Hopi

The Hopi villages stand on fingers of rock above the Painted Desert: First, Second and Third Mesa, with about 14,700 enrolled tribal members and twelve villages. Old Orayvi on Third Mesa has been continuously inhabited since before 1100, longer than any other settlement in the United States.

Hopi farmers have dry-farmed corn in the desert for a thousand years, planting deep where the sand holds winter moisture: an agriculture, and a ceremonial calendar built around it, that archaeologists study and Hopi farmers simply continue. The villages govern themselves under a tribal constitution while each village keeps its own traditional authority.

Hopi arts are among the most collected in North America: carved katsina figures, coiled basketry, the silver overlay style developed in the 1940s, and the pottery revival begun at First Mesa by the potter Nampeyo a century earlier. The Hopi choose carefully what is shared and what is not; this platform follows their lead.

This is an introduction, the first layer. A full collection, like the Mapuche collection that opened this atlas, follows as research and review are completed for each people.