The Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, HavasupaisJames, George Wharton
Religion
The Indians of the Painted Desert Region: Hopis, Navahoes, Wallapais, Havasupais
James, George Wharton
Indians of North America -- Southwest, New
It is a picturesque sight that the visitor to the Hopi towns enjoys
as he reaches the head of the trail at Hano. The houses are built in
terraces, two or three stories high, the second story being a step
back from the first, so that a portion of the roof of the first story
can be used as the courtyard or children's playground of the people
who inhabit the second story. The third story recedes still farther,
so that its people have a front yard on the roof of the second story.
At Zuni and Taos these terraces continue for six and seven stories,
but with the Hopis never exceed three. The first climb is generally
made on a ladder, which rests in the street below. The ladder-poles,
however, are much longer than is necessary, and they reach up
indefinitely towards the sky. Sometimes a ladder is used to go from
the second to the third story, but more often a quaint little stairway
is built on the connecting walls. Equally quaint are the ollas used as
chimneys. These have their bottoms knocked out, and are piled one above
another, two, three, four, and sometimes five or six high. Some of the
"terraces" are partially enclosed, and here one may see a weaver's
loom, a flat stone for cooking _piki_ (wafer bread), or a beehive-like
oven used for general cooking purposes. Here and there cord-wood is
piled up for future use, and now and again a captive eagle, fastened
with a rawhide tether to the bars of a rude cage, may be seen. The
"king of birds" is highly prized for his down and feathers, which are
used for the making of prayer plumes (bahos).
There does not seem to have been much planning in the original
construction of the Hopi pueblos. There was little or no provision
made for the future. The first houses were built as needed, and then as
occasion demanded other rooms were added.
It will doubtless be surprising to some readers to learn that the Hopi
houses are owned and _built_ (in the main) by the women, and that the
men weave the women's garments and knit their own stockings. Here,
too, the women enjoy other "rights" that their white sisters have
long fought for. The home life of the Hopis is based upon the rights
of women. They own the houses; the wife receives her newly married
husband into her home; the children belong to her clan, and have her
clan name, and not that of the father; the corn, melons, squash, and
other vegetables belong to her when once deposited in her house by the
husband. She, indeed, is the queen of her own home, hence the pueblo
Indian woman occupies a social relationship different from that of most
aborigines, in that she is on quite equal terms with her husband.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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