads for blankets. Tradition has it that some of the clans from the Rio Grande came by way of Zu?i and that Sichomovi has a strong admixture from that pueblo. In support of this it may be said that the Zu?i visitors are usually domiciled at Sichomovi, where they seem very much at home, and many of the people there speak the Zu?i language.
At the time of the ceremonies, especially those performed in summer, Tewa from the Rio Grande pueblos come to visit and trade and enjoy the merrymaking that attends the dances. Some of the people of Hano have visited their relatives on the Rio Grande, but few of the Hopi are so far-traveled in these days. There has been for centuries, however, more or less communication across the vast stretch of arid country lying between the Great River and Tusayan, and in a number of instances in the distant past, whole tribes have emigrated from the east to the Hopi country where they have founded new towns. Although 100 [26] miles away, the Havasupai may also be regarded as near neighbors who cross the desert to sell their fine baskets and superior white-tanned deerskins, for which articles there is great demand. The Hopi also traverse the sandy waste to visit the “People of the Ladders,” as they call the Havasupai, and bring back sacred red ocher and green copper stone for pigments. The Havasupai and Hopi are likewise linked by traditions of an ancient time.
Long ago, say the Hopi, the Paiute, who are uncultured but strong in the art of warfare, came down from the north and harassed them until the people of Hano vanquished them. The Paiute, although remotely related, were not friendly to the Hopi, and besides, there was much of value to be seized from the mesa-dwellers. For this reason the Hopi did not cultivate the friendship with the Paiute and the only one of that tribe living in Tusayan is “Tom Sawyer,” whose portrait is drawn in another place.
Nor were the Apache more desirable neighbors. The Hopi tell of the troublous times when these nomads came from the south and compelled them to draw up their ladders from the cliff at night. Still, Paiute and Apache baskets and other aboriginal manufactures found their way to the pueblos, who were always cosmopolitan in their tastes and did not allow tribal enmity to interfere with trade.
Far to the south another people were friends of the Hopi. Very long ago the Pima were closer neighbors [27] and allies of some of the Hopi clans, who touched them in their wide migrations, which brought them to the “Palatkwabi.” This is the Red Land of the south, lying on the Verde River and its tributaries. The Hopi lay claim to the Tonto Basin in southern Arizona, which has been thought to be their ancient country since far and wide over this southern region is found the yellow pottery so characteristic of the golden age of the Hopi. Sometimes still the Hopi visit the Pima, and it is known that formerly they joined in a fair that was held in the Pima country and brought back various commodities in exchange for their own products. Even today agave sweetmeats and alder bark, the latter used for dyeing leather, are found in Hopi dwellings, having been brought from beyond “Apache House,” as they call the region south of the San Francisco Mountains where the Apache formerly lived.