MEETING ARIZONA'S TRAFFIC NEEDS

Nam-pey-o, The Blind Potter

HE SITS outside the door of her house at the top of the trail and warms her thin old blood in the sun. And her sightless eyes turn toward the desert that has blossomed and seared in almost a century of summers since her baby eyes first opened upon it. Her fine wrinkled old hands are folded uselessly in her lap, their work finished. No more will they dig the clay and knead it into a smooth putty-like mass. Never again will her sensitive fingers guide coil upon coil of gray wet clay around and around to form the vessels into graceful beauty as only Nampeyo could do. What are her dreams as she sits in the sun?

Sometimes I journey to the Mesa of Old Walpi just to sit beside this grand old Indian lady. Sometimes there are hours that pass without a word from her and other times she talks of times and people forgotten by even the older Hopis that stop and visit with us. She has a very poor opinion of white people as a whole, and listening to the voices of curious tourists passing up and down the trail she says: "They have come to see the Hopis jump around with rattlesnakes in their mouths so rain will fall! That's all they know or care about us!"

Perhaps she's right. But the Hopi Indians had been living on their high hills of stone hundreds of years before our Pilgrim Fathers disembarked on Plymouth Rock. Eighty years before that time Coronado's men passed by the Hopi villages and found these Indians living in the same well ordered and primitive homes they occupy today. Hard and fast conservatives, they refuse to move to lower levels as has been repeatedly suggested by a would-be helpful Uncle Sam. No, they'll just stay where they are. The men will go down into the desert with their sheep and goats and they'll till their fields, but when the sun is low the herds will be driven to stone corrals at the foot of the mesa and the men will go back up the trails to their age-old homes. Peace and security have been too hardly won to lightly discard. Nampeyo has drawn a word picture of her people's history. Most of it is legend handed down from generation to gen-eration but it tallies well with the records kept by various intruders who have sought to conquer this tribe for various reasons.

Across this dramatic stage, with its background of sage scented desert, snow crowned Spanish Peaks, and Painted Desert scenery, have paced haughty mail clad Conquistadores and meek brown-robed sandaled Fath-ers, each playing his little part and vanishing into the yesterdays. From the wings crept forth naked painted forms, Indians determined to defend their homes and loved one from sword and priest!

Imposing Missions were built by reluctant pagans forced to carry the heavy timbers from distant mountains. The women labored up and down the trails with rocks and clay to form the churchly walls. When the building was done stern soldiers drove the rebellious Indians inside to worship. Pressing invitations to become civilized and Christlike were emphasized by their instructors who chopped off hands that knew not the sign of the cross and tore out tongues ignorant of Holy Creed. And one day the Hopi Indians rose up and tossed the Fathers over the walls into the desert below. They tore the stones and beams apart and into some secret chamber the furnishings of the Church were carried and hidden. And that ended the attempts to force Christianity upon the Hopis. In recent years various Churches have brought their messages to the mesa people but very few of them discard their native gods.

When the Spaniards first visited the Hopi country they carried away with them beautiful bowls and vessels made by the women out of the clay found among the rocks near their homes. In the deserted pueblos a thousand years old are found bowls made by the prehistoric women and used for cooking, serving and storing their foods. It was not enough that these vessels should be strong and useful, they must be beautiful as well, and the true graceful lines placed on these clay backgrounds have withstood the elements for untold centuries. Women's work was planting the colored corn, grinding it on mealing stones. making it into piki and baking it on hot rocks; building the houses, raising the babies, and for relaxation and pleasure making beautiful the pottery necessary for every household need.

Into this sort of life was born Nampeyo. Almost a hundred years ago she opened big black eyes and blinked at the bright sunlight filtering through the blanket hung over the door. Real sunshine must not touch her or her mother for twenty-one days, and at the end of that time she was carried to the edge of the mesa at sunrise and sprinkled with sacred meal by the village priest. Each female relative gave her a name, but the one that has stuck with her is "Nampeyo." This name, she says, means She-Who-Will-Lead. Doubtless she led the small Indian urchins into mischief and out again as they played around the old town of Hano. For Nampeyo was not a Hopi by birth. Her people came from the Rio Grande village of Tewa five centuries ago to become Keepers of the Trail for their less warlike cousins, the Hopis. On the mesas were store rooms full of corn and dried foods of all kinds that the less industrious Navajos and the Spaniards, the Hopi women were stolen by these tribes to tend the flocks and pull out the sheep's wool and weave it into blankets. The Tewa village was established at the top of the one steep path into the dwellings and as the marauders came up that path they were neatly cracked on the head and another added to Tally Rock. One hundred and eighty notches cut on this big stone indicate that one hundred and eighty redskin intruders bit the dust before life was made safe for the Hopi people.

As soon as young Nampeyo was old enough to toddle she followed her mother down this trail to the clay deposits beneath and between big boulders forming the cliff. Into shawls the clay was piled and carried back up onto the mesa. It was spread out in the sunlight and when dry it was beaten into dust and put to soak over night. Every tiny stone and hard lump was carefully kneaded out of it and when it was worked into a smooth putty-like mass the real work began. Taking a handful, the potter rolled it between her palms until it was the thickness of a pencil and then the vessel was started by coiling this roll around. The vessel shaped, it was set in the sun to temper before being polished with a smooth stone. While it hardened the paint was prepared. Rabbit brush flowers had been gathered perhaps months before and dried and ground into dust. Minerals of various kinds were added. The pinon gum had been roasted and charred, then pounded up and added to the mixture. A portion of this home made paint was put into a hollowed stone and water added until it formed a vile looking and vile smelling liquid. With a fragment of yucca leaf made into Apaches and Utes coveted, and later when sheep had been introduced by