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Show 1 TALES... I i oJeTRIBES X By Editha L. Watson t The Hop! The Hopl call themselves "The Peaceful People," bnt they can flght like fiends when they g consider It neces- ., v i sary. Living as V - X c they do In a wild .X1, land of mesas and jy- s canyons, they have , partaken of the na-"(.5 na-"(.5 tnre of the coun- , , try, and are aloof, ( f nuplacalile, and ! I I wary of the out- i "s I sider. They con- r I sider themselves X ' 1 capable of attend- mjr t0 their own Hopi. affairs, and resent interference. Long ago, they moved from the villages vil-lages at the feet of the mesas, building build-ing their picturesque homes on the elevations, where raiding enemies could not surprise them. Farming in the land below must have been a very exciting and dangerous occupation sometimes, when the fields must be cultivated almost furtively, and the farmer must hav his weapons as close to hand as his digging sticks. Farming under primitive conditions In scanty soil is a tedious work at best, but the Hopi know how to make the most of what they have. It is related that an agricultural expert was sent to the province of Tusayan, as Hopi-land Is called, to show the Indians bow to farm. They allowed him to experiment, but when growing time came, it was their own scanty corn, watered by hand, that made the crop, and the "expert's" field burned up under the ardent Arizona sun. The Hop! religion Includes fire-and sun-worship, and also ancestor worship, wor-ship, and it is a thing to which they cling as closely as to their lives. At one time they were practically -forced into adopting the Christian faith, but during the great Pueblo rebellion of 1GS0, they returned to their own beliefs, be-liefs, and only one Hopl pueblo, that of AwatobI, continued In the new religion. re-ligion. AwatobI was thus a thorn In the side of the other Hopi villages. With the white man's religion, these people had also acquired their troublesome disposition, and were constantly harassing the people of the other pueblos. They would not return to the ancient faith, though they grafted some of It onto their new beliefs, and adhered to this mixed religion with a tenacity seemingly Inspired by the love of annoying their tribesmen. These chafed more and more under the continued con-tinued harassing, and accordingly, one night when many of the Awatobians were gathered In a large kiva, their neighbors crept npon them, suddenly pulled up the ladder their only means of escape and threw down upon the trapped men firebrands, greasewood, and crushed red peppers, which they pulled down from where they hung drying on the houses. The other converts con-verts in the pueblo were hunted down and killed by their exasperated tribesmen, tribes-men, and only a few, mostly women who were especially proficient In the Indian arts, and children, were spared. Peaceful People, Indeed I Tills happened in 1700. That it Is not a legend was proved In 1895, when Dr. J. Walter Fewkes of the Smithsonian Smith-sonian Institution excavated the ruins of AwatobI, and found the fire-blackened remains of the once flourishing pueblo and Its inhabitants. Now the Hopl live very quietly on their mesa-tops. They cultivate crops on the land below, as they have done for centuries, and they cling to their old beliefs and ceremonies. People come from far lands to witness the fnmous Snake Dance, In which the "little brothers" of the Hopl are called upon to aid In prayers for rain, and so eflloacious is their assistance, that, It Is said, never more than three days elapse until it rains. The Hopl raised cotton before the advent of the whites, and one of their early manufactures was cotton cloth, beautifully woven and often embroidered. embroid-ered. Pottery making is another art for which thpy are famous, and although al-though at present their skill In decoration decora-tion does not flourish as It once did, they copy and adapt designs centuries old with considerable effect. So t hoy are once more the Peaceful People, hut perhaps, if necessity should arise, they would again show the world that they know how to fight. Cc). 19.11. Western Newspaper Union.) |
