Historically, catastrophes occur that force native peoples to move, abandon areas, or migrate . People look for a better place, and end up where they are today. The clan concept is a way of remembering the migrations of early people. There are four different dialects at Hopi. It is essentially the same language, but it may sound different.
Clans are concerned with keeping their own integrity and identity.
Each clan maintains its own account of where they came from. These places, prehistoric sites, are important to migration stories and the notion that Hopi is really a plural society, the way that modern America is a plural society. Clans seek to protect their sovereign independence. The Hopi tribal government presumes to speak for the whole, but Hopi villages still maintain their independence. All aspects of Hopi social institutions are controlled by the interrelationships between clans and their histories.