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Tewaquaptewa began a campaign against refuge for the displaced Hostiles from Shongopovi. He was opposed by Yokeoma (or Yukioma, or similar transliterations), a member of the Fire Clan, the foremost leader of the Hostiles. In the months to follow, the ferocity of the competition between these individuals would cause an open break within the community. Neighbor ceased to speak to neighbor. Even traditional religious practices and ceremonies broke down. Eventually, clans would hold separate ceremonies, in different Kivas. This was too much strain for such a small town to support.
Hopi life had always centered around unity, community practice of religious rites, traditions, and rituals, and on solidarity, harmony and balance with the Universe. All of this history of a united approach and purpose was threatened if the rift was not healed, or some dramatic gesture was not made by one side or the other. The leadership of the clans finally decided that a clean break should be made in Oraibi. Too many of the Hopi were beginning to notice “advantages” in the Anglo way of life. Too many members of the community were drifting away from the “One True Way of Life.” Oraibi had to become either Friendly or Hostile. It could not survive divided.
Both factions asserted their right to their homes, and, equally importantly, to them, their Kivas. A contest was decided upon to determine the fate of the populace. The people of Oraibi met on a flat rock terrace beside the town in early September of 1906. On our bus trip through the Hopi Reservation, we saw where four lines had been drawn on the ground. The two sides gathered around a long rope. A tug-of-war ensued, with the strongest members of each group pulling with all their might. The Friendlies won and knew that they would retain their town. The losing Hostiles were disappointed. Almost 300 people now had to leave Oraibi.
Hopi tour guides frequently report a humorous account of the fate of the losers. It had supposedly been decided that they would “go out where they came from.” This home was reportedly Kalewistima, in “lands to the north,” (possibly around the canyons of Navajo National Monument). The Hostiles were allegedly going to pick up and leave right away, and keep going, non-stop, until they reached their destination. In fact, the group left, with many women and children, and made it as far as the base of Third Mesa, when nightfall came. Their leaders then said that they would stop and rest for a little while. The site where they stopped has since become the town of Hotevilla. The guides say that it is assumed that the residents there are “still resting” and will soon fulfill their original promise. This tale is most often told ,apparently, by guides who are descended from the Friendly residents who stayed in Oraibi.
Eventually, the leadership style of the Hostiles would prove to be too strict and too conservative for many of the new residents of Hotevilla. A number of families decided that life in the new settlement was too harsh for them to endure. These traditionalists decided that they would attempt to return to their old homes at Oraibi. They were permitted to return, but warily. In general, they no longer fit in. They found themselves the victims of discrimination. Many of these people were soon being persecuted by the residents of Oraibi. The last straw may have been charges that they were practicing “witchcraft.”
These frustrated families packed up, once again, and moved to found still another new settlement, Bacavi. Within a few short years, the Oraibi community had split into three groups. The schism within the Hopi community involved much more than just a feeling that the Peaceful People should, or should not, cooperate with Washington. There were also a number of religious issues associated with the splits that lead to the Hotevilla and Bacavi communities. Hopi life is religiously-centered, in every aspect. Children are raised from birth to understand and practice a constant series of rituals. Disputes over education sound like one thing to western ears, but to the Hostiles, these were disputes over key elements in preserving their religion.
The American Government committed another atrocity against the Hopi, almost immediately upon the Oraibi-Hotevilla split, one that offended even the Friendlies. With the start of another school year, in 1906, Washington had decided that ALL Native American children were to “benefit” from a good, standardized, Christian education, in English. To ensure that, the local schools in the villages were closed. Government soldiers raided the settlements, like Hotevilla, that refused to cooperate and took the children to a new school in Keams Canyon, a trading post which the Hostiles still considered to be an unwelcome facility that had been built on stolen land. Even the Friendlies could not defend this extreme action on the part of the whites.
Troops broke into homes, took children away from their families, and enforced their isolation. The children were stripped of their garments, and issued western clothes to wear. Traditional garb was banned. The exclusive use of English was enforced with spanking or whipping. Any Hopi words heard in the school, dorm, or playground could lead to punishment. The school included Christian religious training, but ignored Hopi traditions. Church attendance was mandatory. All this was intended to demonstrate the “benefits” and “superiority” of the “American” lifestyle to the First Americans.
The Hopi children were allowed to go home for a summer vacation, except for the children of Hotevilla. As punishment for the resistance of their parents, the Hotevilla children were kept away from their homes year round. During the summers, these children were sent to Anglo homes to work as laborers, to keep up their exposure to English and isolation from the Hopi tongue, and to ensure that they kept going to Church. The intent was to purge all traces of Hopi culture and religion from these children.
Yokeoma, and a number of other leaders of the Hostiles who resisted the seizing of the children, were arrested. Over the next several years Yokeoma would be jailed, imprisoned at an Army fort, and sent to Washington to meet with the President. None of this seems to have fazed him. As many as 70 Hopi males would eventually serve as much as 1 year at hard labor for resisting Washington's policies. Nonetheless, Yokeoma was at ease. He said that the White Man might come, but, eventually, he also would go. The Hopi, on the other hand, would endure. He felt that he, personally, was always destined to return to his home.
The education policy was to continue for many years. Additional schools were eventually to open, but attendance continued to be mandatory, children were still forced to reside at the school, not at home, and soldiers would still raid homes where the children had not departed for the school voluntarily. Following sixth grade, children who went on in school were taken completely away from the Black Mesa and sent to Phoenix, Oklahoma, or California. The administration and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) kept insisting that this was all being done to save the children of a 2,000-year-old, extremely sophisticated culture that had developed advanced, specialized agricultural techniques for an unusual climate, from a “life of savagery.”
Some other actions of the Government had a less deleterious effect on the Hopi. In 1913, a hospital for the native population was opened at Keams Canyon. A traveling doctor/nurse arrangement began to reach out into the villages. A sheep-dipping service began in the 1920's. Federal funds were provided for well drilling, irrigation activity, and flood control. Eventually, in 1939, a high school was even opened on the mesa, allowing children to remain in the region while continuing their education.
With the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, things would change within the BIA, and on the native lands. A certain amount of self-government would now be permitted, even encouraged, on the Reservations. Tribal Councils were recommended, as were constitutions, for the tribes. Local customs were now to be encouraged, land rights were acknowledged, and local participation in government programs was to be encouraged.
When these policies were presented to the Hopi, the old suspicions and more recent resentments raised their heads. The tribe was instructed to have an election to indicate if they were interested in the new ideas coming from Washington. If the tribe ratified the concept, it would be allowed to establish “self-government,” although the powers of the new, governing Tribal Council would still be greatly proscribed, compared to most ideas of self-government. The Hostile or traditionalist, ultra-conservative faction was still quite powerful, especially after the outrages of the education program. They wished to have nothing to do with the envoys from Washington, and looked at any suggestion by Whites as some other scheme that would disrupt their life, liberty, and pursuit of religious harmony with Nature, (which was more important than happiness).
The resistance of the conservatives was readily accepted by great numbers of the tribe. The Conservative policy continued to be to ignore and refuse to cooperate with the new procedures. In effect, this took the form of what we would think of as a voter boycott. The opposition did not organize a vote against the new ideas, they, instead, told their families and clans to stay away from the White Man's tricky scheme, and to pay no attention to what he was doing. As a result, the turnout on the Hopi Reservation was extremely low, but the ballot measure for the new ideas passed.
A large percentage of the tribe had indicated, by not voting, that they opposed the new ideas and procedures, but Washington looked at the outcome of the vote itself, and interpreted the result as an endorsement of Administration policy and progress on this troublesome Reservation. In 1935, the Federal Government imposed a Tribal Council on the Hopi, and, in 1936, recognized a Hopi Constitution.
The old divisions from the late 19th-Century persisted through all of this turmoil. By now, the Friendlies had come to be called the Progressives. This group would welcome the new ideas of “Democracy,” a democracy in which only their friends were voting. They supported the election, ran for Council, and were happy to receive the blessings of Washington when they were “endorsed by their constituents.”
The Hostiles had come to be called the Traditionalists. They wanted life to go on as they felt it had always gone before the interference of the Europeans. The Traditionalists believed in the complex, age-old, system of clans, with a leadership that was bred through a lifetime experience of social-religious training. Leadership was conferred on individuals who had trained since childhood, been especially attuned to Nature and the Kachina, and demonstrated kindness and concern for their clan members. They felt that this method had typically led to harmony with the Universe, until it was disrupted by the pagan intruders.
They looked back, with fondness, to a Norman Rockwell-like past, which they remembered, but which may never have existed, as a time when governance was by consensus, not by a theoretical majority, in a divided body, where one vote could mean winning or losing. In fact, the difference was between a decentralized system, that let each village or group of clans do what it wanted to, vs. a centralized system, where the new Tribal Council could theoretically make decisions in one place, which were to be binding on all the clans and settlements.
The Hopi Way did not allow a non-clan member to make a decision that could affect all members of a different clan. This decentralization had frequently left the Hopi looking weak and divided in the face of outside pressures and threats, but it was the system by which the nation had functioned for two-thousand years, and it was the system that the nation understood.
Philosophers and social scientists can debate the merits of these points of view, but the bureaucrats from Washington looked at the election result, and thought that the Hopi had spoken, and that their problems were over. They could not foresee that the Council was built, to a large extent, on a foundation of sand, and that it would have many problems over the years. Even today, the Council tends to have one point of view, which, by Anglo standards, may seem extremely conservative, but it can face real problems when it makes a decision that is strongly opposed by the Traditionalist villages. Clan leaders in several of the towns are very independent power centers. These leaders may have little representation on the Tribal council, but may exercise a very powerful veto locally on policies that theoretically affect the entire nation.
Many outsiders have difficulty understanding this split in the power centers on the Hopi Reservation. We need to be aware of it. The Tribal Council, with whom we will need to deal, is generally descended from the Friendly-Progressive side of the power structure. Some of these Council members are still looked at with little respect by certain towns and clans. The most conservative, Traditionalist towns and clans still resent the Council, and, more-or-less refuse to acknowledge its authority. The duality of physical-world vs. Religious-world concerns continues in Hopiland, today.
As has been explained, troubles didn't end when Washington granted self-rule. During the early 1930's, Washington had decided that they could benefit the stresses on the lands in northeastern Arizona by reducing the number of sheep that the Navajo and Hopi were grazing on the plains, there. A stock reduction plan was implemented, starting in 1932, that affected virtually every sheep herder in the region. This policy would stay in place for ten years.
Washington, with no prior warning or consultation moved in and announced that they were “buying” predetermined numbers of sheep, and that the Navajo and Hopi had no choice other than to agree to the scheme. The affront to the herders was made worse by the fact that the government planned to take as much as 50% of some herds, and that they were not paying anywhere near what the tribes considered to be fair-market value for the animals. In the first place, the wandering sheepherders centered their concepts of value and wealth on their animals. Paper money was not especially relevant for their lifestyle. Many of the herders lived independently from the Anglo cash economy. They typically bartered their wool, and could buy little of use out on the prairie.
The government rate may have been based on the meat value of the animals. The local use of the sheep by the Hopi and Navajo, however, was for wool production. A single sheep can be sheared repeatedly, acting as a steady source of income. A dead sheep brings in money once, and once, only. This was another huge bone of contention that made Washington unpopular with the Hopi. At the same time, Washington was sometimes granting grazing permits on Reservation lands, to Anglo ranchers, who did not have their herds cut back. In this case, the Navajo were hurt to an even greater amount, since they had larger herds.
More recent administrations have continued to design programs that upset the Hopi. In 1948, a Relocation Policy was initiated. The goal of this was to get Native American males to move to the cities, where they could find productive jobs and integrate into the American Way of Life, and eventually bring their families and be assimilated. Naturally, this was anathema to the Hopi. Not even the Progressives were in favor of this type of offer. Centers were set up on the Reservation for the enrollment of able-bodied males, and offers were made to transport Hopi to Phoenix, Denver, or Los Angeles. Very few Hopi accepted the offer. The program had little impact, nationally, failing on most tribal lands, and most of the few Native Americans who did respond, eventually ended up returning to their homelands.
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Proceed to I’ll See You In Court
Follow scholar Kokopelli to the Suggested
Reading List
Return with Kokopelli to the hogan page, the
Table of Contents
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Black Mesa Highlighted in Sunlight on a Stormy Day
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Contents, including illustrations, copyright T. K. Reeves, 1997.
on 5 April, 1997.
