Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-05
Dr.. Judd Makes Claim in Ad-
dress Before Anthropo-
logical Society.
FL0URISHED BEFORE
LANDING OF COLUMBUS
Fields Are Exclusive Property of
Men and Houses Belong
to Women.
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

The oldest continuously inhabited
town In the United States is Old Oraibi,
In Central Arizona, a flourishing little
city for half century before the land
ing OF Columbus, Dr. Neil M. Judd,
curator of American archelogy at the
National Museum, told the Washington
Anthropological Society last night
AS late as 1885, DR.. Judd said, Oraibi
was a town Of ], 400 inhabitants mostly
descendants of the original builders, al
though 1t had been on the decline for a
long time. The downfall of the village
came in 1905 when the Hopi inhabitants
were split over acceding to the Govern
ments demands that they send their
children to school.
After months of fruitless arguments.
the conservatives and the liberals agreed
to settle the dispute by a tug-of-war.
Inc liberals, although minority, won,
Inen, In accordance with the Hopi GUS
tom, the conservatives left their homes
and all their possessions to the yictors
and IN the dead of Winter went out
empty handed into the desert to build
another town.
So school was established at Old
Orainl: There was also a post office.
But these were not SUFFICIENT to save
the town. The liberals" of 1906 have
grown older and become conservatives.
and their children, liberals In turn,
have withdrawn from the old town.
Meanwhile, there have been two or
three splits in the original ''conserva-
tive group" which withdrew in 1856.
Barely 100 Inhabitants.
The result is, DR.. Judd said, that
americas Oldest town now has barely
100 inhabitants, mostly elderly persons.
Whole streets of stone and adobe
houses are falling to ruin, and in an
other generation the town probably will
be deserted entirely.
But at Old Oraibi, he said, the de-
scendants of the Pueblo Indians live
much the same life they lived in the
heydey of Pueblo civilization, when they
built towns and developed an agricul-
ture lar beyond what would be ex-,
pected OF primitive peoples. Even the
social customs have not changed
greatly, he said. The fields are still the
exclusive property of the men and the
houses OF the women.
Unlike most Indians, the men do all
the work In the fields But as soon
as the corn is harvested and stored
IN the houses 1t becomes the exclusive
property of the women. The man lives
in the home only on his wife's suf-
ferance. Divorces, DR.. Judd said, usual
~ come only after the corn is harvest
ed. On the last day of the harvest
the farmer may return to find the door
shut In his face and his blankets and
few personal belongings on the ground.
Never Question Tribe Law
There is nothing he can do about It
except pick them up and 60 back to
his mothers house. He has been di-
vorced. II he tried to force his way
into his own home he would be tres
passing on his former wife's property.
Among the conservative Hopi, Dr.. Judd
said, there never is any disposition to
question the law of the tribe
In Old Oraibi and similar ancient
towns, he said, the old religious cere-
monials of the Pueblo people still are
practiced, the dances originating in the
kiva, or subterranean temple, being
dramatized prayers for rain. Oraibi
was allowed to enter. An old man
lives there. his blankets spread on the
hard floor
The civilization of the Southwest
which was flourishing when the Span
iards came, DR.. Judd said is remarkable
among primitive cultures, because 1t APP,
parently was so close to that Of the
white men. The Pueblo peoples, he
pointed out. were small farmers depend,
ing almost entirely on their crops, and
ing new varieties of corn, and differing
little in their daily lives from small
farmers everywhere. Their long assoc
citation with the soil, he said, appar-,
emily made them q peaceful people all
most defenseless against the nomadic.
tribes, ancestors of the modern Utes,
Navajos and Apaches, who descended
upon them.
These frequent raids, he said. forced
them to break up their small agricul-
tural settlements and congregate in
larger towns, or cliff dwellings, for mu-
tual protection. This restricted the
areas of cultivatable land to the immedi-
ate environment of the settlements.
Then few dry Summers in a naturally
arid country practically destroyed them.
The same forces, he pointed out, are at
work today. The. Hopis submit placidly
to the impoSitions of the less scrupulous
Indians and white men around them.
Mexican farmers, he pointed out, will 60
out at night and move their fences so
as to include part of Hopi's field. The
Indian Is aware of the trick but says
nothing. After 1t has been repeated q
few times the Hopi has little land left.
Culture 2,OOO Years Old.
The Pueblo culture. he said, extended
over about 1000 years from its crude
beginnings to its zenith about 800
years ago. 1t still was fiourishing
when the Spaniards came. From the
urSC, ne pointed out, IL was almost en-
tirely an agricultural development. The
PuebloS replaced in the country a more
primitive people, the basketmakers, who
already had begun to store corn in
bins. The newcomers
absorbed the Old population and con-
tinued the development they had
started.
Always, he said. the division Of labor
between men and women was well es-
tablished and the woman was the auto
crat of the domestic establishment. But
1t was the Pueblo women, he explained,
who developed the first boy bobs,"
while the men wore their hair In long
braidS, deliberately dressed and tied In
all sorts of fanciful knots.
That the ancient culture has entirely
he said. is a common mis-
conception since the Pueblo tribes.
chiefly the Hopi, still have 26 villages
with a population of about 1000 where
they still live in about the same way as
before the coming of the white man.
The present generation, however, will
mark the end, he said. The children
are mostly being educated in white
schools and adopting white ideas, to the
great disgust Of the conservative elders.
The younger ones have lost faith en-
tirely In the picturesque old religious
rites.