The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi

By a brief survey of present day Hopi culture and an examination into the myths and traditions constituting the unwritten literature of this people, this bulletin proposes to show that an intimate connection exists between their ritual acts, their moral standards, their social organization, even their practical activities of today, and their myths and tales-the still unwritten legendary lore. Excerpt: The Hopi Indians live in northern Arizona about one hundred miles northeast of Flagstaff, seventy miles north of Winslow, and seventy-five miles north of Holbrook. For at least eight hundred years the Hopi pueblos have occupied the southern points of three fingers of Black Mesa, the outstanding physical feature of the country, commonly referred to as First, Second, and Third Mesas. It is evident that in late prehistoric times several large villages were located at the foot of First and Second Mesas, but at present, except for two small settlements around trading posts, the villages are all on top of the mesas. On the First Mesa we find Walpi, Sichomovi, and Hano, the latter not Hopi but a Tewa village built about 1700 by immigrants from the Rio Grande Valley, and at the foot of this mesa the modern village of Polacca with its government school and trading post. On Second Mesa are Mashongnovi, Shipaulovi, and Shungopovi, with Toreva Day School at its foot. On Third Mesa Oraibi, Hotavilla, and Bacabi are found, with a government school and a trading post at Lower Oraibi and another school at Bacabi. Moencopi, an offshoot from Old Oraibi, is near Tuba City. This area was once known as the old Spanish Province of Tusayan, and the Hopi villages are called pueblos, Spanish for towns. In 1882, 2,472,320 acres of land were set aside from the public domain as the Hopi Indian Reservation. At present the Hopi area is included within the greater Navajo Reservation and administered by a branch of the latter Indian agency. The name Hopi or Hopitah means "peaceful people," and the name Moqui, sometimes applied to them by unfriendly Navajo neighbors, is really a Zuni word meaning "dead," a term of derision. Naturally the Hopi do not like being called Moqui, though no open resentment is ever shown. Early fiction and even some early scientific reports used the term Moqui instead of Hopi. Admirers have called these peaceful pueblo dwellers "The Quaker People," but that is a misnomer for these sturdy brown heathen who have never asked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a creditable record of defensive warfare during early historic times and running back into their traditional history, and have also some accounts of civil strife. The nomadic Utes, Piutes, Apaches, and Navajos for years raided the fields and flocks of this industrious, prosperous, sedentary people; in fact, the famous Navajo blanket weavers got the art of weaving and their first stock of sheep through stealing Hopi women and Hopi sheep. But there came a time when the peaceful Hopi decided to kill the Navajos who stole their crops and their girls, and then conditions improved. Too, soon after, came the United States government and Kit Carson to discipline the raiding Navajos.