Hopituh

Hopi, the Peaceful Ones

The Hopituh are a mixture of at least three different agricultural peoples scratching a living in a harsh near-desert like environment. Their cultures were similar with what seems like elaborate ceremonial life that dictated pretty much the lives and behaviours of ordinary people. These three groups were Hopituh-speakers of the vast Uto-Aztecan language family. Changing weather with droughts and extreme hardship forced locals from their devastated fields into desperate wandering in search of food and shelter. The cultures that collapsed under this pressure are called by archaeologists the Hohokam Culture, abandoned about 1450 AD, the Sinagua Culture, abandoned about 1425 AD and the Salado Culture, abandoned about 1450, in the greater Gila River watershed. These cultures also had their phases and local expressions. Archaeologists believe that the Salado Culture was an intrusive culture from the north.

From the north came remnant clans of Keresan-speakers searching for a little respite to settle down in an insecure world. They seem to have found it in the company of Hopituh-speaking clans from the south that had settled along Little Colorado River. The Keresans had belonged to the Anasazi cultural world, especially those Kayenta Anasazi from Navaho Mt., along with others from Mesa Verde, San Juan Basin and Chaco Canyon.

The Tewas came into this grouping later on at the end of the 17th century when the Spaniards came back up Rio Grande to conquer again what they had lost control of few years previously.

Many questions about their origins are still unanswered.

• Were the Salado people perhaps Keresan-speakers?
• Were the Kayenta (Tusayan) Anasazi at the Little Colorado River watershed then also Keresan-speakers?

What is known however is that the Little Colorado River seems to have been a meeting place where two cultures or ethnic groups met, interacted and mixed together to create the differing phases and locales of the Sinagua-Kayenta cultures.

• Why did the clans that later came together to form the Hopi, decide to use Hopituh as their future language? Was it more prestige?
• Were the Hopituh clans from the south more populous and politically dominant?
• Why were there so few Keresan-speakers in relation to Hopituh-speakers?

Archaeology, historical accounts, verbal historic memory, and ethnohistory are all combined to portray the history of the Hopituh from the earliest of times. As archaeology is a field that shows us something new and exciting every year, this history is bound to change in response to new discoveries and reinterpretations of older material.

What can be glued of this history is that the present-day Hopituh are a mixture of Hopituh-speakers from the south that became dominant over a fewer in number Keresan-speaking clans from the north as well as Tewa clans later on.

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Autonym and Exonym

The name by which they are commonly called, mostly by outsiders, is Hopi. Hopi is a shortened form of their autonym, Hopituh Shi-nu-mu (The Peaceful People or Peaceful Little Ones).

Location, some groups migrate from one location to another through time due to outer or inner pressure; other groups do not.

Hopituh location

Language, no matter where we are in the world the language we speak is not necessarily the same our foremothers and -fathers spoke, sometimes it is related but at other times language shifts occur due to some form of assimilation processes.

Hopituh language

History, every time has it’s place and every place it’s time, it is a sad or a happy time, peaceful or warlike, actors in societies seek riches and fortune, sometimes at the expanse of others, but ultimately it is the winner that writes that history. History can be presented in many different ways that express our cultural ideals.

Culture & Society, traditions, values, kin groups and expectations to ones status in a society now and in the future, we are all players in the cultural surroundings we are born in, social creatures seeking happiness in our varied ways.

Hopituh culture

Hopituh clans

Population, diseases, wars and competitions increase or diminish our numbers. Gender values also affects us.

Hopituh population

DNA, what our genomes say about us tells a lot about our origin and physical appearance.

Hopituh DNA

Miscellaneous, articles and other interesting things.

Sources.

Hopituh sources

‘Why‘ is the greatest word there is. Asking that is to free oneself from the chains that life sometimes binds us with.