page_title: Hopi mythology
section_title: Major deities
hierarchical_section_title: Hopi mythology / Major deities
caption_attribution_description: English: A mural depicting Tawa, the sun spirit and creator in Hopi mythology. Painted Desert Inn, Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona.
context_page_description: The Hopi maintain a complex religious and mythological tradition stretching back over centuries. However, it is difficult to definitively state what all Hopis as a group believe. Like the oral traditions of many other societies, Hopi mythology is not always told consistently and each Hopi mesa, or even each village, may have its own version of a particular story. But, "in essence the variants of the Hopi myth bear marked similarity to one another." It is also not clear that those stories which are told to non-Hopis, such as anthropologists and ethnographers, represent genuine Hopi beliefs or are merely stories told to the curious while keeping safe the Hopi's more sacred doctrines. As folklorist Harold Courlander states, "there is a Hopi reticence about discussing matters that could be considered ritual secrets or religion-oriented traditions." In addition, the Hopis have always been willing to assimilate foreign ideas into their cosmology if they are proven effective for such practical necessities as bringing rain.
context_section_description: Most Hopi accounts of creation center around Tawa, the sun spirit. Tawa is the creator, and it was he who formed the "First World" out of Tokpella, or endless space, as well as its original inhabitants.  It is still traditional for Hopi mothers to seek a blessing from the sun for their newborn children. Other accounts have it that Tawa, or Taiowa, first created Sotuknang, whom he called his nephew, and sent him to create the nine universes according to his plan. Sotuknang also created Spider Woman, who served as a messenger for the creator and was an intercessor between the deity and the people. In some versions of the Hopi creation myth, it is she who creates all life under the direction of Sotuknang. Yet other stories tell that life was created by Hard Being Woman of the West and Hard Being Woman of the East, while the sun merely observed the process.
  Masauwu (Maasaw, Mausauu), Skeleton Man, was the Spirit of Death, Earth God, door keeper to the Fifth World, and the Keeper of Fire. He was also the Master of the Upper World, or the Fourth World, and was there when the good people escaped the wickedness of the Third World for the promise of the Fourth.   Masauwu is described as wearing a hideous mask, but again showing the diversity of myths among the Hopi,  Masauwu was alternately described as a handsome, bejewelled man beneath his mask or as a bloody, fearsome creature.  He is also assigned certain benevolent attributes. One story has it that it was  Masauwu who helped settle the Hopi at Oraibi and gave them stewardship over the land. He also charged them to watch for the coming of the Pahana (see section below), the Lost White Brother.  Other important deities include the twin war gods, the kachinas, and the trickster, Coyote.
  Maize is vital to Hopi subsistence and religion.  "For traditional Hopis, corn is the central bond. Its essence, physically, spiritually, and symbolically, pervades their existence. For the people of the mesas corn is sustenance, ceremonial object, prayer offering, symbol, and sentient being unto itself. Corn is the Mother in the truest sense that people take in the corn and the corn becomes their flesh, as mother milk becomes the flesh of the child."
caption: Tawa, the sun spirit and creator in Hopi mythology.
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