The oldest town in America?

A Hopi town

On the top of a table mountain, in the middle of Arizona, stands a village of a few stone houses and also a few houses built of concrete blocks. This Oraibi, the oldest continually inhabited town in the U.S.A.

This is at least what its inhabitants claim. The same has been said about two other pueblos: Taos and Acoma. It is impossible to have an exact date of their foundation as they were built by Indians who had no script, no historical records. Archaeologists say they all have been built about a thousand years ago an have been inhabited ever since. Taos and Acoma are in the Rio Grande valley and are built with adobe brick whereas Oraibi is made of stone. It stands in the middle of the desert, the Indians who live there have learned how to save water and didn't use brick to build their houses. Stone is more durable than adobe and it may well be that the buildings in Oraibi are older than those in Acoma and Taos.

What did I write? On the top of a table mountain? Well, this is not precise. The Hopi live on the southern end of a plateau called Black Mesa, whose three spurs tower oner the desert that is somewhat lower (only about 2000 metres above sea level). On these spurs, called the First Mesa, Second Mesa and Third Mesa, the Hopi build their villages.

In historic times the Hopi were extremely well adjusted to the desert climate. They cultivated a variety of corn that didn't need watering but when planted at the bottom of periodic streams would reach with its long roots the water deep in the ground. This adjustment to difficult conditions and distance to countries with less severe climate protected the Hopi to some extent from the white invaders and today still protects them from an invasion of tourists. There is a tarmac road connecting their reservation with the outside world but the tourists don't come in big numbers. The Hopi are famous for their colourful ceremonies but they are also famous for treating their ceremonies the way the Catholics treat their mass (which can also be very colourful) and not as a tourist attraction. These ceremonies are not advertised in any way, the participands know about them by the word of mouth.

It is not easy to get to the Hopi reservation anyway. It lies in the middle of nowhere, there is only one tarmac road leading there and there is no public transport. One needs one's own car to get there. There is hardly any accommodation on the reservation at all. Old Oraibi, the oldest town in America, has no hotel, no hostel, no camp site, nothing. At the Second Mesa there is a little hotel and some sandy area in front of it. One can put up a tent on that sandy area and the hotel attendants will leave open to the toilet in the lobby. At least they did it when we put up our tent there.

Katsina

The tree mesas are close to each other, about 15 minutes drive, so early in the morning I drove to the Third Mesa to Oraibi. To get to the village one had to leave the tarmac and drive for a while on a dirt road. There is a little car park and a souvenir shop at the entry to the village. Things that one can see in the souvenir shop are mostly little figurines decorated with feathers called "katsina dolls". They are not really dolls but representations of protective spirits called "katsina". There are many of those spirits, which are represented during ceremonial dances by dancers especially decorated with feathers. The "dolls" representing the spirits, which really are copies of the dancers outfits, are hanged in houses like pictures of saints by Catholics. As it often happens, when white tourists appeared, they wanted to buy those figurines as souvenirs. This caused controversy among the Indians: can one sell a holy figurine? Can tourists see the sacred dances? In Oraibi early in the 20th century the argument was hotly debated and one day it was decided that the two parties - the traditionalists and the modernisers - cannot live together. It was decided that one of the parties would leave, and the contest which one was to stay and which one to leave was fought one day just outside the village. It was a kind of tug of war, although in this case the contestants pushed each other over a line drawn in the sand. The traditionalists were pushed out and they moved to found another village named Hotevilla. The so-called modernisers were only relatively "modern", they still keep their ceremonies secret, the tourists are not invited to the sacred katsina dances, although I was told that outsiders could come to see the so-called "butterfly dances", which are considered social, not sacred. But they still would not advertise them anyway, so one could only know about them by the word of mouth. Or one could come across them by pure chance.

I am not a tourist wanting to buy souvenirs so I passed the shop and entered the village. It is not so easy to run away from the souvenir sellers, though. Clearly some inhabitants think that if a white person enters the village, he will certainly want to but "katsina dolls". An Indian seeing me from a balcony of his house told me to wait and a minute later emerged with a small folding table an a few feathered figurines. I tried to tell him that I am not really a souvenir-buying tourist, that I am more interested in the life of people.

"Really?", said he. "Come here tomorrow then, we will have a butterfly dance here."

"Here, in the streets?", I asked.

"No, not here, in the central plaza. Wait, I will show you." He folded his table and took it home and a minute later he led me along the narrow alleys to the central plaza.

"At what time the ceremony starts?"

"About six in the morning. It is never exactly on the hour but usually they come out of the kiva around that hour."

It rained at night.

What did I say? Rained? It was a deluge. Thank God we put our tent up on a hill; it was on a island in the morning. It is interesting, it rains very seldom in this region, most of the Hopi ceremonies are actually prayers for rain. Clearly the prayers were successful lately.

Butterfly dance at Oraibi

I assumed that if the dancers leave the kiva at about six, at eight they should be dancing; I was surprised to see roadworks at the central plaza. A heap of sand was dropped from a pick-up and a crowd of Indians with shovels was spreading this sand on the plaza. As usual among Indians there was also plenty of laughter. Someone gave me a shovel and told me not to skive. I treated it as an honour and for the next half an hour worked with them. I was told that the night downpour changed the plaza into a lake. They had to bring a bulldozer to push the water over the edge of the mesa and then bring sand to cover the mud. So I worked and it turned out that the shovel somehow changed my status. When the sand was spread and I stood there not knowing what was going on I was approached by an Indian lady who told me to come to her house.

"You helped us to work, come for breakfast."

She led me home and sat me at the table. There were already several Indians there eating corn meal soup. It was clearly an open home that day, plenty of food, visitors coming and going. There were those who worked with the sand but also others, family and friends. Apparently this was the way to celebrate a holiday here.

At one point drums were heard. "They are coming out from kiva at last", someone said and I went to see where it was. I followed the sound and came to the end of the village, close to the cliff edge. There was flat ground there with a square entry and a ladder leading underground. This was kiva, the underground chapel. Colourfully dressed dancers emerged from there one by one and formed a procession. Girls in black dresses with strange very colourful boards standing vertically over their heads, their eyes covered with artificial fringes. Boys in ribbon shirts, each with a fox fur behind his belt, with rattles in their hands. The procession danced through the streets and entered the plaza. Then they danced. They danced all day, until the evening, with only short breaks for rest.

Why is it called "butterfly dance"? I asked some people but all I heard was that this was a social dance. Indeed, boys and girls danced together in the circle and if anybody wanted to join, he or she had to find a partner of the opposite sex. I was told that katsina dances, in which the protective spirits are called to come, are performed during the first half of the year, afterwards only social dances are performed. But why a "butterfly dance"? Nobody could answer that.

Spectators sat on chairs around the plaza and also on roofs of surrounding houses. Indians only, I was the only white person there. At one point an Indian came out of one of the houses and said:

"Come inside and have some food. My aunt says you are to come. You helped us with work in the morning, now come have some food." The aunt was a very dark skinned old lady but full of energy, busy around the oven. "My aunt cooks today. My mother has died but you know, women rule here. They own everything here. I live in Albuquerque and have a good job there, I am an engineer. My mother lived here but she died and left this house to me. Now it is used during the festivals because we have to feed the guests."

His house is built of stone but I see many houses in Oraibi built with concrete blocks. There are also some old stone houses but half ruined. When I asked why, my host answered:

"People from the National Register of Historic Buildings wanted to make a museum here, the whole village was to be preserved intact but people were supposed to move out. But people here don't want a museum. They want houses with all the facilities normal in the 21st century. They don't want tourists here. This is not a museum, it is a living village and the people don't want to move out. I understand their point of view. But I live in Albuquerque, mix with white people and I understand their point of view as well. The problem is that these points of view cannot be reconciled."

It is quite interesting what he says. It may mean that the oldest town in the U.S. may soon be built of concrete blocks.

But will it be the oldest town then?

Among the Hopi Indians in Oraibi

You will find this text, 
and many more on the subject, 
in my book "DO THEY STILL LIVE IN WIGWAMS?":