Hopi Artists Complete Circle

RETURN TO HOPI LAND MODERN ARTISTS, LIKE THE ELDERS, COME HOME TO FIND THEIR CREATIVE CENTERS

After Lawrence Namoki returned from his 13-month stint in the jungles of Vietnam, he started making traditional Hopi pots on the high, dry mesas where people have resided continuously longer than any other place in North America.

After Hopi carver Ed Seechoma resolved to “escape the madness” of big city living, he came back to the mesas to carve cottonwood roots by lamplight and fret about the ravens loose in cornfields at the foot of the mesa. Maasaw greeted their ancestors and told them they would leave their footprints in many places before reuniting at the center of the universe. So they left footprints in the form of ruins, rock art and potsherds, before the clans gathered again at the three Hopi mesas.

Hopi artists like Seechoma and Namoki have cre-ative, spiritual and cultural taproots that go all the way down to ancient cultures that left rock art and painted pots. Like many Hopi artists, they traveled a great circle to come back to the place of their birth, in that journey understanding certain essential things with an even deeper perspective. Now, they work diligently in their studios in the old villages, where guides take visitors on tours of time and artistry.

Their personal journeys echo the mythic journey of the Hopi people themselves, whose traditions say they emerged into this harsh desert, traveled the world seeking an easier place and came back finally to their beginnings when they realized that only the desert could protect their spirits.

Hopi traditions refer to these ancestors as the Hisatsinom, identified by archaeologists as Anasazi, Mogollon or Sinagua. The Hopis say that the Earth godHere they developed an aesthetic, cooperative culture that survived on less than 10 inches of annual rain. Each clan contributed ceremonies and married into other clans, creating community ties to become Hopisinom.

They have held to their traditions through traumas and challenges, including the arrival of the Spanish in 1540, a regional rebellion in 1680 and the Spanish reconquest in 1693. Over the centuries, Hopi territory shrank from an estimated 18 million acres to an island of 1.5 million acres, surrounded by the larger Navajo Nation.

Like their ancestors, many Hopi artists have circled outward before returning to the center place with a wider perspective, inspired techniques and a deeper appreciation for their own traditions.

Visitors to the Hopi mesas can meet artists, visit Studios and glimpse the deep connection between culture and creativity each autumn during the Tuhisma arts festival. The official Cultural Center on Second Mesa with its motel, campground, museum and a restaurant that serves traditional foods makes a good first stop. In addition, the Tsakurshovi trading post has become an unofficial cultural center, where locals shop for cottonwood root and herbs alongside visitors buying postcards and pottery. There, trader Joseph Day and his wife, Janice (née Quotskuyva), offer jokes, the "tourist tip of the week" and "Don't Worry Be Hopi" T-shirts. Their most-tenured employee, Wallace Hyeoma, whom Day calls "the Howard Stern of Hopi radio," arrives after hosting an early morning show on KUYI 88.1 FM. Hyeoma, a carver, began making

traditional kachina dolls at Day's urging. Now, the store is a major outlet for the old-style dolls, and carvers stop by frequently.

Many artists sell from their homes, posting signs in windows. Though visitors are welcome to respond to such invitations, wandering from public areas is discouraged. Every village has off-limits locations, including kivas and shrines. However, visitors may travel freely along main highways, near the Cultural Center and to galleries or other businesses throughout the mesas.

Those who wish to explore further can hire a Hopi guide, like Gary Tso, who calls his guide business the Left-Handed Hunter. Tso spent his early childhood with Navajo grandparents before moving to the mesas to live with his mother, a schoolteacher. Later, he attended The Orme School and joined the U.S. Marine Corps.

THEIR PERSONAL JOURNEYS ECHO THE MYTHIC JOURNEY OF THE HOPI PEOPLE.

His tours are peppered with astute observations of all three cultures-Anglo, Navajo and Hopi.

A full-day tour may stretch from the base of First Mesa all the way west to a canyon Tso calls Dawaki (the "place of the sun.") The ancestors incised spirals, flute players and animals on Dawaki's cliffs. Such places and symbols have influenced the work of many modern Hopi artists.

For instance, the rock markings at Dawaki find their way into the work of Duane Tawahongva, a smith who works in silver, gold and semiprecious stones. His Three Generations design depicts a petroglyph family. His home and studio sits along a curved gravel road at the edge of Second Mesa, where he keeps his prized 1960 pickup parked outside. Morning sun peeks through window blinds, illuminating Tawahongva's workbench as he cuts an intricate design into a sheet of silver with a jeweler's saw. Nearby, finished earrings as tiny as a child's fingernails and hefty belt buckles gleam against black velvet.

Tso patiently waits outdoors, carving a kachina doll in the shade of his SUV while Tawahongva demonstrates, step by step, the silver overlay process. By the time Tawahongva completes a bighorn sheep pendant, Tso has accumulated a pile of wood shavings and roughed out a hunter kachina.

En route to First Mesa, Tso points out the site of the mesas' original village and continues his account of Hopi history. Ever since the famed First Mesa potter Nampeyo revived ancient Sityatki Polychrome designs in the late 1800s, First Mesa has been known for pottery.

Award-winning First Mesa potter Garrett Maho, 29, learned the potter's art from his grandmother. Maho still uses the Sityatki designs she taught him, though today he mostly makes large, wideshouldered jars and winsome rabbit-shaped pots in honor of his Rabbit Clan.

Maho is a traditionalist from start to finish, smudging the clay to purify it before beginning his work, painting with a yucca brush and natural pigments, and firing with sheep dung. Maho says kiln firing "kills the spirit" of the pot. The sharp but pleasant odor of burning sheep dung often scents the morning breezes near First Mesa.

That's just fine with Lawrence Namoki, home all these years after

ESSENCE OF SPIRIT

Rooted firmly in ancient tradition, Third Mesa's Philbert Honanie fashions kachinas that he feels convey the essence of Hopi spirit beings better than more fanciful contemporary creations.

his service in Vietnam. “It smells like money, the old folks say,” he jokes, as he lights the beehive of sheep dung chips that surround his pots. Namoki combines traditional myths and symbolism with a contemporary flair. He often employs sgraffito (a specialized type of carving) and uses vivid mineral pigments like chrysacola.

Namoki's studio in the First Mesa village of Sitsomovi has entertained royalty, and his pots are included in such notable collections as the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian. He often works with KUYI's eclectic mix of world beat, jazz and Hopi music playing in the background. Close to Namoki's studio is Ponsi Hall, the starting point for a tour of the ancient village of Walpi, where visitors may meet artists like carver Roy Dawangumptewa, who hikes up the cliffs from the below-mesa village of Polacca to spend afternoons carving near the Gap, the narrow stone fin that links Walpi to other First Mesa villages. Dawangumptewa carves sculpture dolls, free-form figures that take the natural shape of a cottonwood root, as well as contemporary dolls, with realistic feathers and fringe carved from the wood itself.

Other carvers, like Seechoma, concentrate on more traditional styles to create simple figures with natural pigments adorned with feathers. He lives in Third Mesa's Hotevilla, founded in the early 1900s by the “Hostiles” who vigorously resisted U.S. government interference. Seechoma's studio has no electricity, so he works by the light of a lantern hanging from the wood-beamed ceiling or the sunlight that pours through the windows to cast shadows onthe stone walls. Seechoma's uncle and father taught him to carve in the contemporary style, but after escaping the “madness” in the outside world, he brings the passion of a convert to “taking it back”-returning carving to a simpler time.

Another Hotevilla carver, Philbert Honanie, also prefers traditional dolls, saying they appear more like spirit beings than dancers. He sought inspiration from the Hopi dolls missionary Henry Voth collected more than a century ago. As a child, Honanie lived in lowa before moving in with his grandmother on Second Mesa. He credits Hopi elders for teaching him about carving and culture, often on days when he ditched school to spend time in the kiva.

That constant struggle to incorporate new ideas without losing the old ones runs through the lives of Hopi artists as it runs through the history of their people. For instance, 4 miles southeast of Hotevilla lies the Third Mesa village of Oraibi, perhaps the oldest continuously inhabited village in North America. The population of 3,000 has dwindled to 300, and many homes have stood empty since the “push war” at the turn of the century after the U.S. government tried to break up Hopi farms and send children to a boarding school in Keams Canyon to learn Anglo ways. The people of Oraibi were bitterly divided by the government's demands and in September 1906, the warring factions settled the matter with a contest that involved pushing one another over a line drawn in the earth. The people who opposed the changes lost and so left the village. At Oraibi, history spreads before your feet, from potsherds and mano fragments to scraps of plastic toys. Looking over the mesa's edge to the ruins of Voth's Mennonite church, Tso recalls remnants of an older Spanish mission. After its destruction, the mission's decorated ceiling beams ended up in a kiva at Oraibi. Later, the Hopis rebuilt the kiva and discarded the church beams, which the children used as a seesaw until a collector carted them away.

All Kathleen Bryant of Sedona says words cannot express how profoundly Hopi culture unites nature, spiritual beliefs and art. She is grateful to the Hopi people who opened their homes and studios and talked about their lives and work.

Upon entering the Hopi work spaces, Larry Lindahl felt the inspired energy that animated each artist's creativity while making jewelry, carvings or pottery. He lives in Sedona.

LOCATION: The Hopi Indian Reservation is about 260 miles northeast of Phoenix.

GETTING THERE: From Phoenix, drive north approximately 140 miles on Interstate 17. Turn right (east) onto Interstate 40 and travel 62 miles. Turn left (northeast) onto State Route 87 and travel 59 miles to the reservation.

WEATHER: Chilly in winter, summer highs average 87 degrees. Fall is the primary tourist season.

LODGING/DINING: The Cultural Center on Second Mesa has an inn and restaurant. Reservations recommended. Camping nearby.

ATTRACTIONS: Galleries dot the mesas, and many artists sell from their homes. Guided walking tours of the First Mesa village of Walpi are offered daily at Ponsi Hall.

VISITOR ETIQUETTE: Observe the rules established by each village. Photography, recording and sketching are prohibited. It is considered a privilege to be a guest at a ceremony, and good behavior is important to the outcome of the ceremony. Behave as though you are in church. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Office of Cultural Preservation, (928) 734-3613.