Thinking Like a Watershed: Voices from the West

Connected by Earth: Metaphors from Hopi Tutskwa

45 < Lyle Balenquah Lyle Balenquah, Hopi, is a member of the Greasewood clan from the Village of Bacavi (Reed Springs) on Third Mesa. He has earned degrees (BA, 1999; MA, 2002) in cultural anthropology and southwestern archaeology from Northern Arizona University. For over ten years he has worked throughout Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah as an archaeologist documenting ancestral Hopi settlements and their lifeways. Currently he works as an independent consultant, but his work experience includes time with the National Park Service, the Hopi Tribe, and the Museum of Northern Arizona. He also works as a part-time river guide on the San Juan River and other rivers in the Southwest, combining his professional knowledge and training with personal insights about his ancestral history to provide a unique form of public education. As a farmer, rancher, hiker, and hunter, he is an active participant in the natural and wild realms, where he strives to better understand himself and his relationship to these environments. As a member of the Lore of the Land, he highlights his own experiences and the experiences of others who live, work, and rejuvenate among the deserts, mountains, and watersheds of the Southwest. Lyle Balenquah, photo by Jack Loeffler Lyle Balenquah 46 < Connected by Earth Metaphors from Hopi Tutskwa This writing is about many ideas: cultural and biological diversity , preservation of traditional knowledge, interactions with our natural lands (Tutskwa), and above all, remaining connected to them. Some of these ideas are difficult to describe as they are more or less felt and experienced, or are emotional and spiritual in character. Some are easier to describe in words, others more tangible to the touch, and others more visible to the eye. Yet they are all important to the greater understanding of how we as humans, individually and collectively, interact with and impact our natural environments. By natural environments I am referring to the basic idea of landscapes—forests, mountains, deserts, rivers, lakes, etc., as well as the plant and animal life that live within them. I also include the human environment as well, as I believe that we are a part of the natural environment, and so how we interact with and impact each other is equally important in this discussion. The concept of remaining “connected” to our natural environments also has different parts to it. One part is strictly physical—putting some aspect of our bodies in touch with the natural world, breathing it in. Another part is spiritual—having a metaphysical experience or feeling between our natural world that is beyond the physical, but is most likely a result of the physical. And yet one other part can be viewed as a conscious connection—a mental exercise in which without physical and spiritual contact, we remain cognizant of the simple fact that we are indeed a part of a larger natural world. In my opinion, these different connections go hand in hand, and when you experience one, it ultimately leads to another. Yet getting connected is harder than one might think. In fact, how does one even achieve this connection ? It takes a lot of effort, through careful observation, trial and error, and a willingness to better oneself, if even for a moment. Through the various experiences I write about here, I hope to show how I and others strive to achieve this connection. These experiences are singular and collective in Nature. < < Connected by Earth 47 < Given that I am a person of Hopi descent, my thoughts and energies will focus on what I have learned and continue to learn in trying to maintain myself as a Hopi person, which is not an easy task. It is only my perspective, and I cannot and do not claim to speak for every Hopi. It simply represents some of the experiences I have been fortunate to have in a constantly expanding understanding of my place within my own natural environments . Our collective human understanding must be like a galaxy spiraling out in the universe—ever expanding with illuminating points of consciousness , separated by parts unknown, that we strive to understand. This writing will be like a river, winding its way through different landscapes and concepts to show the importance of remaining connected to the natural world we inhabit and call home. I have had many teachers who have helped and continue to help me in this understanding. They need not be named, and my journey is not yet over, but for me, this writing represents one way of showing and giving my gratefulness to them. I think they would see it fit to be this way, as this knowledge is not solely theirs or mine but represents the collective history, culture, and spirituality of many who have come before us. So let us begin. Ang’Kuktota: Placing Our Footprints In the oral histories of the Hopi, there is a centuries-old story that originates from the Snake Clan about the first “river runner” in the Southwest. This story depicts the adventures of Tiyo (“boy”), who goes to pray at the river every morning and while doing so wonders, “Where does all the water go?” Determined to answer that question, Tiyo sets out with the prayers of his family in a boat carved from a cottonwood tree, encountering new adventures and people along his river journey. Eventually he discovers that the river empties into the Pacific Ocean (Paatuwa’qatsi, “Water World”) far from his homeland. Much more happens after Tiyo leaves his boat behind, walking along the beach of the ocean, but for the purposes of this chapter, this will suffice to set the tone. No one is really sure where Tiyo first started from, but many believe that he passed through and over the country found along what are now known as the San Juan and Colorado rivers in Utah and Arizona. I first heard the extended version of this story along with my siblings from one of my uncles from the Snake Clan, who had learned it from his own elders. I was still very young when I heard this story, but it would not be the last about my Hopi ancestors. Many times in these stories there Lyle Balenquah 48 < was some lesson to be learned; often that lesson was simply to remember. To remember to remain connected to the landscape and the history contained within. These lessons and remembrances were part of a larger set of traditional Hopi knowledge that spanned thousands of years and many more generations of Hopi ancestors. As each generation learned, many times through trial and error, that knowledge passed to the next generation , and it belongs not to one person, but to the collective whole. During my youth, my family and I often spent part of our summer vacations visiting the ancient homes of our ancestors throughout the Four Corners of the American Southwest. In these travels we visited numerous archaeologicalsitessuchasMesaVerde,ChacoCanyon,Wupatki,Homol’ovi, and many more. At these places I walked among the preserved remnants of my ancestors’ homes and learned from my family members that I was a descendant of those who built these monumental structures. I heard stories about the Hisat’sinom (the “Ancient People”) who possessed remarkable skill, ingenuity, and determination. These stories told of people who could grow crops in the driest of climates , who could communicate with supernatural forces, and who could make it rain and snow with the power of their prayers. I also heard stories of great calamities and misfortune that befell my ancestors due to their own greed, corruption of power, and forgetting their spiritual and earthly connection to their natural world. Yet at that early age, I never fully understood what was being said to me. Only in later years would I come to appreciate the depth and complexity of Hopi ancestry. Fast-forwarding a dozen years, I once again found myself among the places of my ancestors. As a would-be student of anthropology at Northern ArizonaUniversity,IworkedasanarchaeologicaltechnicianwiththeNational Park Service (NPS) in Flagstaff, Arizona. For the next eight years I studied the science of archaeology and did my best to be an archaeologist. A lot of our work included tedious recording and mapping of the architectural spaces, features, and materials of ancient structures found within various national parks and monuments. As important as this work was to the “mission ” of the NPS, it was not spiritually fulfilling, yet I continued to remember the stories told to me by my family and did my best to also be a Hopi. Through it all, I wondered who these people were that built these places of mud and stone. During certain tasks, such as documenting original construction mortars found in the pueblo walls, I would notice the preserved fingerprints of a Hisat’sinom builder in the mortar. In these moments, I recalled the stories I was told as a child, and in my mind’s eye I could see Connected by Earth 49 < these people as they once were. I would often discuss my job with my family at Hopi; what we did, what we studied. They would listen intently to my descriptions of the features and artifacts we recorded. Again, I would hear stories about our ancient ancestors. Only this time the details were more profound and clear to me. Being older, I was beginning to understand how we as Hopi people had come to be who we are. How multitudes of ancestral Hopi clans had traveled far and long across the landscape to the place we now called home. I understood that in these travels we learned how to be Hopi. That being Hopi was not a right but a privilege that was hard earned and came at great cost of effort. I was also now of age where I was an active participant in some of the Hopi ceremonies where I learned that what we did in those rites was reenact our connection to landscapes and places. I came to understand that our ceremonies and rituals had their origins deep in the ancient past of our ancestors when we learned the values that serve as the basis of modern Hopi culture: cooperation, humility, hard work, and stewardship of the lands we live in and rely upon. I learned from my family members that the artifacts and “ruins” I studied in my archaeology career had deeper meanings beyond what my scientific data sheets could relate. I was told that these objects and places were the “footprints” of our ancestors, and their presence at archaeological sites continues to provide physical and spiritual connections to our past. Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, offers this perspective: These “footprints” that are the hallmark of Hopi stewardship over these lands are described as ruins, burials, artifacts, shrines, springs, trails, rock writings [petroglyphs, pictographs, or other forms], and other physical evidence of occupation and use. Thus, archaeological sites [which can be seen as silent reminders of the past] are not mere vestiges; Hopi rites and liturgies recognize them as living entities.1 This physical act of leaving our footprints has come to be known in Hopi as Ang’kuktota (“along there, leave footprints”). Yet another conceptual way to think of this term is as “ancestral migration paths.” This term and the philosophical concepts behind it provide a deeply spiritual perspective for understanding our ancestral past. It also provides a method to Lyle Balenquah 50 < explain the Hopi perspective of the archaeological record to the larger nonHopi audience, most of whom are educated and trained in Western-based scientific paradigms. In a sense, the Hopi way of conceptualizing the ancient past provides a new lens to analyze the work that archaeologists conduct. One aspect that always struck me about my ancestors was their inherent closeness with their natural environment. Of course they literally lived “out in the wild,” but to them, it may not have seemed that far away from anything as they were always right in the middle of it; “it” being the greatest cathedral of them all, the natural world where they interacted with their natural environment on a daily basis. The intimate settings of their homes within their surroundings, high up in the alcoves, deep in canyons and along the tops of sweeping mesas and buttes, created the ultimate awareness of just exactly where they were, physically and spiritually, within the larger world. In many cases, they lived close to their resource bases of rivers, springs, forests, and hunting and gathering areas. In essence, they lived literally among the resources that sustained them from day to day. This is of course a far cry from today’s modern existence, where most people never see their food before it is served to them or arrives at the grocery store. In that sense, many of our humankind have definitely lost some part of the connection to our ancestral lifeways. How many of us continue to view our natural world with eyes that not only see the landscapes, but sense the inherent energies that still exist there? We seem cut off from the greater forces that have shaped our lives for thousands of years. Our modern-day dwellings are also symbolic of our growing disconnect from our natural surroundings. The sole intent seems to be to keep ourselves sheltered and hidden away from each other and the landscapes just outside our doorsteps. In contrast, the homes of Hopi ancestors represented the closeness with their natural surroundings. We see earthy tones derived from native materials such as quarried rock and flagstone, soil mortar, clay plaster, wooden beams, and vegetation; all of which are products of the Earth, sun, and water. Even the world-renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright understood this philosophy centuries later, stating, “Buildings, too, are children of earth and sun.” The settlements of Hopi ancestors were literally “born” out of the Earth, and this symbolic birth reflected their connection to the environment they lived in and relied upon. Today when a Hopi person visits such ancient places, we don’t simply see the remnants of a bygone era; we see reflections of who we once were and what we have now become. We witness the artistic and technical accomplishments of Hopi ancestors, but we recall the spiritual accomplishments of Connected by Earth 51 < our ancestors as well. We are reminded that in order for the present generations of Hopi to flourish and prosper, we are dependent upon the gifts of our departed ancestors. T.J. Ferguson and Kuwanwisiwma write the following: Ancestral villages that have fallen into ruin are not dead places whose only meaning comes from scientific values. The Hopi ancestors who lived in these villages still spiritually occupy these places, and these ancestors play an integral role in the contemporary Hopi ceremonies that bring rain, fertility, and other blessings for the Hopi people and their neighbors throughout the world. Itaakuku— footprints—are thus a part of the living legacy of the ancestors, and they play a vital role in the religious activities essential to the perpetuation of Hopi society.2 The idea that the ancestors remain among us in the present is directly based on the Hopi concept that the meaning of the past is what it contributes to life in the present.3 In essence, by acknowledging our ancestors’ existence, they acknowledge ours through the answering of our prayers. This understanding provides a continual connection between modern Hopi people and their ancestors. This connection is contained within the landscapes, wherein Hopi ancestors interacted with their natural environments , leaving a legacy behind that their descendants must now strive to continue. It is this connection, between ourselves and the world we inhabit, that continually needs to be rebuilt, maintained, and strengthened. This can only be achieved by actually getting “out there” among the wild places so we do not forget how our ancestors remained connected. If we agree that from a Hopi perspective, “history is in the land,” then much can be gained by following the footprints of our ancestors out onto the landscapes, where the spirits of their successes and failures still remain for us to learn from. Let us move on into another connective landscape. Beyond the Hunt: Pursuing Life I am a hunter. Or to paraphrase sixteenth-century French philosopher, Rene Descartes, “I hunt [think], therefore I am.” Although Descartes was focused on the philosophical question of how one determines if he or she indeed exists or not, his statement provides the answer. For if one is thinking, then that proves there exists an I to do the thinking. The basic premise is that Lyle Balenquah 52 < in the act of thinking, I am alive. Therefore, in the act of hunting, I too find that I am alive. But can the act of taking another animal’s life really be that complex and “deep”? Well, yes and no. I have been a hunter for most of my life, as have a large portion of Hopi males. It is something that begins early and, for some, becomes a life-long learning experience full of discoveries about oneself. At the age of five I was first taught to shoot with a homemade slingshot, carved from a simple branch from a cedar tree, slung with recycled bike tubing and an old piece of leather. I learned to find just the right stone to use, how to aim between the Y of the sight, and then how to let it fly. Many small birds met their demise with this simple device. I was also learning to shoot with a small bow and arrow, given to me as a gift from the Hopi spiritual deities known as Katsina (singular), which visit the Hopi villages starting every spring through the summer. I will not delve into the Katsinam (plural) too much as that involves a highly spiritual aspect of Hopi culture that is not necessarily appropriate for this discussion. There are many books and other literature available for those who wish to pursue that subject further. Basically, the Katsinam visit the Hopi villages, performing dances of prayer and good will. They also bring various gifts for all members of the community, their friends and benefactors. For the young girls and boys they bring elaborately and beautifully decorated gifts. The girls receive dolls, plaques, and other items. The boys usually receive a handmade bow complete with a set of three or four arrows. These are prized possessions, and when we boys received them, we would waste no time in putting them to use—shooting boxes, cans, tires, and maybe even nipping the stray cat that crossed our paths. However, most of the bows were far too weak to actually kill an animal, and they usually broke in half after some use. But with them, we learned some of the basic skills of hunting: observing “game,” stalking, aiming, and basic motor skills. These gifts were also a reflection of the recognized gender roles within Hopi culture. Males are the hunters, with a responsibility to provide for their families with the wild game they bring home. There were also important cultural aspects to the act of hunting, which I will get to later. After a time, some of us graduated to “heavier” armament like BB guns and small-caliber .22 rifles. That’s when “hunting” really became hunting and also began to have more purpose to it. It was at this time that my cousins and I would embark on small hunting expeditions to various areas around our homes and hunt jackrabbits and cottontails. We would bring them home to Connected by Earth 53 < our grandmother who would ceremonially receive them, a ritual involving the placement of cornmeal upon the rabbit’s body and saying a small prayer of thanks for the nourishment it would provide. Afterward she would prepare a small meal where we all ate and told of our adventures from out and about. This latter aspect, the getting out and about, was just as important as the actual act of hunting. In our “expeditions” we often visited certain places time and time again, learning the intricacies of each place. In doing so, we became familiar with our surrounding landscapes and learned the skills of being self-sufficient, drinking directly from springs and eating some of the game we killed along with wild plants that were known to us. Often we would come across old ruins, trails, or petroglyphs, and in our later discussions with our family members, they would tell us the history of the places we had encountered. Slowly over time, we developed a mental picture of the landscape. It became a part of our larger world and, as a result, maintained an importance in our lives. The concept of remaining connected to our natural environments, physically, spiritually, and consciously, started to take seed in our minds. Somewhere along the way, we were deemed “ready” by our fathers and uncles, and it became time to really become serious about hunting and all that it entailed. Thus we began pursuing larger game such as deer, antelope , and elk. This was a much more involved process and required a great deal of physical and spiritual preparation for the coming hunt. Sometimes we fasted before our hunt to cleanse ourselves physically and mentally. The reasoning stems from the belief that humans are the “dirty” ones entering a pristine spiritual wilderness. We may bring negative energies with us that affect our hunt and result in disaster. Many times, prayer sticks and offerings were prepared for the game we pursued; these were taken to the hunting areas and deposited along with prayers of success and safety. Hunting, as many know, can be a very dangerous endeavor. Thus the hunt would begin. However, it wasn’t so much about the “kill,” although the wild meat a kill provided was definitely appreciated. It is the process of hunting that I believe has more importance. It is in this process that one again endeavors to maintain the connection to the natural, wild world. Oftentimes during hunts, I take more pleasure in just being there, seeing the early sun rise, observing animals in their natural habitats, and watching stars revolve around in the clear, cold night sky. I often hunt the same areas year after year, and just like the lands I hunted in my childhood, I have come to “know” the lands I now hunt as an adult. They are a part of me, all of me—mind, heart, and soul. Lyle Balenquah 54 < There is another reason why I hunt. Being out in the wilderness I actually feel more alive, more of a participant in my natural world and the natural cycles that occur there. I once asked my dad, “Why do we hunt?” Sitting on the edge of a mesa, staring out over a landscape dotted with grassy meadows, surrounded by stands of aspen and fir, with cumulus clouds building on the distant horizon, he remained silent while pondering this question from his son. After a while he sighed heavily and spoke: “I guess I hunt because out there is Nature, things living, things dying. I want to be a part of Nature, just as our ancestors were.” Hunting is definitely a large part of our Hopi culture and history. Knowing that my ancestors hunted in some of the same areas I now hunt, I do feel closer to them. I sometimes wonder how much they would recognize if they were standing next to me looking out over the landscape. In some instances, they are closer than one would think. Once during an elk hunt in northern Arizona, I came across a projectile point (an arrowhead ) lying on the ground beneath my feet. Black, shiny obsidian reflected sunlight against the backdrop of white limestone that surrounded it. I had seen numerous and varied types of these points found on archaeological surveys and other journeys across the terrain. Many of these points had specific uses, the size and shape made for specific game. This type was used to tip the dangerous end of an arrow, and when it was first made, it was sharper than a modern surgeon’s steel scalpel. Its existence showed that my ancestors once roamed this same area, pursuing the ancestors of the elk I now chased. Holding the point in my palm, I wondered who the ancient hunter was who dropped it. I could imagine him, clad in buckskin that he had tanned himself, carrying a bow made of oak, strung with twisted sinew that launched sumac arrow shafts tipped by black obsidian. In my mind’s eye, I could see this hunter, moving stealthily along in moccasins, peering around tree trunks, silently praying for a successful hunt. In contrast, here I stood. A modern “savage,” clothed in synthetic camouflage and armed with the latest technology that was a reflection of the modern world I lived in. Who had it better, I wondered. Yet another time I stood before a petroglyph panel depicting a classic hunting scene: a hunter with bow drawn and a small line indicating the flight of an arrow toward an antelope. What struck me wasn’t so much the scene itself, but the manner in which the figures were represented. The hunter was puny looking, his bow fragile and his arrow struggling to maintain flight. The antelope in contrast was huge, a sure giant of the animal kingdom, towering over the quivering hunter. I thought to myself that this Connected by Earth 55 < scene depicted only one thing—the truth. Hunting is not easy. It requires great skill, strength, and a whole lot of luck and prayer. The hunter who made this scene knew the score, and he knew it all too well. Yet, like modern-day Hopis fasting and praying for a successful hunt, this hunter, too, left his prayer pecked upon the stone wall. I walked away, wondering if he had killed. And yes, let’s not deviate from the cold, hard truth: hunting is also about killing an animal to eat it (and for some, to use the parts—antlers, bone, hide, sinew, hoof). This is a harsh reality that all hunters must face, and how we choose to face it varies from hunter to hunter. In the case of the hunts my dad and I embark upon, we realize that in the taking of an animal, we are participating in the natural cycle of life and death. We hunt to eat. Some may say that in this day and age, hunting is not necessary. We can simply go to the store and buy all the meat we want and gorge ourselves day and night! Well, where is the experience in that? How does that allow me to connect with the natural, wild world? I say that if I am what I eat, then I would rather eat wild Nature, naturally. In short, filling my belly and the bellies of my family and friends with wild game I bring home from a successful hunt allows us all to remain connected with our Earth. From a Hopi perspective, bringing back an animal from a successful hunt also involves a whole slew of cultural practices performed on behalf of the animal, both in the field and when it arrives “home.” Just as we performed prayers for ourselves and the animals before the hunt, we now do the same after. We recognize the life this animal had and the new life it has now embarked upon. We acknowledge that in order for that animal to exist, it must have someplace wild to roam. In our prayers, we ask that the animals may prosper, that they have a healthy environment in which to live, that in the cycle of life and death, we partake now but will one day give back too. So, again, is hunting really that complicated or simple? My answer is again, yes and no. Hunting allows me to feed my family in some small way (perhaps the simple answer). Hunting also allows me to remain in contact with the world my ancestors once roamed, and in doing so I maintain my own “wild” connection to the Earth (perhaps the complicated answer). In his book Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America, author David Petersen puts it another way: In the end, we find sacredness only where we seek it. And only if we seek it. Authentic hunters, nature hunters, spiritual hunters, seek Lyle Balenquah 56 < and find sacredness in aspen grove and piney wood; in mountain meadow and brushy bottom; in cold clear water and stinking wallow; and ultimately—necessarily, naturally—in bloodstained blood.4 Riding the Serpent: Following in Tiyo’s Footsteps In Tiyo’s time, as is the case today for modern Hopis, rivers, lakes, springs, and other bodies of water were home to a great natural force: the Water Serpent. Indeed the image of the Snake or Feathered Serpent is a prevalent image and concept in many cultures throughout North, Central, and South America (an indication of perhaps common ancestry or relations deep in the past). As children, we were told never to play near a spring around the middle of the day as that was when Paa’lÖlÖkong, the Water Serpent, would poke his head out. If you happened to be around, he just might take you with him back into his underwater home. (Fortunately that never happened to anyone I knew, but some swear they have indeed seen him poke his head out, like some kind of Hopi Loch Ness Monster.) Still, it was a powerful method of teaching us kids about the immense physical and spiritual energy that water contains. So it is with the oral tradition of Tiyo’s journey. In that distant age, the people may not have known exactly where the rivers originated from or where they ended up. But for sure, they could sense that these waters were bringing great strength and spirituality with them. As the people prayed to the spirits of the rivers and other bodies of water, those prayers were carried to great forces, hopefully to be answered one day. Even today, Hopi people are taught that when they encounter bodies of water, be it a river, a lake, or a spring, they take some handfuls of water and symbolically “throw” that water back to Hopiland so that the rains and snows will come to the dry landscapes of the Hopi mesas. In essence, water, in all its forms, was a resource to be appreciated, respected, and never abused. In Tiyo’s case, he was at least the first Hopi who braved the power of the river and lived to tell about it, but not without many close calls. In most instances Hopi ancestors were usually found along the river, as opposed to in the river. Numerous ancestral Hopi villages and settlements are located along the great rivers of the Southwest, and they continue to be honored in story, song, and prayer. Some of the Hopi names include Pisis’vayu, an archaic term referring to the Colorado River; Yotse’vayu, the Ute River (the San Juan); Hopaqvayu, the “River of the Northeast” (the Río Grande); Hotsikvayu, the “Winding River” (the Verde River); and Palavayu, the “Red Connected by Earth 57 < River” (the Little Colorado). As attested to by these names and meanings, these rivers and many others continue to remain a viable part of the Hopi cultural landscape and serve to connect modern Hopi people to regions located far from the current Hopi Reservation. Yet while these waters remain culturally important to the modern Hopi, historically there was little consideration of this continued importance to the Hopi and other tribes by modern politics and federal guidelines. Many decisions are made by politicians on how rivers in the Southwest are to be managed and used, but most, if not all, of these decisions do not address the interests and needs (let alone the cultural relevance) of rivers to Native tribes, including Hopi. However, there are some renewed attempts by the federal government to include perspectives of Native tribes, particularly the Hopi, in current management strategies of resources in and along southwestern rivers, including one of the greatest rivers in the entire world, the Colorado River, as it runs through the Grand Canyon (yet another important cultural landmark for Hopi). Throughout the 1990s, the Hopi Tribe was involved in two research and documentation projects concerning the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. During the initial years of 1991 to 1995, the Hopi Tribe became among the first Native American tribes to request “cooperating agency” status in the development of the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies (GCES), which resulted in a comprehensive overview of Hopi history and culture related to the Grand Canyon.5 In subsequent years, 1998–1999, the Hopi Tribe was again a “cooperating agency” in the development of the Glen Canyon Dam Environmental Impact Study (GCDEIS), a lengthy documentation and research project undertaken to assess the impact of the operations of Glen Canyon Dam on the natural and cultural resources found along the river corridor. The work the Hopi conducted on GCDEIS built on the previous GCES and resulted in another report specifically documenting Hopi ethnobotany perspectives and information.6 Both studies were parts of a larger undertaking entitled the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP), administered by the Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC), an entity of the United States Geologic Survey (USGS). Funding for both of the studies originated with the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), which operates the release of water from Glen Canyon Dam. The work the Hopi groups conducted during these two projects was successful in showing the vast and complex set of knowledge that Hopi people still retain about a region that is located well outside modern reservation Lyle Balenquah 58 < boundaries. But let’s be honest and say that political boundaries, such as the reservation, are quite arbitrary and meaningless for most Hopis. Our connections to lands have no boundaries, just as our knowledge about these places traverses boundaries and wipes them off the map. The idea of a mental cultural landscape remains within traditional Hopi knowledge. During these cultural trips, Hopi “researchers” (i.e., knowledgeable Hopi people representing clans, religious societies, herbalists, artists, and farmers) spent considerable time documenting Hopi perspectives concerning cultural and natural resources found along the inner river corridor. Documentation came from various river trips, five in the first study and two in the second study, which were guided by Anglo river guides and other scientists from various agencies who were familiar with the logistics of getting to and from these sites. That isn’t to say that the Hopis didn’t have a lot to say about the places. Many of the Hopis who were included in these trips had indeed heard of these places through the oral tradition as passed down from their own elders. Thus they came with a wealth of cultural knowledge that helped to bring the Hopi presence within the Grand Canyon from the past (a static archaeological perspective) into the modern era where the culture is anything but static. Hopis have always stated that we are a living culture. That is, the knowledge about our history isn’t relegated to just the past; it lives in the present among the Hopis who retain and continue to use such information in our daily and ceremonial lives. Whereas strict archaeological perspectives portray ancestral Hopi lifeways as relegated to the “prehistoric,” Hopis view our lifeways as a continuation over time, constantly evolving with our interactions within our environments. As a part of the Hopi research, hundreds of ancestral Hopi sites and even hundreds more plants and animals that hold central roles in modern Hopi culture were documented. So it came as no surprise to the Hopi groups that these plants and animals were also found during the archaeological work conducted along the river. It proved that our knowledge of the natural world has traversed time, carrying on from one generation to the next, the concept of the living culture of Hopi shining brightly in the archaeologists’ excavation pits, yet more importantly, within the minds of the modern Hopi people. Hopi people always consider our ancestors as among the first to experience the spirit of the Canyon. Not only is the Grand Canyon an origin point for many modern Hopi clans, but in historical times, certain members made pilgrimages down into the depths to collect resources and deposit prayer Connected by Earth 59 < offerings at selected sites. These pilgrimages and offerings are a symbolic remembrance and continuation of our long and complex history within the Canyon, which has never been lost by the Hopi people. The research conducted by the Hopi Tribe and its members has solidified what we have always known: we are the Canyon. A more recent development in the Hopi presence on rivers is the pursuit of river guiding by Hopi tribal members. Through various means and opportunities (too tedious to fully describe here) some of us have begun to learn the skills of what it takes to take a raft down the river. Some of us who were once only passengers on the boat are now behind the “sticks” and finding out firsthand what it takes to be a boatman. A handful of us are now working as part-time guides on rivers in Utah and Arizona (including the ones that Tiyo first journeyed upon). For me personally, these experiences have given me a new way to remain connected to the physical and spiritual aspects of the natural landscapes. When one is floating upon the water there is no doubt that you are engaging in a spiritual interaction with forces greater than you. Whether it is flowing over massive waves on the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon or drifting lazily along on the current of the San Juan River, there is something very therapeutic about just being there. As you float past towering canyon walls, enjoying the concert of early morning birds or watching the full moon emerge over a distant horizon, one cannot (I would hope) not be forever changed by those experiences. It leaves one with a greater appreciation of the diversity found in Nature. Often, some of the greatest interactions aren’t with Nature at all but are with the passengers who accompany us on these trips. For some, including many youth, it is their first real encounter with the wilds of Nature. Many have never slept out under the stars or witnessed animals such as beaver, bighorn sheep, or a pack of coyotes howling at the moon. I often talk with them about the human need to have these experiences. Somewhere deep in our psyche, we still retain that sense of what the wild is, the wild that our ancestors all experienced. For a handful of days out on the river, we are given the opportunity to rebuild and maintain our connection to the natural world. It is during those days that I often witness the spiritual awakening of people who may have never thought of themselves as being spiritual. Yet, by the third or fourth day of hiking, paddling as a coordinated group through waves, sleeping on the sands of the beach, they suddenly feel as if they had been doing this all of their lives. I believe, again, in the spirit of Edward Abbey Lyle Balenquah 60 < and others, it is because we have never fully been able to break free from the adventurous ways of our ancestors. Oh, indeed we have tried, and it gets easier to forget that long history with every new passing technological breakthrough. But try as they may, most of our passengers give in to the energy and find themselves looking at the world through a new set of lenses. They finally see what they could not see before, and it is that awakening that I wish more of today’s society could come to appreciate. Suddenly they are remarking that if given the chance they would not return to the confines of civilization back at home. I can only smile at such statements, knowing that we all have to return to the man-made world, but perhaps because of this experience they will possess more compassionate and wiser attitudes toward the world we are charged with caring for. Often I receive correspondence from some of our passengers after the trip is over, and they tell me their outlook on life and the world in general has changed. They are aware of the need to preserve and protect our wilderness areas from ever-expanding development. Yet they often ask how one goes about actually doing the “preserving and protecting.” A valid question indeed and one that does not have an easy answer. I suggest that they consider donating funds or volunteering time to a land stewardship group (but to do their research and find one that has similar values to theirs). I tell them to vote for political candidates that support land stewardship issues (again after careful research). But the most important thing I suggest, which is also the simplest to do, is to remain active in the outdoors. Continue to get out and experience it firsthand, as often as possible . For this I believe is crucial in rebuilding, maintaining, and strengthening our collective connections to the natural world. Again, author David Petersen provides us with another perspective: “In wild nature I find spiritual solace and a cathartic reaffirmation of cosmic sanity that I find nowhere in the made world. To the contrary precisely: Nature is the only antidote to civilization.”7 Amen. Prayers into the Earth: Lessons from the Cornfield Returning back to Hopiland, I also find that “cathartic reaffirmation” Mr. Petersen speaks of in the roles of just being Hopi. One of our Sisyphean tasks is to try to be farmers in one of the most arid regions in the world, where we receive a meager eight to twelve inches of moisture per year in the form of summer rains and winter snows. Granted, we are pretty good Connected by Earth 61 < at it and have been successful in developing strains of corn and other crops that are adapted to our dry climate. Yet this process can also build great humility. Still, year after year, we return to our farmlands and plant not only seeds but our prayers into the Earth for a successful harvest. And then the real work begins. There are many teachings and skills associated with being a traditional dry farmer, and each person will learn from those closest to him or her. My main teachers have been my father and uncles from my paternal side of the family, and it is on their fields (which are the property of the female clan members) that I have received my greatest understandings of what it means to be a Hopi. Starting at an early age (much like hunting), we are aroused from slumber in the predawn hours and loaded into the trucks, headed out to the cornfields to begin our “lessons.” Hopi farming, for the most part, is dry farming. That is, we do not irrigate our fields with constructed canals that bring water from a stream or pond. All the moisture the corn plants will receive comes from that already stored in the soil from the previous winter snow pack or the coming summer monsoons that provide direct watering or produce runoff that runs through and over the fields. The planting process is one of routine that after a time becomes second nature. Traditionally it is also all done by hand with no machinery (although a tractor may be used to clear the fields before planting begins and to routinely “weed” between the rows once the corn becomes established). As with a lot of Hopi practices, it is in the process of actually doing something that one learns the most. There are many metaphors and lessons contained within the work of being a Hopi farmer. In the act of planting the seed, one learns the importance of perseverance. The process is straightforward: kneel, break through the hard crust into the moist soil beneath with a planting stick (traditionally made of oak or other hardwood but now often a metal pipe flattened at one end), and dig a hole reaching a depth of eight inches or more depending on soil moisture content. Then, take ten to twelve seeds in your palm and deposit them into the hole (the seeds’ “home”), take the soil you excavated and carefully rub it between your palms to break up the hard parts, and return the moist soil back into the hole. Finally, cover up the hole with dry soil to ensure that the soil beneath does not dry out. Repeat until finished. Depending on the size of the field, number of fields, and how much help you have, this may take anywhere from a day to a week. To the outside world (i.e., non-Hopi), this may seem inefficient, but it has a deeper meaning that relates to the concept of remaining connected to Lyle Balenquah 62 < our natural landscapes. Though the process is backbreaking and monotonous , it reminds the farmer of one of the Hopi tenets: hard work is necessary to achieve something good for one’s family. This leads to another Hopi truth: farming requires one to have a healthy and positive caregiver connection with his family and children, both human and plant forms. When Hopi corn seed is put into the ground and subsequently sprouts, it is a literal representation of having children. Just like human children, your corn children will require and demand constant care and attention from you. Of course, nowadays most Hopi men need to work wage-paying jobs during the week, so this leaves the corn vulnerable during the day. It also used to be that young Hopi boys would be put on guard duty day and night to chase any critters away, but this is also rare now (both of these conditions being a result of the needs required by living in the modern world). So the onslaught begins. First, the mice will pay a visit and dig up the seeds and eat them. Next, the crows will systematically walk the cornrows eating what the mice didn’t eat. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a few to sprout, but here come the cutworms, who will eat them from the bottom up. Whatever is left will be subjected to hot, dry days with little or no rain. When it does rain, it will surely rain on the other guy’s fields just over the hill. Or it will rain so much that a flood will come through and simply wipe out everything . That’s humility. But eventually your perseverance will pay off, and on cool summer evenings as the rains fall soft and steady on your field, you can stand among your children and listen to the winds blow through the leaves. A few months later, you and your extended family can fill metal washtubs and buckets with ears of corn colored blue, red, purple, white, and speckled. In the distant past, this meant that you probably wouldn’t starve that year. In today’s modern era, it means that you get to do it all again next year. In the meantime, your female family members will expertly clean and store the corn (which becomes their property) and will cook and prepare numerous dishes with it. One of the biggest contributions of being a Hopi farmer is in maintaining unique corn varieties that cannot be found in any other part of the world. For generations, Hopi corn seed has been a greatly held secret, but over the past century small samples have been collected and studied by Western scientists to decipher its properties. Some Hopi people fear that this will result in a loss of intellectual property that they and their ancestors have developed over thousands of years. They fear that Hopi corn seed will become a “brand name” product, offered up for sale by private corporations Connected by Earth 63 < who only seek a profit. This is a valid concern in today’s world of privatization , monopolization, and exploitation of food crops by megacorporations. A few nonprofits and other organizations do currently offer small quantities of Hopi corn seed (and other Hopi seed crops) for individual purchase, but their activities do not seem to pose a threat to the Hopi farmers, at least not at the moment. It is said by Hopi farmers that Hopi corn should never be sold for profit, that it was given to and chosen by Hopi ancestors to be the birthright for future generations of Hopi people. So despite intrusions into a traditional way of life by modern economics , and facing the potential loss of our hard-earned intellectual property to outside interests, the largest concentration of Hopi corn seed, and the knowledge needed to properly grow and care for it, still resides with the Hopi farmers and their families. Cultural and plant diversity is very important to the overall scheme of the natural world. What works in one region may not work in another. I was once part of a group of Hopi students who traveled to Creel, Chihuahua, in northern Mexico in 1999. We traveled there to attend a language conference, but we also learned that the Raramuri (Tarahumara) Natives who lived in the region were suffering an extended drought resulting in a loss of much of their corn crops for that year. When my uncle heard of this, he gave me some large bags of Hopi white corn seed to take with me (Hopi white and blue corn are considered to be the hardiest of the Hopi corns). His intentions were to help out the farmers and to see if the Hopi corn would grow in a different part of the world. We arrived and presented the seeds to some local farmers, who proceeded to eat most of it, but eventually they did attempt to plant it in their fields. The word we received from a local anthropologist (there’s always one of those in Native communities, isn’t there?) is that the Hopi corn did germinate, and some of it reached its proper height of only three or four feet, much to the amusement of the Tarahumara farmers who were used to corn plants much taller. The short height of Hopi corn is one of its genetic specialties for surviving in the harsh desert. Most of the Hopi corn plant is not above ground but below the surface where a long taproot will extend far into the soil to capture any deeply stored moisture. However, the climate changed and it rained—a lot. Eventually most of the Hopi corn plants literally drowned and rotted away in the much wetter soil. Our experiment to introduce Hopi corn to another part of the world had failed, but it also proved the Hopi point that the corn we grow was destined for us and us alone. Lyle Balenquah 64 < Traditions state that the Hopi way of life would be characterized by three items: corn seed, a planting stick, and a gourd of water. These items would teach and remind us of the important values of Hopi culture: cooperation , humility, hard work, and stewardship. These three items, simple as they may seem, would provide the foundation for maintaining our connection between our ancestral past and the present day we now inhabit. This history, this connection, is ultimately recorded upon the landscapes our ancestors once traversed and continue to care for. Mr. Vernon Masayesva, former chairman of the Hopi Tribe and now director of Black Mesa Trust, states the following: Early in life . . . when we are taught to plant, the elders would tell you that if you want to plant a straight row of corn, you have to first pick where you are going to be going, where you wish to end up at. And then you start planting, but every so often you have to look back. Because it is what happened that tells you where you are at, and where you are going. And this is why cultural preservation . . . is very important. You never know where you are going unless you understand where you have been.8 Creating a Commons: Finding Our Balance So just what exactly was all this about? Was it simply a chance for me to relate how lucky I and others have been to participate in these experiences? Was it an opportunity for me to say, “Hey, look how great Hopi culture is!”? Or was there something else behind it all? I leave that up to you to decide and take from it what you will. It is time to take off the microlens and zoom out to the larger picture. This project sought, in part, to bring attention to the ways in which we, as humankind, interact with our cultural, natural, and spiritual environments . The purpose is to illuminate how our actions and interactions with these environments result in consequences. My goal was to illustrate how one slice of the global population, in my case Hopi, has attempted to achieve positive interactions with our environment . We too have not always been successful at achieving that goal, as our history attests to the many failures our ancestors made along the way, and we will undoubtedly have more. Learning in Hopi culture is always best achieved by actually getting out there and doing it, whatever it may be. Within us all we have the opportunity to do something positive for Connected by Earth 65 < ourselves, our children, our families, and ultimately for the natural world we depend on. In the not-too-distant past, it seemed that we were all isolated from each other, living our separate lifeways and traditions. The other side of the landscape , the other side of the world for that matter, was a very far-away place that probably was beyond our concerns. What happened over the hills and through the woods was the problem of those who lived there, not ours. However , in today’s modern age, that isn’t the case anymore. We aren’t as isolated as we think. One only need flick on the radio, television, or Internet, and the other side of the world suddenly is right in our own backyard. It’s hard to say that we are no longer affected by others’ problems. Forhundredsofyears,sincethefirstarrivalofEuropeansintheWestern Hemisphere, our “isolation” kept outsiders at bay from the Hopi landscape, our homes. Yet eventually they came and kept coming, so that no longer were Hopis isolated. The changes to Hopi culture wrought from this deisolation have been both beneficial and detrimental. The spaces between us are growing smaller, shrinking away every day so that we are now forced to interact with one another, for better or worse. Protecting the spaces, the natural spaces, between ourselves now isn’t just others’ problem; it becomes ours. The boundaries on the map are becoming blurry, forcing us to rethink how we view and define our landscapes. In rethinking these boundaries, we must also rethink how we address the issues and problems facing our shared natural spaces. We must begin to think of these spaces no longer as dividers, keeping us apart, but as common grounds, being impacted by all of our actions and intrusions. It is a hard endeavor but one that must be done in order for us to survive. Mr. Jack Loeffler states that part of the work of this project was to create an idea of the “commons.” Through this project, working with my fellow colleagues and Hopis, I have come to understand that a commons is a collective understanding about not just physical lands but also about our relationship to those lands. How we all think about, interact with, and ultimately treat those lands must be a reflection of how we interact with and treat ourselves, individually and collectively. It is true that sometimes we may not treat ourselves very well, abusing our minds, bodies, and souls. It is a definite human trait to deviate from a path of harmony and balance. I know my deviations exist, and they have left scars upon my inner soul that remind me of the disconnect I can create. However, out there, in the wild natural world, I believe is our opportunity to know, see, and feel that there is this concept of balance. Nature is Lyle Balenquah 66 < neither compassionate nor harsh; it does not judge nor condemn; it is simply there, as it has been since creation. I believe it is we who seek to humanize it, to bring it down to our level, so that we can attempt to put some meaning into it. Perhaps it should be the other way around; that we should attempt to find the meaning inherent in Nature, to be a part of Nature. Thus in the end, we too can achieve balance in our lives, taking and giving, learning and teaching, and ultimately living contently and dying fulfilled. Notes 1. Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma, “Hopi Navotiat, Hopi Knowledge of History: Hopi Presence on Black Mesa,” in Prehistoric Cultural Change on the Colorado Plateau: Ten Thousand Years on Black Mesa, eds. Shirley Powell and Francis B. Smiley (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002), 161. 2. Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma and T. J. Ferguson, “Ang Kuktota: Hopi Ancestral Sites and Cultural Landscapes,” Expedition 46, no. 2 (2004): 25–29. 3. Leigh J. Kuwanwisiwma, “Hopi Understandings of the Past: A Collaborative Approach,” in Public Benefits of Archaeology, ed. Barbara J. Little (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 46–50; Kuwanwisiwma, “Hopi Navotiat, Hopi Knowledge of History,” 161–163. 4. David Petersen, Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2000), 112. 5. T. J. Ferguson, “Öngtupqa niq Pisisvayu (Salt Canyon and the Colorado River): The Hopi People and the Grand Canyon,” final ethnohistoric report for the Hopi Glen Canyon Environmental Studies Project, produced by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, 1998. 6. Micah Lomaomvaya, T. J. Ferguson, and Michael Yeatts, “Öngtuvqava Sakwtala: Hopi Ethnobotany in the Grand Canyon,” produced by the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, 2001. 7. Petersen, Heartsblood, 96. 8. Excerpt from a speech Vernon gave at the 1991 Hopi Cultural Preservation Day. Transcript in possession of author. ...