There does not seem to have been much planning in the original construction of the Hopi pueblos. There was little or no provision made for the future. The first houses were built as needed, and then as occasion demanded other rooms were added.
It will doubtless be surprising to some readers to learn that the Hopi houses are owned and built (in the main) by the women, and that the men weave the women's garments and knit their own stockings. Here, too, the women enjoy other "rights" that their white sisters have long fought for. The home life of the Hopis is based upon the rights of women. They own the houses; the wife receives her newly married husband into her home; the children belong to her clan, and have her clan name, and not that of the father; the corn, melons, squash, and other vegetables belong to her when once deposited in her house by the husband. She, indeed, is the queen of her own home, hence the pueblo Indian woman occupies a social relationship different from that of most aborigines, in that she is on quite equal terms with her husband.
In the actual building of the houses, however, the husband is required to perform his share, and that is the most arduous part of the labor. He goes with his burros to the wooded mesas or cottonwood-lined streams and brings the roof-timbers, ladder-poles, and door-posts. He also brings the heavier rocks needed in the building. Then the women aid him in placing the heavier objects, after which he leaves them to their own devices.
Being an intensely religious people, the shamans or priests are always called upon when a new house is to be constructed. Bahos—prayer plumes or sticks—are placed in certain places, sacred meal is lavishly sprinkled, and singing and prayer offered, all as propitiation to those gods whose especial business it is to care for the houses.
It is exceedingly interesting to see the women at work. Without plumb-line, straight line, or trowel they proceed. Some women are hod-carriers, bringing the pieces of sand or limestone rock to the "bricklayers" in baskets, buckets, or dish pans. Others mix the adobe to the proper consistency and see that the workers are kept supplied with it. And what a laughing, chattering, jabbering group it is! Every tongue seems to be going, and no one listening. Once at Oraibi I saw twenty-three women engaged in the building of a house, and I then got a new "side light" on the story of the Tower of Babel; The builders of that historic structure were women, and the confusion of tongues was the natural result of their feminine determination to all speak at once and never listen to any one else.
I photographed the builders at Oraibi, and the next day contributed a new dress to each of the twenty-three workers. Here are some of their names: Wa-ya-wei-i-ni-ma, Mo-o-ho, Ha-hei-i, So-li, Ni-vai-un-si, Si-ka-ho-in-ni-ma, Na-i-so-wa, Ma-san-i-yam-ka, Ko-hoi-ko-cha, Tang-a-ka-win-ka, Hun-o-wi-ti, Ko-mai-a-ni-ma, Ke-li-an-i-ma.
The finishing of the house is as interesting as the actual building. With a small heap of adobe mud the woman, using her hand as a trowel, fills in the chinks, smooths and plasters the walls inside and out. Splashed from head to foot with mud, she is an object to behold, and, as is often the case, if her children are there to "help" her, no mud-larks on the North River, the Missouri, or the Thames ever looked more happy in their complete abandonment to dirt than they. Then when the whitewashing is done with gypsum, or the coloring of the walls with a brown wash, what fun the children have. No pinto pony was ever more speckled and variegated than they as they splash their tiny hands into the coloring matter and dash it upon the walls.
Hopi Women building a House at Oraibi.
