Enduring Motives: The Archaeology of Tradition and Religion in Native America

6. Hopi Clan Traditions and the Pedigree of Ceremonial Objects - Wesley Bernardini

6 Hopi Clan Traditions and the Pedigree of Ceremonial Objects Wesley Bernardini Hopi clan migration traditions have appealed to archaeologists because they include lists of named, identifiable archaeological sites, details that inspired early researchers like Jesse Walter Fewkes to try to trace contemporary Hopi clans directly back into the archaeological record (e.g., Fewkes 1900). Yet a disjuncture between the time spans covered by clan oral traditions and the life spans of the clans who hold them calls into question the historical veracity of these stories. Hopi clan traditions often cover hundreds of years, but small kinship units rarely survive the whims of fertility and mortality for more than a few generations (e.g., gaines and gaines 1997). resolving this apparent paradox requires a reassessment of how clan traditions are transmitted across generations. Although traditional Hopi ethnography depicts clans as corporate units, historical evidence demonstrates that clan traditions are not transmitted genealogically as part of the inheritance package of a unilineal descent group. instead, the control of ceremonies passes among clans over generations, suggesting that clan traditions do not recount the history of a single, unilineal group. rather, clan traditions are argued to trace the history of ceremonies,control of which is legitimized by possession of ritual objects and the ritual knowledge attached to them. in essence, then, migration traditions thus recount not a genealogy of people but a pedigree of objects. Hopi Clan Migration traditions According to Hopi navoti (traditional knowledge), upon emergence into this world from the Sipápuni, the place of emergence, Hopi ancestors entered into a spiritual contract with Maasaw, guardian of the World, to migrate until they reached Tuuwanasavi, the earth center on the Hopi Mesas (dongoske et al. 1997:603; Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, personal communication Hopi Clan traditions and the Pedigree of Ceremonial objects 173 1998) (Figure 6.1). At various points along their migrations, groups of travelers acquired an affiliation with a wuya, or totem,which provided them with a name and a symbolic association. some groups also acquired the knowledge to perform ceremonies, the potency of which determined whether or not they were accepted into villages they petitioned for entrance and their status once they entered (Eggan 1950:64; Fewkes 1900:585). Movement was frequent in this migration period, often occurring on a Figure 6.1. Tuuwanasavi, the earth center on the Hopi Mesas, in the middle of the Hopi tutsqwa, the area of traditional Hopi land use bounded by shrines. 174 Wesley Bernardini subgenerational frequency (Bernardini 2005a:61–69; Parsons 1939:14), and it was such a defining aspect of life for ancestral Puebloans that they have been described as “urbanized nomads”(Fox 1967:24).A tradition of movement remains deeply ingrained in Pueblo thought (naranjo 1995), with life conceptualized as a journey on a road (Fowles 2011; Parsons 1939:17). in fact, the Hopi conceptualize ancestral territories in ways similar to hunter-gatherer groups, as linear pathways of travel rather than as two-dimensional geographic blocks (Bernardini 2005a:168, 2005b; cf. ingold 1980:155). The migration pathways described in clan migration traditions were complex ,overlapping,and irregular.Cosmos Mindeleff (1900:645) described them as “a little trickling stream of humanity, or rather many such streams, like little rivulets after a rain storm, moving here and there as the occurrence of areas of cultivable land dictated, sometimes combining, then separating, but finally collecting to form the pueblo groups as we now know them.”The nature of these migration traditions is well illustrated by a portion of the Horn Clan story recorded by Fewkes: After the Horn clans parted from the snake people in their migration southward fromtokonabi,they drifted into an eastern place called Lokotaaka . How far eastward they went is not known, but from Lokotaaka they moved to Kisiwi, and then to Monpa, where ruins are still to be seen. Continuing in their migration, which, after they left Lokotaaka , was toward the west, they came to a pueblo they called Lenyanobi , “Place of the Flute” (clans). There they evidently united with the Flute people, and from that time the group was composite. The combined clans did not remain at Lenyanobi, but moved by way of Wikyaobi to a point called Kwactapabi, where they were well within the present Hopi reservation. The route from Kwactapabi to Walpi, where they joined the snake pueblo,was by Wipo,Kanelba,and Lenyacupu , or Kokyanba (spider spring) [Fewkes 1900:590]. The nature of Hopi...