The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi Part 8

If the adult spirit has led a good life, it goes to the abode where the ancestral spirits feast and hold ceremonies as on earth, but if evil it must be tried by fire and, if too bad for purification, it is destroyed.

XI. STORIES TOLD TODAY

Fewkes, Stephen, Mindeleff, Voth, and others have collected the more important tales of migrations and the major myths underlying both religion and social organization among the Hopi. One gets substantially the same versions today from the oldest story-tellers. These are the stories that never grow old; in the kiva and at the fireside they live on, for these are the vital things on which Hopi life is built.

However, there is a lighter side, of which we have heard less, to this unwritten literature of the Hopi people. These are the stories for entertainment, so dear to the hearts of young and old alike. Even these stories are old, some of them handed down for generations. And they range from the historical tale, the love story, and the tale of adventure to the bugaboo story and the fable. s.p.a.ce permits only a few stories here.

No writing of these can equal the art of the Hopi story-teller, for the story is told with animation and with the zest that may inspire the narrator who looks into the faces of eager listeners.

The Hopi story-teller more or less dramatizes his story, often breaking into song or a few dance steps or mimicking his characters in voice and facial expression. Sometimes the writer has been so intrigued with the performance she could scarcely wait for her interpreter (See Figure 13) to let her into the secret. Often the neighbors gathered round to hear the story, young and old alike, and they are good listeners. All of these stories save one, that of Don, of Oraibi, were told in the Hopi language, but having a Hopi friend as an interpreter has preserved, we think, the native flavor of the stories.

The first story, as told by Sackongsie, of Bacabi, is a legend concerning the adventure of the son of the chief of Huckovi, a prehistoric Hopi village whose ruins are pointed out on Third Mesa. The writer has since heard other variants of this story.

=An Ancient Feud,= as told by Sackongsie

"This is a story of the people that used to live on Wind Mountain. There is only a ruin there now, but there used to be a big village called Huckovi; that means wind on top of the mountain. These people finally left this country and went far away west. We have heard that they went to California, and the Mission Indians themselves claim they are from this place.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 13.--The Author's Interpreter at Walpi and Daughter, "Topsy."]

"These people used to have ladder dances; that is an old kind of a dance that n.o.body has now. But we are told that a long time ago these people brought trees from far away and set them up in round holes made on purpose in the rock along the very edge of the mesa.

"Then the Mud heads (masked Kachinas) furnish the music and young men dressed as leopards and mountain lion Kachinas climb into the tree tops and swing out over the canyon rim to time of the music. You can see the round holes in the rock there now.

"Well--it has always been this way among Hopi--when there is a dance, everybody goes to see.

"Now there was a dance at Mishongnovi and the boys from Huckovi went over to see it.

"Now the war chief at Huckovi was a great man that everybody looked up to, and he had only one son. This young man was so religious that he never went to this kind of just funny dances, but this time he went along with some friends. Long time ago the chief never goes to these dances, nor his son who will follow his steps.

"When they got to Mishongnovi the dance was going on and everybody laughing and having a good time, for the clown kachinas were going round pestering the dancing kachinas. These rough clown kachinas took turns appearing and disappearing, and some coming, others going away, then coming back.

"About the middle of the afternoon, came two Kachina racers to run with the clowns, and soon they began to call out some of the young men from the audience, known to be the best runners. After a while the son of Huckovi chief was chosen to run, but he was very bashful and refused to perform. But the Kachina who had chosen him as a compet.i.tor insisted and finally brought a gift of baked sweet corn and the young man was embarra.s.sed and thought he had to run or be made fun of, so he came over and ran with this Kachina and beat him. They ran a long race, and the Kachina never could catch up with him, but when the boy stopped, the Kachina ran up and took hold of him and cut off his hair. The name of this Kachina was Hair Eater, and he was supposed to cut off the hair if he beat the boy, but he never did beat him.

"The Hopi, in those days, took great pride in their hair and would not cut it off for anything in the world.

"The people who saw what had happened were so sorry that the honorable son of the chief had been disgraced, that, to show their disapproval, they all left while the dance was still going on.

"When the boy got home his father was grieved to see his son coming home scalped, as he said. The father didn't know what to do.

"Now the chief had a daughter twelve years old. He told her to practice running till she can beat her brother. Both the boy and the girl practiced a long time and at last the girl can run faster and farther than her brother.

"Then the father said, 'I think it is good enough.'

"Soon the chief, he was the war chief, went to visit his friend, the war chief at Mishongnovi, and asked him to arrange a dance without letting the village chief know, because he said he wanted to give some kind of exhibition there.

"So his friend arranged the dance and four nights of practice followed.

This dance was to be given by the Snow Kachinas. So that night the dance is going to be, the father and mother of the children baked up much sweet corn for them to take to this dance at Mishongnovi.

"Now the chief had discovered that it was the son of the Mishongnovi village chief (not the war chief there) that had scalped his son.

"Being fast runners, the children went a round-about way and were still in time for the three o'clock dance. So they approached the village from another direction so no one would know where they had come from, and they put on their costumes and the girl dressed exactly like the son of the Mishongnovi village chief in his Hair Eater Kachina costume so no one can tell who she is.

"Now when the father started his children off, he gave them two prayer-sticks for protection, and he said when they were pursued they must conceal these and never let anyone touch them and they will be protected.

"Well, when they got there the clowns were dancing with the Kachinas. So the daughter of the Huckovi chief goes to a house top where she can see the pretty daughter of the Mishongnovi chief sitting with a bunch of girls, all in their bright shawls and with their hair in whorls.

"When these girls see a Hair Eater Kachina coming up on the house top they run from her, remembering the old trouble when that kind of a kachina had done such an awful thing. The girls all ran into a room and on down into a lower room, and the Huckovi girl followed them and caught the chief's daughter and cut off a whorl of her hair and also cut her throat. Then she went out on the house top and shook out the whorl for all the people to see.

"Of course the dance stopped and everybody started to come after her, but she and her brother ran from house top to lower house top and jumped to the ground and ran on west by Toreva and toward home, with all the men of Mishongnovi chasing them and shooting with bows and arrows. At last some were coming after them on horses. Then her brother asked her if she was too tired to run farther, fearing they would be caught. She replied, 'No more tired than at first!'

"By now they had come to the Oraibi Wash, and looking back they could see some men coming on horses.

"They remembered their two prayer-sticks, so they took them out of where they had hidden them in their clothes and they planted them at the two sides of the wash.

"And immediately a great whirl wind started up from that place and grew into a great sand storm that blotted out their tracks and made such a thick cloud that their enemies could no longer see them. Then they turned straight home.

"So the children came home with the whorl and scalp attached, and the father was satisfied.

"But the Mishongnovi chief was terribly angry and told his people to make much bows and arrows.

"Then a friend of the Huckovi chief went over from Mishongnovi and told all this to the war chief of Huckovi, who told his people to do likewise, for now there will be war.

"So after preparations had gone on for a long time, the Mishongnovi chief went to the Huckovi chief and said, 'We have to divide the land between us, and Oraibi Wash shall be the line.' (Meaning the mark past which an enemy was not to be pursued, and each would be safe on his own side of the line.)

"Oraibi Wash was already the line for the same purpose between Mishongnovi and Oraibi Village because of an older trouble.

"Well, when the enemies came from Mishongnovi to fight them, the Huckovi people had gathered many rocks and rolled them down from the mesa top, and killed so many that the Mishongnovi men started for home. But the Huckovi men came down then and followed them, and fought them every foot of the way back to Oraibi Wash, where they had to let them go free, and they went on running all the way home, and the Huckovi people then returned to their homes satisfied."

The next two stories are by Dawavantsie, whose name means "sand dune."

She is a member of the Water Clan, and is the oldest woman now living in Walpi. She is much loved by the whole village, who claim that she is over a hundred years old. How old she really is, it would be impossible to know, for such things were not kept track of so long ago. She speaks no English. When asked about her age she merely shrugs her small shrunken shoulders, draws her shawl around them, and with a pleasant toothless smile, says: "O, I never know that, but I remember a long, long time."

She loves to tell stories, and enjoys quite a reputation as a story-teller among her relatives and neighbors, who like to gather round and listen as she sits on the floor of her second story home, her back against the wall, bare feet curled up and quiet hands folded in her lap.

Her face, while deeply wrinkled, is fine and expressive of much character as well as sweetness of disposition. Figure 14 shows her posing for her picture just outside her door, on the roof of the next lower room. Her skin and hair and dress are all clean and neat; her little back is astonishingly straight, and her bare brown feet, so long used to the ladders of Hopiland, are surer than mine, if slower.

She has lived all her life, as did her mother and grandmother before her, in this second story room, on whose clean clay floor we sat for the visiting and story-telling. From its open door she looks out over the roofs of Walpi and far across the valley in all directions, for hers is the highest house, and near the end of the mesa. The ancestral home with its additions is now housing four generations. She has always been a woman of prominence because of her intelligence and has the marks of good breeding--one of nature's gentlewomen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 14.--Dawavantsie of Walpi.]

The writer's friends, Dr. and Mrs. Fewkes, had told of her several years ago, for it was in her house that they had lived for some time in the early nineties while carrying on research work for the Bureau of American Ethnology. The writer did not realize that this was the house and the woman of whom she had heard till half-way through the first story, when some mention of Dr. Fewkes, by her son-in-law (a man past middle age) brought out the fact. When informed of the death of both Dr.

and Mrs. Fewkes, her controlled grief was touching. In speaking of our mutual friend, the writer used the Hopi name given him by the Snake fraternity of the old woman's village so many years ago--Nahquavi (medicine bowl), a name always mentioned with both pride and amus.e.m.e.nt by Dr. Fewkes. And I found that in this family, none of whom speak English, exactly these same emotions expressed themselves in the faces of all the older members of the family, who remembered with a good deal of affection, it seemed, these friends of nearly forty years ago.