The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi Part 1

The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi.

by Hattie Greene Lockett.

I. INTRODUCTION

SHOWING THAT THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE HOPI IS THE OUTGROWTH OF THEIR UNWRITTEN LITERATURE

GENERAL STATEMENT

By a brief survey of present day Hopi culture and an examination into the myths and traditions const.i.tuting the unwritten literature of this people, this bulletin proposes to show that an intimate connection exists between their ritual acts, their moral standards, their social organization, even their practical activities of today, and their myths and tales--the still unwritten legendary lore.

The myths and legends of primitive peoples have always interested the painter, the poet, the thinker; and we are coming to realize more and more that they const.i.tute a treasure-trove for the archaeologist, and especially the anthropologist, for these sources tell us of the struggles, the triumphs, the wanderings of a people, of their aspirations, their ideals and beliefs; in short, they give us a twilight history of the race.

As the geologist traces in the rocks the clear record of the early beginnings of life on our planet, those first steps that have led through the succession of ever-developing forms of animal and plant life at last culminating in man and the world as we now see them, so does the anthropologist discover in the myths and legends of a people the dim traces of their origin and development till these come out in the stronger light of historical time. And it is at this point that the ethnologist, trying to understand a race as he finds them today, must look earnestly back into the "realm of beginnings," through this window of so-called legendary lore, in order to account for much that he finds in the culture of the present day.

=The Challenge: Need of Research on Basic Beliefs Underlying Ceremonies=

Wissler says:[2] "It is still an open question in primitive social psychology whether we are justified in a.s.suming that beliefs of a basic character do motivate ceremonies. It seems to us that such must be the case, because we recognize a close similarity in numerous practices and because we are accustomed to believe in the unity of the world and life.

So it may still be our safest procedure to secure better records of tribal traditional beliefs and to deal with objective procedures as far as possible. No one has ventured to correlate specific beliefs and ceremonial procedures, but it is through this approach that the motivating power of beliefs will be revealed, if such potency exists."

[Footnote 2: Wissler, Clark, An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1926, p. 266.]

Some work has been done along this line by Kroeber for the tribes of California, Lowie for the Crow Indians, and Junod for the Ekoi of West Africa; but it appears that the anthropological problem of basic beliefs and philosophies is dependent upon specific tribal studies and that more research is called for.

=The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life=

As a background for our discussion we shall need to consider first, the nature and significance of mythology, since there is some, indeed much, difference of opinion on the subject, and to arrive at some basis of understanding as to its function.

The so-called school of Nature-Mythology, which flourishes mainly in Germany, maintains that primitive man is highly interested in natural phenomena, and that this interest is essentially of a theoretic, contemplative and poetical character. To writers of this school every myth has as its kernel or essence some natural phenomenon or other, even though such idea is not apparent upon the surface of the story; a deeper meaning, a symbolic reference, being insisted upon. Such famous scholars as Ehrenreich, Siecke, Winckler, Max Muller, and Kuhn have long given us this interpretation of myth.

In strong contrast to this theory which regards myth as naturalistic, symbolic, and imaginary, we have the theory which holds a sacred tale as a true historical record of the past. This idea is supported by the so-called Historical school in Germany and America, and represented in England by Dr. Rivers. We must admit that both history and natural environment have left a profound imprint on all cultural achievement, including mythology, but we are not justified in regarding all mythology as historical chronicle, nor yet as the poetical musings of primitive naturalists. The primitive does indeed put something of historical record and something of his best interpretation of mysterious natural phenomena into his legendary lore, but there is something else, we are led to believe, that takes precedence over all other considerations in the mind of the primitive (as well as in the minds of all of the rest of us) and that is getting on in the world, a pragmatic outlook.

It is evident that the primitive relies upon his ancient lore to help him out in his struggle with his environment, in his needs spiritual and his needs physical, and this immense service comes through religious ritual, moral incentive, and sociological pattern, as laid down in the cherished magical and legendary lore of his tribe.

The close connection between religion and mythology, under-estimated by many, has been fully appreciated by the great British anthropologist, Sir James Frazer, and by cla.s.sical scholars like Miss Jane Harrison.

The myth is the Bible of the primitive, and just as our Sacred Story lives in our ritual and in our morality, as it governs our faith and controls our conduct, even so does the savage live by his mythology.

The myth, as it actually exists in a primitive community, even today, is not of the nature of fiction such as our novel, but is a living reality, believed to have once happened in primeval times when the world was young and continuing ever since to influence the world and human destiny.

The mere fireside tale of the primitive may be a narrative, true or imaginary, or a sort of fairy story, a fable or a parable, intended mainly for the edification of the young and obviously pointing a moral or emphasizing some useful truth or precept. And here we do recognize symbolism, much in the nature of historical record. But the special cla.s.s of stories regarded by the primitive as sacred, his sacred myths, are embodied in ritual, morals, and social organization, and form an integral and active part of primitive culture. These relate back to best known precedent, to primeval reality, by which pattern the affairs of men have ever since been guided, and which const.i.tute the only "safe path."

Malinowski[3] stoutly maintains that these stories concerning the origins of rites and customs are not told in mere explanation of them; in fact, he insists they are not intended as explanations at all, but that the myth states a precedent which const.i.tutes an _ideal_ and a warrant for its continuance, and sometimes furnishes practical directions for the procedure. He feels that those who consider the myths of the savage as mere crude stories made up to explain natural phenomena, or as historical records true or untrue, have made a mistake in taking these myths out of their life-context and studying them from what they look like on paper, and not from what they do in life.

[Footnote 3: Malinowski, B., Myth in Primitive Psychology: M.W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1926, p. 19.]

Since Malinowski's definition of myth differs radically from that of many other writers on the subject, we would refer the reader to the discussion of myth under the head of Social Anthropology in the Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, page 869.

II. THE HOPI

=Their Country--The People=

The Hopi Indians live in northern Arizona about one hundred miles northeast of Flagstaff, seventy miles north of Winslow, and seventy-five miles north of Holbrook.

For at least eight hundred years the Hopi pueblos have occupied the southern points of three fingers of Black Mesa, the outstanding physical feature of the country, commonly referred to as First, Second, and Third Mesas.

It is evident that in late prehistoric times several large villages were located at the foot of First and Second Mesas, but at present, except for two small settlements around trading posts, the villages are all on top of the mesas. On the First Mesa we find Walpi, Sich.o.m.ovi, and Hano, the latter not Hopi but a Tewa village built about 1700 by immigrants from the Rio Grande Valley, and at the foot of this mesa the modern village of Polacca with its government school and trading post. On Second Mesa are Mashongnovi, s.h.i.+paulovi, and Shungopovi, with Toreva Day School at its foot. On Third Mesa Oraibi, Hotavilla, and Bacabi are found, with a government school and a trading post at Lower Oraibi and another school at Bacabi. Moencopi, an offshoot from Old Oraibi, is near Tuba City.

This area was once known as the old Spanish Province of Tusayan, and the Hopi villages are called pueblos, Spanish for towns. In 1882, 2,472,320 acres of land were set aside from the public domain as the Hopi Indian Reservation. At present the Hopi area is included within the greater Navajo Reservation and administered by a branch of the latter Indian agency.

The name Hopi or Hopitah means "peaceful people," and the name Moqui, sometimes applied to them by unfriendly Navajo neighbors, is really a Zuni word meaning "dead," a term of derision. Naturally the Hopi do not like being called Moqui, though no open resentment is ever shown. Early fiction and even some early scientific reports used the term Moqui instead of Hopi.

Admirers have called these peaceful pueblo dwellers "The Quaker People,"

but that is a misnomer for these st.u.r.dy brown heathen who have never asked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a creditable record of defensive warfare during early historic times and running back into their traditional history, and have also some accounts of civil strife.

The nomadic Utes, Piutes, Apaches, and Navajos for years raided the fields and flocks of this industrious, prosperous, sedentary people; in fact, the famous Navajo blanket weavers got the art of weaving and their first stock of sheep through stealing Hopi women and Hopi sheep. But there came a time when the peaceful Hopi decided to kill the Navajos who stole their crops and their girls, and then conditions improved. Too, soon after, came the United States government and Kit Carson to discipline the raiding Navajos.

The only semblance of trouble our government has had with the Hopi grew out of the objection, in fact, refusal, of some of the more conservative of the village inhabitants to send their children to school. The children were taken by force, but no blood was shed, and now government schooling is universally accepted and generally appreciated.

A forbidding expanse of desert waste lands surrounds the Hopi mesas, furnis.h.i.+ng forage for Hopi sheep and goats during the wet season and browse enough to sustain them during the balance of the year. These animals are of a hardy type adapted to their desert environment. Our pure blood stock would fare badly under such conditions. However, the type of wool obtained from these native sheep lends itself far more happily to the weaving of the fine soft blankets so long made by the Hopi than does the wool of our high grade Merino sheep or a mixture of the two breeds. This is so because our Merino wool requires the commercial scouring given it by modern machine methods, whereas the Hopi wool can be reduced to perfect working condition by the primitive hand was.h.i.+ng of the Hopi women.

As one approaches the dun-colored mesas from a distance he follows their picturesque outlines against the sky line, rising so abruptly from the plain below, but not until one is within a couple of miles can he discern the villages that crown their heights. And no wonder these dun-colored villages seem so perfectly a part of the mesas themselves, for they are literally so--their rock walls and dirt roofs having been merely picked up from the floor and sides of the mesa itself and made into human habitations.

The Hopi number about 2,500 and are a Shoshonean stock. They speak a language allied to that of the Utes and more remotely to the language of the Aztecs in Mexico.[4]

[Footnote 4: Colton, H.S., Days in the Painted Desert: Museum Press, Flagstaff, 1932, p. 17.]

According to their traditions the various Hopi clans arrived in Hopiland at different times and from different directions, but they were all a kindred people having the same tongue and the same fundamental traditions.

They did not at first build on the tops of the mesas, but at their feet, where their corn fields now are, and it was not from fear of the war-like and aggressive tribes of neighboring Apaches and Navajos that they later took to the mesas, as we once supposed. A closer acquaintance with these people brings out the fact that it was not till the Spaniards had come to them and established Catholic Missions in the late Seventeenth Century that the Hopi decided to move to the more easily defended mesa tops for fear of a punitive expedition from the Spaniards whose priests they had destroyed.

We are told that these desert-dwellers, whose very lives have always depended upon their little corn fields along the sandy washes that caught and held summer rains, always challenged new-coming clans to prove their value as additions to the community, especially as to their magic for rain-making, for life here was a hardy struggle for existence, with water as a scarce and precious essential. Among the first inhabitants was the Snake Clan with its wonderful ceremonies for rain bringing, as well as other sacred rites. Willingly they accepted the rituals and various religious ceremonials of new-comers when they showed their ability to help out with the eternal problem of propitiating the G.o.ds that they conceived to have control over rain, seed germination, and the fertility and well-being of the race.

In exactly the same spirit they welcomed the friars. Perhaps these priests had "good medicine" that would help out. Maybe this new kind of altar, image, and ceremony would bring rain and corn and health; they were quite willing to try them. But imagine their consternation when these Catholic priests after a while, unlike any people who had ever before been taken into their community, began to insist that the new religion be the only one, and that all other ceremonies be stopped. How could the Hopi, who had depended upon their old ceremonies for centuries, dare to stop them? Their revered traditions told them of clans that had suffered famine and sickness and war as punishment for having dropped or even neglected their religious dances and ceremonies, and of their ultimate salvation when they returned to their faithful performance.

The Hopi objected to the slavish labor of bringing timbers by hand from the distant mountains for the building of missions and, according to Hopi tradition, to the priests taking some of their daughters as concubines, but the breaking point was the demand of the friars that all their old religious ceremonies be stopped; this they dared not do.

So the "long gowns" were thrown over the cliff, and that was that.

Certain dissentions and troubles had come upon them, and some crop failures, so they attributed their misfortunes to the anger of the old G.o.ds and decided to stamp out this new and dangerous religion. It had taken a strong hold on one of their villages, Awatobi, even to the extent of replacing some of the old ceremonies with the new singing and chanting and praying. And so Awatobi was destroyed by representatives from all the other villages. Entering the sleeping village just before dawn, they pulled up the ladders from the underground kivas where all the men of the village were known to be sleeping because of a ceremony in progress, then throwing down burning bundles and red peppers they suffocated their captives, shooting with bows and arrows those who tried to climb out. Women and children who resisted were killed, the rest were divided among the other villages as prisoners, but virtually adopted.

Thus tenaciously have the Hopi clung to their old religion--noncombatants so long as new cults among them do not attempt to stop the old.