Native American Unit Home - Regalia
The Hopi people lived in northeast Arizona. They lived on flat-topped mountains called mesas. Their villages and houses were called pueblos. Their houses were made out of stones and mud. They were at least one but sometimes four stories high. The higher apartments were reached by ladders on the outside.
The Hopi were a peaceful tribe until the missionaries came and tried to change their religion. Then they had to move higher on top of the mesas so they could protect themselves and their families.
Kachinas are the most powerful spirits that the Hopis believe bring rain to help the crops grow. They are very important to their religion and there are over 300 different Kachinas. Kachina dolls were carved out of wood by the. Hopi tribes. They dressed them in regalia to look like the men who dressed up to look like Kachina spirits during ceremonies. One of the most interesting Hopi legends was how the first people came into the world. They believed they were created in a cave below the surface of the earth and then climbed through a hole called "Sipapu" with all the bugs and animals.
Corn was the Hopis most important food. Women ground the com into cornmeal to make bread. When a Hopi baby is born, it's given a blanket and a perfect ear of com. When the baby is 20 days old it is taken to the mesa cliff and held up to the sun, and given its name:
When the Hopi women were weaving, they would always leave a mistake because they believed if they made the weaving perfect, the gods would make them die.
The Hopi women's
traditional dress is called a manta. This is a rectangular piece of fabric usually
woven out of black wool. The fabric is wrapped around their body to make a dress.
It is held by a woven belt tied around the waist. They also wore beads around
their necks.
When the girls are old enough to get married they wear their hair in a "squash blossom" style. They did this by putting their hair into pigtails and then wound them around bent sticks. After they got married they wore their hair in braids.
They wore little clothing in the summer because it was so hot. The men and women both wore blankets around their shoulders when it got colder in the winter.
Before the traders and missionaries came
to the pueblos, the Hopi men wove all the fabric and made clothing for their
families. They used animal hair and hides. After the missionaries came and started
trading with the Hopi people,
they were able to buy machine made clothes and fabrics.
My regalia is made out of fabric that we bought at a store instead of weaving it. We also bought the blanket and belt fabric at the store and had it cut with scissors to the right size for me. We bought paint to put designs on my blanket instead of dying the fabric with berries, plants or minerals from rocks. The Hopis did not have Velcro and we do, so we used it to keep my regalia together. We strung beads on wire instead of animal sinew.
Bibliography
Tomchek, Ann, Heinrichs. The Hopi. Chicago: Children’s Press, 1987.
Haslam, Andrew & Parsons, Alexandra. North American Indians. New York: Thomson Learning, 1995.
Prindle, Tara. :Southwest Region: Regional Overview of Native
American Clothing Styles: NativeTech. 1994-1999. 21 September 2006.
<http:www.nativetech.org/clothing/regions/regn12.html>.
“Hopi Clothing.” Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. 2006. University of Washington. 21 September 2006.
“Traditional Clothing.” The Hopi Tribe. 22 September,
2006.
<http://www.hopi.nsn.us/clothing.asp>.