Hopi

LOCATION: United States (Arizona)
POPULATION: estimated 14,000 enrolled tribal members
LANGUAGE: English; Hopi
RELIGION: Traditional Hopi
RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 2: Native North Americans

INTRODUCTION

The Hopi are a Pueblo people, most likely descending from the Hisatsinom (Hopi for "people of long ago") who lived among the cliffs of what is now the Southwest desert as much as 2,000 years ago. A prolonged drought from ad 1275–1300 apparently forced the Hisatsinom to relocate. They split into several different bands that settled in different areas of the region and have since developed into the various Pueblo peoples. The Hopi chose the westernmost area, in northeastern Arizona, and built their homes on the tops of almost inaccessible mesas. This inaccessibility kept them largely protected from the invasions by Spanish and then European American conquerors. Therefore, the Hopi have been able to maintain their traditional ways of life and beliefs almost uninterrupted up through the present day.

This is not to say that the Hopi have suffered no effects from the European invasions of their lands. Between 1519 and 1650, ten previously flourishing Hopi villages were wiped out by disease and bloodshed brought to their lands by the Spanish from Mexico. Conflicts between the Spanish and Pueblo peoples continued throughout the 17th century. The Spanish conquered all the Pueblos by the mid-17th century and built Catholic churches in every village. They forced the Pueblo people to convert to Christianity, using extreme torture as a persuasive tactic. At the Hopi village of Oraibi in 1655, Spanish Friar Salvador de Guerra caught a Hopi in what he called "an act of idolatry" (in other words, following his own Hopi Way). De Guerra whipped the Hopi in front of the whole village until the Hopi was covered in blood. Then de Guerra poured burning turpentine over him. By these methods, Spanish made nominal Christians of the Hopis and other Pueblo peoples and drove Native religious practices underground.

On 10 August 1680, the Pueblos revolted and drove out the Spanish. This was the first time the Pueblo peoples had acted together. Once the Spanish were gone, the Pueblos returned to their independent ways. Therefore, when the Spanish returned in 1692, they met no unified resistance and reconquered the Pueblos fairly easily. The Hopi lived in such a remote area that they remained mostly untouched by this second Spanish conquest. Other Pueblo peoples fled to the Hopi lands and took refuge there. The Hopi moved all their villages to the very tops of the mesas after the 1680 revolt and so were virtually impregnable. In 1700 the Hopi made it very clear to the Spanish that they were not interested in Christianity when they destroyed the mission church in the village of Awatovi (killing the priests and other Spanish in residence, throwing their bodies over the edge of the mesa). No other Christian missions were established in Hopi territory until the 1890s.

In modern times the Hopi have had to fight European American industry and expansion. On 15 May 1971, the Hopi filed suit to stop the Peabody Coal Company from strip mining for coal on 100 square miles of the Hopi reservation. The Hopi consider Black Mesa to be sacred land, and strip mining would be a sacrilegious invasion of that holy place. Ten years later, in 1981, the Hopi sued to stop construction of a ski resort in the San Francisco mountains, another sacred place. The Hopi lost this suit.

The Hopi have only acted as a "tribe" since 1936, when the European American writer Oliver La Farge wrote the Hopi constitution. Before that time, the Hopi were simply people who followed the Hopi Way. The name "Hopi" is a shortened form of Hopisinom, which translates as "people of humility, respectful of their environment and earth stewards." Today, Hopi translate their name as "one who follows the path," or "one who walks in the right direction." As the late Hopi elder Percy Lomaquahu of Hotevilla explained it:

Hopi means "good in every respect." Humbleness means peace, honesty—all mean Hopi. True, honest, perfect words—that's what we call Hopi words. In all the languages, not just in Hopi. We strive to be Hopi. We call ourselves Hopi because maybe one or two of us will become Hopi. Each person must look into their heart and make changes so that you may become Hopi when you reach your destination.

(In Stephen Trimble, The People… Santa Fe: School of American Research, 1993, p. 58.)

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

The Hopi currently live in 12 villages located along the southern rim of Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona. Theirs is the driest of any of the Pueblo lands. Over the centuries, the Hopi have developed a reputation as the most skilled dry-farmers in the world. Ecologists have called them "environmental wizards." The village of Old Oraibi has been inhabited since at least ad 1150, rivaling Acoma as the longest continuously inhabited village in the United States. Old Oraibi was for centuries the "capital" of Hopiland. Today it is a village of just over 100 people, but still highly respected by the Hopis of the third Mesa.

Black Mesa is divided by washes into three separate mesas, named in order of approach from the east: First Mesa, Second Mesa, and Third Mesa. Hopiland (or the Hopi reservation) is entirely surrounded by the much larger Navajo reservation. Hopiland encompasses 1.6 million acres over 3,862 square miles. While there are over 10,000 members of the Hopi tribe in the United States, only 7,061 of them live on the reservation (according to the 1990 U.S. Census). Modern Hopi communities are located at the bases of the three mesas. The ancient villages remain on the mesa summits. The area receives about ten inches of rain per year.

LANGUAGE

The Hopi language is a member of the Uto-Aztecan family of Native North American languages. It is related to the languages of the Ute and Paiute peoples. It is not related to any of the other Pueblo languages. Each of the three mesas in Hopiland has its own dialect of the Hopi language. The first Hopi dictionary is currently being compiled in the Third Mesa dialect. Because the Hopi have lived in an inaccessible region, protected from most of the invasions by Spanish and European American peoples, the language has remained alive into the present day. It is also required that a young Hopi speak the Hopi language in order to be initiated into adulthood.

The dictionary currently in process is the first attempt to create a standard written system for the Hopi language. Hopi has never before been a written language, so the oral tradition has grown strong and rich. It has become so poetic and dramatic that it is difficult to write down. Any written material in Hopi will necessarily have lost something in the translation. The dictionary compilers hope that by making a standard written system available, the Hopi people will begin to develop a literature that is their own. It will take some time, however, to adapt the language to written forms.

Ritual forms of the Hopi language are used by an exclusive group of priests and priestesses who keep this ritual language secret. This form of the Hopi language remains unknown to those outside the group.

FOLKLORE

All Hopi stories begin with a formal opening: Aliksa'i. There is no exact English translation, but it means something like "Attention!" or "Let's take up the story where we left it." Because time for the Hopi is cyclical rather than linear, the Hopi care more about where a story happened than when.

The Hopi have an emergence-type creation story. The First Way of Life, or First World (Tokpela, meaning "Endless Space") was an infinite void until the Creator created finite forms, including human beings. For a time, all lived peacefully there, until some humans lost sight of the true way and fell into decadence. The Creator allowed those humans who still had sight of the truth (and those who were willing to follow them) to emerge into the Second Way of Life, or Second World (Tokpa, "Dark Midnight") before he destroyed the First Way of Life with fire. The same course of events took place in the Second Way of Life, which the Creator then destroyed with ice after allowing the people to emerge into the Third Way of Life, or Third World (Kuskurza, an ancient name with no modern translation). When the same corruption began to occur in the Third World, representatives from all forms of life held a council and decided the Third World had become out of balance and it was time to migrate to the Fourth Way of Life, (Tivongyapavi, "The Earth Center"). The Creator allowed the peoples to choose a food before destroying the Third World with water. The Hopi chose a short blue ear of corn. Blue corn requires more work to grow, so the Hopi chose a life of hardship and humility. But blue corn is also heartier, so they also chose a life of strength and health. Blue corn symbolism runs throughout Hopi life. Blue corn is sometimes equated with the Hopi Way: planting, tending, and harvesting, it follows the path of the ancestors and fulfills the contract made with Ma'asau, keeper of the Fourth World who allowed the people to emerge into this Fourth World if they agreed to act as its caretakers. It allows the Hopi to reexperience the creation of the world. The Hopi must perform certain rituals and follow religious rules set out for them by Ma'asau if they are to keep this Fourth World in balance. Since the time of contact wiTheuropeans, the Hopi feel this world has lost its balance. They call it koyanisquatsi, "life out of balance." Because of this, they must perform their rituals and follow the Hopi Way even more diligently to regain and maintain this world's balance.

RELIGION

The Hopi believe themselves to be the caretakers of the earth, of this Fourth Way of Life (Tivongyapavi, "The Earth Center"). They perform certain rituals and follow a set of religious rules in order to keep this world in balance. These rules and rituals are called "the Hopi Way." Hopi ceremonies focus on creating community harmony, bringing rain for the crops, and honoring katsinas and Hopi ancestors. Katsinas (often called kachinas by European Americans) are spirits who live in the San Francisco mountains near Hopiland. The Hopi do not worship katsinas; rather, the katsinas act as intermediaries between the forces of nature and human beings. The katsinas visit Hopi villages for six months every year, arriving in December for the solstice ceremony (Powamuy) and leaving after the Home Dance (Niman) in July to return to the San Francisco peaks. Throughout the months between December and July, the katsinas dance frequently, bestowing gifts on the people. In Hopi villages, katsinas, represented by katsina societies, dance in the village plaza for all to see. Other Pueblo peoples allow only the initiated to see the katsinas dance.

The plaza of each village is the "heart-place," the center of the world for those villagers. It is the place where all four directions come together, where all the balanced forces of the world meet: north-south-east-west, the Sun above and Earth below, winter-summer, male buildings and female space, etc. A half-buried rock surrounded by offerings of corn meal and feathers marks the exact center of each village. The sacred place for the Hopi and other Pueblo peoples is the kiva, an underground chamber entered and exited by a ladder through a hole in the roof. Religious rites and other activities are held in the kiva. The traditional religious leader of the Hopi is called the kikmongwi and is often a member of the Bear Clan, the first clan to arrive in Hopiland, according to Hopi legend.

All Hopi are initiated into katsina societies at about age 9– 11. As adults, Hopi may be initiated into priesthood societies (called wuutsim) priestess societies, or Snake societies. Young children are given katsina dolls as teaching tools to learn about the katsinas. Until they are initiated into the katsina society, children are not permitted to learn about esoteric matters.

Another character in the Hopi Way is the sacred clown. Clown dancers break all the social and religious rules, performing acts that the people are forbidden to perform. By showing life as it should not be but often is, clowns allow the Hopi to laugh at themselves and to see how they need to improve their behavior.

During the 1880s, the U.S. government divided up the Native North American reservations between religious groups. The Hopi were assigned to the Mennonites (and Baptists). The Reverend H. R. Voth arrived in 1893 and tried to destroy the Hopi Way and replace it with Mennonite Christianity. The Hopi despised him; modern Hopi still remember Voth and what he attempted to do.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

There are no holidays in the Hopi calendar.

RITES OF PASSAGE

When a child is born, a perfectly formed ear of white corn, representing its spiritual mother, is placed next to the newborn child and left there for 20 days. During this time, the child is also kept in darkness because it still belongs to the spirit world. On the 20th day, the mother passes the ear of corn over the child four times and names her or him. All the aunts who wish to be the child's godmother do the same. Then the mother and her mother (the child's grandmother) take the child outside toward the east before sunrise. When the sun comes up over the horizon and shines on the child, the child becomes fully human, belonging completely to the earthly realm from then on until death. The child is called by all of the names given to it by its aunts for the first few years of its life. Eventually, whichever name seems to stick becomes the child's name.

The corn ritual is repeated at the time of the child's initiation into the katsina society at age 9–11 and again at her or his initiation into Priest, Priestess, Snake, or other societies at adulthood. Boys grow their hair long when they are initiated into adulthood. Boys' initiation rites include a ceremonial hunt using the ancient Hopi "throwing stick," modeled after the sparrow hawk's wing. Sparrow hawks hunt by diving down onto their prey (such as a rabbit) and stunning it by hitting it on the back of the head with their wings. They then kill the prey with their talons.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

The Hopi Way teaches that all of creation is interdependent wiThevery living being enmeshed in an intricate web of relationships with all other beings. This means that interpersonal relationships must be approached with care and respect to maintain harmony. The Hopi live very closely together in their small, isolated villages and so have learned to deal wiTheach other delicately. They are known as a simple agricultural people.

LIVING CONDITIONS

Many Hopi still live in traditional pueblos in either the ancient villages at the tops of the mesas or in the more modern communities at the mesas' bases. The Hopi build their pueblos of stone, rather than adobe as do the rest of the Pueblo peoples. Each pueblo begins as a single room with rooms of other families directly attached. As a family grows and new families are created through marriage and child-bearing, the pueblo grows upward as new rooms are added above. Some pueblos may reach four or five stories high. Traditional pueblos had no door or windows. They were entered and exited by a ladder through a hole in the roof. Modern pueblos have both doors and windows (though not all windows are covered with glass or screens). Many modern pueblos have modern conveniences, including running water and electricity. Some Hopi today live in housing provided by the federal government. About 20% of the housing in Hopiland was built before 1940. More than half was built before 1970. At least 75% of Hopi homes have running water from a public water system. About 8% have wells, and the other 17% haul their water from other sources. A study conducted in 2000 showed that about 30% of Hopi households did not have electrical service.

The Hopi are a very adaptable people, managing to maintain their traditional ways while adopting worthwhile elements from neighboring cultures. In Hopiland, traditional healing arts are used in conjunction with modern Western medicine. Those diseases that cannot be cured with traditional medicine are treated with Western medicine and vice versa.

FAMILY LIFE

Clans are vitally important to the Hopi. Clan membership is inherited through the mother. Women own the houses, food, seed for next year's planting, springs and cisterns, and the small gardens near the house (which they tend). Men do the herding, hunting, and larger-scale farming away from the house. Men also gather and haul fuel, do the spinning and weaving, and make moccasins. Women tend to exercise their responsibility at home rather than in public life. Recently, however, more Hopi women are claiming authority outside the home, serving on tribal councils, etc.

In general, Hopi do not discipline their children physically. Instead, they use lectures and teasing to teach children the Hopi Way.

CLOTHING

Hopi today wear Western-style clothing except for ceremonial purposes. Traditionally, unmarried Hopi girls wore their hair in a style unique to the Hopi, protruding from both sides of the head in the shape of a squash blossom.

FOOD

Corn is the center of Hopi life. They care for it as they do their children—diligently and tenderly. Many of their religious ceremonies focus on bringing rain so that the corn will grow. In the dry desert where the Hopi live, planting corn, melons, squash, beans, and other crops shows faith in life.

The Hopi adopted wheat, melons, apples, peaches, pears, tomatoes, and chiles from the Spanish and Mexicans. They gathered piñon nuts and acorns, wild roots, grasses, and seeds to supplement their diet, especially when the rains did not come and the planted crops failed. They also kept flocks of tame turkeys for meat. All of these foods still figure largely in the Hopi diet.

On most ceremonial occasions and at other special events, the Hopi serve piki bread, paper-thin bread made from blue corn meal. The thin batter is spread on a hot polished stone and then peeled off when it is cooked. Several layers of cooked bread are rolled together while still warm. These layered rolls become crisp when cool.

EDUCATION

The Hopi are very concerned wiTheducation. They realize that Western education is necessary for survival in today's world, while a traditional education in the Hopi Way is as vital for the world's survival as ever. Therefore, they want their children to have both Hopi and Western educations. From 1887 to 1911, Hopi children were forcibly taken to boarding schools by the U.S. government to be trained in European American ways. Though Hopi students are no longer forced to attend boarding schools, many still do because of a lack of adequate schools at home. Most Hopi children today attend local public schools, which have a majority of Native North Americans enrolled. These schools receive much less funding than schools with a majority of European American students. For example, from 1976 to 1979, the Cibola County school board spent $38 per student at the Laguna-Acoma High School (which has a majority of Native North American students) and $802 per student at Grants High School (with a European American student majority). Justifications for this difference put forth by European Americans, such as the argument that Native North Americans do not pay taxes on tribal lands, simply do not hold up to examination (Native North Americans pay heavy taxes on other things, such as mining revenues, etc.).

In 1986, after years of campaigning and preparation, Hopi High School opened on the Hopi reservation. It is a federally funded Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) school, and its school board is made up entirely of local Hopi. The school's aims are to give children the opportunity to be more involved in cultural activities at home and to give parents the opportunity to guide their children in day-to-day matters. Students are allowed to be absent on Friday, the day of preparation for ceremonial dances, whenever their village is holding a dance that weekend. The school board hopes eventually to establish a regular four-day school week, so that all students (and faculty) will have Fridays off as a matter of course.

Hopi students have a difficult time in Western educational settings because the Hopi Way is based on cooperation, not competition. Western education values competition, and most grading systems are based on it. So Hopi students are not prepared to be competitive in class, and many fail because of it. In 1990, for those Hopi over the age of 25, 37% had no high school diploma (17% had less than a ninth-grade education). Only about 3% had finished college to receive a Bachelor of Arts, and less than 2% had graduate degrees.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

According to the Hopi Way, everything in life is approached as an art. Cooking, farming, raising children, singing, dancing, praying, weaving, making pottery and jewelry—all are forms of art. Traditional Hopi crafts are pottery, weaving, basketry, and carving katsina dolls. Recently, the Hopi have also taken up painting (although the inside walls of kivas have always been decorated with paintings) and silverwork, particularly silver overlay. In ancient times Hopi men wove, Hopi women who lived on First Mesa made pottery, while women on the Second and Third Mesas made baskets (Second Mesa women made coiled baskets, and Third Mesa women made wicker baskets). These trends are still true today, although exceptions do exist. In the late 19th century a Hopi woman named Nampeyo revived the ancient art of pottery after seeing pottery artifacts dug out of the ground during an archaeological excavation. Hopi pottery is made by coiling the clay, then smoothing the surfaces with a polishing stone. The same designs are used today to decorate the pottery as were used by the ancient Hopi.

The Hopi art form best known, perhaps, to non-Hopi is the carving of katsina dolls. The dolls, called tihu in Hopi, are given to Hopi children as teaching tools to learn about the katsinas and the Hopi Way. Some Hopis object to the sale of katsina dolls. However, certain Hopi artists have developed their carving skills into a fine art and can sell their dolls to top galleries for thousands of dollars. Traditional katsina dolls are carved out of cottonwood root. Modern dolls for sale may be made of wood or other materials.

A group of five Hopi painters who were trained in Western art schools formed Artist Hopid in 1973 to try to bridge Western and Hopi cultures through art. Hopi photographer and filmmaker Victor Masayesva, Jr., has made two films about the Hopi: Itam Hakim, Hopiit (1984) blends narration in English and Hopi with other sounds and images to tell a mythic version of Hopi history, and Pott Starr (1990) mixes animation with real-life action to poke fun at commercial tourism in Hopiland and non-Native fascination with Hopi artifacts.

Since there has never been a standard written Hopi language, there is no literary heritage among the Hopi. The oral tradition is very well developed, however. Hopi oral literature is richly poetic and dramatic, defying translation into English or onto paper.

WORK

The Hopi are shrewd businesspeople and have always been highly adaptable. There are many skilled laborers among the Hopi who are able to find work in non-Native businesses off the reservation. Yet, the unemployment rate in Hopiland has remained steady at 30% since 1990. The crafting of traditional Hopi arts for sale to tourists, galleries, and collectors provides more income than any other source on the reservation.

SPORTS

Hopi play many of the same sports enjoyed by all North Americans.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Each Hopi village sponsors religious dance ceremonies during the months of August through mid-October. These dances celebrate the harvest and give young Hopi a chance to mingle. These dances are open to men and young unmarried women with no children. Young children of both sexes may also attend. The most popular dance is the Butterfly Dance for which men wear embroidered kilts and velvet shirts with ribbons.

The first Hopi radio station, KUYI 88.1 FM, debuted on 20 December 2000. KUYI programming includes Hopi language, internships for Hopi high school students, national and local news, and traditional and contemporary Native American music.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

All Hopi crafts are approached as forms of art. Hopi artisans have developed their skills to the level of fine art and can sell some of their pieces for thousands of dollars to top galleries and collectors.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

The Hopi are a peaceful, cooperative people who have learned to live closely together in a respectful way that maintains social harmony. The most serious conflicts among the Hopi themselves arise from the disagreement between Americanized Hopi who campaign for Western "progress" and traditionalists who wish to stay closer to the ancient Hopi Way. The Hopi tribal council was created, at the initiation of the U.S. government's Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), by a handful of Americanized Hopi in 1935. The council represents only a minority of Hopi, and many traditionalists actively oppose it. The village of Shongopavi even sued the council in tribal court over proposed development projects.

Conflicts with non-Hopi center on land-use issues. Since 1974 the Hopi and Navajo have been embroiled in a conflict over what was known as the Joint Use Area—a region they have shared since the late 19th century. In 1974, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that partitioned the area between the Hopi and Navajo, requiring about 100 Hopi and thousands of Navajo to relocate. Many of these people had been living peacefully together on that land for generations. After years of wrangling wiTheach other, the Hopi and Navajo are beginning to realize that it is not they but the Peabody Coal mining company that wants this land partitioned (the coal company wants access to the coal located there). So the Hopi and Navajo are now joining together to solve the question of land use in this area, leaving the federal government and mineral companies out of the negotiations.

The Peabody Coal Company is the subject of another Hopi conflict. When Peabody signed the first land-use lease in 1966 to strip mine for coal on Black Mesa, the Hopi tribal council agreed to this lease without consulting the rest of the Hopi. Nearly all Hopi except those on the council oppose strip mining, particularly in the sacred lands of Black Mesa. The coal mine also uses a great deal of already scarce water to transport mined coal down pipelines. This puts tremendous strain on the desert environment—the water table has dropped 70 feet since the mine went into operation. Water is precious to the Hopi; they will not survive if the water table drops much lower.

GENDER ISSUES

The Hopi view gender as a balance of oppositions: male and female. Female aspects of the natural environment include earth, life, fertility, summer, south, west, plants, and soft substances. Male aspects of the natural environment include sky, death, winter, north, east, and hard substances. Male and female forces of nature and the environment must be kept in balance, and these two forces rely on each other for completion. In the Hopi view of gender, females have a single nature: that of a life-giving mother. Males have a dual nature: as fathers who provide and protect as well as potential killers.

There are two stages in the life cycle for females and males in Hopi society. For females, mano are unmarried girls. Mano become wuhti, women, when they marry, which traditionally was between the ages of 16 and 18. A boy, tiyo, becomes a man, taka, when he is initiated into a ceremonial fraternity around the age of 18.

Infant girls are given tithu, kachina dolls, by their maternal uncles. The tithu (plural of tihu) are representations of the Hopi deities, or katsinam that are portrayed by adult males in the ceremonial dances. Tithu are not sacred and young girls are allowed to play with them. Infant boys are given miniature bow and arrow sets to prepare them for their roles as providers and protectors.

Hopi social organization is organized by gender. Hopi villages are made up of matrilineal clans. Buildings within the Hopi village are also organized along gender lines. Hopi households are uxorilocal; meaning that a group of related women form the core of the group and their husbands come from other clans. Women own homes and are the heads of households. Kivas, on the other hand, are male centered. When the kivas are not being used for ceremonial activities, they serve as places where adult men can hang out.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bonvillain, Nancy. The Hopi. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2005.

Champagne, Duane, ed. The Native North American Almanac. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994.

Dutton, Bertha P. American Indians of the Southwest. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983.

Eagle/Walking Turtle. Indian America: A Traveler's Companion, 4Thed. Santa Fe: John Muir Publications, 1995.

Gattuso, John, ed. Insight Guides: Native America. Boston: APA/Houghton Mifflin, 1993.

Portago, Andrea. Classic Hopi and Zuni Kachina Figures. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2006.

Reddy, Marlita A., ed. Statistical Record of Native North Americans, 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.

Silas, Anna. Journey to Hopi Land. Tucson: Rio Nuevo Publishers, 2006.

Trimble, Stephen. The People: Indians of the American Southwest. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press; Seattle: Distributed by University of Washington Press, 1993.

Waldman, Carl. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Facts On File, 1988.

—revised by J. Williams