On the twenty-first day after the birth these women have assembled and
washed the mother’s hair. This is before sunrise: they are a
dawn-loving people. Then the grandmother takes the infant in one arm
and the mother by the hand. Imagine that little ceremony upon the
craggy mesa-top in the gray chill of the desert morning, high in the
thin air, overlooking all the dim sleeping valleys. They step to the
mesa edge to view the rising sun. Sacred meal, mixed with corn-pollen,
is strewn on the air. Then, as that mellow light flames the farthest
east, radiating from the hearts of all the people, gilding Yucca Point
and the Terrace of the Winds, plashing warmly the cold walls of the
mesa fortress, the grandmother speaks the name she has selected from
those suggested for the child.
If the child be a girl, she will receive another name on reaching
maturity, when her hair will be washed and arranged in the symbolic
whorls as a sign of womanhood. If a boy, he will receive another name
at a certain ceremony entitling him to wear a mask and to dance. These
names then last through life.
One can understand from this little baptismal scene how my friend of
the Second Mesa, Ta-las-we-huma, got his name. It must have been a
beautiful sunrise, and the little fellow must have been well-favored in
the sight of his sponsors; for his name may be translated, “Glow of the
Rising Sun.”
The Hopi do not name their children with the frank vulgarity that so
often is found among the Navajo and other tribes. Many of their titles
are pure poetry. We have Lo-may-ump-tewa—something Going Straight and
Good, as an arrow—and Se-you-ma—one who Carries a Flower. Then there
are many names such as we commonly associate with Indians: Sah-mee or
Green Corn, and Qua-ku-ku, or Eagle Claws.
The Hopi maiden is most frequently given a tender name, and she is
often a pretty little thing deserving it. We find Tawa-mana, or Girl of
the Sun, and Pole-mana and Pole-see, meaning Butterfly Girl and
Butterfly Flowers (buttercups).
They are equally tasteful in naming places. I have already mentioned
Huh-kwat-we, the Terrace of the Winds. Of their closer and more
intimate places we find Ta-wah-pah Spring, the Spring of the Sun, at
one time a most precious waterhole, however roiled and muddy. And
Pah-lots-quabbie, the “place where we get red paint for the face,” a
point of particular interest to the women who wish to preserve their
complexions. Despite their copper-colored skins, the intense rays of
the desert sunlight cause them to take measures for protection. Much of
Indian face-painting is cosmetic, and not for the brilliant
color-scheme that a tourist connects with war-parties and potential
scalpings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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