Part 19

The Hopi is glad to use the white man's wagon, cook stove, sugar, and coffee, but he prefers his own religion, government, social customs--the great things handed down in his traditions. Their very conservatism is according to one of their oldest traditions, which is:

=Tradition for Walking Beside the White Man But in Footsteps of Fathers=

In 1885, Wicki, chief of the Antelope Society at Walpi, told Mr. A.M. Stephen one of the most complete and interesting variants ever collected of the Snake myth.

One of its interesting details concerns a prophesy of the manner in which the Hopitah are to take on the White man's culture. In plain words the Spider Woman tells Tiyo that a time will come when men with white skins and a strange tongue shall come among the Hopitah, and the Snake Brotherhood, having brave hearts, will be first to make friends and learn good from them. But the Hopitah are not to follow in the white men's footsteps but to walk beside them, always keeping in the footsteps of their fathers!

That is just what the Hopi are doing today.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

More than to any one else, I am indebted to Dr. Byron Cummings for guidance in the preparation of this study; to Prof. John H. Provinse for material and suggestion; to Dr. H.S. Colton and Mary Russell F. Colton for the generous use of materials; and to my Hopi friends, Sackongsie of Bacabi, Don Talayesva of Oraibi, Guanyanum Sacknumptewa of Lower Oraibi, Quentin Quahongva of Shungopovi, Dawavantsie of Walpi, and Mother Lalo of Sichomovi, for Hopi stories.--H.G.L.