A blanket hangs over the usually opened door and a feeble wail issuing from within the dusky house betokens that a baby has come into the world, and awaits only a name before he becomes a member of the Hopi commonwealth. The ceremony by which the baby is to be dedicated to the sun and given a name that will bind him indissolubly to the religious system of his people is interesting from the light it casts on the customs of the Hopi and the parallels it offers to the natal rites of other peoples.
On the mud-plastered wall of the house, the mother has made, day by day, certain scratches which mark the infant’s age, or perhaps reckons the time on her fingers till nineteen days have passed. The morning of the twentieth day brings the ceremony.
Meanwhile the little one has been made to know some of the trials of life. On the first day of his entrance into this arena, his head has been washed in soaproot suds and his diminutive body rubbed with ashes, the latter, it is alleged, to kill the hair, and his mother must also undergo the ceremonial head washing, [115] which must be repeated on the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth days with the amole root, which is the only soap known to the Hopi. Besides, the mother must never be touched by the direct rays of the sun during the first five days, which explains the blanket often hung before the doorway; nor may she put on her moccasins, for fear of ill luck.
At last, on the evening of the nineteenth day, comes the paternal grandmother, who, by custom, is the mistress of ceremonies, a fact which seems a little strange, for though the child takes its descent from the mother, the father’s people name the baby and conduct the ceremony. The grandmother sees to the fire and attends to the stew of mutton with shelled corn, called nukwibi, and the sweet corn pudding, called pigame, cooking for the feast in the morning. While she is bustling about, boiling a tea of juniper twigs, placing a few stones in the fire to heat for use in the morning, and pounding soaproot, the relatives are bringing plaques of basket-work heaped with fine meal as presents to the new-born. These the mother receives with the woman’s words of thanks, eskwali—the men’s word being kwa kwi—and invites the guests to partake of food. It is late when the relatives depart, and the mother busies herself with getting ready the return presents, adding, perhaps, with a generous hand, more than was given, while the object of all this preparation is sleeping oblivious, hidden beneath his blanket.
At the first glint of dawn the godmother arises, [116] renews the fire, and draws with fine meal four short parallel lines on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room, and on the lines on the floor puts a prayer feather tied to a cotton string, and above that places a bowl of amole suds. The mother kneels by the bowl, her long black hair falling in the foam, and the godmother dips an ear of corn in the suds four times and touches each time the head of the mother with the end, then bathes her head. Perhaps others of the guests who have come early for the ceremony use the suds in turn with an idea of getting some imaginary benefit; the practical benefit of cleanliness is obtained at any rate. The mother’s arms and legs are bathed in the juniper tea; the heated stones placed in a cracked bowl and some of the tea thrown over them, form an impromptu sweat bath, while she stands, wrapped in a blanket, over the steam. This finishes the part of the ceremony designed for purification.
The old woman carefully sweeps up the room and puts all the sweepings in a bowl which she throws over the mesa, while another woman sprinkles water on the floor, saying, “clouds and rain,” the two magic words which are often on the lips and in their thoughts. Now the baby is waked from his blissful sleep, bathed in soapsuds, and rinsed with a mouthful of water applied in the manner of a Chinese laundryman. This time it is not ashes but white corn meal with which he is rubbed, and all the company rub suds on his head with ears of corn dipped in the wash bowl. The godmother puts meal on the baby’s [117] face and neck, and, waving an ear of corn, prays over the mother and child. This is the prayer: “May you live to be old, may you have good corn, may you keep well, and now I name you Samiwiki,” (“roasting ears”), or she bestows any name which strikes her fancy. All the other relatives give the baby a name and it is a matter of chance which one survives.
The naming of the baby being ended, the dedication of the child to the sun is next in order. As a preliminary, the baby is introduced to the hard lot of the cradle. The cradle may be a bent stick interlaced with twigs, a cushion of frayed juniper bark placed on it and a bow attached to the upper end to protect the baby’s face. A small blanket or two form the covering. The mother tucks the little fellow in, placing his arms straight along his sides and finishes by lashing him round and round with a sash until he resembles a miniature mummy. The godmother has not been idle meanwhile. She has taken meal and made a white path out the door, and at a signal from the father, who has been anxiously watching for sunrise from a neighboring housetop, she quickly takes up the cradle and carries it low down over the path of meal, out to where the sun may be seen. The women have put on their clean mantas, the mother has arrayed herself in her embroidered cotton wedding blanket, and they stand in the clear dawn, a picturesque group of sun-worshippers. The godmother draws away the blanket from the baby’s face, holds a handful of meal to her mouth, and says a short [118] prayer over it and throws it toward the sun; so also does the mother, and the ceremony is over.
The assembly then turns to the nukwibi, pigame, and other good things, for among the Hopi a feast always follows a ceremony, just as enlightened people enjoy a good dinner after church; but before they begin the repast, a pinch of the food must be taken out and thrown by the ladder or into an inner room as an offering to the sun. The baby, being guest of honor, is first to eat of the food, though the act would seem a mere pretense. Directly he is laid aside to resume his broken slumbers while all assembled fall to with keen appetites. Soon the guests arise to depart, and receiving their “Indian gifts” return to their homes.
Custom demands, however, that other things for the welfare of the child be done. A boy should have a swift insect called bimonnuh tied to his wrist to make him a runner, and a girl a cocoon of a butterfly to make her wrists strong for grinding corn. Later, for some reason, a band of yucca is put on the child’s wrist and ankle and left on for several days, when the child is held over an ant hill, the bands taken off and left to the ants.
It is pleasant to know that the Hopi are good to the old. In the ceremony just described they are given special gifts of food and meal, and if the grandmother is an invalid she is tenderly carried to the dedication.[2]
[2] From Natal Ceremonies of the Hopi Indians. J. G. Owens, Journal of American Ethnology and Archaeology, Vol. II, 1892.
[119] When the number of children born is considered, there seems to be no reason why the Hopi should not soon have a dense population, instead of remaining stationary. When more is known, though, of the unripe melons and other green things given the children to eat at their own sweet will, the wonder is that any of them ever reach the years of discretion. It is a wise provision of custom that the children are not required to wear any clothes whatever, and one soon becomes accustomed to the graceful, animated little bronzes that swarm in the quaint, terraced pueblos.
Nowhere are these little flowers of the tree of life more cunning and interesting. Like the Japanese children they seem to deserve no correction, and it is as rare a sight as green grass, in the land of Tusayan, to see a parent strike a child. Always instead there is kindness and affection worthy of the highest praise. It is refreshing to observe the association of children with their parents or near relatives, and how quiet and obedient they are. This close parental attention must be the secret of good children wherever the country may be. The Hopi children are fortunate in having many teachers who, at home or in the fields or in the country, explain to them the useful things which they should know in order to become good citizens of Tusayan. It surprises visitors to find out how much the little people have learned, not only of the birds, plants, and other sides of nature, but of their future duties in the house, the fields, and the [120] village, and one comes to respect the Hopi kindergarten in which the children are taught through play-work and unconsciously come to “know how.” Even the odd-looking dolls, which the Hopi children love with the same fervor as the rest of the little men and women of the child world, assist in teaching. These dolls, carved from cottonwood and brilliantly decorated with paint, feathers, and shells, represent the numerous beings who inhabit the spiritual world supposed to rule the destinies of the Hopi. The children are given these wooden figures to play with, and thus they learn the appearance of the gods and at the same time get a lesson in mythology.
In their sport, several little fellows armed with bows and arrows may pretend to guard the pueblo, and no doubt they have the same proud feeling in possessing these savage weapons of war as a small white boy has when master of a toy gun. Little tots scarcely able to walk will be encouraged to shoot at a target made of a bundle of sage-brush set up in the sand at no great distance, and loud is the applause from the parents and other onlookers when one of these infants bowls over the target. The girls congregate in a secluded street and play, their soft voices quite in contrast with any such group of white children. Perhaps the game is “play house,” with the help of a few stones and much imagination. The moment, however, a visitor casts his eye in their direction the game is broken up and all become [121] painfully conscious of his presence. Should a rain fill the water holes on the mesa the children have great sport bathing, splashing around like ducks and chasing one another. This must be a rare treat to the children, because, like Christmas, the good fortune of a rainwater bath may come but once a year.
Wherever the grown people go, the children go along, berrying, gathering grass and yucca for baskets, or seeds of the wild plants for food, watching the cornfield, or gathering the crops, each having a little share in the work and a good portion of amusement. One soon sees that the children of the Hopi help in everything that is going on and take care not to hinder. If a house is being built, the little ones work as hard as their elders, carrying in their baskets a tiny load of stones or earth for the building with an earnestness that is really amusing. Outside of the Hopi towns one usually finds a number of inscriptions in picture writing on the rocks. Besides the inscriptions there are many cup-shaped depressions that have puzzled more than one visitor. One day some children were seen hammering diligently on the rocks with hand-stones, and it was found that they were digging cup-cavities in the soft sandstone, perhaps making tiny play-reservoirs to catch rain water. The children may also be responsible for many of the queer pictures that adorn the smooth sides of the rocks around the villages; and who knows but that many ancient inscriptions on the Arizona rocks were cut by childish hands.
[122] In every Hopi child’s life the time comes when he must join some one of the brotherhoods or societies, which take in nearly every one in the pueblos, so that a young man to have any standing must belong to one at least of the Kachina brotherhoods. The boys during their solemn initiation are soundly whipped by the “flogger,” whose name need but be mentioned to the little ones to make them scamper.
But this takes us beyond the age of tender childhood in the children’s Paradise. To a children’s friend the Hopi tots are a perennial joy. Their bright eyes are full of appreciation, though bashfulness may make them hide behind mother’s skirts, but there is a magic word they have learned from the white people which overcomes that. A picture still dwells in the writer’s mind of a little fellow who approached some visitors as near as he dared and spoke the two words of English he knew: “Hello, kente” (candy).
Although the ceremony of marriage is of small importance in comparison with the endless ceremonies of the Hopi priesthoods, yet a great deal of interest clusters around it and it is really a complicated affair. The trying antecedent stage of courtship, so amusing to those not concerned, is the same as among civilized young men and maidens. One of the first questions Hopi women ask one is, “Have you a wife?” and if the answer is negative, they express condolence and sympathy, if they do not go so far as to inquire [123] the reason. As elsewhere, the young man must show some possession and likewise an ability to provide before he can take the step of matrimony, and of course, the most inflexible rule of all those which regulate the affairs in Hopiland is observed in making the choice of a wife—the absolute prohibition against marriage between members of the same clan. If both have the totem of the tobacco plant, for instance, it would be hopeless to think of union even if it were imaginable that such a thing would ever enter a Hopi’s thoughts. There may be no relationship, but if the clan name is the same, there is an effectual bar.
One of the sure signs that matters are going smoothly is when a girl is seen combing a young man’s hair, seated perhaps in the doorway where all the world may stare. This is taken to mean a betrothal, but long before this in a community where everyone’s business is known, the “match” has been no secret. Hopi courtship presents advantages. No prospectively irate parents have to be asked; the Peaceful People do not put thorns in the path of true love, but let things adjust themselves in a simple, natural way. There are no first families with pride of birth or wealth, no exclusive circles or cliques, there is no bar except the totem in this perfect democracy.
When the young people decide to be married, the girl informs her mother, who takes her daughter, bearing a tray of meal made from white corn, to the house of the bridegroom where she is received by his mother [124] with thanks. During that day she must labor at the mealing stones, grinding white corn, silent and unnoticed; the next day she must continue her task with the white corn. On the third day of this laborious trial she grinds the dark blue corn which the Hopi call black, no doubt glad when the evening brings a group of her friends, laden with trays of meal of their own grinding, as presents, and according to custom, these presents are returned in kind, the trays being sent back next day heavy with choice ears of corn.
After this three days’ probation, which would indicate that a Hopi maiden must be very devoted to undertake it, comes the wedding. Upon that day, the mother cuts the bride’s front hair at the level of her chin and dresses the longer locks in two coils, which she must always wear over her breast to give token that she is no longer a maiden. At the dawn of the fourth day the relatives of both families assemble, each one bringing a small quantity of water in a vessel. The two mothers pound up roots of the yucca used as soap and prepare two bowls of foaming suds. The young man kneels before the bowl prepared by his future mother-in-law as the bride before the bowl of the young man’s mother, and their heads are thoroughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring handsful of suds over the bowed heads of the couple. While this ceremonial head-washing is going on, some of the women and girls creep in between the couple and try to hold their heads over the bowls while others [125] strive to tear away the intruders, and a great deal of jollity ensues. When the head-washing is over the visitors rinse the hair of the couple with the water they have brought, and return home. Then the bridal couple each takes a pinch of corn-meal and leaving the house go silently to the eastern side of the mesa on which the pueblo of Oraibi stands. Holding the meal to their lips, they cast the meal toward the dawn, breathing a prayer for a long and prosperous life, and return to the house as husband and wife.
The ceremony over, the mother of the bride builds a fire under the baking stone, while the daughter prepares the batter and begins to bake a large quantity of paper bread. After this practical and beautiful starting of the young folks in life the mother returns to her home. But there is much more to do before the newly married merge into the staid married folks of Tusayan. The wedding breakfast follows closely on the heels of the ceremony and the father of the young man must run through the pueblo with a bag of cotton, handfuls of which he gives to the relatives and friends, who pick out the seeds and return the cotton to him. This cotton is for the wedding blankets and sash which are to be the trousseau of the bride.
The practical side and the mutual helpfulness of the Hopi come out strongly here, when a few days later the loud-voiced crier announces the time for the spinning of the cotton for the bride’s blankets. This [126] takes place in the kivas, where usually all the weaving is done by the man, and with jollity and many a story the task is soon finished. The spun cotton is handed over to the bridegroom as a contribution from the village, to be paid for, like everything else Hopi, by a sumptuous feast which has been prepared by the women for the spinners. Perhaps ten sage-brush-fed sheep and goats, tough beyond reason, are being softened in a stew, consisting mainly of corn; stacks of paper bread have been baked; various other dishes have been concocted, and all is ready when the crier calls in the hungry multitude. They fall to, like the genius of famine, without knives and forks, but with active, though not over-clean digits, at the start. When they are through, there is little left for the gaunt, half-starved dogs that scent the savors of the feast outside the door. If one desires to see the Hopi at his happiest he must find him squatted on the floor before an ample and well-spread feast.
With the spun cotton serious work begins for the bridegroom and his male relatives lasting several weeks. A large white blanket five by six feet and one four and a half by five feet must be woven, and a reed mat made in which the blankets are to be rolled. A white sash with long fringe, and a pair of moccasins, each having half a deerskin for leggings, like those worn by the women of the Rio Grande pueblos, complete the costume. The blankets must have elaborate tassels at the four corners. Shortly before sunrise [127] the bride, arrayed in her finery, performs the last act in the drama, called “going home.” It must be explained that up to this time the bride has remained in the house of her husband’s people. Wearing the large white blanket picturesquely disposed over her head and carrying the small blanket wrapped in the reed mat in her hands, she walks to her mother’s house, where she is received with a few words of greeting, and the long ceremony is over.
In this land of women’s rights the husband must live with his wife’s relatives. The children, also, are hers, taking their descent from her and are nearer kin to her brothers and sisters than to the father. The house they live in is hers, and all the corn and other food brought into its grain room. In case of domestic troubles, she alone has the right of separation and can turn the man from her door. Though this dark side of the picture is sometimes presented, the rule is that husband and wife are faithful and live happily, as becomes the Peaceful People.
It may be interesting to follow the history of the wedding costume, which plays such a prominent part in the ceremony. The moccasins are soon put to use and worn out, and thereafter the woman goes barefoot like the rest of her sisters. The sash and blankets are rolled in a mat and hung from a roof-beam in a back room. Perhaps the larger blanket is embroidered, when it becomes a ceremonial blanket, or it may be pressed into use for carrying corn and watermelons [128] from the fields. The smaller blanket is kept as one of the most sacred possessions; the young mother puts it on only at the name-giving ceremony of her first-born, and often it enshrouds her for the last rites among the rocks below the mesa where the dead are laid away. At the farewell ceremony of the Kachinas all the brides of the year dress in their white robes and appear among the spectators, look on for a time, and then return to their homes. This review of the brides adds much to the picturesqueness of this festive occasion.[3]
[3] The details of the marriage ceremony are taken from an article by H. R. Voth in the American Anthropologist, N. S., Vol. 2, No. 2, April-June, 1900.
There is no doubt that to the wise customs of the pueblo dwellers is due their survival in the deserts of the Southwest. One can only admire the workings of the unwritten laws which have lived from out of the experience of past centuries and continue yet to regulate the life of Tusayan.
There is no more interesting chapter of human beliefs than that which deals with the ideas entertained by primitive peoples of death and the hereafter. The Hopi, like other peoples, have thought out the deep questions of origin and destiny, peopled the mysterious spaces with spiritual beings, and penetrated the realm of the hereafter to describe the life after death. Thus they say that the breath body travels and has various experiences on its way to the [129] underworld, and “as everyone came up from out of the sipapu, or earth navel, so through the sipapu to the underworld of spirits must he go after death. Far to the west in the track of the sun must he travel to the sipapu which leads down through a lake. Food must he have for the journey, and money of shell and green turquoise; hence bowls of food and treasures we place in his grave. Masauah, the ruler of the underworld, first receives the spirit. If it is the spirit of a good man, straightway he speeds it along the pathway of the sun to the happy abode, where the ancestors feast and dance and hold ceremonies like those of the Hopi on the earth. Truly, we received the ceremonies from them, long ago.”
If the spirit is not good, it must be tried, so Masauah sends it on to the keeper of the first furnace in which the spirit is placed. Should it come out clean, forthwith it is free; if not, on it goes to a second or a third master of the furnace, but if the third fire testing does not cleanse the spirit, the demon seizes it and destroys it, because it is pash kalolomi, “very not good!” Just how much of this has been influenced by later teachings is a vexed question and must be left open.
In the underworld the spirits of the ancestors are represented as living a life of perennial enjoyment. Often they visit the upperworld, and since the Hopi believe that their chief care is to guard the interests of the pueblos of Tusayan, they must be appeased by [130] prayers and offerings in order to secure their good will.
The last offices of the dead are very simple. In sitting posture with head between the knees, with cotton mask, symbolic of the rain cloud, over the face, and sewed fast in a ceremonial blanket, the body is carried down among the rocks by two men, who have cleared out a place with their hoes. The relatives follow and without a word the body is placed in the rude grave. A bowl containing food is set near by under the rocks, and all return, the women washing their feet before entering the house.
For four days the relatives visit the grave and place upon it bowls containing morsels of food, and they also deposit there feathered prayer-sticks. At the end of four days the “breath body” descends to the underworld, whence it came, and is judged by the ordeal of fire. In a closely-built town like Walpi the house is not vacated after a death, but it would seem that this widespread custom is observed in some of the pueblos. The Navaho, in pursuance of this custom, throw down the earth-covered hogan over the dead, and in the course of time a mound filled with decaying timbers marks the spot. Hopi burial customs have not changed for centuries; they have never burned their dead, as formerly did the Zu?i and the peoples of the Gila valley. The ancient Hopi ceremonies contain almost the only records of their past history in the pottery, ornaments, weapons, and relics of bone, shell, stone, traces [131] of prayer-sticks, cloth, baskets, and matting. These serve to give an idea of the life and arts of the ancient Americans who left no written record.
When one inquires for a person who, perchance, is dead, the Hopi say he is shilui, which means, “gone.” On closer inquiry they may tell of the mysterious journey of the dead, through the sipapu, to the land of the underworld, which is below the far-off lake.