The Hopi |
zur Zeit auf Englisch - wird übersetzt... |
The Hopi are a Native American nation who primarily live on the 1.5 million acre (6,000 km¾) Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona. The reservation is surrounded by the Navajo reservation. Hopis call themselves Hopitu - The Peacable People. The name Hopi is the shortened form of the title to what they called themselves, "Hopituh Sinom", "the people of Hopi". Hopi is a concept deeply rooted in the culture's religion, spirituality, and its view of morality and ethics. To be Hopi is to strive toward this concept, but one never achieves in this life. This concept is one where you are in a state of total reverance and respect for all things, to be at peace with these things, and to live in accordance with the teachings of 'maasaw'. |
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Hopis live in northeast Arizona at the southern end of the Black Mesa. A mesa is the name given to a small isolated flat-topped hill with three steep sides called the 1 st Mesa, 2 nd Mesa, and the 3 rd Mesa. On the mesa tops are the Hopi villages called pueblos. The pueblo of Oraibi on the 3 rd Mesa started in 1050, and is the oldest in North America that was lived in continuously.
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Ancestry Evidence suggest that the Hopi consist of the descendants of various groups that entered the country from the north, the east, and the south, and that a series of movements covered a period of probably three centuries, and perhaps considerably longer. Their ancestors, the Anasazi, appear to have been related to the Aztecs of Mexico, and may have arrived in their current location 5 to 10 thousand years ago. In that time, they have developed an intricate ceremonial calendar that has helped them survive and be strong in a place that would not seem to have enough reliable water to sustain life. Related to people of the various Pueblos to the east, the Hopis never actually had a single group identity--they were independent villages, sharing with the Zuni and other Pueblos a basic culture and view of the sacred, while sharing among themselves their own (Uto-Aztecan) language base |
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Language Although the Hopi are composed of elements that must have spoken diverse tongues, their speech is readily recognized as a dialog of the Shoshonean language, which in various forms was spoken in a large part of the Great Basin between the Rocky mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in southwestern Oregon, and in southern California even to the coast and on Santa Catalina island; and which furthermore is undoubtedly allied to the great Aztecan language. A linguistic map would represent the Hopi as an isolated people surrounded by alien tongues
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Hopi Mesa Homes |
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Hopis live in pueblos that are made of stone and mud and stand several stories high. The Kivas are an underground chamber in the pueblo home that they used to talk and have religious ceremonies in. They used the kivas for 100 years. The center of the floor had a fire pit. You climb down a ladder to get to the south end where a bench was placed for spectators. The walls of some Hopi houses are constructed of undressed stone fragments bound with mud plaster. The flat roof consists of beams resting on the tops of the walls, pole battens, rod and grass thatching, a layer of gumbo plaster, and a covering of dry earth. Most of the houses are more than single story, some as much as four stories. The upper apartments are reached by outside ladders.
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Kachina Dolls
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Kachina dolls were carved out wood by the Zuni and Hopi tribes. There are over 300 different Kachinas. They are generally clothed in masks and costumes to look like the men who dressed up as Kachina spirits. They were given to children to teach them to identify the different parts of Kachina dolls, and the parts they play in tribal ceremonies. The Kachinas, or Gods, were beings of a great might and power to the Native Americans. They were known to come down to Earth and help the native Americans tend their fields brining wisdom about agriculture, law and government. They physically interacted with the people themselves. There are drawings of them on cave walls. |
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