Showing the elaborate masks used by the Hopi
Close to their homes are many shrines that excite the curiosity of tourists and that sometimes get visitors into trouble. Once a couple of the overly curious were thrashed with whips by Hopi of the Chimopovi district—for which the guilty were severely punished by the Agent then in charge. But more than one Agent has ordered busybodies to replace bahoos and gifts taken from such places. While I had a hand in this, and finally stopped the plundering of old graves, and once prevented the sale and removal of an entire Hopi altar, still I must admit that I never caught a tourist or a “scratcher” pillaging a newly made grave.
Most of the clans must have been intermingled in so small a population. We have Youkeoma’s statement that there is a Ghost clan, subdivided into a Ghost-and-Bird clan. A more intelligent member of the tribe once endeavored [[339]]to recall for me the numerous fraternities of his people. He said: “The Sun, Salt, Crow, and Ant clans are dead. There are no more of those people. The Parrot clan now has but one member, a woman. The Bear clan is the largest, and next come the Sand and Snake clans. There are the Spider and Evergreen clans. Some of them go in groups, so we have the Bear, Spider, and Evergreen clans associated, as is the Rabbit clan with the Tobacco clan. We have the Eagle, the Horn, the Fire, and the Flute clan; the Antelope, the Lizard, and the Corn clan.” And when that group of progressive head-men petitioned Washington in 1886 for a school, they signed themselves as leaders of the Mountain-sheep clan, the Coyote and Badger clans, the Rain, the Reed, and the Katchina clans. But one of these men is living to-day—Honani, of Chimopovi, always one of the friendlies. The most interesting and impressive of them, Shupula, father of the chief Snake priest, died July 4, 1916, a benign old man whose features are preserved in a splendid piece of modeling by Mr. Emri Kopte, the sculptor who has lived for many years among the Hopi Indians.
Next to these phases of his religion are the red pages of his life-calendar. The Hopi is born to a heritage of toil in an unfriendly environment, and perhaps to misunderstanding and small sympathy; but the poetry of his life begins at once. The paternal grandmother acts as his nurse. After bathing the child she anoints it with wood ashes, that he may have a smooth body. The mother is supposed not to let the sun shine on her for the period of twenty days, at the end of which time the child is named. Only the women of the husband’s family are present at this ceremony. They bring a blanket of Hopi weave, and a bowl of sacred water to place before the mother. They [[340]]wash her hair with this water. Each of these godmothers brings an ear of corn as an offering. They dip the corn in the water and stroke the head of the infant four times, making at the same time a wish for its health and happiness. Each of them suggests a name. The child will belong to the mother’s clan, but will be named for something denoting the father’s clan. If the father happens to be a member of the Sand clan, his children will be named for things common to the desert sand.
HOPI MOTHER IN GALA DRESS, WITH HER CHILD
Photo. by H. R. Robinson
NAVAJO MOTHER, WITH A CHILD IN ITS CRADLE
On the twenty-first day after the birth these women have assembled and washed the mother’s hair. This is before sunrise: they are a dawn-loving people. Then the grandmother takes the infant in one arm and the mother by the hand. Imagine that little ceremony upon the craggy mesa-top in the gray chill of the desert morning, high in the thin air, overlooking all the dim sleeping valleys. They step to the mesa edge to view the rising sun. Sacred meal, mixed with corn-pollen, is strewn on the air. Then, as that mellow light flames the farthest east, radiating from the hearts of all the people, gilding Yucca Point and the Terrace of the Winds, plashing warmly the cold walls of the mesa fortress, the grandmother speaks the name she has selected from those suggested for the child.