HOPIS, THE ANCIENT PUEBLO PEOPLE

THE HOPI PUEBLOS

Beyond the Mogollon Rim which curbs off northern Arizona, the Colorado Plateau steps upward again, tablelands encircled by Spanish-skirted ridges ruffled in peach, ochre, and gray. These are the Hopi mesas, whose 12 villages stretch 75 miles along State Route 264 from Moenkopi on the west, linking Tuba City to Keams Canyon. Hopis believe destiny brought them here. They emerged into the present Fourth World, as the men tell over winter fires each year, at this center of the Earth. Then the Hopi clans began purifying migrations in all directions, lasting many generations. They returned here from the reaches of the world, clan by clan, each coming from its own special direction and choosing its home on one of the three mesas that offered protection from enemies.

That was long ago, but the history is well-remembered, the essence of Hopi religion. Reenacting events of their past in dance, like reading sacred scriptures or following Stations of the Cross for others, marks the holiest of rites of the Hopis.

This October Saturday in Moenkopi the TuVi Gathering dances are public, a new annual event timed to the Navajo fair across the street in Tuba City. That's a break for visitors, who otherwise have to rely on village decisions made event-by-event to open performances to non-Hopis. The combination offers Hopi dancers here by day, Navajo Yeibichai dancers at the fair by evening. The Deer Dancers now sway forward, turning white canes in their hands. Although the Deer Dance is a modern creation that is not part of the Hopi ceremonial cycle, it recalls the most ancient traditions in North America. These men and boys descend from those who danced the same steps in Oraibi a thousand years ago. The red sifted earth glows bright in the heat as they step. The drumbeats and chants clash with the dancers' answering conch necklaces. Hopis and Navajos and a scattering of non-Indians stand in a circle around the dance arena or sit in lawn chairs. Many women hold umbrellas against the intense sun.

Susanna Denet, an elderly Hopi woman, sits among the throng, not standing out at all the Hopi Way - dressed in a simple cotton dress without notable jewelry. She is a wonderful potter, working with coiled clay, although she now makes only unpainted pots because her eyesight is not good.

THE HOPI PUEBLOS

Susanna came in from Sichomovi, 50 miles eastward, to join daughters Ruby, who lives here, and Dorothy, who is studying psychology at Northern Arizona University.

Susanna is a slight bright-eyed woman with graying hair, quick to smile and tell a joke on herself in a high, melodic voice. She is a matriarch of the Butterfly Clan, which, like all Hopi clans, traces itself to the conclusion of the migrations, to the once and for all return here, where the Hopis accepted their destiny of living sparely in return for enduring forever, like their hard blue corn which lasts through the droughts that kill off richer varieties.

Four men step by now, stags, holding white canes and moving in the gentle sway of grazing, their faces hidden by coverings of vergreen boughs topped by the skullcaps of impressively antlered bucks. Twists of cornhusks make their eyes; large feathers, their ears. They are joined by two boys, their faces exposed.

The Deer Dance, a social dance devised solely for entertainment, gives way to the Corn Dance, performed mostly by women whose costumes are topped by rich handwoven tunics. It is faster, and its hand gestures - carried out in response to the deep drumbeat and chanting male voices imitate the grinding of corn on a metate.

In late afternoon, a chill wind blows across Moenkopi, so on Sunday, the dances resume in a basketball arena. Conversation comes easily, and the resonance makes the booming drums and clashing conch necklaces arresting, hypnotic.

As the Corn Dancers move by, men and women from the audience rise and join in, one woman moving among three different dancers. Susanna says the woman is dancing with each of her clan grandchildren. "She is telling the audience how proud she is of them."

Hopi clans are matriarchal. Women hold all property, and all babies are born into their mothers' clans. So Susanna's daughters and their children all are of the Butterfly Clan; her late son was, too, but his children are of their mother's clan.

Lineage is female, but religion, the twin focus of Hopi life, is male-dominated with women participating in certain specific ceremonies. Men perform the sacred kachina dances and other important rituals. Hopis argue over opening kachina dances to the public. It's not the dances themselves that must be kept secret but their meanings.

But it was always the meanings that outsiders probed. When even the banning of note-taking didn't work Ph.D. theses continue to explicate meanings of Hopi rites the villages began barring non-Hopis. Now more are electing to open their ceremonies. Third Mesa, whose chief village is Oraibi, experimentally opened the kachina dances in 1995 and 1996.

Hopi life has been torn by more serious disagreements. In 1906 the government opened schools here, pitting those who wanted them against those who wanted to retain traditional ways. The clans at Oraibi broke apart. Believed to be among the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in North America, Oraibi was founded a millennium ago. In the split, the nontraditionalists founded Hotevilla while the traditionalists remained at Oraibi.

"The tragedy is that everything fought for, to be preserved, was precisely what was lost," Dorothy Denet says. There were no longer enough people ordained in each village to perform all ceremonies.

Walking through Oraibi one searing July day, I was stopped by a middle-aged woman eager to show me shards found beneath her earthen floor. Digging there to add cool-storage, she and her nephews had found remnants of her ancient forebears' cooking pots, hardly different from her own. Being one with a place is the heart of Hopi culture.

Oraibi may be oldest of the villages, but Walpi is the most picturesque good for visitors because the Walpi council conducts walking tours for a donation. Susanna Denet lives next to Walpi in the "middle village," Sichomovi.

To reach Susanna's, you grind up the steep hill that climbs First Mesa, first coming to Hano. In the dim past, the peaceful Hopis needed help to hold back enemies. So they invited the Tewas as allies, and in return that tribe was permitted to remain. In 1680 the Pueblo Indians rose against

THE HOPI PUEBLOS

(LEFT) Sunset creates a stunning silhouette of Second Mesa. (RIGHT) Hopi clan signs embellish some boulders. On the right are Corn Clan symbols and the Badger and Butterfly symbols for which Susanna Denet searched.

the Spanish. The Hopis routed their enemy over the only issue that has ever made them go to war: efforts to convert them. Meanwhile, more Tewas came from the east seeking refuge from the Spanish, and they now occupy Hano. After three centuries, they still speak Tewa - unintelligible to Hopis - and observe their own customs. The two groups live in what appears one seamless village, the Tewa all also fluent in Hopi - otherwise a guide explains, “We couldn't understand them.” Three ancient pueblos merge atop First Mesa: Hano, Sichomovi, and, across a natural bridge wide as a country lane, Walpi. Walpi was built in the 13th century, more than 200 years after Oraibi, a span like that between Manhattan and Phoenix. And in Sichomovi, stands Susanna Denet's home of fitted sandstone.

"I was born here,” she says pointing to the next room. “My father built my little piki house, where you found me.” Piki is Hopi bread, made of ground blue corn, the batter spread so thin on its heating stone that it is transparent. Susanna often spends her days in the piki house working on pottery.

Her home is comfortable and warm. She has electricity and propane. The kitchen is her gathering place. The big table in the center of the room is where she drinks tea made from herbs she gathers, just as she mines pottery clay. Stove, sink, refrigerator line one wall, cabinets another. Pictures held to her refrigerator with magnets show a Mudhead kachina carved by her grandson Manuel Denet Chavarria (from a show in Flagstaff), and granddaughter April Sewequaptewa, announcing her high-school graduation.

WHEN YOU GO

To Susanna's eyes, the blacktop that passes Polacca at the foot of First Mesa and goes on into Keams Canyon calls forth a history: “Up ahead is where our Butterfly Clan entered” the mesas. “They came with the Badger Clan from the north. But that was at the end. Originally they came from the west, Butterfly and Badger together.” Susanna remembers this story of her clan from a few years ago. After Thanksgiving dinner, she, her daughters, and their children went into the desert to look for petroglyphs made by their Butterfly Clan as it came in from the west from its migration at the founding.

"I, with my cane, slowed them down, but they didn't seem to mind. We found nothing. It was disappointing.” Later that evening, “The girls said they would get up early in the morning, and we would look again,” she says.

"Well, we went out again. I said, 'You go on ahead, I am so slow with my cane.' After not so long, April called out, 'Grandma, come quickly, up here.' Well, they wanted me to go up high.” She pokes out her cane to demonstrate. “Of course it took some pulling up here and pushing back here, but they got me up. And what do you think? There was the butterfly of our clan. Before, we had turned the wrong way. And next to the butterfly, look: It's the Badger Clan. So the Badger Clan and Butterfly Clan came together from the west, side by side, just as is told. And it was there on the rock for them to see.” So it is with everything Hopi. History is seen in rocks carved or assembled on the mesas, but its meaning remains within.

It's about 85 miles from Flagstaff to Tuba City/Moenkopi via U.S. routes 89 and 160 and Lon to State Route 264, which traverses the Hopi reservation. To reach the three mesas, take Interstate 40 east from Flagstaff to Winslow, then go north on State 87 to State 264; turn right onto 264 to go to First Mesa and Walpi (Polacca on maps), or turn left onto 264 to go to the Hopi Cultural Center and other villages. There are motels at Second Mesa (one) and in Winslow. Photographing and recording events usually is banned. For general information about the Hopi Cultural Center, call (520) 734-2441. To inquire about the next TuVi Gathering public dances at Moenkopi, call (520) 283-8056.