Finding the Worth While in the Southwest

by Charles Francis Saunders

CASA BLANCA OR WHITE HOUSE

A prehistoric Cliff dwelling set amidst the stupendous scenery of the Cañon de Chelly, Arizona—the reputed haunt of certain Navajo gods.

EL MORRO OR INSCRIPTION ROCK, N. M.

This remarkable cliff bears near its base a score or more of autographs carved in the stone by the Spanish conquerors during the 17th and 18th centuries.

At last there comes a change over the country ahead of you—a transfiguration to broad sweeps of pink and pallid yellow, with here and there a streak of white or of green, and on the far horizon a wall of purple. The Painted Desert is before you, and upon the very tip of a long promontory streaked horizontally with brown and red and yellow, and laid upon the desert like a gigantic arm thrust out, you see the castellated sky-line formed by the pueblos of the First Hopi Mesa. The geography of the Hopi country is like this: Three long, narrow mesas extending fingerlike into the Painted Desert, the tips about 10 miles each from the next. On the First Mesa (which is the easternmost) are three villages in an almost continuous row—Hano (called also Tewa), which you plump breathlessly into at the top of the one steep trail which is your means of access to all; then Sichúmovi, and lastly, at the mesa’s extremity with all the desert in front, is Walpi, a most picturesque pile rising in terraces to 4 stories and suggesting some mediaeval fortress. The Second Mesa is forked at its tip, with Mishóngnovi and Shipaúlovi set superbly along one tine, and Shimópovi[56] on the other. On the Third Mesa stands old Oraibi, largest and until recently most populous of all. Some years ago, however, it suffered a secession of fully half its population, who are now established a few miles away on the same mesa forming the independent pueblos of Hótavila and Bácavi.[57]

The situation of these little towns is magnificent beyond words, overlooking the Painted Desert, ever changing, ever wonderful, ever challenging the spiritual in you, and stretching to where the San Francisco Peaks, the Mogollones and the White Mountains notch the dim horizon line. The elevation (6000 feet above the sea) and the purity and dryness of the air, combine to make the climate particularly healthful and enjoyable. Winter brings frosts and some snow, alternating with brilliant sunshine. Summer, the season that interests the average visitor, is as a rule delightful—the afternoon thunder showers of July and August being only a refreshment and a source of added picturesqueness in the form of superb cloud effects, spectacular lightning, and splendid rainbows. Mid-day is warm enough for old men to loiter in the sun in a costume that is pared down to a breech clout and little children joyously wear nothing at all; yet both need covering in the shade. As for the summer nights, they are always deliciously cool and for outdoor sleeping are ideal. The flat-roofed, eaveless houses are usually of flat stones laid in mud mortar, and though terraced, do not usually exceed two or three stories in height. The arrangement is in streets and plazas, the kivas or ceremonial chambers (corresponding to the estufas of the Rio Grande pueblos) being underground and reached by a descending ladder, whose upper part—two rungless poles—stick picturesquely up in the air. There is a growing tendency to build the new houses at the bases of the cliffs, particularly at the First and Third Mesas—a reversal to first principles; for when Don Pedro de Tovar, a lieutenant of Coronado, with Padre Juan de Padilla (of whom we heard at Isleta) and a few soldiers, visited in 1540 this province of Tusayan, as they called the country, they reported the Hopis dwelling at the foot of the mesas. It was only later, probably after the Pueblo Rebellion of 1680, that the towns were rebuilt upon the mesa summits where we now find them. The sites of two former Walpis may still be traced below the First Mesa together with the ruins of an ancient Franciscan Mission, some of whose timbers, they say, form part of the existing pagan kivas. The Hopi never took kindly to missionary effort by the whites. Every padre among them was murdered at the time of the Rebellion, and they would never tolerate another. Even kind Padre Garcés (of whom we shall hear in a subsequent chapter) the Oraibians kept sitting outdoors in a street corner for two days, and then evicted him from their town. In 1700, one pueblo whose inhabitants showed a hospitable feeling to the preaching of a persistent friar, was attacked by neighboring Hopis, set on fire and such of the inhabitants as were not killed, were carried to other towns. Of that pueblo—its name was Awátobi—you may see some ruined remnants yet about 9 miles southeast of Walpi.[58]

The attraction that draws most visitors to the country of the Hopi Indians is the famous Snake Dance held annually in August. The date is a movable one and not known positively until 9 days in advance, when the information may be had of the Santa Fe railway officials, who make it a point to be posted. This remarkable ceremony, in which live snakes, a large proportion of them venomous rattlers, are handled by the dance participants as nonchalantly as if they were kittens, is in fact a prayer for rain, in which the snakes (never harmed or their fangs extracted as is sometimes ignorantly supposed), are intermediaries between the people and the gods of water. It is moreover the dramatization of a Hopi myth concerning the origin of the two clans—Antelope and Snake—who perform the ceremony. The myth has to do with the adventures of a young man who, impelled by curiosity to know where the river waters went, made a trip on a hollow log down the Colorado to its mouth. There he had many dealings with the Snake people, in whose ways he was instructed by the friendly Spider Woman. Finally he married the Snake chief’s daughter, and brought her to his own country. The first children of this union were snakes, which the Hopis drove away, but the next were human, and these, the ancestors of the present Snake Clan, came to Walpi to live. The entire ceremony continues throughout 9 days, and is conducted secretly in the underground kiva until near sunset of the last day. Then the priests dramatically emerge into the upper air, and the dance with the snakes occurs. It is all over in about half an hour, but that half hour is what brings the crowd—about the most thrilling and wide-awake performance that is offered anywhere in America. Though the Snake Dance takes place annually, all the villages do not hold it the same year. The most frequented presentations are those at Walpi, held in the odd years, as 1917, 1919, etc., and at Oraibi, the latter in the even years, as 1918, 1920, etc.

The Snake Dance attracts largely through the horror awakened in most of us by reptiles, though it possesses many elements of majestic beauty, too. There are numerous other Hopi ceremonies whose dominant feature to the white onlooker is simple beauty; for instance, the picturesque Flute ceremony held at springs below the mesas, and then along the ascending trails to the mesa-top accompanied by songs, the music of native flutes and the scattering of flowers. This ceremony, which is also the dramatization of a legend[59] as well as an invocation for rain, alternates with the Snake Dance, being held at about but not at the identical time with it, and always at other pueblos than those holding the Snake Dance. This permits attenders at one to witness the other also. Then at all the pueblos there are the autumnal Basket Dances of the women, and in spring and summer the many beautiful Katchina Dances. Katchinas are the deified spirits of the Hopis’ ancestors, and are intercessors with the greater gods for divine favors for the Hopis. They are supposed to reside amid the San Francisco Peaks, where the home of the Sun god is, the great dispenser of blessings. Their annual visits (Indians of the pueblo impersonating the gods) are the occasions of much merry-making, of songs and processions, and dances in mask and gay costumes. Each god has his distinctive mask and dress, and the queer little wooden “dolls” (as the traders call them, though “Katchina” is the better word), which the visitors find in Hopi houses are careful representations of these, made for the children of the household to familiarize themselves with the characteristic aspect of each divinity. “These dances,” to quote Mr. Walter Hough, whose excellent little work, “The Hopi,” should be read by every intending visitor, “show the cheerful Hopi at his best—a true spontaneous child of nature. They are the most characteristic ceremonies of the pueblos, most musical, spectacular and pleasing. They are really more worthy of the attention of white people than the forbidding Snake Dance, which overshadows them by the elements of horror.”