The Hopi Indians

by Walter Hough

Nowhere are these little flowers of the tree of life more cunning and interesting. Like the Japanese children they seem to deserve no correction, and it is as rare a sight as green grass, in the land of Tusayan, to see a parent strike a child. Always instead there is kindness and affection worthy of the highest praise. It is refreshing to observe the association of children with their parents or near relatives, and how quiet and obedient they are. This close parental attention must be the secret of good children wherever the country may be. The Hopi children are fortunate in having many teachers who, at home or in the fields or in the country, explain to them the useful things which they should know in order to become good citizens of Tusayan. It surprises visitors to find out how much the little people have learned, not only of the birds, plants, and other sides of nature, but of their future duties in the house, the fields, and the village, and one comes to respect the Hopi kindergarten in which the children are taught through play-work and unconsciously come to “know how.” Even the odd-looking dolls, which the Hopi children love with the same fervor as the rest of the little men and women of the child world, assist in teaching. These dolls, carved from cottonwood and brilliantly decorated with paint, feathers, and shells, represent the numerous beings who inhabit the spiritual world supposed to rule the destinies of the Hopi. The children are given these wooden figures to play with, and thus they learn the appearance of the gods and at the same time get a lesson in mythology.

In their sport, several little fellows armed with bows and arrows may pretend to guard the pueblo, and no doubt they have the same proud feeling in possessing these savage weapons of war as a small white boy has when master of a toy gun. Little tots scarcely able to walk will be encouraged to shoot at a target made of a bundle of sage-brush set up in the sand at no great distance, and loud is the applause from the parents and other onlookers when one of these infants bowls over the target. The girls congregate in a secluded street and play, their soft voices quite in contrast with any such group of white children. Perhaps the game is “play house,” with the help of a few stones and much imagination. The moment, however, a visitor casts his eye in their direction the game is broken up and all become painfully conscious of his presence. Should a rain fill the water holes on the mesa the children have great sport bathing, splashing around like ducks and chasing one another. This must be a rare treat to the children, because, like Christmas, the good fortune of a rainwater bath may come but once a year.

Wherever the grown people go, the children go along, berrying, gathering grass and yucca for baskets, or seeds of the wild plants for food, watching the cornfield, or gathering the crops, each having a little share in the work and a good portion of amusement. One soon sees that the children of the Hopi help in everything that is going on and take care not to hinder. If a house is being built, the little ones work as hard as their elders, carrying in their baskets a tiny load of stones or earth for the building with an earnestness that is really amusing. Outside of the Hopi towns one usually finds a number of inscriptions in picture writing on the rocks. Besides the inscriptions there are many cup-shaped depressions that have puzzled more than one visitor. One day some children were seen hammering diligently on the rocks with hand-stones, and it was found that they were digging cup-cavities in the soft sandstone, perhaps making tiny play-reservoirs to catch rain water. The children may also be responsible for many of the queer pictures that adorn the smooth sides of the rocks around the villages; and who knows but that many ancient inscriptions on the Arizona rocks were cut by childish hands.

In every Hopi child’s life the time comes when he must join some one of the brotherhoods or societies, which take in nearly every one in the pueblos, so that a young man to have any standing must belong to one at least of the Kachina brotherhoods. The boys during their solemn initiation are soundly whipped by the “flogger,” whose name need but be mentioned to the little ones to make them scamper.

But this takes us beyond the age of tender childhood in the children’s Paradise. To a children’s friend the Hopi tots are a perennial joy. Their bright eyes are full of appreciation, though bashfulness may make them hide behind mother’s skirts, but there is a magic word they have learned from the white people which overcomes that. A picture still dwells in the writer’s mind of a little fellow who approached some visitors as near as he dared and spoke the two words of English he knew: “Hello, kente” (candy).

Although the ceremony of marriage is of small importance in comparison with the endless ceremonies of the Hopi priesthoods, yet a great deal of interest clusters around it and it is really a complicated affair. The trying antecedent stage of courtship, so amusing to those not concerned, is the same as among civilized young men and maidens. One of the first questions Hopi women ask one is, “Have you a wife?” and if the answer is negative, they express condolence and sympathy, if they do not go so far as to inquire the reason. As elsewhere, the young man must show some possession and likewise an ability to provide before he can take the step of matrimony, and of course, the most inflexible rule of all those which regulate the affairs in Hopiland is observed in making the choice of a wife—the absolute prohibition against marriage between members of the same clan. If both have the totem of the tobacco plant, for instance, it would be hopeless to think of union even if it were imaginable that such a thing would ever enter a Hopi’s thoughts. There may be no relationship, but if the clan name is the same, there is an effectual bar.

One of the sure signs that matters are going smoothly is when a girl is seen combing a young man’s hair, seated perhaps in the doorway where all the world may stare. This is taken to mean a betrothal, but long before this in a community where everyone’s business is known, the “match” has been no secret. Hopi courtship presents advantages. No prospectively irate parents have to be asked; the Peaceful People do not put thorns in the path of true love, but let things adjust themselves in a simple, natural way. There are no first families with pride of birth or wealth, no exclusive circles or cliques, there is no bar except the totem in this perfect democracy.

When the young people decide to be married, the girl informs her mother, who takes her daughter, bearing a tray of meal made from white corn, to the house of the bridegroom where she is received by his mother with thanks. During that day she must labor at the mealing stones, grinding white corn, silent and unnoticed; the next day she must continue her task with the white corn. On the third day of this laborious trial she grinds the dark blue corn which the Hopi call black, no doubt glad when the evening brings a group of her friends, laden with trays of meal of their own grinding, as presents, and according to custom, these presents are returned in kind, the trays being sent back next day heavy with choice ears of corn.

After this three days’ probation, which would indicate that a Hopi maiden must be very devoted to undertake it, comes the wedding. Upon that day, the mother cuts the bride’s front hair at the level of her chin and dresses the longer locks in two coils, which she must always wear over her breast to give token that she is no longer a maiden. At the dawn of the fourth day the relatives of both families assemble, each one bringing a small quantity of water in a vessel. The two mothers pound up roots of the yucca used as soap and prepare two bowls of foaming suds. The young man kneels before the bowl prepared by his future mother-in-law as the bride before the bowl of the young man’s mother, and their heads are thoroughly washed and the relatives take part by pouring handsful of suds over the bowed heads of the couple. While this ceremonial head-washing is going on, some of the women and girls creep in between the couple and try to hold their heads over the bowls while others strive to tear away the intruders, and a great deal of jollity ensues. When the head-washing is over the visitors rinse the hair of the couple with the water they have brought, and return home. Then the bridal couple each takes a pinch of corn-meal and leaving the house go silently to the eastern side of the mesa on which the pueblo of Oraibi stands. Holding the meal to their lips, they cast the meal toward the dawn, breathing a prayer for a long and prosperous life, and return to the house as husband and wife.

The ceremony over, the mother of the bride builds a fire under the baking stone, while the daughter prepares the batter and begins to bake a large quantity of paper bread. After this practical and beautiful starting of the young folks in life the mother returns to her home. But there is much more to do before the newly married merge into the staid married folks of Tusayan. The wedding breakfast follows closely on the heels of the ceremony and the father of the young man must run through the pueblo with a bag of cotton, handfuls of which he gives to the relatives and friends, who pick out the seeds and return the cotton to him. This cotton is for the wedding blankets and sash which are to be the trousseau of the bride.