The Hopi Indians

by Walter Hough

The rocks all over the Southwest bear witness that the Hopi can draw. In thousands of instances he expressed his meaning in symbols or in compositions representing the chase of the deer or mountain goat. One of these groups on the smooth rocks near Holbrook, Arizona, shows a man driving a flock of turkeys, and is exceedingly graphic. On the cliff faces below Walpi are numerous well-executed pictographs, and occasionally one runs across recent work on the mesa top that excites admiration. With sculpture in the round the Hopi has done nothing remarkable because his tastes and materials have never led in this direction. A few rather large figures rudely carved from soft sandstone may be seen around the pueblos, and numerous fetiches, some of very hard stone, representing wolves, bears, and other animals, are still in the keeping of the societies. Some of these are very well done, but show little progress in sculpture. The visitor must beware of the little fetiches whittled from soft stone and offered for sale as genuine by the guileful Hopi in quest of shiba.

The industry which the Hopi woman has all in her own hands is basket-making, and the work is apportioned to such as have the skill and fancy for it, as if there were a division of labor. The women of the three towns on the East Mesa do not make baskets at all, those of the Middle Mesa sew only coiled baskets, while the women of Oraibi weave wicker baskets exclusively. Thus, there is no difficulty in saying just where a Hopi basket comes from, and there is also no excuse for not recognizing these specimens of Hopi woman’s work at first glance, as they have a strong individuality that separates them from all other baskets of the Indians.

If one should visit the most skilful basket-maker of the Middle Mesa, Kuchyeampsi, that modest little woman, might be seen busily at work, and from her a great deal about the construction of coiled baskets could be learned. But it would take some time and patience to find that the grass whose stems she gathers for the body of the coil is named takashu, which botanists know as Hilaria jamesii, and that the strips which she sews over and joins the coil are from the leaves of the useful mohu (Yucca glauca).

Then when Kuchyeampsi comes home laden with her basket materials one must take further lessons in stripping the yucca leaves, splitting them with the thumb-nail to uniform size, and dyeing some of them various colors, for which anilines are principally used in these degenerate days. One must have an eye for the colors of the natural leaves of the yucca and select the yellow or yellowish green of the old leaves, the vivid green of the young leaves, and the white of the heart leaves, for the basket weaver discriminates all of these and uses them in her work.

Of course Kuchyeampsi has all her material ready, the strips buried in moist sand, the grass moistened, and she may be starting a plaque. The slender coil at the center is too small to be formed with grass stems, so she builds it up of waste bits from the leaf-stripping, wrapping it with yucca strips, and taking only a few stitches with the encircling coil, since the bone awl is too clumsy for continuous stitching at the outset. After the third round the bone awl is plied, continuously piercing through under the coil and taking in the stitches beneath strips. As a hole is made the yucca strip is threaded through and drawn tight on the grass coil, and so the patient work goes on till the basket is complete. The patterns which appear on the baskets are stored up in the maker’s brain and unfold as the coil progresses with the same accuracy as is evinced by the pottery decorator. The finish of the end of the coil gives an interesting commentary on Hopi beliefs. It is said that the woman who leaves the coil end unfinished does not complete it because that would close her life and no more children would bless her.

At Oraibi one may see the women making wicker tray-baskets. Three or four slender sumach twigs are wickered together side by side at the middle and another similar bundle laid across the first at right angles. Then dyed branches of a desert plant known as “rabbit brush” are woven in and out between the twigs, and as the basket progresses she adds other radial rods until the basket is large enough. She finishes the edge by bending over the sumach ribs, forming a core, around which she wraps strips of yucca.

One must admire the accuracy with which the designs are kept in mind and woven into the structure of the basket with splints of various colors or strips of tough yucca. The translation of a design into the radiating sewing of the coiled basket or the horizontal filling of the wicker basket shows the necessity of the different treatments, contrasting with the freedom which it is the potter’s privilege to display on the smooth surface of her ware. So far as known the Hopi women never fail in applying their designs, however intricate. Frequently these designs represent mythical birds, butterflies, clouds, etc.

Among the Hopi certain of the villages are noted for their local manufactures. Thus Walpi and Hano are practically the only towns where pottery is made, the Middle Mesa towns are headquarters for coiled baskets, and Oraibi furnishes wicker baskets. Perhaps the meaning of this is that these arts belong to clans, who have preserved them and know the secrets, and with the dying out of the workers or migration of the clans the arts have disappeared or have been transformed. Another cause which will suggest itself is the local abundance and quality of the materials required to be found in the surrounding plains and mountains.

Basketry has at least as many uses as pottery among the Hopi, and a number of kinds besides the familiar plaques with symbolical decoration have been eagerly sought by collectors. The crops from the fields are borne to the houses on the mesas in carrying baskets, resembling a pannier, which are worked of wicker over a frame of two bent sticks crossed at right angles. In the house the coiled and wicker trays heaped high with corn meal, the basket for parched corn and the sifting basket near the corn grinding stones, will be found. In the bread-baking room is the coarse, though effective, piki tray, and occasionally one may still see a neatly made floor mat. The thin checker mat of ancient days has long since gone out of use, but formerly, the dead were wrapped in such mats before they were placed in the earth.

Over the fireplace is a hood of basketry plastered to prevent burning. The wicker cradle to which the infant hopeful is bound must not be forgotten. Several small globular wicker baskets for various purposes may also be displayed among the household belongings. The mat of grass stems in which the wedding blanket is folded is also a kind of basketry, as are the twined mats for covering the hatchway of the kiva and the twined fence around the fields.