The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi | Page 5

their
young people being led off into new angles of religious belief, yet
confident that "the old time religion" will prevail and hopeful that the
young will be led to see the error of their way. How long the old faith
can last, in the light of all that surrounds it, no one can say, but in all
human probability it is making its last gallant stand.
These Pueblo Indians are very unlike the nomadic tribes around them.
They are a sedentary, peaceful people living in permanent villages and
presenting today a significant transitional phase in the advance of a
people from savagery toward civilization and affording a valuable
study in the science of man.
Naturally they are changing, for easy transportation has brought the
outside world to their once isolated home. It is therefore highly
important that they be studied first-hand now for they will not long stay
as they are.

III. HOPI SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
* * * * *
=Government=
In government, the village is the unit, and a genuinely democratic
government it is. There is a house chief, a Kiva chief, a war chief, the
speaker chief or town crier, and the chiefs of the clans who are likewise
chiefs of the fraternities; all these making up a council which rules the
pueblo, the crier publishing its decisions. Laws are traditional and
unwritten. Hough[5] says infractions are so few that it would be hard to
say what the penalties are, probably ridicule and ostracism. Theft is
almost unheard of, and the taking of life by force or law is unknown.
[Footnote 5: Hough, Walter, The Hopi: Torch Press, Cedar Rapids,
1915.]
To a visitor encamped at bedtime below the mesa, the experience of
hearing the speaker chief or town crier for the first time is something
long to be remembered. Out of the stillness of the desert night comes a
voice from the house tops, and such a voice! From the heights above, it
resounds in a sonorous long-drawn chant. Everyone listens breathlessly

to the important message and it goes on and on.
The writer recalls that when first she heard it, twenty years ago, she sat
up in bed and rousing the camp, with stage whispers (afraid to speak
aloud), demanded: "Do you hear that? What on earth can it mean?
Surely something awful has happened!" On and on it went endlessly.
(She has since been told that it is all repeated three times.) And not
until morning was it learned that the long speech had been merely the
announcement of a rabbit hunt for the next day. The oldest traditions of
the Hopi tell of this speaker chief and his important utterances. He is a
vocal bulletin board and the local newspaper, but his news is
principally of a religious nature, such as the announcement of
ceremonials. This usually occurs in the evening when all have gotten in
from the fields or home from the day's journey, but occasionally
announcements are made at other hours.
The following is a poetic formal announcement of the New Fire
Ceremony, as given at sunrise from the housetop of the Crier at Walpi:
"All people awake, open your eyes, arise, Become children of light,
vigorous, active, sprightly: Hasten, Clouds, from the four
world-quarters. Come, Snow, in plenty, that water may abound when
summer appears. Come, Ice, and cover the fields, that after planting
they may yield abundantly. Let all hearts be glad. The Wuwutchimtu
will assemble in four days; They will encircle the villages, dancing and
singing. Let the women be ready to pour water upon them That
moisture may come in plenty and all shall rejoice."[6]
[Footnote 6: Hough, Walter, Op. cit., p. 43.]
As to the character of their government, Hewett says:[7] "We can
truthfully say that these surviving pueblo communities constitute the
oldest existing republics. It must be remembered, however, that they
were only vest-pocket editions. No two villages nor group of villages
ever came under a common authority or formed a state. There is not the
faintest tradition of a 'ruler' over the whole body of the Pueblos, nor an
organization of the people of this vast territory under a common
government."
[Footnote 7: Hewett, E.L., Ancient Life in the American Southwest:
Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1929, p. 71.]
=The Clan and Marriage=
Making up the village are various clans. A clan comprises all the

descendants of a traditional maternal ancestor. Children belong to the
clan of the mother. (See Figure 1.) These clans bear the name of
something in nature, often suggested by either a simple or a significant
incident in the legendary history of the people during migration when
off-shoots from older clans were formed into new clans. Thus a
migration legend collected by Voth[8] accounts for the name of the
Bear Clan, the Bluebird