the hopi believe in the gospel of work, which is evenly divided between the men and the women.
when it is said that people work, there is, unconsciously perhaps, a desire to know the reason, which is rarely a subject of curiosity when people amuse themselves. come to think of it, the answer is an old one, and a hopi, if asked why he works, might put forward the first great cause, nusha, “food.”
not only must the hopi work to supply his wife and little ones, but he must do his share for his clan, which is the large family of blood-relations, bound together by the strongest ties and customs of mutual helpfulness. this family is an object of the greatest pride, a little world of its own, in which every member from the least to the greatest has duties and responsibilities. so all labor—men, women, and the little ones, who add their tiny share. the general division of work gives the woman the affairs of the household, and the man the cultivation of the fields. men plant corn and the older women often help hoe it, and the women and children frequently go down to the fields and watch the crops to keep off birds.
[70] when the harvest is gathered, taken up the mesa, and put into the granary, man’s interest in it ceases, except in the matter of eating a large share. never was a hopi who was not hungry. much of the woman’s time is taken up in grinding corn and baking bread. the water-carrying falls to her, and this duty might give rise to a suspicion that she has the larger share of the burdens, if the hopi were not compelled to be frugal in the use of water. besides the duties mentioned, she may also add that of potter, basket maker, house builder, and sometimes carver of dolls and maker of moccasins. then the children must be cared for, but everyone takes a hand at that, including the children themselves. if it were not for the numerous ceremonies, woman’s work in hopiland would be much easier. grinding, baking, water-carrying, and the bother and hurry of preparation for various events continue with painful iteration. the hopi housewife can give full condolence to her white sister who has borne the burdens of a church festival, and the plaint that “woman’s work is never done” would sound familiar to her ears. still, rarely is she heard to bewail her lot, and it may be depended on that no maidens bloom in idleness about her house.
but the men also follow crafts, and of these, carding, spinning, dyeing, and weaving are exclusively man’s work in contrast with the navaho, among whom such matters are woman’s work. his also is the task of wood-gathering, which takes him far afield, since [71] there is hardly a growing thing in the neighborhood worth collecting for fuel. coal there is in the ground in plenty, but the hopi make less use of it than did their ancestors, and the householder sets out from time to time with a burro or two for the distant mesas, where the stunted cedars grow, to lay in wood for cooking. each year the cedars get farther away, so that at some future time the hopi may have to make use of the neglected coal.
a hopi is in a fair way to become a great man among his kin when he owns horses and a wagon. in consequence of such wealth, he usually shows his pride by the airs he assumes over his less fortunate tribesmen, and justly, too, because hauling supplies for the schools and traders brings in the silver dollars that replenish the larder with white man’s food. ponies are cheap, and twenty can exist as well as one on the semi-starvation of the desert, so a hopi teamster often takes along his whole herd when on a freighting trip, to make sure of arriving at his journey’s end, and a look at his horses will prove him a wise man.
seemingly the men work harder making paraphernalia and costumes for the ceremonies than at anything else, but it should be remembered that in ancient days everything depended, in hopi belief, on propitiating the deities. still if we would pick the threads of religion from the warp and woof of hopi life there apparently would not be much left. it must be recorded, in the interests of truth, that hopi men will [72] work at day’s labor and give satisfaction except when a ceremony is about to take place at the pueblo, and duty to their religion interferes with steady employment much as fiestas do in the easy-going countries to the southward.
really, the hopi deserve great credit for their industry, frugality, and provident habits, and one must commend them because they do not shun work and because in fairness both men and women share in the labor for the common good.
an account of the arts which are carried on in the hopi towns may prove interesting to the reader who would like to know something of the methods of the moccasin maker, potter, weaver, carver, basket maker, and house builder, examples of whose handiwork are scattered widely among collectors of artistic and remarkable things.
as though to keep up the dignity of the peaceful people the wife of “harry,” the new snake chief of walpi, frequently wears the cumbrous foot-gear common along the rio grande. in spite of the scarcity of deerskins, every hopi bride must have as part of her trousseau a pair of these remarkable foot-coverings, which require a large deerskin for their manufacture. when the burdensome ceremony of marriage is over the moccasins are laid away or worn out and never again may the woman expect to have her measure taken for another pair.
but as moccasins are a part of the men’s costume [73] without which they cannot run well over the yielding sand, and as there is no village shoemaker, every man must make his own or go barefoot. frequently in the villages one meets a moccasin maker, chewing at the rawhide and busily plying his awl and sinew while he goes gadding about. just before the snake dance, when every snake priest must provide a pair of new moccasins for himself, this art is very much in evidence.
the moccasin maker takes pride in hiding his stitches, and it must be said that his sewing is exceptionally good in spite of the crude tools of his craft. with the same skill he displays in other crafts, the hopi prepares the leather for the indispensable moccasins. the simplest way of giving color to the leather is to rub red ocher or other clay into the soft-tanned skin, as is seen in the red moccasins of the snake dancers. a warm brown is given to the leather with an infusion of the bark of the water birch, and a black dye is made by burning pi?on resin with crude native alum. sometimes the esthetic tastes of a young man are gratified by moccasins dyed with aniline red or blue according to his fancy.
if the visitor will give an order for a pair of totchi, he may see the whole process at his leisure. a piece of well-curried cowhide, preferably from the back of the animal, is produced, the outline of the foot is marked out on it and a margin is left by the cutter for the turning up of the sole. this is all the moccasin [74] maker seems to require, and his formula for the height of the instep has not been divulged, but it must be effective, because moccasins are made to fit with greater art than is displayed by many civilized shoemakers.
the soles are buried in damp sand to make them pliable, and the front section of the top is sewn around the edge reaching to about the ankle bones. the moccasin is then turned inside out and the ankle section sewn on. tying strings are added, or if especial style is desired, silver buttons made by navaho from dimes or quarters take their place.
the hopi live a very long way from the range of the deer, a fact which accounts largely for their use of woven fabrics. but deerskins must always have been in demand, and these were got in exchange with the navaho, havasupai, and other neighbors. in this way in old times buffalo skins and pelts of animals came to tusayan, and hopi bread and blankets went to remote mountains and plains.
it would be interesting to know whether the hopi formerly were sandal people or moccasin people, and this knowledge would reveal a great deal that is now mere guesswork as to their history. the sandal people would mean those of the south who were of mexico, where no moccasins seem ever to have been worn. the moccasin people would be those of the north, the tribes of our mountains and plains, among whom this foot-wear is typical. perhaps the hopi belong to both classes. the cliff-dwellers wore sandals, and for winter [75] had boots of network to which turkey feathers were skilfully fastened as covering. the sandals found in the cliff-houses are variously woven from rushes or agave strips, or maybe a plain sole of leather with the toe cord, but those worked of cotton showing ingenious designs are worthy of the highest admiration.
those clans of the cliff-people and the clans from the south that congregated in tusayan centuries ago were sandal wearers, while the resident clans and those coming from the north, perhaps bands of the ute,—were moccasin wearers and impressed their language and moccasins on the hopi. this was much to the advantage of the hopi, granting that they had never thought of better protection than sandals from the biting winter.
everyone who visits tusayan will bring away as a souvenir some of the work of nampeo, the potter who lives with her husband lesu in the house of her parents at hano, the little tewa village on the great walpi mesa near the gap. the house belongs to nampeo’s mother according to pueblo property right, wherein she and her husband, both aged and ruddy tewa, with their children and grandchildren live amicably as is usual among the peaceful people. the house below the mesa, topped with a glowing red iron “government” roof, is nampeo’s, who thus has two houses, but she spends most of her time in the parental dwelling at hano.
[76] nampeo is a remarkable woman. no feeling of her racial inferiority arises even on the first meeting with this indian woman, barefoot, bonnetless, and clad in her quaint costume. for nampeo is an artist-potter, the sole survivor in hano of the generations of women artists who have deposited the product of their handicraft in the care of the dead.
in the household her aged father and mother are final authority on the interpretation of ancient symbolic or cult representations in art. nampeo likewise carefully copies on paper the decorations of all available ancient pottery for future use. her archeological methods are further shown by her quest for the clays used by those excellent potters of old sikyatki and by her emulation of their technique.
one noon under the burning august sun, doctor fewkes and the writer climbed the east mesa, the former to attend the flute ceremony at walpi and the latter with an appointment to pry into the secrets of nampeo, the potter. in the house, pleasantly cool and shaded, sat the old couple and lesu. the baby was being secured to its board for its afternoon nap, while lesu spun. it was a pleasure to examine the quaint surroundings and the curious belongings hung on the wall or thrust above the great ceiling beams,—strings of dried wiwa, that early spring plant which has before now tided the peaceful people over famine, gaily painted dolls, blankets, arrows, feathers, and other objects enough to stock a museum. lesu did the [77] honors and said among other things that some of the ceiling beams of the room came from ancient awatobi, destroyed in 1700.
a small niche in the rear wall of the living room, at the back of which stood a short notched log-ladder, caused some speculation. quite unexpectedly and in a somewhat startling way its purpose was explained, for, when someone called the absent nampeo, a pair of feet were seen coming down the steps of the ladder, followed finally by nampeo, who, after a profound bodily contortion, smilingly emerged from the narrow passage into the room.
nampeo was prepared to instruct. samples of the various clays were at hand and the novice was initiated into the qualities of the hisat chuoka, or ancient clay, white, unctuous and fragrant, to which the ancient sikyatki potters owed the perfection of their ware; the reddish clay, siwu chuoka, also from sikyatki; the hard, iron-stained clay, choku chuoka, a white clay with which vessels are coated for finishing and decoration, coming from about twelve miles southeast of walpi. in contrast with nampeo’s four clays the hopi women use only two, a gray body clay, chakabutska, and a white slip clay, kutsatsuka.
continuing her instructions nampeo transferred a handful of well-soaked ancient clay from a bowl on the floor by her side to a smooth, flat stone, like those found in the ruined pueblos. the clay was thrust forward by the base of the right hand and brought [78] back by the hooked fingers, the stones, sticks, and hairs being carefully removed. after sufficient working, the clay was daubed on a board, which was carried out, slanted against the house, and submitted to the all-drying tusayan sun and air. in a short time the clay was transferred from the board to a slab of stone and applied in the same way, the reason being a minor one known to nampeo,—perhaps because the clay after drying to a certain degree may adhere better to stone than to wood. sooner than anyone merely acquainted with the desiccating properties of the moisture-laden air of the east might imagine, the clay was ready to work and the plastic mass was ductile under the fingers of the potter.
nampeo set out first to show the process of coiling a vessel. the even “ropes” of clay were rolled out from her smooth palms in a marvelous way, and efforts to rival excited a smile from the family sitting around as interested spectators. the concave dish called tabipi, in which she began the coiled vessel and which turns easily on its curved bottom, seems to be the nearest approach of the pueblos to the potter’s wheel. the seeming traces of unobliterated coiling on the bases of some vessels may be the imprints from the coils of the tabipi. as the vessel was a small one, the coiling proceeded to the finish and the interims of drying as observed in the manufacture of large jars were not necessary. then gourd smoothers, tuhupbi, were employed [79] to close up the coiling grooves, and were always backed from the outside or inside by the fingers. finally the smooth “green” vessel was set aside to dry.
then a toy canteen was begun by taking a lump of clay which, by modeling, soon assumed the shape of a low vase. with a small stick, a hole was punched through each side, a roll of clay was doubled for the handles, the ends thrust through the holes and smoothed down inside the vase, through the opening. the neck of the canteen was inserted in a similar way. now the problem was to close the opening in this soft vessel from the outside. nampeo threw a coil around the edge of the opening, pressing the layers together, gradually drawing in, making the orifices smaller until it presented a funnel shape. then the funnel was pressed toward the body of the canteen, the edges closed together, soldered, smoothed, and presto! it was done and all traces of handling hidden. anyone knowing the difficulties will appreciate this surprisingly dextrous piece of manipulation. afterward, nampeo made a small vase-shaped vessel, by modeling alone, without the addition of coiling as in the shaping of the canteen.
the ware when it becomes sufficiently dry must receive a wash of the white clay called hopi chuoka or kutsatsuka, which burns white. thereupon it is carefully polished with a smooth pebble, shining from long use, and is ready for decoration. the use of the glaring white slip clay as a ground for decoration was [80] probably brought from the rio grande by the tewa; ancient hopi ware is much more artistic, being polished on the body or paste, which usually blends in harmony with the decoration.
nampeo exhibited samples of her paints, of which she knows only red and dark brown. the red paint is yellow ocher, called sikyatho, turning red on firing. it was mixed on a concave stone with water. the dark brown paint is made from toho, an iron stone brought from a distant mesa. it was ground on a slab with a medium made from the seed of the tansy mustard (sisymbrium canescens). the brushes were two strips of yucca, mohu, one for each color. with these slender means, without measurement, nampeo rapidly covered the vessels with designs, either geometrical or conventionalized, human or cult,—figures or symbols. the narrow brush, held like a painter’s striper, is effective for fine lines. in broad lines or wide portions of the decoration, the outlines are sharply defined and the spaces are filled in. no mistakes are made, for emendations and corrections are impossible.
quite opportunely the next day, an invitation to see the burning of pottery came from an aged potter who resides at the sun spring. when the great hopi clock reached the appointed place in the heavens, the bowed yet active potter was found getting ready for the important work of firing the ware. in the heap of cinders, ashes, and bits of rock left from former [81] firings, the little old woman scooped out a concave ring. nearby was a heap of slabs of dry sheep’s droppings, quarried from the floor of a fold perched on a ledge high up the mesa and brought down in the indispensable blanket. in the center of the concave kiln floor a heap of this fuel was ignited by the aid of some frayed cedar bark and a borrowed match from the opportune pahana, “people of the far water,” the name by which white men are known. when the fire was well established, it was gradually spread over the floor to near the margin and the decorated bowls brought from the house were set up around with the concave sides toward the fire, while the potter brought, in her blanket, a back load of friable sandstone from a neighboring hillock.
under the first heat the ware turned from white to purple gray or lavender, gradually assuming a lead color. they were soon heated enough and were ready for the kiln. guarding her hand by the interposition of a fold of the blanket, the potter set the vessels, now quite unattractive, aside, proceeded to rake the fire flat and laid thereon fragments of stone at intervals to serve as rests or stilts for the ware. larger vessels were set over smaller and all were arranged as compactly as possible. piece by piece, dextrously as a mason, the potter built around the vessels a wall of fuel, narrowing at the top, till a few slabs completed the dome of the structure, itself kiln and fuel.
care was taken not to allow the fuel to touch the [82] vessels, as a discoloration of the ware would result, which might subject the potter to the shafts of ridicule. gradually the fire from below creeps up the walls till the interior is aglow and the ware becomes red hot. little attention is now needed except closing burned out apertures with new pieces of fuel; the potter, who before, during the careful and exact dispositions, has been giving little ejaculations as though talking to a small child, visits the kiln intermittently from the nearby house. here she seeks refuge from the penetrating, unaromatic smoke and the blazing sun.
the hopi have an odd superstition that if any one speaks above a whisper during the burning of pottery the spirit inhabiting the vessel will cause it to break. no doubt the potter had this in mind while she was whispering and was using all her blandishments to induce the small spirits to be good.
she remarked that when the sun should hang over the brow of the mesa at the height indicated by her laborious fingers, the ware would be baked, the kiln a heap of ashes, the yellow decoration a lively red and the black a dark brown on a rich cream-color ground. next day, with true foresight, she brought her quaint wares to the camp and made a good bargain for them, incidentally asking, “matches all gone?”
one woman at least in tusayan is a weaver of blankets. anowita’s wife enjoys that distinction because she is a navaho, among whom weaving is woman’s [83] work. the hopi housewives have enough to do keeping house, a thing not burdensome to the navaho, and as has been explained, the hopi men hold a monopoly of the spinning and weaving.
time out of mind the hopi have grown cotton in their little fields, and the first white men that made their acquaintance were presented with “towels” of their weaving as a peace offering. in the cliff-houses of the ancient people are found woven fabrics of cotton and rugs made of strips of rabbit fur like those now to be seen in the pueblos. the ancient people also had feather garments made by tying plumage to a network of cords. in the ruins of the pueblos one often finds cotton seeds which have been buried with the dead, and the braided mats of yucca or bark and bits of cloth fortunately preserved show that the people of former times were skilful weavers. there is no reason to doubt that the hopi stuffs were prized for their excellence throughout the southwest in the early times as they are now.
when the spaniards brought sheep among the pueblos, the weavers and fabric makers seem to have appreciated the value of wool at once, and the ancient garments of feathers and skins quickly disappeared. cotton remained in use only for ceremonial costumes or for cord employed in the religious ceremonies. the rabbit-fur robes which once were made throughout a vast region of the rockies from alaska to the gulf of california were largely displaced by blankets, in later [84] years, gorgeously dyed and cunningly woven. long before the introduction of trade dyes the hopi were satisfied with sober colors; the dark blue and brown given to the yarn by the women were from the plants. even now the hopi weavers stick to their colors and refuse to perpetrate the zigzags of the navaho. for this reason the women of all the pueblos of the southwest dress in dark blue and brown, as the hopi are purveyors of stuffs for wear to all their fellow house-dwellers of indian lineage. good cloth it is, too, and worthy of its renown, for it wears exceedingly well. more than one generation often enjoys its service, and when the older folks get through with their blanket dresses, the little ones have garments fashioned from them for their own apparel.
if one will examine the hopi blankets, he will be surprised at the skilful weaving they show. the blanket dress often has the body of plain weaving in black and the two ends bordered with damask or basket weave in blue. sometimes a whole blanket is of damask, giving a surface that, on close inspection, has a pleasing effect. the women’s ceremonial blanket of cotton with blue and red borders sometimes show three kinds of weaving and several varieties of cording. the belts also have a wonderful range of patterns. on the whole, one is led to believe that the hopi are more adept at weaving than their rivals, the navaho.
the carding and spinning are thoroughly done, the [85] resulting yarn being strong, even, and tightly twisted with the simple spindle. sometimes the spinner dresses and finishes the yarn by means of a corn cob smoothed by long use. the women, by virtue of their skill in culinary matters, are usually the dyers, and the dye they concoct from sunflower seeds or blue beans is a fast blue. in old times cotton was prepared for spinning by whipping it with slender switches on a bed of sand, and this process is yet required for the cotton used for the sacred sashes. now nearly every family is provided with wire cards purchased from traders. these cards look quite out of place in the hands of priests in the kiva, where they are used in combing the cotton for the sacred cord used in tying the feathers to the pahos.
when the kiva is not in use for a ceremony it is common to find there a weaver busy at his rude loom and growing web. to the great beams of the roof is fastened the upper yarn beam of the loom, and secured to pegs in holes in the stone slabs of the floor is the lower yarn beam. between these is tightly stretched the warp. the weaver squats on the floor before the loom, having ready by him the few simple implements of his craft, consisting of a wooden knife or batten highly polished from use, for beating down the yarn, a wooden comb also for pressing home the woof, and the bobbins which are merely sticks with the yarn wrapped back and forward spirally upon them. he picks out a certain number of warp threads with the [86] batten, passes through the bobbin, beats the yarn home with great patience, and so continues, making slow headway.
there are several reasons why the kiva is used by the weavers. these subterranean rooms, usually the property of the men, are cool and quiet, and the light streams down from overhead across the surface of the web, allowing the stitches to be seen to good advantage. the best reason is that the kiva ceiling is high enough to allow the stretching of the warp to the full length of a blanket, which cannot be done in the low living rooms of the dwellings.
belts, garters, and hair tapes are made on a small loom provided with reed or heddle frame, and usually this is woman’s work. strangely enough the belt loom is a kind of harness, for the warp is stretched out between the woman’s feet and a yoke that extends across her back. the yarn used for belts is bought from the trader. the old belts are marvels of design and are among the most pleasing specimens of the art work of the hopi.
with the introduction of dyed trader’s yarns and coal-tar colors has come a deterioration in the work of the navaho weavers. among the hopi this is not noticeable, but, no doubt, for this reason the embroidery on the hems of the ceremonial blankets, sashes, and kilts is gayer than in former times when subdued mineral colors and vegetable dyes only were available.
every visitor to the hopi pueblos is attracted by [87] the carved wooden figures painted in bright colors and decorated with feathers, etc., that hang from the rafters of the houses. “dolls,” they are usually called, but the hopi know that they are representations of the spiritual beings who live in the unseen world, and a great variety there is of them. thousands of these figures are made by the hopi, many to be sold to visitors, a thing no zu?i would do, because in that pueblo these images have a religious character and are hidden away, while the hopi decorate the houses with them.
the carvers of these strange figurines must be granted the possession of much skill and ability in their art, which is carried on with a few simple tools. the country far and near is ransacked for cottonwood, this being the wood prescribed for masks, dolls, prayer-sticks, etc. the soft cottonwood, especially the root, is easily worked with the dull knives that the hopi possess. on every hand is soft, coarse sandstone for rubbing the wood into shape, and much of the work is not only finished, but formed by this means. for this reason the rocks around a hopi village are covered with grooves and pits left by the workers in wood.
if any parts, such as ears, hair, whorls, etc., are to be added to the figures, they are pegged on quite insecurely. some of the terraces which surmount the kachina masks are remarkable structures built up of wood pegged together. a little string, a few twigs [88] and pieces of cottonwood suffice the hopi for the construction of flowers and complicated parts of the decoration of dolls and masks or other ceremonial belongings. corn husks, dyed horsehair, woolen yarn, deerskin, cotton cloth, twigs, basketry, and feathers are worked in and the result, though crude, is effective.
but in the realm of mechanical apparatus the hopi is even ahead of the toy makers of the schwartzwald. for the palulukong ceremony he arranges startling effects, causing the great plumed snake to emerge through screens, out of jars, or from the ceiling of the kiva, to the number of nine appearances, each requiring artful devices. the head of the snake is a gourd furnished with eyes, having the mouth cut into sharp teeth, a long tongue, a plume, and the whole surface painted. the body is made up of wooden hoops over which cords run and is covered with cloth. often two of these grotesque monsters are caused, by the pulling of cords, to advance and withdraw through flaps in the screen and to struggle against each other with striking realism. nothing in hopiland is more remarkable than this drama, as one may gather from dr. fewkes’ account of it given at another place.
little of the hopi’s skill as a carver and decorator goes to the furnishing or building of the house; almost all is taken up with ceremonial matters. previous to a few years ago chairs were unknown, as was any other domestic joinery, except the hopi head masks, prayer-sticks and the thousand objects used in his [89] pagan worship, in the manufacture of which he was master of all expedients. as a worker in stone and shell he still knows the arts of the ancient times, but lacks the skill of his forebears. the turquoise mosaics of old days so regularly and finely set on the backs of sea shells, have given place to the uneven scraps of turquoise set in confusion on bits of wood, as on the woman’s earrings. many devices have gone out entirely, and it is probable that no hopi could make an axe of hard stone like the old ones or chip a finely proportioned arrowhead. the hand-stones for grinding corn are still made, and a woman pecking away at one with a stone hammer is not infrequently seen and heard.
the hopi were never metal-workers, because free metals are scarce in the southwest. their name for silver, with which they became familiar in the shape of coins, is shiba, “a little white cake.” gold they regard with suspicion, since it resembles copper or brass, with which they have been deceived at times by unscrupulous persons. a few workers in silver have produced some crude ornaments, but the hopi gets his buttons, belt ornaments, etc., from the adept navaho, silversmiths by trade, through whom also strings of beads come from the pueblos of the rio grande.
the rocks all over the southwest bear witness that the hopi can draw. in thousands of instances he expressed his meaning in symbols or in compositions representing the chase of the deer or mountain goat. [90] one of these groups on the smooth rocks near holbrook, arizona, shows a man driving a flock of turkeys, and is exceedingly graphic. on the cliff faces below walpi are numerous well-executed pictographs, and occasionally one runs across recent work on the mesa top that excites admiration. with sculpture in the round the hopi has done nothing remarkable because his tastes and materials have never led in this direction. a few rather large figures rudely carved from soft sandstone may be seen around the pueblos, and numerous fetiches, some of very hard stone, representing wolves, bears, and other animals, are still in the keeping of the societies. some of these are very well done, but show little progress in sculpture. the visitor must beware of the little fetiches whittled from soft stone and offered for sale as genuine by the guileful hopi in quest of shiba.
the industry which the hopi woman has all in her own hands is basket-making, and the work is apportioned to such as have the skill and fancy for it, as if there were a division of labor. the women of the three towns on the east mesa do not make baskets at all, those of the middle mesa sew only coiled baskets, while the women of oraibi weave wicker baskets exclusively. thus, there is no difficulty in saying just where a hopi basket comes from, and there is also no excuse for not recognizing these specimens of hopi woman’s work at first glance, as they have a strong individuality that separates them from all other baskets of the indians.
[91] if one should visit the most skilful basket-maker of the middle mesa, kuchyeampsi, that modest little woman, might be seen busily at work, and from her a great deal about the construction of coiled baskets could be learned. but it would take some time and patience to find that the grass whose stems she gathers for the body of the coil is named takashu, which botanists know as hilaria jamesii, and that the strips which she sews over and joins the coil are from the leaves of the useful mohu (yucca glauca).
then when kuchyeampsi comes home laden with her basket materials one must take further lessons in stripping the yucca leaves, splitting them with the thumb-nail to uniform size, and dyeing some of them various colors, for which anilines are principally used in these degenerate days. one must have an eye for the colors of the natural leaves of the yucca and select the yellow or yellowish green of the old leaves, the vivid green of the young leaves, and the white of the heart leaves, for the basket weaver discriminates all of these and uses them in her work.
of course kuchyeampsi has all her material ready, the strips buried in moist sand, the grass moistened, and she may be starting a plaque. the slender coil at the center is too small to be formed with grass stems, so she builds it up of waste bits from the leaf-stripping, wrapping it with yucca strips, and taking only a few stitches with the encircling coil, since the bone awl is too clumsy for continuous stitching at the outset. [92] after the third round the bone awl is plied, continuously piercing through under the coil and taking in the stitches beneath strips. as a hole is made the yucca strip is threaded through and drawn tight on the grass coil, and so the patient work goes on till the basket is complete. the patterns which appear on the baskets are stored up in the maker’s brain and unfold as the coil progresses with the same accuracy as is evinced by the pottery decorator. the finish of the end of the coil gives an interesting commentary on hopi beliefs. it is said that the woman who leaves the coil end unfinished does not complete it because that would close her life and no more children would bless her.
at oraibi one may see the women making wicker tray-baskets. three or four slender sumach twigs are wickered together side by side at the middle and another similar bundle laid across the first at right angles. then dyed branches of a desert plant known as “rabbit brush” are woven in and out between the twigs, and as the basket progresses she adds other radial rods until the basket is large enough. she finishes the edge by bending over the sumach ribs, forming a core, around which she wraps strips of yucca.
one must admire the accuracy with which the designs are kept in mind and woven into the structure of the basket with splints of various colors or strips of tough yucca. the translation of a design into the radiating sewing of the coiled basket or the horizontal [93] filling of the wicker basket shows the necessity of the different treatments, contrasting with the freedom which it is the potter’s privilege to display on the smooth surface of her ware. so far as known the hopi women never fail in applying their designs, however intricate. frequently these designs represent mythical birds, butterflies, clouds, etc.
among the hopi certain of the villages are noted for their local manufactures. thus walpi and hano are practically the only towns where pottery is made, the middle mesa towns are headquarters for coiled baskets, and oraibi furnishes wicker baskets. perhaps the meaning of this is that these arts belong to clans, who have preserved them and know the secrets, and with the dying out of the workers or migration of the clans the arts have disappeared or have been transformed. another cause which will suggest itself is the local abundance and quality of the materials required to be found in the surrounding plains and mountains.
basketry has at least as many uses as pottery among the hopi, and a number of kinds besides the familiar plaques with symbolical decoration have been eagerly sought by collectors. the crops from the fields are borne to the houses on the mesas in carrying baskets, resembling a pannier, which are worked of wicker over a frame of two bent sticks crossed at right angles. in the house the coiled and wicker trays heaped high with corn meal, the basket for parched corn and the [94] sifting basket near the corn grinding stones, will be found. in the bread-baking room is the coarse, though effective, piki tray, and occasionally one may still see a neatly made floor mat. the thin checker mat of ancient days has long since gone out of use, but formerly, the dead were wrapped in such mats before they were placed in the earth.
over the fireplace is a hood of basketry plastered to prevent burning. the wicker cradle to which the infant hopeful is bound must not be forgotten. several small globular wicker baskets for various purposes may also be displayed among the household belongings. the mat of grass stems in which the wedding blanket is folded is also a kind of basketry, as are the twined mats for covering the hatchway of the kiva and the twined fence around the fields.
with all their own resources, the hopi are great collectors of baskets from other tribes. one must not be surprised to see in use in the hopi houses the water bottles coated with pitch and the well-made basket-bowls from the havasupai of cataract canyon, the pimas of southern arizona, and other tribes touched by hopi commerce.
the vizors of old masks used in the ceremonies were of basketry, generally a section cut from a ute basket-bowl, which shows one of the most interesting employments of baskets among the hopi. the highly decorated trays may also be said to have a sacred character from their frequent appearance in the ceremonies, [95] where they are used to contain prayer-sticks, meal, etc. appropriately the women’s ceremonies display many baskets on the altars, and in the public dances each woman carries a bright plaque. one of the episodes of these ceremonies is full of action when women throw baskets to men who struggle energetically for them. on this account these ceremonies have been called basket dances.
one of the frequent sights in a hopi town is a woman carrying a heaped-up plaque of meal of her own grinding as a present to some friend. this usually happens on the eve of a ceremony, like our christmas gifts, but no one must fail to notice that an equal present is religiously brought in return.
the hopi value their baskets; they appreciate fully a pretty thing, and this explains why one of the sichomovi men, who is rich in havasupai baskets, has had the good taste to decorate the walls of the best room of his house with these trophies of cataract canyon.
judging from the number of ruins in the southwest, it might be thought that the former inhabitants spent much of their time in laying up walls and considered the work easy. what these ruins do show in an emphatic way is the organization of the builders and what mutual aid will accomplish.
dismiss the idea of the modern architect, builder, laborers, brick makers, planing mill hands, plumbers, etc., combining to get ready a dwelling for a family, and substitute in their place all the indian relatives, [96] from the infant to the superannuated, lending willing hands for the “raising.” the primitive architect is there, builders too, of skill and experience and a full corps of those who furnish builders’ supplies, including the tot who carries a little sand in her dress and those who ransack the country round for brush, clay, beams, stones, and water.
before going farther it must be understood that house-building is women’s work among the hopi, and these likewise are the house-owners. it seems rather startling, then, that all the walls of the uninhabited houses and the fallen walls of the ruins that prevail in the southwest should be mainly the work of women’s hands, whose touch we might expect to find on the decorated pottery, but not on the structures that cause the pueblo people to be known as house-builders. from this one begins to understand the importance of woman in these little nations of the desert.
let us suppose that an addition is to be made to a hopi village of a house containing a single room, built without regard to the future additions which may later form a house cluster. the plan of such a house would be familiar to any hopi child, since it is merely a rectangular box. when the location has been determined, word is passed around among the kinsfolk and the collection of stones, beams, etc., is begun. cottonwood trees for many miles around are laid under contribution. some beams may be supplied from trees growing nearby along the washes and [97] in the cornfields, and some may require journeys of eighty or a hundred miles, representing immense labor. beams are precious, and in this dry climate they last indefinitely, so that one may not be surprised to find timber in the present houses from awatobi or older ruins, or from spanish mission times. it is also probable that often when pueblos were abandoned, they were revisited later and the timbers torn out and brought to the new location, thus the ruins might appear more ancient than they really are. with the advent of the burro, the horse, and the iron axe, timbering became easier than in the stone age, but it was still no sinecure.
stones are gathered from the sides of the mesa not far away, those not larger than a moderate burden being selected. the sand-rock of the mesa is soft and with a hammer-stone convenient masses may be broken off. at present there is a quarry on the walpi mesa; the blocks gotten out by means of axes are more regular than those in the old houses, which show little or no traces of working. between the layers of rock are beds of clay which require only moistening with water to become ready for the mason.
the architect has paced off the ground and determined the dimensions of the house, giving the arm measurement of the timbers to the logging party who, with the rest, have got the materials ready. the next step is to find the house-chief and secure from him four eagle-feather prayer-plumes. these are deposited [98] under the four corner stones with appropriate ceremony of breath-prayers for the welfare of the house and its occupants. the plumes are dedicated to the god of the underworld, the sun, and other deities concerned with house-life. the builder then determines where the door shall be and places an offering of food on either side of it; he then walks around the site from left to right, sprinkling a mixture of piki crumbs and other food with tobacco along the line of the walls, singing to the sun his kitdauwi, “house song”; si-si, a-hai, si-si, a-hai, the meaning of which has long been forgotten.
the walls are laid in irregular courses, mortar being sparingly used. the addition of plastering to the outside and inside of the house awaits some future time, though sometimes work on the outside coat is put off to an ever vanishing ma?ana. when the house walls, seven or eight feet in height and of irregular thickness from seventeen to twenty-two inches are completed, the women begin on the roof. the beams are laid across the side walls at intervals of two feet; above these and parallel with the side walls are laid poles; across these is placed a layer of rods or willow brush, and above this is piled grass or small twigs. a layer of mud comes next, and when this is dry, earth is placed on it and tramped down until hard. the roof, which is complicated and ingenious, is nearly level, but provision is made for carrying off the water by means of spouts.
[99] when the roof is finished the women put a thick coating of mud on the floor and plaster the walls. at zu?i floors are nearly always made of slabs of stone, but in hopi mud is the rule. the process of plastering a floor is interesting to an onlooker. clay dug from under the cliffs, crushed and softened in water and tempered with sand is smeared on the floor with the hand, a little area at a time. the floor may be dry and occasionally the mud gets too hard; a dash of water corrects this. when the mud dries to the proper stage, it is rubbed with a smooth stone having a flat face, giving the completed floor a fine finish like pottery. as an extra finish to the room a dado is painted around the wall, in a wash of red ocher by means of a rabbit skin used as a brush. formerly a small space on the wall was left unplastered; it was believed that a kachina came and finished it, and although the space remained bare it was considered covered with invisible mud.
before the house can be occupied the builder prepares four feathers for its dedication. he ties the nakwakwoci or breath feathers to a willow twig, the end of which is inserted over one of the central roof-beams. the builder also appeases masauah, the god of death, by an offering in which the house is “fed” by putting fragments of food among the rafters or in a niche in the door lintels, beseeching the god not to hasten the departure of any of the family to the underworld. at the feast of soyaluna in december, the [100] feathers, forming the “soul” of the house, are renewed, and at this season when the sun returns northward, the village house-chief visits the houses which have been built within the year and performs a ceremony over them.
a hole is left in one corner of the roof, under which the women build the mud fireplace, with its knob andirons and the column of pots with the bottoms knocked out which form the chimney. over the fireplace, a chimney hood, usually supported on posts, is constructed of basket-work, plastered over with mud. a row of mealing stones slanted in sunken stone boxes in the floor must not be forgotten, and no one in hopiland could set up housekeeping without a smooth stone slab to bake piki upon. some of the houses have a low bench along one or two sides of the room which forms convenient seats. the windows are small, being often mere chinks, through which the curious spy without being seen. stones are usually at hand, by means of which, and mud, windows and doors may be closed when the family go off on a rather protracted stay.
this one-room house is the nucleus of the village. when the daughters marry and require space for themselves, another house is built in front of and adjoining the first one, and a second story may be added to the original house. thus the cluster grows, and around the spaces reserved for streets and plazas other clusters grow until they touch one another and rise three or four stories, the inner rooms being dark from [101] the addition to the later houses and these become storage places.
while the old houses were entered from the trapdoors in the roof, the new houses have doors at the ground level and often windows glazed in the most approved style. frequently in the march of progress doors are cut into the old houses, and the streets begin to assume the appearance of a mexican town; but the old nucleus buried under the successive buildings rarely shows and may be traced with difficulty. in winter the people withdraw from the exposed and retire to the old enclosed rooms, huddling together to keep warm, enlivening the confinement with many a song, legend, and story.
so much for the woman builders of tusayan, to whom all honor.[1]
[1] one who desires to pursue this subject in more detail should consult mindeleff’s paper on pueblo architecture in the 8th annual report bureau american ethnology, 1886-1887.
