The Hopi Indians

by Walter Hough

Quite opportunely the next day, an invitation to see the burning of pottery came from an aged potter who resides at the Sun Spring. When the great Hopi clock reached the appointed place in the heavens, the bowed yet active potter was found getting ready for the important work of firing the ware. In the heap of cinders, ashes, and bits of rock left from former firings, the little old woman scooped out a concave ring. Nearby was a heap of slabs of dry sheep’s droppings, quarried from the floor of a fold perched on a ledge high up the mesa and brought down in the indispensable blanket. In the center of the concave kiln floor a heap of this fuel was ignited by the aid of some frayed cedar bark and a borrowed match from the opportune Pahana, “people of the far water,” the name by which white men are known. When the fire was well established, it was gradually spread over the floor to near the margin and the decorated bowls brought from the house were set up around with the concave sides toward the fire, while the potter brought, in her blanket, a back load of friable sandstone from a neighboring hillock.

Under the first heat the ware turned from white to purple gray or lavender, gradually assuming a lead color. They were soon heated enough and were ready for the kiln. Guarding her hand by the interposition of a fold of the blanket, the potter set the vessels, now quite unattractive, aside, proceeded to rake the fire flat and laid thereon fragments of stone at intervals to serve as rests or stilts for the ware. Larger vessels were set over smaller and all were arranged as compactly as possible. Piece by piece, dextrously as a mason, the potter built around the vessels a wall of fuel, narrowing at the top, till a few slabs completed the dome of the structure, itself kiln and fuel.

Care was taken not to allow the fuel to touch the vessels, as a discoloration of the ware would result, which might subject the potter to the shafts of ridicule. Gradually the fire from below creeps up the walls till the interior is aglow and the ware becomes red hot. Little attention is now needed except closing burned out apertures with new pieces of fuel; the potter, who before, during the careful and exact dispositions, has been giving little ejaculations as though talking to a small child, visits the kiln intermittently from the nearby house. Here she seeks refuge from the penetrating, unaromatic smoke and the blazing sun.

The Hopi have an odd superstition that if any one speaks above a whisper during the burning of pottery the spirit inhabiting the vessel will cause it to break. No doubt the potter had this in mind while she was whispering and was using all her blandishments to induce the small spirits to be good.

She remarked that when the sun should hang over the brow of the mesa at the height indicated by her laborious fingers, the ware would be baked, the kiln a heap of ashes, the yellow decoration a lively red and the black a dark brown on a rich cream-color ground. Next day, with true foresight, she brought her quaint wares to the camp and made a good bargain for them, incidentally asking, “Matches all gone?”

One woman at least in Tusayan is a weaver of blankets. Anowita’s wife enjoys that distinction because she is a Navaho, among whom weaving is woman’s work. The Hopi housewives have enough to do keeping house, a thing not burdensome to the Navaho, and as has been explained, the Hopi men hold a monopoly of the spinning and weaving.

Time out of mind the Hopi have grown cotton in their little fields, and the first white men that made their acquaintance were presented with “towels” of their weaving as a peace offering. In the cliff-houses of the ancient people are found woven fabrics of cotton and rugs made of strips of rabbit fur like those now to be seen in the pueblos. The ancient people also had feather garments made by tying plumage to a network of cords. In the ruins of the pueblos one often finds cotton seeds which have been buried with the dead, and the braided mats of yucca or bark and bits of cloth fortunately preserved show that the people of former times were skilful weavers. There is no reason to doubt that the Hopi stuffs were prized for their excellence throughout the Southwest in the early times as they are now.

When the Spaniards brought sheep among the pueblos, the weavers and fabric makers seem to have appreciated the value of wool at once, and the ancient garments of feathers and skins quickly disappeared. Cotton remained in use only for ceremonial costumes or for cord employed in the religious ceremonies. The rabbit-fur robes which once were made throughout a vast region of the Rockies from Alaska to the Gulf of California were largely displaced by blankets, in later years, gorgeously dyed and cunningly woven. Long before the introduction of trade dyes the Hopi were satisfied with sober colors; the dark blue and brown given to the yarn by the women were from the plants. Even now the Hopi weavers stick to their colors and refuse to perpetrate the zigzags of the Navaho. For this reason the women of all the pueblos of the Southwest dress in dark blue and brown, as the Hopi are purveyors of stuffs for wear to all their fellow house-dwellers of Indian lineage. Good cloth it is, too, and worthy of its renown, for it wears exceedingly well. More than one generation often enjoys its service, and when the older folks get through with their blanket dresses, the little ones have garments fashioned from them for their own apparel.

If one will examine the Hopi blankets, he will be surprised at the skilful weaving they show. The blanket dress often has the body of plain weaving in black and the two ends bordered with damask or basket weave in blue. Sometimes a whole blanket is of damask, giving a surface that, on close inspection, has a pleasing effect. The women’s ceremonial blanket of cotton with blue and red borders sometimes show three kinds of weaving and several varieties of cording. The belts also have a wonderful range of patterns. On the whole, one is led to believe that the Hopi are more adept at weaving than their rivals, the Navaho.

The carding and spinning are thoroughly done, the resulting yarn being strong, even, and tightly twisted with the simple spindle. Sometimes the spinner dresses and finishes the yarn by means of a corn cob smoothed by long use. The women, by virtue of their skill in culinary matters, are usually the dyers, and the dye they concoct from sunflower seeds or blue beans is a fast blue. In old times cotton was prepared for spinning by whipping it with slender switches on a bed of sand, and this process is yet required for the cotton used for the sacred sashes. Now nearly every family is provided with wire cards purchased from traders. These cards look quite out of place in the hands of priests in the kiva, where they are used in combing the cotton for the sacred cord used in tying the feathers to the pahos.