Hopi Wafer. Bread. One is often likely to find a woman engaged in making piki. Piki is a wafer bread, peculiar to the Hopis. It is finer than the finest tortilla of the Mexican, or oatcake of the Scotch. No biscuit maker in America or England can make a cracker one-half so thin. The thinnest cracker is thick compared with piki, and yet the Hopi make it with marvelous dexterity. Cornmeal batter in a crude earthenware bowl, is the material; a smooth, flat stone, under which a brisk fire is kept burning, is the instrument; and the woman's quick fingers, spreading a thin layer of the batter over the stone, perform the operation. It looks so easy. A lady of one of my parties tried it once, and failed. My cook, a stalwart Kansas City man, knew he would not fail. And he didn't. He had four of the best-blistered fingers I have seen in a long time. But the Hopi woman merely greases the stone, dips her fingers into the batter, carries them lightly and carelessly over the heated surfaces, and, in a moment, strips the already baked sheet from the stone. When several are baked, she folds them over and over until they are about the size of an elongated shredded wheat biscuit.
Hopi Women as Builders. It is a reversal of our conception of things to see the "gentler sex " engaged in building a house, as is often the case in Hopiland. Yet to the Hopi there is nothing strange in this scene, for the woman, and not the man, is the owner of the house. Hence, the Hopi reasons, why should she not build it? It is hers, so let her make it; and she does.
She uses no spirit-level, no plumb line, no square, no saw, and yet she makes a creditable house, fairly square and plumb, warm and cosy in winter, and cool and comfortable in summer. The mud of the winter's watercourses is used as mortar, and the pieces of disintegrated sandstone, that abound on the mesa tops, form the building material.
Men Who Weave and Knit. In accordance with Hopi logic, the antithesis of the woman house-builders is to be seen daily in the men who are engaged in weaving the women's garments; men, also, knit the stockings, and follow other so-called feminine occupations. There is nothing incongruous in these things to them. They are part of "the way of the old," handed down to them by their forefathers.
Hopi Method of Weaving. To watch a weaver at work is to acquire a new respect for Indians. As one sees the crude, home-made appliances, and then watches the yarn climb up, thread by thread, battened down by hand so that the garment will hold water, until the article is finished, artistically designed, and perfectly fitted for its required purpose, he comes to the conclusion that the Hopi weaver, at least, is a skilled artificer.
Hopi Rituals. The Hopi are a remarkably religious people. I question whether there is to be found elsewhere in the world so ritualistic a people as they are. They have ceremonies--all of religious character for every month of the year, and some of them require from eight to sixteen days for their observance. Their dances are propitiations of the gods they worship, and whose aid they implore. One of the most noted and world-renowned of their ceremonies is the Snake Dance, and I wish to conclude this chapter with a brief description of this wonderful act, which I have now witnessed thirteen separate times. It has been woefully misrepresented by careless writers.
The whole ceremony is conducted with a dignity and solemnity that is not surpassed by any Christian observance.
Hopi Mythology Regarding Snake Dance. It is not a dance, in our sense of the word. It is a prayer for rain, and of thanksgiving for the blessings of harvest. Neither is it an act of snake worship. According to Hopi mythology, the snake and antelope clans, or families, are descended from the union of Tiyo and his brother with two sisters, daughters of the snake mother,--Tiyo being the paternal Ancestor of the Snake Clan, and his brother of the Antelope Clan. The story of Tiyo's visit, using a sealed-up hollow pinion log as a boat, and sailing down the Colorado river through "shipapu" to the underworld, is one of the most interesting pieces of aboriginal folk-lore. It appears elsewhere,* and forms the burden of the sixteen dramatic songs sung in the secrecy of the underground ceremonial kivas of the snake and antelope clans, in the nine days of preliminary ceremonial, which culminate in the open-air public dance.
* See Indians of the Pointed Desert Region.
