| Hopi Resources
I studied anthropology in college for several reasons: I've always been fascinated by anthropology and archaeology, and I wanted some good solid background in building cultures and peoples for writing science fiction. I've studied several cultures with this latter end in mind; the most recent is the Hopi culture of the southwestern United States.
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 | Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters contains fascinating historical and mythical material on the Hopi. I've been told that Frank Waters adapted some of what he'd been told to fit what he thought it should be like; indeed, his version of the creation myths differ drastically in some details from any I've read in other sources. But for ideas, I found this book fascinating. Part One is the Myths, Creation of the Four Worlds. Part Two is the Legends: The migrations of the clans on this, the fourth world, and how each village was settled and how the clans were formed. Part Three covers the Mystery Plays, the ceremonial cycle of Hopi life. Part Four is the History: The Lost White Brother. It details the Hopi contact with Europeans; especially the Castillas (Spanish). Various clashes between native and incoming cultures are described, as well as clashes between traditional-thinking and progressive Hopi, right up into the 1960s when the book was first published. Purchase this book |
| Ethnobotany of the Hopi, by Alfred F. Whiting, is more than just a list of the plants the Hopi use for food, implements, medicine, and ceremonies. There is also fascinating information on Hopi life, including their attitude toward nature, descriptions of how they conduct agriculture, preparation of dishes, how implements are made, various rituals, and plant symbols. Although this is not a book of tales and legends like so many others I've collected, I found it just as interesting to sit and read it, and see how the legends I'd read of fit into the everyday life of the Hopi. Purchase this book | |
 | The Fourth World of the Hopis by Harold Courlander (subtitled "The Epic Story of the Hopi Indians as Preserved in their Legends and Traditions"). Courlander's informants had a very different creation tale than did Waters in Book of the Hopi. He describes the emergence from a lower world to the present one, rather than Waters' portrayal of the complete destruction of each world, with some people (the pure in heart) saved to return to the next world. In the very interesting "Notes on the Stories" in the back of the book, Courlander discusses the differences in various clan's tales of the Emergence. As the subtitle suggests, the history is recounted in tales and legends, and so the supernatural is candidly included. Spider Grandmother is just as likely to help a deserving person as a human is. The final tales, of the Hopi interaction with the European settlers, are told in much the same mythic fashion as the creation tales, making an interesting contrast to the older stories. Purchase this book |
 | Games of the North American Indians, by Stewart Culin, is a hefty Dover paperback (nearly two inches thick!). It's not, of course, only about the Hopi. I include it in my resources because it provides that most useful of information: how people play. I find all too many archaeological exhibits which seriously show clothing, food containers, blankets, mysterious ritual things--and no toys or games. But people everywhere and everywhen play, and this book not only proves this in tiny print and over 800 pages, but it gives details on implements and rules for the games as well as comparing similar games among disparate cultures. Purchase this book |
 | Hopi Coyote Tales, by Ekkehart Malotki and Michael Lomatuway'ma, is different from the other books on Hopi tales and legends I've collected. In it, the authors give the coyote tales they've collected--on one page Hopi, on the facing page translated into English and retaining much of the flavor of the original stories. These stories haven't been sanitized or changed for the American reader. Coyote is presented in the bumbling trickster mode which is both like and unlike that of other Coyote tales of other Native American traditions. As it says in the preface, "To roaming Stone Age hunters, who competed with him on the open range, Coyote was indeed a formidable trickster. On the other hand, this legitimate predator-trickster of the hunter era is out of tune with the lifestyle of sedentary planters, such as the Hopi Indians. Hopi Coyote tales therefore tend to reduce, more straightforwardly than their Navajo counterparts, the Coyote person to the level of a laughable fool." These sometimes bawdy, sometimes silly stories are interesting in and of themselves. The bilingual glossary in the back adds more fascinating information about the Hopi lifestyle. Purchase this book |
 | People of the Short Blue Corn by Harold Courlander is a book of tales and legends of the Hopi. The stories in this book are a mixture of myths and histories; some of the timeless "It was still the time of ancient things. . ." variety ("Sikakokuh and the Hunting Dog") and some historical ("The Foot Racers of Payupki") with the supernatural (such as Spider Grandmother helping one of the racers) mixed with reality (mention of the Castilla). This book is more stories than history, however, and is less scholarly than Courlander's The Fourth World of the Hopis. The book is easy to read, fascinating, and has notes on Hopi oral literature and a glossary in the back. Purchase this book |
 | The Pueblo by Charlotte and David Yue is about all the Pueblo cultures, not just the Hopi. Children's books are invaluable for research when they do not just gloss over a subject, but, as this one does, goes into fascinating details of life in the various pueblo cultures. I found this book valuable for the many detailed illustrations showing exactly how pueblos--the buildings--were built and describing the materials of manufacture. As well as the overall descriptions little details, like the use of broken pottery for chimneys, made this book useful for my research. Purchase this book |
| The Pueblo Children of the Earth Mother, by Thomas Mails, is a large multiple-volume set containing information on the various Pueblo cultures. Volume II contains nearly 200 pages on the Hopi, and I found this to be the most valuable book of all for my research into how the Hopi lived and thought. With sections on birth, marriage, house building, kivas, shrines, farming, hunting, eagles, warfare, weaving and apparel, ceramics, basketry and many others, replete with fascinating details such as how the marriagable maidens did their hair in the "squash blossom" style that people think of when they think "Hopi," this book answered many of my questions on how it feels to be Hopi. | |
 | Snake-Dance of the Moquis by John G. Bourke is "a narrative of a journey from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to the Villages of the Moqui Indians of Arizona." It's an account, written in 1881, of the author's experiences among several of the Native American groups in New Mexico and Arizona. It's chatty, like a travelogue, and could probably be thought of as condescending by today's standards. However, the author was allowed to witness some very private parts of Hopi (then called Moqui) ceremonies, and describes them in careful detail. For this it is a valuable record of rituals that were frowned upon by the missionaries bent upon Christianizing the Hopi. Many important details would have been lost had it not been for accounts such as this one. Purchase this book |
 | Spider Woman Stories, Legends of the Hopi Indians, by G. M. Mullett, is a series of tales retold by a woman who worked as an artist and illustrator with the Hopi, as well as a writer and disciple of Jesse Walter Fewkes. She uses the knowledge of Hopi culture gained from this association to make events in stories obtained from Hopi informants more accessible to the non-Hopi reader. Rather than try to deduce Hopi history from the tales, she saw them as literature, and wanted to retell them as such, so the stories are very readable and poetic. Purchase this book |
Last update 28 November 1999 | |