The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-09
CITIES OF THE HOPES.

general manager.
 CITIES OF THE HOPES.
 Ancient Towns and Venerable Folk Life in Arizona.
 Four Track News.
 To those Americans who flock to Eu- rope to see the relics of antiquity so carefully and reverently preserved there I would say. turn your faces to the great Southwest of our own conti- nent. There are ruins, historic towns and folk life as interesting as anything the Old World has to offer. The high tablelands of New Mexico and Arizona are strewn with very ancient Indian towns. or pueblos. Of these perhaps the most interesting Is the Hopi, or Moki, village. Oraibi.
 The Hopis are a peace loving, agri- cultural people. who fled. centuries ago. to the very summits of rocky. inacces- sible cliffs to escape the depredations of more warlike. marauding tribes. The arid desert that lies at the foot of the cliffs is dotted in summer by the green of the Hopis' cornf1elds. for. by a crude system of irrigation. these Indians raise crops of corn. melons, squash and beans, which form their main suste- nance.
 Oraibi is the largest and the most conservative of the seven Hopi towns. It crowns a sheer cliff 600 feet in height. The outline and village stands out sharp and clear against the blue intensity of the Arizona sky. yet the visitor looking upward from the level of the desert below. can hardly dfstin- guish the houses from the surrounding rocks. Here Is the Hopi safe indeed! The stranger scarcely would suspect that a town of a thousand inhabitants stands perched among those crags. Oraibi stands today where 1t stood in 1540, when Coronado first found 1t. The village is formed of irregular lines of | streets, interspersed with plazas. or open squares, where dances are per kivas, the underground council cham bers of the men. which are reached by the descent of a wooden ladder. As In the case in most pueblos, the houses here are two or three stories high. each | floor being terraced back above the other
 In former time entrance to the house was always by ladder through hatch way in the upper story; thus was the Topi secure within his walls. His vii- lage was in itself his fortress; he had | but to pull up his ladder and seal his
 hatchway to be as safe as an eagle on a crag.
 The Hopis of today still remember | fights with the Navajos their neigh
 bors of the level lands below. When the Hopis went forth to battle upon the open desert with bows and arrows, the | women, children and old men guarded the village and looked down from above | on the contest. But now there Is no longer fear of war and the Hopis have l in many instances. adopted the doors and windows of the white man. If the town Is interesting its people | are no less so. The dress of the men
 Is modification of the European, | though the hair is still worn long and tied behind. according to the ancient
 custom. But the women of Oraibi cling to the native maidens represent | Ing the squash blossom, the Hopi sym
 bol of virginity, and that of the matron
 the Towering or ripened plant.
 The religion of these Indians Is full | of mythology and rite, but the prayers and ceremonies are all for rain. theil greatest need.
 The people are naturally creative and poetic, and every act of life--even the
 crudest toiI-is hallowed by song. Thus while the Hopi loads his wood or runs
 beside his burro. he composes; he sings l of his fields of corn, of the clouds, o1
 the longed for thunder storm. as nat
 urally as the bird sings on the bough. | Daily in the village the visitor tc
 Oraibi may hear a high. sweet voice
 coming rom some upper story. where
 some woman, grinding corn, sings tc | the rythmic scraping of the grinding
 stone a weird and graceful melody; ol
 here in some doorway we may find { mother with her baby on her knee rocking gently to and fro. grooming tC her little one lullaby about the bee
 ties on the trail," or we may be arrested on our walk by rhythmic beat of drum and, pausing in the plaza, hear strang, dance tunes floating upward from thu kivas, where the men are practicing fo
 some great ceremony. At dawn we ma. hear the shepherd as he drives his focl before him down the rocky slopes
 singing of the "blossoming virgin corn
 and of the maiden butterflies"
 But loveliest are the sounds at even tide, when the men are returning iron the fields In the glow and glory of tn desert sunset. The western heaven are afiame and in the east rises tn calm moon. From the distance we hea a yodelling call, as, with the sweeping
 refrain and song of Rain. rain. come o clouds" the Hopi makes his home
 ward way up the steep trail to the vii lage.
 The Hopi Is the voice of the silen desert he wakes his world to melody but at night all Is still and the an cient town sleeps in the white light 0 the moon. We look off over the end less stretch of desert and the though sweeps over us. vast is this continen
 of ours, yet this is my country an,
 these strange poetic people are m, neighbors My joy in all this beaut.
 Is my right