Characteristics of Hopi Life and Religion:

The Hopi are industrious farmers; they harvest and store large crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and some fruits. They also weave baskets and blankets and are skillful potters and carvers. Hopi houses, built by the women, are of stone roughly cut and laid and finished in plaster. The ceilings are supported by beams and cross poles and consist of a compressed mixture of brush and clay. The floors are sometimes flagged, and the interior walls are generally whitewashed with gypsum and sometimes ornamented in simple geometric bands. In early Hopi houses the doorways, which were the only sources of light, were sometimes built in T-shapes. The Spanish introduced windows covered with selenite; modern houses generally have glass windows and hinged doors.



The Hopi religion, like that of all other Pueblo peoples, includes the worship of the forces of nature, and has many ceremonies intended to invoke or influence supernatural powers. Ancestor worship plays an important role in Hopi ceremonies, and some Christian influences can be detected, particularly in the dating of ceremonies and the observance of saints' days. Private rites are held in underground ceremonial chambers called kivas, and public services and dances are commonly performed out of doors. The most important Hopi religious ceremonies include the kachina fertility mysteries (the kachina is the spirit of an ancestor, usually representing a clan, symbolized in ceremonies by a masked and painted dancer), and the midsummer and midwinter rituals of sun and fire worship. The celebrated Snake dance, actually a rain dance, is considered one of the most spectacular of Native American ceremonies. It is performed every two years near August 20, attracting thousands of visitors.

Oraibi