October is called the Harvest moon. The women who garner the grain hold a ceremony at this time and great is the feasting and rejoicing in the pueblo. The winter tightens in November, called the “Neophyte moon,” since the youths of proper age are initiated into the societies in this month. These beginners bear the sportive name of “Pigeon Hawks.” In even years comes the great ceremony of the New Fire, full of strange rites of fire worship handed down from the olden time. In odd years occurs the Na-a-ish-nya ceremony, which like the other is performed by the New Fire Society. By December, Tusayan is hard in the grip of winter, and as the spirits are held fast beneath the frozen ground, they cannot do ill to anyone who speaks about them, so that many legends and stories and much sacred lore are freely divulged around the glowing fires of fat piñon wood in the Hopi houses. Everyone is also on the qui vive for the Soyaluna, in many respects the most important ceremony in the Hopi calendar, when the first kachinas appear. December is called the “Hoe moon” because in this month it is prescribed that the fields shall be cleared for the spring planting. The wind has perhaps done its share toward clearing movable things from the fields, but much remains to be done in leveling the surface for the spring sowing.
No month of winter is too cold for a ceremony. January, called the “Prayer-stick moon,” brings the Alosaka, a ceremony of the Horn Society with their grotesque masks. During the vicissitudes of this hard month, more of the beloved kachinas return to their people from the high peaks of the San Francisco Mountains, poetically known as the “snow houses,” and to these ancestral beings many petitions are made.
February, the hardest month of all the winter, is called the “Getting-ready moon.” It was in this month that the hero of the Kachina people found melons and green corn near the San Francisco Mountains. The Powamu ceremony is held during this moon.
If the Hopi should have nearly reached the starvation point, March is likely to inspire a hope of reaching the end of the disastrous season, for in sheltered places a few shoots of green appear, and if the moisture from melting snow is sufficient, perhaps the little wiwa plant springs up, furnishing palatable and nourishing greens. For some reason March is called the “Prickly-pear moon,” and it is the only month named from a natural object. Perhaps the designation points to a time when some of the Hopi lived in a clime where the prickly-pear bloomed in March. This might have been in southern Arizona, whence a number of clans, for instance, such as the “Agave People,” have derived their names. March ushers in the most disagreeable part of the year, the season of fierce winds charged with dust and sand which drift like snow against the sides of the mesas.
This chronicle of the winter of the Hopi, incomplete as it is, shows that the “Peaceful People” get a great deal of enjoyment out of life at this season. Many important ceremonies belong to the wintertime and there are conventions of the different societies. In the underground meeting-places those entitled to the privileges drop in for gossip, as at a club, being sure of warmth, agreeable company, and perhaps a smoke to while away the time. Around the fireside, also, there is a good company, and plenty of stories, well worth the hearing, are told. The men may go hunting or make a winter journey to the settlements or the mountains.
As for the cold, the Hopi seem to regard it lightly. There is little or no change in the costume, though the blanket or the rabbit-fur robe comes in handy for a wrap. If a man has an errand out of doors he trusts to running to keep up the circulation. After the ceremonies, the men usually ascend, scantily clothed, from the superheated kivas into the bitter air, with utter disregard for the rules of health. The purity of the air is a saving factor; nevertheless, pulmonary diseases are common, due to the close, badly ventilated houses more than to any other causes.
Most visitors to Tusayan see the Hopiland at the best season, when the cornfields are green and the cottonwoods are in full leaf, when the desert smiles to its greatest capability and the people are well fed and happy. The rebirth of Nature begins in April, when the thrifty farmers cut brush and set up long wind-breaks to protect prospective crops. The month is named for this circumstance, and like everything else at the pueblos the time for beginning work is prescribed, according to custom, by those in authority over the clans.
Frosts and lashing winds often destroy every green shoot in the spring, save the native plants, which are inured to the weather, and the people frequently have to mourn the loss of their peaches, their only desirable fruit, for which they owe a debt to the Spanish friars of long ago.
In the “Waiting moon,” as May is called, all is activity in the fields, for the planting of the sweet corn goes merrily on and the Hopi become, for most of the time, an outdoor people. The winds perhaps have abated their power or have ceased entirely, and life is more pleasant under the warm sun. Still, with all the work incident to the care of the fields there is time for ceremony and during the period between the arrival of the kachinas in December and their departure in July, there are many minor celebrations by masked dancers in addition to the great monthly ceremonies. Especially interesting in the season of awakening life and growing crops are these kachina dances with their pleasing songs and pageantry, their unlimited variety and surprises. The “Peaceful People” enjoy this season in the highest degree. June and July see every Hopi happy, unless there is something constitutionally wrong with him or he is afflicted with sickness. It is difficult to realize how thoroughly all Hopi life is linked with growing things, showing out in their every word and action and entering into their ideas of the unseen world.
When the sun pauses in his march along the eastern horizon at the summer solstice, the Hopi spend the day in making feather prayer-plumes as petitions for blessings. These children of the sun know the course of Dawa, the sun, and read his positions as we the hands of a clock.