The Hopi Way Summary

The ethnography that I chose is the The Hopi Way by Laura Thompson. This book discusses the way of life of the only surviving group of the desert dwellers, the Hopi. I will give an overview of the Hopi’s environment, political and social organization, the journey from birth to death, the resources used during this time, and how they made a living. I chose this book because I have family living in northern Arizona and I think that the translation of the word Hopi which means the peaceful people is beautiful. I also decided to pick the Hopi because they are one of the oldest living cultures in the world today and learning about how their culture survived when others didn’t is captivating. The Hopi and other surrounding cultures are all commonly …show more content…
Both the case study and the ethnography discuss the matrilineal lineages that descended from a common ancestress. I find matrilineal lineages to be very interesting and a new concept for me. The case study is a summary of everything discussed in The Hopi Way regarding to social organization. The Clan Mother has a significant amount of power and her brother is known as the ceremonial clan head. Each clan feels closely related to a non-human partner, called wuya, which can be an animal or a plant. The Hopi Way states that the wuya gives the clans “its name, its quality or medicine, and its protection in return for services.” Each household is its own economic unit, where everyone in that household works together for the welfare of all. Ownership of the house, food, seeds, and garden are all considered to belong to the women who live in it. The kiva was discussed in great detail in the ethnography. The kiva was built for ceremonies, commonly open for social events where people could go and talk. The roles of women in the Hopi culture seem close to the roles of men in other cultures. The women built houses, made pottery and baskets, completed domestic chores, and hauled water from the streams to their households. The men completed the agricultural work, hunted, made clothing, and held the ceremonies. In the ethnography there was talk about witchcraft or people being witches, but I read …show more content…
The life cycle is divided into four phases, the case study calls it the four worlds. These phases represent some events that occur in present day people. After a child is born, the newborn is bound in “supine position to a cradle” for the first three months of their life except when bathing. I feel like that would postpone the abilities of the child because they would not be able to move. At this phase, the children have time to play because they have the least amount of responsibilities. Between each phase, there’s a celebration for the person. When a child turns five or six they move into the youth stage. The youth stage is when the godfather and the aunt are chosen, boys join a secret society, the boy is expected to kill his first game, and responsibilities increase for both sexes. Compared to how children are raised today, the children of the Hopi take on a lot of responsibility. The transition from youth to adulthood and old age is marked by a series of crises involving adolescence and marriage ceremonies for both sexes. This is the phase where the boys become men and start to take on their responsibilities. When the Hopi people become elders, they pass their responsibilities to a successor and they call this the final phase, old age. Mortuary rites are quick as discussed in the case