For all that are interested in Hopi Culture
The Hopi Indians, which means good, peaceful, or wise, come from a group of Southwestern people called Pueblo.
Hopis call themselves Hopitu - The Peacable People.
Hopis live in northeast Arizona at the southern end of the Black Mesa. A mesa is the name given to a small isolated flat-topped hill with three steep sides called the 1st Mesa, 2nd Mesa, and the 3rd Mesa. On the mesa tops are the Hopi villages called pueblos. The pueblo of Oraibi on the 3rd Mesa started in 1050, and is the oldest in North America that was lived in continuously.
ANCESTRY
Evidence suggest that the Hopi consist of the descendants of various groups that entered the country from the north, the east, and the south, and that a series of movements covered a period of probably three centuries, and perhaps considerably longer.
Their ancestors, the Anasazi, appear to have been related to the Aztecs of Mexico, and may have arrived in their current location 5 to 10 thousand years ago. In that time, they have developed an intricate ceremonial calendar that has helped them survive and be strong in a place that would not seem to have enough reliable water to sustain life.
Related to people of the various Pueblos to the east, the Hopis never actually had a single group identity--they were independent villages, sharing with the Zuni and other Pueblos a basic culture and view of the sacred, while sharing among themselves their own (Uto-Aztecan) language base.
LANGUAGE
Although the Hopi are composed of elements that must have spoken diverse tongues, their speech is readily recognized as a dialog of the Shoshonean language, which in various forms was spoken in a large part of the Great Basin between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in southwestern Oregon, and in southern California even to the coast and on Santa Catalina island; and which furthermore is undoubtedly allied to the great Aztecan language. A linguistic map would represent the Hopi as an isolated people surrounded by alien tongues
DWELLINGS
Hopi Mesa homes --- Hopis live in pueblos that are made of stone and mud and stand several stories high.
The Kivas are an underground chamber in the pueblo home that they used to talk and have religious ceremonies in. They used the kivas for 100 years. The center of the floor had a fire pit. You had to climb down a ladder to get to the south end where a bench was placed for spectators. At the north end was a small hole in the floor as a reminder of sipapu.
The walls of some Hopi houses are constructed of undressed stone fragments bound with mud plaster. The flat roof consists of beams resting on the tops of the walls, pole battens, rod and grass thatching, a layer of gumbo plaster, and a covering of dry earth. Most of the houses are more than single story. and some are four stories. The upper apartments are reached by outside ladders.
WOMEN
The women and men each have specific jobs or duties they perform. The women own the land and the house. They also cook and weave the baskets. The men plant and harvest, weave cloth, and perform the ceremonies.
When a child is born they get a special blanket and a perfect ear of corn. On the 20th day they take the child to the mesa cliff and hold it facing the rising sun. When the sun hits the baby is given a name.
MARRIAGE
A Hopi bride grinds corn for three days at her future husbandís house to show she had wife skills. The groom and his male relatives wove her wedding clothes. After they were finished, the bride to be would walk home in one wedding outfit, and carried the other in a container. Women were also buried in their wedding outfit so when they entered the spirit world they would be dressed appropriately. The Hopi man would wear several bead necklaces on his wedding day.
ART, POTTERY, BASKETS, JEWELRY, RUGS
Art is a way for the Southwestern Native Americans to communicate their dreams, visions, and beliefs to each other or to people today.
Pottery, clothing, and making baskets are just a portion of the great arts and crafts of the Southwest Native Americans. Their art used symbols and signs to represent their ideas, beliefs, dreams, and visions.
Pottery was made for everyday use, including cooking, storage, bathing, and religious ceremonies.They were painted and carved with designs that told a story.
Modern earthen ware is considerably softer and of coarser texture than the pieces that have been exhumed in large numbers from the ruins of this region. The most successful imitator of this ancient ware, who is not a Hopi at all, but the Tewa woman Nampeyo, of the village Hano, says that its superiority was obtained by the use of lignite, by which the prehistoric potters were able to fire their vessels for several days; but a well-informed traditionalist, on the contrary, asserts that it is the result of burying the clay in moist sand for a long time, perhaps two moons, which 'caused something in the clay to rot'."
CLOTHING
The clothing they wore depended on what they did. They lived in a warm climate so they wore little clothing. They would dress in flowers and paint with feather headdresses. They also used clothing to signify their fighting skills.
The Southwest Indians were the most skilled in making baskets. They would decorate the baskets with colors and patterns. They could be very symbolic like the art they made. The Hopi method of basket making has not changed for hundreds of years.
FOOD
The very first Southwest Native Americans hunted mammoths until they became extinct. Then people began to hunt buffalo, also known as bison, as well as collect wild plants for food.
They also learned to grow maize, or corn, that was their most common grain, which became domesticated in Mexico.
Corn is the central food of daily life, and piki - paper thin bread made from corn and ash--is the dominant food at ceremonies. Corn relies on the farmer to survive, and the Hopi relies on the corn - all life is designed to be interrelated.
The Hopi Indians grew food similar to the Navajo Indians. They raised corn or maize as the basic food. The Hopi Indians based religious ceremonies on the corn they grew.They grew 24 different kinds of corn, but the blue and white was the most common.They also grew beans, squash, melons, pumpkins, and fruit.
KACHINAS
Kachina dolls were carved out wood by the Zuni and Hopi tribes. They clothed them in masks and costumes to look like the men who dressed up as Kachina spirits. They were given to children to teach them to identify the different parts of Kachina dolls, and the parts they play in tribal ceremonies.
The Kachinas, or Gods, were beings of a great might and a great power to the Native Americans. They were known to come down to earth and actually help the native Americans tend their fields and give them wisdom about agriculture, and law and government. They physically interacted with the people themselves.
There have been drawings of these Kachinas on cave walls. In many ways they correspond to the kinds of drawings we see in the Nasdak Plains but in much larger form.
ASTRONOMY - ALIENS - UFO'S
Native Americans believed in constellations in many cases they believed in the same formations for stars that we do. Their constellations seemed to be marked by the same knowledge that western civilizations on theother part of the globe was aware of. They call them by different names but the star arrangements were very similar.
They believed in maps that have been drawn. That they existed at the center of the earth or Turtle Island. That beyond them was the sky and that beyond the sky were dimensional portals or sky holes as they called them . Beyond the dimensional portals was an area that they call the Ocean of Pitch, were the beauty of the night sky and the galaxies spun out towards them. Beyond that were the boundaries of the universe. And that set along the rim at the boundaries of the universe were 4 different exterrestrial groups.
They believed in Achivas the sacred ceremonial places to honor the earth. These are the places that Shaman would go into the earth to do their most sacred work. The reason that Achivas are built into the earth for sacred work is beacuse according to legend, at the destruction at each of the ages of mankind the people that were pure of heart went down into the buxom of the earth and there remained protected. According to them they dwelt in the center of the earth with a group of beings that they call the Ant People.
Drawings of the Ant People are remarkable similar to the Grey aliens of today - large heads - little stocky bodies - long spindly fingers - in some cases 4, 5, or 6 digits.
Some of these drawings have the indication of telepathic thought waves coming from the beings' head themselves.
The Native Americans believed that the home of the Kachinas was on top of a mountain where there were great cloud formations. Today we know that UFO's often hide in what we call Lenticular Clouds, which are cloud formations that seem to be produced to conceal the ships from the visible eye spectrum. Real lenticular clouds move with the rest of the clouds. Whereas the UFO clouds do not - often sitting 5 hours in one place.
The Hopis called the Pleiadians the Chuhukon, meaning those who cling together. They considered themselves direct descendents of the Pleiadians. The Navajos named the Pleiades the Sparkling Suns or the Delyahey, the home of the Black God. The Iroquois pray to them for happiness. The Cree came to have come to earth from the stars in spirit form first and then became flesh and blood.
Each year a medicine man performs the green corn dance where he takes 7 ears of corn from 7 fields of the 7 clans to insure a healthy harvest.
Early Dakota stories speak of the Tiyami home of the ancestors as being the Pleiades. Astronomy tells us that the Pleiades rise with the sun in May and that when you die your spirit returns south to the seven sisters.
They believe that Mythic Mountain is actually the home of the Kachinas. This mountain top is a sacred one. Being the home of the kachina spirits it is the place where all of the large mythic beings they honor in their rituals land. "We come as clouds to bless the Hopi people" is a quote passed from generation to generation.
There are some remarkable drawings that appear to be luminous discs of light in the petroglyphs all along the south west. Photographs of Billy Meier's Pleiadian space and beam ships look just like these rock petroglyphs from long ago.
The Hopi Indian UFOs
Hopi Indian legends tell of a sure certainty in the future that the tribe's faithful will be lifted to other planets on the Day of Purification. And they watch and wait for the UFO's that will take them there.
The legend is borne of an ancient rock carving near Mishongnovi, AZ, depicting a dome-shaped saucer object and maiden that has become a core part of the tribe's religious beliefs. Elders in the Hopi community have said they perceive UFOs as having a direct connection with the old petroglyph drawing and the foretelling of visitors from space who arrive for the Day of Purification.
On that day, "all wicked people and wrong-doers will be punished or destroyed," said the Prescott Daily Courier in 1995. The newspaper reported on a visit to Prescott by Hope Chief Dan Katchongva, who with two others from the tribe came to investigate "the rash of UFOs in the summer of 1970.
The chief told the newspaper that "we believe other planets are inhabited and that our prayers are heard there. The arrow on which the dome-shaped object rests stands for travel through space. The Hopi maiden on the dome-shaped drawing represents purity. Those Hopi who survive Purification Day will travel to other planets. We, the faithful Hopi have seen the ships and know they are true."
Chief Katchongva also told of Hopi prophecies that say his people will be divided three times before the True White Brother arrives to take the faithful away. He said the first division occurred in 1906, when Chief Yukiuma were driven from the old town of Oraibi to Hoteville. The second division, said the chief, happened in 1969, when contact was made with a flying saucer that whispered a message to the tribe.
The third division is said to be the precursor of the Purification day, and until it arrives, the chief told the newspaper, "many Hopi men wear their bang haircut that represents a window from which they continue to look for the True White Brother who will arrive with matching pieces of the stone petroglyph.
But Chief Dan Katchongva won't see the day comeŠor perhaps he will. He's been missing since 1972, lost to the tribe while walking to a valley where a UFO had just been seen.
- Sally Suddock - X-Factor Magazine
KACHINAS
Kachinas are also used in the Hopi tribes. They are connected to powerful ancestor spirits called to bring rain to help the crops grow. There are over 300 different Kachinas.
There is a prophecy about the return of the Blue Kachina to herald in the Fifth Age of Man.
PROPHECY
Hopi prophecies are very famous - but as with all prophecies - their timeline became invalid after 1939 when space/time altered.
The concepts are fundamentally correct but the timeline for them to play out is undetermined.
The Hopi Indians are the Record Keepers of the Native Americans.
RELIGION
The people of the Southwest, along with the Southeast had full-time religious leaders with shrines or temple buildings. Most Native Americans believe that in the universe there exists an Almighty, a spiritual force that is the source of all life. The Almighty belief is not pictured as a man in the sky, but is believed to be formless and exist in the universe. The sun is viewed as the power of the Almighty.
They are not worshipping the sun, but praying to the Almighty, and the sun is a sign and symbol for that. Native Americans show less interest in an afterlife unlike the Christians. They assume the souls of the dead go to another part of the universe where they have a new existence carrying on everyday activities like they were still alive. They are just in a different world.
The religious and ceremonial life of the Hopi centers in the kiva, which is simply a room, wholly or partly subterranean and entered by way of ladder through an opening in the flat roof. While the membership of the kiva consists principally of men and boys from certain clan or clans, there is no case in which all the members of a kiva belong to one clan- a condition inseparable from the provision that a man may change his kiva membership, and in fact made necessary by the existence of more clans than kivas. It is probable, nevertheless, that originally the kivas were clan institutions."
HOPI SNAKE PRIEST
The Hopi or "Hopituh Shi-nu-mu" meaning "The Peaceful People" or the "Peaceful Little Ones" are a well know Indian Nation in Northern Arizona, especially known for their "Kachina Dolls". The Navajo name for the Hopi is Anazazi which means "ancient enemies". The Hopi's are a very peaceful tribe whose reservation lies somewhat in the center of the Navajo Nation and although the co-exist because of their geography their relationship is somewhat strained because of their tribal histories.
The cliff painting of the Mesa Verde and other areas are said to be "guides" for their warriors and they claim that the "snake-shaped" mounds in the eastern United States were built by their ancestors.
The "Snake Dance" is performed even today although the picture is of a Snake Priest Circa 1890. The dance takes about two weeks to prepare and the snakes are gathered and watched over by the children. The snakes are usually rattle snakes and are dangerous but no harm seems to befall the children. Before the dance begins the dancers take an emetic (probably a sedative herb or hallucinogenic) and then dance with the snakes in their mouths. There is usually an Antelope Priest in attendance who helps with the dance, sometimes stroking the snakes with a feather or supporting their weight. After the dance the snakes are released to carry the prayers of the dancers.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Beside the trail that leads from the Hopi mesas to an ancient shrine where salt was gathered in the Grand Canyon, a large boulder bears the markings of clans which carved their emblems into the rock each time they passed on a pilgrimage.
From various quarters, the Hopi have brought with them in their migration from other regions or have borrowed from other pueblo a mass of religious practices, and the result is a complex presenting many anomalies and obscurities. They recognize a very large number of deities, and of none can it be said that he is supreme. The explanation may be that that each was the principal deity of some one group that entered into the making of the present Hopi people. Numerous ceremonies are performed at proscribed times, which are determined by the position of the rising sun with reference to certain landmarks or by the moon.
HOPIS TODAY
Today there are 12 Hopi villages on or below the three mesas, with Moencopi to the west (on Dinetah), and Keams Canyon to the east. Each village has its own village chief, and each contributes to the annual cycle its own ceremonies. Each village presents its own distinct cast of katsinam, and each village has maintained its own balance of engagement with the Euro-American culture and traditional Hopi practices and views.
Today, the Hopi Indians are divided into to traditional --which preserve ancient lands and customs, and new - who work with outsiders. The Hopi Indians today love their traditions, arts, and land, but also love the modern American life. Their kids go to school and they use medical centers. The Hopi live and work outside of the reservations. Troubles with the Navajo whose reservations surround the Hopi still continue today.
There are now eight Hopi pueblos, all of them on the tops of mesas....The Hopi villages were established on their present almost inaccessible sites for purposes of defense; and with the same object in view the builders formerly never left a door in the outer walls of the first story, access to the rooms invariably being through hatchways in the roof.
ARTICLES - NEWS
Hopi Eagle-Taking Brings Conflict
July 22, 2000 - NY Times
Every spring for centuries, Hopi Indians gathered fledgling golden eagles from nests perched on the red-hued cliffs of what is now northeastern Arizona and used them in religious ceremonies.
But Wupatki National Monument officials stopped the practice last year, saying it violated federal laws prohibiting taking wildlife from national parks.
The case is the latest in a string of disputes involving Indian cultural and religious traditions, the government and environmentalists.
To the Hopi, what's at stake is the essence of their religion, which is older than the 12th-century ruins their ancestors built at Wupatki.
"The practice of eagle-gathering is central to Hopi religion and cultural life," tribal chairman Wayne Taylor Jr. said. "The Hopi regard the eagles as embodying the spirits of their ancestors."
Interior Department lawyers have been considering the issue for nearly a year and hope to have a ruling before 2001, said Patricia Parker, the National Park Service's Indian liaison.
Critics say the Park Service cannot give the Hopi an exemption without giving all other tribes the same rights in other national parks and monuments.
"If the long-standing prohibitions of taking animals from parks can be waived for religious purposes of the Hopis, then how can you not waive it for the religious purposes of Navajos or Blackfeet or Quinault, or other tribes that claim they want to take wildlife from parks for traditional ceremonial, religious or even subsistence purposes?" asked Frank Buono, a retired Park Service official.
Buono is a board member of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the environmental groups pressing the Park Service to stop the Hopis from gathering the eagles.
Some Indian leaders complain that environmentalists show ambivalence toward tribes. For example, they joined with the Hopi and other tribes to try to block mining on the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, but opposed the Makah tribe's whale hunts in Washington state.
"There is still an anti-Indian bias about traditional native religions among a lot of people in environmental groups the same way there is generally," said Suzan Shown Harjo, a Cheyenne-Muskogee and director of the Morning Star Institute, an Indian rights group based in Washington.
"You find a lot of environmentalists who are only too happy to appropriate the words of Chief Seattle, or take the thinking of other great people of native history about the environment," she said. "There are people who are only too happy to adopt those trappings as their own and continue to disregard the living people who are related to that legacy."
The Hopi have permits from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to gather 40 golden eaglets a year for use in religious ceremonies, during which the birds are killed. The ceremonies are exempt from the 1962 federal law protecting golden eagles, which are not listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The permits do not specify where the eagles can be taken. The U.S. Forest Service allows them to be gathered in federal forest land.
Wupatki Monument Superintendent Sam Henderson said he intervened because federal law does not exempt Hopis or other Indians from the ban on killing or capturing wildlife in the monument.
Parker said the prohibition was enforced last year because it was the first time the Hopi made a formal request to gather eaglets in the monument.
Harjo, who helped write a White House report on Indian religious freedom in 1979, said federal law has plenty of exemptions for capturing or killing animals in parks for religious, scientific, safety or other purposes. For example, Sioux tribal members are allowed to hunt for religious and subsistence purposes on part of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. They are the only people allowed to hunt there.
( Taken from
http://www.crystalinks.com/hopi1.html )
