The Hopi Indians

by Walter Hough

A portrait gallery of the celebrities of Tusayan would not be complete without Mungwe, or, as his name is translated, “El Capitan,” “Cap” for short; but his name is properly Mongwe, “the owl.” “Cap” is a Tewa whose ancestors were invited long ago to come from the Rio Grande and cast their lot with the Hopi on the Walpi Mesa. Here their descendants still dwell in the village of Hano, preserving the language and customs transplanted from the “Great River of the North.” “Cap” is one of the most energetic and capable Indians in all Hopiland. Wiry in figure, alert of movement, loquacious, quick of comprehension, trustworthy and experienced, he is quite in advance of the large majority of his contemporaries. Long ago he abandoned the inconvenient mesa; his farm-house with its red roof can be seen among his cornfields far out in the broad valley to the southeast of Walpi. The men who work for Mongwe seem to be pervaded with his energy, and there is no doubt that he is regarded by them as a captain of industry, for he allows no laggards to eat his bread. In the line of teaming, Cap excels. No matter how long or bad the road or how heavy the load, his staunch little ponies will carry it through. A rickety wagon and providence-tempting harness seem to prove no bar to any attempt, where money is to be earned. Hence, though a number of the Hopi possess wagons through the generosity of the Government, Mongwe gets most of the hauling.

Our friend, alas, is not modest in the announcement of his worth. It is a subject on which his tongue works like a spinning-jenny. At night after the cares of the day, sitting around the camp-fire with ample bread, unlimited rashers of bacon, and a circle of hearers, Cap eats and talks in the plural. The word plural calls for a sentence or two in reference to Cap’s wives. Not that he has ever defied Hopi customs to the extent of having more than one wife at a time, but the list of the ones who have disagreed with him, if completely up to date, would be interesting reading. From what can be gleaned, in this Utopian land, women have the right of divorce. The relationship of Cap’s children, it will be seen, is very assorted. To hazard a guess, Cap’s matrimonial ventures are marred by his general “fussiness.”

Aside from this, Mongwe is an honor to Hopiland. His success has drawn to him a party of the young generation who are afflicted with the universal desire for shiba (silver), and if they are inspired with Mongwe’s example it will be a benefit to Tusayan, the Hopi body politic, which needs active young blood to overcome the centuries of inertion.

Another vivacious Hopi is Wupa, whose name means “great.” The fatherly interest which Wupa takes in the white man was sufficient recommendation to attach him to our camp as man-of-all-work, and a closer acquaintance brought to view other sides of his character in which the gay features far outnumber the grave. Faithful to the extent of his lights, though averse to steady work, he managed to earn his bread and a small stipend, but considering the entertainment he furnished, his pay should have been equal to that of the end-man in a minstrel show.

So it happens that the memories of Wupa bring forth a flood of pleasing recollections. The merriest of all that merry race of laughing, joking, singing Hopi, his presence around the camp-fire diffused an atmosphere of cheerfulness which does not always prevail amidst the discomforts of roughing-it in the desert. Short of stature and bandy-legged, possessed of a headpiece wrinkled and quizzical, one cannot by any stretch of the imagination make him out handsome; but he is so loquacious, witty, and full of tricks that it is not possible to doubt his fitness for the position of king’s jester. Wupa has his moods, though. Sometimes an air of preternatural gravity and unspeakable wisdom enwraps him; very close behind this mask, for such it is, lurks a mirth-provoking skit and boisterous laugh. Like other humorists Wupa has the fatality of being most amusing when serious. Still, in the iridescent interworld between smiles and tears Wupa has a romantic and sad history.

The dramatis personae woven into this history are white men, Mexicans, Zuñi Indians, and his fellow Hopi. The first misfortune that befell Wupa was to be born at the time when famine harried the Peaceful People in their seven villages to the north of the Little Colorado. Famine is an old story with the Hopi. For two years no rain had fallen, and neither the Snake nor the Flute dance availed to bring the good will of their gods. The sacredly reserved corn laid up to tide over a bad year had been eaten, and the Hopi were in distress. They gathered the wild plants that seem to be independent of drought, and tried to keep soul and body together till the rain-clouds should again sweep across the Painted Desert; but many were those who never saw the time of ripe corn. Many deserted the pueblos and cast their lot among the Navaho shepherds, the Havasupai of Cataract Canyon, and other more fortunate tribes of friendly people.

So it happened that Wupa’s mother with her hungry babe took the well-known trail to Zuñi 100 miles away, and nerved with the strength of desperation at last reached the pueblo under “Corn Mountain.” Indian philanthropy rarely extends outside the circle of relatives, and the Zuñi had no mind to give corn to the poor Hopi woman beyond enough to keep her from starving. But little Wupa was worth a bushel of the precious ears, and for that amount he was exchanged, becoming, without being consulted, a Zuñi, while his mother trudged back to Hopiland with food for her starving kinsfolk, feeling, no doubt, little sorrow at the loss of her babe, so great is the levelling power of famine and misfortune. There are usually strays at all Indian villages, and thus the presence of the little Hopi stranger passed without notice. When the crops were assured in the fields of the famine-stricken Hopi, they ceased coming to Zuñi, and Wupa seems to have been unclaimed and forgotten.

When he was five or six, the Zuñi in turn sold him to some Mexicans, and the next account there is of him he was living at Albuquerque, a stout young peon, with cropped hair, a devout Catholic, speaking Castilian after the fashion of the “Greasers.” Wupa thus became, to all intents and purposes, a Mexican, and perhaps had lost sight of his origin. Neither is the transition from Indian to Mexican at all difficult or incongruous. Few Americans realize the new problem of the population that came to us through the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the clannish, unprogressive foreigners who were made American citizens without being consulted. It must be said, however, that the Anglo-Saxon prejudice of the Latin leaves quite out of sight the good qualities of the Mexican; it rarely considers that his ignorance is due largely to lack of advantages during several centuries, and that the strain of Indian blood has not helped matters. According to the white man’s way of looking at it, this listless race, seemingly satisfied to be peons in the land of the free, is inferior and doubtfully classed with the Indians, with the doubt in the latter’s favor.

Wupa quickly picked up the language and associations of his accidental compatriots, and soon the Padre rejoiced in another brand plucked from the burning. His next step was to find a señorita and to marry her, and after the semi-barbarous wedding his woes really begin. In explanation of the description given of Wupa as he appears at present, it may be fair to say that twenty years off his age would leave him a passably young man, but even with this gloss, one cannot form a very high estimate of the señorita’s taste.

During the period of Wupa’s exile, one knowing the Hopi would be curious to find out how he bore himself and whether an inherited love for the freedom of the desert was ever shown. Perhaps the early age at which he began kicking about the world, and his varied experiences, completely lost him to the feeling of his kith and kin. Civilization is irksome to the desert-bred Hopi and he soon becomes as homesick for his wind-swept mesas as the Eskimo for his land of ice or the Bedouin for the Sahara. These questions may have a suggested answer in the home-coming of Wupa, for he returned again to his native pueblo after one of the most varied and remarkable series of adventures that ever filled out a true story. The events that led up to the home-coming of Wupa form not the least interesting episodes in his history and occurred along the old Santa Fé Trail, immortalized by Josiah Gregg. The railroad builders had labored across the plains, up the steep slopes of the Rockies, following the famous trail to old Santa Fé, leaving behind two bands of steel. Blasting, cutting, filling, and bridging, they were advancing toward quiet Albuquerque on the lazy Rio Grande, and the news of these activities stirred that ancient town from center to circumference.