Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, October 1899

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Various. Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, October 1899

THE HELP THAT HARMS

THE HOPI INDIANS OF ARIZONA

REFORM OF PUBLIC CHARITY

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM A PHYSICIAN'S POINT OF VIEW

THE WHEAT LANDS OF CANADA

BEST METHODS OF TAXATION

PART III (concluded)

BACON'S IDOLS: A COMMENTARY

MATHEMATICS FOR CHILDREN

PRESENT POSITION OF SOCIOLOGY

A FEATHERED PARASITE

THE COLUMBUS MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION

SKETCH OF DR. WILLIAM PEPPER

Correspondence

"DO ANIMALS REASON?"

THE TREND OF POPULATION IN MAINE

Editor's Table

EDUCATION AND CHARACTER-BUILDING

THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION AT COLUMBUS

Scientific Literature

SPECIAL BOOKS

GENERAL NOTICES

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

Fragments of Science

MINOR PARAGRAPHS

NOTES

Отрывок из книги

As one approaches the center of Arizona, along the line of the Santa Fé Railroad, whether he come from the east or from the west, his attention is sure to be arrested by several tall, spire-like hills which are silhouetted against the sky to the far north. These peaks are the Moki Buttes, and to the north of them lies the province of Tusayan, the land of the Mokis, or the Hopis, as they prefer to be called. That country to-day contains more of interest to the student of the history of mankind than any other similar-sized area on the American continent. But very few of the great throng that roll by on the Santa Fé trains every year in quest of pleasure, of recreation, of new scenes and strange, stop off at Holbrook or Winslow to take the journey to the Hopis, and very few even know of the existence of these curiously quaint pueblos of this community, which to-day lives pretty much as it did before Columbus set out on his long voyage to the unknown West.

The term pueblo, a Spanish word meaning town, is by long and continued use now almost confined to the clusters of stone and adobe houses which to-day shelter the sedentary Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. Not only are these Indian towns called "pueblos," but we speak of the Indians themselves as the Pueblo Indians, and of the culture of the people – for they all have much in common – as the pueblo culture. This similarity of culture is not due to unity of race or of language, but is the resultant of a peculiar environment. In recent times, the limits of the pueblo-culture area have contracted to meet the demands of the white man; we know also that before the advent of the Spaniard many once populous districts had been abandoned, and as a result there came to be fewer but larger villages. We know also, both from tradition and from archæological evidence, that in former days the pueblo people inhabited many of the villages of southern Colorado and Utah, and that the Hopis and their kin were numerous in many parts of Arizona. The silent houses of the cliffs, the ruins of central Arizona, and the great crumbling masses of adobe of the Salt and Gila River valleys and in northern Chihuahua are all former habitations of the Pueblo Indian. To-day there are no representatives of these people in Utah or Colorado, while the seven Hopi towns of Tusayan alone remain in Arizona. But there are still many pueblos scattered along the Rio Grande, Jemez, and San Juan Rivers in New Mexico. Alike in culture, we may divide the existing pueblos into four linguistic groups – namely, the Hopis of Arizona, the Zuñis of New Mexico, the Tehuas east of the Rio Grande, and the Queres to the west of the Rio Grande. Of the earlier home of the last three stocks we know but little. The ancestors of the Hopis we know came from different directions – some from the cliff dwellings of the north, others from central Arizona. To-day, however, they form a congeries of clans united and welded into a unit by similarity of purpose and by the more powerful influence of a peculiar environment.

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The costume of the woman consists ordinarily of four pieces – a blanket, dress, belt, and moccasins. The blanket is of wool, and is about four feet square. It is blue in color, with a black border on two sides. These two edges are usually bound with a heavy green or yellow woolen thread. To make the dress, this blanket is once folded and is sewn together with red yarn at the long side, except for a space sufficiently large to accommodate one arm. The folded upper border is also sewn for a short space, which rests on one of the shoulders. The other shoulder and both arms are bare, except as they may be partially covered by the blanket. The belt or sash is of black and green stripes, with a red center, ornamented with geometric designs in black; it is about four inches wide, and is long enough to permit of being wound around the waist two or three times. The moccasins are of unpainted buckskin, one side of the top of which terminates in a long, broad strip, which is wound round the leg several times and extends up to the knee, thus forming a thick legging. More than half the time the Hopi woman is barefooted. The girls wear silver earrings, or suspend from the lobe of the ear small rectangular bits of wood, one side of which is covered with a mosaic of turquoise. This custom is of some antiquity, as ear pendants exactly similar to these have been found in the Hopi ruins of Homolobi, on the Little Colorado River.

In addition to this regulation costume, worn on all ordinary occasions, each Hopi woman is supposed to own a bridal costume and two special blankets, which are worn only in ceremonies, and hence need not here be described. The bridal costume consists of a pair of moccasins, two pure white cotton blankets, one large and the other small, both having large tassels of yellow and the black yarn at each corner, and a long, broad, white sash, each end of which terminates in a fringe of balls and long thread. All three garments, before being used, are covered with a thick coat of kaolin, so that they are quite stiff. With these garments belongs a reed mat sufficiently large to envelop the small blanket and the sash.

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