The Fascinating Hopi Religion

While reading about the Hopi, I was fascinated by their religion.  Hopi ("peaceful") live their religion with an essence of harmony, based on nine universes.  In a Hopi pueblo, the two highest buildings are the Supreme Being.  Man has passed through the lowest three (which are underground) to the fourth which is aboveground.  At each emergence man is born unblemished in harmony with all.  If a man can retain this purity, he will pass into a higher world.

Witches as well as man's frailty sully life's original purity.  To restore harmony, man needs the intercession of 300 "kachinas", benign messengers sent by the gods to accompany man when he emerges into the fourth world. (see photo) The kachinas stay with man for 6 months, after which they descend through a hole ("sipapu") to the underworld.  Before man emerges into the fourth world, man is given sacred corn, the Hopi staple which is grown on dry plateaus, watered only by springs, by seepage through sandstone mesas, or occasional rains.

All villagers belong to one or more religious societies, each with a ritual chamber ("Kiva") which serves a clubhouse, clinic, and shrine.  Membership is matrilateral - family life, based on a mother.  A daughter, for example, gives birth in her mother's house.  Birth is a by-product of death.  After a Hopi dies and visits the underworld, his spirit may float above the earth as a rain cloud, enlightening new crops, and bringing about rebirth.

Houses belong to women who educate their daughter.  When a daughter marries, the couple lives with her mother or next door.  The husband weaves two garments for his bride and then farms her family land. Men do all the weaving.  At puberty, a son leaves home to live in the Kiva until marriage. 

The Hopi environment is harsh but it inspires such respect for life that no game is killed without appeasement.  A dead rabbit is fed cornmeal, a coyote is given a cornhusk cigarette - all in a manner to appease to the gods. 

Next time...a ritual Hopi ceremony
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On this Day in Pioneer History: "On July 18, 1792, the Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones dies in his Paris apartment, where he was still awaiting a commission as the United States consul to Algiers. Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, 1747.

Old Friends - New Friends

Captain Walker and his men proceeded from Sunset Crater and crossed the Little Colorado River, turned north to the Moquis where they spend an instructive and agreeable week with the Hopis. Walker was impressed with their mesa topped villages, their architecture, their arts and crafts, and especially their  character.  "They were neat, clean, always keeping 2 or 3 years worth of provisions laid up for fear of famine" he recorded. 

Captain Walker continued eastward to the Rio Grande, then Albuquerque in June of 1851. Captain Joe then went alone to Santa Fe in the summer where he met up with old friend, Kit Carson.  He looked into the local market for livestock, but found it not very attractive.

In November, Walker started back to California with a few men, traveling a well established caravan trail. Is Captain Joe about ready to retire from the life of a mountain man?  Is this his last trek in the western wilderness?

Next time...Railroad Consultant?

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This Day in History:  On December 15, 1890, the great Sioux chief and holy man  Sitting Bull is killed by Indian police at the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota, after many years of successfully resisting white efforts to destroy him and the Sioux people.