The Hopi Indians

Published in 1915, this detailed ethnographic study captures the Hopi people at a pivotal moment in their history, on the brink of profound change. Walter Hough, an anthropologist who actually lived among the Hopi, writes with the kind of intimate respect that only comes from genuine immersion in a culture. He documents a people the early settlers called the "Peaceful People", farmers who mastered the brutal Arizona desert through generations of ingenious agricultural technique, drawing life from meager rainfall and ancient water systems. The book opens with the stark geography of Tusayan, then moves through theHopitownships perched on mesa tops, their architecture inseparable from the land itself. Hough details the communal structures, the complex social web, and most vividly, the rituals and ceremonies that bind this agricultural society together, rain dances and kachina ceremonies that echo the rhythms of the earth they tend. This is a window into a self-sufficient world, recorded by someone who saw its coherence and beauty before the twentieth century swept through.