The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi by Hattie Greene Lockett

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Vol. IV, No. 4
May 15, 1933

University of Arizona Bulletin

SOCIAL SCIENCE BULLETIN No. 2

The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi

BY
HATTIE GREENE LOCKETT

PUBLISHED BY
University of Arizona
TUCSON, ARIZONA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction
General Statement
The Challenge
The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life

II. The Hopi
Their Country, The People

III. Hopi Social Organization
Government
The Clan and Marriage
Property, Lands, Houses, Divorce
Woman's Work
Man's Work

IV. Pottery and Basket Making Traditional, Its Symbolism

V. House Building

VI. Myth and Folktale, General Discussion
Stability
Intrusion of Contemporary Material
How and Why Myths are Kept
Service of Myth
Hopi Story Telling

VII. Hopi Religion
Gods and Kachinas
Religion Not for Morality

VIII. Ceremonies, General Discussion
Belief and Ceremonial

IX. Hopi Myths and Traditions and Some Ceremonies Based Upon Them
The Emergence Myth and the Wu-wu-che-Ma Ceremony
Some Migration Myths
Flute Ceremony and Tradition
Other Dances
The Snake Myth and the Snake Dance
A Flood and Turkey Feathers

X. Ceremonies for Birth, Marriage, Burial
Birth
Marriage
Burial

XI. Stories Told Today
An Ancient Feud
Memories of a Hopi Centenarian
The Coyote and the Water Plume Snake
A Bear Story
The Giant and the Twin War Gods
The Coyote and the Turtle
The Frog and the Locust

XII. Conclusion

The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi[1]

[Footnote 1: A thesis accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Archaeology, University of
Arizona, 1933. Published under the direction of the Committee on
Graduate Study, R.J. Leonard, Chairman.]

I. INTRODUCTION

SHOWING THAT THE PRESENT-DAY SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE HOPI IS THE
OUTGROWTH OF THEIR UNWRITTEN LITERATURE

* * * * *

GENERAL STATEMENT

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.

The myths and legends of primitive peoples have always interested the
painter, the poet, the thinker; and we are coming to realize more and
more that they constitute a treasure-trove for the archaeologist, and
especially the anthropologist, for these sources tell us of the
struggles, the triumphs, the wanderings of a people, of their
aspirations, their ideals and beliefs; in short, they give us a twilight
history of the race.

As the geologist traces in the rocks the clear record of the early
beginnings of life on our planet, those first steps that have led
through the succession of ever-developing forms of animal and plant life
at last culminating in man and the world as we now see them, so does the
anthropologist discover in the myths and legends of a people the dim
traces of their origin and development till these come out in the
stronger light of historical time. And it is at this point that the
ethnologist, trying to understand a race as he finds them today, must
look earnestly back into the "realm of beginnings," through this window
of so-called legendary lore, in order to account for much that he finds
in the culture of the present day.

=The Challenge: Need of Research on Basic Beliefs Underlying Ceremonies=

Wissler says:[2] "It is still an open question in primitive social
psychology whether we are justified in assuming that beliefs of a basic
character do motivate ceremonies. It seems to us that such must be the
case, because we recognize a close similarity in numerous practices and
because we are accustomed to believe in the unity of the world and life.
So it may still be our safest procedure to secure better records of
tribal traditional beliefs and to deal with objective procedures as far
as possible. No one has ventured to correlate specific beliefs and
ceremonial procedures, but it is through this approach that the
motivating power of beliefs will be revealed, if such potency exists."

[Footnote 2: Wissler, Clark, An Introduction to Social Anthropology:
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1926, p. 266.]

Some work has been done along this line by Kroeber for the tribes of
California, Lowie for the Crow Indians, and Junod for the Ekoi of West
Africa; but it appears that the anthropological problem of basic beliefs
and philosophies is dependent upon specific tribal studies and that more
research is called for.

=The Myth, Its Meaning and Function in Primitive Life=

As a background for our discussion we shall need to consider first, the
nature and significance of mythology, since there is some, indeed much,
difference of opinion on the subject, and to arrive at some basis of
understanding as to its function.

The so-called school of Nature-Mythology, which flourishes mainly in
Germany, maintains that primitive man is highly interested in natural
phenomena, and that this interest is essentially of a theoretic,
contemplative and poetical character. To writers of this school every
myth has as its kernel or essence some natural phenomenon or other, even
though such idea is not apparent upon the surface of the story; a deeper
meaning, a symbolic reference, being insisted upon. Such famous scholars
as Ehrenreich, Siecke, Winckler, Max Muller, and Kuhn have long given us
this interpretation of myth.

In strong contrast to this theory which regards myth as naturalistic,
symbolic, and imaginary, we have the theory which holds a sacred tale as
a true historical record of the past. This idea is supported by the
so-called Historical school in Germany and America, and represented in
England by Dr. Rivers. We must admit that both history and natural
environment have left a profound imprint on all cultural achievement,
including mythology, but we are not justified in regarding all mythology
as historical chronicle, nor yet as the poetical musings of primitive
naturalists. The primitive does indeed put something of historical
record and something of his best interpretation of mysterious natural
phenomena into his legendary lore, but there is something else, we are
led to believe, that takes precedence over all other considerations in
the mind of the primitive (as well as in the minds of all of the rest of
us) and that is getting on in the world, a pragmatic outlook.

It is evident that the primitive relies upon his ancient lore to help
him out in his struggle with his environment, in his needs spiritual and
his needs physical, and this immense service comes through religious
ritual, moral incentive, and sociological pattern, as laid down in the
cherished magical and legendary lore of his tribe.

The close connection between religion and mythology, under-estimated by
many, has been fully appreciated by the great British anthropologist,
Sir James Frazer, and by classical scholars like Miss Jane Harrison.
The myth is the Bible of the primitive, and just as our Sacred Story
lives in our ritual and in our morality, as it governs our faith and
controls our conduct, even so does the savage live by his mythology.

The myth, as it actually exists in a primitive community, even today, is
not of the nature of fiction such as our novel, but is a living reality,
believed to have once happened in primeval times when the world was
young and continuing ever since to influence the world and human
destiny.

The mere fireside tale of the primitive may be a narrative, true or
imaginary, or a sort of fairy story, a fable or a parable, intended
mainly for the edification of the young and obviously pointing a moral
or emphasizing some useful truth or precept. And here we do recognize
symbolism, much in the nature of historical record. But the special
class of stories regarded by the primitive as sacred, his sacred myths,
are embodied in ritual, morals, and social organization, and form an
integral and active part of primitive culture. These relate back to best
known precedent, to primeval reality, by which pattern the affairs of
men have ever since been guided, and which constitute the only "safe
path."

Malinowski[3] stoutly maintains that these stories concerning the
origins of rites and customs are not told in mere explanation of them;
in fact, he insists they are not intended as explanations at all, but
that the myth states a precedent which constitutes an _ideal_ and a
warrant for its continuance, and sometimes furnishes practical
directions for the procedure. He feels that those who consider the myths
of the savage as mere crude stories made up to explain natural
phenomena, or as historical records true or untrue, have made a mistake
in taking these myths out of their life-context and studying them from
what they look like on paper, and not from what they do in life.

[Footnote 3: Malinowski, B., Myth in Primitive Psychology: M.W. Norton &
Co., Inc., New York, 1926, p. 19.]

Since Malinowski's definition of myth differs radically from that of
many other writers on the subject, we would refer the reader to the
discussion of myth under the head of Social Anthropology in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, Fourteenth Edition, page 869.

II. THE HOPI

* * * * *

=Their Country--The People=

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.

The only semblance of trouble our government has had with the Hopi grew
out of the objection, in fact, refusal, of some of the more conservative
of the village inhabitants to send their children to school. The
children were taken by force, but no blood was shed, and now government
schooling is universally accepted and generally appreciated.

A forbidding expanse of desert waste lands surrounds the Hopi mesas,
furnishing forage for Hopi sheep and goats during the wet season and
browse enough to sustain them during the balance of the year. These
animals are of a hardy type adapted to their desert environment. Our
pure blood stock would fare badly under such conditions. However, the
type of wool obtained from these native sheep lends itself far more
happily to the weaving of the fine soft blankets so long made by the
Hopi than does the wool of our high grade Merino sheep or a mixture of
the two breeds. This is so because our Merino wool requires the
commercial scouring given it by modern machine methods, whereas the Hopi
wool can be reduced to perfect working condition by the primitive hand
washing of the Hopi women.

As one approaches the dun-colored mesas from a distance he follows their
picturesque outlines against the sky line, rising so abruptly from the
plain below, but not until one is within a couple of miles can he
discern the villages that crown their heights. And no wonder these
dun-colored villages seem so perfectly a part of the mesas themselves,
for they are literally so--their rock walls and dirt roofs having been
merely picked up from the floor and sides of the mesa itself and made
into human habitations.

The Hopi number about 2,500 and are a Shoshonean stock. They speak a
language allied to that of the Utes and more remotely to the language of
the Aztecs in Mexico.[4]

[Footnote 4: Colton, H.S., Days in the Painted Desert: Museum Press,
Flagstaff, 1932, p. 17.]

According to their traditions the various Hopi clans arrived in Hopiland
at different times and from different directions, but they were all a
kindred people having the same tongue and the same fundamental
traditions.

They did not at first build on the tops of the mesas, but at their feet,
where their corn fields now are, and it was not from fear of the
war-like and aggressive tribes of neighboring Apaches and Navajos that
they later took to the mesas, as we once supposed. A closer acquaintance
with these people brings out the fact that it was not till the Spaniards
had come to them and established Catholic Missions in the late
Seventeenth Century that the Hopi decided to move to the more easily
defended mesa tops for fear of a punitive expedition from the Spaniards
whose priests they had destroyed.

We are told that these desert-dwellers, whose very lives have always
depended upon their little corn fields along the sandy washes that
caught and held summer rains, always challenged new-coming clans to
prove their value as additions to the community, especially as to their
magic for rain-making, for life here was a hardy struggle for existence,
with water as a scarce and precious essential. Among the first
inhabitants was the Snake Clan with its wonderful ceremonies for rain
bringing, as well as other sacred rites. Willingly they accepted the
rituals and various religious ceremonials of new-comers when they showed
their ability to help out with the eternal problem of propitiating the
gods that they conceived to have control over rain, seed germination,
and the fertility and well-being of the race.

In exactly the same spirit they welcomed the friars. Perhaps these
priests had "good medicine" that would help out. Maybe this new kind of
altar, image, and ceremony would bring rain and corn and health; they
were quite willing to try them. But imagine their consternation when
these Catholic priests after a while, unlike any people who had ever
before been taken into their community, began to insist that the new
religion be the only one, and that all other ceremonies be stopped. How
could the Hopi, who had depended upon their old ceremonies for
centuries, dare to stop them? Their revered traditions told them of
clans that had suffered famine and sickness and war as punishment for
having dropped or even neglected their religious dances and ceremonies,
and of their ultimate salvation when they returned to their faithful
performance.

The Hopi objected to the slavish labor of bringing timbers by hand from
the distant mountains for the building of missions and, according to
Hopi tradition, to the priests taking some of their daughters as
concubines, but the breaking point was the demand of the friars that all
their old religious ceremonies be stopped; this they dared not do.

So the "long gowns" were thrown over the cliff, and that was that.
Certain dissentions and troubles had come upon them, and some crop
failures, so they attributed their misfortunes to the anger of the old
gods and decided to stamp out this new and dangerous religion. It had
taken a strong hold on one of their villages, Awatobi, even to the
extent of replacing some of the old ceremonies with the new singing and
chanting and praying. And so Awatobi was destroyed by representatives
from all the other villages. Entering the sleeping village just before
dawn, they pulled up the ladders from the underground kivas where all
the men of the village were known to be sleeping because of a ceremony
in progress, then throwing down burning bundles and red peppers they
suffocated their captives, shooting with bows and arrows those who tried
to climb out. Women and children who resisted were killed, the rest were
divided among the other villages as prisoners, but virtually adopted.
Thus tenaciously have the Hopi clung to their old religion--noncombatants
so long as new cults among them do not attempt to stop the old.

There are Christian missionaries among them today, notably Baptists, but
they are quite safe, and the Hopi treat them well. Meantime the old
ceremonies are going strong, the rain falls after the Snake Dance, and
the crops grow. The Hopi realize that missionary influence will
eventually take some away from the old beliefs and practices and that
government school education is bound to break down the old traditional
unity of ideas. Naturally their old men are worried about it. Yet their
faith is strong and their disposition is kindly and tolerant, much like
that of the good old Methodist fathers who are disturbed over their
young people being led off into new angles of religious belief, yet
confident that "the old time religion" will prevail and hopeful that the
young will be led to see the error of their way. How long the old faith
can last, in the light of all that surrounds it, no one can say, but in
all human probability it is making its last gallant stand.

These Pueblo Indians are very unlike the nomadic tribes around them.
They are a sedentary, peaceful people living in permanent villages and
presenting today a significant transitional phase in the advance of a
people from savagery toward civilization and affording a valuable study
in the science of man.

Naturally they are changing, for easy transportation has brought the
outside world to their once isolated home. It is therefore highly
important that they be studied first-hand now for they will not long
stay as they are.

III. HOPI SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

* * * * *

=Government=

In government, the village is the unit, and a genuinely democratic
government it is. There is a house chief, a Kiva chief, a war chief, the
speaker chief or town crier, and the chiefs of the clans who are
likewise chiefs of the fraternities; all these making up a council which
rules the pueblo, the crier publishing its decisions. Laws are
traditional and unwritten. Hough[5] says infractions are so few that it
would be hard to say what the penalties are, probably ridicule and
ostracism. Theft is almost unheard of, and the taking of life by force
or law is unknown.

[Footnote 5: Hough, Walter, The Hopi: Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, 1915.]

To a visitor encamped at bedtime below the mesa, the experience of
hearing the speaker chief or town crier for the first time is something
long to be remembered. Out of the stillness of the desert night comes a
voice from the house tops, and such a voice! From the heights above, it
resounds in a sonorous long-drawn chant. Everyone listens breathlessly
to the important message and it goes on and on.

The writer recalls that when first she heard it, twenty years ago, she
sat up in bed and rousing the camp, with stage whispers (afraid to speak
aloud), demanded: "Do you hear that? What on earth can it mean? Surely
something awful has happened!" On and on it went endlessly. (She has
since been told that it is all repeated three times.) And not until
morning was it learned that the long speech had been merely the
announcement of a rabbit hunt for the next day. The oldest traditions of
the Hopi tell of this speaker chief and his important utterances. He is
a vocal bulletin board and the local newspaper, but his news is
principally of a religious nature, such as the announcement of
ceremonials. This usually occurs in the evening when all have gotten in
from the fields or home from the day's journey, but occasionally
announcements are made at other hours.

The following is a poetic formal announcement of the New Fire Ceremony,
as given at sunrise from the housetop of the Crier at Walpi:

"All people awake, open your eyes, arise,
Become children of light, vigorous, active, sprightly:
Hasten, Clouds, from the four world-quarters.
Come, Snow, in plenty, that water may abound when summer appears.
Come, Ice, and cover the fields, that after planting they may yield
abundantly.
Let all hearts be glad.
The Wuwutchimtu will assemble in four days;
They will encircle the villages, dancing and singing.
Let the women be ready to pour water upon them
That moisture may come in plenty and all shall rejoice."[6]

[Footnote 6: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., p. 43.]

As to the character of their government, Hewett says:[7] "We can
truthfully say that these surviving pueblo communities constitute the
oldest existing republics. It must be remembered, however, that they
were only vest-pocket editions. No two villages nor group of villages
ever came under a common authority or formed a state. There is not the
faintest tradition of a 'ruler' over the whole body of the Pueblos, nor
an organization of the people of this vast territory under a common
government."

[Footnote 7: Hewett, E.L., Ancient Life in the American Southwest:
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1929, p. 71.]

=The Clan and Marriage=

Making up the village are various clans. A clan comprises all the
descendants of a traditional maternal ancestor. Children belong to the
clan of the mother. (See Figure 1.) These clans bear the name of
something in nature, often suggested by either a simple or a significant
incident in the legendary history of the people during migration when
off-shoots from older clans were formed into new clans. Thus a migration
legend collected by Voth[8] accounts for the name of the Bear Clan, the
Bluebird Clan, the Spider Clan, and others.

[Footnote 8: Voth, H.R., Traditions of the Hopi: Field Columbian Museum
Pub. 96, Anthropological series, vol. 8, pp. 36-38, 1905.]

Sons and daughters are expected to marry outside the clan, and the son
must live with his wife's people, so does nothing to perpetuate his own
clan. The Hopi is monogamous. A daughter on marrying brings her husband
to her home, later building the new home adjacent to that of her
mother. Therefore many daughters born to a clan mean increase in
population.

[Illustration: Figure 1.--Hopi Family at Shungopovi.

--Photo by Lockett.]

Some clans have indeed become nearly extinct because of the lack of
daughters, the sons having naturally gone to live with neighboring
clans, or in some cases with neighboring tribes. As a result, some large
houses are pointed out that have many unoccupied and even abandoned
rooms--the clan is dying out. Possibly there may be a good many men of
that clan living but they are not with or near their parents and
grandparents. They are now a part of the clan into which they have
married, and must live there, be it near or far. Why should they keep up
such a practice when possibly the young man could do better,
economically and otherwise, in his ancestral home and community? The
answer is, "It has always been that way," and that seems to be reason
enough for a Hopi.

=Property, Lands, Houses, Divorce=

Land is really communal, apportioned to the several clans and by them
apportioned to the various families, who enjoy its use and hand down
such use to the daughters, while the son must look to his wife's share
of her clan allotment for his future estate. In fact, it is a little
doubtful whether he has any estate save his boots and saddle and
whatever personal plunder he may accumulate, for the house is the
property of the wife, as well as the crop after its harvest, and divorce
at the pleasure of the wife is effective and absolute by the mere means
of placing said boots and saddle, etc., outside the door and closing it.
The husband may return to his mother's house, and if he insists upon
staying, the village council will insist upon his departure.

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