Kachina Dance

This is the only picture I was able to get of Hotevilla. I took it sneakily from the car as we were leaving the village. As I took it an Indian selling watermelon yelled, "Hey! It says no pictures!" We drove away speedily. Hotevilla is in northern Arizona on the Hopi reservation. We went up there recently for a kachina dance. The Hopi side of Lee's family is originally from Oraibi, which is just down the road from Hotevilla. Lee tells me Oraibi is the oldest inhabited village in North America. His family lived there until his great grandparents and others in Oraibi decided they'd had enough of the government and moved on down the road, leaving those members of the tribe who welcomed government intervention. Lee's grandpa was one of the first people to be born in Hotevilla. I'm fairly positive that the village looks nearly identical to how it looked when he grew up there. Houses made of a combination of adobe bricks and cinder blocks, no electricity, no running water. The dance takes place in the sandy village plaza, surrounded by houses that have been there for who knows how long. To get the best view of the dance we climbed up on the flat roof of one of these houses. This is the second kachina dance I've been able to go to. Apparently not all villages allow white people to attend the dances, so I feel pretty lucky to have seen two. I really wish that pictures were allowed, it's so hard to describe what a dance is like. Dozens of kachinas standing in a circle, chanting and dancing in unison. It's pretty cool. When the kachinas take a break everyone clears out of the square and heads back to their houses, or for those who don't live there, their family house. We headed to the house that Lee's grandpa helped to build, where there was all sorts of food. Hominy stew, watermelon, pudding made from cornmeal. Mitchell avoided all of that and had a snow cone for lunch. He may have inherited my pickiness. After we ate we hiked down to the spring where the village gets their water. It's a very scenic little spot, overlooking a valley and the terraced garden where the villagers grow their food. I just can't imagine hiking up and down that hill hauling water for cooking, bathing, etc. We stayed in the village most of the day watching the dances, and headed out exhausted. Mitchell passed out soon after we left, covered in kool aid and dirt. It was nice to take a little trip back in time and experience a different culture for a day.