Book Review: The Hopi

The Hopi: Native American Nations by Liz Sonneborn, consultant Tim Topper, Blastoff Discovery, Bellwether Media, Minneapolis, MN, 2024.

The Hopi are a people from Northeast Arizona.  Their history dates back at least until 1150 when the city Oraibi was established, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States.  They live in a harsh arid desert environment with springs and rain water to sustain them.  The developed a unique culture to deal with the hardship based on balance, community and peace.  They raise corn and cotton.  They weave baskets.  They gather nuts and berries and wild fruit and raise turkeys.  They built pueblos of stone and mud.  They also built kivas for religious ceremonies.  

In 1540 the Spaniars arrived looking for gold.  The Spaniards held them in subjugation for the next 140 years until Po'pay lead them in revolt in 1680.  In 1821 they became part f Mexico and in 1848 part of the United States.  In 1882 their reservation was established.  In 1894 Hope elders were imprisoned because they refused to send their children to boarding schools.  They struggled to keep their culture alive.  Children were forced by the government to Indian schools.  The Hopi peo0ple have insisted on keeping their cultre and language and have been able to do so.

Famous people of the Hopi include Po'Pay, Nampeyo who is known for pottery and Tsökahovi (Lewis) Tewanima who is a long distance runner and won a silver medal in the 1912 Olympics.

The tribe is facing problems with the left overs of now abandoned coal kines, and with the lack of water.

Truxton Canyon Indian Training School

 The Truxton Canyon Training School was completed in 1903.  It was built along the old Beale wagon trail (which later became Route 66).  It was part of a federal program to assimilate Native American children.  It had been operating a couple years in smaller buildings before the school house was completed.  Federal policy mandated attendance.  For the children half of the day would be involved in school work.  For the other half the boys were involved in learning trades and producing things which could be sold which supplemented the budget for the school.  The young women were involved in learning domestic chores.  The school is located 15 miles West of Peach Springs--Tribal headquarters of the Hualapai reservation.  Even though the school is somewhat close to the reservation, it was a boarding school and students were forced to leave their homes and reservations to attend.  Lessons were in English and students were not allowed to speak their native languages.  Students' hair was cut upon arrival and their clothes burned.  They were given American names.  Curriculum was of a militaristic style with marches to class, and falling in to stand at attention.  School life involved hard work and was traumatic for the kids.  Some of the young women would adopt younger children and thus they became a makeshift family.  Living in close quarters there was some spread of disease, including measles, influenza and tuberculosis.  Eventually children from other reservations were sent to the school.  This included Apache, Havasupai, Hopi, Pima, Papago Yavapai and Navajo.  At its peak the school accommodated 300 children,  It closed in 1937, shortly after a day school was opened in Peach Springs.  It is now owned by the Hualapai Tribal Nation.  It is currently closed to the public and plans are unclear for the future of the school.  The dormitory and the teacher-age were torn down and brick used for the construction of Mojave County Museum in Kingman.

old picture from internet

rest are pictures I took of the area.  There once were a dozen buildings, but now only the two-story school house remains.

This is BIA offices in the area.

Book Review: The Navajo: by Geraldine Woods

The Navajo: by Geraldine Woods, Watts Library, New York, 2002.

This is a very good brief book about the history of the Navajo or Dine which is the Navajo word for the people.  The Navajo represent the largest reservation, and the Native American people with the largest population of over 250,000.  The Navajo had been removed for a time to Bosque Redondo.  Kit Carson and the military lay siege to the Navajo.  They killed many, and destroyed their food supplies, and forced over 10,000 to a reservation in New Mexico.  This is known as the long walk.  During the walk, and the three years of incarceration at Bosque Redondo, over 2000 died.  Barboncito, a leader of the Dine, convinced the government to let them return to their traditional area. 

The Navajo went through a similar period as many other tribes where that attitude was, “Kill the Indian, save the man.”  This resulted in many children being sent to boarding schools where they were not allowed to speak their language or practice their traditions. 

The Navajo were traditional a clan organization, with no central leadership.  However when oil was discovered on the reservation, people need to negotiate with someone to lease the land.  The Navajo Nation was born with tribal council and representatives. 

The Navajo have been very good at sheep raising, and weaving of wool for blankets and clothes.  (At one time the tradition women’s clothing was two blankets sewed together.)  However there was a time when the land was over grazed.  The government stepped in a killed many animals by force.  As a result the heards became stronger.  However there was a period of poverty as the livelihood had been taken away. 

A period of great honor for the Navajo people was WWII.  The Navajo code talkers developed a system of communicating, based ontheir native language, which the Japanese could not break. 

Today the Navajo people struggle with the idea of being part of a modern world, while maintaining their traditions.  Much of the reservation is very isolated, with poor electric and phone service. 

Book Review: Sioux: History and Culture

Sioux: History and Culture: Native American Library, Helen Dwyer and D.L Birchfield, Gareth Stevens Publishing, New York, 2005.

This is an adequate brief story of the Sioux people.  It talks of how the Sioux were pushed west by the Ojibwe and white influences.  The Black Hills are sacred to them, and from where they believe they emerged.  This gives a history of the wars between the different Sioux groups, Lakota, Dakota and Nakota.  The Lakota had a long drawn out war from 1854 to 1862.  At the conclusion a mass hanging of thirty-eight Sioux was the largest mass execution in the U.S.

Several wars followed.  To protect a gold trail to Bozeman, Montana, forts were constructed in the Sioux sacred territory.  They fought the forts, and eventually prevailed.  As part of this war were two Sioux victories.  The Battle of Rosebud and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where Lieutenant Colonel Custer was killed with his men. 

However another tactic proved effective and forced the Sioux to the reservations.  That was to destroy their way of life.  By mass killings of the buffalo, the Sioux were no longer able to support themselves in their traditional way.  The final battle took place in 1890.  At this battle Sitting Bull was killed.  The Indians though they would be protected by their ghost shirts which the wore for the Ghost Dance.  They were wrong.  150 Native Americans were killed.  From there the Native Americans entered a period of reservation life and acculturation.  The practice of sending the children to Indian Boarding Schools had as its goal the assimilation of native Americans into white culture.  This was not an easy time, and lead to many being alienated from their culture and not really fitting into another. 

Today the struggle continues.  The courts have decided that the Black Hills were taken illegally.  The Sioux have been awarded compensation.  However they do not want the money but the Black Hills.  They are waiting for congress to give the hills back to them.
Traditionally, people have become leaders among the Sioux by having characteristics that are valued by the community.  These include wisdom, courage, generosity, compassion for the needs of others, and an ability to gain spiritual guidance from dreams and visions.

Documentary Review: Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School

I am familiar with the Boarding School program.  Growing up, Brigham City, where Intermoutain Indian School was located was just over the mountain, and we would often drive by, when traveling to Salt Lake City.  I also went there to scout a game as Weldon's team played them one year.  I also traveled there during Junior High to compete in track and field there.  It was there that the discuss got away from someone on our team, and struck someone in the head. 
Indian schools started in the 1800s.  First with missionary schools.  Later with Bureau of Indian Affairs schools.  The goal of the school was not necessarily to educate and nurture; but to assimilate.  "Kill the Indian and save the man."  Often, student came very young to school, and would spend the entire school year away from home, only returning to their people in the summer.  Every person who came to the schools had to deal with an onslaught on their traditional way of life.  At times they were given American names.  They were punished if they used their native languages.  In fact, cases of abuse, physical, emotional and sexual have been documented. If without abuse, the experience was very traumatic.   The high point of Indian school usage was in the early 1970s.  In 1973 there were 63,000 students at Indian schools.  Most Indian students are now educated close to home.  Many Native Americans live in urban settings.  Sometimes tribes have their own schools.  As of 2007 there were less than 10,000 students.
A for Intermountain Indian School it opened in 1950 for Navajo students.  Because of deceased enrollment, in 1974 it was opened to other tribes, and had people from over 100 different tribes attend before closing for good in 1984.