Julio Online: Past and Present of The Indians of The Southwest

Past and Present of The Indians of The Southwest

By Julio Punch

Grand Canyon National Park

Travelling through the Southwest and not visiting the Grand Canyon is an impossibility for the average traveler, and I too wanted to see this world wonder with my own eyes. The park itself offers ample accommodation possibilities, though you have to book well in advance. It’s even possible to hire a room with a view of the canyon, but it will cost you extra money.

This voluminous park seems at first glance to be a forest of spruce trees with conspicuously little relief. Transportation through the park is provided in the form of busses that ride on non-polluting fuel and are free. There is also a wide variety of hikes. The demands they ask of the endurance of the hiker also vary widely. One of the “flat” hikes I hiked was called Bright Angel Trail. The Havasupai Indians often used this trail in the past. The Havasupai live in a branch of the Grand Canyon. The hikes that descend into the canyon provide, in my opinion, a better view of the natural beauty and are also safer, as there are always trees and bushes between the hiker and the abyss. You have to realize that the way up is always at least two times as strenuous as the way down. You won’t read this in the travel guides, but each year several people come to an untimely end in the Grand Canyon, mostly through physical exhaustion or an unlucky fall.
You must have seen the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon to be able to speak about it. I noticed that if you choose for a hike where there are not many people, as soon as you’re alone you’re enveloped in a silence that is heavy as lead and omnipresent. I then understood what a famous Zen master whose name I have forgotten meant when he said: “in silence all questions are asked and in silence all questions are answered”.

Experiencing a sunset in the Grand Canyon was also on the program. We were not the only ones, many others had come with the same goal in mind. On a night like that you hear more different languages than you can count, what of course doesn’t deduct anything from the beauty of the sunset.

Many of the watch points that lie around the canyon bear the names of Indian tribes like Hopi, Maricopa and Pima, though there is no direct relationship between them and these tribes. The Hopi and the Zuni believe that the Grand Canyon is the location where they emerged from an underworld. From certain areas in the park it is possible to see the San Francisco Peaks. This is, according to the Hopi religion, the dwelling place of the Katchinas (correct pronunciation: Katsinas). The Katchinas play a very important role in the religion of the Hopi.

Another attraction in the park is the Grand Canyon Village Historical District. A plot of land on which houses from the past of the Grand Canyon have been rebuilt. One of these houses is Hopi House, a building that is based on the dwellings in the Hopi pueblo of Old Oraibi. The Hopi built it themselves after designs made by Mary Colter, a famous architect. In 1995 the building was completely rebuilt and the Hopi were again involved. You can buy Katchinas, pottery, etc. at Hopi House, but if you’ve already been shopping in Taos and Santa Fe you don’t see anything new, except for the much higher prices.

September turned out to be a good time to visit the Grand Canyon. During the winter months so much chemical waist is dumped in the canyon that it is sometimes not possible to see the other side. Here and there you see signposts around the canyon with the texts on them like: we cannot guarantee that you will be able to see the other side of the canyon the whole year round.

Scientists suspect that some 10.000 years ago Paleo Indians hunted and gathered in the Southwest. They did not leave us much in the form of material possessions. The same can be said about their predecessors, also known as the Desert Archaic Culture that roamed the Southwest until about 1000 BC. In 1923 animal figurines were found in caves in the canyon that were made of willow twigs. These figurines were associated with hunting and are between 2.000 and 4.000 years old. Around 500 A.D. the Anasazi gained a firm foothold in the area. Several ruins are proof of this. The Anasazi hunted deer, rabbits and prong-horned sheep. They shared the area with a people called the Cohonina. Both peoples had much in common, but the Cohonina roamed about more frequently and made a different type of pottery. Here too the Anasazi decided to give up their existence at this location and seek their luck elsewhere towards the end of the 12th century.

Around 1300 a new tribe arrived at the canyon called the Cibat. We know their descendants today as the Hualapai and Havasupai. During this time many Paiute Indians settled on the western rim of the canyon. The Havasupai, who together with Hualapai and Yavapai form the “Pai tribes”, have lived in Havasu Canyon, a branch of the Grand Canyon, for hundreds of years. The most recent Indian newcomers are the Navaho who have lived there since approximately 1400. Nowadays five different reservations surround Grand Canyon National Park.

The Havasupai used to change location twice a year. Part of the year they would live on the bottom of the canyon and part of the year on a location that was higher up in the canyon. For a very long time the American government forbade the tribe to do this, but recently they canceled this prohibition and now many Havasupai have returned to this age-old pattern. The Havasupai live by farming and can only be reached by foot, horse, donkey or helicopter.

During the first expedition of Francisco de Coronado from Mexico in 1540 two of his men in the company of Hopi guides discovered the Grand Canyon. It was the first, but surely not the last, time that white people would marvel at this natural wonder.

Coronado was searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola that, according to legends, were made of gold. I don’t know who invented this fairy tale, but it brought the Indians nothing but trouble. During my journey I thought about the possibility that the Indians of Central-America were so sick of the gold-crazy Spaniards that they invented a story about a city of gold that lay very far to the north. Just like in other National Parks quite a bit of information is provided. Several times a week talks are given about different aspects of the canyon. Every month an old Hopi lady comes to the canyon to lecture about the significance the canyon has for the Hopi.

Visit the website of Grand Canyon National Park.

Wupatki National Monument

On our way from the Grand Canyon to the city of Sedona in Arizona an interesting stop was planned: Wupatki National Monument. On a separate location not that far away there’s the natural wonder Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. If you buy a ticket for either of these monuments, it gives you entry to both.

To reach Wupatki you have to drive a long distance through a landscape where there’s not too much to be seen, except for reasonably high bushes. There is no hostility in this landscape despite its ruggedness. As we rode further the bushes became smaller and the amounts of red rocks bigger.

Here too there is a visitor’s center with a museum. An advantage from some viewpoints is that no food is sold here. Several times a day a lecture is given by one of the rangers. After that you can walk on to the ruins, if you wish with a self-guided tour.

The people who lived at Wupatki are called Sinagua, which means “no water” in Spanish. The ruins are on the meeting point of four cultures: the Kayenta-Anasazi, Cohonina, Hohokam and Sinagua. Both the Hopi and Navaho tribes claim to be the descendants of the people who lived here.

We know that around 1100 groups of people began to gather at this location. Around 1182 this community experienced its apex with around 100 people living in a three-storied pueblo. Within the walking distance of one day there were several thousands inhabitants.

A stream flowed next to the pueblo that is now dried up. Here too maize was the most important crop. The inhabitants thankfully made use of the fertile soil that surrounded the volcano about 40 miles away. At the same time, however, there was the risk that it would erupt. It seemed as if every ruin I visited has its own character and this is certainly true of Wupatki. This was, for instance, the first time during my journey that I saw buildings made of the red rock that is so characteristic of the area.
There is also a round building among the ruins. As far as scientists can tell it was never roofed, so it probably wasn’t a kiva. There is one room in the pueblo where no household utensils have ever been found. This room might have been used as a kiva. It is square, just like the kivas of the Hopi. The Hopi regularly undertake pilgrimages to Wupatki.

A unique aspect of these ruins is a ball court, a cultural element that without doubt was copied from the neighboring Hohokam. It is a circular field that is surrounded by two low, crescent-shaped walls. When it rains the ball court fills with water. Some people claim that it was in fact a water basin. The ranger that gave the lecture said it might have been both. If this is true, the inhabitants might have played an early version of water polo there.

Nearby the ball court is a “blow hole”. A place where the earth expels gasses. Scientists admit that they have no clue as to the significance of this object for the original inhabitants.

Vist the website of Wupatki National Monument.

The reservation of the Hopi Indians

A tribe that always interested me a lot is the Hopi tribe. It’s a considerable distance from Sedona in Arizona to the reservation of the Hopi, but I thought it would be worth the effort. You have to drive for a long time through the reservation of the Navaho that engulfs the reservation of the Hopi completely. At a certain stage I noticed that signs of human occupation became less and less and after some time disappeared altogether. While we were driving, red rock formations changed into white rock formations. The white rock formations made way for a sandy, rocky desert with dark green bushes that were no higher than three foot and all seemed to be of the same species. Before you reach the Hopi reservation you will have seen this monotonous landscape pass beside you for a very long time.

All three mesas are known for an arts and crafts specialty. First Mesa is known for its pottery. Second Mesa for its Katchina dolls and silver work and Third Mesa for its coiled plaques.

The first village we encountered was Hotevilla. From there it’s only a short drive to the Hopi Cultural Center on Second Mesa. The center includes a restaurant, a motel and a museum. I began with a lunch in the restaurant, a nice way to recuperate from the long drive.

The restaurant is nice and spacey. You can sit on leather couches that have tablita’s (wooden boards that were embellished and worn as headdresses) attached to them. The menu has a category traditional Hopi dishes and a category dishes for people of 60 years or older. I chose for a “Hopi Combination”, a choice I wouldn’t regret. The dish consists of a whole baked green pepper, a bowl of hominy (raw, soaked white maize) with mutton meat and an enchilada (a kind of pancake of corn flour) with cheese, beans and melon in it. About 90 percent of the people in the restaurant were Indians.
The museum was reasonably good, though a few things were done rather sloppy. Through photographs, paintings and objects you can get a picture of the history and traditional religion of the Hopi. A disadvantage was that the radio in the museum was tuned rather loudly to the local country radio station. If you use music in a museum, the music should connect to the contents of the museum. Moreover, the Hopi have had their own radio station now for two years.

After the museum we headed for the pueblo of Sichomovi on First Mesa, where it is possible to partake with a tour. On the way there I saw a neighborhood that looked so tidy and well cared for that I thought for a moment that is was a mirage. It could have been in The Netherlands. Just like at the other pueblos I visited many people have chosen for more modern accommodations in the vicinity of the original pueblos. The houses are situated next to the hospital. The hospital has its own airport. Routine matters are treated in this hospital and serious cases are flown over to Phoenix.

To reach Sichomovi you have to ride up a very steep road. At a certain point you are informed by signs that the taking of photographs is strictly forbidden. If you want to partake with the tour, you have to sign in at the very rudimentary visitor’s center in the pueblo of Sichomovi. I had about 15 minutes before the tour began, so I took a stroll through the pueblo. Here too many people offer self-made arts and crafts for sale in their residences. There’s a very steep precipice that at some parts is separated from the road by a low adobe wall. At other parts this wall is absent. Despite this, children who are not even three years old toddle around cheerfully without any parental supervision. Maybe their parents have imprinted in their minds that they should not come too close to the abyss. When I was a little boy, I cannot remember how old I exactly was, my parents taught me not to put my fingers in the wall plugs. Perhaps the Hopi tell their children the same thing about the abyss.

I also noticed that the Hopi have the habit of throwing their waste down the abyss. They probably already did this is the past, but then their waste consisted of organic materials. Now there lie heaps of empty Dr Pepper cans and junk food wrappings.

The guide, a Hopi woman of about 50, told us about and showed us around the pueblo. The inhabitants farm cornfields where different species of corn are cultivated. The paths to the fields are also used for running rituals, which used to be universal among the pueblo tribes. There are three wells in the vicinity, but the water is only used for ceremonial purposes. The fields are the property of the men, whereas the women own the dwellings.

The three pueblos Walpi, Sichomovi and Hano combined have about 200 inhabitants. The inhabitants of Walpi and Sichomovi speak Hopi, whereas the inhabitants of Hano speak Tewa. This is a group of Indians that settled there after the uprising of 1680. Walpi is the southernmost of the three villages and the only one that is surrounded by the abyss on three sides. Only seven elderly people still live at Walpi, without electricity or running water. Only kerosene lamps provide light after sundown.
We could only look at Walpi from a distance. There were repairs going on and for our own safety we were not allowed to enter the actual pueblo. For the first time during this journey I had the feeling that I was in a functioning community.

The guide also told us something about the education system. In the past Hopi children were taken to boarding schools in Albuquerque, Phoenix and sometimes as far as California. The Hopi children went to one boarding school with children from 20 other Indian tribes. When I asked the guide if the current bilingual education that is given on the reservation was more pleasant, she answered to my astonishment that in her opinion the boarding schools were better because the children learned to be independent that way.

There are several medicine men active in the vicinity. Our guide told us that if she was ill she always looked up a medicine man first before she pays the western medical care a visit. The reason for this was that “you can never know what’s in all those pills of the white men”. The kivas are visited often. The kivas were and are mainly men’s territory, though the Hopi allow women in the kivas during certain times of the year.

Back at the visitor’s center our guide’s sister sat before a cloth on the ground with a collection Katchina dolls on them. The saleslady herself was completely absorbed in the game she was playing on her Nintendo 64 (this is a portable game computer for you non-gamers). Proudly she told me a few minutes later that she had achieved a very high score. Computer technology has apparently also permeated this remote corner of the US!

Before we left, our guide gave us a tip for the way back. This came in handy, because we were able to cut off a considerable distance this way. Your worst nightmare would be to have car troubles on one of these roads. For incredibly long stretches you don’t see oncoming traffic or even any signs of human occupation.

Visit the website of the Hopi Cultural Center.

The Museum of Northern Arizona

The last, but certainly not the least, destination of my journey was the Museum of Northern Arizona. The museum is situated very close to the city of Flagstaff, Arizona in a forested area. The entrance fee is five dollars per person. The museum was founded in 1928 by Dr. Harold S. Colton, a zoologist, and his wife Mary-Russell Ferrell Colton, an artist. It is a big and well-spaced museum with a lot of information about things like the geology, dinosaurs, volcanoes and fossils of the Colorado Plateau. I cannot tell you much about these exhibitions, for the simple reason that I needed all my time for the exhibitions about Indians.

The museum has an extensive collection of Katchina dolls. Katchinas are spiritual beings who, according to the Hopi religion, live a part of the year (from winter solstice to one month after the summer solstice) in the Hopi villages. The other part of the year they live in the San Francisco Peaks. This does not apply to one Katchina: Masau the Katchina of Death, who is in fact the Hopi equivalent of the scythe bearing messenger of death of the European Middle Ages. The reason for this is that death can visit us at any time. The Hopi have around 350 different Katchinas. The dolls that are made in their likeness had as purpose to make the girls familiar with the Katchinas. Boys were initiated in the kivas when they reached the right age.

The belief in the Katchinas among the smaller children is very similar to the belief in Sinterklaas (The Netherlands’ equivalent of good old Santa Claus) in my country. The smaller children really believe that the Katchina spirits come climbing out of the kivas. Later they suspect or are told that in reality their fathers and uncles impersonate the Katchinas. The Hopi do believe, however, that as soon as a man dons the Katchina mask, the spirit of the Katchina possesses him. Although there are male and female Katchinas, Katchinas are always impersonated by men.

One Katchina who is astonishingly similar to Sinterklaas is the so-called Bogey Katchina. When a child misbehaves the parents invite this Katchina to their home. He enters the house and threatens to take the child to the underworld. The parents change his mind by giving him sweets and food. He leaves the house with the warning: “if you keep misbehaving, I’ll take you to the underworld for sure the next time I visit”. Usually this visit leads to a change in behavior.
The museum organizes trips to the reservation of the Hopi and the Navaho and each year outside fairs are held at the museum by, respectively, the Navaho, Zuni and Pai (collective term for the Hualapai, Yavapai, and Havasupai) tribes.

In probably the most beautiful kiva I saw during my journey an old art form was brought to life again: the painting of the walls of the kiva. This kiva is supposed to journey across the globe, so maybe you might be able to see it yourself one day.

The museum had a temporary exhibition with posters of films about Indians. Ranging from Geronimo from 1954 to the recent and native-directed Smoke Signals. Many of these movies have contributed to establishing a negative image of the Native Americans. In Europe things went differently and there is one man we can thank for this: Karl May. I am not a Karl May fan myself, but I do give him credit for portraying Indians as human beings. The Kiva, the oldest still existing support group for Native Americans in Europe, actually began as a group for people interested in Indians and Karl May.

The permanent exhibition about Indians is set up from a scientific viewpoint and has many samples of pottery from different stages in history. Although I had traveled through the Southwest for three weeks visiting museums, reservations and ruins I obtained a lot of new information in this museum, which indicates something about the rich variety of the past and present of the Indians of the Southwest.

The weak coffee, the junk food and the not very effective reporting in the papers and TV in the land of unlimited possibilities I will not miss. But I already look forward to the next meeting with the original inhabitants and their fascinating cultures, that despite everything have managed to safeguard their unique identity in America’s melting pot.

Visit the website of the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Click on the leaves to read the other parts of my travel log:

Part one: The Pueblo Indian Cultural Center, the Indian Market of Santa Fe, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and Taos Pueblo.

Part two: Bandelier National Monument, Indian Arts Research Center, Aztec Ruins National Monument and Acoma Pueblo.

Part three: Mesa Verde National Park, Navajo Code Talkers Exhibit and Monument Valley Tribal Park.

Part four: Grand Canyon National Park, Wupatki National Monument, the reservation of the Hopi Indians and the Museum of Northern Arizona.