A child’s life begins with a naming ceremony done 20 days after birth. For the first 20 days, the mother and the baby stay in a darkened room, protected by four lines of corn meal on each wall. The one taking care of the mother and child, often the girl’s mother but sometimes another lady, washes the mother and baby each day and rubs off one row of corn meal each 5th day. Before the 20th day, the clan ladies bake bread, make piki (a paper-thin blue corn bread baked on a hot stone), and prepare the traditional stew. Before dawn on the 20th day, the clan ladies all gather to give the new child a Hopi name and a baby blanket (often a baby blanket they have made). Each of the women gives the baby a name. Later the family will see which name “sticks”. Then the baby is presented to the sun, with the mother and grandmother taking him/her outside at sunrise, so the sun can see the new child. After that, everyone is invited to eat and celebrate the new child.
The children then go about their business playing and learning. As they get older, the boys may hunt birds with slingshots or pretend to dance like katsinas they have seen at village ceremonies. Katsinas are beings who come to Hopi for half the year. They are a bit like Hermes and Iris to the Greeks and Mercury to the Romans, messengers to the gods. At Hopi, the katsinas help the people by taking messages to the gods to ensure rain, good crops, fertility, and good things in life. They appear in ceremonies from about the winter solstice until just after the summer solstice. The katsinas bring bean sprouts to the people in the middle of winter, bring gifts to the children and others, and may help a ceremonial sponsor with planting. There are more than 300 different katsinas that come to the villages at Hopi, so carved and painted dolls are given to the girls to help them learn to identify different katsinas.
There are katsina ceremonies that are a fixed part of the ceremonial calendar each year. There are also katsina ceremonies that may be sponsored by an individual or a family during the katsina season. Social dances, which take place during the non-katsina time of the year, are sponsored by individuals or families. For a social dance, the girls who will take part in the dance are chosen by the sponsor. Those girls, then, chose a partner, a boy or man from her father’s clan. The partner then provides a headdress and other parts of the regalia. The girl and her family, then, must “payback” by providing baked goods, other food, and usually some wicker plaques (flat woven tray). Similarly, a Hopi wedding, which is quite complex and may take several years to complete, requires that the bride’s family “payback” with food, plaques, and other items for the wedding robes that are made by and provided by the groom’s family. The details of the Hopi wedding can be found elsewhere. (See, for example, https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona/2019/05/05/traditional-hopi-wedding-northern-arizona/3367159002/)
As they get older, children are also expected to help with planting and hoeing weeds in the fields. Girls may play with bone dolls (the bones from the feet of the sheep used for the stew), and other dolls, and begin to help their mothers with household tasks and cooking. During ceremonies, the children often receive gifts from the katsinas. At Bean Dance and Home Dance, boys get a bow and arrows, and perhaps a rattle while girls get katsina dolls and perhaps wicker or coiled plaques. During this age, the children are seen as innocent, and some traditional knowledge is kept from them. During this period, they will hear stories about animals, clans, katsinas, coyotes, and others. These are a bit like Aesop’s fables, but with a bit of Hopi or clan history and Hopi values attached. As they approach puberty, a godmother for girls or a godfather for boys will be chosen. The godfather or godmother then may also help with the child’s education but is also responsible for their initiation into Katsina Society or Powamu Society. During Bean Dance, the child is taken into one of the kivas during the ceremony where s/he is given more information about Hopi knowledge and tradition. The child is then given another Hopi name and is expected to help with Hopi adult activities, with the help and training of the godfather or godmother. The godfather or
82