Ancient Hopi Heritage Lives On

Ancient Hopi Heritage Lives On - November 1

We spent two days/three nights on the Hopi reservation in northern Arizona. The Hopi live on only a relatively small portion of the reservation in 12 distinct self-governing villages on three high desert mesas (though there is also an elected tribal government; population about 7,000).

The Hopi appeared to us to be different in at least one significant sense than others we have experienced in our travels to Indian reservations this year and last. That is that they still maintain many elements of a very traditional way of life. Perhaps it is the fact that the Hopi have lived in this very spot for over a thousand years. But it is more than this.

First their spiritual customs going back generations appear to still have a significant hold. For example, many events occur seasonally, Around the time we were there it was time for the village women’s basket dances conducted on a village basis by the women.One professional woman we met, the head of the local community foundation, had just come off a week away from work to prepare/participate in the basket dance, itself a multi-day event." The most important of the three harvest ceremonies performed by the Hopi Indians, the Basket Dance
includes various ritual activities that serve to remind people that life is temporary and that they must comply with the Creator's plans. It is observed primarily by women who are members of the Lakon and Owaqöl societies. First the women spend several days in a kiva (a sacred ceremonial room) to fast, pray, and chant. Other preparations
include creating a sand painting, fashioning prayer plumes from feathers, building an altar, and getting costumes
ready.When the women emerge from the kiva, they chant while presenting baskets to the four directions of the
compass, lifting them, then lowering them. Their movements are designed to bring cold, wet weather so that the
crops will grow the following spring. Afterward, the women traditionally toss the baskets to the onlookers." Hopi Cultural Center.

Second, it seemed that many people continue to grow their food crops in the ways they always have on lands below the mesas. Hopi farmers use heritage seeds, seeds passed down from previous generations' crops, because they are particularly adapted to the dry, sandy conditions. Since they only get 10 inches of rain a year, they continue to use a “dry farming” method without irrigation to grow their ancestral crops of corn, beans and squash.

Third there is a continued reverence for the elderly. For example, we met two women who had returned to the reservation from outside to care for mothers and aunts. We were struck at how many families eating at our hotel restaurant or another restaurant we had a few meals at, came with elderly parents/grandparents. – 3 generations.

Fourth the clan structure seems alive and well with many multi-family matrilineally defined clans in each village (around 30 in all).

Fifth they retain a traditional connection to craft work, with skills often handed down from generation to generation within a family. Specific crafts are linked to specific villages including pottery, basketry, Katsina dolls, overlay silver jewelry and hand woven traditional clothing.

Sixth, we heard how some villages are “traditionalist” and some “progressive” with the traditionalists being those opposed to anything that connects them more to white culture. This extends, we were told, even to the construction of HUD financed housing below the mesas, which were opposed by traditionalists. Another example from the early 20^th century, which shows how strong and longstanding this dialectic is, had to do with the Indian boarding schools. A division in Oraibi village (called the “Oraibi split”) developed over this with some thinking that it might be good for the children to go to the white boarding schools and others violently opposed. This ended in a literal tug of war with the traditionalists winning, and resulting in the progressives leaving this village to form a new one on the reservation.

Seventh, we also sensed this traditionalism when we visited the village of Walpi on First Mesa, which goes back over one thousand years. We were guided through the village by a middle aged man who lived in the village until he was 10. His mother still owns the pueblo he lived in. This pueblo-like village with high rise ancient dwellings and no electricity or water, rising 500 feet above the ground on the mesa, no longer has permanent residents. Still the villagers continue to reside in a new section just below it and continue to own and upkeep their old village homes at Walpi on the Mesa. Walpi continues to be the site of meetings and religious ceremonies as they always have, reinforcing the sense of a traditional way of life, as does the fact that visitors are not allowed to photograph anything in Walpi (or at many other places in Hopi).

We have included photos that we downloaded from the internet because we were not permitted to take photos.