Though the Hopi may have no house shrines, and this is said with caution, because not much is known of their domestic life, yet in some of the houses are rude stone images which are venerated. These images may be household gods like the Lares and Penates of the ancients. No one would be surprised to know that the Hopi hold the fireplace sacred and make sacrifice to it as the shrine of Masauah, the dread ruler of the underworld.
So while our towns have interesting churches and historical buildings, none of them can compete with the high houses of the Hopi surrounded by primitive shrines to the nature gods, who, in their simple belief, protect the people and send the rains which insure abundant harvests.
VIII
MYTHS
As yet the myths of the Hopi have not been systematically collected, hence our view of the deeper workings of the Hopi mind is a limited one. No observer familiar with the language has lived with the Good People in order to hear from the wrinkled sages the tales of beginnings and the explanations of things that must be stored in their minds, if the fragmentary utterances that are extant may give indication. A few myths collated principally from the writings of Dr. J. Walter Fewkes are given as examples, displaying the range and depth of the imagination of these Indians.[11]
[11] Since writing this Rev. H. R. Voth has published a valuable collection of folk-tales and myths. Field Mus. Pub. 96.
In the early days when the world was young, many monsters, most of whom were hostile to man, roamed the earth or infested the sky, and particularly harassed the Hopi. These monsters were gigantic in size and possessed special weapons of tremendous power to assist them in their supernatural craft. Long the people groaned under the ravages of the monsters, and the time and manner of their deliverance they delight to recount in many weird stories during the winter nights by their flickering fires of piñon wood.
In the earth lived the Spider Woman, ancient of days, full of wisdom, and having a tender regard for her people, the Hopi. Born to her from a light-ray and a drop of rain were the Twins; one, the son of light, was the little war-god called the Youth; the other was Echo, the son of the cloud.
The Youth became the savior of the people; his heroic deeds of the old times in slaying the monsters cause him still to be held in reverence by the Hopi and remembered in their ceremonies.
The conquests of the Twins gave rise to many strange adventures. The transformation of the man-eagle by the Twins is a favorite legend of the Hopi.