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Although the great drought, possibly aided by epidemic or endemic disease, brought an end to urban life in the canyons, not all of the Kayenta Anasazi left the Black Mesa region. Tree-ring dating of buildings in the Black Mesa village of Oraibi shows that it and Acoma, in New Mexico, have been occupied continuously longer than any other settlements in America. Buildings in both villages have been dated to around AD 1100, the start of the Golden Age of the Anasazi. Oraibi was a minor site by the standards of the Golden Age, but the smaller size of the community and its “healthy” position, with good drainage, on the crest of a mesa, may have allowed better disposal of waste and better sanitary conditions than found in larger communities in the canyons. Tree-ring data support the concept of continuing construction on a small scale at Oraibi from around AD 1100 right through the Dark Ages period in Arizona.
Eventually, the residents on the cliffs were joined by a number of extended-family groups who regathered around the Black Mesa. These various groups would blend to become the Hopi. They strictly recognized matrilineal clan structures, based on broad family groups. Each of the family histories is traced through the mother's side of the family. It is possible that this population group included descendants not just of the Kayenta Anasazi, but also other Anasazi wanderers and of the Hohokam, Mogollon, Salado, Sinagua and other agricultural peoples from the region surrounding the Black Mesa. The groups may have originally have had diverse origins, but they were all familiar with each other from hundreds of years of trade and commerce, and they had all practiced agriculture for a thousand years. Generally recognized was a tradition of marrying outside one’s own clan, encouraging interbreeding and acceptance of the newcomers.
With this diverse set of origins, the Hopi came to recognize “lineages” which could be firmly documented through birth histories, tracing descent on the Mother's side of the family. They also recognized “clans,” which were dependent upon the traditions of groups who “considered” themselves to be related, although this more-distant relationship could not be as well documented as that of the lineages. Clans are much larger than lineages, and include several, to many, families who purport to be closely related. The clans are named for prominent features of the Hopi world. These clan names include prominent animals and birds, and some not so prominent, including Butterfly, diverse objects, like the Sun, Blue Flute, Deep and Shallow Well, Strap, “Grease Eye Socket,” and Lance, environmental elements, like Cloud, Fog and Fire, and plants or foods, including Greasewood, Side Corn, Tobacco, Millet and Pumpkin.
Clans have many of the responsibilities of business corporations and governments. Clan members have great responsibility for each other. The clan acts as a cross between a human relations department and a welfare agency. The clan's first duties are to its members, then to the Hopi nation, as a whole. It is the clan that ensures the health and welfare, physical and mental, of its members, their education and religious training, and attempts to employ each unto his/her maximum potential and the optimum for the group. Clans also manage land holdings and distribution. Plots are assigned to senior women in each lineage.
The Hopi system for the distribution of land often seems strange to Anglo lawyers. Because of the uncertainty of agriculture practiced on the edge, in a land with minimal rain, the Hopi typically distribute land in small parcels, scattered over several regions. The women in most lineages receive some small plots on the valley floor, some on the mesa crest, some near a wash, and some on higher ground, less likely to flood. With many small plantings in a variety of settings, the likelihood greatly increases that each lineage will have some fields that bear fruit each year. The washes may still flower in a dry year, while the higher ground can be productive during a year of floods. While university agriculture departments may preach the efficiency of large farms, the Hopi have endured for a thousand years by splitting and spreading their fields all across the landscape. This distribution pattern can mean that one can think that he is out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around but waste, but that he may stumble upon a garden around the next bend.
The clans segregated themselves according to their respective traditions and capabilities and the areas through which each group had supposedly been wandering during its years in the wilderness. A rigid hierarchy was set up with a clear social structure and specific responsibilities for the various clans. The Black Bear clan has the position of supreme preeminence in the Hopi nation. Certain clans are dominant in the pecking order and religious structure of the Hopi. Badger is a major clan, while Sun and Corn are minor clans, despite the importance of these items in day-to-day survival. The top dogs may have been the groups which were descended from the true Kayenta Anasazi. The people remembered their great heritage and had the series of legends which explained where, why, and how each clan had survived. Clan structure still governs virtually every phase of Hopi lifestyle and religion.
The Hopi communities around the Black Mesa held on, and slowly began to increase in numbers, both by new births and by the addition of more wandering groups which returned to the villages. Oral tradition recognizes the incorporation of subsidiary groups, like the once-distinct Hohokam and Salado into the Hopi bloodline during this period. With the experience of the Great Drought, the Hopi built a series of modest farms dependent on agricultural practices which used minimal amounts of water.
By the 16th Century, the Hopi were still a pale shadow of the old Kayenta Anasazi culture, but Oraibi had grown to the size of a real town, even by the standards of the Spaniards, and a number of other permanent settlements spread across the bluffs of the Black Mesa. Some villages had even been founded on the surrounding plains.
The various Hopi villages were founded by independent groups of wandering families who had spent many years away from the old urban centers of the Kayenta Anasazi. The diverse histories of the wandering groups caused each new town to be independent, to be able to stand alone, and to have its own set of new traditions. Each of these settlements was, and has remained, an entity unto itself.
Each major village also has several religious groups, something like a cross between Protestant denominations and fraternal lodges in modern US towns. Depending on the size of the town and the time period, 10 or more of the leaders of these religious groups would form a local Council, which represented the social/religious leadership of the town. These leaders held other positions and functions within the villages, and resembled colonial-era lay preachers who spoke on Sunday, but were farmers or storekeepers from Monday to Saturday. The paramount leaders from the individual village Councils then formed the Tribal Council.
The Tribal Council is the elite of the elite, but even this organization wields limited power. As has been stated above, the Hopi political structure has resemblances to the old Greek city-states. Each village has its own way of thinking, special abilities, and responsibilities to the group as a whole, but each makes up its own mind on political issues. The Tribal Council is a council, it is not a government.
One way of describing the Tribal Council is that: “It is a leadership group that calls all the most important community representatives together for extended discussion and debate, after which a group decision on policy is made, after which everyone goes home and each village does whatever it was they were originally going to do before the meeting was held.”
There have been many instances in the past when the Hopi administration, with the blessings of the Tribal Council, made plans for an improvement or advancement, or have granted permission for some activity, only to see one village or another refuse to cooperate. The lack of unity and any enforcement method to gain the cooperation of neighboring villages explains, in part, why the Hopi have lost out so frequently in the competitive, modern world, and against unified opponents. Just as the Greek city-state system flowered, but collapsed after a few hundred years, the Hopi have had to struggle for survival. Persuasion of a progressive, business-oriented Hopi on an issue does not guarantee success with the Tribal Council. Success with the Tribal Council has not guaranteed automatic cooperation by villagers, as Anglos have discovered all too often for their tastes.
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Contents, including illustrations, copyright T. K. Reeves, 1997.
on 5 April, 1997.
