MODULE 3

THE HOPI

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Key Concepts:
sipapuni
Hisatsinom
Nampeyo
Sikyatki Revival
Hopivotskwani
kikmongwi
katsinam
Powamu
Niman
Hopi-Navajo Land Dispute

Reading Assignment, Text: Chapter 3: "The Hopi," pp. 70-113

The Hopi are a Pueblo group who live on and around three mesas in northern Arizona. Both archaeologists and the Hopi trace Hopi ancestry to the Ancestral Pueblo people, whom the Hopi call Hisatsinom ("our ancestors"). Archaeologists use the name Hisatsinom to designate the Kayenta Branch Anasazi (Western Anasazi) who lived in northeastern Arizona, as differentiated from the Eastern Anasazi, whose descendants became the Rio Grande Pueblos.

The Hopi origin story is one of emergence from a series of worlds that lie deep below the surface of today's earth. When the inhabitants of previous worlds fought among themselves, misunderstanding the meaning of life, Tawa the Sun Spirit sent Spider Grandmother to guide them upward into the Second World and then a Third World when they resumed their fighting. When they again succumbed to conflict, a few men of good heart dispatched birds to seek a means of ascending a world above them. Catbird reached the sipapuni ("hole in the sky" or "place of emergence") through which the people later emerged. Hopi kivas (ceremonial structures) are semi-subterranean and each has a hole in the floor near the firepit that is known as the sipapuni.

Traditionally, each Hopi village was an autonomous entity, with its own sociopolitical and religious system. Hopi villages have been compared to Greek city-states, sharing a common thread of beliefs and practices in ritual and ceremonies as well as a web of kinship based on clan and lineage. Hopi government was essentially theocratic, and the chief - kikmongwi - of each Hopi village was from the Bear Clan. As ritual leader and "father" of the people of his village, he was expected to lead his "children" by providing an example of hard work, humility, and good thoughts. He was responsible for seeing that the rituals and ceremonial affairs of the village were properly carried out, while other officials acted on his behalf in political matters.

After the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 imposed tribal government on Native Americans, however, the Hopi Tribal Council was established. At first, many Hopi did not recognize the authority of this organization, but today, the Hopi Tribal Council, based in Kykotsmovi, is accepted as a governing body that represents the Hopi people.