Edmund Nequatewa Truth of a Hopi (1936)

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permission to establish the mission. The Spaniards, whom they called Castilla, told the people that they had
much more power than all their chiefs and a whole lot more power than the witches. The people were very
much afraid of them, particularly if they had much more power than the witches. They were so scared that
they could do nothing but allow themselves to be made slaves. Whatever they wanted done must be done.
Any man in power that was in this position the Hopi called Tota-achi, which means a grouchy person that
will not do anything himself, like a child. They couldn't refuse, or they would be slashed to death or
punished in some way. There were two Tota-achi.
The missionary did not like the ceremonies. He did not like the Kachinas and he destroyed the altars and
the customs. He called it idol worship and burned up all the ceremonial things in the plaza.
When the Priests started to build the mission, the men were sent away over near the San Francisco peaks to
get the pine or spruce beams. These beams were cut and put into shape roughly and were then left till the
next year
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when they had dried out. 22 Beams of that size were hard to carry and the first few times they tried to carry
these beams on their backs, twenty to thirty men walking side by side under the beam. But this was rather
hard in rough places and one end had to swing around. So finally they figured out a way of carrying the
beam in between them. They lined up two by two with the beam between the lines. In doing this, some of
the Hopis were given authority by the missionary to look after these men and to see if they all did their
duty. If any man gave out on the way he was simply left to die. There was great suffering. Some died for
lack of food and water, while others developed scabs and sores on their bodies.
It took a good many years for them to get enough beams to Shung-opovi to build the mission. When this
mission was finally built, all the people in the village had to come there to worship, and those that did not
come were punished severely. In that way their own religion was altogether wiped out, because they were
not allowed to worship in their own way. All this trouble was a heavy burden on them and they thought it
was on account of this that they were having a heavy drought at this time. They thought their gods had
given them up because they weren't worshiping the way they should.
Now during this time the men would go out pretending they were going on a hunting trip and they would
go to some hiding place, to make their prayer offerings. So today, a good many of these places are still to
be found where they left their little stone bowls in which they ground their copper ore to paint the prayer
sticks. These places are called Puwa-kiki, cave places. If these men were caught they were severely
punished.
Now this man, Tota-achi (the Priest) 23 was going from bad to worse. He was not doing the people any
good and he was always figuring what he could do to harm them. So he thought out how the water from
different springs or rivers would taste and he was always sending some man to these springs to get water
for him to drink, but it was noticed that he always chose the men who had pretty wives. He tried to send
them far away so that they would be gone two or three days, so it was not very long until they began to see
what he was doing. The men were even sent to the Little Colorado River to get water for him, or to
Moencopi. Finally, when a man was sent out he'd go out into the rocks and hide, and when the night came
he would come home. Then, the priest, thinking the man was away, would come to visit his wife, but
instead the man would be
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there when he came. Many men were punished for this.
All this time the priest, who had great power, wanted all the young girls to be brought to him when they
were about thirteen or fourteen years old. They had to live with the priest. He told the people they would
become better women if they lived with him for about three years. Now one of these girls told what the
Tota-achi were doing and a brother of the girl heard of this and he asked his sister about it, and he was very
angry. This brother went to the mission and wanted to kill the priest that very day, but the priest scared him
and he did nothing. So the Shung-opovi people sent this boy, who was a good runner, to Awatovi to see if
they were doing the same thing over there, which they were. So that was how they got all the evidence
against the priest.
Then the chief at Awatovi sent word by this boy that all the priests would be killed on the fourth day after
the full moon. They had no calendar and that was the best way they had of setting the date. In order to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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